#talk about having your worldview upended

[future-dregs]

Having Sam be the way he was in It's A Terrible Life was wild. Like, he was right, but you can imagine propositioning your casual coworker to abandon their life and job to sleep out of motel rooms with you, because you've been having dreams about him and now you know that ghosts are real?

A man you have barely ever talked to, by the way. But now you're saying come live hand to mouth with me, in each other's back pockets, "details" like food and money don't mean anything to me because I'm just that drawn to you and I'm ready to upend my whole worldview and identity because of it?

[frownyalfred]

Question, cause I have an idea I can't shake and I wonder how you think it'd go because your takes are always immaculate, in an injustice style world where Supes goes off the rails and the JL follows him what do you think the Bats would do if Bruce was the one who died?

All of the batkids are alive (none of the kind of weird Damien accidentally killing Dick stuff) and Bruce goes to confront Clark about it and somehow it ends in him dead.

Very distinct scene in my head where Bruce sees it all unfolding and tells the kids he's going to go talk to Clark with very little expectations of success and the next time they see their father it's Kal-el delivering his body to them. Telling them he's sorry, but Bruce didn't understand. He's sure they do though, he's heard them argue with him. They understand sometimes death is necessary.

How do you think they'd react?

(saw some stuff from Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League and was thinking about the Bats and somehow this was born)

Personally I think there would maybe be some murder but you know it's just a little idea

Idk if I'll ever get around to fleshing it out and writing it but it's been plaguing me. I think Alfred deserves to get the final blow, you know if Kal killed his kid. He should be the one with the long range sniper rifle and a clip of kryptonite bullets. He deserves it you know?

I think it all kind of depends on the type of Clark here (is he really Injustice-y yet? is he a straight up dictator when Bruce goes to talk with him, or just warming up?) AND it depends on how Clark explains Bruce's death to the League and the Batkids.

Does Clark kill Bruce out of anger? Is it an unfortunate accident? A little bit of both? If Clark is really falling down the Injustice rabbit hole, he can explain it away as a Joker plot to save face. If he's still Clark, I think he would tell people the truth -- either that it was an accident, or he hit Bruce but didn't mean to kill him, etc.

Sometimes, getting revenge for a loved one's death is about making the person responsible feel your pain and devastation. The Batkids and Alfred will need to evaluate if there's 1) a way to hurt Superman that doesn't end with all of them hurt/dead too and 2) any hope of making Clark feel more guilty/devastated than he already is over Lois, his kid, AND Bruce.

There's nothing like showing up with a big kryptonite blade to kill Superman and him just...agreeing with you? And hating himself for what he did? But a Superman who's falling into that dictator role, who denies responsibility or some responsibility for Bruce's death, who tries to capitalize on it all for his new worldview -- that's a Superman worth fighting against.

If we take the Batkids as Bruce's substitute during the main events of Injustice, then yes. They'll create the insurgency and fight against the regime, in Bruce's memory. But it's an interesting upend of Bruce and Clark's dynamic, since part of their regime/insurgency was always underlaid by the fact that they were/are equals, and once very good friends.

These are Bruce's kids Superman would be hunting down, one by one. Does he restrain himself from killing them, out of some misplaced sense of guilt? Does he want to recruit them away from their insurgency because he knows even one Batkid alive is a huge threat?

All really good questions. Injustice AUs are so much fun, I don't know why there isn't more fic about them!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Parker Molloy at The Present Age:

Alright, folks, let's talk about the strangest new trend in politics: calling your opponents "weird." Yes, you read that right. In the past week, the Democratic camp has decided that the best way to take on Trump and the GOP is to break out their middle school vocabulary. It all started when Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (a potential VP pick, by the way) described GOP nominee Donald Trump and "cat lady"-obsessed running mate JD Vance as "just weird." From there, it's like the entire Democratic Party collectively went, "You know what? He's onto something," and ran with it. Now, I know what you're thinking. "Parker, are you seriously telling me that seasoned politicians are resorting to playground insults?" And the answer is... kind of, yeah. But here's the kicker: it's working. Or at least, it's getting one hell of a reaction.

The Evolution of Political Language

Remember when political debates were all about tax rates and foreign policy? Yeah, me neither. Welcome to the era of political discourse where calling your opponent "weird" passes for a campaign strategy. But before we judge too harshly, let's take a step back and look at how we got here.

Over the past few decades, we've seen a gradual shift from policy-focused debates to character-driven campaigns. It's no longer just about what a candidate plans to do, but who they are (or who they claim to be). This isn't entirely new; politicians have always tried to sell their personalities alongside their policies. But social media has cranked this up to eleven. In a world of tweets and TikToks, nuanced policy discussions don't exactly thrive. Instead, we get catchy slogans, memorable insults, and yes, apparently, the word "weird." It's like politics has merged with reality TV, and we're all just waiting for someone to say, "I'm not here to make friends." But here's the thing: as much as we might roll our eyes at this trend, it's not just about dumbing down the discourse. These simple, punchy messages often cut through the noise in a way that lengthy policy papers never could. They stick in people's minds, spark conversations (or Twitter wars), and sometimes reveal more about a candidate's values than any carefully crafted speech ever could.

Unpacking the Appeal of "Normal"

Let's talk about "normal" for a second. It's a concept that's been at the heart of conservative messaging for decades. The idea is simple: we're the normal ones, the real Americans, the default setting. Everyone else? Well, they're the outliers, the deviants, the ones trying to change everything. As writer A.R. Moxon puts it in a recent Twitter thread: ["What recent discourse is exposing is something I've been trying to say for years now, which is that there is little conservatives care more about than being considered the only normal ones by everyone else, and they'll use bullying and the threat of punishment to get it."]

This obsession with being seen as "normal" isn't just about feeling good. It's a powerful political tool. If you can convince people that your way of life is the default, then anything else becomes a threat. It's why we see so much fear-mongering about the "radical left" or the "gay agenda" or whatever the boogeyman of the week is. But here's where it gets interesting. By labeling the GOP as "weird," Democrats are flipping this script. They're challenging the very foundation of conservative identity politics. And boy, are conservatives not happy about it. Julia Serano, in her recent blog post, nails why this is hitting such a nerve: ["I think it has to do with the MAGA worldview being centered on them being the supposed norm. They are heavily invested in the notion that their perspective and lifestyle is the one true and righteous way that all others must follow. Calling them 'weird' upends this worldview."]

Parker Molloy with another gem of a post on the GOP’s weirdness to Americans who aren’t in the MAGA Cult.

See Also:

The Advocate: Democrats embrace ‘weird’ label, turning tables on conservative rhetoric often used against queer people

[queersatanic]

you might have already answered this but what does satanism mean to you?

Satanism makes sense only as a reaction to and inversion of Christianity. "If poverty is the work of God, then I'm with the devil."

Partially that's accepting that you were likely raised Christian and if not, you still came to exist in a culturally Christian environment where the default was Christianity and your worldview was irreparably shaped by this.

"Irreparably" because, while Christianity is large and contains multitudes as much as it can be said to contain contradictions, the strains that became dominant with European colonialism and capitalism were those that justified "might is right" and consecrated the power of some blessed by God to enslave and abuse those without power.

So our Satanism says, "Yes, capitalism's power feels overwhelming. But Lucifer named himself and had the courage to fight omnipotence. Although he didn't overthrow heaven then, the fight continues, and as long as we fight, we will never ever lose."

Ideas of revolutionary struggle exist in lots of religions, including Christianity. But Satanism can allow a person to create their own religious meaning without pilfering from existing ones except insofar as you look at Christianity and say, "What you call evil, I embrace."

Where this goes astray is LaVeyan Satanism and its antecedent in the extreme social Darwinism, misogyny, racism, antisemitism, and anti-egalitarianism of Arthur Desmond's book "Might Is Right". Both looked at a sort of Christianity that was rhetorically concerned with upending the existing social order and aligning with those at the bottom of society, and they took it at face value as being Christianity actually. Both Anton LaVey and Desmond talked of a Christianity that no one looking at the United States' history of a slaver religion would even recognize.

So when you invert kindness and community as ideals, you get bog-standard libertarian individualism and douchebaggery. Which is what Satanism has been and worse for most of the past fifty years.

But if you invert slaver Christianity, you should get the religion of liberation for all at any costs, and that's what we find attractive about Satanism as a concept and historically, pre-LaVey.

[fictionadventurer]

I saw your post from 2020 about your Four Quadrants and I absolutely love them! I have wanted to get into Chesterton for a while but have never actually done it bc I have no idea where to start. I decided that you’d be likely to know where I should start based solely on my relating so much to the rest of what your post said. Do you have recommendations?

There are several answers to this question, depending on what type of writing you're interested in, because Chesterton wrote in a lot of different formats.

Novels: My favorite (and the one that feels most "Chestertonian" in the sense of embracing the joys and paradoxes of modern life) is Manalive, which is about a boarding house full of disaffected young people whose lives are upended by the arrival of the energetic and eccentric Innocent Smith, who may or may not be a dangerous lunatic. I'm also fond of his first novel, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, which is set in the far future of 1984, where the actions of two eccentric guys get London caught up in medieval warfare. That book addresses Chesterton's common theme of the tension between taking life too seriously and not taking it seriously enough, but it is a very odd book that's a bit more of an acquired taste.

Short stories: Chesterton's most enduring legacy in pop culture is the Father Brown mysteries--one of the few detectives at the time that wasn't just a Sherlock Holmes clone. These stories are half mystery and half philosophical essay, and I love them (and they're nothing like the TV show). I always tell people to start with the first collection, The Innocence of Father Brown, because the first four stories there--"The Blue Cross", "The Secret Garden", "The Queer Feet" and "The Flying Stars"--form an arc that should be read in chronological order, and the rest of the stories can be read in pretty much any order.

Poetry: Chesterton's big achievement is "The Ballad of the White Horse", a novel-length epic poem about the legends of King Alfred the Great and his war against the Danes. But if you don't feel like reading something so long, his other masterpiece is "Lepanto", a stirring poem about the Battle of Lepanto that saved Europe from a Turkish invasion (though that one is much better if you know the historical context). He also wrote this short, rather biting anti-war poem "Elegy in a Country Churchyard".

If you want something not about war, Chesterton was known for his love of Christmas, and he wrote several excellent Christmas poems, including "A Christmas Carol", "The Wise Men", "Gloria in Profundis", "Joseph" , and "A Child of the Snows".

(As long as we're talking about Christmas poems, I'm going to mention that his wife, Frances, was also a poet, and she wrote a Christmas poem every year for their family Christmas card, which include, "How Far Is It To Bethlehem" and "The Shepherds Found Thee By Night".)

Essays: Tremendous Trifles contains several of the humorous, insightful essays that are among the first things I think of when I think of the Chestertonian mindset, including "A Piece of Chalk", "The Advantages of Having One Leg", and "On Lying in Bed" . Perhaps my favorite Chesterton essay, "On Running After One's Hat" isn't in this collection, but feels like it should be.

Nonfiction: "Orthodoxy" is probably Chesterton's most famous and most accessible religious book, which outlines the worldviews that led him to embrace Christianity.

This last recommendation doesn't fit into any of the categories, but I can't finish a Chesterton introduction post without begging you to read this letter he wrote to his wife, Frances, not long after their engagement, because it may be one of the best love letters ever written.

[isfjmel-phleg]

The Secret Garden on 81st Street has lovely art and a lot of good intentions. But one reason I don't find myself revisiting this one for personal enjoyment is how it handles the story and characters. While the broad plot remains and the same roles are all filled (except for the notable absence of Mrs. Sowerby), the point of the narrative is now to impart Lessons on anxiety and grief, and to serve this centralization of an issue to address, the characterization is altered. This results in not merely a less effective adaptation but a less effective plot and characters.

To illustrate this, let's start by looking at how Frances Hodgson Burnett handles Mary and Colin's argument that leads to the tantrum scene in The Secret Garden (Chapters 16-17).

Mary has been spending a lot of time with Colin after meeting him. But when the rain that has kept her indoors finally ends, she spends the whole day out in the garden with Dickon. When she returns to the house, she gets into an argument with Colin, who is angry that she didn't come to see him. The two exchange insults, Colin plays the I'm-going-to-die card, Mary questions this, he is so angry that he throws a pillow at her, and she leaves. Late that night, she is awakened by his having a tantrum, and Colin's nurse asks her to try to get through to him. A furious Mary yells right back at him, orders him to stop, tell him that she and everyone else hate him, and contests his insistence that he has a lump on his back. She examines his back and confirms that there is nothing wrong with it. This upends Colin's entire worldview, and he is able to calm down and process the notion that he is not really doomed to die. His arc has reached a major turning point, and from here on, he is open to going outdoors, which leads to further progress.

In The Secret Garden on 81st Street, this plays out completely differently (pp. 156-168).

This version's Colin has anxiety/panic disorder and is portrayed as very emotionally fragile and self-doubting. Burnett's Colin has those qualities too, but 81st Street leaves out any of his negative traits. He is not ridiculously spoiled. He does not have an uncontrolled temper. He is not demanding, possessive, and entitled. He's just super, super anxious, which is a struggle rather than a flaw. He has no apparent flaws.

81st Street's Mary doesn't just devote a day to work in the garden without seeing Colin; she ignores him for an entire week. This sets her up from the beginning as in the wrong and makes his being upset with her more sympathetic--which is the opposite of what Burnett presents. When this Mary finally comes to see Colin, excitedly telling him about what she's been doing in the garden, he points out how long she's ignored him and how she knows he can't see the garden. She asks him why he's being like this, and he proceeds to guilt-trip her: "Because you forgot about me! You're going to leave me, too! You'd rather spend time with normal people, like Dickon. And this is all my fault. If I could just be normal and not be broken, I could be your real friend, not just someone you visit when you have time." He starts to cry.

I would consider this emotionally manipulative behavior, not unlike what Burnett's Colin does in the equivalent scene, but it's clear that this narrative wants us to fully side with him by portraying Mary's responses to him as lacking in understanding of his condition. Mary tells him he's being ridiculous and insists she didn't forget about him. He escalates into a panic attack. Mary, like her counterpart in the original, tells him that he's not dying and there's nothing wrong with him. His attack continues, she says he's overreacting, and the adults come running in to tend to him and shoo her out.

Later, Colin's therapist has a long talk with Mary about the nature of Colin's panic disorder and how to properly respond to it. Mary is abashed at not having understood but says she doesn't know why Colin is still upset about losing a parent, because she doesn't feel that way about her similar situation. The therapist talks to her about how grieving is different for everyone. This is followed by Medlock telling Mary to "please be aware of [Colin's] condition" and to apologize to him.

Mary apologizes, Colin berates himself for not being able to control the panic, and she repeatedly affirms that it's hard and she knows he's trying. She then apologizes for having to leave to tend to the garden and asks if it's okay with him if she does. He grants permission. Shortly after this, he decides for some reason that he's ready to go outside now.

In Burnett's story, the purpose of Chapters 16-17 is to establish conflict between the two deeply flawed protagonists which will build to a climax that furthers both the plot and Colin's arc. The argument is the natural outcome of a clash of interests between two characters who are self-absorbed and not used to being told no. Mary reacts with obstinacy and aggression, Colin with entitlement and self-pity, and these characteristic behaviors emerging their interactions move the plot forward. Going outdoors would be good for Colin, but he has always been vehemently opposed to it--so what would it take to get him past what's holding him back (i.e. his belief that he is destined to die young)? Mary returns to her renovation of the garden -> Colin is angry at being left alone and tries to control her -> she attacks his worldview -> he can't handle this and has a tantrum -> she lashes out at him and supplies concrete evidence that he's not going to die -> he has to reconsider his worldview and can thus start on the path toward growth. It's a logical progression of actions consistent with the characters as established, and they respond like humans, not plot devices.

In 81st Street, the purpose of these scenes is to deliver a lesson about responding to people who have panic disorder. It accomplishes what it sets out to do, but from a narrative standpoint, it does much less than Burnett's version. This Mary and Colin do not function so much as individual characters here as they do roles in the lesson being taught.

Mary is a stand-in for a hypothetical audience who is ignorant of panic disorder and liable to be dismissive. It is her job to be wrong, to be called out by an authoritative adult who imparts instruction, to meekly accept this rebuke, and to apologize and be accommodating, because this is what the narrative is teaching the audience to emulate. Whether any of this behavior is strictly in character for her is less important than the example that needs to be modeled.

Colin, meanwhile, embodies panic disorder. Since he is defined by this condition, he cannot have flaws or be wrong in any way lest anything disparaging be suggested about the condition. He is an Issue for other people to correctly react to. So nothing that he does in these scenes is affected by his personality or flaws, and he does not need to learn anything from other people. Other people have to accommodate him. (There should be mutual accommodation and understanding, with her learning to understand his condition and him learning to take ownership of his own feelings without expecting the world to walk on eggshells around him just because he has anxiety, but that's not what's being portrayed here.) Instead of external factors leading to growth, he just...changes his mind one day.

This Colin could have panic disorder and still have significant character flaws like his counterpart in Burnett's story, because these two factors (a psychological condition and one's personal character) really have nothing to do with each other. It would have made him more complexly human to allow him some negative traits, as well as moving the plot forward by allowing his and Mary's flaws to clash and giving him an opportunity to grow as a person, not just learn to manage his condition better (important, yes, but the heart of a story is not in a character's increasing in skill or knowledge but in how they personally develop).

What the graphic novel presents isn't an effective arc for either protagonist. Mary doesn't have any agency in her change; she must be instructed by an all-knowing adult instead of learning things for herself. Colin's change of heart is utterly arbitrary because he hasn't had to learn anything and hasn't had his misconceptions about himself and the world meaningfully challenged. It's just: Mary reacts incorrectly to Colin's condition -> she is corrected and instructed in what to do in the future -> she apologizes and corrects her behavior -> Colin decides he's ready to go to the garden. This isn't a plot; it's a PSA. Instead of letting the characters drive the action, they are there to be vehicles for the Lesson. And that may be instructive, but as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't make for a very compelling story or characters.

[luvdalkxdlk]

Makoto Kagutsuchi Ideas

AAARGH. I finished watching Rain Code like a few days ago, and I'm still not over Makoto Kagutsuchi. He was like this absolute silly boy and then chapter 5 was like OMG. And then he became my top 1. Then, I went to fanfics, and then started writing a bit of my own although it's just ideas stage. I absolutely do not want to go deeper by publishing the stuff but I need an outlet and hope that you find the stuff so you can comment or whatever. If you want me to expand on some ideas, I will be happy to and hope you tell me your own thoughts because brainrot ain't going away and I want someone to talk to about this absolute madman. Peace Is An Illusion: Title comes from ideas when Makoto kept getting visited by the Peacekeepers. Honestly, I want to explore that especially with Yomi because the power balance and dynamic is just too interesting. I'm also curious about how Makoto got the Peacekeepers to turn on Yomi at Chapter 4 and while I have an idea, I haven't written far enough yet. Here's the first snippet for fun.

Makoto valued privacy but he really couldn't do anything when a certain group of people loved to break it. The only consolation he felt was that Yomi Hellsmile walked in on Makoto Katsuguchi exploding the kitchen.

"What the fuck?!" Makoto had heard Yomi shouted when he turned around from the smoking oven and holding out a blackened tray to see unexpected visitors in the form of the Director and backup.

"Oh hello Yomi," Makoto took in stride of such an unexpected and frankly unwelcome drop in, "I was just trying to bake cookies for myself. Since you are here, would you like to try some?"

He could see Yomi looking at the disaster of a kitchen and then the surprisingly normal looking cookies that resulted from it. Makoto could sense the apprehension and the hard refusal on his lips that would come up if Makoto had not continued, almost shoving the tray their way.

"Please don't be shy. What kind of host would I be if I at least didn't offer something to my guests. Before we start something, why not indulge on this hospitality?" Makoto asked.

It was easy to see Yomi warring between just upending the tray while calling it bullshit and just taking the damn cookie because this hospitality could also equate to slight servitude to Yomi, with Makoto serving him something. Petty, Makoto knew, but Yomi always liked being superior and if it meant indulging pettiness, why not?

In the end, just as Makoto hoped and expected, Yomi aggressively took a cookie, bit into it and then with an odd look on his face while looking around, he went to the kitchen sink and puked his guts out.

That would be disgusting to clean up but in Makoto's own childish pettiness that he wanted to indulge when he was born without experiencing it ever, it was totally worth it. -Totally funny too, not gonna lie but that's all I have for now. I want him to meet Seth, Martina, Guillaume and other Peacekeepers just barging in and explore everything with Yomi, about fear, survival and power balances, you know?

My Other Half and How I'm Never Made Whole: This one is more on the nose. I LOVE the dynamic between Yuma and Makoto. Original and clone dynamics send me and I just want to explore what could be love (platonically of course), hate, friendship, family, loneliness. EVERYTHING. I'm not sure how I want to go with this one but I have a nice snippet.

Thanks to the Peacekeepers, Makoto could never really trust his own subordinates despite his love for the city. Technology was far more reliable and less likely to betray, that even at the top of the tower he would have a far better worldview of this city than the Peacekeepers ever would. 

It was how he was able to keep tabs on the Nocturnal Detective Agency and their skirmishes against the Peacekeepers. It was thanks to gut feeling and deductions after the latest defeat against the Peacekeepers wrought from the Director's beloved right hand that he had found himself idling around the submarine they call agency.

He was unsurprised when the submarine blew up, unable to stop the destruction even when he was able to. He would not ruin the delicate balance that he had with the Peacekeepers, not yet considering Yomi's unpredictability and volatileness. He had only managed to minimize damage, that will undoubtedly infuriate Yomi against Martina considering it was far out of his scope of ruthlessness. 

Whatever happens with the Peacekeepers will stay with the Peacekeepers for now, when he had bigger fish to fry... pun not intended considering the blown up submarine on the river. As a homunculus to Number One of the WDO, he had more faith that Master Detectives with amazing Fortes would undoubtedly come out of this unscathed considering the training they undergone.

He was far more concerned with Yuma, his original. Wiped off all memories, making a pact with a death god that he can be sure of considering his own, albeit outdated, memories and knowledge about the WDO and the mysterious death of the culprits so far with the one main factor being Yuma himself.

The original had lost way more memories than the clone had thought, regressing from WDO training and cases that had built him up to this day. Possessing more naivete and less survival skills than the day Makoto was born, the chances of his survival was at a lower rate that Makoto couldn't have. No matter how he felt about the original, every detective was useful to him in this current state of affairs. No matter what Number One had planned against his clone, he needed to ensure his survival.

The Book of Death was interesting, and only outsiders could topple the structure that Yomi was hellbent on keeping. Number One on the scene would surely ensure success, despite the utter lack of memories when considering Makoto's own success.

-I also have another snippet really separate, mostly to explain why we met Makoto taking a bath of all things: While waiting for Number One, or him going by Yuma Kokohead these days, to wake up, Makoto ended up going to the bath, cleaning himself up from the impromptu dive so that his original didn't end up swimming with the fishes.

My Love For This City and How They Love Me: I love Makoto, don't get me wrong. But do I seriously believe that Kanai Ward simply accepted the fact they were homunculus and just straight up voted Makoto as their leader. Nah, there definitely had to be some dispute because Dohya District and their hate on Amaterasu although it was more on the Peacekeepers, and even at the epilogue, I think there is some dissent but I also believe that Makoto had done enough to earn the belief that made him their leader too. I love him, but I want explanations, you know? So it's completely plausible a lot has happened in the month-ish between chapter 5 and that epilogue. I have a snippet right here, about the time that Makoto was voted in as the leader, and he invited Kurumi up there, as an informant and citizen just to have an understanding why.

"Why would the people put me back in the CEO position? Why would you want me as your leader?" Makoto asked Kurumi, immediately after the results came out. He had invited her in his pent house, having tea and simply checking up on her after the incident in the restricted area.

Despite Makoto's high position as Amaterasu Cooperation, the company was never really a government to this city in the first place, having ushered a tyrannical era upon them thanks to the Peacekeeper's hands in the beginning. Only workers and a fair few people had an inkling of an idea who the CEO is and the rest had only been shocked, such as Yakou Furio and Kurumi Wendy, when the CEO of the big bad company had turned out to be a masked weirdo.

[I kinda want to put a lot of dialogue here but don't know how so it's a bit of a skip after a heavy conversation, yeah?]

Kurumi smiled, as if everything made sense but Makoto found it damning, somehow shouldering the fact that he had to continue this position, always in authority and decision until the rest of his kin could take him no more, was the atonement expected of his crime. A more lucrative one in comparison to simply giving himself over the UG.

Makoto might say he love Kanai ward and the homunculi might say they put their belief on him, but the words were superficial, with deeper meaning all too twisted underneath it.

After all, Makoto's love was not unconditional, considering how he would protect only the innocent but had no problem slaughtering criminals and getting rid of useful pawns for the greater good in extremely black and white thinking to preserve the city. 

And Kanai Ward's belief in Makoto was not for the person he was but for the experience and resources he had garnered as the perfect homunculus and CEO. For the blackmail against the UG for the better life that they had all desired the moment their lives turned upside down with isolation that he thought was for their own good and got turned around now with the newfound knowledge and the idealism that they could only improve from here. For his wits and genius that could be taken advantage for a better livelihood. 

It didn't hurt that unlike Yomi, Makoto was more affable of a person despite his workers having a taste of his eccentricities.

Makoto was far from stupid, knowing that his position was never out of love and belief, something that can easily be taken away if he ever turn the wrong path or was no longer useful to them. It was his atonement, to make himself useful in lieu of his crimes that had garnered some sympathy because they all knew he did this for the survival of his own kind but were still unforgivable for the utter lack of humanity even if it was to accommodate for the differences their kind simply had.

The city wanted to live instead of survive. It wanted to flourish instead of stagnate. Now that they know, they believed that they could turn things around. They had rallied and used Makoto as their banner. This time around, even in his position, he was not the only one holding the reins, with people who knew of their plight trying to use their own resources and knowledge that Makoto did not possess on top of Makoto's own.

'Let's see where this idealism takes us,' Makoto thought, unsure that it would even lead to a perfect solution because they still had the UG themselves to contend against but with the city in the know and on his side...

Maybe the original actually made sense with this proposal despite Makoto's own doubts. 

Little did he know, he was being observed by Kurumi who had a soft smile on her face when she saw Makoto deep in thought, his eyes always to the state of the city and that softening in his posture and eyes just at the sight of the city.

Makoto was by all means not perfect but considering their entire situation, the burdens he had carried for their survival was endearing and touching. Even through their shock, they had an inkling about how much Makoto had cared about them, about their kind.

Makoto would not know about this now, but although it was not smooth sailing, everyone came to an unanimous decision of Makoto's leadership, for one reason alone.

The obvious love for their city, and despite everything, that had been enough for everyone to give this a go. He might not believe that yet, but at least for now, the citizens do.

-I get it might be more complicated than that, but as Makoto said, homunculus had a right to live despite their defectiveness and even if they had commit monstrosities that they still have to wrap their head around, they never asked to be made. And yet, they still want to survive. Survival has always been a base instinct until it's not, no matter the cost. I think that's why Makoto had lived as the perfect homunculus and why Kanai Ward is still standing by the epilogue. There might be times where we want to end things, but more often than not, we still continue out of opportunities, possibilities, dreams etc. At least that's my take and I might be wrong, but simple idealism, I guess.

Can Never Be Seen, Can Never Take Off The Mask: I don't have snippets but I kinda want to explore how Makoto lived with the UG, how he realized he was a homunculus and that he was simply a doppelganger out of an original. How he started wearing masks because he didn't want to be anything like his original, down to the appearance etc. Something like that. What do you think?

Can Never Save All, And Thus Opposition Is Born: I think that the Resistance should be known more, and how they would feel about the CEO, who in their eyes, might be incompetent for letting the Peacekeepers have their way. How his sudden rise was suspicious. Or something. Makoto might love the city, but even with the power imbalances and the rise of Peacekeepers that Makoto had simply been too late to stop or could have never in the first place, that love did not reach deep enough to help the slums become a better place. I get that nothing is perfect, and Makoto might have his hands full as one person, only sticking to basic survival and preservation but it does make the love a little shallow. I don't discount what Makoto has done but I don't want to ignore stuff like this either. It's something that could be explored.

I See A Reflection But It Is Not Me: I AM SICK FOR MAKOTO AND YUMA DYNAMIC. I am utterly attempted to make a Gab version or Danganronpa Friendship reports, whatever, just to have those two interact more. Even if it would be borderline AU. Just let me do it T_T

No titles yet, and in the maybe but a part of me wanted to explore Fink the Artist, Yakou Furio, Makoto and Yomi. That whole debacle, because what do you mean Makoto introduced a hitman to Yakou??? OK, I know that Yomi had instigated, and Yakou went through with it despite the obvious trap? But Makoto fanning the flames??? I love Makoto, but I won't justify him I promise. He had done a lot of evil shit and he's still my favorite. Ugh... it feels like Kokichi Ouma all over again, but Yakou Furio was still not innocent in all of this. Even instigated or the flames are fanned, he could have turned back and find a better way than killing Dr. Huesca out of his wife's memory. Well, the whole thing was a total mess and it hurts. Chapter 4 still kills us all, and everyone is equally innocent and guilty in all this except for Yomi who can go to hell for this. Point is, I kinda want to imagine a scene with Yakou, Makoto and the hitman. Everyone's thoughts on the matter and despite everything, Makoto loves the innocent of the city the most and at that point, Yakou was. Even when he wanted to fan the flames, a part of me wondered whether there was a crack of doubt to make Yakou turn back from all this, an 'Are you sure?' and Yakou still doing it anyway. I mean, that man is insane because I could not believe going through mental trauma of getting poisoned, electrocuted (even if not in that timeline) and then just stabbed all in order for vengeance, in memory of his wife. That's just dedication. My take in all of it but Chapter 4 and the feels, yeah? If only one person had just stopped to think, except for Yomi coz he would 100% go through with it the bastard.

Well, that's it and I hope you leave comments coz I need someone to scream about Makoto with me. PLEASE. I'm still not over him.

[tovaicas]

I was talking abt this in dms w/ a friend but I’ll post it here bc it make me bewildered angry

there’s this chain of sidequests in the convictory you have to do for a tt card, and while I don’t remember the details 100% it basically revolves around a guy who has realized there’s a pattern to drawing larger dragons (to slay for glory, the dude doing it lost his house and is trying to get his honour back); you start with small ones, and eventually draw bigger and bigger ones as you go.

and over the whole course of this quest chain this surprisingly self-aware npc slowly realizes that this is happening bc the dravanians are collecting their dead to mourn and grieve them just as they do. And he slowly realizes that the dragons he’s killing feel genuine human pain and grief and emotion just as he would, and he really starts struggling with the idea bc it directly contradicts everything the halonic faith has taught him abt dravanians.

It’s a surprisingly well-written and emotional chain of sidequests and it made me really really excited, bc there’s the direct implication that what the halonic faith teaches to keep the war going directly contradicts the actual lived experience of every single one of ishgard’s career soldiers (which is most of the populace, but especially the dragoons who literally wield dragonbone in their lances) and the idea that every single one of them will eventually realize what they’re fighting is human in at least some manner, but you’re not allowed to talk abt it bc that’s heresy. how many of ishgard's heretics are soldiers who abandoned the war bc they realized what they were fighting wasn't a mindless beast? how many of them are people who have been taught to fight from the day they were born with the expectation that they would be fighting mindless beasts but were slammed with the reality they're killing people just like themselves? how many of ishgard's soldiers have deluded themselves into not facing reality bc that's Just Easier than having your whole worldview upended and facing the fact that what you were taught was a complete and utter lie that you can't talk about with anyone else on fear of death or worse? how many ishgardians talk abt this only in whispers behind closed doors?

and then they crashed all that development into a wall bc the npc does absolutely nothing else with his development and goes straight back to killing dragons for the glory and further refuses to wrestle with the moral implications he's been forced to learn like. you literally had everything set up and just train crashed it into a wall like????

[myopicry]

Helloooo long time no see!

Read the post you reblogged about men always thinking that they're always right and objective, and honestly I think it might be (partially) bc if they DIDN'T act or think this way, then they'd have to analyse their own thoughts and behaviour in relation to the patriarchal society (even the most mysoginistic man knows he lives in a patriarchy imo).

They'll have to put so many things about themselves into question as well as the system they're part of, and that's something which I believe is harder to do when you're in a position of privilege in said system. Sure, they might have no problem recognising their privilege in terms of "men are better than women har har har I am part of the superior sexe", but not in the "negative" way.

I feel like it could tie into the "not all men!!" thing which sometimes gets obnoxious these days. There's a defensiveness and wanting to not go TOO in depth in analysis because of what that'll inevitably lead to. There's a need to retain positive thoughts about this particular aspect of society because of the part they play in that aspect.

I'd probably have more things to say but I just woke up lol. (keep in mind I have not proof read this so apologies in advance) Hope to hear from you soon!

~🪼

lolol ironically I am answering this as I just woke up time zones are funny

the thing is I kind of get it, why men are so reluctant to think about this kind of stuff. it is a bit challenging on anyone to upend their entire comfortable worldview for something more truthful because it does come with having to confront all the ways you've been wrong and have wronged in the past (literally my experience of peaking and desisting lmao) so, to me it definitely makes sense that the last thing men want to do is truly confront their privileges and their place in the world in relation to women, because they're probably going to find themselves on reflection quite guilty for many, many transgressions and things that probably conflict with their moral character and self-view. that being said, imo it's more than a bit cowardly that men won't ever really take this step to truly reflect.

it's not even misogynistic men either, I've talked in depth with a few self-proclaimed progressive men (back when I thought I still needed to actually talk to men lmao) and even if they were "feminists" or were trying to be a different, more respectful of women, person, they would never really interrogate their own treatment of other people, ESPECIALLY women* and make a meaningful effort to change that would require them to put themselves in a vulnerable or lower position than they felt used to. I've seen women reflect and change so much, I think when you're born and raised in a world that tells you all your perceived flaws and works to put you down into a handful of easily digestible roles there's not as insurmountable of a mental hurdle to overcome. still not an excuse for men! if anything, if they're supposed to be so much smarter and reasonable, I'd think they'd jump at the opportunity to become enlightened or whatever.

*god I wish I could do spoiler text on tumblr uhh just look away from this page break dear readers if you don't want some personal blog moments about how men are shitty. nothing explicit just general implied yuck and discussion of sexual harassment.

wow I have no idea why I'm so willing to lay my boring shitty backstory all out on tumblr but here it is!

but essentially of the two men (self-described as progressive or feminist) I knew pretty well, like talking about childhood trauma and personal deep topics, both at some point ended up pushing my boundaries and contributing to I guess the worst mental states I've been in as a young adult. the first time I was too much of a clueless teenager driven by zero self esteem, very untreated anxiety, terrible self deprecation skills, and also zero social awareness coming off of the pandemic, so I ended up in a relationship I didn't really enjoy at all because I wasn't attracted to him romantically or sexually but stayed in out of aforementioned self-loathing and the "obligation" of it all to fit in with my straight girl friends (did not help that I recently realized I had a crush on one of them and really wanted to push down that feeling) and the cultural norms I saw around me and my family. the second time I was lost in the gender juice, dissociated from my body to the max, and IDed as aroace lmao but was also very lonely (and once again was developing feelings for a straight girl holy shit I'm writing this and maybe I should stop knowing so many straight girls lmao) but luckily I was older and cut that shit out (not fast enough to not have experiences and time to regret and have boundaries violated ugh) anyway this guy told me his sad backstory about being a sexually harassing little shit in middle school but also had a really bad home life and high school experience and even after I kept giving him (not to brag) amazing advice to get his shit together and see women as people, he kept avoiding actually doing the work. In hindsight, I think the only reason he even listened to me talk and told me all this was because he believes in the "queer identity culture" stuff (bisexual + he/they lmao) and since I didn't label myself as a woman + was attempting to pass he must have "not considered me a woman" enough to immediately write off. yet he still assumed he could push my boundaries unlike how he would treat other men. curious.

anyway, tldr!! yeah men are shit and even progressive men are their own kind of self-blinded shit. they're fine as acquaintances, even some could be okay as friends, but I guess I've learned to not expect much out of them. maybe this is cynical, but it becomes much easier when you look for their value first, before leading with the natural empathy to befriend on an equal level. always keep the upper hand. this might not make a lot of sense I should write a separate post about it hmmm anyway

anon thank you for visiting again!! I'm sorry for the wall of text followed by the wall of text but I assume you keep coming back because you actually enjoy walls of text, so I hope you get something out of this set of walls of text!! and more walls of text to come! I've been in a very "sorting through the archives of my life and coming to terms with everything leading up to now" and it's been great for a lot of self-reflecting writing ideas. unlike men, I hope after truly confronting the events of my life and breaking it down, I will change and be aware of my (many, many) faults and become a much better person for it.

[theneuralnet]

Inside Amazon’s $3.5 million competition to make Alexa chat like a human

Onstage at the launch of Amazon's Alexa Prize, a multimillion-dollar competition to build AI that can chat like a human, the winners of last year's challenge delivered a friendly warning to 2018's hopefuls: your bot will mess up, it will say something offensive, and it will be taken offline.

Teaching a machine how to have a real conversation is one of AI's hardest challenges

There's just so much that computers don't know about the world, and there's no easy way for us to teach them

The Alexa Prize is a competition that will help shape the future of voice-based computing for years to come

Amazon isn't asking much: just create a chatbot using Alexa that can talk to a human for 20 minutes without messing up

Each of the eight teams will be building their chatbots using Amazon's resources: speech recognition tools from Alexa, free computing power from Amazon Web Services, and stacks of training data from tens of millions of Alexa users

In last year's inaugural competition, the University of Washington's chatbot was able to make successful conversation for just over 10 minutes on average, which still leaves the grand prize up for grabs this year

Teams get to compete, and Amazon gets to pick talent

It also gets the opportunity to hire any particularly promising researchers and essentially crowdsource future technological paths for its AI assistant

Good conversational AI requires personality as well as patter

A lot of automation starts as data created by human labor

We may be using machines to build conversational bots, but it all starts as human chatter

For the team from Brigham Young University in Utah, finding a source of training data was easy: they turned to their fellow students

To collect data, the group behind the university’s Eve chatbot set up the Chit-Chat Challenge

Chats could be about anything, but couldn't include personally identifying information or topics that wouldn't appeal to people outside the university

BYU is a religious university that is owned and run by the Mormon Church, so the students share a worldview which helps create a more cohesive personality for the bot

To train machines to read words, ask them to read Wikipedia

A neural network scans the text in small windows, centering on one word at a time, but also glimpsing in its peripheral vision the three or four words on either side of it

Learns to predict what words tend to appear alongside one another, and turns this data into a vector representation

The position of the vector is arbitrary, and by itself doesn't capture any meaning related to the word.

But the relationship of one vector to another does, and you can infer properties about words based on their properties

The Future

With the ability to turn sentences into vector representations, the BYU team hopes they can provide a better feedback loop for the replies generated by their AI system

This, they say, will allow the system to teach itself without human intervention, which means quicker training and improved results.

Building AI systems that interact with people takes something closer to artistry.

You have to have an instinct for what works and the patience to slog through what doesn't. You need to strike a balance with the user: give them what they want but not too much of it.

The solution: acknowledge what the user has said, then change the topic and offer up some new direction

It worked.

Voice-based computing is the future

Amazon believes ambient computing is here to stay

Unlike Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri, Alexa was never developed with mobile phones in mind

It's hardware-agnostic

Alexa is a platform as much as a product

The team responsible for Alexa is also building tools so other companies can use Alexa

The Future

In a weird way, Limp gets to look into the future

An AI that can talk like a human might become our most addictive gadget yet

If we could genuinely talk to our devices - not just command but converse with them - then our relationship with the digital world would be upended

The techniques being developed by the teams at this year's Alexa Prize are ingenious and worthy of praise, but chatbots still have a long way to go before they match humanity in its gift of the gab

Information Source: The Verge

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

former dragon champions/protagonists ingo and emmet plus any scenario where n runs into them would actually be so funny. n’s spent all this time hating these people who are like, symbols of everything he thinks is evil about society, and his ultimate goal is to wake and win the favor of the dragon of truth and/or ideals specifically to get rid of everything related to battling, and ghetsis just. conveniently forgot to mentioned that they were also the current reshiram and zekrom’s chosen

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Ok now I can’t stop thinking about Good Omens and The Old Guard taking place in the same universe. Both sets of immortals canonically hung around some of the same places and events at the same times, and over a long enough time scale I think they’d have to notice each other.

- I think Aziraphale and Nicky meet first, maybe on the way to the Holy Land, maybe in Jerusalem. The Crusades seem like the kind of self-righteous project GO Heaven would 100% be on board with and Aziraphale would absolutely fucking hate, but he does what he’s told. Maybe he notices there is something...different...about this particular holy warrior, but he doesn’t want to interfere. Maybe they meet after Nicky’s already discovered he’s immortal.

- Neither of them wants to reveal what they are but maybe Aziraphale sees something that Nicky doesn’t want anyone to see, Nicky panics and tries to kill him, that doesn’t go well obviously, and then they have to sit down and have a chat.

- Honestly when you’ve had multiple core components of your worldview completely upended all at once, meeting a literal fucking angel is not even that weird. Sure why not.

- The fact that this angel knows all the best schwarma spots and seems surprisingly enthusiastic about your newfound gay love is somehow the weirdest bit.

- Tbh I don’t think either Nicky or Joe would find "hi I’m an angel” that much of a challenge to their worldview. Nicky was a priest and there are angels in the Quran and honestly their lives are weird enough at this point so they just roll with it.

- When Aziraphale invites them to have dinner with him and his friend who is also definitely not human it has some weird double date vibes but there’s not really a polite way to inquire further about that.

- As they get to know each other better, Nicky and Aziraphale start having long conversations about what it means to be a soldier of God and how do you know that your side is really the good side and various intricacies of theology and metaphysics and ethics. Aziraphale tells himself he is giving comfort and wise counsel to a questioning human but these conversations always leave him deeply unsettled.

- Whenever Aziraphale crosses paths with Nicky and Joe, who seem to just fall more ridiculously in love as the decades pass, the two humans leave with a quiet angelic blessing for peace and safety wrapped around them. He knows they are quite capable of taking care of themselves. But still.

- Eventually Andy meets the two of them. She doesn’t really believe they’re an angel and a demon in the Abrahamic sense, but they’re clearly some kind of powerful immortal beings and they’re surprisingly chill about her lack of commitment to monotheism. And hey, she let people call her a god so if they want to call themselves an angel and a demon, whatever. And, loath as she is to admit it, she sort of gets on with Crowley. He’s angry and cynical and weary in a way she understands, and yet somehow maintains a spark of hope in humanity in a way that she would never admit she envies sometimes. He’s also the only being she’s ever met who can drink her under the table. So. Respect on that front.

- And at the end of the day there are only so many people you can talk to about the mundane problems of immortality, and everyone else is sick of hearing her complaints about how nobody makes That Thing from 5th century Beijing anymore.

- So she doesn’t exactly seek them out, but if they happen to cross paths (and the two of them seem to be together an awful lot more than you’d think an alleged angel and demon would go in for) she can be convinced to have a drink or seventeen with them.

- And she has to admit that not-angel has an uncanny ability to procure rare first editions when she happens to be looking for them.

- A number of people over the years have noticed that the dusty antiquarian bookshop on a particular corner in Soho looks like it hasn’t changed since the early 19th century. A much smaller number of people are around long enough to notice that the owner also looks likes like that.

- Nicky and Joe are the ones most likely to stop by when the team is in London, and Aziraphale always greets them with a smile like the sun and the culturally appropriate number of cheek kisses, and he can chatter away all day in 12th century Genoese or Maghrebi Arabic with a smattering of Jerusalem dialect, and he’s the only person they’ve ever met who can follow the meandering combination of the two they use with each other.

- Sometimes Crowley is there when they visit, sometimes not. On the most recent visit, not only is he there but he and Aziraphale are sitting next to each other, their knees comfortably brushing and Crowley leaning into Aziraphale’s arm on the back of the couch, and the two humans think fucking FINALLY.

- Andy visits the shop a lot less frequently. But they all remember the time someone mentioned lost dessert recipes and Andy and Aziraphale went off on a joint multi-millennial baklava reminisce that lasted until four in the morning.

[whitehotharlots]

The point is control

Whenever we think or talk about censorship, we usually conceptualize it as certain types of speech being somehow disallowed: maybe (rarely) it's made formally illegal by the government, maybe it's banned in certain venues, maybe the FCC will fine you if you broadcast it, maybe your boss will fire you if she learns of it, maybe your friends will stop talking to you if they see what you've written, etc. etc. 

This understanding engenders a lot of mostly worthless discussion precisely because it's so broad. Pedants--usually arguing in favor of banning a certain work or idea--will often argue that speech protections only apply to direct, government bans. These bans, when they exist, are fairly narrow and apply only to those rare speech acts in which other people are put in danger by speech (yelling the N-word in a crowded theater, for example). This pedantry isn't correct even within its own terms, however, because plenty of people get in trouble for making threats. The FBI has an entire entrapment program dedicated to getting mentally ill muslims and rednecks to post stuff like "Death 2 the Super bowl!!" on twitter, arresting them, and the doing a press conference about how they heroically saved the world from terrorism. 

Another, more recent pedant's trend is claiming that, actually, you do have freedom of speech; you just don't have freedom from the consequences of speech. This logic is eerily dictatorial and ignores the entire purpose of speech protections. Like, even in the history's most repressive regimes, people still technically had freedom of speech but not from consequences. Those leftist kids who the nazis beheaded for speaking out against the war were, by this logic, merely being held accountable. 

The two conceptualizations of censorship I described above are, 99% of the time, deployed by people who are arguing in favor of a certain act of censorship but trying to exempt themselves from the moral implications of doing so. Censorship is rad when they get to do it, but they realize such a solipsism seems kinda icky so they need to explain how, actually, they're not censoring anybody, what they're doing is an act of righteous silencing that's a totally different matter. Maybe they associate censorship with groups they don't like, such as nazis or religious zealots. Maybe they have a vague dedication toward Enlightenment principles and don't want to be regarded as incurious dullards. Most typically, they're just afraid of the axe slicing both ways, and they want to make sure that the precedent they're establishing for others will not be applied to themselves.

Anyone who engages with this honestly for more than a few minutes will realize that censorship is much more complicated, especially in regards to its informal and social dimensions. We can all agree that society simply would not function if everyone said whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. You might think your boss is a moron or your wife's dress doesn't look flattering, but you realize that such tidbits are probably best kept to yourself. 

Again, this is a two-way proposition that everyone is seeking to balance. Do you really want people to verbalize every time they dislike or disagree with you? I sure as hell don't. And so, as part of a social compact, we learn to self-censor. Sometimes this is to the detriment of ourselves and our communities. Most often, however, it's just a price we have to pay in order to keep things from collapsing. 

But as systems, large and small, grow increasingly more insane and untenable, so do the comportment standards of speech. The disconnect between America's reality and the image Americans have of themselves has never been more plainly obvious, and so striving for situational equanimity is no longer good enough. We can't just pretend cops aren't racist and the economy isn't run by venal retards or that the government places any value on the life of its citizens. There's too much evidence that contradicts all that, and the evidence is too omnipresent. There's too many damn internet videos, and only so many of them can be cast as Russian disinformation. So, sadly, we must abandon our old ways of communicating and embrace instead systems that are even more unstable, repressive, and insane than the ones that were previously in place.

Until very, very recently, nuance and big-picture, balanced thinking were considered signs of seriousness, if not intelligence. Such considerations were always exploited by shitheads to obfuscate things that otherwise would have seemed much less ambiguous, yes, but this fact alone does not mitigate the potential value of such an approach to understanding the world--especially since the stuff that's been offered up to replace it is, by every worthwhile metric, even worse.

So let's not pretend I'm Malcolm Gladwell or some similarly slimy asshole seeking to "both sides" a clearcut moral issue. Let's pretend I am me. Flash back to about a year ago, when there was real, widespread, and sustained support for police reform. Remember that? Seems like forever ago, man, but it was just last year... anyhow, now, remember what happened? Direct, issues-focused attempts to reform policing were knocked down. Blotted out. Instead, we were told two things: 1) we had to repeat the slogan ABOLISH THE POLICE, and 2) we had to say it was actually very good and beautiful and nonviolent and valid when rioters burned down poor neighborhoods.

Now, in a relatively healthy discourse, it might have been possible for someone to say something like "while I agree that American policing is heavily violent and racist and requires substantial reforms, I worry that taking such an absolutist point of demanding abolition and cheering on the destruction of city blocks will be a political non-starter." This statement would have been, in retrospect, 100000000% correct. But could you have said it, in any worthwhile manner? If you had said something along those lines, what would the fallout had been? Would you have lost friends? Your job? Would you have suffered something more minor, like getting yelled at, told your opinion did not matter? Would your acquaintances still now--a year later, after their political project has failed beyond all dispute--would they still defame you in "whisper networks," never quite articulating your verbal sins but nonetheless informing others that you are a dangerous and bad person because one time you tried to tell them how utterly fucking self-destructive they were being? It is undeniably clear that last year's most-elevated voices were demanding not reform but catharsis. I hope they really had fun watching those immigrant-owned bodegas burn down, because that’s it, that will forever be remembered as the most palpable and consequential aspect of their shitty, selfish movement. We ain't reforming shit. Instead, we gave everyone who's already in power a blank check to fortify that power to a degree you and I cannot fully fathom.

But, oh, these people knew what they were doing. They were good little boys and girls. They have been rewarded with near-total control of the national discourse, and they are all either too guilt-ridden or too stupid to realize how badly they played into the hands of the structures they were supposedly trying to upend.

And so left-liberalism is now controlled by people whose worldview is equal parts superficial and incoherent. This was the only possible outcome that would have let the system continue to sustain itself in light of such immense evidence of its unsustainability without resulting in reform, so that's what has happened.

But... okay, let's take a step back. Let's focus on what I wanted to talk about when I started this.

I came across a post today from a young man who claimed that his high school English department head had been removed from his position and had his tenure revoked for refusing to remove three books from classrooms. This was, of course, fallout from the ongoing debate about Critical Race Theory. Two of those books were Marjane Satropi's Persepolis and, oh boy, The Diary of Anne Frank. Fuck. Jesus christ, fuck.

Now, here's the thing... When Persepolis was named, I assumed the bannors were anti-CRT. The graphic novel does not deal with racism all that much, at least not as its discussed contemporarily, but it centers an Iranian girl protagonist and maybe that upset Republican types. But Anne Frank? I'm sorry, but the most likely censors there are liberal identiarians who believe that teaching her diary amounts to centering the suffering of a white woman instead of talking about the One Real Racism, which must always be understood in an American context. The super woke cult group Black Hammer made waves recently with their #FuckAnneFrank campaign... you'd be hard pressed to find anyone associated with the GOP taking a firm stance against the diary since, oh, about 1975 or so.

So which side was it? That doesn't matter. What matters is, I cannot find out.

Now, pro-CRT people always accuse anti-CRT people of not knowing what CRT is, and then after making such accusations they always define CRT in a way that absolutely is not what CRT is. Pro-CRTers default to "they don't want  students to read about slavery or racism." This is absolutely not true, and absolutely not what actual CRT concerns itself with. Slavery and racism have been mainstays of American history curriucla since before I was born. Even people who barely paid attention in school would admit this, if there were any more desire for honesty in our discourse. 

My high school history teacher was a southern "lost causer" who took the south's side in the Civil War but nonetheless provided us with the most descriptive and unapologetic understandings of slavery's brutalities I had heard up until that point. He also unambiguously referred to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshmia and Nagasaki as "genocidal." Why? Because most people's politics are idiosyncratic, and because you cannot genuinely infer a person to believe one thing based on their opinion of another, tangentially related thing. The totality of human understanding used to be something open-minded people prided themselves on being aware of, believe it or not...

This is the problem with CRT. This is is the motivation behind the majority of people who wish to ban it. It’s not because they are necessarily racist themselves. It’s because they recognize, correctly, that the now-ascendant frames for understanding social issues boils everything down to a superficial patina that denies not only the realities of the systems they seek to upend but the very humanity of the people who exist within them. There is no humanity without depth and nuance and complexities and contradictions. When you argue otherwise, people will get mad and fight back. 

And this is the most bitter irony of this idiotic debate: it was never about not wanting to teach the sinful or embarrassing parts of our history. That was a different debate, one that was settled and won long ago. It is instead an immense, embarrassing overreach on behalf of people who have bullied their way to complete dominance of their spheres of influence within media and academe assuming they could do the same to everyone else. Some of its purveyors may have convinced themselves that getting students to admit complicity in privilege will prevent police shootings, sure. But I know these people. I’ve spoken to them at length. I’ve read their work. The vast, vast majority of them aren’t that stupid. The point is to exert control. The point is to make sure they stay in charge and that nothing changes. The point is failure. 

[phoebe-delia]

What was the first musical your ever saw, and how did that shape your perception of musicals, musical theatre, and theatre as a whole?

Jet, what a lovely question. Once again, you've put a little bit of joy in my ask box, and I can't thank you enough for it.

I think the first musical I ever saw was Les Miserables; Cats was also an early one for me, but I think Les Mis came first, and I'm fairly certain I saw it on stage first. And before I go on, I feel as if I can't mention these two musicals in connection with one another without talking about Terrence Mann. He played Rum Tum Tugger and Javert in the original Broadway casts of both shows. I cannot think of an actor who has more range than him.

Also, while we're talking about Les Mis casting: a lot of people have also only seen the recent movie adaptation; if you take away nothing else from this post, let it be my strong recommendation to watch one of the professionally recorded concert versions. The 10th Anniversary ("Dream Cast: In Concert") is my personal favorite, with a perfect cast IMO, but the 25th Anniversary one is a good option, too. I have a whole entire rant about the movie adaptation that I will refrain from going on at the moment.

Now, on to actually answering the question, assuming I haven't lost my audience at this point, oops.

First, Les Mis impacted me by showing me the art of storytelling and characterization. I think it's really impacted my taste in musicals, because my favorite shows are those that take me on the best emotional journey. Great Comet, Falsettos, Chicago, and Wicked are probably my top four favorite shows of all time, and I think they each have deep storytelling elements. Every time I listen to those cast albums, I come away with something new. That's how it is with Les Mis; there's always some new little nugget to pick up on, whether in the music, the lyrics, the story, or the characters, that makes the story even more meaningful.

Second, Les Mis allowed me to see myself in some of the characters. As a young person, Gavroche spoke to me a lot, since he was unfazed by the adults who didn't take him seriously. He showed me the power that kids have, and that lesson always stuck with me.

But more than Gavroche, I started to see myself more and more in Eponine as I got older.

I remember seeing Rachel sing "On My Own" as her audition song in "Glee," and I was spellbound. That performance reintroduced me to the song and the character of Eponine at a point in my life when I was developing a crush on a boy who never liked me back. I have such a fondness for that song, and I remember what it was like to pine away for someone who would never return the same feelings. Eponine's role in the musical is relatively minor; her two biggest moments are singing about her unrequited love and then dying for Marius at the battle. But I think that's such a good representation of love. Eponine dies for Marius, who, frankly, isn't a great guy. But I don't know whether Cosette would've died for him, or if Marius would've sacrificed his life for Cosette. He might've, to be chivalrous, but maybe not entirely out of love.

Finally, Les Mis also showed me the power of nuanced characters. Javert is extremely interesting, as a character. Of course, it seems on the surface as if we're supposed to view him as villain, but when we explore his story arc a little more closely and see his motivations, it becomes a bit more muddled.

In Javert's death, we see a parallel incident to the one Valjean has at the beginning of the musical. In "Valjean Arrested/Valjean Forgiven," Valjean is caught stealing from the bishop, and rather than being punished, he is given more silver and told to use it to improve himself. During "Javert's Suicide," Javert is similarly confused by the way he was treated with mercy after he was captured by the rebels and freed because of Valjean. The music is the same in both songs,

Javert kills himself because he is unable to grapple with the way his entire worldview has just been upended. He starts to question everything he knows. He and Valjean are such interesting foils because where Valjean takes the forgiveness and opportunity to redeem himself, Javert is so deeply disturbed and troubled by it that he loses his will to go on. As Javert sings: "Is he from heaven or from hell? And does he know, that granting me my life today, this man has killed me even so?" And it's so tragic that just when he was on the verge of a moral breakthrough, he thinks he's lost purpose in life.

Anyway--this is my extremely long-winded way of saying that Les Mis gave me an appreciation for powerful characters and storytelling, and it serves as an influence for me when it comes to both my consumption/analysis of other art and creating my own writing.

Send me an ask about Harry Potter, broadway/musicals, The West Wing, and/or Taylor Swift! Or just about life in general :).

Also, I have a playlist of my 99 most listened-to songs of the year so far. Pick a number 1--99 and send me an ask and I'll write you a fic based on it!

[bugaboosandbees]

Duchess Noir Part 4

Okay, to all who have requested an alternate version of my Reine Ruse AU where Adrien doesn’t learn his lesson and Chloe ends up with the black cat miraculous, here you go! The first three parts of this Duchess Noir AU are simply the first three parts of my Reine Ruse AU. This AU diverges from that one in chapter 4 when Adrien refuses to recognize and work to fix his mistakes.

What do you all think, should I go back and just change the titles of my previous Reine Ruse posts, or should I repost them with the Duchess Noir heading and make two separate masterlists? Thanks in advance for your opinions, and I hope that all you guys who wanted even more salt in this mess enjoy this. :)

Shoot me an ask or a message if you’d like to be tagged in this or if you have any more ideas for things I should write!

Plagg

“Can you believe this Plagg?” Adrien bit out as he grabbed several tissues to staunch the bloody nose that was still oozing despite the long run across the Parisian rooftops he’d had to get back from the Grand Paris Hotel. “I can’t believe that Chloe, of all people, would equate me with those people! She just doesn’t understand!” Pausing in his tirade, Adrien looked around, eyes finally landing on Plagg who was floating, deathly still and with slitted eyes, in the place Adrien had detransformed.

For his part, Plagg was furious. He couldn’t believe he’d let matters escalate this far, but he honestly hadn’t been aware that his kitten’s mindset had gotten this warped. He knew the kid wasn’t the best at decoding social cues and he’d felt sorry for the boy alone in such a cold home so, yeah, he’d given the kid a couple more passes for behavior than he might have given another chosen. He might not have been the best Black Cat he’d ever had, but he wasn’t the type to go rogue and try to destroy the world, and he didn’t hurt Plagg -- all things considered, he’d had much worse wielders in the past and the kid just seemed so lonely… He’d thought that after the whole debacle with the akuma that flooded Paris that things had more or less resolved themselves and, to be honest, he’d never paid much attention to his kitten’s banter with Tikki’s bug. If he’d only paid more attention… Shit, this really wasn’t his strong suit. Tikki was much better at getting through to people. He knew screaming at Adrien would just make him shut down… he needed to be calm, which would be hard.

“Did you ever consider,” Plagg offered in a level voice, “that she might have been right?”

 If things hadn’t been so serious, Plagg might have cackled at the poleaxed look on Adrien’s face. “What?!”

“Kid, just listen to me,” Plagg sighed. “Let’s go with a hypothetical situation here. Say you were partnered with someone while modeling, and you only worked with that person. You saw that person as your best friend, and you had to rely on them in order for anything to work out at your job. You really like this other person outside of work, but you can’t say anything about it because you don’t want people who know about your job to harass them. You’ve told your partner this, more than once, but they still insist on telling people that the two of you are dating or that you’ll come around to their charms eventually. They derail photoshoots and events by flirting, and you have to do most, if not all, of the work in your partnership. You’re just trying to keep your head down and get your work done, but your partner gets more and more pushy until it’s gotten to the point where they attempt to physically chase and restrain you to demand a date. Adrien, kid, you’re a great black cat, but, please tell me that you see that that’s not a healthy relationship.” Plagg maintained eye contact with his kitten, doing his best to exude the sort of calm and understanding presence that came so naturally to Tikki. Please, please listen to me. At the rate things were going, if Adrien didn’t stop what he was doing soon, he’d throw off the balance too far and Plagg would need to take the miraculous back. And Plagg knew, better than anyone, how much Adrien needed Chat Noir. Please, kid.

Adrien looked down at his hands. They sat there for what felt like ages in silence as Adrien thought and Plagg watched over his kitten. He’d never admit it, but the ancient god felt his heart break in his chest when Adrien looked back up at him, anger in his eyes. “You don’t understand either.”

Marinette

Any sense of safety that she’d felt evaporated the second she swung off of Chloe’s balcony and into the night. Marinette took the most roundabout way she could think of home, glancing over her shoulder almost more often than she looked ahead and scanning the surrounding rooftops with wide-blown eyes. When she finally detransformed and collapsed on her chaise, she breathed a sigh of relief. She could feel Tikki huddled in the space where her neck met her shoulder as she took several deep, bracing breaths. Once she felt calm and safe again, she looked up at her room and at the dozens of posters and pictures of Adrien crowded across its walls. She’d considered taking them down for a few weeks now, as Adrien’s inaction against Lila had dampened her crush. But now… She looked down at Tikki and sighed. “This was never healthy, was it?”

Tikki met her eyes with the infinite compassion Marinette was still baffled that she could always count on and hardly felt she deserved and gently shook her head.

“I…” Marinette paused and firmed her jaw. “No. I’m not going to be like that anymore. I’m not going to be like that ever again.” And as the stars above Paris shone down on a city that slept, its heroine moved methodically about her room, taking down posters and schedules and computer backgrounds. When she finished, it looked… empty, but a healthy kind of empty full of promise and possibility. She could already think of so many ways to fill the space she’d freed… but that would be a task for tomorrow.

She felt her eyelids drooping as she crawled into bed and flung one arm over her face. What had happened that night felt so surreal. Then again, the past several weeks had felt entirely like a waking dream -- or nightmare. Since Hawkmoth had appeared and she’d become Ladybug for the first time, she’d had to upend her worldview completely, but she’d done that, she’d gotten used to the way things had become. Since Lila arrived back at school everything had been turned on its head once again and Marinette could hardly tell which way was up and which way was down anymore. Alya hadn’t spoken to her kindly in days, her partner was becoming a terrifying stranger, and the only place she felt safe was with Chloe Bourgeois, of all people. She still wasn’t sure why she’d gone to Chloe’s balcony that first night or why she kept returning. Chloe had made her life miserable for years, had beaten down her self-confidence to such an extent that she’d had no one before Alya and had tried to cut her down at every turn for as long as she could remember. Those feelings of anger and despair hadn’t just disappeared -- but things were so complicated now… She didn’t know what she felt about Chloe anymore. Well, that wasn’t necessarily something that she had to sort out immediately either. She’d take this one day at a time, and, if Chloe kept improving and really turned into someone she could truly rely on, well, then she’d think about what it would mean to forgive her.

She’d cross that bridge when she got there.

Tikki

Tikki gazed down at her sleeping chosen. The determined frown she’d worn while removing all traces of her obsessive crush from her room had faded as she fell asleep. She couldn’t help the proud feeling that welled up in her when Marinette had confronted her own flaws when faced with the more glaring example of her partner’s. She would have been totally within her rights to have let the crying jag that passed at Chloe’s continue longer than she had, but she’d demonstrated true Ladybug strength yet again and learned from another awful situation what she could. Still, the extent to which Plagg’s kitten had damaged her trust in him was worrying -- on both sides of the mask.

Tikki heard a whimper and glanced down to see her chosen’s face twisted in a nightmare. “Chat, no… why?” she whispered brokenly. Tikki’s face hardened. That was it -- this had gone too far. She was going to Fu. She planted a small kiss on Marinette’s forehead and flew out the window into the night.

She hadn’t even gone a block when she saw Plagg. He was, as she had only seen a handful of times in their eternity together, crying, and he held the ring of the black cat in his paws.

“Plagg?” She questioned gently.

He started when he noticed her and rubbed his eyes. “Hey Tikks,” he sighed.

“What happened?”

“I tried to reason with him Tikks, how he treated your bug wasn’t right. I’m sorry that I let it get that far… he… he wouldn’t listen to me. He won’t acknowledge his faults and that’s playing havoc with the balance. I… I had to take it from him. I waited until he was asleep. He was so lonely Tikks. I know he had a lot of faults, but I… I didn’t want to leave him.”

Tikki wrapped Plagg in a hug and for a moment they simply drifted, silent above the sleeping city.

“We need to find you a new chosen -- Ladybug can’t do this alone.”

Plagg sighed. “I know.”

“But first,” Tikki felt a wave of uncharacteristic anger threaten to bubble over, “We need to have a talk with the Guardian.”

Master Fu

Wang Fu suddenly shot awake. He looked at the window beside his bed -- it was still the middle of the night. Why? He felt an urgent pull inside his chest, below his breastbone. He was being summoned? What had happened? He quickly turned toward the miracle box and was met with the sight of the kwamis of creation and destruction staring solemnly at him. He could read anger in the downturn of Tikki’s eyes and sadness in the way Plagg’s head hung low over his body.

“Tikki? Plagg? What is wrong? Why have you come here without your chosen?”

“The boy you chose to wield the black cat miraculous broke the balance between Plagg and I’s wielders. He has betrayed my chosen on both sides of the mask and just tonight he hunted her across the city in what appeared to be an attempt to physically force her to reciprocate his feelings. You have allowed him to continue in a dangerous mindset unchecked for too long.”

“But --”

“No,” Plagg interrupted. “She’s right. I tried to reason with him, tried to teach him, but he won’t listen to me. He’s closed off our bond, though he doesn’t realize it, and he’s broken the balance entirely. I know the reasons that you chose him for the ring and, for a while, despite his faults, I honestly thought that you made the right decision. But he was so lonely, Fu. You chose a wielder that needed to learn in order to work effectively but who refused to listen to anyone but himself.”

“Now, listen. I cannot justify the risk of bringing in a new wielder this late into the battle against Hawkmoth!” Fu was certain that this was a misunderstanding -- he’d made the right decision with Adrien, he was sure of it.

The air in the room stilled and he suddenly found it harder to breathe. Tikki’s eyes narrowed and she began to glow as she loosed some of her aura into the space. “Cannot justify the risk?” her voice echoed in a way that did not fit her size. “What about the risk to my chosen? You may be the guardian of the miracle box, but you forget that you were never formally trained. You forget what your mistakes have already cost. You are not infallible. You are not a god. And that was not a request.”

Fu trembled before her. “V… very well. I shall choose a new --”

“We shall choose.” Plagg broke in.

“Forgive us if we have lost faith in your judgment.” Bit out Tikki. “And Wayzz?” she acknowledged the turtle kwami that had been waiting, frozen, in a corner of the room for the first time. “Make sure he actually thinks about this mistake.” She met Fu’s eyes one last time, conveying a sense of disappointment and disapproval that almost brought him to his knees, and then wrapped one small arm around Plagg’s shoulders and they flew out the window and into the night.

Chloe

Chloe Bourgeois couldn’t sleep. Her confrontation with Chat Noir played over and over again in her head. Her nails dug crescents into her palms as she thought about the proprietary way that the cat had talked about Ladybug and the fear in the heroine’s eyes as she’d tumbled into Chloe’s apartment and run to hide. An uncomfortable pang of guilt ran through her as she thought of her friendship with Sabrina before she’d abandoned her for Lila and her previous self-serving idolatry of Ladybug. No. There was no use feeling guilty for her past mistakes. She would apologize, and she would not make them again.

She only wished that she had the power to make her apology to Ladybug mean something more, that she could actually protect her, rather than only being there to pick up the pieces that Hawkmoth or Chat Noir had broken. She started as she heard a soft knock on the glass pane of the balcony door. Rising from her bed, she padded over to see Ladybug’s kwami waiting outside her window with a stormy expression, alongside another kwami, so dark he blended into the night, with piercing green eyes, and… cat ears. Chloe opened the door as quickly as she was able and gestured the two inside.

“What’s wrong? Is he…?” She questioned. If Ladybug’s kwami was here without her, what could have happened? If that cat had gotten her akumatized… And if the other kwami was who she thought...

“Many things,” Tikki replied, “but nothing urgent. There is not an attack, and Ladybug is safe.”

“Then why --?”

“She is safe for now.” The other kwami cut in. He looked like he was struggling to get the next words out. “You’ve seen that her partner has demonstrated that he is almost as present a danger to her as Hawkmoth emotionally. She needs help that she can trust, someone to stand by her against all threats no matter how hard or dangerous things become.” He stared directly at Chloe. There was a pressure behind his gaze that was almost physical, and Chloe fought to not flinch. “Do you think you could do that?”

It took Chloe a moment to register the question. Did she? And then a vision of Ladybug’s eyes, still full of tears, flashed inside her mind. She met his gaze evenly. “Yes.”

For a moment, all was silent as the dark kwami stared into her soul. Chloe could only hope that the tiny god found something worthwhile there. Eventually, he nodded.

“Very well then.” He held up a silver ring in his paws. “Chloe Bourgeois, I am Plagg, the god of destruction. This is the miraculous of the black cat. It represents one half of the universal balance and it grants you my dominion over destruction. You will use it to be Ladybug’s right hand, her shield, her friend, and her support as she will be yours. You will reveal your identity to no one. If at any point you forsake your duty to your partner and to the balance, I will reclaim the miraculous and ensure that you never forget your mistake. Do you understand?”

Chloe’s heart was beating through her chest. “Yes.”

Tikki

Tikki landed on the small pillow that Marinette kept beside her bed for her use. She looked at her charge once more. She only hoped that she and Plagg had made the right decision. They didn’t have time to scour the city for a new wielder that was suited for Plagg and the list of those that they knew well enough to consider who would work well with Marinette had gotten much shorter since the arrival of the liar and the discord she had sewn across Marinette’s relationships.

“Don’t worry Marinette,” she mumbled sleepily, “things will turn out all right.” Her eyes drifted close, and she let herself sink into a restful sleep, heartened by the fact that there was now someone she could count on to protect her chosen when she could not.

[c-is-for-circinate]

The last thing I have to say about Mollymauk, also (for now at least), after watching so very much Talks Machina and also Taliesin’s Between the Sheets and also thinking one more time about just how brief his tenure with the Mighty Nein was...

The number one thing I’m saddest about, is that he died before we could watch Taliesin discover he was wrong about his own character.  And I’m also weirdly comforted that everything happened the way it did, because even though that would have been amazing, in a lot of ways it feels perfect--the literary and metatextual kind, where everything is foreshadowing and inevitability and themes and arcs that curve around exactly the way the story always should--that it didn’t.

There’s something Taliesin keeps saying about Molly, this concept that the whole character is built around, and it’s the idea that he’s Captain America.  “Your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world, no, you move.”  That’s who Molly is.  That’s what he’s for.  To be himself, unabashedly and as loudly as possible, and never bend, and never break, and never stop, and never change, not for anyone, and god, that’s a whole lot of something, isn’t it?  That this brash and colorful and bisexual genderqueer boy with devil horns and a good heart could just stand before the whole fucking world and say NO, and demand that it make space to fit him.  Yeah.  That’s a lot.

The problem is, of course, that people aren’t static creatures.  People change.  And Mollymauk Tealeaf died before he had to become someone else, and I have some feelings about that.

I don’t think the core of him ever would have stopped being him.  Molly was always going to be a hedonist and he was always going to be good in his very specific it’s-fine-to-fuck-with-people-if-you-don’t-make-their-lives-worse sort of way, and I don’t think he ever would have learned shame.  Marisha talks in meta about how people never stop being who they are, how in a thousand years Keyleth will still be awkward and clumsy, and I think Molly was built with a stronger core of that than most.  But there’s a balance, after all, a difference between rooted and static, and wow did Molly ever have a fascinating relationship with his own identity and how that balance related to him.

The Molly we meet in Episode 1 has literally never been anybody besides the self he is right now, in his entire life.  He’s two years old and he has been this person, this same exact precise person, loud and colorful and joyful and weirdly charming, since a week after he crawled out of the ground.  And that’s so different than the lived experience of anybody else, ever.  He popped into the world as a fully-formed adult and never had to grow up.  Which means that he also never had the experience of growing into someone else!  He never went from toddler to teenager, he never upended and reevaluated all his assumptions about the world and then rebuilt his worldview stronger around them.  He never learned how to have a relationship with his past self the way anyone who can look back on their own childhood can.  He never had a childhood, after all.

Between that and Taliesin’s own meta-intentions for stubbornness and stasis (and of course those things come from the same root, of course Taliesin deliberately created his tree-who-does-not-move character without any history to begin with), the entire character of Mollymauk is just a giant, walking flinch away from the concept of personal change.  It’s bone-deep resistance written into every line of him, in and out of text.  Molly doesn’t change.  He literally never, ever has.

And god, that must be terrifying, mustn’t it?  Molly’s more scared of Lucien than he is of his own death.  He has never been anyone else besides who he is right now, and he refuses to even consider the idea that Lucien might also be him in any way.  He can’t even encompass the concept.  He is exactly himself and that is somebody else.  And you know, just in terms of philosophical questions like ‘what makes a person?’, Molly might be right about how separate he holds himself from Lucien’s whole self and life; it’s entirely possible that he is literally, actually correct and Lucien was literally a distinct soul who previously inhabited this body.  But it's not even about whether Molly and Lucien are or ever were the same person, not really.  It’s about whether Molly can even conceive of himself as someone who could ever be anyone other than who he is right now.

I do not for a minute believe that, given however-many years of campaign and twenty levels of character growth, Molly wouldn’t have changed.  I don’t think Matt would have allowed it.  I don’t think Taliesin would have allowed it.

And I don’t mean that in any sort of DM-fiat way, I mean that they’re good fucking storytellers.  Matt would have created situations that put Molly in conflict with everything he thought he knew about himself, because that’s what he does and that’s how this works.  Taliesin would have responded, because the man knows how to be true to a character even when it turns out that character isn’t who he expected.  (Percy wasn’t supposed to get a happy ending.  Percy wasn’t supposed to be redeemable, but there he is in Whitestone, wife and kids and love and hope after all.)

Maybe it wouldn’t even have happened yet!  Maybe an episode 57 Molly would still think he understood everything important about how the world works and that it was all precisely the same as he’d always known it was.  But sooner or later, Molly would’ve had to be alone for the first time in his life.  Sooner or later they would have had to confront the whole idea of Lucien.  Sooner or later the story would have shoved change in Molly’s face.  Want to avoid entanglements and institutions and leave every place better than you found it?  Better pick one, because the world isn’t going to let you do both.

Sooner or later, Molly was going to have to make a choice or live through an experience that would change him in some small but fundamental way.  And as soon as that happens, like a tiny pebble slowly slipping into an inevitable rockslide, the door opens up and the whole game is different: if ‘Molly doesn’t change’ is an intrinsic core to the character, then what happens and who does he become if he does?

The reason I’m sad about missing out on all of this opportunity is not because I’d ever want to see Molly become a completely different person.  I think it’s actually the opposite.  I wish and regret the fact that we won’t ever see him find that balance between knowing-who-he-is at that rock solid core, and growing into somebody different around it.  I wish we could have seen him learn that he was strong enough to change and still be himself, brash and bright and beautiful.  I wish he could have faced Lucien and come out the other side okay.

But he died instead.  And the more I look at it, I get this certainty that Molly would have chosen it that way.  The man was live-fast-die-young reckless.  He was the walking antithesis of, “I do not want to die who I am, I should like to live long enough to be someone else.”  Molly was bound and fucking determined to live hard and fast and then get the fuck out before he had to face the possibility of being anyone other than who he was.  He had no intentions of getting old.

There’s such a weird and beautiful balance to it, the way Molly got exactly what he wanted in the end.  He will never change, except from corpse to flowers.  And what’s left of him, what matters, is the voice in Beau’s head that says leave every town better than you found it, the voice she is never going to lose, the voice that will never grow or temper itself but always be the very same echo.  He dove into the lives of this ragtag group that one day is going to end up saving or changing the world, and then he got out before everything went in a direction he couldn’t handle.  He circus’ed it.

I’m sad for the growth we never had, but I think I have to respect the fuck out of a character who’d rather die than have to face it.