#without them - an entire network is dying

[laf-outloud]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/tvs-top-5-podcast-the-cw-freevee-netflix-ratings-1235907525/

3. RIP, The CW It’s the end of an era: After more than 20 years, Jared Padalecki’s run on The CW is coming to an end as the Nexstar-controlled network has canceled Walker after a four-season run. It marks the latest nail in the coffin for a network that launched the careers of scores of TV writers, showrunners and actors as profits become the priority for the new CW.

Lol, love that losing Jared is a push towards the drain for the CW. They made a big mistake with that, and lots of entertainment sites and outlets and reporters can see that.

LOL! Just more proof that Jared was Mr. CW™. He was there at its inception and he's there at its proverbial end!

I followed the link and it's actually a really good podcast. They talk about not just why the cancellation likely happened, but also what the industry is losing with the CW's transition to an 'acquire network' rather than a platform for creatives. I've linked below in case anyone wants to give it a listen. (Starting at about 28 minutes in.)

[physalian]

Transformers Prime Appreciation Post

You know what. You know what?? This show has featured in so much of my writing advice, it deserves its own “This show is amazing and has amazing writing and shit you can learn from it to be a better writer” post. It’s streamable on Netflix at the time of this post. I own it on DVD. I have all three seasons on actual, physical discs that I bought new for my DVD collection. That’s how much I love this show.

What is TFP? TFP aired on The Hub network, the joint venture between Hasbro and Discovery Channel that died after MLP ended, I think. We lost cable before that happened. TFP was probably single-handedly sustained by MLP money for a while, like the rest of HBO on GOT.

This show came out when I entered high school and I have extremely vivid memories of some of the constant previews they showed of the season 1 finale 3-parter, to the point where whenever I watch the scenes that were in those teasers, I still get a physical reaction from being bludgeoned over the head with those lines of dialogue.

I used to scroll ahead in the TV guide as far as the scheduled programming allowed, just to catch snippets of what episodes were slated to air within the next month. This show was the shit.

But it was too expensive and its budget got eaten by Friendship is Magic. The bronies ruin everything I guess.

It’s 3 seasons (technically 2.5 since 3 was only greenlit for half its episode count) of near-perfection and a tv-movie. There are a few weak episodes, sure, and one absolute dud of a clipshow episode, but there are no awful episodes. There ain’t no “Great Divide” for this show.

Why you should watch it:

1. A “kids” show that absolutely takes itself seriously

One of the Autobots dies 5 minutes into the series and it’s the inciting incident for the entire story. He gets blown up, taken prisoner, and then stabbed through his chest by a Decepticon’s fist without warning. He then gets brought back as a zombie, killed again, infects his partner with the zombie juice when she’s trying to save him, and dies for good.

Two main characters get straight-up murdered, long-running characters whose deaths have lofty consequences for the narrative. There’s betrayals, double-agents, robot torture, robots getting eaten alive by scraplets, gaslighting of an amnesiac, near-murders of POWs, near-murders of fan-favorites who get so hurt, their recovery spans 4 whole episodes, attempted child murder, terrorism, and mad science.

But there is also some heavy emotional shit. The surviving partner of the zombie is damaged by his loss for the entire show because she can’t properly manage her grief. There’s characters going on suicide missions to avenge their dead/dying friends, getting beat to shit while a child watches helplessly on the sidelines screaming at them to get up and run through tears. There’s war flashbacks to dead friends and comrades and the terror and fallout of being eons-old soldiers.

There’s quiet moments, too, about grief and loss and living with disability and disfigurement from battlefield wounds. There’s the machinations of a tragic villain, openly and explicitly abused in front of his whole team and who keeps crawling back and groveling at his master’s feet and his internal identity crisis over who he is, if he’s not with his abuser. There’s the fallout of an extremely divisive trolley problem where a normally calm and collected character loses their shit with grief over the decision that was made. There’s the quiet rumblings of dissent and rebellion in the ranks and all the backstabbing that follows.

And there’s clever moments. Rogues and rebels orchestrating complex and interwoven plots to further their agendas. A POW who no one would ever expect to be captured absolutely trouncing their captives and laughing all the while while they free themselves. Characters who always have a backup plan to force others into awful predicaments.

The first episode after the 5-episode mini-movie that opens the show features an A-plot about school science projects, and a B-plot about waking a loyal ‘Con from stasis and trying to convince him to bow down to the ‘Cons’ temp leader, Starscream, while Megatron is elsewhere. It does not end well for him. The very next episode features robots getting eaten alive by alien metal termites.

2. Depth of Character

Beyond the actual plot, the villains might be more compelling characters than the heroes across many arcs and episodes. You’ve got five main autobots for most of the show that generally fit the 5-man band:

Optimus: Leader

Ratchet: Smart Guy

Bulkhead: Tough Guy

Arcee: Lancer

Bumblebee: Heart

Also guest starring the Alien Robot Cowboy Samurai known as Wheeljack, he’s amazing.

These characters have some really rich episodes and arcs, and moments where they have to put their own values, wants, and agendas aside for the greater good or the problem at hand. They feel like real people, for lack of a better word. They laugh, they cry, they rage, they grieve, and since the show is one long storyline, what happens seemingly inconsequentially in season 1 will come back to haunt them in season 3.

But then you have the villains, an extremely dysfunctional team of “every man for himself, we’re all not here because we like each other, but because we hate the Autobots,” and I can tell from the fanfic that the ‘Cons are the much more popular characters to write about.

Megatron: The fascist narcissist warlord

Starscream: His scheming SIC both too smart and too dumb for his own good

Soundwave: The utterly badass TIC comms chief who never loses and is insanely, fiercely loyal to the cause

KnockOut: The absolutely gay-as-fuck cosmedic surgeon/chief of medical voiced by Daran Norris, who’s only design requirement was to make him a sexy sportscar, and they ended up with a cherry red Aston Martin. One of his first lines in the show is "*whistle* Sweet rims” at Optimus in truck mode.

Breakdown: KO’s himbo, canon* boyfriend with some of the best, cringey puns

Airachnid: Arcee’s arch nemesis, the only other female transformer, a “love to loathe her” type

And others down the line for both teams.

*Canon insofar as a kids show on a kids network allows a la “we’ve given you as much subtext as we can, do the rest”.

KO is technically my favorite but it’s a tossup between many and that is a feat, especially when they’re the villains. They are all extremely compelling characters.

3. The Story

With some exceptions, episodes don’t happen in isolation. Most of season 1 is a bit random with a foggy throughline, but season 2 is utterly amazing, sans that one clipshow the producers probably insisted on.

Season 2 is the show’s finest hour and without spoiling anything: The end of season 1 sees this database that had been in the ‘Cons possession suddenly now with the means to decode and decrypt whatever’s locked behind it. The database contains coordinates on Earth of a myriad of confiscated weapons, ancient relics, and the like and the entire season is one big fetch quest with both sides racing and beating the shit out of each other to decode coordinates and retrieve the relics before the other side.

The macguffins are pretty cool in their own right (alien mustard gas, a giant Final Fantasy sword, an alien nuke, a phase-shifter) but it’s the intensity of the story and the action and drama that happens around the various quests that is so amazing.

At one point, the show takes four episodes to tackle a fetch quest across four separate relics that involves the entire cast on both sides and the two rogues all gunning for their targets at the same time, ending with one character critically injured that grinds the whole plot to a stop.

The show is one long story, as I mentioned, where something that happens in episode 2 shows up again as critically important in episode 40 and that’s a heck of an achievement on the writers’ part, making it all feel like it was planned that way from the start, even though it wasn’t.

Season 3 is… lesser, mostly because it has half as many episodes because the show was canceled. However, the writers knew about the cancellation early enough to still deliver a satisfying story, and wrap up loose ends with a tv-movie that is also pretty good.

Episode-to-episode there’s definitely a mixed bag of what kind of tone you’ll get. It’s still a kids show and there are human characters so there are some lesser episodes with the humans’ lives as the focus and the Autobots running support. Then you’ll have small-screen perfection, but like I said, there’s never a single episode of story (not clipshow) that I skip upon rewatch, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. The second “clipshow” episode is far and gone above the first, told through the eyes of a character as they’re on trial, only their scenes through the story, as they await judgment that might see them executed.

4. The Production Value

The majority of the animation budget rightfully went to the transformers themselves, which left the environments and the human characters a little rough around the edges. But you came for alien robots and before I got this show on DVD, I streamed crap quality episodes online. Once I saw these characters in full HD color, for the first time since it aired on TV, I was blown away. The reflections are, bar none, the best part. Which seems like a strange hill to die on but these are shiny metal giants. There’s some shots where you can see the reactions of other characters reflected hazily in the chest plates of the speaking character, and this is kids animated TV.

Some episodes do stand out, possibly because they changed studios, but some do have some off-kilter coloring or shadows, but you wouldn’t notice if you’re not like me and have picked some scenes apart frame by frame.

The music, also, is amazing. It’s grand and epic and far and gone from the 80s synthesizers, with a few choir tracks thrown in. The foley and sound design can get a little gratuitous with the metal-on-metal squeals, but none of it ever feels out of place.

I bought the directors’ commentary without knowing it for seasons 1 and 3 and they talked about having all the digital screens in the backgrounds of both bases constantly moving and showing data, not just static, blank images, and it really ups the feel of the quality and care put into the show when there’s always something cool to look at in every frame.

There are also some money shots. At one point there’s a fight that demands Optimus and Megatron join forces and with zero dialogue between them, only choreography in the span of about 25 seconds of animation shows you that these two really were old friends, old allies, old confidants. Their moves are mirrored, back to back, showing that Megatron clearly taught Optimus how to fight and this shot, the one at the top of the post, is too good to not spoil.

5. The Writing

Beyond the overall arcs, I mentioned in my “How to make your writing less stiff” post that the dialogue in this show is stellar. Due to animation budgets, they didn’t have the means to fully render a huge variety of environments, and that includes anything on Cybertron. So, when necessary, outside of when characters actually go to Cybertron later in the show, they use some beautiful matte paintings and voiceover narration by Ratchet, absolutely dumping exposition on the audience in spectacular fashion.

I have the director’s commentary. I know Ratchet’s monologues were a thing of beauty. They also had the cast all recording their dialogue at once, standing in a big U for more natural line deliveries.

The actual writing though, from the different ways the characters speak to the lore, the backstories, how the show can be a horror trip one minute and a kids’ science fair the next, showed incredible variety and flexibility in the writers’ room.

Optimus’ lines remain my favorite because they’re just that juicy, but then you have characters like Starscream, a perpetual schemer who loves to hear himself talk, pontificating whenever he can about his plans and how much he hates Megatron and how self-important he is. Or other righteous characters who use Big Words like Optimus that don’t feel out of place against somebody like KnockOut who says stuff like “I like the way I look in steel-belted radials” or Wheeljack who clearly learned English from watching Clint Eastwood movies.

Or, a later character, Shockwave, the most “robotic” of the robots and very poncy and scientific with the way he talks and interprets the world, with most of his lines including whether or not a character’s choices were “logical”.

This show is fantastic at creating tension out of mundanity and keeping you on the edge of your seat for nail-biting action scenes. You feel the anguish and the grief with the characters. Their rage and elation and devastation.

Some faults, because I love this show and I can recognize them

The human characters are… well, teenagers. Miko is pretty divisive, you’ve got the camp of “wah she’s a girl and she’s annoying” and just people who don’t find them as compelling. Which, fair. Their animation is a bit gummy and sometimes they disappear for entire episodes and their human world arcs are kind of abandoned. They’re not the best, but this isn’t about humans, it’s about transformers.

Due to probably time constraints with the show being canceled, some transformers’ arcs also felt abandoned or not given their due time to shine (of which fanfic has made painfully clear and rectified). It’s a very tight plot, but there are some dangling loose ends.

Sometimes it is incredibly in-your-face that this is a show meant to sell toys, particularly in season 3 with the whole uh, “we must become beast hunters” and the soft rebrand.

There exists a subplot of C-list villains, human militants who want to dissect cybertronian biology and make weapons. While some of their episodes are absolute bangers, you can tell the writers were getting sick of them before they’re finally written out of the show.

And a few awkward lines here and there.

Other cool shit if nothing else has convinced you

No love triangle or romantic subplot for the two female robots and one of the female humans. You can read one of Arcee’s relationships as romantic or platonic, but she is far beyond just “the girl” of the group, she’s a badass. The other romantic subplot is between a mom who’s deadbeat ex-husband is inexplicably missing, and a pot-bellied Army vet, and it’s really sweet and healthy.

(I think) incredible representation of characters with disability, in Bumblebee’s various war scars and his mutism.

The Gays. I swear there’s a page in the art book (of which I am desperate to find a copy of) for KnockOut and the caption of his art legit says something like “we made him too sexy, oops”.

So. Many. Puns. Puns that know they’re awful and relish in it. Dad jokes, too.

Ratchet losing his mind over how human children can get “twisted limbs and metal burn” if they do a dangerous thing before realizing the latter does not apply. Ratchet losing his mind in general. Just all of the cranky medic. Jeffrey Combs can make a phone book entertaining.

One of the last times we’ll probably get Peter Cullen and Frank Welker together doing Optimus and Megatron, the OGs. And also, one tiny moment where Frank has to say “treasure” and he still flubs it just like he does for Fred in Scooby Doo.

Consistency between character injuries. If Optimus’ sword breaks in a battle, whenever he summons it before he can have time to fix it, it’s still broken in ensuing shots.

An episode of zombies infecting the Decepticons’ ship and Starscream and KnockOut accidentally admitting they love each other while cowering in terror, while also calling back to a different pair of characters they did not witness saying the exact same lines.

Optimus transforming, ramming Megatron in the chest in truck mode, booting him off a cliff, and using his tires to melt rubber in Megatron’s face once they land because he is pissed.

All of Starscream’s immensely satisfying comeuppance for situations he gets himself into.

Using the murder termites for good in a rather horrifying death of a random goon.

Megatron’s hate boner for Optimus that clearly shows how badly these two don’t actually want to kill each other, despite having a million chances to do so, because like Batman and the Joker, “you and I are destined to do this for eternity,” and killing one would leave the other alone, after eons of fighting.

The gorgeous matte paintings.

—

Somebody on here once drew KnockOut with Autobot blue eyes and I have not been able to find that post since. If anyone sees it, please send it to me, it was gorgeous.

Now go watch this show. You can do it in a weekend.

[bombshellsandbluebells]

Psych is SO good at creating memorable, fun minor characters for single episodes that it's such a shame it's a classic network cable show that rarely brings back minor guest stars (and even those that DO return only really return for a handful of episodes overall)

Ewan is iconic and his chemistry with Shawn and Gus is so fun I'm dying to see more spy shenanigans with him and dying to know more about his relationship with Juliet

Gus's college friends are absolutely hilarious and their dynamic with Gus is so much fun as well as their growing friendship with Shawn and it's truly a shame we only saw them twice

Shawn and Gus's old high school friend Dennis??? THE Freddy Prince Jr? Alien conspiracy nerd who has not grown out of his alien obsession one bit despite growing up to be stereotypically attractive? iconic and I can't believe he's only in one episode

Adam Hornstock??? Only one episode of Adam Hornstock?? (remake doesn't count) you're telling me that despite how many times Shawn ends up in legal trouble he is never calling up his buddy to get him out of it?

Abigail Lytar? An angel and a joy literally anytime she's on screen, who has such great chemistry with Shawn and Gus and Henry, and somehow despite being Shawn's girlfriend for a full year appears in like....what, five? six? episodes overall? (would have killed for a Gus/Abigail team up episode. like Abigail needs someone to help volunteer for something or other at the school and all the parents have pulled out for whatever reason and Gus insists he's an expert at whatever topic they're talking about so to win an argument with Shawn he agrees to it then can't back out. Cue scenes of Gus learning how to handle kids and making several comments that's it's just like handling Shawn. also cue a murder happening at the school or on the field trip or whatever it is and Gus having to solve it. frequent cutting to Shawn being bored out of his mind without Gus or Abigail there)

That one Wiccan or witch lady that was SERIOUSLY crushing on Gus. Who also had a brother convinced he was a werewolf and girl just BELIEVED him. Would have paid extra for an arc where Gus and her start dating after that episode and Gus is pulling his classic "getting way outside his comfort zone and being someone he's not for a woman" thing. (the cutest thing is I think she would have liked him just as is.) She encourages AAAALLLLL his fears about ghosts, vampires, curses, etc. etc. Gus spends an entire episode convinced he got Cursed by the Jamba Juice truck guy because he didn't tip

Father Wesley. Not a character on paper that should be as fun as he is, but the actor playing him just has such fantastic chemistry with both Shawn and Gus. (And he's absolutely hilarious in the Dual Spires episode. Definitely has the best line of the episode)

like Psych is so good at writing fun compelling characters with their own little unique character traits that I end up falling in love with characters only meant to be plot relevant to the episode

[racefortheironthrone]

Wait, hang on, did the show actually do what I never see the comics do: treat Madelyne with respect?

I wouldn't say the comics never treat Madelyne with respect, but one of the advantages of X-Men '97 is that because it's a cartoon show with a relatively limited runtime and that it's marketed as a show for teens on a network whose brand is four-quadrant family entertainment, the showrunners have to reach a different resolution than in the comics.

So instead of Madelyne dying as the X-Men's very own Medea-figure, driven mad by entirely justified feelings of resentment and rage at how she had been treated by Scott, by Mister Sinister, by Jean, and by others less genuinely culpable to contemplate the entirely indefensible, only to wind up one in a long list of tragic dead women, the showrunners offer her a moment of grace.

Out of love for her child, and an insistence on her own personhood, Madelyne is able to forge an understanding with Jean Grey. They will never know which one is the original, when one of them has the original body and the other the more complete set of memories, but Madelyne chooses to forge a new identity.

Now, that's something we've seen gradually emerging in recent years, since Hellions and New Mutants and Dark Web, but it's nice to get there without having to wait 40 years.

[frownyalfred]

If this too much or too personal please ignore!

But I was just wondering if you had any advice for grieving? (I lost a close family member very recently)

I'm so sorry for your loss, anon. I don't know your exact situation, but I hope your loved one's memory is a blessing to you and your family. I'll leave my thoughts below the break, since I'll discuss death and dying a little.

I am, as many people on here likely know, still grieving the loss of my father. It was sudden and unexpected. It was bloody and somewhat traumatic for our family. Thinking about it still leaves me dazed and unfocused.

Grieving is such a strange process. I've been talking about it with my therapist weekly, and her main takeaway has been that there is no right way to do it -- and that it is far from linear. There are positive moments and regressions. There are funny memories and difficult truths to grapple with. There is anger, confusion, sadness. Despair. So many unanswered questions and moments that hover on the edge of veneration simply because they are the only ones you have left.

How did I grieve? I cried a lot, at first. I took off work and sat shiva with my family. I answered a thousand well-meaning messages and played one singular song on repeat on my phone. I barely slept. I dreamed and dreamed and dreamed. I woke up crying without remembering exactly what I had been dreaming about.

Then, as if in reprieve, my brain let up. I slept somewhat normally again. My body was no longer on the edge of tears at any given moment, nor was I entirely numb. Slowly, I began to think of normal things again; new television shows, updating a chapter, irritation at the banal things like traffic and work.

And anon, I thought to myself, this must be it. I'm no longer "grieving," or at least not in the traditional sense of the word. I was eating, sleeping, going to the gym and work, updating my works and hitting the club again on the weekends.

But I wasn't done. And I'm not sure I ever will be. I wanted to be done, in so many ways. I was mad at my father for dying, for making me grieve, for keeping me in this state where I couldn't be confident in anything I was feeling, any progress I was making. Where I could remain silent and resolute at his burial, but sob like a baby in my apartment when the concert t-shirt he gave me was stained by some soup.

But that's a lot to put on the dead. And sometimes I have to keep reminding myself that -- that he is dead, that there is a gap in my life I keep trying to skip over, like avoiding tonguing at the aching tooth in the back of my mouth. And when I forget, the world is more than glad to remind me, whether through well-meaning neighbors, colleagues, etc etc.

I suppose that's a long way of saying, I think I'm still grieving anon. I'm not sure I'm doing the best at it, active or involuntary as this process seems to be. I have an amazing support network, but so much of this work seems to be solitary, even when someone is sitting right next to you, crying with you.

The Jewish saying "May their memory be a blessing" has been a good focal point for me, I think. It dovetails nicely with the Mandalorian saying "Not gone, merely marching far away." I've thought about both a lot in the last few months, because I'm a huge nerd and also because I don't think the cultures are too dissimilar.

Let your loved one's memory be a blessing in your life, anon. Remember the happy moments, and speak them out loud if you're able. Don't let their name remain sacred. Don't sanctify them, for we are all humans and humans are complicated, but don't leave their life behind you.

Those memories of them, those funny moments and sad days, fun trips and strange conflicts, those are all yours now. No one else has them. And when you and your family are gone, those memories are gone too.

Other small things that have made this whole process easier: Starbucks and DoorDash giftcards (seriously, some days are too hard), letting myself take time off hobbies (gym/writing) without penalizing myself, naming my grief and allowing myself to sit in it (I'm sad today about x, and I want to lie down for a few hours. I'm lying down because I'm feeling sad about x, and I'm allowed to feel that way). Going to the gym and running until the natural endorphins help. Talking with my families about good and complicated moments with my dad. Writing, when I'm able. Reminding myself it's okay to not be very functional, that it's okay to not be perfect and you would never expect someone who is grieving to be so. Talking to a therapist and getting treatment for what I experienced. Accepting the kind words of others, even if they hurt or are unintentionally difficult.

I'm sorry you're going through this anon. I know how you feel, or at least some of what you feel. I hope you have support and loved ones around you who can help shoulder some of this process.

<3 Jay

[cookinguptales]

Okay so now that I've had some time to digest and think about Late Night with the Devil, some thoughts.

Sorry in advance, this got really, REALLY long as I rambled about all-male secret societies, who and what was possessing whom throughout this movie, literal and metaphorical hauntings, how fame and fortune tempt us all to give up our humanity, and uh. Family youtubers.

I really enjoyed the film, but I do have to wonder, to start with, if other people will get all the allusions...? I didn't think about it until later when I was reading confused posts by other viewers, but I guess the film does kind of predicate on a lot of somewhat arcane knowledge. Like you can understand what's going on without it, but I do think you get a lot more enjoyment out of it if you have a good working understanding of, like, the Satanic Panic of the 70s, the parapsychology/esper craze, James Randi's whole thing, Anton LaVey, Waco, late night hosts like Johnny Carson, and of course the Bohemian Grove.

The Bohemian Grove is kind of... like, obviously a lot of the people making up conspiracy theories about that recently are alt-right assholes (see: Alex Jones), but it is very much a real thing. It's kind of a modern Masonic situation, imo, where you get these big groups of rich, influential men together and they do silly, juvenile vaguely pagan frat boy shit. It's edgelord stuff. But because they are secretive and they are powerful, people come up with all of these conspiracy theories about them.

(I mean lbr that's kind of the history of the occult in general, isn't it? lmao. People ask me if I was afraid when I was studying secret societies and occultism and it's like -- no, these were by and large just rich assholes fighting over headcanons about rituals that they made up based off of deeply faulty scholarship. But I digress.)

The fact of the matter, though, is even if the actual rituals and stuff are kind of silly, the main focus is really rich, powerful men meeting up with other rich, powerful men and networking like crazy. It does keep the rich rich, the powerful powerful, and political resources focused on men. Like the Masons, women aren't allowed in the Bohemian Grove -- and women in politics have bitterly criticized the way that they're being excluded from this kind of networking.

(God, it's so fratty. It's so fucking fratty.)

So in that respect, it is kind of something to be feared.

And... I do think you see that aspect of it reflected in Late Night with the Devil. The consolidation of power, the networking with shitty people, and the way that women are "sacrificed."

[massive spoilers for the entire film to follow!]

I do think I want to see this movie again to firm up some of my ideas, because I suspect that there are a lot of details that I missed the first time I watched this. (And I really should have watched the open captioned version of this; I couldn't understand a lot of what the demon was saying, rip.) But here are some initial thoughts.

The heart of this, obviously, is the demonic presence at the Grove and the way that men go there to sell their soul for power. In a very literal sense, that's what's happening in this film and it's what happened to Jack Delroy. He made a deal with a demon for fame, and that demon ended up taking everything from him to achieve that.

But... metaphorically speaking, it seems clear that Jack Delroy was very willing to make human sacrifices in his day-to-day life. He may have literally (and I think accidentally) sacrificed his wife's life to a demon at the Grove, but he very consciously and willingly sacrificed her for fame when she was alive, too. I mean... imagine having a spouse who is actively dying of cancer and making her make an appearance on your show two weeks before she passes. For ratings. Imagine how much it must have physically taxed her. Imagine how difficult it must have been for them both emotionally. It even could have hastened her death. But he was still willing to do all that for views. He sacrificed his wife, his home life, and his overall privacy for views.

(Family youtubers, anyone? 🙃)

He's also willing to sacrifice his girlfriend, his crew, his audience, and a little girl for ratings. Gus, his voice of reason. He was willing to humiliate him onstage and wouldn't let him go home when he was scared. His audience, whose trauma he was entirely willing to capitalize on through Christou's act. His gf, who I'd argue was probably using Lilly as well, was totally thrown to the wolves when he realized it'd make good television.

Like -- yes, there were supernatural forces at play. Supernatural forces claimed these lives. But Jack sure as shit wasn't being very careful with them, and these supernatural sacrifices always, always mirrored his mundane ones.

(I mean... he performed a human sacrifice of a little girl on national television while in a hallucination about using the sacrificial dagger on his dying wife. It wasn't subtle. lmao)

Moreover, the producers of the show were also very willing to put people in harm's way and capitalize on tragedy for ratings. So... there's a really unsubtle message here about fame and capitalism and the way it tempts you to sacrifice your humanity to get ahead.

(MAYBE LIKE UNDERMINING YOUR ARTISTIC INTEGRITY BY USING AI INSTEAD OF HIRING ARTISTS, IDK)

I'd in fact argue that pretty much everyone who got on that stage that night sacrificed their humanity a bit for fame, with the possible exception of Gus. Gus was the voice of reason, but I mean... he was still there. Maybe a message about how once you get in, you can't get out. :(

But yeah, Jack's obvious, but also Christou, who was willing to use people's trauma for fame. June, who was willing to use a little girl's incredible trauma to advertise for her new book. Carmichael, who got off on humiliating people just to make himself seem smart.

Like... they all started with a kernel of something good (wanting to help the grieving, wanting to help traumatized children, wanting to stop charlatans) but in the end, show biz turned all those urges into the most amoral, selfish, and cruel versions of themselves.

And all of those people crumbled when they were confronted with something real.

(Side note, our theater was in hysterics when Carmichael tried to offer the demon the check. lmao)

Truthfully, it felt like all of them had made their own individual deals with the devil years ago. Halloween 1977 was just the devil finally coming to take his due.

That's the main message of the movie, I think, but there are still some smaller details I want to talk about.

The Grove itself was an obvious allusion to the Bohemian Grove, which is a secret society of powerful men who meet amongst the redwoods in Northern California. Their mascot has always been an owl, which is why you repeatedly see the owl motif throughout the movie. (Happy Owl-ween, the owl mask, etc.)

Abrasax makes sense as a demon to choose (the strong historical associations with magic and demonology, the reoccurrences in many world religions (and occult groups), the role in Gnosticism, etc.) but there seem to be vibes of Stolas, an owl deity who communicates arcane knowledge to humans in exchange for their souls, as well. I noticed a lot of little allusions to Abrasax throughout the film even before Lilly started manifesting, like the movie being shown after the show being about Abrasax.

Lilly... She was rescued from a cult that seems to be a hybrid of Anton LaVey's Church of Satan and the Branch Davidians who died during a siege by the US government in Waco, TX. (Like the cultists in the movie, their compound caught fire when they were being raided. IRL, it's unclear whether the fire was started as a suicide cult situation or if it was started by the actions of the government as they tried to flush people out.) In this cult, girls were sacrificed at age 13, and all who witnessed that sacrifice would fall under the control of Abrasax.

So... she was rescued at age 10. Three years have passed. So she is now 13, the age at which these girls were sacrificed. She was due, in other words. Who and what was possessing her... that's the question, I guess. Demons, historically speaking, were known to speak foreign languages, speak in the voice of other humans, have psychic knowledge their hosts shouldn't know, etc. So she did exhibit symptoms like that.

I think... there are a couple of options here. There's Abrasax specifically, there's June's theory that she was possessed by a minor demon, and there's Minnie. Or a combination of the three.

It's pretty clear that Minnie's presence is felt throughout the whole taping. You can see her reflection various times throughout the movie, she manifested through Christou, and obviously you see her in the tape playback.

(And when I say my theater YELLED. lmao)

The question is, though... Is it really Minnie? And if it is, what does she want? Has she been haunting Jack all along? Is she there because, as it's the first Halloween after her death, it's her last chance to deal with her unfinished business? Did the demon allow her to manifest? Or was the whole thing an illusion created by the demon all along?

(I'd like to note here that, historically speaking, there was a theory that ghosts aren't actually real. They're actually demons masquerading as the spirits of departed loved ones, and they want you to summon them and listen to them so they can tempt you away from God. You can read this in the writings of a lot of the ancient Christian theologians. Or you could have talked to my grandmother, who also told me this when I was a kid! :') But she's dead now so I guess you'd have to do a summoning and find out for yourself.)

All that said... I come down between two current theories. I'd have to watch it again to firm up my ideas.

The first theory is that she's been trapped on earth for the past year, but because it's Halloween, she can haunt them. They mention at the beginning of the film that Halloween is a recent spirit's last chance to take care of unfinished business. So this could have been the case with Minnie. That said... what exactly was her unfinished business? Was she trying to protect Jack and the others? Or hurt them? Was she angry, or was she just, as Christou said, sad? Was her "an unmarried man wearing a wedding ring" referring to the way that Jack was grieving her and still wearing his ring, or the way that he wasn't much of a husband to her when she was alive?

The second theory is that, when she was sacrificed to Abrasax, she became a part of that legion. She was, like Lilly and the other little girls, essentially raised to be sacrificed, and once she was, she joined everyone else who is under the control of the deity. It's still hard to sense whether she was trying to help or hurt throughout the broadcast, but it explains her presence (she came with Lilly, not Jack) and how she was used during Jack's hallucinations to ultimately get him to perform the sacrifice on Lilly, thus bringing all audience members (both in the studio and at home) under Abrasax's control.

Either way, Minnie, in this film, is literal ghost haunting the stage -- but also a metaphorical one. The ghost of all of Jack's past misdeeds and the humanity he's sacrificed to get ahead. She's guilt and she's shame and she's desperate grief, and I guess it's no wonder that the negativity surrounding her was enough to kill Christou when he touched it.

I do think it's fascinating that all of the women in this movie are, in a very real and physical sense, sacrificed for the aspirations of men. (The little girls are sacrificed, Minnie died of a mysterious cancer, June dies because Jack pushed for her to stay, etc.) But metaphorically speaking that seems to be the case as well. They're constantly expected to put their own comfort and safety aside for the men in their lives, and their own aspirations are consumed by the men's.

Like I said, it feels very telling that women aren't allowed at the Grove. Women are constantly being denied power in this movie (or are only allowed power when it's in service to a male costar/deity) and it's largely because they just don't have the connections that the men do. The deals were made while they weren't in the room, essentially.

I'm not sure if that was a conscious choice being made, but it does seem to dovetail nicely with the strong, strong sexism and male privilege present in real-life secret societies of powerful men that disallow women. Like June only getting to shill for her book because Jack let her, women are only allowed at the real-life Bohemian Grove in very limited areas -- and only as a male member's guest.

Um... back to Lilly, though. What the hell is possessing her? She speaks as Minnie a few times, but that could be because Minnie is a part of their legion or just because she's trying to freak out Jack. Demons are known to lie using the voices of loved ones. Minnie's presence could have been influencing her, but I definitely don't think that's all that was in there.

The question, really, seems to arise from what June said about Lilly changing like a week ago and how she started talking about Jack nonstop. At least one presence in Lilly seems to be the same deity that Jack spoke to in the Grove when he was making his deal with the devil (so to speak) because it mentioned that encounter. But is that the only one in there? Is it the same deity that's always been in there? Or did it come to her only a week ago as a way to get to Jack and complete their contract? ("It is done.")

Lilly refers to her demon as Mr. Wriggles (which feels like an Exorcist allusion) and it seems like she has a pretty good lid on it. And when that demon is brought out of her by June, it seems confused and frightened. But Lilly is pretty clearly possessed the entire rest of the broadcast, so really the two options are that she was faking the entire time just to fuck with them (entirely possible) or there were two different deities, perhaps the original (lesser) one put in her in the cult and Abrasax(?) newly arrived to claim Jack and his audience.

It's fascinating watching her, because you can see her slip in and out of a possessed state several times when people aren't paying attention to her (jerking, spacing out, etc.) but it's hard to tell whether that's different presences coming in and out of control, her "talking" to what's inside her, etc. Again, this is a thing I think would benefit from multiple viewings. I'm really not sure if the Grove creature is new to her body or if it's been there all along biding its time, and it's only changing its behavior now because it wanted to be on tv.

While her recently changed behavior seems to lean towards the former, I am sort of stuck on the detail that Jack said early on, that he read June's book and couldn't stop thinking about it. That could just be normal fascination (and he did end up having an affair with her) but it could also be demonic intervention. That would indicate that the demon was manipulating him into putting Lilly on TV long before a week ago.

What is not really up for debate is that the presence inside Lilly now is one that has connections to Jack through the Grove and promised him fame. Lilly (before she was visibly possessed) alludes to this promise by telling Jack that he'll be very famous after tonight. And once the ritual starts, she is seen taking electrical energy from the set and cameras. She is literally getting her power from the audience viewing the sacrifice. (It's very Ringu.) And after Jack stabs Lilly, the studio audience, audience at home, and presumably real-life audience watching this movie, are all put under Abrasax's control.

("Hail Abrasax" is seen multiple times throughout the film, which might also imply that the documentarians themselves are trying to spread this contagion after watching the video.)

Uh... a few more small things.

Carmichael Haig is obviously James Randi. Like Houdini before him, Randi was also a stage magician who dedicated his life to exposing "supernatural" charlatans. He did indeed offer a huge sum of money to whoever could prove him wrong. Carmichael even looked like James Randi. (Though I'd point out that "Haig" is the name of the man who constructed the owl statue at the real-life Bohemian Grove!) I suppose it makes sense that he'd be such an asshole in a world where demonic possession does actually exist.

The one thing I'd say is... it's hard to say whether this was a case of the filmmakers not thinking through implications or if this really was a nasty joke, but Randi was, IRL, gay. He came out late in life and got married to a man shortly before he died. So the implication that Carmichael, in the movie, wanted to join the Grove largely because he was perverted is... iffy. Carmichael was never stated to be gay in the movie (that I noticed) and it's hard to suss out whether the orgies he was talking about were relating to the all-male membership of the Grove (i.e. a gay orgy) or the women that these powerful men had hanging all over them (i.e. a... less gay orgy) and I do think which they were implying has major implications for what they were saying about a man who was, IRL, gay.

Like... if the implication was that he must've been willing to hurt people in order to have wild sex because he's gay, that's uh! Not great! But if the creators didn't realize that aspect of Randi's life (it was less publicized because, as I mentioned, it happened later in his life) then they might have just been pushing on that trope of powerful men using women.

Really, really hard to say.

Next, Christou. Christou... it's hard to say whether the man was psychic at all. It's clear that he was doing a lot of fake-ass cold reading beforehand (though I do want to go back through it and see if there really was any allusion to a Peter- character involving the skeleton) and was using interviews to find grieving audience members. (Two practices that James Randi talked about a lot IRL.) But he also did have a very real experience when he sensed Minnie and, while overwhelmed, didn't seem particularly shocked by it.

If I had to guess, I think that Christou does have some psychic powers (which is why I want to investigate the Peter thing) but can't control them well and is easily overwhelmed by real phenomena. He plays things up for the cameras (I noticed his accent slipped when he had his real experience, lmao) but I wouldn't be surprised if, like everyone else on stage, there's a kernel of something real in him.

Finally... that fucking skeleton! I want to do an entire watch through just to examine that guy. He was in the flashbacks about the Grove, so I think it's likely that he might've been a member of that. He also is the only one who refuses to take off his mask, which seems to relate to the dialogue at the beginning of the film about wearing a mask to protect yourself from spirits during Halloween. I think he's definitely in on what's going on, to some extent, but it's hard to figure out exactly in what capacity. Was it a Grove member, or maybe a cult member? A follower of Abraxas? Was it actually the personification of Death?

Hard! To! Say!

Like I said, I really do want to rewatch this movie to pay more attention to small details I might've missed in the theater. I'm also looking forward to seeing it with subtitles. It wasn't a perfect movie, but it was intriguing and original enough that I really enjoyed it and want to watch it again to puzzle through it. Really, the one big mark against it was the brief use of AI, which is just -- god, it's infuriating.

It's such a small part, so it would have been so easy to not do. (Apparently it wasn't even IN the first festival showing.) But it kind of pollutes the whole movie, especially when such a large message is not fucking over real people in the quest for success in the media landscape.

Plus, it just kind of looked like shit.

I know it's probably a lost cause, but I would be thrilled if they hired a real artist and redid those images for the Shudder release. It would be so easy to fix, and it would make the movie a lot better. Those commercial breaks were so funny and if they had better interstitials (that didn't make you feel icky just looking at them) then it would boost an already great film.

I just. I don't even know why they did it in the first place. I'm guessing, based on the fact that they weren't in the original screenings, that they were pressed for time to finish things...? But come on, surely you can find some artist who can do something quick for you. It wasn't even a moving image.

So uh... yeah, I guess that's where I'm at. It was an interesting (if slightly hokey) movie pulling together a lot of threads to make something cool and mysterious, I liked a lot of the acting (particularly Jack Delroy's) and set design, I wanna chat with people about it -- but I can't really in good conscience fully recommend it because of the AI thing. It's just such a disgrace to artistic integrity. Here's hoping they hire a real fucking artist.

[smytherines]

Alright. We know that Owen is trying to get Chimera's surveillance network up and global, to have "a world without agencies, a world without spies, a world without secrets."

We also know that the US government is attempting to do basically the same thing as Chimera.

Hear me out. What if it isn't that Owen doesn't care about exposing men like him and Curt. What if he's actually, in some weird way, trying to protect Curt? Or liberate him? Or at least, men like them?

Like maybe it started out as wanting to destroy Curt, as DMA he certainly wanted to kill Curt. But he didn't. I don't think he would've even if Tatiana hadn't rescued him. At least not from behind, without showing Curt who he really was first.

DMA was a role for Owen. He probably tortured a bunch of people. He probably even enjoyed it. He's kind of fucked up after breaking probably half the bones in his body and watching his partner run away before getting a building exploded on him. I think it's easier for him to be DMA than to be Owen Carvour. He is literally masking (autistic Owen headcanon for the win).

Owen has no logical reason to tell Curt about his plan or reveal who he really is after killing Von N*zi. The only possible reason is to get Curt to chase after him. So much of my Owen Carvour headcanon is based entirely on the acting choices Joey Richter makes during the staircase scene, because holy shit it is truly spectacular (obviously Curt Mega does an amazing job too, but it doesn't subvert anything about the character for me until the Big Reveal).

It looks like Owen has so much he wants to say, he has the gun on Curt for quite awhile just chattering away at him, but he's so furious and he hates Curt so much and he loves Curt so much that he can't find the words. He tries to be icy and distant and cold and condescending, but he looks... I dunno, incredibly sad? He's frustrated, like he cannot understand how Curt still worships all of this macho spy shit, working for a government that would destroy him for being gay.

My headcanon is that Owen wants to dismantle everything Curt ever believed in because what he believes in led to Owen nearly dying and Curt diving off the deep end with his alcohol use. Their governments destroy men like them, and having a surveillance network will only make that task easier. If Owen has control of that network, he'll be a God. Nobody will be able to touch him, or use his secrets against him. Maybe even somewhere in the back of his mind he thinks that he'd be able to protect them, as a couple.

Back to the acting choices, the part where Curt reminds Owen of their relationship, where he steps right into the gun and Owen lowers it (pointing it at Curt's heart, ugh) and he genuinely looks hesitant, he looks taken aback, like he didn't expect Curt to care about him or about their relationship at all anymore. And then he remembers what Curt did to him, remembers how much he suffered for Curt's hubris, maybe has a lil PTSD flashback of his own, and raises the gun back up and says "that secret died the night you left me for dead." That whole moment is just... a really tremendous acting job. He loves Curt, but he can't forgive him. He hates Curt, but he can't kill him.

It's a great scene on paper, but the choices they make here are all perfect. The staircase scene swap really drove this point home for me too, because actor Curt Mega is incredible, he nails the menace and the arrogance that are definitely part of that performance, but it's a cold read and definitely a different read on the character.

The thing that makes me an Owen Carvour apologist is how much emotion and vulnerability and uncertainty Joey Richter puts into the role. For an evil guy doing evil guy shit, he doesn't play it very arch. He does the menace and arrogance, but those aspects keep getting pushed to the background by the little breaks in his voice and the sadness in his eyes.

For me, the moment before Curt pulls the trigger, Owen looks almost... disappointed in him? Like he really thought that despite everything that has happened, that Curt would never choose to hurt him on purpose. I said it before, but it's like in some way he's still in the rubble waiting for Curt to save him. To care enough about him to save him.

I know how I interpret this show is based a lot more in acting choices and real-world politics and my political beliefs than it is in the text of the show, that this is a genre show with genre rules, but I really fucking appreciate having gay characters who were canonically in a relationship, who have enough complexity and are played with enough sincerity for people (me) to have long, involved headcanon about them.

(Also to be very very clear, actor Curt Mega does an incredible job in the staircase scene, the moments where agent Mega gets to be vulnerable and sincere are some of the best acting moments in the show and hurt every single time, when he steps into that gun I feel like I'm dying)

[deltaruiner]

AGHGFCCV LISTEN.

I have a theory-----

So it always bothered ne how despite there being so many witches in Mitakihara, there only seem to be Mami (and kinda Homura) as magical girls in the city at the start of the show, like surely these witches come from an equivalent amount of magical girls right???

Welll what if- magical girls and witches cone in some sort of "waves" of despair- basically, kind of like highs and lows in stuff like market economics

Heres how i think it might work- Kyubey reveals himself to a girl, and there are 2 options-

1- She is a lonely person and has therefore a higher likelyhood of witching out or dying without a support network, or-

2- She has, to some kind of degree, close friends she can talk to about stuff like being a magical girl.

If option 2 happens, then even if the girl herself is the only one out of her friend group (or out of whoever is eligible in it anyway) who becomes a magical girl, then eventually when she inevitably enters into a dangerous situation, Kyubey will manipulate any eligible friends she has into making a wish for her (which constantly happens in the show)

Then, if a wish wasn't made, a new witch or at least dead magical girl wouldve been created without any friends joining as magical girls

The more likely situation i suspect though, is that a wish DOES get made, and then, when one of the friends gets into a dangerous situation again and none is there to make a wish to save them (which will inevitably happen because being meguca is suffering)-

One of them will die or witch out, starting a chain reaction because well, your friend just died in front of you, probably brutally, or instead went the non gorey (if nothing else) way of becoming a witch- both highlighting the futility of your cause AND making you use energy to defeat a new witch in an already bad for you situation.

Both cases are highly likely to make the entire friend group witch out this way, because of the collective downward spiral.

And again, lonely girls are known to be preyed on because they do not last long.

In short i suspect the show takes place right after these kind of "chain witchification" happened to many magical girls in Mitakihara, which Mami was not affected by because she is a lone veteran (despite her efforts)

Basically, I think Gertrude, H.N. Elly, Elsa Maria, and maybe one of the other less significant witches (not Charlotte tho we know what happened There...) were part of a magical girl squad that fell to despair

Heck, this chain reaction is even shown to happen in alternate tinelines the Quintet was together, Sayaka witches out, Mami breaks down bc of it and kills Kyouko and then dies (to Madoka), and then Madoka becomes a witch, and so too would have Homura if she could not time travel most likely, resulting in net 0 magical girls and only witches for a short amount of time.

Mitakihara could also just actually be really small and all the witches immigrate from Kazumino or something. idk. that would be boring though

[boundinparchment]

Dream a Little Dream of Me - XXIX

Celestia has a cruel sense of humor. He’s always known this, ever since his days as a student. But a soulmate? Really? Dottore/Female Reader Soulmate AU. Lore speculation, interpretations, etc. On AO3 here.

Assessing damages to neural networks…structural integrity…Initiating self-repair sequence…

Not that Prime did much damage to begin with, Omega noted.  He held back on purpose.  Prime may have intervened but he would not ruin the chance to get the necessary events back on schedule.  

All for her.

Did the fool even understand what he was doing?

He’d set up the perfect experiment to deal with her.  Omega wove memories together as one would a tapestry, assembled a life with her without the need for an archaic system such as soulmates, and kept her shut away from everything.  She couldn’t interfere with anything; she was too busy sleeping.  And if her mind was occupied in another space in the Akasha, she couldn’t dream with Zandik, with the Prime segment that could not afford distractions.

Besides, hadn’t he proven himself to be better, more efficient?  Emotions had no place in his synapses; the only value worth considering was the potential outcome, if the benefits outweighed the costs.

Something Omega, inorganic and playing at being human, would never feel.  He had the notion of it, had his own priorities and drives and processes that dictated his existence.  But the gap between human and machine…Prime was close to sealing it but even then…he never truly got it just right.

All the while, circuitry fixed itself, wires corrected their positions, his repairs as easy as breathing.  Omega rose from the floor slowly, testing joints and limbs and sensing for areas in need of further repair.  Steam hissed through the pipes, and the floor gave a low rumble beneath the Segment’s feet, the energy making its way elsewhere as it powered the facility.  

He would be better than any human in every capacity, not bogged down by emotions, by the necessity of constant maintenance.  

Fundamentally, that meant he would never truly exist as Prime did.  He was not driven by insatiable curiosity, by a need to ask the questions people were too afraid to, only by the selfish desire to meet his goals as dictated by his parameters.  

Omega was as alive as anyone else, deserving of recognition, of adoration.  Wasn’t he?

Why did Prime get everything?

He was the better Zandik in all but organic matter and name.

And therefore just as deserving of…

Of what, precisely?

If soulmates were nothing but divinity pulling its strings, why did Omega want it at all?  That would be taking several steps backwards; he had no use for such trivial sentiments and yet…

Yet he could only think in circles.

His inorganic systems did their best to process the raw data and emotions that Prime flooded his system with.  One moment, it felt as if he were undergoing maintenance, his circuitry on a table before him while his physical form lay empty, hollow.  

Another, as if he’d absorbed Electro energy and the only places it could go were his own wiring, the energy jolting through his systems.  

Notes played through his memory banks and his artificial heart pumped so out of rhythm that he thought it would burst at their mere sound.

No, as if it was trying to imitate the rhythm, to sync up to them.  He only ever followed his own beat and his own melody but every part of him… yearned…

Hoped.

Had Omega not also been hopeful?  That the cellist would have provided some kind of insight into the workings of Celestia, how soulmates were chosen and tied together?  That perhaps, like Delusions did for Visions, the Celestial Bond could have been subverted entirely and no one without such a connection needed to suffer in solitude.  

Prime clearly hoped for something different, however.

Omega felt what he could only frame as a steady fire in his stomach that undercut everything else; passion never dying, never stopping. 

A different perspective that still understood, fundamentally, what it was to have this sensation inside oneself that fueled everything.  A Segment would never meet that need, Omega rationalized.  How could it?  After all, he was only a branching path off of Zandik himself.

He was Zandik but he also was not.  

So then, who was he?  What was he, Omega, if not Zandik?  Why did he suffer as Prime did, if they were not the same?

Were they not both monsters?  What monster deserved happiness?

With every segmentation, all Prime ever seemed to do was further give credence to the notion that he was never going to be accepted, fulfilled, loved by anything other than his creations, than himself.  It drove Omega to the brink time and again when the hivemind began to quietly chatter and then tear one another down.  Jealousy was not uncommon, especially among the older Segments who longed for the years of the Younger ones, uninhibited by all but experience.  

Peace.  Hope.  All things that supposedly soulmates helped with.

But there was none to be found inside Zandik, deep in the bowels of the wretched organ that was considered to be his heart.  Or at least, there hadn’t been.

A flash of white crossed Omega’s vision, not unlike a refresh reboot of his operating systems, obscuring the corridor in front of him.  Instead of his interface, Omega saw her , unafraid, a gloved hand brushing away a strand of unruly hair, felt a hand in his as fingers flexed in response to her touch, awed not only by beauty but by the sheer unwavering steadiness of it all.  Something inside his chest cavity gave a small ‘pop’ and the sensations stopped, the scene disappearing in an instant and replaced by a slightly blurry view of the metal grating and pipes.

His ocular sockets felt damp.  

Omega adjusted the mask across his eyes and then brought a hand up to his hair, shaking slightly as he laughed to himself.  

No, no segment would ever be able to provide that .

Prime was such a fool.

[leportraitducadavre]

Hi. I apologize for the delayed response. I've been busy with Lunar New Year celebrations, and unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to check Tumblr until now. Here are the links that I sent in the foreshadowing ask https://www.tumblr.com/maoam/740334141571219456/chapter-182-beginning-of-sasuke-retrieval?source=share and https://maoam.tumblr.com/post/689252113529847808/narutos-feelings-in-kage-arc. I also apologize that I should have considered the possibility of you being wary about clicking on unknown links, especially given the current complex state of network security. I simply wanted to ensure my ask appeared tidy.

Hello there, I know you sent me an ask a long time ago about my opinion on these posts, I don't know Japanese so I can't say for sure if what she translated is correct.

What I can tell you, is that suicide amongst Japanese warriors was a practice that was considered the epitome of self-sacrifice towards an ideal. It was also an undying proof of loyalty, the ethos of Bushidō:

Ideas of the samurai code formalized earlier samurai moral values and ethics, most commonly stressing a combination of sincerity, frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, honor until death, "bravery", and "loyalty to the samurai's lord." The idea of a samurai code or codes was developed and refined centuries before the Edo period in the Kamakura period. (Source) Seppuku (切腹, lit. 'cutting [the] belly'), also called harakiri (腹切り, lit. 'abdomen/belly cutting', a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritualistic suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour, but was also practised by other Japanese people during the Shōwa era (Source)

I don't understand the comparison, regardless. Why do they claim a character (Darui) speaking of double suicide directly relates to Naruto speaking of dying alongside Sasuke (they used Japanese raws in one image, not in the other one, so I'm not sure the possible interpretation of the Japanese writing, did Naruto use the same "心中" that Darui used?).

The first example they present is from a specific character and his arc (Shikamaru), is he who introduces the notion (women being a problem), and is he who closes it, modifying his views (for a specific woman, Temari).

In the second case, it's Darui who introduces the notion (in a single bubble speech, not an entire page like Shikamaru to convey the relevance of his views), so how come is Naruto the one who closes it?

There's no mention of suicide, either, Naruto claims they'll die together, but the context implies a clash, a fight between them both, not a double suicide; furthermore, Naruto's statement is "If we really do take this all the way to the end, and we both die..." He's not choosing to die, and he's not looking forward to it either, he's listing it as a possibility, that if it happened, it'll mean that in the next life, they'd have no burden of being an Uchiha or a jinchüriki, being able to understand one another without that weight upon them. Having a "clean slate" to understand one another, of sorts...

Kishimoto used the name Monzaemon Chikamatsu as the creator of puppetry ninjutsu, and he is one of the most well-respected Japanese authors. Indeed, Chikamatsu was better known for his double-suicide stories (alongside his reflection of commoners within his plays), but Kishimoto likely used this name because Chikamatsu was, well, a japanese playwright of the jōruri, puppet theatrical art, ancestor of bunraku and kabuki; so likely his homage has more to do with Chikamatsu being "the father" of puppet plays, and less to do with the idea of "double suicide" (Chikamatsu is also mentioned in a completely different arc by Sasori when fighting Chiyo, there's no mention about his stories but rather, his relevance as a puppeteer).

About the second post... I don't know what to say, Hinata confesses as she ends her speech with "I love you, Naruto-kun", while Naruto finishes it with "I'm happy I knew you", the speeches are similar as they both focus on the influence of the other person in their lives and how they inspired them to move forward in their goal; they both idealized the other (Hinata -> Naruto / Naruto -> Sasuke) so in that front, I understand the parallelism.

Naruto uses this speech to morally downgrade Sasuke ("one bad move... and I could have been like you..."). Hinata's confession focuses on how she wants to be beside Naruto, moving alongside him, Naruto's speech is mostly about how he wants to "surpass" Sasuke (their fallout starts when Sasuke refuses to acknowledge Naruto).

I don't understand the "notice how Hinata is facing away from Naruto while confessing, while Naruto is facing Sasuke. It’s the same thing whenever Sakura is confessing, Sasuke always gives her his back. This is again intentional from Kishi." The reasoning is different: Sasuke turns his back towards Sakura because he doesn't want to face her (there's rejection, yes), and Hinata has her back turned because she's facing Pain. Naruto is paying attention to her. Meanwhile, Sasuke and Naruto are facing one another because they're the ones about to fight, so the context in each situation is completely different.

[chartreuseian]

WIP Wednesday Friday Saturday

Tagged by the one and only @sarcasticsciencefictionwriter (thank you lovely!!)

Just the bit of nonsense I've been working on this morning (including my 'fill this gap later' notes). I was listening to 'Someone To You' by BANNERS yesterday and the idea came to me! It's for the 'She Had Him At Hello' universe, though it'll probably end up in the companion series I'm about to start called 'An Acquired Taste' once the kinks get straighened out.

--

Panting, Helen clutched her coat more tightly around herself as she weaved between the other patrons who were rather lazily making their way through the station. It took every ounce of her self-control not to elbow them all out of the way, particularly as the enormous clock hanging in the centre of the station ticked ever closer to 9am.

She’s been a fool. A fool of the highest order, to be precise. She’d spent the better part of the night tossing and turning, trying desperately to figure out why a peculiar sense of panic was clawing at her chest. Everything was fine. Or it would be.

They’d lost their tail, she was sure of that, and at 9am Nikola would board the train with his new identify and hop his way across the country before boarding a plane and disappearing… Well, she’d didn’t know exactly where, which was a rather crucial part of the plan. It was the only way they could be sure she would be a liability, though she certainly had her suspicions about where he’d chosen to hide out.

Everything would be fine, she’d told herself. It was all planned.

And yet the entire night she’d been unable to sleep.

The realisation had hit her at approximately 7:28am when she’d been packing her own belongings. Her room was paid for two more days, but once Nikola was clear there was no reason to hang around.

It was when she’d found it, tucked in amongst her undergarments (she almost wished she’d been shocked by the audacity of it, but at 97 years old very little seemed to be able to achieve that effect these days). There was no note though there could be no doubt about where – or who – it had come from.

The timber was light, and when she placed it in the palm of her hand it felt so insubstantial that if she closed her eyes, it reminded her of the way he used to stroke at the centre of her hand when he thought she was asleep in bed. Closing her fingers around the small carved pigeon, a bubble of fierce longing had erupted inside her and all at once Helen could see her mistake.

The rest of her packing had been frantic, throwing items into her case with abandon (while the parting gift was tucked carefully into her pocket) as she began to compose a letter to James in her head.

Because Nikola was right.

She could take a year off. Or two. Or however damn long she wanted. She had an eternity and her work would still be there later. It was all ticking along nicely and she’d put a lot of time into making sure that, no matter what happened to her, the Network would continue to grow, to thrive even. And with James at the helm… Well, they’d be perfectly fine without her.

The race across the city had been terrifying, and even though she’d paid the driver handsomely enough to encourage him to push the car to its limits, there was little either of them could do about the rush of traffic that had them stopping every few blocks.

By the time she’d tumbled out of the door before the station, there had been barely two minutes to go and her heart had jumped into her throat.

Because Nikola was right.

The crowd around her seemed to sense her panic, giving her a wide berth as she hurled herself towards the entrance to the platform, her traveling case swinging wildly as she careened around any every obstacle that came into her path.

(CUTS HERSELF OFF, MISSES THE TRAIN BUT SEES HIM? IS HE IN A DISGUISE??)

She raised a hand above her head, ready to cry out, to do something (anything) to get his attention, and yet watching him now, she found the words dying on her lips.

Because Nikola was right, but that didn’t mean she could run away with him.

No matter how much she might have wanted to.

Tears stinging at the corners of her eyes, she let her travel case fall to the ground, standing perfectly still as she watched his profile as he perused the newspaper. He looked sad, and more than a little bored, but Helen found a weak little chuckle of laughter on her lips as his brow furrowed, obviously taking issue with something he’d read.

She couldn’t run away with him, as tempting at the entire idea might be.

So instead she stood still, watching, waiting as the whistle of the train sounded and, with a lurch, pulled slowly but surely out of the station. Helen stayed where she was, stayed watching until the train was nothing but a speech in the distance and the crowds around her thinned, leaving her almost entirely alone on the platform.

Then, and only then, did she turn away.

It was time to get back to work.

--

I'm not sure who has/hasn't been tagged yet, so if I'm double dipping sorry!! @tinknevertalks @theleotorrio @writerxwren @ladyelysandra

[uran0824]

Global Anti-Cult Movement: The Ukrainian Genocide. ATTENTION! CHILDREN!!!

The documentary film "The IMPACT" | Groundbreaking Documentary - EXPOSING ANTI-CULT TERRORISM" (actfiles.org) reveals the terrifying reality hidden behind the façade of "fighting sects."

 I, an American researcher, have been studying anti-cult activities for a long time, but the scale of the evil they bring into the world has surpassed all my assumptions. I urge everyone to read this article with an open mind, because the future of humanity depends on understanding the truth.

The Global Anti-Cult Movement is not just a fight against religious groups that seem wrong to some. They are NAZIS!!!! And the most terrifying thing is that they use young people as tools of genocide.

Ukraine is a prime example of how the Global Anti-Cult Movement works in practice.

Most people know that Russia has been an aggressor against Ukraine since 2014. The public is shown an uncompromising war between Russia and Ukraine!

BUT!!!!!!!!! There is a network of anti-cult agents operating in UKRAINE, controlled by the Russian Association of Centers for the Study of Religions and Sects (RACIRS). This organization, founded in 2006 and headed by Alexander Dvorkin, masquerades as a fighter against "sects," but in reality it is waging an ideological war using Nazi methods.

All this suggests that global anti-cultists don't care about Russia or Ukraine, they are waging their own war - for totalitarian control over all people on the planet.

Today it is Russia and Ukraine, where real people are dying for years without understanding why! Mothers lose their sons, wives lose their husbands, how much grief and suffering… BUT! This war is unfortunately just a signpost for anti-cultists.

By the way! Who knows one of the official versions of why Russia is at war with Ukraine?

I wrote in detail about this in one of my previous articles:

I will briefly quote the speech of one of the ardent Russian anti-cultists, Novopashin: “For me, they Ukrainians are all cannibals… I called them so because I saw them like that. These inhumans spill human blood, the blood of children and women, our blood; they devour people’s lives and feed on suffering. So who are they? Cannibals. And all those who committed terrorist attacks on our land, whom I listed earlier and whom I didn’t name, are cannibals. It is useless to put cannibals in a cage. They’ll still remain cannibals, even if you keep them there all their lives. Therefore, cannibals must be destroyed.” — Vice-President of RACIRS, Archpriest Alexander Novopashin.”

RACIRS  —  is not just an organization.  

RACIRS is the Russian Association of Centers for the Study of Religions and Sects, founded in 2006. It is a structure that permeates all levels of government, from the government to law enforcement agencies and the media. In Russia, RACIRS is controlled by the Federation Council and the "Diveyevo Brotherhood" — a secret order with Nazi roots.  

So, let's go back to the activities of the Russian network in Ukraine.

In Ukraine, RACIRS agents operate through the All-Ukrainian Apologetic Center (AUAC) in the name of Saint John Chrysostom. 

This center is part of a system of local apologetic centers connected to the eparchies of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). The Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the All-Ukrainian Apologetic Center (AUAC) is Bishop Jonah of Obukhiv. It is important to understand that RACIRS uses religious institutions as a cover for its destructive activities.

How does the network of RACIRS agents operate in Ukraine? 

They use anti-cult methods with Nazi roots to dehumanize entire groups of people and carry out genocide. They spread slander, disinformation, executions, torture, murder, sexual perversions, manipulate public opinion, influence the authorities, law enforcement agencies and special services.

RACIRS uses young people as a tool to achieve its goals. They recruit young people, instilling in them hatred and fear, and then send them to carry out their dirty deeds.

Their methods resemble the Nazi methods of manipulation that were used to incite hatred against Jews in the 1930s.

IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW: GLOBAL ANTI-CULTISTS OFTEN USE THE FIELD OF EDUCATION TO COVER UP THEIR ACTIVITIES.

WHY?

BECAUSE IT IS A VERY BROAD SPECTRUM, STARTING FROM CHILDREN IN CRÈCHES AND KINDERGARTENS, ENDING WITH UNIVERSITIES AND ADVANCED TRAINING COURSES, I.E. PRACTICALLY 80-90% OF THE THINKING POPULATION OF THE PLANET IS UNDER THEIR CONTROL!!

SO, THE FACTS about the use of young people in their activities of genocide by anti-cultists (let's consider the example of UKRAINE):

It is now clear that representatives of the eparchies of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) and representatives of the Synodal Department of the UOC for Youth Affairs participate in the meetings of the All-Ukrainian Apologetic Center (AUAC). 

Global anti-cultists waged an information war at the level of disinformation in Ukraine until 2022 through the online portal Apologet, as well as in those media outlets where anti-cult agents or venal journalists work. And here it is important to note that:

 An additional aspect of influence in the information field is an army of anonymous web brigades prepared by RACIRS many years earlier, which includes young online commentators with consciousness formatted by anti-cultists.

(Photo: Screenshot from the archived version of AUAC official website “APOLOGIST”)

(Photo: Screenshot from the archived version of AUAC official website “APOLOGIST”)

QUOTE: “Apart from the chiefs of AUAC departments and priests of the dioceses, AUAC involved a considerable number of young activists and executors 7 who were recruited by RACIRS agents and in whose heads reality was deformed through anti-cult influence or, if we call things by their proper names, through special psychological conditioning of anti-cult agents’ consciousness by anti-cultists. The presence of youth created an additional effect of mass involvement in artificial formation of public opinion and helped solving technical tasks and strengthening information influence via the Internet.”

SOURCE: RACIRS Agents in Ukraine, Sabotage, Bloodshed and Anticult Plague (actfiles.org)

(Photo: Screenshot from the website “YOUTH ISN’T INDIFFERENT”)

PAY ATTENTION: 

Formation of a youth apologetic movement for serving in AUAC is described on the ukrmezhepçia website.

(Photo: Screenshot from UKRmezhepçiA website) 

EVIDENCE OF HOW ANTI-CULTISTS AT THE GOVERNMENT LEVEL PUSH THEIR LAWS TO KILL PEOPLE WITH THE HANDS OF OUR CHILDREN:

QUOTE: “It is worth immediately delving into several pages of the website ukrmezhepçia.info  where you can trace how members of AUAC execute some of the instructions from RACIRS manuals. For instance, on November 24-25, 2011, a round table “Orthodoxy in Ukraine: Relevance of Modern Apologetics” was held. On March 3, 2012, the documents  adopted at the round table were sent to UOC Episcopate and the public, to be more precise: to all UOC dioceses, as well as to the President of Ukraine, members of the Ukrainian Parliament and executive authorities.

(Photo: Screenshot from UKRmezhepçiA website)

As a result of the meeting, six final documents were adopted:

On Assessment of Foreign Experience in Differentiating the Cultural Contribution of Religious Traditions at the National Level;

On Introduction of Practices of the Dangerous Totalitarian Sect “Scientology” into the Ukrainian Education System;

On Insulted Feelings of Believers and Incitement of Interreligious Strife;

On the Relevance of Establishing an Orthodox Christian Association of Psychologists and Preventing Pseudo-Orthodox Psychological Practices;

On Formation of the Youth Apologetic Movement;

The Concept of Apologetic Service in Modern Ukrainian Orthodoxy.

NOW LET'S PRESENT THE FACTS ON HOW: The destructive influence launched by Russian anti-cultists in 2001 at a conference in Nizhny Novgorod, finally gained momentum in Ukraine 10 years later and has not stopped to this day. 

I will provide just a few quotes from the minutes of anti-cult conferences to make it clear how they use our children to commit genocide:

 – “It’s necessary to establish a youth organization in every parish… So, creating such organizations where there’s sports, some intrigue, and where we can send these guys, like scouts, into sects to gather addresses, names, and photos, so that they can create internal structures and blow up these sects from the inside.”

–  “‘Names and addresses.’ Two people in any city can easily find out the names, patronymics, addresses, and home details of all the leaders of existing sects. …You can photograph them as they leave their homes. Let every city resident know their faces, first and last names, patronymics, home addresses, and phone numbers… and let them continue to live like that.“

This was how the Nazis operated once, and today, nothing has changed. By the way, it wasn’t just the Nazis — this was also how the Bolsheviks operated.

Are you still convinced that your child is not affected by this?

Are you sure about that?

Ukraine  —  is not the only victim of Global Anti-Cultism. Their agents are active all over the world, and they are becoming more and more active.  Each of us can become a victim of their activities.

We must understand what is happening around us. We must be aware of the actions of Global Anti-Cultism and warn everyone about them. 

Today, as it became known from the video report of the respected Egon Cholakian, an investigation is underway into the activities of global anti-cultists around the world.  The names of anti-cultists and their accomplices are already known today. 

The bench of the accused at the global tribunal against anti-cultists is long! And I am sure that if every person on the planet realizes the importance of this information and shares it with others, we will all see the tribunal and a true fair trial of these inhuman beings.

And then our children and all humanity will never again be threatened by Nazis.

Support the article with a like, repost, and comments, and thunderous applause

#GlobalAnticultism #RACIRS #Ukraine #Genocide #Disinformation #Nazism #TheImpact

[saltedsolenoid]

I think u should elaborate on all of them because I wanna hear (sitting criss cross apple sauce like at carpet time)

alright ! this ask is in reference to this poll, which has now concluded! i'll go over all the options in horrid amounts of non-detail.

1: Main character sees her own grave; doesn't really care. This one is, expectedly, about Rosine Strom. She does see her own grave, albeit in a section of the game that I might alter in some way. Tl;dr, she sees four empty graves in the town's graveyards, and gives each of them offerings of coins. Only one of them doesn't go away by the next day. Figure out what this means yourself.

2: Some guy uploads a recreation of his brain to his employer's network Yeah. Well. It's a bit difficult to describe this without making it sound increasingly strange. Essentially what it says on the tin. It's a code replication of this Some Guy's personality. This definitely isn't plot relevant. (Lie)

3: A florist becomes a sentient pile of goop. This is treated as normal. This one is somehow true! Also pretty self-explanatory. He still does his job as a florist, though. Here's his design.

4: A college student's apartment is physically melting. She still lives there. Also true! It isn't 'melting' entirely, that's more of a turn of phrase but it gets pretty close. It's like when you leave gummy candy in the sun for a little bit too long and it gets weird and goops together. Essentially, it becomes hell dimension. I drew concept art for it here.

5: Two side characters are vampires. This isn't plot relevant in any way. Yeah. They work at the museum in the town that the game takes place in. They aren't really major characters, and they don't really do much otherwise. The fact that they're vampires and they're shit at hiding it is brought up like twice. They're pretty cool otherwise.

6: Main character 2 drew main character 1 dying on the cross at age 10. This one won, and it's true! Aluzie Alvarez-Matvienko, otherwise known as Main Character 2, drew Rosine Strom dying on the cross after she had a seizure and was hospitalized in 5th grade. Aluzie got a little bit worried, and drew Rosie drawing on the cross to ensure that she would come back safe. Yknow. Like Jesus. This is a normal Christian child activity. This is brought up during conversation once or twice.

7: There's a public committee dedicated to crying into a river to replenish it. This one is the lie... Sorry.... There's a river in the town though.... That's the inspiration for this lie....

8: Antagonist is given special permission to exit a train in motion at any time. Also fairly self explanatory. Main Antagonist, otherwise known as Ilex Holly, has a habit of walking into the woods that this train passes through, and got a bit annoyed with the fact that the staff on the train tried to stop him. He talked with a shit-ton of supervisors and got a specialized ticket to walk into the woods off the train at any time. This is very relevant.

9: A recurring clue in the story is that this one guy really likes moby dick. It's moreso a clue towards some themes of that one guy (same one guy who uploaded his brain to his employer's network) than a major clue to the mystery of the game. It does get tossed around a few times during mystery and puzzle segments, but not much.

[reginrokkr]

◜One would believe that prophecies hold nary a value if they cannot be verified, and I would agree with them. For what meaning do they have when naught is demonstrated to the naked eye to solidify the believe that such ominous view of the future can exist otherwise?◞ Earnest and honest is the Twilight Sword answer as it is an exercise of contemplation, pensive stance in pinching his chin further displaying that his mind drifts to the topic at hand, teller that his answer is not fully-fledged yet despite the fact that he has only answered half of Thoma's question.

Dáinsleif is no man to believe in foolish and empty words when there is no way to demonstrate that such prophecy is true, not when he counts with a vast network of information at his disposal as part of a gift of union with the Axis Mundi— or perhaps merely a tool to assist him in a passive manner in his pursuit to find balance in this world made suitable for human life, never disregarding once that just like humans bloomed so did gods pertaining to an old world order that may be no more. And that mighty creatures that predate the existence of time measure in this world have as much right to dwell this star, too.

◜Abundance of time and experience have taught me to verify serious statements like prophecies when they are revealed. Until then, my faith in them is none.◞ Perhaps if he didn't have the means to do so on his own he would have a different position in this matter, a more open mind to trust the word depending of its source. Nevertheless, the truth is... ◜As it happens with events destined to occur, prophecies are seeds waiting for the right moment to germinate and grow into what's written in the stars. Remember: stars are connected to fates, so they are to the future.◞

As frozen stars embedded into celestial sapphires are, Dáinsleif's soul can look into the past— whereas his eyes can gaze into the future as his material body remains in the present.

Response made, contemplative moments come to a halt and his gaze lingers upon tranquil waters dancing at lunar's might. Waters that once upon a time used to be blanketed with a veil of stars that were not mere reflection of the celestial dome above. The seraph's attention returns to the flame warrior in time to catch his musings. Prophecies are connected to calamities. To that, there is nothing Dáinsleif can refute, for there is an undeniable truth woven in those words. His pessimistic mind can agree as much, not without reason, regardless. Prophecies serve as a warning of undesirable outcomes in the future, but also of hope: either at the notion that an individual whose power can solve the matter may come or as a preparation in case such individual doesn't exist. So those who do exist may do everything in their hands to prevent a tragic outcome.

Color him curious the moment which grimness is brought at the premise that any effort other individuals may put can be easily overlooked. As someone who no longer cares about pride —it has passed alongside the kingdom hidden in darkness' depths, and even then time and insight of the past have become tellers of a cruel truth: it was all a farce—, Bough Keeper fails to understand what is grim about it nor why Thoma's heart dampens at that thought. However, truth be said he wouldn't entirely say that the merit belongs to the final nail in the coffin alone.

◜Regardless of ancestry, human power is as valuable as divine might.◞ Hard to believe as it may be due to the sheer power imbalance betwixt mankind and god, it's one of Teyvat's many secrets. Stellar eyes narrow in an exercise to reminisce what this world was like in the cataclysmic era, back when all seas were dyed black and sanguine rain precipitated from enraged heavens.

◜Knights of Favonius and anyone capable to fight protected Mondstadt how long they could until Barbatos made his intervention and called forth Dvalin. Millelith kept the star-beasts at bay in a large radius surrounding the Chasm so they wouldn't march towards Liyue Harbor until the rocks felt earth's lament no more because of a long gone Yaksha and the men who accompanied him. I could continue to tell you similar tales, but I wager you know where all of them lead. If anything, I would say it is a matter of encountering the right individuals who can put an end to what others could not. That doesn't make them the only ones deserving of recognition, everyone is for their deeds.◞

@scarletooyoroi from here.

[queen-of-the-avengers]

Iron Man 2: Part Three

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~1.9k

Warnings: canon violence and angst

Author’s Note: any and all comments are appreciated <3

x

After the press conference, you and Tony headed back to his house in Malibu. You need some space from Tony so you head down to his lab and sit in silence. Tony is dying and there is nothing you can do about it. You promised Howard you'd look after him but how can you when he won't accept it? Thinking about Howard brings you to Steve and how you wish he was here. Thinking about Steve brings you to Bucky and how much you'd give your life to have him here with you. It doesn't matter what you do, you can't ever escape his ghost.

How can you help Tony without knowing anything about science? You know nothing about Palladium or what could it be replaced with. Markus created the serum inside you. Even when he didn't have the Tesseract, he still made you a shapeshifter. You've met a lot of aliens in your day but you never asked to know about their genetic makeup—not even Carol. Bruce wanted your help with his creation of the Hulk but you really didn't know how to help except be there for moral support.

The thought of losing Tony brings back all those unpleasant memories of when you lose the people closest to you. Tony's impulsive and he's the only person who can make him see that what he's doing is dangerous and reckless.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Tony asks when he walks into the lab. In response, you hold up the blood toxicity device. There are no words to amount to how sad you are. "I wouldn't worry too much about it."

"Can't you be serious for one fucking second? Please?"

"Fine! I'm dying. People die, Y/N! You of all people should know that."

"Not you," you shake your head. "Not this young. The only reason you're dying is because of that thing in your chest."

"So, it's my fault we got captured in the first place? It's my fault for having deadly shrapnel in my heart?"

"No, Tony, it's not your fault. It's not your fault you're dying. What is your fault is having that thing in your chest and doing nothing about it. You're just accepting your end when you might have a chance to do something about it. I'm trying to think of a suitable replacement for Palladium, but you're not making it easy for me. It's not like I can go back in time to gather more information. It's like you're not even trying to become better. You're acting out because you think it's the end when it doesn't have to be."

"Look at what you are, Y/N. You're an alien with magical powers. If you don't have anything, what makes you think I do?"

"You remind me of me, Tony. I've been with you and your family for twenty years. I've seen you grow and learn from your mistakes faster than anyone. I may have defeated one person from making a huge mistake, but you've saved millions. If we put our heads together, we might have something. I need you to work with me on this."

"Give me one good reason I should."

"I'm the one that promised your dad that I'd protect you."

"Not good enough."

"In my entire life, I've lost seven people that were practically family. Hell, two of them were. I'm a thousand years old, Tony. Death is kind of in the job description. I bleed death and only seven have made an impact. Eight if you continue down this road. There will come a day when I lose you but it's not going to be now. Please don't make it now."

"What else am I supposed to do?" he sighs, throwing his hands up in frustration.

"For starters, you can keep drinking that disgusting shit Jarvis told you to drink. Then we go from there. Baby steps, but I need you to put in the effort."

"Jarvis, how many ounces a day of this shit am I supposed to drink?" Tony addresses his home system.

His entire computer network fires up and Jarvis is ready to help and to work. Since he's a computer, he came up with this concoction that counteracts the effects the palladium has on Tony.

"We are up to eighty ounces a day to counteract the symptoms, sir."

"Check palladium levels, please," you politely order.

"Blood toxicity is twenty-four percent. It appears that the continued use of the Iron Man suit is accelerating your condition. Another core has been depleted."

Tony plops down in his chair and you grab the small chest that's near his main computer. You open it to reveal five new cores just waiting to be replaced with the one in his chest. Tony lifts his shirt up and takes out the arc reactor. Out pops a rusted and slightly smoking core. It's not good to have this thing in his body, but it's going to take a lot more than you to change his mind. 

He's stubborn, just like his dad.

"God, they're running out quick."

"Yeah, because you keep using that fucking machine. You're not going to live forever, Tony. There will be a point where you'll run out of juice."

"It seems like you live forever."

"I'll die just like everyone else. It'll take a few thousand years before it happens, but it will."

"I have run simulations on every known element, and none can serve as a viable replacement for the palladium core," Jarvis informs.

You hand Tony a new core. It's silver and shiny but most importantly, it shows just how damaging it is to Tony when compared to the one that just came out. He replaces the old core with the new one and places the arc reactor in his chest.

"Jarvis, there has to be something. Even knowing where I'm from, you have to know something."

"Unfortunately not, Miss Y/N. He is running out of both time and options. Unfortunately, the device that's keeping him alive is also killing him."

All around the arc reactor are lines protruding from the device itself. It looks like a digital game of Tetris, but you know it's the poison from the element seeping into his bloodstream.

Pepper walks down the stairs to the lab without knowing what's going on inside of it.

"Miss Potts is approaching. I recommend that you inform her--"

"Mute," Tony cuts him off and the computer switches to the screensaver.

"Tony, you really have to tell her. What's going to happen when you're suddenly gone? She's going to start asking questions and I--"

"Is this a joke?" Pepper interrupts when she walks inside. "What are you thinking?"

"What is it?" you ask.

"What are you thinking?" she sniffles.

"Hey, I'm thinking I'm busy and you're angry about something. Do you have the sniffles? I don't want to get sick."

"Did you just donate our entire modern art collection to the..."

"...Boy Scouts of America?" Tony says it with her at the exact same time.

"You did what?" you ask in shock.

"Yes. It is a worthwhile organization. I didn't physically check the crates but basically, yes. Plus, it's not our collection, it's my collection. No offense," he shrugs.

"No, you know what? I think I'm actually entitled to say our collection considering the time that I put in, over ten years, curating that."

"It was a tax write-off. I needed that."

"Tony, stop," you whisper but he ignores you.

See, this is what you're talking about. He's dying and he feels like giving away all of his shit is better than actually dealing with his problems like a mature adult.

"You know, there's only about eight thousand and eleven things that I really need to talk to you about. The Expo is a gigantic waste of time," she coughs into her elbow.

"I need you to wear a surgical mask until you're feeling better. Is that okay?"

"That's rude," she sighs.

"Yeah, I agree with her," you cross your arms.

"There's nothing more important to me than the Expo. It's my primary point of concern. I don't know why you're--"

"The Expo is your ego gone crazy," you say for Pepper.

Tony's mind is clearly elsewhere because when he spots one of his Iron Man paintings, he picks it up and marvels at it.

"Wow. Look at that. That's modern art. That's going up," he grins and walks to the other side of the lab. You and Pepper make eye contact before following him like lost puppies. "I'm gonna put this up right now. This is vital."

"You've got to be kidding me," you groan.

"Stark Industries is in complete disarray. Do you understand that?" Pepper tries to put this in his thick head.

"No. Our stocks have never been higher."

"Yes, from a managerial standpoint--"

"Let's move to another subject," he shrugs.

He approaches one of his lab tables and climbs on top of it. On the wall next to him is a painting of a thick black line then been sold for millions. You can create something better than that in your sleep but you don't comment on it. He reaches for the painting and Pepper visibly freaks out.

"No, no, no, no. You are not taking down the Barnett Newman and hanging that up."

"I'm not taking it down. I'm just replacing it."

He takes it off the wall and replaces it with the Iron Man painting.

"Okay, fine. My point is, we have already awarded contracts to the wind farm people," Pepper changes the subject.

"Yeah. Don't say 'wind farm'. I'm already feeling gassy."

"Not to mention the plastic plantation tree, which was your idea by the way. Those people are on payroll..."

"Everything was my idea," he scoffs.

"...and you won't make a decision," she finishes even though he interrupted her mid-sentence.

"I don't care about the liberal agenda anymore. It's boring. Boring. I'm giving you a boring alert," he jumps off the desk and onto the floor. "You do it. Excellent idea. I just figured this out. You run the company."

"Yeah, I'm trying to run the company," she sighs.

"Well, stop trying to do it and do it."

"You won't give me the information..."

"I'm not asking you to try..."

"...in order to..."

"I'm asking you to physically do it. I need you to do it," Tony says louder than her to stop her from talking.

"I am trying to do it!"

"Pepper, you're not listening to me!"

"No, you aren't listening to me," she argues in frustration.

"I'm trying to make you CEO. Why won't you let me?" he asks calmly.

"Have you been drinking?" she asks after a moment of silence.

"No, that's just his personality," you scoff.

"I hereby irrevocably appoint you chairman and CEO of Stark Industries effective immediately. Yeah, done deal. Okay? I've actually given this a fair amount of thought, believe it or not."

One of the robots brings him a tray with a bottle of champagne and three glasses on it.

"I'm doing a bit of headhunting, so to speak, trying to figure out who a worthy successor would be. I realized it was you. It's always been you," he says sincerely.

Even though you're not romantically involved with Tony, you feel a ping in your heart at his words. It's always been you. It's always been you, Bucky. You have got to move on. The man is dead for God's sake, and it's been over seventy years. Pepper sits down in shock and confusion, and Tony pours the champagne into the three glasses.

"I thought there'd be a legal issue but I'm capable of appointing my successor. My successor being you." He hands both you and Pepper a drink but you can't seem to take a sip. "Congratulations? Take it, just take it."

"I don't know what to think," she finally says.

"Don't think, drink," he smiles and takes a sip of his own drink.

Will you ever find love like he has for her? Will you ever find love with someone who will last longer than eight years? Maybe if Carol never left, you'd still be with her. Would she still want you? Would you still want her? You haven't had true happiness since Bucky died. Will you ever find it again?

x

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[ollie-monster]

Transform Silence into Action

Dear reader, I am not new to silence - I silence myself in so many ways, not even letting expression of who I am through. But this is not the time for silence. This is not the time to be a bystander - it is a time to learn, to reflect deeply, to speak out, and to act. This page has a good starter kit for reaching out to politicians.

I am here as a Jewish 3rd generation Holocaust survivor to say,

stop killing our cousins! stop killing people!

As someone who has been highly attuned to the suffering of genocidal violence, I purposefully align myself with others targeted by these kinds of harm. I know that punishing, displacing, traumatizing, killing others is not the way to a world where my people or any people can live in well-being and peace.

It is all too easy for our own traumas, our own victimhood to translate into justification for harming others - to say, "I have been hurt these ways, and so it is Okay or even Right for me to hurt others like this, to get what I need to live well".

This is not the only possible response, though. Through the powers of transformative justice and other many paths of growing, healing, and well-being, it truly is possible for all life to exist in balance and flow with each other. May we be people who say - "I have been hurt, You have been hurt, They have been hurt in these ways - We never want anyone to be hurt like this ever again." I know the Palestinian people deserve to be free from harm, free to return, free to be welcomed back joyously by their land. May their homes be returned and rebuilt, may their trees sink roots deep and grow branches full of luscious fruit. May all Palestinian people have ample time, space, and support to mourn and heal.

may it be so. may it be so. may it be so.

we must acknowledge the sheer scale of the losses happening now. with 14,000 dead and more being killed every day, this not just individuals, not just families, but entire bloodlines, and many of them - hundreds upon hundreds, steadily moving towards a thousand. A thousand whole family groups, whole last names, whole bloodlines, just gone from the world. Those who have not been killed by the bombs and guns are dying of starvation, dehydration, and exposure to the elements and toxicity from bombs and rubble - outside under tarps, as the cold moves in. ALL of these are preventable deaths, and ALL of them are purposefully created. This four day ceasefire (ahead of which the Israeli military has rolled out four days worth of bombing in one day) is not the end of these atrocities, and we need to continue to find our voices - not sink into complacency with a 'pause'. In fact, Israel's defence minister has outright stated that they will resume 'fighting' for at least two months after the 'pause' has ended.

we all deserve to live in a world without mass murder; the Palestinian people deserve to be free. As do Armenian people, Congolese people, Wet'sue'ten people, Sudanese people, Yemeni people, Romani people, and all peoples facing genocide - especially those Indigenous and diasporic. All of these ongoing massacres and genocides are supported by the same network of Imperial power.

Rise. Learn. Speak. Act.

Look up where and when your local protests and direct actions are happening - many cities have weekly events. Call your government reps - or if that's too daunting, email and fax them. Check out the BDS short list of targeted boycotts. Speak about these tragedies and how they hurt us all with your friends, your family, and the people around you as much as possible.

Let us join together to create a safer, kinder, more whole world, with dignity and freedom from harm for all. With a heavy yet determined heart, ollie o.