#second of all its primary meaning even in chinese is middle

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Okay, so my ask was about fanfics where either John or Sherlock hallucinates and sees the other one after him (allegedly?) dying. As in, actually hallucinates, not mistakes a real one for a hallucination. Have you encountered anything like that?

Anonymous said to inevitably-johnlocked: hi! i hope you're doing fine! i feel really bad for asking, but i really suck at searching, and as i see everyone asking you, i wanted to see if you could help me, if you dont want to, its fine, i feel like im taking adventage of you... im searching for fics post TRF in which John hallucinates with Sherlock, or fics in which Sherlock comes back but John cannot believe it because he hallucinated with him ... im sorry again for bothering you! hope you have a nice day

Hi Lovelies!!

Ahhh, I don’t have a LOT that have this premise, so I’m just going to give you all of the fics I have tagged with hallucinations :) I do suggest “The Quiet Man”, which has this as the primary plot point (down below) and it’s a long one so I think that will best suit you requests, but DO check out all of the others on this list! <3

And as always, Lovelies, if you have something more to what my Nonnies are looking for, please suggest them!

HALLUCINATIONS

Hallucinations can't open doors by Bespectacled dreamer (K+, 1,330 w., 1 Ch. || Reunion, Hurt / Comfort, Friendship, Hallucinations, John’s Wedding, Light Humour) – In which John gets married and Sherlock gets a broken nose.

Quite Contrary by Hollyesque (T, 1,805 w., 1 Ch. || HLV Fic, Sherlock Whump / After Mary Shot Sherlock, Hallucinations / Flashbacks / PTSD, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Lestrade POV, ) – A short one-shot, alternate scene to Greg's hospital visit in HLV. Instead of Sherlock disappearing, Greg is faced with an unexpected reaction to a hospitalized Sherlock and winds up figuring out something that he really would have rather not known.

Bitter Nights Turned Sweet by Hyliare (T, 4,076 w., 1 Ch. || Pre-Slash, Insomnia/Hallucinations, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, POV Present Tense John Watson, Cuddling/Snuggling) – Sherlock has always had trouble sleeping; he hasn't always had someone in his life willing to help.

Between Asleep and Awake by katydidit (K, 4,309 w., 1 Ch. || Friendship, Sick Fic, Post-TRF / Reunion) – John is sick. Incredibly, extremely, dangerously sick. Plagued by a high fever, he begins to hallucinate, start seeing things that aren't really there. Because they can't be there. Can they?

A Is For Aftermath by ElvendorkInfinity (T, 10,567 w., 1 Ch. || Injury / Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Pre-Slash/Bromance/Platonics, Hallucinations, Introspection, Insecure / Worried John, Big Brother Mycroft, Alternating POV, Anxious Sherlock, Self-Deprecating, Mildly Possessive Sherlock, 3G Moment) – John is still hallucinating, Sherlock cannot sleep, and Lestrade has a new case for them. But will life at 221B ever be able to return to normal? Epilogue to M is for Moriarty.

I Will Take Care Of You by SailorChibi (T, 16,664 w., 15 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Sick Sherlock, BAMF John, BAMF Lestrade, Reunion Fic) – Two years after Sherlock's death, John comes to find him on the sofa. Wounded and ill, Sherlock is convinced he's hallucinating and refuses to share any details about Moran or the fact that Mycroft has been compromised. That doesn't stop John from stepping up and taking care of the last of Moriarty's web, BAMF-style.

Wonderful, Etcetera. by VictoryCandescence (T, 16,955 w., 3 Ch. || Wonderful Life AU || Alternate Timelines, Brotherhood, Homophobia, Suicidal Ideations, Mentions of Drug Use, Friendship, Different TRF, Sherlock’s Past, Victor Trevor is Past Boyfriend, Depression, Hallucination?, Love Confessions, Christmas, First Kiss) – Sherlock thinks everyone would be better off if he had never existed, including and especially himself. When he finds himself in a world in which his wish has been granted, he begins to think perhaps even he could be wrong – but it takes an unlikely chaperone to make him not only observe, but understand.

I Think I've Come A Long Long Way To Sit Before You Here Today by ArwenKenobi (T, 18,251 w., 3 Ch. || Grief/Mourning, Passage of Time, Major Character Death, Alternating POV, Sherlock Whump, Pining Sherlock, Hospitalization, Coma, Revenge Murders, Hallucinations, Love Confessions, Brutal Accident, Mystrade, Ghost John) – One year after John is killed Sherlock starts to wonder whether John has actually gone anywhere.

A Home for Us by sussexbound (M, 30,581 w., 12 Ch. || Scars, Bedsharing, Grief, Doctor John, Hurt/Comfort, Post-TRF, Implied/Referenced Torture, Sherlock POV, Pining Sherlock, Suicidal Ideation, Heavy Emotions, Clingy Sherlock, Hallucinations, Disassociation, Emotional Turmoil) – He has been on the road for two years, and he is exhausted. He’s almost accepted that he will never see London (John) again—almost. But then there are nights like tonight, where he is weak, and all he can think of is the warmth of the flat they once shared, the crackle of the fire in the hearth, the teasing smile playing at the corner of John’s lips, the boxes of half-eaten Chinese takeaway balanced precariously in their laps. He aches at the memory of it, at the realisation that it is something he may never experience again.

Impossible to Feign by achray (M, 49,204 w., 12 Ch. || TRF Rewrite / Reverse Reichenbach, Suicidal Ideations / Discussions, Drug Use/Abuse, Mutual Pining, Friends With Benefits, John Accepts his Sexuality, Anxious Sherlock, Meddling Mycroft, Depression, Hallucinations, Secret Agent John, BAMF John, Reunion, Make-Up Sex, Ambiguous Ending) – Sherlock leant forward, his long fingers curving round to grip John’s.“I won’t let him win,” he said, eyes hard. “I will do whatever it takes to get you out.”

Lunar Landscapes by J_Baillier (M, 57,046 w., 21 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || S3/TAB Fix-It, Slow Burn Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Confessions, Drugs, Pain, Medical, Injury, Sherlock Whump, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Romance, Secrets, Tragedy, Trauma, BAMF John, Doctor!John, Drug Addict Sherlock, Injured Sherlock, Grieving John, Idiots In Love, Protective John, POV John Watson, PTSD Sherlock, Sherlock is a Mess, Medical Realism) – An accident forces John to face the fact that Sherlock's downward spiral had started long before his flight to exile even left the tarmac.

The Vapor Variant by 88thParallel (CanadaHolm) (M, 72,684 w., 18 Ch. || Post-THoB, John Whump, Protective Sherlock, Guilty Sherlock, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD John, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Suspense, Virus, Sickfic, Big Brother Mycroft) – They stood face to face in the middle of a clearing. The dim light of the moon barely allowed Sherlock to see the glassy terror in John’s eyes and the sweat that glistened off his forehead. His nose was bleeding again, blood dripping in a slow stream from his right nostril. They were both gasping for air, John’s eyes locked on Sherlock’s. There was no recognition there, just wild animal fear. Time stood still for an eternal few seconds, and Sherlock took a shaky breath. “John—”Spell broken, John spun and bolted back into the woods. Still heaving for air, Sherlock took off after him.

The Summer Boy by khorazir (T, 94,706 w., 6 Ch. || Post S3/Post TAB/Alternate S4, Friends to Lovers, Asexual Sherlock, POV Sherlock, Flashbacks, Bullying, 1980′s Kid Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Inexperienced Sherlock, Grief/Mourning, Pining Sherlock, Case Fic, Sherlock’s Past, Awkward Conversations, Anxious Sherlock) – About half a year after the fateful events at Appledore, Sherlock and John embark on a private case in Sussex. For Sherlock, it’s a journey into his past, bringing up memories both happy and sad that he has locked away for almost thirty years. For John, it means coming to terms with the present – and a potential future with Sherlock. Part 1 of the The Summer Boy series (possibly Imaginary Friend)

Against the Rest of the World by SilentAuror (E, 151,714 w., 20 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-TRF, Hiatus Fic, POV First Person Sherlock, Present Tense, First Kiss/Time, Big Brother Mycroft, Escaping from Capture, Soft Sherlock, Toplock, Insecurity, Infidelity, Travelling, Introspection, Pining Sherlock, Depression, Fantasies, Yearning for the Past, PTSD Sherlock, Suicidal Ideation) – Sherlock has been away from London for nine hundred and twelve days and counting, and has no idea what sort of reception to expect when he finally returns.

The Quiet Man by ivyblossom (E, 157,369 w., 58 Ch. || Post-TRF, John First POV, Grief/Mourning, Angst, Present Tense, Imaginary Sherlock) – "Do you just carry on talking when I'm away?"

Proving A Point by elldotsee & J_Baillier (E, 186,270 w., 28 Ch. || Me Before You Fusion || Medical Realism, Insecure John, Depression, Romance, Angst, POV John, Sherlock Whump, Serious Illness, Doctor John, Injury Recovery, Assisted Suicide, Sherlock’s Violin, Awkward Sexual Situations, Alcoholism, Drugs, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Body Image, Friends to Lovers, Hurt / Comfort, Pain, Big Brother Mycroft, Intimacy, Anxiety, PTSD, Family Issues, Psychological Trauma, John Whump, Case Fics, Loneliness, Pain) – Invalided home from Afghanistan, running out of funds and convinced that his surgical career is over, John Watson accepts a mysterious job offer to provide care and companionship for a disabled person. Little does he know how much hangs in the balance of his performance as he settles into his new life at Musgrave Court.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #357

“your magic white rabbit has left its writing on the wall  /  we follow like alice, and just keep diving down the hole”

Are you better at telling stories or writing them? Writing, by a long shot. What’s one song you hate, but know every word to? i'm a barbie girl in a fckn barbie woooooorld What’s your favorite magazine? I don’t read magazines. If you could be an animal for one day, which animal would you choose? Probably a house cat. Be indoors and safe, able to just nap... lol. But I'd want another cat as a friend, too! Do you prefer outdoor or indoor concerts/events? Indoors, by a mile. I get hot outside way too easily. Do you know if you were a planned child? I don't know. What’s your favorite gem? Dragon's breath opal. As an adult, do you want to live in an apartment or a house? I'd like to live in a house, especially with the pets I want. I doubt many apartment complexes would allow multiple reptiles and inverts. Do you like the stem or leafy part of the broccoli? It doesn't matter much to me, but I prefer the stem. The texture is more likeable to me. Do bats frighten you? No, I adore bats! Does Paris appeal to you? Yeah, it's a pretty place. Are you a KPOP fan? No, I've never really checked it out. How long was your longest relationship? Over three and a half years. First time you kissed the last person you kissed? We were outside roasting marshmallows one night. Do you have to really know someone to kiss them? Absolutely. I don't dish 'em out for nothing. Were you anyone’s first kiss? No. If you had to be named after one of the 50 states of America, what state would you WANT to be named after? I actually think "Nevada" would be kinda pretty as a name? Do you think morals are universal or relative to the beliefs, traditions, or practices of individuals or groups? I've wondered this for a long while, really. I lean towards it being a mix, maybe? But more towards universal, I think... with some exceptions. This answer is all over the place, I honestly don't know. Is torture ever a good option? If no, why not? If yes, when? No? I think the "why not" is obvious... You just don't. What do you think is one one of the most undervalued professions right now? Teachers, garbagemen, retail and food workers... There's a lot. Have you ever seen anyone have a heart attack? Thank Christ no. Have you personalized your answering machine/voicemail? No. Have you ever had Fiji brand water? I actually don't believe I have, though it's always looked appealing to me, haha. What’s your favorite horror movie? The Crazies and the first Silent Hill, as well as both Blair Witch Projects. What was the worst thing a friend has either done or said to you? I'd rather not even think about things the bitch said to me. Are you biracial? No. When was the last time you got mad and broke something? I've never broken something when mad. What color dress did you wear to prom? My first was maroon, second one was black. Who is the cutest baby you know? My friend has a daughter named Scarlett who is absolutely gorgeous. Have you ever thrown a rock at a window? No, because I respect people's fucking property. Has anyone ever thrown a rock at your window? No. Does your hair react well to dye, or does it damage it? It likes to not take dye at all. >.> I have only had one instance where a friend dyed it red and it stuck for months and months, but we kept it in for a couple hours, I think. My normal hairdresser says it's because my hair is really healthy and I guess rejects it. What kind of pet do you wish you had? I ramble plenty about how I want tarantulas and more reptiles, haha. I also DESPERATELY want to rescue or foster an opossum. When was the last time you were diagnosed with something? Are you concerned about anything regarding your physical or mental health at the moment? I haven't been diagnosed with anything in quite some time, I believe, but as I'm going through the process of being approved for TMS therapy for my depression, my bipolar diagnosis is being questioned, which is... strange to me. It's been acknowledged by many a doctor that I have bipolar 2, but if insurance recognizes my primary diagnosis as bipolar, they won't cover TMS because it can massively excite the mania portion of bipolarity, and therefore I can't do it because we can't manually afford it. I'm willing to take the risk by far, as I've never had issues with mania, but I can't without insurance. I'm just waiting to hear back from them... What is one blanket judgment you tend to make about people (like, you judge all people who live at home, all people who drink, etc)? Does this judgment come from a particular personal experience? I really don't know. How do you react to other people yelling or slamming doors? Is this something you ever do too? I get very scared if it's a man. I don't like anyone doing it, and my anxiety will spike regardless, I'm just terrified of angry men. Have you ever lost your cool at work or somewhere else important? What happened as a result? No. Who has the power to break you? Jason still might. I don't know. Is anyone in your family blind? My sister is legally blind in one eye. Do you believe in evolution? Yeah. I do find the concept odd, that ALL LIFE originated from one thing, but I sure ain't got a better explanation, so. What job do you think people should be paid the most for? Surgeons, maybe? I dunno, that's a big question. Were you ever held back a year in school? Did you ever skip a grade? No. Have you ever been given a hickey? Have you given one? Yeah to both. What is your least favourite thing about your full name? I have the most basic white bitch middle name in the world, lol. Do you like the age you are? Eh, I don't mind it much, but I think it'd be better to be in my early 20s versus mid 20s. I'm just always so tired now. I can't believe I used to refuse to go to sleep before 10:30. What’s your favourite kind of poptart? The chocolate sundae one. If you had to eat one type (Chinese, etc.) of food which would it be? American bc I'm not very adventurous with food at all. When did your family immigrate to wherever you live now? *shrug* Are your fingers long, or short? Long. Mom's always said I have "piano fingers." Do you play Pokemon Go? If so, what level are you and who’s your buddy? Yeah, I love it, but don't play it nearly as much as I want because I don't exactly go anywhere, lol. My bud's Charmeleon, and I'm probably like five EXP from level 28. Do you ever sit indoors and wear sunglasses or a hat? I don't own either, so. Do you know how to read animals’ behavior? I honestly think I'm very good at it. Do you like playing video games? If so, what do you usually play? Yes, but not as much as I used to. All I really play nowadays is World of Warcraft. The only working console I have is a PS2, and I haven't bought a new game in probably a couple years, but there are definitely ones I want to play, mainly on PS4. Just can't afford it right now. Have you ever viewed the moon through a telescope? No. Do you know how to properly eat food with chopsticks? No. There's no way I could, given my tremors. Do you prefer reading books, comic books, manga/graphic novels, magazines, or the newspaper? Books. When is the last time you ate donuts? It's been months, man. I've seriously been craving a glazed one, though. Krispy Kreme sounds amaaaaaziiiiiing. Has anyone ever called you sexy? Somehow. Do you like raisins? NO NO NO NO NO. Have you ever overheard a conversation you weren’t supposed to? More than once. Do you like ants? They're genuinely extremely fascinating animals, but they're seriously annoying nevertheless. Did you like the movie Antz? I loved it as a kid. What was your favorite ice cream flavor when you were little? Chocolate. Is it still your favorite? Eh, depends on the day. By the way, what is your name? Brittany. What time zone do you live in? EST. Do you like cats? I love cats. What’s the most creepy experience you’ve ever had? One night when my mom and sister were at the beach for a dance competition, I was having trouble sleeping, and it only got worse when my dog Teddy started freaking the fuck out, barking loudly and staring intently at the foot of the bed. I was so scared that I tried to force his head to lie down, but he fought against me. I was terrified, but got up out of the bed and went into the living room to call my mom at like 3 in the damn morning, and she had to have our neighbor come over to sleep in the house with me (I was in a different room that night). You can't convince me that there wasn't paranormal shit going on. I think the house was haunted honestly, for multiple reasons. What’s the most boring game to exist? Why do you dislike it so much? Hm, I dunno. What’s the coolest place that you've ever been to? What’d you do there? Disney World was very memorable as a kid. We just went around collecting signatures, going on rides, all that fun stuff. I'll never forget fireworks at the castle. If you’re interested in having a long-term relationship with someone, do you think that waiting a certain amount of time before you first have sex is a good idea? Or does it not matter? I think it's a good idea, personally, mostly for the sake of reducing the spread of STDs. Just because you think you'll be long-term, doesn't mean you will be. Besides that, isn't there a science that sex and feelings of love are connected? Like, sex is impossible without at least some underlying emotions? I might be entirely wrong, in which case forgive me for spreading misinformation, but if that's so and things don't go as planned, you've gotten emotionally invested in someone too early and wind up getting hurt. You do you, I just don't think it's smart. Have you ever discovered something big by looking through someone’s phone, Facebook, email, etc.? No. Have you kept anything from your past relationships? (Things they left at your house, gifts, notes, etc) Do you think that’s a big deal for future relationships or not? Yeah, like plushies and little stuff like that. When it's tiny things like I just mentioned, I really don't think it matters. I think some things might be questionable to keep, but at the same time, I don't think it's really wrong to keep memories of a happy time, if the thing still brings you joy and has been emotionally disconnected from the ex? Idk. Do you have any financial regrets? Either way, what’s an example of a GOOD financial decision you’ve made? Going to and dropping out of college three fucking times. I don't know about a good financial decision seeing as I'm not even in charge of my own finances, nor really have any to begin with. Are you a believer in “signs” from the Universe about things in your life? If you are, can you think of a particular example? No. Name some things that one or both of your parents are really good at or really interested in. Mom LOVES medical stuff, like watching surgeries and stuff like that. She is also absolutely incredible with children. Dad likes sports a lot, hockey and football especially. Think of a good friend of the opposite sex (currently or in the past). Have you ever had any sort of “more than a friend” or sexual thoughts about them? If not, can you explain why? Well, we dated briefly, so... It was awkward to, but I let myself imagine sexual situations a few times to help myself understand if I really did like-like him, or if he was truly just a brother to me. Turns out, he's a bro. If someone told you that you would never achieve something and you ended up doing it, would you have any interest in finding that person and showing them? I'ma be honest, yes. I wouldn't actively seek them out, but rather just hope they somehow find out or I run into them or something. What is the most jealousy-induced thing you’ve ever done? Apparently, be the girl Juan liked instead of this girl that literally threatened to deck me. Guess what? We're friends now lmaoooo.

[bunnyinthestars]

Why we should have known Alix’s importance as essentially the in-show keeper of the Love Square the second we first saw her, and how we can use her character design to predict what will happen for the Love Square

*an analysis/exploration of her character design*

WARNING: spoilers for a couple season 3 episodes, including Desperada, Ikari Gozen, and Miracle Queen. Honestly, if you haven’t watched any of those episodes yet, I highly recommend them, they’re really good

Ok so, today, as I was drawing Alix and therefore thinking about her appearance, I realized that basically her entire physical character design has elements of the Love Square to it. I searched tumblr trying to find someone who posted about this but I couldn’t, so here we go bois. Sorry if I missed anyone’s post about this, I’m still kinda new to tumblr and I’m just trying to share my thoughts with the fandom!

There are gonna be three elements of her design I talk about: her hairstyle, her coloring, and the details on her clothing.

First off, I would like to start with her hairstyle.

Her hairstyle is iconic for its uniqueness— pretty wild, short, with a pigtail on one side and loose hair on the other. BUT GUYS. HER HAIR IS LITERALLY HALF LADYBUG’S, HALF CHAT NOIR’S.

Let me explain—

If you look at the images above, you can see precisely what I mean.

On the left side of Alix’s face (when we, the audience, look at her, not her own left), we can see Alix’s bangs are parted exactly the way Marinette/LB’s bangs are, plus she has Mari’s pigtail. On the right half, we can see the middle piece of Chat Noir’s bangs that is pointed toward/in his face, plus the rest of his hair that alternatively points outward (sorry if that wording was confusing, there’s a reason i’m not a writer, it’s easier to see in the photos). ALIX’S HAIRSTYLE ALONE IS QUITE LITERALLY HALF LADYBUG AND HALF CHAT NOIR. I AM NOT OK.

Alright. Ok. As if that alone hasn’t made me lose my mind, there’s more. Before we get into her outfit, I want to just quickly address Alix’s coloring itself.

Alix has pink hair and blue eyes, and her clothes are black, green, pink, and red.

The pink hair and blue eyes can easily be attributed to Marinette/Ladybug, since Marinette’s clothes and room are majorly pink, her transformation sequence and powers all have pink backgrounds, and pink is a variation of red, which is Ladybug’s main color. Marinette also has blue eyes (and blue hair, but I don’t know if it’s blue in-universe or black).

On the other hand, the black and green on Alix’s shirt can be attributed, of course, to Chat Noir, who’s entire color scheme is black with accents of lime green. Adrien also shows hints of these colors in his design, but that’s a completely different subject.

For the rest of her look, Alix’s shorts are almost all black, except for the red decal on the back pockets, and her socks and shoes are a mix of Mari/LB’s and Adrien/CN’s colors.

To sum it up, from head to toes we have Mari on Alix’s head, Adrien on her upper torso, and a mix of the two from the lower torso down. It is worth noting that the reasons Mari’s colors are Alix’s head and Adrien’s colors are on Alix’s shirt is that, throughout the series, it is established that Mari is associated with using her head, and Adrien is associated with preferring his heart. (This has been explocitly referenced in episodes like Lady Wifi (s1) and Ladybug (s3).) Therefore, Mari’s coloring being on Alix’s head—which is what Mari is associated with—and Adrien’s coloring on her shirt being closest to her heart—which he is associated with—makes total sense.

Ok ok ok. This is the last point I have to make, but also kinda the most complicated to explain, so bear with me here.

(sorry i keep using this same photo, it just shows a lot of what i’m trying to show you guys and i’m to lazy to find another photo hehe)

In the photo on the left, if you look by her wrist, you can see a snake head, and you can see the shape of the snake body trailing around her arms. The scale print even further adds to this.

So a snake. The immediate thing that comes to mind is the snake miraculous. If you’ll remember the episode Desperada (s3), the snake miraculous was originally given to Adrien, who transformed into Aspik, but then Adrien learned that he was unsuccessful as Aspik because he couldnt be Chat Noir at the same time, and his role as Chat Noir was essential to the success of the team, so Luka became the next (and way more successful) holder of the snake miraculous, Viperion. The other relevance of the snake miraculous was in Miracle Queen (s3 finale), when Chat Noir merged the black cat miraculous and snake miraculous (Snake Noir). The colors of the snake are also the same colors of Chat Noir, but black is Chat Noir’s more primary color while green is the snake’s more primary color.

(side note: When Luka holds the miraculous, the tones of the green color shift from a lime green to a more blue-green, which shows his individuality/difference from Adrien being expressed in the miraculous, similarly to how Ryuko’s coloring is more of an orange-toned red than Marinette’s as Ladybug/Dragonbug. This isn’t quite important to this analysis, I just thought it was interesting, whoops!)

For the photo on the right, I know the photo isn’t very clear, but I just couldn’t quite find a clear photo of the red snake decal on the back pockets of Alix’s shorts. For context, in the Chinese zodiac (where the second level of the miraculous originate), dragons don’t have wings (the wings thing came from western culture), and so they look similarly to the shape of a snake because they are long, thin, flexible, and have scales. Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume that this snake-like outline in red on the pockets of Alix’s shorts could also be meant to resemble a dragon. This makes a ton of sense when we consider how the snake and the dragon are pictured together in the show, and the colors typically associated with either.

The dragon’s relevance is presented in a similar manner to the snake’s, only Marinette doesn’t try to use the dragon (excluding Kwami Buster) until Miracle Queen, when she becomes Dragonbug (and Chat Noir becomes Snake Noir). Kagami, however, is meant to be Marinette’s “rival” for being Adrien’s love interest, and Kagami is the one who ends up getting the dragon miraculous and transforming into Ryuko for the first time in Ikari Gozen (s3).

Luka is meant to be a altered reflection of Adrien, and Kagami is meant to be an altered reflection of Marinette. This is why the miraculouses that Luka and Kagami are given are also the same ones Marinette and Adrien unify in Miracle Queen, and why the color schemes are the way they are. Their roles in terms of the writing of the show are only meant to be a psyche-out Adrinette for both Mari and Adrien. The balance is almost there, but not quite. This can be seen in their own character designs, but again, that’s a whole other thing. Their roles in the show, though, are essential to bring Adrinette together. In Miracle Queen, Luka and Marinette are established as an item, and Kagami and Adrien are established as an item. In the same episode, Dragonbug and Snake Noir themselves even foreshadows the separation of Luka & Adrien and Marinette & Kagami being unified into just Adrien and just Marinette themselves. A better way of saying that is that the qualities Mari likes about Luka will become things either Adrien grows into or that she’ll find in him, and the same thing with Kagami and Marinette for Adrien, which will lead to them becoming a couple. This is why they’re included in Alix’s design, if we can agree that Alix’s design is meant to represent their journey into becoming a couple.

Man, am I tired from finding the words to explain that. Hopefully it makes sense!!

So, to summarize everything, not only do Alix’s hair and general coloring have direct traces of LB and CN, but also the snake and the dragon, who can be represented by both Adrien & Luka (snake) and Marinette & Kagami (dragon), and can be used to determine that Luka and Kagami’s roles in the show hold the key to the Love Square becoming canon.

So. Yes. Alix’s design, once I realized all this, has been driving me crazy. I MEAN SERIOUSLY. She is a literal human representation of the Love Square.

[theculturedmarxist]

By Ying-Yu Lin                            December 18, 2020

Following the 2020 U.S. presidential election, many observers asserted that China-U.S. relations, what have been strained most of the time over the past three years, will see a change, most likely for the better. Judging from the moves taken by the militaries of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait in the air and under the sea during this same period, we can see that both sides have taken advantage of the occasion to expand their respective freedom of movement – whether through military exercises made known to the public or in clandestine ways.

As an ancient Chinese proverb says, “People who know about military affairs tend not to be bellicose.” Taiwan will not recklessly start a war. However, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is no longer the underdog that it was before the most recent round of military reform that kicked off at the end of 2015. We have to guard against the possibility that Beijing might opt to use force against Taiwan because of pressure from within and without. Currently, China mainly resorts to a gray zone strategy, as manifested in the dispatch of military aircraft and ships to harass Taiwan on a regular basis. However, we cannot rule out the possibility of more direct actions. It’s also possible that Taiwan’s reaction time to threats from the PLA may become insufficient due to its inactivity in the face of the constant presence of PLA aircraft and ships around Taiwan.

Basic Rules for the PLA in Its Quest to Subdue Taiwan

On the part of the PLA, operations against Taiwan can be summed up with the slogan of “first engagement as final engagement” or “first battle as decisive battle.” This is more than a slogan; it is actually an objective for the PLA, first unveiled by the PLA Daily. It implies that if operations in the Taiwan Strait are prolonged, chances for international intervention or unexpected twists in China’s internal situation will increase. Time is key to the outcome of such operations.

The ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu said: “The best of the best is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” According to his classic book, “The best way to engage the enemy is to use strategy; the second best is to use diplomacy; the third best is to fight the enemy head-on; and the worst of all is to besiege enemy troops in a walled city.” Of course, the best option for China is to unify Taiwan without having to use force. However, if the goal of “peaceful unification” with Taiwan is beyond reach anytime soon, Beijing may choose to intimidate Taiwan in a way that does not involve a large-scale deployment of forces.

That might be the reason why the PLA now actively employs a gray zone strategy. In doing so, the PLA expects to manage the battle space in the Taiwan Strait, such as the underwater environment, which contains blind spots that Taiwan’s surveillance and reconnaissance systems fail to cover. The goal is to suppress Taiwan’s strategic reaction time or drag down the Taiwan military’s logistics and maintenance systems using war of attrition tactics.

If military intimidation still fails to coerce Taiwan into accepting the “unification” conditions set by Beijing, more aggressive tactics might be used against Taiwan, such as imposing an air and sea blockade and sending ships to encircle Taiwan’s offshore islands and block their sea traffic. The old tactic of “encircling enemy positions while preventing reinforcements from coming to their rescue,” which Communist troops proved quite good at during the Chinese Civil War with their Nationalist counterparts, might be used against Taiwan’s offshore islands, such as Dongsha and Taiping Islands in the South China Sea. Only after the tactics mentioned above fail to achieve their designated purposes will China consider attacking Taiwan proper.

In the scenarios discussed above, Beijing will concentrate a large number of troops at a time when what it really wants to achieve is still to subdue Taiwan through military intimidation rather than real war. The leadership in Beijing still hopes that the goal of unification with Taiwan can be achieved through limited use of force. Whether the goal can be reached has a lot to do with Taiwanese public opinion. Do Taiwan’s people have the will to counter China’s coercion and the willingness to support the military? China has been using its “proxies” in Taiwan these few years to divide Taiwan, launching disinformation campaigns, public opinion warfare, and cognitive warfare at the same time. The aim is to let the PLA take advantage of divisions within Taiwan to reach the goal of “first engagement as final engagement” with only limited use of force.

Immediately after initiating a strike against Taiwan, the PLA will call on Taiwan’s people to surrender. Therefore, whether the first engagement will become the final engagement is not up to the combat strength of Taiwan’s military, but the support of Taiwan’s people, who should stand behind the military. Taiwan’s military conforms to the ROC constitution. Without the support of the people, the military surely has no way to deter enemy intrusions. Such a result would be similar to what China can achieve through direct military intimidation. The best option for Beijing is still to subdue Taiwan without fighting, while the second best is to use a gray zone strategy or small-scale deployments of troops without much fanfare and publicity in the process while supplementing those tactics with a two-hand approach that appeals mainly to the psychology of some Taiwanese politicians and people who are apparently daunted by China’s military intimidation. These people will exert pressure on the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), potentially resulting in Taiwan’s society giving in to communist China. This scenario is currently Beijing’s primary strategic approach to the Taiwan issue.

Subduing the Enemy Without Fighting

Although military operations against Taiwan have always been an option for China, peaceful unification is also a choice that has not been ruled out. Although hawkish scholars in China now grab public attention with their belligerent remarks, there are still voices within academia calling for peaceful unification with Taiwan. As a matter of fact, China has kept adjusting its Taiwan policy, reflected in the replacement of the older “Three Middles, One Youth” (三中一青) project with the new “One Generation, One Line”(一代一線) project, both of which aim to attract and influence Taiwanese youths and certain business sectors. There are also a great variety of exchange programs that China’s provincial governments have with Taiwan. All these examples show another possibility other than use of force.

Notably, threats from China do not necessarily come in the form of direct military action. However, many intimidation tactics being used against Taiwan are extra-military means based on the PLA’s capabilities, as exemplified by the kind of gray zone strategy that has been constantly applied in the Taiwan Strait in recent years. This gray zone strategy, besides leveraging low-intensify conflicts, also counts on other submilitary organizations (or organizations with official status) to effectively approach neighboring countries.

At this stage, although the PLA has exhibited self-control in its approach to Taiwan, its moves are obviously aimed at declaring China’s sovereignty over Taiwan and managing the battle space in the Taiwan Strait through intensive military activities in the region. Moreover, such tactics are combined with other non-military means, such as those in the diplomatic field where China keeps squeezing Taiwan’s international space, to confine the ROC to where Beijing wants this so-called “breakaway province” to stay.

The three warfares (public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, and legal warfare) and other means are employed as well. For example, China, in the name of Hong Kong Flight Information Region, blocked a Taiwanese civilian plane from approaching Dongsha Island, where it was supposed to land and deliver supplies. China may also use its maritime militia or coast guard ships to encircle Taiwan’s offshore islands. A combined use of high- and low-speed aircraft as well as manned aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles could achieve the purpose of harassing Taiwan as well.

Subduing the Enemy With Small-Scale Fighting

If the aforementioned tactics still cannot achieve the goal of coercing Taiwan into submission, the PLA may raise tensions by creating “low-intensity conflicts” in an attempt to force Taiwan to accept unification with China. At this stage, the PLA is most likely to send forces to encircle Taiwan’s offshore islands and even take those islands by superior firepower. It may also hold exercises in the vicinity of those islands, which will then be surrounded by regular PLA ships rather than non-military forces as mentioned earlier.

Up to this point, Beijing is willing to use force, but only to a limited extent. Such limited use of force allows certain casualties, meaning that the PLA will be more audacious in action and even willing to use force to neutralize forces standing in the way. Taiwan’s offshore islands become targets mainly because they are most suitable for the PLA’s tactic of “encircling enemy positions while preventing reinforcements from coming to their rescue.” It is also because the offshore islands are Taiwan’s vulnerabilities in national defense. As PLA ships encircle those islands and block access to them, the PLA may multiply the effects by launching the three warfares at the same time, causing Taiwan’s people to become weary of war and ask for peace without too much hesitation.

If still unable to subdue Taiwan, Beijing may take one step further by cutting off Taiwan’s sea lines of communication (SLOC) through an air and sea blockade. As an island country, Taiwan’s energy supplies and economy depend on trade with other nations. It is especially so with digital finance and e-commerce, which require stable energy supplies. In the event of a power shortage, do Taiwan people still have the will to counter the enemy? Do all sectors of society still trust and support the military? All these questions are worth thinking about. Under a blockade launched by the PLA, Taiwan may take countermeasures. If so, it means that a full-scale war has begun. That will be a completely different story.

Conclusion

Mao Zedong once said, “Fight no battle unprepared and fight no battle you are not sure of winning.” Therefore, how to keep Beijing from being confident about using force against Taiwan is a top priority for Taiwan in its efforts to prevent a war from breaking out in the Taiwan Strait. It is also goal for Taiwan’s arms build-up and comprehensive defense strategy.

In national defense, Taiwan needs a will that cannot be conquered, a strategy that keeps the enemy at bay, and an environment that leaves no room for fighting so that it can put itself in an invincible position. To create an environment which leaves no room for fighting, the two sides need to interact and communicate with each other. But if Taiwan expects stable cross-strait relations to serve as the basis for its national security, without developing at the same time sufficient defense capabilities to deter against the enemy, it would be equivalent to pinning all the hopes for peace on the goodwill of the enemy. The peace gained therefrom is not the right kind of national security for Taiwan. That is like putting the cart before the horse

What Taiwan needs more is a will that cannot be conquered and an arms build-up that deters the enemy from daring to provoke. These form pre-conditions for an environment that leaves no room for fighting. After all, without strong defense capabilities as a support, Taiwan will create a chance for the enemy to bring a quick end to operations against it..

The ancient Chinese strategist Mozi, responding to a question from his disciple Qin Guli about how a small country can defend against invaders, said:

We should strengthen the fortifications of our walled cities, have equipment necessary for the defense of the cities, and maintain a sufficient supply of wood for burning and forage for horses; the leaders should be on good terms with their subordinates and subjects while obtaining help from the rulers of neighboring countries. This is how to survive against all odds. And if the guardians of the cities, despite being capable, are not trusted and used by the ruler of their country, they can do nothing to the defense of the cities. The guardians of the cities must be people who are really capable. If the ruler of the country uses incompetent guardians, it is like leaving the cities unguarded. Therefore, guardians of the cities must be people who are not only capable but also trusted by the ruler of the country. That is how the security of a country can be secured. 

Translated into modern-day equivalents, fortifications of walled cities and equipment for the defense of the cities would refer to an arms build-up. The leaders’ being on good terms with their subordinates and subjects is solidarity as we would call it today. And getting help from the rulers of neighboring countries is the result of diplomacy. All these conditions are still necessary today for effective deterrence against an enemy.

Dr. Ying-Yu Lin is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Institute of Strategic and International Affairs, located at National Chung Cheng University in Chiayi, Taiwan. He is also a Research Fellow with the Association of Strategic Foresight. Dr. Lin received his Ph.D from the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, Tamkang University. His research interests include the development of PLA capabilities and cybersecurity issues.

[b-e-h-o-l-d-e-r]

Ghost in the Shell (2017) review

I came into this movie with an open mind. Despite every fibre of my fanboy teenage ghost rejecting this alien reincarnation. I even set aside the whitewashing criticisms to just see if the movie can achieve something significant in spite of it.

Within roughly 5 minutes, this movie assured me I was going to be treated like a lobotomised baby. I shit you not, within seconds of a beautifully rendered manufacture sequence we watch two introduced characters in a room blatantly tell us what "ghost in the shell" means in the most uninspired way imaginable.

I wish I could tell you that this was just me getting off on the wrong foot but throughout, the movie is so uncertain in how to portray the themes, symbolisms and spiritual/ religious references that make up the brain in GitS' cyberpunk action body. The script just glitches between lame exposition by talking heads and still reflection in its precise composition but the two hardly work together.

It's like the film can't find its centre and as a result is neither a compelling action sci-fi or a meditative exploration of its philosophies. If this were Aaronofsky/ Gilliam or Bay/ Snyder perhaps (for better or worse) at least this movie would have a distinct direction to go in but instead it sits in the middle and suffers at both.

Hell, I'm sure many fans would be happy if this just took the Dredd approach. If they just accepted that the fans know the backstory and the non fans don't need it and made this simply about the Section 9 anti cyber crimes team doing their job, kicking ass n taking names, it would at least have a better chance of success amongst its primary demographic.

Instead Hollywood thinks big and wants to initiate a new franchise, origin story and all, n crams so much bullshit to try and get new audiences into it that Section 9 itself gets pushed way back in the corner. Audiences spend more time getting to know the Majors mum/s than they do with any her team.

They ditch the cerebral plot of the '95 anime whereby Major Motoko Kusanagi working within Section 9 are tracking a hacker who turns out not only to be an AI secretly created by the government to assassinate political targets but has become sentient, claims asylum and ends up merging consciousness with Major Kusanagi by the end.

Here we get Major Motoko Kusanagi of Section 9, pissed that many innocent people were murdered in experiments to create her and super shitty that her entire identity was a lie and she's actually a bratty anti establishment punk.

After all is said and done, what we get is Robocop-Lite (and thats the reboot mind you). All the nuance, intrigue and head scratching ideology that we got in the shorter length '95 anime is reduced here to identity theft and yet another unremarkable corporate business villain to cover it up. We've seen this shit SO often. I'm beginning to think Hollywood just doesn't know how to do it any other way. They weren't all bad mind you, Robocop, Total Recall, The Matrix, these are all great films but GitS in its initial reception really broke the mould and here to see it put back in the cage of "been here, done that" is so incredibly disappointing.

As far as anime/manga Hollywood adaptations are concerned, the bar is INCREDIBLY low. I'd argue the only good one amongst them is Edge of Tomorrow/ Live Die Repeat. Aside from that, every otaku since the 90's is used to being made fun of in the result of America trying to morph them into something that works amongst their style of cinema. Japan has made some great adaptations partly because they don't feel the need to repackage the story.

This GitS remake tries desperately to be on the fans side by copying much of the '95 movies look (with varying degrees of success, some scenes are very accurate in their reproduction but the hair in this film is more reminiscent of X-men (2000) and seems cosplay-ish at times).

There are few scenes lifted from the original but most get twisted to accommodate the new storyline, at which point I ask why bother? Half measures don't tend to turn many heads and whilst paying homage by really making the effort to be exact duplications in some ways is applaudable, you're giving yourself less room to do your version of it. At least then, whether the film turns out to be shit or not, I'll respect that you tried to do your own thing.

ok, casting. this argument has already been done to death and I've just about run outta energy already on the whole Scarlett Johanson thing but a few things that never seem to come up: first of all, acting wise, I gotta say it's all much of a fucking muchness isn't it? Kusanagi does not outwardly express much so its mostly a headgame for an actress with the chance to throw in some subtleties in the voice acting.

I don't really like Scarlet Johansson's performances but that its preposterous for anyone to come to the conclusion that her resume would land her this gig is a bit of a stretch. Do people realise how rare it is to find an A-list celebrity that has an extensive list of both highly demanding physical action blockbusters and subtle minimalist detail performances? Of course they are going to cast her. Before anyone throws ME personally into somehow being against ethnic minorities in blockbuster films (which would be absurd for anyone who knows me) '95 GitS director Mamoru Oshii also gave his stamp of approval.

They really tried with the marketing to dodge the bullet by just not bringing it up but it's really not dealt with well in the film and leads to some pretty fucking awkward moments for a racial debate charged audience to watch.

I would have preferred the role to go to a Japanese actress but remember, this is Hollywood and if a studio is gonna push bringing THIS film out, you bet your bottom dollar that they're going with someone that is a household name in America.

The only internationally known Japanese name out there right now is Rinko Kikuchi (who to date has 2 American films out there, both not big successes). I love most of her films and there ARE a few other Japanese actresses I would love to see in the role but Hollywood studios are not gonna bank on the success of Japanese films. Hell, the fact that they put Takeshi Kitano in bit part in this movie is as far as they are willing go to get in on that market. Few seem to point at his casting as some kind of justification and I laugh quite hard. Seriously, you're gonna give this guy (who's acted AND directed in over 20 brilliant films) a few minutes of screen time and applaud that as some kind of cultural milestone?

Which brings me to the big casting shame that NO ONE is fucking talking about because they're so caught up with the Johansson shit. Aside from Kusanagi, there are 6 Japanese members of the Section 9 taskforce. How many are Japanese? Kitano, yes. Who else? Saito. Did you remember him? He's the guy that snipes the helicopter at the very end of the film. You see his face for like 10 seconds. Pretty big step in casting mulitculturally, right? Don't get me wrong, the cast IS incredibly multicultural. We got actors from all over the world pretending to be Japanese:

A Danish guy as Batou A Chinese guy as Togusa An Australian as Ishikawa A Zimbabwean as Borma

Why keep the names?! Just call them whatever, it doesn't matter. You don't give them anything important to do anyway. Have a mulit-ethnic team but when they're all speaking clearly in their national accents and supposed to be portraying Japanese characters, THAT'S what should really piss people off because THESE roles could have gone out to Japanese people and it would not have even been a risk for the studio.

Ultimately, the one real positive thing I have to say is a great job for the WETA production team on some fantastic animatronics and moulds...that's pretty much it. Shame it couldn't be in a better film.

- dug out from the depths of https://letterboxd.com/Do_oM/

[shadowron]

Shadows of Las Vegas: Sin City in the Sixth World for Shadowrun

[This comes our way courtesy of professional decker turned professional gambler, Lotus.  Born in Seattle, he now lives in Vegas, and he gives us his particular viewpoint on his new city. – Captain Chaos]

Shadows of Las Vegas

by Lotus

Get it?  Get it?

Anyone who’s been to Vegas knows that it’s so bright, everywhere, that there are no shadows.  The same goes for our Shadows -- for a city more or less openly run by the Mob (or rather, three Mobs, more on that later), there’s no reasons for criminals to hide. That tells you most of what you need to know about Vegas.  The following saying tells you the rest:

“To call Las Vegas ‘Sin City’ is an insult.  Not to the City, but to Sin.”

Yes, yes, there’s gambling. There’s gambling everywhere -- the kind you find in the bright lights of the Core is just the meatspace version of the countless Matrix sites. But in Vegas you can gamble on *anything*.  Your smoky OTB down the street is nothing compared to the intestine-inverting stench of the underground troll on dwarf death-matches that happen at derelict warehouses in North Las Vegas.  

Yes, yes, there’s prostitution, which is the fancy Anglo word for “whores”.  It’s been legal here so long it’s blase -- but remember that Vegas gets regular visitors from all around the world, and everybody has a different itch that can be scratched for a price.  Like blondes?  Come on, too easy.  Blonde teenage ork teens?  A dozen geriatric troll men?  A cockatrice? Anything for a price.

50 ¥, Grandpa. For 75 ¥, the wife can watch.     

Which is the real reason people like you and me come to Vegas -- anything can be bought and sold for a price.  The desert around Vegas is a prime stopover on smuggling routes between Los Angeles (and the rest of the California Free State) up through Ute to Denver, and from there to the rest of North America.  Chips, drugs, guns, slaves, telesma -- you can always find something if you know the right people.  Right now the commodity of choice?  Water.  The Ute’s a desert, folks.

A lot of people (who skipped history in high school) think Vegas is like Seattle or Denver -- an independent or UCAS enclave that was carved out after the Great Ghost Dance.  It’s actually full-on Ute territory, it’s just that the Indians knew that Vegas was never going to change and didn’t even try to eject the Anglos and take over.  So, the Ute security force keeps a wide perimeter around the city, and basically allows it to keep rotting from within.  Poisoned land, some of their shamans say -- best to let the infection run its course, then come back later and rebuild on the scab.

The real reason is much simpler -- money.  

Both legal and illegal business account for a majority of the Ute’s tax base.  When you next buy your ticket to Vegas (or if you’re feeling adventurous, buying a permit to drive in), zoom in on the various extra fees that get slapped on it -- one of them will be for a temporary tourist visa that lets you stay in the country.  Every time you slot your credstick to get another drink, sales tax makes its way back up to Provo, and odds are every roll of the loaded dice can put the last of your nuyen into the fur-lined pockets of the Comanche Mob.  

Crime

So, let’s talk about crime.  

There’s the Mob, the Triclops, the three “I”s -- the Italians (Verontesse family), the Irish (Wynne family) and the Indians (Comanche tribe) -- who are the biggest players: they control the Strip and every activity, legitimate or otherwise, contained within.  They work hard to keep their cash cow bright, clean, and tourist friendly -- any settling of vendettas must be done *quietly* or risk bringing down the wrath of all families (an excellent source of shadow work, by the way).  I know some of you runners try to avoid mob runs, to avoid the risk of getting caught under the thumb of the local capo, but in Vegas, it is impossible to avoid their influence.  Any bit of shadow biz involves the Mob in some way, so you might as well calm down and accept it.

The Yakuza are a solid, yet distant, second place when it comes to organized crime in Vegas, despite their best efforts to drive a wedge between the mob families.  Other than the large casinos, the yaks dabble in everything, and it’s not too hard to find a discrete agent working any given block of the Strip.

Beyond that, it’s a smorgasbord of everyone else: the Triads (Chinese), Seoulpa Rings (Korean), and every type of gang and low-life you can imagine.  Which reminds me...

Corps

The smarmy side of me is complaining that, in covering criminals, I have yet to cover the megacorps in Vegas.  

Har har har.  

More true than usual in Vegas, though -- the largest corps in terms of gross earnings and personnel run the casinos: The Flamingo Casino Group (owned by the Verontesse Mafia), the Wynne Conglomerate (Wynne family) and the Wind Speaker Corporation (owned by the Comanche Mob).  None of them are multi-national (and are thus unranked by the Corporate Court), but since they only operate in Ute (Vegas and Reno), they can throw down with any other megacorp in town.  

The only big boys (AAA ranked) in town with an auspicious presence are Aztechnology and Renraku.  The Azzies are rumored to own the Luxor pyramid casino (along with rumors of blood sacrifices on the roof) and have their Ute HQ downtown (unique among the megas, who if they are allowed to do business in Ute, have to stay in Provo). Renraku performs a critical function in Vegas -- they are the primary supplier of gambling machine hardware and software.  Yes, the mob runs the casinos, but they must buy their machines from Renraku.  

A summary of the rest of the Mega’s presence within Vegas:

Ares: Ford, Weapons World, Knight Errant (private security)

Fuchi: Virtual Meetings Inc. (telepresence), Fuchi Simsense Studios

Mitsuhama: Sakura Studios (simsense), Black Lotus (software)

Saeder-Krupp: BMW

Shiawase: Shiawase Atomics Southwest (nuclear power)

A summary of the rest of the worst, along with their ranking and primary area of business:

Buce Talent (unranked, entertainment) – who helps book of those acts? They do.

ESP Systems (A, simsense) – based in Chicago, solid presence in Vegas

Istus International (A, real estate) – an up and comer, recently constructed HQ in Vegas

Lone Star (AA, private security) – they’re not the “cops” though, more on that later

UNLV (unranked, education) – they incorporated back in the 20s as a for-profit university

The above is by no means complete – but if you’re hired for some local shadow biz, and it isn’t through the syndicates, it’s likely through one of them.  If not, it’s likely through the…

Las Vegas City Government

Spend a day in Vegas and it’s easy to forget that you’re technically a temporary visitor to the Ute Nation – remember the Ute is basically defined by their anti-Anglo sentiment – but if you look closely at the logos on the Strip Panicbuttons, you’ll see the LVCG.  Depending on your viewpoint, the LVCG is either the token gesture to Ute Nation membership or just another branch of the Comanche Mob.  Either way, no one gets elected to a LVCG position without approval from Provo.  

The only respectable aspect (IMHO) of the LVCG is that they resisted corporate takeover of their law enforcement (Lone Star and Knight Errant stand poised to take over, should something change), so the other sign of the LVCG you’ll see is the Metropolitan Police (MetroPol for short, MP for shorter, the latter also a dig at their somewhat militant response in some cases). The MetroPol do a good job at keeping law & order on the Strip (anything else would be bad business), in exchange for that the mobs let the MPs make a token bust to show to the public that the casinos are “clean”.  

Beyond the Strip

That said, MetroPol really only cares about keeping clean the pieces of Vegas that bring in money.  While technically having jurisdiction over the entire city, you’ll see Halley’s Comet before you see an MP on patrol north of the city.  Highway Patrol is the roughest division, as they form the front-line troops keeping the rabble from encroaching in the city. When they do venture off the interstate, it is only in armored vehicles and full riot gear.  

It’s not really as bad as you might think, it only seems that way compared to the sterile streets of the Strip only a few miles away.  Some areas of interest:

Chinatown (Spring Mountain & Red Rock) – center of Triad activity (natch) in Vegas.

Koreatown (Spring Valley & Rainbow) -- center of Seoulpa Ring activity in Vegas.  Also borders Chinatown, meaning that border is a Triad/Ring battleground.

Henderson – corp burb, has experienced huge expansion in the past five years.  All shades of high class, so dress like you belong.  Middle to high class residential.

North Las Vegas Barrens – ‘nuff said.  Most of you probably live here, so I won’t say more.

Enterprise/Spring Valley/Summerlin – if not in the Barrens, that means you’re a moderately successful runner/mobster and live here.  Middle to low class residential.  Boring.

Paradise – Just east of The Strip and just north of the airport, this area is home to UNLV, some up and coming nightclubs, and a good chunk of the Vegas magical community.  Home to the only Vegas Wiz-Kid gang.  

Boulder City – a Ute city, gambling free, meaning this is the effective southern border of the Vegas sprawl.  Ute military patrols out of here, so watch your step folks.

Ute Air Station (formerly Nellis Air Force Base) -- the effective northern border of the Vegas sprawl.  Ute military patrols out of here too, though UAS duty isn’t the most sought after (most injun flyboys prefer the former Hill AF Base near Salt Lake), and as a result have a permanent bad attitude.  And by “bad attitude”, we mean would rather geek you than talk to you, given any excuse.

Getting in and out…

…by Air:

99% of visitors to Vegas come through McCarren International Airport. Nominally owned by the Ute government, its day to day operations are governed by a consortium of local corps (the mob, the megas, etc.).  Security is typical for a North American airport, which is lower than you might expect. There are a few other places to land a plane in Vegas – there is a private airport in Henderson that caters exclusively to corp traffic (really, anyone with enough money can use the facilities).  There is a similarly sized airfield in North Las Vegas, though regular air traffic left it years ago as the area degraded into the hellhole it is today.  However, you still find the occasional black market panzer or VSTOL sneaking in at night.

And, of course, there’s the UAS, which keeps a pretty tight radar net around the area (one thing they actually can do fairly well).  You can sneak in some unscheduled chopper flights within the city without a flight plan (or a bogus one) – what is Vegas without some spontaneity? – but try to make a break to the Hoover Dam and you might end up as target practice for the UAS SAM batteries.

…by Sea:  

Don’t be an asshole.  (still a desert, folks) 

…by Land:

Since the rest of the Ute nation uniformly despises the people of Vegas, and Vegas is surrounded on all sides by Ute territory, road traffic is discouraged, to say the least. Few locals stop, but some drive through.  You get a few more visitors that come from Cal Free through Ute, though they better be tribal or rich enough to bribe your way through.  I-15 is the major thoroughfare in this regard – north to Provo, Salt Lake, and points beyond, south to Cal Free.  Route 93 is the other road that cuts through the city, though not quite as active (who wants to go to Reno anyway?).  The bulk of traffic heading in and out of the city are freight vehicles (and most unmanned and remotely controlled, which has led to some interesting encounters from bands of North Las Vegas ruffians); this includes the heavy rail lines running through town.

…Illegitimately:

Which is, honestly, probably what you were interested in in the first place, and, natch, is going to depend upon your resources and level of desperation.  

What not to try – being a stowaway.  

Ute is paranoid about Anglos sneaking in and retaking over the territory, so they’ve wised up to neo-hobos breaking into open train cars or sneaking into the back of semi cabs. Companies must file manifests for every train and truck passing in and out of Vegas, listing content delivered, content picked up, delivery times, and so on.  These are verified by layers of drone sensor systems, both fixed and mobile, at the city boundaries.  And for every camera the Utes have on your cargo, there are two guns aimed in case something is up.  If you want to smuggle something in by land, make a mob contact with the myriad of trucking companies they control.

What to try – use the airport.

Seriously, the flimsiest of fake identities if usually enough to get you in and out of McCarren; Vegas makes it money through tourism, so as long as you’re not on the UCAS Ten Most Wanted List, expect an easy trip into Vegas (and if you are on the list, you’ll only get an extra pat-down).  Somewhat harder to get out (people don’t spend money once they leave), but not that much harder.

Away from the strip and the highways, there is a small and tight-knit panzer community operating out of North Las Vegas, using the surrounding mountains as camouflage in and out.  High risk, high reward, and high prices if you want to tag along.  That is, if you can find someone willing to talk to you.

Finally, in a worst case-scenario, you can just walk in and out of Vegas – the Ute sensor net, while probably locating you, has bigger problems than a drunk Anglo wandering into the desert and dying of heat stroke. And there are enough hiding places within the mountains that you could make it to Cal Free undetected if you had enough water…

[moonshinemornings]

in my skin

i’ve been thinking about writing this for a long time, and I think I’m at a place where, more so than being comfortable talking about it, putting my thoughts down might help me continue to chip away at my complex.

I want to preface this by saying that my fixation on how my body looks is infuriating to even me. this is for 3 reasons:

1) there is an endless list of more important, broader existential crises to be concerned with instead of how I look (what am I heading towards? am I genuinely happy pursuing a capitalistic, societal definition of success? what is purpose or value in my life???)

2) even on an individual level, so many other aspects of a human make up their person and make them interesting other than how they look and its stupid to be so concerned with this one thing that means so little if anything at all

3) I’m not even that stupidly far away from societal beauty standards anyway wtf like stfu

regardless, I think my thoughts about my body are reflective of how I think about myself relative to the world in general. I’ve also found that the relationship I have with my body is often a symptom about how I am feeling about my self worth at a certain point in time, and also manifests in how I see and treat the people around me. for these reasons I think it can be valuable to unpack these feelings even though they may seem asinine.

the first time I became conscious of my body was in my primary school dance club, when we had to get measured for our costumes. most of my friends were generally skinny and I wasn’t significantly larger than any of them. but the nature of (chinese) dance and the kind of girls that joined it made the general impression that it was better to be lithe and delicate - the moves just looked better that way. the revelation that I wasn’t as thin as I could be was not groundbreaking. it didn’t trigger any immediately toxic thoughts either. it was just a thought I hadn’t had before, that my body wasn’t perfect. It also didn’t affect me much because I had a lot of good stuff going on in school; I had great friends, I did well in school, everything looked good on paper and in real life (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I peaked in primary school). so it wasn’t a huge trigger for anything, just a planting of a seed, I guess? dormant.

as I grew into my teens my body was often too busy serving its intended purposes for me to be concerned with how it looked. I played sports all the time, I woke up early and went to bed early (when possible). I ate well and I was active. It wasn’t difficult to be relatively fit, so I wasn’t really that concerned with how “good” my body looked. like all teens, I did become more concerned with standards of attractiveness and whether or not I conformed to them. I noticed how people’s bodies differed and what people liked. I was aware that I was not on the top of my teenage male acquaintance’s who-would-you-bang list, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. I wasn’t super pleased with my body but I definitely wasn’t unhappy with it. and frankly speaking, I didn’t think I was unattractive lah like ya I might not be hot shit but I was definitely not ugly and I was pretty confident with what I had to offer. this was probably also due to the fact that I did well in school and extra-curriculars, so I found my validation elsewhere. 

for a short time between high school and college I had a body goal I wanted to work towards, time on my hands and a motivated support system, so I started working out for an aesthetic. It wasn’t super serious and there were no hard and fast rules, plus it was genuinely fun to work my body. I had been an athlete for several years at this point and I knew I felt good when my body was well-worked and maintained, so it was never difficult to bring myself to work out. the results were a happy bonus. looking back that was probably the time when I had the healthiest relationship with my body. I liked using it and spending time on it for the sake of doing it, I liked how it made me look but never to the extent that it became my main motivation for working on my body. if I had the luxury of unadulterated, stressless time, I could probably do it again. when I started college I was healthy, I looked good and I didn’t even care (we’ll come back to this).

when I started college things started to fall apart. my time in university was, overall, pretty shitty for my mental health. it was great in a lot of other aspects, and I can say with little doubt that it’s helped me grow into a person I not only want to be but am comfortable with. but the process was a shit show to put it lightly. when it comes to my relationship with how I look in particular, I think my years in London have unfortunately left me with a considerable amount of trauma. to make a long story short, I had an ideal of what I wanted my college experience to be like, but half a year into it I found myself severely unsatisfied with every aspect of my life. I wasn’t doing well in school, I felt like I was underperforming socially, I was conscious about the difference in affluence between me and the people around me and I was generally unhappy with the space I took up in my own and other people’s narratives. amidst all this, I put on some weight because (1) I wasn’t working out anywhere as much as I used to (2) the weather, my mental wellbeing and the food readily available made me eat a lot of junk. but instead of acknowledging and focusing on the underlying inferiority complexes that were eating away at me, I sought alternative validation through things I could seemingly control i.e. how I looked. it became the case that it was no longer that I looked a certain way because I worked out, but that I worked out because I wanted to look a certain way. and when I didn’t look a certain way because I was eating shit or going out or because it just plainly was not realistic given my living situation, the lack of validation would further aggravate the inferiority complexes and unhappiness with my person that started this toxicity to begin with. i ended first year treating the people around me like shit, not having anything to show for the hours of studying i put in, and a lot heavier than when I started it. family and friends pointed it out and i was pretty chill about it whenever it happened. i honestly thought i wasn’t that affected by it (again, brushing under the carpet the problems I had with the expectations I set for myself), and that i could lose the weight if i put my mind to it.

then in second year i developed an eating disorder. a couple months into second year I hadn’t made much progress with either my mental or physical health. I often ate till I was physically uncomfortable because I had a general problem with self control (I had none, in fact I didn’t want any, but that’s a story for another time). One night after eating too much, I went to brush my teeth and I was so full that when I gagged lightly from brushing my tongue, I involuntarily threw up the food that was filled up to my gullet. A normal person would’ve registered this as a cue that they should be more conscious about how much they’re eating. I saw it as an opportunity to eat as much as I wanted (for what?) and still be (or at least feel like I am) in control of how much weight I put on. and so I developed bulimia. the bulimia was closely followed by a binge eating disorder - seeing that now there was a mechanism to keep my intake in check, I could let my eating habits, which were in fact reflective of my control problems unravelling, go crazy. I told a couple friends about it because I thought maybe I needed help, but I never really told them how bad it could get. some nights I would go down into the kitchen in the middle of the night twice. thrice. seven times. I would look for anything I could inhale. cashews dipped in peanut butter. seaweed with a cup of yogurt. three packets of chips and a large slice of cake. instant noodles and jam straight out from the jar. it didn’t matter. it all ended up coming back out of my mouth and into the toilet bowl anyway. I would go out for meals with my friends and we would over-order. the paiseh pieces would be left on the plate and if no one wanted them, i would eat them. immediately afterwards I’d go to the restaurant washroom and throw it up. and all this time while I treated both food and my digestive tract like they were toys, my fixation on how I looked grew. spoiler: i did not lose weight from being bulimic. but I very much did lie to myself about it in order to keep at what was actually a coping mechanism for the rest of my life that was falling apart around me. I threw up everything I ate today, do I look different? I didn’t throw lunch up, but I worked out, so it should cancel out, does it show? I ate a salad but because for dinner we had baked rice I threw half of it up, it didn’t make me bloat did it? 

towards the end of second year I had a rude awakening that forced me to drag myself out of the shit hole of a mindset I had casted myself into to address the personal issues and the lazy, irresponsible, selfish attitude that had gotten me to this point. luckily, when I dealt with the underlying dissatisfaction I felt towards myself, my problems with food disappeared along with it. right now I don’t have an unhealthy relationship with food. if i were being generous, I’d say it could even be considered pretty healthy. my relationship with my physical body is also pretty good. I eat balanced meals, I sleep well, I work out when I want to and lay in bed and eat junk when I want to. I don’t force myself to get activity in, I don’t force myself to eat more or eat less. in fact, I think I am really inching towards getting the intuitive eating and living thing down. I’ve lost some weight and I definitely don’t hate how I look anymore. so I think I am in a good place for the most part.

my relationship with body image and the validation I feel from how I look however, has been (permanently?) affected. as it stands, I am scared about two things.

first. I like the person I am right now. my life is not super in check, but I’m holding it down pretty well. but in the past two years, when i had nothing under control, the way I looked was the only measure with which i valued my worth. do I only place less emphasis on how I look right now because, like when I was in high school, I have other things going for me? if, come one day, life happens and the going gets tough, will I once again come down on myself because I don’t look perfect, even though I don’t look shit? will how I see my body and how I feel about it be affected every time something else in my life causes anxiety or unhappiness, and if that happens is there a risk of it starting a vicious circle of self-toxicity?

second. like I said, I don’t hate how I look right now. but I also don’t love it. since coming back home, after a shower or when I’m changing or whenever I’m deciding what to wear, I stand in front of the mirror, and I look into it for what I can tell is longer than I would like. I don’t give myself shit for how I look or dislike what I see. but why am I looking anyways? am i checking to see if i like my body any more or less today? why do I care? why should it matter how close or far I am to society and my own definition of an ideal body?

recently I watched a video that said despite the positive intentions of the body positivity movement, a better approach would be radical body acceptance. body positive says that even though I’m fatter or shorter or flatter or whatever-er than the beauty standard, I am still beautiful. radical body acceptance argues that words like fat or thin or flat or short or thin should just be neutral words. there is no good or bad linked to them and there is no good or bad body type. bodies are not “beautiful however they may look”. they are just bodies. I’m trying to strive towards this idea of body perception, to go back to a place of not caring how I look in and of itself or relative to anything else. how I look will just be how I look. to be clear, I don’t think this mindset is the best one that should be universally promoted. I do however think it is the best method for me. this is because I’ve found that ever since developing a fixation on my body and how it looks, sometimes when I see other people the things I take notice of most are their bodies as well. I don’t think I go as far as to assign worth to their person or character because of how their body looks, but I can tell that I’m developing a fixation on other people’s bodies (even if I don’t compare it to mine) and I feel like it subconsciously blocks a clear, genuine perception of them as people. and, of course, it feeds into my obsession about how I look. the more I care, the more I care. so I want to focus on caring less, and eventually not caring.

I would like for a day to come where I can put on clothes and not feel the need to change out of it because I don’t like how I look in something before leaving the house. I would like even more if I didn’t feel the need to look in the mirror before leaving to begin with. I would like to be able to not feel badly if someone points out I gained weight, but I would like even more to not feel happy because someone says I’ve lost weight. I would like to stalk fewer girls on instagram to see what their bodies look like in different photos. I would like to stop being concerned about how my body looks in different photos. I would like for a day to come where, whenever I’m not actively thinking about it, I forget how I look. slowly but surely, I will take steps to make this happen. it took a while to rebuild a healthy relationship with food, and then a healthy relationship with my physical body. surely it will take longer to rebuild the relationship with the image and idea of my body in my mind. I think the moment I forget the image exists will be the day I manage to do so.

[aelaer]

Gonna send this separately so you can choose which ask to answer first and when. So the sorcerers have four main HQs in four different time zones and countries, all of which they can easily travel to in seconds. What do you think that means for the masters, their sleep schedule, and their nationalities? Like, do they have a fairly distributed postings (x number of masters are posted in London and must stay awake when London is, etc)? Or do they just sleep whenever they want?

This is a great question and one I’ve considered it while building out my headcanon for the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj. Here’s something of an excessive essay through a history of building out the four areas, which I think can help establish what goes on in modern day.

Because I’m a Tolkien nerd, I go overly deep into thinking about how languages come into play. Not only that, but I’m also a huge history nerd *and* I adore geography, so this gets very long and unnecessarily detailed. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it.

Hypothetical Early History - Kamar-Taj:

The films established Agamotto was the first Sorcerer Supreme and so he must have established the Sanctums and Kamar-Taj. It’s likely he was either from or very familiar with the Nepal area to establish Kamar-Taj in Kathmandu– but Kamar-Taj may not have necessarily been there since the first Sorcerer Supreme. The Sanctums protect the Earth, but Kamar-Taj is more of a headquarters, and those sort of places can move. I like to think that the first Kamar-Taj in the MCU was actually in Tibet like in the comics and had to be moved centuries ago due to Reasons. However, there is no evidence for this currently and simply remains a headcanon.

A lot of the books Stephen gets are in Classical Sanskrit, according to Wong, once he finishes several books in English as a novice (called The Book of the Invisible Sun, Astronomia Nova, Codex Imperium, and Key of Solomon). Classical Sanskrit’s more recent than Vedic Sanskrit, but it’s still a very old language. It came around about 2500 years ago and was widely used until the beginning of the dominance of Islamic societies about the 13th century. It spread all throughout Asia in its near 2000 years of prominence in learned, literary circles as well as in several vernacular circles. This includes both Nepal and quite a bit of China.

So with Kamar-Taj within Asia (there’s no reason to believe otherwise) the primary language both studied and spoken across several different cultures would have certainly been Sanskrit until the end of the first millennium AD. For any newcomer who was illiterate (of which there likely would be many) it would be the first language they were taught to read and write (and speak as needed). It would serve as the lingua franca across all four locations. But naturally each location would have picked up the vernacular languages in their region as well as other elements.

So let’s take a look at the actual Sanctums and how they would differentiate between each other before going further into how the lingua franca would change over time.

Hypothetical Early History - The London Sanctum

Let’s look at London first. London is a very old city that has history to the Roman era (called Londonium then), established by them in 47 AD. Apparently it had a population of 50,000 by the 3rd century AD, which is nuts; remember that the historical City of London is only about a square mile wide, but in modern day about 500,000 people work in that square mile. So 50,000 people can live in that amount of space easily. It only really started spilling out in the 1600s, too.

Why am I saying all this? Well, I looked up the filming location from the very beginning of Doctor Strange, where Kaecilius runs out of the library to the London Sanctum and to the city. That was filmed on Whitehall Court, which is located in Westminster and about a kilometer away from the borders of the classic City of London.

This means that the London Sanctum was not considered a part of London for some time. Indeed, Agamotto likely established it several hundred years before the Westminster Abbey and the predecessor to the Palace of Westminster were established in the 10th and 11th centuries. Before that? There was no reason for anyone to be there. So for several centuries the London Sanctum was in the middle of nowhere. There was likely an illusion spell over it to prevent any random passerbys from over the centuries to find it unless they were “meant” to find it, or whatever. You know, magic stuff. They’d probably disguise it as a small servant’s house once the village around the abbey and palace started developing (with some sort of suggestive “do not disturb” spells of various strengths depending on the political/religious climates of the decade).

The facade would change with the changing architecture in the village and likely would remain generally undocumented until Westminster became an official borough in the 16th century. With houses getting much closer and less easily able to completely hide their presence, even with subtle “look the other way” spells, this is when I really think they’d have to set aside actual budget for whatever property taxes were set by the Crown. You can hide a building in plain sight with magic if there’s enough empty space, but I don’t think you could hide it if you have buildings on each side of it unless you do the Harry Potter trick of squeezing the space out of existence for all non-magic folk. They clearly don’t do this in the film, and they wouldn’t want someone to try and build something on their very not-empty lot, thus needing to pay property taxes. But generally they’d otherwise be left alone.

Despite it not being part of London until the Greater London area was established in the 20th century, due to its closeness to the City of London I think it would have been called the London Sanctum from a very early point. London/Londonium had been around for a millennium longer than Westminster, so I don’t see them changing the name just because they’re suddenly in a village called Westminster now.

The vernacular language of the Sanctum (not to be confused with the literary language and worldwide language of communication, Sanskrit) would shift with the centuries. First it would be the Common Brittonic with Latin after the Roman invasion in order to do any business in London (which was only a kilometer away, though distance naturally wouldn’t be an issue with a sorcerer). This would eventually shift to Old English at the Roman Empire’s decline, and Latin would be put on the backburner for some time. Old English turns to Middle turns to Early Modern (which is Shakespeare), and Latin’s revival with the Renaissance does spread into the Sanctum if they pick up any well-read, learned individuals in the 16th to 18th centuries.

Hypothetical Early History - The Hong Kong Sanctum 

The Hong Kong Sanctum was built on a set for a street that doesn’t actually exist in Hong Kong so we can’t use the same trick we did for London on precise location. But like London, the area has been inhabited for millennia, with it becoming part of one of the Chinese dynasties (Qin) in 221 BC. It was difficult to find dating for the history of its name and what it was called before it became Hong Kong. From what I can find, the British, once they received the island to colonize in the 19th century, gave the whole island that name, which was the phonetic translation of “ 香港 ”, or “fragrant harbour”.

It’s very unlikely that the Hong Kong Sanctum was actually called Hong Kong for most of its history unless it was directly within the village that bore that name on Hong Kong Island. But we don’t know where the Sanctum is supposed to be; it could be on Hong Kong Island (the original British territory), the Kowloon Peninsula (in the second growth of the colony), or on Lantau Island, another island, or one of the other New Territories north of the peninsula, gained by the British in 1899. Its original name probably reflected whatever area it’s historically located in and it would not have been changed to “Hong Kong” likely until the 20th century.

The vernacular language of the Hong Kong Sanctum would have started with the Chinese/Sinitic language groups of Yue and Hakka (which are considered Cantonese by non-linguists), specifically with dialects local to the area. It looks like another dialect from the Min family also lived in the area, so that could be sprinkled in as well. I would think that sorcerers based within the Hong Kong Sanctum would be expected to speak at least two local Chinese dialects to be able to communicate with as many newcomers as possible, and that the common language across language barriers for all the hundreds of variants of Chinese would be Sanskrit, as that would be the literary and formal language used to talk with people from all around the world. The literary language would eventually change, of course, but we’re not quite there yet in this ridiculous meta.

It’s possible that, since the area was generally not very populated until the 19th century, that the Sanctum was a lot more open in its existence (with less concealment spells and the like) and that they even allowed rumours of its existence to leak out to the local villages for anyone who was looking for greater spiritual enlightenment and knowledge. They may set some sort of obstacles on the way to find the Sanctum, but it wouldn’t be completely off the map like London would have to be for most of its existence. I don’t see anything in Taoism, Buddhism, Daoism, or Confucianism that would mark the magics of sorcery as “unnatural” or “evil” as many sects of Christianity would have in Europe, but I may be wrong on this topic.

They’d not have to worry about an increasing populace until the 19th century, since Hong Kong Island only had 3,000 people when the British colonized it. The population got a huge influx of people from Canton/Guangzhou once the British took over, which would eventually shift the vernacular from several dialects of Chinese to the one the people of Canton brought with them: Cantonese. Along with Cantonese, there definitely would be an increase in English amongst those speaking the vernacular in the Hong Kong Sanctum from the 1840s onward, just as there was with the rest of the population of Hong Kong. We’ll get more into this development in another part, but first we need to cover America.

Hypothetical Early History - The New York Sanctum

Like Hong Kong, this name is more recent, though not as recent as its sister sanctum in China. Before New York City was colonized, it was populated by the Lenape people, who called their territory Lenapehoking. I imagine that the New York Sanctum was once called the Lenapehoking Sanctum, assuming that the Lenope people were able to hold that territory for the several centuries before the Europeans came over. There’s no recorded history that I could find, so we cannot be certain on that account.

Unlike the London Sanctum (and possibly the Hong Kong Sanctum), it is also possible that the religion of the Lenape people and other local tribes were open to the idea of some individuals having a greater natural connection and unusual, great powers. I think obstacles would be set for those of the Lenape who wanted to leave to find this spot of enlightenment, but at the same time I do not believe it would be viewed necessarily as a negative thing.

If they drew recruits from the local populace, the vernacular would have been largely from the language spoken by the Lenape of what is now called New York City, which is called Munsee (and sadly has only two living native speakers left). They possibly also spoke Umani, the language the Lenape south of New York spoke.

This would have all changed with the arrival of European colonizers. The Dutch bought some of the area in modern lower Manhattan in 1626 from one of the Lenape groups, but the territory only extended to Wall Street; Bleecker Street is about 2 miles north of that, so they’re still in Lenape territory. However, the next 100 years dramatically shifted the landscape. New Amsterdam became New York (and transferred back, *then* back again), and inter-tribal warfare combined with the lack of immunity from the diseases the Europeans brought over cut Lenape populations dramatically in the modern New York area. I could see a potential influx of Lenape individuals who wanted nothing to do with the business of war and disease and looked for the mysterious building that no one could ever map in their territory for sanctuary. And from there, a lot of Lenape sorcerers in the 17th century.

Greenwich Village (which is where Bleecker Street is) started as farmland with some of the Dutch in the 1630s onward. The first black Dutchmen were freed a decade later and given parcels of land there, as well. Who knows: maybe one of them, or their children, became the first black sorcerers as I’m uncertain if such an opportunity would have presented itself earlier in London and I’m not sure if they would pick up random folk who didn’t come directly to Kamar-Taj or one of the three Sanctums. That said, I don’t know what travel from Africa looked like (outside of the countries on the Mediterranean) before the slave trade really got going from the age of exploration onwards. It’s hard to say what the sorcerer recruiting process would be like, especially with the language barriers. And I’d rather not magic all language barriers away, they’re interesting to keep around.

Anyway, the area was first designated as a hamlet on paper in 1713 (as Grin’wich); by the end of the century it was a decent-sized suburb that absolutely exploded in population throughout the 19th century. It would certainly have been during the 1700s that they would have had to established a visible building on record so no one tried to build on top of them (and start paying property taxes on that, too, haha); they probably expanded their property throughout the 1800s as smallpox drove people out of south Manhattan to the fresher airs of Greenwich, then with the immigration and building booms of the rest of the century.

By the 18th century English would have entered the vernacular of the sorcerers residing in the New York Sanctum and would remain the primary vernacular language until modern day. It would likely be renamed sometime in the 1700s as well with the expansion of New York City and the further decline of native settlements.

Hypothetical Early History - Mingling With the Normals Around the World

One reason I favour Kamar-Taj in a more remote region in its earlier years rather than Kathmandu would be for sorcerers from all around the world to easily mingle outside without worry of some central Asian villager getting spooked out of his ever-loving mind for seeing his first European. And it makes sense to me that Kamar-Taj would have a large community of farmers, herdsmen, and the like doing basic things to keep people fed and shod while more experienced sorcerers did the reality protecting part of the job. They simply wouldn’t be able to do their job if they didn’t have people who were keeping the community running. And I don’t think they’d outsource it for much of their existence. I really see Kamar-Taj as a very self-sufficient society that keeps away from the rest of the world as much as possible. That would take a lot of room, and you’d need a lot of land for that. So yeah, I’m favouring Kamar-Taj as a “hidden land” in Tibet as it was in the comics until the world began to enter the modern era. And here they could mingle with anyone they wanted.

When it came to going out to the rest of the world, however, I would imagine caution and secrecy was of ultimate importance. Again, you don’t want to spook the western European villager with seeing a black person for the first time some 2000 years ago. So basically sorcerers avoided any locals as much as viably possible.

On that note, until the age of exploration I imagine that each Sanctum would be very strict with who was allowed outside of the Sanctum to their immediate surroundings. They don’t want to draw too much curiosity and scrutiny lest rumours travel to those with considerable power. This would be especially important in London after the rise of Christianity and the distrust in anything seen as magical. People that didn’t look like you appearing in your little village? Don’t want to scare the illiterate locals.

So for the majority of the Sanctums’ histories, only sorcerers with backgrounds that were native to their location would actually go outside if they needed to and there was a chance they’d come across someone. America would be the most lenient while London the strictest. These rules would be in place for precaution and secrecy.

Even when the age of exploration begins in earnest and you actually start seeing traders from Asia, Africa, and the Americas in London as the centuries pass onward, minority sorcerers still may not want to travel the streets of London due to the possibility that they may be mistreated. I’m not greatly familiar with the history of diversity and how minorities were treated in London, but if it’s anything like the rest of the world, it probably wasn’t great. And the last thing anyone before the 19th century would want is to show magic and be accused of witchcraft. I imagined they just avoided the possibility of problems happening altogether by limiting who went outside the Sanctum in certain parts of the world.

It’s not really until the 19th century that you see stringent rules start to relax a bit; Hong Kong has several European traders and New York and London have turned into much larger melting pots. By the time WWII comes around, these old rules about where people can travel directly from the Sanctums are dropped as the world has become a melting pot.

Hypothetical History Up To The Modern Era

As established, the main language of literary and cross-cultural communication would start with Sanskrit due to its prominence in Asia as a writing system first and foremost when the Sanctums were established (presuming that they were established a few centuries before or after the BC/AD shift; I don’t think the MCU uses the comic canon for Agamotto’s age). Using it for spoken language afterwards just makes sense with so many cultures present.

The lingua franca of Sanskrit wouldn’t change until Sanskrit’s decline; I don’t see it happening immediately, either. Sanskrit started declining in the 13th century, but I think it would remain the lingua franca until sometime during the Renaissance and the years of colonialism that follow. I believe there would have been a large push for Latin to be the main language of literacy and communication between the 16th to 18th centuries, primarily from the sorcerers from Europe. A good number of more complex texts from the London Sanctum would have surely been translated into Latin at this time (while the idea of writing in the vernacular, as spread with the printing press, has certainly caught on and beginner texts there are starting to be translated into early Modern English).

The Ancient One, who is now Sorcerer Supreme at this time, isn’t quite sure yet of that change. She’s getting a lot of resistance from Hong Kong in particular who think Sanskrit has served fine for well over a millennium and can serve just as well in the next. Instead she encourages more translations of beginner books into the vernacular and encourages those in the other Sanctums to learn other vernacular languages of other Sanctums as she can see the world is beginning to shrink and more places are being mapped. She, of course, can speak several languages fluently so she can talk to as many students in their native language as possible. Because the Sanctums are not within Spanish-speaking or French-speaking territories, these two languages are acknowledged as wide-speaking and at least a couple sorcerers learn the languages if there are no native speakers, but they do not come into the running as a lingua franca (just as Mandarin does not, either, as no one near Hong Kong speaks it).

Things remain in flux for the next 200 to 300 years until the New York Sanctum is largely populated by those who immigrated recently to the English colonies. And then the request starts to change: make the lingua franca English. London largely agrees with this (though things get a bit salty between a couple English natives and a couple pro-Independence colonizers at the end of the 18th century) but by the time the 19th century rolls around, there’s a lot of support for this from both New York and London.

Hong Kong doesn’t see why it should change at all, and then the Opium Wars come around, and by 1850, there’s quite a bit of English being spoken by newcomers in their area and almost everyone else is speaking another dialect of Chinese rather than the vernacular they were familiar with. They agree, albeit a bit reluctantly. English becomes the vernacular in the latter half of the 19th century and any starter books that haven’t been translated start to be translated into English.

The Hong Kong Sanctum also works on translating several starter books into Cantonese as they still want to draw from the local populace who don’t speak English; they still have plenty of the local Yue and Hakka dialects made over the last thousand years (with updates made every couple hundred years with shifting languages).

France’s fall from power with the removal of their monarchy and the defeat of Napoleon, alongside the continuous British colonization efforts and the growing prosperity from the new county of the United States, remove French from potentially becoming a lingua franca and solidify English as a worldwide language. This only increases in the 20th century after the Allied success in WWII, even with Britain giving up/losing their colonies throughout the next thirty years. English is still spoken in those territories, after all.

Hypothetical History: The Modern Era

The twentieth century saw the most change in the shape of the world than all centuries previous, and this change is reflected in policy with the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj. Before the twentieth century, the sorcerers that resided/worked in the various Sanctums were very homogeneous. London was staffed by Europeans and Hong Kong by Asians, especially of southeast descent. New York was the most lenient due to the low population in the area that was constantly moving, though individuals who looked like the indigenous peoples were certainly preferred (no blonds here). Everyone was welcome in Kamar-Taj as it was a completely closed off, secluded community and everyone was used to a very mixed population. As mentioned earlier, while London and New York saw different ethnicities, especially after the Renaissance, I don’t think a lot of people would really want to go out and about in those areas due to the prejudices of the era.

It is possible that some sorcerers came with prejudices as they were introduced to Kamar-Taj, but the amount of discipline and the ability to work together was so imperative to Agamotto, the Ancient One, and other Sorcerer Supremes (however many there were) that anyone who didn’t shed them simply wouldn’t be permitted to continue. Their tight-knit society wouldn’t be able to function if some sorcerers refused to work with other sorcerers because they looked different, practiced a different religion, or was a woman. The Ancient One being a woman of ambiguous religious practices helped get rid of a lot of people.

But as mentioned, a lot of things changed with the twentieth century. Prejudice still existed, of course, as it does today, but it was significantly less than when the slave trade was legal around half the world 200-300 years ago. The invention of photography, radio, and TV alongside WWI and WWII made the world smaller than it ever has been. And as the three Sanctum cities were much more heterogeneous than in centuries past, who presided over what relaxed.

In the 21st century, sorcerers come from all around the world over. Because their numbers are small I think recruitment still remains largely out of being lucky enough to come across a sorcerer who thinks you may be a good candidate, or to hear about Kamar-Taj through word of mouth and travel to Kathmandu (where it eventually permanently located as need for fields and fields of space became unnecessary). Anyone who doesn’t know English well (or at all) is taught to read, write, and speak the language during their novice days. As English is the lingua franca of the business world right now, no one in their right mind would turn that down, either; right now, English remains the most desired language to learn in the majority of non-English speaking countries.

Anyone can now be posted anywhere due to the heterogeneous world. Sleep schedules correspond with the local time of the location; as each Sanctum has an alarm system that goes to Kamar-Taj (and I imagine Kamar-Taj has its own), it would be easy enough to get sorcerers who are wide awake to help with an emergency. There’s probably someone keeping an eye on all locations when the locals are sleeping, even if they’re not physically there.

The majority of sorcerers who don’t have assignments that correspond with the Sanctums would remain in Kamar-Taj, and if they needed to go to any old Sanctum, it likely would be Hong Kong as Hong Kong is only two hours and 15 minutes ahead of Kathmandu. (China is one time zone when it should be at least three, but that’s another conversation altogether). That said, even if the local residents of the Sanctums are asleep, I view the Sanctums as facilities that are open twenty-four hours to the people of Kamar-Taj if they need to reference something that lives within one of the other Sanctums.

I don’t think the permanent staff of the Sanctums in the modern era would be overly large, either; there’s the Master, of course, probably another person to see to the Sanctum’s day-to-day tasks, and maybe a handful of acolytes and apprentices making a certain study of something that lives within the Sanctum or prefer to be within that time zone for some time while doing another job that they could do anywhere (such as the translations I mentioned). But because they do have that nifty alarm system, and the world is much more heterogeneous than it once was, the desire to keep sorcerers assigned to certain parts of the world appearing like people locally from there so as to draw less attention from locals is a custom that has more or less died out. And that has made the assignments much, much more flexible.

So yeah, I think in the modern era there is a bit more flexibility that wasn’t present in former eras because the world is smaller. With the alarm system connected to Kamar-Taj, which would have traffic 24 hours a day more than likely, you have a worldwide system of sorcerers with an eye on each Sanctum as well as a worldwide system of sorcerers that can go wherever they need to go to take care of dimensional issues as they come up.