#the expanse meta

[mswyrr]

It's really frustrating to me that so many neurotypicals think it's "progressive" to say that only neurodivergent people ("born sociopaths" etc) can do evil, when the majority of atrocities have been committed by plain, average neurotypicals. They make up the majority of the populations we can look at who have committed or quietly gone along with horrors.

I did research on historical mental hospitals in the US (mid to late 20th Cent) and the level of abuse of neurodivergent people by neurotypicals was truly heinous. But instead of sitting with that we've got neurotypicals, looking at atrocities committed by other neurotypicals--including horrific violence against neurodivergent people and ableism--and saying "This must be the work of a crazy person! No real, full human being like me could do such things..."

That is the very logic that motivates violence against neurodivergent people by neurotypicals? Not helpful or "progressive"? Not a condemnation of "evil" but rather a dehumanization of neurodivergent people?

There are people with brain wiring who are low empathy and are good people; and the majority of horrors have been committed by neurotypical people with "normal" levels of empathy. But if neurotypicals had to sit with that they'd also have to sit with the ways they dehumanize and buy into the dehumanization of neurodivergent people.

Anyway - Sameen Shaw (Person of Interest)--who outright says she has "an Axis II personality disorder"--and Amos (The Expanse) are both low empathy, neurodivergent people who choose to be decent and work at it. Their brains do not determine their morals, but shape the ways they relate to the world and how they understand and pursue being decent people.

(Those stories don't make up for the grossly large number of stories where someone being neurodivergent makes them automatically, biologically evil, but they matter)

And Coriolanus Snow was a neurotypical boy with a "normal" brain and average levels of empathy and a talent for social skills living in an authoritarian society who chose to become a man who committed atrocities because his society rewards that with comfort and safety, not a "born sociopath." And that makes it more interesting and "progressive", not less.

I'd be disgusted and disappointed if I thought Collins wrote a prequel about how the origin of the evils we see in the main stories was that the bad guy was neurodivergent.

edit: It's possible to argue that Dr Gaul is neurodivergent but - her evil behavior is her choices, not an inevitability of her brain wiring. And it is Snow, with his normal empathy and his memories of responding to the less adept Games as a boy, that enables him to make it a success, to dress things up in style and performance and media shine in such a way that allows other neurotypicals with average empathy to feel *good* about participating in evil.

[iridescentmirrorsgenshin]

An analysis of Alhaitham's egoism in relation to Kaveh

(Update: The essay this is taken from is now uploaded! It can be accessed here and here as as a pdf <3)

Max Stirner's anarchist egoism is speculated to be the basis of Alhaitham's personal egoism, therefore I will be drawing upon Stirner's 'The Unique and Its Property' for this analysis.

Property and power are key principles within this philosophy. The egoist recognises himself as an individual, separate from the general collective of “humanity”, in which concepts such as freedom and property are governed to and over the people, for then the individual is not considered as such, rather they are a part of “humanity”, rather than a whole individual (Stirner, 170). This thinking is demonstrated within Alhaitham’s Story Quest, where he dismantles Siraj’s Hivemind by targeting individuals that compromised the Hive and reminding them of their own beliefs and preferences – the individual in themselves is a whole, and is not a “part” of a system (Stirner, 170).

In this, the egoist governs himself by what he owns and what he wants to own: “ownness is my whole essence and existence, it is myself. I am free from what I am rid of, owner of what I have in my power, what I control. I am at all times and under every circumstance my own”(Stirner, 106). This relates to the concept of freedom, which, for an egoist exists according to having the power to be free of something, for example, being freed of hunger, thirst, or societal expectations (Stirner, 105). This is reflected within Alhaitham’s description: “He lives free – free from the searching eyes of ordinary people,” but also extends to the power to own.

As power is considered something which the egoist owns, property then becomes something which the egoist exerts power over, and in this, can property be made use of by the egoist – all the while, the property remains an independent vessel (Stirner, 162). This is seen within Alhaitham’s view on his vision, in that it is “no more than a useful tool”, as it can be used to serve his own needs, and that since it in his possession, he has obtained it with his own power, it makes no difference to check on it as he continues to retain that power.

In this sense then, Alhaitham has constructed his life around this form of egoism, in that anything he wants, he has, such as his job as the Scribe, his house, the interests he pursues, the people he enjoys. In order to maintain this way of life, he will deal with, or be rid of, anything he deems as "harmful".

With this, the egoist seeks satisfaction in themselves through the satisfaction of another. Ownership, in relation to another person, can become love, which like all things the egoist has power over, is ultimately theirs – as in their love for a person (Stirner, 187), which is given willingly by the egoist, for loving a person is done for the satisfaction that love brings: “But I love them with the awareness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy, I love because love is natural to me, it pleases me,” (186).

In loving another comes sacrifice, which the egoist can give into without compromising himself, as he himself sets the “purchase price of [his love]” (187) according to the happiness attributed to the loved one, as in return, the egoist shall also receive happiness (186). To enjoy someone, in an egoist fashion, is to be able to sacrifice all possessions and ownerships without foregoing the sense of an individual, of “ownness”, as the egoist would then lose his objectivity:

“I can deny myself countless things to heighten his pleasure, and I can risk for him what would be dearest to me without him, my life, my welfare, my freedom. Indeed, it forms my pleasure and happiness to feast on his pleasure and happiness. But me, myself I do not sacrifice to him, but rather remain an egoist and—enjoy him. If I sacrifice to him everything I would keep without my love for him, that is very easy… But if I sacrifice others to one passion, I still do not…  sacrifice my particular worth, my ownness. Where this nasty incident occurs, love looks no better than any other passion that I blindly obey.” – The Unique and Its Property, 185

It is relevant to note that just as the egoist receives happiness from a loved one’s pleasure, so does an egoist suffer from a loved one’s despair. Just as the egoist would sacrifice something of their own to provide happiness for a loved one in order to exact their own happiness, so too would an egoist sacrifice something, or act, to eradicate the root problem of a loved one’s misery, as this, in turn, would then resolve their own misery:

“If I see the beloved suffering, I suffer with him, and I find no rest until I’ve tried everything to comfort and cheer him…. It doesn’t follow from this that the same thing causes suffering… his tooth gives him pain, but his pain gives me pain. But because I cannot bear the sorrowful crease on the beloved forehead, therefore, then for my sake, I kiss it away. If I didn’t love this person, he could go right on creasing his forehead, that wouldn’t trouble me; I’m only driving away my troubles. – The Unique and Its Property, 186

The phrasing of “driving away… troubles” is particular to note here, due to similar usages of language used within Alhaitham’s Character Stories, in relation to him acting in accordance with his self-governed rules and serving his own self-interest by: “[acting] on his own will and deals with anything that appears harmful in his eyes”.

Kaveh, however, interprets Alhaitham’s egoism as a detached, pragmatic view of humanity, in which the individual isolates themselves not only as a means of prioritisation, but by elevating oneself over others by refusal to intermingle and to cooperate for the benefit of others. Not only is this a harmful opposition to Kaveh’s view of individuals sharing their knowledge and talent in order to pursue a better society, but due to Kaveh’s experience of Alhaitham’s personal egoism, it is harmful to Kaveh personally. Kaveh refuses to prioritise himself over others because he has seen a negative consequence of egoism, in which he has been “cut to the quick” and it has ended one of the few stable relationships in his life.

By Kaveh seeing Alhaitham’s comment about his altruism as malicious, Alhaitham has elevated himself over Kaveh, since Alhaitham does not have the same struggles as him, and has trivialised Kaveh’s trauma. To Kaveh, Alhaitham’s prioritisation of the self actively harms others as it desensitises the self to the emotions of others. Therefore, Kaveh opposes the egoism which Alhaitham advocates for, since he interprets it through his own lived experience. Hence, by Alhaitham asserting egoism over Kaveh as a means of Kaveh prioritising himself, it only reinforces Kaveh to strive to consider the feelings of others, as well as to not prioritise his own way of thinking if it undermines someone else’s.

In actuality, Alhaitham’s frustrations with Kaveh lie in his belief that Kaveh’s talents are incongruous with his values, and that if Kaveh were to prioritise himself, he would save himself suffering and enable himself to discover his “true self”, unrestricted by others placing labels onto him.

This is a personal frustration which Alhaitham would not compromise himself to assert onto a person he was indifferent to, due to his belief of not getting involved with other’s fates. However, he has been observed to ‘subvert’ his own rules to accommodate Kaveh. Through egoism, it can be seen that rather than ‘subverting’ these rules, Alhaitham adheres to them as an egoist, since he sees Kaveh as his mirror, they offer each other a contrasting perspective he believes they need to have a complete, objective vision of the world.

This is necessary for Alhaitham to consider within his own life, and therefore has extended his house to Kaveh, in order to expand his scope of thinking, and to consider perspectives he otherwise would not entertain. Kaveh’s ideals, his beliefs, and his philosophies explicitly interest Alhaitham, in contradiction with Kaveh believing that Alhaitham is disdainful of his perspectives.

In this way, Alhaitham enjoys Kaveh. He willingly pays for some of Kaveh’s tabs; pays for crates of wine for the two of them; and goes out of his way to pursue interactions with Kaveh. Just as Alhaitham is to Kaveh, Kaveh is an old friend, as unchanged in his beliefs as he was in the past and thus is a constant: “the most unshakable part of one's past is a friend that will never change”’.

Alhaitham strives to act in accordance to his own egoism and therefore assesses what “appears harmful” to him, in relation to these rules, so as to be rid of them. This can be extended to Kaveh, as Kaveh falls under what ‘belongs’ to Alhaitham, in the sense that ownership equates to Alhaitham’s enjoyment.

Alhaitham wants to have Kaveh in his life due to the alternate perspective which Kaveh offers him, thus expanding his horizons and granting him knowledge he otherwise would not obtain. As well as this, Kaveh is seen to be considered part of Alhaitham’s way of life that he wants to protect. In line with Stirner’s egoism, it follows that as Alhaitham enjoys Kaveh, as in, ‘owns’ the contentment Kaveh elicits, he therefore is affected by Kaveh’s self-inflicted grievances. Therefore, Alhaitham sees Kaveh’s altruism at the expense of his own wellbeing as something “harmful” to be dealt with, as this not only causes Kaveh inward misery, but also detriments Kaveh finding his “true self” (Alhaitham Character Story 3), which the egoist pursues above all else.

[bluebudgie]

Rewatching the end of LS2 and the teaser trailer for HoT and man... I gotta say one thing I really like about Trahearne's writing is how he handled the attack on Mordremoth.

Fighting Zhaitan had us carefully build an alliance of different forces, devise a strategy, take our time and be prepared... but Mordremoth made it personal for the sylvari. Did that make him nervous and that's why he decided to rush an entire fleet into unknown territority without even the glimpse of a plan? Almorra (rightfully) points it out in a later release, Trahearne fucked up big time sending everyone (and ultimately himself) to their death.

And I love that narrative. I love this wise, grounded (though occasionally dorky) figure we've had at our side just making that one fatal mistake out of urgency. (& fear?)

And who knows, ultimately we did come out victorious against the elder dragon, so maybe that was the only right decision after all.

[commanderthalys]

Guess who finished EoD for the first time!

[inevitablemoment]

Please, give me an adaptation of Anne of Green Gables that faithfully covers House of Dreams and Ingleside (my two favorite books in the series)

Oh, I would've killed for an adaptation of those books with Megan Follows and Jonathan Crombie.

[plague-of-insomnia]

Expansion In Black Butler, Public School Arc Anime: Stained Glass

One of the things that absolutely delights me with the new anime is how they’ve used expansion to bring the world to life. I hope to do more posts on this when I am able to get better screenshots, so for now please accept these poor quality ones I took with my phone.

What is “expansion” in this sense?

Essentially, when you adapt something for the screen, you often have to add stuff to fill space, both in the physical sense of what’s on the screen, but also in terms of time. A scene might work fine on one manga page, but if you kept the view fixed like that for an entire scene in an anime or live action, the audience would quickly lose interest.

The anime has done a good job of expanding to fill these spaces in a way that can be charming and clever.

~#~

Something I noticed while rewatching the episode for the twenty millionth time, I realized that the stained glass window that is featured so prominently in the opening scene has been expanded into something with far more symbolism than the original manga page:

The basic design of the room and window is retained, but far more detail has been added, including the fact that the window has two halves, each with a person depicted on them, and they frame Ciel on both sides.

He’s quite literally trapped in shadow between two people, and to me, this is representative of how he is caught between Sebastian and Undertaker/His twin. (Or perhaps one is meant to be RC and one UT, with Seb the shadow in between.)

But there’s more. The top window has a flower motif, but the central flower looks a lot like a star, or perhaps a lily if it were spread out flat?? Additionally, the four flowers of the Weston houses appear in each corner.

Additionally, the window has distinctive doves above and below the saints. While ofc that is a common animal in Christian iconography, the fact that the reapers use pigeons (doves) to communicate, and the fact that UT is a former reaper, could mean this was a very deliberate choice. Perhaps representing how reapers communicate to their superiors (there are images of a man and woman at the top I assume is meant to represent Jesus and Mary)?

The images of the saints feel very familiar to me, but I’m such a lapsed Catholic that I’ve been struggling to identify them.

I thought perhaps that the one on the left could be Frances of Assisi. He’s the patron saint of animals, and is often associated with birds.

The other, I am really unsure about. I thought about things like St. Paul or Augustine, but those don’t fit.

Perhaps St Lazarus? For those of you unfamiliar with Christian mythos, Lazarus died and came back to life, so he’s associated with resurrection. That would certainly fit kuro and Undertaker, wouldn’t it?

A few depictions of stained glass windows featuring St Frances and St Lazarus:

[edwinspaynes]

Another post pointed out yesterday that the Clave was so progressive in the 1800s and (especially) 1900s while being incredibly regressive in the 2000s-2010s. This is inarguably true. It also inarguably is true to real life when it comes to views on homosexuality. While male homosexuality was illegal in the UK during the Victorian/Edwardian eras, many (though not all) people tended to turn a blind eye to it assuming that everyone involved minded their business. (Oscar Wilde, for a relevant example, was pretty widely known as being a man who loved other men. He probably would have been able to carry on as he was if not for suing a powerful and influential public figure. But I digress).

Also, it's important to note that, yeah, the TLH kids' parents were overall loving and accepting people. The one who was not such a person blessedly died before his son came out. On the other hand, Alec's parents were in a literal hate cult. But once again, digression.

Because what I really want to talk about are Shadowhunter's shifting attitudes to technology and innovation. I would like to posit that Christopher Lightwood's death was the beginning of the downfall of innovation in Shadowhunter society.

In TID, Henry contends with mockery and side glances because of his drive to invent and create. This makes sense in what his son will later describe as an "arid warrior culture." However, while generally labeled as an eccentric, the Clave - including the Consul and Inquisitor - generally leave him alone to tinker and build. No one stops him. And when he finally invents the Portal, no one shirks it. By the time TLH rolls around, it's a widely-used, widely-respected part of Shadowhunter society. It's ingrained in the fabric of their people just as steles and seraph blades are, and we still see them widely in use in the modern day.

Now, we get to Christopher, Henry's protigee.

It's important to acknowledge that Christopher may have been left alone in part because Henry's Portal was so successful. With him primarily hanging about in the Fairchild lab, nothing could go wrong. Additionally, Charlotte was Consul, and she knew how brilliant her husband was. This probably contributed to Christopher's success greatly.

Christopher grows up shrouded in this love. He is free to create and innovate as he pleases, and he comes up with the idea for fire-messaging. We see him successfully invent fire-messages by early 1904, at which point he is tragically killed by Belial.

Fire-messages are the final piece of technology that we see invented before the TMI era. All other technologies in the modern TSC canon exist in the historical stories. Thus, we can conclude that Christopher's fire-messages are one of the last creations of Shadowhunter society.

(ADHD side ramble: I'm interested to see what Grace manages to accomplish, but I cannot think of something in the modern TMIverse that she may have created. I imagine that her status as not only a woman but a widely-disliked social pariah held her back. Hate it, but my point stands. I hope she's at least given a small amount of credit for the final touches on the fire-messages.)

Anyway, fast forward to 2012. The TSCverse now has another brilliant neurodivergent mind in Tiberius Nero Blackthorn. Of course, he is extremely different from Henry and Christopher. He is more mentally present, serious-minded, and a lot less spacey. But he also views things in a significantly different way than other Shadowhunters do, finding himself drawn to technology like computers in a way that most Nephilim would shirk.

Ty and his family are forced to keep the fact that they have computers in the Institute a secret. This is likely in part because mundanes invented them, but it also feels inconsistent with previous generations. Shadowhunters of old appreciated art; Jem and Alastair were openly musicians, for example. Matthew is an obvious aesthete with a penchant for the theatre and artistic pursuits. Even when Alastair notes that they aren't supposed to like mundane things like moving pictures, he does not seem worried about facing repercussions for seeing one. Ty and the other Blackthorns seem to think that they will see legal ramifications for having a computer, and this is in a world where Jia Penhallow is Consul.

Could the Blackthorns be wrong? Sure. But it feels to me that the Shadowhunters of old would not shirk a useful technology, and the computer has limitless capacity to assist them in their demon-fighting endeavors.

The Clave closed itself off to progress shortly after TLH, and Christopher's death feels a likely catalyst for that.

[n7punk]

She-ra (2018) Action Dolls: Design Details

In 2019, Mattel released a line of eight action dolls for the 2018 She-ra reboot. The line featured Adora, Glimmer, Bow, Catra, Shadow Weaver, and 3 versions of She-ra (there was also a Swift Wind model). There were more dolls planned that were canceled which I've covered in their own post.

For this post I've gathered official images and information about the dolls' design courtesy of the Instagrams of two of the designers: Darren Sander (known for work on Monster High, he designed this line's packaging and did work on She-ra and Swift Wind) and Annalise Lao (who worked on the BFS & Catra). It takes a lot of people to make even one doll for mass production (the SDCC exclusives were two years in the making, before the show even debuted!), but these are the only designers I've found talk about their personal involvement. I found a few more names to credit further in, though.

For data such as price and further stock/promotional shots (as well as the source of most of the ones in this post), see the line's page in the Dollect database.

Builds:

[Regular She-ra; Glimmer, Adora, Bow, & Catra; Battle Armor She-ra & Swift Wind. I'll cover the SDCC exclusives later in the post. Photos via Twitter.]

For the main four dolls (center image), the bodies are pre-existing sculpts, with the girls coming from the 2019 DC Super Hero Girls line and Bow coming from Monster High (generation 2). She-ra had a unique body sculpt. All of them had unique heads and clothing/accessories.

Glimmer's body is supposed to be a "curvier" sculpt compared to the other girls. Annalise says the foreshortening on the promotional pictures makes her look skinnier, but I will say that what counts as curvy when it comes to dolls is usually ridiculous. They tried with the options they had, at least.

Swift Wind was designed by Darren Sander and his wing artwork was done by Kristen Kress. His wings are supposed to flap when you move him up and down, and he has a plastic clip on his back to keep She-ra in place.

She-ra(s):

[Regular She-ra; SDCC-exclusive She-ra; Battle of Bright Moon She-ra - officially named "Battle Armor She-ra & Swift Wind." All stock photos.]

Regular She-ra: Her outfit is made of plain fabric with plastic accessories for the boots, gauntlets, chest emblem/pauldrons, and tiara (basically, anything gold). Her peplum skirt is unhemmed (on all her outfits) and is made from a sparkly tulle. Her cape is a one-sided fabric, but both sides look pretty much the same. The cape has no hemming either and is sewed directly onto her shoulders. It matches the shorter (more practical) length in the show. The plastic chest piece has overlapping straps and pegs in the back to hook it on.

SDCC Exclusive: The plain fabric of her uniform has been swapped out for a thin, rubbery pleather and her skirt "upgraded" to an iridescent fabric (the fabric feels stiff and way cheaper than the tulle, but was probably chosen for displaying well. It's one-sided). Her cape was redone, now much longer and made from a double-sided foil, still unhemmed. Her boots also have extra paint on their backs (details on that all the way down in the boots section). Otherwise her outfit is the same.

Battle Armor: Her torso and legs are cast in white to give the illusion of clothes. A plastic chest piece clips over the front of her, leaving her back exposed underneath her hair. She has no gauntlets, her forearms instead cast in gold to give the illusion that she is wearing some. Her boots are their usual cast, but they're solid gold with no painting. She has a one-sided reflective skirt, but its curving cut means it's shortest right in front and it often lets her articulation joints peek out. The chest piece was sculpted by Kittaya Wongchinda.

SDCC Exclusive:

[Display packaging in the upper left; both dolls in middle; compact storage box in upper right; closeups on bottom. All stock photos.]

These two dolls were the first part of the line revealed. She-ra's unique sculpt in the regular line originates here. She-ra is capable of standing on her own while Shadow Weaver requires a stand. Shadow Weaver has the same body as core line Adora and Catra, but this is the only set that includes a stand since it's supposed to be more deluxe.

Shadow Weaver: Her outfit is two layers, made from a long red dress with a turtle neck and an unhemmed, tendril-cut bottom edge. Over the top of it she wears a monastic scapular made from red foil and black fabric. She does not have any shoes. She has a black shadow accessory to hold with glitter suspended through it.

Her mask does not come off, but is cast as a separate piece and then glued tightly to her head to create the appropriate silhouette and depth. Her head is likely smooth underneath and she has small elf ears. Her hair is Polypropylene.

Packaging: The display packaging on the upper left folds in half (with velcro on the insides to keep it together while unfolded) to fit into the storage box in the upper right. The tops of the displays feature the same backdrop as the storage box with Shadow Weaver and She-ra's names written in the First Ones script to label each of them. The storage box has the show logo on two sides with Shadow Weaver and She-ra art opposite each other on the other two sides.

Models & Designers: We know Darren & Garrett Sander (fraternal twins, the latter also being the creator of Monster High) worked on the SDCC dolls, in addition to more unnamed creators, but we have some modeler names!

[Shadow Weaver's model with her accessory; She-ra's plastic chest emblem model; She-ra's body model, via Instagram. There are three more photos showing She-ra's accessories and sword through the link but I've hit the image limit.]

The dolls and their accessories were sculpted by Arpine Keurjikian, Kittaya Wongchinda, Adam DeFelice, and Sean Olmos (this is gonna shock you but they all worked on Monster High).

Regular She-ra vs. SDCC:

[SDCC exclusive on the left, regular on the right]

For the con exclusive, the Sword of Protection's blade has glitter suspended throughout it while the others are clear blue, but the cast is otherwise the same. I already compared outfits in the She-ra section, but the con version also has unique hair. Her hair is longer (10 inches vs. around 6 regularly) with some reflective strands (likely tinsel) threaded through it to make it shine. More side-by-side comparison photos of regular vs. con She-ra can be found on Darren Sander's Instagram.

Main Line:

Annalise and Garrett were both fans of the show (unknown for anyone else since I don't have their personal comments) and worked back and forth with Dreamworks on rounds of revisions for the dolls. The dolls had all major joints articulated (just missing ankles, and no torso/chest articulation). They have 11 joints, many of which can be moved in multiple directions. Some individual details:

Catra:

[Catra's screening; the rest are stock photos]

Catra's faceup is pretty much the first design Annalise tried, painting it directly onto the prototype early in the process. Her tail is rotatable, giving her an extra point for posing. She has all her stripes (and pant rips, Catra was Annalise's favorite) from the show. Her belt includes a tiny (and fully painted!) Force Captain badge. She came with a staff accessory. Catra uses Saran for her hair.

Glimmer:

[Glimmer's boots; the rest are stock photos]

Glimmer's hair is also saran, but it has been heavily gelled to achieve its shape, which explains why it's often a mess (or at least deflated) in any dolls that have been played with. Glimmer's white glove is painted on to make the layering with her gauntlets work, but otherwise she has her accessories from the show and her jumpsuit is two layers. She has a unique star sparkle in her eye screening and uses the same skintone as the original DC Super Hero Girls Wonder Woman doll. She came with a "sparkle burst" accessory to hold.

Bow:

[Bow's chest; the rest are stock photos]

Bow has real textured hair up top with his short sides painted (the more expensive Monster High dolls also have their short sides painted on). His top is a white fabric shirt with a single plastic accessory layered over the top of it to represent his armor pieces. Funnily, the strap for his quiver is included despite him not having one. He came with a (single piece) bow-and-arrow accessory.

Adora:

[Posed photo; the rest are stock photos]

I don't have many details on Adora's build, but here's her closeups. The white long-sleeves that are supposed to be from her shirt actually start at the hem of her jacket sleeves and are sewn directly to them. She has a white shirt front sewn on under the jacket collar to give the illusion of proper layering, but it's all one piece. She came with the same Sword of Protection that the two core She-ra dolls had.

Bootprints:

This was the only line they had at the time (and could still be) to have unique bootprints. I don't have a photo of it at the moment, but Adora's boots have four sparkles (the same shape as the emoji ✨) printed on the tread. She-ra's boots were fairly generic, but Glimmer's have a moon print on the bottom and Bow's featured hearts. Dreamworks shared the show designs with them ahead of time, since these dolls started production long before Bow's heart-soles were shown off in season two, and it was a detail they were excited to include for the fans.

It's mentioned up above, but the same cast was used for all of She-ra's boots. The pair pictured here is her con boots. Her regular boots didn't have the blue paint on the very top edge but were otherwise painted (they're up in the sword comparison photo in the SDCC section). The Battle Armor version was gold with no painting at all.

Packaging:

[A lineup of stock photos with the core five box fronts]

And finally, because it's really well-designed IMO, here's the packaging design that was used for the core five dolls. Darren Sander designed the packaging layout and blister with the artwork coming via Dreamworks. The front has the outlines from the Sword of Protection's blade embossed into it. The sides each have a little sword embossed into them and the top has the She-ra logo. They're difficult to see (much less photograph) in transparent plastic, and of course these are head-on photos, but the details really make it.

[rocicrew]

#they're both telling the truth and lying straight through their teeth at the same time #duality of man

[kaninchen-reblogs]

FFXIV Patches 🤝GW2 Patches

No matter the patch, no matter the expansion, the unbreakable bond between Warriors is eternal. Unkillable champions stay winning.

[thevelaryons]

When it comes to Addam & Jaime’s storylines as knights, there is one specific idea which further connects them as pawns of the adults in their life.

Jaime was removed from the position as his family’s heir as an insult to Tywin. King Aerys and his Hand have a tense power dynamic. By taking away Tywin’s golden heir, it’s like a slap to the face for the proud Lord of Casterly Rock. Jaime, for his part, does not know that his sister’s machinations are used by the King to humble his father. All Tywin is left with is Tyrion, the heir he never wanted. It’s only later that Jaime figures out the reason why the King eagerly allowed him into the Kingsguard even if doing so angered Tywin, who later resigns from the position as Hand.

Shortly after Corlys became Hand to Rhaenyra, he moves to have Addam become the new heir to Driftmark. Addam’s half-brother, Jacaerys, even advocates for his appointment as heir. It’s a political move to appease Corlys, the proud Lord of Driftmark and the new Hand. It’s also a big insult to Queen Rhaenyra. A Westerosi noblewoman allowing her late husband’s bastard son to be ahead of her own trueborn son in their family’s line of succession (the actual parentage of the boys doesn’t matter, only the public perception of it) is practically unheard of. The Velaryon heir would have been Joffrey, since Jacaerys is already named heir to the Iron Throne at that point. Instead Addam becomes the new heir. Corlys’ actions show Rhaenyra the extent of his power and that she should not forget her place, even if she is the Queen. Addam obviously would not know about the subtle power struggle happening between the Queen and her Hand.

[downbadfordraper]

I've been working on Expanse gifs and it's led me to doing a rewatch even though I just finished the series literally ten days ago lol

But it's been great going through it when I already know everything that will happen. I'm seeing all these little moments that have taken on new meaning in that context, and I especially love all these callbacks I didn't notice before, like the...third? time Holden sees Proto-Miller, when they're in the galley, and it starts with Miller repeating the word 'father' again and again then transitions into 'poured coffee in the parking lot'.

Only now was I reminded that when Miller first enters Julie's apartment he uses the phrase to sync up the voice-immitation program on his terminal so he can access the unit automation systems, saying 'Father, bother, poured hot coffee in the parking lot' twice.

It gives us a clue to what Proto-Miller is doing: maybe he's trying to find a way to verbalize what he really wants to say, though even then Holden has to interpret/decode what Miller keeps telling him - go into a room (the ring) too fast and the room will eat (kill) you. Maybe he's (it's?) trying to get a better handle on the real Miller's voice - improve the fidelity of the immitation so Holden will listen. Maybe it's an attempt to access something, like when he uses the trick to access Julie's messages - maybe to access Miller's memories or vocabulary, maybe to better 'access' Holden's neurophysiology or memories, maybe to access the information he's compelled by his programming to look for, the information he ultimately needs Holden's help accessing because Holden 'exists'.

Then there are other things, like when Holden asks about the reasoning behind the hat again and Proto-Miller says it keeps the rain off his head: he said the same thing to Havelock when he was the one who asked. 'Ceres has no laws just cops' is also something he said to Havelock, and is the first thing PMiller says *to* Holden. And, of course, all the things about how to enter a room are pulled from another conversation with Havelock.

What's interesting to me about that is I can't help but wonder if it means something. I'm actually exploring that a little in the fic I'm writing; if PMiller views Holden as a partner like Havelock was. And Holden does, in a way, become his partner in investigating what happened to the Builders.

But I like taking the idea further - that this could be a reflection of the real Miller's perception of Holden. If he came to consider Holden to be a partner of a kind in the investigation into Eros, taking over the role of a man who'd rejected him for being unfeeling, for having the wrong priorities - for not being a good man, really.

That makes Holden's rejection of Miller for similar reasons that much more of a gut punch. It makes me think of how that shakes out in the novel - Miller is tired. Miller has had enough, and thinks about what a relief it would be to just let himself die inside Eros more than once then feels disappointment when he survives. There's also a moment when Holden basically calls him a member of the crew: when Miller leaves the room he cries. For everything in the book leading up to that moment we're given a Miller who considers himself to be alone, that he *should* be alone, that it's what he deserves. The only thing that makes him bother to keep going after he's fired from Star Helix is the mystery of what happened to Julie. He's given up on living before he ever even meets the Rocinante crew.

And now Holden is calling him one of his people, saying it like it's obvious - like it's a fact. And that hurts, because Miller's been alone for so long, thought things like friends and family were forever out of reach. It hurts, because he already knows he's going to kill the man responsible for Eros; he knows he's going to be kicked off the crew he didn't even know until that moment he'd become part of. He even thinks about that when he does it - expects it before Holden even says the words.

He and the Havelock in the novels don't part on bad terms like they do in the show, but for me Novel-Miller's suicidal ideation makes the novel's version of all that hit much harder. He's so unexpectedly found himself a home, but it hasn't changed anything for him. He's had enough. He's done.

And then he stays behind on Eros to die.

The issue with the bomb getting triggered early doesn't happen in the book. Miller goes to Eros with the plan to stay behind - experiences relief, even a kind of joy in the idea. And when Holden realizes where he is, he starts trying to figure out a way to get to Miller, to rescue him, even persists in trying when the plan is made with the bomb (the deadman's trigger set up via a code that Naomi sets him), and Miller has to tell him no more than once, and Holden is eventually forced to accept it.

He finds Julie and tells her she's already dead. Maybe he's been thinking the same about himself.

And even though there's none of that in the show (though we the viewers can apply a suicidal-Miller interpretation if we want to), we still get all these moments to drive things home in a different way. Havelock wasn't just Miller's partner; he'd been someone Miller was mentoring, but Miller's advice is all cast in the pall of pessimism, a belief that things won't ever improve, won't ever change. Miller seems to look at the OPA as a pointless endeavor. A universe where Belters are independent, free to self-govern, is one he seems to consider a pipe dream - impossible, foolish, pointless.

Then he meets another 'kid' with all this (misplaced, in his opinion) optimism, full of piss and vinegar and youthful chutzpah, but Holden seems to make it work. Yeah, a lot of shit goes wrong, with moments of naivety on Holden's part, but I get the sense that Miller's perception of Holden shifts with time - he comes to see him as more than this inexperienced, righteous, foolish kid. Maybe less of someone who needs mentoring and more someone who could be a real partner. Someone that Miller can (and does) learn from, just as Holden learns from him.

How might that affect the reasoning behind PMiller's choice to reach out to Holden over anyone else? How might that in turn inform the protomolecule of who Holden is and how he could be useful?

How might it have impacted Miller's ability to eventually overcome the protomolecule's directives on Ilus?

[ziskandra]

listen, listen

I know this is gonna be a controversial take, but the more I think about it, the more obsessed I am with the idea of Varric voluntarily helping The Crimson Knight (especially in a worldstate where Hawke was left in the Fade).

I’ve talked before about how I view Meredith as the type of person who is motivated by her desire to protect her own at all costs, and how this leads her down the path of Well-Intentioned Extremism, and culminating in becoming the embodiment of the uh, Knight Templar trope.

And Varric is obviously motivated by his motivation to protect Hawke: he shielded them from the Inquisition, and when push came to shove and he was forced to expose Hawke to the Inquisition anyway, it can result in Hawke’s death. The Inquisition fails Hawke, who is basically Varric’s moral compass — without Hawke’s influence, he defaults to siding with the templars at the end of DA2.

Most of the Inquisitor’s inner circle scatters over Thedas and Varric returns to Kirkwall. Varric loves Kirkwall; he’s a Kirkwaller through and through: even though he’s never envisioned nor wanted a life of politics, he becomes the fucking viscount, because there’s nobody else left who wants one drop of the poisoned chalice of that role.

And Kirkwall is a city that has always been dependent on its templars for protection. They are the city’s military force, and the city is noticeably weaker once the templars abandon it — depending on world state, it can lose a significant portion of its territory to one of Varric’s former companions. If someone he knew and trusted can do that to Kirkwall, who else might take advantage of Kirkwall in its weakened state?

Varric is isolated and alone, away from anyone who might be able to help him see the situation in a different light: his main support network is Aveline and Seneschal Bran, neither of whom are known for their ardent support of mage rights. They’re doing their best to clear Kirkwall of the impacts of the war, of the red lyrium, and even though they’re doing their best to avoid exposure, being around that much red lyrium cannot be healthy. Slowly, the paranoia and increased penchant for violence settle in. It becomes impossible to resist spending more time around the substance — and sometimes, it talks! And it sounds like Meredith Stannard.

Varric is desperate and scared and has lost everyone he has ever loved. The Inquisition has been downsized or disbanded, and his only purpose is to serve his city: the same intention with which Meredith started, the same intention and fears that the red lyrium feeds upon in them both.

Varric fears becoming his parents: people who failed to protect him because they were too caught up in their past mistakes.

But sometimes, as people, in our attempts to avoid our fears, we end up barreling into them headfirst instead.

[kafkaoftherubble]

做工前肯定要讲几句有关249的事: 憂太的 领域展开

// I Must Talk About c249 Before I Work: On Yuta's Domain Expansion

This post contains spoilers for Chapter 249 of Jujutsu Kaisen.

If I don't dump it here, these thoughts will distract me later! I'm already very distracted lately! Too distracted for my own good! Ahhhhh!

First off, I was eating so good. Yuta fans, simps, appreciators, and Rika (good taste, y'all)—rejoice, for this chapter is basically 95% Yuta! That's right; the next 5% was Yuta's Eyebags!

Look at this! He's so cute! So handsome!

Oh, I have to learn to exorcise spirits now. Then I can kick that fake Rika away and become his Rika!

Also, some people are somehow even more handsome just by being shown slow breathing. Is it just me who thinks that? Or is this what "rizz" truly means? I mean, look at that slight frown! Look at those eyebags! Look at him breathing!

... I'm sorry. I'm usually not one to write something with such trifling, substanceless content.

It's just... Yuta, man.

Anyway, the main point. Please, look at Yuta's

Domain Expansion

Shit is so magnificent. The many swords are obviously the first thing one would notice (and all that joke about Unlimited Blade Works and that Bleach... thing), but it's the abundance of crosses and the knots behind them that attracted my attention.

I'll get the easy out of the way first.

The Crosses

I would suspect these are meant to be "gravestones." Not too hard to think of "till death do us part," right? Though, to be fair, death didn't do Yuta and Rika part. In fact, it strengthened Yuta's split-moment craving for Rika and cursed her—in true dukkha fashion—into something quite macabre.

If one's Domain is the extension of their mental-scape, then it makes sense that Yuta's would incorporate gravestones, since his genesis as a cursed energy user effectively began on the day Rika died.

----

The Knots

Now this is the part that attracted the most of my attention!

Japanese knot-tying traditions are largely influenced by Chinese knotting (中国结) [1]. The word for knots in Chinese, 结, means "to bind," which then comes to represent all kinds of "union." Marriage, for example, is 结婚 (hanzi) /結婚 (kanji) [2][3]. Given Yuta's "love" motif, you can already see why the knots are part of his Domain.

There are plenty of meanings for the word 结, inter alia, it's a pun on 吉 (blessed) [2][3]. The fact that these knots are intertwined also comes to represent "interdependence," "connection," and "bonds." [2]

It's a bit of a stretch, admittedly, but I suppose one could probably draw this to that time Yuta described himself as "blessed." He is blessed because he was loved—he is enriched by connections and bonds with other people.

-

What is the knot type in Yuta's domain, then?

There are two candidates I could find.

I always rank each possibility from the highest confidence level to the lowest, so here goes. Note that I'm using the Chinese name (I would love it if someone added a more Japanese-focused viewpoint in this post on a reblog. I'm much more familiar with Chinese and cannot read Japanese, so...):

(1) 双钱结, The Double Coin Knot, 淡路結び [1]

It's shaped like two copper coins that are intertwined, hence its blessing is largely related to fortune and money [2][4].

However, the pronunciation of 钱 ("money") is similar to 全, "whole." Meanwhile, there is a pair of coins in this knot. This gives 双钱 an alternative reading—双全, "a pair that makes the whole." It also means 好事成双, "good things come in pairs." [4][5]

Yuta, as a jujutsu sorcerer, is more of a pair than an individual—he fights with Rika and is connected to her. These two together make a whole. A force of good that comes in a pair.

Due to sturdy enough sources corroborating the meaning of this knot, the similarity in appearance to Yuta's Knot, as well as the very fitting "pair + whole" symbolism, I have a higher confidence in this knot being the one in Yuta's Domain.

(2) 八字结, The “Figure 8” Knot

It's a pretty dime-a-dozen knot where the number 8 is formed. It has pragmatic purposes (eg. rock climbing), but here, because these two loops are intertwined, it apparently means "honest love" and "unchanging friendship." [6]

I rank this knot as lower in confidence level. It does at least pertain to the motif of love, according to one source, but it doesn't resemble Yuta's knot quite as well as the Double Coin Knot.

A bit of a caveat, in the spirit of intellectual honesty and rigor: The meaning of this knot has been found in only one source (see Citation #6), and it doesn't actually pass my internal rigor test. I've tried to search for corroboration from Chinese sources, but no dice. The only site in Chinese that corroborates the meaning of "eternal love" has busted web certificates and links.

----

The Name of Yuta's Domain Expansion

The translated name by OP Scan is terrible. It certainly pays homage to Yuta's fame (infamy?) as "The War God of Pure Love," but the actual kanji is 真贋相愛。

真 - Truth or real

贋 - False or fake

相愛 - mutual love, or reciprocal love, or "in love."

真贋 literally means "truth and false. Together it usually means "veracity." Here though? I'd interpret it as "The (Mutual) Love Between The Real and The False."

Isn't this shit metal as fuck? I mean, it's also fucking poetry. Truly the kind of magnificence only one with premium quality eyebags could provide!

It's worth nothing that 真贋 itself makes a contrasting pair, which again, links back to the Double Coin Knot's meaning.

I'm sure yall can make your own interpretation of what 真贋相愛 could symbolize vis-a-vis Yuta and Rika. Let's go, people!

----

Tangents to My Research - Side Dish

Knots have come to be a very important symbol of relationships, especially love, since the Tang and Song Dynasty [1]. To draw to the Japanese side of the practice, Chinese knotting practice reaches Japan during the Tang Dynasty as well [1]. It's not too surprising that this love connotation could also have been passed to Japan.

The entangling property of knots also comes to mind the term "连理（枝）", which means "interlocking (tree branches)." Here are two poems referring to the word:

(1) 同心结缕带，连理织成衣. —By Luo Binwang (骆宾王)

We tie this ribbon into a concentric knot, and we turn our interlocking branches (of love)into our clothes. Translation mine.

(2) 在天愿作比翼鸟，在地愿为连理枝 —By Bai Juyi (白居易）

In heaven, I want to become a Biyi Bird (with you). On earth, I want to be (a mesh of) interlocking branches (with you). Translation mine.

The Biyi Bird is a mythological bird recorded in the purely fantastical geographical treatise, The Classics of the Mountain and Seas (《山海经》). The bird is born with only one eye and one wing on one side. To fly, it needs a partner with the other eye and wing of the other side—and the two will fly together as a complement. [7]

It's very lovey-dovey and romantic and shit.

...Damn, Yuta is really all about love and connection, isn't he?

----

Wow, I didn't work on my actual job at all. Because I deadass spend hours just on this. Seriously?

But then again, there has been a precedence to me breaking my lackadaisical attitude toward writing JJK-related things—and that is when it concerns my favorite character. You don't need to click on the link to know who that other one is; it was Gojo Satoru.

Yuta, bless his rizz, deserves all of my time. If he dies (NO FUCKING WAY, GEGE!!!), then at least I have made something of worth about him.

Thank you for reading my ramble!

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

Citations:

"Chinese knotting" from Wikipedia

"中国结的历史来历和寓意" ("The history and meaning of the Chinese knotting") from 妍妍旅行记 on Sohu.com (in Chinese)

"Chinese Knots, Winding the Best Wishes with Cords" by Beijing Tourism

"双钱结寓意和象征，双钱结编法" ("The meaning and symbolism of the Double Coin Knot; How to Make a Double Coin Knot") on 结艺网 www.zhongguojie.org (in Chinese)

双色绳的编法有哪些？("Whast are the ways to make knots using two different colors?") on Zhihu (in Chinese)

"19 Popular Types of Chinese Knots and Their Meanings" on AnyofChina

"比翼鸟" from Wikipedia (in Chinese; English page not created)

There are also other links embedded in the ramble; these are references for that one specific instance and so do not warrant their inclusion under this section.

[fidelio-black]

In a wolfstarbuck(tail) omegaverse the one that make sense as the alpha is James, not Remus.

That's the dynamic of the group, they all gravitate towards James, and Remus and Peter want/need his protection (in different ways)

Sirius is different because he simultaneously sees James as an equal, he's the only one who tells him to behave; but he gravitates towards him.

If we are strict to their characterisations, Remus and Peter are probably betas.

James is an alpha. No other way, and Sirius is either an alpha or a very dominant sigma; No way either of those are betas.

There's nothing average in those two. While Remus whole personality is "be as average as possible to hide your furry little secret"

Dude would hate being anything but a beta, because it would mean having a lot of attention put on him. But specially would hate being an alpha because that would mean loosing James' protection (that he very much needs, even if he's not as obvious as Peter about it).

So, if beta is not an option, omega fits Remus better.

[hypnothesis-au]

Part 6 >Part 7 Part 8