#it's fine as a book otherwise it just cannot write believable children and that's a huge part of the plot

[ladyloveandjustice]

I've been reading this book, and I was having a hard time telling if the kid in the book is intentionally supposed to be some kind of super genius or the writer had literally never been around a child before, but now there's a segment where the kids, who are in second grade last time we checked in, have the wherewithal to skip school and smoke weed, all while planning a well orchestrated protest against the prejudiced teachers and the mom is a cool mom about them taking mood altering substances at age seven-eight??? so yes, I guess I have to accept this author has no idea how children develop and at what age they do things, to a point I have no idea how that got past a professional editor.

[wwillywonka]

wwillywonka's Interests

(links are in red)

-here is my super long, super detailed list of the things i blog about. if you read the whole thing, you're amazing and i love you. thanks<33 -a more comprehensive list of my interests can be found here. i update it often. -please for the love of god do yourself a favour and listen to blooms by arthur sharpe

Willy Wonka/Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

special interest since 2014

read my ongoing willy character study fic here

my willy playlist

beside the original dahl books, the 2005 movie is the best and most superior version. i believe this with my whole body, mind, and soul and cannot be convinced otherwise.

other favorite versions of canon: gareth snook on the recent uk tour, gene wilder (of course). see gareth snook’s take on willy’s character here

i have consumed every single piece of wonka related media/content that is reasonably available to the public including horrible elementary school productions on youtube and random college theses. i consider myself the foremost expert about anything and everything regarding willy and can get defensive if that is challenged. i am also aware that i take this way too seriously considering willy is just a silly little fucked up guy who forever ruined my taste in men in my preteens. but i stand by my opinions.

i’ve also been writing a very self-indulgent willy x oc (ross able) fic for nearing 4 years now and have yet to publish it in any capacity. that being said, i tend to talk about it in tags for my own reference, so if you’re ever curious to know more, feel free to ask<3.

i do not support roald dahl, tim burton, or johnny depp in any way. their existences are entirely separate from my enjoyment of catcf. bigotry and prejudice are not tolerated on this blog.

i think the prequel is fine but unnecessary. it’s so whatever to me that i sometimes forget it exists.

i am literally charlie bucket (so obsessed with willy wonka that my parasocial need to be in a weird friendship with him is all-consuming and the only thing that keeps me going). if you ship any of the literal children ticket winners with willy, get off my blog.

willy is my specialist girl, a genius inventor evil capitalist, the blorbo i spin around in my brain 24/7 and want to put in a microwave, my wife, and also the absolute worst guy to ever do it. she is my everything. they’re just a sad gay twink. he’s even bigger than jesus.

Jesus Christ Superstar

the 1973 movie has been one of my favorites since childhood but i became obsessed after seeing the musical on stage in 2023.

yes i connect everything i liked about jcs back to willy and my other fav characters :)

things i write and blog about that are perfectly captured in jcs:

being mortal and being a god are not so different

the line between godhood and celebrityhood being more blurred the further society progresses. both are corruption

toxic, all-consuming co-dependency

sacrificing everything that makes one human for the sake of the “greater good”; becoming unrecognisable, becoming a monster (metaphorically and/or literally)

faith in something that ultimately betrays

being gay and being supppeerr dramatic about it

Alice in Wonderland

i love all versions but have a soft spot for the 2010 movie

fav character: the mad hatter/tarrant hightopp

the 2009 miniseries is weirdly good

alice in wonderland is a war story. to me.

i feel similarly about alice through the looking glass 2016 as i do about wonka 2023

once again, i’ve been writing a fic based off the 2010 movie for years but have yet to publish any part of it. one day, i promise.

Loki

my love for loki started in 2012 when i saw the first avengers movie in theaters but has since grown into a love of norse mythology and its extended history and lore. loki by mevlin burgess is one of my favorite books and is, in my opinion, the best portrayal of the character in recent years. neil gaiman’s norse mythology is also great.

i love tom hiddleston so so so so much<33. he is a phenomenal actor and also a really nice man and deserves so much more recognition than just being “that hot guy who played that villain in marvel.” i recently had the pleasure of sitting in the audience for an interview he did and it was the best day of my entire life. only lovers left alive is one of my favorite movies.

i hate the disney+ show except for the literal last 20 minutes of the last episode which gave me everything i’ve ever wanted out of a loki story.

i used to be really, really, really, extremely into marvel but pretty much stopped caring after endgame (which i feel is the case for a lot of people). that being said, i still love tony stark and spider-man, particularly the toby mcguire movies (cough cough…alfred molina as doc ock <3333).

Doctor Who

my favorite show since 2012. currently hyperfixated on it with the release of s14, which i am absolutely loving so far. gatwa is already inching towards favorite doctor status.

fav doctor: capaldi

fav companions/other characters: donna, river, missy/the master. and yes, the tardis

fav episode: heaven sent

murray gold invented music and is everything i aspire to be as a composer

please no moffat discourse i will block you

that being said, chibnall ruined doctor who. jodie whittaker deserved so much better and i do not blame her, an amazing actress, for the horrible writing she had to work with.

currently working my way through classic who and the eu

Other Notable Favorites

Nightmare Before Christmas

Danny Elfman/Oingo Boingo

The Mighty Boosh/Noel Fielding/BritCom

Flowers/Will Sharpe Films

Good Omens

Frankenstein

Shakespeare

Star Trek (TNG, TOS)

Dan and Phil

Adventure Time

Wes Anderson Films

The Beatles

The Picture of Dorian Gray/Oscar Wilde

The Adventure Zone/The McElroys

AURORA

Other Things I Blog About

Robots & cyborgs, dolls

Body segmentation/body horror

Fashion/Fiber Arts

Nostalgia

Clowns

Nature

thanks if you read this far xoxo

[yhwhrulz]

A Bible Devotional 31st August 2023

Why?

REVELATION 19:7-8 NKJ 7 "Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready." 8 And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

These verses hold an answer to the question often asked by humans facing difficulties and troubles: "Why?"

Since Jesus has already defeated the devil and gained for us all the blessings the Bible tells us about, why is the devil allowed to continue to attack us and steal those blessings?

Does any bridegroom desire to marry a bride he cannot communicate with? Certainly not!

Surely, no highly educated person would prefer marrying a spouse who cannot even read or write. No one would prefer marrying someone unable to speak their language.

Jesus is no different in this regard. His desire is also to have companionship with those who understand Him.

So you are being prepared to be a fit companion for the Lord Jesus Christ for eternity. This means you need to have opportunity to overcome and to walk in love in the midst of difficulty. Otherwise, you would never be able to truly appreciate all Jesus has done.

Does this mean Jesus will throw out those who do not perfectly overcome in this life? Absolutely not! Jesus promised that anyone who came to Him would never be rejected or cast out (John 6:37). But the richest fellowship will be enjoyed with those who overcome as He overcame.

Jesus does not play favorites. He freely loves us all. But we are the ones who choose how close to the Lord we desire to be.

Revelation 19:8 says the fine linen adorning the Lamb's companion is righteous acts. What makes her so beautiful to Jesus is not that she is clothed in His righteousness, which was a gift, but in her own righteousness.

No, we are not saved by our righteous acts, but when we allow Jesus to live and love through us, our acts of loving sacrifice are very beautiful to the Lord.

Verse 7 says His wife has made herself ready. She was not born ready. She was born righteous, but not ready. She had to grow up and learn to walk as Jesus walked in order to become ready to be His most intimate companion. She received right standing with God as a free gift. But the righteous acts she is wearing are her own.

This is why the devil has not been incarcerated yet. God believes every one of His children can overcome, so we are being allowed the opportunity to do so.

The wife of the Lamb is meant to have the opportunity to overcome evil with good -- just as Jesus did -- so she can fellowship with Him on a level of understanding that would not be possible otherwise.

Our wonderful Lord Jesus is worthy of companions who understand (at least somewhat) the difficulties He suffered, because of His love for us.

So let us ask Him to continue His work in us, making us what He desires us to be -- similar to Him. And let us persevere in faith, even when we face things we don't fully understand.

Then we will be ready for that wonderful, privileged position of intimate fellowship with Jesus.

SAY THIS: It is a great privilege to know Jesus Christ, and to become like Him.

To give: http://aDevotion.org/give

Devotions in book form: http://CFApublications.com To hear audio teachings by the author of this devotional, visit https://adevotion.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=5ccca9ca3fa78afdf489a2454&id=9a22b79684&e=22c78815cb

[a-queer-seminarian]

Do you believe that God condemns anyone to Hell, or are we all going to wind up in Heaven?

Short answer? do i believe in hell? hell no!

[id: a cross stitch of the infamous "Hell Is Real" sign in Ohio, but with the word NOT added so it reads "Hell is NOT real" / end id. I sewed this cuz i have to drive past this dang sign every time i drive home and it makes me so cranky.]

___

Long answer?

The concept of hell has become less and less probable to me over the years. it seems like such a human solution to the problem of sin, not a Divine one.

This past year as i've studied the concept of prison abolition --

see Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis (free pdf online)

and, for a Christian view on how fundamentally messed up the US's prison system is, see Rethinking Incarceration by Dominique DuBois Giliard. (There are short vids and study guides for the latter, if reading isn't your thing / if you'd prefer those over paying for the book.)

-- and i find that many of the arguments against human prisons could also be argued against hell, which is really just The Ultimate Prison. Hell seems much like the punitive system we've got going on here, blown up to a supernatural size.

In Rethinking Incarceration, Giliard says that dealing with systemic problems and collective sin by choosing which individuals are The Problem and proceeding to Get Rid Of Them by chucking them in prison -- or hell -- is an unjust human solution, not a Divine solution.

He relates this to the harmful theology of penal substitution -- that the reason God became incarnate in the person of Jesus was simply to take the blame for all our wrongdoing -- to be the surrogate, or substitute, for the punishment all humanity would otherwise have to receive. But, Giliard writes,

Penal substitution is most problematic because it makes God’s response to sin too much like our own. It is a sort of recasting of God in our own image, as opposed to allowing the divinely inspired Scriptures to speak for God’s motives. Marshall also writes that “restoration, not retribution, is the hallmark of God’s justice and is God’s final word in history.”

God's justice is not that punitive kind of justice, but restorative. Jesus's whole life, and death, and resurrection together brings justice into our world because through all of it, the relationship between humanity and divinity was restored -- not because Jesus took the punishment that God would have slammed down on us.

{edit: I have a second post addressing how there are indeed parts of the Bible that depict God as punishing individuals or groups. Still, punishment is never the motive of Divine justice in scripture.)

If punishment is not God's justice, and neither is severed relationship, then hell, the ultimate punishment & place of isolation, is not God's justice.

Meanwhile, we can see the bad fruits of our punitive justice systems here on earth -- what happens when we accept that society is divided into "criminals" and "good people" or "citizens." As Giliard writes:

When we lose sight of the grace and mercy exemplified on the cross of Christ, people who have violated right relationship become irredeemable “criminals” to fear, avoid, and quarantine. When “criminals” are viewed as the social cancer infecting our communal health, safety, and thriving, we cease to see and affirm their humanity. Rather than fellow image bearers, we see “criminals” as hazardous elements contaminating our neighborhoods, and they thus must be purged by any means necessary. Michelle Alexander writes, “Criminals, it turns out, are the one social group in America we have permission to hate. In ‘colorblind’ America, criminals are the new whipping boys. They are entitled to no respect and little moral concern.” ...

I see similar things happen when people pretend they can guess who is going to hell, when they divide humanity into the heavenbound and the hellbound.

(I won't go into it here but it needs to be noted: think about who is seen as prison-bound, how our system sets up certain groups, such as Black and Latine persons & other persons of color, to end up in prison; and then think of who is often seen as hellbound, such as LGBTQA+ persons & non-Christians. Bigotry is tangled up in all this, which is what Giliard's book largely focuses on when it comes to mass incarceration.)

when we assume we know someone is doomed to hell, we give up on them. we cease to see them as one of us, and one of God's beloved children made in Their image. i'd rather assume there is no hell and find out i'm wrong about that later, than live as if i thought there were a hell if there isn't.

and of course, if we assume we ourselves are headed to hell -- particularly by fearmongerers who teach that being LGBTQA+, or Black, or disabled, or not Christian, any manner of things sends you there -- well. i think the bad fruits of that are quite clear, including how it leads us to despair, to fall into the pit of self-loathing. we either punish ourselves and isolate ourselves and harm ourselves by trying to fix what is not broken, or we say "fuck it, i'm going to hell anyway" and cut ourselves off from certain community.

_______

Prison is an easy solution, but not a fruitful one. Same with Hell. It's an easy fix, but not a viable one.

Throwing certain Bad Irredeemable Humans into the pit won't make the humans who are left fit for God's Kin(g)dom -- we all have work to do on ourselves and as a collective community.

God calls us to the much longer and more difficult work of repentance, reform, and rebuilding -- here and now and in the world to come.

Again I turn to Giliard:

Scripture consistently reveals that restoration, not punitive punishment, is at the heart of God’s justice. Biblical justice does include retribution, but not exclusively. Biblical justice cannot be solely defined by it. The more accurate description of biblical justice is restorative justice. Biblically, justice is a divine act of reparation where breached relationships are renewed and victims, offenders, and communities are restored. Justice, therefore, is about relationships and our conduct within them. Justice asks, How is righteousness embodied and exuded in how I live in relation to God, neighbor, and creation? In fact, Scripture could be read as the narrative of God’s restorative justice unfolding in the world.

No prisons. No hell. No punishment for punishment's sake -- but resources provided to make repentance and reconciliation possible. No severing of some humans from the rest of humanity, or from the Body of Christ -- but restored relationships.

_____

Will the restoration happen before heaven begins? Maybe. Then I'd say there is some sort of purgatory state in between (because purgatory isn't a place of punishment, but of, well, purging away all that is corrupt and harmful). But not a permanent hell. Not a place made for punishing or discarding.

______

because the belief and fear of hell has done so much damage, i refuse to hold to a belief in hell. and hey, if it turns out there is one, fine! it doesn't change how i should live my life:

in the end, whether hell is or is not real, i should live my life the same way -- loving God, neighbor and creation with all that i am, and doing my part to live into God's Kin(g)dom where the oppressed are lifted up, and the oppressors have their own violence exposed to them for the evil it is so that they may begin the hard work of reforming their ways.

____

For more excerpts from Rethinking Incarceration, see this Google Doc.

for more stuff about hell, see my hell tag over on my other blog.

[zillennial97]

Enemies to Lovers | Larry Fanfic Recs

Walk That Mile by purpledaisy | 149k | Explicit

Harry stares at him, the line of his jaw standing out scarily. “I wanted to get the most out of this trip so I planned it carefully.” His voice is low and steady and somehow that’s worse than when he was yelling. “So far, you’ve put your sticky fingers on everything I’ve tried to do.”

“Sticky fingers?” Louis repeats, offended. “Are you saying it’s my fault you got stung by a bee? Had you been alone you would have gotten halfway to the Dotty Diner and ran the car off the road because of an allergic reaction, so don’t go blaming me.”

“Polk-A-Dot Drive In,” Harry spits before getting out of the car. He slams the door shut with a deafening reverb and Louis rolls his eyes.- A Route 66 AU where falling in love was never part of the plan.

Unbelievers by isthatyoularry | 136k | Explicit

It’s Louis’ senior year, and he’s dead set on doing it right. However, along with his pair of cleats, a healthy dose of sarcasm and his ridiculous best friend, he’s also got a complicated family, a terrifyingly uncertain future, and a mortal enemy making his life just that much worse. Mortal enemies “with benefits” was not exactly the plan.

Or: The one where Louis and Harry definitely aren’t friends, and football is everything.

we're not friends, we could be anything by nooelgallagher, yoursongonmyheart | 115k | Explicit

Louis narrows his eyes at Harry. “What that supposed to be a fucking joke?”

Harry narrows his eyes right back. “It was a good joke.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Jokes require laughter, Curls.” Louis glances down at Harry’s thighs again, Christ. “Your pants must be so tight they’re restricting airflow to your brain.”

Harry wipes a bead of sweat off his forehead. “Pretty sure yoga is supposed to increase airflow, blood flow, and all that,” he responds dryly, finally jumpstarting himself and walking away from Louis towards his own bedroom.

Louis can’t help but stare at his broad back, still sheen with drying sweat, and his perky bum in the tight yoga pants.

Louis swallows. Christ.

...Or, the one where Harry and Louis are unlikely uni flatmates who definitely don't like each other and definitely won't fall in love (even if Liam and Niall think otherwise).

Our Lives, Non-Fiction by indiaalphawhiskey | 113k | Explicit

Heralded as the next Neil Gaiman, Louis Tomlinson does not appreciate being told that his very serious novel is in dire need of a PR boost. Even worse, that it comes in the form of a joint book tour with the UK’s #1 online romance-writing sensation Marcel Styles. Already turbulent at best, their partnership takes a drastic turn when, overly stressed about his looming deadline, Marcel accidentally blurts out a secret: though he’s famed for his scorching hot literary love scenes, he is, actually, a virgin.

Convinced that the only way to rid himself of writer’s block is to gain some experience, Marcel asks Louis, author-to-author, to sleep with him – for Science. And of course Louis agrees because, well, what on Earth could possibly go wrong?

Or, a lesson in romance that proves that sometimes the best love stories aren’t always by the book.

Soft Hands, Fast Feet, Can't Lose by dolce_piccante | 112k | Mature

American Uni AU. Harry Styles is a frat boy football star from the wealthy Styles Family athletic dynasty. A celebrity among football fans, he knows how to play, he knows how to party, and he knows how to fuck (all of which is well known among his legion of admirers).

Louis Tomlinson is a student and an athlete, but his similarities to Harry end there. Intelligent, focused, independent, and completely uninterested in Harry’s charms, Louis is an anomaly in a world ruled by football.

A bet about the pair, who might be more similar than they originally thought, brings them together. Shakespeare, ballet, Disney, football, library chats, running, accidental spooning, Daredevil and Domino’s Pizza all blend into one big friendship Frappucino, but who will win in the end?

Dance to the Distortion by Lis (domesticharry) | 96k | Explicit

Louis accidentally breaks Harry's camera lens and in order to get it fixed, they decide to participate in a romantic couples study. The only issue is that they are not actually couple. Well that and the fact they cannot stand each other.

You’ve Got My Devotion (Hate You Sometimes) by lucythegoosey | 95k | Explicit

Harry was in the biggest boy band in the world. He was also one half of the best (or worst, depends on who you ask) kept secret relationship in the music industry.

Now, almost five years on, after One Direction has broken up, and Harry and Louis' relationship has as well, a video threatens to put everything at risk.

One determined Irishman, a massive publicity stunt and two begrudging exes are all it takes to bring One Direction back to life and maybe, just maybe, Harry and Louis' mangled love life too.

Or: Harry and Louis are forced to fake-date after an old video from when they were dating emerges.

The Sidelines by RedRidingStiles | 47k | Explicit

"Alright, I know you guys are the best of friends but I'd like you to do this for the rest of the team,” Cowell says, making the rest of the team snicker. "So I want both of you to compliment each other." "I hate your trainers. I mean that in the nicest way possible. They're very...yellow," Louis says, arms crossed as he offers a fake close-lipped grin. "It's really nice of you to blow anyone you find slightly attractive," Harry replies, a sickening sweet smile on his lips. "Thank you, children, let me remind you this is a college hockey team. Try again," Coach says, completely unamused.

Or Harry and Louis play hockey for Penn state and can't stand one another, since they can't keep their hatred off the ice their coach and team do what they can to keep their hard earned spot in the playoffs and their two star players from killing each other

Wonderwall by AFangirlFantasy | 43k | General Audiences

Taking the sheet cluttered with times available for the next few weeks, Louis notices a pattern in the list. The name of the person Perrie had just mentioned: Harry Styles. It’s written at least seven times, and three of which are during timeframes Louis wants.

“Who the fuck is Harry Styles?”

“You’re about to find out,” she answers, pointing over Louis’ shoulder.

Or a Love/Hate College AU where Louis Tomlinson is the lead singer of The Rogue - the most popular band on campus - and Harry Styles is the talented Freshman unknowingly challenging all that.

All the Right Moves by cherrystreet | 32k | Explicit

This is the third game in a row that Harry has been distracted by the noisy boy in the stands, five rows back.

There’s really no reason that he should feel compelled to stare into the audience as frequently as he is, but he can’t help it. This boy is a nuisance. And he’s loud. Even from basketball court with nine other players running by him, shoes squeaking on the shiny hardwood floor, and thousands of cheering college students, Harry can hear this boy nearly shrieking, his laugh more like a cackle than anything.

It’s seriously obnoxious.

Nicotine by KrisStylinson | 32k | Explicit

"We're two different types of people, Liam. He likes sex and drugs, I like theater and tea. Trust me, we'd never date." Except they would, they do, and neither of them plans on letting go anytime soon.

"Just because you can get me hard doesn't mean I like you," Louis whispered. The fact was, he didn't like Harry right now, not at all. Not even a bit.

"Yeah, yeah," Harry murmured, his breath fanning over Louis' cock as he spoke. "You done telling me how much you hate me so I can suck you off?"

Like Candy In My Veins by littlelouishiccups | 31k | Explicit

“Um…” Harry said slowly after a moment. “Okay. That’s… this is… Let me get this straight.” He lifted up a hand and swallowed. “You told your family that you have a boyfriend… and my name was the first one you thought of?” “Harry Potter was on TV, alright? It wasn’t that much of a stretch.” Louis pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t believe he was explaining himself to Harry fucking Styles. He couldn’t believe he was stooping this low. “Forget it. I’m sorry I even thought about bringing you into this.”

Harry snorted. “What? Did you want me to pretend to be your boyfriend or something?”

(Basically the A/B/O, enemies to lovers, fake relationship, Christmas AU that nobody asked for.)

We're Like Bumper Cars by sincehewaseighteen | 31k | Explicit

“I have won, I won the final cross country. I win, Harry--”

“Whoever gets to fucking nationals wins it, pretty boy,” Harry teases. “You haven’t won. Interhouse is nothing compared to nationals, or interstate. You haven’t even won interschool. You can dream all you fucking want that you’ve won.”

Louis becomes so ignorant he decides to no longer eye the boy taunting him. “Trophies prove it all, Styles.”

“Where’s your trophy for biggest asshole?”

“Where’s yours for winning cross country?”

Harry growls before hooking his fingers in Louis’ belt loops and bringing them together for a flat kiss.

Or the AU where Louis and Harry are rivals of the century and Cross Country competitors before things get complicated and they play pretend.

After Hours by Velvetoscar for shipsdrifting | 26k | Not Rated

Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson are the bane of each other's existences. Unfortunately, they're already in love--even if they aren't completely aware of this minor detail.

[A "You've Got Mail" AU]

When It's Late At Night by Rearviewdreamer | 25k | Mature

Louis has zero interest in an ex-boybander turned solo artist when his appearance on the show gets announced, but that's exactly who he gets stuck with when Harry Styles shows up at the Late Late show to promote the release of his debut album. For an entire fucking week.

Or

The Late Late prompt that we all need to get through this excruciatingly hard time.

Love Me Please by angelichl | 23k | Explicit

Louis hates Harry, which is fine because he would really rather prefer to avoid him at all costs.

The only problem?

They're soulmates.

runnin' like you did by orphan_account | 20k | Explicit

“Should we tell him?”

When Lauren is met with everyone either nodding their heads or shrugging, she takes a deep breath. “I mean, I think it’s pretty obvious by now.” She stalls, sounding ominous and Louis doesn’t like it one bit.

“What is obvious by now?” Louis asks. He’s starting getting anxious. “I swear to God, spit it out. Stop being so damn cryptic.”

“I—We think it’s pretty obvious that you’re in love with Harry,” she states simply and shrugs as if she isn’t telling him he’s in love with the second—Nick being the first—most annoying person on the planet.

or, a college au where Louis knows how to hold a grudge and is definitely not in love with Harry Styles

Three French Hems by 100percentsassy, gloria_andrews | 20k | Mature

In which Louis is a designer at Burberry and Harry spends December wearing Lanvin… and Lanvin… and Lanvin.

once bitten and twice shy by pinkcords | 19k | Mature

This time as his stomach rolls, there’s no doubt about it. He’s going to vomit. And if he does, it’ll be on Louis’ shoes, a nice little parting gift to go with the embarrassment he’s caused the both of them. “I’m gonna throw up,” he says just as Louis turns to look at him, blue eyes swimming with shock and confusion, and asks, “Is that true?”

Or, in a rush of bravery only senior year can bring, Harry confesses his feelings in a letter to his neighbor and best friend, Louis, only for the entire school to hear it and laugh him out of their small town in Wisconsin. Ten years later, Harry's a successful lawyer at Columbia Records, coming home for Christmas for the first time since he departed for college. He plans to work his way through the trip, eat his mom's cooking, and avoid everyone from his past for as long as possible. The only problem is best laid plans hardly ever go as intended.

That's How I Know by allwaswell16 | 19k | Explicit

Louis Tomlinson has just landed his dream job, coaching soccer at Augustus University. When he moves into a new house near campus, he meets his very fit new neighbor, English professor Harry Styles. Although their first meeting leads to an instant mutual dislike, the more Harry gets to know Louis, the more he likes what he sees.

Or the one where Harry’s African grey parrot spills his dirty secrets to his very hot neighbor.

Get Off of My Cloud by Marora_Daris | 9k | Explicit

Harry is the most annoying neighbour that sexually frustrated Louis could have. Niall decides it's a good idea to handcuff them together.

Featuring guinea pigs, animal print leggings and inappropriate boners.

Erase My History, (Expo)se Me by BayouSexual, pacificrimjob for Edandcurly | 6k | Teen And Up Audiences

“My hair does not smell like strawberries.”

Louis blinks up at Mr. Styles. “I never said your hair smells like strawberries. How would I even know that?” Harry’s hair does smell like strawberries, Harry himself smells like strawberries, everyone who’s been within three feet of him knows this. ~~~~~~~~ Or the one where Harry and Louis both teacher history, their students think they should date, and one pink dry-erase marker is trying to ruin their lives (with a little help of course).

[love-little-lotte]

Ranking the Bridgerton Books

I know I should write this in my book blog, but frankly, I have no idea how to make another section for it, and I'm too lazy to research. So, I'm writing here. Please bear with me.

Recently, I read the Bridgerton books by Julia Quinn. You might be familiar with the first book since it was adapted into a popular Netflix series by Shonda Rhimes. I binge-watched it back in December, and I have to say... not a fan. I guess I just find it too cheesy and annoying. Plus, the actors who portrayed Daphne and Simon had no romantic chemistry whatsoever.

But I'm not here to talk about the TV show. I'm here to talk about the novels! This is actually not my first time reading the books. Well, not exactly. I've read six out of the eight novels when I was in high school, I believe. I found the books when I was in high school as it was in the library (please don't ask me why my high school library has smutty novels in it, I have no idea who's in charge - they had Fifty Shades of Grey for a week but they eventually removed it from the catalog when they learned what's it about, but I digress). As a fifteen-year-old girl, the series hooked me.

If you're not familiar with the books or the Netflix series, here's a short synopsis: Set in the Regency era, the Bridgertons are one of the most influential families of the ton. The books follow the love stories of the eight Bridgerton siblings, alphabetically named Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory, and Hyacinth.

I didn't read it in chronological order back then, though. I just borrowed any available Bridgerton book in the library if there's one. You might think I was too young to read a romantic novel like that, but I guess I was mature enough to understand it.

Rereading it now that I'm twenty-two (cue Taylor Swift!), my heart's not in the same place. I was more skeptical with the writing, the story, and, most especially, the characters. But, really, I'm not that heartless, so I will cut the author some slack. Quinn wrote this at a different time for a different audience. It's not that long ago, but you'd be surprised how fast things change.

However, even though I have major criticisms, I cannot stop reading them. There's something about the novels that put me in a chokehold. Despite everything, I was able to enjoy it overall. This series is the definition of "guilty pleasure."

Anyway, here's my ranking of the Bridgerton books! I only read the eight main ones, which means I didn't include novellas of any kind. Also, as a fair warning, I might discuss spoilers and whatnot, so please beware. And do keep in mind that I'm writing my opinion, so if you don't agree, well... tough. I'd like to hear your comments, though, if you have any.

#8 - An Offer From A Gentleman (Book 3)

Honestly, this was probably one of my favorite Bridgerton books when I was younger. A Cinderella retelling? Come on! As someone who loves fairytales and forbidden romances, this was supposed to be heaven. However... it was not.

Benedict may be my least favorite Bridgerton brother. No, scratch that - he is my least favorite Bridgerton out of all of them. He's whiny and creepy and I was plainly annoyed with how he keeps asking Sophie to be his mistress in the novel. This was not the gentleman I imagined when I was younger. I might have liked him more in the first few parts, but as the story progressed, he became too childish and obsessive. Sophie, on the other hand, was all right. She's definitely one of my favorite Bridgerton heroines. She was tough but kind in her own way. I wish she had a better partner than Benedict, but I guess they suit each other in the end.

I just detest the climax and the ending of this book. It was too comical - and not in a hilarious way. I guess the same could be said for the entire novel. This was so, so different from the rest, to be honest.

Overall Rating: 3/10

#7 - On The Way To The Wedding (Book 8)

Fun fact: this is the first Bridgerton novel I read. And even then, I wasn't a huge fan of it. Just like An Offer From A Gentleman, the climax was a bit silly but more in a soap opera level than comical.

The biggest factor why I didn't like this was the characters. They were all so bland. Especially our hero and heroine. Gregory is the least featured Bridgerton in the novel, so I don't really know what to make of him at the beginning of the novel. In his book, I learned that he was a good guy - and that's all. Maybe he's too young and naive when it comes to romance (which is endearing, I have to admit), but he has no interesting personality whatsoever. Lucy, the heroine in this novel, was the same. She was described as pragmatic and sensible, which perfectly sums her up. Also, she's a great friend to Hermione (whose last name is Watson, by the way, and you can't tell me otherwise that this isn't a Harry Potter reference - Hermione Granger and Emma Watson? If that's not a reference, well, that's a very crazy coincidence, but I digress again). Gregory and Lucy's story was average - not bad, not good, just so incredibly dull.

The fun parts started way too early. It was difficult to find intrigue in the middle and end bits. The second main conflict, which happened near the end of the book, was truthfully not that good and was just obviously a ploy to keep things longer. You'd think that the Bridgerton novels would end the series with a bang. Alas, it did not.

Overall Rating: 4/10

#6 - To Sir Phillip, With Love (Book 5)

Eloise finally gets her turn in her own love story. She used to be one of my favorite Bridgertons, but when she got her own story, she was reduced into a plain girl. Gone was the feisty and outspoken Eloise we knew from the previous books.

Maybe it's because she's paired up with one of the most insufferable Bridgerton heroes, Sir Phillip. Just an inch away from Benedict, Sir Phillip maybe my next least favorite character. And it annoys me so much that Eloise gets to fall in love with someone like him.

It actually started pretty well. Before the events in the book started, Eloise and Phillip had already been corresponding for a year through letters. Phillip was on the lookout for - not a wife - but a mother for his two unruly children, and he thought Eloise was perfect for the role. He's a terrible father, but the book tries to convince us that it's not his fault because he had a bad upbringing by his own father (a recurring theme in the Bridgerton books - four heroes are plagued with different daddy issues). Eloise tried her best to turn things around, and of course, she eventually did, but I just really hate Phillip's initial intentions for seeking out a wife. He gets better in the end, sure, but I still really don't like him. At least the book wasn't short of excitement, else it would've been rated a bit lower.

Obviously, my favorite part in this book was when the Bridgerton brothers stormed into Phillip's house. He got what he deserved, truly.

Overall Rating: 4/10

#5 - The Duke and I (Book 1)

Now, this is the most well-known story in the Bridgerton literary universe, thanks to the Netflix series. I know I've said that I wasn't a fan of the series, but really, the Netflix writers and producers deserve all the gold in the world because they managed to transform this novel into something exciting.

Daphne and Simon had their moments, that's for sure, but as a couple, they were just so... meh. I liked their relationship at the start when they were still pretending to be courting. But as soon as they got married, everything interesting about the two of them sizzled out. And please don't get me started with how Daphne "took advantage" of drunk Simon. Thank God the show fixed that.

Despite my mixed feelings, this was a decent start to the Bridgerton books. There's really nothing majorly wrong about this novel (except for the aforementioned "taking advantage.") It laid out the future characters well. Lady Whistledown was also great. Thinking about her made me miss her because she wasn't featured in the later novels (you'll soon find out why).

Overall Rating: 5/10

#4 - It's In His Kiss (Book 7)

Since Eloise was stripped away from her feistiness when she got her own love story, I was obviously worried for Hyacinth. Thankfully, she didn't change! She was still the same tactless girl in the previous books. And for that, she gets to be my champion as my favorite Bridgerton.

This is the first time I've read this book, and oh, I'm surprised with how exciting it was. Hyacinth's hero, Gareth, perfectly suited her. Gareth was able to tame her impulsiveness, while also proving to be a good romantic partner for her. I loved that he could match her intellectually, too. It was never a bore whenever they have one of their silly banters. Lady Danbury was also featured more in this novel. She's one of my favorite side characters. As Gareth's grandmother, she was determined to bring him and Hyacinth together.

Maybe the only criticism I have in this novel is Gareth's issues with his father. I find it really weird that most of the heroes' problems are with their fathers. It just seemed lazy writing, in my opinion. But oh well, Gareth was interesting in his own way and that's perfectly fine.

Overall Rating: 6/10

#3 - Romancing Mister Bridgerton (Book 4)

I have a feeling that this is Quinn's favorite Bridgerton book. In this book, it's Colin's turn to find love. Colin is featured in several of his siblings' stories - in fact, in almost all of the books, he had an important role to play.

I love Colin and Penelope's story. Long before this book, they already knew each other. Penelope was Eloise's best friend, and she's almost always in the Bridgerton household. Colin has been forced by his mother for God knows how long to dance with Penelope every time there's a party. But it was only now that they became closer. Unbeknownst to Colin, Penelope had been in love with him for half her life, even though he didn't particularly care for her. Penelope speaks for all of us who know about unrequited love all too well.

Furthermore, this is the novel where they finally reveal who was behind the Lady Whistledown column. Yes, viewers of the Netflix series who are not familiar with the books. This is the part - and not in the first book! I'm so mad that they revealed Penelope as Lady Whistledown in the first season of the series, when in fact it's much later than that.

However, that's also one of the lowest points of this novel for me. Lady Whistledown's identity reveal was a bit anti-climactic. A little bit laughable, even. Also, also, also: I hated Colin's reaction to Penelope's secret. He didn't have to be angry and jealous of her, but ah well, whatever makes for conflict. Nevertheless, I love both Colin and Penelope because they had so much character and depth. Quinn was certainly biased when she wrote this.

Overall Rating: 8/10

#2 - The Viscount Who Loved Me (Book 2)

Remember earlier when I said that I cannot stop reading the books because even though I knew it wasn't that good, it was still highly enjoyable? Well, I'm really talking more about this book, to be specific. I think I've read it in less than 24 hours because of how much I love it. And yes, Anthony and Kate had their obvious flaws, but oh God, they were so perfect together. I can't help but imagine Jonathan Bailey from the Netflix series as Anthony when I was reading it. I swoon, all the time.

This used to be my favorite Bridgerton novel, but that's only because I haven't read my new favorite until recently. Anthony and Kate's story was just oh-so good and intimate and romantic. Kate's also my favorite heroine in the entire Bridgerton literary universe. She was headstrong and loving. She's unafraid to put the happiness of her family first.

In so many ways, Anthony was the same. He assumed the role of Viscount Bridgerton when he was only eighteen when his father unexpectedly died. Since then, he overlooks the family's estates and well-being. Yes, this is one of those "daddy issues" stories I mentioned earlier, but this one was kind of done tastefully. He didn't wish to fall in love but everything changed when he encountered Kate. He didn't mean to be attracted to her, but here we are.

Anthony and Kate had so much understanding between them. I agree Anthony was a bit of a dick when Kate asked if they could have one week to get to know each other before consummating the marriage (worse things have been said by Benedict and Phillip, though), but in the end, I can't deny that I truly love them together.

Overall Rating: 8/10

#1 - When He Was Wicked (Book 6)

*blushing furiously* So what if I put the smuttiest and steamiest novel as my top choice?! What about it? Oh, but really, though, I can't stop reading this. Francesca is one of the least known Bridgertons in the books, just like Gregory. I didn't know anything about her, except that she's quieter than most of her siblings. It was also first mentioned in Romancing Mister Bridgerton that she had already married but was sadly widowed after two years.

Michael was Francesca's late husband's cousin and best friend, which makes him her best friend, too. He has been secretly in love with Francesca since the first moment he laid eyes on her but was unable to pursue her because she's with his cousin John. In addition, I'd like to say that Michael is my favorite hero in the Bridgerton books. He's very charming and wicked, and really, my knees buckle at the thought of him.

Long after John passed away, Francesca and Michael reunited. Francesca was looking for a new husband because she desperately wants a family, while Michael... well, Michael was still in love with her. There was undeniable passion and intimacy between them, and it was hard to stay away from each other. I seriously have a thing for men secretly pining over women they love. That's got to be one of my favorite tropes.

However, the book itself was a bit longer than necessary. While I understand Francesca's hesitations in marrying Michael, it could've been shortened because it felt draggy by the end. Her constant changing of minds was a bit annoying, and yeah, it was probably a ploy to lengthen the novel.

Additionally, I was a bit skeptical at first of how they're going to treat their relationship, especially since Francesca was truly in love with her first husband. But it was done so nicely. Francesca and Michael never forget about John, even in the end. I loved what John's mother said to Michael in a letter at the end, "Thank you, Michael, for letting my son love her first."

I guess I love their story more than the other couples because both were already mature and experienced. Just like everyone else in this romantic series, Francesca and Michael belonged together. The entirety of Chapter 19 is proof of that.

Overall Rating: 9/10

***

Overall, the Bridgerton books are quite entertaining, despite being a cheesy and sappy series. I admit that I feel quite lonely and bored now that I've finished all eight of them. Ah well, there's always the possibility of rereading them!

[gammacousin]

Okay. I’m ready to real talk Black Widow. I don’t want to but as an activist there’s an obligation I have to share and educate. I nerd to forget but I suppose it shows the power of this movie if it brings something real into the light.

*Spoiler Warning. Trigger warning for everything.*

There are some things I want to say that could potentially spoil aspect of the Black Widow film. I also would advise you to skip this post if you have a darker past, if you aren’t interested in getting serious, or wish to skim by, I’m sincerely not judging! I come on here to avoid the universe as well. You do you, I totally still love you if you don’t read this and want to move onto something nerdy or more fun. This isn’t the post for you.

It’s taken me a while to process and organize my thoughts. Skip if you don’t want to hear deep, raw stories.

3

2

Okay. Nerd review first.

The level of girl power and any and all glass ceilings… There is SO much left to do. So much that needs to still be addressed. But seeing 3 women run this show: Yelena, Natasha, and Melina was an absolute joy to observe. This isn’t the end of some hard waged war, it’s the beginning and I beg you; Disney/Marvel. Please give us more of this? It’s so important for young girls to see other girls kicking butt and winning. Quick summary of nerd feelings; Losing Nat still burns. Yelena is a boss.

Okay…Real talk.

I have to get a little deeper here now. My personal story absolutely played into how I felt about this film and I wish I saw some trigger warnings about the material covered. Do I know Black Window’s story? Yes. In and out. I can read it, I can write my FF on it. However. Little to no one knows my story and so absolutely no one is to blame for not warning me. I was not expecting to come out this shook.

I’m sharing this because it’s happening now, today. In the real world. I doubt the film makers had this mind over other social issues, but after feeling like it’s irrelevant, that my pain is somehow less than, I’m realizing through my activism it’s not.

I grew up in a cult where women are not relevant. You matter up to a point. You are useful, to a point. If you’re giving 24/7, you’re not giving enough. If you’re not smiling as you’re doing cult stuff, you’re complacent. In addition to why I’m about to share, my house growing up was not a safe space which is a story for another time. So it’s a stack…this janga-ish game that eventually just comes crashing down.

My trigger started moments after the film started the handing over of the kids. When Alexei chooses the job over the welfare of the girls. Alexei put his two “daughters” in danger to save ‘face’. To put the job ahead of two children…it hit home. In the group I’m from, fathers, mothers, grandparents, siblings will absolutely choose the group over blood. You are nothing and you mean nothing if you ‘defect’. If you break a rule. If you complain. If you say ‘no’. If you put in a bad review for a leader, if you have anything bad at all to say about the organization as a whole. You can confide something deep in someone you trust and it absolutely will come back to hurt you.

The title song shook me completely. This collage of video and images of brainwashing, treating these girls like absolute objects is disgusting in itself. But when you’re raised in this other world, there’s a level of brainwashing that is absolutely unmatched. Videos, books, quizzes, 12 hour lectures, weekly meetings.

People are unified to the point where you lose your own identity. There’s a language- a literally language- words you start to misuse. Verbiage only people in the cult use. Kids of any age will watch any rated film. Frequently the themes are about obedience and or cooperation and the consequences if you do not cooperate/obey. Death is a such a common theme that either you become petrified of your own shadow, petrified of breathing wrong, or turn completely numb. In sharing these videos, the goal is to instill this fear that you will never be enough. That you will die- turn into a charred hot dog of a figure if you do not obey 8 white men - the leaders, in New York. That your friends, classmates, neighbors, family will die if they don’t believe what you do. That you’re held accountable if you can’t bring them to your side.

The song for the credits hit me. I cannot listen to it. I have no idea what it was about.

When I watched the film, I couldn’t focus at this point at gosh barely 15 minutes in. I had already checked out. I heard keywords. “Entertainers,” “I feel stupid and contagious…”

In my world, I did not matter. What mattered was, what was presented to the public. To your group. Meeting some checklist of this perfect family at any cost. You’re not an individual, you’re a number. Literally. Your records are documented by men in the back room- your actions, your track record. But ultimately? You’re part of a numeral equation reported to headquarters. And if you’re a woman, you do not have a say in how you look, dress, act or in what you say. You are as the title song says, …“Entertainers”. You smile. You do your job, and you are ‘happy’ about it. Your job is to dedicate x amount of hours cleaning the room you gather in, and in recruitment of other members…

There’s a ‘job’ in the cult called a “pioneer”. Okay. No, we might not have been trained assassins. But you are trained to manipulate emotionally. To prey on the weak. You get books, magazines, movies, speeches, lectures- you rarely get a free Saturday. Oh and the job isn’t paid. So make sure you’re working (part time because full time secular work isn’t acceptable) at a desk job (because college and getting an education is not allowed). Don’t make friends with the people who work with you, they’re out to get you. Back at the club; You answer questions like it’s some schoolastic quiz every week and quote what your reading. It’s a brainwashing tactic. If you say something enough times, you remember it. You start to believe it. You spend hours reading these things, training… Your job is to target people who have lost- and have lost a lot because they’re vulnerable. You learn to go to cemeteries, and literally stalk people who are grieving. Like Val. If you can catch someone when they’re weak, senses are dulled. They’re desperate. And you bait them with this false promise. This idea that all THEY have to do is change all that they are, join you, and they’ll see their dead loved ones again. That they are doomed if they don’t change. Most pioneers draft 2-4 people per lifetime. If you’re a great saleswoman, you can draft more into this horrific world. And I regret the hours I spent lying, torturing people. For some cult that doesn’t give two cents about me.

I 100% believed of I didn’t convince my classmates, neighbors, to join my side they would either turn me in or they would be killed by a divine being. From 2 years old I was supposedly handing out pamphlets. The doom is not a quick painless death, no. You have visuals. You have men getting up to talk in detail about what your ‘friends’ will look like as corpses. Visually descriptive to the point where I still feel a bit numb to it all. That you will have to bury their bodies after the whole divine destruction. That you will have to “clean up” the earth. You are numb- convinced- bullied to the point where you believe this is true.

If you’re hurt as MANY WOMEN AND CHILDREN ARE, and you don’t have two people to testify and say they saw it- it never happened. Abuse is the norm. And if you speak up about it? You’re called a liar. Your friends cut you off. They think you’ll die along with everyone else if you put in a ‘bad review’ or leave. You’re bullied into submission and taught from a young age that you are not in control of your own decisions. You relinquish yourself under the pretense that the men you have such reverence toward are under some divine being’s control.

Your parents hurting you is acceptable. And don’t you dare speak against your father if he’s deeply involved. Don’t even think about approaching if he’s on a phone call. If you’re hit you take it- because you “deserved” it. And you smile. You shove that pain deep down. You hide the bruise, the cut lip, the depression, the bottles of pills you’re swallowing the whatever….You’re screwed if you faint, throw up, pass out, because you’ve missed a meeting. You better be dying for that to happen…

The idea that is portrayed in the movie (IMO) is that you can forgive family who hurts you. I see people forgiving Alexei and what’s her name. Look- that’s great. It’s a fun film. Alexei is funny. Here’s what I saw; it’s a toxic man- nay- father who can’t accept responsibility. He takes pride in what the girls have become- monsters. Not in who they are at their core. He has no idea who they are. And the mom has this photo album…I’m tearing up. She remembers this a certain way, a wishful thought. I’ve confronted my own mother about our past and had an album thrown at me, “We were happy. You were happy.” The fact is I was told the smile. You’re forcing this perception that everything was normal. That it’s okay to go back. (I’m not taking away Yelena’s view that everything was real to her, that’s fine for the sake of the story, and sweet. The moment between her and Alexei..fine. Milena turns and takes their side at the end, great.) The problem with how I saw this, is that’s not how the real world works. I don’t owe my parents forgiveness when I didn’t mean shit to them. When people leave the cult they’re cut off. Treated like they’re dead. I didn’t find these moments cute, I found them horrific. Hugging me, saying he’s proud of me is the toxic sh** my father would pull. Ignoring the holes in the wall, in my skull, the phony impression he gives to the rest of the group. Hugging me…after sweeping everything he did not only to me, but countless others under the rug because the cult…because 8 men in NY will protect him. Legally. Or otherwise.

I don’t need to forgive my parents. If you’ve been mistreated, you don’t owe anyone anything. They can “try” to do the right thing, that doesn’t somehow block out years of mistreatment. Years of trauma. Sheetrock only patches the surface of the broken walls. Wounds heal but some scars stay with you forever. Metaphorically or otherwise.

‘Entertainers’ was a trigger word because if you’re high enough in the ranking system you’re asked to “testify” or share a story. It’s in front of a couple thousand. It’s an “honor”. What it really is, is a three ring circus. You will only see women on the sidelines reading from the cards while only men stand at the main podium. They’re reading what they have told them to say. Stories are manipulated, cut, changed to fit a narrative that better suits the group of a couple thousand members.

Dreykov. I hate this. But I have to go there. I’m neck deep already, might as well. I think the worst part of all of it is that you can’t touch the person who made you this way. Those 6-7-8 leaders are untouchable. It doesn’t matter what you try. What legal entities, ex groups have tried. There’s a term for us and we are considered ‘mentally diseased.’ Members are told to avoid us. And in case you were curious, no, they can’t just break their nose on a table to be free- if only it were that simple. Gosh that got me. I would cut a limb, split my skull open, if it meant I could just cut a chord. It takes years of therapy and I still have nightmares. Urges to just, go. I’m OKAY. But most escapees are not. If you manage to escape with your life and don’t end it because the pressure, guilt, abuse that comes with leaving is too much. (This is sadly the fate of MANY LBGTQ+ members.)

The only hope is either the group eventually runs out of money or they’re taken down legally. Both of which are impossible since many older members will leave all they have to the group rather than to their family. It’s a complex billion dollar publishing company that plays monopoly with people’s investments, homes, and lives.

If you speak up, you’re the liar. So you cannot free your friends, who have turned on you, already cut you off, and discarded you the day you walked out and didn’t come back.

Watching Natasha, and Yelena free their sisters made me think of every woman who is stuck in this cult. For every woman, child, currently being sexually/physically abused and can’t say sh** because they literally believe god will kill them. If I say anything to them, they block me. If I expose what’s happening they will lie in court. That’s what is happening. And it’s not in the news, it’s not talked about. Because you can’t. You’re forced into silence. There’s a block. A literal legal force field that you cannot penetrate. They have their own lawyers. You can’t break into it. You’ll lose every, single, legal battle you try to fight.

Was this a decent movie? Yes. Was I expecting to share this days after release, no. I’ve been forced into silence for so long, told that people have it far worse and that I shouldn’t talk about it. But just today I saw a grown ass couple in an escapee group, talking about how one trigger word sent them into a depressive spiral. Wondering if some god damn lightening will come out of the sky and knock them dead. And we frickin struggle in silence. People will just shrug and go “oh it can’t be that bad,” while my gay best friend can’t catch an effing break. While someone else suffers at home because god wants it that way. Someone else will bury their kid today, maybe not even hold a funeral for them if they were ‘mentally diseased.’

For people like that couple I met today, like me, if you don’t just see a fun film but a darker past or maybe it’s brought up some memories for you, I’d honestly love to chat!!! Message me! I feel like for as painful as this is to hash out not too many people know about what goes on behind a group of smiling, well dressed woman who come knocking on your door. “It’s just a religion.”

I guess I didn’t realize…the criminal aspect of what happened to me. You’re so ingrained to keep quiet. To smile. To ignore, to suppress. I can smile, joke laugh, but visualizing…inadvertently seeing this mirror was so unbelievably uncomfortable. I would always rather help someone else because it takes me out of my head. Live in a bubble where I can call my trauma a ‘fantasy’. What’s real is when someone like me has a bad day? Lol! Look, my husband literally checks his phone to make sure a conversation never touches a couple hundred trigger words that will absolutely send me into the closet with a gallon of ice cream or a bottle of whiskey. I can’t imagine what someone else, what some other traumatized individual goes through. (Maybe that’s why the Bucky stuff makes me all angry She-Hulk too..)

Look, talking people ex members of this group, out of suicide is a daily endeavor to the point where it’s borderline on autopilot. But having this, I suppose, brilliant, piece of cinema turn the camera around left me raw and writhing and angry. Not for me, but for everyone else still stuck. With every year you spend in that cult, add ten more to therapy.

If you feel like me at all, you’re not alone. Not anymore. We were raised to feel alone in the world. That the universe is somehow out to get us and that’s simply not true. You don’t need the people who raised you if they were absolute shit bags. And you DO NOT have to forgive them for keeping you in that environment. Family isn’t family if they’ve hurt you. You owe them nothing. It is healthy to feel your feelings (and you and your feelings are valid. )

Anyways! I hope to be able to talk about more fun Marvel topics soon. But this felt important so thanks for listening. I’m really not hating guys, this is just…it’s heavy. And I beg you to do your research into cults and to help out where you can.

Love and light,

-M

[hongism]

Hyello, okay so. I don't have the emotional energy to take in and discuss everything in that chapter so imma just gush over the info cause I am a ✨whore✨ for world building.

So obviously MOC SPOILER

hi bestie HELLO guess WHO!!! finally ANSWering!!! altho im gonna answer separately and space everything out all Neatly bc im all over the place so strap IN we’re going on an moc RIDE!

THERE'S A WHOLE SIREN COMMUNITY?! AND YN AND IT MUST BE WOOYOUNG WERE FRIENDS? SIRENS HAVE A FULLY FLEDGE COMMUNITY WITH PRIESTS AND SCHOOLS AND MULTUOLE CITIES TO SOME EXTEND??? MAYBE EVEN AN ENTIRE PLANET WITH SIRENS MAYBE THEIR ORIGIN PLANET? HOW MANY TYPES OF SIRENS ARE THERE AND IN THE COMMUNITY HOW DTRICT ARE THE DIFFERENT ROLES?!?! ALSO DOES THE SIREN COMMUNITY ALLOW FOR DIFFERENT TYPES OF SIRENS TO BE TOGETHER? OBVIOUSLY THEY SHOULD BUT ARE THE CHILDREN THEN HYBRID TYPES, LIKE WHEN WE GET BLUED DARK SKIND BABIES OR CAN A SKREN ONLY BE ONE TYPE. WHAT POWERS DO SIRENS HAVE AND DOES THE POWERS REFLECT THEIR PERSONALITY AND DO THE DIFFERENT TYOES LEAN TOWARDS CERTAIN JOBS. LIKE WE JUST LESRNED THE OCEAN GOTTA BE PRIESTS BUT MOON ISNT STRICT WHAT ABOUT FIRE. AND IS YN INSTIC TO PULL OUT A HEART CAUDE HER PERSONALITT, TRSUMA OR IS IT RELATED TO THE MOON. ALSO CAUSE ITS A RED MOON WHICH IS COMMONLY A BLOOD MOON, IS YN THEN A SPECIAL MOON SIREN AND THATS WHY HER POWERS ARE STEONGER OR HER INSTICTS TO USE THEM ARE STORNGER BUT THEN THE MILITARY FUCKED HER UP. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

now this is the thing im biting my tongue on SO HARD bc it’s my favorite aspect of the world building and the universe and everything involved in it bUTIHDFKJG THERS SO MUCH I WANNA SAYYYYYYYYYY in short that one dream sequence holds more hints and information than ANYTHING from previous chapters, i think that it’s probably the MOST IMPORTANT dream to date. while we’ve seen some crazy ones in the past, this one is both the biggest hint and the biggest window into y/n’s past by FARRRR. even tho that whole scene was dialogue i think there’s so much to pick up on from it and so much to see and learn from it and it’s one of my faves bc there’s so much to unpack from it !!

Like yes the story and the development is freaking ✨yes✨ I love it. Genuinely think moc should be released as books. But I just cannot deal with the emotions rn.

But also now all I'm going to be thinking about how many sirens are actually out there. And if yn knew her parents and wasn't just an orphan the military found in the streets... How the fuck did she end up in the military grasps. What happened to her parents what happened to the community, is it still out there? Guess I gotta go back and reread the galaxies and the backstories, obviously I must have missed or have forgotten something. Ugh how the puzzle pieces are puzzling (or something). Moc is a drug and I'm not going sober anytime soon

(obviously you don't have to respond to my questions, this is more just an insight into the spiralling of theories going on in my mind)

releasing moc as books? a dream and a half, i can say that much slkjdlgkjlkf but back to the sirens... how many are out there? we heard early on that hongjoong was looking for ‘the last five’ but then seonghwa debunked that and said that was a mistranslation over time that was passed down and such, but beyond that, we don’t really know much about sirens as a whole? there are some hints in the galaxies and planet descriptions but if that dream sequence is a puzzle, i would say we have a handful of pieces that can be put into place based on what we’ve learned so far!!!!

Okay I lied, I am ready to unpack a little of the ✨emotions✨

When hongjoong explained that hwa tried to stop San only for San to detain him and in a sense make him watch the scene unfold. And then realising hwa had to go through that again, only being even more helpless. I don't doubt hwa loves San, but to see the events happening again, with someone he clearly loves as much as he does yn even if he also loves joong, and to see the desperation and determination must have been just. Horrible. Just absolutely soul breaking horrible. I can imagine him vowing to himself after San that he would never let something like that happen again. That of any of the crew got out of control like that, that he would fight harder to stop them. That he would would do absolutely everything in his power to stop it. And then being helpless as he watched yn do it. Just pure heart wrenching pain. And it must have been beyond terrifying to see someone you love ready and determined to kill themselves partly from rage and partly from desperation. With the backstory, that scene becomes almost as cruel as the warehouse scene with San. The only redeeming quality is no one needing life saving surgery in a time crunch, otherwise they would be the same level of ✨never again✨

honestly i think the two crew members i torture the most are san and hwa bc i just keep putting them thru all this shit and hurting them so much but really this was the defining point of why seonghwa was so afraid. before we kinda just knew he was afraid of yn and hongjoong was mad about it. in this revelation we get to see the source of the trauma and how it was amplified by it being someone he loves as dearly as he loves yn. and for sure when first reading that scene of yn and jisung in the brig, it’s meant to evoke a sense of anger and rage like yn is so angry to a point where she would do this sort of thing, but my hope with that scene was also to show that desperation. that when looking back at it after having already seen the rage and the aftermath, that reading it again shows how desperate and hopeless she was in that moment. which is exactly the same emotion that was evoked back in that warehouse scene with san, except it was relayed differently because the warehouse was a more immediate sense of desperation. this brig scene was meant to emulate that but in a slow burn kinda way where the veil of realization is pulled off after the fact and not in the moment!!!

Just to make sure you don't misunderstand. Those asks were compliments. You are an absolutely incredible writer. And the fact that you aren’t afraid of hurting your characters *cough cough* SHOOTING SAN?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!!!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? *CLEARS THROAT AGRESSIVELY* just makes the story much better. No one gets plot armour, making it more realistic (?) and really draws in the writer and sorta imitates the fear and desperation the characters feel

PLS don’t worry, i live for every moment and i live for these open and raw and genuine conversations i didn’t take any as an insult i PROMISE!! i think part of the nature of this whole trope of space pirates and criminals is that hter is no guarantee of safety! i don’t wanna have to cut corners to make sure everyone stays unharmed and undamaged throughout the story when the nature of the world i’ve built thus far is a wildly dangerous one!!! i always say that i try to be as realistic as i can, all things considered, and i think that’s the biggest thing that adds to the ‘realism’ in my mind so im so happy to hear that you see it and appreciate it and enjoy it!!!

OHOHOHOHOHOH ALSO

YN GRIPPING SOMEONES HEART??? YOU WRITE THAT SO FUCKING WELL. LIKE ENIGUH DETAILS THAT WE KNOW WHATS GOING ON, BUT ALSO NOT SO MANY DETAILS SO IT GETS DETACHWD FROM THE STORY. LIKE THE LACK OF CLEAR SUPER MANY DETAILS REALLY MADE IT THAT *YOU ARE EXPERIENCING THIS, NOT JUST READING IT* LIKE IT MADE IT WAY MORE EMOTIONAL AND OERSONAL AND THE READER REALLY GOT IMMERSED IN THE MOST HORRIBLE WAY THAT KUST MADE IT ALL RHE MORE BETTER. ALSO JOONG AFRAID????? JOONG REALISING HE GOT A FULLY FLEDGED HEART RIPPER SIREN WHO CANT CONTROL HER BODY TO MOVE THROUGH A HARMLESS DOOR BUT CAN DEFINITELY KILL IN A HEARTBEAT (OR TWO 👀) ALSO THE CONTRAST OF REMOVING RHE BLOOD COLOURED WHITE OLASTIC AND HAVING A CLEAN HAND UNDERNWATH. THE SYMBOL OF IT ALSO BEKNG A TRASH CLEANERS SUIT. LIKE SHE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO ACTUALLY USE THE TRASH PROTECTION DUIT FOR ITS INTENDED PURPOSE. ALSO THE OART WHERE SHE SAYS SHES FINE EVEN TJO SHE ISNT. AT FIRST I READ IT AS HER TELLING HERSELF TO LIE BUT THEN I REALISED ITS HER ADMITTING SHE VERY MUCH ISNT. AND SAN NOT KNOWING???? AND KISSING HER HAND AND UGH AND SEONGHWA KNOWING. I BET HE'S LOWKEY GETTING MORE AND MORE AFRAID OF HER. LIKE YN IS READY TO KILL HERSELF AND ANYONE AROUND HER TO KEEP SAN SAFE. AND SHE INSTICTUALLY GOES FOR THE MODT AGRESSIVE METHOD POSSIBLE. IHHHHHHHHHHHHH I FUCKING LOVE YOU AND YOUR WONDERFUL WTITING AND YOUR TWISTED MIND THAT CAN CREATE ALL THESE FUCKING SCENES THAT GOT ME THUNKING AND FEELING ✨EMOTIONS✨

truly one of the HIGHLIGHTS of the chapter simply bc of how shocking and sudden it is!! for me, that was one of the easiest scenes to write in the chapter, oddly enough? it was something that when it came time to write it, i knew how i wanted it to be and was able to just sit down and write it out the way its written in the final draft of the chapter. i really love playing with those aspects of fiction and storytelling. tangible to a point, without spelling it out. i think it’s obvious that i really love delayed realization in writing, but i really like playing with how the brain processes information and for me personally, i don’t pick up on things right away! i can realize them in a snap or it can take me a bit to go ‘oh god that’s what happened’, and i like playing with that in y/n’s character a LOT.

and in that same vein of thought, there are some layers to that scene as well when compared to the door scene. in the door scene we saw hongjoong clearly tell y/n ‘you need to do this to save san’ yet she wasn’t able to do it despite trying and believing hongjoong. then in the heart scene we saw y/n clearly tell herself ‘you need to do this to save san’ and she did it then. so there’s a lot at play in that parallel alone too. and with that internal monologue she has of im fine vs not fine, then san kissing the hand that touched a literal real actual beating heart for me that was a sort of self indulgent scene and i was really worried about it coming across as too cheesy or something like that, but that is something that’s gonna impact y/n as a character and her relationship with san when they have the conversation of ‘oh hey i put my hand through a man’s chest for you’

i think part of why this chapter was so difficult to construct and write as a whole definitely is because of all the undertones and nuances throughout, and in a lot of ways it’s so so much to even think about that it’s almost too much packed into one chapter alone, but even if you don’t pick up on all the nuances throughout, i’m hoping to revisit them and bring them back around in that delayed realization style again bc that’s one of my favorite things to do ofc :3

[mecomptane]

Blew up my old laptop so I’m trying to recover things from it. (Okay, a slight exaggeration. Maybe.) Apparently I decided to write Star Wars fic at some point? It’s here for posterity, definitely no beta, can’t guarantee the quality. So, the usual. (Pretty sure this was also a 3am sort of thing.)

-

Yoda has been Grand Master of the Jedi Order for going on five centuries, alive for nearly nine, and still, sometimes, feels like he's barely one.

It's few and far between, admittedly--history doesn't exactly repeat, no, but the motivations of sapient beings don't particularly change, and once you understand why people make the choices they do, then you can generally guess what any person or group might do in response. It's not flawless and has failed him before, but between lived experience, his strength in the Force, and the Republic having little changed, overall, he's usually right. Or at least, unsurprised.

The Councilors call him unflappable, the Masters and Knights steadfast, and the Padawans and Initiates whisper that he is Ancient and Omniscient.

Yoda, mostly, calls himself tired.

This is a song and dance he knows well, has all but memorized the steps to. Padawans become Knights become Masters and find an Initiate to teach and mentor and raise, the closest they will ever be to children of blood being children of their hearts. Years--in some cases, a decade or more--will weave the two into a knot of compassion and knowledge and reliance (but never attachment), and with the Trials the Master shears their Padawan's braid and the Padawan shears the rope that had once bound them so tightly, and the two walk away, together but inherently separate, to live their lives as sole individuals connected only by the gossamer web and weave of the Force, as all living things do.

Countless have come and gone, all with slightly different steps or rhythms. Not all have been successful. Jedi walk in the light and dream of the sun, but shadowy corners and secrets in darkness are tempting, too intriguing to pass up the chance to investigate. Rare are those who give in; rarer still are those who find their way back. But it does happen, as much as they might wish it otherwise.

Yoda has seen all of them in nearly a millennia, can trace the pattern and knows the steps of that dance, too. Not that of true Sith, no, but the path to becoming a Darksider is identical to that of a Jedi with only a few steps reversed, repeated, skipped over. Once the first misstep occurs, it takes barely any thought to see where and how the dance might change. Will they weave back and forth, between light and darkness? Will they flit into the shadows briefly and find it not to their taste, thereafter choosing only the path strung with the lanterns of faith? Will they stumble into the shadows once, twice, again and again, until the light itself hurts their eyes and they cannot see save anywhere but darkness?

One step, two, a few more--that's all it takes, now, for Yoda to know. He's been wrong, true, but those times were more that he'd given into hope. Hope that they'd find their way into the light, that their dance would one day realign with that of the rest of the Jedi.

So as Yoda sits among the Council, the dimming light of Coruscant's pale setting sun struggling in through the windows, he is thrown. Surprised. Confused.

"I will take him as my Padawan," Qui-Gon Jinn says, hands resting reassuringly on the shoulders of a supernova given form. So bright, so powerful, spilling everywhere with little control, care, or concern. Yoda can barely look.

Behind the duo stands a white dwarf of the Force, the light and warmth turned inward and controlled, peaceful but puissant and exactly like a Jedi should be, but.

But.

"Obi-Wan? He is ready for his Trials."

"Decide that, the Council shall."

In a room of so much light, where the brightest and most powerful Jedi in the galaxy sit in state, there is an undercurrent of shadows. A slight dimming in the corners, a hint of something obscuring the warmth and nurturing rays.

Qui-Gon Jinn. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Anakin Skywalker.

Yoda looks between them and the Council, and wonders.

-

When he was younger, Yoda delighted in his Padawan learners. That he lived so much longer than any other species or race was a detriment to others, but it allowed him to have generations of Padawans and their Padawans, Grandpadawans and Greatgrandpadawans. Each of his students had siblings, younger or older; each had nieces and nephews; all had someone to fall back on, to speak with, to rely on. To be family with.

Attachment was not the Jedi way, but compassion and selfless love was. All of his students--and their students, so on and so forth--understood that, embraced that.

Eventually he became the Grand Master and became so busy with duties he could not devote the time to another Padawan, to his Lineage as he once did. They understood, relied more on each other, and while some came to him with questions or concerns it was a rarity. And then--somewhere along the lines--it stopped happening altogether. A Lineage was called after the oldest surviving member, but when there were gaps of three, four, ten generations... did one really still count as part of that Lineage? But that was fine, as it should be; the Force is Life and Life is forever changing, growing, renewing. Yoda had learnt at the side of a Master long gone but fondly remembered, now part of the Force; his students, too, memories and trinkets, memorabilia tucked carefully away in a chest in his room, never opened but a reminder nonetheless.

The desire to teach Dooku had been unexpected, unanticipated, almost unappreciated. It had been years since he last had a Padawan learner of his own... but why not? He'd long since turned over immediate day-to-day responsibilities to an aide, now the Master of the Order, and aside from popping in to teach classes or spend time in the creche, he had ample time for a personal student again.

Of course, the way that had turned out... but Dooku's own Padawan, Qui-Gon, had been bright and sensitive to the ways and wills of the Force, and always willing to help another Padawan, always willing to lend an ear or support. Maybe Dooku hadn't turned out as Yoda had hoped, but surely Qui-Gon would be better.

And he was, with Feemor. Maybe not the most in-touch Master, preferring books or research or his plants and animals and following the eddies of the Force invisible to most others, but he cared. He wanted Feemor to succeed, to thrive, as did Yoda. And Feemor did, passing his Trials with little difficulty and much grace; a Jedi Knight to be, surely, proud of.

Xanatos, however....

He'd deserved to be repudiated, true. Yoda had even cautioned Qui-Gon about his second Padawan, having seen the steps and the missteps and the constant swaying between light and dark. A Shadow, he'd suggested. Cautioned. Xanatos could not walk in the light, not like Feemor, but enough light he had in him to walk in both, to be a Shadow of their Order. Qui-Gon hadn't listened, still too proud, too arrogant, after Feemor.

In the end, Xanatos became a Darksider. Qui-Gon, as custom and duty and common sense demanded, repudiated him. But not just him, no, for if he'd gone so wrong with Xanatos, surely Feemor, too, was secretly not what he appeared to be? And so Feemor had suffered for his younger brother's choices, for Qui-Gon's pride and lack of attention to detail, for his desperation to not stain or blemish the Lineage of the Grand Master.

Two students, one Jedi Knight, one Darksider. Two repudiations, one earned, one not.

Qui-Gon had sworn off all further students, had nearly been convinced to take another, had rejected them in the end. The Force had brought them back together, and Qui-Gon could not ignore such a sign, but--

Obi-Wan is quiet in the Force. As a child he'd been as a river, calmly flowing one minute and the tempestuousness of white water the next, but always moving, always steady. As a babe... Yoda remembers the young human, presumed Stewjoni, being brought into the Hall of Healing for the first time, so young and already so part of the Force it had nearly wrapped around him. Not a vergence, not power, but a pin in an ever-changing tapestry, a marble dropped into the center of a taught sheet, a boulder in the middle of the river he'd become part of.

Chaos in the midst of calm, or the calm waters of the eye of a storm?

Obi-Wan learnt the steps of those around him, learnt to dance between light and darkness with Quinlan Vos and somewhere along the lines chose to remain in the light. But these were not his steps, Yoda could see. They were the steps of the Masters, the Knights, the Padawans, even other Initiates; they were what should be, what Kenobi himself clearly wanted to do, to be, but were copied from others, a reflection of truth and not what actually was.

The only times Yoda could remember Obi-Wan stepping out on his own, trying to make his own dance--Melida/Daan. Mandalore. Qui-Gon had either left him alone or with minimal guidance, and without the framework of the Order to guide him, Obi-Wan had fallen back on what he believed to be right, to be the will of the Force. Protect the Young. Protect the Duchess. Stop a war. (Even if it meant fighting.)

Obi-Wan wouldn't be happy strictly as a Peacekeeper, no. He had the knack for it, a skill with words and negotiations that most Masters could only wish for, but the boy's heart--his desire--was to defend and protect that which was Good.

And now, here. Naboo.

Qui-Gon's body lays in repose in the next room, waiting for the sunset and the pyre. Obi-Wan kneels before him, a Knight in a Padawan's garb, and while he never fails to make eye contact, there's a careful guard to it.

Peacekeepers do not kill, after all. Jedi are Peacekeepers; ergo, for all that he's tried to emulate them, Obi-Wan Kenobi is not a Peacekeeper. Not a Jedi.

He's a protector, and Yoda can see him realizing this even as he kneels and Yoda paces, otherwise in perfect silence.

Protectors need things to protect, things to cherish, attachments. How do you value something enough to protect it while maintaining a necessary distance? Even the Sentinels, guards as they are, keep their distance from their charges, no matter how many Younglings jump around and climb them and offer them sweets and pies.

"...even if I must leave the Order, I will train the boy."

And there is both the problem and the solution. Qui-Gon did a disservice to his student, leaving him to find his way alone. Even now, in death, Qui-Gon cannot complete the ritual to break their bond, to cut their ties so Obi-Wan may move forward alone. Yet it's clear that between the Council chamber and the reactor, the bond between them had already begun to unravel. Now what ritual there might be--it wouldn't have mattered, anyway. A sham, a farce, to be done with, if it would even happen at all.

Not that they didn't care about each other--no, he'd seen enough of them together to know that they did, but it was the care between two Knights or two Masters, not teacher-and-student, not father-and-son. Removed, careful, expecting and understanding that each could exist without the other ever in their lives again, but grateful for this brief opportunity to spend time beside each other.

So maybe Qui-Gon was right, in the end: maybe Obi-Wan had been ready for his Trials, having been acting the part of Knight already. No Trials now, Darth Maul's death is more than enough to count, and no ritual Knighting. Just the burning of a body... and the decision of a Knight to train a boy he barely knows.

A boy for the first time away from family and friends and familiarity, a boy... much like Obi-Wan once was, if only Yoda had paid more attention. A boy that, like Obi-Wan, will need to find his own path through life, his own steps through light and dark that might--will--be different from any Yoda has seen before.

A boy that, for right now, needs less guidance and more care. More compassion. More... protection.

It goes against the teachings of the Jedi, to encourage attachments. But Yoda looks at Obi-Wan, feels out for the boy on the other side of the door keeping vigil over his once would-be Master's body, and knows the will of the Force, too.

"Train the boy, you shall," he decrees, and blames the rest of the Council. "A Knight, you are."

Obi-Wan bows his head, like he'd expected nothing less, like he's grateful they're in accord and he won't have to fight for it.

And like he'd never expected a Knighting, a ritual, a ceremony.

Yoda watches him quietly enter the next room, kneel down beside Anakin Skywalker and join the silent vigil. Sees Anakin lean into him, just slightly. Sees Obi-Wan pause, then wrap one arm loosely around small shoulders.

No, he decides, turning his back on what's left of his Lineage. They'll make new dances, a new path, and he won't recognize a single step of it.

And he feels the slightest hint of relief.

[hunterexamcheatsheet]

i believe squid game comes from the jap movie "as the gods will" 👀

Okay, so... Since we’re at the topic of this, I’d love to discuss what I think of its similarities and the survival genre in general!  

I actually have heard of that allegation before. I haven’t watched As The Gods Will movie yet to compare, but I heard this came about because netizens realised that the first game “Red Light, Green Light” was similar to the first game in As The Gods Will. 

I wanted to watch As The Gods Will first before answering this, but I’m too excited to share my thoughts and didn’t want to make you think I was ignoring this ask. Also because I don’t feel I have the proper headspace to watch another brutal movie/show. I’m currently looking for a good comedy movie/series to make me laugh.  This one appeared in even my country’s local news and the director of Squid Game denied the allegations that he plagiarised the Japanese movie. 

From the news:

He said, “I started planning [Squid Game] in 2008 and began writing the script in 2009 (…) the similarities that were pointed out are purely coincidental and there is no copying from either party. I don’t want to [claim ownership] of the story but if have to say it, I’ll say that I did it [before As The Gods Will].”

Apparently only the first game was similar (but I haven’t watched the movie so I cannot confirm it with my eyes). However, there were some netizens who weren’t happy with his response and don’t believe him. 

I do think that the show features a childhood game, and the Red Light Green Light game is a childhood game in Korea (and Japan too). I went to watch Coffee Prince (2007) shortly after, and there was a short scene where they walked past a group of children and they were playing it. The phrase "Mugunghwa kkochi pieotseumnida" (무궁화꽃이 피었습니다, lit. "The Rose of Sharon has bloomed"). The rose of Sharon (aka Korean rose) is the national flower of South Korea. 

Based on wiki, it says that the Japanese variation is: "Daruma-san ga koronda" (達磨さんが転んだ, lit. "The Daruma Fell Over"). So I guess it is also a childhood game played in Japan. 

Honestly I’ve never played this game before, although a lot of countries do. 

I’ve also watched the Behind the Scenes for the show, and their reasoning for the Red Light Green Light as the first game was that a lot of contestants can be eliminated in this game. 

I’m not sure if there’s going to be some legal troubles, because there have been already controversies around this show (such as the fact that the number on the calling card was real and owner received > 4K calls). 

Overall, I do hope that the similarities is just a coincidence and that because in similar genres tend to attract similar ideas. Otherwise it will kind of leave a foul taste in my mouth ahha. It will be a waste because this show was the first survival genre I really liked simply because they had the free will to choose not to play instead of usually being forced to play.The third clause was pretty interesting because they can all choose to go home if majority votes, but they are not willing to quit.  Which actually goes to show how life was really hell for them to continue playing. 

It reminds me of this other Korean movie called Parasite (2019), which also highlighted the socio-economic status disparity between groups. I liked that movie as well, although I kind of disliked most of the movie analyses of it (I disagree with the whole “Eat the Rich” perspective of analyses, I think that is not what the movie is about), but I digress. 

Do let me know if any of you watched As The Gods Will, and if you liked it or not. There is also this movie from a manga called “Battle Royale”, which was an earlier series of this genre. I haven’t read it yet but apparently it’s highly recommend it.  

I had also read Alice in Borderland manga (up until the season they covered), but because I don’t find any of the characters interesting and there’s no built up of relationships, I didn’t particularly enjoy it. Although I must say that the games are more complicated and brainiac. 

I had also read The Hunger Games trilogy many years ago as a teen, I did love the survival game aspect of it, however I didn’t really like how the political revolution was presented in the 3rd book. I remember that following that book, there was a whole trend of dystopian future young adult genre (which I think now the following books like Divergent and Maze Runner were forgettable).  

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, and I’m free to discuss any movies/shows/books other than HxH so long as I had actually watched it. I’m more biased to anime and other Asian media I guess, but anything is fine. 

[theatticoneighth]

Watching The Queen’s Gambit; on the Remarkable Unexceptionality of Beth Harmon

‘With some people, chess is a pastime. With others, it is a compulsion, even an addiction. And every now and then, a person comes along for whom it is a birthright. Now and then, a small boy appears and dazzles us with his precocity, at what may be the world’s most difficult game. But what if that boy were a girl? A young, unsmiling girl, with brown eyes, red hair, and a dark blue dress? Into the male-dominated world of the nation’s top chess tournaments, strolls a teenage girl with bright, intense eyes, from Fairfield High School in Lexington, Kentucky. She is quiet, well-mannered, and out for blood.’

The preceding epigraph opens a fictional profile of Beth Harmon featured in the third episode of The Queen’s Gambit (2020), and is written and published after the protagonist — a teenage, rookie chess player, no less — beats a series of ranked pros to win her first of many tournaments. In the same deft manner as it depicts the character’s ascent to her global chess stardom, the piece also sets up the series’s narrative: this is evidence of a great talent, it tells us, a grandmaster in the making. As with most other stories about prodigies, this new entry into a timeworn genre is framed unexceptionally by its subject’s exceptionality.

Yet as far as tales regaled about young chess wunderkinds go, Beth Harmon’s stands out in more ways than one. That she is a girl in a male-dominated world has clearly not gone unremarked by both her diegetic and nondiegetic audiences. That her life has thus far — and despite her circumstances — been relatively uneventful, however, is what makes this show so remarkable. After all, much of our culture has undeniably primed us to expect the consequential from those whom we raise upon the pedestal of genius. As Harmon’s interviewer suggests in her conversation with Harmon for the latter’s profile, “Creativity and psychosis often go hand in hand. Or, for that matter, genius and madness.” So quickly do we attribute extraordinary accomplishments to similarly irregular origins that we presume an inexplicability of our geniuses: their idiosyncrasies are warranted, their bad behaviours are excused, and deep into their biographies we dig to excavate the enigmatic anomalies behind their gifts. Through our myths of exceptionality, we make the slightest aberrations into metonyms for brilliance.

Nonetheless, for all her sullenness, non-conformity, and her plethora of addictions, Beth Harmon seems an uncommonly normal girl. No doubt this may be a contentious view, as evinced perhaps by the chorus of viewers and reviewers alike who have already begun to brand the character a Mary Sue. Writing on the series for the LA Review of Books, for instance, Aaron Bady construes The Queen’s Gambit as “the tragedy of Bobby Fischer [made] into a feminist fantasy, a superhero story.” In the same vein, Jane Hu also laments in her astute critique of the Cold War-era drama its flagrant and saccharine wish-fulfillment tendencies. “The show gets to have it both ways,” she observes, “a beautiful heroine who leans into the edge of near self-destruction, but never entirely, because of all the male friends she makes along the way.” Sexual difference is here reconstituted as the unbridgeable chasm that divides the US from the Soviet Union, whereas the mutual friendliness shared between Harmon and her male chess opponents becomes a utopic revision of history. Should one follow Hu’s evaluation of the series as a period drama, then the retroactive ascription of a recognisably socialist collaborative ethos to Harmon and her compatriots is a contrived one indeed. 

Accordingly, both Hu and Bady conclude that the series grants us depthless emotional satisfaction at the costly expense of realism: its all-too-easy resolutions swiftly sidestep any nascent hint of overwhelming tension; its resulting calm betrays our desire for reprieve. Underlying these arguments is the fundamental assumption that the unembellished truth should also be an inconvenient one, but why must we always demand difficulty from those we deem noteworthy? Summing up the show’s conspicuous penchant for conflict-avoidance, Bady writes that: 

over and over again, the show strongly suggests — through a variety of genre and narrative cues — that something bad is about to happen. And then … it just doesn’t. An orphan is sent to a gothic orphanage and the staff … are benign. She meets a creepy, taciturn old man in the basement … and he teaches her chess and loans her money. She is adopted by a dysfunctional family and the mother … takes care of her. She goes to a chess tournament and midway through a crucial game she gets her first period and … another girl helps her, who she rebuffs, and she is fine anyway. She wins games, defeating older male players, and … they respect and welcome her, selflessly helping her. The foster father comes back and …she has the money to buy him off. She gets entangled in cold war politics and … decides not to be.

In short, everything that could go wrong … simply does not go wrong.

Time and again predicaments arise in Harmon’s narrative, but at each point, she is helped fortuitously by the people around her. In turn, the character is allowed to move through the series with the restrained unflappability of a sleepwalker, as if unaffected by the drama of her life.  Of course, this is not to say that she fails to encounter any obstacle on her way to celebrity and success — for neither her childhood trauma nor her substance-laden adolescence are exactly rosy portraits of idyll — but only that such challenges seem so easily ironed out by that they hardly register as true adversity. In other words, the show takes us repeatedly to the brink of what could become a life-altering crisis but refuses to indulge our taste for the spectacle that follows. Skipping over the Aristotelian climax, it shields us from the height of suspense, and without much struggle or effort on the viewers’ part, hands us our payoff. Consequently lacking the epochal weight of plot, little feels deserved in Harmon’s story.

In his study of eschatological fictions, The Sense of an Ending, Frank Kermode would associate such a predilection for catastrophes with our abiding fear of disorder. Seeing as time, as he argues, is “purely successive [and] disorganised,” we can only reach to the fictive concords of plot to make sense of our experiences. Endings in particular serve as the teleological objective towards which humanity projects our existence, so we hold paradigms of apocalypse closely to ourselves to restore significance to our lives. It probably comes as no surprise then that in a year of chaos and relentless disaster — not to mention the present era of extreme precariousness, doomscrolling, and the 24/7 news cycle, all of which have irrevocably attuned us to the dreadful expectation of “the worst thing to come” — we find ourselves eyeing Harmon’s good fortune with such scepticism. Surely, we imagine, something has to have happened to the character for her in order to justify her immense consequence. But just as children are adopted each day into loving families and chess tournaments play out regularly without much strife, so too can Harmon maintain low-grade dysfunctional relationships with her typically flawed family and friends. 

In any case, although “it seems to be a condition attaching to the exercise of thinking about the future that one should assume one's own time to stand in extraordinary relation to it,” not all orphans have to face Dickensian fates and not all geniuses have to be so tortured (Kermode). The fact remains that the vagaries of our existence are beyond perfect reason, and any attempt at thinking otherwise, while vital, may be naive. Contrary to most critics’ contentions, it is hence not The Queen’s Gambit’s subversions of form but its continued reach towards the same that holds up for viewers such a comforting promise of coherence. The show comes closest to disappointing us as a result when it eschews melodrama for the straightforward. Surprised by the ease and randomness of Harmon’s life, it is not difficult for one to wonder, four or five episodes into the show, what it is all for; one could even begin to empathise with Hu’s description of the series as mere “fodder for beauty.” 

Watching over the series now with Bady’s recap of it in mind, however, I am reminded oddly not of the prestige and historical dramas to which the series is frequently compared, but the low-stakes, slice-of-life cartoons that had peppered my childhood. Defined by the prosaicness of its settings, the genre punctuates the life’s mundanity with brief moments of marvel to accentuate the curious in the ordinary. In these shows, kindergarteners fix the troubles of adults with their hilarious playground antics, while time-traveling robot cats and toddler scientists alike are confronted with the woes of chores. Likewise, we find in The Queen’s Gambit a comparable glimpse of the quotidian framed by its protagonist’s quirks. Certainly, little about the Netflix series’ visual and narrative features would identify it as a slice-of-life serial, but there remains some merit, I believe, in watching it as such. For, if there is anything to be gained from plots wherein nothing is introduced that cannot be resolved in an episode or ten, it is not just what Bady calls the “drowsy comfort” of satisfaction — of knowing that things will be alright, or at the very least, that they will not be terrible. Rather, it is the sense that we are not yet so estranged from ourselves, and that both life and familiarity persists even in the most extraordinary of circumstances.

Perhaps some might find such a tendency towards the normal questionable, yet when all the world is on fire and everyone clambers for acclaim, it is ultimately the ongoingness of everyday life for which one yearns. As Harmon’s childhood friend, Jolene, tells her when she is once again about to fall off the wagon, “You’ve been the best at what you do for so long, you don’t even know what it’s like for the rest of us.” For so long, and especially over the past year, we have catastrophized the myriad crises in which we’re living that we often overlook the minor details and habits that nonetheless sustain us. To inhabit the congruence of both the remarkable and its opposite in the singular figure of Beth Harmon is therefore to be reminded of the possibility of being outstanding without being exceptional — that is, to not make an exception of oneself despite one’s situation — and to let oneself be drawn back, however placid or insignificant it may be, into the unassuming hum of dailiness. It is in this way of living that one lives on, minute by minute, day by day, against the looming fear and anxiety that seek to suspend our plodding regular existence. It is also in this way that I will soon be turning the page on the last few months in anticipation of what is to come. 

Born and raised in the perpetually summery tropics — that is, Singapore — Rachel Tay wishes she could say her life was just like a still from Call Me By Your Name: tanned boys, peaches, and all. Unfortunately, the only resemblance that her life bears to the film comes in the form of books, albeit ones read in the comfort of air-conditioned cafés, and not the pool, for the heat is sweltering and the humidity unbearable. A fervent turtleneck-wearer and an unrepentant hot coffee-addict, she is thus the ideal self-parodying Literature student, and the complete anti-thesis to tropical life.

[alicenttully]

my mother’s fury (makes mine seem nothing)

I.                

She had been in class for all of five minutes when Miss Unella pursued her lips and told Arianne to take herself to the principal’s office.

“Why?” Arianne was perplexed.  She hadn’t been doing anything- well how could she anyway, when Miss Unella’s class had barely started?  Arianne had come prepared with last weekend’s homework, as well.  Having the Faith of the Seven for first period was hardly the most riveting way to begin Tuesday morning – which in Arianne’s mind, already held the dishonor of being the most unfortunate day of the week. Although others might have considered Mondays to have that spot, Arianne had always liked the feeling of promise that a new week could bring, and it was also the same day in which Aunt Elia and her cousins Rhaenys and Aegon came over for dinner.  Wednesdays were “hump day” – the point in which the week was almost halfway over, and before you knew it was Thursday and Friday. In contrast, Tuesday was dull and drab.

But despite all of this, Arianne was a good student who always did her homework.  But apparently, that was not sufficient enough for Miss Unella.

“It’s your jumper. Or lack thereof.”

“Oh.” Arianne felt relieved.  Now she understood- one of the uniform rules at Naerys Academy was that students were expected to wear their school jumpers during the first term. It existed with other rules such as wearing their blazer to and from school if you were walking or taking public transport- because you were “the face of Naerys.”  Arianne wasn’t wearing hers- her brother Trystane had smeared jam all over it this morning.  As cleaning it in time was out of the question, Arianne’s mother had no choice but to write her a note explaining the situation which Arianne had given to her homeroom teacher.  “No, it’s fine. I already gave a note to Mrs Lynora explaining things.”

“Be that as it may. I cannot allow you to stay in my class, my dear.”

Arianne always hated when people called you dear. They were always bound to say the most condensing drivel.  And her teacher did not disappoint.

“I’m afraid that because of your body type, you need to be wearing the required uniform.”

“My body type?”   Arianne gritted her teeth.  So, this is what it was about.

“Yes, my dear.  I’m afraid that without your jumper- well, it would be distracting to the boys.” Miss Unella paused, then continued. “Furthermore, drawing attention to yourself in such a way violates the values of modesty that we are trying to instill in you.”

How dare she!  Arianne wanted to cry, but her classmates were all staring at her. Some in sympathy, others in amusement that was the inevitable result of teenage cruelty; but all would likely be telling their friends later on of this incident, and therefore she, Arianne would control how it was told.

“Well to be perfectly honest, you haven’t proven yourself to be a very good teacher in the time you’ve been with us.”  Miss Unella was in fact new- covering for Mrs Fossoway, who had left to go on maternity leave.  “So, I doubt the boys would learn anything of note, even if they weren’t supposedly distracted.”  

At this, the entire class erupted into appreciative sniggers, and Miss Unella’s face reddened. Good, Arianne thought spitefully. Let her know what it was like to be shamed publicly, like that.

“Miss Martell, do I have to ask you again to leave?”

“No, you don’t.” Arianne had risen from her seat, scooping up her books into her arms.  “Because I rather not be in the same room as you, if I can help it.”

She slammed the door on the way out.

 II.

“Well Arianne, what seems to be the problem here?” Principal Waynwood’s voice was kind, but firm.  Arianne knew she had to control herself here- but it was almost impossible; the injustice of it all consuming her.

“The only problem is that Miss Unella didn’t think my excuse for not wearing a jumper was sufficient.” Arianne explained the situation to Principal Waynwood, from her brother’s accident to the confrontation with Miss Unella. “Apparently, my body type means I cannot get away with wearing certain things- otherwise I’d be distracting the boys from learning.”

She hated that she was having to say these words, to this woman.  She hated how degraded she felt.  And most of all, she hated Miss Unella for being the cause of it all.

“I see.” Principal Waynwood sighed. “Miss Unella obviously did not handle things in the best manner that she could have. Because of that, I will be having a talk with her.  However, Arianne, your rudeness was still unacceptable.”

“What about the way she was rude to me?” Arianne raged. Why did it feel like everyone was against her?

Principal Waynwood put her hand up. “That’s enough, Arianne. I understand, but rudeness is not the way we communicate our feelings.”   Arianne wanted to scream. “As the bell for the second period is about to ring, you may remain here until it does.  In the meantime, I will write a note that you can use in case this uh, situation pops up again.’

When the bell rang, Arianne left the office, clutching the note.  The last place she wanted to be was school.  A small part of her had hoped that going to Principal Waynwood’s office would make her feel better. How completely, incredibly, brutally wrong she was.  

III.

What did make Arianne feel better was the outrage of her friends.

“I can’t believe she said that.”  Slyva stabbed her chicken breast with a fork; almost as if she was imagining Miss Unella’s face.

Andrey shrugged. “I can. Apparently, she’s more er, dedicated than Mrs Leonette ever was.” He smirked.

“It doesn’t matter how dedicated she is.” Slyva said. “She shouldn’t have embarrassed Arianne like that!”

“No, she shouldn’t have.” Tyene, Arianne’s cousin, softly agreed. She twirled her ring, carved in the shape of a snake. “And we need to respond. What do you say, Arianne?”

Arianne remembered Miss Unella’s words, how she had used religion to shame her. A plan was formulating in Arianne’s mind.

So, Miss Unella was concerned that she was failing to live up to the religious values of their school?

Well, Arianne knew just how to fix that.

IV.

Although Naerys Academy was a Seven-based school, you did not necessarily have to be religious to attend.  Arianne knew that applied to many of the students, whose parents simply wanted to take advantage of the resources that the school could provide for their children – for instance, seniors consistently performed well in the end of year exams; allowing students to get into some of the top-ranking universities- such as Trident Institute.

And well because of that, Arianne could hardly be doing anything wrong when she decided to do what she did.

By Friday, Arianne and her friends had put up posters all over the school – advertising a new religion.

It was called Martellism- in which Arianne was the prophet. The posters encouraged students to seek out Arianne, if they wished to find enlightenment. 

Arianne attracted attention, just as she wanted.  And attention came in the form of an irate Miss Unella.

“Miss Martell, can you explain what is the meaning of this?”

Arianne smiled brightly. “Of course.  You see, I was thinking and you’re completely right. I wasn’t dressed in a way that was living up to the school’s religious values.”  Had such sweet words ever sounded so poisonous? “And then it came to me.  Why not just make a new religion, with values that I do want to live up to, such as not criticizing the way a girl dresses, or shaming her body?”

Miss Unella narrowed her eyes at Arianne.  “You’ve just given yourself a detention, Miss Martell. Saturday next” Arianne could detect the faint triumph in the woman’s voice and knew she probably got some satisfaction from it.  After all, nobody liked detentions- but one after school was infinitely preferable to one on the weekend.

Arianne crossed her arms as Miss Unella walked away. For the rest of the day, she brooded.  She had tried playing the fool, and where had that gotten her?

Arianne thought of her cousin Rhaenys.  Rhaenys was all of twelve, long-legged, whose braces knew Arianne made her feel insecure but who had a wicked sense of humor in which nobody was safe from. She could still remember pushing a six-year-old Rhaenys on the swings, who giggled happily.

Would somebody else one day speak to Rhaenys the way Miss Unella did to Arianne- making her feel small and worthless? Would they attack her body?

She needed to talk to her mother.

V.

When she had told her mother everything, Mellario gripped the edge of the kitchen top very tightly.  Not only was Arianne not to attend that detention she said, but she was going to organize a meeting with Principal Waynwood.

The meeting was organized for Monday, after school. Mellario was fierce in defending her daughter.

“My daughter will not be attending the detention given to her by Miss Unella.” She said the name as if it was a curse. “Instead, I want this woman gone and a formal apology from this school for the abhorrent way she treated Arianne.  Sexualising a fifteen-year-old girl in front of her peers like that!”

Principal Waynwood looked so uncomfortable that Arianne couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for her.  “Mrs Mellario, I understand you are upset,”

“You understand nothing.” Her mother interrupted.

“But as I told Arianne, I already had a talk with Miss Unella. I agree that her way of handling things that day was unfortunate. I am truly sorry for the way Arianne was made to feel.  But I don’t think we need to escalate the situation by firing her.”

“Mrs Waynwood.” Mellario’s lifted her chin.  “You’ll remember that Arianne’s father and I both come from prominent families. With that, I promise you, we will take full advantage of our positions to make life living hell for Naerys Academy.”

Principal Waynwood swallowed nervously.  Arianne could have kissed her mother.

In the end, Miss Unella was fired- speedily replaced with a woman named Miss Nysterica.  They got the apology as well, although truthfully it really should have come from Miss Unella herself.

Ultimately, though, Arianne knew she didn’t apologies from that awful woman anyway.

It was enough to know that her mother would always fight for her.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Kim Stanley Robinson on "our rewritten imagination"

Kim Stanley Robinson is one of sf's most important utopians, and his utopianism is a model for what we can aspire to. With climate collapse novels like New York 2140, Robinson reveals a utopian vision that is about resiliency in the face of disaster:

https://boingboing.net/2017/03/18/new-york-2140-kim-stanley-rob.html

While his novel Aurora presents an important rebuttal to the fundamentally dystopian idea that we cannot save the Earth and so must colonize space to ensure the continuance of our species:

https://boingboing.net/2015/11/02/kim-stanley-robinsons-auro.html

This so infuriated the reactionary wing of "hard sf" that Robinson also wrote a nonfiction piece explaining both the science and philosophy behind that vision:

https://boingboing.net/2015/11/16/our-generation-ships-will-sink.html

But my love affair with Robinson's utopianism began with "Pacific Edge," which remains my go-to novel to brighten my spirits in my darkest hour:

https://boingboing.net/2015/01/15/audio-edition-of-pacific-edge.html

It's the book that's uppermost in my mind as I work on my own next novel, a utopian, post-Green New Deal book called "The Lost Cause."

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/28/force-multiplier/#gnd

Robinson's nonfiction is every bit as good as his fiction, and, more importantly, every bit as visionary. Some of us may find it "easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism," but not Robinson.

http://lab.cccb.org/en/angry-optimism-in-a-drowned-world-a-conversation-with-kim-stanley-robinson/

Importantly, his vision of a sustainable future is both "deep green" and "bright green," grounded in the use of technology to contain and ameliorate the human footprint on our planet.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/20/save-the-planet-half-earth-kim-stanley-robinson

Robinson is a high-tech pastoralist, a guy who disappears into the Sierras with nothing but a backpack for months at a time (he recently told me that he's not writing fiction for a while so he can concentrate on his definitive history of the Sierras).

Robinson was offline in the Grand Canyon when the pandemic struck, rafting down the Colorado River. When he emerged, "it was into a different world. I’ve spent my life writing sf...But I was still shocked by how much had changed, and how quickly."

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/the-coronavirus-and-our-future

Robinson says the pandemic is "rewriting our imaginations. What felt impossible has become thinkable. We’re getting a different sense of our place in history. We know we’re entering a new world, a new era."

(This is what I love about his work!)

Robinson talks about the pandemic as a kind of training-wheels practice run for the climate emergencies in our near future - a chance to realize how unprepared we are, and how urgent it will all be, and how much we need to do.

"When disaster strikes, we grasp the complexity of our civilization—we  feel the reality, which is that the whole system is a technical  improvisation that science keeps from crashing down."

Coronavirus slays the science denialism that is the ideological basis for climate inaction. "Do we believe in science? Go outside and you’ll see the proof that we do everywhere you look. We’re learning to trust our science as a society."

Science fiction does crucial work here: "Science fiction traces the ramifications of a single postulated change; readers co-create, judging the writers’ plausibility and ingenuity, interrogating their theories of history. Doing this repeatedly is a kind of training."

"We’re now confronting a miniature version of the [climate] tragedy of the time horizon. We’ve decided to sacrifice over these months so that, in future, people won’t suffer as much as they would otherwise... the time horizon is so short that we're the future people."

"To my mind, this new sense of solidarity is one of the few reassuring things to have happened in this century. If we can find it in this crisis, to save ourselves, then maybe we can find it in the big crisis, to save our children and theirs."

"This knowledge that, although we are practicing social distancing as we need to, we want to be social—we not only want to be social, we’ve got to be social, if we are to survive. It’s a new feeling, this alienation and solidarity at once."

"We’re hearing two statements. One, from the President: we have to save money even if it costs lives. The other, from the CDC: we have to save lives even if it costs money. Which is more important? Money, of course! says capital. Really? people reply, uncertainly."

He's got something really important here, it's what's given me hope in my darkest hours.

Before the crisis, I worried that by the time the climate emergency was so manifest that it annihilated denialism, it would be so far gone that nihilism would spring up to replace it.

As in, "OK, fine, you were right, we should have done something about the rhinos. But since there's only one left, why don't we find out what he tastes like?"

The crisis feels like, as a civilization, we were that asshole who refused to wear a seatbelt, but then had a car-wreck that put him in a coma -- from which he miraculously recovered, and now he wears his seatbelt every time.

And like that asshole, we (unforgivably) had to kill a bunch of innocent bystanders to learn a lesson we should have taken to heart a long time ago.

But the only thing worse than our world paying that ghastly price would be to pay it and learn nothing from it.

This isn't the worst crisis of our lifetime. Probably not even the worst pandemic. We've got more coming, in the form of waves of climate emergencies. This was a wake up call -- it's time to get our asses in gear.

BTW, that Pacific Edge book that I read every time I get low? It's just been reissued with the other books in the Three Californias trilogy as a "Tor Essential" with an intro by the amazing Francis "Red Plenty" Spufford.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250307569

Image: Rob Beschizza

[awhilesince]

Tuesday, 7 January 1834

8 1/4

11 35/..

L

a little pressing and grubbling last night but I am not for more of it than I can help –

read prayers – breakfast at 9 1/2 – very fine sunny morning till about 10 – rain between 10 and 11 for some time then fine again – read the St. James’s Chronicle London 3 days a week paper – 

out at about 11 1/2 walked with Miss W– (Walker) by Lower brea and along my walk to here – she paid her visit to my sister and was a little while in the drawing room with my aunt, and a longish while with me in my study – lent her (took back with me) volume 38 off the British Essayists – then walked back with her to Lidgate to leave the book, and then to Cliff hill where I left her at the gate at 2 40/..

then here and came to my study – wrote out yesterday and today – wonder how all this will end she makes sure of me if she chooses and talks as we both do as if all was fixed but still she says nothing positive I don't care much about it and perhaps I shall get off again without her and then be rid of her – 

finished my letter to M– (Mariana) dated Sunday yesterday and today – tell her to cheer up – 

‘things happen so oddly, – we are always so little about to calculate our fate; and there is generally so much good we never think of, that, trust me, it is a mauvais calcul to look too attentively on the darker side of anything – How can we say that even our mistakes shall cost us as dear as we fancy they must? In these matters, we pay only by instalments; and the remainder of our debt is often forgiven us when we least expect it – think not, Mary of ‘unstrung nerves’ – think only that with increased experience and improved discernment, you have added powers of setting right the wrong, and of bending circumstances more and more as you would have them – I remember what you allude to, about my aunt – it was rather an observance to me, than a message to you – you know my aunt’s regard for me, and should make much allowance for a feeling that might have been your own, had you been in her place – you say ‘my head and my words are very commonplace, but my heart has no affinity with either’– [Monday afternoon 6 January] This may indeed be more true than you ever before taught me to believe; but, remember, our most familiar friend must judge of us in some sort by our words; and we ourselves should watch these narrowly when we know that they are not in unison with, or do injustice to, our feelings – But cheer up my dearest Mary’ …..

wiser now than before can estimate persons and things more fairly – I believe her happiness will improve beyond her expectation – she richer in friends than most people – to call on Lady Eastnor, and if not at home send note to say sorry and was in Cheshire out the time or should have had the honour of waiting on her on the 6th – do not give the exact form of the note because know not the style she has written in before – Again bid her cheer up – 

‘I never despaired, of you or myself – if I see you dispirited and unwell, it must make me uneasy and unhappy in the midst of all the blessings that may surround me – Pray what was the Gipsy’s prophecy? I am curious to know – Do pray tell me – But the fact is, you yourself are the gipsy, the fortune-teller and the fortune-maker – Providence leaves us free – tis we enthral ourselves and you twisted round the thread of my fate; for I had left it in no human power but yours –

Miss W…..’s (Walker’s) return is indeed odd – your surprise could not exceed my own – But do not let your conclusions run on too rapidly – now that I have taken my fate into my own hands, believe nothing till I tell it you myself – I know well enough what all the world will think; – but all the world may be wrong – you cannot be otherwise than interested about me; and I shall not leave you to hear my history 2nd hand – all I wish at present is a better account of yourself’ –

scarcely know what to think of my aunt – ‘She suffers a great deal; but still I cannot agree with Cordingley, that she may and will linger many months’ – Eugenie sleeps in my room – I here 3 or 4 hours in the day and then return to Lidgate – ‘if the house was my own, more pains could not be taken to make me comfortable’ – but back and forwards work not agreeable and no chance of its ending these 3 or 4 weeks – 

‘by the way, Miss W (Walker) ….. says she remembers you, and I dare say, would count upon your good wishes – I have been at Copenhagen since last year; and my thoughts wander there at times’ – .. you know the only instance in which I have ever thought myself [Tuesday afternoon 7 January] hardly dealt ‘with’ – it is past – and God grant that, among the blessings I enjoy, I may always number your happiness – You have underrated my regard long enough – I only hope you will do it justice, by and by – Be my own fate what it may, I shall never cease to watch over yours with affectionate anxiety – I do not expect to tell me you are ‘quite happy’. it would content me, for the present, to know, that you were really comfortable – 

merely mentioned Birmingham’s having forwarded the stays from Paris to Mrs Hawkins and that I should write about them but could not till tomorrow – 

‘so long in writing on account of my unsettledness and frequent interruptions – God bless you, Mary! always especially yours AL– (Anne Lister)’ 

at 5 had just written the above and sealed my letter to ‘Mrs Lawton Claremont house Leamington Warwickshire’ and left it for the post tonight – and off at 5 20/.. and at Lidgate in 25 minutes – dinner at 6 – tea at 7 50/..

long talk she will employ Mr G(r)ey in York to make her will  meant to leave me and Captain Sutherland executors and secure all to the children  she seems quite decided to take me and leave me all for my life and I said then I would do ditto – 

came upstairs at 10 35/.. and to my room at 10 55/.. fine day –

reference number: SH:7/ML/E/16/0156, SH:7/ML/E/16/0157

[riathel]

Thoughts about Shelley and the Unresolved Questions of Season 12

Well, I am writing a meta post about the Timeless Children and why I think it adds such an interesting complexity to the Master’s relationship with the Doctor, but in the meantime, while I process that finale, I wanted to write about something I’ve noticed this entire season.

The connection to the Shelleys and to Byron.

To TL;DR this post:  I think that next season, we’ll get an answer to who the Kasaavin are, it will tie into Percy having had the Cyberium in him (and it having been around Byron’s house), and we’ll get some huge development for Yaz, the Master and the Doctor, as they’ve all been in the Kasaavin realm.

Let’s recap all the times we’ve lingered around Byron and the Shelleys this season, shall we? This includes some very brief history lessons, and I will be including links!

Episode 2: Spyfall Part 2

We meet Ada Lovelace, who has a connection to the Kasaavin. She sees them in her dreams, she’s the one to rescue the Doctor from their realm. Brief history lesson: Ada Lovelace was an absolutely BRILLIANT mathematician and the parent of computers. She was also the only legitimate child of Lord Byron and his wife. She died in 1852 at age 36, taken far too young. I’ll post the scene here for benefit:

[Kasaavin realm] ADA: Please be assured all this will pass. I shall be recovered momentarily. DOCTOR: When you say recovered, what do you mean? ADA: The paralysis will fade. DOCTOR: You don't look paralysed. ADA: Not in this realm, but in my earthly aspect. DOCTOR: Right. What's your name? ADA: I am Ada. DOCTOR: And what do you think this realm is, Ada? ADA: I believe it to be my mind. Though I have not met another here before. DOCTOR: Then what do you think I am? ADA: I presume you are a consequence of my thoughts. DOCTOR: No. I'm the Doctor, and I'm very real. But you've been here before? ADA: Many times. When the paralysis subsides, I find myself fully back in my body, restored in the physical realm. If you are real, do you have your own solution for egress from here? DOCTOR: No exit strategy. Before I leave, I need to work out what this place is. Oh! Those fragments of light or energy, why are they surrounding you? ADA: They are always here with me. They place a word in my mind. Kasaavin? (One of the light creatures appears.) DOCTOR: Ada, step away. ADA: Do not be afraid. This is my guardian. DOCTOR: This is their realm. This is where they're from. But how did you bring us here? Unless... You can't be. But you must be. What, gateways? We go through you and arrive in your realm? I say realm. It's not a planet, not really a void. A separate dimension? Are we beyond our... my universe? ADA: Little of what you are saying makes sense to me, but I am concerned you'll be marooned here. When my guardian has returned... DOCTOR: They're not your guardians. ADA: I can offer you my hand. We may leave this place together. DOCTOR: I don't think that will work. ADA: How will you know if you do not try? Decide, Doctor.

Later in the episode:

DOCTOR: If you're Charles Babbage, then you're not just any old Ada. You're Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron and Annabella Milbanke, one of the great minds. ADA: I am Ada Gordon, madam. DOCTOR: 1834. Of course you are. Well, maybe one day, who knows, you might meet a nice Earl. This changes everything! This isn't an accident. Ada Lovelace in Babbage's house? You're clues. You're important.

Charles Babbage has the Silver Lady (aka the Kasaavin device) in his house, but Ada is the one who has been being visited by them.

DOCTOR: Ada, when was your first paralysis? ADA: I was 13 years old. That is when I was first transported to the place where we met, and I first saw an apparition. DOCTOR: And over the years, the paralysis recurs with the same effect? ADA: Yes. No doctor has ever been able to diagnose the cause. DOCTOR: Well, this Doctor may be able to. An apparition, from this machine. BABBAGE: Correct. DOCTOR: So, they take you, Ada, multiple times from here and they study you in their dimension, which means they can't be in this dimension for long. But maybe they gain an ally, a mastermind who builds them a machine which stabilises them in this world long enough for them to send spies and to spread their work and start a plan. 'Cause I've seen the map in his hut. Multiple Earths. Except not. Not multiple Earths. Multiple time periods. These creatures aren't just alien spies on Earth, they're spies through Time, through history, starting with you.

Or, at the very least, the Doctor assumed they were starting with Ada. Maybe they started earlier - with her parents. Or maybe the Master found out about the events of  The Haunting of Villa Diodati with the Cyberium - but we’ll get to that in time.

Again, Spyfall ends with a neat-ish conclusion as to them being focussed on “computing history” and “human DNA”

DOCTOR: I know what this is. A temporal map, showing every significant person in the development of computers through history, starting with you, Ada. This is the plan. See? BOTH: No. ADA: Wh... what is a computer? DOCTOR: Oh, forget you heard that word, otherwise I've just disrupted the whole of history. Again. Okay. Ah, my brain's fizzing. Good. The Kasaavin posted an agent on every person on that map, because that's what spies do, what Barton does. They gather all the data. Where does the DNA fit in? Kasaavin, technology, DNA. How are they all connected? Oh! Human DNA. That's what they were testing.

Episode 8: The Haunting of Villa Diodati

Gif by itberice.

This is the big episode, where I started to notice it especially. Huh, a bit a coincidence they’re doing Byron when Ada was his daughter. Interesting.

DOCTOR: Okay, so there was a spot of rain, and gale-force winds and a super-long walk. But I got us here, didn't I? And Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, soon to be Shelley, screamed in your face. Quality historical experience, that. Gold. YASMIN: (sotto) On that night that inspired Frankenstein. FLETCHER: If... you'd be so kind. GRAHAM: Blimey. DOCTOR: Excuse me, Yaz. I was very clear about the rules. RYAN: Nobody mention Frankenstein, and don't interfere. YASMIN: And nobody snog Byron.

This is because, as Tumblr has already noted, Byron is a thot/fuckboi.

BYRON: She walks in beauty, like the night. DOCTOR: Of cloudless climes and starry skies. BYRON: I'm intensely flattered you're familiar with my work, Mrs Doctor. DOCTOR: Just Doctor is fine. I'm quite into Shelley's stuff too. He about?

Then enters the Lone Cyberman (aka Ashad). It is scouring the villa for Percy, to obtain the Cyberium, and cannot find him. When it starts charging up, it begins to quote Percy’s poetry (specifically Queen Mab book 2 and Queen Mab book 3)

CYBERMAN (glowing with energy): There's not one atom of yon Earth, but once was living man. (Book 2) The sword that stabs his peace; He cherisheth The snakes that gnaw his heart; he raises up the tyrant whose delight Is in his woe. (Book 3)

As the episode progresses, Ashad gets the Cyberium back from Percy (who has been dying with it). Even more interestingly though - the Cyberium wants to choose the Doctor.

DOCTOR: And it chooses me. Interesting. Time Lord magnetism. Looks like I'm the true Guardian. (The Cyberium passes into the Doctor.) CYBERMAN: Surrender it or I will execute you. DOCTOR: I'd be very careful with those execution threats. I can feel it already, fusing to me. It feels very at home. Recognising great host material. Not to big myself up, but I don't think it'll vacate me without a fight.

But now we know - she’s not just a Time Lord. So can the Cyberium sense that? Did it know? Or perhaps, even if she were just a Time Lord, it would have preferred her... Anyway, this deviates too hard into my other, upcoming post. I think this episode, the Villa episode, was VITAL in determining what will happen next season.

Episode 10: The Timeless Children

MASTER: Look upon my work, Doctor, and despair.

This is an homage to Percy Shelley’s sonnet, Ozymandias, which contains the iconic lines:

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Oh, cute, what a fun little addition, I first thought when I heard it in the finale. (It now occurs to me, while writing this, that the Master might have quoted Shelley to the Doctor because he knows she loves his work. My poor shipper heart.)  

Then I thought - hang on. That’s a lot of “coincidental” involvement with the Byrons & Shelleys in this season, especially when the rest of the plots have been so deftly woven with surprises.

The Master mentions to Ashad/the Cyberium that he has the entire Matrix in his head and then he ends up absorbing the Cyberium into him, linking it with him in ways that will have consequences we haven’t even seen yet. It all sets up such a juicy, interesting thread into the next season.

Summary:

What does it all mean? Who can say? I hope this will give us some answer for what the Kasaavin are, where their universe is (is it beyond the Boundary? is it another Boundary?), how the Master found them (was it in the Matrix? did the Time Lords know about them?)

Most importantly: I think Yaz will play a huge role in the next season, given she was in the Kasaavin realm, as will the Doctor and (I suspect/hope) the Master again. This Kasaavin plot-line is still left unresolved, and I will be incredibly interested to see what Chibnall’s plan contains.

This could all just be a very cute, season-long homage to Byron/Shelley... but... it’s very suspicious. Especially given they have an entire two episodes focussed on them/their progeny.

If anyone has any other examples of Percy & Byron or descendants in season 11/12, please add them through reblogs! :D I worry that I haven’t gotten every single moment, or that I missed a couple of them.

Links to biographies:

Ada Lovelace Mary Shelley Percy Shelley Lord Byron

[wasalwaysagreatpickle]

Tuesday 7 January 1834

8 1/4

11 35/..

A little pressing and grubbling last night but I am not for more of it than I can help –

Read prayers – breakfast at 9 1/2 – very fine sunny morning till about 10 – rain between 10 and 11 for some time then fine again – read the Saint James’s chronicle London 3 days a week paper – out about 11 1/2 walked with Miss Walker by Lower Brea and along my walk to here – she paid her visit to my sister and was a little while in the drawing room with my aunt, and a longish while with me in my study – lent her (took back with me) volume 38 of the British Essayists – then walked back with her to Lidgate to leave the book, and then to Cliff Hill where I left her at the gate at 2 40/.. 

Then here and came to my study – wrote out yesterday and today – 

Wonder how all this will end? she makes sure of me if she chooses and talks as if we both do as all was fixed but still she says nothing positive I do not care much about it and perhaps I shall get off again without her and then be rid of her – 

Finished my letter to Mariana dated Sunday, yesterday and today – tell her to cheer up – ‘things happen so oddly, - we are always so little able to calculate on fate; and there is generally so much good we never think of, that, trust me, it is a mauvais calcul (miscalculation) to look too attentionally on the darker side of anything – How can we say that even our mistakes shall cost us dear as we fancy they must? In these matters, we pay only by instalments; and the remainder of our debt is often forgiven us when we least expect it – 

Think not, Mary, of ‘unstrung nerves’ – Think only that with increased experience and improved discernment, you have addressed powers of setting right the wrong, and of bending circumstances more and more as you would have them – I remember what you allude to, about my aunt – it was rather an observation to me, than a message to you – you know my aunt’s regard for me, and should make much allowance for a feeling that might have been your own, had you been in her place you say ‘my head and my words are very common place, but my heart has no affinity with either’ – Monday afternoon, 6 January. ‘This may indeed be more true than you ever before taught me to believe; but, remember, our most familiar friend must judge of us in some sort by our words; and we ourselves should watch these narrowly when we know that they are not in unison with, or do injustice to, our feelings –  But cheer up my dearest Mary’….. 

Wiser now than before can estate persons and things more fairly – I believe her happiness will improve beyond her expectation – she richer in friends than most people – to call on Lady Eastnor, and if not at home send note to say sorry and was in Cheshire at the time or should have had the honour of waiting on her on the 6th – do not give the exact form of the note because know not the style she has written in before – 

Again bid her cheer up – “I never despaired of you or myself – if I see you dispirited and unwell, it must make me uneasy and unhappy in the midst of all the blessings that may surround me – Pray what was the gipsy’s prophecy? I am curious to know – Do pray tell me – But the fact is, you yourself are the gipsy, the fortune-teller and the fortune-maker – Providence leaves us free – ‘Tis we enthral [ourselves] and you twisted round the thread of my fate; for I had left it in no human power but yours –

“Miss Walker’s return is indeed odd – your surprise could not exceed my own – But do not let your conclusions run on too rapidly – now that I have taken my fate into my own hands, believe nothing till I tell it you myself – I know well enough what all the world will think; - but all the world may be wrong – you cannot be otherwise then interested about me; and I shall not leave you to hear my history 2nd hand – all I wish at present is a better account of yourself’ –

Scarcely know what to think of my aunt – ‘she suffers a great deal; but still I cannot help agree with Cordingley, that she may and will linger many months’ – Eugenie sleeps in my room – I here 3 or 4 hours in the day and then return to Lidgate – ‘If the house was my own, more pains could not be taken to make me comfortable’ – but back and forwards work not agreeable and no chance of its ending these 3 or 4 weeks – 

‘By the way, Miss Walker says she remembers you, and, I daresay, would count upon your good wishes – I have been at Copenhagen since last year; and my thoughts wander there at times’ – you know the only instance in which I have ever thought myself hardly dealt with’ – it is past – and god grant that, among the blessings I enjoy, I may always remember your happiness – you have underrated my regard long enough – I only hope you will do it justice, by and by – Be my own fate what it may, I shall never cease to watch over yours with affectionate anxiety – I do not expect you to tell me you are ‘quite happy’ - it would content me, for the present, to know, that you were really comfortable – 

Merely mentioned Birmingham’s having forwarded the stays from Paris to Mrs Hawkins and that I should write about them but could not till tomorrow – ‘so long in writing on account of my unsettledness and frequent interruptions – god bless you, Mary! always especially and entirely yours AL’ 

At 5 had just written the above and sealed my letter to ‘Mrs Lawton, Claremont House, Leamington, Warwickshire’ and left it for the post tonight – and off at 5 20/.. and at Lidgate in 25 minutes – dinner at 6 – tea at 7 50/..

Long talk she will employ Mr Fey in York to make her will, meant to leave me and Captain Sutherland executors and secure all to the children. She seems quite decided to take me and leave me well for my life and I said then would do ditto – 

Came upstairs at 10 35/.. and to my room at 10 55/.. fine day –