#& we havent even made it to the illegal parts yet

[whack-patty]

Here we go

Buster Moon meets a socially awkward yet well meaning private eye

[matoitech]

the bot fighting thing you've got going on for zag seems really interesting, do you mind elaborating on it when you get the chance?? :0 is it a fun sport or is it like, an actual harmful thing in that society

yeah id love to elaborate, thanks for asking :D i havent like sat down and figured out how it for sure functions yet so this stuff is all subject 2 change, its just kinda how i was thinking of it as i was making him, but i think like whether its a fun sport or whether its harmful depends on where its held and what kind of bot fighting it is!

zag was in an official bot fighting league that was more like wrestling or MMA fighting (its 'realer' than wrestling but they play it up in a similar way). its broadcasted and you can buy tickets to go watch it in stadiums, its probably a pretty big thing in that society (human wrestling or MMA fighting does still exist, but bot fighting can have different appeals) he was probably somewhat well known in circles of robot fans and human fans Of robots and bot fighting. the company who created and contracted him tried to play down him exiting the league bcuz he was kind of viewed like an embarrassment and they had no idea how to handle him (i mean their entire company model of a womens robot fighting league relies on selling this incredibly silly view of gender, with ROBOTS, so yeah they were not equipped to deal w his existence) so he kind of just disappeared once the season was over and no one knew what happened to him for a while. but i digress!

whether its just a sport or legitimately harmful also depends how the actual robot character views it- zags career was harmful to him in a sense of his own personal identity, and that was a big part of why he was happy leaving- as well as it just taking a toll on his body, and theres certain things robots cant rly fix unless they have good money to change the entire way their like base is built and not just their visual plating. but while the companies probably had shady business practices it wasnt REALLY back alley shit, which DOES exist.

i think its similar to our world in the sense that we have different kinds of fighting considered a sport and ones that r illegal, dangerous, and more back alley (esp things like dogfighting or cockfighting) i think its very likely theres a lot shadier companies or just teams of people building bots to beat the shit out of each other in more 'underground' battle rings but zag wasnt in that world. he might have fought in some robot-ran underground rings after he exited professional botfighting to make some cash now and then (who knows tho, he'd never tell you if he did) but as far as his personal backstory goes i think it was more harmful emotionally than in the society. that might change tho cuz im tempted by all sorts of different tracks wiht it lol

im not rly sure how robots are viewed by that society and by the humans (slash furries? im not really sure if its a human or anthro populated world lol. prob anthros i know what im about, its just easier to say 'human' vs robot) yet exactly tho, so that will influence a lot of decisions on how harmful bot fighting is in their society, ultimately! im also just not sure how 'violent' even the leagues zag was made 4 were i have 2 figure that out.. i call it wrestling but its gotta be like a lot more violent than that lol

[sometipsygnostalgic]

adventure time wizard city liveblog

 well here we go

my last adventure time liveblog, i havent actually done one of these in MANY years... probably not since 2014

this takes place at the same time as obsidian?

DID-- DID CHOOSE GOOSE JUST DIE

DID BUFO JUST KILL CHOOSE GOOSE

yeah i know that’s bufo, they only made it enormously obvious, tsk tsk

@spaceacepearl​ joked about us seeing choose goose get sent to hell but i diDNT EXPECT IT TO HAPPEN

This music is i assume by one of the many musical artists Adam Muto listed on twitter, it rocks. It’s not as hardcore as Obsidian’s intro, but it’s suitably chill for the scene. 

“get offa my bus kid”

Those wizards in the left and far right groups appear to be new! 

OH MY GOD--

HELP?????? NEW PROFILE PIC TIME

HAHAHAHAH

THE MUSICAL CON DID ME GOOD, I DID REALLY LOUD AUDIBLE LAUGHTER

i bet hanna and co had fun making these signs

my favourite is the cat with “FAMILIARS HAVE RIGHTS”

cadorka..... wow

We’re not even four minutes into the ep and peppermint butler has already killed someone in front of a large group of witnesses

“this smells of DARK MAGIC” “yall kids know thats illegal right” peps watches the other kids nod before later joining in, LOL

i cant believe pep started the great gum wars and got killed by golb

SOMEONE has been playing Overwatch... 

i-- i still cant believe choose goose is fucking dead

how long was he stuck in hell for, or was that recent to together again after new death showed up 

i have to admit im not a big fan of spader, too perfect, and not in that funny way either. i hope they give him some characteristics that make him stand out. 

im getting flashbacks to OK KO and Owl House here...

Cadebra using music is a reference to Abracadaniel’s love of interpretetive dance in Play Date. 

“they only laugh because youre different” “i know” “SO STOP BEING DIFFERENT” oh my god it’s like talking to my own parents cadebra is actually... a LOT like me, less in her hyperactivity but more in her nonchalant enthusiasm and almost acceptance of the inevitable bullying because it means more time in people’s consciousness

ahhh - it’s quietly revealed here that she is responsible and a skilled magician, she is just bored of magic! i like that she parents abracadaniel instead of being downtrodden by his ramblings. 

PEP NO--- oh i see the problem, he hasn’t got his Bug Milk... sorry Martin Olsen fans, no Hunson today. At least we get one more Phil Face for the road! 

candy people in their natural habitat

Ahhh that’s Doctor Calidoneus! The voice actor was at the recent Distant Lands panel alongside Pep and Blaine’s actors. 

“pretty sure hes just trashcandy” - i like you, sassy antler lady

the mystery of how he gets clothes

and once again spader is proving to be the most irritating distant lands character of the lot, there is no subversion here. where is the subversion?  

NANI

what is going on here? are pep and peppermint the same person or not? im sure they must be, but there is something going on here with peppermint butler’s soul being trapped in the body of his child self who hasn’t got the same memories. 

OH, HYNDEN WALCH DID A NEW LINE yes this is what im here for, special over 

peppermint butler cursed himself... of course he did - Shado was correct!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WHAT THE FUCK

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

ROCK STUDENT, BLESSED ROCK STUDENT, WAS THAT POOR GUY WHO LOOKS LIKE A JAWBREAKER

love the reference to astral plane, of course pep cant astrally project because cursed pep is still inside of him 

wow, blaine, wow

they have a crush

LITTLE DUDE! COLE SANCHEZ!

i love the dynamic between cadebra and abracadaniel, imo so far it’s the heart of the special. im not really gripped by peppermint butler’s school troubles. i imagine someone else probably will be but i want to run past that shit as far as possible. 

TRDGFYGHJH

WE

WE MADE  A PREDICTION THAT WAS JUST LIKE THIS

PEPPERMINT BUTLER GETTING TURNED INTO THE FOUR COMPONENTS OF PEPPER MINT BUTT LURE WAS IN THE WIZARD CITY PREDICTIONS ART DRAW THAT HASNT BEEN POSTED YET

ILL SHOW YOU WHEN NICK POSTS THE VIDEO and then ill tell you who made the prediction because i... think it was nick himself, insanity 

who plagiarized finn’s signature???

turns out pep really DID take over wizard city!!!!

i love this band

i understand your pain peps

you probably have a bit too much in common with your mother, and i imagine it isn’t easy being turned into a kid and not being able to do stuff that came so easy. you’re disappointing yourself! (he’s literally disappointing himself)

I’m less than halfway through the special, what the fuck. I wasn’t wrong when I said Wizard City had a lot on its plate. It’s noit that I’ve been particularly gripped up to this point, though to be fair I didn’t pause at all during the other specials barring Obsidian. 

that... that poor kid is still a rock

and then the preview happened and bufo casually revealed to the audience that, yes, he killed choose goose

i dont know whats happening with pep but it seems he needs to be exorcised of... pep. which is a shame. i hope they learn to coexist. 

i have to say the background work in this special is really good! like, really damn good. 

WH

WHAT

DID SPADER JUST DIE

IS THIS WHY PEOPLE THINK PEPBUT KILLED HIM 

oh thats right - abracadaniel is cadebra’s uncle! this must be abracadniels sister. sorry, folks, he doesn’t fuck. 

Where are they? Is this anywhere near Wizard City? It’s an unpopulated prewar wasteland. 

THESE ARE JUST HUMANS

OF COURSE SHE WANTS TO PERFORM TO MILQUETOAST HUMANS

my child

is this an art style choice or did they get the people from that one studio to make this

HANNA FINALLY GETS TO FULFIL HER DREAM OF INSERTING KANEDA INTO ADVENTURE TIME

the red jacket he wears and his head pill shape is a big kaneda reference actually, which i suppose makes sense considering he’s a rival to our protagonist, but it’s a bit on the nose

bufo killed one of his own students? but why????

“MY UNCLE’S A COP”

“no one likes a rat”

i actually really like blaine, though im confused. did their VA change halfway through the special?

HOW NATURAL, NO WASTE, IT IS AN ENDLESS CHAIN

did doctor caledonius steal the trophy,,,? 

EVIL SNAIL EVIL SNAIL

MONMSTER HUNJTER DISCOVERY NOISE, this time it’s a tetsucabra

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I HAVE QUESTIONS

god i wish this is what this special was about, i miss adventure time

these remind me of the comics with their art style :) i wonder who designed them? the one on the right with pb and pep, in particular, very comics-y. 

fdgfhgf because he’s like 500

“pep can be kind of a jerk but he wouldn’t kill anyone”

sorry, cadebra, i have news for you

is doctor calednoius the true villain? if bufo’s out of the picture, she MUST be, 

ANTS

oh no, he might gbe stuck in wizard city :( 

HELP

the writing on the wall...

SPADER LITERALLY FUCKING DIED OH YM JESUS CHRIST

PEPPERMINT BUTLER’S OWN CULT????

THIS IS JUST OK KO NOW

okay im not surprised all the teachers at wizard city are cultists in worship of peps, maybe they killed spader and bufo because they bullied peps T_T

wait no, they thought spader had the potential, but sadly not

HE FUCKING KILLED HIMSELF

sorry, i was distracted by the pretty dope fight sequence and now the special is over????

fucking jesse, hes probably at least partly responsible for the cult nonsense

This credits art is by Maya Petersen!!!! Holy shit it’s adorable!

LRETGFDRGTFGMHGFHFG

LEAF MAN

DO YOU THINK THEY PUT HIM IN RETROSPECTIVELY

DO YOU THINK MAYA PETERSEN DREW THIS AND ADAM PUT IT IN THE EP RETROSPECTIVELY

HE LIVES

MAYBE THIS IS WHY CHOOSE GOOSE WENT TO HELL

okay, it’s over :) 

first thoughts out of the way: not a big fan of this special. it’s like watching a completely different show. it’s not got the PZSHAHH of the normal wizard city stuff and there weren’t a lot of funny jokes or even hearty moments in the thing. 

it suffers from a lack of invested character interactions, much like BMO did. there was not a single main cast member in the whole thing! and like i said before, much of peppermint butler’s character in the show is based on his very sweet relationship to his mother, princess bubblegum, so when they showed a single (hilarious) photo of them together it made me sad we didn’t get any scenes with them together. it would have STOLEN this episode. and they teased the hunson golf photo, and death!!! and jake appeared in a photo T_T last jake appearance. 

it also suffers because Peppermint Butler is clearly not himself, imo he was way more entertaining in the Together Again special, where we seem him back to his “normal” self. 

i dont think peps being a dark wizard was something to “kill off” exactly. i wonder what was going on there? was that actually peps, or was that a spirit he cursed himself with based on himself? we at least know in the future he does become a dark wizard again, and even princess :) this special didn’t answer those questions but lol. 

THE GOOD STUFF, because yes, there was a lot of good stuff! 

God, I’m with Aracle and Maya on this - I LOVE Cadebra and her relationship to Pep. I wish she was even in more of this - I would love to watch the adventures of Cadebra and Pepbut in their first year of school, like in the end credits.

That, imo, is where the heart of the special lay - Peppermint Butler’s attempts to impress himself, versus Cadebra’s self acceptance and desire to follow her dreams of being a goofy goober, no matter what other people thought of her. 

It turned out that Cadebra is a responsible student and family member. I really liked that. Her scenes with Abracadaniel were, somehow, my favourite in the entire special! 

I like that theres a lot of cool magic towards the end of this special, and a lot of HORRIFYING DEATH. It wouldn’t be adventure time if you didn’t randomly kill off child characters. Poor Spader, I hated you but damn, what a grim fate. 

I like that Bufo and Caledonius had this crush/hatred thing going on, but they were part of the same cult in the end. 

I didn’t like the giant peps scene at the end, the monster was extremely milquetoast compared to the madness we usually get in AT. Obsidian, for example, had the awesome Larvo design. Nemesis had some INSANE dark magic!!!!  I wish they drew more from that episode. 

Considering how much Steve Little appears in this special, I do feel bad for Mace (little Peps). He said he would have really benefitted from coaching, but recieved none. He had to re-record his lines 3 times! Judging from his description of events, Wizard City was a hard time for him. 

The wizard school did remind me, heavily, of both The Owl House and OK KO. Personally I was hoping AT would offer me something more insane, but I do love both of those shows, and I know Wizard City was on a really tight schedule. 

I think they should have spent less time on the school bullying plot, and skipped straight to MURDER. 

We did have a cold opening, not on par with Together Again’s at all, but damn!

I am wondering where I would put this in the watch list? I do think it should sit after Obsidian as the third special. The intro scene makes it clear this takes place at the same time as Obsidian!!!

Well, that was it, the last ep of AT for the next few years at least T_T

i think together again was the better finale, definitely. but wizard city feels pretty detached from AT for me, despite the familiar characters it tonally isn’t like the show other than the awesome brutal death scenes. I thought the last 11 minutes was easily the best in the special! Which, honestly, is how it should be, though I do wish it gripped me more. Maybe I’m just not the target audience for Wizard City? It feels like something I would find very compelling if I was a bit younger! 

[useless-catalanfacts]

Hello, I've been trying to educate myself about Catalonia (currently watching Two Catalonias in Netflix, glad to have found your blog!). There's a lot of questions that Im desperate to have an answer for. Sorry bc I havent gone all of the timetable yet. I saw that October 2017 was when it became independent. But what is it independent for? Is it politics? Why is it still part of Spain now? Is there a different government body? I hope u dont take this the wrong way. Thanks in advance. <3

Hello, thank you for your interest 😄

It’s all pretty complicated but I’ll try to sum up the timeline and hope it makes sense.

A lot has happened since 2017 and it was... intense. This is going to be a very long post, so I’ll put it under the cut.

October 1st 2017: the referendum, considered illegal by Spain, police brutality against the voters, etc. That’s been talked about extensively so I’ll skip it. Anyway, the result of the referendum is 90.18% of votes for YES to independence (2,044,038 votes), 7.83% of votes for NO (177,547 votes), and 1.98% votes in BLANK (44,913 votes). The participation rate that could be counted was 43.03% of the population of Catalonia who legally can vote in normal elections. Actually, more people had voted but their votes were kidnapped by the Spanish military police when they stormed voting centers, so those votes were not counted. Other people wanted to vote but couldn’t because they the police attacked and closed their voting center, or because they’re not eligible to vote in elections because they live here but don’t have documents.

So we consider that a victory for YES.

October 3rd 2017: general strike. Ready to take control of the territory, a general strike is called and it is massively followed. The economy is shut down, highways and trains are blocked, etc. Here’s a post from that day. And another one.

October 10th 2017: president of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont declares independence and suspends it 8 seconds later. This was my post at the time:

(Spoiler alert: obviously Spain refused to negotiate. Not only that but they went further in the repression. You’ll see.)

October 16th 2017: activists Jordi Cuixart and Jordi Sànchez (the elected presidents of the two most important pro-independence organizations, Òmnium Cultural and ANC respectively) are arrested and put in pre-trial jail. Many demonstrations around Catalonia the next days and weeks and months.

October 27th 2017: following Puigdemont’s words, since the Spanish government has explicitly refused to negotiate, the suspension on the declaration of independence is lifted. The Parliament of Catalonia declares independence (DUI = Declaració Unilateral d’Independència = unilateral declaration of independence). Thousands and thousands of people came to the streets to celebrate, and then in filled Plaça Sant Jaume in Barcelona (the square where the Seat of the Government of Catalonia is) and all the nearby streets and avenues. It was so packed that it was impossible to move, and there was music and singing all the time. We did this to protect the building, because we knew our government was inside signing papers and doing what was necessary to start to implement the Catalan Republic, and to make it absolutely impossible for the Spanish police and/or army to get to the Seat of the Catalan Government and arrest them.

Spain considered the Catalan government criminals and searched for them to jail them, but the following day they were outside of the country and nowhere to be found. The plan was to move to a more democratic European country and create a government on exile there which could effectively coordinate the culmination of the independence process and make independence effective. The reason they couldn’t stay in Catalonia was that they would all get jailed and would not be able to work from jail, so Catalonia would not have a government who could negotiate with the EU, Spain, or whoever was necessary, and who could continue the normal functions of a government to ensure the people of the country can still work and live, while coordinating the participative processes to create our own Constitution, tax collection, etc. But only half of the government made it outside... I’ll expand on this later.

Now let’s see what Spain was up to. The Spanish government applied the article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to Catalonia. This articles deletes the regional government and that comunidad autónoma (region) is ruled directly by the central Spanish government. In practice, what this means is that the whole Catalan government (elected democratically in legal elections recognized by Spain) stops existing, and it is replaced by politicians from the ruling Spanish party, which at the time was PP, a right-wing Catalanophobic party that had only reached 8.5% of votes in the previous Spanish elections in Catalonia. It was like a dictatorship. They controlled the public TV (read this) and banned the use of certain words, they fired people who had affinities with the independentist government, a lot of people went to trial (including even teachers) at the slightest suspicions...

And everything had to stop. Even things you wouldn’t expect to be affected. Everything was affected and the Spanish government’s presence. For example, my mother is a teacher of Catalan language in a public school for adults, and she had to ask permission to the Spanish government directly every time she wanted to use a printer (they were threatened that otherwise they could be sued for wasting public money). Sometimes they even refused her to print class exercises for the students. My department in university also had to stop all the research projects for the following year since they depend on the funds given by the Catalan government. etc.

(You can see the whole post that screenshot is part of here)

Obviously, there were protests. During those days, we were busy with demonstrations and strikes, and then learnt that president Puigdemont and others were on exile in Belgium. There were some problems with Spain sending international orders of arrest against them but the crimes they’re accused of don’t exist outside of Spain so they were arrested and temporarily jailed in Germany but not deported. I won’t get in detail because it happened more than once and it would be long.

But half of the Government of Catalonia did NOT cross the border. The whole government, which was a coalition of the PDeCat and ERC parties, met in secret in Llívia (an enclave surrounded by French territory), and then the ERC politicians decided not to follow the plan. There are different reasons behind this change in strategy:

The need for political prisoners to prove that we are not exaggerating. The EU was not taking seriously how repressive Spain could be. They saw the police brutality on the referendum’s voters and shrugged as if nothing happened because nobody had died (though one man almost did). So some of the consellers (equivalent of ministers in the Catalan government) said that they would remain in Catalonia, and they were sure they would be jailed and this would show other countries that there was a reason for the Catalan Government to be on exile, it wasn’t just that they had left because they’re dramatic and don’t want to follow the law.

Jail as a loudspeaker. These same consellers said that being in jail would give them attention from international media that otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten, so they would use their time in jail to explain to the world what was going on and why their countries should show support to Catalonia. Political prisoner Jordi Cuixart later said that this has been the case for him, and he has met with important activists from around the world who came to visit him in jail, so it makes sense.

Aaaand whatever the hell vicepresident Junqueras was talking about. I still don’t understand. He should’ve gone to Belgium in my opinion. He’s just rotting in jail for no reason now.

So we have half of the Catalan Government in Spanish jails and the other half in Belgium. They still remain like that nowadays.

The two parties of the coalition that formed the previous Catalan Government (the one that Spain had dismantled) continued to fight among them. They later explained that Spain threatened that they would send the army to Catalonia and there would be a bloodbath. In phone calls, the delegates of the Spanish government made it clear that they were going to kill people and frame it as it was the fault of the Government of Catalonia. The Government of Catalonia did not want people dead, so they stopped calling on citizens to take control of the territory, the administration, etc. At the time, we did not know why they were suddenly silent, all they said was they were waiting for Spain to negotiate (and everybody was angry because we knew Spain would never negotiate, as Spanish politicians have been saying the whole time).

Then, the Spanish government forced Catalonia to have elections, since it considered that the democratically-elected Government of Catalonia was not in power anymore because Spain had fired them. There was a lot of discussion on what independentist parties should do. These were the different positions:

Catalonia has declared independence and we need to focus all our energy on making it real. All independentist parties have to be working on taking full control of the taxes, administration, and services. We cannot be a candidate to the elections of the Spanish region of Catalonia, because that doesn’t exist anymore and we are in the Republic of Catalonia now. The result of participating in these elections would be legitimizing Spanish rule. But if we don’t participate, only the unionists will vote and the whole Government of the Spanish region of Catalonia (the one that has the real power by now and is recognized by other countries) will be 100% composed of unionist politicians who will make our lives hell (like they did during 155). And the world might take this as “unionists won the elections, so that’s the only legitimate representatives of Catalonia to negotiate with”.

Independentist parties should participate and make the Government of the Spanish region of Catalonia be the Government of the Republic of Catalonia. It’s good that it’s an official legal election accepted by everyone, and there will be representation of all the inhabitants (whether they are unionist or independentist). Problem: this leads us back to where we started, with a Parliament that has a majority of seats for independentist parties but is still the Parliament of a region of Spain.

Independentist parties should participate in the elections of the Spanish region of Catalonia in order to boycott it. Basically, all independentists would be called to vote for their preferred independentist party (PDeCat, ERC or CUP), and once the Parliament of the Spanish region of Catalonia is formed, they never show up. More than half of the Parliament would be empty, so it would be blocked from being efficient. Meanwhile they would be at the real Parliament of the Republic of Catalonia.

After a lot of talk, they choose the 3rd. In theory.

Elections happen, with pretty much the same results from the previous elections so PDeCat and ERC form a coalition government with support from CUP. But the politicians who are in jail or exile are outlawed by Spain and could not participate in elections, so they do a “symbolic” president, Quim Torra, who is like a spokesman for the real president Puigdemont in exile.

So with the leaders of the two bigger independentist parties and civil organizations in jail or on exile, media still banned from using certain words, people getting arrested for taking part in the general strikes, and a general feeling of uncertainess, things started to go very badly.

Suddenly ERC (social-democrat independentist party) decided that we had already failed, and that this showed that the DUI (unilateral declaration of independence) was always going to fail because so many important elements of an independent state work automatically (for example, taxes of Catalan people are automatically sent to Spain, they don’t pass through the Catalan gov, and it’s all informatic so it’s not like we can just stop the caravan that is transporting the money because there is no such a thing) or other mechanisms needed for a country really become independent unilaterally (aka without Spain agreeing) are just impossible for us to create without the support of other independent countries or organizations like the EU or UN. From then on, ERC has defended that we need to find a way to negotiate with Spain and do a referendum that Spain recognizes as legally binding, but Spain has shown they don’t want to let us vote, so we need to be strong enough to force them to have to agree with us. “Strong enough” meaning to have the huge majority of Catalonia be in favour of independence, have the Parliament and other representative bodies be almost absolutely pro-independence, have the councils of all major unions be in favour of constant mobilization for independence, etc. So the most repeated sentence by ERC is, to this day, “enxamplar la base” (make the base/grassroots wider), and that’s what they dedicate most of their efforts towards, trying to convince undecided people or Spanish leftists or left-leaning people who they think can be convinced.

CUP (anti-capitalist independence party) said that the important thing to become independent is the support of the masses and constant mobilization. We already had a majority of the population in favour of independence and they showed to be ready for constant mobilization. General strikes had been successful, so what we needed was to do an indefinite strike (so, instead of just striking a couple of days, declare a strike that would not end until our demands -independence and freedom of political prisoners- are met). This is difficult because most people cannot afford to stop showing up to work for such a long time as would be needed, and the solidarity funds (the collections of funds used to aid workers who need it during strikes and to help pay for lawyers or whatever the repressed protestors need) could never be enough for a whole country. Nevertheless, lots of people are ready to make sacrifices.

And the other party, president Puigdemont’s PDeCat (the liberal independentist party). They said that we had to work harder on having all the state structures (“estructures d’estat”, those words are used a lot). State structures would be all the things necessary for a country to function independently. It includes the tax collection system, ambassies, administration system, justice system, police force (I know this is debated but at least we all can agree that we do NOT need Spanish cops imposing Spanish laws), postal service, etc. PDeCat’s efforts are centered on this, especially on economical aspects. They are still now working in this direction, with the idea that Spain will never agree to negotiate and so our only way of becoming independent is behaving like we’re independent: when we have our own tax collection, state services, citizenship, ambassies, etc. we will be independent whether or not Spain recognizes it, because we will be behaving independently and will not depend on Spain.

After that a lot of important things happened to, but basically the coalition government (PDeCat and ERC) fought all the time. As I just explained, their strategies are opposed, and ERC accuses PDeCat of being too radical and “scaring away” the Spanish left who could maybe one day let us have a referendum agreeded on with Spain, while PDeCat and CUP accuse ERC of having turned independence in a long-term goal instead of a short-term goal like it was until 2017.

So basically, we failed and did not achieve independence. We declared it but were not able to keep it going. Most people feel like the political class ruined it, because the people were ready to do what was needed (as proved in the strikes like October 3rd 2017, the occupation of the Barcelona airport on 4th October 2019, the so-called Battle of Orquinaona, etc). There’s been great protests until the covid-19 lockdown, it’s not like we ever really stopped. But most politicians seem too focused in fighting each other for the best strategy, especially ERC who is not participating in the meetings with the other parties any more. It’s all very confusing for the people, and it seems that we don’t know everything that happened in late 2017.

That’s pretty much it. I hope it was more or less understandable, and if you’re still confused, don’t worry, we are confused too. Now, seriously, if you want more clarification on any point you can send me another ask and I’ll be happy to answer. Meanwhile, after remembering all of this, I will be crying in my room ✌️ (jk)

[urcharactersclasspect]

Psst. Can I get some more details about Nazz and Jonny being Bards of Heart? That's a really interesting take imo!

Boy do YOU have an ESSAY to read

As a disclaimer, Ed Edd n Eddy isnt really a very deep show- Theres just tidbits of something deeper sometimes you can gather about the cul de sac and the kids we focus on in the show. Ive watched through the show from episode 1 to Eddy's movie and the last episode. But its been a hot second since Ive been a kid myself and I havent really sat down to watch it in a long time tbh.

Another disclaimer is, even though they share a godtier does not mean they will have the same personality! Since Personality by itself pretty much is not as relevant to classpects as much as how the aspects seem to bend around the person in question as they grow and delevoped. That being said..This is gonna be a long ass read. Im so sorry. I have THOUGHTS on everything.

For Nazz, throughout the show we see her literally making almost every boy in the Cul De Sac crush on her, she has no confirmed feelings until the last movie, where she and kevin want to date. Unlike most heart players in canon and the ones I have met or seen good protrayals of, i dont think she has unrequited feelings and we clearly see as much, but it sure does give me the same energy as Dirk's frequant troubles to just finally spit out his feelings for Jake through extreme indirect means, and how Heart players are actually way better at controlling how or showing how they really feel waaaay more than people give them credit for- This isn't to imply heart players are Emotionless and never show emotion, but Heart players are firmly NOT all sweethearts who are innocent, do no wrongs and are definitely not always bubbly fangirls like Meulin- Hell, even Meulin isn't really probably being honest with her own feelings on things either.  On the contrary, they can be very intense with what they are passionate about whether it be romantic or just an interest of theirs. And usually, like Dirk, they are very self aware of that fact. So they sometimes try to hold back things about themselves they are all too aware of. Sometimes to a detriment, but not always. For Dirk, its his emotions in general he tries to keep to himself. For Meulin its likely her resentment of her team members and holding back her anger at Kurloz or maybe even her feelings for Kurloz still being there.

For the Bard part of her classpect, its the idea that Bards Mirror their opposite. The thing about Nazz is shes actually very responsible! Often giving an air of being very well put together for a kid to the rest of the cul de sacs kids and cool headed more times than not. Its part of the charm. Of her acting cool and casual- And just how she behaves regularly like nothing bothers her, but sometimes you can tell it does or just might (almost like a passive ghost of hpow Dirk acts). You learn over time shes actually very smart, too; she gets very good grades, is a model student who cheerleads, and even was seen as responsible enough by the parents of the cul-de-sac to babysit Eddy. Which definitely says something, I think. This is usually how we see Mind Players- Dirk being so cool headed but only the surface is  too. Since its the stereotype at this point that Mind players are the calm ones (which I have my own opinions on too but thats another essay for another time).

DESPITE this chill and responsible facade on the surface, Nazz has SEVERAL times shown some genuine Heart player impulsiveness or thinking with her heart on a sleeve. She allows Edd into her bathroom without even thinking about it, even when it wasn't cleaned up. You see how she acts on emotion like humouring Edd a lot through the show even by kissing him at one point and dancing with him even when it wasnt the popular thing to do, she humours Kevin but lectures him for his own impulsiveness on pure anger towards the Edds frequantly, passively destroying someone elses impulses and making him think before he acts a little more; In spite of this too, she also can get violent towards the Edds herself and irritable when things dont go her way, and we even learn Nazz for all her coolness and popularity, still has insecurities shes VERY emotional about- her hair being one. Much like Dirk does about this or that. Im sure theres further proof to get what Im saying across, but Im rambling as is. So thats where Ill end that tirade, I think it REALLY fits Nazz.  So theres my conclusion.

For Jonny 2x4. Its easier to tell you why I think it fits him, and Id say its for far more obvious reasons when you really get down to it. Hes probably an example of a Bard that simply hasn't learned how to gauge his aspect very well in every day life, leading to him becoming more of an annoyance to those around him much like how you see Cronus or Gamzee be treated. Someone who hasn't quite "gotten it" yet. I don't think this is nessasarily because Jonny is stupid though, at least maybe not as stupid as he makes himself out to be, since hes shown to definitely have some intellegience, more like its because hes Younger (theres no direct ages we know of?), but he does act a lot younger than Nazz so thats my best assumption, and hes also in a seperate enviroment from Nazz, who I personally see as a far healthier Bard for reasons I'll be getting into in a minute here. just know. Jonny has similiarities to Nazz with how the Heart aspect bends around him; Theres too many instances to count where hes just being impulsive but he tries to come across as braver or calmer than he really is. But if I admitted all of them for Jonny, we'd be here all day long and you'd be reading even MORE.

Lets just go with the obvious signs outside those then.

Jonny is a very lonely kid. This is similiar to Dirk too; Jonny is never seen with any genuine friends except his attempts to befriend the Edds, as stated before some kids in the cul-de-sac consider him to be an annoyance due to his own impulsiveness, and this because hes a very socially awkward kid because even in his own home theres rather dark implications of Child Nelgect or something happening. Even the Creator of the show states this interesting quote in an interveiw: "He'd be more or less thrown out the door at 9am and only let back in when it got dark or if it was time to eat. He had an imaginary friend. " Hes that lonely kid who was so lonely and felt so much so he had to resort to Imaginary friends, imposing an identity to an object that seemingly has a similiar personality to his own or a personality that meshes well enough for them to "get along" and to not get along sometimes- this is seen constantly with Jonny talking to Plank. Jonny sometimes disgrees with the morality of Plank, but hes also best friends with Plank and if I remember correctly, Jonny even says at point they are as close as brothers- PLank knows him more than he knows himself, as Jonny says. Sometimes Plank suggests even illegal things - things a little kid like Jonny (supposedly) wouldn't know about or do himself. Almost like Jonny knows weird things from listening to his parents and imposed them onto Plank, making Plank "real" so Jonny could stay in his own head and pretendHE doesn't know anything. If that makes sense.  Much in the same manner as Dirk having conversations of various focuses with HAL and objects he himself has inputted his will or rather - his Soul and Heart onto.

Thinking about this some more. I think an arguement could be made that Jonny isn't actually a Bard of Heart, but maybe a Bard of MIND. But IM not so sure.

If i think of anything more to add to this, I might revisit my thoughts on it later and reblog or edit it more.

[laiqart]

The Untamed vs MDZS Anime: Which is better?

Going to japan now. Currently in the plane. The in flight tv is broken. So... ive been watching mdzs on youtube!

Hot damn the animation is beautiful. Every frame is a work of art. How the hell. Its so beautiful. I mean they use 3D a lot for the backgrounds and boats but its still gorgeous and not too jarring. The lighting is so realistic, scenery too. All the fighting choreography is beautiful. The way the swords swing in the air looks so fluid, and when swords clash its in flashes of light the color of their sword. Such a tasteful yet stylistic choice. Everyone's, esp wwx, hair is so flowy, so detailed every strand sways in the wind. The waves reflect light and move smoothly. How the hell did they do that. How. I was thinking of doing those screencap redraw thingy with the scene when wwx whacks lwj's boat. (they also emphasised how far lwj's boat was sinking into the water, which makes it more convincing how wwx can deduce that theres something underneath vs the live action where lwj's boat looked normal..) it was damn beautiful. The thing is, the point of these redraws is that the animation looks simple, so the redraw would enhance the scene. But for mdzs, everything is already in peak quality, redrawing it will only look worse. Its like writing fanfiction of books. The original writing is so damn beautiful, fan fiction ends up being such a stark difference that the reader cant help but compare the 2.

Drama, as everyone says, shows better facial expressions due to the live actors, so emotions hit harder. But anime def LOOKs way better in all action scenes. Angles that follow the characters are used to emphasise scale between enemy and chracters, and all the movements feel so dynamic, and i love how when they use talisman spell thingies they got a circle of light in an intricate pattern thats super beautiful. In the drama, its just a piece of paper.

However, i prefer drama's lwj. Maybe cos wyb looks so young, its more believable when he freaks out over the adult book that wwx gives him in the library scene. In the anime, he looks 20+-30+. Its a bit hard to believe that he'd be worried over that. Idk theres a kind of innocence and naivety that leads to the stubborn refusal to express emotion that young lwj is plagued with that we have in the untamed (was this intentional on wyb's part or is it because the teenage lwj wig made his eyes look floaty, so he seems more like a teenager and naive, less experienced as a cultivator vs lwj 13 years later? Dk but it works!). In the anime, he looks like an adult thats calm and level headed already from the get-go. Idk maybe i just havent watched enough (only seen up til the water demons in caiyi town). In both anime and drama, everyone and i mean EVERYONE besides the fricking babies looks the same 13/16 years later. It doesn't feel like time has passed at all. I wish they would have maybe a change in costume, or hairstyle in the anime. The drama at least changes their costumes a little and neatens the hairstyle of jiang cheng and lwj to indicate maturity.

Btw i love that in the anime for the water demons section they had wwx and jc casually chatting (though its a blatant cornetto ad which is fricking weird. How can there be frozen treats back in those days), then wwx beautifully catapulting himself onto a boat and rowing away showing the unique and romantic af mode of transport in caiyi town, then smoothly transitioning to the lan bros on the bridge right above them with lwj asking why lxc decided to bring them along. Its just tying together so many scenes, quickening the plot along and yet doing it so naturally and seamlessly compared with the novel and drama.

Though i like that the drama involved wn and wq and have wwx save wn, and makes way more sense why wn would want to risk his life to help wwx recover his parents fricking corpse illegally right under the nose of wen chao and wen zhuliu.

The anime removed the entire mystery plot of a yan and the fairy goddess statue and thats honestly the best best best choice to make. In the drama, it was one of the worse sections ever cos i didnt understand who all these random ass characters were (it was one of the first mysteries in the drama) and yet it didnt go into detail like they did in the novel, so not only did i not know what was going on, i also didnt give a single shit about the characters. When i saw that they completely did away with the random passer bys who screwed around with the fairy statue, i was thoroughly impressed.

I liked that the drama let nhs have his own trouble making moments tho, like having him sneak a live bird into class. It makes it more convincing that wwx would be friends with him because they both have a mischievous side that they can both appreciate in each other. In the anime, nhs just looks like a loser nerd thats weak in swordplay and does wwx's homework for him, without a will of his own. It doesnt make sense why wwx would keep him around. Then again, maybe itll make the reveal that nhs is a conniving mastermind more impactful for the anime, oh well only time will tell.

I liked that lxc and lwj look similar in the anime. Its more convincing when people call them the twin jades of the lan clan. In the drama, they hardly looked like brothers. Lxc looks more like lwj's mentor or teacher rather than an older brother. In the anime, they look more siblingy.

I miss drama wen ning. I rmb when he looked so fierce and terrifying in his first appearance. I was legit intimidated. Oh how hes changed! Hes so fluffy now. In the anime hes equally menacing. His fight scene with the statue goddess was so beautiful. Doesnt it take a long time to animate the chains moving so fluidly yet dynamically yet somehow looks like it can disintegrate rock in an instant? The lighting on it too, how it reflected the fire of the forest around them. Have i mentioned how beautiful having that fight scene at night was? It was dark and ominous looking, yet the fire cast an epic looking light over the scene with warm orange glows. And the animators had that fiery light reflected in anything they could find: eyes, chains, swords.

Ooh but jiang cheng's whip looked prettier in the drama than in the anime, which is kind of weird given they were both cgi-ed. Somehow the lighting of the whip in the drama was brighter, looked more like real lightning vs the whip in the anime looking a little dull, like they colored it then added a gray filter. This is kinda bizarre given the laughably bad effects of the effects for everything else in the drama. Visuals for non human things is not the drama's strong suit, so it makes u wonder what happened for the anime whip. Maybe in the dark, the lightning would have to look hella bright and reflect on the surroundings (tedious to color) more so than in the day, hence why it looked worse in anime vs drama. Oh well.

As for lan sizhui, its weird that his voice is so deep in the anime (and audio drama!). Ive always seen him as a kiddo thanks to the live action, so hearing him sound mature is kinda off-putting. He sounds like a leader, and gives off lwj vibes vs in the live action where he gives a goody two shoes studious nerd vibe, whos just trying his best. Maybe this is better, he feels way more like a lwj-raised child(serious and business-like) which makes more sense. Live action lsz feels like a wwx(optimistic and intelligent) AND lwj(well-behaved and sensible)-raised child. Anime lsz looks like hes got his shit together. Jinling is fairly similar in both, maybe less prideful in the anime (in live action theres the scene where im pretty sure he indirectly kills one of his men by wishing for the fairy goddess statue to come to life. That was a hella asshole move. This was omitted in the anime.) Jingyi in the anime somehow looks snarkier. Maybe cos he straight up duels with jinling and kicks him down a dark cave. Ive been wondering why all the tumblr posts depict ljy as this sassy ass short tempered kid when he was quite tame (though sassy by lan standards) in the live action. Now i know.

The costumes for the drama is better, more detailed though thats expected i guess. I just love that they have little white gusu lan clan uniforms that wwx jc and friendos are required to wear. Its so cute and such a cool detail. In anime, theyre all in their usual garb, and they just look like random people who decided to turn up at lan qirens class. In the drama, it looks more like a school that they have to attend for half a year and it feels characteristic that gusu lan clan would require their students to have a uniform, given their incredibly strict regime type. It also serves to separate the happy carefree school days from all the other tragic af events in wwx's life. His costume starts out white showing innocence and purity of his naiive teenage years who had yet to experience hardship and still feels invincible as a youth. After school, he wears dark blue, as he goes on an adventure with lanzhan and experience how important the yin iron is (gives up the joking light hearted nature as a teenager by realizing the gravity of situation if the wen clan gets their hands on it) and maybe that hes not truly part of the jiang clan who wears purple. Then his costume eventually becomes black as he experiences his first life and death situation that he isnt sure he can handle. That child like assurance that "oh the seniors will let me off" or "im sure jiang fengmian will come to my rescue" gets demolished when he undergoes cruel indoctrination at the wen clans. This visual development may be a bit on the nose, but personally i love subtle representations.

Overall, the anime does do a better of job of explaining the world's mechanics, which is quite important. The drama is quite faithful to the book, at times even more so than the anime, so it irks me that this is the one thing they decide to skim on. The god damn premise, the first thing the audience needs: why the hell is wwx alive again and what is mo xuanyu doing?? I guess the drama thought that it explains itself but it doesnt really. It was really confusing. The anime, though somehow faster than the drama, still has the time to properly explain mxy. A technique ive noticed is that they do exposition during the fight scenes, which is so ingenius. Its visually appealing, as always, so its not boring, the viewers gets to understand whats going on AND it gives the sense that the characters are so skilled that they carry causal conversations while fighting supposedly weak enemies like zombies and water ghosts, which is accurate seeing how wwx and lwj and friends are supposed to be one of the most powerful cultivators.

TL;DR both are good lol

[currentfandomkick]

Bio! Dad Strange Part 9

Jason returns, may be a 2 parter to cover tim getting kidnapped and the aftermath. Will let you know at the end. We are getting to Marinette dealing with Ladybugging soon.

Marinette wasnt sure what to think this year. She met The Barry Allen last year. She also figured out 2 heroes pre-flash revelation and two more after—in her defense Hero Stalker’s old theory on The first Robin did Batman in. it is not her fault 5 founding members have the multiple-persona game of a booger.

She was also Tetch (Mad Hatter. Doesnt deserve the name) and Mr. J’s, Jerimah’s, last victim before they died. Then some idiots revived Jerimah. She hates his cult a lot, okay.

Everyone was on high alert and trying to keep her inside. The thing is, she hates being inside. She’s inside for designing, sure. Research? She’ll live.

But 24/7 inside time?

Never a good combo with her.

Rose’s plants may be snitches, but they seemed to agree on the over coddling. She’s ten, can break phones by tapping them, and is defiantely more off her stickers than on at the moment.

The one on her was uring her into some alleyway. If she was reading the movement pattern right, a gang fight.

Lovely, she usually did these with some sort of supervision but they were all being rude and she needed time outside.

She checked her belt, a few pairs of ball weights tied together with one chain each to make bolas clipped to back. She has a taser in hand, and a few rubber bullet loaded gun on one hip and a stun gun her size in the other. She had a packet of zipties and rope up each sleeve. Easy to giftwrap and humiliate bad people, like Batman does.

She blinked once when she saw—new player? In a bright red full face helmet that looks horrible. And he’s holding that gun make all wrong to max out usage. Ugh, amatuers.

Some part of her groaned about a potential run-in with Batman and his new Robin—she was pissed about Tim not telling her still—and decided this was as good an anger management as any. New vigilante, maybe the sirens would help him find a team.

She snuck up behind a few members, quick to grab the guns and move them out of reach. No need to give anyone playing possum an easy out, right—she saw a mix of her people in with the gang. She needed to teip this guy up before he hurt the RKC street kids and honoraries tangled up in this.

“Hey helmet, if you’re gonna shoot them you’re holding the gun wrong.”

Helmet turned to see her. She didnt grab her usual harley-knock off outfit for helping today. She wanted to be Pixie Pop for a bit. And if the Rogues forgot that she’s Pixie well, better for her, right? Pixie just wore her hair like Tinkerbell and wore a bit of green.

The guy he was aiming at made to run.

Marinette grabbed a makeshift bolas and threw it at his knees. She recognized him from one of the RKC hit lists—human trafficker. He fell with them wrapped around tight and defiantely injured bith his knees with how the weights hit him.

“I, Pixie Pop?” Weird, no one had seen her as Pixie in two years. How’d he know it was her?

“Yeah. Havent been around much lately.” She threw another bola at another guy. “You new?”

“Talk after i kill these guys.”

Marinette rolled her eyes, because really?

She threw a knife to screw his aim into non-lethal on one guy. “Kick their ass first, some RKC are in here.”

Helmet oddly did as she said, switching from guns to—is that. A. Sword?

She twisted to punch the guy sneaking up on her. Helmet threw a sword and landed it in his shoulder.

“Thanks!”

“Holy shot you’re really here this time.”

“Did you get hit with feargas as a baby or something?” Her partner being prone to dellusions and good with weapons was a bad thing.

“Just came back from the dead is all.”

marinette hit the guy going for helmet with her stun gun.

“That’ll do it!”

Helmet turned to one of the guys, gun at the ready. She had a feeling Helmet needed a lot of help, or else one of Rose’s agents would be down.

“If you know about pixies, you should know she got an upgrade to having some trust dust.”

Marinette walked over to the guy, letting her tracker plant take a look. The flower bloomed and he got a face full of ‘filter-less pollen’ that’s as close to a truth serum as Rose could make. After all, people can turn sides.

“Truth pollen?” Helmet was staring at her closely.

“Yep.” Marinette turned to her victim. “Are you helping the traffickers?”

“Does infiltration and killing them count as helping?”

Helmet stared at them then.

“Which team?”

“HKT ma’am. How did you get rose to give you one of those?”

“Think for a minute who she gives these to.”

“Comanding officers of the the RKC reconn and interigation but there’s only 15 and i met them all when i joined in the fall.”

“Im the summer help when theyre not puppy gaurding. Now, i have to do zipties on the traffickers, think you can help?”

“I lost coordination from the pollen.”

“Of course you did.”

Marinette turned to see Helmet staring at her. Like she should be dead, not the new revival guy.

“Good enough.”

“I thought only Poison Ivy could do things like that.”

“I have a badass team, well, when they aren’t going overboard. One week kidnapped and suddenly im made of glass.”

“Pixie you are what, ten?”

“So? Two of my best friends went missing becuase no one stepped up, one of them resurfaced as an idiot a year later but still.”

Helmet stopped then. “Two?”

“Hero stalker went after our big brother vanished.. he came back as an idiot.”

Helmet paused. “Hey, you check the others and i’ll help you drop off the good ones at a doctor or something.”

“Zipties are at the ready. Mind doing your share?”

Helmet did as she asked, working with her until all was squared away.

“Okay, my tracker gave off a signal to the RKC to gather our guys here, and—why are bleeding?”

Helmet looked up at her then. “I am?”

“... you’re coming with me since i dont know if you need a transfusion, but i know a guy who can help.”

“I’m driving.”

“On what?”

“Motorcycle.”

Marinette let him walk her to it, and she got on first. He ‘drove’ them while the plant told her when to turn. They ended up at her dad’s clinic as ‘Mr. Smith’. He was so grounding her.

“Smith, i need help,” she tried.

Her dad came out and paled when he saw her carrying Helmet. Before he passed out he let her take it off. “Red hoodie... oh god he said he was revived.”

Her father worked out the blood bags while she checked the wound, bullet still in there. She got it out with tweezers. No major damage to the muscles and shit. How many scars did he have? Pre or post revival?

When he came to she turned to her father and said one thing.

“So this is my new brother. Dont try to get out of it, he kept me alive when i was comstantly pixie, and you said if he was in a bad place then you’d take him in, no questions asked.”

Strange sighed, nodded, and went back to fixing Helmet up.

The next day he was forced moved into an extra room by hers. Somehow there was already clothes his size and style in it.

“Pixie...”

“Im determined and my honorary aunt is a cat burglar.”

Helmet hugged her.

“So for the documents, what do you want to go by?”

Helmet said he didnt want it to be obvious, given who he was before.

“Its not like you were robin.”

“I was.”

“.... i know two robins now, pre-robining. What is my life?”

“ you are ten, calm down. And you knew dick?”

“Met him as Nightwing, not very friendly. But uh, remember hero stalker?”

“The idiot who followed me and B?”

“Yeah, so funny thing, it was a thing that he wanted to be Robin when you went off from Gotham, and then he somehow managed to convince bats to take him on.”

“That Child is Robin.”

“Will be another hero soon if he knows what’s good for him—he’s too easy to make.”

“Wait, you know who he is-is or—”

“I know 5 secret identities and want to lodge a formal complaint about heroes having no secret identity game.”

“Youre ten. I refuse to let you deal with legal things.”

“But illegal is still on the table?”

“I am a vigilante, of course it is.”

“Good, so can we tlak about how dumb Supes secret id is? I photoshoped glasses on as a joke and looked at my file and knew.”

“Wait have they found you yet?”

“No? I dont think so. Not the mom and step dad or father one yet.”

“But its.”

“I know, but i can keep multiple secret identities. They cant handle one. What is this bull they drop in my lap? No masks for two of them, and the three with cant even manage a basic gait switch?”

“I am so glad you noticed too.”

“Also we need to intervene with Hero Stalker.”

“Does your father know-know or...”

“Knows i know, but knows im not telling even in death.”

“Fair. So, heads up i am going to yell at the JL after killing B for impact.”

“How about beating him up instead and kidnapping Hero Stalker? Bats is fine just needs an adult working with him.”

“Maybe. If my mind wasnt so fucked i’d send the Dick a text or something about this, but i think he hates me so that probably wouldnt work.”

“We have planning time, that’s what my house arrest is good for. Now name.”

“... i want to go by Jay.”

“James work?”

“Sure.”

“James “Jay” Smith then. And we are fixing your vilagante outfit.”

“What’s wrong with it.”

“Your helmet has a nose. And the who this is shit for discreet armour. I’ll get a rant in fifteen on armor history from a fashion obsessed friend and make something for you using that, ok?”

“Do i have a choice?”

“I am your little sister offically. resistance is futile.”

—

So the long awaited return of Red Hoodie/Red Hood/Jason Todd.

For refrence (as age is weird here) Jason looks 14/15 here, but due to dead years is technically 18

Tim is 12

Marinette is 10

Dick is 20something.

Bruce is 30something

Heads up, this will be a two parter for this summer. As i love the next part but need sleep.

@ilovefluffbutsmutisalsogreat @emeraldpuffguide @dast218 @weird-pale-blonde-person @mystery-5-5

[dridsimsheart]

im so sad that everything that made me happy on the past months have all come to and end today, I just cant support this any longer everyday something bad happen

im just letting the stream out here bc to be an add of all my problems twitter just blocked ALL MY ACCOUNTS for no motive at all, guess im just using here to say things a bit bc I honestly dont like talking person to person, sorry for poluting your feed, i just need to speak, even if is just with myself 

the worst part of it all is that nothing is really my fault, so I cant even guilty myself for these things and just accepted that Ive had a mistake, its not like that, its just things that I dont have control abt and like I said its the worst part knowing I cant do anything but weep

I dont even know if my words are making sense, as you all know english is not my mother language, I think I haven’t write a full text in english yet but that doesnt really matter know

but I like to always see the good side of the things and I think this time is simblr, in the past months I havent posted much here, I am feel sorry for that bc now quarantine is over and I wont have the time I had early

but, even with my classes coming back (just so you know, my school is illegally putting classes back, we are on red flag for co*id and neither the leader of the city or the state have let them happen)  I will try to keep my sims addction for now on, I want to move my legacies and start new ones, so I will be posting almost everyday here, I hope this brings a little joy to my days now because im sincerely on my worst stage. 

[low-budget-mulan]

Hi! How often do you run into psychiatric patients during work as an EMT? I'm doing psych right now and we had a 12 yo girl whose mom had her in porn at 6mo-9mo and I just want to scream at 1. these people who are pro-porn and 2. the mom is clearly mentally ill, but still what the effffff. So how do you deal with these patients?

I'm going to start this off by saying that those parents should be reported to CPS. That is absolutely disgusting and I would not let those monsters anywhere near a child. If you have not contacted the proper authorities yet then please do so now because their child (children?) Are being abused and absolutely nobody deserves that. Especially an innocent child. If you have actual evidence of the abuse and the evil things that the parent did then those kids should be taken away and locked up never to see the light of day again. Pieces of shit.

We run into psych patients on the regular. Whether it is a person who is having a psychotic episode, a person who is suicidal, a person who cant take care of him/herself, or a person who just has some sort of addiction where they are self medicating to forget about their problems (either drugs or alcohol. Sometimes both). It is all part of the job. Each patient is different. I've had psych patients who wanted complete silence. I've had psych patients threaten to harm/murder/rape me. Hell, just a couple days ago one tried to attack me in the back of the ambulance on the way to the hospital. I've had psych patients who just wanted someone to talk to. And I've had psych patients that I didnt even realize were potential psych patients until after the call was over. You have to be able to assess the situation and from there you can move forward in patient care. I'll give you a couple examples of times situations were handled well and times they were not and how I decided to act/treat my patient.

1.)

We had a 911 call for a behavioral overdose. Sheriffs were already on scene (good). We get there to find a high school aged girl. She was alert and oriented (AO). Her whole family was around plus the sheriffs, plus the fire engine, plus the fire medics, plus me and my partner. There were too many people. We are trying to talk to our patient and figure out the whole story but she isnt really talking. I turn to the fire medic (they technically are in charge of medical calls, so what they say goes even if it's wrong and stupid) and say let's get her loaded up and he agrees. We walk her to the gurney and load her into the ambulance. Typically we allow one family member/friend to ride along with a patient especially if the patient is a minor. Unless the patient is a psych patient. And heres why. Once the girl was in the back of the ambulance and away from the hoards of people she started answering our questions. She told us everything that happened leading up to this point and why she did it and how she was feeling. I gained her trust by talking to her and separating her from what was causing her anxiety and other feelings that werent good. During the transport I realized she just needed to be distracted. I was monitoring her closely with the medic and got all the medical information I needed. So we just talked about school and plans for college. We talked about her favorite tv shows and how I spelled my name wrong for 13 years. That's all she needed. But not everyone needs that. This is an example of a good call.

2.)

I will start this off by saying I can be sarcastic. Which is not always a good thing. Okay so. This was a transfer call for a man on a legal hold. We were taking him from an emergency room to an actual psych facility where the remainder of his hold would be carried out. This guy was extremely tall like over 6 feet and used to be in the military and still worked out a ton so he was pretty muscular. I just so happened to be driving this day. While my partner was getting his report I went to go get a set of vitals to make sure he was stable and nothing was wrong. Before I can even get them this dude is making all sorts of racist remarks and how he doesnt want to go to whatever psych hospital we are taking him to because "its associated with a certain kind of people if you know what I mean." Then goes on to say hes not going (which tbh if you're on a hold it doesnt matter if you want to go or not. You have to go until you are psychologically cleared). I explained that because he was on a hold he had to go and I wasnt the one who set up the transfer. I literally am just the driver and I go where my dispatch sends me. He then responds with "well what if I fight you" I realize I wasnt going to get my vitals and that this guy was going to be a problem. I walk over to my partner and tell him what's going on and that we need to use restraints (which I rarely use because who wants to be restrained?). At this point we now have sheriffs there to help us get the guy on our gurney and to protect us if this guy freaks out. We get him on our gurney and I put the restraints on. After putting on restraints you have to check for a pulse in the extremity and make sure they can still wiggle their fingers/toes. So I ask him to wiggle his fingers and he flips me off. Me being the sarcastic person I am and without thinking I responded with "oh thanks. I havent had that in a while. Could I get another?" The dude then threatens to rape me and becomes very agitated. I messed up. We de-escalated the situation thank goodness. But I could have handled that situation better. I knew he was already agitated and a dumb comment like that could have easily been the breaking point for him. Dont do something stupid like that.

3.)

We had a transfer for a woman who was on a hold. This was out of one of the worst hospitals I know. Literally the hospital that killed my grandpa. I already hated being there, but how the staff treats patients both medically and professionally (if you can even call it that) was absolute shit. I hated this hospital even before my grandpa was a patient there because of how incompetent and rude the staff was. Sorry I got distracted and ranted, but the backstory is relevant. I go to try and get a report from the nurse who knows absolutely nothing about this patient. Cant give me any history. Doesnt know what meds (if any) were even given. And gets annoyed when I ask for an actual report. Not just the "oh yes that lady is on a hold. She can talk but is being selectively mute. And you're taking her to this place. K bye." At this point I realize I'm going to get nothing from this 'nurse' and I just look through the packet. I go over to the patient who is just sitting there on the bed staring off into thin air. I realized that any loud noise or sudden movement scares her. So I slowly inch my way to her and introduce myself. I tell her I'm there to take her to a different hospital where the staff will be able to take care of her better and where she can get the help she needs. In that whole interaction I got her to say maybe a couple words. And they were basically what's going on. I realized the staff at this shit hospital did not tell her what was happening. Nobody told her she was being transferred. They literally just left her to sit in her own feces because they couldnt be bothered to do their job. Before I even touched her I told her everything that would happen. I walked her through the entire transfer process and let her know what was going on. Then once we were ready to actually start getting her onto our gurney before I made any movement I told her exactly what I was doing. She was completely fine with me. Once we get her to the psych place we finish up our transport and are about to leave she grabs my partners hand says "are they going to be nice and take care of me here?" My heart broke. I told her that yes she would be taken care of and that she wouldnt be ignored here as I know this hospital has great staff. She smiled and let us go.

By assessing the situations and the patients you are able to figure out how to handle your patient. Ive learned from my mistakes and I've learned from my coworkers who have been around longer than me. But always be cautious as a patients mood can change at any time. Even if you dont do anything to trigger it. A patient will go from happy and smiling to trying to punch you in the face. Know your surroundings. Be ready to react because things can change in an instant.

Addition: any sort of illegal activity I will report to the proper authorities. I have reported hospitals, families, and nursing home for neglect and other forms of abuse. If you are sure then ask someone who knows more. I usually ask the supervisor I trust or my coworker who's been doing this for 20 years.

[zerochanges]

Valentine’s Chocolates and Glass Masks

The romance genre in anime is a little weird, and honestly on the whole the majority of the genre in anime is probably a bit too slow for its own good. “Will they or won’t they” is something most romantic fiction is guilty of, but I think you’d be hard press to come across 150 episode TV series dedicated solely to that premise anywhere else. And this has nothing on the pure silliness that can come with the genre; hand holding, indirect kisses, masked secret admirers, all that good stuff. Really, I’m not here to trash talk romantic anime though, but as I sat down and tried to think about writing a Valentine's Day blog post I just couldn't help but think to myself how romance anime might be the hardest to explain to anyone not in the fandom. I mean, I think I’d have an easier time explaining the plot of any given saga in DBZ than I would explaining “Notice me, senpai” to somebody.

You know what though, I kind of ironically enjoy all of this. Yeah, pure romance anime can be cheesy, but it’s just the right amount cheese that it’s like, c’mon, how can you not enjoy this? Perhaps the worst (or best!) offender of this are older shoujo titles where they can seem almost downright like a soap opera at times. Shows like these are just so full of bizarre, off-the-walls, and over-the-top melodrama that they manage to suck me completely in. They’re heartbreaking, they’re engaging, and the times when they fail at being those things they are hilarious. 

My most recent experience with an older shoujo title like this would have to be studio Eiken’s 1984 adaptation of Glass Mask. Now Glass Mask (or Glass no Kamen as it is known by some) is a manga that started life in 1976 and to this day has yet to be finished, with the manga creator Suzue Miuchi stating she would like to finish it soon, but hasn't quite figured out when that will be (move over Hunter x Hunter fans). Having been one of the earlier shoujo titles starting back in the mid-70’s the series is full to the brim with pretty much every cliche and trope you can think of for shoujo anime, and to a modern audience it can often be almost hilarious at times to sit through. It is important to remember that for its time Glass Mask was a trend-setter and arguably if not the creator than certainly the reason why a lot of these cliches became cliches in the first place. Over the years Glass Mask has received its fair share of adaptations and even parodies, and currently has 3 different animes as well as a live action drama series and real life stage plays based on it. I heard the most recent anime, the 2005 TMS adaptation of Glass Mask, does a pretty great job at modernizing several aspects of the series, but unfortunately I have yet to watch that to weigh in so all I can say is that I was inundated with more cliches than I could count and laughed a ton while watching the 1984 series and I loved every minute of it. 

Glass Mask is the story of a young 13 year old girl Maya Kitajima, who has a dream to be a great theatre actress. Unfortunately for Maya she’s from a very poor family, and even more unfortunately for her, she is incredibly average looking with no flair--and don’t worry, the anime will remind you of that fact countless times every episode. Despite her damnable curse of “just looking kind of average” Maya will stop at nothing to pursue her dream and eventually runs away from home after getting a scholarship for an acting school. There, the enigmatic Chigusa Tsukikage notices Maya’s talents and takes her on as her protege. Soon, Maya learns that her mentor Tsukikage was once a legendary actress thought to be truly one of the all time greats who due to a tragic Phantom of the Opera style accident had her face hideously scarred and retreated out of the spotlight. 

Tsukikage is looking to pass on her talents to the future generation and eventually pass on her greatest possession, the rights to the elusive Crimson Goddess play--a supposed legendary masterpiece that has not been seen by anyone in decades; not since Tsukikage’s career ruining accident. For some reason the director and creator of the the Crimson Goddess play saw it fit to beseech all the rights to his masterpiece to Tsukikage and thus nobody else has been able to produce this elusive phantom play since. It won’t be easy for Maya and the Tsukikage acting school, as media conglomerate and mega corporation Daito Entertainment will stop at nothing to get the rights to the Crimson Goddess, and isn't afraid to sabotage them at every step of the way. Perhaps Maya’s greatest rival however is the young Ayumi Himekawa, the daughter of an already famous actress who is said to be the favorite to inherit the Crimson Goddess role, and is everything Maya isn't; beautiful, rich, famous and well loved by all, and while not a student of Tsukikage she is more than willing to pass on the rights to Himekawa if Maya fails to prove herself.

It’s easy to already see the cheesiness just from me trying my best to summarize the basic plot, and we haven’t even gotten into the romances yet. Maya’s relationship with the young Yu Sakurakoji is fairly simple at first, as he helped rescue her from a feral dog and despite being in rival acting schools--one affiliated under Daito no less, he’s a pretty chill guy that enjoys spending time with her and doesn't care about all that stuff. It’s only after Maya starts to take off in her career that Sakurakoji starts to spiral into this insane inferiority complex centered around her, where he thinks she has become too good an actress for him to be around anymore and starts to give her the cold shoulder all because of his own make-believe shortcomings. It’s very odd and sudden, and the entire thing is blown out of proportions as Maya clearly does not think that and Sakurakoji eventually has to be lectured by bad boy Masumi of all people to come around and start spending time with Maya again. Even after this however it isn't like the old days anymore and the gap that was created from his own complex still lingers.

And oh boy, don’t get me started on Masumi, he’s quite the character. Masumi Hayami is the 24 year old son of the president of Daito Entertainment and is currently running the corporation in his father’s stead. Masumi serves as both an antagonist and love interest (because of course he can be both) in the early parts of the story and is often behind some (but not all) the sabotage done to Tsukikage’s acting school. Masumi will eventually take a more reasonable approach when it comes to trying to yank the rights of the Crimson Goddess away from Tsukikage’s hands as the anime progresses, often just by having his acting school beating Tsukikage’s students in contest and the like, and it’s here where we usually see Masumi’s employees that work under him being the more underhanded characters instead of Masumi directly engaging in the conflict.

Despite being on different sides, so to speak, Masumi catches one of Maya’s earliest performances, her role as Beth in Little Women, and falls in love with the young girl, impressed by both her potential as an actress and her fortitude for going on with the show despite suffering from a dangerously high fever and immediately being rushed to the doctors after the curtains fall. From this point on her takes the role of “Mr Purple Rose” named for the bouquet of purple roses he sends to her at every show. As her secret admirer and the first fan Maya has ever had he means a lot to her yet as his true identity of Masumi he’s an enemy that Maya cannot stand to breathe the same air as. So in short, Masumi is just your average 24 year old CEO of a mega corporation crushing on a 13 year old girl from a small acting school he is trying to ruin and also her secret admirer. Somehow Masumi is one of the best characters in the series, and is my best boy. Only in shoujo!

So far I've been having some cheap laughs at the expense of the 1984 Glass Mask anime but it’s not all like this. The over-the-top bombardment of old school shoujo cliches and the laughs I got from them may be one of the most memorable component of my viewing but there’s actually a lot more to this anime than that. When you get beyond the silly age gap romances and the flowery melodrama of young teenage love, Glass Mask is a story of artists trying to pursue their passions and dedicating their everything to them. Maya may be cursed to forever be “only average looking” but I really respect her drive to dedicate her entire life to theatre. 

Well, that is to say, the times when she isn't acting like punching bag to the rest of the cast (Glass Mask has a tendency to make Maya into a Cinderella surrounded by tons of wicked stepsisters). When Maya is written not as a Cinderella she’s fiercely determined, and never backs down despite some straight-up abusive behavior she is put through. At times her mentor Tsukikage is absolutely savage, regularly beating Maya and putting her through some training that is definitely highly illegal, at least for today’s standards. For instance she once threw Maya in a shed and locked the door refusing to let her out until she finally understood her character she was assigned. Did I mention it was in the middle of the freezing cold winter and snowing out and Maya only had the clothes on her back for warmth? She was out there for days with no food, water, or even warmth. But don’t worry, she had her script to read and that made it all okay. Like goddamn, somebody call child protective services on this lady.

Speaking about “the art” and everyone’s passions, the more you watch the series the more it becomes obvious that the creator, Suzue Miuchi, really cares for theatre and isn't just using it as a vehicle to propel her own story. There are countless renditions of classic plays shown in Glass Mask, such as the mentioned already Little Women, The Miracle Worker, and Wuthering Heights, just to name a few. Some of these plays are presented without any changes while others may have reinterpretations made to them by the characters who are trying to give their roles a life of their own away from the original source material. Miuchi very much understands theatre and does a great job converting many famous plays into a more compressed and easily digestible form of entertainment that can be viewed on a week by week bases. The analysis characters give about the plays and other characters’ performances, the ways characters interpret their parts, and how the plays that we are privy to see in the series end up all show a deeper understanding of the medium. Watching Glass Mask is almost like taking a beginning course in theatre that covers all the classics, only with way more melodrama and over-the-top romance than you will find in your local theatre group. I hope.

What’s the most impressive however goes beyond just Miuchi’s renditions of other classic works and instead are her own plays that she creates herself. As not only does Glass Mask use pre-existing plays it also has its own original productions that will spring up in-between the real world plays. A lot of these self created plays are very enjoyable too, and some feel way more fleshed out than they have any right to be and you often find yourself regretting that you are only privy to a small part of the performance and not able to just sit there and watch the entire play like the characters in the anime do. Maybe that’s why it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that some of the plays Miuchi has created for her manga have later been adapted into real life plays in Japanese theatres. This is probably the greatest testament to the series’ popularity right there, where its own fictional works are turned real. I can’t think of many examples of something like that happening before.

I’d be remiss not to mention the visual aspect of this series before wrapping up my thoughts on it too. While certainly no powerhouse in animation, Glass Mask 1984 goes for a more picturesque route, and does a great job with tons of beautiful still shots and intricately detailed background images. It’s a humble production but with the right use of lighting a lot of scenes can really shine (pardon the terrible pun it was an accident), especially the night shots which can be pure art. Hang it in a museum, I say. I’m almost surprised we don’t see more “aesthetic” anime blogs mining images from this series. Veteran director Gisaburo Sugii (Dororo, Touch, Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix) leads the production with skilled marksmanship you would expect from his previous (and future) pedigree, and along with legendary animator the late Shingo Araki (Ashita no Joe, Galaxy Express 999, Saint Seiya) the series has a wonderful 80’s flair to it that just fills any retro anime fan full of nostalgia whether or not they have seen the show before.

Studio Eiken’s 1984 Glass Mask adaptation is a short, briskly paced 22 episode series that is easy on the eyes and not hard at all to still sit through for modern audiences. It’s full of tons of laughs (both ironic and sincere) as well as tons of melodrama and over-the-top romance. Most importantly though, it’s a full of passion; lots and lots of passion. During its short episode count the series watches Maya progress as an actress and grow older, with her finishing middle school and beginning high school while also balancing full time acting jobs on the side. The ending is left open--and let’s face it the manga hasn't even ended some 35 years later still--but there’s enough forward momentum in the series to really feel like your time with the characters wasn't wasted and that they were able to accomplish something--not to mention the ending spot is a pretty decent one leaving the viewer wanting more but enjoying a satisfying conclusion to one of the more interesting story arcs adapted. Overall I think anyone who enjoys cheesy anime romance can sit down with this series and have a fun Valentine’s.

[starmon]

hey, im really into your nightmare cases au.. got any information on gate and maybe alia?

HI sorry i got to this a bit late! shits been busy lately

i do have information on gate, however alia i really haven’t developed yet in all honesty! she doesn’t really have any information right now.

i havent really figured out what to do with her (as much as i do like her) so at the moment, she’s basically the same as her canon counterpart. that’ll probably change though

as for gate… [hands u seatbelt]

ur gonna need this. buckle up ITS REALLY LONG IM SO SORRY I JUST LIKE TALKING ABOUT GATE AND HIS INTERACTIONS W/ OTHER CHARACTERS

right off the bat i’m gonna tell you gate was WAY LESS BITTER in his researcher days. the man looked way less tired honestly. i think…i think what i can tell u the biggest difference between source gate and nm cases au gate is that - he had/has alot more empathy . he was really actually proud of his creations up until…you know. the incident

also something random but i feel like it needs to be said, funfact : gate actually could never stand x from the start. like, x could probably give gate fucking migraines without trying (i love x but in this au he’s such a fuckin gremlin my man)

he finds zero to be a bit more tolerable pre-X6 but he obviously develops rather strong opinions on the maverick hunters post sabotage incident 

his actions in X6 are pretty much unchanged. the virus he ended up picking up from zero’s DNA ended up warping his personality alot more drastically than whats implied in canon, so much so to the point his speech patterns grow very… erratic. he sounds like he speaks in a more “sing-song” voice during X6′s events, and you can pretty much tell his logic made 0 sense

[put under read more because theres so much, holy fuck]

additionally something to note is that due to zero’s viral dna or whatever, a large side effect aside from the warped personality is dangerously rapid mood swings. especially when it comes to certain characters (coughimmostlyreferringtobrassandnightmarecough) , his mood can go from sickeningly sweet to increasingly violent within a matter of…seconds. everything about the man is off putting around this point

i said it before in my other post but gate does get a redemption arc post-X6. the mav hunters dont actually pick up gate tho (i still need to iron out details, but-) , due to being a…now labeled maverick and what not. 

i still need 2 introduce this character to the AU but bass isnt the only mm classic series character to dip into this whole thing. without saying too too much, its one of dr.light’s robots 👀

due to that, eventually a cure ends up being developed that could atleast reverse most if not all of the zero virus’s effects. it does take a bit of heavy rehabilitation afterwards, though.

as you’d expect even tho gate has like…way more empathy in this au. he’s just so fucking tired, my guy………. he’s way more cynical (even more so than what he was post destruction of his creations) and has alot less energy to put up with bullshit anymore. this man is gay and tired, please send him help immediately

the only reason gate was helped tho was only due to brass - one of the only ‘bots around that knew what he was like prior to everything, convincing said character i need to introduce into this au to even do so

literally no one trusts him up until brass opens his fukin mouth and is like

“but brass he’s literally a fucking maverick- we dont know what he’s capable of doing after what happened previously-” “hes stoopid i Kno This but PLEASE”

additionally this is very random but i can assure you nightmare zero tried to punch gate’s shit in multiple times after X6. 

LIKE FUCKIGM

gate: [wakes up] nightmare: [immediately tries clocking him in the jaw for asking too many questions]

gate:

joking aside, he ends up hanging around brass , nm , and the Other One ™ since they all got one thing in common: maverick hunter hq hates our ass

seriously, we have two mislabeled mavericks, an ACTUAL FORMER MAVERICK, and a weird part time doctor running an illegal clinic for reploids and humans alike

they hang out around one of the eurasia colony collision point areas due to the fact after a certain point, they just pretty much evacuated the area and no one goes there anymore. perfect for a couple of outlaws to roam around

they cant really be in any highly populated areas for fear of being recognized and brought in, since - i assure u almost everyone there except maybe one person wants everyone’s head on a plaque. especially gates.

they make do with this fact however , but its just pretty much a post apocalyptic setting they’re in. even more so once human’s start jumping shit and going to the damn moon out of all places (though of course they couldn’t fahking do this without atleast trying to add one person to their body count and FOR ONCE ITS NOT GATE. FOR ONCE.)

AND…YEAH….THATS PRETTY MUCH ALL I CAN THINK OF!!!

thanks for sending an ask! (feel free to ask me about any specific events in canon that you’d like to know a little more about.)

[foxandfiction]

so i havent written anything in a LONG while (since 2017?) for a very good reason: i was going to school fulltime. good news: i finished! i finished in december and i walk at graduation in may. hopefully i learned something about writing. i enjoyed myself, at the very least, and i was grateful to have made myself write frequently about literature, even if it wasn't the way and type of lit we were looking at in school. i don't know that i will come back to this frequently. after all, it's february and i've been free from the school grind for months now. but sometimes a book sparks an idea in me that i have to write out. so here we go. niko rides again.

truly devious / the hand on the wall by maureen johnson.

so here is a thing: i like maureen johnson enough as a person that i will usually read her books, despite the fact that she writes mostly YA hetero romances, and infrequently anything fantasy and never sci fi. when she announced she was writing a mystery i was interested because i do like mysteries but the genre as a whole is often difficult to enjoy for other reasons. and so, expecting it to be a stand alone novel because i am a fool and an imbecile, i picked up truly devious.

this isn't to say it is a bad book. it's just 3 books.

a brief summary: stevie bell has just been accepted into ellingham academy, a prestigious private boarding school with a checkered past. the site of several famous kidnappings and murders of the ellingham family that established it, the school is known for inviting brilliant students with very specific passions to study there. stevie is invited because of her expertise on the ellingham case-- her goal being to solve the murder while she attends the school. of course, when accidental deaths seem to be more than accidents, the case may not be solely located in the past.

intriguing.

the case itself is interesting and fun, relying on the weird school and its strange inhabitants, both presently and in the past, their penchant for secret passages and riddles, to propel the mystery forward. yet the mystery is not the sole content of any story. recently i caught up on the magnus archives (if you like audio horror.... please give it a go) and in the q&a after the most recent season they were discussing constructing a mystery. horror, of course, must have some sort of mystery. as they discussed character arcs coming to head, they brought up how such a thing can sacrifice the mystery-- poirot's character development consists of not knowing who killed someone to knowing who did it.

this is not to say that truly devious sacrifices some mystery or some character development for the sake of the other. rather, truly devious operates as two different stories with the same cast, contained in one trilogy. stevie solves the mystery. and stevie gains friends and a romance.

i prefer the mystery.

the mystery, at the very least, does not stand on weak willed politics.

there's two main issues here, in my opinion. one is the issue of representation while still wanting to write a straight romance between two white teenagers. the second is that johnson wrote this during the results of the 2016 american election and its awful aftermath. these are understandable-- at least the latter one-- because no one worthwhile has been positively impacted by this. there are of course several problems with this. the first is what i'll call representation lite. "representation" or "diversity" is something in these cases that are dolled out to a larger cast of characters so there is a variety, instead of any real issues impacting a singular person. instead of any real depth these "representations" get to have, the audience can see them and, if they want, feel included. or they can ignore them. the audience in the know can pick up on them -- stevie's best friend janelle is a lesbian, and janelle's partner is nonbinary. there is a minor character with a physical disability. stevie herself suffers from an anxiety disorder, which is the only one of these things that is talked about beyond mentioning for mentioning's sake.

one thing that struck me as a very sour note occurs in a chapter from the perspective of a witness to the original crime, a friend of albert ellingham, founder of the school. leonard holmes nair (subtlety is for adult novels), talking to some students about how he knows dorothy parker, says, verbatim, "i am a friend of dorothy's".

now. several things. i didn't need this line to know he was gay. you nailed that one maureen, without having to discuss sexuality at all. to a modern audience, that's what this line specifies. in certain contexts it would be amusing-- it is innocuous in 1935, but in 2020, it's full of meaning. the film did not even come out until '39, and i'm not sure when the phrase came to mean what it means now. a kind of circular joke, that is meaningless both to the joke teller and his audience, yet full of subtext to both the author and the readers. it's interesting. it's also a little bit insidious and what i dislike about this novel revolves around it. it is a joke under layers and layers that you must already know something about to know what it means. and yet if you don't you miss it and you miss nothing. it's the "representation" in this novel-- it's buried and it's minor and you can miss it easily, and while it may be well intentioned, its existence is more insulting than inviting.

it's second major flaw is its attempt at a political message. it suffers as much liberalism suffers, by drawing an arbitrary line in the sand where doing the right thing is the goal, if you have someone you like pushing you to do it, but it's ok to fall short if it inconveniences you, scares you, is considered illegal in any way.

here is a minor example: a character who studies environmental science talks about writing a paper about all of the plastic in the ocean. not two chapters later he talks about how he likes tuna salad, as if the majority of plastic in the ocean didn't come from the fishing industry. i'd chalk this up to author ignorance (and not character ignorance because i think teenagers are smarter than that) but johnson is vegetarian, maybe vegan; she is at the very least a big fan of isa chandra moskowitz, noted vegan cookbook author. (if you care about the environment.... go vegan).

here is a bigger example: throughout the novel there is a commentary on a fictional senator who could very well be a number of real senators. he's your run of the mill republican, in my opinion: racist scaremonger who wants a "return to personal responsibility". stevie's parents work for his campaign, despite her personal objections to him. after making out with a housemate several times, she discovers he is the senator's son. the kid is supposed to be just as against his father as stevie is, although he is, in perhaps the politest way i can phrase it, chaotic as fuck.

maybe i am just jaded but i can't imagine anyone with money not being tainted by their parent's politics that work to get them this money. yet they do end up together, and a large part of the secondary, non-mystery plot is her love interest's work to ruin his father's bid for presidency.

there is a turning point where, the boy and some friends (not stevie and her friends, because it Felt Wrong) find out that his father has been blackmailing shady people for campaign finances. great. until, instead of exposing them, they decide to destroy the information, because it is less illegal.

oh..... ok? i mean, if he got dirt on these people i don't think he couldn't do it again. if he reports it to the press, he destroys his father's bid for presidency and the lives of the awful people he's extorting. it's a win-win scenario. will the kid go to jail? maybe, but even if his father is pressing charges against him, he's still a rich white boy. he'll be ok. doing something illegal for the greater good is ok. lots of things were once illegal. that doesn't make them immoral. maybe doing the right thing, like absolutely destroying any chance your awful father has at holding a position of power, is better than taking an easy way out.

maybe, if you want to write a mystery, write a mystery, and if you want to write something political, don't feature the police as a trustworthy organization.

but what do i know.

[i-amusemyself]

All 100 Questions.

Bloody hell okay thank you!!! 😄😄😄

1. Is a kiss considered cheating?Yeah, Id say so.

2. Have you ever faked orgasm?Aint never had anyone to fake it with 😂 Ngl tho its the sort of thing id do (which is terrible i know)

3. If you could have one super power, what would it be?Mind reading.

4. Do you think youre gonna be rich in 7-8-9 years?I’d be worried if I didnt have more money than I have now, but idk.

5. Tell us some funny drunk story?Oh jeez erm, I don’t really have any 😂 My friends occasionally remind me of the time at the school christmas ball one of the business teachers turned up and I quickly ran away while aggressively whispering “oh no he knows im a lesbian, aimee told him”.

6. Why are you no longer together with your ex?We work better as friends, its less stressful.

7. If you had to choose one way to die what would it be?See I’m really torn with this question. Part of me thinks itd be nice just to go in my sleep, with a heart attack or something. Its quick and painless you know.But equally I wonder if it would be better to maybe, like, have something where I knew I was gonna die. Because then I’d have time to try and do everything on my bucket list and say goodbye to everyone. Also maybe at that point I’d welcome death lmao.

8. What are your current goals?Idk? Im waiting on A level results which I really hope I’ve done well in.I hope to make lots of new friends at uni and learn how to look after myself quickly I guess. I dont know.

9. Do you like someone?I like a lot of people 😆

10. Who was the last person to disappoint you?Im really not sure??? There arent many people I expect anything from and even then my standards are pretty low. So like, I dont really get disappointed by people, only occasionally by situations.

11. Do you like your body?I could hate it a lot more, but I wouldnt say I’m happy with my body or general appearance. I struggle a lot with my features and my weight and the scars I have (which is ridiculous but thats what mental illness is)

12. Can you keep a diet?I mean if I wasnt on the diet im on rn (with lots of restrictions) id probs be in hospital 😂

13. If the whole world was listening to you right now, what would you say?Honestly id pass out under the pressure of it 😂 idk, id tell them all to take a chill pill but no one would listen.

14. Do you work?Nah, i had 3 jobs at once last yeah but now I’ve ended up with none.

15. If you could choose only one food to eat for the rest of your life what would it be?Either garlic bread or chocolate I cant decide!

16. Would you get a tattoo?I’m v much planning on getting one in the near future so yh!!

17. Something you dont mind spending all your money on?Plane tickets.

18. Can you drive?Yeah! I havent driven since I passed my test, but hopefully I havent forgotten how to that quickly!

19. When was the last time someone told you youre beautiful?…I cant remember. Thats depressing (not that I blame them).

20. What was the last thing you cried for?Argh I have no idea why I was crying, my brain just wasnt doing its job so everything made me stressed and sad.

21. Do you keep a journal?I keep a blog for diary posts but besides that nah

22. Is life fun?If you allow it to be, yeah

23. Is farting in front of people irrelevant?Tf is that supposed to mean? I guess if you know the person well it is.

24. Whats your dream car?I dont know about Dream Car, id have to research it loads to decide what my absolute fave it. Although rn I’d really love a ‘67 VW beetle bc theyre small and cheap on insurance 😂

25. Are grades in school important?My own grades are super important to me, (to the point its probably unhealthy) but in terms of how the people around me do, it doesnt really matter to me. I mean, I want everyone to do well, but I dont judge people based on it.

26. Describe your crush.She’s funny and all around awesome and interesting and good at deep convos and beautiful and way out of my league.

27. What was the last book/movie that really impressed you?The last one I read called The Bell Jar. It was unlike anything I’ve ever read and made me think about a lot of things. Also I related a lot with the main character.

28. What was your last lie?Eh, probably “im fine”.

29. Dumbest lie you ever told?Idk?? I only keep track of the good lies 😉

30. Is crying in front of people embarrasing?It shouldnt be but yeah, I try my best not to.

31. Something you did and are proud of?Umm, idk im p proud of playing basketball and representing my region/training with england. But i quit that so 👏 dicks out for my regrettable decisions 👏

32. Whats your favourite cocktail?Never had one

33. Something you are good at?Annoying people and being clingy 😂 also maths ig

34. Do you like small kids?It depends on the child, the day of the week, the lunar cycle, my menstrual cycle, how hungry I am…Yh legit sometimes I hate them sometimes I love them.

35. How are you feeling right now?Great omg I just got my best friend to watch mamma mia and now shes high on life next to me.

36. What would you name your daughter/son?🤐 there are a couple of names for girls I like and like 2 boys names? But i dont wanna say bc theyre embarrasing.

37. What do you need to be happy?Good company, good food and possibly music.

38. Is there someone you want to punch in the face right now?Theres always at least 3 people I would love to punch 😂

39. What was the last gift you recieved?My best friend got me a necklace and I almost cried its so beautiful

40. What was the last gift you gave?The gift of my company @only-slightly-dangerous 😉😉😉

41. What was the last concert you went to?I went to to see Amber Run in february

42. Favourite place to shop at?Um, as in shop? A place called blue banana probs (england’s hot topic smh)

43. Who inspires you?Kaitlyn Alexander bc they helped me to understand who I am and how I feel and to be loud and proud about it.And Luke Cutforth bc he’s so open about his mental health and struggles with self harm but hes so happy now.

44. How old were you when you first got drunk?18 lmao

45. How old were you when you first got high?It aint happened yet (and i dont really want it to)

46. How old were you when you first had sex?It aint happened yet smh

47. When was your first kiss?As far as im concerned never

48. Something you want to do until the end this year?What….does this mean….? Idk???

49. Is there something in the past you wish you hadnt done?It’s more stuff I wish I had done tbh. I suppose I said things I shouldnt have or got too involved in drama, but you kinda need all that secondary school shit to learn from it

50. Post a selfie.Lmao nah fam

51. Who are you most comfortable around?My best friend by a mile. Privacy who?

52. Name one thing that terrifies you.Abandonment without explanation.

53. What kind of books do you read?Anything non fiction about medicine/being a doctor/disease/psycopaths.Besides that whatever has been recommended.

54. What would you tell your 12 y/o self?1. Youre gay2. You and I both know you arent joking about being “a dude trapped in a girls body” stop laughing it off and confront it.3. Stand up for yourself.4. Chill out.5. Laugh a lot more omg

55. What is your favourite flower?It’s between petunias and roses

56. Any bad habits you have?Not answering peoples messages unless theyre Certain Person A or Certain Person B.

57. What kind of people are you attracted to?Ones that are out of my league and could kick my ass apparently. Also ones that are kind, listen and think a lot I guess

58. What was the last thing you cried for?Already answered

59. Is there something you dont eat? A food that truly disgusts you?I dont eat loads of stuff bc my guts hate me 😂 but besides all that I’m actually the worlds least picky eater. The only thing I dont like is raw tomato. Thats it.

60. Are you in love?I wish

61. Something you find romantic?All the clichés ngl 😂 just anything that says “i love you” or “i was thinking about you” really

62. How long was your longest relationship?Like 4 months? Barely long term.

63. What are 3 things that irritate you about the same sex?Oh jeez i hate these theyre so stereotype-y1. Bitching2. Not supporting each other3. ….?

64. What are 3 things that irritate you about the opposite sex?1. Not supporting each other2. Massive egos3. Yelling

65. What are you saving money for?Uni so I dont starve to death!

66. How would you describe your bad side?Hmm, idk, it depends what someone did to get on my bad side. I’d say stubborn, bitter and angry tho usually.

67. Are you actually a good person? Why?I could be wrong but I think so long as someone has morally good intentions they are usually a good person, whether they always succeed or not. So yeah, I like to think I am.

68. What are you living for?My friends and the hope I have for my future.

69. Have you ever done anything illegal?Piracy? Thats it.

70. Do you like your money?….did I type this question wrong or??

71. Have you ever made someone feel bad about themselves intentionally?Okay, the honest answer? Yeah. When I was a lot younger and less mature and someone said something that hurt me, I tried to retaliate with equally hurtful comments. I like to think I wouldnt do that now.

72. Ever sent nudes?Lol no

73. Have you ever cheated on someone?Hell no

74. Favourite candy?All candy hates me 😂

75. Is there a blog you visit everyday or almost every day? Tag them.Yeah @oneshappyplace knows I regularly spam her with notes in search or Quality Memes (im so sorry)

76. Do you play any computer games? Whats ur fave?Nah, as if I have time 😂

77. Favourite TV series?Argh I canny choose? I love the IT Crowd, I love supernatural, I love Sherlock, I love in the flesh…

78. Are you religious? Does God exist?I’m not religious and personally I don’t believe there’s a god or higher power but I could be wrong.

79. What was the last book you read? Did it impress you and why?The Bell Jar. See 27.

80. What do you think about vegetarians and veganism?I respect it I guess? At one point I was p much a vegetarian until I had to restrict my diet sooo. Tho I could never be one now, let alone a vegan.

81. How long have you been on tumblr?Too long 😂😂😂 Like 3 or 4 years?

82. Do you like chinese food?Love it!

83. McDonalds or Subway?(Never been to subway so) McDonalds.

84. Vodka or Whisky?(Never had whisky so) Vodka.

85. Alcohol or Drugs?(Never had drugs so) Alcohol.

86. Ever been out of your country?I’m currently in the USA so yeah 😂

87. Meaning behind your blog name?It’s p self explanatory and also v true

88. What are you scared of?Abandonment, deep water, knives, toys with battery packs.

89. Last time you were insulted?Ugh, probs like when I met up with a load of school friends for our leaver’s ball.

90. Most traumatic experience?I’d rather not answer that lmao (plus itd take a long time to type)

91. Perfect date idea?Chilling and listening to each other’s favourite songs while coexisting and eating fast food 😂 that or ikea ngl

92. Favourite app on your phone?Tumblr. Even though I hate it, it also keeps me sane.

93. What colour are the walls in your room?White and blue.

94. Do you watch youtube? Who is your favourite youtuber?I love so many youtubers omg. Lukeisnotsexy, mileschronicles, realisticallysaying and filthy frank are faves

95. Share your favourite quote.Pick your fights.

96. What is the meaning of life?To live life to the fullest so youre happy and have minimal regrets. Also to be kind and helpful so even if you dont change the world you might help someone else to.

97. Do you like horror movies?I think….? But I’m not good at watching them alone 😂

98. Have you ever made your mum cry? What happened?Eh…again, would rather not answer (we got some nice supressed memories here)

99. Do you feel lucky or special in any way?I’m still totally in awe of how lucky I am to have met my best friend from 3000 miles away. Like, the probability of it was so so slim and yet here we are.

100. Can you keep a secret?I think so yh! It’s something that I consider super important.

[awed-frog]

that comment about what you think about soldiers' motivation is, in my opinion and despite your intention for it not to be, pretty offensive and shows a harmful stereotypical perception. even without immediate threat to their countries, people often sign up for military service just because they want to protect and make a contribution to a safer world. let's say UN blue helmets. would you say most police officers are just hungry for authority and do the job to beat up people?

Hi there - thank you for coming to talk to me about this instead of just assuming I’m a dick or sending me abuse or whatever - I appreciated it a lot. I understand that you’re upset - to be fair, this is a sensitive and complex issue, very close and personal for some people, and where we live and how we grew up is likely to have a huge impact on what we think about it. So, yeah - it was perhaps unkind of me to bring it up in two lines in the middle of an SPN meta. It’s definitely an important debate, though, and an issue which deserves to be discussed, so let’s see if I can make my opinion a little clearer.

First of all, I should say that I’m privileged enough to live in a ‘normal’ country. I’ve never been afraid of the police - quite the opposite - and I recognize both policemen and soldiers do an important job which is necessary to a democratic society. I also know their working conditions are often difficult, if not downright awful, and I appreciate their work as I do that of all civil servants. In fact, that’s why I distanced myself from far left groups years and years ago: their hatred and contempt for cops was starting to grate on my nerves, and the fact some of my ‘friends’ would make plans to isolate policemen during demonstrations in order to beat them up made me nauseous. As Italian artist Pier Paolo Pasolini wrote back in the day, policemen are first and foremost working people who often come from an underprivileged background, so a class war against them makes no sense at all (you can find the poem here in the original Italian and more about the historical context, in English, here).

That said, it’s an open secret that the police tends to attract, and recruit, mostly a specific type of person. In many countries there is an endemic problem because policemen are inevitably revealed to be far right sympathizers, or are otherwise prejudiced against minorities. 

(One part of the world which is very close to my heart is Northern Ireland, and today, April 5th, 2017, the region has again vowed to do better and recruit more Catholics into the force. Their numbers are now up to 31%, but it’s still not good enough, and it’s a situation likely to foment or create problems down the line, as all parties are well aware.)

Italy saw one of its biggest scandal almost twenty years ago, when during the demonstrations against the G8 summit taking place in Genoa, about a hundred students were illegally detained, humiliated, beaten and threatened with rape and torture (61 of them had to be treated for mild to serious injuries). More than a hundred policemen were indicted and had to withstand trial, but despite the abundance of incriminating material, none of them was ever punished (English Wikipedia account of the facts). That was by no means an isolated incident. Only one month ago, what should have been a successful example of international cooperation (the neutralization of Anis Amri, the man who’d carried out the deadly Christmas market attack in Berlin) was marred by the revelation that both Italian policemen who’d stopped and killed Anis Amri had a Facebook profile choke-full of Nazi and fascist imagery (English article). There was much embarrassed mumbling on the part of both governments, and some clamour further down - even Breitbart did a piece about it - but ultimately Germany decided against an award for the two policemen, because their political affiliations were perceived to trump their work and efforts to counter terrorism.

(Being on the force, like many other jobs, is usually something that runs in the family, and this is problematic for all those European countries which were still, until few decades ago, military dictatorships. Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, not to mention the Balkans and Eastern Europe - there is where you see the biggest problems in regard to who, exactly, chooses to be a policeman and why. In Greece, for instance, the cop who shot a 15-year-old student and unwittingly started the 2008 riots was the direct descendant of a family who’d enthusiastically collaborated with the Nazis in WW2; and the Greek far right movement Golden Dawn has deep links with both the police and the army.) 

And if we’re talking about soldiers, all these problems are magnified times a million. Again, I’m lucky enough not to see soldiers all that often, but I’m always wary of them (and I give them a very wide berth whenever I’m abroad) because it’s inevitably groups of loud young men with big weapons, and that’s rarely a safe combination. Here is where you see it again: in theory, being a soldier can be a noble calling (and let’s not mention, because this is not what we’re talking about, those who have no choice but to serve, either because of draconian conscription laws or because they’re too poor and uneducated to have any other choice), but be around career soldiers long enough and a pattern begins to emerge. I was never in the army myself, but I have friends from several countries who served, both in regular armies and in peace-keeping missions, or even combat, and the picture they paint is pretty bleak. According to them, even in the most mundane settings (such as basic training), a Lord of the Flies escalation can occur at any moment, because this is what happens when you stuff twenty young men together and force them to obey pointless orders all day long and punish the whole unit whenever something’s wrong. Hazing is common, and victims never speak up (when they do, they are generally mocked by their superiors and told to man up). Women in uniform are routinely excluded, made fun of, humiliated or (far) worse. The same goes for gay people and minorities. And, again, this is the situation in relaxed, normal circumstances - in peace time, and in your own country. These are simply things that happen out of boredom and a vague desire to establish your alpha status over someone else. When it comes to war, well, I havent yet heard of any army that hasn’t committed horrific crimes against civilians - but, again, this is not what we’re discussing now. Let’s just say that when it comes to the US army, the only force to have training bases in the entire world (and maybe the time has finally come to reconsider that), freak accidents and crimes are pretty common - and normally go unpunished. And I’m not talking about what happens in combat - that would be a whole other discussion - I’m talking about stupid, mindless, violent things some men do when they’re left to their own devices in a military setting. In Okinawa, local people are fed up by the problems caused by American soldiers - stuff including low-level crime, but also rapes and murder. And up in the Italian mountains, the memories of what happened in 1998 are still fresh - it took years to even understand how the events had unfolded, but as far as we know, the pilots of a military plane which had taken off from a nearby American base had simply ignored regulations to have fun - they’d been flying way too low, and, as a result, their plane cut the cable supporting a gondola from an aerial tramway, causing it to crash to the ground. Twenty people were killed, and yet every single soldier involved was acquitted.

So, well, I’m not saying that all soldiers are idiots, Nazi sympathizers or psychos (I never understood this new tumblr thing, by the way - the ‘not all men’ meme, because no, not all men: 90% of the men in my life, for instance, are decent, normal persons, and not part of the problem in any way). Not at all. What I’m saying is, we tend to gravitate towards specific jobs according to our likes, dislikes and general personality - and, in my experience, people who wish to be soldiers are people I don’t have much in common with; and, yes, very often they’re testosteronic young men who just want to dick around with weapons and tanks and, if at all possible, have some ‘fun’, possibly by beating each other up. After all, if you truly want to serve your country, there are many (less exciting and assault rifles-related) ways to do so. Teachers and nurses and garbage collectors and cleaning personnel, just off the top of my head, do far more for their countries than some kid in uniform will ever do (again - I’m thinking about my country here, which is not at war with anyone) and yet you never hear anyone thanking them for their service, or whatever. On the contrary - these professions are often lowly paid and not recognized by society at all. Maybe the world would change for the better if we stopped having so much respect for soldiers and we started thinking that other careers - such as taking care of the elderly, for instance - were a far more honourable choice for young men.

(On how our personalities lead us to specific jobs and how those jobs in turn shape our personalities, I can highly recommend these articles about the link between engineering and terrorism - fascinating stuff, and also scary af. You can read about it here and here.)

[igot7idiot7]

Senior Year

Chapter 3: White Teeth Teens

Ch. 1 // Ch. 2 // Ch. 4 // Ch. 5 // Ch. 6 // Ch. 7

Pairing: Wonwoo x Reader x Mingyu

Genre: slice of life

Words: 1104

Summary: It’s not always easy to tell feelings to some people... But nothing is better than a late night with your boys.

Warnings: some drug mentions, none of the main people use it i promise

A/N: basically imma try to update this as much as possible. um yeah i also hope people are actually enjoying this?? i havent really gotten any feedback yet so yeah 

Saturday, September 10, 2016

   We wouldn’t be seen here in the day. This park, regardless of the well known reputation of teenagers doing drugs here, had a special place in your heart. The small jungle gym was where you met Wonwoo first. It was third grade-or so you thought- he was smaller than you, and reading a book. Being so long ago, you would never remember what it was about, but you did remember wondering why he wasn’t playing with the rest of the kids. You noticed most of your peers didn’t pay much attention to the bookworm, with good reason, he was always reading. After watching him sitting on a lonely bench, you had mustered the courage to invite him to play with you. You remembered the smile that lit up his face. It had to have been the first time you saw him smile, because it was what started your friendship with the quiet boy.

   “Y/N... What is on your mind?” Wonwoo looked to you with concern. It was easy to space out and think of the many memories you both had here. You always sat at the same bench while he let his emotions out with a hoop at the end of a long pole and an orange ball. He was never one to tell anyone what he was feeling, but taking him out to the basketball court in the infamous park was always the key to get him to open up.

   “Sorry, I was thinking about the time we first met here...” You brushed your hair behind your ear. A small smile met him face as you looked up. He slowly made his way towards your bench.

   He sat slowly, not taking his eyes off of you, “You are always thinking of some random memory when we are here.” He continued to look at you smiling away thinking of how you met again. Happy you asked the stoic class bookworm if he wanted to play. “Can I tell you something?”

   “Wha- of course you can. I don’t know why you’re asking!” Concern had took over your voice. It was rare he asked permission for an answer from you. The two of you were practically brother and sister. He waited a few moments before he spoke again.

   “I’m... I’m happy that you asked... I...”

   “Wonwoo, what’s wrong?”

   “At the time we met, I had wanted to be a part of the ‘perfect’ crowd. A white teethed teen, or child really. I just... I wanted to thank you... For not letting me become one.” The boy with hair covering his eyes never seemed so vulnerable to you. “And for helping me... Get to where I belong.”

  Cars could be heard whizzing by the park where you both sat in silence. You held his fragile form. Quiet breaths came from both of you.

   The once silent night had become loud again. The teens who needed validation through their illegal substances had begun their nightly ritual. Their soft chatter seemed to blend with the passing cars and the light buzzing of the lights and soft patter of feet hitting the ground. The smell that the drugs they used was faint. Odd for a Saturday night, but you figured that most of them were out partying at someone else’s house. 

    The other tall boy in your life had entered the scene, his bright smile and booming voice had torn your attention away from your memories. He jogged his way up to Wonwoo, stealing the old basketball from him and attempted to make a shot. You watched as his toss had missed the brim of the basket by only a few inches. The two boys had challenged each other into a one-on-one match, with you as their cheerleader. A broken conversation filled the air when they weren’t busy trying to trick each other or catch their breath. 

    “I mean,” Mingyu breathed heavily, “Jimin has brought much prettier girls around to us y’know? What even was her name?”

    You searched your memory of the previous day to find the name of the girl he talked about. “Chaeyoung... I think...” She had a memorable face. Her face was soft with large eyes, and a short haircut to compliment her. 

    “That sounds right. But I think she looks better for him than the other girls.” Wonwoo spun around Mingyu taking the ball from his grip.

    “I guess you’re right, but,” Mingyu had to pause as he tried to get the ball back. “I don’t know, there is just something off.” 

    Wonwoo threw the ball into the hoop, making it and finalizing the game in his favor. He walked to the the slowly bouncing ball to pick it up and walk closer to your bench. The air got warmer as he sat next to you, trying to get his heart rate down and his breathing back to normal. “Maybe its because she isn’t as loud as you are? Has a little more respect for Jimin’s friends compared to the rest of them.” 

    “You just need time to warm up to her I’m sure that’s it. Give her more time, I’ve heard she is shy until she get’s more comfortable around people.” Mingyu sat on the other side of you, reaching his arms out, showing off his ‘wing-span’ as he used to call it. He sighed loudly, knowing that he would just have to get used to having a new girl in the group. He originally never wanted to get anymore people into their group during their senior year. For reasons unknown, but he made sure that you and Wonwoo were made aware of his displeasure. It made sense he didn’t want to get attached to another person he would have to say goodbye to at graduation. He would have to give his to best friends up to college, he didn’t want to add to the list of people he would miss. 

    Suddenly, the lights had signaled midnight. The three of you quickly made your way to the parking lot. Deciding that Wonwoo was going to be the one to return you home. Mingyu protested going home to your respective homes, trying to argue the allowance of an overdue sleepover at your house. Eventually giving in, you knew your parents wouldn’t mind them staying over again. They were practically brothers with how long you’ve all known each other, and how many times the three of you had sleepovers. Most people were jealous of you all, but it didn’t bother you. It was natural between the three of you to always be together. And you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Chapter 4

[growlegalweed-blog]

Legal Weed Resources

Check out... http://legalweed.gq/420/are-unlicensed-operators-accessing-californias-legal-cannabis-market/

Are Unlicensed Operators Accessing California’s Legal Cannabis Market?

Unlicensed businesses are attempting to gain access to California’s legal cannabis market, and for now, it’s up to licensed firms to make sure the rules are being followed. Despite regulations from the state Bureau of Cannabis Control that require licensed cannabis companies to only do business with other licensees, there is not yet a system in place to verify compliance.

Ben Ballard is the chief operating officer at Silo Distribution, a licensed cannabis distributor serving Southern California dispensaries from its facility in Palm Springs. He told High Times that both unlicensed sellers and buyers have attempted to complete illegal cannabis transactions with his firm.

“I’ve never completed a transaction and found out retroactively that there was a license that didn’t check out, but it is something that people have attempted to do,” Ballard said.

Ballard added that there are several reasons a license number might be invalid.

“It could be a number of things,” he said. “It could be expired. It may be completely phony. The license they have might not permit them to do what they’re trying to do.”

Currently, companies can look up licensee information on the BCC website. But unscrupulous operators, including one who tried to sell black market vape cartridges to Silo, can take advantage of the same publicly available information.

“I’ve been given a license before and I looked it up,” Ballard explained. “The company name on the license didn’t match the brand, and they were in a completely different part of California.” Ballard says things got even fishier from there.

“So when I asked about it they said ‘Sorry, wrong licensing,’ and provided another one and it was the same drill. And they said, ‘Well, there’s some ownership stuff here.’ It was a very half-assed attempt at trying to pull it off, so it was pretty easy to figure it out.”

Ballard said he’s also had unlicensed dispensaries attempt to purchase products from his company. He said those cases are easier to spot because deliveries must be made to the address on the license. And when a sales representative is in a retail shop, it’s not difficult to determine if it is licensed.

“It does take due diligence, but it’s not an overwhelming amount of work.”

“License information does need to be prominently displayed,” Ballard said. “So if you have concerns about dealing with licensed or unlicensed groups, then you should be able to locate that yourself or they should be willing to share that with you. I would say if someone’s not willing to share their licensing information with you, then you may have a problem. It may be an indicator that something’s not above board.”

Virginia Falces is the communications director at OutCo, a microbusiness license holder in San Diego County. The company cultivates, manufactures, and distributes cannabis products from its headquarters in suburban San Diego. She said that although she hasn’t seen unlicensed firms attempt improper transactions with OutCo, she knows that there are imposters out there. And until METRC, the state’s upcoming seed-to-sale tracking system is in place, it will be difficult to verify the source of cannabis products.

“We have not experienced anyone pretending to be a licensed operator when they are not,” Falces told High Times. “However, we did receive a cease and desist order from the BCC at our address in El Cajon; there was an unlicensed company using our license number and address but with a different name. Since license numbers, addresses, and business names are readily available on the BCC website, it would be very easy for an unlicensed operator to get and use any license number. Either the track-and-trace system being in place or a copy of the BCC license would have prevented that.”

Ballard says it is usually easy for him to distinguish the “above board, up front players in this industry and the people that are doing stuff completely outside” of the regulations. He added that he’s followed his intuition and investigated further when things haven’t seemed right.

“It does take due diligence, but it’s not an overwhelming amount of work.”

The post Are Unlicensed Operators Accessing California’s Legal Cannabis Market? appeared first on High Times.