#its like enrichment for manipulative girls

[madscientistenthusiast]

Personally I think that Azula should have been redeemed simply so that she can become Zuko's horrible little advisor who whispers evil little plans to him so that he can do the exact opposite

[frostwork]

JEDJDNDKDKDK

GIRL STOP AKDMDMDMDMD

Actually its back to being funny girlboss saintess is what if you were gaslight gatekeep girlboss but the only gaslight was deluding yourself about some gay guy who hates you skdkdkdkdm

OFFICIATE OUR WEDDING

girl did you finally pick up in the undertones and this is your sick burn or do you think the definition of “having a rival gay as hell” arent gonna manipulate mansplain manslaughter their way out of that creepy scenario by the power of homosexuality and friendship? Hello.

I have to go to bed im literally anticipating Di Feisheng getting like video game stat level second wind when xiangi is in the same room i think hes gonna get his booboos taken care of and just go turbo hes been denied vengeance and an outlet for violent energy he needs enrichment girl youd know this if your brain still worked when you looked at his face and like my god yeah i get it hes so hot BUT STILL HOW DO YOU KEEP DOING THIS SKFNFMFKFFK

[pencil-peach]

G Witch Onscreen Text: Episode 14

Part 15! Of the G Witch! Onscreen Text Analysis! Where I transcribe and discuss! Onscreen Text! And also just generally analyze the episodes! When I have time!

We are on Episode 14! "What They Wish For!"

Click Here! To go back! To Episode 13! Or! Go to the Masterpost!

Or! If you'd like! Join me! Beneath the Cut! (This one is really long! Wow!)

Before we start, something I forgot to discuss at the end of last episode, but there's this moment when Prospera asks Miorine if she'll be friends with Suletta again after the investigation, and Miorine says that of course she will.

Afterwards, Prospera pauses and smiles before proceeding to discuss Quiet Zero with her. I like to think she was genuinely relieved for a second, knowing how much she means to Suletta. (And also it maybe makes her easier to manipulate too. It can be both. Tomatoes tomatoes.)

We learn here that Prospera had been in talks with Delling about Quiet Zero since before she sent Suletta to Asticassia. Something that always gets to me about the timeline of events regarding Quiet Zero is Delling's behavior in Episode 2 during the trial.

Clearly he was devoted to developing Quiet Zero, so what was his goal with the trial? Prospera seemed to act as if she genuinely needed to convince Delling to accept Aerial by blackmailing Vim, and Delling seemed to be genuine when he spoke of disposing Aerial and "Getting Rid Of" Suletta

Prospera even makes a face like she wasn't expecting this. Was Delling trying to find a way to proceed on QZ without making use of a Gundam, and Prospera purposefully went behind his back to proceed with the plan in her own way? Delling does say, "Right now, Quiet Zero is still MY project," to her, as if he thinks she's getting ahead of herself.

Or maybe he just didn't want Aerial to be at the school, and wanted it to increase its Permet Score in some backwater sectors in space, and was just going to pretend to get rid of it and ship Suletta and Aerial to some distant war front. Who knows!

Utterly meaningless little detail, but I'm learning Japanese and I wanted to point it out. The title of this episode is "What They Wish For," and in the original JP name, the word they use for "They" is "彼女たち" (kanojotachi), which is the "they" you use when referring to a group made up only of girls. If it's a group of men or men and women, you use "彼ら" (karera).

So the title here is most likely referring to Sophie and Suletta in regards to their duel. It's probably obvious but it's a neat little thing that doesn't translate 1 to 1.

At the GUND-ARM Inc booth, they've set up a little info tablet for the prosthetic legs. How cute! Wish it was legible.

OHHHHH FUUUUUUCKKK!!!!!! Rubbing hands down my face FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKK!!!!! Okay lets go.

TEXT: (TOP LEFT)

ASTICASSIA SCHOOL OF TECHNOLOGY Welcome to ASTICASSIA, a front for learning that cultivates the pilots, engineers, and managers on whom the future of the Benerit Group relies.

As a higher education facility operated by the Benerit Group, we train the personnel who will form the core of the space development business.

The Asticassia School of Technology is a higher education facility operated by the Benerit Group. It implements a boarding school system that teaches the basics of communal living, a highly advanced professional curriculum, and a comprehensive instructional program in which we have invested all the technological confidence and accomplishments that the Group has built up in the mobile suit industry. Here we train the personnel who will support the space development business in the future. *To enroll, recommendations from Benerit Group [investment?] companies are required.

Chairman of the school board: Delling Rembran.

(BOTTOM LEFT) (NIKAS STUPID ASS HAND IS IN THE WAY THIS IS MY BEST APPROXIMATION)

[Enrichment?] [School Grounds?]

In the educational front constructed at Front Sector 73, there are schoolhouse areas where students can study in state-of-the-art facilities, residential areas where a House system fosters cooperation as they eat and sleep alongside their comrades, and tactical testing sectors where they can perform combat exercises with mobile suits. Interfront Monorail systems are also installed for travel between areas, enabling smooth movement. The schoolhouse areas include facilities such as cafeterias where students can relax during breaks between classes, and training rooms to promote the maintenance of mental and physical fitness.

Curriculum Fostering Independence

[??] an educational policy of respecting our students' independence, the curriculum has adapted a system of free choice. In addition to compulsory subjects that are common to all three special courses, students can build their own curriculum, selecting from classes corresponding to the department in which they belong, making choices specific to the improvement of their personal skills.

Equipment Complete facilities and mobile suits

The Burion company's Demi Trainer is used for mobile suit training exercises at the school. There are also many mobile craft, and a full compliment of maintenance docks equipped with cutting-edge technology. Thus pilots and mechanics can perform their exercises in the most perfect environment and facilities. [Burion company's Demi Trainer]

(Righthand side)

Special Courses Three Special Courses

Three specialized courses have been established at the school. The "Piloting Department" develops high grade pilots, the "Mechanics Department" creates professionals in the maintenance of mobile suits and working equipment, and the "Management Strategy Department" trains experts in corporate management. In each of these three-year special courses, students learn from the ground up under the guidance of outstanding instructors.

1. Piloting

A course to develop "high-grade pilots" with outstanding skills as mobile suit pilots, able to participate in development projects and conduct instructional training for ordinary pilots. In addition to control techniques, their skills as pilots are cultivated from many different perspectives, including physical training and immersive courses to understand the construction of mobile suits and mobile craft. *Enrollment in this special course is limited to those with mobile suit operating experience.

2. Mechanics

A course to create professional mechanics and engineers who can handle the maintenance, repair, design, and development of mobile suits and mobile craft. Its aim is to train personnel skilled in fast and reliable maintenance, who can perform customization and tuning for different pilots and environments, as well as designing and developing new mobile suits and mobile craft. In addition to basic technology, this department also places great emphases on creativity

3. Management Strategy

A course that teaches the knowhow of corporate management. The curriculum has been designed to instill abilities that are indispensable for managers, such as information analysis skills, the foresight to anticipate the trends of the times, fast and accurate judgement, and management skills for motivating subordinates.

(The Curriculum section is incredibly blurry, as the blur effect on the screen in this shot seemingly increases from left to right for some reason. This section is already incredibly long, so for the sake of legibility (and my sanity) I'll omit them from this transcription for now. Apologies, I'll try and make a separate post giving my best guesses as to what they say later.)

HOKAY. During Nika's flashback where she talks about how the DOF allowed her to go to Asticassia, we see her reading an actual Asticassia info pamphlet. A lot of this is just reiterating info we already know, but we actually Do learn some new info that clarifies some things about how Asticassia works

We learn that in order to enroll in the school broadly, it's REQUIRED to have a recommendation from a Benerit Group verified company. It's not like a normal school where it simply increases your chances of getting admitted, it's a baseline requirement. That's why Nika, Sophie, and Norea needed fake companies only registered in the group by name.

Somewhat more importantly, we also get an explanation as to why there seem to be so few piloting students at Asticassia as opposed to the other 2 courses. It's because a student needs to have Mobile Suit operating experience as a PRE-REQUISITE to enroll for the course. Asticassia's Piloting program isn't a course where one can learn to be a pilot, it's a course that reinforces and improves the skills a pilot must already have. (A lot of other things make sense too, like, the fact that students are responsible for the support and repair of their own mobile suits, or that the school doesn't provide any mobile suits other than Demi Trainers for class.)

It's not new information, but now that I think about it the fact that Burion is the company that supplies Asticassia with its Demi Trainers is probably why Secelia and Rouji are allowed to be members of the Dueling Committee, despite their company not being in the upper echelon of the Group, nor either of them being piloting students themselves.

Nothing about the Dueling or Holder systems are explained in this pamphlet, at least, nothing on this page. Suletta didn't know anything about it before arriving to the school, so if I had to make a guess, I figure it's only something you learn once you get to the school. (Or maybe it's just...explained on another page.)

All the lovely things stated about the school's grounds and house system are really funny when you remember that Earth house looks like this.

I like this scene where Norea hands 5lan his phone back. She doesn't even hide the fact that she stole it, and then she reveals to him that he knows about him and his relationship to Peil (Probably because she read his email correspondence with them.) 5lan calmly takes it back, not to plussed about it, and probably not interested in even telling Peil the phone was stolen at all. They both say that the other is annoying. True love!

There's this bit where Suletta tells Sophie about her promise to Miorine, and she responds by calmly and emotionlessly repeating out loud everything she knows about her before cutting back to her usual outgoing personality. This is the only time we ever really see her do something like this. I wonder if this is something she does often when she's deep in thought about something.

In this scene, Suletta is also still unaware about the reality of the situation. She says she can't let Sophie win their duel because in her mind, if she does, she'll lose her status as Holder. When Sophie runs away, Suletta reaches out, telling her that they need to do the dueling vow. She doesn't understand what's really happening.

TEXT: RUMBLE RING The Rumble Ring, the main event of the Open Campus, is about to begin! All participating students, please report to the 9th Tactical Testing Sector. All viewers[...]

The Rumble Ring event screen. We never see the full thing so we don't know where the viewers are told to go. [Punches the wall in anger] FUCK!!!! WHY CANT WE KNOW!!!!!

Lauda says that the rumble ring will be the last thing he does before he becomes CEO of JHM. It's sad that he has to bear that burden on his own, but we later see that Petra was working as his assistant while he was CEO. It's sweet that she seemingly unenrolled too, just to follow him.

Couple of fun things about this scene, so, firstly, underneath the photos of Sabina and Renee, in the window, we can see Renee and Sabina's fans holding up signs and hearts and cheering them on.

The other is that, in this battle, Sabina and Renee are using different mobile suits. In the Earth House duel, the Grassley Girls were all using Beguir-Pentes, while in the Rumble Ring, Sabina and Renee using Heindrees. We can actually see that the UI on their photos has been updated to reflect this.

Now, this is clearly not, like, a standard thing, right? Like, we only ever see these specific Pre-Duel spreads for the Grassley Girls. Shaddiq himself doesn't even have one, so it's not like it's a Grassley thing. So that probably, definitely means that these are fanmade spreads, and there's either one, or a group of extremely dedicated Grassley Girl Fans who make them.

Oh, and because I didn't notice last time, all the Grassley Girls have a shape flourish around on their Duel Info. Sabina, Renee, and Henao all have a star, but Maisie and Ireesha have a heart.

A funny thing about the Rumble Ring (That you will only notice if you do some stupid thing like rewatching this show double digit number of times like I have.) Is that, when the 9th Tactical Testing Sector fades out into its simulated environment, it shows a dark, overcast sky. But during the actual Rumble Ring, the sky is clearly, um. Not that. This isn't a case of a prior animation having been used without edits either. Up to now, every single simulated environment has been unique, including this one. It seems there might've just been a miscommunication between the environment artists who were in charge of the simulator scene and the background artists responsible for the Rumble Ring scenes. Maybe nobody caught it or had time to fix it before the episode aired. I wonder if they fixed it in the Blu-ray version?

Unlike Guel's Dilanza, Lauda's isn't custom colored. It uses the same color of the base model. I wonder if he requested that.

When Norea targets Chuchu's cockpit, she receives an alert on her monitor saying ALERT YOUR COCKPIT IS BEING TARGETED. That's how she knows Norea had done it and managed to shield herself.

Rouji then states that they must not have the regulation program installed, so in addition to limiting beam output, the program also ensures an MS is unable to target an opposing MS' cockpit, so as to avoid a lethal attack.

I like that Secelia knows when to drop the snark and keep a steady head when it comes to people's safety.

Maybe I'm just a bit too sentimental, but there's something about this scene, where Chuchu is about to fully give into her wrath and follow the same path Norea went down, only to be brought to her senses by somebody yelling for help that really makes me mourn the time that G Witch didn't have to tell its story. Even just a little bit more time to explore that idea....ah well, it is what it is, and I still love this scene.

This is the screen that pulls up when Norea tries to contact Sophie and cant get a signal because she's out of range. But more interestingly, this is our first look at the Thorn (and presumably Ur)'s main menu (it's faded out behind the Communication mode UI)

It's the same as Aerial's! Not surprising, but pretty cool.

Sophie's death is kind of interesting when you think about it. At this point, Eri has produced a miniature data storm, and thus taken control of the Gundvolvas and the Ur.

But Sophie still pushes through and manages to maintain control of Ur, pushing herself closer and closer to Aerial, even still being able to defeat the now rogue Gundvolvas.

We learn later in Episode 22 that in order to maintain control of a Gundam in Eri's Data Storm, you have to clear Score 5. But Sophie's case is still somewhat different. When Suletta Pilots Calibarn, she's told that it doesn't have a filter for data storm feedback, but as a result can produce a higher score within the same amount of Permet.

That means that, despite Sophie and Suletta each having surpassed Score 5, Suletta in Calibarn is actually not being exposed to as much Permet as Sophie is in this scene. (Sophie and Suletta have a similar Permet Scar Pattern on their faces, but unlike Suletta, the Permet scars are running through Sophie's Eyes.)

And Sophie doesn't have Suletta's natural resistance to data storms either, so on top of that Permet Exposure, the Data Storm is frying her too.

Norea wasn't lying when she said that she died before Suletta could kill her.

This is scene is such a sad conclusion to her duel with Sophie. The whole fight, Sophie is forcing her to confront and ask herself uncomfortable questions.

When Sophie tells her why she kills, Suletta tells her it's wrong, that you can't kill other people just to get what you want, and then she remembers Miorine's horrified face, and remembers that she did the same thing to save her.

When Sophie forces her to ask herself what Aerial was built to do, what she needs all these weapons for, she freezes. She doesn't know the answer.

And when she sees that Sophie has died, Norea tells her to her face that Gundams will eventually kill anyone who continues to pilot them. Something her mother told her wasn't true.

But...when she talks to Aerial, she can only rationalize it by saying that Sophie had to be wrong. That Gundams are supposed to save people. Because that's what her mother told her. And above all else, at the core of Suletta's being, the very foundational idea that she has built her entire life up from is the belief that her mother loves her and would never lie to her.

Eri can only tell Suletta what she thinks will make her feel better. That it's okay, because she saved everybody. And Suletta agrees, because again, move forward gain two. Just like mom says. And just like that, all 3 of the uncomfortable ideas that Suletta had to confront during her duel with Sophie are completely shut down.

But even as she says that, with a smile on her face, she's crying. Deep down, she doesn't want to do this. Deep down, she knows that it's wrong. Deep down, she's in so much pain. But it's fine. It's okay, because even if it hurts, even if it's unbearable, it has to be right. It has to be right, because her mother is always right.

You could say a lot about Miorine's actions in episode 17, and maybe it wasn't the best way, but separating her from her mother was not a mistake.

Thank you for reaching the end of this part! Quite a long one huh??!??!?! I don't blame you if you couldn't finish this one...there was just so much to talk about!!!

For my final gift...

Erm...

Here's the theme that plays for a majority of Norea and Sophie's attack on Asticassia. This theme also plays a bit during the infiltration of Quiet Zero.

A fun fact about this episode is that it has one of the few Enemy/Non-Aerial Gundam battles that "Pharact" doesn't play at some point for. Click to go to Episode 15! >>

Click to go to the Masterpost! >>

[kosmo-politan]

Hiiiii kosmo my mutual kosmo. I’m sitting in a waiting room and bored out of my mind so I’m sending you an ask because I need Enrichment. You should talk about your ocs Right Now please /lh

OHGHHSGSG. I JUST GOT THIS YOU ARE OPENING PANDORAS BOX I FEAR,. .. I DONOT KNOW IF YOU MEAN BG3 OR REGULAR OCS SO . BG3 ITIS

ASSORTED MELCHIOR THOUGHTS . THE PROFESSIONAL FAILBOYFRIEND...

two guys bringing their team down <3 from the beginning melchior felt the need to one up him because well. he didnt remember anything and was attached to what little skills he did remember and felt like if someone else was better that he was losing that too you know. would rather die than say that out loud though so he starts this petty thing with the only other rogue. to everyones dismay.

at first melchior tries to one up him and whatnot but when he genuinely fucks something up and astarion does it for him he has a jimmy neutron brain blast moment. i can get this sucker to do my job for me. and it all goes downhill from there <3

two guys trying to manipulate eeach other ! love really does lose....

astarion is. not very good at manipulating melchior. ill be honest. and that isnt in the like. Melchior Is Simply That Good and Smart way. unless you say something Directly To His Face his ass is NOT gonna get it!!!!!!!

all the flirting registers as Witty Banter to mel because. well if he was flirting he should just say that to me.

yes h e is autistic. because i heart projection yousee.

on an unrelated note he thinks hes sooo good at eyecontact because he just Stares At People. doesnt look away. bores into their retinas with his big hot pink eyes.

anyway when Thee whole Blood Drinking Event happens mel aint even mad. confused above all else if im fully honest. like if you wanted my blood you can,. just ask ? i can make more.

also makes a huge melodramatic deal about it . for funsies. ex: do u think its bad. is my blood bad. is it like gales*. do i have galeblood. NO. dont say it. i couldnt bear... anyway.

*he does like gale he just makes fun of his friends youknow. gale probably doesnt care for melchior. Stresses Him Out.

prior to The Confession Scene after moonrise melchiors attitude towards That Vampire is that i have feelings for you. not saying which ones. post you know the one

Finally Comes To Terms with how he feels about that stupid vampire at moonrise. gets So Mad during the araj thing. perhaps unreasonably so.

sososo afraid to confront how he feels because. Dark Urge youknow. he doesnt WANT to be like that but hes also far too afraid of what it means if he Frees Himself Of It yknow. like what if i still have these compulsions. whatif im still Like This. i have a very loose grasp on durge but wtver. if the shit i make up doesnt fit i shall simply reshape bg3 lore to fit /lh

got his top surgery done by orin during a girls night or something silly like that.

i have so many thoughts about that vampire that i shall spare you. neway heres melchiors thoughts on the others <3

thinks gale is kindof funny and has a weird desire to seem. Less Foolish around him because he thinks gale is one of The Smarter Ones. makes fun of him for being kindof a loser with those wack ass old man jammies.

also likes wyll ! deeply envious of him because he sees all the desire he has to be Good and Help Everyone and wishes he could be Like That

thinks halsin is.Large. doesnt like him because hes only 5'5

little miss warrior cats... calls her shart because he thinks itis funny. (melchior is like 40 bear in mind) kindof afraid to talk to her because hes an absolute goober of a guy and thinks shes Thee Smart One

KARLACH <33333 also kindof envious of her for similar reasons to wyll. wants to impress her so bad because he thinks shes So Cool... after meeting gortash his ass WILL NOT talk to her. Afraid To. lots going on there but in general he thinks shes so cool and wishes he could be like her.

lae'zel... Frightened By Her. thinks shes cool though ! wants 2 be her friend but. again hes a goober and WILL make a fool of himself.

astarion. melchior voice well hes just that guy. i saw him trip and bust his ass on a trap the other day... kindof a loser if u ask me.... embarrassin.....

weird feelings towards gort. on one hand he was mels only friend (from what he remembers) but. he doesnt want to be That Person anymore. he doesnt Want to accept the whole bhaal thing. he wants a shot at a normal life. also this dude fucking sucks my god. comically evil. melchior voice i can excuse bombs in teddy bears but you did WHAT to karlach !!!

i ghave so many thoughts on . gort. unfortunately. the whole thing hes got where he foils the main 6 and the themes of redemption and breaking the cycle is sogood i love a good foil. fascinating man i want to blow him up with grenades

REAGHHHH THANKYOU FOR ASKING ILL WRAP IT UP HERE BUT FEEL FREE 2 ASK MORE I LOVE TALKING...

ALSO. quick notes 4 aldente. ill spare you their lore here because Theres Years Worth of it. however if you are inch rested it is. a bit edgy there at the beginning ill be honesyt </3

1) i started this story ages ago as like. A Token Edgy middle schooler. and built So Much more worldbuilding upon it that i cannot change it now youknow. it may be cringe </3

2) may reflect the age at which i wrote it with how edgy some of it is. so like. theres murder in there .

3) i stole demons from the bible and so on and made them ocs. the demonology special interest goes crazy in here.

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

Honestly, I don't know about you but I'm sick and tired of this charts thing, from whatever artist it is, there's sh*it like "this person is the first artist in history to ever have 2.6 songs with 2.92 minutes charting in the top 4 hottest countries in the world" it's past the point of being ridiculous, they all want so be to be successful and praised so bad that it's losing meaning. Capitalism washed our minds to a level (especially pop culture ofc) that even though you make good art it's not important if it didn't make numbers (I'm not talking just about louis and harry or the people from one direction), these stan twitter accounts show every day deeper stupidity, there's a lot of people out there making good sounds, out of this sick bubble, they're praising people that is already rich for multiple lifetimes and it's just mid but everyone is having their back so they keep being "icons". It's like they don't even listen to what they enjoy or let themselves have the opportunity to get to know new things, because what is in the media 24/7 is the only thing worth it. I'm not trying to be different or "not like the other girls", I consume I lot of pop culture all the time, but we have to be critical sometimes and this is a weird behaviour that we need to talk about at some point.

I’ve been listening to an excellent podcast episode with Lex Fridman talking to Jonathan Haidt about the nature of viral social media and the bad effects on mental health (especially for young girls age 10-14) and for democracy.

The manipulation of social media and pop media in our culture has skewed culture toward “viral” and “not viral,” in lieu of any other criteria: good or bad, enriching or not, creatively interesting or not, inspirational or not, fair or not fair.

So we get “viral” songs that are completely meaningless, mindless synth bits that are heavily promoted, but basically junk. They add nothing to life. They’re not going to last. No one will care about it in two years. But they’re popular right now!

It started with Facebook, but now Tiktok has distilled the formula to its most toxic form. This started around 2010. Mental health, depression, anxiety, and self-harm have also correlated since that time.

Kids need to go offline and actually learn how to socialize with people, how to decide whether art is good or bad, how to make friends in real life, doing offline things.

Ok, a few lines from Justice John Roberts:

From time to time, and for years to come, I hope you’ll be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal, because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time, so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again from time to time, so you will be aware of the role of chance in life, and understand that your success is not completely deserved, and that the failure of others is not completely deserved, either. and, as you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope your opponent will gloat over your failure, as a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored, so you understand the importance of listening to others, and I hope you’ll have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish for these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from these things or not will depend on your ability to see the message in your misfortune.



[lostinlogan]

Ok, we're a bit of a standstill here.

Damn its been an interesting week.

Like I really cant even lie its not even been that much spice but from where we were of getting NO PLAY whatsoever, to like , having two girls show even just the slightest bit of interest is like incredible, for me. And its been good because I can se the work that I've put in. Like I was in an uber with this girl for like 20 min and I was funny, listening, was able to hold a conversation, DRIVE the conversation and these are all skills that I didn't have had like two, three, five years ago. All of the internal monologues that ive had with myself while listening and analyzing the speech patterns of people that I've identified as good communicators has to a certain degree paid off. I wont share too many details here but I recently joined this group that meets once a week. I've been goign for about 4 weeks but my friend that i know from outside of the group joined this week for the first time and while they were talking to another member of the group I guess i cam up intheir conversation and I received a compliment about my openness and personality from a group member. Like my reputation has preceded me in a positive way which is BIG jump from just like being another no-name in the background. So I was a little proud of that.

So again, two women, in the same week have showed an interest in me, the problem now is that I'm not really sure if I want them, not even want them but want the weight of a girlfriend. This is the problem with like learning and growing and becoming a better communicator as a man its that understanding the weight of being a good boyfriend or even friend for that matter like actually is. I know what it takes to be a good partner and it take s a lot of work and communication and I"m not sure that's something I want to do right now. Or maybe its not something I want to do for these two women, I'm not sure.

My dilemma is that yes, I want to have a physical and emotional relationship but I don't really want to put in the work to make that happen, partly because I'm really happy with my own personal growth right now and don't want to mess that up but also because I don't see myself long term with either of these people and it feels wrong to like put on the good guy act when I know deep down there's really no weight behind it.I don't really have good long term intentions. But like is that so wrong??

I want like a friendly hookup. I want to find friends really but partners that I respect and care for but also am able to hook up with? i think that is actually normal and fine but the problem is ME, I AM BOYFRIEND MATERIAL BUT I WANT TO BE A SLUT. How do I become a slut without falling into the male manipulator andrew tate mold? Like in the Uber i was telling this girl about my job and what I don=, personally I donthtink its that impressive but Its good money and more than a lot of other people make and like.. her eyes just like up, like she had just found the one and I don't like the feeling of being projected on like that. And she was cool and fun and had a good personality but if that's where this relationship is heading then I do not want any parts of that.

LOL, my brand is earnest good guy because I think that's what comes naturally to me and its something I enjoy. Listening to the stories and perspectives of women has actually been such an enriching experience and has added such a depth of color to my own life. And in the partner that I find, i want to continue to do that but I just don't want the be center of those stories. Sometimes I find myself on the peripheries of peoples life and I tend to like it there, or I've become just become accustomed to it; rearguards its a place that I feel comfortable in.

OK but will say, I've been working on he body, been in the gym, getting the diet (almost) entirely locked in and that been rewarding in itself but i think it will help me get to my goal of reaching the hookup culture that everyone else is talking about. Like if I can get in physical shape get to what i consider to be sexy, then I fell like all the other stuff is true , but i feel like people will start projecting Slut instead of steady, hallmark boyfriend. But yes, your mom will love me and I will love her back.

[re-x]

Anatomy of a scene: (1) the ‘difficult’ bathroom scene from NHIE 2.10

I thought it would be fun to do a bit of a deep dive into a few pivotal scenes for the character Ben Gross this season. In my opinion, the second season of NHIE did many things right, but it was by no means perfect. That said, one thing I was really satisfied with was the way the show expanded Ben’s world and deepened his character by putting him through new situations we had not seen before. (TL;DR: Ben got hurt a bunch and experienced emotions he had not experienced before.) It goes without saying that a big reason the character worked so well was the excellent work that the character’s portrayer, actor Jaren Lewison, put in this season. I hope that this little essay (and its future follow ups) could help enrich your experience a little bit and help you better appreciate both Ben as a character and Mr. Lewison as an actor. 

I thought the now-famous bathroom scene from the season 2 finale is a good one to start our little journey, so let’s get to it!

Prelude: 

To make sure we’re all on the same page, let’s first revisit this statement Jaren Lewison made recently:

Q: Were there any scenes this season where it was like, “we don’t just have to learn 1 or 2 things, we have to really figure out 6 or 7 different complicated elements,” and if one of them doesn’t work, then the entire scene doesn’t work?

JL:“...[In] Episode ten, there’s a bathroom scene ...that scene is so difficult because there’s so many underlying levels and nuances within it. We did it so many times. When I first saw it I was like “I have no idea what takes they are going to use!”... because, again, it’s such a multilayered, complex scene. That relationship [between Ben and Devi] is really difficult. We talked about [character] building, and OK, so:

Ben’s navigating this pain, and now 

He’s got this relationship with Aneesa, and yet 

He still obviously cares about Devi, but also 

There’s a little something else mixed in there!” 

So it looks like as far as Ben’s concerned, he was juggling all these complicated emotional elements at the same time. We’ll revisit them later.  Shall we begin? 

The setting

Sherman Oaks High School. The time was December 2019. Devi had just asked Paxton to go the winter dance with her. Paxton’s response was “Sorry, but no..” Trent and Marcus were being... the same dumb teenagers they had always been. Devi was at a loss for words, clearly devastated as she walked away. 

Unknown to her, Ben Gross — currently the underdog in our story — saw the whole exchange take place. 

Ben clearly felt for her. This kid understood more than anyone else what it felt like to be unseen, unvalued, and abandoned, for obvious reasons. In fact, he almost fell victim to a likely child predator who had deftly identified and manipulated this ‘kryptonite’ of his just weeks prior. Observe the similarities: 

Even now, Devi Vishwakumar remained Ben’s primary pressure point, in spite of the fact that, in Mr. Lewison’s own words, “she’s the cause of some of his pain..” And Devi had just been hurt. Ben’s reactions were further intensified here because this was not just a random insurance adjuster from Tarzana. It was Devi. She had been hurt, and Ben felt that he had to do something about it. 

That difficult scene

The girls bathroom, some minutes later. Devi was boohooing inside one of the stalls. Because that was clearly the best place to have a private cry session when at school (NOPE. Ask Hermione Granger and that poor troll!). 

Ben walked in. We had a nice little comedic moment as the boy announced his presence loudly enough for everybody to hear. 

What a dork! You’d think that Ben would have been better off walking in  covertly lest he be noticed. I suppose subtlety had never been Ben’s strong suit. However. it clearly is Jaren Lewison’s, though. I loved the way Ben earnestly attempted to cover his eyes here... it was sweet. But also absurd because Ben had clearly never been in a girls’ bathroom before. Well, at least he didn’t ask out loud “huh, where are all the urinals?” because we know he would. 

Devi was horrified that Ben had found her, so she immediately told him to get lost. But this sad boy underdog was determined to make sure that Devi was okay. 

So, Ben started yapping about how Devi had nothing to feel embarrassed about. Paxton, however, well, the joke was on him, he said, because that 30 year-old man kid was terrible at decision making. Apparently, this was enough to make Devi come out of her stall. 

They locked eyes, and Ben smiled sadly at her, reminding us once again of that underlying current of sadness that, to me at least, defined so much of Ben’s personal experience this season. 

There was clearly a lot of things going on here. As Jaren Lewison said:

“I feel like [Devi’s happiness] is what his number one priority is, maybe even possibly over his own happiness... if he sees Devi’s really happy, and while it may pain him, I think Ben would respect that.” (x)

“Why are you being nice to me?”, she asked. Seriously, Devi? How many times did she have to keep asking the same question over and over again lol

What followed was nothing short of one of the funniest moments in the entire season. Ben rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Devi, when are you going to realize that that dick doesn’t deserve you?”

Immediately followed by this very poignant moment. Let’s pause to appreciate what a really good job Jaren Lewison did here: 

In my view, this is exactly that fourth emotional element, the “little something else mixed in there.” that Mr. Lewison alluded to in that interview I quoted above. Sure, on the surface level this is another one those longing looks the actor has really made into his own, a personal signature the one show co-creator and EP Lang Fisher essentially referred to as the best-in-industry. 

But it wasn’t just your regular old longing of a hormonal teenaged boy, was it? No, it was a look filled with unfulfillable longing.  For whatever reasons, this 16 year-old boy now believed that Devi would forever be unattainable to him. And if Paxton did not deserve her, well, neither did he. Don’t get me wrong. I believe Ben thought about himself and Devi a lot. It was probably one of the things that kept him up at night. He dreamt about them. But what could he do now? He had allowed himself to have hope at one point, and for that fate rewarded him handsomely by making him end up getting so badly hurt. 

But anyway, realizing that perhaps he had let on more feelings than he intended, Ben came up with what remained to be his best save yet, “Also, I heard he bought his abs in Mexico!” 

And we’re back in comedic territory. But not for long... oh if only things were  ever that simple. Devi thanked him and told him he wasn’t the worst. 

Ben realized that he had fulfilled the job he came to do. Devi was going to be okay.  He forced himself to smile at her, gave her one last respectful nod, and then walked himself out (ugh! :(). 

Notice how Ben stopped smiling as soon as he turned away. As Jaren Lewison said, “the relationship relationship [between Ben and Devi] is really difficult.” Truer words have never been spoken. But would you have guessed this scene was so difficult to film had Jaren Lewison not spoken about it? Nope. It all looks effortless, which is a perfect example of art concealing art. That was the beauty of this scene. But none of it came easy. Not for the actor, or the character. 

@hairen13​  @mellarkably​ @benjamingross​

[crabas-lordes]

Explaining Gen. 4 Mythicals/Legendaries in My Remakes

According to the games/anime:

Mesprit - The Emotion Pokémon, a pure Psychic type, unknown gender, 1′ tall, weighs 0.7 pounds, it sleeps at the bottom of a lake. When it flew, people learned emotions such as sorrow and joy, etc.

Azelf - The Willpower Pokémon, a pure Psychic type, unknown gender, 1′ tall, weighs 0.7 pounds, it sleeps at the bottom of a lake. When it flew, people became able to face all of life’s difficulties.

Uxie - The Knowledge Pokémon, a pure Psychic type, unknown gender, 1′ tall, weighs 0.7 pounds, it sleeps at the bottom of a lake. When it flew, people learned the knowledge needed to solve problems and the quality to spend their life.

Regigigas - The Colossal Pokémon, a pure Normal type, unknown gender, 12′02″ tall, weighs 925.9 pounds, it pulled the continents apart with ropes. It created three images of itself from ice, rock, and steel.

Darkrai - The Pitch-Black Pokémon, a pure Dark type, unknown gender, 4′11″ tall, weighs 111.3 pounds, creates nightmares to anyone or anything nearby. It only comes on moonless nights. 

Cresselia - The Lunar Pokémon, a pure Psychic type, always female, 4′11″ tall, weighs 188.7 pounds, always comes on moon-lit nights. It has great healing techniques and can dispel nightmares.

Phione - The Sea Drifter Pokémon, a pure Water type, unknown gender, 1′04″ tall, weighs 6.8 pounds, it lives in warm ocean waters. It has a flotation sac on its head that allows it to drift and search for food.

Manaphy - The Seafaring Pokémon, a pure Water type, unknown gender, 1′ tall, weighs 3.1 pounds, emerges from the depths of cold oceans. It can bond with any Pokémon on a heart-to-heart level.

Shaymin - The Gratitude Pokémon, a pure Grass type, unknown gender, 8″ - 1′04″ tall, weighs 4.6 - 11.5 pounds, has a Land and Sky form. When gracidea flowers bloom, they change forms to migrate. 

Arceus - The Alpha Pokémon, a pure Normal type, unknown gender, 10′6″ tall, weighs 705.5 pounds, is capable of changing its types. It lives in its own realm, and legends say its egg fell from a vortex, or that it was born before the universe was created with a thousand arms.

Dialga - The Temporal Pokémon, a Steel and Dragon type, unknown gender, 17′09″ tall, weighs 1,505.8 pounds, time flows with every heartbeat. It is viewed as a deity in Sinnoh, and time began to move when it was born.

Palkia - The Spatial Pokémon, a Water and Dragon type, unknown gender, 13′09″ tall, weighs 740.8 pounds, it is viewed as a deity in Sinnoh. Space becomes more stable with every breath it takes. 

Giratina - The Renegade Pokémon, a Ghost and Dragon type, unknown gender, 14′09″ - 22′08″ tall, weighs 1,433 - 1,653.5 pounds, it gazes into our world from the Reverse World. It was banished for its violence.

My takes on Gen. 4 Pokémon for the Remakes:

Mesprit - Mesprit was born from Arceus after the Creation Trio, but during the time water flourished on the planet. Mesprit is female and is the middle child in the Lake Trio. After she bestowed the power of emotion into the hearts of all that naturally lived in the universe, she returned to Sinnoh to sleep at the bottom of Lake Verity. Lake Verity’s powers, due to Mesprit, are capable of making the most apathetic of creatures to feel something.

Azelf - Azelf was born from Arceus after the Creation Trio, but during the time water flourished on the planet. Azelf is female and is the youngest of the Lake Trio. After she bestowed willpower into the minds of all that naturally lived in the universe, she returned to Sinnoh to sleep at the bottom of Lake Valor. Lake Valor’s powers, due to Azelf, are capable of encouraging anyone or anything that comes.

Uxie - Uxie was born from Arceus after the Creation Trio, but during the time water flourished on the planet. Uxie is female and is the oldest of the Lake Trio. After she bestowed her power of knowledge into the minds of all that naturally lived in the universe, she returned to Sinnoh to sleep at the bottom of Lake Acuity. Lake Acuity’s powers, due to Uxie, are capable of helping anyone or anything problem solve in the area.

Regigigas - Regigigas was a titan crafted by Arceus once Groudon crafted the lands and Kyogre forged the waters. Regigigas then crafted its own ropes to pull apart the continents evenly across the world. Regigigas is genderless and parents three titans: one of crystals and ice, stone and minerals, and metal and foreign steel. Regigigas sleeps at the Snowpoint Temple close to Lake Acuity, ready to awaken for its Alpha’s commands. Regigigas now stands at 24′06″ instead, and weighs well over two tons.

Darkrai - Darkrai is the youngest twin of the Lunar Duo. Darkrai is a male. He can chose whether or not to manipulate nightmares to those he believes deserves it, but on nights of new or full moons -- when he’s most active -- he cannot control his projections. He likes to stay at the gardens around Alamos Town in Sinnoh, where he befriended a young blond girl and a deity. He likes the company of his older sister, especially since she dispels his own nightmares. Darkrai now weighs less than 100 pounds.

Cresselia - Cresselia is the oldest of the Lunar Duo. Cresselia is female. The feathers from her lunar wings are often made into rare dream catchers. She can dispel nightmares and manipulate dreams into those that anyone can love. She is most active on waning and cresting moons, and usually stays around Alamos Town in Sinnoh. She often gives Darkrai company to calm him, as she and his human friend are the only ones capable of that. 

Phione - Phione is known as the “Prince of the Sea” and often floats around the warm coasts to eat algae. Phione is a child of Kyogre, and is male. Phione can also travel through rivers and into warmer lakes if its food source becomes scarce.

Manaphy - Manaphy is known as the “Princess of the Sea” and her egg is laid at the center of Samiya. Manaphy is female and is the daughter of Kyogre. Manaphy has the power to empathize with anyone, and its voice is angelic once it starts to sing and vocalize. Because Manaphy is drawn to Samiya, she has a connection to Palkia and Atlantis as a whole. 

Shaymin - There are two Shaymins; a male (Sky form) and a female (Land form). The female spreads pollen and helps flourish gardens for the rare gracidea flowers, as the male keeps watch over the female and protects the gardens from harm. During winter, the female can change form to migrate with the male, and the only way to tell the difference then is by their colors (female is light blue, male is green). The male is the most dangerous, as its Seed Flare can destroy a good portion of a forest if it absorbs enough toxins. 

Arceus - Arceus’s egg fell from another universe through a vortex, and it hatched once the quarks began to form heat in the vast nothingness. Arceus is a male. Vast serpents of darkness became the one-thousand arms he needed to expand the universe. Once he earned the Life Plates, and after he raised the Creation Trio and created what he needed to create, he fell asleep in his own pocket realm. Arceus now stands at 16′07″ and weighs closer to 1,000 pounds.

Dialga - Dialga is the middle child of the Creation Trio and is a male. Dialga keeps track of time and sometimes looks into the past, the alternate past, and the alternate futures. Dialga stays close to Celestial Town, where he is revered the most in Sinnoh. Dialga loves mankind and takes interest in people in general. Dialga is one of the most loyal gods in the Creation Trio, as he gains respect to one of the newer monarchs of Sinnoh after she sacrifices everything to protect her people. Dialga now stands at 29′ tall and weighs closer to two tons.

Palkia - Palkia is the youngest child of the Creation Trio and is a female. Palkia stabilizes the space between realms and dimensions and then comes to rest in Samiya, the sunken temple at the middle of Atlantis. Palkia has deemed the alternate title the “Goddess of the Sea.” Palkia does not tolerate close human contact, nor does she tolerate any humans coming close to Atlantis. She has destroyed ships, subs, and eaten divers that came close to Atlantis, giving that area the nickname of the “Bermuda Triangle.” Palkia sometimes goes to the springs by Alamos Town to soak and to consume berries and the invasive Pyukumukus. At Alamos Town is where Palkia befriended Darkrai and Cresselia, and has grown to tolerate a human girl. Palkia now stands at 27′08″ tall and weighs closer to one ton. Palkia is considered to invoke more fear than Giratina, especially because of her likable taste toward humans.

Giratina - Giratina is the oldest child of the Creation Trio and is a sequential hermaphrodite (male in Altered Form, female in Origin Form). It is the next Alpha after Arceus, and balances the universe from within the Reverse World. It defends Earth the most, as the solar system itself is where its mother sleeps. Giratina finds interest in humans it deems worthy, such as a scientist and the World Champion. A child born in its world now connects it, so Giratina takes the responsibility to raise her as its own. Giratina is a very aggressive fighter, and is extremely intelligent in battle, but it was never banished for its violent appetites. In fact, while Giratina is feared, it is not the most feared in the Creation Trio. It now stands at 32′11″ and weighs closer to two and a half tons. In its Origin Form, it’s now 60′10″ long and weighs up to two tons. Because of its size, it tends to have a ravenous appetite (It usually feeds on radiation, but it will eat other Pokémon to enrich its diet every now and then. It usually eats smaller Pokémon in its Altered Form, but it can take down massive Pokémon -- like a seven-foot Sawsbuck -- in one swallow if its in its Origin Form with little effort). Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t enjoy the taste of humans.

Reena (Rayna) - Rayna is the true Alpha of this universe, having hatched before Arceus did. She took him in her universe, and helped him expand. She gifted him her eighteen Life Plates after she birthed the Creation Trio, so she can rest, trusting him to do the rest. She sleeps in the core of an orange sun, a sun the Creation Trio stay close to. Those who know Rayna in legend still barely know her name, and call her “Reena.” Because no-one (even those that somewhat know of her) do not know what she looks like, they depict her as a serpent with six feathery wings, as bright as the sun.

Extras that aren’t Pokémon: 

Krishnala  - A Dragon of the Multiverse. It is genderless and expands the space in our universe. It’s intentions are not either evil or good, but because Arceus is not of our universe, it will do anything to eradicate him. Because no-one knows of this god, there is no depiction of it. The only being that knows of it is Rayna.

The Four Keres - These electrical serpents were crafted by Krishnala to hunt down Arceus and the Creation Trio. “Keres” is a name that means “female death demon.” All four Keres are female and take the forms of Arceus and the Creation Trio, mainly to trick the lesser gods and mortals to consume them. Their real forms aren’t known, and very few know of the Keres. One Keres by far roams free, two are in hiding, but one is frozen in the ice caps of Kalos. 

The Three Shadows - The Three Shadows were humans that became absorbed with darkness. This darkness, however, let them be who-ever they wanted to be, and granted them the power to transform into a mighty beast. The Shadows live in Sinnoh, rarely to be seen, but each have been given a name: The Ghost Wolf of Sinnoh, the Thunderbird of the Shadows, and the Great Dragon of Shadowfire. The Thunderbird is revered in old paintings of storms in older villages, and the Ghost Wolf is revered as a great canine that leads the dead on their path. The Great Dragon was seen only once in history, when it rained on Sinnoh’s enemies with purple and black fire, but was never seen again. Their genders are unknown.

Disclaimer: These remakes are for fun and by no means are meant to replace the Pokémon franchise.

*Sorry if there’s some poor grammar, lol, it’s like, 3 AM and I’m tired.

[graphicabyss]

XVII-XVIII Century Royal Queer History

Unexpectedly to myself, I got really engaged in history of Europe of XVI-XVII centuries. I never really had much interest in kings and queens and didn't know much about them but once I began to read and learn about their personal lives, I got kinda hooked. Also, I was struck by how many of them were queer and I began to write down my findings, which inevitably turned into a freaking study. I thought I might as well post it.

I'm gonna start with King James I of England who ruled in XVII century. Now there are several tumblr posts about this queer legend. Some historians think he was weak and unremarkable but he survived several assassination attempts, kept his power over 3 countries and lived to old age, which is pretty remarkable on its own. He also kept all the religious leaders at bay and commissioned the world's most famous Bible, which is still owned by most Christians 400 years later. He was also the one who created the modern wedding ritual. You know, church, vows, rings, that stuff. He avoided wars and was a patron of the arts, even wrote some books, including one about demons, werewolves and vampires. What a nerd. He was very different from Elizabeth who preceded him, so one contemporary epigram stated "Elizabeth was King, now James is Queen". Oh, also he was very gay. Or, at least, as gay as a king can get. His relationships with his male courtiers were notorious. He had several favourites who had way too much influence over him and his court really hated it.

He needs to have a movie made about him, seriously. I found only one semi-documentary film and it was The King James Bible: The Book That Changed The World (2011). While I liked the film and King James was hot, sassy and very cool, it was disappointing he was shown as perfectly straight. They could just avoid his personal life altogether, but instead they chose to show him being a perfect husband. While it is true that he was nice to his bride, by the time he met her he had a 10-year old relationship with a man 24 years his senior (since he was 14). I'm just gonna use this screenshot from the movie instead of a painting because it's too good.

Perhaps the most notorious of his alleged lovers was George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. Starting out as a son of a minor gentleman, the 21-year old lad caught the eye of King James I and quickly became his favourite teasing him by dancing in intricate performances called masques. He made a brilliant career becoming a knight, an earl, a Marquess, and finally a duke - a title normally being reserved for members of the royal family - within just 9 years. Can you blame him though? I mean, look at that stud.

Btw, James’ pet name for Buckingham was ‘Steenie’, derived from St. Stephen who reportedly had the face of an angel.

The name Buckingham seemed oddly familiar to me but it took some time before I realized he was one of the characters in Dumas's "The Three Musketeers". Now I am someone who grew up on old pure Three Musketeers movies so when I started learning about the real historical figures involved in it it gave me a slight shock as the truth is way more weird and sinister that fiction.

The storyline I remember the most was the one where Anne of Austria, the queen of France, got in trouble with her husband Louis XIII because of her affair with Duke of Buckingham. Of course, Duke of Buckingham was never the Queen's lover, he was the King's. What's more, some historians assume Louis XIII was also queer. There is no evidence that Louis kept mistresses, but he had very intimate relationships with his favourites. He has even been described as “repelled by female contact”. There's also the issue of him struggling to have an heir. His wife had 4 pregnancies that were unsuccessful but that seemed like too few for a king who needed to secure his dynasty. After 23 years of trying, the king and queen were finally able to produce a son and another soon followed, the older son to become Louis XIV, and the younger, Philippe, to be known as Duke of Orleans.

Anne was quite the character for a dramatic story too. After Louis's death she became the Regent and made sure to clear the way for her son Louis. To ensure that Louis's younger brother will not try to usurp the power from him as it was with Louis XIII 's brother, Anne of Austria conducted an early and very wicked gender development experiment. She and her adviser, Cardinal Mazarin, set up a plan to raise the two boys very differently. Queen Anne called Philippe by such nicknames as "my little girl" and encouraged him to dress in feminine clothing, which he sometimes did even as an adult.

I'm just gonna use this quote because this shit is real: The queen and Mazarin discouraged the duc d'Anjou [Philippe] from traditional manly pursuits such as arms and politics, and encouraged him to wear dresses, makeup, and to enjoy feminine behaviour. His inclination toward homosexuality was not discouraged, with the hope of reducing any threat he may have posed to his older brother. Reportedly, Cardinal Mazarin even commanded his nephew, Philippe, to de-flower the king's younger brother.

Well, fuck. The joke's on them though, as Philippe grew up to be a fashion icon AND a fierce warrior. He participated in many battles and was immensely praised for his bravery and valour. In 1677, he led the French forces at the Battle of Cassel against William III of Orange of the Netherlands. Yes, that guy who later gently invaded England and took the throne. By the way, there are some allegations that he was also gay. Anyway, Philippe was so badass in battle that people glorified him as a hero and it made his stallion of a brother so jealous he sent him back and never allowed him on the battlefield again. Louis XIV continued his mother's effort in encouraging his brother's effeminate behaviour and putting up with his homosexual relationships, all the while waging a war of homosexuality in France. I mean, gotta preserve the traditional values, such as fucking 12 mistresses who were often married. There were even rumours Louis fucked Philippe's wife. I guess he was trying to make up for his father, brother, son, and uncle, César de Vendôme. Meanwhile, Philippe gave no fucks. He had a number of favourites and didn't even try to hide his sexuality. In fact, it is said that every time Louis pissed him off, Philippe did something extra gay and in his face. Fierce.

One guy I have to mention is Armand, the Comte de Guiche, who was said to be handsome, vain, and manipulative. Armand was Philippe’s lover, but he is widely thought to have been his wife Henrietta’s lover as well. That apparently wasn’t enough for the guy, because in 1665 he also tried to romance Louise de La Valliere, who was Louis’ chief mistress at the time. Louis exiled him in 1662 for plotting with Henrietta to break up Louis and Louise. What a glorious fucker.

But the love of Philippe's life was Chevalier de Lorraine who was basically a prince of a realm outside France. He's usually called 'Chevallier' but his name was also Philippe. He also had an older brother named Louis. Seriously, couldn't they try a little harder with the names? Anyway, when they met Philippe was 18 and Chevalier 15 and sparks flew. He was described as being “as beautiful as an angel” and was more than ready to use what his mama gave him. He was smart and very manipulative and Philippe showered him with gifts all his life, much to the chagrin of his two wives whose money and estates he often gave away.

He moved to Palais-Royal, the same palace as Philippe and his wife Henriette. Very convenient. Philippe's marriage got kinda crowded. Chevalier got so arrogant, he actually told Philippe's wife she needs his permission to sleep with him and that he could get him to divorce her. She complained to the king and he got Chevalier imprisoned and exiled. However, not for long as Philippe pleaded the king to pardon him and eventually succeeded. Henriette did not get much relief apparently as she wrote: “I see from the ashes of Monsieur’s love for the Chevalier, as from the dragon’s teeth, a whole brood of fresh favourites are likely to spring up to vex me.” Of course, Chevalier also managed to enrich himself immensely by getting Philippe and the king to give him and his family tons of perks, such as make him the titular Abbot of four abbeys, which payed handsomely.

Henriette died very suddenly claiming she was poisoned. The doctors found no evidence of that, but there were still rumours that Chevalier was to blame. Philippe had to find another wife, even if he wasn't happy about it. Chevalier stuck around. He was exiled a second time after he apparently seduced the king's son (more on that later) but was able to return again. Their relationship lasted for 40 years, until Philippe's death.

There was a recent TV show called Versailles that depicts Louis XIV’s reign and it has a fairly accurate though romanticized portrayal of Philippe and Chevalier's relationship. Too bad the show is way too violent for me to watch. They look stunning in it~

Anyway, such relationships were far from rare. In fact, apparently there were the so-called confréries (“fraternities”), which were basically gay brotherhoods whose members hung out together and set up orgies. One elite brotherhood was founded between 1680 and 1682. Apart from Chevalier, it included the king Louis XIV's cousin Prince of Conti who was once proclaimed the King of Poland, and Louis's illegitimate son, the comte de Vermandois. The latter was 15 in 1682 when at the court of his uncle Philippe, he met the Chevalier de Lorraine and his sect and apparently got very personally acquainted with Chevalier's younger brother and nephew. When the king learned about it, the group was forcibly dissolved and Vermandois was beaten before the king, exiled from court, and forced into marriage. Another such group was within the highest ranks of nobility at the court of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, the son of Philippe and the regent at the time when Louis XV was young. They really didn't bother with names, huh? Anyway, they got involved in a number of scandals, in one of which that happened in 1722 a group of 17 noble men gathered in the palace gardens to fuck. The Regent didn't seem very bothered and even seemed to find it amusing.

The Regent, who did not stop smiling, was satisfied that it was necessary to give the nobles a harsh reprimand and tell them that they do not have the best taste [goût] in the world.

Dad would be proud.

There were also some (presumably) queer queens, like Queen Anne of England. Now you might have seen the movie The Favourite but it's heavily satirized and Anne wasn't really childlike and helpless. Actually, this image was created by Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, after she was expelled by Anne, and stuck. However, the rivalry between the old and new favourites was very real.

Anne met Sarah when she was just 8. Sarah was beautiful, charming and very persuasive. When Anne became the queen, she made Sarah Churchill her Mistress of the Robes (the highest office in the royal court that could be held by a woman) and gave her a bunch of other really cool titles. She also made her husband, John Churchill, a duke. Thus Sarah became the most powerful person in England after the queen and the queen always listened to her advice. However, as years went by, Sarah became increasingly pushy and insensitive, using the queen to get what she wanted.

Sarah looking fab~

Then comes Abigail Masham, Sarah's impoverished cousin. Abigail was soft, caring and considerate, exactly what the queen needed. Sarah tried to get rid of her but it only angered the queen further and she eventually dismissed Sarah and her husband and banished them with disgrace while Abigale took her place. Sarah then wrote scandalous memoirs, painting the queen as weak and instable, as well as implying that her relationship with Abigail was lesbian. In mid-1708, she helped to circulate a ballad with such lyrics as: “Her secretary she was not / Because she could not write / But had the conduct and the care / Of some dark deeds at night.”

While there is no direct evidence that she and Anne had sexual relationship, there are many letters between the women that are very romantic and intimate. Sarah even used them to blackmail the queen. And you can kinda see why. “Tis impossible for you ever to believe how much I love you except you saw my heart,” the princess wrote in one letter, as quoted in Anne Somerset’s biography of Anne. “If I writ whole volumes I could never express how well I love you,” read another.

Also, like, evidence was hardly even a thing with queer relationships, since the only solid evidence of regular affairs were illegitimate children.

Finally, I really want to talk about Frederick II, the king of Prussia. Buckle up because this is gonna be long.

Until the age of 7 Frederick was growing up with his lit mother and sister. Here they are, looking gorge. I think he's in blue but tbh I'm not 100% sure.

Anyway, as he got older he was taken to his father and that's when things got shitty. His father, Frederick William I, was the model image of toxic masculinity. He was all about power and military and expected his son to be the same. And since the boy was a lot more into music, poetry, and French stuff, his father often beat and humiliated him. He didn't allow him to learn French and Latin because, like, that's so gay. Now he was a real man. With a weird kink for tall guys. He is known for creating the Potsdam Giants, a regiment of very tall men that he didn't use for battle, just dressing them up and making them march. Ultimate straightness. It is probably redundant to say but his father also hated 'sodomy' and it was punishable by death, a law Frederick would repeal.

And the thing is, Frederick wasn't even supposed to become a king. He was the third son. It wasn't even disease. The first son died because a volley was fired close to his crib (because that’s the only way to wake up a real man - canon) and the second died at baptism because the royal crown crushed his skull. And you thought your parents were bad. Poor Frederick didn't even want to be a king, he just wanted to play the flute and do his thing. In a different age he'd be writing musicals on Broadway or something.

Anyway, there are few doubts among historians the man was gay. There's this BBC documentary that downplays it but it keeps saying he grew up in an environment where he was "leading a double life" and that he once wrote to a close friend that he felt he was a mirror that dared not be what nature made it, forced to oblige what was around it. Please.

Frederick's first presumed relationship was at 16, with Keith, the king's 17-year-old page. Unsurprisingly, Keith was soon sent to a far-off frontier. Right after that, however, Frederick got real close with an officer Hans Hermann von Katte. The dude was very woke and they both loved music and poetry but shit got very real very soon. In 1730, Katte and Frederick decided to flee to Britain to escape their despotic fathers. Sadly, they got caught and tried for treason. Although the prince was pardoned, Katte was sentenced to life imprisonment, which his sick dad changed to execution and then forced Frederick to watch it. At execution Katte and Fred shouted to each other endearments in French and before it happened, Frederick fainted. That shit really fucked him up and he got depressed but he toughened up and accepted his fate.

Aged about 20, Frederick was expected to marry. After a few failed attempts, an Austrian bride was selected, Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern. Frederick was clearly unexcited and apparently even threatened suicide. As soon as he had secured throne, he sent her away and only met with her out of necessity. They had no children. And some historians are like, "well, they just didn't get along". Well, his folks hated each other but it didn't stop them from having 14 children.

Anyway, his father finally got off his back and as a crown prince, he mostly spent his time reading, composing, watching plays and writing woke political essays. Then his dad died so playtime was over.

Now that sounds like a story of a "weak" king. A man who loved to read books and play his flute. But it's not how it was. As Fred became king, he inherited a very militarized state with a huge-ass army and he worked with what he had. He started expanding Prussia, starting with Austria, which he had old beef with. He wasn't out for world conquest, he struck swiftly and strategically to consolidate and strengthen his state.

Frederick, widely known as Frederick the Great, waged war against much bigger armies with great success and doubled Prussia's size in his reign. Which is why Hitler was obsessed with the guy smh. Would make more sense if he was into the Frederick Senior, with his militarism and his little hobby of inbreeding giants and all. He must have missed the part where he was tolerant, modest and also gay.

Frederick also had a younger brother, Prince Henry, who was also gay. He was an important general in the king's army, though their relationship was quite complicated. Henry married but like his brother, bore no children, ignored his wife and spent time with fine lads.

Look at this unapologetic legend!

When Frederick wasn't battling, he was doing lit stuff. He built a gorgeous palace in French fashion, full of Grecian sculptures and homoerotic paintings. He attracted the best intellectual minds of his time. Voltaire lived there for 3 years btw and he did not hold back to make many "wink wink" references to the king and his Grecian taste.

Speaking of which... One of his closest friends was Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, an army private and a son of a peasant. Frederick met him as a prince and kept him by his side for the rest of his life, quite literally as he had an adjoined bedroom in his palace. He also made him a chancellor and gave him an estate, which really pissed off the elites.

Frederick is a complex character. Sure, he waged war and very successfully asserted himself as one of the top military leaders in history. But at the time Prussia was a scattered landlocked state, it couldn't just opt out of war so it's not like he could just go "peace out, bitches". But he did so much more. The guy actually believed that the king's duty was to be just and improve the lives of his people. He did some major reforms, improved education, supported art, and practiced religious tolerance, which was pretty woke at the time. He abolished torture and corporal punishment. He made governing more democratic by hiring people based on ability, not just status. Sadly, his cool legacy was utterly destroyed because the Nazi decided to appropriate him as their idol but lately it’s being reassessed. It’s hard to judge him considering how much he went through. But despite it all he became one of the best military commanders in history, one of the most woke and talented monarchs, and of course a legendary queer! 

Disclaimer: I know all of these people did some terrible shit, at least by modern standards, but I'm here to have fun so I'm not going to go there now. Sources: medium.com/@LukeBoneham/the-politics-of-desire-... thehistoryofparliament.wordpress.com/2019/02/21... www.ranker.com/list/life-of-philippe-dorleans/m... cour-de-france.fr/vie-quotidienne/sociabilite-e... aelarsen.wordpress.com/2018/07/20/versailles-th... thedrummersrevenge.wordpress.com/2007/06/22/ref... dirtysexyhistory.com/2017/09/03/a-secret-gay-br... unspeakablevice.tumblr.com/post/82525976110/lou... journals.openedition.org/crcv/14427#ftn161 Marie Antoinette's World: Intrigue, Infidelity, and Adultery in Versailles The Real Versailles - BBC Two

BBC Four - Frederick the Great and the Enigma of Prussia https://medium.com/war-is-boring/historys-greatest-gay-general-fd7d1d311464 https://www.queerportraits.com/bio/frederick https://www.spectator.com.au/2015/10/frederick-the-great-king-of-prussia-is-a-great-read/ http://gayinfluence.blogspot.com/2011/10/frederick-great-1712-1786.html https://www.history.com/news/true-story-queen-anne-sarah-abigail-the-favourite-fact-check

[lunar-ribbon-mmx]

Of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Madoka Magica, Soul Gems, Grief Seeds, Infinity Stones, Chaos magic, and Chaos emeralds

Cried my heart out watching the last episode of Wandavision on Disney + last night. So with my contemplative 3 AM mind, everything started to make sense.

Words in quotes and italics are from the official wiki.

Wandavision

Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch

Exposed to mind stone as young child by HYDRA experiment and survived during Captain America: Winter Soldier in 2013

Powers: Chaos magic and telepathy

Madoka Magica

“Witches are entities born from Magical Girls' soul gems. They manifest when a Magical Girl's soul gem is either too tainted, or has gathered a curse. Witches hide in special areas called barriers that contain labyrinths inside. Each labyrinth is a unique manifestation of the Witch's subconscious.”

In Madoka Magica, the witch creates the labyrinth and is a reflection of their mental state and alters the fabric of reality, just like Wanda in Wandavision, where she controls everything that happens in Westview, New Jersey. Wanda is able to control the environment and the people to fit what she chooses. Her own version of the “labyrinth” is called a “Hex” in Wandavision.

Grief consumed Wanda and she turned into Scarlet Witch, similar to how magical girls turn into witches when their soul gems aren’t cleansed and they become corrupted.

In this idyllic sitcom paradise, she tries to cope with the lost of her mother, father, brother, and her lover called Vision, attacking whoever dare tries to show her reality and interrupt her fantasy world

Funny thing is that in Episode 8 of Wandavision, Agatha Harkness (another witch who is the antagonist) literally says "You didn't think you were the only magical girl in town, did you? The name's Agatha Harkness."

Also, “Each Witch has a unique name of its own, which is spelled out in runes under a Latin context”

Wanda Maximoff summons runes within the labyrinth in order to use her magic and the incantation chants are in Latin.

Sonic “The servers are the 7 Chaos. Chaos is power... Power enriched by the heart. The controller is the one that unifies the Chaos.”

“Tikal's Prayer describes the relationship between the Chaos Emeralds, Master Emerald and their users. "The servers are the 7 Chaos" refers to the seven Chaos Emeralds; "Chaos is power... Power enriched by the heart" refers to the Emeralds' chaos energy and their ability to turn people's thoughts into power; and "The controller is the one that unifies the Chaos" refers to the Master Emerald and its ability to control the Chaos Emeralds.[2][3]”

Wanda Maximoff, AKA Scarlet Witch from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and her natural ability to use chaos magic and being the holder of the mind stone and being able to control Vision, who also holds part of the mind stone.

Wanda has the ability to harness chaos magic, which typically presents itself in telekinesis, telepathy, and energy manipulation/projection. Sound familiar?

Literally all the same things you can do with a chaos emerald!

Chaos control = teleportation and stopping time and altering reality

Chaos blast = Age of Ultron in 2015, Wanda took out an army of Ultron's drones with a wave of energy

Chaos spear = In Avengers: Infinity War in 2018 Wanda is capable of throwing energy bolts.

[no-no-no-ahhhh]

So since Monster High might have a come back, and those uninspired dolls have officially been released...

Sus Rasict things Monster High has done

1. White washed an Egyptian character

Cleo looks so white when she's based off of Egyptian royalty. Yall can't even tell me she's tan or anything like that she looks plain white

If you don't think they whitewashed her you can't deny monster high participated in colorism. Cleo our main boo who the audience is supposed to cheer for is lighter then her sister which we are supposed to hate. Her sister is occasional the antagonist.

2. Over sexualize their black character

Yall can try all you want to tell me otherwise but clawdeen was dressed more scandalous then the rest of the dolls. In the anime version of Monster High clawdeen says something along the lines of "One of the cute things about me is my short revealing skirt."

Mattel let that slide by. Many black characters get over sexualized.

https://www.blackburncenter.org/post/2019/02/20/the-historical-roots-of-the-sexualization-of-black-women-and-girls

Can we just stop sexualizing little poc girls. I remember as a child putting clawdeen skirt on her and trying to pull it down a bit , so it wouldn't show too much. When I tried to pull it down it just went down all her legs.

3. Not good at representing indigenous people skin tone.

In MH they do have indigenous based designs but they don't necessarily reflect the way indigenous people look. A little girl can't pick up the doll and say "hey this doll looks like me" and I think all little girls would like to see them self in things they like. Also a lot of poc end up hating that they aren't lighter. It would be nice if they could see their skin represented in a doll.

Dont tell me that oh it wouldn't work with these monsters because the monster doesn't have skin blah blah blah blah. MH has designed black coded vampires and white coded werewolfs before.

Also I'm so tired of companies having so many white people than sprinkling some black people and calling it a day cause they met the "diversity quota". I'm honestly thinking now that they just put Clawdeen in to say they have a poc doll."Look at how diverse we are." If they really where diverse they would not have white washed a Egyptian character in the first place.

4. They just have whitewashed many more characters

First is Gigi Grant, Middle Eastern people can be light skinned but they're are also "tanned" middle eastern people. MH already got a whole ton of white characters. It would not hurt to just give Gigi some melanin.

Another whitewashed character is Marisol Coxi

Her doll and doll art fur/skin is light pink

But in the webisodes she looks like a black coded character

Idk why they changed the way she looks in one media from the other. Just let us have more poc dolls!

Third is Honey Swamp its possible she is simply a lightskined person which is perfectly fine. But it seems like monster high just likes to deny us melanin enriched dolls.

5. The Tiki

They never had a tiki Monster High character that looked like the rest of the MH dolls. Which would have been nice to see but alas it was stolen from us. The tiki where just a plot device for a MH movie Escape from Skull Shores. They don't ever tease the tiki or anything like that, thank goodness. At the beginning of the movie they just follow these white man's orders , which is very sus.

Another weird thing, is in a different movie Scaris City of Frights Cleo accidently destroys the whole village. Then Skelita (an indigenous based character) tells her to apologize to the tiki but instead Cloe is all like "Hah I dont apologize." then she manipulates the tiki into building a ship for her. That unnecessary scene just leaves a bad taste.

Honestly its sad how the tiki are always being manipulated. I think the media should stop using poc as mere plot devices.

6. Having a white character based off poc aesthetic

Monster high gave Jane Boolittle a jungle aesthetic. They state that she never knew her origins. Honestly I think they are trying to go for a Tarzan type of story. "Oh no us rich white people who decided to explore a jungle and brought our kid with us too..... for some odd reason ..... have had something tragic happen to us. Now our child is alone only to be raised by animals ahhhhwww." Later she gets adopted by another researcher/explorer. MH if you are gonna base a character on the "jungle aesthetic" maybe base it off ohh idk people who actually live in the jungle and not some rando white girl!!

I'm so tired of these stupid colonial based stories first with that werid white con-man in Skull Shores and now these white explorers!! I can't.

(Also Jane being a whole stalker is not cute. Her being a stalker endorses that behavior. A kid might see that and be like "wow she's stalking but that's okay because she's shy uwu. " pls never stalk anyone ever. )

If we ever cancel a Monster High character it should be Jane Boolittle.

7. "Race" jokes

I thought monster high was supposed to be about accepting people but the amount of times a monster from a different race has made a race joke on another monster is not even funny. The discrimination and horrible jokes Ghoulia had to hear right in front of her face is so sad. I think its honestly teaching kids to make/be tolerant with rasict jokes.

"Uhhhhhnnnhhhhng I'm a mummie"

For example when Duce made a joke on mummies doing" zombie motions". Like you got the wrong race and a inaccurate stereotype dummy. These writers were stupid. 😑

I dont think we should cancel MH just Jane Boolittle or anything like that. But if monster high comes back and they still haven't addressed/fixed these issues we should definitely fight them.💖

[venuskind]

MEN OF MY AGE (and older)

As much as I have grown up with a decided preference for boys over most girls and have loved my male friends fiercely, I have to share these observations, impression, feelings and thoughts on men of my age that have been at the forefront of my mind and conversations lately.

There is a shock at the speed with which it becomes visible in middle age when men have been letting themselves go, their lack of self care and love becoming dishearteningly manifest in their bodies and loss of health, their lack of shadow work and growth becoming painfully evident in their limited capacity to self reflect and ongoing habit of leaning on others (often females) to do the little bit of emotional and self care labor they allow for.

There is a deep disappointment at the tardiness, laziness, slowness, half-assedness or total disregard of the need for growth that is not in service of external status and wealth.

This makes me lose RESPECT for such men and renders them asexual and invisible to my gaze. I honestly do not feel attracted to how these men show up or their bodies, nor do I feel a wish to befriend or relate to them.

Don't get me wrong, I am aware that conditioning of culture and patriarchy have created blockages, damages and walls standing in the way of delving into the necessary work.

And yet that is also true for all other genders but we others seem to make more of an effort and headway in working through our own BS, illuminate our blindspots, integrate our shadow, dropping egoic story-telling that separates us from reality, etc.

And I wonder, and ever more loudly and impatiently, ask why? WHY is it so unfathomably easy or preferable for men to stay STAGNANT, COMPLACENT, PHLEGMATIC and/or HIDE behind being focused on money, work, and 'having fun'?

I do take responsibility for my part in protecting the fragility of the egos of men around me.

I have been responsible for indulging and enabling them in the narcissistic avoidance of full responsibility for their life and becoming a more integrated and positive force in our communities. I have begun ceasing to do so years ago and keep releasing subtler and subtler ways of enabling as they reveal themselves to me.

I will NOT coerce or manipulate men into focusing on self work and awareness.

That goes against my values of honoring every beings sovereignty and my choice to live from love. Though I understand why many revert to manipulation and coercion from the abject helplessness this stubborn avoidance and rejection of growth triggers. Nonetheless, I will not enable, nurture, engage with or accept the half-assedness or resistance to what I perceive as a fundamental aspect of being embodied.

I explicitly, vocally, and wholeheartedly acknowledge men who go the extra mile, compared to their brethren, and apply themselves to the work with tangible and admirable fruits. Without these few radiant lighthouses I would have lost hope for humanity years ago. But they are few and far apart. Too few!

I cannot help feeling utterly disappointed, frustrated and at times down-right fed up with the stagnancy in men, regardless of how much I feel compassion for, like or love them.

The questions that arise for me are:

When will you step into the fullness of responsibility for yourself?

What are you allowing to hold you back from being the best and most whole version of yourself?

What do you need to get working or apply yourself more to it?

What can we provide or do to co-create a space that is conducive to your growth?

And no, this interest in your journey and openness to supporting you does not imply a willingness to do your work for you - no matter how subtly you try to rope me into that.

Know that the lack of growth, change, maturing in you is an OBSTACLE TO truly RELATING with you. An obstacle to co-creating a meaningful experience of connection, joy, insight, play and creativity.

As long as you do not invest yourself FULLY into loving and healing yourself, my love for you will be limited in its expressions due to a choice to keep a distance from what doesn't align with my path and energy.

Said DISTANCE precludes you from being part of the richness, joy and miracles of community, friendship, and love expressing freely and deeply, which have become my normal. A normal my being longs to share with you too and have it enriched by your unique being!

So, please, do take care of your body and psyche, invest in your self, face your shadow and keep challenging yourself to embody a disciplined and consistent growth mindset in all areas of life and being. I promise you will be amazed at how much better you can do, be, and experience the fullness of life!

Photography by Various Artists

[arcticdementor]

“Hey bro! Check out this Nike ad!” This was my entry point into a new world.

…

Since Carlos had lived mostly outside the United States, he was able to follow soccer on a level I’d never encountered in my hometown. Back then, before social media and the advent of scarf-wearing Northwestern fútbol hipsters, big-time European soccer was like the metric system: Known to almost all but ourselves. But Carlos knew, and immediately used LimeWire to curate me a massive archive of 1990s through early 2000s soccer highlights. What was I doing in the world without them?

Oddly enough, in trying to inculcate me in soccer fandom, he started not with game highlights, but with the advertisements. Yes, Carlos was an educator and a voluntary footsoldier for Big Apparel. Going in, I had no clue about high-quality, internationally popular Nike soccer ads. The ads, written by the legendary Wieden+Kennedy firm, were miniature movies, films that were often creatively daring but also quite funny. The most popular of these ads might be “Good vs. Evil,” from 1996, where Nike’s best soccer players team up to play Satan’s literal army. The blending of sacrilege, theology and comedy just worked, like a more ambitious version of Space Jam that somehow took itself less seriously than Space Jam.

…

Yes, I know ads aren’t supposed to be high art. I understand that they are the purest distillation of manipulative greed. And yet, they sometimes are culturally relevant generational touchstones. While Nike was weaving soccer into enduring pop culture abroad, it was having a similar kind of success with basketball and baseball stateside. These ads weren’t just pure ephemera. Michael Jordan’s commercials were so good that, as he nears age 60, his sneaker still outsells any modern athlete’s. “Chicks dig the long ball” is a phrase (a) that can get you sent to the modern HR department and b) whose origins are fondly remembered by most American men over the age of 35.

Modern Nike ads will never be so remembered. It’s not because we’re so inundated with information these days, though we are. And it’s not because today’s overexposed athletes lack the mystique of the 1990s superstars, though they do. It’s because the modern Nike ads are beyond fucking terrible.

…

They’re bad for many causes, but one in particular is an incongruity at the company’s heart. Nike, like so many major institutions, is suffering from what I’ll call Existence Dissonance. It’s happening in a particular way, for a particular reason and the result is that what Nike is happens to be at cross-purposes from what Nike aspires to be.

…

For all the talk of a racial reckoning within major industries, Nike’s main problem is this: It’s a company built on masculinity, most specifically Michael Jordan’s alpha dog brand of it. Now, due to its own ambitions, scandals, and intellectual trends, Nike finds masculinity problematic enough to loudly reject.

This rejection is part of the broader culture war, but it’s accelerating due to an arcane quirk in the apparel giant’s strange restructuring plan, announced in June. Under the leadership of new CEO John Donahoe, Nike is moving away from its classic discrete sports categories (Nike Basketball, Nike Soccer, etc.) in favor of a system where all products are shoveled into one of three divisions: men’s, women’s and kids’. Obviously Nike made clothing tailored to the specificities of all these groups before, but now, Nike is emphasizing gender over sport. Gone is the model of the product appealing to basketball fans because they are basketball fans. It’s now replaced by a model of, say, the product appealing to women because they are women.

And hey, women buy sneakers too. Actually, women buy the lion’s share of clothing in the United States. While women shoppers are market dominant in nearly every aspect of American apparel, the clothing multinational named after a Greek goddess happens to be a major exception. At Nike, according to its own records, men account for roughly twice as much revenue as women do.

You might see that stat and think, “Well, this means that Nike will prioritize men over women in its new, odd, gendered segmentation of the company.” That’s not necessarily how this all works, thanks to a phenomenon I’ll call Undecided Whale. The idea is that a company, as its aims grow more expansive, starts catering less to the locked-in core customer and more to a potential whale which demonstrates some interest. Sure, you can just keep doing what’s made you rich, but how can you even focus on your primary business with that whale out there, swimming so tantalizingly close? The whale, should you bring it in, has the potential to enrich you far more than your core customers ever did. And yeah yeah yeah, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, but those were birds. This is a damned whale! And so you start forgetting about your base.

You can see this dynamic in other places. For the NBA, China is its Undecided Whale. It could be argued that the NBA fixates more on China than on America, even if the vast majority of TV money comes from U.S. viewership. The league figures it has more or less hit its ceiling in its home country, so China becomes an obsession as this massive, theoretical growth engine.

…

Here’s the main issue for Nike in this endeavor: The company, as a raison d’être, promotes athletic excellence. While women are among Nike’s major sports stars, the core of high-level performance, in the overwhelming majority of sports, is male. Every sane person knows that, though nobody in professional class life seems rude enough to say so. Obviously, there’s the observable reality of who tends to set records and there’s also the pervasive understanding that testosterone, the main male sex hormone, happens to give unfair advantages to the athletes who inject it.

Speaking of which, there’s a famous This American Life episode from 2002 where the public radio journos actually test their own testosterone levels. The big joke of the episode is just how comically low their T levels are. Sure, you would stereotype bookish public radio men in this way, and yet the results are on the nose enough to shock.

As a nerdy media-weakling type, I can relate to the stunning realization that you’ve been largely living apart from T. Before working in the NBA setting, I was an intern in the cubicles of Salon.com’s San Francisco office, around the time it was shifting from respectable online magazine into inane outrage content mill. Going from that setting to the NBA locker room was some jarring whiplash, like leaving the faculty lounge for a pirate ship. To quote Charles Barkley on the latter culture, “The locker room is sexist, racist, and homophobic … and it’s fun and I miss it.”

…

The “Good vs. Evil” ad boasts a “Like” to “Dislike” ratio of 20-to-1 on YouTube. On June 17th of 2021, Nike put out an ad ahead of the Euro Cup that referenced “Good vs. Evil” as briefly as it could. In this case, a little child popped his collar and used Cantona’s catchphrase. As of this writing, the new ad has earned a thousand more punches of the Dislike than of the Like button.

When you see it, it’s no surprise that the latest Euro Cup ad is disliked. I mean, you have to look at this shit. I know we’re so numb to the ever-escalating emanations of radical chic from our largest corporations, but sometimes it’s worth pausing just to take stock and gawk.

…

But today we are in the land of new football, where we take dictatorial direction from less-than-athletic minors. After her announcement, we are treated to a montage of different people who offer tolerance bromides.

“There are no borders here!”

“Here, you can be whoever you want. Be with whoever you want.”

(Two men kiss following that line, because subtlety isn’t part of this new world order.)

Then, a woman who appears to be breastfeeding under a soccer shirt, threatens, in French, “And if you disagree …”

And this is when the little boy gives us Cantona’s “au revoir” line before kicking a ball out of a soccer stadium, presumably because that’s what happens to the ignorant soccer hooligan. He gets kicked out for raging against gay men kissing or French ladies breastfeeding or somesuch. Later, a referee wearing a hijab instructs us, “Leave the hate,” before narrator girl explains, “You might as well join us because no one can stop us.”

Is that last line supposed to be … inspiring? That’s what a movie villain says, like if Bane took the form of Stan Marsh’s sister. Speaking of which, was this ad actually written by the creators of South Park as an elaborate prank? It’s certainly more convincing as an aggressive parody of liberals than as a sales pitch. Why, in anything other than a comedic setup, is a woman breastfeeding in a big-budget Euro Cup ad?

It’s tempting to fall into the pro-vanguardism template the boomers have handed down to us and sheepishly say, “I must be getting old, because this seems weird to me,” but let’s get real. You dislike this ad because it sucks. You are having a natural, human response to shitty art. This a hollow sermon from a priest whose sins were in the papers. Nobody is impressed by what Nike’s doing here. Nobody thinks Nike, a multinational famous for its sweatshops, is ushering us into an enlightened utopia. Sure, most media types are afraid to criticize the ad publicly. You might inspire suspicion that what you’re secretly against is men kissing and women breastfeeding, but nobody actually likes the stupid ad. No college kid would show it to a new friend he’s trying to impress, and it’s hard to envision a massive cohort of Gen Z women giving a shit about this ad either.

Now juxtapose that ad not just against the classics of the 1990s but also the 2000s products that preceded the Great Awokening. Compare it to another Nike Euro Cup advertisement, Guy Ritchie’s “Take It to the Next Level.”

…

Here’s the problem, insofar as problems are pretended into existence by our media class: The ad is very, very male. Really, what we are watching here is a boyhood fantasy. Our protagonist gets called up to the big show, and next thing you know he’s cavorting with multiple ladies, and autographing titties to the chagrin of his date. He can be seen buying a luxury sports car and arriving at his childhood home in it as his father beams with pride. Training sessions show him either puking from exhaustion or playing grab-ass with his fellow soccer bros. This is jock life, distilled. Art works when it’s true and it’s true that this is a vivid depiction of a common fantasy realized.

Nike’s highly successful “Write the Future” ad (16,000 Likes, 257 Dislikes) works along similar themes.

…

The recent Olympic ads were especially heavy on cringe radical chic, and might have stood out less in this respect if the athletes themselves mirrored that tone on the big stage. Not so much in these Olympics. It seems as though Nike made the commercials in preparation for an explosion of telegenic activism, only to see American athletes mostly, quietly accept their medals, chomp down on the gold, and praise God or country. Perhaps you could consider Simone Biles bowing out of events due to mental health as a form of activism, but overall, the athletes basically behaved in the manner they would have back in 1996.

But Nike forged onwards anyway. This ad in celebration of the U.S. women’s basketball team made some waves, getting ripped in conservative media as the latest offense by woke capital.

…

“Today I have a presentation on dynasties,” a pink-haired teenage girl tells us. “But I refuse to talk about the ancient history and drama. That’s just the patriarchy. Instead, I’m going to talk about a dynasty that I actually look up to. An all-women dynasty. Women of color. Gay women. Women who fight for social justice. Women with a jump shot. A dynasty that makes your favorite men’s basketball, football, and baseball teams look like amateurs.”

When she says, “That’s just the patriarchy,” the camera pans to a bust of (I think) Julius Caesar. At another point, the girl says, “A dynasty that makes Alexander the Great look like Alexander the Okay.” Fuck you, Classical Antiquity. Fuck you, fans of teams. You’re all just the patriarchy. Or something.

Nike could easily sell the successful American women’s basketball team without denigrating other teams, genders and ancient Mediterranean empires that have nothing to do with this. Could but won’t. The company now conveys an almost visceral need for women to triumph over men because … well, nobody really explains why, even if it has something to do with Undecided Whaling. In Nike’s tentpole Olympics ad titled “Best Day Ever,” the narrator fantasizes about the future, declaring, “The WNBA will surpass the NBA in popularity!” ​

…

There are theories on the emergence of woke capital, with many having observed that, following Occupy Wall Street, media institutions ramped up on census category grievance. The thinking goes that, in response to the threat of a real economic revolution, the power players in our society pushed identity politics to undermine group solidarity. Well, that was a fiendishly brilliant plan, if anyone actually hatched it.

I’m not so convinced, though, as I’m more inclined to believe that a lot of history happens by happenstance. If we’re to specifically analyze the Nike Awokening, there is a recent top-down element of a mandate for Undecided Whaling, but that mandate was preceded by a socially conscious middle class campaign within the company.

This isn’t unique to Nike, either. Given my past life covering the team that tech moguls root for, I’ve run into such people. They aren’t, by and large, ideological. Very few are messianically devoted to seeing the world through the intersectionality lens. They are, however, terrified of their employees who feel this way. The mid-tier labor force, this cohort who actually internalized their university teachings, are full of fervor and willing to risk burned bridges in favor of causes they deem righteous. The big bosses just don’t want a headline-making walkout on their hands, so they placate and mollify, eventually bending the company’s voice into language of righteousness.

…

All the guilt and atonement transference make for bad art. And so the ads suck. There’s no Machiavellian conspiracy behind the production. It’s just a combination of desperately wanting female market share and desperately wanting to move on from the publicized sins of a masculine past. So, to message its ambitions, the exhausted corporation leans on the employees with the loudest answers.

There’s a lot of interplay between Nike and Wieden+Kennedy when the former asks the latter for a type of ad, but the through line from both sides is a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Based on conversations with people who’ve worked in both environments, there’s a dearth of personnel who are deeply connected to sports. In place of a grounding in a subculture, you’re getting ideas from folks who went to nice colleges and trendy ad schools, the type of people who throw words like “patriarchy” at the screen to celebrate a gold medal victory. The older leaders, uneasy in their station and thus obsessed with looking cutting edge, lean on the younger types because the youth are confident. Unfortunately, that confidence is rooted in an ability to regurgitate liturgy, rather than generative genius. They’ve a mandate to replace a marred past, which they leap at, but they’re incapable of inventing a better future.

…

Ironically, Nike mattered a lot more in the days when its position was less dominant. Back when it had to really fight for market share, it made bold, genre-altering art. The ads were synonymous with masculine victory, plus they were cheekily irreverent. And so the dudes loved them. Today, Nike is something else. It LARPs as a grandiose feminist nonprofit as it floats aimlessly on the vessel Michael Jordan built long ago. Like Jordan himself, Nike is rich forever off what it can replicate never. Unlike Jordan, it now wishes to be known for anything but its triumphs. Nike once told a story and that story resonated with its audience. Now it’s decided that its audience is the problem. It wouldn’t shock you to learn that Carlos hated the new Nike ads I texted to him. His exact words were, “I don’t want fucking activism from a sweatshop monopoly.” He’ll still buy the gear, though, just not the narrative. Nike remains, but the story about itself has run out. Au revoir. 

[butterfly-winx]

Pixie info?

As in what they do in my AU?

Pixies are small magical creatures, residing on almost all inhabited planets, planetoids and moons. They spawn from pure magic, the Arcane Core of the settled planets themselves. Arcane Cores are a nexus of magic that form when magic is being used in a given area for a prolonged period of time - this can be done by humans, merfolk, centauri or even magifauna. Like Magifauna, pixies are tightly linked to their external magic core and as their are weak magic conduits, most of their might comes from the Arcane core itself. The Arcane cores grow in size and power with the increasing size and complexity of the civilisations that evoked it, pixies therefore have a vested interest in making it as intricate as possible by interacting and interfering with the system and its people.

Pixies form friendships and offer little trades and services with other beings, but they can also prove to be a nuisance when their mischievous vein strikes. None of it is meant in bad blood, creating drama and watching it enfold is a service after all fun and enriching their life and the life of their target.

Pixie expressions of emotions appear always at full force and overwhelming to their no-pixie conversation partners, jumping from one extreme to the next. But pixies are in fact able to feel all those things at the same time and are absolutely emotionally stable when measured with their own standards. Dealing with them requires a special kind of patience and mindset, splitting the rest of the  population into two: they are either able to deal with pixies or not. Pixies pick up on the clues being sent and will mostly leave people who are not receptive to them. (Mostly being unless this other person has given the pixie a reason to be angry or petty at them. Then the pixie will absolutely use all their might to annoy and inconvenience the person.)

Their permanent residence varies from planet to planet. Some pixie communities live in the deep forests and only interact with people passing through, others live in the bustle of large cities and have full employment contracts. Their appearance is quite varied as well, but generally they are very small, no taller than 15cm and their skin texture often resembles tree-bark. Magics pixies for example look most like leaf insects, but there are pixies with more moth or dragonfly-like qualities to them. They are born peachy soft and fuzzy, and their skin hardens as they age during their considerably long lifetime. Pixie gender is indeterminate until pixies reach a certain maturity and can express what gender and presentation they feel most comfortable with. 

Many pixies are born with the ability (and predestination) to bond with a magic user of another species, mostly of the society that caused the nexus to form that birthed them. This cosmic link ties the life of the pixie and their companion together: they are born on the same day, are meant to meet and bond recognising each other instantly, and they are meant to pass away on the same day as well for related or unrelated causes. 

Bonding increases the emotional resilience and processing power of both participants. In a back and forth of near-telepathic thought and emotion sharing the pixie and their bondmate can help each other overcome emotionally difficult situations, process trauma and grow as a person. 

Pixies usually don’t leave their home or village, but some do have the drive to explore. It is not rare that they later find out it was because their were meant to meet their bondmate that way. Pixies that don’t bond for one reason or another grow introverted and incomprehensible to outsiders who have no knowledge about pixie societies. They most definitely still lead full lives, but prefer solitude and traditions over keeping in touch with modern whims. They can even chose to turn off the Universal Translation Spell, that enables all beings in the Magical Universe to understand each other, at will and talk in pixie language only. This skill is unique to pixies, as no other species or being is as connected to the Arcane Cores as they are. (The Arcane Cores fuel/keep the spell up)

As they are guardians of arcane magic, they are a sought after bonding partner not only for the emotional aspect of the connection. The arcane aspect of magic is being used to craft charms, manipulate language and space and subspaces. - A prime example of this would be the Relix, which is  failed attempt at creating a subdimensional space just like the Golden Kingdom, which is a supradimensional one.- The pixie bond also gives a boost to the bondmate’s magic when using generic spells, eg. levitation, notice-me-not, or search spells, or creating new ones. Pixies in turn receive a small aspect specific magic boost.

Sorcery being a stream of magic already predisposed to generic spells and crafting, it is evident why a sorcerer/ess would want to find their bonded pixie. However while bonding is most beneficial to them, among human magic users it is actually most common for fey magic users to do so. Fairies and pixies share their love for pedantic rules, regulations and agreements - only to shamelessly exploit them when it fits them. The wordsmithing and the trading of favours that powers fey magic have struck a chord with pixies, so fairies have become welcome guests in their communities. Outdated an malicious sources claim it is also because pixies don’t understand the division of species and think of human fairies as overgrown pixie folk, which while have been long since debunked, still spread harmful stereotypes.

Pixies bonded to human magic users will remain bonded even if the magic user changes their magic stream. Superficially pixies are a bit vary of witchcraft users, but that doesn’t last long enough to put a wrench in the relationship with their bondmate should they switch to witchcraft. The same way not all pixies bond, not all magic users have predestined pixies to bond with. Non-magic beings, human, ogre, goblin or otherwise, have definitely no cosmic connection to them. Doesn’t mean they can’t become regular friends though.

Bonded pixies will continue to live in their communities, but will keep close contact with their bondmate. Sometimes moving together is impossible becase the bond partner is a merperson who lives underwater, sometimes the partners just chose not to.

When their life is over, pixies’ life force returns to the Arcane Core and they will be born again in a new form.

Each of the WInx girls’ bonded pixies still lives in the Enchanted forest of Magics. The fact that the Winx found their bondmates on a planet that is not their home means they are predestined to be of great service to the Magic Universe. This is not very common, and the last who did so were the Nymphs of Magics. Their pixies being from Magics is also the basis for the Winx’s permanent residence on the planet and why Magics was immediately eager to offer Bloom, Musa and Techna guardianship of the planet once their homes did not express the desire to do so. 

I hope this answers you “question”?

--

EDIT: Changed parts with terminology that had harmful connotations, sorry about that. Have added a lot more thoughts tho!

[shasta-reese]

so...just watched Tiger King

Initially wasn’t gonna watch it but literally saw the name everywhere and I caved to see what the hype was about. This is going to be an extremely long post since I will be giving my thoughts on the entire docu-series, so if you like reading thorough reviews, welcome but if not this ain’t for you. This won’t be in chronological order but just whatever comes to my mind first. 

After finishing it, naturally I went on social media to see what people opinions were. And I. Was Baffled. To see that some people are saying that Joe Exotic should be out of jail is fucking insane. Like yeah I could maybe see why people say he was framed and was kinda set up by Jeff Lowe for the murder-for-hire. But are people literally forgetting about the other charges he had like i don’t know ANIMAL ABUSE. Like come on people, okay fine people argue saying her never physically abuse them but it’s quite clear that he did not have proper enclosures for those animals. Tigers are largely solitary animals, and he placed multiple tigers into a single enclosure that was barely enough for one tiger. That is still a mistreatment of animals. 

And then we find out about the WalMart expired meat, which sure animal stomachs can handle some slightly expired meat sure but you cannot say that it’s right to feed them that. Let’s not forget that he was also using that meat to serve to people. 

Next up we have the obvious manipulation of his apparent husbands. I can’t say much for Dillon (the current husband). But it was so obvious that he was controlling Travis and John in some kind of way. They were both so young and addicted to drugs and Joe clearly saw that as an opportunity, and basically kept them from leaving by giving them gifts and drugs. 

Just the entire tiger breeding part was just hard to watch for me. They literally show us that Joe took a newborn tiger from its mother. HOW ARE THERE NOT MORE PEOPLE UPSET THAT HE RIPPED CUBS FROM THEIR MOTHER MINUTES AFTER BIRTH! Yes, tigers are endangered. Yes, they should breed to be able to keep the species alive. BUT Joe exotic is not qualified and does not have the knowledge of proper animal conservation to be breeding tigers! He is breeding them to make a profit by cub petting, and selling them to be pets (which they are not).

I personally cannot find any redeemable qualities in Joe Exotic. Maybe he did actually care for the animals and truly loves animals but he got too caught up in the money and fame, completely throwing what he initially wanted to do. And to his credit he did have a moment of self-awareness when he was talking about the chimpanzees that were relocated. But even then he still did what he did and now he’s paying the price. He also made his mother sign documents that she didn’t even know what the contents were and got her dragged into his legal messes which is just fucked up.

I don’t think it’s possible for me to put every single thought I have into one post so I’ll try to give a brief summary of the main characters at least.

Jeff Lowe is an obvious con artist that scams people into thinking he has money but clearly doesn’t. He is absolute scum. yeah just scum. Just seeing his face just makes me wanna punch him. He has a very punchable face.

Antle is somehow worse that almost everyone in this entire thing. and i think the worse thing is that he is still getting away with all the shit he’s done/doing. Just listening to what that girl that escaped all that makes me sick that someone can do this. He’s literally breeding hybrids, that in itself is unethical, so fuck him. He’s literally leading a cult.

Carole Baskin. She’s clearly a flawed person and she definitely had something to do with her ex-husbands disappearance. Based on evidence or lack thereof, can’t say she killed him but she definitely knows more than we think. I dislike her in that she involved Big Cat Rescue into a personal feud. I will also say that she is a petty bitch. She’s not as bad as the others in terms of treatment to animals but still bad.

Big Cat Rescue (BCR) as an organisation is legit and should not be dragged down just because the founder has some shady personal stuff. Big Cat Rescue is quite open with how their facility is run, from their YouTube videos it shows clearly that the enclosures are way bigger than what they tried to portray in the docuseries. What was shown in the doc was only a small part of their enclosure where they feed the big cats. They offer a large area, hiding spots, shade, a pool for the tigers, and regular enrichment for their big cats. They rescue their big cats from abusive and neglected environments. And I am saying this for the people who keep claiming that BCR is doing the exact same thing as Joe or Antle, and that they’re keeping animals in cages too. Well, where else are we supposed to put them? CAPTIVE BRED ANIMALS CANNOT BE RELEASED INTO THE WILD! THEY WILL NOT SURVIVE! Literally all these people saying that these animals shouldn’t be in cages, and I agree but what so you propose we do with them? Leave them in the care of private owners who only got them because they were cute as a cub or as an ego boost to say “OhHh i OwN a TiGeR” and clearly don’t see that they are inadequate to be keeping a fucking tiger? Leave them in an environment where their basic needs are not met? Sanctuaries missions are to rescue these animals, their ultimate mission is to rescue these animals until there are no more privately owned exotic animals to be saved, give them a place of peace to live the remainders of their days and have empty cages. I cannot say anything about the treatment of the workers (because I didn’t see any solid sources saying they don’t pay their workers) but from what i gathered they do have some permanent staff but majority are volunteers (which by definition is someone who works without being paid, because its volunteer work), but I will say that BCR provides for their animals with the best of their abilities.

Holy shit... just ...when I watched the first episode I already didn’t want to continue because of the blatant disregard of animal welfare. But I watched the whole thing anyway to get a proper opinion instead of basing off of only one episode. On a slightly lighter note, I really liked Saff, he was one of the only people I liked. The dude with no legs (sorry can’t remember his name). And also Joshua Dial the campaign manager, like dude was nice, its just so tragic that he witnessed Travis shooting himself, hope the dude is going to therapy for that. RIP Travis Maldonado. Like they said in the end, nobody won and definitely not the animals, they suffered the most out of all of this.

I think that’s all off the top of my head that I have to say for now. Leave a reply if I missed out on anything. At the end of the day this is just my opinion, obviously we all have different opinions. So feel free to leave your opinion but I only want to have a civil discussion and don’t have the energy to argue with anyone. Guess that’s all.

Goodbye, for now

[mallowbees]

i dont know much about TMA but ,, could you tell me a bit about avatars? I want to make a sona really bad because they look so cool haha

Oh heck YEAH I can!!

Right so!! Avatars are people who have had experiences with or behavior that aligned with one of the 14(15 kinda?) fear entities and end up serving them!! Throwing people to their, for lack of better words, god, to feed off of their fears and occasionally try to kick of rituals to make their god strong and getting some sweet powers as a reward!

!! It’s gonna be kinda hard to avoid spoilers with explaining this, so I’ll try to keep it to the minimum but some spoilers for avatar people’s stuff :’D !!

The 14 are as follows (I’m just gonna snag most of this from the wiki but anything not in italics is me):

The Burried :

Also called The Center, Choke, Too Close I Cannot Breathe.

The fear of claustrophobia, small spaces, of being unable to breathe and the underground and dust. Being at the centre of everything and it is all pushing down. Fear of being trapped without enough space.

Notable avatar person I can think of is 18th centry guy who worked in a grave yard and would nap in the graves cause it was quiet and when they installed bells incase someone was actually alive when they burried them they could ring it, so someone rang it and he cut the line because he thought they were nice and deserved to sleep, also early episode lost johns cave is a good example but doesnt have an avatar in it so hfgh

The Corruption :

Also called Filth, The Crawling Rot, or The Hive.

This entity is linked closely to our feelings of disgust, of feeling revulsion and fear of corruption, disease, filth. Manifests as mould, bugs, rot, decay, infection. The feeling of your skin crawling.

Jane Prentiss, she wanted to be loved and found love in a bunch of worms in a wasp nest in her attic, so she became their hive, she loves her worms and her worms love her, they sing

Also other guy I genuinely don't know his name he just made everyone sick at that retirement home with disease and hung out at hill top road a few times, got sealed in concrete and he always looked like he was skin and slightly rotting

The Dark :

Also called Mr. Pitch, The Forever Blind, The Sandman

A manifestation of our very primal fear of the dark, of what lies beyond what we can sense. What might be in it?

One of the oldest of the Entities.

Uhh cult kidnapped that one kid i think that was them, i dont know who the dark avatar is actually

The Desolation :

Also called The Lightless Flame, The Torturing Flame, The Devastation, Blackened Earth.

This entity deals in fear of pain, of loss, burning, fear of unthinking or cruel destruction.

Acolytes are enriched by destroying the lives of people who had things to live for, destroying things before their potential is realised. In exchange, the cult members can create heat--but not fire--and gain the ability to make their skin run like wax.

They burn from the inside and consume everything in flames, Jude Perry and Agnes Montague are the two i know, Agnes was born into it and died because of forbidden love and Jude set her girlfriends flat on fire so hgfhfg

The End :

Also called Death, Terminus, The Coming End That Waits For All And Cannot Be Ignored.

This entity deals in the fear of death itself, uncaring and unstoppable.

No known attempts at a ritual, presumably because it sees no need to, as Death claims all in the end.

Oliver Banks!! Had dreams of strings that tied people to their deaths, actual rational avatar, also didnt ask for this but he does pretty well. Also commited identity fraud

The Eye :

Also called Beholding, The Watcher, The Ceaseless Watcher, It Knows You.

This entity is fear of being watched, exposed, followed, of having secrets known, but also the drive to know and understand, even if your discoveries might destroy you. Fear that you’re suffering for the sake of something watching.

Elias!! Horrible man!! Can body hop! Just wants to watch the drama unfold and get more power. Knows lots of things and compulsion ! Also Jon because he reckless curiosity kinda screwed him over there and yeah. And that one security guy who got consumed by a watcher lietner watching other people via security camera, rip that guy

The Flesh :

Also called Viscera.

Born from the fear of animals bred for meat, and in the human realisation that we are just animated meat and bones.

Manifests as strange bodies being twisted, reshaped, and butchered.

Thought to be the newest of the 14, born around the time of the Industrial Revolution

Jared Hopworth! Got a Lietner, runs a gym to change bodies into what people want until they're practically not human anymore, likes most bones if they're good bones

The Hunt :

Hunting and chase and violence, this is an animalistic fear, very old and primal. Fear of being hunted, being prey.

Less able to affect people due to our self-removal from the food chain. Self-proclaimed monster hunters (and those who do the same without referring to themselves as such) run a strong chance of becoming Hunters and then having a need to hunt and kill monsters.

Daisy! Things get kinda messed up when you combine non-human impulses with a person so! Murder! violence!

The Lonely :

Also called Forsaken, The One Alone The fear of isolation, of being completely cut off and alone. Fear of being disconnected.

Peter lukas, Martin, grew up lonely and shunned idk what you expected, can literally vanish, cool aethetic- Also that one girl who married one of the lukas’, nayomi? But she wasnt an avatar just with one

The Slaughter :

This entity feeds off of pure, unpredictable, unmotivated violence. Strong ties to war. Fear of not knowing, where, when, how or if pain will come but that it will. Can be violent like a frenzied killer or calm and regimented like soldiers firing on the battlefield.

Melanie! Anger! Murder! Stabby stab! Justificated feeling that your anger is right!

The Spiral :

Also called Es Mentiras, It Is Lies, The Twisting Deceit, It Is Not What It Is.

This entity is fear of madness, of being lost, that your world is wrong, that your mind is lying to you. It deals with deception, lying, deceiving the mind and senses.

Michael! Helen! I don’t,, really know what to say on this one hgfhfg

The Stranger :

Also called I Do Not Know You.

Fear of the unknown. That creeping sense that something isn’t right. Also of unfamiliar people. Manifests as objects pretending to be humans, like mannequins and taxidermied people.

Theyre not people they arent who they arE

The Vast :

Also called The Falling Titan.

This entity deals in our fear of our own insignificance in this universe, of losing yourself in too much space. Its effects involve void, vertigo, and falling, but also anything to do with openness and open spaces, fears like Agoraphobia, fear of deep water.

Simon fairchild is honest to god just vibing hes having so much fun also reeeally long lifespan he likes watching people fall off this and falling off himelf, also mike crew who didnt ask for this but just kinda ended up there anyway cause he got struck by lightning on a hill and got a book

The Web :

Also called The Spider, Mother of Puppets.

Deals with fear of being controlled, entrapped, being trapped and not knowing it, and your will not being your own, of being manipulated. Manifests as spiders and spider webs and patterns like spider webs.

The Extiction :

Also called The Terrible Change, The Future Without Us, The World Is Always Ending

The 15th Entity hypothesized by Adelard Dekker to be currently emerging. 

It is not yet confirmed to actually exist, if it is yet to be officially born, or if it is a combination of other powers and their overlap. It deals with the fear of catastrophic change, the destruction of humanity and its replacement by something different, especially via mankind's own causing.

Man-made elements are one of its hallmarks.

Avatars of other Entities would like to prevent it from emerging if possible.

Nobody on this one yet but yeah!!

So!! Usually it’s either the thing you are scared of embraces you and flips your behavior on its head, (Scared of being alone? Make other people alone! Scared of falling? Make other people fall!) Or something you like vibe with embraces and justifies you even if it scares you (Want to know?? Huh?? Buddy? Wanna Know? Or you just want some love? Get u some worms) Like if your experiences fall under one of the categories you probably go there if you’re not afraid of it, or if something happens and you’re terrified of it but not dead you’ll probably end up there hfhghgfh

Oh also here’s a what entity are you quiz if that helps ghfhfgh: https://uquiz.com/quiz/zxE9GQ/which-tma-entity-are-you-aligned-with?embed=False

Basically, does it scare you a little? Does it vibe with you a bit? There you go! You have an entity now! Have fun! HFGhfh