#i consider the thing to be done and it's already june 16 where i am so here we are.

[licollisa]

In which Papyrus attends a talkshow.

[aicaptures]

Twice "Ready to Be" - My first ever concert experience!

October 1, 2023 - I attended my first ever concert. The whole experience was exhilarating, fun, and my voice was hoarse for a week but I'd happily do it all over again (I'll be getting a closer seat next time!)

FOR CONTEXT - I started liking K-pop way back 2013 when my friends performed I got a Boy by Girls Generation during our school's Foundation Day when we were in our third year high school. Even though I don't understand the lyrics, I think what got me hooked with it was the vibe, beat, and how powerful some K-pop songs were. My K-pop playlist is my go-to in Spotify whenever I need a booster whenever I feel sleepy or I need to get things done at work.

I have been a Badminton player ever since I was in fifth grade. My parents are also Badminton players and they greatly influenced me to play the sport. My parents are members of a Badminton group where majority of the other members are their friends. It was only me and another kid that belonged to the "younger members" list but there was a time where we met a group of teenagers in the Badminton court where we usually go to. They played with us and then we invited them to join our group and they gladly accepted. In that group, I met my so-called "Badminton crush" (but this is all in the past now, okay? Haha) and one time during our quarterly Badminton tournament, he brought his own speakers and played Heart Shaker by Twice while I was warming up before my game. I saw him dancing the steps while laughing with his friends and found it cute that's why I got curious about the song and the artist and that's how I started to know and liked Twice. I think this was around 2019-2020?

And by the way, my bias in Twice (favorite singer or band member in an idol group) is Dahyun but I love the other members too!

FAST FORWARD - February 2023, JYP Entertainment announced that Twice will be having their third world tour and Philippines is included in their Southeast Asia stops. I got excited because the last time that they came to the Philippines, I was not able to secure a ticket. I just felt happy that they are coming back here and I wondered if I can go to their concert but also feared that I cannot be able to because my parents would be angry with me if they knew that I bought a concert ticket (I don't hate them for that but I grew up not having most of what I wanted when I was younger because for them it is a waste of money).

Early June 2023, I got the news that I will be laid off. I was so lost that time because I have no plans of resigning from my position any time soon because I was actually supposed to be trained for a promotion but unfortunately, they had to hire people from a different agency which meant that they had to let some people go to make room for those and I was one of them.

I received what they called a "retirement package" or compensation for the employees that got laid off. It was enough to last me for a bit (This is considering all my bills for a month and it could easily last me for at least 6-8 months if ever I don't get a job quickly) so I started considering buying a ticket. I had the money that time but I am worried to go alone because it was my first time so there are a lot of things that I do not know yet. I don't know if it was fate (but maybe it was) because my bestfriend Lolyn told me that she wants to go to the concert too. Now both of my problems are resolved - I have money and someone to go to the concert with.

The ticket selling for their show on September 30 was scheduled last June 15. I was having my PC professionally cleaned that time so I queued at exactly 10 am in the shop using my cellular data for the ticket selling but I got placed 64000th. I already lost hope because I think in less than an hour the concert was already declared sold out.

After I got home, I saw in Facebook that they will be having another show on October 1 and another round of ticket selling for it last June 16. Lolyn and I came up with several ideas on how we can get tickets - we contacted someone to help us find a valid session link and they will give it to us (It's not illegal but for those that were able to get into the website early, their session is still valid for I think 10 minutes and they can share it with other people so that they can buy tickets as well without having to queue) and then we queued on all our available devices.

June 16 came and then I asked my sisters (they're twins, by the way) to help me out. It was nerve-wracking because every link that we tried always cuts off midway due to network traffic but luckily, the session that was on my PC went through and I immediately got 2 tickets for me and Lolyn. I was crying that time because I was nervous as heck and then I laughed it off after I received the online receipt because it was a success!

D-DAY - Concert day came and I wasn't able to get some sleep hahaha. I went to Lolyn's house because her sister is going to drive us there. There were four of us attending - Lolyn, me, her sister, and their family friend. I bought their light stick or "Candybong" (the name of the Twice' light stick), their only official merch that I have. We got to the venue early because we aimed to get a good parking spot. We got some food from Burger King in the gas station near the venue (Philippine Arena in Bocaue, Bulacan) and then we ate it in the car after settling down. The doors are scheduled to open at 5pm (if I remember correctly) because the show will start at 6pm. After eating and then staying in the car until around 3pm, we decided to go out and line up. We got a bit lost because there's so many Onces in the venue but we eventually found where we need to line up. While on the line, there were a lot of Onces with freebies so we got some! We got stickers, bracelets, and headbands!

CONCERT EXPERIENCE - The whole 3 hours that they were performing, I was always shouting. I can hear my seatmates laughing because of loud I was but I can't help it hahaha. Every member performed their special numbers and there were also parts where they performed as a group or by threes (since there are nine Twice members in total). Aside from shouting, I sang my heart out, jumped, participated in the wave (there's this thing with K-pop concerts where they start a wave using their light sticks and the crowd will follow), caught some confettis as souvenir, and took lots and lots of pictures and videos.

There are times that I felt the whole arena moving with us as we jump hahahaha and its definitely one of those moments where I felt the most alive. I was so happy being a part of that ocean that day.

Thank you, Twice!

In the next post, I'll share some pictures and clips of me that day!

[bills-bible-basics]

Gay and Lesbian Agenda Graphic 16 Graphic created by #BillKochman for #BillsBibleBasics. Visit the BBB Graphics Library at https://www.billkochman.com/Graphics-Library/ to see all my graphics with related Bible studies. Whether some of you realize it or not, our nation has been slip sliding away for literally decades. However, the slide has been so slow, so gradual, and so subtle, that it wasn't until about halfway through the decade of the 2010s that a lot of people really began to wake up to what has been going on. However, sadly, by that time, it was already too late. Serious damage had already been done, and the victory had already been won. What has been going on since then basically amounts to mopping up exercises and tying up the loose ends. And boy are they doing a good job of it! So exactly what am I talking about? Well, do you remember a few decades ago -- back in the 1970s, actually -- when the LGBT crowd began claiming that they just wanted to be left alone to live their lives as they please? Fast-forward forty years. Then came gender reassignment surgery. Then came renegade, liberal circuit court judges who repeatedly overturned the will of the people. Then came renegade, liberal state legislatures who likewise overturned the will of the people. Then came civil unions. Then on June 26, 2015 came nationwide legalization of same-sex "marriage" by mandate of the Supreme Court of the United States, despite the majority of the American people being opposed to it. Then came openly gay or lesbian bishops, pastors, priests, politicians, actors, sports figures, and everyone in between. Then came same-sex union blessings in some of the churches. Then came adoption of normal, healthy children by same-sex couples. Then came law suits against Christians and Conservatives who follow their hearts and their faith, and who oppose the LGBT life style. Then came library books which openly promote the LGBT life style. Then came gender-neutral bathrooms. Then came drag queens in our public schools during children's story hour. Then came teaching LGBT history in the classroom. Then came liberal parents who encourage their children to act and dress like the opposite sex. Then came hormone injections, puberty-blocking drugs in young children and double mastectomies on adolescent girls in order to alter their natural-born physiology so that they could appear outwardly the way that they were being made to feel inwardly by misguided adults and parents. Then came a gender-neutral option on birth certificates. Now they promote their ungodly life style in every area of the entertainment and mass media industries where they possibly can, and constantly shove it in our faces. It is inescapable; unless one goes and lives in a cave. Yes, but of course, as they said, they just wanted to be left alone. Right? If you believe that nonsense, then you are seriously deceived! What about us? What about our right to live in a Bible-based, God-fearing society which honors and obeys God's natural order of things? How much longer will God endure this madness and rebellion against His holy Laws? When will His patience finally run out? When will His judgments begin to fall on the wicked who mock Him everyday, and who cast His Word to the ground? As the Apostle John wrote some two thousand years ago: "And‭ we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness." 1 John 5:19, KJV If John were alive today, oh how he would shudder! If you would like to further explore this issue, please consider reading all of the study resources which are listed below. God bless you, and thanks so much! Article: "The Gay and Lesbian Agenda: To the Point!": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/homosex1.html Article: "Future of Same-Sex Marriage": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/future-of-same-sex-marriage-01.html Article: "When Sin is No Longer a Sin!": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/whensin1.html

Article: "Queen James Bible: Blasphemous Abomination Exposed!": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/queen-james-bible-1.html Article: "Biblical Marriage Ceremonies": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/marriage1.html "Homosexuality Lesbianism Bestiality Transvestitism" KJV Bible Verse List: https://www.billkochman.com/VerseLists/verse138.html Magazine Article: "The Overhauling of Straight America": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles-Non-BBB/overhaul.html Article: "The Gay Gene?": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles-Non-BBB/gaygene1.html By the way, when we come to Jesus Christ and are reborn in the Spirit, the Scriptures make it very clear that we should undergo a spiritual and mental change in our lives, and that we should in fact become NEW CREATURES in Jesus Christ. We should NOT remain the same, living our same old life style, and living in our same old sins. That means that people who belong to the LGBTQ crowd should NOT continue practicing their sexual deviancy. Here is Scriptural proof: "God's Desire for Healing and Repentance" KJV Bible Verse List: https://www.billkochman.com/VerseLists/verse302.html "Old Man Versus New Man" KJV Bible Verse List: https://www.billkochman.com/VerseLists/verse165.html "Washed and Renewed Mind" KJV Bible Verse List: https://www.billkochman.com/VerseLists/verse071.html Article: "Don't Ever Underestimate Our Spiritual Enemy": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/DontUnderestimateOurEnemy1.html https://www.billkochman.com/Blog/index.php/gay-and-lesbian-agenda-graphic-16/?feed_id=72237&_unique_id=646cb667cbc4a&Gay%20and%20Lesbian%20Agenda%20Graphic%2016

[rivalsforlife]

AA7 Speculation Post: One Year Later

here we go again.

A year and a day ago, I made a speculation post about if/when we’d ever be seeing AA7. Obviously, my claim that AA7 would be announced in September 2020 did not turn out to be true, but later that year we did get a leaked calendar containing information on the new ports for Chronicles, and also plans for a new aa7, which I summarized in this post.

Now that we have Chronicles we can verify that the leaks contained legitimate information (as if a statement from Capcom saying they were hacked wasn’t legitimate enough). So that leaves us with one key question: is AA7 still happening? If so, when can we expect it? As well, what other information from the leaked calendar can we consider, especially with early sales data on Chronicles? In addition, what are the implications of this new survey on Chronicles from Capcom?

All of that will be discussed under the cut so that this doesn’t take up too much space.

Revisiting The Calendar

Once again, here is a rough translation of the calendar that was present in the leaks:

As a note, in this post, I’ll be referring to our new games as “Chronicles” to prevent this from being blocked by people avoiding spoilers.

So: this original calendar, generated before the pandemic, had Chronicles releasing in Q1 of FY2021 - and it’s also important to note that in Japan, each fiscal year starts in April 1st, so FY2021 is actually April-June 2021. This shows that Chronicles was pushed back about a quarter from their expected release date. However, Chronicles was a port of already existing games, therefore somewhat less work was needed on them - upscaling models and textures, adding in some new features like autoplay and story mode, and of course, the English translation and voicework were needed, which is still a lot of course, but less compared to development on an entirely new game. In addition to that, the pandemic hit AA7 in its early development stage, assuming this schedule was still being followed by the time the pandemic hit. That could cause more delays than expected.

So the original plan was for AA7 to be released in Q3 of 2021, which corresponds to October-December, aligning with the 20th anniversary of the series in October. While it’s a desirable goal, it’s quite likely the pandemic pushed it back at least a quarter, if not more, if not cancelled it entirely. ... haha.

We’ll only know the fate of AA7 for certain when it’s announced. Which it is possible it may never be. However, I have two theories for, if AA7 is getting an announcement, when it will be:

1) Sometime during September 2021, either in the leadup to or during Tokyo Game Show this year. These are for the same reasons as I outlined in my initial speculation post. It’s a popular time for Ace Attorney game announcements, after all. TGS, according to what I can find, will be held online this year from September 30th to October 3rd. If Capcom announces AA7 earlier in September through Famitsu, like they did with AA6 for example, then we can expect to get some information during TGS... 

2) Sometime during a 20th Anniversary Event, possibly in October 2021. I’m assuming AA is planning something for the 20th anniversary - Chronicles wasn’t really marketed as a 20th anniversary release, for instance. If they can’t release a new game for the 20th anniversary (which at this rate, seems unlikely, as we’re about two months out from that with no word about it) then an announcement would be just as good at generating hype for it.

Naturally, if we reach this time next year with absolutely no news on AA7, it’s probably safe to say it’s been cancelled or at least delayed so severely that anything we currently know about it isn’t worth much.

There’s one more point of interest on the calendar: reconsidering the porting of 456. I feel that this depends heavily on how well the Chronicles ports are doing; if it’s not financially viable to keep porting games, then why bother? So, let’s take a look at that.

The Success of Chronicles

As I write this, it’s about two and a half weeks since the release of Chronicles worldwide. So... how did the games do? It’s a bit hard to tell, especially as I am not a game marketer and don’t know the expectations for Chronicles. What is obvious is that, if Chronicles does much better than expected, porting 456 and possibly even the investigations games seems likely. (If Chronicles, indeed, does especially well in the West, than a porting of the investigations games and localization of investigations 2 after ten years could very well be possible.) If Chronicles does absolutely terribly, it damages the chances of porting, and possibly of continuing the series. If it does terribly especially in the West, where the games are essentially new, it could damage the chances of any new games being localized at all.

So, a lot is riding on this, and I don’t know enough to tell how well it did. Here’s what I have found, however:

Nintendo Enthusiast reports on Famitsu sales of Switch games, and overall thinks it’s not doing so great. Chronicles ranks third on the list of Switch sales in its first week, with 14,460 units sold, over 4000 less than NEO: The World Ends With You, which was released on July 27th. Keep in mind that Chronicles was released in Japan on July 29th, which is two days later, and that these are only Japanese sales (where they’ve had Chronicles for years on both mobile and 3DS) and only Switch sales, where NEO:TWEWY is currently only available on Switch and PS4 (Chronicles has the additional platform of Steam, where there could be many more sales). In the next week, Chronicles ranked 22 overall, with NEO:TWEWY at 23, though of course they’re still a little less than 4000 units behind NEO:TWEWY overall. Slightly closing the gap, I guess.  

How about overseas data, then? ... It’s hard to tell. I can find this report from gamespot which discusses the top 20 games sold in the US in July, and Chronicles is not on the list, while NEO:TWEWY is at 16. However, they don’t give any number for the units sold, and it seems that they aren’t considering digital sales for a lot of them, so it’s hard to tell how much of a hit that is.

However, let’s go back to Japanese sales for a bit, and look at the 2019 Trilogy re-release for a comparison against Chronicles. Allegedly, combined Switch and PS4 sales in the first week of the trilogy’s release only amounted to about 8000 units, a little more than half that of Chronicles’ Switch sales. It’s also important to note that the 2019 trilogy ended up being the only ace attorney game to sell over a million copies. Ace Attorney is not a big series; I’m sure Capcom takes this into account when considering sales data, especially for ports. If Chronicles does end up doing better than the trilogy overall, it’s definitely looking good for ports and especially so for Chronicles.

However, there’s more to this than just sales data.

The Survey

Capcom now has a user survey for Chronicles, which you can answer even if you’re partway through the first game. I believe it’s only open until September 30 2021, so if you think you can finish the game before then, I’d recommend filling it out once you’re done so that you can give the best feedback.

It asks you a bunch of questions like what platform you bought it on, why you bought it, your expectations, and all sorts of detailed questions on the various mechanics, difficulty and enjoyment of the trials and investigations, satisfaction of visuals, plot, characters, music, and even free response sections for what you liked and disliked about the game. It’s a very detailed survey that’s pretty long but I think is worth filling out. At the end they ask you to fill out some demographic questions (such as age, gender (male, female, other), country, what kind of things you like to spend money on, and what kind of games you like, what platforms you have to play games on). But what’s possibly the most interesting question is this:

“If a new [Chronicles] game is released in the future, do you think you would buy it?”

This means that, depending on the answers to the survey, they could very well decide to work on a third game to Chronicles.

This has huge implications for the future of the series. I’ll probably make a separate post on plot-related stuff later, but for now... let’s talk about logistics.

In my initial AA7 speculation post I said I highly doubted that they would ever make another Chronicles game. I also said that they probably never would be localized, so, guess who’s a clown now. 

Right now the AA series is in a bit of a dry period, with no new games having been released in the last four years. As well, with Yamazaki (the director of the investigations games and AA5/6) having left Capcom, the next director of the mainline games is completely unknown. As described in this video, the main reason Chronicles ever came about was because Capcom went ahead with mainline AA5 before Takumi could come back from the Layton crossover. Now, since 2017, we don’t really know what Takumi is working on. It’s possible he’s gone back to mainline to work on AA7 (though of course, there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that he has, so definitely don’t take that as any sort of confirmation).

However, if we do get a Chronicles 3, it’s quite likely Takumi would return to work on that, as he directed the previous two games. In addition, if Chronicles ends up being such a success to completely eclipse mainline (from what I’ve heard, though I have no serious proof, Resolve is considered as highly rated as T&T by many Japanese fans) then the series could permanently go down the road of writing more Chronicles games, leaving mainline stagnant (which, let’s be real, it’s already stagnating). The success of that is uncertain considering how neatly our current Chronicles duology wraps up, but... we’ll have to see how things unfold in the future.

For now, I highly recommend filling out the survey to give your input to the series’ future directions. Maybe mention that you want localized investigations 2 somewhere in the free response section because uhh I forgot to do it in mine. do that for me.

TL;DR

Main takeaways from this post are:

- I personally expect an AA7 announcement either during TGS or a 20th anniversary event

- If Chronicles does extremely well, then 456 ports are likely to happen, and I personally speculate investigations ports (along with localized investigations 2) will as well.

- Fill out this Chronicles survey before September 30th to give your input on the games and possibly the future direction of the series. I recommend completing the games before you do, but if you think you won’t before September 30th, you can fill it out at any time.

- We Very Well May Get Another Chronicles Game. Who saw that coming. Not me.

Thanks if you read through all of this, let’s hope September/October doesn’t leave me looking like a fool again.

[ghostxraven]

hi love im deep in ur art blog for reasons and im SO in love with the fact that ur ghoul has his OWN nickname tattooed on him in party's writing they are SO 🥺 was wondering if you wanted to talk a bit more abt ghouls tattoos??? theyre just SO gorgeous and intricately laid out

HI i LOVE u i am KISSING u i would love love love to talk about ghoul’s tattoos 🥺❤️

^ yeah ghoul & party have each other’s handwriting tattooed!! for party it’s one of the only tattoos they have & it’s right over their heart (im sure ive mentioned this fact before but idk if ive explicitly noted that it says ‘sunshine’) and ghoul didn’t have the space to put his right over his heart because poison’s kj symbol is there so his is on his upper arm (they ARE soooooooo 🥺 i love them)

ghoul’s tattoos are a healthy mix of sentimental ink and things he just thought were beautiful. when he met the rest of the four he didn’t have THAT many tattoos because 1. he was 14 2. he’d only been in the zones for a little under a year and a half at that point but the ones he DID have (aka his oldest tattoos) were his knuckle tattoos (‘freed’ and ‘fuck’ what can i say he was 13), the big raven on his upper shoulder and neck (he started believing in the witch very early compared to other cityborns but yeah that tattoo was both a way of symbolizing his devotion to the witch and a way of marking himself as a killjoy/shedding his past in the city in the way that he considered clearest), the fangs on his hand, two bats on his leg, the zombie bite on the other side of his neck (i could get a little more into this but BASICALLY ghoul being an ex-crow trainee + a cityborn + being the only surviving member of his first crew had a problem with feeling inhuman and a lot of survivor’s guilt and so he really. idk he connected a lot with zombies & frankenstein’s monster and ghosts & the like when he was a runner for dr. d post-his crew’s deaths. he got better about Seeing Himself as a Person especially once kobra + the other two showed up but the fascination remained) (also not tattoo-related but that’s when he chose his name. before that he’d been called ‘sandpup’ by his old crew & he never had a chance to tell them before they passed but he really loved that they used that as a name for him especially with how much he didn’t want to associate himself with the city) (ghoul had A Lot of issues but the difference there is that he worked thru them a lot earlier than the rest of the four) and “I FORGIVE U” on the back of his neck (in remembrance of said former crew).

umm along with that kind of fascination with the undead/feeling that kind of connection are the frankenstein stitches on his wrists (tho thats more of a common hc) and he has this pretty big tattoo of abstracted bones following his vertebrae down his throat and chest that he’s gotten expanded/fixed/touched up over the years. ik i do a lot of b&w doodles but i feel like i’ve been kind of inconsistent about coloring (most of his tattoos are color). pretty sure ive mostly drawn them in green (???) but in my head they’re like a faded light blue using natural skin tone as highlights.

his more sentimental tattoos…let me see if i can outline them here. this might not be exhaustive but i will do my best to list what ive figured out at least thus far:

the two little bats on his right thigh are for his grandmother and little sister. his sister (juliet adele fujikawa, b. april 2009 d. december 2014) was killed in a car crash shortly before he left the city, and likewise, his grandmother (charlotte fujikawa [藤川 千尋] b. june 1936 d. december 2014) was “moved to retirement housing” at about the same time. that was pretty much the last straw & ghoul left battery city within the week

there’s his crewmates’ symbols on his chest (in order from his right to left: kobra, jet, party) (gotten when their crew had been together for a while. dating this one is based on a couple things: 1. ghoul had been with them for long enough that he felt secure 2. poison and ghoul were friends by this point, or else he wouldn’t have included their symbol and 3. poison’s is over his heart so you can read into that as you will)

text from the graffiti bible on his right calf, as protection for his crew & as a reminder of one of his former friends who was a droid that believed very strongly in destroya’s return

his raygun on his chest (he was pretty proud of the design! this was when he was ~15 or 16) that he had poison’s added to post-sing post-engagement pre-commitment ceremony (so. september 2023) (yes i have my handwritten timeline + my own drawings + my fics out in front of me rn cross-referencing sldkdksksbx!)

one of the girl’s childhood drawings (one she drew of him & her & the stuffed animal he made for her when she was a baby all having a tea party together) from when she’s about 5 or so on his right hip (december 2022 or so)

shooting stars on his upper right shoulder, partially because they’re pretty and blend well with his other tattoos and partially because they’re a reminder of a lot of things, including but not limited to his first night out in the zones seeing the stars for the first time, stories his grandma used to tell him, and right when he’d first joined the fab four and him & kobra sat on the roof during a meteor shower

besides the other one i already mentioned ^ he has more of poison’s handwriting on his left inner forearm — this is also one ive mentioned before but once they’ve been in a relationship for a while they get into the habit of leaving little love notes around for each other! there’s nothing particularly special specifically about the one he got tattooed, besides the fact that it reminded him of poison and they love each other. the text in full (which i don’t think ive ever put anywhere, though im pretty sure ive put fragments of it in fics and art) is as follows:

Good Morning baby <3! I needed new paints, went on a run. Kobra has the Girl @ the Crash Track, Jet’s at the station. call me when you wake up! I love you, be back soon. XO Party <3

he also has the anniversaries of when they started dating and their commitment ceremony (03•03•21 and 10•26•23 respectively) on the inside of his right wrist ^ !

he’s got a snake wrapping around his left leg that kobra picked out and a hand of cards with the ace of spades face up that jet picked out (and these ofc are because they remind him of his crewmates!!)

he has the phoenix witch tattooed on his ribs, left side, styled vaguely after catholic saints (since that imagery can still be found in the inner zones & especially where ‘joys who still practice that religion gather!)

there’s a version of the eye from the mailbox on his right shoulder, and this one is also a sort of symbol of protection/good luck, to show devotion to the witch and to help protect himself and his crew

the constellation libra on his left forearm! this one was done a little while after he started running transmissions and supplies for dr. d! he liked the connection that astrology — whether he believed in the practice or not is up for debate — gave people to the stars, and the feeling that he had a place in the universe, predestined or not

after charlie is born, he gets a portrait of her (~age 4) with her name and birthday underneath done on his left thigh! (~2036)

and on his lower back, he has a fairly simple tattoo of two crows on a wire with their beaks pressed together (aughhhhhh romance) that he gets done as an anniversary surprise for their 10-year (so. 2033)!

his non-sentimental tattoos are largely based off of images from books, either from dr. d’s collection when he was working as a runner for him or from cherri’s after he joined up with the fab four, or else they’re naturally occurring in the zones!! this includes but is not limited to: california golden poppies on the back of his left shoulder, strawberries around his left bicep (he doesn’t ever have a strawberry until he’s like 35, this one is absolutely based off of a particularly pretty illustration), a thundercloud with lightning on his left elbow, a moon on his right inner bicep, a ring of thorns around his right forearm right under the elbow, a dagger on his inner left calf, and a sun, small bat, cross, rose, ribbon (with the word ‘faith’ in script), and wing on his right forearm and hand, all picked from flash sheets

so yeah! that’s about everything i have to say about ghoul’s tattoos atm but ty ty ty sm for letting me ramble abt them i think about his tattoos so much 😔❤️

[headcanonsandmore]

“Letters to Charlie” 

Summary:  A selection of letters from Ron to his brother Charlie, throughout Ron's first four years at Hogwarts. Includes some mild Romione mentions.

Read on FFN.                             Read on AO3. 

~~~~~~~~~

[1st October 1991]

Dear Charlie,

How are things at the reserve? You said in your last letter that you’ve been getting a lot more burns than normal; have you asked mum for her recipe on salves?

Anyway, I’m settling in okay at Hogwarts. Really glad I was in Gryffindor; my friend Harry was really worried about it, I think. He’s doing fine, but I wish everyone would stop gawking at him all the time. He’s a good bloke; bit quiet but, considering what his aunt and uncle seem to be like, that’s not surprising.

Also, there’s this girl in our class who’s pretty annoying. She treats everyone like they’re idiots and she’s such a teacher’s pet! Her name’s Hermione Granger, and she’s always butting in whenever me and Harry are chatting. She’s not all bad, but I wish she wouldn’t be so uptight about everything. You’d think that someone with hair that bushy would be a bit more fun-loving, but she’s very straightlaced. But I saw her laughing the other day at a joke I made, so maybe she’s not so serious all the time? She has a cute nice laugh.

Don’t tell the twins I said that, or they’ll never stop going on about it.

Anyway, hope you’re okay and that everyone at the reserve is doing fine,

Love,

Ron

  [12th November 1991]

Dear Charlie,

Glad to hear that that the Common Welsh Green pair are doing okay. Things have gotten pretty weird at Hogwarts; someone (probably Peeves) let a troll into the castle at Halloween! Me and Harry had to rescue Hermione Granger from the troll; she covered for us, so we didn’t get punished. McGonagall even gave us some points for Gryffindor!

Hermione’s alright, I think. Bit intense, but she’s not as stuffy as I thought. I mean, it was kind-of my fault that she ended up getting caught by the troll, so I’m glad she didn’t hold a grudge about it. She’s always asking me about stuff, probably because she’s never grown up in a magical family. You wouldn’t think it if you saw her in class, though; she gets so many questions right and she’s apparently memorised the textbooks! Barmy, I know, but she’s alright.

Speaking of dragons, do you know if there’s any way of getting a baby one out of the country? Hagrid has a baby Norwegian Ridgeback in his house, but it’s dangerous for the baby to stay here.

Love,

Ron

 [16th August 1992]

Dear Charlie,

We managed to rescue Harry from the Dursleys! Mum went mad when we got back, but no harm done. Harry’s aunt and uncle had bars put on his window!  I told mum we had to get him out quick; good thing I noticed he wasn’t responding to my letters. Apparently, a house-elf was trying to stop him going back to Hogwarts; weird, right?

Hermione’s saying that she’s hoping to meet up with us in Diagon Alley; I hope so. It’ll be nice to see her again. Apparently, she’s already done all her homework, but that’s what she’s like. What do you think I should get her for her birthday? I asked Harry, but he suggested one of the textbooks (the poor bloke’s never had to buy any presents for anyone ever). I was thinking maybe some of her favourite long-lasting quills, but I’m not sure. Do you reckon I should get her something more… girly? Her best mates are two blokes, so maybe she’d like something to make it clear that  I we don’t just see her as another boy? What do you think?

I’m looking forward to Hogwarts this year; hopefully, it should be a bit quieter than last year. How’s your summer been going? You mentioned about the Chinese Fireball having fang rot; has that been fixed yet, or is she still having troubles?

Hope all’s good with you,

Love,

Ron

 [6th January 1993]

Dear Charlie,

You’ve probably heard the news already about the attacks happening at Hogwarts. The teachers don’t seem to know who’s doing it. Me, Harry, and Hermione have been trying to figure things out, but we haven’t got any leads lately. We thought it might have been Malfoy, but turns out he’s not doing it (still too happy about the attacks, though, the little git!).

I’m really worried about Hermione, to be honest. The attacks are always against muggle-borns and I’m scared she’s gonna be attacked. Do you know if there’s any creature that can petrify someone? I would ask the defence teacher, but Lockhart can barely tell one end of  his wand from the other. Can’t see why Hermione likes him so much; can’t she see how much of a stupid twerp he is?

Like I said before, I’m really sorry about breaking your old wand. I know you said you don’t mind and you’re just glad I was okay, but still. It keeps making weird bubbles whenever I try and cast any spells. My own fault for breaking it, I guess.

Hope you’re well,

Love,

Ron

 [8th May 1993]

Dear Charlie,

Hermione got attacked. She’s been stuck in the hospital wing ever since.

I’m scared. Harry’s managing to keep his head screwed on straight, but I can’t concentrate in lessons. I keep expecting Hermione to be sat next to me, and whenever I turn to look at her, I remember where she is. All pale and cold, like she’d dead or something.

What do I do, Charlie? How do I help her?

Love,

Ron

 [1st June 1993]

Dear Charlie,

Hermione’s okay! The mandrake stuff finally got given to her, and she’s back to normal! I haven’t smiled this much in months! She gave me and Harry a massive hug each when she turned up in the great hall; me and her couldn’t quite look each-other in the eye afterwards, but I think we both got a bit overwhelmed, you know?

Turns out, this was also because Lucius Malfoy was trying to stop dad’s muggle protection law being passed; people could have died!

Confused as to why none of the teachers bothered to ask Myrtle, since she was a witness to the last time the chamber has been opened, but I guess we’ll never know. Were the teachers like this when you were here?

Anyway, got to go; I insisted that Hermione play some chess with me, since our exams have been cancelled (can you guess which Gryffindor was upset about that?).

Love,

Ron

 [3rd September 1993]

Dear Charlie,

We’re all settling back in at Hogwarts; I’m still using those quills you got me in Egypt (thanks again, by the way). Everyone’s talking about Sirius Black, and Malfoy won’t stop being smug about how he knows something we don’t (arrogant little twerp as always).

Hermione’s cat is a bloody nightmare; he’s spent every evening trying to get at Scabbers, but Hermione won’t hear a word against him! Honestly, I don’t get why she can’t just keep the cat away when I ask her to. But she’s always had this thing about being right about everything, so it’s not unsurprising. I just wish she’d stop acting like it’s normal; Hedwig’s been around for three years, and she’s never attacked Scabbers!

Having said that, the first Hogsmeade visit is something to look forward to. It’s gonna be a bit different because Harry can’t go (his aunt and uncle refused to sign his form), but me and Hermione are going to make sure we take back lots of stuff for him so he doesn’t feel left out.

I am a little nervous about going, though; me and Hermione spend loads of time together, so why would this be any different? Probably nothing. Maybe it’s just because we’re bickering more because of our pets? Yeah, that sounds about right. I’ve already got her birthday present, so hopefully she’s not too angry at me and won’t mind me giving her a present.

Let me know how the Chinese Fireball baby is doing,

Love,

Ron

 [4th January 1994]

Dear Charlie,

Hermione just can’t keep her nose out of things! She reported Harry’s firebolt to McGonagall, and now it’s been confiscated! She says it’s because it could have been sent by Sirius Black. I know that’s a possibility, but she didn’t need to go behind Harry’s back about it!

I swear, this girl is driving me nuts!

Love,

Ron

 [13th February 1994]

Dear Charlie,

Me and Hermione have made things up; she even apologised about Scabbers. She must have been really upset, because she started crying and hugged me! Is it normal to get all flustered when a girl hugs you? Cause it didn’t the same as it did when she hugged me at the end of second year.

You’ve probably heard from Hagrid about Buckbeak being executed. We’re trying to get an appeal plea sorted; it’s mostly me and Hermione doing it, since Harry’s got other stuff to worry about. It’s nice being friends with Hermione again; I hated it when we weren’t speaking. It’s still a bit awkward (we both can’t quite look each other in the eye at times), but that’s probably normal, given what’s happened.

Remember to put that salve mum made on your new scars,

Love,

Ron

 [14th July 1994]

Dear Charlie,

Hope you’re enjoying the summer so far; it’ll be great to see you again, mum’s organising the room situation, so I think you’re sharing with Bill. Can’t wait for the world cup! Do you think Ireland will win against Bulgaria? I’ve been saving my pocket money all summer for it, so I can buy some souvenirs! Are you gonna bring some stories about the dragons when you get here?

Mum’s said I can invite Harry and Hermione over, and they’ll be coming to the world cup with us! It’ll be brilliant to see them again; Harry deserves a break from those horrible people he lives with, and Hermione could do with a break from work in general (she’s already finished all her summer homework, but that’s what she’s like).

It’ll be great to have both of them here for the summer; I hope Hermione doesn’t mind sharing with Ginny, since Gin’s more of a Quidditch-head than Hermione is. Mum keeps on at me to tidy my room before Hermione arrives, but it’s not as if she’s staying in my room, is it?

I did clean up my room a bit, though. Hermione’s a bit funny about mess, and I don’t want her to think I’m a slob.

See you soon,

Love,

Ron

 [30th October 1994]

Dear Charlie,

I’m still angry at mum, dad, and Bill for keeping us in the dark about the Triwizard Tournament; half the other kids from wizarding families knew! Speaking of the Tournament, the students from the other schools have arrived. You won’t believe it but Viktor Krum’s a student at Durmstrang! He’s a bit grouchy looking, but I guess he gets sick of people treating him different all the time. I didn’t know he was eighteen; he looks way older. The Slytherins are trying to cosy up to him, but he’s knows exactly what they’re doing; I saw him telling a few of them off for being unpleasant to the muggle-born first years. So I guess he’s alright.

The students from Beauxbatons are all nice enough but one of the girls has some sort of Veela charm thing. Hermione keeps glaring at me whenever I get caught in it, but it’s hardly my fault, is it? Harry gets affected too, but does she yell at him? No, of course she doesn’t. I swear, Hermione’s been weird ever since the term started; the other week I caught her staring at my hands for no reason. She got all flustered when she saw I’d noticed, and yelled at me to concentrate on my work. I’m worried about her. Did that ever happen between you and your friends at school? Is this something that happens around our age? I know that mum said things start to change after you get into your teenage years.

Speaking of change, I hope I can get some new dress robes before I ever have to wear these ones. Do you think Bill has any old ones he can let me borrow? I don’t get why mum didn’t just remove the lace and change the colour. I was going to ask Hermione to do it, but I don’t want her to think I’m whining. I just wish I could have some decent robes like all the other boys have. I know money’s tight at the moment, but even the twins have got alright-looking robes to wear I’d feel a lot better if I wasn’t stuck wearing rubbishy clothes for once.

Apparently, the tournaments due to start tomorrow evening. Me and Harry did have a think about entering, but it’s probably too high security. Fred and George said they’re gonna enter, because they turn seventeen in April, so they won’t need to use much aging potion. Should be interesting to see whether they succeed. I just hope we get a decent Hogwarts champion; Cedric Diggory’s alright, but half the girls get giggly over him and it’s bloody annoying. Hermione says it’s because he’s a prefect, but she’s a bit funny like that. If I ever end up a prefect, I bet I wouldn’t have girls giggling and getting flustered about me.

Got to go now; Hermione said she wants to go over our Transfiguration homework in the common room.

Love,

Ron

 [25th November 1994]

Dear Charlie,

You should have told me you’d be here for the first task! I know it was secret, but it would have been nice to catch up! Glad the trip over was safe and that the dragons are all okay. That Hungarian Horntail was a nasty piece of work; Harry almost got hit by it!

Speaking of which, me and Harry are best mates again. I’m glad; it was miserable when we weren’t speaking. Funnily enough, he said he didn’t even need an apology; just told me to forget about it. Weird bloke, but it’s great to be friends with him again. Hermione got all teary and told us we were being stupid, but she’s never really understood things like this, so there you go.

Love,

Ron

 [17th December 1994]

Dear Charlie,

Glad to hear the dragons got safely back to Romania with no issues. I almost wish I was there instead; ever since this ball thing got announced, half the school’s gone mad about it. Everyone’s asking everyone to it, and I don’t get it. Why can’t we all just go as friends and have fun? But the boys keep going on about dates, so I said I best go with someone good-looking. Yes, I know it’s dumb, but how else will I get everyone to not laugh at my robes? I even asked McGonagall if I could go in my school ones, but she insisted that I use my official dress robes (although she did look sympathetic while she said it, so I guess she understood where I was coming from).

Flitwick’s doing alterations to people’s robes, but he was so swamped with requests that there isn’t any room for me to get mine changed. I swear, I can’t wait until the ball is done and I won’t have to worry about this stuff anymore.

I’d happily stay behind in Gryffindor Tower with the first, second and third years, but I can’t leave Harry in the lurch. He’s got to be there to open the ball, and it wouldn’t be fair to leave him on his own; the poor bloke isn’t good with crowds, especially since half of the school still gawks at his scar every day.

Hermione doesn’t seem to take much interest in the ball, so maybe she’s also planning on staying behind. She got angry at me when I mentioned about going with a pretty girl, which is understandable (it was a dumb thing to say). Hopefully, she’ll have forgiven me by the time Christmas swings around, and we can just go and have fun at the ball. Just as friends, obviously. Maybe if we’re having a laugh, I won’t have to think about my robes looking so awful.

Love,

Ron

  [27th December 1994]

Dear Charlie,

I swear, if I ever have to go to another ball again, it’ll be too soon! Hermione’s still angry at me about it; which makes sense, since I was a bit of an arse. But, well, she went with Krum! Seriously, he’s eighteen and she’s barely fifteen! Why didn’t any of the teachers think that was creepy? Why was I the only person who got irritated by it? Is it really so bad that I don’t want my friend being pursued by some creepy eighteen-year-old git? I know what the twins are saying about it, but it’s alright for them, isn’t it? They had decent robes and could actually ask a girl without the girl glaring at them like they’d only just realised the girl was a girl! Gits. They don’t get it.

Ginny had a nice time with Neville, at the very least. Neville’s a good bloke, and I’m glad he treated her well. Apparently, she borrowed a dress off a friend for the ball. I wish I was shorter so I could have just borrowed something off Harry; that would have at least made things a bit easier. Then I wouldn’t have already been a bad mood before we even got to the ball.

Seriously, I’m never wearing those robes again. I don’t care what mum says, I’d rather go in my normal school ones that those frilly disasters.

Me and Hermione are being more polite to each other than normal, which is probably for the best. I hate the fact that I got so angry at her, but I’ve learnt now to not act like that again. I mean, considering she got Krum, I don’t think she’ll need to worry about me acting like that again. It wasn’t as if she even said she wanted to go with me, either; how was I supposed to know? I’m not a mind-reader!

Hope your Christmas is going better than mine, and thank you for the burn-proof socks; they’ll come in handy against the Skrewts.

Love,

Ron

 [27th February 1995]

Dear Charlie,

It was nice getting some of the limelight for a while; everyone was asking me about what it was like during the second task. I even had Padma Patil hanging on to my every word about it; I even managed to apologise to her properly for being such a berk at the ball (she was my dance partner, but we didn’t do any dancing). She seemed pretty okay with it.

Fleur Delacour (you remember, the champion who used the calming charm on her dragon in the first task) is being very nice lately; I think she got the impression me and Harry helped saved her sister in the second task. She even gave me a kiss on the cheek after we were all out of the lake! It’s nice to get attention from girls for a change.

Funnily enough, Hermione get glaring at me for the rest of the day. Funny how it’s fine for her to get attention from boys (that creep Krum had her as the person he’d miss the most; they’ve only been to the Yule ball together, the pervy git!), but I can’t do so much as talk to other girls without getting the cold treatment from her. Barmy as ever, but that’s what she’s like.

I think Harry’s really happy about the tournament just having one task left; at this point, I just hope he gets through it with no injuries or anything. Poor bloke’s had another rough year, and I hope he can take it easy after this is all over.

I wonder what I’ll get for my birthday this year. You think Hermione will get me anything? She’s so irritable lately that I wouldn’t be surprised if she just gets me a card and some chocolate frogs. Given what’s happened between us lately, that sounds about as much as I can hope for.

At least we’re still friends, though. I’m not that much of an idiot that I’d stop talking to her over this. I almost lost one friend this year; I don’t want the same thing happening with Hermione.  

Love,

Ron

 [29th June 1995]

Dear Charlie,

Harry left the hospital wing a few days ago. Me and Hermione are trying to help him as best we can, but the poor bloke still’s struggling. I’m not surprised, considering what he went through.

Dumbledore’s said that things are already changing. I just hope he knows what to do. But he’s still saying that Harry needs to go back to the Dursleys this summer. I hope we can pick him up as soon as possible; Harry’s relatives are bloody horrible.

After the third task, me and Hermione stayed up in the common room. We’ve both said we’re gonna help Harry with whatever happens in future. She also hugged me before she went to bed. It was different this time. It seemed like neither of us wanted to let go.

Stay safe,

Love,

Ron

 ~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading, everyone! Hope you enjoyed it!

[stuckinapatriarchalbullshitland]

ɟ

👋🏼Hello Anon, how are you? I hope you’re good and that you’re having a nice day 😄

I copied and pasted a piece of my ‘How the music world works’ post (which I recommend you read to understand a little more about the music business in general) which I hope will help you understand why it’s not possible to know which songs are ghostwritten by singers in general.

[Ghostwriters: Ghostwriters are authors who write on commission. The musical ones, can write an entire song or even a single sentence for an artist, without of course receiving credit for doing so. That’s exactly why the name ghostwriter/s. Ghostwriters sell their songs to record labels for their artists or can be contacted specifically to write a song. When ghostwriters sell their songs, they sign a contract with a confidentiality clause and receive a payment in advance. A big payment, by the way. Some ghostwriters remain copyright owners of their song, so they not only earn on the advance received for the sale of the song, but also receive some royalties when the song is used. Other ghostwriters, on the other hand, most of them actually, also sell copyrights, and for this reason, they earn absolutely no percentage in royalties because the song they sold is no longer theirs.]

As you can see, it’s impossible to see who ghostwritten which song precisely because they don’t get credit for it. The only two ways to know this are n°1, when an author/songwriter/ghostwriter themselves says it, and n° 2, as long as you already know that they wrote it in the first place, when they give their song to an artist who doesn’t change or change their lyrics little.

Since your ask was on Camila, now I’m gonna tell you what I know. And I’m sorry, but I’m not going to include the ones that are rumored she has done because they are indeed, just rumors. People like to talk and make things up, especially about Mila. And we know HOW MUCH imagination they have. A lot of people like to talk just to run their mouth when they’re not even capable to do basic research and get properly informed first, and, honestly? These are things I ignore because I’d just get annoyed otherwise, and I don’t have time for that shit 😶 But let’s get back to us. So, the 100% certain ones, for now, are only three:

1) ‘Love Life’: initially called ‘Love Life/Low Life/No Lie’, written and recorded by C but released without her by Major Lazer ft. Azaryah on November 16, 2017.

2) ‘Ain’t Easy’: C worked on it with Ryan Tedder and Zach Skelton. Ryan produced the music with Camila’s co-production who also recorded the demo. The song was later given and adapted to the duo Elijah Woods x Jamie Fine who recorded it for the first season of the Canadian reality music competition ‘The Launch’ and which was released on January 17, 2018.

3) ‘Be Right Here’: C, Charli XCX, Noonie Bao, and Sasha Sloan wrote the song for her debut album ‘Camila’. C also recorded the demo, but then discarded it and gave it to DJ Kungs who along with Stargate and Goldn, released it on June 22, 2018.

We can’t consider songs like ‘Party Animal’ (Luis Fonsi & Charly Black) and ‘God Is a Woman’ (Ariana Grande). In ‘God Is a Woman’ because Ari rewrote the lyrics, and the remix with C on it of ‘Party Animal’ instead, was no longer released, and therefore because that version remained unreleased.

We can’t even consider songs like ‘Carry My Heart’, ‘Hard Beat’, ‘Not The Same’, and ‘Hit It From The Back’ ft. the rapper XXXTENTACION (all songs C did with Diplo) because they too remained unreleased.

And same thing for ‘La Cubana’. In 2013, Camila met rapper singer-songwriter LunchMoney Lewis who co-wrote ‘BO$$’ for 5H. In 2014 she co-wrote ‘La Cubana’ with him, which was supposed to be included on his album in 2015, but that was never released. [You have NO IDEA how curious I am about this song. Which Cubana are you talking about, Camila? 😏😏 Yourself? Maybe that’s also why this song has never seen the light of day… *sigh*]

These are examples of songs that we know she wrote as projects outside her albums, and that if she were to sell composition copyrights to someone in the future, then we will already know in advance that they’ll become songs she ghostwrote on.

I hope I’ve been helpful. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. You know where to find me/us 😊 And be careful not to be fooled by what you read about these rumors or rumors in general. Always look for proofs first, especially if your intentions are then to spread it. A virtual hug 🤗, with love F ❤️

____

The answer for the 👻songwriter anon! It’s very amazing as always. Thanks F

[latristereina]

There are fifteen personal letters exchanged between Isabel and Fernando in the years 1474-1502, that survived to our times, the originals are stored at the Archivo General de Simancas. Their original language is Castilian. Thirteen of them were written by Fernando and two by Isabel. They were gathered in the work titled Cartas autógrafas de los Reyes Católicos de España don Fernando y doña Isabel que se conservan en el Archivo de Simancas, 1474-1502, transcribed and analyzed by Amalia Prieto Cantero, published in Isabel la Católica en la opinión de españoles y extranjeros: siglos XV al XX. Apéndices. Tomo 3 by Vicente Rodríguez Valencia.

I translated only eight of them, six from Fernando to Isabel and two from Isabel to Fernando. I don’t plan on translating more, considering it’s not an easy task in itself, especially for a non-native speaker like me, who translates from her third to her second language respectively, and as much as modern language isn’t a problem, the language and grammar they used in the XV and XVI centuries is a whole new ballgame, some constructions and words are either hard or impossible to comprehend even for some native speakers.

Fernando to Isabel:

My Lady

After having the other note written, I received a letter from the King, my Lord [John II of Aragon], which I send to Your Ladyship. By which you will see how the matters in Enna are, and how he orders me to come with all the people of this kingdom to the aid of this city. Seeing this I cannot express my sorrow; I think that if I were in hell, I would suffer much less than I do now, and so many times I wish death upon myself that I think I may fulfill my thoughts, I do not know why our Lord gave me so much good and so little time to enjoy it, since, for three years, I have not been with Your Ladyship at times even seven months in a row. Now I have demonstrated and I say that I have to go to make them move quicker in order to do the service, which cannot be faster than before Christmas, and if during this time Your Ladyship could make the King [Henry IV of Castile] call me to be sworn in [he is referring to the swearing-in as the Princess heiress of Castile and her consort], I would quickly come, but otherwise, I do not think I would have an excuse for the King, my Lord [John II of Aragon]. However, I will do everything that is in my power to be able to come, but this bad honor [charge of Lieutenant in Aragon which did not let him join his wife] makes me feel so bad that what I am saying does not make sense. I beg Your Ladyship for the Archbishop [of Toledo] and Cardinal [Mendoza] to help in this matter, I do not ask Your Ladyship because you have enough yourself, and do not Your Ladyship think that I need something more than your order [to come to Castile], under different circumstances, I would come, but for now, other reasons are required for me to leave. I beg Your Ladyship to forgive me because being angry and disturbed, I do not know what I am saying, even with all that, I will delay my departure until I get a response from Your Ladyship, which I beg you to be soon, and it is how this slave of Your Grace concludes, The Prince-King [Prince of Aragon and king of Sicily].

Zaragoza, [1 December 1474]

My Lady

At last, now it is clear which of us two loves best, judging by what others write to me about Your Ladyship, you can be happy [while] I cannot sleep… There are so many messengers over there that come without letters [from you], not for lack of paper and not for not knowing how to write, but for insufficient love and haughtiness, for you are in Toledo and I in small villages, but someday we shall return to our first love. If you do not want to make me kill myself, you should write and tell me how you are… There is nothing more to be said about the matters from here, except what Silva will tell you and what Fernando del Pulgar has already said. I beg Your Ladyship to believe Silva and to write to me and not to forget about the Princess, who, for God’s sake, is not to be forgotten, as well as about her father, who kisses the hands of Your Ladyship and is your servant.

The King

Tomorrow, on Wednesday, I am going to Medina.

Tordesillas, [16 May 1475]

My Lady

It took me one day to pass from Valladolid to Cabia, and I decided to come to this city only because I knew it would be of no harm to rest here; I informed people of the city (city of Burgos) about the arrival, upon which the Bishop of Burgos escaped along with others, who are not much at our service. These of the city sent emissaries to me, begging me not to enter (the city) until after the meal, and I did so. Given the little time they had, the reception they gave me was marvelous and with so many people, and with such great love, that it is not an earthly thing, the love they have for us, but a Godly one. I must tell Your Ladyship that I never saw a thing that I would like more than this city nor more honorable. I saw las Huelgas and la Iglesia Mayor which in their way are miraculous. Tomorrow I will go to kiss the hands of King Don Juan for Your Ladyship and for myself*, and for the love of friar Alonso, I will go to see the Monastery of San Pablo. In two days I will depart and soon I will arrive at Valladolid. […] for what is in the letters that I got, I kiss the hands of Your Ladyship. Because I am tired, I do not respond except to what Your Ladyship tells me about how it was necessary for us to see each other, if it had not been for this city, I would have already gone, but the hurry was such that the Cardinal and the Constable put on me, that I could not do so. It seems to me that it is very necessary and that Your Ladyship ought to come because in getting together we help each other more than anything in life, and now is the time that all our power should be jointly exerted. Tired, I finish, kissing the hands of Your Ladyship.

Your servant: The King

Burgos, [12 June 1475]

*he meant la Cartuja de Miraflores where Isabella’s father was buried

My Lady

I have put off writing until the night, in order to see the people that came; infantry has come and the Constable with very good and many people; others have come except for the Admiral and the Marquis of Astroga. The people of the Count of Lemos, the Viscount of Palacios, the Count of Castro have not come, and now the Marquis of Santillana wrote to me that he and the Duke of Alburquerque would join me on Sunday, and they begged me not to move until then; given all of this, it seems to me that for us to go with more ease, in order to not detain anything until arrival in Toro, we should not depart tomorrow; either Your Ladyship from there or I from here, considering  the distress you felt about the people [distress there would not be enough people at their service], Alonso de Quintanilla is already in Mojados; it is what the situation looks like over here, but if Your Ladyship orders otherwise, I shall do it with few or with many. God knows how it weighs on me that I will not see Your Ladyship tomorrow, for I swear by your life and mine that never have I so loved you. And I finish with more desire to serve Your Ladyship more than ever.

Real of Tordesillas, Monastery of Saint Thomas, [14 July 1475]

In regards to what Your Ladyship wrote to me about the two fractions that are being formed, I knew about them before, Your Ladyship will take care of it better than I being here.

Without date or direction.

Amalia Prieto Cantero’s commentary: This note touches upon some negotiation that was being conducted by the Queen or tendencies that she noted at the Court, in regards to which, the King was in favor of Doña Isabel resolving it on her own because she could do it better than him. The sense is obscure and imprecise. Perhaps by the two fractions he meant tendencies of the nobles.

Isabel to Fernando

My Lord

I kiss the hands of Your Lordship a hundred thousand times for such care that you have to know about me, and I have already written to you that I am well and I had that fever no more nor I have felt any bad thing afterward, and even though Your Lordship had already known this by my letter, procure for your life, and since in this case there should not be any hesitation at all, I ask you to answer me after you receive this courier; I beg you to let me know what you determine, and on what day the siege is to take place, where you would like it to be. May our Lord help you to determine and act, and aid Your Lordship in everything and guard you more than me, and I finish by kissing [your] hands, and all our children kiss them, and they are well. At Córdoba, on 18 May [1486]

My Lord

May our Lord continue with the victory He has granted to Your Lordship in the conquest of these suburbs until He gives you the city and the entire kingdom. This has been a marvelous thing and the most honorable in the world; now it seems well how the Moors are doing in Loja who die while defending it [Loja] and our people do it [die] as well. The dead weigh on me heavily but they could not have gone better employed nor could have died better people in their professions than Pedro Valenciano and Velasquillo. I cannot forget Velasquillo and how he was afraid to die such honorable death, it is enough the madness was good for he knew how to live and how to die. All that Your Lordship has ordered has been done and people were summoned, even more than it was said in the memorial, and because I thought the term given for them to depart was too late, although they say that it cannot be less, I ordered people of this city and these of Master of Calatrava to depart [from here] tomorrow; we were doubting whether they should take sacks with supplies or not, because to take them more time was needed, and still it was agreed that they would take them for we do not know if el Real is that well provided; and from now on I will do everything, I want to know what should be done and on what day for we do not want to err in anything. Regarding Alhama, the mayor commander had already talked about it with the Master, and what is done, Your Lordship will see in this memorial. I marveled a lot at the concert of the Moorish Kings which is so disadvantageous to them. In order to leave the Kingdom, it would be better to concert with us and I hope that God’s mercy lets this happen, for him to leave the Kingdom it would be good to have a treaty with him, if Your Lordship were to grant him [Boabdil] Baza and Guadix and their lands in act of perpetual truce, so that they could be his, although Your Lordship won all the Kingdom, maybe the necessity in which he is, would make him agree and hand it over. Pardon, Your Lordship, for I speak of matters that I do not know, it might cause damage, they might become arrogant, thinking there was some necessity for it to happen, for they are fickle, they rise and fall quickly. May God tear them down, and the desire for it all to be done without risk or work of Your Lordship and all your army makes me rave. For now there is nothing to be said about matters from here, except that we all are well, and I close by kissing the hands of Your Lordship, May our Lord guard you, and give you victory as I wish. At Córdoba, on 30 May [1486].

Amalia Prieto Cantero's commentary: At the end of January 1487 the Monarchs left Salamanca for Córdoba, in order to finalize the campaign of Málaga and locations in its proximity, which had been planned since the previous year. At the beginning of March their Highnesses had already reached the city of Córdoba. The men at arms, who had been summoned, gathered at  las Yeguas River. The King’s departure from Córdoba, to lead the said men, took place on 7 April - on Saturday - on the eve of Palm Sunday, in direction of la Rambla. According to the chroniclers, Fernando del Pulgar and Mosén Diego de Valera, the night before the King’s departure, at 2 a.m, there was an earthquake in the city, particularly noticeable on the terrain of the Royal Palaces. And even though some people saw in this occurrence a bad omen, the King did not alter his plans. Although las Yeguas River was the destination of the King’s trip, it had its first phase at la Rambla, where the King spent the night with his army, and from where he wrote his wife a letter that is being analyzed, dated on Palm Sunday. In the text of the missive we can discover an extraordinary emotional state in which the King was, although dominated with great effort, to uplift his spirits. It could be a consequence of the impression the earthquake caused in him, coupled with the fact it took place shortly after he left his wife and children in Córdoba. In the letter Don Fernando tried to console his wife with the hope of quick reunion at some place, where they would be together with much joy, and expressed the anguish that he had gone through that night, being alone, already separated from his family, the anguish he had overcome with great strength of will…Such expressions, like many others in the analyzed letters, display the affection of the Monarch for his wife and confirm the judgment of the historian Vicens Vives about Don Fernando, endowed with great ability to love or hate, reserve and dissimulation, among other qualities.

My Lady

I beg you to let me know how you are, and be very merry, because I hope that with our Lord’s help, I will soon send for you, to beg you to come to me, so we can be together with much joy. It pained me, I could not sleep this night of solitude, but I do not dare to think of sad things. The last night don Alonso de Aguilar came over here, for I had summoned him, to go to the sierras of Loja and Antequera, in order to provide them with more guards; he told me that yesterday an alhaqueque* from Málaga had come to his house with a few hostages. He [alhaqueque] said they had been split over my departure, and 300 Gomeres* went displeased to Vélez; I do not know why they did so, I reckon all this quarrel happened because they wanted to provide for Vélez, apparently thinking it was not done well. Our Lord will save their thoughts. I beg Your Ladyship to let me know how my children are and I kiss your hands. May our Lord protect you more than anyone else.

At la Rambla, Palm Sunday [8 April 1487]

*alhaqueque - a person who managed contracts and at times purchased the freedom of captives and set them free, or acted as a courier between Christian and Arabic population

*Gomeres - inhabitants of la Gomera

@ablooms, @kittyparr, @eyes-painted-with-kohl, @daario-naharis

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Alex ze Pirate “Mini Review” 1: About Male Abuse

Alex ze Pirate is in my opinion the WORST “comic” series Dobson has ever written up until this point (date for archives: June 2020). Sure, I agree with people that his “hot take” comics on Star Wars Fans, political issues and virtue signaling for the sake of making brownie points are worse overall cause they are uneducated propaganda that give insight in how much of a loathsome human being driven by spite he genuinely is, but Alex “offends” me as someone who enjoys fiction. It may not be the worst thing ever written, but it just does so many things wrong in terms of storywriting, storytelling, presentation and creating fictional characters, I can’t help but wonder what went wrong that Dobson even remotely thought this thing would be a “successful” comic series to establish him as a creator. Cause I can tell you, having read the likes of Don Rosa’s work on Disney, Hilda, Cleopatra in Space, Spirou, Asterix, One Piece (of which I will talk a lot in my next few posts) and many more, I can confirm by comparison that Dobson’s pirates as a published comic would have only one use on the public shelves: alternative for toilet paper during the COVID-19 epidemic

 Believe me, I would love to write an in depth analysis of everything wrong with Alex ze Pirate, from the lazy artwork up to even the publication history of this trainwrack. But doing so would take a lot of time and there is one individual part of this I think deserve at least extra attention. Something that in my opinion embodies quite well a lot of things I consider wrong with this comic. So before I am going over Alex in its entirety (and believe me, the day will come) let me just talk within the next few posts about one certain aspect and story of the comic, that genuinely got me to loath this comic to the core: Sam the Cabin Boy and “his” own individual story Dobson drew in three parts around 2010.  

For starters, lets talk who Sam is: Sam is one of the main characters in the comic and actually the first person who joined Alex and Peggy in the initial pages of Legends, the “original” form of Alex ze Pirate.

See, back in 2004, Dobson released Alex ze Pirate in form of a single comic volume called “Legends” which features Alex trying to recruit a crew. The thing is around 78 pages thick and based on what I saw pretty terribly paced. For comparison: When Luffy in One Piece got his crew together, he spend multiple volumes and at least three minor story arcs to get Zoro, Nami, Sanji and Usopp to join him. All while also giving us good insight into the kind of people his new crewmates were (especially Sanji’s and Nami’s backstory got to me), defeating the likes of Buggy and Captain Black, meeting Dracula Mihawk and defeating one of the biggest bastards Eichiro Oda ever created in form of Arlong. What is the story how Sam joins the crew? An orphanage organizes an auction and sells kids off. Which I assume was even illegal in pirate times, so kudos for already showing us how despicable the world of Alex ze Pirate is to begin with and how much it deserves to be nuked in some sort of alien invasion.

 Sam also doesn’t really get anything to do when he is introduced, just helping Alex escape on a small boat. Which is weird because he does not know her at all, she is just some stranger who bought him off and has no means to keep him in check, so why even bother following her and not let the mob get rid of Alex? 

Anyway, I wish I could tell more about Sam’s involvement in Legends, but I don’t have really more than some scans of it in the beginning and near the end. So I don’t know his involvement in the rest of the volume. I also can’t say how he plays out in volume two, because that does not exist at all. Cause for reasons I will never understand, Dobson just abandoned the idea of telling a “coherent” and ongoing story with Alex ze Pirate and instead went to his colored one page comics/strips with it, turning it into what some people called “Garfield with Pirates” (which I consider a genuine insult towards any newspaper comic out there, even something as Boondocks). And the first thing we see of Sam in “classic” Alex ze Pirate?

 The perverted dwarf of the crew showing of his shota underwear so that Alex and Sam stop bickering who is the cutest, leaving him embarrassed and humiliated.

 Which kinda sums up his role in the comic to a t. Cause this is what Sam is: He is the buttmonkey of the crew. And honestly, I would not have a total problem with Sam being a buttmonkey, if a) he wasn’t it all the time, b) he would actually do something to deserve any form of humiliation and c) if the other characters in this comic itself would not be some of the biggest assholes I have ever seen, who get away with abusing the poor lad.

 See, here is the problem: In a crew featuring a choleric homophobic soulless ginger

 A black rat person who wants to fuck the ginger even without her consent

 A furry abomination that has the same brain wavelengths as Chris Chan 

And a perverted dwarf who tries to impersonate Happosai from Ranma 1/2

 Sam is the only decent person in the entire crew. He works hard, he even questions the morality of his friends at times, he is honest, he is not perverted, almost good to the point of childish innocence and he has a very humble “goal” which is he wants to own his own piece of gold. Not even a big pile of treasure, just one single coin would be enough for him.

 So he is likeable and relatable. In fact, if anything goes by, he may have been one of the most popular ones in the comic. And yet he is the one who gets constantly abused by “fate” and his friends, because as Dobson would say it, he is supposed to be the buttmonkey. There is just one problem: People do not necessarily like buttmonkeys.

I can primarily speak only for myself here, but I hope what I have to say resonates with others too. See, I get it: A character who is the butt of a joke can be fun. Like Daffy in Duck Amuck. But there is a fine line where a character being humiliated for the sake of a joke is fun (and perhaps even deserved because of his own shortcomings or deeds/actions that make the humiliation sort of kharmic, like lets say Johnny Bravo) and a character being humiliated to the point it feels disproportional, unfunny and mean spirited if not outright sadistic, can be crossed. Take Meg Griffin from Family Guy for example whose only “purpose” for existing within the last 12+ years is to get shat on by her family and the writers. People have no idea for a plot with her, so what do they do? Have her father physically and emotionally abuse her, fart in her face for what is supposed to count as a joke and then add additional insult to it by acknowledging that they are only doing this, because they have no other idea for her and think abuse is fun. Let me just tell you from experience, it is not.

And that is essentially what Sam is: He is the Meg Griffin of Alex ze Pirate, used by his creator as the butt of very unfunny jokes, even if he does not deserve any of the things said or done to him. Want to see some examples?

 How about the description Dobson gives Sam within the introduction of one of his volumes, showing how little Dobson as the creator even cares for him.

Why is he called an unworthy “slob” if he is the only one who actually works? Shouldn’t a slob be someone like Dobson, who can’t even take care of himself anymore? Also the confirmation that he was kidnapped at the age of 16. And as we have no clarification how much time passed between Legends Vol. 1 and anything afterwards, that means that in a way Alex is a child abuser.

And now, here some examples by the rest of the cast. Like Uncle Peggy framing him for all sorts of his perverted actions and even trying to kill him for no apparent reason?

Alex trying to kill him with chicken pox…

…Destroying all his worldly posessions which is hilarious because he is a poor orphan…

…Essentially describing him as worthless because he was born with an Y-chromosome…

… doing the kind of thing Dobson claims women would never do to man, using their sex appeal to hurt them…

…forcing him to do some unnecessary and rather petty work for her in a physics defying manner (seriously, the way he holds the axe does not compute with how he swings it. Try it out yourself)

… stealing his food and just being a cruel sadistic cunt to him just because it is fun.

Which is “funny” in so far as that there are a few comics indicating she would jump his dick and ride it like a little pony if she could.

 By the way, Talus and Atea are not better. None of them calls Alex out on her bullshit on average, Atea uses Sam to trigger traps in one story arc…

And Talus, the closest to a “friend” he is supposed to have, once for no apparent reason made him dig through his litterbox

And don’t get me even started when the characters decide to gang up on Sam, to the point he gets sexually harassedor is called to be less worth as a human being than the dirt you find in your belly button

Fuck’s sake, even in fanart everyone gangs up on him, even the freaking big bad of the story everyone is supposed to hate or be afraid of

 Bottom line, Sam is an abuse victim played for laughs in this comics. And just to clarify, I do not think this was Dobson’s intention. But if the character is undeservingly the butt of jokes for the majority of over 120 strips, it turns nasty. The way Sam is treated, I just find disgusting and indictive of just how unlikable any other character in this comic is to the point I do not want to see this being turned into a proper “franchise”. And I assume others were disgusted by it too, cause Dobson eventually decided to make a story more or less addressing the treatment Sam receives, while also attempting to prove that deep down the assholes with starring roles in this trainwrack care for him. How did this play out? Well, I am going to talk about it, so likely not well. If you want to see the details, grab yourself some popcorn and take a toilet break before we tackle part 2 of this thing.

[bang-to-the-tan]

Another Update (16/8/20)

TL;DR: I’m officially coming back, and there’s a shitload of writing in the pipeline. Posting resumes 5th of September with a oneshot and then as usual on the 10th, 20th, and 30th of September...along with more oneshots in between. 

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes and support during my hiatus. Thank you for a full K of notes on the first chp of Moth to Flame. Thank you for being so patient. I love you. 💖💖💖

I’ve been on hiatus since the tail end of June and literally the only thing I’ve gotten during this time was unwavering support and kindness. People being understanding. I know these are tough times, (unprecedented, some might say. A lot.🙄) and escapism is...well, it’s important, I’d argue. But even so, writers are still people being affected by this pandemic and all of the fallout entailed and I definitely am affected. Things have calmed down some where I am, and I’ve been able to calm down myself and I think, truly, I think everything’s gonna be okay eventually.

In any case, my fixation has cycled back around and I’m writing BTS fanfiction again. And in any case, thank you. To demonstrate my appreciation, I’m releasing not only the update chapters I’ve been working on for Moth to Flame, Vessel Euphoria, and Stray Cat Strut, but some extra material?? I said once that I wasn’t gonna do oneshots anymore but what I meant was I’m not gonna schedule them and make myself write them. These oneshots happen to be...already written;;; 🤧So here’s my schedule for the upcoming month! 

5th September-- “Fealty”, King!Yoongi (Smut, mention of political murder, beheadings) [pleasse pretend to be surprised I wrote a king Yoongi smut 😭]

10th September--Moth to Flame, Chapter 17 (close calls, boys being boys, character development)

15th September--”Moth to Flame: What If”, Taehyung (SMUT, nasty boy, just a nasty boy)

20th September--Vessel Euphoria, Chapter 9 [FINALE!!] (death, despair, really really upsetting)

25th September--”Moth to Flame: What If”, Rapline (SMUT, threesome, car sex) [honestly you guys would tell me if i had a car kink right RIGHT??]

30th September--Stray Cat Strut, Chapter 8 (Foreshadowing foreshadowing foreshadowing)

There are a couple of other oneshots that I’m considering slating in between updates for October, as well, but we’ll take it one step at a time. In October, I’ll maintain my usual posting schedule by posting an Extra Chapter for Vessel Euphoria once it’s done. :) It’s not a prologue or an epilogue, it’s just one of the “logs from before the communication drop”, but I think it sheds a little light. (or pushes the knife in deeper, shrug :3cc)

Anyways, feel free to ask any questions you might have, I’m really excited to get back into the groove of things and deliver content that I can be proud of, to you. 

Thank you. I love you. ;~; 💖💖💖💖

[oracleofdelphl]

#JusticeForGrenfell💚

I haven’t seen much noise about this on tumblr and because it’s a topic that is very close to my heart, I thought I would write my own thing...

Today (14th June 2020) is the three year anniversary of the Grenfell Tower Fire. In the early hours of 14th June 2017, a fire broke out in a 24-storey tower block in Kensington, West London. The fire quickly spread, engulfing the entire building. The tragedy resulted in 72 recorded deaths, and more than 200 people were left homeless. It was 100% avoidable, and the fire was a direct result of funding cuts and cutting corners and finding loopholes to avoid adhering to fire safety legislation. News outlets across the country described this as a tragedy. It was not a tragedy, it was a travesty. Mass murder by any other name. 

The Grenfell Tower Fire was one of the most visceral visual manifestations of racial and socioeconomic injustice in modern memory. I’m going to include a brief history/explanation as to why and how, but I am by no means an expert so I encourage you to read about this further. 

Grenfell Tower was in the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, but was managed by the Kensington & Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation. In 2015-16, Grenfell Tower was significantly ‘redeveloped.’ as part of a £10million refurbishment project in partnership with Rydon and other contractors, which was part of a £57m neighbourhood regeneration scheme. As a part of the redevelopment programme, the building was installed with new windows, cladding, and thermal insulation. As part of this, new aluminium composite rainscreen cladding was introduced, of which two types were used: Reynobond PE and Reynolux aluminium sheets. The changing of the cladding was mainly to ensure ‘that the character and appearance of the area are preserved and living conditions of those living near the development suitably protected.’ - in other words, fire safety was compromised to make the building more aesthetically pleasing to the wider (note: wealthier) community in K&C. The company doing the cladding, Arconic, knew that it was unsuitable for high rise buildings over 10m (Grenfell was 63m tall). The new FLAMMABLE RS5000 insulation, produced by Saint-Gobain, failed several fire safety tests and was generally deemed unsafe for high rise buildings. The combination of flammable insulation and cladding caused a fire that should have been compartmentalised to one flat to engulf the whole building. The residents were subject to a ‘stay put’ policy that meant the majority of them were left unable to escape. I have highlighted the companies that are complicit in this corporate murder in bold here, because I believe their names should not be forgotten and they need to be heard so they can be held to account. 

The building had no central fire alarm, no proper fire exits/fire-safe doors, no sprinkler system, no evacuation plan. It failed fire safety checks. Grenfell Tower’s infrastructure was illegal.  The area had also suffered cuts to the fire brigade under Boris Johnson, who was at that time Mayor of London.

In January 2016,  the Labour Party tried to introduce a bill that would require all rented housing to be ‘safe for human habitation’, and would have given residents of accommodation like Grenfell Tower the power to sue their landlords for breach of contract. It was voted down by 72 Conservative politicians, who at this stage has a majority in Parliament. They voted it down because they were landlords themselves deriving income from property. Landlord MPs can affect all decisions to do with housing legislation as long as they declare their interests, and they had a financial interest in the rented sector that led them to vote down secure safety protections. 

The Grenfell Action Group raised concerns about fire safety in the building for years prior to the fire. In a blog post dated 20th November 2016, about 6 months before the tragedy, the Grenfell Action Group warned that “It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the KCTMO, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders.’ ‘The Grenfell Action Group predict that it won’t be long before the words of this blog come back to haunt the KCTMO management and we will do everything in our power to ensure that those in authority know how long and how appallingly our landlord has ignored their responsibility to ensure the health and safety of their tenants and leaseholders. They can’t say that they haven’t been warned!’ [emphasis added]. The government’s own equalities watchdog found that the management of the tower breached their rights to life and adequate housing of the residents, as well as many human rights inquiries since.

The Grenfell Tower tragedy is inextricably tied with race and class. This was a council estate, which meant it was occupied primarily by working class people, the majority of them council tenants, Muslims, immigrants, and refugees. Grenfell tower stood in the most deprived area of the wealthiest borough of London: it was a stark, brutalist block surrounded by cushy mansions and estates. Furthermore, the process of concentrating processes of urban “regeneration” and gentrification is a wider symptom of the privatisation of social housing, and is trauma from neoliberalism. I could go on forever about how political history and gentrification and the ways in which this ultimately led to disaster, but I’ve already gone on for too long so long story short: this was an entirely avoidable tragedy that is a culmination of racist and classist policies, where profit for the companies and aesthetics for the affluent upper class neighbourhood was prioritized over the lives of members of one of the most deprived communities in the UK.

Today, not much has been done by way of justice. Although the ‘safe for human habitation’ bill was passed post-Grenfell, it only applies to new buildings. Current households with unsafe flammable cladding, of which there are approximately 24,000, are not required to be retrospectively made safe. The government has missed the target of June 2020 to get rid of flammable cladding. Some 246 buildings still have Aluminium Composite Material installed. The public inquiry into the fire has been put on hold because of the pandemic. It has already revealed that companies such as Arconic, Saint-Gobain etc. knew that their materials were unsuitable for Grenfell Tower, but the council went ahead with the regeneration project anyway to save some money.  Survivors of the fire say nothing has changed. The survivors of Grenfell Tower are yet to be offered permanent housing and were even threatened with being branded as ‘intentionally homeless’ if they refused significant relocation outside of London.

Please do not forget about Grenfell Tower. Do not let corporate greed and murder go unforgotten. This was one of the starkest illustrations of racial inequality and poverty and our lifetimes, and we must keep fighting for justice. The poor and the weak should not be cooped up in these unsafe buildings as lambs for the slaughter. 

Please please email your MP and demand that the inquiry is continued and that the findings are widely publicized and lead to proper policy change implementing proper regulation of these criminal regeneration projects. Pressure your MPs to push for funding to be reallocated to these deprived communities. Please keep fighting for the Grenfell residents who are dealing with the trauma of losing their loved ones and gross incompetence by their council and potential permanent homelessness all at once. 

Please follow Grenfell United, an organisation made up of survivors and bereaved members of the community and sign up to their newsletter for ways you can actively get involved. Please also consider donating to the Grenfell Foundation. Most of all, please do not allow Grenfell to leave the public consciousness. Don’t allow these to be covered up. Keep talking about it, please keep fighting for it. Love and solidarity 💚  #justiceforgrenfell

[rokutouxei]

in a way that would make you proud

bungou stray dogs dazai osamu (& oda sakunosuke) | T | 2913 | [ao3]

warnings: post-canon, alcohol, dazai-typical suicide references, implied/referenced self-harm, oda is still dead, also everything is in lowercase. spoilers for dark era / 黒の時代.

notes: this was supposed to be for dazai’s birthday, but i started it way too late. i didn’t want to rush it, so i took a week to write it and now it’s just a long angsty love letter from me to him (in a way.) + first bsd fic so i wanted to make a good impression LOL

summary:

dazai didn’t think he’d live up to the age of 23. hell, he didn’t think he’d make it to 18. he was sure, at 10, that he would be dead by 15. everyday he would wake up wondering (hoping? believing?) that he’d be dead the next day. he never really does. alternatively: june 19th, every year, just feels like a long, long night.

-

(midnight.)

dazai doesn’t celebrate his birthdays, at least in his head. it’s just another likely-humid day in the country’s short rainy season. every birthday is just another reminder, no, a testament to a year of failed attempts to take his own life. it’s miserable at the worst. today, it’s just numb. he doesn’t even wake up feeling any different.

but he doesn’t let that train of thought stop everyone around him for celebrating for him.

dazai considers, for the first few minutes after waking up, skipping work altogether. it’s not going to be surprising, or anything new from him, really. and an earful from kunikida is just going to be cheap fun for the next day. but as dawn slowly gave way to the sun, he figured dealing with the pleasantries (as in, the “surprise” party that had stopped being a surprise a week ago) and sitting in his office chair would make him feel a little more put-together, at least more than just lying in his futon with his new roommate, a growing stack of empty cans of ready-to-eat crab.

dazai sighs, shuffles out of his bed, hearing the imaginary shackles that bind him there clink around.

(one o’clock am)

besides, the members of the armed detective agency think of themselves a small family at best, and for families, birthdays are special. (dazai hums this to himself on his way to work, like it’s a fact he’s learned, not a lived experience.) he’s spent the past two years carving himself a spot in this mismatched little group, and even if his space feels just as impermanent as anything he’s ever wanted, it’s still a place. he isn’t going to lose all that hard work over a random day.

budget is tight this quarter, but when he gets to the office, he’s welcomed with, salad, karaage… and even crab! there’s no alcohol because kunikida is too strait-laced for that and he insists there’s still work to be done. dazai whines and makes complaints, as everyone expects him to.

most of his colleagues have small gifts for him, like an orange from kenji, a candy from ranpo (quickly taken back), his favorite bandages from yosano… nothing really spectacular. kunikida gets him nothing, but the wordless glance they share with each other says otherwise.

atsushi feels indebted to his mentor, so he splurges to get him something nice: a scarf. which is hilarious, to say the least, considering it’s basically summer, but since scarves are off-season they are cheaper, and that’s the only way atsushi can afford something as stunning and high-quality as this—a nice thick cotton one in a deep blue shade. he passes the credit to kyouka for choosing which to get and for wrapping it nicely.

dazai’s eyes flicker with something for a moment before it’s gone. he thanks them with as much heart as he can muster, then does his usual dramatics. asks if the scarf is sturdy enough to hang himself with.

atsushi begs him please don’t and dazai feels something squeeze in his heart.

after the feast, the rest of the day goes as it usually does: dazai smiles and makes jokes and laughs and drives kunikida batshit insane. it’s just a normal day at the armed detective agency office.

just not for dazai.

(two o’clock am)

a work day is still a work day, though, and there’s no getting away from kunikida even on “personal holidays.” there are reports to be written and things to be followed up. dazai isn’t being efficient about it, but he still does his share—at least enough so that it’s even a bit fair for his begrudging partner, who is always gentler to him on this particular day.

an extra serving of patience—that’s what kunikida always gives him on his birthday. and even on this year, dazai’s quick to claim it; two hours before the work day officially ends, he’s already packing up to leave.

not that kunikida’s screaming will really stop him, but it feels a little better when dazai can afford to leave a little early with permission.

atsushi’s a little surprised no one stops dazai from leaving, but he asks no more questions when kyouka shushes him. kunikida only tsks when dazai is out of the building.

(three o’clock am)

out of the office and back into the rush of the city, dazai’s feet bring him to a beeline to that place, like on autopilot. he’s humming all the way there but his brain’s only echoing a sort of static. that is, until the imagery of sitting next to empty seats begins to burrow into the haze of his mind—and it hurts. numbness is okay, but pain? it hurts the same way squeezing into old shoes that no longer fit you does.

and dazai hates it.

so he steels himself, says, no one’s there anymore, insists, there is nothing to come back to.

even if he knows he will find himself there again one day. he always, inevitably does.

but not today. that’s not where he feels safe enough to break.

this time, dazai’s a little more purposeful, a little more awake.

he drops by a liquor store to get whiskey. just goes up the aisle and picks up the first one he finds. it’s not like he’ll remember what it tastes, anyway. the cashier doesn’t make small talk. dazai smiles at them anyway.

he contemplates buying flowers, but he feels a pang of pain at gifting something that’ll die before he does.

and so he begins the long, slow walk to the seaside.

(yesterday, today, and tomorrow)

yokohama is too familiar to him now. he’s lived here too long.

every street bears his secrets. every crosswalk has a memory.

every inch of the city has a weight.

when he was still learning to maneuver the ins and outs of the city, a little boy barely filling in the hollow of his new uniform, there was darkness everywhere. everywhere he entered, everywhere he left. dazai was sure the darkness would quickly consume him.

dazai didn’t think he’d live up to the age of 22.

hell, he didn’t think he’d make it to 18. he was sure, at 10, that he would be dead by 15.

every day he wakes up wondering (hoping? believing?) if he’d be dead the next day.

today, he’s 23.

odasaku died at 23.

dazai should have died at 15.

or better yet, it should have been him who died at the hands of mimic.

he’s sure.

(four o’clock am)

even if odasaku had acted of his own accord, he was still given a mafia’s burial. the details, of course, were hushed: it didn’t matter that mori had orchestrated the entire deal with gide. what mattered is that odasaku’s death had led to the granting of their prized business permit.

a piece of paper in a stupid black envelope.

in the months between the port mafia and the armed detective agency, dazai struggled to find a way to put into words what the experience left in him. it was like it was him who was shot clean through the chest. he was walking down the path the end of odasaku’s life had pointed him towards, but then what? at what cost? to what end?

his friend’s death left no trace of him, his private files burnt, the ones still useful to the mafia kept in confidential locations. (dazai knows where everything is.) to the outside world, all that was left of the man named oda sakunosuke was a headstone, on a rather beautiful gravesite on a fancy cemetery overlooking the sea.

it was dazai who overlooked all these tiny details, even while on the run, in hiding.

honor the dead, they said.

he figured it was the least he could do.

dazai always felt like he could offer too little to the only man who ever really knew him.

so now he offers it all, stumbling along the unfinished path of a dead man, even if he didn’t know where was he going with it.

“ya, odasaku.”

(ten minutes past four)

not much of anyone comes to visit this grave, really. ango, maybe, dazai bitterly thinks, but he’s gladly never had the chance to see the man here. (he hopes he never gets to.)

because this is the only place dazai truly feels quiet.

he doesn’t really stop thinking. he doesn’t know how to. there’s always too many things to consider, so much going on, and even when his brain lets go of the tangible, of the here and now, there are other things for thoughts to latch on to, like old wounds that suddenly seem fresh if dazai closes his eyes hard enough, or the phantom sensation of a noose, or the sudden realization that he’s drowning, just not in water.

dazai’s long mastered the art of keeping his forever-rushing thoughts in neat compartments. he doesn’t usually lose track of his spirals, except when he’s here.

here he counts down, 18, goodbye, 17, 16, 15, hello, he is young again, he isn’t wounded in the places that hurt when he’s alone, he is meeting odasaku for the first time. (he’s walking down the port mafia headquarters and he sees him, and something deep within him, six years away from the future, shouts: don’t! spare him! meeting you is a death sentence!)

and then he is meeting him for the last time.

like freshly pumped from a weakened heart, stuttering, begging to live, the spurting red blood is still warm. it sends those in dazai’s veins boiling. there is no rationalizing here—no amount of reason brings the dead back.

he knows that.

but dazai breathes easier when the lines are less muddled, and he can point the criminal to the judge and sentence them to death.

it was mori ougai, sir.

it was gide, sir.

it was me, sir.

it was him—it was oda sakunosuke’s fault, sir.

(it was him who pulled me out of the dark, sir. who forced me to deal with the mess we made, sir. who told me i belonged here, sir.

i don’t want to be here, sir.)

it is only here where dazai’s mask really breaks.

shatters cleanly in half, then falls down with a thump on sacred ground.

(twenty minutes past four)

dazai rests his back against the headstone, staring out at the ocean, the sunset dyeing yokohama bay a lovely vermillion. the tendrils of loneliness cling to his limbs like they’ve sprouted out of the ground, when really it’s from deep inside his heart.

only here does dazai really feel seen: his transparency only to a man buried six feet under.

dazai’s given up on it, now. it doesn’t matter that people don’t “get” him, as long as he’s able to do what he has to do. this is a luxury is long past him, now that he’s slipped into someone else’s unfulfilled dream. he’s trying to be what odasaku would have wanted himself to be.

if there’s one thing, one thing he would ask for, it’s faith: and with his subordinates’ faith comes success—and that’s all he needs.

just bargaining chips he’s collecting under his pillow as he says, “look, odasaku, i’m doing good, look, cruel god, this duty’s given my life meaning, forgive me, forgive him.”

meaning?

no, there is no meaning here, no metaphor, no hope.

just a gaping void.

(four thirty am)

the sun slips under the bay and the sky is a beautiful lavender-violet; the sea breeze makes him chill. rainclouds have begun to crawl over the horizon, hiding the moon.

dazai feels old. too old. he feels too old for someone in a body that’s only twenty-three. he never expected this body to last as long as it has. he was ready to retire at ages much younger than this. his hands crave death with the same vigor his mind races to write strategies for situations where he survives. now, he lives in a world he never expected or planned to be a part of.

he wonders if odasaku felt this exhausted when he was at this age.

all dazai does here is think. until the thoughts stop.

the cap of the whiskey bottle is screwed on tight but when it opens, the smell takes him back to bar lupin so fast that his head spins. dazai takes a swig of the whiskey straight from the bottle.

and he was right. he can’t taste it.

only blood. the blood in his hands, the way it stained his bandages, odasaku’s dead weight, the red pooling on the floor. dazai only tastes blood in his mouth.

blood’s always been the only thing that’s filled him.

and he hated it. felt it thrumming underneath his wrist, his jugular, blood that said try as you might, you insolent mortal, you can’t die, that so many times he’s tried to wring himself dry of it.

he never does.

because if he loses his blood what else would be left in him?

odasaku once told him that the emptiness inside of him will never be filled, not by anything that he’ll ever find in this world. and odasaku was right—dazai knew. dazai knew long before he was told. no amount of money, no amount of power, no amount of whatever will get him out of the edge of the cliff he was dangling on.

for a moment, dazai wonders if odasaku knew and was so sure of it because odasaku was aware he was taking it away with him.

whatever “it” was.

(the sun begins to paint the sky violet)

dazai remembers an afternoon a million years ago when the hollow in his heart didn’t have the shape of oda sakunosuke’s hands. ozaki kouyou was teaching two jittery fifteen-year-olds about literature.

well, just one, but dazai’s really only there because he wanted to mess with chuuya, and kouyou spotted him first.

with not a single year of formal education on chuuya’s back, kouyou’s work with him was nearly tenfold. she was tasked not only to refine his abilities (he’s good, but he can be better, a touch of elegance will not hurt), but also teach him other valuable skills.

being part of the organization, after all, was not just about violence and murder.

dazai knew that. chuuya was yet to learn it.

arithmetic and history and science—the redhead had tutors for that. but literature, kouyou had taken into her hands.

it’s not the text itself, or the language and vocabulary, she said, what we’re honing here is critical thinking, and the bits of philosophical thought to be picked up that’ll shape you into a brilliant mafioso in the future. pretty words, dazai thought. she sipped tea while chuuya read. she tapped his back with a fan when his posture broke and he began to slouch.

chuuya read the books religiously, without complaint (at least not in front of kouyou). dazai never really understood all this. he let his mind wander. why didn’t she just let the boy read war strategy books—the kind mori made him devour? oh, but chuuya wasn’t really a strategist, and well, he’s obedient, that’s why he’s a dog—

the silence of the afternoon was broken by chuuya getting up to ask about a phrase he didn’t understand. kouyou smiled in a way that left dazai unsettled. and somehow, that afternoon was burned into dazai’s memory like it was something he mustn’t forget.

the phrase was 無我夢中.

to be totally absorbed in something, you lose yourself in it.

that is, dazai’s long known what he’s doing, he just doesn’t want to admit it.

(the sky is a weak light blue, giving way to an inevitable morning)

the whiskey bottle is empty now. dazai shifts to stuff it into his little paper bag of gifts when his fingers graze the soft cotton of his new scarf, deep blue.

save the weak, protect the orphans, he was told.

he pulls the scarf out and clutches it in his hands.

feels its weight. imagines rope.

please don’t, atsushi said earlier.

and dazai is trying, and trying, and trying, and—

is it enough?

is he enough?

will he be enough?

“odasaku,” dazai says, hums it under his breath like the wind will take it, bring it where he needs it to go, “would i have made you proud?”

(dawn)

fat droplets begin to pour out of the dark clouds. there are no stars out. yokohama glimmers under the thin sheen of rain.

nearby, a child hurriedly grasps his father’s free hand as he digs into his bag for an umbrella, and the little boy goes, “papa, the sky is crying!”

and maybe the sky is. maybe the man sitting behind the gravestone is.

but there are two sure things about rain:

one, that it washes away any and all things if you let it.

two, that it will always, somehow, at some point, stop.

(morning’s just beginning)

dazai gets up on his feet, with just a little sway from all the alcohol. but the night’s still young, and there are better stuff to drink than whiskey out of a bottle. he looks back at the grave with eyes promising he’ll be back soon, a little better, a little wiser than he is, and then off he goes, into the city he far-too-well knows.

maybe he can bother someone into treating him to some good, expensive, old-fashioned wine.

[xxunicorncaitxx]

Chapter one- Childhood memories

This is going to be a fanfiction with many warnings which I will add at the beginning of each chapter. This will also be posted on my wattpad account!!

All the credits go to @sammie-cant-write

Ialsogottheirpermissionsoyoudonthavetoworryaboutthat-

—

Warnings: Abuse and Language

—

Race's pov-

Nov. 1, 1993-

My life all started on the first of November, the year of 1993. Everything seemed perfect and happy. I was a healthy kid, which was a good thing, of course, but that didn't seem to last long.

"Anthony"

My mother said, smiling down at her one and only child in her arms. She was so happy, but my father on the other hand? He wasn't happy at all.

Nov. 10, 1993-

My parents have been fighting for 8 days now. It somehow turned into a physical argument.. every... single.. time.

"That worthless piece of shit!"

"Useless!"

"Just as ugly as you are!"

"He'll do this world no good"

"He'll grow to be a useless nobody.."

And I guess he was right. Maybe I am a worthless and ugly nobody. Maybe I didn't do this world any good.

It wasn't too long after one of the worst fights where he decided to leave. And for good.

Dec. 24, 1996-

"Ma?"

"Yes, baby?"

"Is Pop coming home for Christmas dis year?"

Those words brought a strange look onto my mother's face. I was confused as to why she looked so upset. Did I do something wrong? All I wanted was answers.

"No, he's not.. maybe next year."

"But Ma-"

"Anthony, I don't want to talk about it. Go to bed."

I did what I was told. Laying down in bed, I covered myself with the blanket and just cried until I was finally able to fall asleep.

April 16, 1997-

My mother's wedding to my step-father. To this day, I still don't know where they met or why she chose him as a husband.

I stood there and watched them get married, smiling, thinking that everything was going to be fine after that. Of course, I was wrong. Wasn't I always wrong? 

Bruised and beaten and tired. Was it ever going to end? 

Every day was a fresh start of being tormented. New bruises and cuts all over my body. Guilt and regret filled me as I already wanted to end my suffering. I was only so young and I didn't know what I did to deserve this. 

Soon I start school. Great right? I will have to go in on my first day looking like a complete mess. That smile will always be fake no matter what, and I will feel so bad for those who are my friends.. if  I even make any that is. They'll have to put up with a friend who is fake and nobody likes fake people. That's what I was told anyway.

Jan. 3, 2000- 

I felt completely numb. Doctors and nurses rushed in and out of the room. They did everything they could to save her. No matter what they tried or how many times they did, nothing worked. Hours upon hours of sitting there with a blank expression on my face, a doctor said "I'm sorry" as they proceeded to take off their gloves. I stared at them for the longest time, not knowing what to say. Angry and upset, I ran home, tears streaming down my face. 

Dinner was different without Ma. It was complete silence half the time. I didn't want to eat but I did anyway so I didn't make my step-father upset.

"How was your mother?"  He asked, putting some of the food in his mouth

"Fine, I guess..."

"You lyin'?"

I set the fork down slowly and stared right into his dark brown eyes. That was a way of saying 'yes'

"Are you serious?  I thought I told you not to lie"

"Y-You did, sir..." (I called him 'sir' because why the fuck would I call him dad?)

"Then why are you?"

"I-I don't know.," I muttered.

"Tell me the truth boy. Go on"

"She... She's gone.."

"What do you mean by ‘She's gone’?!”

"SHE'S DEAD!" I raised my voice out of nowhere. Getting up, I try to walk away but I didn't get too far. He grabbed the back of my shirt and beat the shit outta me. As he did, the tears escaped from my eyes but I stayed silent, scared, and hopeless. 

Jan. 4, 2000-

After yesterday, I finally got the chance to call for help. I was done being hurt by this man both physically and mentally. Soon, I'll feel safe and will be taken to a better place.

Jan. 15, 2000-

Brooklyn, New York. That's where I ended up. I moved schools and I got to say... I love it here! I made a friend by the name of Spot Conlon. He was pretty chill and had such a good reputation, which I admired so much. Every day, we'd go out and get some ice cream, feed the ducks, sit at the docks, swim; and for once in my life, I felt happy.

Jan. 18, 2000-

Today was the day of my mother's funeral. I put on nice clothes and went back to Manhattan with some older kid. No idea who he was but he was pretty friendly.

Standing there listening to what everyone had to say struck me. She didn't deserve the pain and all I could think of was that it was my fault. Maybe if I were a better son, she would still be here. This was going to be the last time I was going to see her so I said goodbye and apologized before heading back across the bridge to Brooklyn.

They wouldn't let me see her get buried. However, they gave me the location of the burial site.

May 29, 2001-

It's been a year since my mother has passed and a few weeks since my step-father's death as well. My biological father was long gone so they just considered me as an orphan. Packing up my things, Spot stood at the doorway with a small smirk on his face.

"You sure you want to go back to 'hattan?”

"Of course.."

"Well, where are you going to go? You got nobody"

"I'll find a place to stay. I'll get myself a job and I'll be fine"

"Anthony, you make it sound so simple when really, it's not. You can't just go back, ask someone for a job, and expect yourself to get accepted right on the spot. It'll take some time-"

"Just stop.. Please..."

"I'm just saying. You can't just-"

"I SAID STOP! Just leave me alone, OKAY?"

Rage filled my body as Spot went silent. He glared then walked off. There was no way he'd be my friend now!

I grabbed my belongings and left that evening without saying goodbye to anyone. Not even Spot.

June 5, 2001-

I got a job and met the love of my life: Albert DaSilva. He was perfect! I know I was still pretty young to get these feelings but... I couldn't help but love him.

March 31, 2006-

I got a hold of cigars and started gambling. Probably another good choice I've made. The cigars calmed me down, and ever since I got one, I haven't snapped at anyone or got so anxious. I earned some cash while gambling too which was amazing.

 November 1, 2007-

After a few years of talking, Albert asked me to be his boyfriend; and on my birthday!! I accepted, of course, and realized that he was the only one who actually cared about me! Hopefully, it lasts.

The racetracks closed for the winter and I was quite bummed out, although I'll definitely go next year! 

November 8, 2007- 

I received the nickname "Racetrack" from the other boys who work with me. They said they'll call me "Race" instead because I loved watching the horse races. Ever since the track closed for the rest of the year, I wouldn't stop bothering them about it so here I am with "Racetrack" as a nickname

December 25th, 2007-

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

There was music, drinks, food, and presents everywhere. Us orphans stayed at a home in Manhattan and there weren't many of us so it was easier to get things done (if that makes sense.)

Albert got me a present that even I can't afford. A promise ring? I looked at him, letting a small smile take over. Not knowing what to say, I put it on and held his hand. This was one of the best days of my life! I couldn't be more grateful than this...

So I stared into his eyes and finally said

“I love you”

[bills-bible-basics]

Gay and Lesbian Agenda Graphic 16 Graphic created by #BillKochman for #BillsBibleBasics. Visit the BBB Graphics Library at https://www.billkochman.com/Graphics-Library/ to see all my graphics with related Bible studies. Whether some of you realize it or not, our nation has been slip sliding away for literally decades. However, the slide has been so slow, so gradual, and so subtle, that it wasn't until about halfway through the decade of the 2010s that a lot of people really began to wake up to what has been going on. However, sadly, by that time, it was already too late. Serious damage had already been done, and the victory had already been won. What has been going on since then basically amounts to mopping up exercises and tying up the loose ends. And boy are they doing a good job of it! So exactly what am I talking about? Well, do you remember a few decades ago -- back in the 1970s, actually -- when the LGBT crowd began claiming that they just wanted to be left alone to live their lives as they please? Fast-forward forty years. Then came gender reassignment surgery. Then came renegade, liberal circuit court judges who repeatedly overturned the will of the people. Then came renegade, liberal state legislatures who likewise overturned the will of the people. Then came civil unions. Then on June 26, 2015 came nationwide legalization of same-sex "marriage" by mandate of the Supreme Court of the United States, despite the majority of the American people being opposed to it. Then came openly gay or lesbian bishops, pastors, priests, politicians, actors, sports figures, and everyone in between. Then came same-sex union blessings in some of the churches. Then came adoption of normal, healthy children by same-sex couples. Then came law suits against Christians and Conservatives who follow their hearts and their faith, and who oppose the LGBT life style. Then came library books which openly promote the LGBT life style. Then came gender-neutral bathrooms. Then came drag queens in our public schools during children's story hour. Then came teaching LGBT history in the classroom. Then came liberal parents who encourage their children to act and dress like the opposite sex. Then came hormone injections, puberty-blocking drugs in young children and double mastectomies on adolescent girls in order to alter their natural-born physiology so that they could appear outwardly the way that they were being made to feel inwardly by misguided adults and parents. Then came a gender-neutral option on birth certificates. Now they promote their ungodly life style in every area of the entertainment and mass media industries where they possibly can, and constantly shove it in our faces. It is inescapable; unless one goes and lives in a cave. Yes, but of course, as they said, they just wanted to be left alone. Right? If you believe that nonsense, then you are seriously deceived! What about us? What about our right to live in a Bible-based, God-fearing society which honors and obeys God's natural order of things? How much longer will God endure this madness and rebellion against His holy Laws? When will His patience finally run out? When will His judgments begin to fall on the wicked who mock Him everyday, and who cast His Word to the ground? As the Apostle John wrote some two thousand years ago: "And‭ we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness." 1 John 5:19, KJV If John were alive today, oh how he would shudder! If you would like to further explore this issue, please consider reading all of the study resources which are listed below. God bless you, and thanks so much! Article: "The Gay and Lesbian Agenda: To the Point!": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/homosex1.html Article: "Future of Same-Sex Marriage": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/future-of-same-sex-marriage-01.html Article: "When Sin is No Longer a Sin!": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/whensin1.html

Article: "Queen James Bible: Blasphemous Abomination Exposed!": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/queen-james-bible-1.html Article: "Biblical Marriage Ceremonies": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/marriage1.html "Homosexuality Lesbianism Bestiality Transvestitism" KJV Bible Verse List: https://www.billkochman.com/VerseLists/verse138.html Magazine Article: "The Overhauling of Straight America": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles-Non-BBB/overhaul.html Article: "The Gay Gene?": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles-Non-BBB/gaygene1.html By the way, when we come to Jesus Christ and are reborn in the Spirit, the Scriptures make it very clear that we should undergo a spiritual and mental change in our lives, and that we should in fact become NEW CREATURES in Jesus Christ. We should NOT remain the same, living our same old life style, and living in our same old sins. That means that people who belong to the LGBTQ crowd should NOT continue practicing their sexual deviancy. Here is Scriptural proof: "God's Desire for Healing and Repentance" KJV Bible Verse List: https://www.billkochman.com/VerseLists/verse302.html "Old Man Versus New Man" KJV Bible Verse List: https://www.billkochman.com/VerseLists/verse165.html "Washed and Renewed Mind" KJV Bible Verse List: https://www.billkochman.com/VerseLists/verse071.html Article: "Don't Ever Underestimate Our Spiritual Enemy": https://www.billkochman.com/Articles/DontUnderestimateOurEnemy1.html https://www.billkochman.com/Blog/index.php/gay-and-lesbian-agenda-graphic-16/?feed_id=59537&_unique_id=64529d097e530&Gay%20and%20Lesbian%20Agenda%20Graphic%2016

[minikate--24-05]

Ok but i really want to know about those stories for another time:3 (when you've got the time ofcourse)

Dear anon, sadly I’ll be studying and sitting exams until the end of June, which is when I’ll talk about 2 of the “stories for another day” because I wanna get the right evidence to support my theories. I will tag them as “anon”, “ask” and “story for another day” so that you can find them.

however, I can’t just leave you hanging after yesterday’s post, so today I’m gonna tell you about one of the stories, since my research is already done. it’s about the “firing” of NCIS writers and directors from the first seasons.

I know you haven’t watched the first seasons, but have you watched Ziva’s seasons? Bishop’s? I have, and let me tell you, they hit different. the tone of the first 2 seasons is different than the others. all NCIS feel like NCIS of course, but those 2 hit different. I noticed it 4 years ago and decided to look for an explanation. was it Kate? she was the only thing that changed from the first seasons towards the others. or was she?

being the math/science geek that I am, I decided to see if there had been “Kibbs writers” or “Kibbs directors”. that is, that Donald Bellisario went only to certain people when he wanted to provide Kibbs content. I wondered: 1) if they existed (you know, maybe all the writers and directors worked with every ship) and 2) had my first hypothesis been true, did the Kibbs team leave after season 2? did they continue working on the show writing for a different ship?

to do so I SUBJECTIVELY (which I know isn’t the ideal way to proceed, but what can I do) selected the episodes that I considered to be “Kibbs content”. they were: 1x01, 1x02, 1x03, 1x04, 1x06, 1x07, 1x09, 1x10, 1x11, 1x12, 1x13, 1x14, 1x18, 1x19, 1x23, 2x03, 2x06, 2x09, 2x10, 2x13, 2x16, 2x19, 2x23, 3x01, 3x02. I have to admit that nowadays I consider 1x22 as Kibbs content too because there’s a scene where Gibbs is hooking Kate up to some cables or whatever (look I’m tired and trilingual so let’s skip the proper vocabulary lesson) which is basically foreplay. back then I didn’t include it but bear with me and keep in mind that it was directed by Alan J. Levi (this will all make sense in a minute).

after selecting the episodes, I wrote down their writers and directors. then, I calculated the % of Kibbs episodes each of them had written/directed and paid attention to the top 3/5 and the most Kibbs writer and director. after that, I searched for ALL Kibbs writers/directors in the rest of NCIS episodes, to see if they had written more episodes. this was done in 2016 so I believe the 13th season was coming out. I have not updated the work.

the results were:

WRITERS: there were 16 Kibbs writers. the top 5 were: Donald Bellisario (flashback to yesterday’s post when I said he was writing for Kibbs hehe), John C. Kelley, George Schenck and Frank Cardea (I think they’re still a writing duo on the show? hardcore) and Frank Military. Frank Military wrote 15% of the total of Kibbs episodes and didn’t write any other episodes; that makes 100% of his episodes “Kibbs content” episodes. in this house we stan Frank Military. 

4 of them had regular work after season 2.

1 of them had regular work until season 4.

2 of them had minor work until season 4.

9 of them only worked in seasons 1-2.

56% of the Kibbs writers from seasons 1 and 2 never worked on the show again.

DIRECTORS: there were 12 Kibbs directors. the top 3 were: Alan J. Levi (remember him?), Dennis Smith and James Whitmore, Jr. Alan J. Levi directed 15% of the total of Kibbs episodes (19% if we include 1x22) and he has directed 1 other episode (1x22); that makes 80% of his episodes “Kibbs content” episodes (unless we take 1x22 into account, then, that’s 100%!). in this house we admire Alan J. Levi.

3 of them had regular work after season 2.

1 of them had regular work until season 4.

8 of them only worked in seasons 1-2.

66% of the directors from seasons 1 and 2 never worked on the show again.

*Note: I included the season 4 deadline too because that’s when Donald Bellisario stepped down as showrunner (like I said, he likes starting things and then leaving them to someone else) and I wanted to see if he was a factor in the absence of the “Kibbs team”. I think it’s safe to say that he was not.

now, the conclusions. 1) yes, there were “Kibbs writers and directors”. 2) as you can see more than half of them ONLY worked on the first 2 seasons of the show. I know we can’t exactly say they were fired, but, if half of the ship is dead, you don’t need them anymore, right? 

I realize that it’s not exactly “half of the writers and directors from the first seasons”, it’s “half of the Kibbs writers and directors”, but if we look at the eps I selected, that’s almost the entire 1st season and half of the second. so no wonder the rest of the seasons feel different, a lot of writers and directors left and a lot of new writers and directors came!

the essence is still the same because Donald Bellisario stayed for 2 more years and must’ve taught them. but season 3 starts with Gibbs (and the rest of the team) mourning Kate. he’s not making jokes anymore, he calls people by their first names and offers them coffee, he wants to put roses on the rooftop, he tells Ari to straight up kill him. he’s sad. that’s the Gibbs the new writers and directors first meet and that’s the one they stuck with until today. no more cocky and dirty jokes. no more flirting like he used to. and now smiles are a rare occurrence (in case you didn’t know, anon, Gibbs used to smile a LOT when Kate was around).

so there you have it, anon! I feel like not a lot of people know this, but yeah, the ending of season 2 meant change for the actors, for the fans, and for the writing/directing team.

tl;dr: during the first 2 NCIS seasons there were a group of writers and directors that mostly wrote and directed Kibbs content episodes, and half of them didn’t work on the show after the ending of season 2. the rest of the show feels different because the writing room changed.

IN CASE YOU’RE INTERESTED IN THE OTHER “STORIES FOR ANOTHER DAY”: I will make the posts at the end of June and tag them as “anon”, “ask” and “story for another day”. since that is a bit complicated for you guys, let me know if you want me to tag you in the posts so that you don’t have to search my blog for days.

I’m very happy with how this thing has been received (thanks to the anon!!), so thank you guys for the support. the Kibbs fandom is awesome!

[tiger-manya]

So, my Miraculous Ulysses AU.

I was genuinely surprised how many people responded to this (which is like… ten, but still). Thank you everyone, @furryhamlet in particular. I don’t know how serious I am about this, but does anybody really?

First, let us take a moment to establish the main similarities between Ulysses, a modernist masterpiece by James Joyce, and Miraculous Ladybug, a (debatably metamodern?) kids show:

puns;

the revolutionary new trope of main hero having a dead mother and the resulting father issues (never done before or after);

farts and bathroom humour (more prevalent in Ulysses, of course).

I think everything is quite clear.

And now, without further ado, Miraculous Ulysses AU:

It’s still Dublin, it’s still 1904, but now there’s also magic. And superheroes.

Stephen Dedalus has a black cat miraculous; Buck Mulligan has a bee miraculous; Simon Dedalus has a butterfly miraculous (not because I think it suits him, but because someone has to); Leopold Bloom is the guardian, but he doesn't do a very good job; Molly is often Ladybug, but it's not like she cares a lot.

All of them, of course, have different names for their alternate personas, but I'm not clever enough with names and not skilled enough with English language. Let's just say: Simon doesn't bother; Bloom comes up with a name for every person he gives a miraculous to, but none of them use those; Stephen has a million names, all very deep and clever, but the only one that stuck is whatever Mulligan mockingly called him that one time; and I don't know what's Bee!Mulligan name is, but it's inappropriate for general audiences.

I’ll have some placeholder names to make it easier for myself. Stephen may remain Chat Noir (he would probably name himself after a cabaret, at least to honour his teenage rebellion against church); Simon Dedalus can be Moth Daddy; Buck is… idk, Hornet? Hornet will do.

May Dedalus, Stephen’s mother, died not from cancer but from the misuse of the damaged peacock miraculous. After her death, Simon started akumatizing people into villains. He’s aware of the wish, but at this point it’s mostly about revenge to Chat Noir.

(Chat Noir might be the one who damaged the peacock miraculous in the first place, but it never said outright.)

He, of course, doesn't know anything about his son being Chat. Stephen, however, knows everything about his parents, but has no idea what to do with this information. It's a source of his resentment, but he can't bring himself to properly sort out his feelings.

Mulligan and Stephen know nothing about each other’s alternate identities. Stephen is friends with Mulligan mostly because his father doesn't want it. He actually resents Mulligan a lot, but is sympathetic towards Hornet because sees him as someone similar to him, someone who could actually understand his world-view and take it seriously. Chat spends some efforts to turn Hornet to his side but to no avail. Mulligan, on the other hand, thinks Chat Noir is a pretentious prick, but has a lot of genuine admiration for Stephen, even though he hides it under the layers of sarcasm and cynicism, as he doesn't want to be seen as weak. And that is your love square, everybody.

Hornet starts out as an independent party, but at some point begins working for Moth. Naturally, Simon finds out his identity and that’s the main reason he doesn’t want to see him anywhere near his son.

It’s Bloom who deals with the most akuma emergencies. He often recruits different dubliners to his side, but almost none of them stick to the job. Chat helps time to time, even though this help is often incidental, and he’s a lot more interested in Hornet shenanigans. Bloom is aware of Chat, but they never have time to properly talk to each other. Bloom wants to meet him; Bloom is searching for him.

The guardian duties tire him a lot. Bloom inherited the miracle box from his father with three miraculous already missing. Later he lost the fourth one, the bee miraculous, which he considers his greatest mistake. His relationship with Molly is not that great either. She used to regularly take a role of Ladybug, but after her singing career took off, she started losing interest. Nowadays Bloom often gives the ladybug miraculous to other women. Gerty is one of them.

Boylan is there somewhere. There’s probably an episode where he gets akumatized and Bloom and Molly are the ones to deal with it (very awkward for all parties).

Just so you know, the masturbation scene is still there.

There are a lot of Odyssey themed akumas. For instance, local back-seat political expert The Citizen is turned into Cyclops.

There was one person Stephen tried to tell about Chat Noir. A few years ago, before his run off to Paris, he tried talking to Cranly about the ring. He immediately got excited about the possibilities, insisted he and Stephen could work together as a superhero team. Stephen tried to explain himself, but ultimately saw that Cranly wouldn't ever understand. He brushed the whole thing off as a joke and never returned to it. At some point, Stephen thinks he should reveal himself to Mulligan, but then remembers Cranly and decides against it.

Haines’s dream about panther hunting is still there and now it cuts even deeper.

There’s a Chat Blanc type episode. It’s called Pangur Bán and it’s about the horrifying alternate reality of Stephen staying in Ireland (it’s not that bad, actually, but Stephen has a meltdown).

Ultimately, Stephen finds out Hornet is Mulligan. That's what seals his betrayal to Stephen, so there is nothing he could do but go to the brothel and get drunk. What led him to this discovery is that during their last encounter Hornet reused one of Stephen's aphorisms only Mulligan could know at that point. (He also grossly misquoted it and twisted the meaning.)

It’s in the brothel that Bloom recognizes Stephen (who is severely drunk at this point) as a son of his friend and saves him from the trouble he’s about to lead himself into. That’s when he notices the ring and realizes that Stephen is Chat Noir.

Bloom is happy beyond belief. He’s finally met someone he could share his guardian duties with. He buys Stephen some food and lets him sober up a bit, afterwards he invites him to his home and proposes a plan. Stephen could live in Bloom’s house with a better, more stable job. Bloom could share all his guardian knowledge with him, so he could better control his powers. They could work together as a team to finally bring Moth and Hornet to justice and end all this mess. Finally, Stephen could become the next guardian and have a miracle box all to himself. He responds to this with silence. Bloom apologizes and says he understands it’s a lot to take in, so he tells Stephen to think on it until morning.

Bloom falls asleep near his wife, full of hope for the future.

Before dawn, Stephen leaves Bloom’s house with his ring and his wallet. He plans to spend his last money on a ticket to France.

Before we end, a few things about an ideal media format for this AU:

It’s an animated tv series, at least 3 seasons long.

The style and quality of animation varies drastically from episode to episode, sometimes suddenly changing in the middle of one. There are at least 9 studious working on this, the communication between them isn’t great.

It all takes place in one day, 16 June 1904, but the viewers can’t tell that for sure until the last episode. This revelation might frustrate them at first, but once they’ll look back, they realize it kind of makes sense, as there is hardly any change of weather or time of day during the vast majority of episodes.

Unfortunately, it will be very hard to look back at, as all the episodes are aired out of order.

The series is broadcasted in many countries, each of which has its own order of episodes. And none of them has a full translation. Actually, nobody can have a full translation, until the thing becomes public domain. Until then, there are only automatically generated and machine translated subtitles. And fansubs, I guess.

Not to mention it gets banned really quickly in a lot of places.

The fans lose their mind, trying to establish continuity. There are multiple theories and theme tables to make sense of it all. The meaning also can change drastically, depending on the order you watch it in, so there are full-blown fandom continuity wars. People go mad. People die. It feels like a fever dream.

But once it all put together?

Absolute masterpiece.

Thank you for reading. Sorry for any mistakes or awkward English. 

Was this necessary? No. Will I stand by it? Well, yes I said yes I will Yes