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boke---hinata---boke · 3 years

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HP headcannon

TW: A shit load of reading. tears, and feels, lots of them. Also this was inspired by the sentence in bold which I was going to use in my standardized test writing section. And this makes no sense chronologically (im adhd af alright.)

Voting is important because if there was a vote then Sirius Black wouldn’t have spent 12 worthless years in Azkaban and harry wouldn’t have been raised in an abusive household rather with wolfstar dadfoot and mommy.

Harry would’ve known all about the marauders and by the time he enters Hogwarts he knows all the secret passages and where to find the map. He also knows where to hide from Filtch, prefects doing their rounds and teachers. Harry has long since been an animagus. He would’ve entered knowing all about his parents (siriusly all about them, good and the bad.) he would have entered being a pranking god and reusing some of his dads old tricks. Every time Harry pranks he gets a howler from Sirius about how proud he in which sirius proceeds to flirt w Dumbledore, gossip w Minnie, tell Draco to tell his dad that he’s a bitch, also tell Draco that if he doesn’t stay over for christmas he will have to listen to Sirius sending a howler everyday of him singing, and then Sirius going on to roast tf outta snivellus and properly cuss him out (he also adds in some hair flips and talks ab how supperior he is.) Harry 100% would call minerva Minnie and Minnie would be like a grandma who visited a l l t h e t I m e. He would be a flying god by the time he enters Hogwarts and is immediately on the team (Sirius likes to credit himself but we all know it was Minnies excellent coaching.) In first year when he has to get the sorcerers stone he roasts tf outta voldy “I thought a bitch who couldn’t kill a fucking baby said sum,” “no literally mate you coulda just thrown me out the window but noooo,” “don’t talk to me till you get a nose you fuckin wanker.” Harry would’ve flirted with Dumbledore to get out of detentions. Harry would’ve grown up hearing stories about Regulas and about Sirius’s family and how he was brought up. Instead of shutting down Malfoy he would’ve frickin adopted him and they would be bffs; as close as Sirius and James. Malfoy would 100% join in on pranks and plan some of them but he would never get caught. Harry hating Lockhart and cONSTANTLY pranking him (almost as much as he pranks snivey) Harry constantly reminding him of how his uncles repeatedly outranked him for the hottest wizard award. When Harry is sorted he would’ve been a MAJOR hat stall because the hat would really push for him to be in his true house *cough cough slytherin* but harry doesn’t want to leave Malfoy, he also doesn’t want to leave Minnie nor does he want to leave his parents house (and uncles) and most of all, he doesn’t want ANYTHING to do with Snape. Instead he meets Ron and Mione in the house and introduces them to Draco, at first Draco really doesn’t like them but once he starts to know them he questions his families teaching (silently of course) and decides he doesn’t want to be like them. Harry being bffs with Nott, Zabini and Pansy (they were all actually crucial in the taking down of the dark lord. When Harry hangs out with them it's just all sass and sarcasm and dark jokes (the number of people they have SCARRED). Draco and Mione being the only responsible ones and help them study all the time. Draco and Harry never sitting separately and if they do they always find some other way to communicate. Draco and Harry sitting at each others house tables ALL THE TIME and it really pisses Snape off (that may or may not be why they do it.) Draco hating Snape with a passion and yelling at him whenever he’s mean to Mione. All four of them having nicknames for each other. Draco and Mione came up w a playbook together with long elaborate shit like “initiate Page 387 paragraph 4 up section 3 clause 12.” Draco and Mione tying for first every year. God help everyone when they start to compare owls. TH E S L E E P O V E R S. All of them spending so much time in the kitchens. Draco is soooo nice to house elves because of that and actually co-founds S.P.E.W. Draco and his Slytherin friends sleeping in the Gryffindor common rooms because the password is too bigoted and they refuse to say it. The golden trio promptly begins to help, Mione looks for a spell to reverse it, Harry and Ron forcefully trying to remove the portrait meanwhile Neville brings snacks, blankets and says that they did a good job (Neville also being the one the Slytherins go to when they feel bad because of blood supremacy, Neville promptly reminding them that the fact that you feel bad and refuse it shows how good you truly are.) All of them are Neville defence squad and Neville supremacy 100%. They all repeatedly tell him how they would die for him. Draco hating Bellatrix for what he did to Neville. Draco and Harry immediately trade schedules to see what classes they share and swapping common room passwords. Draco is actually an heir of Slytherin but they all know its not him doing the attacks. Draco being with Harry in the chamber and trying his best to call off the basilisk while also telling Tom how he disgraces the Slytherin name. Draco being so nice to muggle-borns and creates a club where he helps them adjust to the Wizarding World (Sirius hears and promptly send sweets and howlers about how proud he is saying “I knew he was good oh you Lucius spawn you I’m so proud.”) Draco being really happy because Sirius knows that the Sacred 28 families look down upon affection so he doesn’t get told this by his parents. Sirius dotes on Draco always giving him affection because of this. The first time it happened Draco was like “what is this” and the golden trio’s heart broke, from then on they always display physical affection to him, hand holding, hugs forehead kisses, pet names you name it.) Draco also crying a lot because it’s the first time he’s had this since he was like 2 and doesn’t think he deserves it because of how his parents are. Draco threatening anyone who says shit about any of them and the four being as close as the marauders (so much so that all the teachers have flashbacks and ptsd from all the pranks.) Harry H A T I N G Snape for all the shit he did and calling him snivellus. Sirius hears and cries because he’s so fucking proud. Harry having to be held back from tackling Snape anytime he makes a lily reference. God have mercy for anyone who was unfortunate enough to be there when he saw snapes patronus because “it’s not love you nazi bitch! you fucking betrayed her and then got all but hurt you stalker esque bitch.” Remus literally keeping Sirius 100% in the loop when he is dada teacher man knows everything going on. Harry going to Hogsmade only to see Sirius “coincidentally” there. Sirius and Draco actually having a lot in common and Sirius completely loves the kid like wtf he’s Malfoy blood I have to hate him. When Voldey returns Draco beating up anyone who calls Harry a liar. Draco working as a spy for the order and doing little undetected acts of rebellion to help Harry. Instead of outright trying to be disowned Draco just uses everything to his advantage and is on the umbitch (Draco came up w the name) too spy yet again and healing anyone who had to use the fucking quill. In seventh year Draco and Neville begin to really work together and really like each other (platonically though) but god they are so FUCKING SARCASTIC WHEN THEY’RE TOGETHER. Draco teaching Occulmency and how to pretend like you're being Cruciod. Draco and Neville being actual besties. At the battle of Hogwarts Draco saving both Sirius and Remus and calls them both dad (they both teared up a LOT.) In the battle of Hogwarts Sirius shows up and fuckin runs over voldy w his motorcycle, Sirius also bringing a machine gun and going insane. Draco ends up killing nagini and his aunt. Draco also being known as a savior.

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the-two-headed-deer-survived · 4 years

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The 12 Clans vs Ark Station: Nuance

I’m honestly not fond of grounders as a whole or their society, and basically this is to explain where a lot of that stems from.

So, basically this “essay” is going to compare the society of the 12 Clans (grounders)* to that of the Ark Station. The worldbuilding around the ark station is complex; everything surrounding the grounder’s culture boils down to violence or revenge.

The Citizens of the Ark:

The society and government of the Ark were deeply flawed: its one child policy, classism, “all crimes are capital crimes”, teenaged criminals are basically kept on death row for months or years until they can be executed, its willingness to sacrifice the few for the sake of the many. But we see aspects of their culture beyond that; I’m not even arguing that they’re redeeming characteristics, just that the worldbuilding is nuanced and the society doesn’t seem completely awful.

Democracy

The Ark has a functioning democracy. Former Chancellor Sidney was voted out of power, so Chancellor is not a position held for life and the Ark’s democracy is functional enough that Chancellors can be voted out by the people

The fact that theoretically the people of the Ark could vote in a Chancellor whose campaign centered on say, repealing the one child policy (or at the very least, pardoning anyone who breaks it); idk it just adds nuance to me that the people have power and that at least many of them support the Ark’s draconian policies- it’s not all the government being tyrannical

They have very limited resources and thus everyone’s use of resources is limited- even the Chancellors

As we see from early season 1 after Jaha is shot, everyone- including the Chancellor, the most powerful person on the Ark- has a “legal limit” on the amount of blood and other medical resources that doctors are allowed to give them. The fact that there’s at least some equality in their harsh system

Religion

We see some of a religious service held by Vera Kane, and we see how their religion centers around the small tree they have, which followers water with drops of their own water

(And we see Nygel dismiss this as “a waste of water”; like in real life, not everyone is religious)

The Traveller’s Blessing, which we see used as funeral rites

I think it’s interesting the insights you can take from it- “until our final journey to the ground” echoes Clarke’s “man can go home, back to the ground. The ground, that's the dream”; I get a sense they as a society long to go “home” to the ground, viewing the Ark as almost a liminal place

Unity Day

We see one of their holidays- Unity Day, as well how they celebrate it- we see both a Unity Day pageant and a Unity Day masquerade dance

Unity Day celebrates the founding of the Ark, and their Unity Day story told in the pageant gives some insight into their values (”they realized life would be better together“) and thus their culture

Chess

In a flashback, we see Clarke and Wells playing chess in a rec room surrounded by other people playing chess. So, we get at least a small glimse at what the people of the Ark do for fun

The black market

This one isn’t necessarily a positive, but through Nygel (and Raven trying to buy a pressure regulator from her) we see some of the common people subverting the laws of the Council; the people aren’t powerless. (And it makes it feel more like a real society).

Plus, Abby states that “Kane’s been trying to get [Nygel] for years”, indicating that their justice system requires at least some proof

Education

Obviously, the people of the Ark have an education system/have been educated, but I feel like it’s important to note that they’re passing down information beyond what’s necessary for survival- Bellamy’s numerous references to the greeks/romans, Monty knew Korean, Bellamy and Clarke know about Oppenheimer, Clarke was probably taught by someone how to draw, etc.

Yes, the Ark has a class problem, but everyone gets an education

Well’s quote: “ It's called cutting sign. Fourth-year earth skills”; we get a glimpse into their education system

There’s probably more, but you can see how the Ark feels like a real society with a flesh-out culture; with both good and bad elements.

The 12 Clans:

Really, my main issue with grounder culture is how everything stems back to violence and revenge, and how highly violence and revenge is held. There are the obvious, of course: Jasper the unarmed teenager is speared for crossing a river, Anya reacts to the flare killing Trikru villagers by attacking barely armed teenagers in the woods and then deciding to wipe out all 100 of the teenagers, “death by a 1000 cuts”, the fact that Finn’s execution was supposed to start with fire, Lexa reacts to Skaikru killing army of Trikru soliders (so from the same people that only months ago tried to wipe out the 100) by declaring that she’ll wipe out Skaikru (despite the fact that she knows that had lost that challenge/duel only days ago, that same army would’ve been used by Ontari to wipe out Skaikru). There’s more (so much more) but I’ll stop there.

And like, this would be one thing if the grounders had a culture outside of violence and revenge. Or valued other things besides how good people at fighting. But we don’t see that at all. Every worldbuilding element stems back to violence.

“Your fight is over”

Even their funeral rites tie back to violence; peoples’ lives are defined by fighting and wars, and the only way to escape is to die

The Commander

The Commander is a tyrant who can murder ambassadors- and thus, presumably anyone- without consequence (see Lexa and that guy she kicked off the tower for questioning her)

Religion

So mid season 3, we start learning about grounder’s beliefs (Becca, the inifity sign as the sacred symbol, praimfaya), but surprise! it’s all about violence after all

Who gets the Flame (which is basically the be all and end all of their religion) is decided by a conclave aka children fighting to the death

That’s the cornerstone of their religion (and also their political system- fun); children fighting each other to the death

Fleimkepas- the priests basically- go around kidnapping nightblood children from their parents and then the head fleimkepa raises them to kill each other when the time comes

(Yes, I’m sure some parents voluntarily gave their nightblood children up, but Madi’s parents felt the need to hide her from fleimkepas, meaning they take nightblood children with or without their parents’ consent)

“Love is weakness”

This really tells you a lot about their values, doesn’t it

“A warrior does not mourn until the fight is over”

War > love/family/personal connections

Children train from a young age to be warriors, and are sent into battle as young teenagers

Infants with mutations are left out to die as “a stain on the bloodline”

Wanheda

You gain power from your kills

Kill marks

Language

Even the language, trigedasleng, (per word of god) was supposed to have started out as a code language used by the warriors (which makes no sense, as it’s also the universal language of the 12 clans now, but I digress) (sidenote: this might now longer be true now that we know the language was created by Callie)

Only the warriors speak English (which also makes no sense because trigedasleng is the universal grounder language why do the warriors need to know English at all, but that’s canon, Lincoln said it early season 2), which might indicate the warriors get better education (or more likely is just bad worldbuilding)

All the leaders are warriors

The tattoos/facial scarring

They’re used to distinguish the clans, but as we recently learned in season 7, that the meaning behind them (for Azgeda, at least) is that they’re ready to go to war

And like, even if it was just to signify membership in your clan, given how the clans seem to be constantly at war, it almost seems like just a way to identify “us vs. them” (see: Echo, as an Azgeda spy, didn’t have any facial scars or tattoos)

Medicine

Most of what we know about their knowledge of medicine/biology is from how they use ‘medicine’ for war: Lincoln’s poisons and antidotes, trikru’s use of biological warfare in season 1

The clothing

You cannot convince me that the Grounder Look (all the black leather that they wear) is not just for the Badass Warrior Aesthetic TM

To be fair they do burn their dead, occasionally name people after local pre-apocalpyse landmarks, and have clan symbols. But really isn’t enough worldbuilding-wise.

So, violence surrounds almost every aspect of their culture and thus it does not seem real or anything but irredeemably awful.

And yeah, it’s really the fault writers’ and I applaud fanfic writers who try to create some sort of actual culture for the grounders but like this is what we canonically have and thus, grounder society annoys me.

*I’m excluding Luna and her people from this; they were explicitly described as trying to get away from the 12 Clans/the Commander’s Coalition and its wars and culture of violence

#the 100 #the 100 meta #anti grounders #the ark station #mine #my thoughts

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danceworshipper · 3 years

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Olympian Aesthetics

I meant to do this a few days ago but after I had it done tumblr said "no ❤️" and deleted the whole thing and I couldn't bring myself to redo it until now

Tagged by @carewyncromwell and @amerrymystery thank you!! Tagging @weirdcursedvaultkid @weasleysandwheezes (idk if either of you like these sorts of things but hey) and anyone else who would like to do this! I'm going to do all of my Hogwarts Legacy kids (Ann/Lynn, Ida, Sebastien, and Dorian) since I need to develop them more

Ann/Lynn Smith

(As there are technically two of them, Ann will be bold and Lynn will be italics)

Ida Sommer

Sebastien Parr

Dorian Lenards

#hogwarts legacy #hphl #ann smith #lynn smith #ida sommer #sebastien parr #dorian lenards #olympian aesthetics

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ask-de-writer · 4 years

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CAPTURED BY THE CLANS : Part 10 of 10 : Science Fiction

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CAPTURED BY THE CLANS

Part 10 of 10

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

18231 words

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Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

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New to the story? Read from the beginning. Part 1 is HERE.

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All of the Feront creatures, T’cass and Lezon piled into the Feront shuttle and quickly became a vanishing speck in the sky.

The salesperson shook her head and asked, “What makes that pair so special? I’ve never heard of anything like that. What do they play at?”

Wryly, K’ress said, “Computerized space battle simulations, virtual reality hand to hand combat, even board games. As far as I know, they are the only ones that the Feront plays with.”

Shaking her head, the salesperson commented, “It’s hard to imagine that thing playing. There’s two city ships of it up there with enough fire power to knock out a battle fleet and it’s still one thing. I can’t imagine it.”

Six hours later, tanks filled with water for reaction mass, the D’ancer was ready to launch. Beside the crew ladder M’rel calmly and K’ress impatiently waited for the Feront shuttle to land. It was so silent in its approach that it took both of them by surprise.

They found the explanation for that when the canopy lifted and they saw Lezon dismounting from the pilot’s saddle. K’ress overheard her explaining, “. . . and that’s how you can avoid detection without any fancy equipment.”

The Feront replied, “Was that how you separated me in the Contact/Conflict?”

“In part. I used some other tricks, too.”

As she and T’cass joined their friends at the foot of the ladder, K’ress couldn’t resist asking, “Does the Port know that the shuttle has come down?”

With a feral grin, Lezon replied, “They do now! T’cass notified the Control Bunker once we were on the ground. Let’s get going before they figure out that it was us!”

In the control room, M’rel asked, “Do you know how to lift this leaky tachyon bucket, T’cass?”

Finished strapping into her crash couch, T’cass replied cheerfully, “Nope.” She gestured at Lezon, who was already setting up the launch sequence in the computer, “She does, though. If anyone can get this thing up, its Lezon.”

T’cass settled deep into her crash couch and serenely shut her eyes, gone into the calm retreat of a Warrior’s Way Meditation.

K’ress noted wryly, “That’s one hell of vote of confidence. Is there anything that I can do, Lezon?”

“Yes,” was the prompt reply. “Take the couch just to the left of mine. It’s engineering. I want you to monitor the pump pressure. We need at least four hundred kg/cm^2 all the time. We can run as high as six. If any pump falls below four, make it up with raised pressure in the ones that are left. Also, keep an eye on the power capsule. We need a steady twelve meg output.”

Lezon turned to M’rel and said respectfully, “Ma’am, you know how the Comm panel works. Strap in there and raise the Control Bunker. Let them know that we are ready to lift, per certificate T.C. 404-GT76. Warn them to clear the area because we are using a reaction drive. We need a totally clear traffic lane because, after launch commit, we cannot maneuver away from our ballistic course.”

M’rel sat and secured her safety harness. She reached out and activated the Comm. Smiling her best professional smile, M’rel stated, “Hello, Control. This is D’ancer, T.C.404-GT76. We request clearance to lift. We are on reaction drives with inertial assist. We need a totally clear traffic lane to orbit, as we cannot deviate once we commit. Be sure the pad zone is clear. This thing has a hot exhaust.”

A grizzled veteran with scars visible through her mane, replied, “This is Control. The notion that you are actually taking up that hundred and fifty year old antique has drawn news flitters and a camera crew on the ground. They have set up at the north side of your pad. Watch out for the flitters. You can lift at will.”

M’rel replied tartly, “Oh good! I’ll get a lot of work out of this lift off! I’m a reconstructive medical specialist, you know. I’ve had to be doing Barbeque Cats from the War. Those news tapers will make well paid private work at last!

“Um, the rest of the crew just said that we’ll give them twenty minutes to notify their next of kin or clear out to at least 800 meters. Let the news flitters know that the wake and exhaust of something this big, driven by reaction engines, will splash them all over the field if they get closer than 900 meters.”

Control actually grinned and said, “I like your style. I made them listen to the clearance chatter. You just warned them. They have twenty minutes to get clear. I wish that you could see it. They’re scrambling like ants when you turn over a rock. One of the flitters is actually moving in for a close up. I just sent them a canned get-clear warning.”

K’ress was running engineering checks on the ancient systems, familiarizing herself with them. Lezon joined T’cass in meditation. At four minutes to lift, both Lezon and T’cass came fully alert.

Lezon smiled approvingly at K’ress and said, “I see that you spent your time well.”

“Thank-you,” K’ress replied. “The drive is preheated and the pumps are up to pressure. That old capsule is working better than I hoped.”

M’rel called Control again. “Time is up. Lift Commit is initiated. Engine core is coming up to operational heat. Reaction mass pumps are on line. Call you from orbit!”

Enormous box shaped air scoops opened out from the sides of the tall, ancient, winged projectile-like vehicle. Steam began to blast out around the base of the ship. A moment later, the steam turned to a screaming, almost totally transparent blue-white glare of flame. The D’ancer, nearly as tall, if far less massive than a military Siege Ship, lifted smoothly, appearing to barely move at first. Suddenly gathering way she leaped straight up into the sky. The concrete pad where she had been sitting was cooling and cracking off glazed bits of fused, glassy blast scar.

One reckless news flitter did get caught in the supersonic wake of the monster that was screaming past on its way out of the atmosphere. Luckily the flitter’s pilot had fast reflexes and they recovered control a good seven meters above the ground.

The D’ancer rolled out at 15.5 kilometers and began to accelerate even more. She was eating all the air that the scoops could grab for free reaction mass along with the water that she carried. Besides speed, the D’ancer was gaining altitude, running ahead of a big plume of vapor. She continued to climb, coasting on inertia now. The antique engines had shut down exactly on their mark. On a shallow angle, the D’ancer rose up to a low orbit.

Lezon checked her course and made a low acceleration correction to regularize the orbit. There was no onboard artificial gravity. It was hard to realize that something so basic hadn’t even been invented when the D’ancer was built. Everyone was experiencing the sensation of free-fall. Lezon and T’cass were moving about the D’ancer with practiced ease. Small combat ships didn’t waste energy on artificial gravity either, so both were familiar with the feeling. K’ress, as an engineer, was at least used to it. M’rel was quietly curled around her tummy, being miserable.

While Lezon and T’cass were busy, K’ress noticed a ship approaching, matching their orbit. She hit the intercom and her voice rang out through the ship, “We have company! Intercept in fifteen minutes.”

The Feront activated the visual communicator. Several reptilian heads scanned about, focusing on Lezon and T’cass. “My friends! It is good to see your entities again so soon.

“You fulfilled your promise to come and bring your ship to me for salvage and refit. I will carry out my promises as well. While I work on your vessel, we can play! This time, I believe that my strategy will prevail!”

M’rel opened one eye and stared balefully at the others, cheerfully chattering away and said, “I have two questions. One, does this feeling of nausea ever actually get better? Two, why is the Feront always saying that it thinks that it will beat you?”

T’cass responded, “You will get used to the free-fall soon enough. Just orient by eye and forget about your ears.

“As for the Feront, it’s simply being utterly honest. It does think that it may beat us and says so. It’s right about twenty percent of the time, too. It enjoys playing and doesn’t get the chance very often.”

Just then, the Feront chimed in on the communicator, “I will be using a gravitational grapple to remove your vessel to the working and salvage area. Please secure. Down will face my vessel.”

Lezon looked sympathetically at M’rel and requested, “This vessel was designed for gravity along the line of thrust. Could you orient your tow that way for the comfort of one of ours?”

The polyphonic voice replied, “Certainly, friend Lezon. Field is now building.” Gently up and down returned.

K’ress brought M’rel an antinausiant. M’rel sipped gently and remarked, “Someday, somebody will invent something to stop stomach heaves that doesn’t need to go into a stomach that already can’t hold it.” She smiled wanly. “I like the Feront already, just for being considerate.”

“It can be, when it wants to be,” acknowledged Lezon, “but if you are going to deal with the Feront you need to understand that it will often not think of you at all. Remember, it has been a single thing and living in space craft for at least four million standard years. In all of that time, it had never encountered another intelligent entity that it recognized as such. As a result, it has only a little experience in dealing with others that are not itself.”

M’rel nodded, interested and focusing on something besides her now subsiding nausea. “I see. How can it stay one thing over interstellar distances? Does its mind have a faster than light way to communicate?”

Lezon answered, “That is best demonstrated. Pour some water into a drinking bowl and get a second bowl.”

Mystified, M’rel did as asked. Lezon took the bowl with the water and said, “This is the Feront.” She poured some into the empty bowl. “This is still the Feront, only now it is in two parts.” Pouring the two back together, she added, “Now, the Feront is one thing again. So far as it knows, it was never two. Both the separation and the merging are not conscious actions and are totally without trauma. There is a particular distance at which it simply separates or merges, that’s all.”

M’rel shivered all over at the thought. “The universe is strange,” she quoted from a Clan Precept.

Lezon surprised her by finishing, “And in that very strangeness lies all of the riches of life.”

“You know the Precepts?” M’rel questioned.

T’cass cut in, “Of course. How can you understand a conflict if you do not grasp all sides of it?”

K’ress put in, “You mean something like knowing your enemy?”

Easily, Lezon replied, “Yes, but that is very incomplete. All of life is conflict, even friendship is the management of conflict. Thus, you must understand all that you can of everything about you if you are to manage the conflict to the best good of all.”

“What about your enemies? Do you consider them?” K’ress asked sarcastically. She was not prepared for the answer that she got.

“Of course. Their lives are as valuable as your own. Otherwise, the conflict has no value or meaning at all. As soon as the armed portion of the conflict is over for them, they must be protected.”

K’ress snorted at that and retorted, “What about the crew of the signal laser at K’stall? That was knocked out and helpless. A cruiser wiped them out later.”

“Right,” agreed T’cass. “And after the battle, War Leader Lezon sent the captain home to M’cratt in disgrace. The Empress Triad ordered the captain executed for violation of the Warrior’s Way. We heard about it on the Strategy Board.”

About then, the Feront came onto the communicator. “I have brought you to the place of work. It will be best if you come into my vessel while I work on yours. Your input will be desirable from time to time in regard to the life support system and its amenities.”

During the refit, M’rel and K’ress shivered and stayed close in their quarters. The Feront liked cold places, arctic regions and ice worlds. Its idea of warm was still more than a bit cool.

T’cass and Lezon didn’t seem to notice. They went scampering off with Feront in tow. There were games to play and mock combats to enjoy. They showed up irregularly for meals and to cuddle up in a warm fur pile to sleep.

The Feront always seemed to have time for its guests. It courteously answered any questions except for ones relating to how the big city ship worked. The Feront would only say that the fusion system that drove it operated on a different principle than the ones used by either the Clans or M’cratti.

K’ress and M’rel spent a good deal of time going over the details of their ship’s refit. Doing so revealed that both T’cass and Lezon had ideas about creature comfort that were at odds with their Clan raised partners. The Warriors cheerfully yielded on most points but both insisted on a liquid exercise tank and a gymnasium.

The antique ship’s monster fuel tank became three cavernous holds and a serious group of maintenance shops for metal, electronic and tachyonic equipment. The power capsule had been replaced. K’ress’s practiced eye noted that it was one from a capital ship and far bigger than would normally be needed for a freight hauler. The drive was one from a fast messenger ship that had been pretty badly shot up. Her eyes widened when she saw the specs.

This vessel was no longer an antique. The fore and aft gun emplacements were not large by most standards. There were seven five kiloton per second weapons in each battery, the most firepower allowed to their newly assigned Class B freight designation.

They needed only to stock the galley and seek a cargo to begin their new life as the Clan D’ancer. Lezon reflected that since the war was over, so was her service to the Empress Triad. She hadn’t surrendered, she was Submitted to T’cass. The others came with her. The Clan D’ancer was as good a place to be as she could find. This new way of life would be an interesting Conflict to manage.

–THE END–

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#CAPTURED BY THE CLANS #Part 10 of 10 #Science Fiction #Written by De Writer

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tumblunni · 5 years

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hey uhhh YKNO WHATS GOOD brainstorming potential headcanons for a character you know NOTHING ABOUT

i guess its less headcanons and more like.. wishes? hopes? what i think would be cool to do with this dude and like ALL I KNOW is that he is a cool dude and apparantly he doesnt have a backstory or sympatheticness SO consider what if he did and maybe thatd be cooler. like dude he owns THE SINGLE BEST BOSS BATTLE THEME IN ALL VIDEOGAMES EVER and that is ALL I KNOW ABOUT HIM and i just want him to deserve it, yo. also if he turned good i could be his friend and some of the badassness would rub off on me

ANYWAY

COOL SQUID PRESIDENT

i would vote for this man as squesident

seriously the design is SO GOOD!!! how did they manage to get such a cool colourscheme out of his entire Thing being that he has no colours?? like damn i like white being used as an evil colour for once, thanks. it symbolizing emptyness and emotionlessness is like BIG YES and i really hope thats what they were going for cos apparantly the wiki says that all the yokai who join his “we should never be friends with humans” gang turn colourless to match? but like the dude himself is less plain white and more very light shades of blue, grey and gold. MAYBE REFLECTS THAT HE IS A MANIPULATIVE DOUCHE WHO MAYBE DOESNT REALLY CARE ABOUT YOKAI AND JUST WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD PERHAPS dammit why does everything about him scream “great 100% evil guy who is very scary” when man I WANT TO LIKE HIM, DAMMIT!!

ALSO SERIOUSLY the visual effect of the wild spirally red yellow eyes against an otherwise “peaceful” colour whose entire point as an evil is “peaceful” taken to a bad extreme. it REALLY immediately sells that “tries to pretend to be calm, collected and fancy but is actually an angry mofo at heart” vibe i got from his theme song??? I REALLY HOPE THATS ACTUALLY HOW THIS COOL BOSS BATTLE GOES DOWN cos man the best villains are smug asshles who Always Win and then when you FINALLY win you get that much of a better ending!!! but AGH another part of me is like “i hope im wrong because he looks like a Cool Dad and i want him to be good”. Maybe his true design concept was to betray me personality with using all his cool dad power for evil...?

ALSO im not gonna spoil you guys on it cos it is JUST AS AMAZING AS HIS SONG but i was toooootally right that he has some sort of super intimidating second form and its got THE COOLEST DESIGN EVER HOLY SHIT! and also apprantly there’s a recoloured bonus boss called Minister Squisker who’s like a colour swap in a really creative way?? it swaps him being all “blank” themed with scary bright eyes and instead his entire body is a wild ye olde mythological illustration style paint job in every colour ever. okay COOL HEADCANON NUMBER ONE thats actually the regular colour of the species and mckraken is the white sheep of the family lol

also UHHH i dunno it seems kinda weird to me that theyd have this dude running a goddamn political party about humans being bad yet he doesnt seem to have any motivation whatsoever for it? unless it really is just supposed to be ‘he only pretends he wants to protect yokai from humans so he can manipulate and rule the yokai’. but like HYPOTHETICALLY in some universe where he actually lives up to his Grumpy Dad Who Has A Hidden Soft Spot potential, maybe he has an understandable backstory that raises legitimate concerns about how humans are destroying the natural and mythological and forgetting their roots, or other reasonable reasons why yokai could think humans are dangerous and all. i mean we ARE dangerous, we’re just a wide group of people that contain evil bastards and also good people, yknow. And thatd resonate well as a plot probably, cos well the whole point of the series is “in real life ur scared of yokai but theyre actually all goofy pranksters who will be your best friend forever”. Both sides being afraid of each other could lead to some good plotness! and it could be really effective and sad if after hours of joyous childhood wonder the protagonist bumps into the first yokai they couldnt befriend. the first one thats scared of them. the first member of this weird colourless political party who accuses them of committing crimes against yokaikind, of obviously only enslaving these yokai friends cos you have an ulterior motive, just like all humans! it could be effective if its something that shakes up the whole way you saw the world and establishes that hey its not all fun and happiness, and there’s some people you are powerless to convince. maybe even some people you are powerless to save...?

ANYWAY possible idea for ‘what if the dude originally had a sympathetic motive but it got twisted over time and now he’s just a fuck BUT maybe he could still be redeeminated someday ok thanks” What if he’s the spirit of.. like.. ocean pollution? Like there’s some yokai who are ghosts of a mortal person but theres some that are just nature spirits or personifications of concepts. What if he’s the personification of the dying screams of all the wildlife killed in a particular tragic oil spill? hence squid = thematic, and blank white colourscheme = even more thematic reflecting the stain the oil would leave on a pristine ocean and also the blank emotionlessness he was left as after witnessing that tragedy. Cos like his entire Purpose would have been born out of avenging anger but i mean he was just a kid, the only one left alive on a ruined beach and seeing just how powerful humans were and how pointless it would be to try and fight them with his weak power. like he was born to avenge all these souls and he just keeps failing!! his entire reason to live and he’s just too small!! so he ends up becoming bitter and cynical and learning how to use his silver tongue to manipulate others into becoming his weapons, and he vows that someday he’s gonna come back when he has the power he needs to complete his mission. and he’s just forever had this anger seething inside that he’s been unable to get any catharsis from, so when his cold and collected persona cracks he’s really damn scary with all these years of a man who’s grown old fearing he’ll never be able to avenge his ocean friends and just AAAAAA! itd be really good cos itd be a way he could still be intimidating and high stakes as a boss fight but also sympathetic!! also it could make sense why he’d only be redeemable after defeating him? like this entire time he’s been hidden behind a million layers of politics and minions and stuff and its very easy for him to not see the reality of the fact that he’s terrorizing human children just like how humans scarred him as a child. so like his whole big second form transformation super anger mode time would be sort of a last ditch attempt to deny what he already knows, the doubts that have been eating away at his soul now he’s getting close to the end of his life goal. but also like.. he doesnt even know who he IS, under the lies! its been his entire purpose for existing. like he probably uhh.. didnt have much plans after his victory. he probably wouldnt have much will to live left. so yeah you basically beat up this guy’s emotional walls and make him face the face of the people he’s been hurting, when he’s been trying to avoid it for so long. and he gets to see how much all the other yokai genuinely trust you and how much youre personally sacrificing to protect them so maybe you really arent just lying about being a good person...

oh also i was thinking about the inherant hypocrisy present in the fact that this guy is a big spoopy REALLY WELL DESIGNED squid monster that spends all his time in a depowered humansona instead, despite his whole Thing being hating humans. and, yknow, ‘i’ll solve this using a carbon copy of human politics instead of any more traditionally magical way of fighting the humans’. Yeah. So THEORY of SADNESS maybe he like never actually met any other yokai for a long time? I dont think it really makes sense that he’d be hypocritical because he secretly likes humans or something, that wouldnt jive with this backstory idea. So im thinking another explanation could be that he genunely doesnt know much about yokai culture? Like cos of his backstory he just poofed into existance on this destroyed beach in the human world and spent the first few centuries of his life completely alone except for the terrifying monsters that haunted every second of his life, and the knowledge that it was his purpose to defeat them but he didnt know how. And he was a nature spirit of the sea but his sea was empty of everything except death, so he couldnt even hug a cute fish sidekick or something- OH GOD WHAT IF HE DID HAVE A CUTE FISH SIDEKICK AND IT DIED COS OF HUMANS!!! very tiny sad squid monster child holding a dead pet, oh god why did my heart did this to meeee!! so yeah he didnt even know he was a yokai or wtf yokai are, he didnt know anywhere outside the tiny rock pool he would hide in on this barren beach. And then someday he gets found by an older yokai and adopted and like he feels like he owes them so much cos they gave him a reason to live, and a connection to the nature that he was supposed to protect, and.. well.. any companionship at all ever. So thats how his directionless “humans are bad” turned into “yokai are good and i need to protect them from humans like i failed to protect the beach” which turned into “i need to get more power to do this” which turned into manipulating other yokai and seeing them as nothing more than tools to take down the humans, his revenge consuming him until he barely remembered the reasons he originally wanted to do it...

and blablabla thats where we bring in the recolour bonus boss also, and say thats the nice grandpa figure who adopted him when he was all lost and trapped in the human world. and cos he was sorta adopted into nobility thats why he’s so over the top with his pompousness, its like a hint of IM LOVV MY GRANDEPA shining through his grumpface. ALSO maybe a sad situation where the gramps saw his kid growing up into this scary extremist and he tried to reason with him that humans dont need to be destroyed and that led to them fighting and him getting sealed off in recolour bonus boss land. and mckraken sees it as the biggest betrayal of his life and it totally threw him off the slippery slope to feel like the one man he trusted the most was a traitor to yokai all along. but even at his most evil he couldnt bear to actually kill his beloved gramps so he just imprisoned him and tries to stop thinking about it but like THE CONSTANT SPECTRE OF THE GUILT HANGS OVER YOUR HEAD THAT YOU DID YOU GRAMPS WRONGGGG So yehmaybe protag could find the gramps guy and hear about the sad backstory via him and then defeat mckraken and make him realise he was wrong and he apologises to his gramps and atones and all the humans and yokai are friends again and BUNNI CRIES FOREVER the end

cos seriously man this guy’s design is too good to be wasted on a hateable!! srsly he’s like that archetypical goofy big beard chubby pirate dude BUT INTIMIDATING AND BADASS AND COOL FASHION AND DAVY JONES SQUID BEARD SQUEARD I LOVE HIM he is too round to be 100% evil

*slams fists on the table* IF YOU DONT LIVE UP TO MY EXPECTATIONS I AM GONNA CRY

aaa i need to stop just sitting here theorizing about this game and actually friggin play it lolllll

#bunni plays yokai watch #*looks at any villain of mediumly adequate dadliness* mine now

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athyrabunlord · 6 years

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LLSHP AU (S) - First Task

Main Story: [LLSHP AU - Yoshiko Tsushima and the Fallen Angel]

[Brief note about School Term] [other LLSHP AU stuff] [YohaMaRuby concept arts] [ChikaYouRiko concept arts] [KanaDiaMari concept arts] [Hogwarts Staff]

[FFN link] [Pixiv Link] [Translated to Chinese by plin2290]

Sequel blips: TriWizard Tournament series- [First Task] [Yule Ball]

A/N: As per twitter vote from a while ago, I’m starting with a blip in the SequelTimeline (hence the (S) behind the usual tag of LLSHP AU). This is part of the TriWizard Tournament series. I’ll try to keep them as consequential as possible, but the blips’ might be all over the place depending on my muse. We’ll see XD;

Note: This blip takes place a year after ch21 of the MainStory, meaning chikayouriko are FifthYears and yoshimaruby are ThirdYears.

“The Beauxbaton champion has drawn the Ukrainian Ironbelly.”

Ruby Kurosawa could barely hear the noise outside the tent. Everything is muffled except for the pounding of her terrified heart. The Hogwarts uniform has never felt so heavy, so suffocating on her body, and she has to loosen her scarf a bit just to breathe a little better.

Shizuku Osaka gives them a graceful courtesy and holds up the miniature Dragon for the officials’ view one more time. Before it could breathe fire like its real-life counterpart, a swift but powerful Freezing Charm tames the replica, which she then affixes onto her brooch like an ornament.

Composed and elegant, the black-haired Beauxbaton champion is just as what her school is known for.

“Please proceed.”

Leah Kazuno calmly takes a step forward and reaches into the bag to draw her opponent. The petite but imposing Durmstrang champion remains unfazed even as she reveals the miniature creature in her palm for the officials to see. The leopard-like beast has a body full of spikes akin to a cactus, and it is growling warily with its intelligent eyes glancing at its surroundings.

“The Durmstrang champion has drawn the Nundu.”

Ruby swallows hard. That’s another dangerous level-5 magical creature, one that requires teams of highly qualified wizards and witches to subdue! Just how insane is this TriWizard Tournament?!

While she is on the verge of hyperventilating, Leah taps the replica with her wand, stilling its movement through a non-verbal petrificus totalus. Scoffing, she coolly gives it back to one of the officials before smoothly healing her prickled hand.

Fearless and professional, the sharp-eyed Durmstrang champion is every inch the representative of her school.

“Please proceed.”

Ruby tries not to flinch as she places her hand on the hilt of the Kurosawa heirloom, desperate to rein in her composure. After one deep breath, she approaches the official and shakily reaches into the bag. A sharp sting almost makes her drop the miniature beast but she perseveres and holds it up high.

She blanches at the growling replica in her palm.

A human-like head, a lion’s body and a scorpion’s tail. It’s unmistakable what she has to face in the First Task of the TriWizard Tournament.

“The Hogwarts champion has drawn the Manticore.”

Her heart plummets and with it, strangely, so does her fear. A peculiar sense of numbness washes over her, a resigned sort of acceptance that this is her fate and she must overcome it. She glances down at her hand, where the miniature Manticore’s stinger had pierced her palm. The sight of blood, no matter how little, still makes her stomach churn, though it also boosts her confidence.

She had bled way more before, and she lived. She can and will do this. As if sensing her grim resolve, the replica grins up at her before hopping back into the bag.

The Minister of Magic clears his throat, garnering everyone’s attention, though she has difficulty concentrating on his speech. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Professor Koizumi gazing at her with concern, and so she stands up a little straighter and holds up her chin high. She will do her Head of the House proud.

“... that said, we understand these three creatures are highly dangerous and could not be subdued even by teams of trained Hit-wizards under normal circumstances. Therefore, these beasts were specially selected by our Board and collaborators. A warrior from the Goblin Nation, Arkus, has graciously offered his help should it be necessary to stop the Ukrainian Ironbelly.”

At this, a scarred and bearded Goblin bows brusquely, his stance just as regal and intimidating as the massive battle axe he is holding. Perhaps it is ingrained in her upbringing through the Patriarch’s lectures, for Ruby innately feels respect as well as wariness towards the small humanoid.

“And Mr. Scamander will also be on the standby to tame his Nundu, which he has kindly provided for this Tournament.”

Ruby nods at the amiable wizard, whom she has met a few times at the Estate as the Patriarch’s valued guest. Kanan and Mari have talked about him as well, having traveled around the world with the famous Magizoologist a few times last year.

“Last but not least, Professor Toujou of Hogwarts has already negotiated with the chosen Manticore, and the beast has agreed to act only within the rules of this Tournament.”

The ever-enigmatic Head of Ravenclaw gives Ruby an encouraging wink then, prompting her to smile back in relief. Everything seems to be well under control. While the Tournament is known to have caused deaths in the past, surely this one would be all okay with the way the Board arranged for various scenarios.

The officials then exit the tent with the Beauxbaton champion to debrief her, and the remaining adults follow suit to prepare the arena as well. Ruby suddenly finds herself alone with the scowling Durmstrang champion.

“How fortunate you are, Kurosawa heiress. I bet your Professor has already made a special deal for you to win.”

Leah’s expression is blank, her eyes carefully guarded, but her voice is as vicious as poison. Ruby turns to face her peer and she is vaguely aware that her legs are no longer shaking.

“No. She trusts me, and I trust her. Hogwarts will never resort to cheating.”

“Then what was that look of relief on your face?”

“Knowing that there wouldn’t be any casualties among the bystanders.”

Leah’s expression darkens. “Is that all? Aren’t you scared? I saw you shivering like a pathetic rabbit since the moment you entered the tent. You don’t belong here. You should forfeit, for your own good.”

“I’m scared, very scared.” Ruby couldn’t help but smile at the tremor in her voice. She really hasn’t changed much over the years, but she is also proud to acknowledge that she has become stronger too. “But I will not run away. The Goblet of Fire chose me for a reason. Thanks for being worried about me though.”

“You wish. I just don’t want you to ruin the prestige of this Tournament.” Leah snarls, her stance rigid and proud. “Think of the mess if there’s already death in the First Task.”

“Of course, I don’t want to die either,” Ruby’s grip tightens on the hilt of the sabre. “I… I’m scared of pain, I can’t handle it, but I know I can face death if things were to reach that point.”

“Oh?” Leah’s demeanor loosens slightly, as if she hasn’t expected such response.

“I’ve already faced it before.” The faint pink scars from sectumsempra are visible reminders of what she had experienced on that terrible night, but compared to what her precious friends and family have endured back then, this Tournament should be within her ability to handle.

She, Ruby Kurosawa, is Hogwarts’ champion after all.

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Judging from all the gasps, cheers and applause outside the tent, Ruby is certain that Leah has succeeded in her Task just as Shizuku had. Both champions did not take more than ten minutes to achieve their objective, which is to retrieve a wooden box that their respective opponent is guarding. Each of them is only allowed to cast five spells, whether it be a Charm, Curse, Hex and so on, and the box can only be moved through actual contact, not by magic. It is meant to test the champion’s resourcefulness, wit and raw magical power, as well as their physical abilities.

Ruby has no plan whatsoever.

Her knowledge of the Manticore is limited to what she has studied in her family library. All those articles talk of how extremely dangerous the violent magical beast is, of how its magically resilient skin render wizards’ spells useless and thus there have only been one or two recorded triumphs against such creature. How is she, a mere Third-Year, supposed to get past the Manticore’s guard?

She stares hard at her wand, hoping to draw strength and guidance from the Holly and dragon heartstring core. She wishes for her friends and her sister to be with her right now, instead of being in this tent alone with her paranoid mind. To be fair for each school, no one is permitted to make contact with the champion, not even their respective Headmaster. Earlier, Chika and You have already tried to sneaked in but were quickly dragged away by their House Head before the officials noticed.

Ruby would have welcomed the Gryffindor duo’s presence. Her bravado earlier has faded enough for the small critter part to emerge, causing her thoughts to sink deeper to the pessimistic end as the clock ticks by. It’s not because she doesn’t believe in her own strength but more because of the countless scenarios against such a terrifying opponent. She does enjoy the thrill of challenges to an extent, perhaps due to the duo’s influence over the years, so she tries to focus on that positive thought.

“Hogwarts’ champion, please enter the arena.”

Whimpering, Ruby wipes at her damp eyes one last time before standing up. With every step she takes, the fear is gradually left behind and that sense of numbness has returned once more. There is no running away now.

A thunderous cheer greets her as soon as she enters the Pit, which has been modified to accommodate the spectators and the Task. A quick glance reassures Ruby that various officials are stationed around the arena, especially for the guest section to ensure safety. Whatever happens between her and the Manticore will not affect the innocents.

When she walks past the student bleachers, she waves bashfully at the applauding Ravenclaws and searches the crowd for her future sister-in-law. She soon finds Riko and relaxes under her encouraging smile. The House of Hufflepuff is deafening in their cheers with, surprisingly, Professor Koizumi and Hanamaru being the loudest. Ruby could feel her ears burning, half embarrassed but half elated as well at such display of support from her best friend and Head of House.

As if not wanting to lose, Chika and You lead the Gryffindor section in the cheers with their flamboyant banners and Charmed fireworks. It’s over the top, really, but also so very like them. Ruby couldn’t but wave back just as energetically at the Head Girl and the Quidditch star. Passing shadows overhead prompt her to look up and smile at Pana and Lucifer. The two familiars are gliding and circling to keep with her pace, as if to act as her escorts. Fiery words of encouragement soar through the sky after them, providing entertainment for the onlookers. Ruby doesn’t have to glance at the Slytherin section to know that it is Yoshiko’s work, though her peers must have pitched in to help her control this Charm in order for it to work on such grand scale.

By the time Ruby reaches the Professors’ bleachers, she is smiling not just to reassure her friends but also out of genuine joy and love for them and her school. The Hogwarts staff are also clapping politely, some more exuberantly than the others. Dia looks tense but she is smiling as well, with a familiar golden cat draped on her shoulder and a large wolf head peering over the seat beside her. Kanan and Mari must have pretended to be Dia’s pets to sneak into this guest section. At Ruby’s hesitant wave, Kanan howls loudly and Mari swishes her tail like a flag, prompting Dia to frown and tug at her friends’ ears. Undeterred, the married couple continue to make a lot of noise and motions, making Dia sigh in exasperation.

The familiar comical interaction loosens Ruby enough for her to remember to bow in front of the Kurosawa Patriarch and her parents. The old austere wizard is not smiling and only gives her a brusque nod, but those who know him well can see the fierce pride in his eyes.

Shizuku seems amused at the lively display at her entrance, while Leah is wearing the darkest scowl ever. Both champions look disheveled, with Shizuku’s hair ribbon somewhat singed and Leah’s cloak having claw-shaped rips, but at least they appear mostly unharmed.

Ruby allows a quiet sigh of relief to slip past her lips. Her fellow champions made it through and there are no injured spectators. She nods at the panel of referees and the official standing just at the edge of the arena.

“Are you ready?”

With one brisk turn, she takes out her wand and takes one step inside the field of boulders and rocks. A cool brush of magic indicates that a powerful protective shroud must have been activated, keeping both combatants trapped within the arena as well as to shield the audience. At this point, all Ruby could hear are her quickened heartbeats and the sinister rumbling from the enormous beast at the other end of the modified Pit.

The Manticore is grisly to look at, like a creative project gone horribly wrong. Whereas the Sphinx appears majestic despite having a human head and the body of a lion, the Manticore is like a mutated and bloodthirsty version due to its wild mane and rows of sharp fangs. Its scorpion stinger tail is poised high in warning as it paces back and forth in front of the wooden box, her objective. Its powerful paws make heavy sounds on the gravel, its predatory eyes trained on her the moment she entered.

“So this is what I’m up against, a little rabbit,” the sentient creature’s voice sounds disturbingly human without any hint of a growl. “Ladies first then, so the show won’t be over too quickly.”

The insult almost makes Ruby smile in bittersweet nostalgia. Everyone tend to underestimate her and for the longest time, she had believed their evaluation to be true.

Not anymore. I’m not strong, but I’m not weak either. She could feel magic flowing steadily between her hand and her wand.

“I’m ready.” She tells the official without glancing at him. A hush falls over the arena but she could barely feel the eyes watching for. The Manticore is grinning at her, slowly licking its lips. A vague plan forms in her mind and she exhales deeply.

As soon as the wizard signals the start of her first Task, she raises her wand and shouts. “Expecto patronum!”

The amused beast barely moves even as the silver black jaguar snarls at it, an empty threat due to its intangible form. In spite of the confused murmurs in the background, Ruby finds herself smiling as the sight of her Patronus boosts her confidence. She is no longer alone in facing this terrifying monster.

“Wingardium leviosa!”

The huge boulders tremble from the Levitation Charm but only the medium-sized rocks actually float towards the center. The Manticore remains unfazed, even yawning tauntingly at the gradually increasing number of rocks gathering in the middle. Ruby keeps her arm steady in spite of the strain of such area spell and pours forth even more magic.

“Accio!”

Her third chosen spell summons the Kurosawa heirloom from outside the arena and she directs it towards the growing rock pile. The Manticore tenses at last, growling in anticipation and pawing at the ground. Just as the creature begins to run, Ruby yelps a string of incantations, moving her wand in sharp jabs.

The fourth and fifth spell is a combination of an advanced Transfiguration and a Charm, developed by You and herself under Professor Minami’s supervision. Ruby almost buckles from the strain of magical output but perseveres, willing and shaping the rocks into the image in her mind while the sabre acts as a focal point.

Rocks gather and morph around the the sabre, forming a long tail that eventually connects to a massive body with four limbs and an armored head.

Gasps and shouts could be heard from the audience and the Manticore stops abruptly, wary of the animated shape blocking its path. The grotesque replica raises its rocky tail, the sabre’s blade glinting under the sunlight, and lunges at its living counterpart.

Its movements are awkward and jerky but there is undeniable power behind each of its pounding footsteps. The real Manticore laughs haughtily when it tries to swerve around the slower clone and almost got slashed by its surprisingly fast tail. The two creatures crash into each other soon after, tearing and biting and gouging with the scorpion tail. The Manticore is undeterred by its opponent’s body of rocks, clawing and digging through the cracks, breaking the Transfigured creature from raw strength alone. For such a gigantic beast, it is nimble and agile, cleverly dodging the Kurosawa sabre instead of parrying it, knowing the blade would injure it whereas no magic could.

Ruby shivers instinctively from all that noise of the savage fight, though she manages to force her legs to move. She runs towards the boulders, ducking for cover when she hears a snarl rather close by. Worse comes to worst, she still has her wand to protect herself even though it meant being disqualified for using more than five spells. She could vaguely feel the tug of her magic animating the replica and, with a pained grunt, she increases the output towards her creation and wills it to endure the assault longer.

As soon as the boosted Transfigured beast collides against the Manticore, she dashes towards the end of the field. Many times she is tempted to look over the shoulder, to see if the monstrous creature is chasing her, to check if her creation is still standing, but flight mode is commanding her action and all she could to do is keep going.

Almost there.

Her lungs burn from the exertion and her throat aches from the screams she keeps fighting down.

Right there, on that patch of grass.

She almost stumbles at the abrupt cut of magic, indicating that her stone creation is no more.

She dives for the wooden box, tucking and rolling, just in time to dodge the Manticore’s tail slash. Panting, she glares up in defiance at the grinning beast. Its mane is wilder than before, covered in rubble that is doubtlessly from when it obliterated the replica, and its magically immune skin is unmarred by any of the replica’s attacks.

Ruby rolls to the side just as its massive paw comes down on her, sprinkling dust and causing the ground to quake under the force. Before it could pounce upon her though, a silver silhouette leaps in front of her protectively.

Startled, the Manticore could only stare at the proud black jaguar Patronus, which shimmers brightly under its caster’s fearless gaze. The stalemate lasts for a while but neither side relents. Ruby barely dares to breathe, her wand not raised but gripped tightly and ready for action.

“… it cannot attack me. I can just jump through it and rip your throat out,” the Manticore’s fanged grin widens when Ruby glares back even as her legs begin to tremble. “Yet, I find myself unable to move in awe of its power.”

From the corner of her vision, she notices the officials and Professor Toujou already on the standby. Ruby’s friends are all at the edge of the arena as well, blocked by the shield but their wands already poised for action.

The announcer takes a step forward and speaks firmly. “The champion has already acquired the wooden box.”

”Silence, human. You don’t look tasty, but you’ll do.” The Manticore sits down on its haunches and growls menacingly at the wizard who dares to point his wand at it. Professor Toujou clears her throat, prompting the Manticore to relax slightly and roll its eyes. “I know I know, don’t harangue me, Nozomi.”

Ruby blinks when the beast suddenly grins at her. “I concede, Kurosawa heiress.”

A deafening roar from the audience follows the Manticore’s words, drowning out even the official announcement of her victory. Tears well up in Ruby’s eyes but she barely feels them as she finds herself buried under her friend’s tackling hugs.

Miraculously, she has overcome the First Task.

============================

Ruby finds her mind drifting away to blissful peace as she licks at her lollipop. It’s one of her favorite snacks but it’s been a while since she’s indulged herself in the treat. As a Third-Year and a Prefect, she’s decided to cut down on her sweets intake in order to present a reliable, mature senpai image and so far it’s worked. She does miss being in the background though.

Ah, this tastes heavenly!

Smiling, she notices her steps are bouncier than usual as she walks down the empty hallway back to her Prefect dorm. Most of her Housemates are in the Great Hall, decorating the place for dinnertime, while her friends are preparing for the celebratory party later the night in Chika’s Head Girl dorm.

The Gryffindor duo had successfully rescued her from her peers, allowing her to take a little break in her dorm before having to socialize for the rest of the night. Indeed, Ruby isn’t fond of being under the spotlight even though her responsibilities nowadays require her to be. Thankfully, her friends are all very understanding of her, knowing that she needs a little breather. Chika and You claim that they’re going to raid the kitchen anyway, while Kanan and Mari must be catching up with Dia and most likely teasing her and Riko’s recent not-so-secret engagement.

As for Yoshiko and Hanamaru, well, hopefully they’re on speaking terms again. Ruby frowns at the thought of her best friends, wondering what the problem it is this time. They do argue from time to time, but those have all been harmless bickering, something Mari reassures her to be a form of flirting.

However, it feels like Yoshiko and Hanamaru have been keeping their distance, either avoiding each other or always sticking to Ruby so that they’re never alone by themselves. Just what had happened? Ruby would rather that they have heated arguments so at least she could play peacemaker, but this is something else entirely.

Sighing, Ruby ponders for the umpteenth time about romantic relationships. She does get envious of that special closeness she’s witnessed in her friends, of how happy her sister is with Riko and so on, but she also finds it stressful. There are so many things to think about, and she is doing fine being the supportive role within their group of nine without being attached to anyone.

What’s more to ask for, if she already has her friends and family?

Suddenly, she couldn’t move her legs anymore and, with her feet stuck to the ground, the momentum makes her bend over awkwardly. Flailing her arms for balance, the lollipop falls to the ground and is kicked away by a dragon skin boot.

Ruby peers up to find Leah glaring at her.

“You didn’t even sense me coming.”

Though slightly irked by the loss of her snack, Ruby is more unsettled by how angry her fellow champion looks. “W-Why have you used partial petrificus on me?”

“To test you - just when I thought you to be a worthy opponent! But look at you, your guard is pathetic,” Leah snarls as she paces around Ruby. Since there is no wand in sight, it must have been a wandless, non-verbal petrificus, implying the witch’s skill and power. “Beside, what was with all that earlier?”

“What do you mean?”

“That circus out there! All that cheering, even that dumb Manticore, being all buddy-buddy with one of your Professors! I knew it, there must’ve been a deal going on.”

Ruby says calmly. “I did not cheat, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

Leah then aggressively enters her personal space, their faces now barely an inch apart. “The TriWizard Tournament is not a game.”

Even though the flight alarm is going off in her head, Ruby is able to keep her voice steady. “I know.”

“Then why do I feel like you’re holding back?”

“I’m not.”

Leah growls in frustration, this time taking out her wand and points it threateningly under Ruby’s chin. “My instincts have never proven me wrong, Kurosawa.”

Ruby winces at the derisive way the Durmstrang champion utters her surname but she maintains eye contact. The silent stalemate continues for a while, neither relenting. Ruby notices for the first time that Leah is actually shorter than her, despite the latter having such an intimidating aura that made her presence so much larger.

Leah suddenly whirls around to deflect a Jinx and easily parries another Hex. Without thinking, Ruby breaks free of the Body-Bind Curse and grips Leah’s wrist before the latter fires off an offensive spell.

“I’m okay, Hanamaru-chan, Yoshiko-chan, please put away your wands.”

Hanamaru looks wary while Yoshiko’s expression is dark, but both lower their wands as they briskly approach them.

“What did you think you were doing, to my friend?” Yoshiko’s husky and menacing tone jostles an unpleasant memory in the back of Ruby’s mind but she forces it away.

Leah ignores the newcomers and continues to glare at Ruby. “So, you can move. You dispelled my Curse non-verbally as well.”

Ruby neither admits nor refutes that statement. After that night at the Estate, they’ve all worked so hard on wandlessly countering Body-Binding Curses. She hasn’t encountered any situation she had to utilize this skill until now.

“Oi, I’m talking to you.” Yoshiko stomps forward and uses her superior height to glare down at Leah. A familiar Ashwinder slithers out from her sleeve and drapes around her neck like a scarf. Leah looks disgusted at the hissing snake and raises her wand the same time Yoshiko raises hers.

“Expelliarmus.”

Hanamaru now holds both of their wands, her expression shadowed by her glasses. “No fighting in the hallway, right, Ruby-chan?”

Ruby swallows hard. Her best friend is rarely upset but it is obvious that this is one such time. “R-Right. Guest or not, y-you’d have to follow the rules here, Kazuno-san. Yoshiko-chan, really, I’m okay.”

Yoshiko huffs and folds her arms, while Leah nods curtly, seemingly taken aback by the turn of events. If Ruby isn’t mistaken, she even looks somewhat impressed as Hanamaru returns her wand back to her.

“You got lucky, Kurosawa.” Leah yanks her hand out of Ruby’s grip, reminding the latter that she’s been holding it this whole time. “Heed my words - I will be the victor in the end.”

Ruby exhales tiredly, watching her fellow champion storming down the hallway with the fur cloak billowing behind her. Durmstrang seems like a stressful environment to study in, or is there more to Leah’s drive in winning the Cup?

“Are you okay, Ruby-chan?”

“Yeah, just surprised and exhausted,” she smiles weakly at Hanamaru, noting the deliberate space between her and Yoshiko. Her two friends aren’t looking at each other and the tension is thick. She also notices that Lucifer is nestled in Hanamaru’s hood instead of Yoshiko’s like usual. Seraph the Ashwinder flicks its tongue at Ruby’s questioning gaze and nods imperceptibly before hiding under its master’s sleeve once more.

Ruby sighs again. This is only the First Task, and there appears to be more to come, Tournament or otherwise.

#LLSHP AU #athyra writes #Triwizard tournament gaiden #kurosawa ruby #kazuno leah #diariko kanamari youchika yoshimaru #by the end of this blip I feel like I should name this series #The Melancholy of Ruby Kurosawa #XD!!!#poor woobie has so much on her plate lol #Leah just being leah #but yeah timeskip #it's a blip so the beginning and end def seem more abrupt #than a regular chapter would be #if I try to write the sequel like the main story #then it would never get finished XD!#yes PDP will make cameos as Beauxbaton #Shizuku cuz she's always been one of my fav N girls

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gato-the-galra-blog · 6 years

Text

Tagged by: sort of @cairis-in-the-field

Tagging: ANYONE. I’m serious, go ahead.

Warning: LONG POST

Olympian Aesthetics

APHRODITE laughter-loving, sweet smiles, dressed in silk and satin, flower in their hair, thrives on attention, sees the world as a runway, unapologetically sexual, the sea washing their ankles, in love with love, stirrer of passion, cunning concealed by painted lips, secret daggers, doves, revolution in their kiss, delighting in the waves, flirtatious winks, strolling along the beach, staring wistfully from a balcony, this is how to be a heartbreaker, your girlfriend thinks they’re attractive, wants to be adored, gets turned on my danger.

APOLLO glitz and glamour, art galleries, turning the volume up, being made of gold, neatly-organized music sheets, notebooks filled with poetry, bathing in the sunlight, the powerful urge to create, collecting vinyl records, beautiful cover of wonderwall, playing multiple instruments, tasting like sunshine, healing touch, speaking in prophecies, smile mingled wrath , shunning lies, sporting shades, hanging out at music festivals with their friends, sleeps naked, arrow to the heart, paint brushes, probably has a Tinder account

ARES armed for battle, wants to raise a dog with their significant other, soft spot for children, gives piggyback rides, scarred body, blood on their hands and face, willing to fight the world for the ones they love, fights against injustice, warm hugs, well-worn combat boots, boxing gloves, bandages wrapped around bruised knuckles, fist raised in protest, ignites revolutions, fear is a prison, more sensitive than what their tough shell will make you think,exhausted, damaged goods, force to be reckoned with, red roses, curses under their breath

ARTEMIS keen sense of a hunter, freckles like constellations on their skin, piercing eyes, disheveled braid, moonlight peeking through the shadows, the calm of the forest at night, lying on the grass and staring at the stars, mother doe and her fawn, protecting their kin, the moon shimmering on a still lake, quiver full of arrows resting against the bark of a tree, running with wolves, bonding while circled around a campfire, not being much of a people person, arrow hitting a target, popping egos, patience on 3%, touches heaven and returns howling

ATHENA discerning gaze, unreadable face, the patience of a lifelong teacher, quiet museums, owl perched on their finger, armor that intimidates, eye for architecture, plays the sims for the sole purpose of building houses, studied the blade while everyone else was busy getting laid, big fan of logic, loves brain teasers, go-getter, balls of wool displayed on shelves, ancient buildings, sweaters in neutrals and cool colors, hair done up, can kill you with their brain,heads to the library often to research, sharpened pencils, abs that can cut steel, stoic statues, pottery classes

DEMETER soil-covered hands, smile that can bloom flowers, skin loved by the sun,being the mom-friend, can lift you and your friends, flowers kept in the pockets of overalls, takes pride in their beautiful garden, speaks to their plants (elementals), leaves rustling in the wind, stalks of wheat, picking fruit, greenhouses, heart as strong as a mountain, values simplicity, daisies dotted across a collarbone, curls crowned with flowers, folded pile of sweaters in warm hues, pulling out fresh-baked bread out of the oven and the smell wafting through the air

DIONYSUS drunk shitposter, on their sixth glass of wine before you’ve even finished your second, seductive smirks, untamed curls, rich fabrics on dark skin, sleek-furred panthers, theater masks, stage productions, receiving a standing ovation, rose caught between their teeth, being the baby of the bunch, wild parties that last from sundown to sunup, creeping vines, inspiring loyalty, grand opera houses, masquerade balls, rolls of film, shattered chandeliers with broken glass scattered across the wine-spilled floor, pouring champagne into flutes, lives for the applause

HEPHAESTUS the calloused hands of someone who knows labor, sweaty brow, flame burning in their eyes, inventive mind, broad shoulders, steampunk goggles, nuts and bolts stored away in little boxes, ashes, striking a match, blueprints for future projects, fixing up a busted up car and giving it cool upgrades, wrestles with bitterness, work boots have seen better years, wrinkled plaid shirts, iron melted in blazing fire, huge jackets, crafting masterpieces, greased-stained overalls, fascination with robotics, pain is fuel, stack of weaponry, even their muscles have muscles

HERA resting bitch face, dressed to the nines, cows grazing on a pasture, cool rain,loving and hating fiercely, hand clutching a string of pearls, large chandelier with glittering crystals, plays the sims for the sole purpose of killing off their sims, romance to realism, pictures of the sky while flying on a plane, files that under fuck it, downs glasses of wine as they relax with a scented bubble bath and netflix, like their selfie or you’re grounded, knows 57 convenient ways to murder a man, dark eyes that penetrate your soul, marble and gold

HERMES devil-may-care smile, ink-stained hands, always up-to-date on the latest technology, will steal your french fries, does it for the vine, shitposter, puts googly eyes on everything, meme hoarder, long drives on the highway, ma and pop diners, spontaneous road trips, folded maps, fingers dancing across the keyboard of a laptop, shooting hoops on the basketball court, chatting up strangers as you all journey to your own destinations, goes jogging in the morning, mixes redbull with coffee, menace on april fool’s, hoodies and sneakers

POSEIDON storm with skin, colorful coral reefs, waves crashing against the shore, the sea casting its spell, stroking the soft fur of a cat, their heart pounding as their horse’s gentle trot speeds into a gallop, tousled locks, clothes smeared with paint, owns several sketchbooks yet always yearns for more, leather jackets, fondness for diy projects,handwriting that flows across the page, nimble fingers playing the strings of a violin,velvety singing voice that haunts your dreams, mood as ever-changing as the sea, the roar of a motorcycle, compass with a spinning arrow

ZEUS thunder in their heart, running on coffee, flash of lightning, natural charisma, eloquence, badass in a nice suit, aficionado of history, force of nature, lenny face, pretends they don’t have feelings but they do, nightmare-filled nights, proud arm around their lover’s waist, high-rise buildings, planes soaring through a cloudless sky, technician on the piano, maintains order, strong handshake, juggling multiple events on their busy schedule with ease, most likely to be voted class president out of their peers, expensive watch

#dash games #look into my soul

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awesome-moon-stone · 4 years

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@stelledue

Since shortly after release weekend, I’ve been corresponding with someone who worked closely on the production of TROS and works for one of the major companies I cannot disclose here. I have verified the source to my satisfaction. To protect the source, I am rewording what we spoke about over the last two weeks and am submitting it to you in bullet point format I have written based on what they told me. The TLDR is that they were upset with the final product of TROS and wanted to share their perspective on how it went down and where it went wrong.

The leakers for TROS had an agenda and are tied to Disney directly. My source confessed that they have an agenda as well in that they struggle with ignoring what’s been happening to someone who they think doesn’t deserve it.

JJ always treated everyone on and offset with respect so my source’s agenda is that what Disney has done to JJ and how much they screwed him over should be something people are at least aware of, whether you like him as a filmmaker or not.

Disney was one of the studios who were in that Bad Robot bidding war last year. Disney never had much interest in BR as a company but they did in JJ because they saw WB (who JJ went with in the end) as a major threat.

JJ is very successful at bringing franchises back like Mission Impossible, Star Trek and Star Wars. WB is struggling with DC and aside from Wonder Woman, DC is still seen as a bit of a joke in its current state by the GA.

WB wants Abrams for some DC projects. My source said that this generation’s Star Wars is the MCU, and Marvel’s biggest threat is a well operational DC. They want to keep DC in the limbo that they’re in right now. Abrams jumpstarting that franchise with something like a successful, audience-pleasing Superman movie makes them nervous. Their goal is to make JJ look bad to potential investors/shareholders.

My source mentioned this shortly after the premiere: “The TROS we saw last night was not the TROS we thought we worked on”.

JJ was devastated and blindsided by this. He’s been feeling down over the last 6 months because of some of the ridiculous demands Disney had that changed his movie’s story. While the scenes were shot, a lot of the changes were made in post-production and the audio was rerecorded and altered. My source said they’ve never seen anything like this happen before. He’s the director and he wasn’t in the know about what they were doing behind his back.

Apparently, JJ felt threatened over the month leading up to the premiere.

Rian was never meant to do IX despite some rumors that he was.

JJ was brought back by Iger, not KK. Disney insisted on more fan service, less controversy.

JJs original agreement when he signed on was indicating he would have way more creative control than he did on TFA. It became evident this wasn’t the case only a couple of weeks into shooting when the trouble with meddling started.

JJ wanted to do some scenes he thought were important but Disney shut it down citing budgetary reasons.

May 2019: JJ argued that those scenes were crucial. He had to let go of one of the scenes. The other scene he insisted on was approved at first. He did reshoots and additional photography in July. The new scene was shot at BR in October.

The “ending that will blow your mind” was a part of this. Older actors were included like Hayden, Ewan and Samuel and anyone who wasn’t animated. The force ghosts weren’t meant to be voices because they shot that footage on camera. The actors were in costumes. Rey was supposed to be surrounded by the force ghosts to serve as sort of a barrier between her and the Sith surrounding them.

My source thinks but can’t 100% confirm that this is because of China. It’s an office talk of sorts. Some VFX people claimed they got a list of approved shades of blue they could use on the Luke force ghosts. Cutting this out was when the bad blood turned into a nightmare for JJ because the movie he was making was suddenly unrecognizable to him in almost every way.

My source knows JJ well enough to know that he’s just not the yelling type but apparently in a meeting he yelled something along the lines of “Why don’t you just put ‘directed and written by Lucasfilm’ then?” My source wasn’t present for that exchange but knows some who were.

Disney demanded they shoot some scenes that would have things in it for merchandise. “They fly now” is one of them. It’s also JJ’s least favorite scene. At a November screening of a 2:37 cut, he cringed, groaned and laughed when the scene was on.

My source says that JJ was most likely not joking when he said “you’re right” in the interview where they asked him about TROS criticism.

JJ’s original early November cut was 3 hours 2 minutes long.

In January, JJ suggested that they turn this into two films. My source told me this well before Terrio mentioned it in an interview a couple of days ago. When Disney said no, JJ was content with making this 3 hours long.

Over a period of 9 months JJ started realizing that one by one his ideas and whole scenes were being thrown out the window or entirely altered by people who have “no business meddling with the creatives”.

They were not on the same page when it came to creative decisions and it became obvious that Disney had an agenda in addition to wanting to please shareholders. Disney could “afford messing up IX for the sake of the bigger picture” when it came to protecting things unrelated to IX.

The cut JJ eventually and hesitantly agreed to in early December was 2:37 minutes long. It wasn’t the cut we saw which he wouldn’t have approved of (and which is 2:22 long). Apart from the force ghosts, there were other crucial and emotional scenes missing. The cut they released looked “chopped and taped back together with weak scotch tape” (JJ's words).

The movie opened with Rey’s training. Her first scene with Rose was shortly after Rey damaged BB-8 during the training. Rose made a silly joke about how Poe is going to kill her for damaging BB-8. There was a moment where Rey took a minute to process what just happened when she saw that vision during training. She looked distressed and worried. The next scene was noise as the Falcon was landing and Rey runs over there. Those two women who kissed at the end were visible in this shot and they were holding hands. One of them ran towards the Falcon as it landed.

Kylo on Mustafar scene was 2 mins longer. There was a moment where Kylo seemed a bit dizzy and his vision was shown as blurry for a second. Almost as if time half-stopped while everyone in the background was slow-mo fighting. Kylo hears Vader's breathing, then shakes his head and time goes back to moving at a normal pace and he jumps right back into the battle (the scene from the trailer where he knocks that guy down which did end up in the movie later).

They cut some of the scenes from the lightspeed skipping segment. Some of the planets that were cut were Kashyyyk, Naboo, and Kamino.

The scene where the tie fighters are chasing them through the iceberg - those corridors were inspired by a video game JJ used to play in the 90s called Rebel Assault 2 (the third level in the game with the tunnels on Endor specifically).

Jannah was confirmed to be Lando’s daughter.

Rey not only healed Kylo's face scar but she killed Kylo when she healed Ben. Kylo ceased to exist when Rey healed him. My source mentioned that some people assume it was Han Solo who healed him but that isn’t true and that wasn't Han Solo. That was Leia using her own memories as well as Ben's to create a physical manifestation of his own thoughts to nudge him towards what he needed to do. That was her own way of communicating that with him. And it wasn't possible without her dying in the process. She made the ultimate sacrifice for her son and this flew over people's heads with the Disney cut.

The late November cut (the last cut JJ approved of) had scenes with Rose and Rey still. JJ wanted to give her a more meaningful arc. Disney felt that that was too risky too. My source mentioned that Chris Terrio said that it was because of the Leia scenes but this is only partially true because she had four other scenes including two with Rey/Daisy that Leia was not in.

Finn wanting to tell Rey something was always meant to be force sensitivity. In the 3 hour cut, it’s explicitly stated. There was a moment when Jannah and he were running on top of that star destroyer and Finn needed to unlock or move something and he force-moved it and acted surprised when it happened. This was replaced with a CGI’d BB-8 fixing whatever he needed to fix on there.

Babu Frik was nearly cut because some execs at Disney thought he would be the new Jar Jar. They are really surprised that people love him this much. He was JJ's idea and was created in collaboration with some artists and puppeteers. The personality was all JJ.

There were a bunch of scenes where Rey and Kylo (separately) went through quiet moments of reflection to deal with what they were going through. On her part, her going through the realization that there's something sinister about her past. Him going through regret and remorse but trying to shut it out. My source said that the Kylo scenes were especially amazing because of Adam's performance and how he managed to portray that inner turmoil. It provided much more context and added deeper meaning to both his battle with Rey and the final redemption arc at the end. It didn't happen so suddenly and it was more structured than what we got.

The Kylo/Rey scene where he dies was at least 4 minutes longer with more dialogue. Ben was always supposed to die. Source also added that if he wasn’t, then that might’ve been in an earlier draft which they haven’t read. The first draft they read included Lando (the first few didn’t). The Reylo kiss and Ben’s death was not part of the reshoots. It was a part of the re-editing. Even the cut that JJ thought was coming out earlier this month had a longer version of that scene than what was shown in the theatrical cut.

JJ was against the Reylo kiss (or Reylo in general). This was Disney's attempt to please both sides of the fandom.

JJ was not happy with where TLJ took the story. The final result is a mix of that story and the story told by Disney and whoever they tried to impress (“certainly not the fans”). JJ is gutted over the final result. Star Wars means a lot to him. He had to sacrifice large chunks of the story in TFA but he was promised more creative control on TROS and instead the leash they had him on was only tightened as time went by. A source said that this is the one franchise and the one piece of his work that he didn't want to mess up and instead it turned into his worst nightmare. When he found out that he was blindsided with the cut they presented, he said "what the fuck??" when Kylo was fighting the Knights of Ren at the end and the Williams music that was used for it was not what he wanted at all. He seemed to think it was out of place.

JJ's cut still exists and “will always exist”. We most likely will never see it unless “someone accidentally leaks it.”

Ok, so there you have it. If there are questions, I will try to follow up with my source but it’s up to them if they want to share more so I cannot guarantee an answer.

Edit: I forgot one thing that the source wanted included, concerning FinnPoe in TROS:

The source asked about FinnPoe after seeing Oscar Isaac's comment about how Disney didn't want it to be a thing. This is true. JJ fought to make this happen. This is why Oscar is blaming Disney. It's not just a random throwaway comment. He knows for a fact that it was Disney because these discussions happened. The main cast is insanely close with JJ and are just as pissed, though seemingly more outspoken about it than JJ. During TFA, Disney was hesitant to hire John Boyega because a woman was front and center so they deemed that risky enough so bringing in a male lead who's black made them nervous. JJ fought to make that happen for about nine months before getting approval. The same issue came up when JJ fought to have Finn&Poe in TROS but he lost that battle as he lost many creative battles for this film. Many people, JJ included, came to the realization during this production that the story really is told by shareholders/investors instead of the creatives or anyone at Disney specifically. He tried to make a lot of things happen and was shut down because of this. They had him on a leash and many blame TLJ for the stricter creative approach.

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kennethmullins · 7 years

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Oh What A Lovely Pony

On Tue, Jun 20, 2017 at 8:17 PM, Catherine Park wrote: Hello There,

I am a business content writer and I chanced upon popehat.com. I must appreciate that the content of your website is par excellence and exceptionally useful.

I’ve been a blogger for about 10 years, with special interests in small, medium enterprise/business and outsourcing topics. Today I am a recognized expert in the subject, and over the years, have consistently contributed articles and blogs to top business related sites.

I am looking forward to attaching myself as a guest blogger to your site by contributing an article to popehat.com. I assure that the article will be highly informative and educative to your audience. While I am not looking at any monetary benefits, instead we could consider the possibility mentioning my site/resource just once within the article.

Do let me know if this sounds good and works for you – please review some of my recent work samples so you can analyse my writing skills, and once you confirm I can initiate writing an article for you right away. h tp://www.marketingsolved.com/4-hard-truths-about-becoming-an-entrepreneur/ h tp://www.outsourcingportal.eu/en/blog/catherine-park/outsourcing-and-streamlining-projects-to-gain-a-better-efficiency h tp://www.neyox.com/how-a-virtual-assistant-can-help-you-with-digital-marketing/ h tps://www.urcadservices.com/single-post/2017/03/21/4-Outsourcing-Tips-to-Help-You-Hire-a-Good-CAD-Drafting-Service h tps://unemploymentdata.com/small-business/outsourcing-small-business/most-outsourced-jobs/ h tps://www.vardot.com/blog/how-avoid-security-flaws-similar-panama-papers-836

Please review them and let me know your thoughts.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Regards, Catherine Park, Content Writer & Editor.

On Thu, Jul 27, 2017 at 11:20 AM, Catherine Park wrote: Hello There,

I was wondering if you had a chance to read my previous email.

It’s about the request to consider me as guest blogger for popehat.com. The prospective article that would add immense value to your site and benefit the visitors on your website. I am sure you are aware that guest posting is a common practice for professional writers.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Regards, Catherine Park, Content Writer & Editor.

On Tue, Aug 1, 2017 at 11:28 PM, Catherine Park wrote: Hello There,

Hope you are doing well!

Guess my emails aren't reaching you. This is a gentle follow-up to check if you’d be interested in a relevant and prospective article for popehat.com that would add immense value and benefit your website visitors.

This is a guest post request, a common practice for professional writers. As I am well recognized and accepted guest blogger in business related topics, I can ensure that both you and your visitors will benefit from it.

Looking forward to hear back from you!

Regards, Catherine Park, Content Writer & Editor.

On Aug 2, 2017 – 8:30PM, Ken At Popehat wrote:

Dear Catherine,

Thank you for your inquiry, and for not giving up on us. In a perfect world we could respond to every kind offer immediately, and your guest post would already be in the home stretch towards publication. Regrettably we have many issues that consume our time — but now we are champing at the bit to hear what you can offer.

It appears that you write about business issues such as outsourcing. Do you think you could write about how to outsource a small business' response to a very specific but very formidable problem?

Very truly yours,

Ken popehat.com

Catherine Park via linux-mum-outbound.webhostbox.net 12:23 AM (7 hours ago)

to me Hi Ken,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes sure I can write about the topic you suggested. I will try to submit it as soon as possible.

Regards, Catherine

Ken At Popehat 7:26 AM (1 minute ago)

to Catherine Catherine:

We have a miscommunication! I haven't provided the exact subject yet! I wouldn't want you to write some sort of generic post. That's the sort of thing bogus SEO spammers do. And you're no spammer. You're the renowned author of "4 Hard Truths of Becoming An Entrepreneur!"

As I said, the topic we require is small business outsourcing of a specific problem. That problem . . . is ponies.

I apologize for raising such an earthy and unpleasant topic so early in our acquaintance, Catherine. It seems uncouth. And yet this is not a normal time. War strips away languorous decorum and thrusts people together quickly and violently and in an not entirely sanitary fashion. My grandparents met and were engaged within mere weeks and then my grandfather was off to fight in the Pacific before my grandmother could even fully grasp his intense hatred of pajamas or incomprehensible Boston accent. Civilizational struggles bid us cut straight to the heart of the matter.

And we are at war, Catherine. We do struggle for our very existence and the future ungrateful and perpetually whiny existence of our children. We are on a precipice between rosy prosperity and the sort of post-apocalyptic scenario that would make that zombie show look like a Disneyland parade only with worse plotting. The question is this ancient one: how is it moral to fight that war? Must every American small-business owner pick up a nail-studded board or a recoilless rifle or an unusually sharp fidget spinner themselves, or may they outsource — to be blunt, hire mercenaries?

By posing the question, Catherine, I do not mean to cast doubt on the patriotism or ethics of those mercenaries. Being a solider for hire is an honorable trade, whether in Dungeons & Dragons (except 4th edition) or in the modern geopolitical environment. Many of us thrive upon the smoke and heat of battle, the heedless shrieks of the wounded and dying, the stench of exposed bowel, nice uniforms, discipline, men of higher rank inspecting our trousers approvingly, and free access to explosives. The various liberal arts departments of modern universities are churning out graduates perfectly suited to be stomped to death in exchange for health benefits and a basket of free Keurig cups in the kitchen.

No, Catherine, the ethics in question are those of the business-owners. Do they have a moral obligation to fight their own wars against the ponies? Should they be able to vote, to participate in representative democracy, to deny parking spaces to part-time employees without personally serving in the Pony War? When we see the severed head of a pony on a spike outside our local sundries store — its eyes reflecting foreknowledge of its doom at the hands of a superior species, yet still somehow shining with defiance, colored with the peril we have not fully grasped — should we shop there comfortable that this small business owner has done her part? Or should we ask, "who took down this beast? Was it you, or someone of your hire? Did you fight, or did you pay? Where are your scars? Do you still carry that chocolate-covered bacon? What kind of sundries store threatens a restraining order? Why should I lower my voice?"

This concept — that full civil participation requires personal combat service — is not just for Heinlein books or anime subreddits any more. Every entrepreneur must face the existential quandary. Who am I? What is my essence? Do I provide goods and services, or do I hold the door against the dark, against the hooves and manes and they eyes, the dark dead pitiless eyes? Or do I try both? Can I have it all? Is there an app for dividing time between customer service and resisting ponies? Would it allow any "me" time? Can I even contemplate "me" time if I don't stand against the ponies, or would my "me" time be reduced to sitting alone with my shame, keening and dreaming of redeeming myself in some dire stable?

That, Catherine, is your brief. It is not an easy task. But these are not easy times. Fight the ponies with your pen, Catherine. When you lift it, you lift up all of us.

Very truly yours,

Ken www.popehat.com

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mirceakitsune · 7 years

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A sad day for civilization

Usually I try to keep my quota of political journals to a minimum. However the unfortunate events of today prompt what is perhaps one of the harshest journals I've written in this regard. I imagine I'll face quite a bit of criticism for it... both because many will see it as an exaggeration, and because I'm reacting strongly to something happening in the UK despite not being British myself. I will explain both of those things below.

On 08-June-2017 (yesterday as of the date of this posting), a once important member of the modern world (Britain) has left our ranks, by legitimating the war against modern society. An act committed by allowing an enemy of the civilized world to return to power, after its unprecedented attacks against every good achievement mankind has ever had within the last decades. That enemy is the UK's prime minister, Theresa May, the leader of the Conservative party.

For those not familiar with this monstrous woman, and why in my view she embodies the end of modern times, I will refresh everyone on who this bitch is and what she has done thus far:

- Theresa May promised the outright destruction of the internet as we know it, and its replacement with a national intranet under strict ideological control by the UK government (even more tightly than China). Her plans go to the point where every citizen must ask for exclusive permission to post anything online (even journals like this one) and no kind of content may be hosted on any server without the government's explicit approval, meaning literally every website we know today would have to be banned.

- Her battle against technology has already begun with the war on encryption; The UK plans to force companies like Facebook to remove security from messaging apps, so that her cult may spy on everyone and see who is an enemy of its ideology. She asked for encryption to be entirely outlawed if possible, despite attempts to explain to her that this is plain mathematics and simply cannot be stopped. Such would mean banning every secure piece of software on the planet and making it a crime for developers to program such (including open-source programmers like me and places like Sourceforge / Github), plus as criminalizing the https:// protocol and more.

- She is the author of a piece of medieval ideology, recently revived and distorted to match the 21th century, called the war on porn; Her purist sect believes that indecent content on the internet is responsible for terrorism, while of course promoting the despicable myth of children under the age of 18 needing protection from pixels on a screen to avoid being scarred for life. Needless to say, any website containing any kind of porn is to be banned under her theocracy and illegal to possess within her modern inquisition (same as in North Korea). Already the Digital Economy Bill was passed into law, and it's rumored that people might need to sign up at their local post office for permission to access any NSFW website at home... I am god damn serious.

- Under her caricature of a dictatorship, the UK is set to become a surveillance state with a harsher authoritarian regime than many 3rd world nations. Not only should every single online communication be actively monitored by the government, but even public services workers (such as ambulances and firefighters) must have access to everyone's browsing history and private lives. The UK also maintains a list of potential enemies of the state using unknown criteria, which was recently revealed to contain broad categories of people including goth teenagers who suffer from depression. Along with this they also plan on creating computer programs (perversely dubbed Artificial Intelligence) which use patterns to automatically decide if and when someone should be arrested and give the order to the police!

- She has blatantly manipulated the recent terror attacks (the Manchester bombing and the London stabbings) for her sick political agenda. In less than a few hours since those attacks, she outright stepped out and used the lives of those killed to leverage her own schemes, saying it was all the internet's fault and even implying that online pornography is why those people lost their lives!

- She has publicly and explicitly stated that human rights are an issue that is getting in her way, and need to be dealt with so that her plans may be accomplished.

I believe this should be enough to explain why I oppose this devil with my entire being... which seems to spread more panic than ISIS, who it's ironically vowed so hard to fight (by firing the London police or sending them after Julian Assange apparently). Since I'm aware the next predominant question will be "but you're not even British, why do you care", I will also explain why the things that happened in the UK are so personal to me:

- At this point, what's happening is not just a win or loss for the nation Britain; It is a win or a loss for modern society worldwide. The fact that this psychopath was allowed to be prime minister again, instead of being sent to seek treatment at the nearest mental ward for patients with serious psychiatric issues, is a legitimization for this kind of madness here in the free world! The message is literally "in 1st world nations in the year 2017, it might be okay for a president or prime minister to actively work on banning the internet or reviving medieval bans on porn or shamelessly distorting terrorist attacks to push any legislation". Authoritarianism spreads like a disease among the circles of power, and even in Europe or America this sort of thing is like the taste of blood in the water for a shark.

- She is actively trying to spread many of her demented ideas beyond Britain, and has a certain degree of power to do so. Since the UK would remain close to the EU even after brexit, they will be pushing Europe to adapt to her clique's skewed ideologies. The insane copyright proposals already circulating here (censorship machine, link tax, hate speech fines for social media) are said to be the doing of Theresa May and Angela Merkel (another authoritarian piece of shit). During the last attack she has also instigated other nations governments to "stop social media".

- The internet is a global entity, and many of the companies that offer services (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc) also activate there. Most of their evil plans (such as backdoors in encryption) cannot be done "only for UK citizens"... if they're implemented they will exist for all users worldwide and put everyone at risk! Such companies might have to choose between leaving the UK entirely or giving in to those demands, whereas sites hosting NSFW content might have to decide between being banned at ISP level across Britain or implementing disgusting and unacceptable age verification systems (online identity theft). Worse than that, in an act of total delusion, Theresa May or Amber Rudd already expressed hopes that the worldwide internet will itself conform to their model and "let the UK be the gatekeeper of the internet", meaning they hoped we would all just bow down and embrace their new "internet" as a replacement. We do not want this cancer spreading here, keep it in your Orwellian hellhole far away from the rest of us!

- I have friends in Britain... and even if I didn't, I know that the people living there are citizens of a (once) modern society who wish to live their lives in peace. It's unacceptable that they they are being terrorized by a mad person that's out of control and has lost touch with reality! And yes... I know: Far worse happens in places like Syria or China, where people are killed on a daily basis or starve to death or what not. The difference is that there, it's been this way for ages, whereas here it's new: Most 3rd world countries are places that are evolving slowly, but Britain is a modern nation that's devolving into them instead! People living in those areas are also used to it, they never had human rights or internet so they don't actually lose anything... people in Britain are being raped of fundamental rights they've had for a lifetime, which are granted and unquestionable in any civilized society!

So there you have it. The worst thing about this all is that, I wish I could say it's the fault of some sort of coup; Yesterday's elections got hacked, people with AK47's broke in and put Theresa back in power, so on. Unfortunately it was not: More than half of the British population deliberately voted for this abomination, after she has openly made it clear that she will destroy the modern world as we know it. This... is what people in what's considered a top democracy wanted. I'm struggling not to generalize and discriminate against all elderly people right now... granted that old farts are supposedly at fault for all this, whereas youngsters are the ones who struggled to avoid the disaster. Part of me wants to say "they're fucking 90 already, why can't they just hit the bucket and take their 1940 ideologies with them to the grave"... which is sad because my own grandparents died in the recent years, yet what happened is so wrong that it gets you places you wouldn't want to be.

After this alongside other events, my view of humanity as a whole has been altered beyond repair once more, and I wish I could never see an ape again in my existence. I expect no more safety nor the hope of a decent life even where I live, because I realize no freedom or right is ever basic enough to not be put into discussion decades after everyone has had it. Any breed of fanatic can just rise to power at any moment, and attempt to do whatever the hell they want. I wish the error known as humanity could be wiped out by some natural event already, though its own stupidity will probably do the job for it. I'm sorry that I had to be born here and witness the easily avoidable history of this species. If there's anything close to a god or gatekeeper of conscious minds out there, I will not forgive them for having been forced to live this miserable experience... that I can promise.

Oh, and one more thing: You are free to redistribute the contents of this journal as you please. It would bring some comfort if people could better spread the word about what's happening, so we can all be ready to defend ourselves from the emerging threats against the modern way of life... threats not created by terrorist groups elsewhere, but our own governments copying their tactics and behaviors.

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newstfionline · 7 years

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The Globalization of Misery

By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch, May 14, 2017

The closest I ever got to Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, was 1,720.7 miles away--or so the Internet assures me. Although I’ve had a lifelong interest in history, I know next to nothing about Mosul’s, nor do I have more than a glancing sense of what it looks like, or more accurately what it looked like when all its buildings, including those in its “Old City,” were still standing. It has--or at least in better times had--a population of at least 1.8 million, not one of whom have I ever met and significant numbers of whom are now either dead, wounded, uprooted, or in desperate straits.

Consider what I never learned about Mosul my loss, a sign of my ignorance. Yet, in recent months, little as I know about the place, it’s been on my mind--in part because what’s now happening to that city will be the world’s loss as well as mine.

In mid-October 2016, the U.S.-backed Iraqi army first launched an offensive to retake Mosul from the militants of the Islamic State. On the initial day of the offensive to recapture the city, the Pentagon was already congratulating the Iraqi military for being “ahead of schedule” in a campaign that was expected to “take weeks or even months.” By the end of January 2017, after 100 days of fierce fighting, the eastern part of that city, divided by the Tigris River, was more or less back in government hands and it had, according to New York Times reporters on the scene, been “spared the wholesale destruction inflicted on other Iraqi cities” like Ramadi and Fallujah, even though those residents who hadn’t fled were reportedly “scratching out a primitive existence, deprived of electricity, running water and other essential city services.”

And that was the good news. More than 100 days later, Iraqi troops continue to edge their way through embattled western Mosul, with parts of it, including the treacherous warren of streets in its Old City, still in the hands of ISIS militants amid continuing bitter building-to-building fighting. The Iraqi government and its generals still insist, however, that everything will be over in mere weeks. An estimated thousand or so ISIS defenders (of the original 4,000-8,000 reportedly entrenched in the city) are still holding out and will assumedly fight to the death. U.S. air power has repeatedly been called in big time, with civilian deaths soaring, and hundreds of thousands of its increasingly desperate and hungry inhabitants still living in battle-scarred Mosul as Islamic State fighters employ countless bomb-laden suicide vehicles and even small drones.

After seven months of unending battle in that single city, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that Mosul has receded from the news here, even as civilian casualties grow, at least half a million Iraqis have been displaced, and the Iraqi military has suffered grievous losses.

Though there’s been remarkably little writing about it, here’s what now seems obvious: when the fighting is finally over and the Islamic State defeated, the losses will be so much more widespread than that. Despite initial claims that the Iraqi military (and the U.S. Air Force) were taking great care to avoid as much destruction as possible in an urban landscape filled with civilians, the rules of engagement have since changed and it’s clear that, in the end, significant swathes of Iraq’s second largest city will be left in ruins. In this, it will resemble so many other cities and towns in Iraq and Syria, from Fallujah to Ramadi, Homs to Aleppo.

At a moment when Donald Trump makes headlines daily with almost any random thing he says, the fate of Mosul doesn’t even qualify as a major news story. What happens in that city, however, will be no minor thing. It will matter on this increasingly small planet of ours.

What’s to come is also, unfortunately, reasonably predictable. Eight, nine, or more months after this offensive was launched, the grim Islamic State in Mosul will undoubtedly be destroyed, but so will much of the city in a region that continues to be--to invent a word--rubblized.

When Mosul is officially retaken, if not “ahead of schedule,” then at least “according to plan,” the proud announcements of “victory” in the war against ISIS will make headlines. Soon after, however, Mosul will once again disappear from our American world and worries. Yet that will undoubtedly only be the beginning of the story in a world in crisis. Fourteen years have passed since the U.S. invaded Iraq and punched a hole in the oil heartlands of the Middle East. In the wake of that invasion, states have been crumbling or simply imploding and terror movements growing and spreading, while wars, ethnic slaughter, and all manner of atrocities have engulfed an ever-widening region. Millions of Iraqis, Syrians, Afghans, Yemenis, Libyans, and others have been uprooted, sent into exile in their own countries, or fled across borders to become refugees. In Mosul alone, untold numbers of people whose fathers, mothers, grandparents, children, friends, and relatives were slaughtered in the Iraqi Army’s offensive or simply murdered by ISIS will be left homeless, often without possessions, jobs, or communities in the midst of once familiar places that have been transformed into rubble.

Mosul now lacks an airport, a railroad station, and a university--all destroyed in the recent fighting. Initial estimates suggest that its rebuilding will cost billions of dollars over many years. And it’s just one of many cities in such a state. Where exactly will the money to rebuild come from? After all, the price of oil is at present below $50 a barrel, the Iraqi and Syrian governments lack resources of every sort, and who can imagine a new Marshall Plan for the region coming from Donald Trump’s America or, for that matter, anywhere else?

In other words, the Iraqis, the Syrians, the Yemenis, the Libyans, the Afghans, and others are likely, in the end, to find themselves alone in the ruins of their worlds with remarkably little recourse. With that in mind and given the record of those last 14 years, how exactly do you imagine that things will turn out for the inhabitants of Mosul, or Ramadi, or Fallujah, or cities yet to be destroyed? What new movements, ethnic struggles, and terror outfits will emerge from such a nightmare?

To put it another way, if you think that such a disaster will remain the possession of the Iraqis (Syrians, Yemenis, Libyans, and Afghans), then you haven’t been paying much attention to the history of the twenty-first century. You evidently haven’t noticed that Donald J. Trump won the last presidential election in the United States, in part by playing on fears of a deluge of refugees from the Middle East and of Islamic terrorism; that the British voted to leave the European Union in part based on similar fears; and that across Europe pressures over refugees and terror attacks have helped to alter the political landscape.

To frame things slightly differently, let me ask another question entirely: In these last years, haven’t you wondered what ever happened to “globalization” and the endless media attention that was once paid to it? Not so very long ago we were being assured that this planet was binding itself into a remarkably tight knot of interconnectedness that was going to amaze us all. As Thomas Friedman of the New York Times put it in 1996, we were seeing “the integration of free markets, nation-states, and information technologies to a degree never before witnessed, in a way that is enabling individuals, corporations, and countries to reach around the world farther, faster, deeper, and cheaper than ever.” All of this was to be fed and led by the United States, the last superpower standing, and as a result, the global “playing field” would miraculously “be leveled” on a planet becoming a mosaic of Pizza Huts, iMacs, and Lexuses.

Who of a certain age doesn’t remember those years after the Soviet Union imploded when we all suddenly found ourselves in a single superpower world? It was a moment when, thanks to vaunted technological advances, it seemed blindingly clear to the cognoscenti that this was going to be a single-everything planet. We were all about to be absorbed into a “single market for goods, capital, and commercial services” from which, despite the worries of naysayers, “almost everyone” stood “to gain.” In a world not of multiple superpowers but of multiple “supermarkets,” we were likely to become both more democratic and more capitalistic by the year as an interlocking set of transnational corporate players, nations, and peoples, unified by a singularly interwoven set of communication systems (representing nothing short of an information revolution), triumphed, while poverty, that eternal plague of humanity, stood to lose out big time. Everything would be connected on what was, for the first time, to be a single, “flattened” planet.

It won’t surprise you, I’m sure, to be told that that’s not exactly the planet we’re now on. Instead, whatever processes were at work, the result has been record numbers of billionaires, record levels of inequality, and refugees in numbers not seen since much of the world was in a state of collapse after World War II.

Still, don’t you ever wonder where, conceptually speaking, globalization is now that we need it? I mean, did it really turn out that we weren’t living together on a single shrinking planet? Were the globalists of that moment inhabiting another planet entirely in another solar system? Or could it be that globalization is still the ruling paradigm here, but that what’s globalizing isn’t (or isn’t just) Pizza Huts, iMacs, and Lexuses, but pressure points for the fracturing of our world?

The globalization of misery doesn’t have the cachet of the globalization of plenty. It doesn’t make for the same uplifting reading, nor does skyrocketing global economic inequality seem quite as thrilling as a leveling playing field (unless, of course, you happen to be a billionaire). And thanks significantly to the military efforts of the last superpower standing, the disintegration of significant regions of the planet doesn’t quite add up to what the globalists had in mind for the twenty-first century. Failed states, spreading terror movements, all too many Mosuls, and the conditions for so much more of the same weren’t what globalization was supposed to be all about.

Perhaps, however, it’s time to begin reminding ourselves that we’re still on a globalizing planet, even if one experiencing pressures of an unexpected sort, including from the disastrous never-ending American war on terror. It’s so much more convenient, of course, to throw the idea of globalization overboard and imagine that Mosul is thousands of miles away in a universe that bears next to no relation to our own.

It’s true that in France last week extremist presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was defeated by a young, little known former investment banker and government minister, Emmanuel Macron, and the European Union preserved. As with an earlier election in Holland in which a similar right-wing candidate lost, this is being presented as potentially the high-water mark of what’s now commonly called “populism” in Europe (or the Brexit-style fragmentation of that continent). But I’d take such reassurances with a grain of salt, given the pressures likely to come. After all, in both Holland and France, two extreme nationalist parties garnered record votes based on anti-Islamic, anti-refugee sentiment and will, after the coming parliamentary elections in France, both be represented, again in record numbers, in their legislatures.

The rise of such “populism”--think of it as the authoritarian fragmentation of the planet--is already a global trend. So just imagine the situation four or potentially even eight years from now after Donald Trump’s generals do their damnedest in the Greater Middle East and Africa. There’s no reason to believe that, under their direction, the smashing of key regions of the planet won’t continue. There’s no reason to doubt that, in an expanding world of Mosuls--the Syrian “capital” of the Islamic State, Raqqa, is undoubtedly the next city in line for such treatment--”victories” won’t produce a planet of greater ethnic savagery, religious extremism, military destruction, and chaos. This, in turn, ensures a further spread of terror groups and an even more staggering uprooting of peoples. (It’s worth noting, for instance, that since the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of U.S. Special Operations forces, al-Qaeda has grown, not shrunk, gaining yet more traction across the Greater Middle East.) So far, America’s permanent “war on terror” has helped produce a planet of fear, refugees on an almost unimaginable scale, and ever more terror. What else would you imagine could arise from the rubble of so many Mosuls?

If you don’t think that this is an ever-more connected planet still being “flattened” (even if in quite a different way than expected), and that sooner or later the destruction of Mosul will reverberate in our world, too, then you don’t get our world. It’s obvious, for instance, that future Mosuls will only produce more refugees, and you already know where that’s led, from Brexit to Donald Trump. Destroy enough Mosuls and, even in the heartland of the planet’s sole superpower, the fears of those who already feel they’ve been left in a ditch will only rise (and be fed further by demagogues ready to use that global flow of refugees for their own purposes).

Given the transformations of recent years, just think what it will mean to uproot ever vaster populations, to set the homeless, the desperate, the angry, the hurt, and the vengeful--millions of adults and children whose lives have been devastated or destroyed--in motion. Imagine, for instance, what those pressures will mean when it comes to Europe and its future politics.

Think about what’s to come on this small planet of ours--and that’s without even mentioning the force that has yet to fully reveal itself in all its fragmenting and globalizing and leveling power. We now call it, mildly enough, “climate change” or “global warming.” Just wait until, in the decades to come, rising sea levels and extreme weather events put human beings in motion in startling ways (particularly given that the planet’s sole superpower is now run by men in violent denial of the very existence of such a force).

You want a shrinking planet? You want terror? You want globalization? Think about that. And do you wonder why, these days, I have Mosul on my mind?

#Mosul #globalization of misery #refugee crisis #terrorism

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toddlazarski · 7 years

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The Bucks, PB&J’s, and Man’s Search For Meaning

Shepherd Express

“I made sammiches, fellas.”

It came across as a weird statement. Especially given our relative state of adulthood. Especially coming as it did, one workaday Wednesday afternoon, through our office’s Slack messaging ether, a forum reserved for quote requests and shipment follow-ups and tracking numbers, for the occasional cat video, a not infrequent ponder as to the likelihood of a collective Cielito Lindo trek.

But I’d spent the previous night slathering sliced brioche with Jif Natural Chunky and Bonne Maman Strawberry Preserves, compiling a venerable stack of PB&J’s, a ziploc bag tower of mushed bread-on-bread, berry bubbling its way through the creases like a razor-thin paper cut, feeling myself motherly all the while, getting nostalgic for childhood. Getting nostalgic, too, for high school senior year, where, despite being 18 and having little desire outside of finding beer access and listening to Zeppelin and putting distance between my person and my parents, how I had still, out of horomone-bursting hunger probably, allowed mom to make me a PB&J near daily. Even teenage too-coolness was overmatched by the sandwich’s essence of everyday art, it’s sort of ceaseless comfort. A meal anyone can assemble, but requiring, deserving of a certain ratio-ed touch. Quotidian, yet satisfying. Delicious, yet healthy enough that even the most Trump-budget-military-upgrade-caliber helicopter parents can agree. A benign, toddler-friendly foodstuff, still, endless in variations (i.e. the inexplicable calculus of the diagonal cut; the bewildering game-raising of toasted bread). It’s the “Misty” of school lunches - you’ve experienced it a million times, but where’s the guitar solo going this time? Is that peach jam!?

ESPN’s recent caloric journalism flight, detailing said comfort and the prevalent addiction rampant amongst seemingly all NBA players, has indeed opened up a very general sort of reminiscence. Of sandwiches, of school day lunches. Of a now-gone time of possibility ahead. Of a day when I stood in front of my 8th grade class, and when asked about plans for the future, put stoically: “I’m gonna play in the NBA.” How I had stared down scoffs, how they all laughed. And how I had doggedly, in my mind, flashed on Mugsy, my same height back then, back when I was the John Stockton of before-school open gyms, and there was no reason my prepubescent crossover wasn’t worthy of at least a scholarship. It was a time similar to, say, about last week, when driving and scooping layups, how I had reminded myself, again, now, that I’m currently the same height of 29-points-per game Isaiah Thomas, and subsequently tried to walk with his same Pesci-like, something-to-prove swagger. It also has evoked a type of hometown nostalgia, as the Bucks top the article’s list of team’s with the most gourmet PB&J offerings. I was eventually brought back to thoughts of a near-great Bucks year toward the end of said high school sandwich days. And really, for Milwaukeeans, the way you remember that ‘00-’01 almost-Finals team says who you are: If you think of Ray Allen, your life strives toward elegance, Glenn Robinson means fierce blue-collar pride, if like me, you think of Sam Cassell, you’re an underdog. Or possibly just an unrepentant basketball nerd.

Now, as the current young Bucks stand days from a seemingly important playoff birth, so we stand at 5pm on Wednesday’s, in anticipatory glow of post-work warehouse 2-on-2. And we start to swivel hips and test hamstring dexterity while still in office wear. Roll out necks and hear the creaks, try to conjure up Giannis-like limberness. We eventually dribble two balls at the same time like we see Steph Curry always doing in slo-mo, collectively scoffing at our aging and aged bodies in various states of shape and debaucherous misuse. We hash out postseason Bucks impressions in pregame loosening good humor. We double check text messages to make sure our others, significant or semi, know we won’t be around for dinner. Make sure they know that when we do emerge from the warehouse’s cavernous battle bubble, that we’ll be sweaty and worn, proud bearers of war tales, much deserving of many manly beer swills.

In our core there is Gino, the ubiquitous scrapmaster all good pickup games require. As the only non-employee on today’s lineup, he’s caught off-guard by my previous night’s culinary feat. But he’s rarely off-guard, as the hustle guy, the token tough, the rugby or futbol hooligan-type that doesn’t stop, the one who’s mostly-bald skull might appear exceptionally hard. It is. And I know this because over-leaning on post defense one Friday last summer caused a cranium-connection and gaping wound that looked like the 2nd round of a Rocky fight, required nine stitches, and left a one inch scar on my right eyelid. Day’s shortly after, someone at work called me “Scarface,” and it felt like an achievement I’d never realized I was yearning for.

There is also Andrew, who couldn’t wait to get into the break room fridge, correctly noting the article doesn’t specify exactly when NBA-ers down their youthful pregame snack. Thirty minutes prior to tip was the longest we could hold out. As a guitar player he has other goals, appetites, and also has fingerpicking fingernails, that sometimes make a reach-in foul leave a bit more than a slapping sting. He likes to mime Dellevedova floaters by faux announcing “Delly!” while putting one up. It often finds net, like it almost always does anytime he’s left even a smidge of an open window downtown, his bombed three’s yielding that feeling that good guitar player’s often do - a mix of head-shaking wonder and jealous annoyance. And he has to leave at a reasonable time, for a gig, to work more, to maintain his Shepherd Express-voted status as Milwaukee’s ‘Best Guitarist,’ to keep after continued validation that some voting systems in this country aren’t completely broken.

And there is Dylan, who good naturedly shakes his head at my insistence on bringing up the ESPN article, over and over, a reaction like his kid just learned a knock-knock joke that he won’t let drop. In fact, Dylan often seems the group’s symbolic father. Not because of the Harden-cum-wizard beard and his existence as an actual father of two, but because of the endless series of bank shots and shifty craftiness, crafty shiftiness. Sometimes his game is pure Tim Duncan. Sometimes it’s a type of old man one-step-ahead smirking mindfulness, where he goads you into shots he knows he can close on, block. Sometimes it’s a hard sell on a pump fake that you regret immediately as you leave pavement, then watch him go by at a casual pace for a layup that he never misses - being a dad, being a miniature big fundamental, having a personality directly corollary to his court skills, and vice versa. Like Magic Johnson - if he’s on your team. Like he’s Michael Jordan and you’re the Cavs if not.

Together, when the F-bomb’s fly, and the panting starts, and balls get smashed into the concrete floor in frustration, and you get your the first butt in the gut on a box out, and feel the familiar, exhausted hatred for a one-time - five minutes ago! - friend, we feel not so far off from what we watch on TV. From the Bucks, from the playoffs, from realizing all those school day aspirations. After all, I’m wearing Nikes. We’re all wearing Nikes. Except Gino, who is a soccer player, so Addidas are acceptable. But aside from that, anything sans swoosh seems senseless. I’m wearing the model of Cavs guard Kyrie Irving. Having decided at some point, for now, at least this year, “that’s my guy,” something moving deep within me as I watched him hit possibly the most clutch shot in NBA history, as I sat sweaty and expectant, hunkered in a dark sports bar on my first night in Rio de Janeiro, living out a different kind of dream, steps from the most famous beach in the world, amidst one of the most vibrant cities in history, thinking only of catching game 7, thinking on all the ones that got away from me, feeling late-game sympathy nerves. But now I tie and then velcro expensive Nike’s in his fashion and adorned in his ‘#2,’ and I can kind of mime that patented double behind the back dribble when I’m by myself on the court, in the warehouse. And that is something. But Irving also has the thick beard and sad eyes of my father. And that might be something else.

Now, with the sandwiches churning, leftover peanut butter chunks being tongued at in wisdom teeth nether regions, collectively we’re all even closer, thrown together in end of day release to re-live, reimagine our days of middle to middle high school ballerdom. When identity came from being good, kind of good, at something that made you sweaty. Before any of us knew each other. Before we had to go to work and get to know each other. In order to pay rent, and then mortgages, and then babysitters. To put food on a table. And then somewhere along the line it having to be somewhat healthy food. Before we had to make decisions, like whether or not it is worth it to pay for cable, so we can go home and watch more basketball.

At this point in our career we could play bald guys vs. hair guys, husbands vs. boyfriends. In alternate lineup iterations we can play dads vs. non-procreators. Oftentimes, if we go on Saturdays, we'll play through hangovers. Afternoon's, every now and then, somebody cracks a can of beer before the last game of ‘21’. And you know, when D-ing up, breathing deep sweaty man beer breath, then actually, purposefully, boldly placing your hand in the small of a back that is mostly just soaked-through dripping cotton t-shirt swatch - this isn’t about exercise anymore. At work on sore days after, we'll stand at each other's desk and bemoan sore hamstrings, treat ourselves to nachos, with ground beef, that come, today only, without guilt. We’ll play the showered, clean clothes, office game, but sipping Gatorade the whole time. Some of us - the dreamier sorts - maybe even going to a place of a fictitious postgame press conference in our head as we rehydrate like our idols.

But before games, lacing shoes too tightly, jogging in place and hoping for no unexpected pains, warming up with layups that we mostly make all of, here we are, with everything possible, with Marv Albert explaining to expectant at home audiences how “Lazarski has to be aggressive tonight,” with gentle butterflies birthing in the stomach, if only out of shared remembrance for when such athletic contests meant something. Meant everything. And there’s no difference, just like down the street, in that bigger warehouse on 4th Street, with playoff-virgin nerves pulsing. Once we start it’s all the same as it is for Malcolm, for Khris, the only difference that last-second call home, reminding again our significant others that we’ll be home late, that we’ll reek of body odor. But probably, hopefully, not bleeding, or needing any kind of ride from Urgent Care.

And tonight, I’ve missed a potential game winner. A 15-foot, pull-up jumper. My bread-and-butter, my PB&J. Staring stoically out the window of the 15, back toward real life in the night, it’s hard to let it go, to not punch my own thigh, thinking on all the times I’d practiced the shot for just such a moment. In all the driveways of my life. After school practices, with various stages of after-school friends. Solo sometimes, or in the rain like a motivational sports movie montage. On a court in Venice Beach with my uncle. With drinking buddies turned rivals. With rivals turned drinking buddies. With long forgotten one-time best pals. It all leading to this, the big moment, everybody watching, leaning forward, the time of “Kyrie for three!...”

But, we'll be back next week. If kids aren’t sick and hamstrings aren’t tight and workout clothes aren’t forgotten and anniversary dinners aren’t written in pen in the dayplanner. And I know where it went wrong, what can help. I know how to get it back. And Andrew mis-hears me on his way out, agrees anyway, says, “Yeah, it was great.” But it all seems so clear, the fix for the future, and I say it again: “next week, we’ll go with grape jelly.”

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fathersonholygore · 7 years

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FX’s Legion Chapter 8 Directed by Michael Uppendahl Written by Noah Hawley

* For a recap & review of the penultimate Chapter, click here. Now that the Interrogator (Hamish Linklater) has returned, we see flashbacks to his encounter with David (Dan Stevens), his injury and subsequent recovery. At his bedside waits Daniel (Keir O’Donnell); it appears they’re partners, as well as having an adopted child together. The poor guy rests in bed, recovering, and he’s left with burns all over his body. “There‘s my handsome guy,” Daniel says reassuringly, yet we’re juxtaposed with the mangled scar tissue on his partner’s face as a jarring visual. He has a Jack Nicholson’s Joker moment – except much more subdued – asking for a mirror, seeing his new face for the first time, too. Thus begins a long period of rest, trying to get better. When he gets back to work he says fuck desk duty. He’s “going to war” and finishing what was started that day at the pool. Need to note that the visuals of the series are gorgeous and well conceived. On top of that, Jeff Russo’s score is haunting, it’s a huge part of the show’s atmosphere. Russo has done good work before, I’d vote that this is his best yet. Accompanies the psychedelic, surreal feel of Legion in such an appropriate way. The music has such an ’80s feeling at times that it’s wonderfully throwback. Now the Interrogator and his SWAT members have David, Ptonomy (Jeremie Harris), Syd (Rachel Keller), all of them at gunpoint. Ready to die. Except David disagrees, using his powers to make a human totem of the SWAT team. Instead of letting Ptonomy shoot the Interrogator, David takes the time to build bridges instead of burn them. Problem is, Daniel and everyone back at D3 are watching through the eye of the Interrogator. And worse, David worries that schizophrenia still grips him. That everything happening is an elaborate dream. Syd tries convincing him either he accepts his powers are real, or else they’ll never get out of the trouble they’re in. David: “I‘m so sick of myself. This only works if it‘s not about me.” At Summerland, Dr. Melanie Bird (Jean Smart) tries to wrangle everyone together, as Cary (Bill Irwin) keeps an eye on David’s halo. She wants to find out more about D3 with the Interrogator in their keep. The halo, however, is losing juice. They’ve got to figure out what to do; about the Shadow King, Farouk, that Devil with the Yellow Eyes. And fucking Lenny (Aubrey Plaza), still talking. Always talking. Then there’s Cary and Kerry (Amber Midthunder), fighting over what happened between them on the astral plane, and she is pissed. A lot of tension happening. Melanie’s also distraught over the situation with Oliver (Jemaine Clement), who still can’t remember her. They agree to have dinner together, she hopes he’ll soon remember. Sad to watch her essentially left behind by him, albeit not intentional. Either way, she has the Interrogator – he says his name’s Clark – with whom she must deal. He mostly has threats for her. Doesn’t faze Dr. Bird: “You better learn to fly like a bird because the age of the dinosaur is over.”

So Clark’s sat down with David, who seems more in control than ever. Which is less comforting, more scary than I expected. “You don‘t have to be afraid,” he tells Clark, over and over and over. Then things start getting strange. Syd finds herself in more of the dream world, faced with a creepy, decaying Lenny, appearing to her as the Devil with the Yellow Eyes, its true form. She has to face the evil down, and she does – explaining how they’re cutting it out, like doctors do with a tumour; cut it out, burn it. Only Lenny says she’s a part of David now. To get her out, David must go, as well. Clark: “You‘re gods, and someday you‘re gonna wake up and realise you don‘t need to listen to us anymore.” David: “Isn‘t that the history of the world? People of different nations, different languages learning to live together?” Poor David goes weak. Syd explains to Clark about the parasite, what it is and how they plan on ridding David of it. I wonder, will this guy succumb and help? Regardless of that, all the while D3 is listening holding the Peacemaker at bay, for the time being. With Clark back in holding with Kerry, the others go to work on David – Oliver, specifically. He and Cary detect a second set of brain waves within their subject’s head. Hopefully they can fix it while leaving David’s mind intact. As Pink Floyd and Tom Stoppard plays, they work away, and David flashes back through memories in his past, Lenny struggling harder and harder inside to get out. David’s lost in a sea of memory, right back to being an infant. And the Devil with the Yellow Eyes lurks right behind. He confronts it, calling Lenny out from within. He wonders of his identity, without Lenny. Who and what he is without that part of him. “Are you my phantom?” he asks. “What happens to me when you’re gone?” Like a child, first dealing with the prospect of life without their imaginary friend. Then the parasite chokes David, trying to kill him. Can he survive without Farouk? Must he die?

Doing the unthinkable, Syd tries saving David by kissing him on the lips. Transferring the parasite into herself. Oh, shit. Off come the gloves, both figuratively and literally. Going from Syd to Kerry, the Devil with the Yellow Eyes uses her ass kicking skills to start a lot of trouble. Even Clark tries to stop it before getting tossed aside like trash. Then we have a face off between Kerry possessed and David, healthy, powerful again. They fly at one another with full speed and power, blowing each other back. And Oliver, he winds up in the way of things. While the Summerland facility is in chaos, he walks out and drives off on his own. Right after he’d just remembered his wife, too. A sad, unexpected consequence of David’s battle with Farouk.

On the road, Oliver rides with Lenny shotgun. Another powerful mind latched onto by the nasty parasite. What’s going to happen next? Who knows. One thing’s for sure, Season 2 is going to be wild, in all sorts of ways. Also a great inclusion of “Children of the Revolution” by T Rex in the last scene. Beauty way to close out an awesome season! An after credits scene sees David tracking Lenny and Oliver, knowing they’re headed south. They’re also visited by a strange orb. It scans David, then sucks him inside. Carrying him off elsewhere. WHOOOA! Cannot wait for next year. This was one of the best series to have premiered in years, honestly. Lots of good stuff out there, but Noah Hawley is on another level. Between this and Fargo? One of TV’s auteurs, for certain. Legion – Chapter 8 FX's Legion Chapter 8 Directed by Michael Uppendahl Written by Noah Hawley * For a recap & review of the penultimate Chapter, …

#Aubrey Plaza #Chapter 8 #Dan Stevens #Hamish Linklater #Jemaine Clement #Keir O&039;Donnell #Legion #Mutant #Rachel Keller #Season Finale #The Devil with the Yellow Eyes #The Shadow King

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