#the phrase ‘short end of the stick’ does not even begin to do her justice

[evilmilfsonline]

silna day

[roseraintears]

headcannons about each individual member kf the seven as dark?

So I decided to split this answer into seven seperate posts because otherwise it would be too long (I'm having to much fun wit this XD)

I'll post the first one here <3

Ok, here we go <3, Hazel: People expected her to change after Franks death She had lost her boyfriend at fourteen no one expected that to be easy So none said anything when she kneeled over his grave for five whole days and nights Reyna simply brought her food and hot chocolate and mourned with her But if they all could have had a look into Hazel's mind they could have seen the slow death of the sweet kind girl she used to be Thoughts of hate begin to burn inside her She asks herself why Juno who saved Franks stick from burning up as a baby refused to do it a second time. The question makes her storm up to Olympus, her brown eyes hard with anger Her friends are with her, Of course, they want to protect each other now that one of them has fallen Juno awaits them in her usual glory, tall with a cloak around her shoulder and .. jewellery precious metals decorating her arms and neck "Why didn't? Do you save him? Was he just a weapon you did not need anymore?!, hazel shouts out her suspicion and now people, gods and demigods alike begin to worry The queen of Olympus remains silent She sees the hatred in hazels eyes and regrets not answering her grandsons screams for help when he burned in the flames Her silence is Hazel's answer and in her growing rage the necklace on Juno's neck starts chocking the goddess Hazel does not feel remorse, only satisfaction as she hears Junos choking It is Percy's hand on her shoulder that snaps her out and Juno's necklace flys into her open hand "You will never use a demigod like that again I will make sure of that. She says and then with one last glare leaves Things are not the same when shes back at camp Jupiter Everything and everyone annoys her, reminds her of what she has lost They are around her all the time like, Leo who reminds her of Sammy, Jason who made Frank Praetor, Percy who loved Frank like a brother Whenever they talk about Frank she feels the desire to yell at them One time when Jason tries to comfort her once again she snaps "You don't have to do this just because you made Frank Praetor and you feel guilty.", Hazel tells him a bit too harshly and Jason leaves her She feels guilty so she does her best to act as grateful as possible from now on The days are very hard for her That is why she loves the night She hasn't forgotten the power rush she got on Olympus and that is why keeps practising She steals weapons from the night patrols She makes the tunnels under the field of Mars change so that they all lead to dead ends When some of the new Rome's war veterans talk about having seen lost loved ones at night Hazel pretends to not listen She just thanks Jason in her thoughts for telling her so much about the ones that fell in the titan war Hazel disappears two weeks after Frank's death The remaining five of the seven are devastated They immediately go searching for her but even after five months there is no sign of her Other demigods start whispering Even Thalia who visits Reyna often is part of those whispers She doesn't know hazel and Frank well and yet what she has heard reminds her so much of the story of a friend she had once lost He had been left alone with his fate with his insane mother just like Hazel Thalia fears that now that Hazel has lost a loved one she will seek revenge just like Luke once did. Nico and Percy are Hazel's greatest defenders They deny every rumour and says that Hazel just needs time to calm down it's the only thing that keeps them from drowning in their guilt Hazell has gone to her old home in Alaska Arion took her there It hurts to be back but here she is saved from the gods who used her and her loved ones She's so sick of being their pawn The years pass and all alone in this cold country Hazel's heart turns to ice A few old men yell insult her with racist phrases She controls the metal ankers on their ships to impale them She hears screams from her neighbour's house at night and so she breaks the metal lock to get in The man who is beating his wife only has a second to look at her before her senses reach metal and they find it......in his

blood She concentrates hand stretched out and the man chokes to death She leaves without a word There is no remorse in her, if the gods let her sweet gentle boyfriend die why isn't she allowed to kill a few bad peopöe One day she decides to return as thoughts about her past cloud her mind Someone has to show the gods that they can't treat their children like this She returns after ten years but does not show herself to her friends Maybe because she worries that they notice how much she has changed Instead, she decides to try to control the labyrinth just like Pasiphae once did The mist helps her to create new tunnels that lead wherever she wants them to go One day they lead to new Rome She just wants to look at how everyone is doing but when she sneaks near the city hidden in her magic she sees something that makes her furious Her friends have moved on She sees them celebrating with other Romans and greeks They celebrate Gea‘s defeat like it wasn‘t just a terrible unnecessary war they had to suffer through She hates that they enjoy their demigod lives They should have told the gods that they want to live normally away from both camps that endanger their lives Unfortunately, that makes her think of Frank and how he has ripped away from his life, his home country just to serve the gods Hazel feels her rage burning like an active Volcano close to erupting She walks up the hill over new Rome and looks down at the glorious city She could bury it without even trying For a moment she thinks about the lives that will cost but then again what else could make the gods notice their flaws She reaches for all the metals buried under the city She hesitates for a moment but then she thinks about Frank, his sweet smile and with a scream the earth starts shaking Buildings and temples collapse People get swallowed by big cracks in the earth There are screams horns are blowing Mist is rising and People hear voices whisper that this is god's fault They have to be punished for their mistakes It‘s like a storm of fog being thickest at the hilltop Hazel‘s old friends are filled with dread as they have seen those powers before Leo decides to fly directly into the mist together with Piper and Jason Hazel sees them approaching and a soft smile appears on her lips The mist lightens All demigods gasp Leo yells in despair He already blames himself for Franks death and now he sees that Hazel the girl he once loved has gone mad Her once curly short hair now long falls around her shoulders Her once brown eyes glow sickly golden as if the riches of the earth have taken control over her It drives him insane and so he rips out a hammer from his tool belt and attempts to attack her Hazel feels deeply hurt by this and so she moves her hands Leo is thrown of Festus's toolbelt made of metal turning out to be his curse Hazel smashes him into the ground a hundred feet under him Festus claws impale Jason and Piper before they have time to react Hazel feels a sting in her heart but she oppresses it The gods and their quest would have killed them anyway Percy and Annabeth are still in the falling city trying to get as many people out of there as possible They both try to ignore the corpses falling from the sky Percy‘s mind is still refusing that the girl he sees as a sister would do this He knows that she has to be stopped but how is he supposed to do that? He still loves her like a sister despite the lives she is taking Her real brother steps up instead Hazel can feel his presence behind her It makes her lose focus The citizens of New Rome cry in relief when the metals stop resurfacing Their city is in ruins but at least it has stopped Before Hazel can react skeleton warriors jump out of the earth restrain her by grabbing her arms She is furious about Nicos interference and struggles to escape „Hazel please it‘s not worth it just surrender and we‘ll talk about this.“, Nico says while he walks up in front of her. Hazel‘s heart breaks at the tortured look in his eyes and she realizes that she is the reason for it She disappeared She came back and murdered

hundreds She did it for Frank but she suddenly asks herself if Frank would have ever wanted to get justice in this way Would he wanted her to become hateful and obsessed with revenge just for him? As she looks into Nico‘s eyes regret strikes her „I……..I‘m sorry.“, She whispers with tears in her eyes. Nico smiles sadly happy that his little sister came to her senses He stretches out his hand to gently touch her cheek Thunder rumbles and suddenly a lightning bold explodes the hilltop right where the children of the underworld Jupiter feels nothing as he watches Percy, Reyna and Annabeth falling to their knees, sobbing and holding each other Hazel Levesque is just another demigod for him, a girl that could not get over her boyfriend Percy buries Hazel next to Frank all by himself New Rome is rebuilt with the help of the greeks The time goes by and slowly Frank and Hazel‘s names are forgotten Juno would love if they had never existed in the first place Whenever demigods speak of them they do it with anger and the queen of Olympus fears that one day a rebellion will start It's not often that their names are talked about but when they are people always refer to them as „Hazel Levesque and Frank Zhang. The couple that died in Storm and fire

[fuwafuwamedb]

A Practice of Respect Pt 17 (Hakuno, Gilgamesh)

Previously in our adventure: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,��12, 13, 14, 15, 16

_____

They dragged her further in.

She could feel the dirt brushing against her skin, cutting into her person. She could feel the memories from before, the rush of fear running rampant beneath her attempt to be brave. The others that had gone after her had been this way. They had taken one look at her and given chase, making her flee as fast as she could.

These people wouldn’t even give her that.

“The king spoils us,” one of the men murmured.

“Let’s make her beg first.”

She stopped listening. She didn’t want to know what they had planned. Her body was being dragged and the pain was worsening. She needed to counterattack.

They stopped her in the center of the temple. The priests were lying behind a pew.

…They didn’t seem to be breathing.

“You know,” one of the men growled to her. “Utu is the god of justice as well as the sun. He made it so that fairness wouldn’t apply. We have been given the short end of everything. Your king does not care. Why would he?”

They would see the stick if she used it now. She needed this man closer. Just a little bit closer. Maybe if they let her do this one at a time.

As if sensing her indecision, she felt something tug at the belt of her robes. The belt was coming loose, faltering around her waist. They were moving in, coming slowly closer. One of them was grabbing at her hair, the mess of brown hair becoming a source of discomfort.

The movement was instant.

She slammed the stick into one of the man’s eyes who was holding her. Her body fell forward, agony piercing through the air as the man screamed to high heaven. She could see the others splitting, some rushing her, some running to the man. She let herself fall to one of the priests, feeling them for something and grasping an object as the men grabbed her.

A writing stick.

She stabbed the next man, hitting his wrist. Her body was thrown, unfortunately into the middle of the room. The others were rushing, slamming their feet into her. She could hear two people crying out.

Stopping wasn’t an option.

Her arms wrapped around one of the men’s feet, dragging him forward. Her robes fell open, but that was someone else’s problem for having to look at it. She let the man fall forward and slam into another one of the men. She slipped under his legs to avoid another attack and rushed for the door.

Outside, the air hurt her lungs. It might have been also the fact that her body felt like it was beaten and wounded. She didn’t pause to look or think. She made a break for the wagon and around to the crops. The fields were high and the plants would give her cover. She let her robes billow until she hit the rows of plants.

She held them tight to her body as she made her way into the depths of the fields.

“FIND HER!”

There were footsteps running after her. She could feel her heart pounding as she kept running and running.

Everything was beginning to burn inside her.

Humans and gods; they were all the same. Always causing her pain, always going after her or thinking of her as nothing more than Aya’s shadow.

She was Hakuno.

Grabbing one of the rocks from near her feet, she turned as one of the men called out. She slammed the jagged stone into the man’s face and listened to the sound, closing her eyes to spare herself the sight. The body fell and she kept on running.

Further now, she could hear the others. They were closing in.

Her heart was racing. She didn’t want to be found. She wanted to hide.

Turn left and run without stopping, a voice whispered into her ear.

She didn’t even hesitate.

Turning to her left, she booked it. As hard and as fast as she could run, without knocking anything out of her way so that she wasn’t beaten by the tall plants, she ran for it. Every part of her body pleaded for her to stop, but she didn’t dare slow for a second. The edge of the fields came into view. She leaped out from the depths and-

A pair of arms wrapped around her. The sound of a thousand gates or doors opening could be heard a second before heavy metal fell behind her. The screams were loud, filled with a strange note in their voices that made it feel like they hadn’t known it was coming.

“Look for survivors.”

Gilgamesh’s voice filled her ears.

Looking up, she could see the gold hair, the red eyes, the stern expression that said that he wasn’t in the mood for what was going on. He wore it during some of his less pleasant audience chamber visits.

The moment he glanced to her, Hakuno leaned her head against him and kissed the only part of him in reach.

He leaned in to speak and she opted for his lips next.

“Had I known their heretic ways…” he began quietly.

“I love you.”

The man stared at her.

She had heard the phrase before, but she felt it. It was a strange and pleasant warmth. It had been the feeling that had run through her, giving her the strength to go after all of those men. It was why she had run out into the fields.

There were so many men. It would have not ended well.

A small part of her had known that Gilgamesh would come. He would come and he would stop every problem. He’d done it before, finding her in that strange place where she’d been hiding. He’d waited her fear out, taken her to his home.

When the gods said she would become stone once more, it was Gilgamesh who said no.

He would never allow anything to truly take her from him.

“I love you,” she told him again, holding him tightly.

Love was the feeling of knowing there was a safe place in all the world, a place where no man or god or anything could truly hurt you. It was a feeling and a comfort to all the pain and suffering, where a mind could find peace and a body could find a strength to do what would otherwise be impossible.

The king’s outer robe was wrapped around her, the man leaning her against him as the bodies began to be dragged out. She didn’t bother to look, didn’t bother to care.

She was safe and sound.

Gilgamesh was here.

[thesinglesjukebox]

LADY GAGA WITH ARIANA GRANDE - RAIN ON ME

[7.21]

A collaboration of two raining pop stars...

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: When was the last time you felt queer joy? a friend recently messaged me. It's not the only message that I've gotten like it, coming from someone reflecting on how hard it is to find love in our queer identities when the spaces and support networks we've spent our adult lives creating are no longer easily accessible. Lockdown is hard for everyone, but queer people have it especially rough. I have friends who chose to stay alone rather than return to uncomfortable family situations; friends who chose to find shelter in other countries rather than go home; friends in nominally progressive, loving environments who still feel constantly micro-aggressed against. Due to COVID, I've been forced to live with my parents for four months now, during which time we've managed to avoid a huge confrontation about my sexuality--but I still feel so lonely and unseen. "Rain on Me," however, sees me. This song is big and dumb and flawed, and probably designed as fan-service, but it is so, so gay. The more-is-more sound, the delightful camp aesthetic of the promos, the millions of memes, the outrageous Chromatica merchandise are all as extra as I wish I could be. For God's sake, at one point, Ariana literally sings the words, "Gotta live my truth, not keep it bottled in." Two of the biggest gay icons in the world coming together to sing about their traumas in the pouring rain would have been cathartic pop under any circumstances, but under these, it feels like nothing short of triumphant, torrential queer joy. [9]

Tobi Tella: For the Gay Event of 2020, that beat drop is cribbed right from 2013. The two work well together, and the result is hard not to like, but I'm also finding it hard to love. [6]

Will Adams: "Stupid Love" worked as a return to form for the maximalist Gaga of yester-decade. "Rain On Me" works even better for the sweet surprise at how much energy she injects into filter house, a genre whose recent re-emergence has often felt lifeless. The growl she adds to the "RAIN on me" that punctuates the instrumental break does plenty on its own. The presence of Grande and the alternate chorus at the very end implies that there could have been more but what was left on the cutting room floor doesn't really matter when the final 3-minute product is this electrifying. [8]

Joshua Lu: At times "Rain on Me" feels like two separate dance tracks spliced together: one with Lady Gaga's hefty vocals serving as the backbone for a groovy instrumental, and another with Ariana Grande's lithe voice adroitly dancing on the pounding synths. Either can succeed on its own, but when they mix, they hamper one another. It's most evident on the bridge, where Ariana's breathy delivery clashes with Gaga's campy deep voice, which shouldn't be used there regardless -- hearing it for an entire section makes it less powerful when it pops up as the pre-chorus. [5]

Edward Okulicz: This Lady Gaga single is okay to pretty good, but the chorus is basically just "Rain Over Me" by Pitbull. [6]

Scott Mildenhall: Not everything has to be "Telephone," but Gaga's statements about "Rain on Me"'s personal significance hit home how run-of-the-mill the song feels compared with something so conceptually walloping. The deep personal connection Gaga felt with Grande is sadly inaudible, and the boldest it all gets is with her spoken delivery of the title, an appreciably camp touch in a song that is content and perhaps correct to colour within the lines, however brightly. [7]

Katherine St Asaph: Did not expect my first thought upon hearing a Gaga song to be Shut Up Stella. This shrinks a bit after hearing Chromatica, which has more massive tracks. [6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Gaga and Ari are pop music's two greatest theater kids. Every note, every line on "Rain on Me" is perfectly calibrated to demonstrate this, to make clear their skill at acting out the role of the pop star. The musical frame of the song is sturdy enough (it's not "Fade" or "Electricity" in terms of '90s house pastiche, but it grooves deeply enough to not seem lightweight), but "Rain on Me" is driven by their performances. It's most obvious on the song's bridge, where the combo of Gaga's imperial declarations and Ari's upper register meld together in kitschy glory. "Rain On Me" isn't a perfect song-- it's a bit underwritten, and the water metaphors don't fully come together-- but it's a near-perfect performance. [8]

Ryo Miyauchi: "I'd rather be dry, but at least I'm alive." It's a hook that's surely, and most likely unintentionally, informed by post-COVID life, but it also reminds me of the apocalyptic pop that flourished about a decade ago when dubstep was in full swing. That subgenre's structure still lives on at a elemental level, with the chorus devoid of lyrics, just now swapped for a chic, Justice-style electro-house. While any hint of doom might be more the beckoning of the current time, Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande's eager sense of abandon taps into now as much as it does to a recent past, and I hope it will speak to us in a similar way in the future when our world seems to be collapsing again in whatever context. [7]

Jessica Doyle: The more I listen to this the less it hangs together. Is the rain heartbreak or guilt? Is Lady Gaga the victim of it or using it for her own destructive ends? (Rain can be healing; tsunamis never are.) Why does she throw that cold, commanding "Rain. On. Me." refrain into a song that's supposed to be about vulnerable acceptance? And why isn't it "I'd rather be drunk, but at least I'm alive"? (Darn it.) I'll cede some power to the image of Gaga and Ariana Grande, both wounded and relatably self-aggrandizing, stomp-dancing around together in the rain, but stripped of pop-gossip context the song won't stick around. [5]

Leah Isobel: Lady Gaga is pop Jenny Holzer. She doesn't write lyrics, she writes slogans. I'D RATHER BE DRY, BUT AT LEAST I'M ALIVE isn't quite on the level of I WANT YOUR WHISKEY MOUTH ALL OVER MY BLONDE SOUTH, but the contrast between her severe consonants and Ariana's airy open vowels provides enough scaffolding that it works anyway -- and it doesn't hurt that the bass hurtles around that line like a Ferrari. If Gaga's oeuvre is a monument to the power of sheer determination, "Rain on Me" is what happens when she wills her sadness into release, her trauma into mere prelude; it's American pop myth-making at its purest. In that sense, it's an old-fashioned kind of triumph. [8]

Oliver Maier: Lady Gaga is too much of an auteur to really relinquish control. This is why her me/us-against-the-world cowboy songs suck, because she is at her best when she rules the reality that the music inhabits. On the strongest of her imperial-era singles, desperation and desire are either crystallised into museum exhibits or performed with such dark melodrama that they feel more like elaborate theatre for which she plays both director and lead role. "Rain On Me" is about giving in and letting herself cry, but the drop hinges critically on the spoken command that opens the floodgates; it's catharsis issued with total precision. Ariana, the reigning pop queen of emotional honesty, is at home on her confessional verse and then, having run out of stuff to do, sticks to ornamentation (it's funny that she gets a "with" credit for what is very much a "feat."). There are smart decisions -- the compact runtime, the way that the aqueous filtering drives the imagery home -- and then there's the simple, house-beats-go-brrrrr monkey brain joy of dance music that sounds this sure of itself; what it's doing, where it's going, how hard it slaps. [8]

Alex Clifton: Was this designed to get me through my next run? Through the next time Louisville is pelted by rain for days at a time? Through the pandemic? I'm not sure, but I've sold my soul to Gaga and Ariana for the above reasons and am more than happy with the results. [8]

Jackie Powell: I didn't really understand how this collaboration was going to work until I remembered the similarities that Grande and Gaga share. Besides the obvious that both are Italian, both have witnessed trauma in real-time and in front of the world. "Rain On Me" is a conversation that manifests in the music itself but also in all of its accompanying media, such as promotion its Robert Rodriguez-directed video. The moment when Lady Gaga pulls the knife out of her leg is purposeful Right as Gaga forcefully hauls the knife out of her thigh, Grande begins her verse. We can't move through pain and trauma alone; that invitation into conversation and togetherness is part of the healing. The melody of "Rain on Me," which I'm assuming was written mostly by Grammy-winning Nija, was orchestrated as an internal battle-cry that is designed to be spouted out. Gaga begins singing as we expect her to, with a deep darker belt in her sweet spot. But once we hit the pre-chorus goin into the chorus, she switches into bright head voice, which is where we expect Grande to be. Ari then sings deep in her chest, around the pre-chorus and into the chorus. There's a pattern. During the bridge, they switch again, and then again in the outro. As to what's going on with Gaga and her vocal fry in that bridge and the last phrase of the chorus, some say it's just classic Gaga, The Fame Monster Gaga. While that's correct, she uses it as a tool with multiple functions. It serves as a "c'mon let's go to #Chromatica" statement, but it's also a transition that facilitates the journey. It sets up the glorious bassline that not only explodes into the ears, but was directly interpolated from Gwen McCrae's "All This Love That I'm Giving." But back to the pre-choruses: They give the listener the track's thesis and its heart. In the first pre-chorus when Gaga belts that she's ready for the rain, she's not fighting it anymore. All of that emotion is happening. The second pre-chorus is the reformation of the feeling. It's not comfortable, but we need to just let it out, let it fall, and let it be felt. "I'm ready. Rain on me." [10]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[thirstzone]

On The Interpretation Of Dante

Reflecting on how I write these characters and why helps me organize my thoughts. Plus, should I run into some trouble trying to write them, writing this can give me a point of reference.

Of course, everyone is free to write these characters as they wish! This is simply how I personally choose to interpret and write the characters!

So let’s ramble on about the legendary devil hunter Dante for entirely too long.

I think it’s important to trace where Dante’s been in his life. I’ve played every main Devil May Cry game (including the reboot), I’ve consumed as much of the other media as I could (the abandoned DMC3 manga, the first and second DMC novel, the anime, and Before The Nightmare), and it’s as though I’ve seen Dante grow and change with his maturity.

Let’s go back to the beginning. At age 8, demons invaded his home and killed his mother and (to his knowledge) his brother. This is the event that started him on his path to becoming a devil hunter, of course. An unspecified number of years later (people speculate 10, and I’ve no reason to debate this), he encounters Vergil again, although in a less than fortunate way. One of the demonic seals begs Dante to return its name that Sparda stripped away from it years ago. And that’s when Vergil re-enters Dante’s life, giving the seal the power to name itself “in Sparda’s stead.”

This was when Dante realized what his brother had become.

Besides that, another bit of information the manga gives us about Dante’s feelings towards demons is it seems to imply that he’s full of self-loathing due to the demonic blood running through his veins. In fact, it even goes far as to mention he might be downright suicidal. For those last 10 years, he despised the demons so much that he hated himself for having anything in common with them, even if it was nothing more than having demon blood in his veins.

A year after the manga is when the actual game DMC3 takes place. Dante is flippant, short-tempered, impulsive, and incredibly reckless. He’s young, perhaps about 19. A teenager. The way he acts is typical of his age, if not even a bit younger. Evidence of his hatred for his demon blood is evident when he responds to Vergil’s question about why he doesn’t seek to gain the power of their father. “Father? I don’t have a father.” He outright denies his heritage. 

Dante's struggled with the nature of who (or in this case, what) he is for so long. Lady helps him come to terms with this as he helps her come to terms with it as well. Most of the game she’s telling herself (and him, at some point) that he’s a demon, but by the end of the game, after Dante witnesses Vergil’s (presumably fatal) fall into the underworld, Lady sees that he’s not just a demon as he cries over Vergil. Dante responds that he’s not crying and that “Devils never cry.” But Lady responds that “even a devil may cry when he loses a loved one.” This helped Dante understand that he, too, isn’t just a demon. He learns to accept that while he’s half-demon, that doesn’t make him any less human.

Now that I’ve discussed Dante’s self-loathing and eventual acceptance of his demonic heritage, let’s discuss his personality. Dante’s personality is different depending on which point in the series he’s at, which makes writing for him a little difficult unless I can maintain those distinctions.

So I’ve already talked about DMC3 Dante, when he’s an impulsive, reckless, short-tempered teenager. He’s not incredibly smart, either, preferring to swing Rebellion first, think later. He’s incredibly stubborn (a trait that does sort of stick with him) and foolhardy. He’s also pretty self-aware about his arrogance and penchant for getting on others’ nerves, as he tells Jester, “I can’t stand anyone with a bigger mouth than mine.” His temper seems to be the trait at the forefront of his personality in this installment, however.

Let’s skip ahead to the first Devil May Cry game, the only one where Dante has a confirmed age. He’s 28 years old in this installment, and his growth since DMC3 shows. He seems much less angry and a lot more... I guess confident would be the word I would use to describe him. DMC1 Dante will still mouth off to any demon he faces, but it’s done less to irritate his opponent and more like he has a very high sense of self-efficacy; that is, he’s certain that he can win. He’s strong and he knows it, while also not going out of his way to display his strength. He seems to be honorable, as well. After the third fight with Griffon, Griffon is gravely wounded, but insists that he will not stop trying to defeat Dante. Dante tells him that he can’t fight with that wound, almost as though he wouldn’t fight Griffon unless Griffon could reasonably fight back.

That brings us to how he responds to Mundus and Trish. Dante is verbally enraged by Mundus’s treatment of Griffon, unable to accept that Mundus could kill Griffon, one of his own kind. That solidified his determination to defeat Mundus while at the same time revealing that Dante has a strong sense of justice. Later on, when Trish betrays Dante, he’s angry, and he’s hurt, but he lets her go. Yes, he cites the reason as being that she looks like his mother, and he claims that she has no soul, but he lets her go. He’s been hurt by Trish, but this doesn’t stop him mourning her death when she sacrifices herself to save him. He even works at Devil May Cry with her after realizing that she does indeed have a soul, making her, like him, more than just a demon.

I think overall, DMC1 Dante’s personality is focused more on his confidence, compassion, and justice.

I could discuss DMC2 Dante, but the reality of that is that I’ve played that game maybe twice, and that was so long ago that I don’t remember much about it at all. I remember Dante was much more stoic, but he maintained his sense of selflessness while appearing a bit aloof about it. I can’t talk about DMC2 Dante at length outside of “it was fun to make him cartwheel everywhere, also he had a cool coat.”

Ah, and this brings us to Dante as he appears in DMC4. My absolute favorite iteration of Dante. His personality in this one is sort of closer to his personality in 5, if not a little more carefree and over-the-top. This is the man who had a Shakespearean back-and-forth with an enemy in an opera house, the man who purposely irritated Nero probably because he found it amusing, the man who dropped in from the glass ceiling of a cathedral while flaring his coat out before assassinating the leader of a demonic cult in the middle of a church service.

He keeps the confidence of his personality in 1, but it mixes with the taunting nature that was closer to how he was in 3. He taunts his opponents intending to get under their skin. He knows how to hit their buttons, and he’ll absolutely do it. Of course, he knows that he can back up this attitude with results.

In Devil May Cry 4, he’s sassy, flamboyant, and absolutely at his most stylish.

Which brings us to Devil May Cry 5. I regret to say that while I can usually point out what’s at the forefront of his personality in each game, I can’t do so with Dante as he appears in 5. The way he interacts with the other characters is usually how I draw conclusions on his personality and a few defining features of it, but I can’t quite do that with this game. He’s similar to how he acts in Devil May Cry 4 if you mellowed him out, I suppose. It’s strange to me that he seems more inclined to act alone, a little irritated when Morrison implies that he should enlist the help of Trish and Lady. He’s adamant that V should hang back instead of help, regardless of the fact that V is the one who gave him the job in the first place and would reasonably know more about what’s going on, even if Dante didn’t know that V was part of Vergil (and I do legitimately believe that Dante had no idea until moments before V merged with Urizen; Trish never told him, and V never told him, and those two were the only ones who knew.) He insists that Nero stay out of it. He operates mostly alone the entire game, really. I think it’s because this job was more personal to him and because of his pride, he wanted to be the one to handle it.

When all’s said and done, Dante has a definite confidence about him, to the point that he’s rather smug, although it’s because he knows he can back up his words with action. I can conclude this mostly serious post by saying that I’ve never seen a character that embodied the phrase “Big Dick Energy” as much as Dante does.

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Stalkers and Masks

Septics Inverted

A JSE Fanfic

These are two moments that I really wanted to address, but I felt both were too short for their own story. So I took one and made it a framing device for the other. One’s about Stacy and what she’s going through, and the other is about Marvin and one of his problems. Ehhh, probably not my best work but I’ve done these two plot points all the justice I can.

Read the intro story: Part One | Part Two

Various other AU-related stuff found here

Taglist: @evyptids​ @awkward-bullshit​ @watermelonsinmyattic​ @asunachinadoll @a-humble-narcissus @metautske​ @odysseus-is-best-boi​ @acuriousquail @beerecordings

Stacy liked to think that her computer was secure. She kept up-to-date on her antivirus software, didn’t give trust anything that asked for her security information, and kept her passwords on a sheet of paper in her nightstand drawer instead of anywhere digitally that could be hacked. However, she quickly learned that all these precautions were for naught when it came to the living glitch who decided he wanted to check on her every ten hours or so. She’d be browsing the Internet and suddenly the webpage would freak out. That didn’t mean she was being hacked (actually, technically she was) it just meant Anti decided to pop in.

Honestly, she was starting to warm up to him. Maybe that was because he hadn’t showed up in person for the last week so she didn’t have to deal with his personality. Occasionally she’d get an email or text from a blocked user, asking her how life was, if she was safe. And, well, life was better. She’d gotten a new job at a department store with better pay. The hours were good too, now she had time to spend with her kids and also get enough sleep. Things in the city seemed to have calmed down, in that there was less death and disappearance on the news.

But...something was off. There were times when she was out and about, driving the kids to places or running errands on her own, when she felt like someone was watching her. When she looked around, she usually didn’t see anyone. But there were times when she thought she saw...him. To the point where it was starting to freak her out.

One night, after putting the kids to bed, she sat down at her computer and typed a simple phrase into Google: “how to tell if someone is stalking me.” Immediately, the page froze. She hit enter several times, trying to search, but a strange, rapid staticky beeping just came out from her speakers. And it was that moment when she realized it wasn’t just something wrong with her Internet.

A fizzing of pixels later, Anti was sitting on her desk, legs dangling off the side. “What are you, seven?” she asked before her brain could catch up with her mouth.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Anti said. “So what’s up with that search?”

“Are you spying on me whenever I use Google?”

“No, I just installed a program to let me know when certain words were searched. Such as ‘stalk’ or ‘stalking.’” His eye narrowed. “So? What’s the deal? Is it him?”

“I’m...not sure,” Stacy said slowly. “Sometimes I think I see him, other times I just get a...a vague sort of sense that...someone’s watching me. It’s probably nothing, I’m probably just being stupid, but...better safe than sorry, y’know?”

“Definitely, especially considering they could be magically tracking you.”

Stacy gaped at him and his nonchalant statement. “Excuse me?”

“Come on, you were there that night at the diner. You saw that magic was real. Didn’t you think something like that was possible?”

“No, I didn’t.” Stacy leaned back in her swivel chair. “I guess it never occurred to me that that was a-a possibility. I didn’t know the rules for this sort of thing. Sorry, I should have thought—I should have known.”

Anti stared at her, then glitched off the desk and into a standing position. “No, you really shouldn’t have, because nobody told you. It’s not your fault, so don’t assume it is. I could possibly give you a brief overview, let you know what you’re in danger of.”

“Oh! Th-thank you!” Stacy hadn’t realized she was apologizing for things that weren’t her fault. Force of habit, she assumed. She looked at the computer screen, where her question still lingered, unsearched, in the search bar. “Do you think...I-I mean, I know Chase doesn’t have any magic, unless he does and I didn’t know, so...are they teaming up?”

Anti considered this. “Probably. Your ex and the magician aren’t on the best terms, but they’re civil. You’d be in more danger of having the doctor or the vigilante stalking you for him, those guys are closer.”

For some reason, that simple statement made dread pool in her stomach. “H-how many of them are there again?”

“Five.”

“And...and they could all help Ch—help him follow me?”

“Mmm, probably.”

“Oh my god. Oh my god.” Stacy sat on her hands to keep them from shaking. She’d never done anything in her life to warrant so many enemies. And, if she remembered correctly, these guys were responsible for most of the current chaos and terror in the city. She worked hard to take deep, controlled breaths. “Do you...do you have any, uh, um, any info on these guys I could see? You’re all computery, do you have files on them or something?”

“I do. But you don’t want the full files, you’ll lose sleep. I can maybe give you some edited versions...” Anti’s head tilted to one side. He stared intently at her computer screen. She watched as her browser closed and her file explorer opened. By itself, the computer navigated to the downloads folder, then five new folders appeared, each one labeled with a name, followed by (edit).

“Huh...that’s handy.” Stacy scooted her chair closer to the desk, grabbing the mouse. She stared at the folder with his name on it for a while, but she couldn’t bring herself to click on it. Instead, she clicked on the next one down, opening up the folder to reveal various .txt files.

“There used to be photos and videos in here,” Anti said, peering over her shoulder.

“Why’d you remove them?”

“How squeamish are you?”

“I mean...my daughter broke her arm once. It was all bent but I could look at it.”

“I probably made a good call then.” Anti pointed at one of the files, and it opened up. “Brief overview: guy’s a doctor. Not really, ‘cause he got booted from medical school for maltreatment. Didn’t stop him from faking graduation, getting a job at a hospital, and then stealing the patients who wouldn’t be missed.”

“This sounds like the backstory of a horror movie villain,” Stacy laughed nervously.

Anti didn’t laugh. “I’m sure the patients thought they were stuck in a horror movie.” He gave Stacy a dead-eye stare until her smile faded. Then he turned back to the screen. “Police in his home country found out. He ran, ending up here. Started a nice little black-market clinic and kept up his hobby.”

“You know I think I’ll read this one later, when it’s lighter outside.” Stacy hurried to click out of the folder. She opened up the next one instead. This one had videos as well as text files. “...should I be worried about these?” she asked, circling one of the videos with the mouse.

“Nothing explicit, just violence like you’d see in a movie. Criminals get the shit beat out of them. The works.”

“Wait...this is for that vigilante, isn’t it? The one on the news?” Stacy looked at the folder name. “That’s his real—”

“Yep. So if you see a guy who looks like this—” He opened one of the videos, fast forwarding until he got to a good image of the vigilante’s face. “—and he introduces himself to you as that, you better run. Actually, don’t, he’s probably faster than you. Distract him until you can sneak away.”

“He can’t be that bad, can he?” Stacy asked, skeptical. “I mean...getting rid of the criminals in the city? It’s like a real-life superhero.”

“Well, superheroes don’t beat confessions out of mob members and then murder them. He’s probably the safest to have a conversation with, though. Assuming you haven’t done anything illegal.”

“O-kay...then...” Stacy was starting to realize just how deep this trouble she was in really was. She could feel the beginnings of panic edging in on her, but she pushed it away. She’d let herself freak out later. “Wh-what about that magician guy? I think you called him Marvin in the diner? Can he really...magically track me?”

“Probably.” Anti closed the vigilante’s folder and opened up the magician’s. There were a lot of images in this one, what looked like pictures of pages from books. “I’ve been trying to keep track of the spells he knows, but it can be difficult. There’s a good chance he knows a tracking spell, but he probably wouldn’t use it unless someone, like your ex, asked him to.”

“...do I want to know why?”

“Eh, he doesn’t really care for spells like that. If they can’t produce effects he can see, he won’t use them unless necessary. He’s a flashy bitch like that. Has a style and sticks to it. Like that cape, which he only takes off maybe one day per week, and that mask, which I actually haven’t seen him take off yet.”

“Really? Never? Not even to sleep or take a shower or anything?”

“Sleeps with it on. And I’m don’t know about that shower thing, I didn’t put a camera in their bathroom.”

Stacy briefly wondered if his knowledge about sleeping with the mask meant he’d put cameras in the bedrooms, but she pushed that out of her mind for now. “Why? Seems uncomfortable...”

Anti laughed. “Well, a long time ago, he tried a spell he wasn’t ready for, and it blew up in his face. I’m pretty sure he’s embarrassed about what it looks like underneath there...”

“Schneep! I know for a fact you’re in there!” Marvin banged on the door. When there was still no answer, he sighed, looking around the reception room of the clinic where he was standing. He didn’t like this place. It was that kind of almost-nice that looked like it was trying to fool you into thinking it was less shady than it actually was. The good doctor really needed to upgrade his decor.

Having enough of contemplating his dislike of this place, Marvin turned back to the door and started banging harder. “Hey doc! I’m not against melting your door down if you don’t come out in the next thirty seconds!”

The door flung open, and Marvin barely jumped out of the way in time to avoid getting a whack to the face. Schneep poked his head out. He was wearing his mask, which he proceeded to pull down in order to scowl at Marvin. “There is no need for such a commotion, my friend!” he scolded. “I was in one of the back rooms, I did not hear you for a while and then it took me a tick-tock to get here.”

“Whatever. Get a security camera wired up here, or a buzzer or something. I could’ve been a customer who just decided to take business elsewhere.”

Schneep barked out a laugh. “If people come here, it is not because they have options to take business to. But enough of this, what did you want?”

Marvin shifted on his feet. “I...need you to take a look at something.”

“Oh, is that all?” A wave of relief crossed Schneep’s face. He stepped back, opening the door wide enough for Marvin to pass through. “Come in, come in, I can see what it is back here.”

Marvin let Schneep lead him into the operating part of the clinic, but he refused to sit down on the table. “It seems not so serious, so if you would please wait a moment while I take care of this...” Schneep vanished through one of the metal doors leading deeper into the building, leaving Marvin to tap his feet impatiently. He didn’t like this. First of all, this place looked like it was thrown together, and also needed an upgrade. Second of all, he was already having doubts about this, he didn’t want them to have time to fester.

Schneep reemerged, tossing an empty syringe on a nearby tray. “There we are, we will not be disturbed now,” he said. “What is it you need help with?”

Marvin started fidgeting, pulling on his fingers. “Okay. So. I am—look, I’m trusting you with this. You can’t tell anyone, alright?”

“That is no problem.”

“I’m serious. I will literally put a fucking curse on you if I find out you told anyone.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve been working on one that can make it feel like pins are being shoved in your eyes whenever you look at something, and that something can be as vague as a specific color. Y’know, like the literal version of ‘cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.’”

“Now you are going overboard with this. I have no intention of telling anyone whatever it is this is about. This secret of yours is safe with me.”

Marvin exhaled slowly, and looked toward the ceiling. “Okay. Okay, good. Fuck. Here goes nothing.” Before he could change his mind, he reached up and undid the straps of his mask, then pulled it off. He slowly looked back towards the doctor.

Schneep’s eyes were wide. He stepped forward until he was uncomfortably close to Marvin. He raised his hand. “May I...?”

Marvin hesitated. “...fine,” he grumbled. “But take off your gloves, they’re still messy. And be careful.”

The doctor pulled off his gloves, then put his hands on either side of Marvin’s head, turning it from side to side so he could get a better look. “My god,” he muttered. “What happened to you?”

“That’s not your fucking business,” Marvin said through gritted teeth. “But they’ve been...itching for a while now, and I’m wondering if they’re infected or something.”

“I would be surprised if they were not. They look...angry.” Schneep’s eyebrows furrowed. “How old are they?”

“I think about...four years at this point?” Marvin started turning his mask over in his hands. It was hard to remember sometimes.

“Really? I would think only a couple months.”

“Doc, I’ve been living with you for two years and haven’t once taken off my mask. You didn’t think there was a reason for that?”

“Ah yes.” Tentatively, Schneep reached out and tapped Marvin in the middle of his forehead. “What is this?”

“Okay, that’s enough.” Marvin yanked his head back.

“Excuse me, I am concerned! That looks like bone!”

“It’s not bone, it’s just—making my first mask out of ceramic was a really bad idea, ‘cause even magically-enhanced pottery can still shatter.”

“Why do you have ceramic embedded in your face?!”

Marvin resisted the urge to touch the places where the shards had ended up lodging. He had them memorized by now, mostly because of the dead spot in his nerves there. Forehead, upper cheeks, one between his nose and left eye, one above his right. He could have dealt with the rest of the scars, if only the shards weren’t there. “Look, I was wearing my old mask at the time this happened, it broke, I ended up getting pieces of porcelain fucking stuck to my face, can we move on?!”

Schneep raised his hands in surrender, stepping back. “Okay, okay, fine!”

“Thank you.” Marvin began spinning his mask around his pointer finger, using one of the eyeholes. “Anyway, can you tell if they’re infected? And can you help if they are?”

Schneep bit his lip, eyes scanning the damage. “Well, I would have to know what caused them. They look a bit like burns, but in the pattern of knife slashes. Like hot glass.”

“What?”

“Bits of broken glass, heated up so they will burn, flung at your face. That’s what it looks like. There are also parts where I am reminded of Lichtenburg figures.”

“What?” Marvin repeated, exasperated.

“When things are struck by high voltage, patterns will appear. These are not quite the same as scars of lightning, they are...bigger. But I am reminded of them.”

Marvin sighed. “You know what? Let’s just work under the assumption that someone took a hot, electrified knife and repeatedly applied it to my face, that’s probably as accurate as you’re going to get. There might also be some lingering traces of magic in there.”

Schneep rolled his eyes. “Well, I cannot do anything about that, but if they are itching and irritating you, I have some salves that may help. They are in the other back room, the storage one, if you would kindly follow me.”

“Alright, alright, but I hope you find this stuff quickly. Chase is making me watch his ex for him, and I don’t feel like getting into a shouting match with him over not actually doing it.”

It was around midnight when Stacy decided to go to bed. She’d tried to read through the file Anti had given her on the magician, but had to stomp halfway through. Some of these spells...why would anyone want to use spells like that? Instead, she switched to reading the vigilante’s file, managing to finish it. Then she realized it was way too late, and she had to get up early to make breakfast for the kids, get ready for work, take the kids to school, and go to work herself. That was only four things, but that was too much.

She was walking down the hall to her room when there was a knock on the front door.

Fear jolted through her. Who could be knocking this late at night? Nobody good, probably. She stood shock-still in the hallway, waiting for something else. When nothing happened, she swallowed her nerves and crept toward the living room and the front door. Maybe it was nothing?

When she flipped the lights on, the front room looked exactly the same as it had earlier that day. Except for one thing: there was now a brown envelope sitting on the floor, in the perfect position to have been pushed through the mail slot. Stacy slowly stepped forward. She peered through the peephole on the door, seeing nothing on the other side. So she looked down at the envelope on the floor, then bent over and picked it up. She turned it over in her hands.

There were words written on the back of the envelope. “Hello sweetheart.”

Stacy recognized that handwriting.

She collapsed on the couch, staring at the envelope, listening to her heart pounding in her ears.

He’d found her.

[thisismyghost-blog]

A letter to my conservative friends/family

I have had the feeling of being separated by a thick wall from everyone around me for most of my life. There are times people reach me but it’s usually short lived. I have been the quiet one people tease with worn out phrase, “Cat got your tongue?” And who looks on confused and smiling trying simply not to do damage and being paralyzed by not having infinite perspective or all my ish together or knowing that how people perceives me can have consequences to them even if I only show love to them that they can not be able to recognize it or that my perspective may limit me from seeing how a blind spot I have affects them. I care and I see, therefore I am used and covered up. It doesn’t have to be that way. We don’t have to have all the answers in order to deserve respect and care. We don’t have to be likeable to everyone to not deserve judgement. No one is blameless so when fingers get pointed and groups of people get villanized there is always someone who doesn’t value people on the other end of that. Empaths have open hearts and arrows fly in. We can change the direction we face our hearts to be able to receive the love and mercy we are being offered and can’t accept. We can do that when we see we need to in order to really do that for someone else.  We can turn our hearts away from people who seek to keep our thoughtful insight and the reality of our experiences secret or try to make us unlikeable. It takes a lot and it might not be fixed and always ok and someone might still hurt us but if we are to be strong for our children and those we love we have to build ourselves back up in order to speak, in order to reveal the truth, in order to rescue those who might possibly by spared. I would not have reached this place without unconditional love and willingness to sit with me in the pain.

Lucifer appears as an angel and impersonates and perverts everything good. Narcissist are the same. He roams the earth seeking whom he may devour. He took so many bites until nothing was left. I died to myself and have been reanimated by the love around me. I have been kept safe enough to do the work while not being further victimized and pushed further into a corner souley because I was lucky enough to have real love around me.I am only able to finally see those whos opinions matter and to start becoming bullet proof to being shut down by the criticism of those who have nothing to teach me. I have been loved enough times and thrown enough ropes to make it here. I am dramatic and weird and airheaded sometimes and klutzy but some of the best people are and if I am to ever reach them i have to stop letting people put me down.   I have never met anyone more Jesus-like than my childhood best friend. She was treated at times like she was simple for never criticizing anyone and having an endless sunshine well of positive energy and love for others and no need to self promote. The fact that the world lost a light like hers and her equally brilliant amazing beautiful mother is one of those stark realties that make me understand how people can die from a broken heart. It’s one of those realties that threatens to fill  me with hatred at people who parade around with the wrong values and wouldn’t see their infinite value and beauty.The fact she has a son in this world without her breaks me in a way that sometimes it feels not worth continuing to fight for a life in a universe like this where the rocks don’t cry out and stop these things from happening. But my son needs me and I have to be brave enough to endure what I need to endure in order to carry her torch and I have to be curious and critically thinking enough to keep myself out of the way and really seek wisdom the way the smartest person I will probably ever personally have a relationship with, my father, always did.  I have been in denial and bargaining stages of greif until pretty much rn since 2001 when he left this planet. He won’t be in history books or built a monument to like I think he deserves and he has not been able to live the last two decades with his daughters and wife whom he adored and or the grandchildren he would probably adore further still. I have never been able to feel close to him or be anything but hurt and enraged by accessing memories of him and seeing what I had lost. Until my son, with his perfect innocence, beauty and valiance has managed to bring me to the present moment from the island of the supreme type of disociaton from your body and ego that happens after certain social isolating traumas. Until I was able to look in his handsome face and realize the love between us is the same and how the things that really matter, which include him never losing sight of his value are all I’m concerned about living on from me. He was able to do that only with our angels (my bf, his stepdad) shield up, willingly absorbing stressors. What he endures, I may never fully see or appreciate. The ways my family have ever gone to battle for me in the face of uncertainty and pain because they love me I may never fully see. But how I begin to connect with them in a more meaningful way and start to be the type of woman he deserves is by looking at those facts without shame but with their love. My son adores me how I adored my mom even when she felt bad about herself and I have finally begun to be able to step up and be there for him the way I want. It was never that I wouldn’t have happily been burned alive to do for him but that I was paralyzed to do because I felt unworthy, not wise enough, not strong enough, not cool enough, not good enough to express myself or assert myself at times when I wanted to. I can stop being angry at myself for not being able to protect him from ever being hurt because of the love I received from my mother which I see clearly now, moved mountains for me even if it couldn’t and never was responsible for magical, super human provisions of everything I needed. Those mother’s don’t exist because it’s not human. How can a single human being be what they want for the ones they love? By realizing they are the potential expression of God’s love and the highest level of being when they show their love for their children. By realizing that is good enough and allowing their children to have access to their healthiest possible most creative self.  The loudest people in the room are most often the most selfish. The introverts and empaths and those who have suffered in ways that give them the awareness aesthetic people (think monks in wool robes in monastery rejecting worldly pleasures) are seeking. The ones with the most needed voices to be amplified are busy listening and gleaning actual useful nuanced insight that is crucial for building a society that more efficiently can seek to fulfill liberty and Justice for all. True American values and Christian values imo are to look to those at the bottom in order to gauge the efficiency of those at the top. We are all guilty of looking to the day we can be worthy enough but we are telling our kids that how attractive and liked like are by a crowd or considered impressive and holy enough by a congregation of people matters more than it already does. We are engaging in a quest for a life that doesn’t exist. We will never be blameless. Beautiful and rich will never be able to equal peace or meaningful human connection so we need to stop chasing mirages. Ostracism  has huge health impacts physically as well as emotionally, and happens no matter how strong or pure someone is. Children, case and point. We have to take responsibility for our impulse to turn away from people when we can’t help them the way we want. We have to fight our urge to stifle ourselves and see that no one is qualified and it won’t accomplish what we wish it could but that our voice needs to be heard precisely because we think that way.  I’m trying to tell you that you don’t need to feel ashamed for being human.If anything about me was worth saving and it’s a good thing for people not to self destruct while they fumble around in the dark dungeon of uncertainty and shame is a priority.  Cliches and Grand displays of emotion that have the most powerful meanings are generally rendered totally lifeless by being repeated too much by false prophets and manipulating people. Our culture doesn’t have enough genuine displays of how a human life works and what real love looks like. From everything and everyone that I’ve lost and years of personal torment and suicidal ideation cycles and silence I have been lifted up by love. I have to let go of what I refuse to accept is gone in order to interact with what is or ever get to what could be (like living in and helping create a home where children can be even happier than I remember being and longing for. That I can stop feeling homesick for and experience the next level of with my kids and embody all that I possibly can from those who I love and have lost or who are still out there but undervalued and replace the survivors guilt with honoring them. I am ok with you seeing me struggle and thinking I’m weird and long winded if you choose to read this in the hopes I can share some outline of love and grace that I’ve been shown and the hope and can only be born from the flames. I hope to fortify you even if you can’t stick by me right now, if you are ever brought to your knees. I want you to remember what that cat lady told you.

[sol1056]

Your posts on clone Shiro have been really interesting - I hadn't considered why the Black lion would lead Keith to the clone when it knew where the real Shiro was (unless maybe it was thinking that Shiro's spirit needed a new body and hey, that one's close enough!). But also, since Kuron had all of Shiro's memories from the time he first escaped back to Earth thru the end of S2, does that mean Haggar's been spying on them via Shiro's arm from the beginning?

Judging from my inbox and comments on other posts, you’re not the only one asking that question. A few examples:

The saddest thing about Kuron is that he wasn’t even actually bad. ... He is compassionate when there are no witnesses. Haggar yells at him to stop resisting when she possesses him, and his screams of agony make it clear that the process is nonconsensual. 

i can’t see any [clone resolution] scenario being handled well. the worst one would probably be if keith (maybe lance) has to kill him … the only thing that could be even worse is if they have the clone commit unambiguous suicide. they can’t do that any justice.

If Kuron had wanted to kill the paladins from the beginning, all he had to do was NOT intervene when they were being destroyed in S4E1. It seems like he was a good guy who got brainwashed into doing evil against his will, so it wasn’t even his fault.

I was really disturbed with what happened to Shiro and clone. Do you think they’ll even address this in the future?

A clone plotline – like a brainwashing/personality implant plotline – will inevitably raise heavy-duty questions about humanity, individuality, personality, and how great a role memories play in who we are. Going in unprepared will result in a story crumbling under that immense philosophical weight – or alternately, providing so many conflicting messages that the readers react with a variety of concerns like the ones quoted above.  

So, let’s talk science, philosophy, and metaphor.

Behind the cut: cloning vs SF make-believe, the ethics of cloning, the question of souls, fictional metaphors for souls. I’ll do a follow-up that gets into the clues in VLD’s text, how a cleaner metaphor could resolve the clone storyline’s plot holes, and what tweaks could’ve unified the metaphor.

The only way to avoid these reactions is to think through the ramifications, and give the narrative a very clear opinion on the answers. You’ve got to do the worldbuilding and decide whether this story’s world is essentialist or existentialist, and how that will change the consequences. It helps to pick a metaphor, but it must be relatively simple (so you don’t need exposition hell to explain), and it must be consistent. The instant the narrative starts waffling on its opinion of its ‘truth’, audiences will sense this and suddenly all those philosophical questions are going to come down, hard.

real cloning vs SF make-believe

In 1885, Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch produced the first viable clone: a sea urchin. In 1902, Hans Spemann cloned a salamander embryo. It wasn’t until 1996 that anyone managed to clone something other than embrionic cells, when Dolly was closed from adult somatic cells. And now, in 2018, biotech company Stemagen has come up with a process that uses an adult human’s cells to create the embrionic material needed for an actual, human, clone. It’d still need to be implanted in a womb, and from there on follow regular human birth and growth, but yes. It’s a human clone.

A clone is not born full-grown. A clone has no memories of anything that gave it genetic material, any more than you remember a parent’s tenth birthday or first kiss. A clone is no more artificial than a baby created by in vitro fertilization. The only difference between Dolly and other sheep was her method of birth; in all other ways that matter, she was a normal sheep. She grew up, had kids of her own, and died. Once the person (or animal) is born, they are their own person, with their own experiences and memories.

A cloned being does not automatically look like its genetic parent; you can still end up with a crapshoot in terms of appearance. Sometimes genes switch on and off, as a body grows; even identical twins are not truly and perfectly identical. Also, injuries (including scars) do not convey. On a glossy level, what’s stored in the DNA isn’t the injury but the body’s need to create collagen to repair that injury. Think of it like a band-aid: even if the body records the need for that bandaid, the clone’s lack of injuries would prompt the body to dismiss the bandaid. 

ethics of cloning & the question of souls

Once you recognize you’re talking about a living creature, the ethics simplify into being the same as what you’d raise for any other living creature. Banks and banks of post-birth clones, even in stasis, are as much living creatures as any other. Slaughtering them is still murder. Enslaving them is still slavery. Brutalizing them is still abuse. Cool clone, still murder.  

Where things get sticky is when the issue of clones runs up against religiously-based beliefs, most of which lack a solid framework for this modern concept. (Some religions have addressed in vitro and cloning birth technologies, but the specifics aren’t really relevant here.) Since this show is American-made, I’m going to stick to Western concepts, since that’s the most likely influence on the various creators involved in VLD. But to discuss souls, first we have to talk about the two theories on how personhood develops.  

essentialism vs existentialism

In essentialism, essence precedes existence: the person’s essence comes before all other things, even the spark of life itself (or alternately, the essence is the spark that kicks life into being self-aware). Spirit, soul, whatever word you use, it’s some inherent and inviolable thing that forms the basis of the individual’s personhood. It maps roughly to the nature half of the nature-vs-nuture debate – but it’s bigger than that.

Essentialism, at its extremes, is a position of seeing that originating spark/soul as the entirety of a person’s truth. When you reduce someone to their gender, or their race, or some other facet of their birth, that’s essentialism; when you declare that someone born X at birth can never be Y, again, that’s essentialism. When essentialism mingles with religious beliefs, you get a concept of a soul that exists before birth, and continues after: the person’s true essence, for which the body is only a thing to put it in. It’s the ultimate Cartesian separation between the mind-that-is and the body-that-experiences.  

Existentialism is the opposite, and maps more closely to nurture-over-nature. Existence precedes essence: personhood is the culmination of all our experiences, our memories, our interactions, our successes, our failures. Everything you’ve ever done, known, said, thought, or dreamed: these are your interactions with the world, and they are the entirety of what has shaped you into who you are. If there is an essence in play, it is formed out of your existence, rather than informing it. We are each born a tabula rasa, and there is no division between mind as objective observer and body as the vehicle of experience. These things are basically one and the same, in existentialism.

This perspective can also be taken to extremes; at its worst, it’s been turned into a kind of AI-like philosophy, where culture, genetics, family, can be swept aside – along with any future paths. Nothing is true; everything is permitted – a phrase whose roots are deeper than any video game, in a murky muddle between François Rabelais and Hassan-i Sabbah (by way of Vladimir Bartol). If you’re curious, this is the best short explanation I’ve found. 

fictional metaphors for souls

I bring up those competing paradigms because for most religious worldviews, ‘what brings life’ can be hugely important. If the process of birth is defined as a soul exists, the body is created, the soul enters thus making life, does this change if a body is created intentionally? What SFF likes to ask is whether a creature could be only as the shell, lacking that pre-existing substance. (Existentialism bypasses all of this, of course – but that would make for a boring story. It’s just one more individual who is born, lives, and eventually dies.) 

The hitch lies in our real-world metaphors mapping to computers. I’ll walk through a metaphor based on real-world computing rules, and hopefully it’ll become clear how this contradicts with the Western religio-spiritual assumption of a pre-existing, unique, 'soul’.

The mind-body separation exists in the basic metaphor. Hardware is the body, which can run with little oversight; the software (the mind) can usually be updated without disturbing the hardware. Sometimes the hardware ages out and this impacts the software; extend this metaphor and you get the SFF premise of transferring to new hardware so the software (the mind/soul) continues to run. Sometimes the software demands too much and burns out the hardware. 

Overall, the computer-based metaphor plays neatly into the Cartesian system where the two (mind and body) are separate but co-influencing. Note that part about 'transfer to new hardware’ – this is where this metaphor breaks down. 

Remember that Cartesian (yes, 'I think, therefore I am’ guy) posits a separation, and lends itself to an essentialist view where the mind can exist separately and objectively from the body. The same is not true of computers. Ask questions about pre/post life and the computer metaphor swerves into existentialism.

To illustrate: let’s say you have a laptop running a Unix OS, and one day you uninstall Unix and install Windows. It’s now common enough to do fresh installs that the average audience-member will grasp the metaphor: the laptop is now Windows. There is no more Unix. If there is a ghost in the machine, it’s a newborn with factory settings. If you were to reverse your actions and go back to Unix, the original system doesn’t pop up out of nowhere; you now have a newborn system that just happens to be Unix. Unless you took other precautions, the original is gone.  

I mention precautions because there are real-world alternatives in the process, and those impact the metaphor. The first is ghosting to an external drive: that entire Unix setup was copied over to a secondary home, broken away from the hardware. It’s no longer interacting; it’s in stasis. 

Yet, from the perspective of the laptop, it’s now Windows and must start over. The computer has no knowledge of once being Unix. Its self-knowledge begins with its 'birth’ as a Windows machine. If the computer is then wiped and the ghosted Unix is returned to the hardware, the re-installation would have no record of what happened in the meantime, because from the OS’ perspective, there’s no break in its experiential record. It was Unix, it was in stasis, it woke and was still Unix.

The alternative is an OS split into two; memory (the database) and personality (the OS). This paradigm gained strength with the rise of large external drives for long-term storage, while the laptop acts like a terminal, storing little and retrieving as-needed. An uninstall/install will produce artifacts: tiny footprints of a previous OS. (In an archive moved from Mac to Windows, you can see this in the .DS_Store files in every folder.) You could say that the newborn Windows system arrives with clues to its hardware’s previous existence, but in this metaphor, those 'memories’ may make no sense to the current OS. Windows has no idea what to do with a .DS_Store file; it doesn’t need it, and can’t even read it.

the narrative needs to be certain of its opinion

Given those variations in the person-as-computer metaphor, it’s imperative that a story know exactly how its world works. Without that strong and settled opinion, a stray remark within the narrative can mislead readers into thinking they should be following a different version of the metaphor. 

If your story will stand or fall on the concept of a ghost in the machine, you’d better clarify that there’s a backup copy somewhere. If you want the memory without the personality, you’ll need to bring in the concept of external memory paired with a new OS. Otherwise you risk readers kneejerking at the notion that the unprepared, unsaved, and uninstalled Unix OS is just floating out there in the ether, waiting to return. You’ve broken your metaphor.

Next post: the clues in VLD’s text, fixing the clone-created plot holes, and some minor tweaks that would’ve unified the metaphor.

[firjii]

Chapters: 1/1

Words: 1,311

Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fenris/Female Hawke Characters: Fenris, f!hawke Additional Tags: nervous Fenris, touch-starved, touch phobic, supportive Hawke, cuddles (sort of?), hugs, embraces, light angst, happy ending (sort of?) Summary: Secretly hoping for a certain simple yet profound gesture but also too skittish to ask it of Hawke, Fenris is surprised by Hawke's straightforward suggestion - one whose nature and timing both terrify and thrill him.

A 3-hour exercise and also my third Fenris fic in this vein (hmmmm......). Plain text version under the cut.

She grins – not expectantly, not demandingly, but only a grin. Hers, the one that he has never seen the likes of among the thousands of other faces he’s encountered.

She murmurs the question again, but the words blur together in his ears. He heard her the first time. The hearth is some yards away and only has a mild fire set in it, but he sweats as intensely as a stuck pig, even on this far side of the room. He swallows. He tries to speak, but the word sticks in his throat almost before he can begin vocalizing it.

With the same effort it takes to maneuver his sword in combat, he nods. A ghost of a smile almost surfaces for an instant. Isn’t this what he wanted? Isn’t this what he tried to ask dozens of times? Of course. It’s only that it still comes sooner than he thought – too soon.

But he refuses to turn away. He won’t let his fear rule him this time. The moment is now, not then – not the past, and not…not that. He is his own master now – but sometimes, that means taking a risk. This shouldn’t be a risk. He knows that. But still, it is one.

She reaches a hand out – again, an offer, not a demand. He braces himself for the irritated nerve endings that the touch might induce, but he doesn’t hesitate. He laces his fingers between hers, still remembering that moment some weeks past and the two times since then.  

They walk towards the hearth, their steps synchronized. She sits first, leaning against the leg of a musty armchair. He lets go of her hand, the distance to the floor suddenly a year’s march through Tevinter wastelands. She looks up at him and the distance is bridged, the ugly thought no more vivid than breathing. She reaches for a cushion on the chair and places it on the floor next to her with a dull thump. He swallows again. She pats it.

His lanky legs fold neatly under him as he glides down. He leans against the chair. How should he lean back? What should he do with his hands? He blinks. What nonsense. His shoulders nonetheless crumple into tense readiness. This – this is not what he’d prepared himself for. Perhaps he hadn’t prepared at all.

She watches him. She soon cocks her head. He doesn’t need to look at her. He feels her eyes on him. But instead of speaking, she laughs: a gentle rumble of a chuckle from deep within her ribs, the thing he’s heard some Fereldans call a “belly laugh.” The noise surprises him. He’s heard her snicker before now, perhaps even cackle drunkenly now and then, but this is different. This is – contentment?

The sounds that escape her throat draw his eyes onto her. Again, her smile is simply that: a smile. She stills herself to an unusual degree, a most distinctive gesture. This is Hawke, after all. The dull light from the hearth casts a halo around her head and alters her weathered, almost swarthy complexion, simultaneously casting an inviting glow and adding another layer of unfathomable pondering to her expression. Time has not treated her well. She does not yet have thirty years to her name, but there is weariness underneath her spastic humor and energetic diplomacy.

He can change that, if only for a moment. He can change that as much as she can change him, if only for a moment. She knows this as well as he does. Perhaps it’s even the reason why she suggested the idea.

Neither asking nor invading, she leans into his shoulder, just enough to put weight against his rotator cup but not so deeply that she can’t crane her neck upward to look at him. She reaches around him, her arms as short as they are muscular. She barely manages it. He leans into her a little to make the stretch easier. Her free hand joins the first. He soon does the same.

He sighs – but no more or less than a sigh. Perhaps this isn’t as difficult as he presumed. He rests his head on hers and closes his eyes. His smile returns, not only for an instant this time. His face begins to move in earnest. His stilted arms transform into an embrace – not a plea, not an apology, not an appeasement. Only closeness. Hawke has taught him well, even if he cannot always remember such a lesson.

But then it happens. His brow crinkles a fraction – and then much more than a fraction. He stifles a groan enough to turn it into a toneless hum of pensiveness. He wrenches his eyes open, and the interruption is more disruptive than the pain it brings with it.

Waves come over him – not lust, not fear. Something else. At first, he only fights the instinct to flinch away. The reflex is impossible to unlearn, but at least it has become easier to notice – and if he can notice it sooner, he can push himself past it. This ache is different, because he chooses it. It only registers externally as a slight twitch through an arm.

But then the other instinct comes, and that one is harder to fight: the one that drives him to summon the lyrium in his skin. She can’t know. He won’t show her that. It’s wrong. It’s another reflex honed too well from years of necessity and need. It was a logical reaction in another world. He’d even welcomed it at times – the sooner he could bring it forth, the sooner the task was finished. If it had to be done, better that it was done cleanly and quickly. It was useful – for hate, for bloody justice, for killing, maybe even for release of a sort.

But this, here with Hawke, is not something to be taken lightly – and even if the voice in his mind is still only a whisper, it is telling him that he shouldn’t be too eager to rush it. He cannot hope to feel like a free man if he lets himself believe that a hasty gesture here and there will be enough to undo the past. And it wouldn’t be what she wanted, either. No one asks this of someone else if they only seek to rush beyond it to the next moment.

And the moment is long – so long. Too long. Not long enough.

He shakes, and yet he refuses to let her go. He trembles as a child does when alone in the depths of nightfall, and yet he is not alone. He swallows, much more labored than before. The movement is sufficiently noticeable that Hawke picks her head up. She separates her hands and holds his face. She touches her forehead to his. He closes his eyes again, shaking all the while. “It’s alright,” she murmurs smoothly. “It’s alright.”

This time, the words swim in a blur but rise above the water like crisp beams of light. He listens for their clarity. He listens for his guide. She repeats the phrase several more times, each instance gradually more distinct until he hears it as a lone shout against the murky befuddlement he is so accustomed to.

“It’s alright.” Her mutter resonates and echoes through his skull with all the power of a master’s command. But she is not a master, and this is no command. She is a savior, and this is – an unfettering?

His shaking dulls after a time. His hands still tremble and twitch, but his arms are steadfast around her, both protector and protected. “I know,” he whispers. Despite the stinging and burning coursing through the skin on every limb – and despite the steep price of this indulgent whim – he refuses to let go.

He grins, fledgling joy outweighing the jitters of his chin. “I know.”

[concertcollector-blog]

“Harry Styles” by Harry Styles (Review)

Guess who’s bringing rock n’ roll back to the 2010s? That’s right, ladies. Harry Styles.

After a rocky last few years and worrisome hiatus, Harry Styles has officially begun his much awaited solo project with the release of his self-titled debut album, Harry Styles. The 10-track record, ranging from simple acoustic songs to jaw-dropping ballads, completely blew me out of the water and took me on a journey through the sides of him that I went 6 years without truly understanding. 

Going into this, I knew this wasn’t going to be a biased review. Although I was a massive One Direction fan a few years ago, I eventually grew out of them when I found other bands that suited my music taste a little more than what they were producing. I am not afraid to admit that Made In the AM was a not a good album in my opinion, nor was FOUR a home-run for me either. But, that was One Direction. This is Harry Styles, and my respect for him has skyrocketed as his new album exceeded every expectation I had for it. 

So, let’s dive into this iconic masterpiece, shall we?

Track 1: Meet Me In The Hallway.

The 10-track album opens up with “Meet Me in The Hallway”, a dreamy and lethargic taste of what’s to come later on in the record. The song starts off with Styles murmuring some numbers under his breath, and then transcends into a funky melody of faded vocals and fingers picking the strings on a finely tuned guitar. If the musical elements of this song weren’t already ambiguous enough, the lyrics only push my curiosity further. The repetitive line “Gotta get better” was mysterious; What could this possibly mean? Was his meaning shallow, or was he really in a dark place throughout the writing process of this record? It made me, the listener, wonder how deep this album could go, or how equivocal it could remain.

Overall, “Meet Me In The Hallway” was the perfect song to open Harry Styles up with, and I will explain why more towards the end of this review. 

Song rating: 8/10

Track 2: Sign Of The Times.

Styles’ infamous debut single, “Sign Of The Times”, follows after the album’s whimsical introduction. My initial reaction to this song when it first dropped back in April was nothing but positive: although the first verse of the song was questionable for my taste, I fell in love with the song the second the chorus began. From that moment on, I’ve been a huge fan of it.

“Sign Of The Times”, in my opinion, is a successful attempt at modernizing classic rock. It has certain elements to it that remind me of a lot of artists from the Classic Rock age, and it doesn’t make Styles seem like a “poser” at all. The song altogether - from the lyrics to the melody - is extremely mysterious and I’m sure it generated a lot of excitement to hear the rest of the album beyond just my own curiosity.

Song rating: 8.5/10

Track 3: Carolina.

In Harry Styles’ 3rd track, titled “Carolina”, Styles’ smooth voice tells a cheeky story of a girl from the South who immerses herself into the superficial world of the Los Angeles, California. The chorus of “Carolina” is fun, upbeat, and sexy in the most classy way possible. The constant La la la la’s in the background put a grin on my face every time I listen to the song. 

Although I feel like some parts of this track are childish, that is not a negative observation. They’re childish in a way that still works extremely well and keeps the song fun and current.

Song rating: 8.5/10

Track 4:  Two Ghosts.

I must admit that I hit a small bump in the road after “Carolina”. The next two songs on the album, titled “Two Ghosts” and “Sweet Creature”, are probably my least favorite songs on Harry Styles. This may come as a shock for some people, because I’ve gotten the sense that these are some fans’ absolute favorite songs from the whole album. Just hear me out you guys, I promise I have a rational reason.

The thing I dislike about “Two Ghosts” is that it is musically forgettable. Don’t get me wrong, the lyrics are magnificent; They are powerful and poetically heartbreaking. It’s plain to see that Styles was describing a low time in his life, and I respect him for opening up. But the tune of the song, in my opinion, just doesn’t do the words justice. From a musical perspective, “Two Ghosts” wasn’t as unique as the other songs off the album, which causes me to skip it most of the times it comes on. 

Song rating: 5.5/10

Track 5: Sweet Creature.

Similarly, “Sweet Creature” has lovely lyrics, but with just a simple guitar and a few backing vocals behind it all, I feel like it is not enough to truly wow me. 

Personally, I love when songs have a lot of production in them. I like songs that don’t rely solely on the lyrics to entice people, but use instruments to help create a masterpiece as well. “Sweet Creature”, from a musical standpoint, needs some more instruments to help bring it to life. 

But, then again, there are a lot of people who like simple songs like that. So, to turn this bump in the road into a positive pit-stop, at least this album has diversity. 

Song rating: 5/10

And then, we are brought to the 6th track on the album, and a huge transition is made. We leave this calm and gentle side of Harry Styles and enter a whole new world of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. Literally.

Track 6: Only Angel.

“Only Angel” begins with an almost minute-long introduction consisting of a gods singing and a soft piano and in the distance. The intro sounds as if we’re all being lifted into heaven aboard a bedazzled spaceship with Styles behind the wheel. Everything is calm and euphoric until we are immediately thrown back down into a 1970s rock concert at the 53-second mark, and the song truly begins.

“Only Angel” is a lyrically and musically genius song. ‘I'm just happy getting you stuck in between my teeth’ and ‘She’s gonna be an angel ... when it turns out she's a devil in between the sheets’ are just a few lines that I found to be not only surprising, but clever as well. 

Song rating: 9/10

Track 7: Kiwi.

Don’t even get me started on this song. This was the first track I listened to off Harry Styles, and to say I was shocked is an understatement. I was shocked in a good way, of course.

Being one of my favorite songs on the record, “Kiwi” is yet another bold and daring taste of Harry’s rock n’ roll side. The melody of the song is sassy, very sexual, and probably takes a lot of parents back a few decades to what they often refer to as “simpler times”. 

The lyrics show that Styles knows what he’s doing. Some phrases that stick out to me are ‘She worked her way through a cheap pack of cigarettes, hard liquor mixed with a bit of intellect’ and ‘It's New York, baby, always jacked up, Holland Tunnel for a nose, it's always backed up’. One particular line in the bridge that I think is pure lyrical genius is “She sits beside me like a silhouette. Hard candy dripping on me 'til my feet are wet”. 

Whenever “Kiwi” comes on, there is no way I can get myself to skip it. In combination with “Only Angel”, these two songs are proof that Harry is not afraid to step out of his comfort zone and say the things he never could when he was in a boyband.

Song rating: 10/10

Track 8: Ever Since New York.

“Ever Since New York”, with it’s charming lyrics and soothing guitar riffs, is a nice cool-down from “Kiwi” and “Only Angel”. I feel like this song is very visual. Something about it will take your mind back to a particular memory or time in your life… or, if you’re me, it’ll take you back to a scene from your favorite movie. 

Whenever I listen to this song, for some reason my mind visualizes that scene from Almost Famous where they're all piled in the tour bus, driving across the country and singing Tiny Dancer together. Everything about that scene is graceful and heartwarming, as is this song, although it is rather sad. 

One negative thing I have to point out about “Ever Since New York” is that it get’s pretty repetitive after a while. I feel like the phrase ‘Tell me something I don’t already know’ is used too many times, and Styles could’ve incorporated other lyrics in those spaces. With just a little more variation, this song could’ve been a huge hit.

Song rating: 7/10

Track 9: Woman.

The 9th track on Harry Styles is yet another song that I refuse to skip whenever it comes on. “Woman” is one of the best songs on this record, and I’m sure many Harry Styles fans can agree with me. 

The beginning is one of the most unique introductions on Harry Styles. The random man asking about romantic comedies throws you off at first, but then the piano transcends into the enticing guitar riff and you are brought back into reality, as the song truly begins.

The chorus is short, sweet, to the point, and catchy as hell. It makes me wonder how this concept came to Styles’ mind and why he decided to take a plain word and fuze it into the song in such an elementary way. All he’s got to say is ‘woman’ over and over again and poof! It’s a masterpiece.

He took the word ‘woman’ and truly transformed it into a work of art. Because, let’s face it: Women are beautiful, and sometimes all we need is a simple, charming song like this to prove it. As Styles sings about this mysterious woman (or perhaps all women in general) he does it in a way that is sexy and fun, yes, but he doesn’t objectify us. I give him mad kudos for this one.

Song rating: 10/10

Track 10: From The Dining Table.

The final track on Harry Styles is “From The Dining Table”, a soothingly sad song that brings the album to a satisfying close. This song explores the final side of Styles that is a little bit more raw and truthful than the others portrayed on this record. The guitar and edited vocals create a chill, almost Jack Johnson-like sound while the mature lyrics show that he is finally able to grow up after certain expectations prevented him from doing so. 

For example, I’m sure the line in the first verse that goes ‘played with myself, where were you?’ came as a shock to some fans, but in an exciting way. The song is simple but powerful, and just as mysterious as the beginning of the album. I feel like this song and “Meet Me In The Hallway” are very similar to each other in a lot of ways, and they both work together to bring the album around into a full circle, with an interesting beginning and successful ending.

Song rating: 8.5/10

Overall, I think this album was amazing and something that the music industry was in need of. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that every so often, the radio runs dry and repetitive. Harry Styles, still in its rightful place at the top of the charts, is something new and different, a breath of fresh air for us all after we’ve been drowning in generic pop songs that all sound the same for so long. 

I didn’t know what I was expecting Harry Styles’ first solo album to sound like, but it wasn’t what I got. Everything about this record, from the melodies to the lyrics, completely exceeded my expectations and impressed me beyond belief. 

I wish there were more than just 10 songs on this album, but perhaps that means that Styles will be back relatively soon with another masterpiece to share with the world. I’ve got mad respect for Harry Styles after hearing this album, and I hope that those who once judged him or ignored his talents because he was in a “boyband” can eventually come around with an open mind, and appreciate what he has been able to do on his own. 

Overall Album Rating: 8.7/10

[jhaernyl]

Have you ever had a phrase or a concept get stuck into your head?

Like, I am nowhere ready to make the post my mind wants me to make

But I am haunted by the beginning phrase

And it's not even that good

Like, it's run of the mill normal shit but it's keeps popping up

@gallusrostromegalus : like a writing earworm?

Yes

'Now, let's talk about how a war in magical Britain should have played out and which consequences wars ought to have.'

Because, as I explained to my mother, JKR tells us there was a war, eleven years before and that it was terrible and bloody and that there were attacks and families disappeared and it lasted eleven. fucking. years. but we never see the consequences of the war in the social and cultural fabric of her wizarding world.

We never see the influences it came from, the philosophical and ideological currents, we never see memorials or art or anything that remembers, commemorates, damns.

Kids at school with Harry in Harry's first year lived through the end of that war, some of them old enough to remember relatives dying in it, but we never see it.

Because that war was eleven years long, ended eleven years priors and the Seventh years at Hogwarts when Harry arrives, where six years old then, the Sixth years were five years old, the Fifth years were four years old.

Maybe the magical world is so little now because of that war, that began in the years after Voldemort's return and his climb to power (apparently there was one, not that we are ever told anything relevant about it) by sinister disappearances and then exploded in so many murders, tortures and disappearances that the Aurors were overwhelmed.

Maybe the pureblood in Malfoy's circle still believe in their purity because they stick to their circles and their circles are the ones who emerged the most unscathed, for obvious reasons, but all the other families they considered beneath notice? They were wiped out or went into hiding or left or were maimed and lost family members and they won't forget and they cannot forgive and they are few when once they were many.

They still believe they are strong, but if the eleven years of terror Voldemort rained on the magical world (which means that the whole time James and Sirius and Snape and Lily and Remus and Regulus were at Hogwarts, their world outside was one of terror) did anything, it was to cull the magical populations blood until magic had no recourse left but to start pouring into kids they would call 'mudbloods'.

Where does the magic goes, where there is no 'pure', no 'half' blood to come alive into?

Down the squib lines, down into blood that will be stronger because it's new and not crossed over and over again until it has become harmful to those who mean to cross it again.

But wouldn't the pureblood notice? 

How? 

They are wrapped in their own little world and acquaintances, because no one decent will have someone of their ilk over at their place or welcomed into their celebrations.

Imperiused or not, the killer of your children, of your sister, of your relatives, will never be welcomed at your table.

Lucius Malfoy is a Governor of Hogwarts, but he is not a student and most student who walk the Halls are not willing to spill the beans or try to inform to curtail the favour of someone like Lucius Malfoy.

Because, If Malfoy wasn't Imperiused, he was a liar. 

Because, if he was Imperiused, he was either willing enough to do what he was told to do to not struggle that hard or he was too weak to break the hold of the Imperius on himself or both. 

How is that someone you want to associate with? 

Let him pour gold in your pockets, if you are the type to be bribed, yes, do him the occasional favor if you don't have any grudge against him yourself, sure why not, but trust and support and advice and inform? 

Nah. 

He is not the kind of wizard you want to be that in cahoots with, Malfoy, especially not when he will take and sneer and condescend and, seriously, fuck the Malfoys.

Those students, their families, they have lived through the war and they know better. 

They are teaching better to those who join their world without being in the know yet and most purebloods kids of the people in the Malfoy's circles have learned to keep their mouths shut at school and about school, because there are those who have been so scarred by the war that they are just spoiling to be given an excuse to lash out righteously.

They have lived through the war too, and their parents came out on the losing side. 

Their future depends on the good will of the victors, regardless of what their parents seem to think it’s going on.

Where are the memorials to the fallen? Where are speeches on days they ‘cannot afford to forget’?

Where are the consequences of an eleven years long war that supposedly destroyed generations of the magical world?

JKR never wrote them, not really, never stopped to consider what her words could mean, how long eleven years can be, never thought of the individual stories or the oversweeping, long lasting influences on society and art and expression.

Draco Malfoy calling someone a mudblood in public should have garnered far more than Ron attempting to make him eat slugs.

Especially from the older students.

Especially from his own House that has tried so hard to disavow the actions of those that came before them as a survival tactic.

Especially from the muggleborns and halfbloods and purebloods of his own House who do not stand for Voldermort's shit, will not stand, have never stood.

Durmstrang in a bit of dialogue by Viktor Krum in book 7 shows more realistic consequences of Grindewald's regime on the psyche of it's students than Hogwarts does for Voldemort's eleven years long war on it's own population.

@gallusrostromegalus: THESE ARE ALL EXCELLENT POINTS AND I;D READ THE SHIT OUT OF A FANTASY BOOK DONE BY YOU

@gallusrostromegalus: i'm listening in attentive silence

@gallusrostromegalus: also it's 5AM and i am short on words but yes good.

I have been working for years on maps and timelines and stuff. It all started because I wanted a Hufflepuff!Harry and I wrote down a complete roster for his first year of school.

I made stories in my head for everyone as I wrote down where they live, their blood status, their ethnicity, their religion, if they are prefects or not.

I made Quidditch team lists.

Then I realized that I was looking at it in a 'normal school way' and that was neither fair nor realistic.

So I ripped my heart out and made a 'War Adjusted' version.

Blacked out names.

I drew black lines with the Open Office highlighter tool on them and rewrote my numbers and suddenly I wanted to tell their stories, I wanted to know how and why they died and I wanted it to have meaning.

It slowly snowballed into making maps of magical places based (except in a couple of cases) on runes as bases.

Recently (I blame all the visits with my mother at the Tate Modern during the last four weekends) I started thinking about art pre-war and art of the war and art post-war.

I thought about Grimmauld Place not as a dark mausoleum infested by dark creatures but as an elegant, aristocratic palace.

With white marble and elegant gold, with portraits of aristocratic wizard and witches on the walls and beautiful vistas that are only beautiful as long as you don't know that the field you are watching has breen drenched red with the blood of peasants in the Reinassance because a village was standing in the perfect place for the new Black estate.

It needed to go and the mudbloos needed not to know where the estate would be and why waste time Obliviating mudbloods when you can just kill them?

Make it a family outing!

Dark does not mean 'mad' or 'ugly' or 'rotten'.

You can be the most beautiful man those you see as inferiors have ever seen, of perfectly sound mind and without a stain on your soul, because you live by the Code of Honor of your family and those are ants who are in the way of a grandiose new achievement, and you'll still be Dark because you use your magic in certain specific ways, with certain intents.

@gallusrostromegalus: rolls happily in meta while sobbing IT'S SO GOOD

I made notes about wands and elemental wands and families who made pacts with the Fae and other creatures. Marcus Flint may have a troll's teeth, but does he also have a troll's strength? Resistance to spells? Sacrifice beauty for defense and power, now that's a bargain to make.

I wrote down family trees from canon and then made my own to fill in (part of) the rest.

And I keep going back to the war, to the Rise of Voldemort and then eleven years of fear and how would that warp a society?

Wouldn't the children at Hogwarts, especially those who were five when the war ended, who were four, who were three and have vague memories of the fear and have been taken every year to the memorials and had family ceremonies, close ranks around Harry Potter?

Because if the Slytherin monster wants anyone, it would be the halfblood kid who was supposed to have ended the line with Voldemort.

They will not let that happen.

I have one character, who lost family in the war and was in an attack when that family died protecting him, when technically he was the reason they were attacked. His family is notoriously neutral, has always been, but then their people were also never touched.

Ever since that attack, the whole family swore a blood feud on their magic never to rest until all Death Eaters and their leader have been brought to justice.

He is a Slytherin prefect, burning with the ambition of avenging his mother and aunt and sister and he is a Duelist, which is not someone who is good in a duel of wands.

Being a Duelist is a state of mind, a way of life, is being trained into a mindset, is changing the way you see a room, the way you consider people, it's warping yourself into a lethal someone and he is the brightest star of his family.

Do you think such a prefect, who burns from within with righteous fury and has a blood feud singing in his veins, would ever stand aside if a Malfoy came strutting in and called someone a mudblood? Said in the common room 'I hope Granger is next' ?

And where is the society too? Where is the theatre and the music, where are the muggleborns bringing innovation and spreading it beneath the noses of the conservative purebloods, so busy congratulating each other that they fail to notice how it's insidiously spreading?

I have a boy, oldest of a brood of twelve all wizard and witches and all born to Squib parents, who has finished Hogwarts and has put on a commerce of enchanting beads to play music. Each bead is a song. A bracelet is an album. A necklace is a discography. 

He is planning to make beads available on demand for 'Make your own set of songs'.

He began his commerce by Geminio-ing newspapers and magazines at school, asking his parents to send them to him so he can multiply them and sell them to muggleborns and halfbloods who want to keep in touch with the muggle world. Selling them to curious purebloods.

His siblings inherited that commerce and he used the money from that to fund his own music shop, bringing muggle music into the wizarding world.

If you buy a complimentary enchanted earring, the music will only play in your ear rather than out in the air. Buy both earrings and you have a portable player.

Draw a circle with your wand on the bead and left to right the volume will increase, right to left the volume will decrease. Tap once to play, twice to pause, thrice to stop. If you tap on the first bead of a bracelet or a necklace, all the beads will play one right after the other. If you want to listen to a bead in particular again just tap it and the cycle will reset from there. If you want to listen to a bead on repeat, tap it once and hold a steady pressure for five seconds.

You have accessories that play music now, how cool is that?

Where is the conservative culture, with their outdated ways, with their young artists drawing as of old and using ‘raditional’ mediums that contrast with what muggleborn and halfblood artists are doing?

Where are the conservatives’ young musicians composing in the way it was once done, for piano and violin and magical orchestra?

Who is in the production line of household items, where do they live? Who enchants the beautiful items, who crafts them? How do self-repairing charms affect the market? Are certain items enchanted to resist any Reparo,and similar or derivative spells, to assure a continuity of market? Who imports? Who exports? 

What kind of books and plays and stories are written and narrated? What sort of entertainment is played over the radio in between Celestina Warbeck's songs?

What books would you find, in Grimmauld Place, in their beautiful and airy library, with plush carpeting and so much Lore? 

What kind of version of Beetle the Bard's stories rests in a forgotten bottom corner of Regulus' bedroom's shelves, stolen from his one-year-older brother the year that Sirius went to Hogwarts, so that Regulus could read the stories and imagine Sirius quietly making the voices for him so that Mother would not overhead and punish them for indulging such flight of fancies?

How much did narrative and the kind of books sold change from before Voldemort's eleven years of terror to during-in-the-beginning to during-in-the-middle to during-at-the-end to after?

How much did art and style and clothing and decorations change?

Accessories, colors, hairstyles, wand holsters?

What potions were more popular before, in the various moments during, after?

Drinks and food? 

Popular games? 

What proverbs and way-of-saying and slang and turn of words fell out of favor and which ones emerged? How much did language change?

What was the pureblood vs halfblood vs muggleborn composition of the magical world before those eleven years? Did the purebloods come to believe they could do away with muggleborns with semi-impunity because they were the majority? Did they think that they could prune away opposing purebloods because there were so many of them and they mistakenly thought that enough would always be left?

Did they think they could entice more 'pure' blood from outside and have it be subservient to them as they were the ones who were there beforehand? Was it this how the Malfoy family, whom I headcanon as once having been French, first arrived in the UK and was this how they thought they could position themselves better? Move to a primacy position from a subordinate one?

You can sum it up in 'eleven years of war' and a couple of phrases here and there, as JKR did, but you are not going to make it real and it galls at me to think of all the ways I was never showed that there had been a war and that said war had had consequences.

What if Slytherin has a bad reputation now, but when Tom Riddle went to Hogwarts, Slytherin was for the cunning and ambitious and intelligent and Ravenclaw was the one with the nasty reputation?

The last big Dark One had been a Ravenclaw, maybe, and their friends had banded with them.

'All intelligence, all knowledge and all ruthlessness. No soul to them.'

Maybe it had been a Hufflepuff, a century or two before and everyone still whispered in whispers of the loyalty of the followers, of the hard work they had put into trying to change things.

And why would Tom Riddle put himself in the 'evil' houses, then?

He might have wanted that loyalty, he might have been burning with a thirst for knowledge but no.

Better play it safe.

Better be Slytherin, the smart ones you could rely to think their way out of a problem.

What if, shocking idea I know, it's the actual events of the world you lived into or your parents lived into that warps House reputation and changes it through the centuries?

'Hufflepuff only look out for their own' turns into 'No one capable of empathy ever came out of Ravenclaw' becomes 'There's not a dark wizard who has not been a Slytherin'.

History is changed, shelved, warped, forgotten, repurporsed, remixed by those who follow and their own experiences, in an endless cycle.

They used to whisper 'Gryffindor forges conquerors who will stop at nothing, don't trust them, they will use you in their charges as an expendable wand and toss you aside when your core is spent', and it was at the height of British Magical Colonialism.

Addendum: how many professions there used to be in the Magical World before Voldemort's eleven years of war? How many professions went lost? How many wandmakers? How many scholars and researchers? 

Is the Ministry such a mess because they went from having a reasonable workforce to being incredibly short staffed, once purebloods and halfbloods started dropping like flies and muggleborns were either dead or driven into hiding, except for a couple of cases?

How many children were homeschooled or withdrawn from Hogwarts because it simply was not safe for them to be in there? 

How many families do not trust Hogwarts, because yes Voldemort (and why should they still fear the name so many years afterward? Why shouldn't they boldly go ahead and use the name, to spite the dead monster? To refuse him their fear? He is dead, ding dong the Wicked Wizard of the UK is gone) might have never gone against Dumbledore, but Dumbledore let the youngest wannabe Death Eater stay there and get away with doing 'foul' things to students, to a point where even muggleborn students were aware of who those people were going to be? 

(See Lily and Snape's discussion in Book 7).

If there was an active group of terrorists who wanted nothing more to kill you and your children, would you leave your children in the same school as those monsters? Let them have leeway to torment and come to know their faces and habits and friends?

Hell fucking no.

How were the markets influenced by the war? Which items were in high demand? What was used to make them? To bring back the potions point from above, which ingredients became scarce or rare because of the demand for them? How much did it inflate prices? What alternative solutions were found, if you couldn't afford them / couldn't afford them anymore? 

Which professions were bolstered and soared and which ones fell in disrepair because they were unneeded? How many people changed job track because their chosen profession was not what was paid for anymore / because they thought they needed to specialize differently?

How did all of this influence Healers and Healing as a profession? The stockpiles of St.Mungo? How many healers are around who know how to counter dark curses and have earned to do brutal triage when necessary and how to pull off miracles on a fly? How many Healers died? How many Healers exhausted themselves into dangerous low levels of magical energy, just to save one more? How many were killed, because they had become targets for being too good at their jobs?

Where are Mad Eye Moody colleagues? 

I have a muggleborn Hit Wizard who lives right next door to the Ministry and and works in his office and has since the war, when his muggle wife and not-even-two-years old daughter were killed by Death Eaters as a 'warning' to him to stop doing his job as an auror. 

Where are the aurors still surviving at the end of those first eleven years, kids who became veterans, veterans who were hollowed out, the people who would not stand if even a whiff of Voldemort's return went past their noses, those of them who still have working ones?

Those who saw Pureblood Maniacism develop as a cultural current of thought and felt plagued by the 'if I'd seen it sooner' 'if we acted more swiftly' 'if only' 'if only' 'if only'?

The ones who swore 'never again' and 'not in my lifetime', where are they?

Eleven years of peace are not enough to heal eleven years of war, coming on the heels of a build up of a handful of years marred by disappearances, coming on the heels of Grindewald's war in Europe.

[stellar-sushi-blog]

too much asagao!kit

have you ever wanted five pages of useless information about my si? no? oh well here you go anyways!! the link to the original template is here. be warned, it’s like ten pages long.

Name: Victoria

Nickname: Kit

Origin of nickname: She used ‘Kit’ as a pen name when she wrote for the school newspaper. Her friends soon started using it jokingly, but it ended up sticking with her.

Age: 17

Sex: Female

Sexual Orientation: Panromantic Heterosexual

Current status: a..alive?

Birth date: November 17th

Current residence: Asagao Academy

Occupation: Student

Hobbies: Kit enjoys writing, doodling, making origami, going for walks, sewing plushies, working with ceramics, and doing volunteer work.

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Most important childhood “event” that still affects her: Kit almost always had her parents holding her hand. She even went to the same private school for 5th-8th grade where her mother worked. Also, before attending Asagao, she’d never spent more than two days away from one of her parents.

How? Because of the constant sheltering and guidance her parents gave her, Kit never learned how to do anything by herself and has a horrible time socializing and trying new things.

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How does she dress or what do they typically wear? For school, she wears the required white button-up, yellow vest, and black skirt. On her free days she normally chooses to wear a white tank top, black skinny jeans, and an oversized, crocheted cardigan.

Other outfits one might find in their wardrobe: Kit has WAY too many tank tops and gym shorts. Where do they keep coming from? Where does she get them all?? Why does she have them all??? Please stop her.

Jewelry:Her favorite pieces of jewelry are her hoops earrings, a silver and black onyx ring, and a bracelet with an octopus charm on it.

Health: In a physical sense, she’s alright despite having a heart problem. Her mental state isn’t the greatest, though.

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Habits/Obsessions: She loves Nokemon and candles. Even if she can’t burn them in her dorm room, she has like 20 candles.

Unique phrases/words: To her friends, she will blurt out random Italian phrases and curses to confuse them.

Do they curse, and if so, to what extent? Kit swears a moderate amount around friends, but only around friends.

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Describe their sleep patterns: She either sleeps for 13 hours straight, or sleeps for 5 hours.

Describe their bedroom: Kit’s side of the dorm is very messy, but it’s very well organized.

Describe their daily rituals:

Kit is normally awoken by a distressed Sammi twenty minutes before class. In a panic, she throws on her uniform, brushes her hair and teeth, then grabs her backpack before leaving.

In class, she can normally be found doodling and trying not to fall asleep.

When lunch rolls around and she has no other work to finish up, Kit goes to the library and reads until the next bell. Here, she also finds time to gawk at the cute, student council president and even the boy who is almost always in the nurse’s office.

After the second half of the day, she returns to the dorm to do homework. Once it’s finished, she eats dinner then either works on a creative project or plays games with her roommate.

Lastly, she makes her way to the bathroom for a shower before finally going to bed.

-

How self-confident is the character? Not at all.

How does she see herself? As just another angsty teen who complains too much.

How do they believe she is perceived by others? She either thinks of herself as a queen, or a piece of crap. Depends on the day.

What does the character like least about themselves? Her constant need for attention.

How do they express themselves? By writing or drawing, normally.

Is this character generally dominant or submissive? Submissive

Most at ease when: She’s alone and safe, or just around friends in general.

Ill at ease when: She’s by herself in an unfamiliar area.

Describe their sense of humor: Kit will laugh at and joke about mostly everything, as long as it’s within some boundaries. She can go from laughing over a 12 year old’s joke to a joke about cannibalism.

If they could be described with one of the seven virtues, which would it be? Justice

If they could be described with one of the seven sins, which would it be? Envy/Sloth

Biggest Vulnerability (non physical): She’s easily threatened to do things.

Optimist or Pessimist: Pessimist.

Introvert or extrovert: Introvert.

Greatest Fear: BEARS

Other Fears/Insecurities/Phobias: Kit isn’t confident with her body/personality, is afraid of deep water, and fears fires.

Character's darkest, deepest secret: Her past.

Minor Secrets: She keeps the people she hates and has a crush on a secret.

-

Favorite...

Color: Purple.

Clothing: Tank tops.

Place: The field near Asagao.

Room in the house and why: Bedroom/dorm. It’s warm and comfy.

Food/drinks: Any Italian foods + Slushies.

Subject in school: Creative Writing / Ceramics.

Animal: Cat.

Least Favorite...

Clothing: Socks.

Place: The city (when she’s by herself.)

Food: Meat.

Subject in school: Math.

Where does this character like to hang out? She likes to hang out in the library and her dorm room.

-

How does this character deal with or react to…

Conflict/Danger: She’ll try to handle it calmly, but she also might cry.

Rejection: Lots and lots of tears and self deprecation

Fear: Run away or ignore it. Pray to God for help.

Change: Adapt or die, unless it’s completely traumatic.

Loss: Ignore the pain and get over it or cry until she passes out.

Sex/Flirting: Become insanely uncomfortable or go along with it.

Pain: Get as far away as possible from the cause of it, or deal with it.

Peer pressure: Tell the person trying to pressure her to fuck off.

Guilt: Cry and guilt-trip herself for fifteen years.

Being wrong: Panic and think about the mistake for hours after.

Being criticized: Normally, she’ll get angry or sad. On a good day, she’ll get over it and be extremely thankful for it. But, if it was unwarranted, she’ll get pissed beyond belief.

Offending others: Apologize hundreds of times and feel more guilt than she should.

Praise: Is… is this for me? Or are you talking to someone else?

How does this character feel about...

Marriage: She’s not really in a rush to get married, but it sounds like a cute thing to do.

Children: No.

Family/Family Values: She thinks that you should always treat your family with respect, unless they’re an asshole to you.

Old age: Doesn’t sound very fun.

Sex: [uncomfortable wheezing]

Love: Cute!! But she probably doesn’t deserve it.

Friendship/Other relationships: Please be her friend. She’s very lonely and she’ll bake sweets for you.

The opposite sex: CUTE

The same sex: CUTE

Money/Material things: Because of her family’s small fortune, she doesn’t really have to worry about money. She does, however, get very emotionally attached to some material objects.

Science: Biology is interesting and fun, but chemistry makes her head hurt.

Nature/Animals: She loves animals and would die for them.

Drugs and alcohol: Kit would never touch most drugs except for alcohol. Maybe.

What embarrasses this character? Pretty much anything sexual.

-

Crushes: She has three crushes but would never act upon them. One on Paul and one on Jeff. Don’t ask her about the third one or else she’ll die from embarrassment.

Girlfriend/Boyfriend(s): N/A

Best Friend: Sammi

Friends: All of 8BB

Pets: Sometimes she hoards stray cats in her dorm when she finds them in the city. (She does, however, give them up to a shelter when she gets the chance.)

What kind of person would she consider to be the perfect partner? Someone who is kind, supportive, and can take a joke. She’d also like someone who will play games with her and stay up until 4am.

Is the character judgmental of others and how so? If you’re an asshole to someone around her, Kit will judge you until you die and never let it go.

How is she perceived by...

Strangers? Who is this awkward girl? Why is she trying to joke with me? Where are her parents?

Friends? Please stop telling me to do my homework and please stop trying to fight anyone who looks at me wrong. Yes, Kit, we’re friends. You don’t need to ask so often. Please stop baking for me. You damn meme-loving fuck.

Coworker/Colleague? Why does this girl keep stuttering in class? What is she so nervous about?

Lovers? Since when was I dating this nerd and how does she manage to bake me a cake every few weeks?

Describe their sense of trust: Kit really wants to be able to trust everyone. But, if you break her trust, she will ignore you for the rest of your life.

What type of individuals does she like or associate with? She likes to hang around nerds, because it sums up her interests pretty well.

What type of individuals doesn't she like or associate with? Jocks. She thinks that if she associates with them, people with figure that she’s also a jock even though she’s far from it.

What do family/friends like most about character? She’s good at keeping up conversations and is very adaptable to new situations.

What do family/friends like least about character? She’s awkward and can often push herself away from everyone for weeks at a time.

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Birthparent(s): A mother and a father.

Are they still alive? Yes.

Did they raise this character? Yes.

What did they do for a living? Her mother works at a private middle school and her father is a petroleum engineer.

Caretakers: She had a nanny when she was younger.

Are they still alive? Yes

At what age did the caretakers begin to raise this character? From when she was born to when she was 12.

Siblings (if any): A half-sister and half-brother.

Describe how each one treats this character: Her sister, when she lived with Kit, was very kind to her. Her brother used to be very angry with her, but eventually mellowed out and they’re now friends.

Does this character still keep in contact with their siblings? Only with her brother.

-

If this character were an animal, what would they be? An armadillo.

Why? Low body temperature, hides in a ball when scared, long nails, not really dangerous, and runs from humans.

What would happen if this character became physically handicapped, and how would that change them? Her depression might worsen, but she’d definitely try not to let it affect her daily routines.

What would this character do if spontaneously placed in a whole new and unfamiliar environment? She’d be terrified, but would at least make an attempt to communicate and get home asap.

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What song best fits this character? Say Anything - Do Better

If you could compare this character to an existing character, who would she be and why? Ashley from Until Dawn, maybe.

-

Character's role in the story: Background character. Very minor.

Scene where character first appears: When Mai pulls Hana away from Ian, they bump into Kit. She is shown very briefly and only manages to force out a “Oh, s-sorry!” before running off. This leads to Mai explaining Hidden Block, then 8-Bit Blossoms.

Relationships with other characters: She treats Hana very nicely, is a little afraid of Mai, loves her roommate, and is eternally greatful for Mr. McPasta constantly bandaging her hands up from ceramics class. For anyone else, she tries to act very polite but her tendency to joke may make her come off as a bit blunt.

[whatevernevermind]

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Good SEO textbooks explain in detail how greatest to use keywords and exactly how to structure your entire web site to attract the attention associated with search engine spiders and associated with human visitors, and a posting such as this cannot perform the topic justice. While businesses begin on an SEO advertising marketing campaign, they should realize that a good entire marketing campaign can drop flat on its face in the event that a business is unable in order to reach the masses, that will be, their target audience. If your own pages were designed to obtain the most out of Search engines, with commonly known and right now outdated SEO techniques chances are usually Google has identified this plus is throttling your rankings within some way. Numerous business people find keeping upward with the "moving target" associated with SEO distracts them from day-to-day priorities more than they actually imagined, so it's good in order to appear closely at what can make sense for every business. The app process for the SocialSEO Electronic Marketing and SEO Scholarship is usually done 100% electronically and demands the next list of materials. Given that research engines have complex algorithms that will power their technology and every person's marketing needs are unique, jooxie is unable to provide specific SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION advice to our customers. We all think SEO in 2019 will discover a shift to focusing much more on user intent, problem resolving, and hyper locality in purchase to capitalize on the continuing rise of voice search. Private demographic information would come in a great deal handier in 2019 as much as the ranking of key phrases is concerned. Links are one of the particular most important SEO ranking elements. However, more advanced that will readers will recognize the reduce quality of sites employing dark hat SEO at the expenditure from the reader experience, which usually will reduce the site's visitors and page rank over period. So - THERE IS SIMPLY NO BEST PRACTICE AMOUNT OF CHARACTER TYPES any SEO could lay down since exact best practice to GUARANTEE a title can display, in full in Search engines, at least, because the search little title, on every device. While getting as many pages listed in Google was historically the priority for an SEO, Search engines is now rating the high quality of pages on your own site plus the type of pages this really is indexing. Jerrika Scott, Digital Marketing Specialist with Archway Cards Ltd, also thinks in voice being the craze of 2019 rather than 2018. Today, regardless of all the hype about whether or not SEO is dead, we discover that organic search is nevertheless one of the highest RETURN ON INVESTMENT digital marketing channels.

Here's the truly amazing news: You don't have in order to have to be a SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION wizard to make sure your own website is well positioned with regard to organic search engine traffic. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is the acronym for research engine optimisation. The particular search engines have refined their particular algorithms along with this advancement, numerous tactics that worked within 2004 can hurt your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION today. Therefore, we also generate content on conducting keyword analysis, optimizing images for search motors, creating an SEO strategy (which you're reading right now), plus other subtopics within SEO. In 2018 there will be an also bigger focus on machine understanding and SEO from data. ” Of course, the amplification aspect of things will continue in order to combine increasingly with genuine public relationships exercises rather than shallow-relationship hyperlink building, which will become significantly easy to detect by research engines like google. Seo (SEO) is often regarding making small modifications to components of your website. In my SEO post writing guidelines I suggest a person take your main keyword plus 3 or 4 other associated keywords and write at 3-4%. Some SEO specialists claim that will building links for SEO uses is pointless; others believe this role of backlinks to get a internet site has continually risen through this years. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a huge part associated with any marketing strategy. This fresh paradigm of users relying upon voice search for many associated with their search needs will end up being a game changer for SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION.

Without the doubt, one of the greatest trends that has already started to take place and may continue well into 2018 will be the consolidation of niche MarTech gamers by larger content cloud suppliers, with the role and significance of SEO increasing significantly all through this transformation. SEO Internet marketing provides major components, which develop the particular website traffic, and top research engine rankings. SEO is brief for Seo, and there is usually nothing really mystical about this particular. You might have heard the lot about SEO and exactly how it works, but basically exactly what is a measurable, repeatable procedure which is used to deliver signals to search engines that will the pages are worth displaying in Google's index. Topic clusters possess been lauded since the future associated with SEO and content strategy, yet are widely underreported on (so now's the time to hit! ) 93% of B2B companies use content marketing. Teresa Walsh, Marketing Professional at automobile site, Cazana, forecasts that hyper organic targeting will increase its importance in 2019 with more location search plus more voice search. We get to the particular bottom of on-page SEO difficulties in order for search motors to clearly see what your own website is all about. SEO requires you to continuously become a student because of just how quickly the algorithms of research engine companies change. Google's punishing methods probably class pages as some thing akin to a poor UX if they meet certain detectable criteria e. g. lack associated with reputation or old-school SEO stuff such as keyword stuffing a site.

This free marketing device is really a long-term technique and can be time intense but it will worth this. A good user experience will be the key to satisfaction along with a powerful SEO. 1 SEO might target different kinds of research, including image search, video research, academic search, 2 news research, and industry-specific vertical search motors. All of us are in the fourth 1 / 4 of 2018, it is this right time start thinking with regards to the year ahead and brand new changes SEO realm might assume. We've long known that consumer opinions, input, and sentiment regarding a brand deeply impact SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION rankings, but we wanted the particular information to prove it. Off-page SEO means using action to build trust, specialist, social signals and inbound hyperlinks. How video affects SEO actually depends on your goals whenever using video in your marketing and advertising campaign and which video system you use. LSI is not really what most SEO professionals claim it to be. This is certainly not a idea that can be used simply by the average web designer or even webmaster to improve their lookup engine listings, and it is definitely not what many people, which includes myself, has written it in order to be. Nevertheless, first some history. This particular video walks you through the particular specific steps you should get increased rankings in 2018, including launching speed, technical SEO, content, hyperlinks, and more. Given that it is, all across the particular year agencies specializing in SEO were hectic improving and finding new procedures to optimize the search motor even better than what their own competitors were doing. With internet customers who use their mobiles in order to search on the increase, since an SEO consultant it can make sense to possess a look at the particular effects SEO marketing is putting on search engine optimization. The sole purpose of SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Services is to improve your own search engine ranking. Assure redirected domains redirect through the canonical redirect and this too provides any chains minimised, although Help make sure to audit the backlink user profile for any redirects you stage at a page just such as reward comes punishment if all those backlinks are toxic (another kind of Google opening up the particular war which is technical seo on a front it's not really, and in fact is speak, to building backlinks to your own site). In order to smoothen out the software plan interface problem, the web developing team as well as the particular SEO specialist work together in order to build the major search motors friendly programs and code that could be easily integrated into the user's website. They will have got to find SEO expert sites, who will help the company owner's site have many clients in internet marketing. This is due to the fact they are not SEO pleasant and can affect your positioning significantly. These SEO crawler programs are similar to Google's own crawlers and will provide you an overview showing just how your page will perform within SEO rankings. Google is making certain it takes longer to discover results from black and white hat SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, and intent on ensuring the flux in its SERPs structured largely on where the searcher is in the world during the particular time of the search, plus where the business is situated near to that searcher.

Therefore, cheer up and supplies up to policy for SEO- the particular organic top-ranking practice. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (search engine optimization) places your own website within the natural outcomes section of search engines. SEO is specifically important for businesses because it guarantees they're answering their audience's greatest questions on search engines, whilst driving traffic to their items and services. Intended for marketers who were brought upward in the ‘traditional SEO marketplace, ' 2018 is really the time to adapt or pass away. White hat SEO includes most the SEO practices we've spoken about so far which have got a long term approach in order to site optimization and focus upon the user experience and exactly what people need. Cost effectiveness - SEO is definitely one of the most budget-friendly marketing strategies because it focuses on users who are actively searching for your products and solutions online. The reality is that you can obtain top Search engine ranking opportunities spending a little bit associated with money and working on the particular project yourself or paying the professional Seo services thousands associated with dollars to get your Site on the first page. Although black hat SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION methods may boost a cyberspace search engine page rank within the short term, these strategies could also get the web site banned from the search motors altogether. According in order to research and advisory firm Forrester, programmatic marketing is expected in order to account for 50% of most advertising by 2019. A few search engines have also offered to the SEO industry, plus are frequent sponsors and visitors at SEO conferences, webchats, plus seminars. If a person have a website that a person want to become easily discovered by a search engine, you need to increase your site rank by means of SEO as well. Some SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION companies focus on link building” and increasing the authority associated with their clients' websites. Through an SEO perspective, we had been introduced to RankBrain nearly 2 years ago, a machine-learning synthetic intelligence that Google's been making use of to process an extremely big proportion of search results. Specifically, you'll observe exactly how to make use of advanced on-page SEO strategies (like Bucket Brigades”) to get higher Google search positions and more organic traffic. Search engines has introduced (at least) the ‘percieved' risk to publishing plenty The Story Of SEO 2019 Has Just Gone Viral! of lower-quality pages on your own site to in order in order to curb production of old-style SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION friendly content based on manipulating early search engine algorithms. Grey hat SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is entirely centered on enhancing search engine rankings. There are numerous aspects to SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, from the words on your own page to the way additional sites link to you upon the web. So, rather than viewing SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING as an umbrella term covering SEO, it's more accurate in order to view SEM (paid search) plus SEO (organic search) as distinct entities to use as portion of your Search Marketing arsenal.

Keep in mind that will links, content, and user knowledge are all major SEO rating factors. Could holistic approach will ultimately eliminate a lot of the particular issues created by some SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION practitioners over the years, I actually suspect that search engines' technicians will initially overestimate the accuracy of their AI, resulting within Penguin-level collateral damage. SEO (Search Motor Optimization) is the process associated with making a website more noticeable in search results, also called improving search rankings. Siteimprove SEO furthermore provides in-tool tips on where to start and the way to get the most out associated with your keyword research and supervising. We've already been operating in the SEO plus content marketing industry since last year and know how search motors work. Right now there are a great number associated with resources out there surrounding competing link analysis (and a great deal that have been authored simply by me! ) but whenever I actually speak with people that are usually working on SEO projects, really always one of those "yeah, I realize I should do this more" tasks. Amy Kilvington, Marketing Executive at Custom Drapes, believes that SEOs are heading to have to optimize social media marketing more as Google indexes this and prioritizes it over their own sites' pages. Social media is usually the easiest and most efficient way to push the SEO-based content. However, generally there are some easy adjustments that will you can make to the particular search engine optimization (SEO) component of it, which will ideally provide you with fantastic results. Because it turns out, there's more in order to on-page SEO than optimizing regarding keywords. Search engines motor optimization (organic SEO) describes the particular methods used to obtain the high placement (or ranking) upon a search engine results web page in unpaid, algorithm-driven results upon the given search engine. Also, videos have got a lot of untapped prospective - great for SEO plus make for good user wedding. The extremely best SEO expert 2019 will certainly tell you for High-End mobile devices, we're seeing more format changes to focus, provide the better experience, search results. Social SEO is especially helpful for online reputation administration. It isn't just the method that Google ranks optimized written content, but the way that that they rank poorly constructed or taboo content that will push the Blog9T ranking to where it should to be in 2019. Ray Cheselka, SEO & Google adwords Manager at SEO and style agency, webFEAT Complete, predicts that will sites with over a 2 second load time will become penalized, and search intent is usually going to always grow within importance. SEO consists of ordering the site's architecture and hyperlinks to make pages inside the particular website easier to find plus navigate. In contrast, content material that no one is humming about have minimal effect upon social SEO. They are usually generally knowledgeable within the are usually of both SEO and content material marketing. When it arrives to reviews, customers work as a good army of link builders plus keyword writers so your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION structure is shaped without a person having to lift a ring finger. The number a single reason for using video upon your site to improve SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is to increase the quantity of time users remain upon your site. Search engine optimization had been but still is fascinating in order to me. The SEO placement with regard to any size business begins along with proper web site optimization, a good excellent link building strategy plus a well planned online marketing and advertising plan. One section of focus for higher marketing and SEO performance within 2018 is the confluence associated with content, influence, and social. This can be helpful for SEO, as it helps avoid search engine crawlers from getting confused by syntax or approval errors, and leads to even more accurate indexing. Stop thinking in terms associated with SEO vs. content marketing” plus start exploring how well they will perform together. (Give it a try tone of voice search using OK Google through your cell phone and inquire "What Is BlowFish SEO" ) In the event that all remains as it is definitely, Google will read out loud just about all about my company in the short to the point method, These cards are formatted in order to fit the screen of your own cell with no scrolling upward or down. Although SEO is really the time-consuming process but believes myself, if you work well along with dedication and trendy techniques, the particular combined results of on-page plus off-page SEO holds you upon the top with rank #1 for a specific search outcome. Fairly lately, I've seen a resurgence associated with on-page SEO factors making the difference searching engine rankings.

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