#con-sequence what does con mean

[lijojo]

genshin sugar daddies: leaving hickeys on you

premise: you have seven sugar daddies: one for each day of the week. it’s a bit overwhelming, but you try you’re best to keep each relationship relatively independent from the other. that means no hickeys. except, well, each one of them wants to make you theirs exclusively and they’re not above marking you secretly to send a message to tomorrow’s person. (yandere! possessive! genshin reverse harem x reader) (modern au!) 

*if you want more yandere genshin sugar daddy content the introduction is here but this can be a standalone read! 

tags: nsfw, dark content, afab reader, fingering, dirty-talk, unprotected sex, dub-con, smut smut smut smut smut

diluc is no stranger to jealousy. you can sense it in the way his eyes constantly beckon for yours. the way he grips tightly onto your waist. he never asks anything more than your gaze on monday evenings. they have to be on him. always. not for a second more are you allowed to look at anything else but him. he’s greedy, always pulling you to look at him once more. naturally, his gaze is always on you. 

you feel it drag up and down your back. crawl into the little dip in your neckline to see what’s underneath your clothes. 

so the one time, the one time, kaeya’s crafty attempts to leave hickeys on your folds and inner thighs in the midst of eating you out, diluc catches it. 

he sees it the moment he peels off your panties. what should’ve been a slow sequence of him sinking his tongue into your pussy is immediately halted at the sight of a very small but noticeable bruise in the juncture between your thighs and your labia minora. 

kaeya’s warning. 

the change in his demeanor is undeniable. his heavy gaze flits over to your face. intentful. unaware of the hickey, you’re understandably confused. 

if diluc’s seen something, he doesn’t tell you. instead, he internalizes the sight. it’s a warning and a challenge. 

mine. 

he’s quick to grab onto your wrists and pin them above your head. before you can brace yourself, he’s slipped a finger inside you. you gasp at the sudden intrusion, but welcome him as he curls his finger towards him, gently brushing against that spongy spot that leaves you breathless. 

he chuckles lightly as you roll your eyes back. his thumb presses on your clit, nudging it side to side. “you’re soaking wet,” he mutters, sliding another two fingers inside you. “all for me?” 

your hold on the sheets tightens. 

he leans closer to your ear. “i can’t wait to smear the remnants of your orgasm on my cock. make it slick enough to slip inside you. make you feel good. we want my darling to feel really good, right?”

you hiss when he starts thrusting his fingers into you at rapid speed. desperate. eager to make you spill your affection onto his hands. 

“that wasn’t a rhetorical question, sweetheart.”

you can’t help the moan that leaves you as you approach your climax. “y-yes! yes—ah—diluc!” 

his grin looks so unlike him. his thumb starts to draw circles on your clit, going quicker and quicker the more you squirm and moan. 

“cum on me. do it for me, princess. cum all over my hand. give me all your everything.”

you can barely understand the undertone in his words. instead, you reach your high. your orgasm pours out of you, onto his beckoning fingers. and instead of letting you go, he continues mercilessly until your left whining for him to stop. 

and he does. eventually. he slowly pulls his digits out of your crying cunt. he collects the droplets that trickle out of your lower lips and let’s it drip onto his twitching dick. he runs his hands along his shaft, letting out a shaky groan. 

“look how pretty you’ve made me. this is all you, darling.” 

he fucks you like it’s he’ll die if he doesn’t. blinded by the mixture of pain and pleasure, you close your eyes and submit to the feeling of overwhelming bliss. 

you’re so overwhelmed, that you don’t register how he’s kissing your neck like a man on a mission. 

დ

the two of you are in the middle of a normal tuesday brunch when childe sees it. when you turn to accept the menu from the waiter, he can see the slightest marks that you couldn’t hide, even with the most expensive foundation. 

you curse internally when you see his eyes narrow in on you. you should’ve known better than to ever believe that diluc would ever follow one of your only rules: no hickeys. 

and now childe, notoriously competitive, will feel compelled to have his fill. 

you should’ve worn a scarf. 

you thought that the position of the hickey, and the slight fadedness your foundation was barely able to provide would’ve been enough. you were wrong. 

like a built-in reflex, you smile. “what’s the matter? is there something wrong?”

he gives you a smile, an all-knowing smile as he takes the menu from you. “nothing is wrong at all, girlie. i’m just admiring that new necklace i bought you.”

you’re good at pretending nothing’s wrong, so you fiddle the crystals with your hand. “i love the way it shimmers,” you add, “i love how sparkly you’ve made me.” 

if you’ve done anything to settle his displeasure, he doesn’t show it. instead, he averts his eyes to the menu. you know better than to believe that nothing bad will come out tonight. 

for the rest of the night, he engages in small talk with you. about the weather. a new store that’s just opened up. some story about some poor guy who borrowed more money than he could ever give back. the thought makes you tighten your grip on your fork.

when you get back to his penthouse, he’s quick to strip you of your luxurious gown and all of it’s accompanied gold accents. when you reach to take off the necklace that decorates your neck, he stops you. 

“keep it on,” he whispers, his hand crawling up your thigh to grip your ass. “wanna fuck you looking so pretty in my jewelry. wanna make you shine with sweat as pretty as those gems.” 

“oh really?” you retort, sliding your hand between the two of your bodies and cupping his sex. he groans as you run your fingertips down his groin. “wanna make me shine with your cum?” 

“yes,” he gasps. in the heat of the moment, his eyes catches the faint outline of diluc’s mark just below your jaw. overtaken by some primal instinct, he presses your waist against him. “you’re letting all those side-fucks give you hickeys?” 

his words almost make you want to freeze. but you’re quick to resume back to normal, to pretend that those words don’t phase you. that you don’t hear the implications in the undertones of his voice. 

it’s worse if you tell him it was unintentional. 

“it’s a new development.” you tug at his hair as he digs his face into the crook of your neck. “you get only one.”

you need to have the upper hand. in a sea of seven men who are constantly demanding things from you, you have to take what you’re dealt with and do something before they overtake you.

he grins.  “you’re such a tease. which motherfucker left this on you?” 

you know better than to tell him. everyone knows that there’s seven who you’re regularly seeing. but they don’t know the names—not the order. you know better than to give names. these men are as powerful as they are rich, you wouldn’t do anything that’d upset the city’s dynamics. 

so you avoid the question, like you’ve always done. 

“i can think of better ways you can use that mouth, other than asking silly questions.” 

his brow twitches, but he doesn’t do anything else to push you. instead, he smiles into your neck. “only one?”

“only one,” you confirm.

he doesn’t hesitate to take off your necklace. his hands dive to the back of your neck to unclip it and toss it to the side. you let out a yelp in surprise when it clangs onto the coffee table. 

“i’ll buy you a better one,” he says in-between open-mouthed kisses on your jawline. “fuck, i’ll buy you a thousand more.”

he sinks down to your collarbone. “’been dreaming of this. my girl, my pretty, pretty girl, wearing reminders of me.” 

♡

the two of you are in the comfort of kazuha’s home. wednesdays are reserved for writing, and like always, you’re pinned under his watchful gaze while he writes his thoughts away in his notebook. 

with every few scrawls, he peeks over the paper to steal glances at you. you hum, pretending to be blissfully aware. you’re just here as his muse. 

as of this moment, you snuggle into your comfortable place in the back of his study, leaning against the window that expands to his backyard that oversees the sunrise and sunset. your own notebook rests on your thighs, your knees pressed close enough to your chest to allow you to write smoothly. kazuha sits across from you, his feet sometimes brushing against yours. if you laid your legs out straight, no doubt that the balls of your feet would meet his waist. 

he keeps stealing glances at you. has been for the past hour. no matter how much you try to focus on your own poems, you can’t brush away the feeling of being watched. 

his eyes are impeccable, and can spot the marks that occasionally peak underneath your scarf when you move a certain away. 

“you let them mark you?” he asks out of the blue. not accusatorily, per se, but you can detect the edge in his voice. 

the corners of your lips perk unnaturally. the moment you’d been dreading since you woke up had arrived. you let your eyes soften, as if it could soothe kazuha by any means. with a gentle hand, you reach out to softly grasp his hand that tightens around the edge of his notebook. it’s something he accepts readily, enveloping your hand with his. 

“i was meaning to talk to you about this, kazu,” you say tenderly. “it’s just something i’m trying out. everyone gets one. see if everyone’s okay with it.” 

kazuha doesn’t say anything. his gaze is fixated on your intertwined hands. “my love, they mark your skin like animals.”

you smile like it’s no trouble. because that’s what you need him to believe. you feel like kazuha’s a loose thread. tug him in the wrong direction, the wrong idea, and he’ll undo the entire sweater. 

“it’s only going to be seven,” you reply, trying to lessen the tension. 

“it’s better if there’s just one,” he retorts gingerly. “they aren’t gentle at all, are they?”

you don’t like the way his eyes sweep over your entire figure. you hold back a shudder, feeling as if a ghost had just passed through you. 

“they are,” you mumble, although you can hardly say it’s true. “don’t you worry kazu, i can handle myself.” 

your line of sight flits back to your intertwined hands; he lets go, instead running the pads of his fingers down the back of your hands before settling on your wrist. his hold is firm. it’s not tight enough to cause you pain, but not gentle enough to let you pull away. 

“i’m sure you do, love,” he mutters. but the way he says it makes it seem as if he doesn’t believe you.

his eyes connect with yours intently.

the rustle of your clothes shuffling echoes through the quiet study as he pulls your wrist towards his mouth. in doing so, you’re forced to lean forward. his eyes never leave you, not when he presses a soft kiss to the inside of your wrist.

“they just want you for your body,” he says, more to himself than you. “they don’t love you at all. everything would be so much better if you just dropped them. let me take care of it. take care of it all.” 

you don’t say anything back. he doesn’t want you to. and even if you did, it wouldn’t be something he’d want to hear. you have bills to pay. you have enemies a wealthy poet wouldn’t be able to defend you from on his own. 

his tongue slides out of his mouth to lick a long strip up your wrist, all while looking at you. he presses open-mouthed kisses in the same spot, sucking and nibbling with purpose. in-between kisses, his tongue draws letters on the expanse of your skin in a sentence you’ve begun to fear.

A L L M I N E  

დ

when spring comes, tighnari will sometimes give you hickeys. he’ll do it in the heat of the moment in a passionate rut. he can’t think of anything else but you. how perfect you are for him. how beautiful. how you belong to him. 

while he drives his cock into you the only way he knows how, his lips will find their place in the crook of your neck. on the curve of your breasts. on the plush of your thighs. he’ll kiss you like you’re his air. 

he’ll whimper into your skin. in that moment, you’re powerless to stop him. his pace is godspeed, pummeling into you like you’re his lifeline. driven to leave his white reminders of his love and devotion into your aching pussy. you can barely hold yourself up steadily. your fingers tremble. overcome with an insurmountable high, you can’t push him away as he leaves hickeys all over your body. 

it’s not to send a message to everyone, per se, but to express the feelings he’d been keeping pent up during autumn, winter, and summer. the overwhelming infatuation and adoration he feels for you. 

his pension for leaving nonstop hickeys on you starts to settle on the fourth day. and by the end of the week-long rut, they’ve faded just enough that you can cover it up with foundation and expensive jewelry. 

but when he’s not blinded by his sexual desperation during the spring, it’s a different story. 

it’s a perfectly fine thursday mid-afternoon in the comfort of tighnari’s study when he sees it. 

he catches a glimpse of kazuha’s kiss on your wrist when you pass a cup of tea to him. your sleeves ride up just a bit under the beaming sun. you notice too, and are quick to pull back. but it’s too late. the moment he’s set down the cup he’s grabbing onto your wrist and pulling back the sleeve. “what’s this?” 

you’re tempted to let out a breath of relief that he didn’t notice the hickey that barely rested on the edge of your collar. when you donned on the turtleneck sweater, you feared that he’d notice it if it slipped down and grow even more livid. 

just play it off. pretend. if you’re lucky, by the end of this week, you’ll end up with only six hickeys. 

“oh, i must’ve bumped into something.” 

tighnari scowls. “this doesn’t seem like an ordinary bruise. how’d you get it?” 

you’re scrambling for a believable response. “i was leaning back onto the counter and didn’t realize the corner was there.”

he chuckles. “clumsy you.” his forefinger inches up the slightest bit to press on it. 

you wince. subsequently, your entire body tenses. this isn’t like those times where you can lie sweetly to him whenever he asks for you to stay for good. this isn’t like one of those times you can charm your way out of a situation. the way he looks at you is knowing. feral.

“i wasn’t born yesterday, love,” he hisses. “i know a hickey when i see one, especially when i leave them on you every spring.”

the way he kisses you after is rougher than usual. desperate. needy. aggressive. he presses into you, his tail wagging tentatively. he brings your arms to wrap around his neck. his tongue caresses your own, exploring your mouth like it’s a new discovery. a new treasure trove. 

he whimpers into the kiss, his little squeaks and moans muffled by his need to devour you. 

you close your eyes and let yourself get swept up with the pacing. to get distracted by him. you hardly register the time pass before the two of you are naked, your clothes strewn across the floor in his bedroom. 

your back is pressed against his chest, your ass hugging his dick while he slides his hand down the valley between your breasts, stopping to pinch your nipple until it hardens. his other hand is left to its own devices, settling on your waist. 

his fingers find themselves in the comfort of your pussy. he whimpers at how amazing you feel around his fingertips. how every time he pulls in and out, there’s squelching noises that almost overtake his little whines and yelps. every time he pushes his fingers back in, your ass presses a little closer to his dick. 

he moans like you’re the one pleasuring him. like he’s on the cusp of euphoria, only silencing himself to press open-mouthed kisses on your shoulder. 

“it’s m-my turn,” he says in-between whines. “m-my pretty l-little pet.” 

დ

when alhaitham gets home after a long week of working, all he wants to do is relax in warmth of your embrace. friday is his reward. 

he eats dinner as always, asking you questions in-between bites while delivering long stares that still make you feel like you’re being researched. but this week, instead of insisting you two spend quality time together reading on the couch, he coaxes you into the bedroom. 

he groans into the kiss, pressing you to the wall as he helps you out of your clothes. but when he opens his eyes to admire your body, he doesn’t like what he sees.

he lets out an unamused chuckle. his hand brushes over your shoulder. “what’s this?” 

you try to speak, but he cuts you off with another kiss. when you gasp in surprise, his tongue dives into your mouth. 

he leaves you breathless; his pace is rough, almost angry. 

“what a bad girl you are,” he seethes, “letting all those bastards touch you like that? bruise your pretty, pretty skin?”

he doesn’t let you talk. he envelops your opportunity to reply with his relentless kisses. he presses harder into your mouth, your teeth almost gnashing together. it’s almost painful, as if he wished to bind you two together. 

“every friday is my solace, my holiday, didn’t you know?” 

you gasp for air. “i-” 

“i’m not done yet.” he brings his lips to yours for another hungry kiss. “every week i work so hard so i can see you, cherish you, and this is how you repay me? i thought you were my good girl.” 

he chuckles darkly. “but you’re just a bad apple, aren’t you? i’ll have to fix that.”

he continues to kiss you. to ravish you with his mouth. he swallows your moans, his hands eagerly exploring your body like it’s his first time. and like always, his hands find their place on your chest. 

“i’ve always loved your breasts: the way they curve, the way they sway so sweetly every time you arch your back for me, how your nipples perk up with every caress of mine.” he flicks one and you yelp. 

“those imbeciles really have no intelligence at all.” he licks a long stripe in-between the valley of your breasts. “your body is a canvas.” 

his eyes connect with yours, beckoning your gaze. a silent connection, a guarantee that you’re looking at him. at what he’s doing. at what he’s making you feel.

he stares at you attentively, and once again you feel like you’re being studied. every gasp that comes from your lips. every twitch of your brows. every time your eyelids flutter is under his watchful gaze like it’s the only thing his sight is for. like he’s a scientist researching the cure to his very own hunger. 

his lips find purchase just on the edge of your areola, sucking intently. “to mark you is a form of art.” 

he relishes in the way you shudder. but he needs more. 

with one hand on your waist, his other comes up to fondle your other breast, craving for more reaction.

“only idiots wouldn’t be able to realize it.” 

დ

unlike all of the other saturdays, where you’re probably swept up in the grand scheme of things (attending formal events, meeting politicians, or shopping like ayato’s wallet depended on it), you’re lounging in ayato’s home office on a calm evening. 

the two of you decided to end things a bit earlier today and relax a bit. and by that, you suggested to spend some quality time alone so that you didn’t need to walk anymore. although you prided yourself on stamina and tolerance to soreness, even you couldn’t keep up after just about a week of aggressive men fucking their jealousy into you. 

“it was hot today,” ayato mutters lazily as he gently runs his fingers through your hair. your head rests on the plush of his thigh, just as he likes it. “are you sure that you’re comfortable in that turtleneck, love?”

you curl into yourself a little bit more, tugging the collar up. “yes, i’m perfectly fine.”

you’re not fine. you’ve been sweating up a storm underneath your sweater but you were adamant on ending this week with six hickeys instead of seven. your stubbornness refused you the pleasure of ice-cold showers to wash away how your clothes burned you. 

he pouts. “are you sure? you look awfully uncomfortable, dear. you can take a shower in my bathroom, if you’d like.” he smiles. “i won’t look, promise.”

you turn to look at him, contemplating. on one hand, you don’t believe anything good will come out of undressing in ayato’s house. you don’t believe his promise, either. if you knew him any better, he’d walk into the shower on the grounds of saving water, where he’d see all the hickeys imbued into your skin. while diluc, childe, and kazuha’s marks were getting a little faded, you doubt you could somehow explain alhaitham and tighnari’s hickeys. 

but on the other hand, you’d been in this sweater for a whole day already. and your skin was started to get irritated. you felt gross with all of the sweat you’d accumulated. maybe five minutes wouldn’t hurt. 

you smile like there’s nothing to worry about. like you’re an adoring lover. like you’re whoever ayato wants you to be. you reach out to cup his cheek, to which he warmly receives. 

“okay. i’ll be back soon.”

he chuckles as you get up from his lap to head to the shower. you had to be quick. 

you all but run to the bathroom once you’re out of sight. you head to ayato’s bedroom where some of your clothes are. dresses, lingerie, t-shirts, jeans, shorts, and all other items of clothing he’s ever bought you hang neatly in his closet. you pluck whatever seems practical and make a break for the shower.

you slip off the diamond ring he’d given you months ago. you all but slam it onto the counter, relieved your ring finger can breathe for once. 

the quicker you take, the more likely you can shower without incident. 

but the moment you’ve stepped out of the shower, towel wrapped secure around your torso, to your horror, the door opens. 

“hey, love, i was wondering—”

just before you can close the door shut on him, his eyes connect to the discoloring on your shoulder. 

regardless of his discovery, you move to usher him out. but mid-way, your feet are halted in the middle of the bathroom floor. the words are crawling in your mouth. you want to tell him that you’d like to shower in peace, tell it to him teasingly, but you don’t think you can. 

that’s not what he wants. that’s not what pays the bills. 

you offer a tight-lipped smile. “like what you see?”

he paces towards you, caressing your shoulder. he leans closer to you, examining the color, the shape, the size. “hm, so that’s how they want to play this game,” he whispers, ignoring your question entirely.

his hands gently tug at your towel. he smiles. “won’t you open up for me, love?”

he guides your hands as you drop the towel, revealing alhaitham’s mark. 

“hm.” he looks at you as if he’s silently critiquing an art piece. “i see what’s going on here.” 

he takes the ring that you left behind on the counter and works to slide it slowly onto your finger again. “you almost forgot to wear the symbol of our love, dear.” 

“oh, it must’ve slipped my mind.” it’s like there’s cotton in your mouth. your throat feels dry.

he chuckles at that. “poor thing. my poor lover can be so forgetful.” 

 his eyes drift down to your chest.

he presses a kiss above your breasts, where your heart is.

“she almost forgets that she’s mine.” 

დ

even if he’s your designated sunday, if you aren’t careful enough, kaeya will create a week full of trouble for you. 

when he eats you out, he becomes pussy-drunk. he kisses your lower lips like it’s his prize. his reward for working so hard this week. his tongue runs up your pussy to your clit in a slow, deliberate stroke. 

when he reaches your clit, he lets his mouth mold over your nub. he licks at it gently, cherishing it like it’s his only rose on a lonely valentine’s day. 

he makes love to you like he’s reached his happily ever after. his lewd slurping overshadows the shuffling of the sheets, your moans. when he dips his tongue into your cunt, he whimpers. 

his fingers dig into your thighs, holding you in place. even when you’re overstimulated, begging for a break, he won’t let you go. he savors the way you tremble so cutely under his touch. how your cum leaks out of you in small streams after your fifth release. he’s immersed in your cunt, yearns to make out with your lower lips while his nose nudges at your clit.

it’s too much. the feeling of your climax is so overwhelming. 

he wants you to feel this euphoria, to remind you of how he feels every time he looks at you. 

he wants you so much. so fucking much it hurts him when he can’t see you. when he can’t hold you. when he can’t be with you like a real lover. he needs you like he needs air. he needs to feel you wrapped around him to give him life. to give him purpose. 

that’s why when you’re so swept up in the feeling of a constant climax, when your legs feel numb, he gets so carried away. 

if you don’t catch him in time, kaeya will leave secretive hickeys along your inner thigh, dangerously close to your folds. he needs the others to know he’s staking his claim.

to know he’s making you feel so good that there’s definitive proof. 

at the end of the week, when you see him again after seven days of trying to calm down the jealous storm among your seven sugar daddies, he’ll grin. 

it’s that same devious smirk he gives you at candlelight dinners, except it isn’t one to mask his vulnerabilities with charisma and one-liners. it’s one to tell you that he knows exactly what he’s done. 

he knows what he wants, and he’s finally had enough of the fucking waiting. 

[hotvintagepoll]

What are some screwball comedy pairings you wish had been a thing? Can definitely be gay ones :)

Okay finally!

One of the reasons I made this blog in the first place is that few things bring me as much blinding rage as imagining the movies we could have gotten, if old Hollywood had stopped being racist/homophobic/anti-everyone for ten fucking seconds. There were so many talented hotties working through our tournament era who only got cameo spots or no-budget movies! for no reason beyond white supremacy! there were so many stories that didn't get told because heaven forbid we acknowledge gay people! If this blog has a mission statement, a big chunk of it would be about highlighting all the amazing hotties who never got what they deserved in their heyday.

So! Let's tear Louis B. Mayer a new one and make some better movies.

Diamond Eyes (1946)

Harold Nicholas, the bored but fabulous son of a Manhattan millionaire, decides to take himself off on a transatlantic cruise to recover from the boredoms of socialites, constant martinis, and west side glamor. When working girl Rita Hayworth snags him into a fake dating scheme to throw off a jealous ex (Cesar Romero), he doesn't mean to fall in love with his false fiancé—or to set the ex up with his scheming accountant (Tyrone Power).

To the Tune of Millions (1945)

Ann Miller and Lena Horne are conwomen besties who use a fake dance act to get into casinos, which they then promptly rob. Unfortunately, an over-enthusiastic talent agent (Gene Kelly) sees the act and thinks they're legitimate, hiring them on the spot as the lead number in a newly opened but already failing musicale review. Who can they hustle at a theater that's barely bringing in a dime? The two ex-cons fall in love with show business, Kelly and Horne smooch at the grand finale, and Miller has an intense will-they-or-won't-they sparring relationship with the hot stage manager (Ethel Waters—and they will).

Untitled Three's-a-Crowd Film (1942)

Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, and Ronald Colman are running interference on a corrupt justice system while trying to keep up the act that they are all simply cohabitating in a shared AirBnB and definitely not falling in love with each other. Wait. This is actually The Talk of the Town. This movie actually exists and does veer this hard into polyamorous romance.

Tomatoes and Toast (1928)

Anna May Wong and Greta Garbo eat sandwiches for three hours. It's riveting.

One Soul, Two Bodies (1948)

Farley Granger and Vincent Price star as Alexander the Great and Hephaestion in this sword-and-sandals period piece. Though clearly made on a studio backlot with a budget of $3, the dashing romance grounds the chariot races and cardboard sword battle sequences.

Grand Central Station (1931)

Interconnected narratives of Josephine Baker, Joan Blondell, Dolores del Río, and Fredric March all vying for the last seat on the 5:45 train out to Poughkeepsie. When they realize they're jostling to sit next to the same sugar daddy who's been stringing all of them along, the four decide to unionize. Pre-code thrills; the four-in-a-bunk Pullman car scene remains notable for a reason.

I have more but I think I've gone a bit delirious.

[markantonys]

3x01 cold open!!!!! between rafe and everyone hyping up this scene for a long time now and people from the brazil con reporting descriptions of it, we knew how it was going to go down, so no huge surprises for me, but so exciting to watch it for myself! it definitely lives up to the hype!

a few quick thoughts

what do liandrin, sharon gilham, lorne balfe, and the vfx team have in common? they're all slaying in this opening sequence! i'm not someone who's at all knowledgeable about or sensitive to production value, but even i can tell they've stepped it up yet another notch this season. it looks decadent! epic! i can see why everyone involved has been boasting about this sequence so much! what a way to start the season.

it's also fantastic setup for all the tensions and weak points within the tower, because we see our inter-ajah mistrust, we see doubt in siuan's leadership, and of course we see the black ajah. that faceoff outside the hall between red sisters and others was really great - it shows that not all reds are like liandrin and some of them are light-serving, that non-reds can be black ajah, and that light-serving enemy ajahs will have to figure out how to trust each other and work together if they want to be strong enough to fight the shadow. this sequence does a good job establishing that the tower isn't split into just good guys vs. darkfriends, but that the good guys themselves are fractured and opposing each other.

i'd thrown out a wild speculation of diem camille as a surprise tuon since nothing was known about what character she might be playing, but we see her here as a light-serving red sister! i was wishing for the x-ray feature of the normal episodes here to see if any of the new aes sedai have names we might recognize, or if they're just randoms.

i'd have to rewatch closely to take a tally, but we seem to have representation from just about every ajah in liandrin's group: liandrin for red, nyomi for brown (sob!), joiya for gray, the green sister who was glad her warders died, the yellow sister who healed liandrin, and i think i saw a blue sister as well. there might have been a couple others besides these ones too!

in s2 we had a few scraps between channelers, but i think this is the first extended multi-person channeling battle we've seen. it's so exciting!! and awesome to see the gloves come off for our usually-composed and regal siuan, and see what she's capable of. we also see her doing a tricksy evasion of liandrin's accusations about what happened in cairhien, since everything liandrin said is true and siuan can't deny it, so siuan is definitely set up to be in some hot water.

leane also killed it! loved that moment of her beating someone up with her staff - a good visual demonstration of the oaths placing no restriction on non-channeling violence (though i'm sure this would've counted as "the last defense of her life/the life of another sister" anyway). wild theory i'm by no means subscribing to without rewatching to check for it, but just throwing it out there: could leane have been stilled during the battle and that's why she's doing physical fighting here? just thinking about the CV leak that named lelaine as the keeper of the chronicles; that could make sense if leane was stilled here and needs to be replaced. but it's also entirely possible that CV leak was inaccurate or that lelaine is slated to become future keeper in salidar but not yet in s3, and there wasn't any moment calling attention to leane being stilled or anything like that, so probably not.

we got a time-check as well: it's been 1 month since the cairhien events of 2x07, and therefore since falme too since i think that battle takes place basically the next day. that feels like a reasonable timeskip to me. enough time for the gang to gather their wits and come up with the best way to handle the truth bomb of liandrin being a darkfriend (and for rand to grow out his hair a little haha) but not so long that it feels like they've been sitting on their asses when there's stuff to get done.

correct me if i missed her, but i don't think we saw ryma in this sequence, but she is reported to be in s3. so, either we'll see her in the tower later on, or she's still with the seanchan and maybe we'll see her in tanchico (at which time hopefully our gang will free her!). i would most expect her to be relevant to the story via nynaeve again this season, whether that be a tanchico encounter where nynaeve frees her or early-season lessons in the tower if she's already free (we see a reminder of nynaeve's block during the battle, with our poor girl once again failing to channel when she really needs to).

people have pointed out that that shot of joiya sitting on the floor in the trailer looks like it might be the angreal storeroom, so the theory is that she gets captured and taken prisoner in this battle. that would track with the books, where the wondergirls take her prisoner and eventually get out of her that tanchico is the place to go for their hunt.

speaking of the storeroom, people have spotted what looks like a redstone doorway in it!! i've brightened it up to see better:

this is VERY intriguing, as my current theory had been that mat would find it in tanchico towards the end of the season. but i do stand by that his neck doesn't look injured in the tanchico still from ep6, nor is he wearing a medallion (which we can feel pretty confident is coming this season since he has it on the poster), so it could be that this white tower doorway is only an easter egg and the ones that people actually go through are located elsewhere, or it could be that mat does take two trips after all and he gets his answers in the white tower doorway in the early season (perhaps his motivation for going to tanchico instead of joining rand or perrin?) and his items & hanging in a tanchico doorway at the end of the season. but there would also have to be one in rhuidean for moiraine and lanfear to go through, right? so could there be 3 doorways in showverse? tar valon, tanchico, and rhuidean? i don't think there would be any problem with that.

okay, i think that's all the thoughts i had off the top of my head! this is a sequence that happens offscreen in the books, and bringing it onscreen was such a smart choice. it makes great use of our established aes sedai players, sets up the huge tensions brewing in the tower just in time for elaida coming on the scene, and really drives home for the audience that ANYONE can be black ajah/a darkfriend, so we'll be feeling that paranoia and mistrust right alongside the aes sedai.

and this is only the first scene of the season! i can't wait to see everything else that's to come!!

[glassladyoftheopera]

In Stars and Time as a Musical Follow Up: Costumes

Okay, a topic I may have enough thoughts on to make a full post about; costumes! (and a little bit stage craft in some places.)

This is mostly about what people would do if they wanted to actually put on a live version of this, versus treating it like a concept album. I am however going to mostly ignore cost restraints outside of like, truly ridiculous stuff.

So first, some general notes.

The color palette: we will still have all of the costumes and sets be in grayscale, with the red used in the 'say it's name' and Act 5 sequences probably mostly being done through lighting. We will not have the actors use skin paint though. I'm not that mean. The audience can buy the idea that the world is meant to be black and white just fine without it.

Materials: I would avoid overly synthetic looking fabrics to maintain the 'vaguely fantasy medieval' vibe, but I wouldn't worry about using actual natural fabric. Comfort and cleaning are higher priorities.

Ensemble: Not much to say about them! Just that the production would have to be careful to make sure everyone is in truly neutral grayscale and not let too warm / cool of grays slip in.

Okay, let's talk characters.

Siffrin is tricky basically every option for interpreting the cloak has it's own pros and cons. Having sleeves means better movement options for the actor, but they only show up in a handful of images in the game. Full poncho means we get Full Triangle Vibe, but it would hamper movement a lot. Cloak with a pinned closed front means we see more of the rest of the costume more often, which I wouldn't mind, but it does break up the classic triangle silhouette. It's honestly still my pick though. Then there's the eye patch. I know some shows just give characters eye patches, and as long as you're careful staging the dances it will probably be fine? But I assume semi-mesh eye patches for performers are a thing, so I'd try to find one of those. Lastly, hat. It probably couldn't be as absurdly big as in game without casting major shadows we don't want on Siffrin's face, so they'll need a slightly narrower brim and we'd keep the hat pinned in a more back position.

Mirabelle's outfit probably wouldn't need to change much, but her little fingerless gloves would need some reinforcement at the top to keep them from falling down her arms. There's also the matter of her needing to have her sword with her most of the show; it might need to be a little smaller than a true rapier, but Shakespeare shows have duels and such so we can make something work.

Odile wouldn't be particularly difficult to costume as long as you don't make her sweater / jacket too heavy and put some straps on her shoes. Fake glasses aren't hard too bad, but some rigging in the back to keep them on will be helpful.

Isabeau I'm sorry but your sleeves have to be a little less gigantic, it will get in the way of the audience being able to read your gestures / get caught on stuff. They can still be long and loose though. Also, in real life the stripes on his pants being that wide could be an issue in terms of reading where he is on stage with the set / looking kind of goofy, so I might make them just a bit thinner.

Bonnie... I do not know how to make your weird pillow hat work in real life. For most game accurate version you'd have to make it completely from scratch. Something like a beret in terms of construction but... big. And probably held up internally with stuffing and wire. The alternative would probably be a big sunhat, and if you want to include Bonnie getting a new hat just slightly redo that scene to find something else that's similar.

Heck yeah its time for Loop! Now, we're definitely not doing a full star head, that wouldn't let the actor do any of that good emoting. But! I think a lower face mask could still work. You might have to hide the actor's mic under there to make sure they could be heard, but it's definitely possible. They would definitely need a custom wig for spikiness, plus a star-like head piece to top it off. Now the rest of it... I mean, you could go full body suit. I'd probably do that as the first choice, though maybe adding a wispy loin cloth or tie around the middle for modesty depending on your performer / venue. But! Different productions could get really creative with it, as long as the base still has them black and covered with stars and there's the star in their chest. Add in some specific design quirks that are only elsewhere found in Sif and The King's costumes, but just tiny little detail type things? Chef's kiss.

Speaking of the King! He unfortunately does need to be Very Big, but thankfully Broadway shows can pull that off! Something similar to the Wizard head in Wicked could work here, where only some parts of the set piece move (mechanically or via puppetry) and the actor is a voice over. The hair could be a mix of practice and projections. The tears that show up in the fight would probably also need to be projected. The hard thing would be getting it to disappear quickly enough. Maybe the last bit before the loop resets is always in front of the curtain? Could be cool. A less well funded production would probably have to either use mostly projections or re-work to use less moving parts.

Last up Euphrasie! Since she has a long dress getting her some extra height wouldn't be too hard, and she doesn't have to dance or anything so that helps. But! She does need to do the Act 4 finale dramatic kneel down, which is harder to work around. If we cast a tall actor and just use lifts in her shoes, it could work. She wouldn't be as super tall as she would be if we used hidden stilts, but I like the image of her cupping Sif's face, it goes all the way back to the comics, I gotta keep it.

What about y'all? How would you dress everyone? Any little details you'd want to see? And tricks to deal with the problems I thought of? Have fun!

[paperstorm]

I have decided with my bestie to watch all the Disney movies in chronological order and what better pairing than to subject tumblr to my thoughts about them. Obviously we aren't gonna watch every single movie that Disney owns so we'll be somewhat subjective on what counts as an official animated feature film. We will definitely skip a lot of the direct-to-video sequels.

Bambi (1942)

Pros:

Beautiful animation. I know I keep saying that but it keeps getting better. The woodland creatures are so lovely, Disney always does animals very well. It’s the eyes and the movement and the gentle lines. Also the backdrops of the forest all look like impressionist paintings.

Thumper the rabbit is a rude sassy bitch I love him.

The orchestral score is used so much to tell the story in this one, it rarely stops for the whole movie. It’s very effective and I sort of wish movies would still do this.

I do love a story where the main thesis is “humans suck so much”!

Cons:

(not really a con but I’m finding it interesting how simple the plots have been in these early movies. Very little actually happens. It seems like the animation itself was still so novel and awesome that there didn’t need to be much to the story, I’m curious to see when that starts to change!)

Having a sweet lil baby deer’s mother be shot by a hunter is UNNECESSARY, WALT. YOU BITCH. I do not CARE if it’s realistic to the life of a deer you did not need to do this.

I did not remember that all the sweet baby animals become adults toward the end of the movie and all have these deep voices with Brooklyn accents it’s highly jarring. Also an owl explains what being horny is to them and a good 12 minutes of the movie are about forest sex basically. Each of the male characters gets ensorcelled by lady animals with blush and long eyelashes and it’s all deeply uncomfortable.

I also did not remember that there is a super awful and violent sequence toward the end involving hunting dogs and a forest fire. What is with these movies being so traumatic no wonder baby boomers are so damaged.

(also not really a con but there are two Disney movies that were forbidden in my house as a child because my sensitive heart couldn’t take them and I would cry so much that my parents were like no never again, but interestingly Bambi is not one of them. We will get there.)

Verdict: Another one that’s not terrible, but not great. Parts of it are iconic, specifically the animation and the first half where Bambi is young. The second half where he’s an adult is weird and uncomfortable

3.5/10

[older movie reviews under the cut]

Dumbo (1941)

Preface: movie number two with the “sorry for being racist” warning.

Pros:

I do genuinely miss when movies had credits before them. It feels so nostalgic but also respectful of all the people who worked on the movie and we’ve lost that in favor of only caring about the actors.

The scene at the beginning of all the baby animals being delivered by the storks is one of the more delightful things I have ever seen.

The animation is cute in a new way, I don’t know enough about art to put my finger on exactly what’s different but it’s got more of an adorable quality to it, and less of that 1930s creepy quality

A stork voiced by Sterling Holloway!! (beloved voice actor best known for Winnie the Pooh)

Cons

Like 90% of the characters in his movie are MEAN. The ringmaster is mean, the other elephants are mean, the circus attendees are mean, the crows are mean, the clowns are mean. My sensitive heart was not built to withstand a bunch of characters being mean to a crying baby elephant. Genuinely upsetting.

There is a drunken hallucination scene of dancing elephants that goes on for like 8 minutes and has nothing to do with anything.

The crows are as racist as I remembered and then some. The irony of writing a movie about how awful it is to be mean to someone because they’re different (Dumbo with his big ears) but then still having a super racist caricatures within that movie is Joanne Rowling levels of not understanding the point of your own story.

Verdict: Mostly just kind of boring. It’s not terrible but it’s not really good either.

2/10

Fantasia (1940)

Preface: This is the first of the handful of movies with the “sorry for being racist” content warning before it, however the version streaming on Disney+ has actually removed the offending scene (a truly horrendous depiction of a black centaur).

Pros:

I was not looking forward to this one. I remembered from childhood that it was very weird and boring. And here’s the thing, to a child it would probably still be weird and boring. But the purpose of this feature (which I had not remembered) was to be a giant love letter to MUSIC. It was a bold and creative idea to use animation, a still somewhat new art form, to visually display the way music makes you feel and to reimagine the stories being told in the pieces. And unlike child me, adult me has a degree in classical music and generally nerds out a whole lot over music so unexpectedly this movie was so right up my alley

Visually stunning. The thought of this being a showcase for what animation can do since it was still somewhat new in cinematography, is very cool.

The music is beautiful, and even without my education I think I would have recognized most of these pieces which gives it a familiar feel. The Nutcracker Suite is a personal favourite and it’s beautifully done by the Philadelphia Orchestra.

The animation really does match the music in a pretty magical way – during the dinosaur chapter where the music is 20th century modern (brash and bombastic) the animation is much harsher with dark colours and sharp edges, vs the animation in the segment about Greek myths set to Romantic era Beethoven, which is softer and pastel.

Cons:

It’s too long. Over 2 hours, which is very lengthy considering the concept. In parts my attention drifted. But there is an actual intermission with a title card for it and everything so you can break it up neatly into two, like we did.

The chapter depicting the evolution and then extinction of the dinosaurs is the least entertaining in my opinion and it drags on, despite Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring being a messy neoclassical masterpiece.

Obviously because of what it is, there isn’t a larger story, which makes it just sort of an odd venture.

DINOSAUR SLANDER. This con is mostly a joke but there is a part where the narrator goes on for like 7 minutes about how dumb dinosaurs were which just feels mean.

Verdict: Better than I remembered or expected! If you do not like classical music it might not be for you but your adult self might like this one more than your kid self did.

6.75/10

Pinocchio (1940)

Pros:

I love an aminated movies opening with a book, and someone telling us the story. Also loved that in the opening scene that shows Pinocchio in book form, books of Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan are also in the shot, which Disney hadn’t yet made movies for

Patches on clothing are such an interesting staple of old cartoons, from a bygone era when people used to actually repair their clothes. I don’t know if that counts as a pro of this particular movie but it’s a thought I had

Figaro the cat is such a hater which is so perfectly on brand for cats

More impressive advances in animation – I don’t know how they made the Blue Fairy transparent but it’s very cool

Cons:

Despite the transparent Blue Fairy, in general the animation in this movie doesn’t have the same magic to it that some others do. It feels sort of cheap and uninspired, I can’t explain it but it’s missing something. Snow White was beautiful, the animation in this one is kind of bland

Pets are a thing that exist in this universe - Geppetto has a cat and a fish - but then there's randomly a fox and a cat (both the size of humans) walking around in clothing as if they are people when every other character is human

Stromboli is supposed to be Italian I think but his animation and character feels deeply racist in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. He is referred to at one point as the G slur so I’m not sure if maybe he’s meant to be Roma? He feels like a weird mix of anti-Jewish and anti-Arab stereotypes even though I don’t think he’s supposed to be either. It’s highly uncomfortable

I feel like we’ve all Mandela-effect-ed ourselves about Pinocchio and his growing nose. I remembered it being a big part of the plot but it’s literally one small scene about halfway through and then it never happens again

Pleasure Island is incredibly creepy and the scene where boys are turning into donkeys is super unsettling. Perhaps that should be a pro since it was probably supposed to be unsettling, but it’s a con for me because I did not enjoy it

How is Geppetto alive in inside a whale. I know it’s a cartoon and I know it’s based on an old story but STILL. Also Pinocchio is totally fine just like hanging out at the bottom of the ocean for like 25 minutes (because he’s made of wood and isn’t really alive yet), but then somehow at the end of the scene he drowns to death in a puddle? Make it make sense

The plot is … weird. It’s just weird. It feels like a combination of about 4 different stories – the creation of Pinocchio, falling in with Stromboli and the puppet show, going to Pleasure Island, and rescuing Geppetto from the whale all feel like separate stories that come one after another but don’t really relate to each other that much, and the tone of the movie also changes significantly with each one in a way that is not cohesive

At the end of the movie there’s still a whole island of enslaved, kidnapped donkey children that are just never mentioned again so … dunno what to do with that

Verdict: Weird. Very, very weird, and not in a good way. I did not remember from childhood how genuinely strange this story is.

1/10

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937)

Pros:

The animation is beautiful. I got weirdly emotional thinking about people in 1937 seeing this for the first time, how mind-blowing it must have been. I know almost nothing about animation but I was genuinely impressed with the techniques used for movement, considering how old this is and how new the medium was. Also the movement of people’s hands and faces is so similar to other cartoons of the same era (I’m thinking Betty Boop but also others) which was kind of cool to see

Weirdly nostalgic in a way I wasn’t expecting, there are several songs I had in the back of my mind but had totally forgotten were from Snow White – Whistle While You Work and the song the Prince sings

The evil queen is so fucking cunty I was flabbergasted. I love her. More cunty Disney villains please (also, ICONIC scene where her cape flows as she runs down a spiral staircase. I was obsessed with that as a kid and the fluidity of the animation is incredible for the time)

I loved how melodic it all was, the sound of footsteps down the stairs or the dwarves falling down all to the beat of the musical score made the whole thing flow so nicely. I miss when movies did this

Cons:

Obligatory note that you shouldn’t kiss strangers in comas

The ending is kind of a bummer, I forgot she leaves the dwarves who love her for some guy she met 10 minutes ago. But alas, I guess that’s how the fairy tale went

Adriana Caselotti’s squeaky operatic soprano is iconic, but not particularly pleasant to listen to

Verdict: Delightful. Truly delightful. Obviously not a new or innovative story but it was very nostalgic and I enjoyed it much more than I was expecting.

8/10

[cravingpepsimax]

Headcanons for 30s!Stancest?

ohohohoh

so, obviously, 30s stancest isn’t canon compliant at-fucking-all. this means that when discussing it, you kinda have to ask how it’d actually happen.

personally, i’m a fan of “everything’s canon compliant up until the portal incident, which just doesn’t happen”. they fight, but the specific sequence of events that leads to ford being put in the portal just don’t happen. stan starts living with ford — he’s homeless, and ford clearly needs someone to take care of him because goddamn he’s in rough shape. he learns about bill and helps ford actually get sleep, handcuffing him/restraining him to the bed and only letting him out when bill’s not in control.

another 30s stancest headcanon that i LOVE is that ford is REALLY into stan’s mullet. didn’t get the opportunity to appreciate it in canon since he was sleep deprived and promptly sucked through the portal, but in an au without the portal incident, this isn’t a problem. sad that ford has to go through a “oh god i’m attracted to my twin wtfwtfwtf,” a “oh god the guy i’m attracted to has a mullet,” and a “oh god i think the mullet’s hot” crisis at the same time.

stan gets the unicorn hair so that a protective barrier can be made around the shack. could’ve either obtained it from a con or from violence — the latter’s more likely, but i think the former has some stupid looney tunes comedic potential. anyways, this is important so that 1. ford is no longer terrorized without having to install a metal plate into his head, and 2. it allows stan and ford to sleep in the same bed without the fear of bill taking over and fucking everyone’s shit up.

since the research grant’s realistically running out, stan does various odd jobs to bring in an income. though ford is very against using his research as a marketing ploy, stan’s still a con-artist. (though, of course, they still adventure together — it’s just that isn’t a viable career). stan is great at dealing with any kind of fae or fae-adjacent entity.

this is one of those rare instances where i think ford would be the first one to confess. stan doesn’t wanna say shit because he JUST got his brother back, and he doesn’t wanna risk not just losing him again, but being kicked out again and becoming homeless again. hell, i think stan would be so unwilling to risk it despite his feelings that ford would have to be the one to first make any moves or flirt with him, which has its own funny factor since there’s no way in hell he’s good at it.

stan’s pretty into weird supernatural drugs. half the time when they discover a plant stan’s first thought is “hmm… what if i smoked/ate/snorted/shot up this?”. this has ended in a fair share of… Situations. i will leave you to think about what these Situations may be.

i don’t think of either of them as being particularly physically affectionate, but when they sleep in the same bed, they pretty much always wake up cuddling.

[catgirl-lucy]

Forcing & Independence of the Continuum Hypothesis

My favourite result in maths is probably the independence of the continuum hypothesis. In this post, I aim to explain forcing and why the continuum hypothesis cannot be proven in ZFC. The continuum hypothesis (CH) is the statement that there is no cardinal number between ℵ₀ and 2^ℵ₀. When forcing, you start with a model V of ZFC and extend it to a model V[G] by adding some object G, in such a way that V[G] satisfies the axioms of ZFC but also the existence of G, with the intention of showing that G can exist without contradicting the axioms of ZFC. For example, when starting with a model V of ZFC + CH and G contains information for how to build ℵ₂ distinct reals, V[G] would satisfy the existence of ℵ₂ many reals and thus not satisfy CH.

I assume everyone who reads this knows the theory ZFC and has basic understanding of ordinal and cardinal numbers.

A theory T is a set of axioms in first order logic. A proof in T is a sequence φ₁ .. φₙ of formulas such that each formula is an axiom of T or follows logically from previous formulae in the sequence, this proof is said to prove the formula φₙ. For a formula φ, we write T ⊦ φ to mean that there is a proof φ₁ .. φₙ (φ = φₙ) of φ in T. T is inconsistent if it proves the always false statement ⊥, T is consistent if it does not prove this statement. We write Con(T) for “T is consistent”. T ⊬ φ is equivalent to Con(T + ¬φ), so to show that ZFC cannot prove or disprove CH, we want to show Con(ZFC + ¬CH) and Con(ZFC + CH), assuming that ZFC is consistent.

To show that Con(ZFC) implies Con(ZFC + ¬CH), we start with a model V of ZFC and add ω₂ many reals (subsets of ω) to it. However, we don't have anywhere to get those ω₂ reals from ¯\(˙˘˙)/¯ We can't get them simply out of V as that'd mean V already has at least ω₂ many reals. What we do is assume the existence of a larger universe V⁺ that V lives in. Usually, when forcing, the existence of the larger universe V⁺ is implicit, but I state its existence explicitly to avoid confusion.

We can try to define a theory ZFC⁺ extending ZFC by adding a constant symbol V (the universe of ZFC⁺ is called V⁺ rather than V) and the axiom “V is a model of ZFC”, however, even without assuming nice properties of V like it being a well-founded model, the consistency of ZFC⁺ is stronger than that of ZFC, but ideally, we want to show that Con(ZFC + ¬CH) follows from Con(ZFC), not Con(ZFC⁺).

Luckily, ZFC already sort-of proves the existence of models of ZFC. To be more precise, for every finite fragment t of ZFC, ZFC proves that there is a model of t. However, ZFC does not prove the statement ‘for all finite fragments t of ZFC, there is a model of t’! ∀n T ⊦ φ(n) and T ⊦ ∀n φ(n) are two different statements, it's important to know the distinction!

Let t be a finite fragment of ZFC, aiming to show that ZFC ⊦ ∃M M ⊧ t (⊧ is the symbol for ‘satisfies’ or ‘is a model of’). We'll build the model M by starting with the empty set M_0 = ∅ and adding more and more elements to it until it satisfies ZFC. Since t is a finite fragment of ZFC, we have that V ⊧ t. If t were to be infinite, V ⊧ t would be an infinite conjunction of the formulas in t, and infinite formulas don't exist in first order logic, hence we assume t to be finite. To build the next model M_1, for every formula of the form ∃x φ(x) that t proves, we have that V ⊧ ∃x φ(x), and thus there is some x such that φ(x). We add some x that satisfies φ(x) to M_1 for every such formula ∃x φ(x). We do the same for M_2, but instead of adding x for each ∃x φ(x), we add some x for every y in M_1 and every formula of the form ∃x φ(x,y) that t proves. We do the same with M_3: we add some x satisfying φ(x,y) for every y ∈ M_2 and every formula of the form ∃x φ(x,y) that t proves. We continue this infinitely, and we then define M = ⋃{M_n | n ∈ ℕ} as the union of all M_n. By induction on the complexity of formulas, we can show that M ⊧ φ for every φ such that t ⊦ φ, proving this is left as an exercise to the reader.

Since there are only countably many formulas, every M_n must be countable, and so their union, M, is countable as well. We also have that M is a standard model: it has sets x and uses the real membership relation as its own membership relation. Besides showing that for every finite fragment t of ZFC, ZFC proves that there exists a model of t, we have shown that we can assume this model to be standard and countable.

The construction of the model M we have performed is called a Skolem hull. Usually, when taking Skolem hulls, we take all formulas φ that the original model (in this case, V) satisfies instead of only those that are proven by some theory t, but we couldn't do that as there are an infinite amount of models that V satisfies and a proof in ZFC may only use a finite number of axioms. Skolem hulls are my second favourite thing from model theory and it could be useful to have it in your toolbox.

Although M is a standard model of the theory t, it isn't transitive. A transitive set is a set X such that, for every x ∈ X, we have x ⊂ X. It's usually easier to work with transitive models. We can turn M into a transitive model by the use of a Mostowski collapse. You can read the Wikipedia article on it if you want to know what that is, this is a post about forcing, not Mostowski collapses and Skolem hulls.

Instead of adding the axiom ‘V is a model of ZFC’ to ZFC⁺, we can add, for each individual axiom φ of ZFC, the axiom ‘V ⊧ φ’. And, as we have shown above, we can also add the axiom ‘V is countable and transitive’. Since proofs in ZFC⁺ may only use a finite amount of axioms, they may only use a finite amount of axioms of the form ‘V ⊧ φ’, so ZFC⁺ thinks that V satisfies finite fragments of ZFC without realizing it satisfies the whole of ZFC: it might think there is a very long formula φ that V doesn't satisfy while, in reality, such a formula would be infinitely long and doesn't actually exist.

One theorem from logic that we'll use is the compactness theorem. This theorem states that, for a theory T of first order logic, if T is inconsistent then a finite fragment of T is inconsistent. Contrapositively, if every finite fragment of T is consistent, then T must be consistent as well. A proof of this theorem is quite easy.

Another important lemma we'll use is that if a theory T proves a finite theory S is consistent, then S must be consistent. If S were to be inconsitent, then there must be some proof φ₁ .. φₙ of ⊥ in S, and T would prove that φ₁ .. φₙ is a proof of ⊥ as checking if a proof is correct is as simple as just running an algorithm. Thus, for a finite fragment S of ZFC+¬CH, if ZFC⁺ proves S is consistent, then S must be consistent. And if ZFC⁺ proves S is consistent for every finite fragment S of ZFC+¬CH, then ZFC+¬CH must be consistent by compactness.

Since V is countable in V⁺, the ω₂ of V, written ω₂^V, is a countable ordinal in V⁺ while the ω₂ of V⁺, written ω₂^V⁺, doesn't exist in V. I'll work in the universe V unless otherwise specified, so ω₂ refers to ω₂^V rather than ω₂^V⁺, and countable means countable in V rather than countable in V⁺. For some object x and a model M, x^M refers to the interpretation of x in M.

So now that we have the little universe V and the big universe V⁺, we want to add ω₂ reals to V. Since V is countable in V⁺, there are a lot of things outside of V in V⁺. For example, P(ω) ∩ V is countable in V⁺, while the P(ω) of V⁺ is uncountable in V⁺, meaning that P(ω) \ V must be uncountable, so V is missing a lot of reals that can be added into V. However, if we simply take a set X ⊂ P(ω)^V⁺ such that V thinks X has cardinality ω₂, and then add it to V by just adjoining it like so: V ∪ {X}, this new model is no longer a model of ZFC. It has a universe V, but also just another object X adjoint to it, and things like X ∪ ℕ, X × X, etc, don't exist, while they should for V ∪ {X} to be a model of ZFC.

Thus, instead of adding a single new element X, forcing aims to add an object G in such a way that the axioms of ZFC are still satisfied. It does this through the use of names. A name is an object in V that describes an object in the extended universe V[G], but without a way to interpret the name in V, those objects that exist in V[G] don't yet exist in V. The object G gives a way to interpret the names in V, and interpreting every name in V through G gives the new model V[G]. Explaining what that means exactly requires the definition of a forcing poset, which I'll now explain.

A partial ordered set (poset) is a structure (P,≤) with a set P and a binary relation ≤ on P, such that:

≤ is reflexive: x ≤ x for all x ∈ P.

≤ is transitive: if x ≤ y and y ≤ z then x ≤ z for all x,y,z ∈ P.

≤ is antisymmetric: if x ≤ y and y ≤ x then x = y for all x,y ∈ P.

Two elements x,y ∈ P are compatible if there is some z such that z ≤ x and z ≤ y. x and y are incompatible if no such z exists. A forcing poset is a poset P with the additional axioms:

There is a greatest element 1 ∈ P.

For every x ∈ P, there are y,z ∈ P such that y ≤ x, z ≤ x and y and z are incompatible.

The last axiom is called the splitting condition. Members of a forcing poset P are called forcing conditions. x ≤ y is read as ‘x is stronger than y’ or ‘x extends y’. Forcing conditions can be thought of as statements that can be true or false, these statements say something about the object being added, where the greatest element 1 is a statement that is always true. The forcing poset that we'll focus on in this blog post is called Cohen forcing. Forcing conditions are finite partial functions from ω₂ × ω to {0,1}. That is, functions from a finite subset of ω₂ × ω to the set {0,1}. For forcing conditions p and q, p ≤ q iff p is a function extension of q, i.e. dom(p) ⊃ dom(q) and p(α,n) = q(α,n) for all (α,n) ∈ dom(q). A forcing condition p: ω₂ × ω ⇀ {0,1} says something about the object g: ω₂ × ω → {0,1} that is being added, namely, that g(x) = p(x) for all x ∈ dom(p). For every α < ω₂, {n | g(α,n) = 1} will be a new real in the new model V[G], meaning that there will be ω₂ many new reals and CH will break.

For a forcing poset P, a P-name is a set of tuples (σ,p) where σ ∈ V^P is a P-name and p ∈ P is a forcing condition, this set may be empty. Alternatively, the class of P-names, V^P, can be defined by induction:

V^P_0 = ∅.

V^P_α+1 = P(V^P_α × P) for an ordinal α.

V^P_α = ⋃{β<α} V^P_β for limit ordinal α.

Then, V^P = ⋃{α ∈ Ord} V^P_α is the class of P-names. A P-name {(σ,p)} means ‘this set contains σ iff p is true’. Thus, for a set x, we can define a P-name &x for x as follows &x = {(&y,1) | y ∈ x} as 1 is always true. We can also define the set of all true forcing conditions as &G = {(&p,p) | p ∈ P}, which contains p iff p is true.

A way to decide which forcing conditions are true and which are false is done using a filter. A filter F on P is a subset F ⊂ P such that:

1 ∈ F.

If x ∈ F and x ≤ y, then y ∈ F.

For all x,y ∈ F, there is some z ∈ F such that z ≤ x and z ≤ y.

A filter decides what forcing conditions are true and which are false: members of the filter are true forcing conditions, while things that aren't in the filter are false. The first axiom of a filter, 1 ∈ F, states that the statement 1 is true, the second axiom states that x is true and x implies y, then y is true, and the third statement states that no members of the filter contradict each other (i.e. none are incompatible).

However, not any filter will do. If the filter F is already in the model V, then we don't add anything new to V. It might also be possible to break axioms of ZFC such as comprehension with certain filters. Because of this, we use a special filter called a generic filter.

A forcing poset P has a topology. An open set in P is a set O ⊂ P that is downwards closed, i.e. for every x ∈ O and every y ∈ P such that y ≤ x, we have y ∈ O. A set D is dense if it meets all non-empty open sets. In P, that means that D is dense iff ∀x ∈ P ∃y ∈ D y ≤ x. For a family D of dense subsets of P, a filter G ⊂ P is D-generic iff G meets all dense D ∈ D. One important theorem used to construct generic sets is the Rasiowa-Sikorski lemma. This lemma states that, if P is a forcing poset, p ∈ P is a forcing condition, and D is a countable family of dense subsets of P, then there is a D-generic filter G on P that contains p. A proof of this lemma is left as an exercise to the reader. Since V is countable in V⁺, we can apply the Rasiowa-Sikorski lemma to it: we can define a V-generic filter as a filter that is D-generic filter for D = {D ∈ V | D is a dense subset of P}, and since D is countable in V⁺, such a generic filter G exists in V⁺. I'll often call a V-generic filter simply a generic filter.

Given a forcing poset P ∈ V, a generic filter G ⊂ P on P and a P-name σ ∈ V^P, the interpretation of σ by G is defined as σ^G := {τ^G | ∃p ∈ G (τ,p) ∈ σ}. One can verify that, for x ∈ V, we have &x^G = x and &G^G = G for &G = {(&p,p) | p ∈ P}. V[G] is defined as V[G] = {σ^G | σ ∈ V^P}. Now, all we have to do is verify that V[G] is indeed a model of ZFC and, when P is Cohen forcing, that V[G] satisfies ¬CH.

Im eepy. I'll do that another day -.- Good night.

Hi. I hope you slept well. I'll now continue with explaining forcing.

For a forcing condition p ∈ P, P-names τ₁ .. τₙ and a formula φ, p forces φ(τ₁ .. τₙ), denoted p ⊩ φ(τ₁ .. τₙ), if for all generic G ⊂ P with p ∈ G, we have V[G] ⊧ φ(τ₁^G .. τₙ^G). The following three lemmas are important in forcing:

Definability For every formula φ, there is a formula ψ such that for all forcing conditions p and all P-names τ₁ .. τₙ, p ⊩ φ(τ₁ .. τₙ) iff V ⊧ ψ(p,τ₁ .. τₙ). I.e. ‘p forces φ(τ₁ .. τₙ)’ is definable in V.

Coherence If p ⊩ φ(τ₁ .. τₙ) and q ≤ p, then q ⊩ φ(τ₁ .. τₙ).

Truth If V[G] ⊧ φ(τ₁^G .. τₙ^G) then there is some forcing condition p such that p ⊩ φ(τ₁ .. τₙ). That is, a statement is true iff it is forced.

I encourage you to try proving these lemmas yourself. Coherence is quite easy, but the other two might be more difficult to prove. I'll give a proof for definability and truth.

First, we'll define ⊩* by induction on the complexity of formulas. We'll start with atomic formulas. When does p force σ ∈ τ? One naive guess might be if ∃q ≥ p (σ,q) ∈ τ, however, this doesn't quite work. There might be a P-name ρ such that σ ≠ ρ, yet p ⊩ σ = ρ and ∃q ≥ p (ρ,q) ∈ τ but ∄q ≥ p (σ,q) ∈ τ. Thus, we define p ⊩* σ ∈ τ as ∃(ρ,q) ∈ τ p ⊩* σ = ρ.

So now we need to define p ⊩* σ = τ. By the axiom of extensionality, two sets are equal if they contain the same elements. Thus, we can define p ⊩* σ = τ as ∀ρ ∈ V^P p ⊩* "ρ ∈ σ" ⇔ p ⊩* "ρ ∈ τ". This might seem self-referential, as we define equality in terms of membership, which is itself defined in terms of equality, but we can define it inductively as the rank of the names always decrease. The rank of σ is the smallest ordinal α such that σ is in V^P_{α+1}. The quantor '∀ρ ∈ V^P' currently ranges of all P-names (thus, also those with higher rank than σ or τ), but we can fix that by defining ⊩* ≠ instead of ⊩* =, and then we can define p ⊩* σ = τ as p ⊩* ¬σ ≠ τ.

p ⊩* σ ≠ τ iff (∃(ρ,q) ∈ τ q ≥ p ∧ p ⊩* ¬ρ ∈ σ) ∨ (∃(ρ,q) ∈ σ q ≥ p ∧ p ⊩* ¬ρ ∈ τ).

So now we can define ⊩* ¬, ⊩* ∨ and ⊩* ∃ as follows:

p ⊩* ¬φ(τ₁ .. τₙ) iff ∀q ≤ p ¬q ⊩* φ(τ₁ .. τₙ).

p ⊩* "φ(τ₁ .. τₙ) ∨ ψ(τ₁ .. τₙ)" iff p ⊩* "φ(τ₁ .. τₙ)" ∨ p ⊩* "ψ(τ₁ .. τₙ)".

p ⊩* ∃x φ(x, τ₁ .. τₙ) iff ∃σ ∈ V^P p ⊩* φ(σ, τ₁ .. τₙ).

This internal definition of forcing is almost complete. However, what if a formula φ is forced by p, not because φ is immediately apparent, but because the only forcing conditions that extend p immediately force φ? To give a more concrete example, suppose σ = ∅, τ = {(σ,p), (σ,q)} are P-names, and p = {((0,0),0)} and q = {((0,0),1)} are (incompatible) forcing conditions in Cohen forcing. Then, we don't have 1 ⊩* σ ∈ τ, however, σ ∈ τ is still forced by 1 as any generic filter that contains 1 also contains p or q. Thus, the final step of the definition of forcing is p ⊩ φ(τ₁ .. τₙ) iff {q | q ⊩* φ(τ₁ .. τₙ)} is dense below p, equivalently, p ⊩ φ(τ₁ .. τₙ) iff p ⊩* ¬¬φ(τ₁ .. τₙ).

The last part of the proof of definability is checking that our internal definition of forcing is correct. This is left as an exercise to the reader.

Now I'll give a proof of truth. Although in no point in the proof of definability genericity is relevant, it is very important for truth. Truth states that for a formula φ and P-names τ₁ .. τₙ, if V[G] ⊧ φ(τ₁ .. τₙ), then there is some p ∈ G so that p ⊩ φ(τ₁ .. τₙ). That is, a formula is true if and only if it is forced.

For a statement φ and P-names τ₁ .. τₙ, we can define the set D_φ = {p | p ⊩ φ(τ₁ .. τₙ) ∨ p ⊩ ¬φ(τ₁ .. τₙ)}. Thus, D_φ is the set of forcing conditions that decide φ. We can verify that D_φ is a dense set: we have 1 ⊩ φ ∨ ¬φ as φ ∨ ¬φ is always true, this is equivalent to 1 ⊩* ¬¬(φ ∨ ¬φ) when using the internal definition, i.e. {p | p ⊩* φ ∨ ¬φ} = {p | p ⊩* φ ∨ p ⊩* ¬φ} is dense, and since D_φ is a superset of this set, it must be dense as well. Since D_φ is dense and G is generic, G ∩ D_φ must be non-empty, so some p ∈ G must force φ or force ¬φ. Thus, every formula that is true in V[G] is forced by some forcing condition in G.

We can use definability, coherence and truth to prove that V[G] ⊧ ZFC. I'll leave this as an exercise to reader, cuz... why not ¯\(˙˘˙)/¯ Extensionality and foundation hold in V[G] as V[G] is a transitive model of ZFC, union and infinity aren't too difficult to prove, separation and powerset might be a bit more tricky, the argument for why V[G] satisfies replacement is similar to that of separation, and choice might be a little bit more difficult than the others. I'll give a proof for why V[G] satisfies the axiom lemma of pairing so you have some inspiration for your proof.

Given sets x and y in V[G], we want to show that {x,y} is a set. x and y have P-names, let's call them σ and τ. We can now define a P-name ρ := {(σ,1), (τ,1)}. We can see that ρ^G = {σ^G, τ^G} = {x,y} ∈ V[G], and thus V[G] satisfies the lemma of pairing.

So now that we know V[G] is a model of ZFC (at least, for every finite fragment t of ZFC, ZFC⁺ proves that V[G] is a model of t), we now need to show that V[G] ⊧ ¬CH when using Cohen forcing. We want to add more than ω₁ reals, e.g. ω₂ reals, to the model V. We thus want G to encode information for a set of ω₂ distinct reals. Since a real is an infinite sequence of 0s and 1s, we thus want a ω₂ × ω table of 0s and 1s so that none of the rows are equal. In Cohen forcing, the forcing conditions encode partial information about this ω₂ × ω table. The forcing conditions are finite partial functions from ω₂ × ω to {0,1}, i.e. functions with finitely many pairs (α,n) for ordinals α < ω₂ and natural numbers n as domain, that maps each (α,n) in its domain to either 0 or 1. For forcing conditions p and q, we have p ≤ q iff p is a function extension of q, i.e. dom(q) ⊂ dom(p) and p(α,n) = q(α,n) for all (α,n) ∈ dom(q). A generic filter G on P would thus consist of finite partial functions p: ω₂ × ω ⇀ {0,1} that together form a function g: ω₂ × ω → {0,1} defined as g = ⋃G. For each ordinal α, r_α = {n | g(α,n) = 1} ⊂ ω is a real in the model V[G]. We can use the genericity of G to show that all reals r_α are distinct: suppose we have r_α = r_β for some α ≠ β. Then, there must be some p ∈ G such that p ⊩ r_α = r_β. However, no such p can exist: p may only contain finite information about r_α and r_β, but r_α = r_β means that g(α,n) and g(β,n) are equal on all, and thus infinitely many, n. We can define a dense set D_{α,β} = {p ∈ P | ∃n p(α,n) ≠ q(β,n)}, it's easy to check that this set is dense for α ≠ β, and thus G ∩ D_{α,β} is non-empty. This means that all reals r_α are indeed distinct reals. We thus have added ω₂ distinct reals to V.

But we're still missing something. Can you spot it? No..? Oh, okay. Don't worry. I'll tell you. We have added ω₂^V reals, but we need ω₂^V[G] reals, and nothing so far tells us that ω₂^V and ω₂^V[G] should be equal!

Luckily, they are equal. Here is proof:

Cohen forcing satisfies the countable chain condition. A (strong) antichain A ⊂ P is a set of forcing conditions that are pairwise incompatible, i.e. ∀p,q ∈ A p ≠ q → p ⊥ q. Usually, the word antichain is used to refer to sets of pairwise incomparable elements, but incomparability is kinda useless when forcing as opposed to incompatibility (two objects x and y in a poset are incomparable iff x ≰ y and y ≰ x). The κ-chain condition (κ-c.c) states that, given any antichain A ⊂ P, the cardinality of A is <κ. The countable chain condition (c.c.c) is the ω₁-chain condition, i.e. all antichains are countable.

If P satisfies the c.c.c, then for every function f ∈ V[G] from some D ∈ V to V, there is a function F ∈ V[G] from D to V such that, for every x ∈ D, F(x) is countable and f(x) ∈ F(x). I.e. functions in V[G] can be approximated by "countable covering functions" in V (‘countable covering function’ is not a term, I just made that up :p).

The above lemma can be used to show that, when P has the countable chain condition, if κ is an uncountable regular cardinal in V, then κ must also be uncountable regular in V[G]. In otherwords, for any uncountable regular cardinal κ, P does not collapse κ (P collapses κ if κ is no longer a regular cardinal in the forcing extension V[G]). Proving these three things ((i) Cohen forcing has the c.c.c, (ii) if P has the c.c.c then for every function f: D → V in V[G] for D ∈ V has a "countable covering function" and (iii) if P has the c.c.c then it collapses no regular cardinals) are left as an exercise to the reader.

And that completes the proof of Con(ZFC) → Con(ZFC + ¬CH). Good night everyone! mi wile lape -.- If you have trouble understanding something in this blog post, or you have some other questions, you can tell me! Holidays are starting for me now so I currently have a lot of free time.

I was planning to make an introduction to set theory, but that post isn't going that well. I don't know what my next maths post will be about.

Bye!~

[rin-and-jade]

Torn Apart or Stitched Back: A Guide on Identifying Splits and Fuses

Halved, merged, halved again, and merged again.. a never ending sequence of our system life. Will it ever stop?--Sadly no, as it is a natural process of our adaptation.

But can we atleast know how to identify, be able to anticipate the first signs, and know what to do accordingly? Yes! We do, and being educated will make a huge difference on how you'd handle a situation, for example, like today's topic.

This is what the guide is all about: Making your life a little bit easier.

TLDR FAST PASS: AVAILABLE!

Can you recap us first?

So you've caught the drill!

In general context, a split means: "to (cause to) divide into two or more parts" - Cambridge Dictionary

And, in general context, a fuse means: "join or blend to form a single entity" - Oxford

In system context, this would be to a more specific split/fuse when it comes to identity, memories, and feelings. As to how dissociative disorder works, sometimes, other things can be compartmentalized, such as senses or physical pain, that can be split apart or fused.

Dissociation and integration are the main players in this topic, these two will be used to explain everything related about splits and fuses!

Why does this happen?

Both splitting and fusing actually serve a very important role in how we adapt and navigate certain situations.

This is to how splits can be a great shortcut to disconnect and detach from overwhelming elements in order to continue and stay functional within the current stressful moment. Although, splitting do have their own cons too,, and usually cause some problems--though some alters got split for the better, containing painful experiences within fragments in a way that it would not disturb daily functioning,, until the right moments to assess them arrives. They're not meant to be floating around and waiting, you know?

When a split happens, it is better to counter it with a fuse, because when you are too fragmented, this often leads to a small scope of awareness, or harder time accessing knowledge, or separated qualities that hinders performing a skill that requires multiple aspects of experience. Fusing can be very beneficial and is a natural process when it comes to healing--because it is all about integrating and demolishing the walls of dissociation.

If you fuse, you will be able to combine and utilize various knowledge that was once compartmentalized, creating a more flexible and creative way to navigate life. I will help you with this, too.

Ah.. How does it work though?

Splits? oh, actually;

This process exists outside of system context too, its where you detach and intentionally deny or separate your experiences, in order to keep our identity going and update our sense of time, or memories, or situations that happened is by accepting them and consider them as a part you have went through.

If you do not accept and deny that you went through, or experience such,, this detachment would be strong to create something equivalent to a fragment (for us, system) which holds and identifies with the things you denied at the first place.

Remember, your body records everything, splitting doesn't mean you fully eradicate the painful elements or memories. You only create distance between it, but it isn't going anywhere.

Fuse is basically about undoing all these walls of dissociation, it would be understanding, as if its on a telepathic level, or closest to like a best friend,, where you can integrate these different views to conclude a singular answer. Who says you're gone or mashed up into something different? Fusing is just the same as how you'd treat your best friend, appreciating those different pov and insights, but not let it blindly take the wheel without your cooperation!

To the main topic of the post:

Now that you've been told the basics and the mechanics, it is more than enough to start identifying, taking action, and handle an aftermath!

All about splits!

When it attacks you: - Often, in times of stress - Moments of denial - Periods where specific qualities needed got separated to maintain functionality, solving a situation.

These are the 3 main circumstances that creates a higher chance to split. There's more, though it happens seldom. --

Signs of pre-splits: - Noticeable mood swings - Stabbing head pains - More disoriented than usual - Becoming more forgetful - Think in 2 (or more) opposite views back and forth--unable to integrate as one conclusion

Sometimes, a split can cause severe headaches or pain around other areas. Splits are often companied by an increased amount of dissociation or brainfog which can be very uncomfortable and disruptive. --

What to do when a split happens: 1. Gather intel and find the cause of a split 2. Understand and accept the new split alter/frag They're oftentimes scared/confused/emotional, tend to them. If they are not, explain or ask what had happened 3. Identify what the split part holds 4. depending from number 3, you can: let the split exist and complete a certain task / learn to re-integrate back / heal it's hurt and address it's problems --

Ways to prevent a pre-split from completing: - Accept and feel your feelings--do not push them away - Trust yourself you can make it through, practice stress control - Understand and acknowledge every facets you have, do not deny - Assure yourself you want to keep these memories and experiences integrated, that your brain doesn't have to detach it for you

These tips above will lessen the chance of your stress and friction causing your brain to split a part of yourself into a new alter/fragment. --

How a split can manifest: - Creates a new alter/fragment This is when the part who is stressed intends to separate a quality, or a painful element out from its awareness. - Creates a subsystem This is when the part cannot fully detach a quality as it still retains a cohesive sense of connection, rather creating a less dissociative result of only detaching facets. Though still a part of the alter.

and - Amnesia-present split This is when the split was intended to create a barrier between memories, or other qualities it deems needed to be compartmentalized. Usually this type creates EPs - Amnesia-absent split This is when the split was intended for integration issues--though not done out of a need to separate or compartmentalize a quality. Usually this type create ANPs

All about fuse!

When it does the magic: - Bonding with other alters, understanding their views and emotions (Lvl 1) - Doing activities together, co-fronting together and have a seamless experience (Lvl 2) - Perceive them as a part of you and your identity, both still feel separately yet one (Pre-fuse)

When it comes to fuse, different levels of integration can be noticed, everything exists in a continuum ofcourse, just like how you can find different kinds of parts such as shards, fragments, and alters!

Detecting levels of Integration:

Level one: lowest form of integration, dissociative barriers still stands tall, but you are starting to learn and hear more insights and pov outside of your own. You can also start to recognize which alter who you are talking to without fail.

level two: Moderately getting there, you start to understand and feel other part's favorite activities and foods--and start to find joy and like them too! Thoughts and feelings flow much better, and you can vaguely understand what the others are feeling intuitively.

Pre-fuse/functional multiplicity: You can understand the in-and-out of a part or multiple, as in, you can understand why they feel, or do something. Oftentimes leaks of behavior, likes and dislikes, or thoughts got into you,, being a sign of achieving the lowest dissociation barrier. You still can choose to be multiple, but this is an effective moment to prune some member count or pursuing final fusion.

What to do when a fuse happen: - Integrate by accepting these aspects to further solidify and steady your new, fused self - Explore how you feel, learn to navigate your life again in a new state - Accept that fuse is part of a natural process, to lessen the chances of splitting (yes, you can split-relapse)

Sometimes, fuse is not as seamless either, it would take some time and practice in order to be one without popping off accidentally. If it doesn't work first time, don't worry! Keep practicing.

Takeaway: A Paper, Scissor, and Glue

So basically, your brain has a habit to snip up these paper to pieces, its up to you to let these pieces live or glue it back together,, there are no right or wrong ways to function!

May this guide, and the rest of the unplanned bonuses written along the way, be able to prepare you to when the next scissors will be picked up, and how to protect your integrity of the paper--or glue it back. Go attempt to freestyle. If you want my devious advice, it would be glueing the scissors, slam shut. All your problems would disappear aint it?

Happy paper-crafting, ciao.

--

TLDR SECTION

General Definitions

Split: To divide into parts (identity, memories, feelings).

Fuse: To join parts into a single entity (integrate dissociated parts).

Why Splits and Fuses Happen

Splits: A mechanism to handle overwhelming situations, detaching parts to maintain functionality.

Fuses: Integrating split parts to reduce fragmentation, enhancing awareness and skills.

Identifying Splits

Triggers: Stress, denial, need to separate qualities for functionality.

Pre-Split Signs: Mood swings, head pains, disorientation, forgetfulness, conflicting thoughts.

Handling Splits

Identify the cause.

Accept and support the new split part.

Determine what the split part holds.

Decide to let it complete a task, reintegrate, or heal.

Preventing Splits

Accept and process emotions.

Trust in handling stress.

Recognize and integrate all facets of yourself.

Reassure yourself to keep memories and experiences integrated.

Manifestations of Splits

New alter/fragment

Subsystem

Amnesia-present split (creates barriers for memories)

Amnesia-absent split (for integration issues)

Identifying Fuses

Levels of Integration:

Hearing and understanding other parts.

Enjoying activities and foods together, intuitive understanding.

Pre-fuse: Feeling as part of one identity with minimal barriers.

Handling Fuses

Accept and solidify the new fused self.

Explore feelings and navigate life anew.

Practice and embrace the process.

- j

[shoujophobic]

Beetlejuice and Civil Servitude: How Suicide is a major factor, but also isn't. (cw and sequel spoilers.)

I saw this post (by an anti) on Twitter, which made me mildy annoyed, but inspired enough to discuss this topic in my own, miniature thread.

And while I agree Otho is a con artist not to be trusted, of all his words these are the ones that were are actively shown to be, well, true. Especially through the sequel.

Miss Argentina says to the Maitlands, "This is what happens when you die," before stating that when she died she was put into a place of Servitude, and holds up her wrists. This implicates directly that her cause of death directly influenced her afterlife. This is even further proved by Juno, who has a slice in her throat, assumed to be by her own hand, and once again proving that Otho's words are in fact... truth.

But that's all in the original source: what about the Sequel?

Well, this is where the concept of Suicide and Civil Servitude gets confusing. Not that this actively proves the original theory/concept as false, but actually puts perspective on how terrible the afterlife actually is, and that it's just as corrupt as the living worlds method of life.

Beetlejuice was Juno's apprentice at one point, and he now works on his own through freelance. He still remains a servant to the dead, regardless of how he does it. But his actual cause of death as revealed in the flashback sequence in the sequel is that he didn't kill himself... Or did he?

We have to break down what the afterlife actively counts as self termination. Beetlejuice may not have intentionally killed himself, but he did willingly drink a mysterious liquid given by his newfound bride. And the afterlife clearly doesn't play fair already with its bias against those who are struggling—So his death was counted indirectly. This is also seen in Wolf Jackson, who died performing his own stunt. He willingly put himself in a dangerous position, but didn't mean to actually die, and yet, it was still marked as a suicide by whomever rules the afterlife.

So we can already discern that suicide, wether intentionally or not, will always land you in this position. What makes it more interesting is this little detail (credits not mine, unsure of the origin of this ss):

The news paper covers this unfair fact. Suicide, in the afterlife, is counted as any death caused by oneself, regardless of their being poisoned, in an accident, or genuine means to die.

So what is the point of this thread? Really, it's to further prove lore we already have, but expand on it and the facts we get handed.

Also, to dissect the Netherworld itself, and how it's not meant to be a perfect afterlife, but rather a neutral, means to an end. There is no heaven nor hell, but there's also no fairness. The afterlife is just as dull as life.

I think this should also explain why Lydia's deceased husband, Richard, was in civil service, despite having no motivation to kill himself. The reality would be that he didn't, but his death was ruled as one anyways due to the set of circumstances in place. But why wouldn't Delia also be counted? That one... I don't know. Likely to prevent the plot from stopping, but also possibly that because deaths are finally being looked at fairly, and that accidental suicides, aren't marked as such.

[pastelwoolfie]

idk if it’s obvious but i am unfortunately a bayverse girlie (i grew up on those films the nostalgia and personal value they hold are unparalleled) and im on ANOTHER of my bayverse moments 😋😋

specifically abt dark of the moon

in the 3rd act of the film, when, you know. sentinel prime does his sentinel prime and fucking SUCKS ASS optimus has his scene where he’s all ‘oh yeah. i’m optimus prime!’ and proceeds to murk everything in his vicinity?? yeah well. my ass kill-counted that scene. these are the findings:

optimus eradicates 10 deceptions in 32 seconds. 7 of those seconds is him travelling from unnamed deception #9 to shockwave, and a zoom-in of the transformation of his fucking?? bear claws??

optimus kills 10 deceptions in 25 seconds of movie. the sequence is slowed down/is in a partial slowmo. brother completely murks 10 cons in ~15 seconds.

that it 1.5 seconds per con.

that is what i mean when i say optimus crime.

[raayllum]

PAWN-OF-AARAVOS DARK-MAGIC-SCARRED CALLUM WITH LITERAL BLOOD ON HIS HANDS IN THE TRAILER

HOW DOES THAT VINDICATION FEEL?

I love that Claudia gets the white hair and he gets the facial scarring, just like you speculated about! They’re two sides of the same coin!

Also ICARUS CALLUM? HE FLIES TOO HIGH AND HIS WINGS FALL APART? THEY’RE JUST GIVING US EVERYTHING

Listen we Knew ever since he got that cube he'd be a pawn and worried about it (+ increased Claudia and Viren parallels to boot), the blood on his hands even in a dream was a lovely wish come true already, and white streak Callum will always be famous but I gotta say I am loving the corrupted face variant, showing the initial inklings of corruption

I already talked about it in my trailer breakdown post and it's like that singular screencap is Crazy, it's Nuts like the implications no matter which way you play it? Because it's clearly a nightmare or scary vision sequence and like

If it's Rayla's nightmare (the way Runaan is), that means she knows what he did on Finnegrin's boat and that she's scared of what Callum's becoming—Rayla, who's had more faith than arguably anyone that Callum is special ("No, Callum's different!") and amazing with or without his magic ("Humans could take their fates and change them" / "He's noble, and true") and so confident that his destiny was a book he could write himself she refused to even consider the possibility of her needing to be his (and the world's) safety net, because Callum has regularly done the impossible. If her confidence in him is shaken, his must be abysmal

However, if it's Callum's nightmare or vision or whatever (and that's what I'm leaning towards) it does show a shift of sorts. I'm gonna copy and paste what I've said earlier about it and then go into more detail if well, there's detail to go into:

We know from 6x01 details that he has a nightmare regarding Aaravos, and we also know from people at cons that this screencap was not there. Looking at the scene itself, the deep purple lighting highlights that it’s not quite 'real’, nor is it necessarily possible due to the background being Finnegrin’s office on the Sea Legs, where Callum last did dark magic. I could very easily see this being a dream where Callum is having horrifying visions of himself outside his body, and this is one. I do find it interesting that, rather than black dark magic slug goop like I first thought on his hand, it’s actually blood on his hand, and the changes this indicates of Callum’s psyche / fears. Normally when Callum breaks things (primal stone, moon opal necklace, the green slug) it’s with his other hand, for starters. But more importantly, I think it’s interesting that this nightmare isn’t Just about being flat out possessed, but of being more of a dark mage: the eyes, the corruption, the blood, etc. and how that may lead to Aaravos’ will being further enforced over him. It speaks to a recognition of his own agency as well as growing fears of being not just controlled, but corrupted along the way.

One of Callum's greatest assets has always been his self awareness. He's intelligent, attentive, growing in confidence in his own capabilities for more than just magic. This is one of his biggest differences from both Viren and Claudia. However, this awareness of what he could do—what Aaravos could get him to do, possession or otherwise—may make him more stressed, worried, fearful, and paranoid.

Additionally acknowledged is that like in S4 and even in 6x01 Callum seemed mostly concerned with being possessed, as stated. Obviously S4 still had indications it was going to grow into More than just "what if my agency is stripped away" to "what if my agency is stripped away (and it's 'my' fault / because of my previous choices)" from Callum himself ("What if I'm on a path of darkness" is no longer a flimsily founded worry) and even from other characters like Soren ("I know you love magic, Callum, but I hope you're careful, 'cause it can change people").

Which makes sense! Possession is a loss of agency and that's accordingly terrifying, esp to a character like Callum who is the thematic embodiment of Freedom in the series and who cares about agency and being able to Do things 110%. Just having your agency stripped away from you wholesale, though, doesn't give much of a character arc — even if Callum only makes decisions out of paranoia next season > love, he's still making decisions — so like... He can and should be worried about his choices and what they may lead to, honestly. Not only is there set up, it's a much more standard TDP storyline (when is anyone ever let off the hook?) and it's more interesting. Callum is also very good at keeping his fears logically grounded (i.e. not worrying about Viren after 3x09, but stressed about not being a mage in s2) so that's another point in the "yeah this is Setup" column alongside 5x08 and... all of s4 and s5 honestly. So this screencap is very exciting cause it seems Callum is having increased fear and self awareness about his previous dark magic use and the possibility of using it or doing something else he considers awful in the future and I can't wait!

Icarus chose to fly too close to the sun after all

[markantonys]

a few more tidbits this morning!

first, new synopsis:

nothing surprising here, but that it again confirms moiraine-egwene interactions which imo reaffirms egwene actually physically reaching the waste at some point

next, prime's official list of major s3 cast:

shohreh confirmed! but we already knew that. and her being listed here among the Major Secondary Characters makes me think elaida will have a good-sized role in s3, not that that's a surprise.

could sophie being listed right after liandrin and lanfear on the list of secondaries be an indication of the size of siuan's role in the season? of course, it could also simply be that she's a big star and thus gets higher billing, so might not be worth reading into.

finally, alanna and maksim are listed among the major cast, but ihvon is not. could this mean ihvon is the warder who dies in the opening sequence? not a great look colorism-wise, especially since it is ihvon who survives and the other warder who dies in the books, but on the other hand, they had to recast ihvon for s3 (wotseries had been speculating that for a while and in the brief glimpse we saw of him in the trailer i think it does look like a different actor), so it could be that they were planning to kill maksim (i feel like his convo with alanna in s2 where he admits he's afraid of what's to come could have been setup for his death), but then ihvon's actor couldn't return for s3 so they had to recast him and thus changed plans to kill ihvon instead in order to keep the guy the audience is more familiar with.

finally, screenrant description of the portion of the opening scene that was shown at the con:

my big question here is, what the hell are rand and moiraine doing in tar valon??? after what went down in 2x07? they are the tower's most wanted criminals at this point! i have a couple vague theories off the top of my head.

i will also add in this trailer screenshot:

this appears to be tar valon (architectural style match, and greenery growing on the buildings). there IS an off-chance that this is actually a different city, perhaps caemlyn which is also ogier-built and might look similar, and that the cut described above is misleading and it's actually heading over to catch up with moiraine and rand in a different city. but it feels more likely that this shot of moiraine is her in tar valon (i also remember a report of a rain machine being used on the tar valon set), although whether it's the same as the shot described above or is from a totally different scene, who knows.

also interesting to note that i THINK she's wearing her falme outfit here - that white shirt underneath looks the same:

so that supports the idea that this shot of her in the rain is from the opening sequence. my theory would thus be that she took the gang through the falme waygate to the tar valon hilltop waygate pretty promptly after the battle, without even time to change clothes.

but why would she do that? a couple theories:

after getting the wondergirls' intel, she says "fuck it if it's a huge risk, i HAVE to go back to tar valon asap to warn siuan about liandrin, this info can't wait and is too sensitive to risk giving to someone else to deliver" (this feels absolutely logical, but idk why she would risk bringing rand into the city with her, unless he stubbornly insisted on coming for whatever reason)

moiraine and rand are planning to sneakily break into the city unnoticed by the tower in order to get their hands on some prophecy books. hmmm, maybe rand remembers finding the karaetheon cycle at that inn and wants to go back for it? (window architectural analysis weigh-in: the windows in the s1 inn do not match the window where rand's having his possible bubble of evil moment in the trailer)

now that rand is officially declared dragon, moiraine's plan for the next move is to make another attempt to get siuan on their side, so she takes him to tar valon in hopes of brokering a more positive meeting. feels insanely risky, but hey, moiraine might be enough at her wits' end to give it a go since idk if she's ever had any plan besides "find the dragon and make sure the tower supports him"

moiraine and siuan's big fight was indeed all for show and they're still in cahoots (i never really bought this theory because i don't see why siuan would've continued putting on a front even at the waygate when the only witnesses are moiraine, lan, and rand, but i suppose you never know)

now, if *tar valon* is the Full Gang Starting Location, then that at least means the girls and mat are where they need to be straightaway. but it doesn't explain WHY they go to the white tower instead of accompanying their crew to the waste/two rivers; mat's traumatized by the white tower, and nynaeve and egwene both seem very set up to feel that the tower has failed at teaching them and offers them nothing of value anymore. why go back? maybe moiraine wants them to keep an eye on things in the tower? maybe moiraine and siuan manage to meet and reconcile in ep1 and siuan takes the girls back with her? maybe siuan or some other aes sedai or elayne's brothers happen to run into the girls (with mat) on the street and forcibly escort them back to the tower? much to wonder about!

[baladaenmediodelacaceria]

El idioma de los pájaros, Richard Siken

1

Un hombre observó un pájaro y lo encontró hermoso. Dentro del pájaro había una canción, y plumas. A veces el hombre se sentía como el pájaro y a veces como una piedra—dura, inevitable— pero casi siempre como un pájaro, o como si tuviera dentro un pájaro, o como si algo en su interior aleteara como un pájaro. Así fue durante mucho tiempo.

2

Un hombre observó un pájaro y quiso pintarlo. De haber un problema, estaba en la pregunta. ¿Por qué pintar un pájaro? ¿Qué sentido tiene? No el cómo, ya sabemos que los cómo son fáciles—serie o secuencia, paso a paso— sino existencialmente ¿por qué molestarse?, ¿de qué sirve?

Y no porque desees pintar un pájaro o porque en efecto lo hagas, significa que lograste algo. ¿Quién tiene derecho a medir la distancia entre la experiencia y la representación? ¿Quién fija los límites de la investigación? Nosotros. Cualquiera puede.

Mirlo, dice. Que así sea, indexado y normativo. Pero no es un pájaro, es un hombre con traje de pájaro, hombros azules en lugar de plumas, porque lo que mira mientras pinta no es un pájaro de verdad, lo que mira es su corazón; es decir, lo imposible.

Salvo que su corazón sea una metáfora de su corazón, y ya sabemos que cada cosa es su propio espejo, por eso mirar la pintura es como mirar un pájaro que no está ahí, que lleva en la garganta un canto que no quieres oír, pero no dejas de pintar.

La mano es una voz que puede cantar lo que la voz no. La mano quiere hacer algo útil. A veces de noche, en la cama, antes de dormirme, pienso en el poema que quizá escriba algún día sobre mi corazón, dice el corazón.

3

Miraron a los animales. Miraron las paredes de la cueva. Hablo de un tiempo remoto, de hombres diferentes. Pintaron a la luz de las antorchas: casi siempre rojo, a veces negro— Mamut, león, caballo, oso— cosas en la pared, de perfil o superpuestas, dinámicas y en alerta.

No lo eran, pero parecían animales, lo suficiente para confundir, significaban algo pero el sentido era escurridizo: no estaba ahí, pero permanecía, parecía la cosa pero no lo era —se trataba de una segunda cosa que seguía un segundo conjunto de reglas— y era demasiado tarde: su poder ya no era absoluto.

¿Qué está vivo y qué no lo está y cómo respondemos a eso? Teorías: sobre la naturaleza de la cosa. Y del alma. Porque las personas mueren. El miedo: que nada sobreviva. El miedo mayor: que algo sí lo haga.

El cielo nocturno es vasto e infinito.

Se acurrucaron, hombro con hombro, se pintaron a sí mismos en manadas, todos juntos y separados del resto. Miraron el cielo, el barro, sus manos en el barro y a sus amigos muertos en el barro. Así fue durante mucho tiempo.

4

Ser un pájaro, formar parte de una bandada con un rumbo fijo, uno o muchos, estornino, ya sea uno solo o varios volando. Ser un hombre en una colina, o todos los hombres en todas las colinas, o medio hombre temblando en la bandada de sí mismo.

El cielo nocturno es vasto e infinito.

Un hombre tenía dos pájaros en la cabeza— no en la garganta, ni en el pecho— y los pájaros cantarían todo el día, sin descanso. El hombre pensó para sí mismo, Uno de estos pájaros no es mío. Los pájaros asintieron.

The Language of the Birds Richard Siken

1

A man saw a bird and found him beautiful. The bird had a song inside him, and feathers. Sometimes the man felt like the bird and sometimes the man felt like a stone—solid, inevitable—but mostly he felt like a bird, or that there was a bird inside him, or that something inside him was like a bird fluttering. This went on for a long time.

2

A man saw a bird and wanted to paint it. The problem, if there was one, was simply a problem with the question. Why paint a bird? Why do anything at all? Not how, because hows are easy—series or sequence, one foot after the other—but existentially why bother, what does it solve?

And just because you want to paint a bird, do actually paint a bird, it doesn’t mean you’ve accomplished anything. Who gets to measure the distance between experience and its representation? Who controls the lines of inquiry? We do. Anyone can.

Blackbird, he says. So be it, indexed and normative. But it isn’t a bird, it’s a man in a bird suit, blue shoulders instead of feathers, because he isn’t looking at a bird, real bird, as he paints, he is looking at his heart, which is impossible.

Unless his heart is a metaphor for his heart, as everything is a metaphor for itself, so that looking at the paint is like looking at a bird that isn’t there, with a song in its throat that you don’t want to hear but you paint anyway.

The hand is a voice that can sing what the voice will not, and the hand wants to do something useful. Sometimes, at night, in bed, before I fall asleep, I think about a poem I might write, someday, about my heart, says the heart.

3

They looked at the animals. They looked at the walls of the cave. This is earlier, these are different men. They painted in torchlight: red mostly, sometimes black—mammoth, lion, horse, bear—things on a wall, in profile or superimposed, dynamic and alert.

They weren’t animals but they looked like animals, enough like animals to make it confusing, meant something but the meaning was slippery: it wasn’t there but it remained, looked like the thing but wasn’t the thing—was a second thing, following a second set of rules—and it was too late: their power over it was no longer absolute.

What is alive and what isn’t and what should we do about it? Theories: about the nature of the thing. And of the soul. Because people die. The fear: that nothing survives. The greater fear: that something does.

The night sky is vast and wide.

They huddled closer, shoulder to shoulder, painted themselves in herds, all together and apart from the rest. They looked at the sky, and at the mud, and at their hands in the mud, and their dead friends in the mud. This went on for a long time.

4

To be a bird, or a flock of birds doing something together, one or many, starling or murmuration. To be a man on a hill, or all the men on all the hills, or half a man shivering in the flock of himself. These are some choices.

The night sky is vast and wide.

A man had two birds in his head—not in his throat, not in his chest—and the birds would sing all day never stopping. The man thought to himself, One of these birds is not my bird. The birds agreed.

[fuckyeahizzyhands]

Con: I think the show deserves a season three whether I'm involved in it or not. It was always David's dream to make three seasons. I would be gutted for him if season three didn't happen. As far as Izzy being involved, that's entirely up to David Jenkins.

Screen Rant: I did some Googling, and I found articles. One of them was titled “Our Flag Means Death Season Two's Best Character Isn’t Who You Think”, and it was talking about Izzy. The other one was “Izzy Hands is the Real Star of Our Flag Means Death Season Two”. Those were both headlines I found. What was it like to find out what Izzy’s journey this season was going to be? It’s had such an impact on so many people.

Con O’Neill: David and I spoke about it quite a lot before we shot, about the redemptive qualities, and I was delighted that we didn't suddenly turn him into a saint overnight. I was delighted that the redemption was complicated and layered, and I don't feel that Izzy disappears in any of it. I think he's very much who he always was, but with slightly more of an open soul. I was so grateful to David and the writers for creating an arc that was playable rather than Hollywood-ized and too easy. It was challenging; it was a very, very lonely shoot for me. I found myself gravitating towards my own company most of the time, mainly because of the hours. And, because if I wasn’t shooting, I was learning to walk on that f***ing leg. If I wasn’t doing that, I was sword training, and if I wasn’t doing that, I was body training, and if I wasn’t doing that, I was recording a song in French. So, I was busy. Our group is a group of beautiful people, and we would meet every Sunday for lunch. Christine used to arrange that. I found myself initially quite hesitant to join that, because it felt like I had this weight on my shoulders, certainly for the first four episodes. I loved it as an actor. I found it really challenging as a man on his own in New Zealand, where it rains [a lot].

Screen Rant: I'm a music nerd, and kind of a musical theater nerd; my favorite episode of this is the one where you're singing in it. I love those sequences so much, your voice is insane, and it's such a good character moment. How did the decision to make that happen—singing, and specifically that song--come about? Did they write that for you because they knew you were a singer?

Con O’Neill: We’re all walking around backstage, telling jokes, playing music, and singing; that’s just what happens when you shoot a show. David called me up while I was in Wellington. I was in Wellington for a week shooting something else. He called me up and he asked me if I knew “La vie en rose”; I knew it, vaguely, but I don't speak French at all. Then, he mentioned that they wanted to do it in an episode. So, I learned the English version, Dean Martin’s version, and then they asked me if I could learn the French version. I don't speak a word of French, not a word, but my partner does, and I had a friend who just played Edith Piaf piano—Jenna (Russell)--and between the two of them, they taught me the French version of the song. If somebody had asked me prior to this, “What song would Izzy sing?” “La vie en rose” would never have entered my head. And now, there's no other song that fits. That's the genius of David. David's very clever with music. We know that--we’ve all experienced how clever he is—but to pick that song for him, at that point in his life? Yeah. F***ing hell. That was genius.

Screen Rant: Your character died this season. How far in advance did you know that, and did that affect how you approached or thought about the season?

Con O’Neill: No. I mean, to be honest, I felt it was going that way. I've been around a long time, and when a character starts this kind of arc, especially in something as interesting as our show is… When David took me out for dinner, I kind of thought this was where it was going, and, partly, I was relieved. I'm not an actor who likes to just repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. And, I knew that Ed and Stede were going to end up together at the end of this season, so Izzy, as he stands, wouldn't make any sense to still be there. So, it was a relief that the decision was being made. I was a bit upset because I love playing him, but leave them wanting more, you know? I will be eternally grateful for what they gave me; how they played him out in the show. The beautiful speech they gave me, the opportunity to do “La vie en rose”, and the opportunity to die in Taika’s arms and to be able to honor that relationship… I couldn't have asked for a better play-off, really.

Screen Rant: This season did introduce, with the Gravy Basket, the potential for someone who has passed on to return. If there was a season three, do you think your character would have anything else to impart on Stede or Blackbeard in a similar scenario?

Con O’Neill: You’d have to ask David Jenkins. I don't know where David wants to take it, and I wouldn't preempt that with me making up stories for Izzy in a flashback or ghostie Izzy, or whatever. I have no idea where David wants season three to go. I think the show deserves a season three whether I'm involved in it or not. It was always David's dream to make three seasons. I would be gutted for him if season three didn't happen. As far as Izzy being involved, that's entirely up to David Jenkins.

Screen Rant: So much of this season and Izzy’s journey is his relationship with Edward and his love for Edward, and so much of the conflict is about how much Edward is changing. Did you have an understanding of what version of Blackbeard, or Edward, that Izzy was looking for, and wanting to be around?

Con O’Neill: That’s a great f***ing question. Between season one and season two, in the interim, Izzy experiences a broken Blackbeard, and a Blackbeard that's never going to go back to what he was, because he's heartbroken. Everyone who's been heartbroken knows that you never go back to who [you] were. He just wants to fix Blackbeard. That's why he takes his life in his hands by confronting Blackbeard; he just wants Blackbeard to be fixed, to find his soul again, [and] to find his heart again. Whether he's involved in that is not relevant. What's relevant is, he loves Blackbeard so much that he wants him to find himself again. So, it's never Izzy’s version of Blackbeard that Izzy’s looking for. He's looking for Blackbeard to find himself again, and that's only through Stede.

Screen Rant: I was looking up the real-life Izzy Hands, who testified against allies to get a pardon and supposedly died a beggar in the streets of London years later. Would you have been interested in that, dramatically, if that was how his story ended on the show?

Con O’Neill: No, that's not our show. We're not historically [accurate to] those times. If we were, they wouldn’t have cast a guy who is 50 to play a 16-year-old pirate. I don't know. I'd love to be able to tell you what area that season three, if it ever happens, would go, but I literally have no idea. I don't think we're going to go down the historical route. I’d be very surprised if we do that.

Screen Rant: I don’t know if you’ll have an answer for me, but I saw that you initially auditioned for a different role. I love Taika so much; I feel like you would have also made a great Blackbeard. Is that who you were going for, initially?

Con O’Neill: Absolutely not, but thank you for saying that. I don’t see anyone else as Blackbeard but Taika. When Taika was announced, I knew what our show was. But no, it wasn’t Blackbeard. And no, I’m not going to tell you.

Screen Rant: Okay. Perfect. Well, clearly it all worked out for the best. I mean, you're incredible, and the whole cast is so perfect in their roles. It's been a pleasure to watch you and… yeah, congrats on the show.

Con O’Neill: Thank you so much.

[therealmrrobinson]

THUNDERBOLTS* Spoiler-Free Review

Another Phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has come to a close. The films of Phase 5, or the second phase of Marvel’s Multiverse Saga, has certainly been a rough one. The opening film, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania ended up being the first movie in the franchise that I actively disliked. Considering how many films the MCU has, it’s pretty impressive that it took 15 years to get a movie that I don’t like; however it took away any lasting enthusiasm I had for this long running cinematic universe. Which is why it brings me great joy that the final film in Phase 5, Thunderbolts* is the Marvel Cinematic Universe at its finest.

PROS

What has always drawn me to the MCU, are how relatable these larger than life characters can be. The characters take front and center stage in this film, and all of them have a major element in common; a sense of uselessness. The team consists of people who have done a lot wrong in their lives, and have been abandoned by or lost the people that gave their lives meaning. Leading this group of outcasts is Yelena Belova, once again played by Florence Pugh. Given how much this character has dealt with since her introduction in Black Widow, she’s the best choice to be the lead. Pugh continues to give Yelena a sense of innocence despite the fact that she’s essentially a trained assassin. She feels lost with losing her sister forever and not being in contact with her father Alexei/Red Guardian played again by David Harbour. So when she meets the other characters contracted by her boss Valentina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), they end up feeling like a support group as the movie progresses. Both Florence Pugh and David Harbour have the most comedic moments like in Black Widow, but their relationship is further explored and results in one of the films most powerful sequences.

Another stand out is Bucky Barnes, once again played by Sebastian Stan. He’s the one character that has been through everything that the rest of the characters are going through. As an audience we saw him dealing with loss, doing a lot of terrible things as the Winter Soldier, and how he came out on the other side! He doesn’t get much in terms of new character development, but he ends up being more of an unofficial mentor character to the others.

As for the other two members of this team, Ava Starr/Ghost makes her big return since debuting in Ant-Man and the Wasp. She was certainly a sympathetic character in that film, but was more or less a really cool obstacle for the heroes to fight. In this film though, Hannah John-Kamen has more material to work with and gives this character more personality. John Walker/U.S. Agent was a character that I wasn’t quite ready to feel any sort of investment in. The way they ended his time on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, felt rushed and asked us to have some sort of sympathy towards him when none was warranted. This movie does a good job at making him more sympathetic and one of the films standouts.

Villain-wise you have Julia Louis-Dreyfus returning as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. This movie allows her to really have fun with the character after playing Valentina in small supporting roles. She is more of the films villain than the villain who has been marketed in the trailers, Bob/Sentry/Void played by Lewis Pullman. When comparing these two villains, Valentina is undeniably the main antagonist; very guilty and works behind the scenes to get her goals accomplished while trying to avoid criminal prosecution. Bob on the other hand is a victim. The film states that he has had a troubled past, has been abused by Valentina, and suffers from mental health issues. It’s a great contrast to the Thunderbolts themselves who are suffering from similar issues. Whenever Yelena and Bob share the screen together, their chemistry really works, and further proves that Yelena is the perfect candidate to lead this team.

CONS

There’s not a lot in terms of specific problems with Thunderbolts*.The movie does suffer from some terrible pacing issues. This mostly occurs when the movie quickly cuts back and forth between two different scenes and doesn’t give each scene enough time to fully play out. As a result, it was a bit difficult to get as emotionally invested as the movie wanted me to.

As for Taskmaster, she once again gets the short end of the stick. If you didn’t like how this character was handled in Black Widow, you’re most likely going to be even more disappointed with how Thunderbolts* handled her.

OVERALL

I’m not exactly sure what movie Marvel was marketing with the trailers, but what Thunderbolts* ended up being was one of the best films of Marvel’s Multiverse Saga. It’s the most heartfelt movie since the third Guardians of the Galaxy film, has some of the franchise’s best action since Shang-Chi, and feels like the Marvel Cinematic Universe at it’s prime. With movies like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Captain America: Brave New World, I was starting to feel MCU burnout and didn’t find myself invested anymore. Thunderbolts* actually got me excited for the future to come, especially with The Fantastic Four: First Steps kicking off Phase Six this July.

RATING

WORTH SEEING IN YOUR LIFETIME

[critical-reading-of-harry-potter]

patches liveblogs the sorcerer's stone

chapter 1

mr dursley sees a bunch of people in the street in cloaks and his first thought isn't that there's a con happening. oh how the times have changed since 1997 (i assume. i wasn't there)

there's a post going around somewhere about how owls would be terrible messenger animals, actually

alright ill give rowling this, the prose is pretty engaging

"[Mr. Dursley] hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imaging things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination" (5 [see 1]) got a genuine laugh out of me

lots of emphasis on how the dursleys are Normal, Which Means Boring (basically the entire first sequence with the dursleys), and therefore anything they think is Weird is (implicitly) Good

dumbledore being introduced with "nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive" (8) where "everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome" (9) sets him up immediately as someone we should like and trust. this is pretty obvious but also neatly done

when dumbledore uses the deluminator to make the street so dark that none of the muggles can see anything-- it's a lovely poetic image, but isn't there like light pollution? and stars?

fine i guess it could be cloudy

ok genuinely, why are wizards so afraid of muggles finding out about them? (in-universe -- i get The Masquerade is a whole thing and is kinda built into the story so i wont question it too much)

like i get 500 years ago or whatever with the witch trials

but like these days nobody would (be able to) persecute them and also i dont think most people would care that much?

so is it just tradition? or is there something im missing

ive always been so on board with dumbledore's insistence on using voldemort's name. name the thing you're afraid of so you can face your fear

mcgonagall describing dumbledore as "noble" because he refuses to go to the dark side use the dark arts (11) like?? girl that's just what being Good is, you choose. every. day. to do good instead of evil. that's all that sets those things apart.

hmmmm actually. this may be relevant to how rowling conceptualizes good and evil as inherent qualities...

wow dumbledore getting a LOT of use out of lemon drops as a tactic for evasion

hagrid's described as "almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide" (14) -- but (iirc) never as fat. interesting considering the constant emphasis on dudley and vernon dursley's fatness

dumbledore has a scar over his left knee that's a perfect map of the london underground (15)?? this is so funny why does he say this, it literally never comes up again im,,,

hagrid vs dumbledore vs mcgonagall's reactions to leaving harry at privet drive (15-16) sets up their relationships with him nicely: dumbledore and mcgonagall more reserved but still a bit misty-eyed, hagrid openly crying and pronouncing his care for harry

i read hagrid's behavior here as straight-up caring for harry and not trying to hide itwhere mcgonagall and dumbledore are trying to maintain a facade of distance. but that's not how the scene is framed

even this early on, hagrid's being set up as rough, uneducated, wild (literally; see p. 14; also see his directly transcribed accent, where most other characters speak in proper english), in contrast with mcgonagall's strict proper tough love and dumbledore's eccentric whimsy as a cover for deeper care

here, hagrid's overt emotionality comes off as another effect of his wildness, whereas mcgonagall and dumbledore's stiff upper lips appear proper/educated in comparison

this is perhaps indicative of rowling's (potentially subconscious) take on emotionality/masculinity and class divides. (will have to think more about that one)

chapter 2

[1] my copy of this book is the american paperback, ISBN 0-590-35342-X