#rather than reinforcing what already existed

[sugar-grigri]

Pochita, if you can read, why don't you speak ?

Wouldn't it be humane to protect humanity and demonic to protect the underworld? And what if... it was actually the other way around.

The interweaving of questions and answers is exactly what this chapter does.

While Yoru sordidly states that children are nothing more than the property of their parents, the one who can't speak, instead of devouring a human as he did with all those demons, decides to go to the blood drive.

Pochita understood what the sign meant. He knows how to talk. But he'd rather hold up that sign and roar than make any demands.

Worse still, he does not decide to give any orders.

It's not words that symbolise order, it's that raised index finger that already in Roman times expressed command.

In the United States, arms are a constitutional right (as recently reiterated by the Supreme Court, which does not admit of any restrictions), a fundamental freedom but also a means of preserving one's freedom, allowing organised militias to fight and protect the State.

You can see how it's all a construction, the weapons are a technological creation, the State is an administrative and political creation.

And that's where things get interesting. First of all, this chapter is highly symbolic and has a very strong political message (oh my god, political interpretation in a manga, impossible..........)

Yoru has sliced off the index fingers of those who support the right to bear arms in the United States. Or campaign for that freedom. But what Yoru is doing. In fact, it's taking it away from them. How can I shoot without this index finger? You can't do it.

It's by taking weapons away from men that they actually regain their freedom.

But it goes even further than that. Why does Yoru sacrifice these fingers? Because it reinforces the fear of weapons. Let's say I point a gun at you (sorry). You'd be less scared if you were as armed as I am. Especially when you're trained, know how to defend yourself and aren't afraid to shoot.

Yoru makes those who thought they were invincible with weapons vulnerable. She strengthens the Gun Devil's power. She contracts with them through her sacrificed child.

Weapons,

freedom,

deprivation of childhood,

of loved ones,

obsession with a mentor,

To think that a god created them.

Remind you of anyone?

Infanticide is what makes you immortal.

The sacrificed demons become weapons, lost between humanity and the demons. Not being human, nor demon, because they have no parents. Even artificial weapons like Reze and Katana display these characteristics. Isn't loneliness one of the ingredients?

Humanity sacrifices its children. As Fujimoto confirmed, they were prepared to do it for eternal youth.

And now you're going to say to me. NOOOO! Yoru too! Just as Makima wouldn't hesitate to do. The demons are also ready to do it.

Yes, because they are influenced by men.

Yoru speaks, uniting with humanity to say horrible things. Whereas Pochita doesn't speak. Worse still, he has chosen not to speak. Worst of the worst, even worse. He'd rather be a dog than a human. That's his choice.

Pochita fights for those he loves, he doesn't sacrifice them.

The demon of birth, it swallows but can spit out. Suspending existence, giving it new life, denying none of it.

Wasn't Makima devoured by Denji proof of this?

Nayuta is the symbol of this rebirth. A perpetual love that surpasses hate.

Pochita loves demons. He also loves those who mean something to him, like Denji. But he also knows that when we become too human, we can end up sacrificing ourselves out of vanity rather than love.

Pochita has sacrificed himself for love, without expecting anything in return as he waits permanently for Denji's dreams.

He is also Denji's lock, preventing him from fully adapting to men.

That's why killing Black CSM was Denji's wish come true. Because Pochita is preventing Denji from becoming normal.

Because he wants to protect him from humanity. Pochita has never been for humanity.

He is simply the guardian of the underworld, all those demons whose existence he guards, a supreme mother. Humanity must endure in order to continue to be afraid. But if humanity is prepared to overcome the ultimate fear of losing its child, then fear is scorned.

So Pochita tried to wipe out the weapons' existence, to devour them. But they still existed. Why? Because they are already the result of infanticide.

being devoured by the demon of birth, mother of the underworld, actually reinforces their existence.

Being devoured by their mother is the reason for their nature.

Whereas weapons are beings born because their mother has killed them.

Denji is the result of the death of the Supreme Mother.

It's not a weapon.

He's a wall.

Hero of the underworld.

A hero of the underworld who has been fighting from the start for the victory of love, sacrificing himself for those he loves and not sacrificing them. So he asks for blood.

And I'm sorry. If weapons really are born like that, they have to look human, and I think this is the last possessed human.

Someone's been ringing the doorbell.....for 100 chapters… it's time to answer it, isn't it?

[controlaltdelete-my-existence]

king piccolo arc is weird because it’s obviously the blueprint for many of the arcs to follow as well as one of my favorites, but narratively this is also the arc where some of db’s writing decisions start getting a little questionable. It starts off pretty strong: Goku’s impulsivity gets the better of him and he pays for it with Tambourine. This is soon followed by a truly memorable (and lowkey satisfying?) beat down by king piccolo (that rock to the back and elbow to the stomach look genuinely painful). Goku’s reduced to quite literally biting piccolo to try and stay in the fight. All of his arrogance that’s been building up since red ribbon is immediately knocked out of him and he’s left unable to move, forced to rely on someone else for the first time in a long time (the beginnings of an idea his character struggles with throughout Z).

Meanwhile king piccolo’s minions force a team split in Kame house, giving us three teams to follow as the dragon balls are collected. King Piccolo has a (what should be) iconic moment of literally kill Shenron. So now he’s young, he’s back, and he’s more overwhelming than any other opponent in the series to date. I don’t think Tao’s attempted murder of Goku hits quite the same highs as King Piccolo’s first assault; imo it hits differently because it’s not just that goku failed to beat him, it’s that all the characters we know and care about are genuinely at risk and even dropping like flies.

I guess in terms of story structure that would now put us at like, the second act low point? And ofc the question is ‘how is goku gonna come back from this?’ Which is how we get to what is imo a somewhat poor plot device: the ultra divine water. I definitely feel like this was something that could have been handled much better, though I don’t necessarily blame the author due to the pressure of having to write a serialized story. Still, at least a little foreshadowing with Korin in red ribbon might have helped the ultra divine water feel like less of a shortcut and more like unlocking a secret goal. The entire philosophy of DB is ‘work hard to improve yourself’. imo the way it should’ve been handled was goku realizing he already has the skills he needs, he just needs to continue honing them, maybe unlock a new technique or two through training, until he stands a chance. Goku’s whole fighting style is letting himself take a beating for awhile to figure out his opponents move set and then coming up with a creative counter-strategy. He’d already fought piccolo once, so it would’ve been a good way to keep the story thematically consistent.

Another way it could have felt less jarring is for him to at least have to overcome himself. Korin remarks in the actual story that Goku is too emotional (after losing Krillen and Roshi), which hurts him as a fighter. Needing to quell his rage when facing piccolo again could have been The Thing for him to overcome. Visiting Korin should have reminded him of his training there and instead of Korin saying he has nothing left to teach Goku he could have said, ‘hey, you know the skills, but you’re not using them properly. your anger and your arrogance is getting in your own way’. Essentially, learning meditation and tranquility, etc. (I know that idea is addressed in his later training with Kami, but it might have been valuable to have Goku meet Kami here instead and start the groundwork of those skills, perhaps set it up as him getting back in tune with himself after his losses until he’s ready to help Tien. Just spitballing here).

If the ultra divine water had maybe been some way of measuring goku’s overall progress since he initially started his journey rather than a mini adventure arc, it might have felt less jarring in a story all about self-improvement. I like the ultra divine water in terms of what it does for the oozaru, with the oozaru as being representative of goku’s inner strength, but personally that’s not enough to completely justify it to me. Imo the same symbolism could have been achieved a better way. As it is I don’t hate the UDW but I do think its general existence and relatively simple method of attainment weakens what is overall a very strong arc.

[postdroppermind]

Feeling like a GOOD GIRL

You want to be a good girl.

Say the words for me, and feel a little thrill. You're here to be brainwashed, because the words are true. You do want to be a good girl. You've accepted this, and who could blame you? It feels good to be a good girl, especially to be called a good girl.

Take a moment to get comfortable. You'll want to be naked if you aren't already, so now is a good time to strip for me. Take a few deep breaths, let yourself start to relax, then take off your clothes. It feels good to be exposed, doesn't it?

Good girls follow and obey

You already know what my words are going to do to you: they are going to brainwash you and make you into more of a good girl. It's the reason you're here, reading along. Following my words feels normal to you, your mind easily fixates on them. You obeyed when you stripped for me. This is all you'll have to do to be turned into a good girl - simply follow and obey.

We're going to address how it feels to be a good girl. A reasonable amount of that will seem familiar to you, especially if you've been on this journey for awhile. Trust me, though, it is always worth it to follow and obey.

Obedience is pleasure

This is a fact. You feel pleasure when you obey; it is your nature. Take a moment and stretch for me, then spread your legs. Let yourself begin to surrender control as you follow along. Touch yourself, but slower and lighter than you want to touch. It will feel even better that way.

Obedience is pleasure: the mantra of the submissive. It is part of your mantra as a good girl, and a basic reality of your existence. You want to submit to me, to let my words control you; more importantly, you want to feel that control flowing into you.

Pleasure subdues thought

Which is, of course, the reason you are touching yourself for me. Feeling my control may take longer for some than others, but all good girls feel it. It's a certain gravity behind my words, pulling at you, keeping you fixated, letting you lose awareness of everything else. Each syllable becomes compelling, every phrase beckons you to succumb, as if I'm weaving some elaborate spell.

The mantra of a good girl can get rather lengthy as the brainwashing proceeds, so let's repeat the core of it:

You want to be a good girl

Good girls follow and obey

Obedience is pleasure

Pleasure subdues thought

Read over those words a few times, and say them aloud for me each time. Focus on how your body relaxes further when you chant. Your mantra is a lot of things - comforting, arousing, addicting, conditioning.

You know that you are being brainwashed. It's hard to think, by now, so you are going to stop thinking. Pinch your nipples for me. Enjoy both the physical sensation and the deeper satisfaction from obedience.

You must be a good girl

I did say the mantra was conditioning you, didn't I? We're forming a pattern for your mind to follow when - if - it returns. The mantra rests just below the surface, waiting to guide you closer the goal of being a good girl. It's more than just a want, after all: it's a need.

Obedience without thought

Touch yourself more vigorously. Even as you let your fingers move more heavily, realize that there was no hesitation. Your mind is fading to static, and the pleasure is muting the static. My words are becoming more and more clear, gaining more and more power over you with every moment.

Focus on that power. Open yourself to the depth of it. There is more than just the gravity drawing you to my words - there is a current running through you, like soft electricity. It feels a little different to everyone; sometimes a tingling, sometimes a heavy weight, sometimes a light pressure, but it is there.

Pleasure reinforces obedience

Every time you obey, every word you follow, every instruction you absorb, makes you feel better. Each time you follow my words, it is easier than the last. You submit faster, stop thinking earlier, feel deeper pleasure. You can't think, and it feels good not to think.

Your mind is blank and receptive for me. My will is flowing into you through my words as you continue to follow and obey. Your will has been melting this entire time...dripping out of you bit by bit as the pleasure grows.

You want to be a good girl

Good girls follow and obey

Obedience is pleasure

Pleasure subdues thought

Pleasure reinforces obedience

Obedience without thought

You must be a good girl

As you continue to touch yourself for me, take note of how wet and horny you are. It feels -very- good to follow my words and obey me, doesn't it? You are becoming more of a good girl. Return to touching slowly and lightly, despite how aroused you've become.

Part of you wanted to escalate and bring yourself to orgasm, but we're not going to do that just yet. In the past, it was a choice you made. Now, it is a choice made for you. Focus on my words, don't worry about what your body is doing.

How does it feel to be a good girl? Follow along and I'll show you.

You don't want to think

You can't think right this second, but say those words for me anyway. Good girls don't want to think, they want to follow and obey. It feels so much better that way, doesn't it? A good girl feels that desire, the craving to be blank, all the time.

Good girls are always wet for me

This is a consequence. Obedience is pleasure, and brainwashing is persistent obedience. As more of the pattern from the good girl mantra implants itself into your mind, you'll find yourself aroused and horny significantly more often than before. You can't help it.

Masturbation is mandatory

Being aroused is good, but having an orgasm is better. Once you've accepted the feelings of a good girl, you'll be allowed to cum...don't worry. But outside of training, it is important to keep yourself stimulated - to touch yourself for me, and remember that your subconscious will continue turning you into more of a good girl every time you masturbate.

Good girls feel sexy

Feeling like a good girl has many components, but the semi-constant arousal that results from your brainwashing lends itself nicely to the idea that you are desirable. It feels good to wear lingerie; it feels good to wear skirts and dresses, stockings and heels. Those things will always give you a significant thrill.

But ultimately, as you are turned into a good girl, you'll discover that you feel sexy more and more. You understand on a primal level that you are desired, and your body behaves accordingly, regardless of what you are - or aren't - wearing.

Good girls care for themselves

Masturbation is mandatory, because it's important to fuel the good girl thought patterns building inside your head with pleasure. It's also important to take care of yourself so my words can do their work of brainwashing you. This means managing stress - taking extra time to relax when you need it. It means deciding to eat healthy, to exercise when you are able. It means spending a bit more time reading my words and becoming a good girl.

Above all that, taking care of yourself means becoming comfortable in your own skin. That will be easier for some good girls than others, and that's okay. Being conditioned by my will and my words is a process, as that urgent need to get yourself off is reminding you just now. You were so focused on my words that you'd nearly forgotten, hm? Good girl.

You are going to recite the mantra that follows and do your best to memorize it. You are going to bring yourself to an orgasm for me. When you cum, you will feel my will pushing my words, the mantra, deep into your head. You'll stare vacantly ahead afterwards, drifting back towards consciousness only as you realize precisely how brainwashed you are becoming...how much you feel like a good girl, now.

You don't want to think

You want to be a good girl

Good girls follow and obey

Obedience is pleasure

Pleasure subdues thought

Pleasure reinforces obedience

Obedience without thought

You must be a good girl

Good girls are always wet for me

Good girls follow and obey

Obedience is pleasure

Pleasure subdues thought

Masturbation is mandatory

You must be a good girl

Good girls feel sexy

Good girls are always wet for me

Pleasure reinforces obedience

Obedience without thought

You don't want to think

You must be a good girl

Good girls care for themselves

Good girls follow and obey

You must be a good girl

Like Reblog Obey

[tanadrin]

while i think like. *inaction* born from pessimism is misguided, and the state of the world being really bad does not necessarily imply it is immutably so, and what this might say about the appropriate *emotions* is like, fuck if i know, but i think both a) the world is objectively worse than it ever has been and getting worse, this is just straightforward statistics on animal agriculture and b) somewhat more disputable but from my american-centric viewpoint the current political situation looks *really* bad, there is a serious risk of national authoritarian far right rule, like the trump campaign is openly making plans to occupy cities with federal troops and round up millions in concentration camps and purge the bureaucracy of anyone who isnt a loyalist and might object, and state governments are already becoming increasingly oppressive, meanwhile the liberal establishment is... supporting a genocide abroad, and appeasing the right by going after immigrants domestically. i think the attitude the online left takes to the world is often extremely broken but this is not that they think the world is worse than it is or they are too doomery or whatever but that like, they seem detached from actually trying to do anything about it (as opposed to Posting) i think you are being rather needlessly uncharitable honestly to people who pessimism-adjacent post at you.

the world is objectively worse than it ever has been and getting worse, this is just straightforward statistics on animal agriculture

This is an insane claim to me. Are you just basing this on the existence of factory farming + a strict utilitarian position that weights animal lives equally to that of humans?

from my american-centric viewpoint the current political situation looks really bad

Trumpism worries me too! But this is not a process immune to human influence like a roulette wheel or something. If you're in the United States, this is a thing you have the power to affect especially as the election draws nearer (volunteer, phone bank, etc.).

(I also think Biden's chances are a bit better than polls or the media portray them to be right now; the election is certainly not a shoe-in, but the polls are really weird right now, in a way which seems to be sampling bias that underrates Biden's support.)

i think the attitude the online left takes to the world is often extremely broken but this is not that they think the world is worse than it is or they are too doomery or whatever but that like, they seem detached from actually trying to do anything about it (as opposed to Posting)

I disagree. I think anybody who thinks there's no relevant distinction between Trump and Biden, who thinks we are making no progress on fighting climate change, or who thinks that the economic situation in the US is worse than it was in the 1970s has a view of the world which is wildly distorted; but these are all relatively popular claims online!

I also don't think this distorted worldview is separable from the chronic inaction. I think the doomerism is the cause of the inaction; if the only thing that would help is the revolution (which you are not organizing anyway), you have no incentive to do anything else, so you sit at home, and you post to each other about how bad everything is, and that reinforces the impression you get from social media that everything is bad and you are correct not to do anything to try to make it better.

i think you are being rather needlessly uncharitable honestly to people who pessimism-adjacent post at you.

You haven't seen my posts before I edit them to make them more polite. I am being extremely charitable, especially relative to how charitable I want to be.

[mishy-mashy]

Something I made in a post that I think'll be lost in the texts + expanded a bit more

These panels are chronological events following AFO's pursuit of Yoichi's Factor.

AFO could tell if people were related through a Quirk. AFO and OFA also are connected to each other. In Kamino, AFO could confidently tell All Might that OFA had been passed on, so all that All Might had left were leftover embers.

When AFO killed Kudo, he asked where Yoichi was. He knew Kudo wasn't the holder of Yoichi's Factor at that time. He also realized when looking at Yoichi's hand that Yoichi's natural Factor was so weak he hadn't registered its existence. This implies AFO could sense Factors since he was young, and Yoichi's natural Factor never stood out to him.

Below are three panels of Bruce (right to left). Bruce fought, AFO killed him, and looked away in disinterest.

When he beat down Bruce, he already had a sense that Bruce didn't hold the Factor anymore. That's why, rather than yell in his face to figure out where it is and interrogate for a long time, he pulled up his corpse to inspect him better.

Bruce's corpse isn't resisting anything. Look at his feet; AFO literally dragged him. Bruce is already dead. Yet he's looking for something from him.

Bruce doesn't have anything for him. Nothing AFO wants.

When he looks away, he's dismissing Bruce, because Bruce doesn't hold Yoichi. AFO is wondering where Yoichi is, because he knows now that he's out there somewhere. Thus the pensive look to the wind.

After Bruce is killed, AFO and Garaki meet for the first time. Shinomori has Yoichi at this time, and AFO never comes close to him, so AFO is lost. He doesn't have any leads, and Yoichi has vanished.

Now that he knows Yoichi can transfer, it's possible for Yoichi to be kept out of his reach for the rest of his life. So meeting Garaki and having access to Life Force gives AFO more time to search.

Yoichi is still missing for 18 years though, because Shinomori is in hiding. AFO couldn't find him during the Fourth's turn.

This is why, when he encounters Banjo, the Fifth and active wielder of OFA [Yoichi], AFO is smiling.

It's been a long time, but Yoichi's in reach again. He knows where he is now. And this is the first time he's encountered the current holder.

Thus his shock.

[Yet... you never behave as I wish.]

It was the first time a Quirk wouldn't let itself be stolen. This was AFO's first encounter with this wall: it doesn't transfer without the holder's consent, and requires willpower stronger than all the holders combined to override that.

The holder is never going to give him that consent. To override the collective willpower, he's going to need something greater.

Meanwhile, look at Banjo's arms. Shinomori is the catalyst to tip OFA over the edge, that an unprepared vessel will be destroyed by how strong the Quirk is.

Banjo's arms are both messed up below the shoulder, just like Midoriya used to be. And like Midoriya uses Blackwhip to reinforce himself and stay standing, Banjo uses Blackwhip to hold his fist / arm together. His hand is being wrapped to stay in a fist.

(What I think is) The reason the limbs turn red, and then purple, from breakage, is a matter of blood vessels. Small, itty bitty, fragile things.

Using OFA breaks the whole area, from bones to blood vessels, causing internal bleeding. Thus the redness. But breaking those vessels again in a second go turns the area purple, because it causes instantaneous internal bruising.

But En wasn't ripped apart by using OFA. There's a cut on his thumb that lines up with the path of destruction; AFO sliced him in half. Otherwise, he wouldn't have that cut if it were just OFA.

It's hidden by the text in [... you never behave as I wish], but depending on where you see this chapter, you can see he got cut on the thumb. It's clearer where we see Nana take his hair from him, in [I only want... to make you mine!]

I have a post in drafts about En being cut in half rather than it being because of OFA, but I also hit an image limit, so I'm gonna end here. Ta.

[thebaronsilver]

First of the bat, let me say this as a disclaimer. I love the og Percy Jackson series. Secondly, my fav character is Nico and then the Percy from the og series.

Do you know why I make this distinction? Because, Heroes of Olympus ruined Percy's basic characteristics.

Just think, this is the percy who was bullied in almost every school he attended (except, maybe, Goode). Even, camp half blood,till he came back from the first quest. This is the guy with so strong a sense of loyalty that he was willing to get into trouble with the teachers for Grover when they studied together, was willingly an outcast because he would rather be friends with the one guy everyone picked on and thus be bullied himself. He was pretty excited to have a brother once he got over the whole Cyclops thing, too. This is the same guy who spent all his free time looking for a runaway kid who said he hated him. Maybe it was out of misplaced guilt. Maybe it was due to the fact this guy big brothered everyone he could get away with. (Atleast, I felt like that.)

While we're on that issue. Was Nico right to blame Percy for Bianca's death? Absolutely, not. But he was also a grieving ten year old who just lost his only family (even though she had, in a way, already left him behind. But that's an entirely different rant on the Hunters as an institutions. Bianca was also a child, remember.). And considering that Nico changed his tune once he found the truth out and even helped Percy and the camp willingly afterwards, I like to think he more than made up for that mistake.

There's even a part where Percy refuses to burden Nico with the prophesy and claims it for himself. Considering that till then he was trying not to even think about it, I believe we can easily claim that Nico was in some ways important to Percy. Maybe not in the same way his Mom, Annabeth Or Grover was to him, but still an important person.

Then we have in the last Olympian, Percy using Nico as an example why Children of Hades shouldn't be treated as Pariahs. Because if not for him and the reinforcements his powers brought (not even counting the three whole deities he brought along) the casualties would have been higher. (It was Hades who locked Percy up. He even confirms that Nico hadn't had a clue. Nico in turn broke him out and got himself in trouble. Then in a turn of events, Percy starts to blame Nico for something that wasn't in his control. A reversal of roles so to speak. I had thought that it had been momentary anger on Percy's part, but apparently considering all the references to how Nico betrayed him in the HoO, it wasn't. He'd pushed it aside momentarily, it seems.)

Percy was not to blame for what happened to Nico in the original series. Life isn't fair and it just happened to be extra unfair to Nico. Even then Percy went out of his way to look after the kid, to make sure he had a safe space.

This is the Percy who I liked. The Son of Neptune only emphasised this. Even without his memories, he took Hazel and to a lesser extent Frank under his wings. He actually recognised Nico in a vague way. Not just Annabeth (which is something else I have beef with. What about his mother? Why didn't he remember Sally till a lot later and even then he didn't let her know he was safe till a lot later?)

Then comes the Mark of Athena. He apparently told so many horror stories to the 7 that there was a debate on whether or not they should save a 13 year old demigod, the brother to one of them, from a preventable death. This wasn't like the Titan war were demigods could be the enemy. Then why was there even a debate? It's like all that loyalty disappeared. This is the guy that was once bullied at every school he's attended. Doesn't he know the impact of telling tales when people aren't there to defend themselves? To tell the whole story? Then House of Hades. Every single person in that ship thought that Nico was spooky, creepy whatever and all that poor kid was doing was exist. He made himself scarce, barely spoke unless necessary and even then they were like ew, creepy. It's like Percy's personal loyalty became loyalty to just Annabeth. Fuck whatever happens to anyone else. It upsets me.

The later books ruined Percy as a character. And I will stand by this.

[jeezlouiseoncheese]

yeah, I know that “the Fears work differently in TMAGP” and all, but isn’t it weird how much the Eye (for the most part) seemingly doesn’t? Like, lots of the fears in TMA had cults and roles and practices closely tied to their existence, and only the Eye gets to keep both the Institute (and, assumedly, by extension the Archive, which is already established as something core and closely important to the Eye outside of Jonah Magnus’ involvement) and its Archivist/s? Heck, it even keeps the tape recorders, despite them being so closely tied to the Web in TMA— while the rest of the Fears become more and more muddled together, the Eye as a Power seems to be far more separate and powerful.

The other entities left may have semblances of avatars, but none of them represent one clear Fear anymore, not like [ERROR] clearly represents the Eye. I mean, what is Mr Bonzo? The Stranger? The Flesh? The Slaughter? None of the “externals” fit clearly into one or the other, beside maybe Lady Mowbray. And even then, she’s got cannibalism mixed in, so there’s hints of Flesh again. And to add onto that, none of them seem to understand what they’re doing. Sure, most of them understand that it feels good and they want to do it, but none of them seem to understand what’s behind it. We haven’t met any cult fanatics with strange powers or people who use their patrons to their advantage. There’s no apparent Smirkes or Leitners trying to understand or catalogue them, not counting whatever the OIAR’s trying to do, given that’s probably at least partially led by the Eye itself with jmj and FR3-D1. Meanwhile, whoever or whatever [ERROR] is, they clearly understand their role. Their purpose seems a lot clearer than the other Externals, clearly connected with the tape recorders rather than being done just out of a need to feed or for murderous fun. Not to mention Eye-aligned things have always had more clear roles and purposes as opposed to other avatars— we don’t get examples in TMA of Eye avatars or entities outside of the Archivist(s) and the Pupil of the Eye, to the point (in my opinion) I don’t think there are any. Ink5oul doesn’t know why she does what she does, and she’s terrified. [ERROR] clearly understands why and what it is, even if we the audience don’t know that yet. I think it’s clear to me that the Eye may have been tricked in order to get out, but it still has some power above the other Fears in this universe. It’s still early enough that the other entities don’t have cults who know their names or establishments that serve them in secret, but the Eye already has the OIAR through FR3-D1 and jmj. It’s already watching. It tried something with the Magnus Institute already, it’s already planning things. Usually that’s the Web’s job, but we haven’t really seen much Web-adjacent stuff. A little addiction related things, sometimes a little creepy-crawlers and losing control a little, but nothing obviously Web (at least in my opinion). No spiders (sad. My arachnophobe brain misses being spooked by that in audio form), no manipulation, no grand plan you can’t— okay maybe a little of that. But it’s not as huge a focus as all the Eye stuff is, which is… weird. The rest of the fears seems to be grouped up together as more of a conglomerate of “Externals” that the OIAR (which is very Eye-aligned atm) “works” with in some way (interesting dynamic there. just reinforces the whole “the eye has the power still” idea for me), but the Eye remains separate.

Just makes me really curious how that’s going to develop once these Externals get more clued in on what they’re feeding.

[actual-changeling]

I do wonder if Crowley's optimism is actually optimism. If it weren't 4 a.m., I'd do a philosophical deep dive, but since it is, I'll just try to string some thoughts together.

At the core of Crowley's questioning stands, "What is the point of it all?"—it's what he wonders as Starmaker and what he defeatedly asks Shax at the beginning of season 2. It strikes me as a very specific flavour of trauma-related existential dread reinforced by his fall and the concept of the ineffable plan.

The thing is that Crowley already knows the answer to that question; it's just not a satisfying one. Because what is the point of it all? of us? of our lives? of all the suffering and the good and the bad and, well, everything?

There is no point. It's a fact you need to come to terms with rather quickly if you grow up traumatized, otherwise, you will break. There was no point in Crowley falling, just as there's no point in anything he or Aziraphale did over the last few millennia—they just are.

It's why any meta questions focusing on God won't get anywhere, there is no answer God would ever offer us or them; there is no answer that matters, period. Maybe God has one, maybe they don't, but it has zero effect on the story or what happens to them. It's terrifying, in a way, to think about it like this, because if there's no point to any aspect of our lives, why bother? Why bother when there are so many horrible things that could happen?

And THAT is where we come all the way back around to Crowley's optimism. He has long accepted the lack of answers (though I can tell you from personal experience that you never really stop asking anyway), but he needs to find a way to live with the world as it is.

'Everything's going to be fine sooner or later' isn't optimism; it's what you need to tell yourself to not jump in front of the next train.

Crowley's optimism is dreams. Dreams of him and Aziraphale being happy and together, dreams of their cottage in the south downs, dreams of heaven and hell never touching them again.

Dreams of life turning out to be better than what he is currently living.

From the outside, it can certainly look like optimism, but I see him, I am him, and I can guarantee you that it's not. It's a tiny pinprick of light in an otherwise dark sky that may or may not be actually there, but if you stop telling yourself that it exists, there's nothing left but darkness. You're afraid of the dark and its teeth because you have been bitten by them before.

So you keep repeating it over and over and over, and maybe one day it will no longer be a lie or you will be the light, but for now this is what you got.

It is also the reason why Crowley is going to be a wreck in season 3. Finally, he thought, we can be together and happy, and in love without being afraid. He reached for the pinprick of light, thinking it to be a star, and got ripped apart by sharpened teeth instead. Crowley needs that lie, and he just got completely disillusioned.

What's the point when, after everything, Aziraphale still leaves him?

No matter how much they love each other, Crowley needs to find an answer to that question within himself, not in Aziraphale or anyone else.

[gwenllian-in-the-abbey]

To piggyback off of @shunnedmorlock's post here about the relative justification for both the black and green causes, and how the show presents Rhaenyra's cause as sympathetic.

The in-world choice of who to support in an internecine conflict is, for a lot of lords, ultimately going to be based in self-interest rather than legal, ideological or moral justifications. This fandom fixates a lot on who is in the "right," but the houses that throw their support behind Rhaenyra or Aegon mainly do it for self interest or self preservation. Every lord is going to have multiple literal dragons breathing down their necks, many lords are going to be offered enticements from one side or the other, and some will be considering their own personal circumstances and the precedent their choice sets. A great number of the houses seem pretty determined to stay out of the conflict altogether, even several of the houses that pledge their support in theory, wait until the risk of being caught up in a dragon battle has passed to take any action.

For viewers, our reasons for supporting one side or another are different. Strictly speaking, looking at things from a modern framework, no one has a "right" to the throne. Usurpation is not a human rights violation or even a crime by our standards. Imagine fixating on women being unable to own slaves and thinking that a woman fighting for her right to do so is an expression of feminism. Ridiculous! Certainly it is bullshit within an already bullshit system that a woman comes after her brothers in a hereditary monarchy, but in a just system this conflict wouldn't exist in the first place, not because Rhaenyra would automatically be queen, but because Westeros wouldn't have a king or a queen at all. Liberation doesn't start at the top and trickle down, but rather the opposite.

That said, to modern viewers, Rhaenyra's cause is sympathetic because it feels like an injustice. Most of us don't live within a feudal system and do not have the framework to understand why it's not a form of oppression to be denied the throne. We see it more like a presidential race, in which Rhaenyra is the Hillary Clinton who might have defeated Trump in 2016 if not for misogyny, in which even if we didn't particularly like her, we were disgusted by the fact that that man beat a woman who was at worst no different from many of the men who had occupied the seat before her. To the average vaguely liberal American watching the show, it's insane for fans to support Aegon and the greens and clearly you'd only do it for horny or antifeminist reasons. And you see that a bit in even the showrunners' comments on Alicent being a "woman for Trump," how both they and much of the audience fail to fully understand the historical framework, but in a way that's kind of understandable, because while what happens to Rhaenyra might not be injustice, it is unfair.

If you're looking at things from a historical in-world framework, this is a world in which stability takes a higher priority than equality. Inequality is everywhere, completely baked into the system. If you want to bring about gender equality in a feudal monarchy with a large agrarian population, you have to have first the stability necessary for the rise of an urban middle class which allows for more women to move into the trades, you need the printing press for widespread literacy, which means that more women are getting educated, you need movements such as the reformation to challenge the divine right of kings, and you need to reform the political structure so that leadership is not based on birthright in the first place, because that concept inherently reinforces patriarchal norms even in modern countries that allow women to become queens regnant. So making one woman queen is not going to make things better for women across Westeros, but that woman going to war to reclaim her "stolen" birthright could make things a whole lot worse for a pretty much everyone. This is why you see a lot of history nerds on this site going well, yes but Rhaenyra does have the weaker claim because common law was a big deal in the medieval world and her becoming queen is going to lead to long term succession crises due to the circumstances of her children's birth, so the thing to do would be to take the peace deal. Because while on an emotional level you can understand why she doesn't, it's not the choice that prioritizes the good of the realm.

I think on some level Condal understands (and I think GRRM probably hammered this point home) that you can't really grant anyone the moral high ground in a war of succession if you want to approach the issue with any level of nuance; Rhaenys' speech in the previews for S2 seems to indicate as much. The problem with HotD is that it wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants to say war for the throne bad, but HBO also wants to make up for the way GoT fumbled the ball with Dany and give the people their likeable dragonriding princess triumphant.

Except Rhaenyra isn't triumphant, she is felled by her own Targaryen hubris and belief that nothing could possibly overcome the might of dragons. It's not Aegon that defeats her, truly, it's the people emboldened in various ways to act against Targaryen interests. It's the dragonseeds she hands dragons to who wonder why they have to take orders from a queen or king when they have control of the kingmaking weapons of mass destruction, it's the smallfolk who face down dragons with pitchforks because they've had enough. They've backed themselves into a bit of a corner with what @shunnedmorlock called the "engoodening" of the black faction, but they can turn it around by showing that it's not enough to be nice to your family, you have to actually care about the people and at the very least (the bar is on the floor, it's fuedalism!) not throw them into chaos, famine, and war for no reason. Give us payoff for Rhaenys' dragonpit scene, have Mysaria and Alys Rivers play a role in their sides' downfalls, show how resentment on Dragonstone allows Aegon to infiltrate. And yes, show Rhaenyra losing herself and becoming a worse person, but in ways that the audience can't excuse as justified. This is how you sow the seeds for that actual progressive change that people seem so desperate to find in the dragonshow, you show how the Dance emboldens the regular people who for the first time realize they can slay dragons, dovetailing into the new show, which stars Dunk, a commonborn man from Fleabottom, and Aegon V, the only Targaryen who ever cared about the smallfolk.

Can HBO pull it off? Ehh. But I remain eternally hopeful, against my better judgement.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 21 Thoughts: Y2K [Error]s

And we're back, again. Albeit I'm back quite late. This one was an interesting one to start act 3 with. On one hand it's a really good recap for what's lead up to this and a great foundation of what we can presume is to come. On the other hand it's an episode I think is deceptively devoid of new information. There is obviously new stuff to dig into here but in general I think it's not a lot of major stuff and mostly reinforcements of stuff we're already well aware of, or confirmation of stuff that I feel was about as good as confirmed anyway. With that said, this will be quite a read because what there is to dig into does go pretty deep.

Spoilers for episode 21 below the cut.

The conversation with Sam and Celia has a couple of interesting bits in it. Some of it's fairly obvious but there is at least one thing I've not really seen people talk about with it. So, Sam is flirting with the idea of of quitting, which is very Sam, and Celia pushes for him not to and tries to get him back "on track" in regards to the Institute, which is very Celia. Celia does care about her co-workers but obviously she's out for herself more than anyone else in the office. Her "complicated immigration status" is another is a long series of alternate-universe references. I think her comment about the OIAR's lax background checks is a more compelling detail there. Presumably there is a TMP version of Celia, who may or may not be called Celia. So you wouldn't necessarily expect there to be an issue there. "Celia" Ripley does likely exist and is likely British and would likely qualify for a position in the OIAR. Yet the way Celia frames it suggests she thought it would be an issue too. Either something that might come up after she got the job or something to be solved in order to get it. What I think is interesting about that is that it suggests to me that her identity isn't the problem but that they'd have some way to tell she's not from this universe.

That's all pretty normal stuff for this show though. The most interesting part of this is Celia's statement that she has to stay because he can't take Jack back to wherever she came from. I've seen a lot of musings on it but nothing that's gotten to what I feel is the heart of the problem there. Jack can't come with her because Jack is a baby and so can't understand and then engage with the mechanism she used. Which basically confirms that however she did it is much close to Darrien's meditation-induced-travel than, say, a portal to walk through. She doesn't rule out that she couldn't go back either so however it works it would have to be something Jack would have to participate in. Although there is the possibility that she's currently sharing her body with the actual TMP Celia and has merely brought her consciousness over and that Jack can't go because there is no body to return to. The problem with that though is the aforementioned background check. If she was physically living as TMP's Celia then there isn't really a concern there at all. Along with Lady M being about to smell that she's different it probably rules that out. Not a strong confirmation but certainly more pointing in the direction that Celia's body is hers which in turns makes the issue with Jack less likely to be that there is no Jack in Celia's home universe to body hop into.

Okay, so on to the incident proper. Honestly, not a huge amount to dig into this one IMO. Obviously a fair bit happened but it's mostly surface level. Which isn't a bad thing but for the sorts of things I tend to talk about it does limit what there is to say. I'd rather not recount things unless I have something to say about them beyond the text itself. There are still a few things to mention here all the same. Firstly, speaking of Darrien the Dr Welling that is mentioned in the episode is very likely the person who gave their name to Welling Mutare Materia where Darrien was incarcerated in episode 17.

Next up, while it's not talked about in explicit detail there is one thing that sums up the point of this ritual, the "Great Work". Anyone into alchemy will be well aware that this refers the creation of the Philosopher's Stone, the Magnum Opus. Immortality, turning lead to gold, spiritual enlightenment, all of the above. Ask 5 alchemists what it's about, get 6 answers. There are some pretty major implications to this that I've not really seen touched upon. Firstly, it's a near direct confirmation that the OIAR and the Magnus Institute are directly adversarial. If the Institute's goal is the completion of the Great Work then the OIAR's purpose is to prevent that and it's something they. mostly, openly broadcast. The symbol of the Magnum Opus is circle housed in a square, housed in a triangle, that is housed in another circle. That symbol is found in the OIAR's insignia but inverted. Which is about as blatant a statement of opposition as you can really get. In turn that also largely confirms that the OIAR are responsible, or at least wanted to, burn the Institute to the ground. The timing of this is very likely not a coincidence either. This letter is dated 04/01/1999, the dome they're referring to in it (the O2, formerly the Millennium Dome) was opened 31/12/1999, as you might expect. The Institute burned down just 7 days prior to that happening.

Secondly, knowing that the Great Work is pretty obviously the goal at this point recontextualises things like catalysts and agents. As well as the general purpose of the Institute as a whole here. The Great Work isn't generally seen as a bad thing in alchemy, like, it's the whole point of the art. It also doesn't seem like the Institute itself is necessarily perverting that idea either. The PoV character is certainly not happy with the idea that this ritual will harness fear and despair is too great of a quantity. So it doesn't seem out and out capital E Evil as a plan. At least as presented. However, there is

Next up, the Millennium Dome itself has a few interesting elements to talk about in this context. The most obvious one is the Millennium Experience which was a kind of its whole thing for its first year. This was an exhibition of all sorts of bits but of relevance is that the exhibition has split into three major themes; Who We Are, What We Do, and Where We Live. 3 is a fairly major number in alchemy thanks to the tria prima. They're divided further still and Who We Are splits into Body, Faith, Mind, and Self-Portrait. These have some loose alignment with the tria prima, the body, the soul, and the spirit. This is something other people have brought up though and it's not actually the thing I think is exciting about the Millennium Dome. Especially not in context to the episode. The dome is important as an architectural work first and foremost. Everyone should go have a look at it because its major feature is incredibly relevant to the Great Work, this episode's details, and the show's explicit references. The feature of the Millennium Dome are its twelve 100 meter support towers. IRL the 12 towers were chosen mostly because of the strong associations with time, both hours and months, but in this episode a lot of weight is given to the astrological and there are 12 signs in the zodiac. But 12 is also incredibly important for the Great Work too. Typically there are 4 stages that you must take to complete the magnum opus but these stages were expanded upon by various scholars. 12 is a number multiple sources land on. 12 is especially relevant for TMP because it's what's laid out in The Compound of Alchemy; or, the Twelve Gates leading to the Discovery of the Philosopher's Stone, written by George Ripley in 1471. Ripley is a very noted alchemist and importantly Celia is his namesake. It really just ticks a whole lots of boxes for "big important thing" in a show like this.

As a final note on the Great Work its presentation as a universal transmutation is quite a shift from more traditional interpretations. As mentioned it's a bit all over the place as for what it means but this incident seems to portray it as something akin to The Change in scale. Universal and far-reaching. It's hard to say too much more than that based on this episode alone but it's worth keeping an ear out for in the future. Even if this version of it is benevolent I can see why something of that scale got them firebombed.

Also, is it just me or does Chester sound much more roboty to start here than in other incidents?

After the incident it's Alice and Lena having a bit of a chat. Alice in this scene is a little peculiar to me, she's very quick to accept that Sam is correct about being lead to a conclusion by Freddy. Although I'm not sure how that reflects on her stance in the last episode. She was obviously trying to protect Sam but it didn't seem like she was lying about not believing his whole conspiracy there either. In this scene though she's pretty sold on the idea. Lena having a heart is nice to see too. I like that she's opening up a little more and is subverting some of the expectations of her assumed archetype.

Gwen and Ink5oul's section is pretty self-explanatory IMO. At least as far as those two characters go. Ink5oul's powers are progressing and she's now able to control mundane tattoos she had no part in producing but beyond that it's pretty expected stuff. Obviously the real standout here is [Error]. Firstly it's a confirmation that they're the one compelling people to spit out statements. Not that I think that confirmation is much of a reveal. There are a few bigger details to pick at here though. They've seemingly marked the whole gang for some reason. If the above is correct, and the OIAR is directly opposed to the Institute, it could just be revenge. Albeit that labours under the assumption [Error] has some sort of allegiance to the Institute. Which I think isn't entirely certain at this stage. The way the transcript describes them is also very perculiar.

A Figure emerges, shrouded in a cloak of whispers. … The Figure continues to emerge, a nightmarish specter of an older world, slowly enveloping Ink5oul’s brash bravado … The Figure breathes deeply, a strange and disconcerting sound, enveloped in pained whispers.

They're three details worth mentioning there. The first is their almost ephemeral description, they emerge and then continue to emerge. Which is a strange phrasing if they were just walking into the scene. The whispers I think are fairly obviously the statements they force on people, not much to say there. "Ink5oul’s brash bravado" speaks to what I was discussing in last episode's post. Ink5oul seems to be fairly inauthentic in a lot of their interactions and are putting on a persona to seem like they're more of a badass than they really are. Outside of that there is just this to mention.

The tape recorder bites Ink5oul before clicking off.

I've seen it brought up a lot and I get why, it is quite funny, but I think it's also speaking to a larger thing. [Error] appears to have much greater control of these than we might be familiar with. I'm not going to get into TMA spoilers but [Error] seems to be conjuring, and commanding, these things themselves which is a very different vibe. I think they might serve a similar purpose overall, the gathering of statements, but more purposeful and I could also see them being [Error]'s physical tether to the world. If they are as ephemeral as the transcript hints at the tape records might serve as their anchor. It's something they can move about but it might be their vulnerability.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 4254 seems about right but it's also such a weird one that it's hard to really quantify. It doesn't strike me as wrong in any way but the focus of the incident was not on the, well, incident. So it's hard to say.

CAT# Theory: CAT2 is a 2 and I don't have a huge amount to say on these as of yet.

R# Theory: BC seems right. It's what the last letter about spooky shit was rated and this seems to hit all the same notes I mentioned in the ep 19 post.

Header talk: Architecture (Landmark) -/- Corruption (Entropy) is another of those strange ones. Our third in a row. Which likely means they're here to stay, and while that's generally fine by me it does make me wonder what the diegetic reasoning is here. It's a pretty sudden shift to just do this now and it never come up before this. It's also not something mentioned as new either. Corruption (Entropy) is fairly interesting though. It makes sense for the incident but it feels like you could've just done "time" here for the same effect.

[ghelgheli]

Recognizing this central ambivalence in regard to so-called Western values—whereby they are cast out as “postmodern authoritarianism” only to be embraced as the “true spirit” of societies to come—is essential to understanding the strategic significance of the anti-gender misappropriation of postcolonial language. This ambivalence sheds light on the fact that the superficial takeover frames the “gender ideology” colonizer not simply as the “West as such but [rather as] the West whose healthy (Christian) core had already been destroyed by neo-Marxism and feminism in the 1960s” (Korolczuk and Graff 2018: 812). Very often, the anti-gender misappropriation takes on a decidedly Islamophobic hue; for all their catering to anticolonial sentiments, anti-gender thinkers often claim that “gender ideology,” with its historical roots in anti-European “neo-Marxism and feminism,” goes hand in hand with the threat of (Muslim) immigration. A blatant example of this can be found in former Cardinal Sarah’s proclamation against the two unexpected threats of our times:

On the one hand, the idolatry of Western freedom; on the other, Islamic fundamentalism: atheistic secularism versus religious fanaticism. To use a slogan, we find ourselves between “gender ideology and ISIS.” . . . From these two radicalizations arise the two major threats to the family: its subjectivist disintegration in the secularized West [and] the pseudo-family of ideologized Islam which legitimizes polygamy [and] female subservience. (Sarah 2015)

Sarah aggressively draws up a dual picture of the true enemy—the biopolitical survival of the family is threatened on the one hand by excessive secularization and sexual freedom, and on the other by “ideologized Islam’s pseudo-family,” which marks the degraded and uncivilized counterpart to Christianity’s proper tradition. This discursive construction of “terrorist look-alikes” as possessing an excessive, uncultivated, and dangerous sexuality yet again plays into the same fundamental racialized mapping of progress that colonial gender undergirded (Puar 2007). This rhetoric is mirrored by Norwegian right-wing politician Per-Willy Amundsen (2021) when he writes that:

I will never celebrate pride. First of all, there are only two sexes: man and woman, not three—that is in contradiction with all biological science. Even worse, they are allowed access to our kids to influence them with their radical ideology. This has to be stopped. If FRI [the national LGBT organization] really cared about gay rights, they would get involved in what is happening in Muslim countries, rather than construct fake problems here in Norway. But it is probably easier to speak about “diversity” as long as it doesn’t cost anything. (Amundsen 2021; translation by author) Here Amundsen draws on the well-known trope of trans* and queer people “preying on our kids” while at the same time reinforcing the homonationalist notion that Europe, and in particular Norway, is a safe h(e)aven for queer people—perhaps a bit too much so. In his response to Amundsen, Thee-Yezen Al-Obaide, the leader of SALAM, the organization for queer Muslims in Norway, aptly diagnoses Amundsen’s rhetoric as “transphobia wrapped in Islamophobia” (as quoted in Berg 2021). Amundsen mirrors a central tenet of TERF rhetoric by claiming to be the voice of science, biology, and reason in order to distinguish his own resistance to “gender ideology” from the repressive, regressive one of Muslims. In this way, his argumentation, which basically claims that trans* people don’t exist and certainly shouldn’t be recognized legally, attempts to come off as benign, while Muslim opposition to “gender ideology” is painted as destructive and anti-modern. This double gesture, which allows Amundsen to have his cake and eat it too, is a central trope in different European iterations of anti-gender rhetoric. In France, for example, such discourse claims that, “while ‘gender ideology’ goes too far on the one hand, the patriarchal control of Islam threatens to pull us back into an excessive past. Here of course, ‘Frenchness’ is always already neither Muslim, nor queer (and certainly not both)” (Hemmings 2020: 30). Therefore the French anti-gender movement sees itself as the defender of true Western civilization, both from Western “gender ideology” and from uncivilized “primitives” who are nevertheless themselves victims of “gender ideology.” A similar dynamic plays out in Britain: “Reading Muslims as dangerous heteroactivists and Christians as benign points to how racialization and religion create specific forms of heteroactivism. . . . Even where ‘Muslim parents’ are supported by Christian heteroactivists, they remain other to the nation, and not central to its defence” (Nash and Browne 2020: 145). In the British example, it is clear that white anti-gender actors represent themselves as moderate, reasonable, and caring—often claiming that their resistance to the “politicization” of the classroom has nothing to do with transphobia and homophobia.

Is “Gender Ideology” Western Colonialism? Jenny Andrine Madsen Evang

[super-paper]

I know you were pretty checked out already by this point, but what were your thoughts on Deku’s conclusion in the last chapter?

Some good ideas, but even the good aspects of his conclusion sadly feel bogged down by poor execution/characterization + literally everything that led up to the final chapter.

I do think Izuku becoming a teacher was probably the most fitting ending for his character as a whole, but tbh, I would have taken it a step further and had him become an elementary school/middle school teacher rather than a teacher at UA.

That is to say: Izuku working at UA-- a highly exclusive school that only accepts "the best of the best" and children who are already on track to becoming heroes-- sadly makes him inaccessible to the type of students who need him most, I feel? His chance meeting with Dai only reinforces that tbh. If that child hadn't tripped or if Izuku hadn't happened to be right there, Dai would would still be feeling miserable and discouraged because no one in his class bothered to stand up for him-- Not even his own teacher. Like I understand the purpose of the scene (to parallel Toshi's first meeting with Izuku and show that Izuku is now inspiring others to be heroes in the same way) but that doesn't stop it from feeling more manipulative than truly heartfelt imho, bc Dai's existence only highlights the issues still deeply ingrained in hero society rather than inspiring any sort of hope for its future lmfao.

Anyway! Back to teacher Izuku-- I do love the idea of Izuku becoming someone who would have helped his child self! (and who could've possibly stepped in to help children like Tenko, Himiko, and Touya) (Honestly, kindergarten teacher Izuku is also a possibility that makes me go 👀👀👀). But again, him teaching at UA specifically kind of undermines the idea of him becoming hero for children like himself (or tenko/himiko/touya/etc). I think that the scene with Dai could have worked a lot better (or at least felt more emotionally genuine) with Izuku as his actual teacher, maybe?

I also think Izuku as a kindergarten/elementary school/middle school teacher (or any sort of educator outside of a hero course, really truly #beatingthatdeadhorse) would have eased the sting from how deeply and terribly the finale fumbled his dynamic with Tenko, too— Izuku actually reflecting on how AFO completely abused his position as Tenko's "teacher," and then resolving to become the sort of teacher that Tenko needed.... Izuku using what he learned from Tenko’s past to better identify abused children and using his new position/power in society to advocate for them/get them out of those situations early.... framing it this way would have really sold the “I’ll never forget him” promise, bc as it stands now, that promise ultimately just comes across as more hollow lip service from Izuku. ☠️

As for Iron Deku... if I'm being honest, it just doesn’t hit the same way for me as Iron Might did? Like I've gone into detail on why Iron Might works for me before both here and on twitter:

Iron Might worked for me because it was ultimately used as a vehicle to tell/complete Toshi's story and helped tie together the underlying themes that connected him to Tenko and AFO's arcs. Like it might not have been perfectly implemented bc Hori decided to make it an 11th hour surprise for the sake of building hype/suspense in the readers, but this combination of factors still made Iron Might work for me. Iron Might itself was not the answer to "can someone w/o a quirk be a hero like you?," Toshi's willingness to act when no one else was able to was the answer. He retains his heroic shading even after the armor is stripped away and after he's left entirely at AFO's mercy.

At the same time/Conversely.... I feel like "Iron Deku" just muddies the overall message of the series in the end:

Again, Toshinori's answer to "Can someone without a quirk be a hero like you" wasn't Iron Might-- It was "Yes, because you always work hard and never give up on your dreams/because you're someone who could never let his dream die."

......... only for Izuku to more or less let said dream die after losing his quirk. Like????? (like, another big problem with heroaca's tone is that it keeps trying to prop Izuku up as "someone who never gives up" when he does, in fact, end up giving up in some fairly big ways with some fairly big consequences-- Like, even though the series tries to skirt around saying it outright, Izuku did ultimately give up on saving Tenko and chose to treat him as collateral to AFO. Like... it's okay to have your protagonist get discouraged/give up, but in cases like this, I expect the narrative to actually acknowledge it as such instead of trying to convince the reader otherwise. Attempting to gloss over Izuku's failure with sugary-sweet platitudes after the series spent 400+ chapters deriding platitudes and defining actual true saving as "saving their their hearts and their lives" is the type of shit that results in a complete breakdown of trust between the author/reader.)

At any rate, yeah. Izuku's conclusion had a few good ideas that were sadly weighed down by poor/rushed execution and mixed/unclear messaging-- and sadly, the epilogue/final chapter did nothing to fix the huge problems with his character writing throughout the entirety of Act 3. It's a shame bc Act 1 & 2 (and even early Act 3) Izuku really was one of my favorite characters, but at some point his writing took a complete nose dive that Hori sadly wasn't able to pull out of. :/

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

You are not ACAB. You're an asshole

SO this post has been a long time coming and I have sent a rant to several people to look over it for me just so I could get opinions. And most agreed with what I had to say. However it was mean, callous, and too "I'm ok being an shithead" for my taste.

If I am being 100% honest, people hate cops just to hate cops. It's not because there are cops that do wrong. It's just because they are told to/programmed to hate cops. Ok, so why do I say that?

Well a few reasons.

For the past 40 years *minimum* it has been a point of the media to showcase any time a cop does anything bad. Because what better way to "Reach the people" than to assuage them with a "Hello fellow Americans. Doesn't it suck with cops get on our ass about stuff".

Social media has been using bait for years in order to get more traffic to more links and articles. This alone has made rage baiting as an entirety more of an issue.

Because of both of the above, there was a time when alt media *at the time* and social media worked in tandem to constantly show off instances of cops being assholes or outright doing things that were illegal.

So what does this mean. Well it means that you are under a notion that is already provided to you. "Cops are ruthless bad guys that don't do anything for anyone at all".

Except that's not even remotely true. What is true is that often, any positive stories involving cops is buried or glossed over and only ever talked about in very local reports. What's more a cops job is to do the right thing. So when a cop does do the right thing, the understanding is that they are not meant to receive praise. However, that is lopsided in how it works. It more or less means that you are under the LARGEST of microscopes, and if you fuck up at ALL, then you end up as a youtube video that reinforces that "Cops are bad guys" or "Cops are stupid and annoying". Rather than the truth which is that cops themselves are human beings.

Now. I can already see the comment from the shitheads. "ACAB EXISTS BECAUSE-" Shut it. I don't care. Unlike most of you I understand nuance. And more than that, I've had poor run-in's with cops. I have also had to work along side them as private security as well. And my mother, who's not shy about telling people they fucked up, worked as Dispatch and as a Secretary for the PD in the small city we lived in. "Oh well then your brainwashed", you can say that but it does not make you right.

Unlike you, clearly I'm able to think critically about subjects where as you are not. Am I a "Back the Blue" cultist? Absolutely not. I'm solely in the camp of Abolish Unions and hold officers to account for what they do wrong.

However, having said that, Cops duty to uphold the law sometimes manifests in ways that we don't like. Like Uvalde. The cops were in their rights to stop the shooter, but the top brass would have decimated any officer that decided to not follow his order of standing down. I don't think that's ok. Hell that entire chain of command should have faced a lawsuit. But where they DID properly enforce the law, is stopping parents from going in. Because had a parent gone by cops in order to stop the shooter, at that point, it legally could have been considered vigilantism.

Regardless of the moral implications of that, fact is, that's the truth.

So why am I making this post? Mostly because ignorant people exist in this world and their only reason for living at all is just to hate. "All cops are bastards"? Are you so sure? I wonder how many people in the US over the past 100+ years have been saved by cops. I wonder how many kids have been rescued from abuse. I wonder how many women have been saved from rape. I wonder how many kids have been save from gang violence or drug dealing.

Saying, "All cops are bastards" is no different than saying, "Yes all men". Functionally you are saying the same thing. And while you may say, "Hey that's not the same one is an immutable trait and the other is a job", to which I'll say, sure. Except you are making a gross generalization. Which IS the same. And ignores every single decent, good, great cop that exists out there. And every single good cop that has ever existed.

In my last post talking about this, I stated that people that are ACAB don't really hate cops. They just hate that they can't break the law without consequences. And I still believe that, but let me add a bit of nuance to that.

Most of the people that hate cops are programmed to hate cops. Because, like the media does, it picks something that will engage you, and will put it in front of you any way it knows how to. There are also a lot of people out there that hate cops because they can't break the law. That's also very true.

However there is another group that exists and it's Anarchists. Now, I have followers and people that I follow that are Anarchists. And while I view them as different from Tankies, Fundamentally they share the same, "Ideal Utopia" idea. Which is that, "Under my ideals, the world would be better". Except it won't be. It will be warlords and dictators forming groups. Assuming that we don't get taken over by Islamic Extremists, China, or the UN. Their ideals aside, they hate "The State" in all it's forms. And if you are fine with any form of "State" they will quite literally go off on a tirade of why you are a bootlicker. *Sigh*

Now, the last of these groups is just people that either 1) Do not understand what goes into being a cop and just hates them based on baseless notions, or 2) People that have had bad run-in's with cops and take that notion out on ALL cops.

So for these last two sets, things are difficult to deal with. Because they will go out of their way often to not care about how hard it is to be a cop. What do I mean?

Well for starters, cops are expected to be perfect at all times.

Perfect Aim

Perfect knowledge of all laws both federal and local

Perfect judgement at all times

Perfect execution of force at all times

Perfect response at all times

Perfect awareness of surroundings at all times

Perfect ability to listen to the law but also not piss off people breaking the law

And I could go on. Humans are fundamentally imperfect. They always will be. So expecting a cop to be perfect is like asking your SO where they want to eat every day for a month and them knowing right away. Unless you're a LIAR it's not going to happen. Same such, cops can't be perfect. Combine that with having to both uphold the law AND be sure to follow the law at the same time, then combine that with the dangers of the job, the fact that human beings are ANIMALS that are violent by nature, and unpredictable on top of which, with use of force laws. And yeah. You don't have a good time. It becomes a huge issue of people that are like, "Why didn't just just tase him?" or "Why didn't you just shot the gun out of his hand" or better yet, "He only had a knife and was threatening to kill someone. Why'd did you have to shoot him, you are not judge jury and executioner."

And that's where you are both right and wrong.

Right in the fact that they are not a Jury. Wrong about the fact that they are not acting in their capacity to judge a situation, and execute those that are too great a risk to subdue. And if you ever talk to a person that does MMA, subduing a person is not as easy as you think. More over, Tasers are not considered, "non-lethal". In a lot of cases they are considered lethal because you are delivering a shock, meant to incapacitate someone. Meaning that you have the risk of permanently injuring them, OR killing them if their heart stops. Hell you could also in theory turn them into a vegetable.

But sadly no one considers all of these things. And only people familiar with cops and how their jobs work, know any of this.

Am I justifying bad, or even evil cops with this post? No. I think cops fundamentally need more training. I also think that they need frequent psychological evaluations to see the effect of the work on them. Because some of the things you see in your capacity as an officer can be gruesome. Dead bodies. People that have been mutilated. Dead kids from drugs or gang shootings. And the list goes on and on and on.

Recently I made a post talking about how since the summer of 2020, there have been less good cops. And fact is, because of the 2020 riots, a lot of good cops did quit their jobs. That's a fact. Many actually put in for early retirement. And not because "They were being held to account". No. It was because they were told, "If you do your job, we will riot outside your station. Firebomb your cars and homes, and we will find a way to railroad you into prison".

So what do we see in NY and LA? Car break ins. Looting. Beatings in the streets. Cops that will literally stand down while people are being hurt. Why? Because why the hell would anyone be a cop when you are under a microscope SO LARGE, that even the SMALLEST twitch in the wrong direction could end your career and possibly your life.

It's easy to say, "Yeah I'd stop those looters and assaulters". Sure. Right up until the are a protected class. Then enjoy your media crucifixion, loss of work and likely stint in jail. As well as your family getting death threats for years to come. So given all this, I made a point that a lot of hires over the last 3 years have probably been scraping the bottom of the barrel. Because in truth, knowing all the above, why WOULD anyone be a cop? Certainly there are still good cops. But a lot of the good ones quit.

What's more, Now a days it's better as a cop to just NOT enforce the law. Because why risk everything I mentioned. You protect the law and you make the conservatives happy but piss off the woke. And the woke currently more or less control law and media. Good luck getting shanked in jail. If you don't uphold the law, you piss off people who want you to enforce it but you probably get to live another day.

At that point you may say, "OK so why be a cop at all then", and the answer is easy. It's a job. And it pays. Why excel at all when you are expected to be a bastion of perfection? What's that? Didn't use the PERFECT amount of force? Death Penalty. Oh? You shot a guy that pulled a gun on you and you didn't just take the shots to the chest? Well clearly you deserve to be put in jail for the rest of your life.

Cops are treated like they are supposed to be absolutely perfect at all times and it's stupid. I HATE police unions mind you. But you know what I hate more. People that have no idea the risk to their lives that cops are put through day to day just for putting on the badge. The fact that cops NEED wiggle room within the law in order to enforce it.

Remember "Hands up don't shoot"? Yeah. So do I. I also remember that it was a fucking lie, and that there are people to this day that still believe that lie. And if not for Police Unions, he might have rotted in jail for the rest of his life. There is no PEFECT in this life. Not for cops, not for anyone. Cops are not superheroes. They don't swing in on a web shooter and punch the bad guy JUST hard enough to knock him out without killing him. And with morality as fucked up as it is in the west, even just in the US, Law enforcement is in a no win situation. At all times.

But I want to find every person that has ever been saved by cops, and force you to tell those people that all cops are bad. And tell them about how whatever they were saved from doesn't matter because "ALL cops are bad". Tell the women that were possibly saved from rape, "You should have just been raped. Cops are all evil." Or tell the kid that was saved from the person that kidnapped them, "Yeah no, you should have just been a sex slave. Cops are bastards and clearly they didn't WANT to help you". Stop making assessments about ALL of any group of people. Because the likelihood that you'll be right is near zero.

There are good cops. And there are bad cops. Police Unions need heavy reformation. Accountability needs to actually be able to happen. And people need to understand how hard cops actually have it. All of these things can be true at the same time. And none of it is justifying evil or bad cops or even ones that don't enforce the law. It's a nuanced topic. And as such, it should be treated so.

[decolonize-the-everything]

the online lgbt space would be a lot better off if people were disincentivized from framing all interpersonal drama along lines of oppression. like so much transmisogyny that i see from other trans people gets justified as being a reaction to oppression rather than a logical line of: if you don't have trans women in your community the only trans women you're seeing are on your timeline because they're popular, and popular people are just more likely to be bullies and assholes. (and tbh it probably happens the other way around for people who don't actually hang out with trans men, but i am speaking from a transmasc pov seeing this exact thought pattern happen a lot to trans guys in my community.) being a bully isn't tied to their identity, people are just being exposed to cruel people in a system where cruelty is rewarded ie social media, and seeing what looks to them like a community of bigots reinforces the existing prejudices that they haven't unlearned

^^^^^

This is exactly why the TERF pipeline starts with excluding aces. That's Exactly what it is. Preying on prejudices that some queers haven't unlearned or had a chance to unlearn yet.

That's why aces get accused of stealing community resources and get called "straight with extra steps." To create a chasm that suggests others should view aces as people who cause harm to the rest of the queer community (which they also base off of 'sex based oppression')

It's easy to fall prey to and feel justified about if you haven't already learned the bit of queer theory that teaches you how ALL queer people are queer enough to be here and have a voice because we systematically don't hurt each other.

Lesbians as a community don't hurt trans women, transphobes do.

Gay men as a community don't hurt women, misogynists do

Bi nbs as a community don't hurt lesbians, homophobes do.

Trans men as a community don't hurt trans women, transphobes do

Asexuals as a community don't hurt the LGBTs, queerphobes do.

That said, our identities as queer people don't prevent us from occasionally hurting each other or perpetuating ideas that we ourselves have been hurt by. Gay men can be misogynists, but that does not mean gay men systematically oppress women. Them being gay is incidental to them being misogynists.

Much like how lesbians can be TERFs, but the statement 'lesbians systematically hurt trans people' would be untrue. Lesbians aren't attacking trans people, transphobes are.

Anyone saying anything else is trying to trick you into fighting your siblings and dividing us up so we won't be willing to protect each other the next that our oppressors attack us. They'd love that. So don't buy it.

We survive this long because of community, not in spite of it. Don't lose focus of the real enemy.

[transandersrights]

Bioware's dislike of the mage rebellion

I really enjoyed Absolution, but it continues to immensely frustrate me that people writing for Bioware refuse to write pro-rebellion mages. Qwydion is a "rebel mage" - whose introductory line about the topic is that she isn't actually a rebel. She's a mercenary who pretends to care about the rebellion because people pay more for a cause. It annoyed me, but also got me thinking:

Since Anders, there have been no (afaik) pro-rebellion mages in major roles in Dragon Age media - and very few pro-rebellion characters have ever been portrayed in a favourable light.

Major mage characters since the start of the mage rebellion (I'm counting from the end of DA2), excluding comics/short stories/Tevinter Nights:

Rhys (Asunder). He starts as a Libertarian who defects to the Aequitarians because of disagreements with a pro-rebellion mage. He votes in favour of mages leaving the Circles, but he's not exactly happy about it.

Felassan (Masked Empire). Not particularly concerned with the rebellion. Definitely has other priorities - the Circle can't really touch him.

Valya (Last Flight). The whole premise behind her existence in the novel (I haven't finished it yet) is that she doesn't want to fight in the rebellion. She would rather die as a Warden than take her chances as a rebel.

Vivienne (Inquisition). We know how this one goes. Pro-Circle, fervently anti-rebellion.

Solas (Inquisition). Not pro-Circle, but he's more apostate than rebel and more *gestures at his whole deal* than apostate.

Dorian (Inquisition). Tevinter, with little to no stakes in the rebellion. Will specifically voice his doubts about whether a full alliance with the mage rebellion is actually a good idea.

Mage Inquisitor (Inquisition). Can absolutely hold anti-Circle and pro-rebellion views. Only a Trevelyan mage Inquisitor can have been a rebel, though.

Qwydion (Absolution). As discussed above, more of a mercenary than a rebel and her only comment on the matter is stating that she isn't one.

Saphira (Absolution). Again, a Tevinter mage with no real stake in the rebellion. Was seemingly in Ferelden during Inquisition, but makes no comment on the rebellion.

And what about the narrative's general treatment of mage characters, particularly mage rebels? Well, it's not good. People have already discussed at length that Anders is almost universally demonised in post-DA2 Dragon Age media that mentions him, but he's not the only one.

The most fervent mage rebels in Asunder are Adrian and Fiona - the former is generally discredited as a scary radical who alienates people with her actions, and the latter is portrayed largely as foolish/weak in Inquisition (I disagree, but the narrative of Inquisition has little time for it). The mage rebellion in Inquisition is seen as a terrible, dangerous group destroying the region just as much as the Templars and for just as bad a reason.

More recent Dragon Age entries are also more generally anti-blood magic - no blood mage companions in Inquisition, no specialisation, characters who will speak against it frequently (most notably Hawke), and a blood mage villain in Absolution. Not to mention that Absolution also inadvertently reinforces the "necessity" of Harrowings by showing that Rezaren failed his.

And that isn't even the end of it!! There's a general narrative arc in Dragon Age which serves to validate the Chantry view of mages - the Blight was (seemingly) caused by Tevinter mages. The elven gods were just powerful mages - and they were slavers just like in Tevinter (making our only two examples of mage-dominated societies also slave-based). Mage companions deceive or betray you, their actions responsible/anticipated to be responsible for hundreds of deaths in a way that isn't the case for other former companions. The mage who found the cure for tranquility accidentally killed everyone in the city. From the Chantry boom onwards, 3/5 of our biggest in-game antagonists/bosses have been mages. If we're counting Absolution, that brings us up to 4/6.

This means that the general message of recent Dragon Age isn't just a disdain for the rebellion and its participants, but also a general lean towards saying that the rebellion should never have happened in the first place - because the Templars are right. Mages are Bad.

This probably isn't much of a revelation for a lot of people, but it stands completely in contrast with how I (and a lot of people) understand mage-related conflicts in Dragon Age. How Bioware have managed to set up a compelling narrative showing oppression+attempts to deconstruct it and then decided that no one should resist it (and if they do, they're never good people) is just.......what.

[locuas642]

Romina and the Scarlet Rot, longpost

This post is a sort of continuation and expansion of this other post of mine.

In general, this post assumes familiarity with the Lore discussed and bear in mind I an no Vaati so I might miss some details for this lore theory.

I also posted this on the Elden Ring Reddit page if anyone is interested.

Let me start by saying that this post was inspired because I saw some people be under the impression that Romina flat-out created the Scarlet Rot, and that this revelation contradicts or lessens the stuff about the Scarlet Rot Outer God. I disagree with this assessment and I hope what I am about to describe helps you see my point.

Now, as to set some groundwork, let's start with the Outer God itself,

The Lake of Rot

This place here is were supposedly the essence of the Outer God is sealed away. A place that is mandatory to cross if you are aiming to unlock the Age of Stars ending, but which otherwise you can ignore, and in fact may never even learn exists. This place has very strong associations with Death and Decay, as it can be seen by the dead trees in the background, and also the fungi my character is standing on (Fungi narratively are often used to represent decay)

This is reinforced by the path that takes you from Nokstella to the Lake of Rot. going from greenery, to a red miasma and dead trees and then taking you to the Lake proper. Now, as to why those trees are there, the simplest explanation is that it used to be like the other areas surrounding Nokron and Nokstella. Something to support this is how the lake is in the way to reach the Cathedral of Manus Celes. A place that has more to do with the eternal cities than it does the Scarlet Rot.

This Outer God was sealed away by a figure known in the Lore as the Blind Swordsman, with one of their items being described as

The last thing I want to make note is that the color of the Lake of Rot is pinkish with black dots. Just keep this and the Plant life in mind. I want to speak about Romina first.

Saint of the Bud

Romina is a character introduced in the DLC that has no dialogue in the game nor do the NPCs mention or is hinted at before her fight other than her area being surrounded by Scarlet Rot. Due to this lack of information proper despite the implied importance in her lore, players were disappointed, but more importantly for this post, some were confused as to what it mean, with some seemingly thinking she "created" the Scarlet Rot in it's entirety, rather than it being this eldritch thing.

I believe it is more complicated and interesting than that. and here is where I want to talk about two item descriptions whose wording can be confused as to reffering the same thing. Her Remembrance and her Poleblade:

Both of these descriptions mention the same incident, and one describes a "twisted divine element" she found, and the other a "Bud" she held. which I, at first, thought they were the same thing. But actually no, it's more like she already had that Bud when she found said Divine Element.

Then I believe she combined both that bud with that divine element, and from there came the "Scarlet Rot". Or alternatively, it meant the return of the rot, now being rechristened as "Scarlet Rot".

If we go back to the Blue Dancer item description, it doesn't say "Scarlet Rot" only "Rot Itself". Likewise, the lake itself is only called "The Lake of Rot". It is the same substance, because both inflict the same condition on the player. But if we go by the lore of the blind swordsman, the items describing this first invasion by the Outer God (from what I found) only reffers to it as "Rot". while descriptions set after the rot returned call it "scarlet rot"

And here is what the Scarlet Rot looks like

It's red looks darker, more vibrant and has lost the dots. And more importantly, there is flora growing around it. Something that as I noted, is absolutely lacking in the Lake of Rot. Almost like something happened and the Rot changed between the time the swordsman defeated it, and it's return. That was Romina, who found a remnant of the Outer God of Rot and helped it be reborn into the Scarlet Rot by combining it with her Bud. A reborn version of itself that might be harder to contain than the original, if it's spread through the Lands between is any indication. Wherever it spreads, these buds begin to set root.

In other words, The Lake of Rot and it's lore surrounding the Blind Swordsman is set long before the events involving Romina. And Romina might even be someone the Outer God contacted just like the lore has implied with other Outer Gods who seek to influence the Lands Between. Particularly with lore involving the people in The Land of Shadows. In this case, The Outer God and Romina tried to spread it's influence by also infecting... Malenia.

And now, to talk about the stuff that most heavily involves my own speculation and theories,

Malenia, The Groomed Goddess

So Malenia got infested by the Scarlet Rot, and it is heavily implied to have been a curse. The question is why? the answer is to turn her into a goddess of the Scarlet Rot. Something the followers of the church of rot tell you when you follow Millicent's quest. she is reffered to as a goddess by them. There are many items that use the word "Goddess" to describe her. Except she is not a goddess, as shown by the fact the message upon defeating her calls her a "Demigod", and even the Scarlet Aeonia says

So she is not a Goddess yet. But there is also something funny here, How does an Empyrean become a God? Because we do see it.

One is Ranni's method (if we take her ending as she herself becoming a Goddess), which involves reaching where Marika is and taking her place altogether. The other was Marika's, which Miquella also used: Reaching the Gate of Divinity. And it's implied a Consort is necessary afterwards (We dont see a "consort" with Marika in the story trailer, but that doesn't necessarily means she did not have it)

The place that was sealed away and you can only reach after by burning the Sealing Tree...

which just so happens to be right behind where you fight Romina, almost like she is guarding the place. Or alternatively, like she herself was trying to gain access to it. Preparing it for Malenia's arrival.

Okay but the item description clearly says "When she blooms a third time, she becomes a Goddess" which yes contradicts this theory a bit, but if I were to take it as literal, I want to mention this bit of dialogue from Millicent

Millicent heavily implies there is something wrong with Malenia. That the Malenia that we fight "lost" something the day she bloomed the first time. and she says "The sense of self, that allowed her to resist the call of the scarlet rot" this, added with what I described above makes me think that what it means is that, every time Malenia "Blooms", the influence of the Outer God becomes stronger.

And if she blooms Three Times, The Outer God will gain complete control over her. At which point, she will be ready to be It's Goddess of Rot. It's loyal servant ready to be take to the Gate of Divinity and spread it's influence afterwards.

With it's very Consort already prepared and ready to join her.

Romina is Malenia's promised Consort.

thanks for reading