#<- i am saving this post because it will singlehandedly fix me i think if i ever get sad

[the-finch-address]

Charades, Pictionary and Scrabble for the Game Night asks? 💛

Take two! This time we’re going to be talking all about The Heir’s Odium!

Charades: Reveal one of your character’s personalities by talking about things they’ve done, things they’ve said, and habits they have.

I’m going to use Caprice for this first question because I love and care for him (even though he’s technically the initial antagonist of the tHO series)

(art is done by @faenova.  As usual please go check them out <3)

Things they've done:

Hooo boy, has this guy done a lot.  As the heir to an entire empire his schedule is never empty, but those deeds aren't what you're here for, right? We're discussing the nitty gritty, the actions that really show his intent.  To save time, here's a list of the few that feel most important to note;

- Took on the role of emperor (though he prefers the title of King) at the age of 12

- "Singlehandedly" pulled together one of the largest Packs within the book

- Inadvertently contributed to the enslavement of thousands of people (and then went Uh Oh upon—eventually— realizing what exactly he was doing)

- Almost killed the one person who could save all life as we know it (in a misguided attempt to save the one person who could save all life as we know it)

- Fell hopelessly in love with someone who had been continuously hurt by his decisions and orders as ruler—and remained oblivious to this for a concerning amount of the book

- Discovered much of his Pack only followed him for his riches and power and proceeded to throw half of his treasure room out of a sixth story window in a fit of madness

- Came to the realization that having friends was not, in fact, a sign of weakness and that he rather enjoyed actually being able to trust someone (this one took the longest)

- Saw a spirit in his bathtub and (in an impulsive flight of shock) threw a hairbrush at them

- Ate poor man's stew and puked immediately. Did not go back for seconds.

Things they've said:

- "Could you speak up? I don't understand squabbling"

- "Right, yes, my apologies, I'll just see myself to the nearest body of water and hold my breath until you're ready to have a conversation again."

- "You're a few silvers short of an elder, aren't you?" (Derogatory)

- "Oh, North above, you're really going to make me go through with this?"

- "I am one loose thread from unraveling completely, just falling away into a heap of cotton and stitches. Is that what you want? An ugly heap?"

- "You can ask your silly question in another hundred ways and I can repeat the same answer a hundred times more, but I'm going to hate you a little more each and every time."

- "I haven't tasted sweet ale in at least a fortnight because of you.  The least you could do is feel guilty about it."

Habits they have:

- Pacing pacing pacing

- Looks in the mirror when nervous, or when stressed, or when making a decision, or when frustrated, or when sad, or whe

- Bites into the apple core and spits out the seeds like a watermelon slice

- Sings to himself in the bath (knows he's bad at it)

- Gets people hyped up for literally no reason other than to feast on the reaction

- Fidgets A Lot but most commonly by braiding his hair. Does this during meetings and everyone hates it.

- Pushes himself too hard during every waking moment and then wonders why he's tired all the time (see: working, studying, training to the point of falling unconscious in less than ideal places)

- Talks things out with/to his favorite horse when he's trying to fix an issue

- Says things out loud that were supposed to be internal thoughts (normally mean spirited)

- Says "Oh" when he doesn't know what else to say which is. pretty frequent. (No thoughts head empty)

Pictionary: Name the three most recognizable symbols from your WIP

1. Vestiel’s sword

(Art @ sttmarts)

2. The Pack emblems (there’s 5 in total so to save room, here’s my favorite):

3. Drajel (No specific imagery, but they’re a vital part and mentioned often. I’ll draw one here eventually.  I think this counts? idk I just needed a third one

Scrabble: What is a word or phrase you find yourself overusing when writing?

In tHO specifically (again, to save room because this is already a long post) I’ve overused the phrase “Felt like” and in general, “The”, more often than I’d like to admit.Thank you for the ask!!

[colourblindhedgehog]

WIP Check!

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Send me an ask with the title that most intrigues/interests you and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!

I love the implication that I am organized enough to have an actual wip folder and not one 354 page doc I dump everything into until it gets too big to find things looool

But, ficwise, my current wips are

The Big Fucking Star Wars Fix It Fic

Symphonics

Logan fix it

though tbh I haven’t really worked on any of them for a while, I have waaaay more original fiction wips(no idea whether that counts for this, but whatever), 2 of which are designed to be multiple-novel length series, the coolest/most recent of which are

Glitter/Rockstar

Monstrum

Aliens

Hollywood Inheritance

Marriage Merger

(I have a sideblog for aesthetics/inspiration for the original wips. bc I have a sideblog for Everything, it’s a problem)

share the last 7 sentences of your wip

I last worked on Symphonics in May bc I’ve been concentrating on finishing my stuff up for the last few months and it’s doubtful whether it’ll ever be done, but:

“You sounded sad,” she says quietly, hugging him awkwardly, she's standing and has to stoop over a bit to reach him as he's sitting down.

“Sounded?”

“Mm-hm,” she hums, nodding. He can smell her shampoo and the alcohol she's been drinking, and one of her hands is rubbing his chest soothingly, a surprisingly intimate gesture, but she is more than a little drunk. So is he, for that matter.

“I didn't say anything,” he points out.

“You sounded sad, your tempo was slowing down,” she says, as though that explains everything.

“My... tempo?”

“Mm-hm,” she mumbles, and he lets it go. He is not sober enough to figure that out right now.

And you know what, since my original fiction is what I’m trying to concentrate on atm, have a snippet of Glitter too because ONE DAY I’m gonna finish this damn thing and then the world will be sorry.

“I-” Pausing in the act of stepping away, she forces her thoughts into line. “I'm not good at being a guest. I'm awkward and feel like everything's an imposition and I want to help but also always feel like I'm in the way, invading people's privacy no matter what I do. And this was never the plan.”

She looks up and he gives her an encouraging look and she has to look away again.

“I didn't really have a long term plan, actually. I planned out the first few weeks, there were people I needed to save and things I needed to get done within a certain period of time, but after that it was.... a big blank space. The world, my oyster, all that. I had some grand idea about saving the world singlehandedly, but that's completely different from when you're living it and have to think about where you're going to sleep and having money for food and whether you're actually in the country legally and will they let you leave. So I'm kind of at a loss.” One side of her mouth lifts in a wry smile. “'I have always depended upon the kindness of strangers' loses its appeal pretty fast.”

tagged by @demenior and I’m tagging @wrennette and everyone else who has wips bc idk who else writes anymore and i want to see all the pretty things

[reverseopossum]

Why Sci-Fi Isn’t Broken (but can still be fixed)

I feel like I’ve seen a lot of commentary on science fiction now versus “golden age” sci-fi from the mid-20th century that goes along the lines of “back then, people were optimistic, they thought science was inherently good, and the space race had captured the public’s imagination. Now postmodernism, pessimism, and the small and personal nature of technological innovation has left us with drab dystopias and preachy allegories about being on our phones too much.”

Okay, I see where you’re coming from. As a side note, the kind of sci-fi with big gleaming interplanetary rocket ships is still alive and well, it just doesn’t occupy the same cultural real estate as before. Mainly, though, my problem with that analysis is that it conflates types of stories that were never meant to serve the same purpose.

Science fiction (especially the “hard sci-fi” variety) revolves around scientific ideas or imagined technology as a key part of the world building or plot. A perfect example would be I, Robot, where we’re literally following the progression of a technology across centuries: the robots’ philosophical problem solving with the famous three rules of robotics, how humans interact with the robots, and how the robots ultimately influence and save civilization.

 A story set in the future that revolves around politics or personal events and doesn’t have a science or tech idea relevant to the plot lands in the realm of speculative fiction. Probably the cleanest example of the difference would be The Handmaid’s Tale. Margaret Atwood specifically said that she chose not to introduce any distracting gadgets, and that everything that happens in the world of the story is intentionally based on something that has really happened. (She had really compelling and interesting reasons for doing this, by the way.) Obviously there’s a whole lot of overlap, sci-fi and speculative fiction are like a Venn diagram that’s mostly middle. 

Anyway, years ago I read a lot of the teen dystopia books everyone complains about (why doesn’t matter). And I noticed a common trend across almost all of them: YA-geared dystopias ask the audience to believe that the world in the future will be simpler than the world now. Worse, sure, but simpler. And that’s where I think speculative fiction can go off the rails. The problem isn’t that the authors think the story needs to be dumbed down for kids to like it, it’s that the world building is shaped around the plot and not the other way around. These stories follow a formula, right? Big Bad is an evil government of unspecified ideology but more or less coded as fascist. Ordinary Teenage Girl is politically apathetic and just wants to live her life, but some personal attribute makes this impossible. Once this becomes clear, Ordinary Teenage Girl goes through an inner and then outer rebellion, singlehandedly reinvents the concept of freedom,  inspires her people to rise up, and the ensuing conflict resolves within a binge-able trilogy. 

To be clear, the fact that there’s a formula with a predictable ending isn’t a problem in itself. The Hero’s Journey archetype is a formula with a predictable ending. Shakespeare's audiences knew the ending before the play started. The problem is that this particular formula is dishonest. Ordinary Teenage Girl lives in a world pared down to one city (or twelve). She has no cultural background, religion, or knowledge of history. She can count the people she loves on one hand, and within a timely arc they all agree with her. She can easily avoid government surveillance. There is no internet. 

(All of this is blamed on a nuclear cataclysm that wiped out civilization as we know it, which is ludicrous. If people survive at all, they’ll carry pretty major parts of their culture along with them. And if civilization has recovered enough that Big Bad is a powerful, centralized government, homegirl is probably going to have some kind of access to something resembling the internet.) My point is that the simplistic world the story depends on is inorganic, made for the story. Things never get simpler. High quality sci-fi goes the other way around: use an exciting idea as a world building premise, and let the story grow from there.

As an aside, imagine trying to set a YA dystopia novel’s plot outside of its simplified world. What if Protagonist Girl read George Orwell and Hannah Arendt and had theories about what the hell happened in the 21st century? What if, instead of a solemnly saluting crowd, she had to deal with an internet comments section? What if the government counter-propaganda was actually effective, meant to confuse, divide, and distract via trolls and clickbait? What if the conflict dragged on for a decade and the rest of the world treated Americans the way it treats Syrians? What if the climate hadn’t calmed down yet? (Oh look, it’s the sarcastic, fourth-wall breaking 800+ page monstrosity I’ve been intermittently working feverishly on and trying to abandon for eight years)

So, I’ll probably finish the above-mentioned speculative project, partly because it's been such a formative experience. But right now is a really exciting time to write actual sci-fi? The fact that our technology has gone small and personal instead of big doesn’t have to be creatively stifling. If anything it should make it easier to write emotionally and psychologically complex stories around hard sci-fi concepts. 

The truth is that science is moving faster than ever. I want to be a neuro PT, right? On a given day, I’m a lot more excited about small-scale technology that lets people control a computer with their brain than I am about space travel. I personally see more stories in neural lace than in plans for a Mars colony. Like, we’re just starting to figure out how brains do the braining. Give me some tragic heroes with otherworldly mental powers born of hubris. What are the consequences when we share too much of ourselves, or start to lean on technology controlled by someone else to inform our own inner monologue? Good old-fashioned warnings about unchecked surveillance? If you uploaded every synapse in your brain into a computer, would it be you? And if it turned out to be horribly otherwise, what rights would that entity have? If we could peer inside someone else’s consciousness, would enhanced empathy necessarily lead to enhanced compassion? Small-scale technology sci-fi is going to be so much more interesting than “our phones are turning us into zombies and Mark Zuckerburg owns your toaster” 

Long post. If a potato became sentient, what would happen?

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 206: The Third Set Concludes

Previously on BnHA: Team TodoIidaShoujiRo battled Team TetsuHonePonySen TO THE DEATH, apparently. Shouto lost his fucking mind and went all out with his flames and set the whole fucking place on fire. But somehow Chintetsu was able to withstand it without fucking melting, and held his ground until Honenuki showed up and knocked Shouto unconscious with a falling streetlight pole. This was after he singlehandedly took out Ojiro and Shouji. It honestly looked like that was it for Team A, but then Iida zoomed back over and drop-kicked Honenuki in the face. He tried to carry Shouto to safety, but before they could make it to the clear, Honenuki (who conveniently stayed conscious just long enough to do this) melted the base of a big industrial chimney and told Tetsu to knock it down, which he did, right on top of Iida. So Iida is now dead, Todoroki is still unconscious and probably dying of hyperthermia, Honenuki is concussed, and congratulations Deku, I’ve finally gotten over that one fight where you systematically broke all your own fingers one by one, because this shit makes that look like a tickle fight.

Today on BnHA: With four students dead or dying before their eyes, the teachers opt to sit back and wait to see how the final moments of the battle will play out. Shouji, Ojiro, and Pony engage in a frantic struggle which results in Pony capturing Ojiro and tying up the score at 1-1. She then proceeds to wait out the clock, knowing that she can’t try to capture one of the other downed Team A kids without putting her own unconscious teammates at risk. So the deathmatch ends in a draw of all things, and the teachers generously decide to forego debriefing the kids for now in favor of getting them all some medical treatment before they actually do kick the bucket. Over in Recovery Girl’s office, Shouto, Iida, and Honenuki all bond over somehow feeling like they didn’t do enough, until RG kicks them all out, probably to call child protective services or something. The long-awaited fourth set then begins, and Team BakuJirouSatouSero gets ready to kick some ass. Bakugou is all “DEKU, JUST WATCH ME!” and I don’t know about Deku, but I’m all set for this. Get out there and show ‘em how it’s done, kiddo.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 223, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

lol for fuck’s sake

your teachers love you, children. I think

wow Iida is still conscious

“ow,” he says. I really don’t think Horikoshi knows how crushing injuries work

so now poor Iida is apologizing to the unconscious Todoroki and wishing he had been just one step faster

on the plus side, at least you weren’t one step slower. that would have been real bad

Vlad is gleefully saying that because Sen put up so much resistance, he successfully delayed Iida long enough for this chain of events to take place

Aizawa is chiding Vlad for his biased reporting. yes, Aizawa. that’s what you should be getting upset about here. got those priorities down pat

Mina says that if the status quo remains the same, class A will hold onto its 1-0 lead and win, but that doesn’t match up with my recollection of events. Shouji and Ojiro were captured by Honenuki, presumably

or maybe not, because now we’re cutting back to Shouji who’s in the midst of battling things out with Pony

now we’re flashing back to see how this all came about, and I’m just gonna post it rather than try to sum it up

(ETA: in fairness to Shouto and Honenuki who have so far bore the brunt of my sarcastic ranting for taking things too far, let’s not overlook this scene where Ojiro is all “even if you stab me!!!” and Pony is like “okay!” and actually does stab him. hero training. fun times!)

holy shit, she took him out even when it was two against one. damn, Pony

so okay, apparently the score is tied now at 1-1

jesus christ Pony is quickly becoming the fourth-quarter MVP out here

by the way, I thought all the melted stuff was supposed to go back to normal after Honenuki passed out, so why does it still look the same? did it just harden again while still looking like that?

(ETA: I guess it must have. I have some questions now about how effective Honenuki would be in a situation where he actually had to try and keep property damage to a minimum. maybe tone it down just a bit in the future.)

but anyway, so if Pony can capture Todoroki and prevent A Team from nabbing Tetsu and Honenuki until the clock expires, they’ll win

but she’s worried she won’t be able to keep this up

I BELIEVE IN YOU PONY

I can’t believe Shouji is going to fucking blow it for the entire A Team. goddamn it Shouji

oh snap!

(ETA: whoops I originally had the wrong picture here. fixed!)

this is why Deku wants to be able to fly so badly. flying solves everything

aaand time is expiring!

wow I did not see this coming

I can’t believe all these kids nearly killed themselves over a stupid training match that ultimately ended in a fucking draw of all things

I hope Recovery Girl drops a big smokestack on Aizawa and Vlad to see how they like it. for fuck’s sake

Kaminari is griping about how it’s not fair, but Shishida’s pointing out that what Pony did was a logical course of action. “running away and awaiting rescue”

yep. and on top of that, she did capture two members of the other team as well; she just didn’t make it back to Rat Principal Jail within the time limit

oh snap a wild IidaRaka moment!

from this angle we can all agree he would have 100% been crushed to death, yes?

anyway, I love how Ochako is always so considerate of his feelings. he doesn’t have enough people looking out for his mental state like that. Ochako is such a good friend and the two of them are so adorable I swear

damn, I was kind of looking forward to that. Shouto and Tetsu need to be chewed out for being reckless idiots, Honenuki needs to get his props (and also be chewed out), and Aizawa needs to seriously question what the hell Ojiro and Shouji were even doing that entire time

Deku says Iida was really cool out there, and WASN’T HE, THOUGH? he also needs to get lots of props! I should have called it Team IidaRoki because he was the true leader as it turns out. same with Team HoneTetsu

LOL

oh hey there Shouto

you’re not you when you’re hungry

god can you imagine. turns out he went off the fucking tracks like that just because he didn’t have a big enough lunch. forgot to eat his Soba O’s this morning

and it looks like Tetsu is also on his way out, but before he leaves he’s magnanimously telling Shouto that they match may have been a draw, but as far as he’s concerned he lost

meanwhile as far as I’m concerned, you both lost and need psychological evaluations

“let’s do this again sometime” oh jesus. they have learned nothing

time for some IidaRoki bonding!

you’re like fucking lightspeed you maniac. once you learn to control this shit you’ll be the fucking Flash. you’re like the only guy in this fight who actually crushed it, don’t be so hard on yourself kid

Shouto says Iida saved him though. and that he’s the one who screwed up

he says he could have attacked with his fire to begin with, but he’s gotten into a bad habit of opening with an ice attack

should I even bother at this point with the whole pointing-out-that-lethal-attacks-are-bad-for-so-many-obvious-reasons-though thing? I feel like I have more than established my feelings about that by this point. so I’ll just leave it

anyway, he says that Iida was plenty fast and he was the one who was too slow

okay, I don’t know about “slow”, but I am always here for baby Shouto flashbacks, flashbacks of the kids as young children admiring All Might, and moments where the kids decide they want to become heroes who can put everyone at ease! there is so much goodness in this scene, oh my god

IIDA STOP

YOU NEED TO COOL IT WITH THE USUAL HAND GESTURES FOR NOW OMG

does this count as another Hand Crusher incident. Shouto. what say you

anyway so Iida’s looking all thoughtful and renewing his own hero vows

I said vows as a joke but the way he says it really does sound just that formal and rehearsed though, doesn’t it?

LMAO

so as a result of this fight we’ve established that the hierarchy here is Iida = Honenuki > Todoroki. who could have seen this coming

lmao this kid is waaaaaay too fucking modest

well it’s nice to see that everyone is becoming friends

awww

these are good boys. stupid, but good

and now Recovery Girl is kicking them all out

AND YESSSS, NOW IT’S FINALLY THE MOMENT WE’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR

THE FOURTH SET!!!

YOU HEARD HIM SATOU SHUT YOUR TRAP!! IF HE SAYS IT’LL WORK IT’LL WORK!

lmao you guys. I don’t know if I’m gonna get much sleep tonight, because Bakugou is gonna have a fight. a real fight. that’s not against six-year-olds

Monoma is also excited!

okay but back-against-the-wall is exactly the type of situation that you never, ever, ever want to be up against Bakugou in

(ETA: he will shoot you in the fucking face.)

Monoma says he’s been looking forward to the 4th set, but unlike me he’s been looking forward to it because of Tokage! I don’t know who Tokage is, but hopefully they’re a good opponent! class B better be bringing that A game now! we don’t like to half-ass our wins!

OH NO

SUDDENLY I AM ALSO ROOTING FOR TOKAGE MAYBE LOL

EXCEPT NO! BECAUSE!!

EXCUSE ME WHAT. “DEKU, JUST WATCH ME”? LISTEN HERE MISTER, YOU CAN’T JUST GET ALL FIRED UP WITH YOUR EXCITED READY-FOR-BATTLE GRIN WHILE THINKING ABOUT DEKU WITHOUT ANY WARNING, YOUNG MAN. YOU WANT DEKU TO SEE HOW COOL YOU ARE, IS THAT IT. YOU CAN’T FUCKING WAIT

DO YOU EVEN CARE ABOUT ANYONE ELSE WHO’S WATCHING. FORGET SHOWING OFF IN FRONT OF YOUR CHILDHOOD HERO, ALL MIGHT, THE IMPORTANT THING IS THAT DEKU’S WATCHING. and you’ve gone from being annoyed by his constant attention to fucking loving it, haven’t you. who here is the real shithead, though

also, guess who’s also fucking loving this. YEAH, IT’S ME. THAT’S RIGHT

Kacchan’s smiles are fucking contagious. like, this cocky, determined grin of his makes me also somehow feel cocky and determined. that’s some fucking charisma. that’s the type of shit that gets you to the top, kid. omg. let’s do this

[illictaffrs]

There is Love in the Word (John Luther/Alice Morgan)

So after that (painful) disaster of a finale, I set about writing a fix-it fic where Alice and John get the happy ending they deserve. However, I’ve since decided to pull a Bandersnatch and write three different endings for my fanfic, one happy, one bittersweet, and one sad. Below is the beginning of the fanfic, which follows the finale from the point where John rescues Alice and Mark from the fridge, but with few...tweaks. I’m still writing the endings but I’ll try and get at least one of them posted by tomorrow night. Let me know what you think so far! (2480 words)

He sees Mark before he sees Alice. There’s a moment, just a split second, where he finds himself entertaining the idea that perhaps this time, Alice won’t make it out alive. And then the moment is gone, and Mark’s eyes flutter open, his arm shifting just a fraction, but it’s enough for John to catch a glimpse of the frost-covered red hair buried into Mark’s shoulder.

They act quickly and quietly after that, neither one of them uttering a single word as they mutually agree that Alice is in a much worse state than her companion. They move like clockwork: John gently unwinding the make-shift insulation from around the women that lies before him, huddled into a tight ball - it crosses his mind that he’s never seen her look so at peace with herself, but he quickly banishes the thought, as he does so often when it comes to Alice; Mark steadily unfurling her body from the tight embrace she had wrapped herself in to maintain heat; John bending down and wrapping his arms around her, lifting her into a position resembling the one they had been in just three days ago.

“Here, let me he-” begins Mark, only to find himself immediately cut off by the man already moving past him, Alice curled into his arms. In any other scenario, thinks Mark, they would look like a couple in a loving relationship, messing around and having fun. But it isn’t any other scenario, and Mark knows better than to make assumptions.

“I’ve got it,” announces John, moving past him without a second glance, his gaze completely focussed on the shivering woman in his embrace.

She only opens her eyes when they make it outside, and John puts it down to the sun’s glaring beam above them.

“John-”

The mask she wears upon her face is gone, replaced instead with a stark look of vulnerability. It sends shivers down John’s spine, and he shudders as her glance cuts through him like a knife.

He could look away, he could hide his face and stop her from staring into his soul, he is in control here. But he doesn’t. Instead, he forces his eyes to meet hers, and allows a weak, relieved smile to grace his lips.

“Not now, Alice. We need to get you somewhere warm or you’ll freeze to death.”

They both know she could counteract his remark with a sarcastic comment, it wouldn’t be unusual. Alice decides she doesn’t have the energy. That’s what she tells herself. It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that right now, she’d much rather just enjoy being wrapped in the arms of the man she-

No, she doesn’t have the energy.

The drive back to Mark’s house consists of three things. John, sighing and rubbing his hands across his face, then remembering who he’s with and quickly wiping any sign of stress from it. Mark, sat across from him, staring motionlessly in front of him at the road, hands in his pockets to keep them from going numb. And Alice, sprawled across the full length of the back seat, arms wrapped tightly around herself, not even bothering to try and disguise the rapid inhalations of breath making their way out of her mouth.

By the time they return, John has made the decision to clean up singlehandedly, while Mark and Alice each take a well-needed shower to restore the heat they lost whilst trapped.

Time passes slowly; each movement John makes to restore Mark’s house to its former state seems to hurt him physically. He supposes it makes sense, he is cleaning up the murder of one of his best friends, but that doesn’t stop the pain.

“Feeling any better?” He’s been finished for just over ten minutes when Alice makes an appearance in the doorway. She’s wearing different clothes from before (John refuses to ponder where they came from), and has wrapped a green knitted blanket around herself (John does not think about how it brings out her eyes, nor how it contrasts her hair brilliantly).

Before answering, she launches herself onto the sofa, landing only a few centimetres away from him (he puts it down to her need for warmth, nothing else).

“Well,” she pauses, and John swears he can hear the cogs turning in her mind, frantically searching for a sarcastic response to his question, “I can’t say I’m feeling any worse than I was trapped in that fridge, but I suppose this will have to do.” She finishes with a quiet laugh, something most people would mistake for a way of coping, but John knows her well enough to identify it as her way of announcing her pride towards the comment she made.

But he doesn’t share her humour, and responds by burying his head in his hands again, and massaging his forehead with his fingers.

Alice softens, her sarcasm vanishing as suddenly as it appeared, and being replaced with a look of concern, pity and...she won’t acknowledge it, she won’t.

“John, what happened with Benny, I truly am sorry. I should have-”

“Alice stop.” He musters up the courage to look directly at her, and continues with his eyes fixed on hers.

“This is my fault, all of this is my fault. I should never have involved Benny, or Mark for that matter. This between you, me and George. The sooner we realise that, the sooner this all ends.”

He’s regretting facing Alice, regretting looking into her eyes, because right now they gaze up at him with a question dancing around, urging him to elaborate further.

God, he thinks. When did it all get so complicated? When did she start feeling things? He knows the answer but dismisses the thought out of habit before it can fully form.

A sigh escapes him.

“I couldn’t do it you know, I couldn’t kill him, you were right.” He’s averted his eyes this time, not sure he can withstand the betrayal and anger he’s so sure her eyes will contain.

“Go on, get it over with. Taunt me, tease me. Tell me you knew all along I didn’t have it in me. Just get it over with.” Preparations are made, he mentally lays the groundwork in his mind for an explosion. He knows her, she’s bound to explode.

Surprised doesn’t even begin to describe how he feels when he hears Alice’s hushed reaction.

“Do you really think that low of me?”

It’s timid and personal, an almost confession so full of emotion that John isn’t sure he feels comfortable hearing. It’s the most exposed he’s ever seen her, it’s the most she’s ever opened herself up to him. And it’s beautiful.

“Alice-” He doesn’t expect to be allowed to finish, and he’s correct, as Alice cuts him off with an oh-so-familiar click of the tongue. He’s not stupid enough to object.

“No, John, it’s my turn now. I’m not going to taunt you or tease you for something I know you could never carry out.”

A grunt of disbelief passes through John’s lips, and he finds himself biting his tongue to prevent himself from responding verbally.

“There was not one moment when I believed you to be capable of deliberately ending someone’s life, even if that someone is as vile and deceitful as our dear friend George Cornelius. Your moral compass simply wouldn’t allow it, no matter how damaged it may be.”

She pauses, and John takes this as an invitation to offer up his point of view.

“Where is this going Alice? So far you’ve succeeded in pointing out my failures, my broken moral compass, and how you were right all along. Is that supposed to make me feel better? Cos it isn’t quite doing the trick.”

A sharp intake of breath follows, and Alice displays an intrigued look of amusement, her eyes crinkling up, mouth upturned into a smirk.

“John, John, John. Why don’t you let me finish before jumping to conclusions, hm?”

He sighs, something Alice accepts as a sign of defeat.

“Thank you. Now, where was I? Ah yes, your damaged moral compass. See, John, as you said, I was right all along, you couldn’t kill George. But not for the reasons you seem to delude yourself with. Yes, your morals did play an important part, but the main reason you couldn’t finish the job was that you believed I would do it for you, save you the trouble. Am I warm?”

“Alice…”

“Am. I. Warm?”

“Toasty.” The reluctance is blatantly obvious.

“Which brings me to this: you were right to assume that I could finish the job, John. You were right, because, in the end, it all boils down to one single fact.”

He turns to face her once more. “And what is that?”

For the briefest of moments, Alice lets her eyes drop down to John’s lips, before flicking them up to meet his pointed gaze.

“I would do anything for you.”

It’s the closest she’s ever come to saying it, and the closest she’s ever felt to him. It’s the most vulnerable she’s ever allowed herself to be, and it’s nothing at all like she thought it would be.

She always imagined it would make her feel weak. Exposed and naked. An easy target.

In a way, does feel naked. But it’s the freest she’s ever felt. That’s when she notices John’s eyes mirroring the action displayed by her own only seconds ago.

Three seconds pass without further action.

Then, their eyes meet. A mutual decision, an acceptance of what is to follow, and strangely (or maybe not so much), no reluctance from either of them.

They collide like they did the first time, all those years ago. Except this time, there’s no uncertainty, no concern about what their actions may result in. It reminds them both of that first time, after the bridge and after Marwood and after Mary. They share the same spark of electricity, the same need to feel and explore and open up. But despite all they’ve been through, it’s calmer this time, more controlled. There’s less desperation to make up for lost time and more need to pour everything into the kiss, to communicate everything they can’t, won’t, bring themselves to say.

When they finally break apart it’s like forcing two opposite poles of a magnet to separate.

John looks startled, as though he’s been given an awful fright. Alice, of course, finds this hilarious, and bursts into a fit of uncontrollable giggles. This brings John out of his trance at once, because Alice is giggling. Real, nervous, giggles, radiating with excitement. He lets go and joins her, and soon they’re lying on the sofa wrapped in each other’s arms, dissolved into a state of insane laughter.

They get the luxury of remaining like this for another few minutes, before Mark enters, John’s phone in his hand, announcing to them both that DS Catherine Halliday needs to speak to John immediately.

The look on John’s face as he reads through the texts sent by his new partner are all Alice needs to see to make her decision.

“Alice, I need to go. They need my help and I -”

It kills her to hear the anxiety plain in his voice. He’s expecting her to lash out, and she can’t say he’s being unreasonable for thinking that. After all, she has before.

“Shhh, John. It’s ok, I understand. Now go, before Little Miss Perky unleashes her army of fairies on you.”

The grateful smile he directs at her before he leaves makes her stomach flip. She wonders how she never noticed it before.

When John arrives at the police station, the reality of everything finally hits him. Benny is dead. Another person is dead because of him.

He takes a moment to compose his emotions, reminding himself that now is not the time, that he has a job to do.

It strikes him that Schenk is acting strangely as he exits the interview room, and hurriedly disappears, cutting his brief interaction with John short.

By the time he’s sat down opposite Vivian Lake he forgets all about Schenk’s odd behaviour.

“I have to go Mark. I promise you won’t see me again.”

“Well, that would be a shame,” Mark responds with a smile, a genuine look of sadness crossing his face. Alice finds herself stifling a laugh to bring back a touch of humour to the conversation. It makes her feel less unguarded.

“I appreciate the pretence, but you and I both know that you’re itching you get away from me,” a pause, Alice gathers her composure, “You think I’m insane. A ticking time bomb who’s countdown you just can’t guess and pray you won’t be around when I explode.”

She’s revealed more than she meant to, they both pick up on it, and she kicks herself for being so careless.

“Alice,” he begins, exasperated, “you have to stop. God knows you are what you are but you’re not a psychopath, you’re not...without conscience. You cannot live like this.”

It means a lot to her, what he says, but she knows she can’t let him see that. So instead of thanking him, as she knows someone else, someone good would, she answers with a simple, “I know.”

It does not have the desired effect.

Mark, being Mark, somehow manages to see right through her mask, something she’s only ever known John to be capable of.

“But you don’t do you, not really?”

His moment of quiet revelation scares her more than she wants to admit, and so she tries to disguise her fear as inquisitiveness.

Once again he sees right through her.

“Oh. Oh, you don’t see it. He loves you.”

Stealing a look at her eyes, Mark picks up on the variety of complex emotions racing through her. She looks hopeful, pained and saddened, all at once, and he realises it’s going to take a lot more than just a stated fact to convince her.

“He tried not to,” he begins, hoping he can get through this without somehow angering her, God knows that wouldn’t end well, “it kills him every day because he’s terrified of what loving you makes him do. But he loves you, Alice, even I can see that.”

A million thoughts race through her mind, a million different things to say, ways to argue, ways to agree. She settles on “thank you,” and leaves the house via the back door, just as his wife enters at the front.

She’s taking a risk, she knows that, but she also knows that she’ll do anything to free John from the chaos she’s brought him into. She knows he was right, that this is between the three of them, and the sooner she ends it, the sooner she can stop John from being dragged down. It’s whether she can stop herself that she’s unsure of.

[phoenix-downer]

Oh yeah, forgot. Which character(s) in KH are you most interested in seeing saved? Most fans are either excited to play as Sora to how Roxas and/or Aqua get saved. But there's also Xion, Terra, Namine and Ven who called out to Sora and we have no clue either how they're coming back.

Hmmm. great question anon! (and yes I’m still gonna get around to answering your other questions, too!)

Here be serious KH3 spoilers that include the most recent promotional material.

Not gonna lie, because of Blank Points and because of Sora’s connection to Ven, I am pretty excited to see Aqua’s rescue. I’ve been meaning to write a post saying why Aqua’s rescue has been set up so well (and why Sora should be the one to do it), but it’s gotten put on the back burner a bit. Can you imagine her looking in the eyes of the boy who has done so much for the worlds, the boy who made her smile and cry, smiling and crying at her because he’s so happy she’s safe? Because he longed to save her and Ven inside his heart longed to save her, too? KH3 is going to leave me an emotional wreck, you guys, because this has all been set up so well.

Also, she looks like she’s turning into a Heartless (a Darkling, to be exact) in the most recent promotional material. Sora has been a Heartless. He knows exactly how she feels, and that means he’ll have a good idea how to help her, too.

But Sora wanting to save Roxas has been set up really well in Re:coded and DDD, too, and in that Famitsu article from E3 it said that Sora will be doing everything he can to rescue Roxas. Xemnas and Ansem tempt him to give into the darkness in several trailers, and that temptation would mean nothing if Sora didn’t care deeply about Roxas and about saving him. I can imagine it now, Sora torn between doing the smart thing and doing what his heart is begging him to do. Roxas’s fate hurts him deeply, and he is not okay with his current state and will do everything he can to fix that. So I’m pretty excited about that rescue, too.

And Sora has his promise to Naminé to thank her that’s been a thing since KH2. When he tried to in DDD, the anguish in his voice, the emotion - argh, I know I want to see him rescue Naminé, too. I want him to remember her as well, if that’s at all possible.

As I’m saying this, though - I want to make it clear that while I want Sora to have a role in saving all of them, I don’t think he’ll do it singlehandedly. He will absolutely have the help of his friends, and that’s the whole point. I don’t think him saving them will rain on Riku’s parade or make him seem incompetent or unworthy of his title of Keyblade Master. I’ve seen some concern that Sora will steal Riku’s spotlight, and all I can say is, we actually know surprisingly little about Riku’s role at this point, other than that he and Mickey initially search for Aqua, at some point he gets a new Keyblade, etc., etc. I doubt the deuteragonist of this series, who Nomura has done a great job of developing thus far, is going to be pushed to the sidelines :) And Kairi is… well, pretty much required to save Naminé, since Naminé’s heart is inside hers and all. No, this won’t be a solo effort, not at all :)

Anyway, continuing on. I also want Sora to rescue Xion because he would be so touched by her sacrifice. Sora really gets what it means to sacrifice yourself for the sake of someone you love, having firsthand experience and all, and I just get the feeling she would be so precious to him? He loves all his friends, of course, but I think he would have a special place in his heart for Xion. 

And Ven. Ven, his oldest friend, the person he’s known since the day he was born. Ven has shaped Sora into who he is today, and Sora literally does not remember a time in his life without him. I don’t think he even knows yet that Ven is inside his heart, but once he does, you better believe he’ll try to save him. And Ven has such a special bond with him, the part where he smiles at the end of DDD as Sora is playing with the Dream Eaters is just such a parental thing to do and it warms my heart.

Terra is the real wild card here. We’ve seen a few milliseconds blip of him so far and we have no clue as to how he might be rescued. I think he and Sora might bond over the fact that they failed to achieve the Mark of Mastery on their first go around, that they have to deal with this darkness inside of them. If anyone gets a critical role in saving Terra besides Sora, it’ll probably be Riku, since they already have that connection.

But then again, Young Xehanort did use Terra-Xehanort’s chess piece to checkmate Sora’s… hmmm…

I think we’ve seen so little of Terra because his rescue will happen near the end, if not last. If we assume that he is still Terranort after Xemnas and Ansem SOD were restored, un-norting someone sounds incredibly difficult. Like… how are they going to get Xehanort’s heart out of him? Xehanort isn’t going to willingly release Terra, that’s for sure. Either Terra is going to fight it and free himself or Xehanort is going to change his mind and release him. I don’t think the latter would happen unless someone strikes a bargain for his freedom. 

Or I could be totally off base and Terra’s rescue happens early? I don’t know though, of all the characters, Terra seems like the most difficult to save. Xehanort has his claws sunk into him and he is not about to let his prized possession be snatched away. Terranort is the body he wanted to use to see the future. He doesn’t even see Terra as a person anymore, just a tool.

Since we really don’t know about Terra yet, I’m pretty curious to see his rescue… and what it might cost the Guardians of Light.

So to answer your question, anon, I’m looking forward to seeing all of their rescues :) I think we’re in for a real treat with KH3, because we have watched these characters that are so near and dear to our hearts suffer and feel despair, and now it looks like we’ll finally get to watch Sora, the character we’ve witnessed grow into the dearest one of them all, save them and bring them hope and healing.

Thanks for the ask!

[aldmerii-blog]

I haven't romanced Blackwall, not because I think he's boring, but because he realized that to complete his job he'd have to kill children, and he chose to do so anyway. Like, I get that EVERYONE in these games has killed people, but Blackwall got close to the carriage, heard children singing, and still ordered his men to attack, then left them to their fates and stole someone's identity. I can't really forgive him for that.

(fdjskalf sorry i wasn’t ignoring you, i was out of town)

so first, i know which post this is in reference to and it was admittedly confusingly worded. i meant it as “people met blackwall and assumed he was boring so they didn’t bother to romance him and learn his full story” and not “the only reason people didn’t romance him was because they thought he was boring”. 

and like the tl;dr of my response to this is.... yeah. the whole point of his quest is that he did the worst thing a person can do, but you find that out after you come to know him as gallant and honorable with a disposition towards helping people. it’s supposed to be hard to forgive him, to accept and move past what he did. and so if you choose not to, that’s your experience with his character. 

this all said i’m not gonna pass up an opportunity to write an essay about my mans and why I love him. 

I actually harp on this a lot, but Tumblr particularly has a habit of trying to simplify characters, usually to the end of either making them wholly good and “unproblematic” or making them out to be malicious and evil. Like, I immediately think Cullen. People who love him will insist that he’s done nothing wrong and people who hate him talk about him like he singlehandedly caused the oppression of all mages. And like. No! Talented writers write their characters as complex and messy as real people, and Dragon Age has some very talented writers.

Blackwall is a really complex character. So first and foremost, the fact that he was there and had the opportunity to save Callier family but didn’t comes from a banter with Cole:

Blackwall: You, who heal the helpless... you're not angry about what I was hiding?Cole: You never hid from me.Cole: "Mockingbird, mockingbird." Too many voices in the carriage. Maker, they're young.Cole: If I tell my men to stop, they'll know it was all a lie. Cold, trapped, heart hammering like axes on a carriage door.Blackwall: Stop. Please.

Also important is another banter between them:

Blackwall: Cole, if you knew what I am, what I'd done, why didn't you tell the others?Cole: Everyone hides dead things. Everyone pretends. You wanted to fix it.Blackwall: I'm a murderer.Cole: You don't want to be. You made a new you. You are Blackwall. You killed Rainier.Blackwall: If only that were possible.Cole: You would stand between Rainier and the carriage. But you can't. It doesn't work like that.Cole: So you carry the bodies to remember.Blackwall: I suppose I do.

When we meet Blackwall, he’s sort of this stalwart warrior. He’s not just standing up for the weak, he’s teaching the weak to stand up for themselves. He approves of an Inquisitor who does the same, who is invested in restoring peace and treats people with kindness and respect. He reveres tradition. And I think this is where most people lose interest, because he comes off as everyone’s lawful good human fighter in D&D. What we know about Rainier is that he is a coward, first of all. That he killed the Calliers didn’t come from a position of malice, because he knew it was wrong at the time and wanted to stop it, but was too afraid of his men to do so, and then he ran once the deed was done. He’s arrogant, indicated both through banter with Solas (the “hot-blooded and cocky” line that I cba to find) and through the story about the chevalier who helped him win the Grand Tourney. The picture we’re painted of Rainier and what we know of Blackwall -- they’re like different people. That, to me, shows the depths of his remorse. He realizes the absolute horror he’s done and uses the second chance he bought himself to at least stop being a complete shithead. He was gung-ho to join the Grey Wardens and give himself to a life a service and sacrifice and when that fell through, he did his best to help people on his own. The part about stealing Gordon Blackwall’s identity... I don’t know, I can’t fault him for it because I sympathize. I don’t remember if it’s in the game or if it’s just meta I read once, but he had no idea about the Joining and didn’t know that he probably could have told the Wardens that Gordon died fighting darkspawn and they would have immediately understood. He was already wanted for murder by the Orlesian authorities and didn’t necessarily want the Wardens after him for another murder (one he didn’t even commit). And I think Blackwall himself justifies it best by saying that he traded Rainier’s life for Blackwall’s death -- that he didn’t mean anything malicious by it, that it was better for the world if they didn’t have to lose a good man like Gordon Blackwall. It was easier for Rainier to step out of his past and into a role of service, into being a good man, if he could take on a good man’s name along with it.

I think what it comes down to for me is that I just can’t hate someone who wants to be good, who wants to do right. It is absolutely inarguable that Blackwall does. Regardless of who he was before, when the Inquisitor meets him, Blackwall is a good man. And when he gets another opportunity to face the music for what he’s done, he takes it, even though everything is going right for him.

Cole says Blackwall would stand between Rainier and that carriage now, if he could. Instead, the weight of his crimes sits on him constantly and influences everything he does.

I’m not going to defend killing children, but the game really makes sure you understand that Blackwall has spent the years after doing his best to repent for what he did. If you can’t forgive him, you don’t have to. He sure will never forgive himself. But I find it hard to look at someone who recognizes their wrongs, who dedicates themselves to protecting the weak and maintaining order, who is today changed into someone good and honorable and compassionate -- I can’t look at that person and continue condemning them.

gosh golly gee i sure love thom rainier.

[autisticandroids]

#cas#godstiel#spn#okay I do see him under the influence as souls as a form of possession it just comes from his internal emotions that are then manipulated#like it's not at all like s8 lobotomies or a single entity with full possessive power and decision#but more like ghost possession on a larger scale like asylum or southern comfort (but not like whatever bobby did)#also I agree with you completely but I am WAY nicer to Cas than this fnwkkdkwnffkwkjfkwkdksk#like I agree! but I got to be nice to him anyways <3 especially considering if Dean were in his position for real he'd be way worse#except Dean like. never would be.#rolls eyes. but Sam would be wayyyyyy better at regulating his emotions and not lashing out jckskdkakdkkwkdkaksks#I'm going off topic#anyways great post I tend to lean towards to more extreme side of godstiel being non compos mentis but also agree#with like how you see him functioning#and also his internal motivations#also completely agree it wasnt a desire for power#he wanted the power to protect and do good a#i mean to some extent it is but only as power would allow him to do good protect the world protect those he loves#not pride or power for power's sake Crowley just played on it#he really just wanted to be loved and not you know. hunted and killed. which spiralled him and put him more in the position#uriwksldka.ncjakdjjcjskqllslalalalalalalalalaallalajfjdjskdkakkskalalajfjakd

all good points! i have some responses.

- re: possession: when i say i don't see him as being possessed, what i mean is more like i don't see him as being controlled by a discrete entity. there's no one but cas at the wheel. cas isn't really at the wheel either, but it's just him in there, with some influence. i would compare it so an extreme altered state of consciousness. he's not responsible for his actions but it's still him performing them, not someone else. i do think the leviathans are influencing him to be more angry and violent, though. but not necessarily steering him, more... their presence in his... hivemind is giving him leviathan traits. again no one else is at the wheel other than cas consciously. i still think we have slightly different ideas about this but i think i'm closer to you than you think i am.

- re: pride: i do read cas as having some semi-selfish motivations in godstiel arc that you could arguably call pride. it's not powerhunger, though. it's a specific thing: "once i [save them all]/[become god] they [an amorphous external gaze; dean, yes, but also all of clan winchester, and also all the angels] will all [have no logical choice but to] finally love me." like imo he expects to finally be loved once he wins. or rather, he assumes that this will simply be the logical outcome. both because he is going to be the hero that saved them all, meaning that they're thankful, and because he's going to be filling the role of god, meaning that they're worshipful. it's not something he's planning to demand, obviously; a cas fully in control of his faculties post-godstiel transformation would not have demanded affection from everyone. it's not exactly something he feels entitled to, per se. but i do think it's something that he's semi-consciously expecting to happen. and that's a kind of hubris in itself.

- re: pride: part ii: i was also talking to @icegifs the other day about godstiel and he pointed out how cas in his angel revolution arc is sort of like. i'm the only one who can do it. i'm the only one who can fix the way things are. and he's right! he is the only one who can do it. he's taking on that role - the role of guy singlehandedly fixing the world - out of necessity, because the other angels know him as the one who rebelled and the one who was resurrected, so they'll follow him, and more importantly because there's no one else who's willing to do it. he doesn't want this role, but he does take it on. and that's inherently going to breed a sort of solipsistic self-absorbtion, whether that's your natural inclination or not. and that's something that carries over and becomes warped when cas becomes godstiel. it turns from the sort of forgivable narcissism of a "Somebody's Got to Save This Country World From Certain Doom, And Let's Face It, That Person Is Me" mindset* to feeling entitled to shape the world how he wills because the one is a twisted and aggrandized version of the other. and that's a kind of pride, also. not the kind they're trying to portray, but definitely a kind.

- re: being hunted and killed: i think perhaps the single biggest difference in your and my interpretations of the text of supernatural is that i don't think cas feared for his own safety at the hands of the winchesters at any point during the godstiel arc, (except possibly when he was trapped in the ring of fire in the man who would be king, but probably not even then). the question of whether he actually was in danger from them is less certain; i think that had things gone differently they might have had the chance [which they definitely would have taken] to kill him in the man who knew too much, and certainly if crowley hadn't rescued him from the ring of fire, things would likely have turned out badly for him (whether that means death, torture, indefinite imprisonment, i don't know. but it wouldn't have been nice for cas). however, i don't think cas sees that. to quote him, "you're just a man, i'm an angel." he doesn't think there's anything that dean and co. can do against him. he is guilty of, in crowley's words, "underestimat[ing] those denim-wrapped nightmares." the betrayal is an emotional one, not a material one. cas is unhappy because dean is angry with him and doesn't want to be his friend anymore; he is not unhappy because he is afraid of dean. like, he continues to approach dean in the man who would be king and let it bleed even after the ring of fire, when dean could have easily trapped him again, because he wants to talk to him. and his last ditch attempt at stopping dean is to break sam's wall: sure, it disables sam, but it leaves dean and bobby free to move against him. he could easily have wiped their memories of his betrayal, imprisoned them for a week, even temporarily killed them and brought them back once he was god. instead, he gives them an ultimatum: choose to do as i say and i will save sam. he's giving them the choice, because he isn't actually particularly worried about them stopping or harming him. instead, he wants to give them one last opportunity to choose to be on his side. because what he's worried about is their friendship. not their threats.

*on the topic of having a "Somebody's Got to Save This Country World From Certain Doom, And Let's Face It, That Person Is Me" mindset, i do think that's a reasonable thing to critique, even if in cas' case it was true, because that is kind of a toxic mindset. but the reason that it's considered a flaw on cas in the text of supernatural isn't because it's inherently flawed, it's just because he isn't dean. both supernatural and dean considers taking care of the whole world dean's responsibility, and cas stepping into that role as like. i don't know, an affront to dean's masculinity or a violation of the natural order or some shit. like it's a mindset that's worth critiquing but spn is only critiquing it on cas because he's stealing dean's spot as Guy Who Has To Save The World Because No One Else Will. essentially, he's stolen dean's spot as the logical protagonist of supernatural, like in that one bad article i read.

godstiel arc. okay.

- i dont think cas did anything wrong in the man who would be king or previous to that. or at the very least he hasn't done anything that sam and dean should consider seriously wrong.

- it's imo much more accurate to characterize the man who would be king as dean betraying cas than the other way around. cas reveals that he did something without dean's permission, something which has nothing to do with dean but is probably going to save all their lives, and dean responds by declaring him an enemy.

- however, in response to this betrayal, or rather, once it's solidified in let it bleed, cas lashes out. not really at dean (though breaking sam's wall* was definitely lashing out at dean, or as close as he could bring himself to doing that) but at everyone, because cas doesn't really have a good idea of.... the boundaries between things.

- he actually does do some things wrong in godstiel arc but all of them are a part of this post-man who would be king lashing out. breaking sam's wall and killing balthazar being the most notable examples.

- it's arguable whether godstiel (as in, cas + purgatory souls + leviathans) can reasonably be considered a moral agent. like, in control of his actions at all. it's even more arguable whether godstiel and cas, minus souls and leviathans, can be considered equivalent moral agents. like it's probably unreasonable to hold cas-the-angel accountable for godstiel's actions. cas seems to be in an intensely altered state of consciousness in meet the new boss. like, extremely warped.

- however, godstiel is still cas. i've said this before but godstiel is like mark of cain dean. should he be considered responsible for his actions at that time? probably not, because he was under extreme influence. however, at the core it's still him. he's not possessed or anything.

- which leads to where i'm going, which is, godstiel's actions follow logically from the emotional state cas was in in the man who knew too much. they are essentially a larger scale version of killing balthazar/breaking sam's wall. cas is feeling betrayed and alone; he is therefore desperate for affection and hungry to punish anyone who has hurt him. becoming godstiel has both granted him incredible power and stripped him of like. his judgement. his capacity for moral reasoning. but the motivations behind godstiel's actions are coming from and consistent with cas.

- it was never about a desire for power, imo. godstiel's actions are not motivated by a desire to demonstrate his power or take power over others, although he does of course do both things. they're motivated by a combination of desperation for affection and paranoia of betrayal. he wants love/loyalty, so he tries to take it, fails, responds with anger. and he sees the whole world as owing him loyalty. this is why he punishes those who he sees as doing evil in the name of god: they are betraying him.

anyway. the narrative situates cas' guilt in godstiel arc in the wrong place, because the intended message of godstiel arc is "if cas had only listened to dean, then everything would have been fine." while this is technically partly true (if cas had listened to dean, godstiel + leviathans would not have happened), it doesn't actually follow logically. like, both godstiel and the leviathans were kind of diabolus ex machina, not things anyone could have reasonably predicted before they happened. and besides, if cas had listened to dean and given up on his deal with crowley, raphael would have won the civil war and restarted the apocalypse. it's unclear which of these options would have been worse, even if cas knew about the effect the souls would have on him + the leviathans beforehand. however, with the information the characters had at the time, cas' choice was clearly the right one and dean was being an idiot. the flaw cas is actually demonstrating in godstiel arc is listening to dean too much. as in, he's upset that dean is mad at him, and this turns into a cosmic meltdown of eventually literally biblical proportions. but even before he becomes godstiel and everything is magnified and distorted, he kills balthazar and breaks sam's wall (as well as doing other things which, while not necessarily morally wrong, were definitely mistakes, such as betraying crowley so early, so crowley had a chance to make a deal with raphael) because he's having a big temper tantrum due to feeling betrayed and abandoned and projecting that out at everyone, instead of dealing with his feelings like a rational adult.

*breaking sam's wall was a last desperate attempt to keep the winchesters from trying to stop him, but it was also one last test of loyalty. cas could have simply imprisoned them somewhere for three days while he finished becoming god and then let them out. instead he chooses to do this unnecessarily cruel and violent thing to sam, as a way of lashing out in anger. but he also leaves it in dean's hands whether or not dean will obey him. he tells dean to cease trying to stop him and he will heal sam. this is an offer on the table. if i dangle this tremendous carrot in front of you, the carrot of sam's well-being, will you be loyal to me again? of course this makes dean fight harder because that's like. an insane thing for cas to think would work. but it is part of cas' motivation for doing it.

[susannahsteiner]

How would Batman cover up Robin's and Jason Todd's death, making sure no one connected the two as the same person.

How would Batman cover up Robin’s and Jason Todd’s death, making sure no one connected the two as the same person.

This is a question that’s bothered me for a long time and I think I’ve figured out how. Bruce could make a fake news headline stating that, “Robin, the Boy Wonder Dies Trying to Save Bruce Wayne’s Ward, Jason Todd”.

It could be written more gracefully but you get the idea. Bruce owns the daily planet so he can basically publish whatever he wants.

Right after Jason’s death, the Joker gains diplomatic immunity and Superman is sent to prevent Batman from beating him to an inch within his life. I want this incident to put a huge rift between Bruce and Clark, metaphorically putting an end to “The World’s Finest”. Once they considered themselves the best of friends and now Bruce coldly refers to their relationship as long-term acquaintances. No more jokes or teasing between the two. Batman tries to finish the mission as quickly as possible and the moment he’s done, he disappears. If there are other people, he divides the group so that he’s with someone else and Clark is in the opposite direction. Bruce also dodges Clark all the time to the point where Clark gives up after trying so hard for so long. As opposed to in the past where he usually lingers a little to make small talk before slipping away.

I also imagine that Lois has just given birth to Jon. I’m not a mother but I’m sure that the birth of a first child is magical. And because of that she has become somewhat soft hearted. Which gives Bruce the leverage he needs to convince/persuade/emotionally blackmails Lois into writing the article about Jason and Robin even though she is a strict believer in finding and only reporting the Truth.

Bruce kind of convinces her by guilting her of what she would feel like if she lost her son and by pressuring her of possible consequences of ppl linking Robin to Jason and him to Batman. He may also tell her/make up a story about how the Justice League is in full swing only because “he, Bruce” the “human” is there to control these God-like creatures. And because he has no powers and can still take down the Justice League, that is why the American Government lets the League function. He can also say that he bribes many ppl on the inside of the government to look the other way regarding superman as he has singlehandedly produced enough damage as Hurricane Katrina because of his powers. (Okay that may or may not be an exaggeration but you get my point)

The reason Bruce asks her to write the article is because Lois is a “famous” news reporter and is thus “trustworthy” so if Bruce can get the story published under her name, no one would really ask any questions.

Batman also has a camera recording everything that goes on when he puts on the cowl so he could choose many images to forge the cover picture for the article. Since he made it a point to master multiple technologies to hack into systems and to keep his identity safe, I imagine he also mastered image manipulation and that he begrudgingly uses them to forge an appropriate image for the “occasion”.

This incident not only distances Bruce from Clark, but also the rest of his friends from the League which is why none of them are there for Jason’s funeral, as in he didn’t or Alfred didn’t invite them.

The funeral is obviously private because Bruce doesn’t want to deal with the media right now. The attendees are Bruce, Alfred, Barbara(Oracle), Commissioner Gordon, Lucius Fox (and his son Luke maybe?), Leslie Thompson, maybe Selina, AND DICK GRAYSON DAMNIT.

WHY THE HELL WAS HE NOT INFORMED OF JASON’S DEATH?!?! ALFRED SHOULD HAVE CONTACTED HIM FIRST LIKE YOUR YOUNGER SON JUST DIED SO YOU SHOULD HAVE THE DECENCY TO TELL YOUR OLDER SON. THIS NEVER FAILS TO ANNOY ME. IM JUST GONNA WRITE THIS OFF AS A MISTAKE ON DC’S PART BECAUSE THEY LIKE MAN PAIN AND DECIDED THEY WERE GONNA PUT MORE ANGST FOR BOTH BRUCE AND DICK.

The members of the Justice League, and some from the Young Justice team come visit a few at a time to check up on Bruce but Bruce is locked up in his or Jason’s room so Alfred attends to them.

I feel like Conner from the Young Justice TV show (the introvert softy but with rage issues) would have been able to relate to Jason the most because they were both kind of “replacements for the originals”. Conner being a replacement for Clark and Jason being a replacement for Dick. Although the latter isn’t completely true, many of Dick’s team mates (Teen Titans I mean here. The Young Justice team dealt with clones of Superman and Roy Harper and Artemis “replacing” Roy as the archer in the team- this team didn’t mind too much so Jason got along with them better) probably felt that way and didn’t warm up to Jason too quickly and kind of gave him dirty looks when Dick wasn’t looking. By the time they realized their mistake, Jason would have passed away. Conner losing someone for the first time and trying to act fine but then breaks down in his room privately because he doesn’t want to be seen.

I feel like Jason and Conner would be good friends. Like, Conner is the quiet type and Jason I think is considered an extrovert. And because Jason is Nightwing’s “little bro” Conner decides to humor him and listen to what he’s saying. Jason had high grades in school(his grade average was like a 94%. Even his teacher thought he needed to chill. Lol when you’re so op everybody is jealous) and I think he was super into reading. So because he would read a lot, he was exposed to different lines of thinking and he shared those open minded ideas with Conner because Conner actively listened but also because Conner was too afraid of offending Jason and in turn rubbing Dick the wrong way, so he always listened, nodding and answering when necessary. Pretty soon he found himself talking and debating with Jason and reading the things that Jason recommended.

This is what got Conner to unfortunately break up with Megan (m'gann??). Because Conner was exposed to these ideas that Lobotomy was wrong and that all people have certain rights, even though they may be trash, inequality, violence, rape??(Jason ran into a few incidents with rape victims during his run as Robin so maybe he vented to Conner instead of Bruce because of Bruce’s no kill rule and Bruce can sometimes be a brick wall), laws, psychology, philosophy, etc.

This is what got Conner thinking about what Megan was doing and confronting her about it. Then being strong enough to break up with the person he was the most closest to and had been with him his whole life because he knew what she was doing was wrong and was strong enough not to ignore it.

I feel like this says a lot about him and it would develop his character. Because at the very beginning, he was this guy with rage issues who didn’t like to listen to people. Then, once his rage issues slowly decreasing, he obediently follows orders or suggestions(or politely declines??? Season 2 his birthday he declines going out with that other chick??? I don’t remember am I just making things up??) and becomes much more easy to approach and nicer. Lessening his ego to ask Canary to teach him how to fight properly and later happily sparring with Aqualad in season 1.

Near the middle of season 2 he has “the talk” with Megan (but his break up was during the time skip…he still took suggestion and orders seriously tho like how he should read previous reports of missions to increase his general and battle field knowledge) which shows that despite being obedient to his what the league tells him and to his peers who have lived much longer than him and generally know what’s best, he can still think on his own and isn’t a “yes-man” to everybody.

I also feel like Megan and Conner getting back together destroyed the whole character development in a sense because when people recall their relationship, they will probably glaze over why they broke up in the first place. Usually saying things like, “oh yeah and they broke up for two seconds and got back together again”.

Even though at the beginning I was all for the two to be together, I think it was good that they showed an actual break up because that happens in life. You can both love each other with all your hearts and still not be “meant to be”.

I didn’t like how quickly Megan got with Lagoon boy but honestly I’m glad because then I wouldn’t have to barf through them flirty and finally getting together so I kind of appreciate it in a sense. Doesn’t mean I like it, but still.

And although I don’t like Lagoon boy either, I was hoping that he would stay together with Megan. I didn’t like that she broke it off. Even though Conner may have been right about the “rebound guy” part, that didn’t mean she had to break it off. It would have been nice to see her have a healthy relationship after a break up. That’s something that’s kind of rare in most tv dramas. Or maybe I just wanted to have a sure fire way to make sure Conner and Megan didn’t get back together again.

I would also like to commend Megan for acknowledging her mistakes and apologizing to Conner for it. (Although it took jacking up and fixing Aqualad’s brains to do it. )

Well this post went in a completely different direction then what I expected. So this is what a 180 looks like. I have no regrets. These are my headcannons. This is my life and these are my choices. I bet like no one is gonna read this because it is so long…… I’m sorry. I don’t know how to do the thing with the read more button and it cuts off a fourth in.

[loulougoingsolo]

...

This is going to be, yet again, one of those posts that have very little to do with anything other than my personal life, so feel free to ignore this, if you’re here for R&L stuff. I’m just gonna vent a little...

I wrote a poem a few nights ago. I usually write my poems first in my own language and then, maybe, translate them to English. This time, with this one, I wrote directly in English, because this poem was intended to be posted here. I lacked the words to say what I wanted, so I didn’t post this immediately as I had planned. Just a few minutes ago I noticed this poem in my saved files, and as I read it again, I felt that even though it’s far from perfect, I should post it. If not for anyone else, then for myself, because there are many things I said that I should remember every day.

There are days, when the shadows hide the sun. But it’s out there, just waiting to come out.

All you need is a little breeze, to push the clouds away. The sun ain’t gone forever, it’s just taking a quick break.

Even if it’s night time, and your candle’s lost its flame, all it takes is a flicker for you to see again.

There’s always someone out there, to help you start the fire, and once the candle’s burning, there’s love to feed the flames.

You are not alone. You are loved and appreciated, You are beautiful, You are important. 

And you will survive through the darkness back into the light. <3

Under the break is what I wrote before reading my poem to myself, so you may want to leave it unread.

So, my therapy session for this week was cancelled, because my therapist is sick. I thought I could handle it well enough, since I’ve had some better moments recently, despite all the crap that’s going on in my life. There are good days, and there are bad days, and then there are the worst days. Most days suck, to be honest, but then something nice happens, and I briefly feel a bit better, so I think that that particular day was a good day. Recently the good stuff in my life has mostly happened online, which alone is kind of sad, but I take happy when I get it, and I don’t care where it comes from.

I’m still stuck at my parents’ house, because my own house was flooded and I currently don’t have a kitchen but a square shaped hole in the middle of my home. I’m going to be stuck here for a while, it seems, while the structures in my late kitchen dry and all the stuff can be rebuilt. This is my beautiful kitchen, which I singlehandedly renovated a couple of years ago on a minimal budget. I know it’s all just material, but I thought of it as my own creation, and the house was really one of the few places on earth where I could be myself and stay safe. Along with the kitchen I lost my camera and a lot of stuff that on its own would be insignificant, but put altogether, feels like a big loss. Well, yeah.

A few nights ago, my bed here at my parents’ house broke. It can be fixed, but I haven’t had the energy or the time to do it yet, so I’ve been sleeping on a sofa in our living room. My dad usually spends most of his waking hours on that sofa, so I’ve done my best to stay up until he decides to go to bed, and since he usually gets up first in the morning, I’ve done my best to wake up before he wants to turn on the tv. Last night I slept for four hours before our dog woke my up by throwing up on the rug next to the sofa and I had to get up and clean the mess.

After drinking a mugful of coffee (which I hate but drink to stay awake) I had to go help my mom clean up a cottage my parents rent for paying customers. I’m broke, so I can’t pay my parents for living with them, so I help them out where I can. I don’t usually mind doing it, but today all I could think about was how tired I was. Now, as it’s almost midnight, my dad finally turned off the tv and went to bed, which means I’m free to call it a day.

None of the things I just wrote really mean anything. The things that mean more are the little ways my dad has been telling me how useless I am during this week. Not only do I waste my life by doing nothing, but these past few days I’ve also been called fat and lazy (both probably true). Every night I’ve been reminded of how yet another day has gone by without me fixing my bed (well, yeah, true). I’ve been told in numerous ways that my presence in this house is unwanted. All of this breaks me sometimes, and right now I feel a little shattered. And I really hope my therapist gets better soon, so I can go cry to her instead of whining about my life online.

I try my best to be happy and bring joy to other people’s lives. There are days, when I’m just tired of smiling and being positive, and I accuse myself for all the things I do wrong. I try not to upset others, but I accidentally seem to do it all the time, when all I try to do is make things better. I know I should probably have written all this into my personal diary, and honestly, the only reason I chose not to, was the fact that I’m too tired to write by hand and this was easier. And maybe, next time my home gets flooded, at least I’ll know that all my sorry ramblings will be safe in the everlasting world of internet, instead of getting soggy somewhere in the real world.

[honey-coated-throat]

Still feeling shitty?

I can’t stop feeling shitty. Lack of motivation and a lingering feeling that 1. people don’t like me, 2. I will never be able to carry on a long-term relationship and 3. the fact that the first two things are true make me believe that I shouldn’t be a social worker/counselor because if I don’t have good interpersonal skills how will I succeed in a profession that depends almost solely on good interpersonal skills. This is a vicious cycle and just makes me feel generally shitty and unmotivated to continue.... I literally just spent a month “recharging” and having a good cry and a room to myself and I keep needing more. I should be ready to be back here, to take on the difficulties and privileges of college life but I keep hitting a wall. 

 At least the rain here is supporting my feelings. When I wrote my poem about the drought (which I will post in a sec), the weather was warm and dry in California, and I felt dry and emotionless. I wasn’t communicating enough, and I wasn’t feeling enough, but everything was pretty much okay. Nothing felt inherently shitty, everything just felt dry. I feel like I am again indulging in the rain once again, and I can’t get myself out of it. I keep looking at college park apartments and no one wants to live with me, so I might just find a way to pay for it on my own, it would be the same price as living in the dorms anyways. I don’t think withdrawing is a good choice, and I can’t depend on a single, small, future change for singlehandedly fixing my sadness & insecurity. For some reason I feel like this semester is going to follow the same pattern as 2nd semester of last year, but hopefully with less binge drinking. Lots of working out, lots of feeling insecure, loneliness, and hopefully getting A’s. Wow, I actually dealt with my sadness very healthily last year; I just threw myself into frantically bettering myself by getting good grades and working out frequently.

but I also drank too much. I sometimes worry myself with alcoholism. I like to drink more than a lot of my friends, and whenever I get drunk I either get extremely happy or extremely sad. Either way, it makes me reckless. I think it’s time I either stop or slow down. Maybe stop, at least I will stop buying alcohol myself.  Alcoholism is scary. I watched this video today about perspective and I remember one of the lines was “My perspective changed from thinking that everything will end up being generally okay, to the perspective that there are an infinite number of ways that things can go wrong.” This year I’m relating more with the latter. I realized that my family is more middle class than I’ve been living, which will present problems for me later in life. I do think it was mature of me to ask and figure out where I stand, though, I deserve to know. Essentially, my dad was a rich kid and lives like he still is one, and raised me like I am one, even though we’re not. I don’t have much to fall back on, and I definitely need to think about saving money even though i somehow spent over $1000 in the past month. I’m just kinda sure everything will go wrong in my life currently and I don’t know what to do about it. 

[bountyofbeads]

Whether you like Tillerson or not, the fact remains that investigative reporting by The Intercept confirms that Tillerson singlehandedly saved the world from a Saudi ground invasion of Qatar (where our largest base is)

Haley implying that sort of work wasn't patriotic is obscene

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Nikki Haley claims top aides tried to recruit her to ‘save the country’ by undermining Trump

By Anne Gearan | Published November 10 at 11:48 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted November 10, 2019 |

NEW YORK — Two of President Trump’s senior advisers undermined and ignored him in what they claimed was an effort to “save the country,” former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley claims in a new memoir.

Former secretary of state Rex Tillerson and former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly sought to recruit her to work around and subvert Trump, but she refused, Haley writes in a new book, “With All Due Respect,” which also describes Tillerson as “exhausting” and imperious and Kelly as suspicious of her access to Trump.

“Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country,” Haley wrote.

“It was their decisions, not the president’s, that were in the best interests of America, they said. The president didn’t know what he was doing,” Haley wrote of the views the two men held.

Tillerson also told her that people would die if Trump was unchecked, Haley wrote.

Tillerson did not respond to a request for comment. Kelly declined to comment in detail, but said that if providing the president “with the best and most open, legal and ethical staffing advice from across the [government] so he could make an informed decision is ‘working against Trump,’ then guilty as charged.”

In the book, which was obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its release Tuesday, Haley offers only glancing critiques of her former boss, saying she and others who worked for Trump had an obligation to carry out his wishes since he was the one elected by voters.

The former South Carolina governor, widely viewed by Republicans as a top potential presidential candidate in 2024, has repeatedly sought to minimize differences with Trump while distancing herself from his excesses. Haley, 47, writes that she backed most of the foreign policy decisions by Trump that others tried to block or slow down, including withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord and the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

In a New York City interview with The Post coinciding with the book release, Haley also dismissed efforts by House Democrats to impeach Trump. She said she opposes Trump’s efforts to seek foreign help for political investigations in a call with Ukraine’s president, but that the actions are not impeachable.

“There was no heavy demand insisting that something had to happen. So it’s hard for me to understand where the whole impeachment situation is coming from, because what everybody’s up in arms about didn’t happen,” Haley said.

“So, do I think it’s not good practice to talk to foreign governments about investigating Americans? Yes. Do I think the president did something that warrants impeachment? No, because the aid flowed,” she said, referring to nearly $400 million in sidelined military aid.

“And, in turn, the Ukrainians didn’t follow up with the investigation,” Haley said.

In her book, Haley points to several examples of disagreements with Trump. She said she went privately to the president with her concern that he had ceded authority to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin after the two leaders met in Helsinki in 2018 and with her objection to what she called Trump’s “moral equivalence” in response to a deadly white supremacist march in Charlottesville the year before.

Haley’s experience as governor during the 2015 murders of nine black churchgoers inside a historic African American church in Charleston by an avowed white supremacist made Trump’s reaction to Charlottesville painful, Haley wrote. Trump said “both sides” had been to blame for the violence.

“A leader’s words matter in these situations. And the president’s words had been hurtful and dangerous,” Haley wrote. “I picked up the phone and called the president.”

Haley did not air any objections publicly, however.

Haley also recounts for the first time that she was treated for post-traumatic stress disorder following the Charleston murders. She described bouts of sobbing, loss of appetite and focus, and guilt for feeling that way when the victims and their families had suffered so much more.

In a CBS interview that aired Sunday, Haley said Trump was “not appropriate” to demand that four Democratic members of Congress, who are women of color, “go back” to their countries. Three of the women were born in the United States and all are U.S. citizens.

But Haley also defended Trump, saying “I can also appreciate where he’s coming from, from the standpoint of, ‘Don’t bash America, over and over and over again, and not do something to try and fix it.’ ”

Haley is the U.S.-born daughter of Indian immigrants, and writes in the book about the painful experience of being an outsider in the American South, neither white nor black. Her family was frequently ostracized, she wrote, and Haley was essentially disqualified from a children’s pageant because Bamberg, S.C., only crowned one white winner and one black winner.

In writing about the administration, Haley recalls a disagreement she had with Tillerson and Kelly following an Oval Office showdown over her suggestion that the United States should withhold funding for the U.N. agency that supports Palestinians.

Kelly and Tillerson argued that cutting aid could lead to violence, greater threats to Israel, loss of U.S. influence and political problems for Arab allies, she writes. That view is common among Middle East watchers and Trump critics, who say the administration's approach is punitive and shortsighted.

Haley said she had the backing of Trump’s Middle East peace envoys, including son-in-law Jared Kushner, but he was not in the room. She did not spell out the views of then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster.

In the meeting, Haley wrote, Trump seemed to be swinging away from her view, but told the three of them to go resolve their differences elsewhere. In Kelly’s office afterward, Kelly told her, “ ‘I have four secretaries of state: you, H.R., Jared, and Rex,” she wrote. “’I only need one.’ ”

Tillerson and others had an obligation to carry out the president’s agenda because he had been elected, not them, Haley wrote. If they disagreed strongly enough, she said they should quit.

“I was so shocked I didn’t say anything going home because I just couldn’t get my arms around the fact that here you have two key people in an administration undermining the president,” Haley said in The Post interview.

On another occasion, Haley said Kelly stalled and put her off when she wanted to get in to see Trump. When she went around him, he complained. Kelly also made it clear that he thought Trump’s decision to make Haley a full member of the Cabinet, and have her attend National Security Council meetings, had been “terrible,” and that he would ensure the next U.N. ambassador did not carry that rank, she wrote.

Trump gave Haley a warm send-off last fall, while Kelly’s departure was announced in chillier terms weeks later. Haley’s successor, Kelly Craft, who assumed the U.N. job in September, does not carry the same rank Haley did. Tillerson, meanwhile, was fired by Trump via Twitter in March 2018.

“I have found in politics that when you are a woman in politics you encounter two types of people,” Haley said in the interview, conducted at her publisher’s offices in Lower Manhattan.

“You encounter people who respect you for your skill and your knowledge and the work that you’re trying to do, and support you in that process. Or you encounter people who disregard you and see you as in the way. That would happen at times,” Haley said.

Asked whether she was calling Kelly sexist, Haley said she had no personal quarrel with the retired four-star Marine general, whom she called a patriot.

“It’s a way of saying that sometimes he was not as conscious of the job I was trying to do,” Haley said.

Trump liked her direct approach and was respectful when they disagreed, Haley said.

She wrote that each had taken the other’s measure during the Republican primary, when she first backed Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and publicly called on Trump to release his tax returns. Trump tweeted that “the people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley!”

“Trump had been kicked, and he was hollering. But what he didn’t know then was, when I get kicked, I holler too,” Haley wrote.

She fired back with what she describes as “Southern-woman code.”

“Bless your heart,” she tweeted.

The book’s title is a reference to Haley’s comment last year publicly refuting an assertion by White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow that she had suffered “momentary confusion” about forthcoming U.S. sanctions on Russia.

In a detailed blow-by-blow account, Haley wrote that she had gone on television at the request of the White House to address the U.S. response to a deadly April 2018 Syrian chemical weapons attack and the U.S. view that Russia was complicit. When asked about punitive sanctions, Haley said she answered with the latest information she had, which was that Trump had approved new sanctions that would be announced shortly.

But Trump had changed his mind and no one told her, Haley wrote, and then White House staffers hung her out to dry. The Post reported at the time that Trump changed his mind after Haley spoke.

Haley said when a promised White House statement holding her blameless failed to materialize later that day or the next, she gave Kelly a deadline of the close of the following day — a Tuesday — before she went public. Kudlow’s remark to reporters on that Tuesday afternoon was evidence that Kelly did not intend to “fix this,” she wrote.

Bucking some members of her staff who urged her to let it slide, Haley told a reporter: “With all due respect, I don’t get confused.”

Kudlow called within 15 minutes to apologize, and then went public with a mea culpa.

“Women are cautious about politics, for good reason,” she wrote. “It’s not a pretty business. It’s often hateful. It would be wonderful if we could change our politics in America to make it less nasty and less personal. But until that happens, especially if you’re a woman, you have to stand up for yourself. Always.”

The book leaves the door open to a potential return to politics, but is silent about any White House ambitions. In the interview, Haley waved off the question. She will evaluate her next steps year by year, she said.

“I’m not even thinking that way. I’m thinking more of, we need to do all we can to get the president reelected. And then from there, deciding how I will use the power of my voice,” Haley said.

“I know I’m too young to stop fighting, I know that. And I know that I need and want to be involved in some way that’s helpful.”

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Mulvaney’s move to join impeachment testimony lawsuit rankles Bolton allies

By Tom Hamburger, Carol D. Leonnig and Josh Dawsey | Published November 10 at 3:14 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted November 10, 2019|

White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s last-minute effort to join a lawsuit that could determine whether senior administration officials testify in the impeachment inquiry was an unwelcome surprise to former top national security aides, highlighting internal divisions among President Trump’s advisers in the face of the probe.

Former national security adviser John Bolton’s advisers and allies were taken aback to learn late Friday that Mulvaney had gone to court seeking to join a separation-of-powers lawsuit filed against Trump and the House leadership, according to people familiar with their views, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing inquiry.

The suit was filed by Bolton’s former deputy, Charles Kupperman, who is asking a federal judge to determine whether a congressional subpoena takes precedence over a White House order not to comply with the inquiry. Bolton is willing to testify if the judge rules in favor of the House, The Washingon Post previously reported.

People close to Bolton and Kupperman said the two were flabbergasted by Mulvaney’s surprise request to join the lawsuit because they and others on the national security team considered Mulvaney a critical player in the effort to get the Ukrainian government to pursue investigations into Trump’s political opponents.

Bolton views Mulvaney as a key participant in the pressure campaign, a situation that the then-national security adviser referred to derisively as “a drug deal,” according to congressional testimony by his aides. The two men were barely on speaking terms when Bolton left his post in September, according to White House officials.

Charles Cooper, a lawyer for Bolton, declined to comment on Mulvaney’s effort to join the suit, saying only, “We will provide our answer in court.”

William Pittard, an attorney for Mulvaney, said the chief of staff is simply seeking to resolve the competing demands of two branches of government.

“As acting chief of staff, Mr. Mulvaney intends to follow any lawful order of the president and has no reason to think that the order at issue is unlawful — other than the fact the House has threatened him with charges of contempt and obstruction for following it,” Pittard said.

Lawrence Tribe, a constitutional law expert at Harvard Law School, said Mulvaney’s last-minute move could be an attempt to give himself legal cover to put off the House demand. By attaching himself to the Kupperman case, Mulvaney could avoid having to testify in the House inquiry for months if the suit is appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.

“I think he’s trying to be shielded from having to obey his legal duty to comply with an obviously valid subpoena,” Tribe said.

Bolton and Mulvaney are key potential witnesses in the House impeachment inquiry, but have so far refused to comply with requests to testify because of the White House claims that senior advisers have “absolute immunity” from cooperating with the congressional probe.

Trump has repeatedly urged aides not to cooperate and was a key writer of a lengthy White House letter that decried the process, officials said.

Mulvaney had previously signaled he would follow the president’s direction and not show up at the hearings, and his top aides also have rebuffed House requests for their testimony.

The acting chief of staff’s legal filing Friday signals a shift in his approach toward the inquiry. Mulvaney is now attempting to join a lawsuit filed by officials who have signaled they would defy the White House and testify to Congress if so ordered.

In going to court, Mulvaney appears to have acted on his own, hiring a private attorney to intervene in the suit. Typically, the White House Counsel’s Office and the Justice Department would be involved in legal matters regarding the White House chief of staff.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Pittard said Mulvaney’s legal action was necessary to get clarity from the courts at a time when he faces an order from the White House not to comply and threats of contempt from the House.

“He is genuinely caught between two conflicting orders.” Pittard said. “He intends to follow the orders of his boss, the president, yet doing so has led to threats from the House. Asking the court to resolve a genuine conflict like this is not unreasonable in the least.”

Pittard said White House Counsel Pat Cipollone was consulted before Mulvaney went to court and raised no objections. Mulvaney’s legal filing, Pittard added, makes clear his action is aimed at the House, not the president.

“This is non-adversarial toward the president, and in no way indicates any distance between Mr. Mulvaney and the president,” said a person close to Mulvaney, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe his thinking.

However, the suit Mulvaney seeks to join lists the president and House leaders as defendants.

The unusual legal maneuvering lays bare a deepening divide among top advisers to Trump as House impeachment investigators continue to gather evidence about the effort to pressure Ukraine to open investigations into his political opponents.

Mulvaney has acknowledged that he blocked releasing nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine at the president’s request. In an October news conference, Mulvaney said he withheld the aid because of the president’s interest in having Ukraine investigate a discredited theory that Ukrainians interfered in the 2016 campaign. Mulvaney later said his comments were misinterpreted.

If Bolton is ordered to testify, he is expected to corroborate the accounts of former aides — such as Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman and adviser Fiona Hill — who testified that Bolton was alarmed that military aide was being withheld from Ukraine as the president and his aides pushed that country to open investigations that could damage Democrats.

In a letter to House Democrats on Friday, Cooper wrote that Bolton was “personally involved in many of the events, meetings, and conversations about which you have already received testimony, as well as many relevant meetings and conversations that have not yet been discussed in the testimonies thus far.”

Congressional investigators have not yet subpoenaed Bolton, though they have sought his appearance, a request Cooper said he would decline without a subpoena and an instruction from the courts.

In his letter Friday, Cooper emphasized that Bolton and Kupperman’s testimony was particularly important and sensitive because of the role they played in national security matters.

“Information concerning national security and foreign affairs is at the heart of the Committees’ impeachment inquiry, and it is difficult to imagine any question that the Committees might put to Dr. Kupperman that would not implicate these sensitive areas,” he wrote.

He noted that Kupperman and Bolton could receive special immunity from testifying because they are part of “an exceedingly narrow category of aides entrusted with discretionary authority in such sensitive areas as national security or foreign policy.”

Mulvaney’s legal filing could breathe new life into the Kupperman suit after House lawyers withdrew their subpoena of him last week and asked for the case to be dismissed. Instead, the House said it would look to another case involving former White House counsel Donald McGahn, which is more advanced, as a key test case.

However, presiding U.S. District Judge Richard Leon declined to dismiss the Kupperman suit. Late Saturday afternoon, Leon ordered lawyers for Mulvaney, Kupperman, Bolton and the government to join him in a conference call Monday afternoon to discuss Mulvaney’s request and how to proceed.

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[archerton84-blog]

Outlander and the Cost of Claire's White Saviordom

An Outlander episode on slavery was inevitable the second the Frasers set foot in 18th century America. The time-traveling drama touched on the cruelty of the slave trade in Season 3 when Claire (Caitriona Balfe) inadvertently stumbled into a slave auction and bought a man for sale to save him from further humiliation in the market square. She later set him free once he helped Claire and Jamie (Sam Heughan) find Jamie's nephew, but it was only a brief dalliance with the topic.

Season 4 took a deeper look at slavery in the Americas in its second episode as Claire and Jamie arrived at Jamie's Aunt Jocasta's (Maria Doyle Kennedy) plantation, River Run. Claire's distaste for the practice was immediately made clear. The audience understood Claire's perspective because we know she's an enlightened woman from the 1960s who knows how the effects of slavery will still be present some 200 years after her River Run stay, but for those in the show without knowledge of the future, her stance was not only contrary, but dangerous to their way of life.

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That's taken to another level when a slave named Rufus (Jerome Holder) took an axe to his overseer's ear. Claire and Jamie were dispensed from the main house to attend to the wounded man, only to find that he already took justice into his own hands and strung Rufus up to a tree with a rusted hook in his abdomen. Claire's attention immediately went to the slave being tortured and she put his life above that of his injured overseer. Things went downhill from there.

Despite the warnings from literally everyone around her, Claire brought Rufus back to the main house of the plantation, operated on him on Jocasta's dining room table and saved his life — for a few hours. The price of any slave drawing blood from a white man in that time period was death. Claire saved Rufus from the hook, but there was no way to save him from death overall. As she struggled to find an escape for the slave boy, an angry mob descended on Jocasta's house and demanded justice. Rather than hand Rufus over to the mob, Claire reluctantly poisoned him in order to give him a peaceful death rather than a violent one. Still, Jamie had to turn the boy's body over to the mob, which promptly dragged it through the mud and then strung his corpse up in the nearby tree as the Frasers watched powerless from the porch.

The preview for next week's episode showed that the Rufus incident will push Claire and Jamie onwards to settle Fraser's ridge, which was always the intended arc for this season. The slaves on Jocasta's plantation and in the surrounding area will stay behind in the heightened hostility caused by Rufus' actions and Claire's savior complex.

Caitriona Balfe, OutlanderPhoto: Aimee Spinks

"In this episode she's so lead by her emotions and she's not really thinking it through. What she sees in the moment, she just wants to help Rufus and doesn't think about the larger implications of what it will do to everyone else on the plantation," Balfe told TV Guide. "I think that's why she's so eager to get away from River Run, because for her to stay there in that position makes her feel complicit in the whole slave system or the system of slavery. It's not something she feels at all comfortable with. Obviously, her actions have probably made the conditions worse for every slave on that plantation."

And there we have our issue. Claire's actions in this episode have made the lives of an entire group of people she barely interacted with that much harder in a time period that wasn't trying to cut them a break in the first place. As this is a story about Claire and Jamie's adventures in the 18th century, we won't see exactly how those tribulations shake out. Instead, the pain of those slaves, directly increased by Claire's impulsive desires, are used as a catalyst for the Frasers' next chapter. It's a tool to propel the journey of white characters, and frankly, it's infuriating.

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I am an Outlander fan and also a woman of color, which makes watching episodes like this deeply personal and complicated — perhaps more so than for fans without African-American ancestry. Most weeks, there's no need to divide the fan base along racial lines. We are all escaping into a fantasy where strapping tall Scottish men sweep us sassenachs off our feet for an hour every Sunday. I have to use a little more imagination perhaps, but who cares? Jamie Fraser is worth it.

But then Jamie and Claire stepped foot in America. I knew the slave episode was coming, even if I haven't finished Diana Gabaldon's novels on which the series is based. On weeks like this, I don't get to be like most Outlander fans, even with a little extra imagination. I can't pretend to be Claire, a noble woman from the future inheriting a plantation with her gorgeous Scottish husband, because no amount of imagination can erase the fact that if I traveled back in time to River Run, I'd end up as one of Jocasta's belongings rather than an honored guest. For this episode, I spent my time relating to the slaves on Jocasta's plantation that Claire interacted with rather than her, no matter how good her intentions were. I understood their fear when she did rash things. I understood the quiet way they tried to warn her that what she was doing would end badly for everyone involved, afraid to speak out in case they would end up like Rufus.

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I can appreciate Claire's intentions in this episode and understand that she meant well. She was trying to be on the morally right side. I also know that a show set in 18th century America can't ignore an issue as big as slavery. Outlander has an obligation to depict the time periods that its characters inhabit accurately. Claire couldn't save Rufus because that never would have realistically happened. She can't singlehandedly end slavery, even for a small group of black people in North Carolina, because Season 2 proved with the battle of Culloden, history is fixed for this show. Outlander also has to be careful about how it deviates from the novel series, for every change it makes has larger ramifications down the line. They can't delete an important section of the book because it might make a section, and probably a small one at that, of the audience uncomfortable.

As I do these mental gymnastics to understand why this episode exists in the way that it does, I have to wonder did the show do any gymnastics of its own on my, and the fans like me's, behalf? A Google search of all the writers listed on the show's IMDB page revealed the Outlander writers' room is all white, and like Claire they undoubtedly had great intentions with this episode. But I have to wonder how the story might've been tweaked if there had been a person whose actual family history includes people represented the people on screen — people who might've cautioned that Claire's remorse doesn't make up for her ignorance, and repeated dismissal of the black people in this episode begging her to stop what she was doing. Her need to validate her own emotions were put ahead of these people's agency. In trying to be their savior, Claire actually robbed them of the little agency they had in that situation and her grief still took center stage.

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I know she felt horrible about poisoning Rufus and it was hard for her to watch his lifeless body swing from that tree, but I also know it was harder for the enslaved housemaids watching a few feet away. It will also be hard for them to burn the tablecloths Rufus laid on, and probably the dining room table as well where his black blood was spilled — blood considered poison to everything it touched. These are things that don't occur Claire as she insisted she was right and knew what was best for Rufus. These are things she can push away as she settles her new land away from River Run, which is the problem with white saviors stepping into black narratives. They step out just as easily, whether they actually saved anyone or not. The black people left behind, and their descendants watching the stories about their struggles, do not get that luxury.

This is not a call to boycott Outlander. I am still a rabid fan and some of my favorite stuff this show has ever done occurs in the upcoming episodes this season. I am just angry at Claire in this episode, but not in the same way you get angry at your favorite TV characters who do stupid things like try to negotiate with Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies) by themselves or treat their first husbands like garbage for reasons said husbands can't control. It's a deep-bodied, seething anger that is difficult to articulate. It's not like I'm actually one of the slaves stuck on Jocasta's plantation, but I am a person that still sees the ramifications of that time period still alive and well in 2018.

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In this month alone voter suppression deterred tens of thousands, if not more, black people and other people of color from voting in Georgia, Florida and North Carolina. Our sitting president said that black people are too stupid to vote for him, amid other racist remarks and then invited the leader of a white nationalist group to the White House. There are still real people fighting against the oppression instilled in the DNA of this country, where the institution of slavery still lingers and the racist beliefs required to dehumanize black people flourish out in the open. Nevermind the exhausting microaggressions people of color experience on the regular, Claire's actions in this episode are a reminder of the allies who show up to the marches and write the eloquent Facebook posts, but then don't show up to vote when it truly matters.

So at the end of the week when I wanted to watch one of my favorite shows, I didn't want to have the scars of the past reopened for the sake of Jamie and Claire's next settlement. I especially didn't want to have to do mental and emotional hula hoops to understand Claire's entitlement and subsequent grief. I wanted an escape, and just like the slaves Claire's white saviordom failed in this episode, I was denied.

Outlander continues Sundays at 8/7 on Starz.

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Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe, OutlanderPhoto: Aimee Spinks Source: https://www.tvguide.com/news/outlander-season-4-episode-2-recap-claire-rufus/?rss=breakingnews