#[[Totally just reformating a post from the last time he got his powers back for a raid in [REDACTED] :P ]]

[demenior]

i'm sorry, SAMNADO??? all i can think of is a sharknado but it is full of sams

Check my list of current wips here and send me a title and I’ll post a bit or share some details about it.

You're not that far off lmao. Sam's on a mission, blowing into town and on the hunt for some answers.

(everyone in this scene is from season 8)

--

Sam’s not going to get anywhere if Stan is going to be difficult. The humidity covers the brief drop in temperature as Sam sends out a little point of energy from his demonic garden. For old times’ sake, he reforms it into the shape of a snake.

Easy enough to slither under Stan’s defenses, and find an opening that Sam can push into. Sam waits, lets his energy cut into Stan’s aura enough to burrow in like an infection, before he asks.

“So why Bandera?”

Easy enough now, to open the cut and push the hostility back, to let Stan’s love for Amelia bleed through. It overcomes his wariness and makes him drop his guard. If there’s one thing Sam’s learned, magic or not, it’s always easiest to manipulate someone when they’re friendly with you. 

[paragraphs cuts for length]

“The last time you talked— did she sound… off?” Sam asks.

“Did she sound like she was about to disappear?” Stan clarifies. His shoulders come up like he’s ready for a fight. The barbed wire in his soul starts coiling up again.

“I want to help,” Sam insists, “I don’t believe in coincidence, but there has to be a reason I’m here now. The police aren’t helping, so let me help find her.”

“She has a husband,” Stan reminds him, tone as heavy as a door being closed.

“She’s missing,” Sam stresses, and he needs a push of legitimacy so he adds, “my brother’s— Cas, he, uh, he’s a journalist. He’s good at finding people. And putting shit together. We can help.”

Stan must be at the end of his rope, because he stops fighting. He drops his shoulders. His barbed wire aura grows slack again. Sam’s infection can keep spreading, searching for the right hold to give Sam enough persuasion over Stan.

“They live in town?” Sam pushes.

Stan shakes his head, “No, no. A little out— closer to the falls. I can, I can take you there in the morning. I’ve been staying at the motel, for the wifi. And so she can call me, you know, when…”

Sam nods along, “Yeah. Okay. And you don’t— do you think she left? Or…”

The paper cup crumples in Stan’s hands. Old coffee spills over onto the table, “I don’t know,” he confesses, “I don’t know where my daughter is, or if something awful has happened. Don’s with her, and I have to hope for the best. Cause I don’t— I don’t know what to do if…”

“We’re gonna find her,” Sam promises, “now, can I grab her address? For Cas. I’ll get him to start doing some research on the area, to see if anything comes up, okay?”

Stan is hesitant— guys like him like keeping their information close. Sam gives him a small nudge, just a gentle click of his tongue, one note, to help push him. His infection, the invasive species, slithers deeper into Stan’s aura. It’s not elegant, but it will work. Sam’s got a hold on him.

“Of course,” Stan agrees, “whatever you need.”

Dean and Cas join them with fresh coffees for everyone, and food. They’ve been eating buc-ees jerky and trail mix for hours, so a warm veggie burger is the best thing Sam’s eaten all day. Dean doles out the food and drinks while Sam catches them up with the conversation and Cas’ new career as a journalist.

Cas immediately crawls out of his body to inspect Sam’s work. He’s always curious about Sam’s powers— Sam weaves and sings like a maniac, as Cas has described, but it’s because he’s a human with grace who leaned angel singing from a demon. So far Sam thinks he’s doing okay.

“A journalist?” Dean repeats, and glares at Sam before putting on his charming smile, “yeah, yeah. Cas is a total nerd. Loves getting into the details of stuff. I always thought he should be like, a detective, for how nosy he is. If there’s anything weird, Cas will find out. Isn’t that right, Cas? Cas?”

Cas is too absorbed in Sam’s spell, and forgets to animate his vessel. Sam spins his energy into a snake head, to leap out of Stan’s aura and snap at him.

The vessel blinks in surprise. The head moves, but Cas doesn’t move any of the limbs. It’s kinda funny how he thinks he can pass as a person.

“Sorry. I am… tired,” Cas lies.

Outside of the vessel, Sam sees Cas’ form spin like a funnel cloud. He’s not happy about the jump scare.

“Tired, but you’re used to running on coffee,” Dean leads.

“Of course,” Cas agrees, “I love coffee.”

He takes a sip and immediately grimaces. Cas shoots Dean a betrayed look.

“No! Don’t spit it out!” Dean orders. Cas swallows like he's drinking battery acid.

“There’s no love in this,” Cas whines.

Dean rolls his eyes, but takes Cas’ coffee from him, “Yeah, yeah. Cream and sugar, coming up.”

At Stan’s incredulous look, Cas calmly explains, “Most food is only palatable if Dean adds some love to it.”

“Anything else you can tell us?” Sam prompts Stan, “did Amelia mention anything about neighbors? Coworkers? Any new friends or people she didn’t like?”

Sam twists his snake, pushing deeper into Stan. He’s so close to getting him to unlock. Stan takes a second to talk, blinking slowly and staring into space.

“Well, uh, like I said earlier, the house is far… remote. Neighbors are pretty far…” Stan trails off.

Cas’ funnel cloud spins closer to ruffle Sam’s hair with a low bass tone, just a warning bite, that makes Sam’s foot cramp and his demonic garden shrink back into his skin. His hold on his infection slips, and Cas yanks it out like he’s sucking up instant noodles. Sam glares at Cas’ vessel, only to find Cas is glaring back at him. Sam must have done something wrong.

Stan gives his head a small shake.

“Did you just get into town?” Stan wonders, sounding more awake.

[filipinoizukuu]

hello mr simp do you have any thoughts on the leeks 👀

FIRST OF ALL. THEY CAME SO FUCKING EARLY??? BRO I WAS ASLEEP

SECOND OF ALL

holy SHIT YALL

Okay, it's no secret that I'm an All Might stan. I LOVE All Might. Very very much. Not just as a simp, but genuinely, I enjoy his character SO MUCH.

--And unlike what some people may think, I'm not totally blind to his flaws. I know he sucks as a mentor and that he's done way more harm to Deku than good. He's.... not perfect. in every sense of the word. The whole point of AM's character is that he is a DEEPLY FLAWED individual— but at the end of the day, still good.

This new chapter gave me SOOO many new feelings. I'm not gonna lie to y'all and say I was a Stain apologist beforehand because I wasn't. I disliked Stain to a certain degree, but I also knew he was morally grey enough that I was able to still quite appreciate him as a character. This chapter was about EVERYTHING to me because I honestly did NOT expect Hori to go in this direction and for things to happen the way they did. It was too good to be true! Too fanfic-y! The disbelief I felt when I read what happened was on par with when Bakugou and Deku had that apology and kinda-hug in the rain!

But this disbelief is not because it was a bad thing.

I think the writing in Chapter 326 is phenomenal. The moment that All Might was really beginning to lose hope in not just himself as a hero, but himself as a PERSON... we finally hear the opinion of someone who would abso-fucking-LUTELY make or break the last of his spirit.

Stain is, as much as his views are pretty agreeable and his label is that of a vigilante, still a pretty shitty guy. He's tried to kill literal kids who got in his way, even if said kids made pretty dumb decisions. AM hearing what he has to say is absolutely mind-boggling to him because he knows all of that. He knows Stain is a shitty person and that his worldview is perhaps terribly skewed. He knows Stain has spent a hot minute frying his brains down in Tartarus and isn't good at making judgment calls. Knows that for all intents and purposes, Stain's opinions are not to be trusted.

But the thing is... Toshinori also knows that Stain, regardless of the soundness of his mind, is telling the truth.

Regardless of how fucked-in-the-head Stain is, we as readers are able to acknowledge that he isn't blinded by hero worship. Sure, he's bitter, cynical, and quite the absolutist--but Stain is still clear-headed enough to be able to see AM's flaws for what they are and accept them, ultimately proving to Toshinori that the power of All Might was never his own but rather the legacy that he inspired.

The society MHA takes place in is flawed. We all know this. Heroes, as a concept, had been corrupted into being purely about good and evil. Purely winning fights for money or fame or the abstract concept of victory (coughs Endeavor and the no.1 spot coughs), making heroism as we know it about flashiness and power instead of mercy and the desire to help others.

All Might symbolizes the ideal version of the Hero Society. He represents doing the best you can. Being a hero until you reach your limits, and then going even past that. He symbolizes pure intention and the desire to be a hero not for material gains but because of the pure want to make society a better and safer place. Stain refers to Kamino Ward and the statue as a "holy land" because he believes that through and through, AM's only had the purest of intentions and morals. To him, Toshinori was like a deity that had no fault in making society what it was in the present because that accountability fell on the generations of heroes that failed to fulfill his legacy.

The point being, Stain understood that All Might was fundamentally not about 'being there' for everyone 24/7, but rather the message his presence had sent.

All Might's monologue at the beginning of the chapter essentially boiled down to the ideas that:

A. He regrets not being there properly for Deku

B. His image was a delusion that ultimately led to the downfall of hero society.

To break this down, his problem with Deku is his inability to be a competent mentor. It shows that he has led him down dangerous and horrible paths (Deku's stubbornness to do things by himself and his 'dark' arc post-war), and is unable to bring him back into the light even if he tries. It was only when Class 1-A had intervened that they were able to get Deku to rest and let people tag along, after all, which is why Toshinori was far too embarrassed to follow him into UA's walls even after everyone had come out with umbrellas.

Stain disproves this in two ways.

First, he says that it was never about All Might's ability to actually be there for people. The whole point of what inspired Deku to be the inherently good-hearted "true hero" he is today is because of the values that AM's brand had instilled in him as a child. AM's biggest positive impacts came from behind the screen where he was used as the proof that true heroes can and do exist. Deku does want to be exactly like All Might, yes, which is why we see Toshinori leading him down the same path that he walked--but the underlying message of this is that the very first thing All Might gave him even before OfA was the courage to help fix society.

I do believe Deku is an innately compassionate person. Most people in the series are. However, what makes All Might's smile so uniquely impactful to what it did to Hero Society is the way it gave people courage to help people. Less hesitation. Less bystander syndromes. The ability to move without thinking. Because you can feel the want to help a person, but the courage to be nosey and actually do it? That's portrayed as something AM's image teaches people.

The second way he disproves AM's insecurity of dragging Deku down is that he makes it clear that this pain is somewhat of a necessity in reforming society. He says, interestingly enough, that this is but the 'middle process' in reforming society. This spills over to how he addresses Problem B, but what Stain is essentially saying here is that this sort of brutality and isolation that Izuku faces is impermanent. A phase. It implies that even if Deku is struggling and Toshinori is unable to help him, it is something that needs to happen before they re-realize the ideal heroes All Might's image is meant to create.

The second problem in regards to how All Might feels about current society (how it's collapsing because of him, etc. etc.) is more interestingly addressed. There are many things that Stain says--like how Toshinori doesn't need to actually be the one to fix society with his bare hands. The current society is not his fault because of the fact that it is not finished developing. I'm not sure if I can go so far as to say that Stain means this in the sense of the Scorched Earth method of tearing everything down to build it back up better-- but I can say that Stain still has faith in society to rebuild after this period of chaos.

This rebuilding starts with the old generation of heroes correcting what they messed up (i.e. Endeavor v Dabi) and more importantly, paving the way for a better generation of heroes that was inspired by All Might's image. Heroes that are led by people like Deku, who is defined by his proclivity to help without thinking. The violent deconstruction of society is about exposing society to the raw truth of All Might's image that not everybody can be as strong as him-- which is why we have to take care of each other.

When the lady comes in to remove the sign and start cleaning the statue, it's symbolic. It's a clear metaphor that the past few chapters are the turning point for society as a whole, and how people are starting to remember what real heroism is. From the distrust that was seeded in society ever since LoV had surfaced, we are seeing that trust being returned TEN-FOLD now that people can see not only the mask of a hero's smile, but also the person underneath.

I think it's some really neat symbolism here too about how Deku, who's metal mouth guard was literally all about representing All Might's smile, is shed.

This is hero society dropping their masks. Letting people see them for as they are. Toshinori revisiting the statue in this form makes all the more impact because he shed his mask ages ago during the Kamino Bust, so this is him coming face to face with the image he's created and seeing the differences between them, and how his image continues to live on even after he's almost completely Quirkless. The lady cleaning the All Might statue shows off the fact that things can be repaired again--that society can be clean (hehe stain pun) again.

It's interesting to me here how Stain offers the information from Tartarus.

He doesn't care anymore about his life. It's evident. He disagrees with what the LoV is doing, but believes enough in Deku to think that it's time for him to retire the mantle of 'Stain'. Unless this is another test, it's very odd for me to hear that Stain is offering a blade and his life to someone he isn't even sure is All Might.

But the impact of this action reads loud and clear.

This is Stain taking pity on All Might. This is him realizing that All Might too is a person behind the hero. That Toshinori Yagi is incapable of doing anything past the image he had already created. By offering that knife and information on Tartarus, Stain is giving control back to Toshinori. He is giving AM the chance to do something big again to help society's reconstruction. To be a part of the revolution that he so badly deserves to see. That knife is essentially an exit ticket from the sidelines, and one last chance for All Might to be able to see what his image has done for people.

I personally think that the main reason Stain is willing to die then and there by Toshinori's hand, despite not being sure that he is All Might to begin with, is because of the final impact it creates that it isn't about Toshinori Yagi's true power as a person, but the image of All Might. It is because he looks like the symbol of peace, that Stain (the literal HERO KILLER) feels comfortable laying his life in his hands and giving away valuable information.

If that isn't a great testament to the power of AM's image, I don't know WHAT is.

I guess all I have to say is I absolutely love what Stain did in this chapter. Everything felt so incredibly symbolic and emotional and as someone who absolutely ADORES All Might and what he stands for in the story, this felt like a cool balm after seeing Deku tragically reject his bento box a good few chapters ago. I have a few more opinions about symbolism, and how I think Deku's generation of heroes is going to stray from the old gen, but I think that's a discussion for another time.

Thanks for reading 'til the end!

[saturniandevil]

March 2022 Important Dates

AKA my notes on The Astrology Podcast’s forecast. We’re going into this month off the energy of a Venus-Mars conjunction on March 16th. Mars is exalted in Capricorn and will conjoin Pluto on the 3rd, and close by Venus will hit Pluto this month as well. Venus is/has exited her shadow post-rx preiod on March 1st, marks. She's leaving her retrograde shadow a few days into March but remains in a rough place for most of the month. After she surpasses Mars, Saturn is right ahead of her (exact conjunction on the 28th at 21♒️, with Mars close by too). We enter the month with separation in relationships, building up to coldness and restraint, until she finally enters her exaltation Pisces early in April. Chris also reminds us that retrogrades in general often signify more a sequence of events than a singular one, a story which becomes clearer in retrospect. Austin says the outcome may be easier to predict, but the path it takes will still surprise us.

March 2nd: New Moon in Pisces Exact at 12♓, the Moon will immediately conjoin Jupiter, giving us some optimism. However the Venus-Mars-Pluto conjunction at 27♑ and the Mercury-Saturn conjunction at 18♒️ mean that 3 sets of planets are in close conjunction all at the same time. In general Jupiter-ruled signs are times of year anticipating birth (Sagittarius) and rebirth (Pisces) in the Christian liturgical calendar, giving us some expectations of divinity or preparing ourselves for the divine. Jupiter also brings us morality and ideas of order in the universe--we hope to be the agents of good. Jupiter prompts us to take a leap of faith, experience the totality of the cosmos, and especially in Pisces, the realm of the invisible. Also considering the loose conjunction to Neptune, we've got experiences that can't be explained but can't be denied.

The New Moon is also sextile Uranus the revolutionary. When Uranus  cooperates with Jupiter, we can get reform (Jupiter, after all, signifies judges and politicians). With the Mercury-Saturn conjunction in Aquarius, we've got structural challenges & pressures getting inspected & diagnosed. Rather than general worry about our Aquarius house, we can get the full account from our scribe Mercury and apply Saturn's discipline to rectify problems. While Jupiter encourages us, these two dry planets will prompt us to think coldly.

With the Mars-Venus-Pluto conjunction we see a return of themes from Venus's retrograde station on Pluto in December. Venus is finally passing the degree where she stationed and entering new territory, but now Mars is here. We may think of this as a Faustian bargian getting reevaluated, and with Mars in both his sign and exact degree of exaltation (27-28♑️) Venus isn't going to be able to help hold him back. Pluto takes the small things and makes them bigger, so Mars may bring us strife over such topics. The story may change when Venus & Mars enter Aquarius--Venus is strategically letting Mars blowout right now and can move in to negotiate during the aftermath. Overall Mars is in a position to make deep, cool power moves under the surface, with Venus standing by to reap in the spoils of war.

March 2nd: Chris’s Electional chart for the Month Around 10:45AM local time with Gemini Rising and Mercury right on the midheaven (in the 9th house). This is great for publishing and education, and with the Sun-Moon-Jupiter in the 10th house it's great for career as well. However 8th house matters aren't great with Mars in the 8th in a day chart. However, there are a lot of good elections this month considering Jupiter’s transit in Pisces.

March 4th: Jupiter-Sun cazimi/exact conjunction (not pictured) Jupiter may have ingressed several weeks ago,but now he's really coming into his own in the sign. Jupiter hasn't transited his own sign since late 2019 (Sagittarius), so perhaps there's a light at the end of the tunnel  after the winter of the last few years. Jupiter helps us believe things can be improved through our actions--not just hope things that will work out. Jupiter also switches from evening rising to morning rising after the cazimi, which is a more powerful position for the planet. Thus we have Jupiter in his strongest phase of his own sign. With Saturn & Aquarius activity involved, we can think about the themes of doubt and testing of faith--in ideologies or systems of government as much as belief systems.

March 6th: Mars & Venus enter Aquarius together Venus and Mars will conjoin in Aquarius next, which will have a radically different feeling than the Capricorn one (see New Moon for more). Mars is exalted in Capricorn, and Venus has triplicity rulership but not much strength overall. Once they enter Aquarius together the two planets will be copresent with Saturn, its ruler. Venus will overtake Mars on March 6th, and later in the month they'll both run into Saturn. You may say Saturn is here to discipline Mars & Venus, although with the square to Uranus mid-month, there'll be a bit of a food fight first. Mars has been sparking the Saturn-Uranus conjunction and will do so more loosely now, with Venus involved as well. We've had other conjunctions in early degrees of Aquarius line up with events of the pandemic and vaccines: Mars-Saturn at 0Aq corresponded to the March-April 2020 lockdowns in many countries and the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction at 0Aq in December 2020 coincided with vaccines first being available, so this Mars-Venus activity may activate another turning point at this sensitive degree. This is also the first time Mars and Saturn have been copresent in 2 years--since the early phases of lockdown in 2020. What will reset, and will we be able to tackle the same challenges with new eyes? Guest host Christopher Renstrom points out that last time we had a pileup in these signs was during the AIDS crisis, and although many expected society to be able to handle a similar situation better next time, arguably we didn't.

March 9th: Mercury enters Pisces Though Mercury is traditionally detriment, Jupiter is copresent to help him try and analyze the bigger picture.

March 18th: Full Moon in Virgo Venus squares Uranus the next day, Mars squares Uranus a few days later. This lunation also trines the Taurus degree of the lunar eclipse back in November. Tensions are coming to a head, and we may see the continuation of eclipse events if that affected your chart. The Sun in Pisces (with Jupiter & Neptune nearby) is dreaming big, but the opposing Moon in Virgo asks us about the details and implementation. There is a path for us to take towards realizing them, as Mercury and Jupiter, the Moon's and Sun's rulers, are also in conjunction.

March 19th: Venus squares Uranus (not pictured) ...who's in her sign of Taurus. Aside from volatility, Uranus can also mean surprise reversals, so we may find ourselves in a better position than we were in before when the rules of the game change abruptly. Venus is also riding the intensity and passion of the conjunction with Mars and Pluto, while anticipating Saturn's sobriety on the horizon at the end of the month. Uranus-Venus can bring us no-strings-attached relationships, new pleasures from doing something new and different, and newfound awareness of changes we knew needed to happen. We can get on-again off-again dynamics, where people go back to relationships they swear they'd never go back to, or break up just to make up right away. We may also see sudden changes in the partner's financial status depending on how this interacts with nativities.

March 20th: Sun enters Aries (Vernal Equinox) Spring begins in the Northern Hemisphere! The Sun is ruled by Mars, who will square Uranus two days later. Austin says that because it's the beginning of the astrological year & a time where many do mundane predictions for the year ahead, the Mars-Venus-Saturn dynamics in place during this ingress will be cemented for the upcoming year. However Christopher thinks that Venus might play her surprise trump card during this time.

March 22nd: Mars squares Uranus (not pictured) We'll see more quickening or speeding up of conflicts. This aspect also precedes the Mars-Uranus-North Node conjunction in Taurus coming up in August. Mars's expectations may be reversed or upset, or the situation may come out feeling like a tinderbox struck by lightning. We can also get figurative (or literal) game-changing superweapons (the first nuclear bombs were dropped under a Mars-Uranus conjunction). Mercury conjoins Neptune the next day (March 23rd), so the key challenge is to maintain clear communication.

March 27th: Mercury enters Aries

Going into April... Chris says overall March ends on a cliffhanger, leading into aspects that will culminate in early April (one of the more dynamic months this year). For example, we've been building up to a Jupiter-Neptune conjunction in Pisces (exact April 9th) and a Mars-Saturn conjunction in Aquarius early April. Chris says Mars-Saturn alignments have been lining up with the emergence of new variants, although this is also the first conjunction since the one that marked big lockdowns in much of the world in early 2020, and could signal a wrapping-up of sorts. In general Mars contacting a stronger Saturn can either have us going nowhere fast or relentlessly pursuing our goals. We can also get very heavy-handed law and order, with Saturn the general directing Mars the soldier. Meanwhile strong Neptune-Jupiter mysticism, paranoia and conspiracy theories resist rational Aquarian science. Christopher predicts fission between the spiritual and the scientific becoming more pronounced during this time: are you on the side of law & order or standing by your inexplicable experiences? You may be prompted to pick a side.

Overall issues, tensions and frustrations in the Aquarius houses of our charts may come to a head, so remember how things went there in early 2020 and look for mystical, creative, or higher-power reprieve in Pisces matters. Any planets in Cancer are also getting lots of trines from the Pisces stuff and off-aspect from the Aquarius, while Scorpio planets will get squares & trines at the same time from the two signs: each sign is feeling one or the other or both of these conjunctions. Narrow your focus to whatever needs to be done with Mars-Saturn, and open up your perspective for Neptune-Jupiter. It's a great time for any artists to take advantage of the blurring between conscious and unconscious minds--any seeds planted will be nurtured by "psychedelic super rain" (in Austin's words).

[verycleverboy]

Today in the false reality of the Republican Party

To Matt Masterson, the review of 2020 ballots from Maricopa County, Ariz., that's underway is "performance art" or "a clown show," and definitely "a waste of taxpayer money."

But it's not an audit.

"It's an audit in name only," says Masterson, a former Department of Homeland Security official who helped lead the federal government's election security preparations leading up to November's election. "It's a threat to the overall confidence of democracy, all in pursuit of continuing a narrative that we know to be a lie."

By lie, he means the assertion from former President Donald Trump and some of his allies that election fraud cost him a second term in the White House.

And, Masterson says, the strategy chosen by the Arizona's Republican state Senate leaders is working as intended to undermine confidence in the outcome of last year's vote.

The process is a simple exercise in how disinformation spreads and takes hold in 2021. And experts fear it presents a blueprint for other states and lawmakers to follow, one that is already showing signs of being emulated across the country.

"Now we have a playbook out there," said Masterson, who is currently a policy fellow with the Stanford Internet Observatory, "where if you don't like the results — by the way in an election that wasn't particularly close ... you just claim you didn't lose and in fact the process itself was rigged against you."

(continue reading)

A few quick words to get us up to speed: The 2020 Maricopa County (AZ) election results have already been audited multiple times. Every one of these audits were instigated by the Arizona GOP, and every time the results came back squeaky clean. No irregularities. No

Each of the previous audits were done by-the-book by respected firms, so obviously they couldn’t do that again. For the current ongoing Republican attempt to delegitimize the American system, they hired a firm with no expertise in the field led by a “stop the steal” conspiracy theorist. An on-air host from the ultra-right wing media outlet One America News not only fundraised for the latest “audit”, but organized trips for out-of-state legislators to give this exercise in fraud a veneer of respectability that it absolutely didn’t earn. 

Meanwhile, the “process”, such as it is, seems designed with the specific intent of cooking the books. One of the on-the-floor observers shared her horror story with the Washington Post.

I was stunned to see spinning conveyor wheels, whizzing hundreds of ballots past “counters,” who struggled to mark, on a tally sheet, each voter’s selection for the presidential and Senate races. They had only a few seconds to record what they saw. Occasionally, I saw a counter look up, realize they missed a ballot and then grab the wheel to stop it. This process sets them up to make so many mistakes, I kept thinking. Humans are terrible at tedious, repetitive tasks; we’re especially bad at counting. That’s why, in all the other audits I’ve seen, bipartisan teams follow a tallying method that allows for careful review and inspection of each ballot, followed by a verification process. I’d never seen an audit use contraptions to speed things up.

Speed doesn’t necessarily pose a problem if the audit has a process for catching and correcting mistakes. But it didn’t. Each table had three volunteers tallying the ballots, and their tally sheets were considered “done” as long as two of the three tallies matched, and the third was off by no more than two ballots. The volunteers recounted only if their tally sheets had three or more errors — a threshold they stuck to, no matter how many ballots a stack contained, whether 50 or 100. This allowed for a shocking amount of error. Some table managers told the counters to recount when there were too many errors; other table managers just instructed the counters to fix their “math mistakes.” At no point did anyone track how many ballots they were processing at their station, to ensure that none got added or lost during handling.

(full article here)

It’s almost like manufacturing errors is the point of this fiasco, delegitimizing and destabilizing the American system. It’s almost like the Republican party was presented with a stark choice by the very crazy, very violent people who make up the most motivated part of its base: Either your career goes or the electoral process does. Pick one. And united as a body, in lock step all the way down the line, the Republican Party chose the path of personal power and international humiliation over dignity, morality, and democracy. Welcome to the New Cult Of The Lost Cause, just as stupid, hate-filled and built on lies as the old one. 

And for those who are brain-broken enough to genuinely believe there’s still a legal route to reinstall Donald Trump, a man whose name will forever be marked as the sorest loser in the history of American politics, Lawrence Norden, director of the Election Reform Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, has an answer for them (via ABC News), one that sadly they’ve willfully ignored over and over again, and will continue to do so.

"We already had the court battles. And in the case of the presidential election, when the totals are certified in Congress it is over. And there is no constitutional route to reverse that."

To which I add: 

It’s over. For the love of God, grow up and move the fuck on.

[longitudinalwaveme]

Worst Flash Storylines and Plot Ideas of All Time

As you’ve probably ascertained from the general contents of this blog, the Flash is my favorite comic book series. I love the characters and most of the stories. However, just like any series that’s been around for eighty years (counting the Jay Garrick stuff), the Flash does, unfortunately, have some truly terrible stories and plot ideas. 

In terms of terrible plot ideas that didn’t completely ruin the surrounding stories: 

1. Barry Allen uses the Mirror Master’s mirrors to manipulate Iris into agreeing to start dating him again (Flash #109). Creepy, Barry. Just creepy. The story is great Silver Age fun otherwise. 

2. Iris West: meanest woman alive. Iris was, by and large, incredibly awful to Barry up until maybe about a year before their 1966 marriage. Almost every time she shows up in an early Silver Age issue, you will admire her daring and independence (this is good) and be bewildered as to why on Earth Barry would want to spend time with a woman who is constantly calling him slow, lazy, and ambition-less (this is not good). It doesn’t really affect any one issue too much, but when read in a conglomerate, she starts looking really awful. Although as bad as Early Silver Age Iris seems as a romantic interest, she’s got nothing on Silver Age Superman and Lois Lane, the most dysfunctional couple in the DCU. 

3. Wally West’s zero-effort code name and costume (Flash #110). It really could not be more obvious how little effort the writers were putting into creating this character. The duplicate origin is also pretty cheesy, but there are enough differences from Barry’s origin for it not to frustrate me. But the name “Kid Flash” and the fact that his first costume was literally identical to Barry’s just feel incredibly lazy. Barry and Wally do have an adorable dynamic in the issue, though, so it’s by no means all bad. 

4. Barry Allen waiting an entire year after his marriage to tell his wife that he’s really the Flash. Frustrating and unnecessary; especially since Joan Garrick had been in on her husband’s secret since the 1940s. 

5. Iris Allen is FROM THE FUTURE. I both love and hate this idea. It’s so perfectly comic-booky, but at the same time, it opened the floodgates for the Allen family being a confusing, time-displaced mess. 

6. The Trial of Barry Allen. This one’s weird. I like many of the individual issues in this arc, and I actually think the last two issues are really great as an ending for Barry Allen’s original run, but this storyline dragged on for waaaaaay too long. There’s a reason I call it the Arc that Never Ends. Also, the titular trial is actually the least interesting part of the entire storyline. His battles with the Rogues and Kadabra are far more interesting. 

7. Wally West’s borderline creepy, chauvinistic attitude towards women under Mike Baron (and, to a much lesser extent, William Messner-Loebs). There’s being a hormonal twenty-something, and then there’s going through girlfriends at the rate other people change their socks. Messner-Loebs mostly avoided this issue by making it clear that Wally was under intense psychological stress that was negatively impacting his behavior, but under Baron and in some of his JLE appearances, he comes across as a real creep around women. 

8. Kadabra overkill under Mark Waid: I like Kadabra, but when he’s the main villain in like four distinct arcs, it gets to be a bit much. It’s like modern Eobard. He is legitimately written well, though, so he doesn’t drag down any of the stories too much. 

9. Pointlessly Dead Rogues: Killing off the Rogues in Underworld Unleashed for no good reason (the rest of the story is great, especially the Trickster). 

10. Pointlessly Dead Rogues 2: Electric Boogaloo: The Golden Glider’s pointless death to build up a character who was himself killed two issues later. (The rest of the story is decent.) Also, the treatment of Lisa in general post-Crisis is frustrating, since she becomes considerably more unhinged than she was before. 

11. Any time Waid tried to write McCulloch, with the exception of Flash vol. 2 #105 (and even there, he seemed off). It’s like he forgot Evan wasn’t Sam. 

12. Apparently, the Top trying to blow up both Central City and half the world makes him a loser? Also, he suddenly hates Piper for no readily apparent reason. (At least the story had some good Piper and Wally bits.) 

13. BARRY ALLEN HAS A SECRET EVIL TWIN! DUN DUN DUN! (The rest of the story, where we get to meet a whole whack of interesting future Flashes, is actually pretty good, but whoo boy, the Malcolm reveal feels like it came straight out of a soap opera.) 

14. In order for Captain Cold to ANGST, the Golden Glider’s pointless death remained in place for over ten years. It did give us a really, really good Capt. Cold story, at least...but it’s still fridging. 

15. Rainbow Raider’s mean-spirited murder by Blacksmith. Poor Roy. 

16. Albert Desmond becomes Hannibal Lecter, only twenty times as rude, for a Gotham Central arc that would’ve been terrific without him as the main villain. 

17. Owen Mercer is an idiotic child murderer and gets killed by the Rogues. Why was this necessary? (The rest of Blackest Night: The Flash is pretty good.) 

18. Josh Jackam-Mardon’s murder. The murder of small children for shock value is pretty gross. Especially since nothing was ever really done with it. 

19. Barry’s PARENTS ARE DEEEEAAAAD! (Okay, it’s really just his mom, but still. This is a very frustrating retcon, since originally his parents were alive and well until after his own death.) 

20. Albert Desmond was Barry’s jerk coworker; which never impacted the plot or led to anything. As a result, it’s just another frustrating retcon. 

21. Sam Scudder murdered someone before becoming the Mirror Master. Yet another Johns retcon that never went anywhere and only serves to darken the Silver and Bronze Age stories after the fact. 

22. Flashpoint (a decent story) wiped out a whole bunch of characters I really liked from existence for several years. Evan McCulloch’s still not back. 

23. Giving the Rogues metahuman powers doesn’t suit them, on the whole. They work better without them. 

24. Roy’s second pointless, brutal death in (I think) Forever Evil. 

25. IT WAS MEEEEE, BARRY! After serving as the main villain for like six arcs in eight years, I’m glad that Eobard finally seems to be getting a rest. The level of bad things he was responsible for was getting ridiculous. 

26. Sam/Lisa. WHY? (The only time it even kind of worked was in Forever Evil.) 

In terms of entire storylines I didn’t like: 

1. The Flash: The Most Terribly Written Man Alive. Poor Bart is aged up with no adequate explanation, loses all the traits that made him a likeable character, fights some awful villains, and then is murdered by the badly OOC Rogues. Meanwhile, Inertia goes from an at least somewhat sympathetic villain to a complete psychopath with little explanation, a murder is retconned into one of Captain Cold’s reformed periods, the Pied Piper and the Trickster completely forget that they’re supposed to be reformed, Abra Kadabra inexplicably teams up with the Rogues despite generally being a solo operative, and all of the Rogues act like total morons, willingly following a teenage speedster for no adequately explained reason. UGH. 

2. Countdown to Infinite Crisis: Even though Piper and Trickster were probably the best part of Countdown, that isn’t saying much. Both of them are uncharacteristically stupid (especially James), and James is a grade-A jerk to Piper for no reason. Also, both of them continue to forget that they reformed, and then James gets brutally murdered and Piper almost loses his mind. Also, the other Rogues cameo, and continue to act like idiots. Countdown: it really does ruin everything it touches. 

Superboy Prime will kill you! He’ll kill you to DEATH! And after you read Countdown, you’ll wish he had killed you to death. 

3. The Identity Crisis Tie-In Retcon: So, you know all that awesome character development the Rogues have had over the years? Well, forget all that, because it was all just Roscoe brainwashing them! Which was something he could definitely do before this story! And why did he do this? Why, because Barry Allen, one of the most upstanding men in the DCU, brainwashed him! Also, apparently, the Top had a huge bodycount that we never heard about back in the Bronze Age, because we need even MORE grimdark retcons for our cheerful Silver/Bronze Age history! I like Geoff Johns’ work, I really do....but BOY HOWDY does he need to lay off on the retcons sometimes. 

4. Identity Crisis: With the exception of Owen’s introduction and the establishment of the relationship between him and Digger, this story was pretty awful all around. More specifically, as far as the Flash was concerned, it was responsible for Digger’s second pointless death. It also killed off poor Jack Drake and poor, mistreated Sue Dibney, who deserved MUCH better. And the Justice League, including Barry, are A-OK with brainwashing, apparently. Comics are fun! 

These last two stories are pretty recent, and they did have some parts I liked, but on the whole I felt they also belonged on the list. 

5. The Trickster finally returns! Hurrah! Except it turns out that he’s way more like the Joker now than he ever was before, and he mind-controls the city in a super-creepy way. A very disappointing return for the character, especially since it was set up really well. 

6. Forever Evil: Captain Cold becomes a murderous dictator with a stupid Santa Beard, all of the Rogues get horrible costumes, and Sam completes his mutation into Evan-in-all-but-name. There are some good characters bits in the story (even for Cold), but on the whole, I found the story to just be unlikeable and depressing and thought Cold was pretty out-of-character. Poor Commander Cold....

So, what are your least favorite Flash storylines and plot ideas? 

[ofbloodandbullets]

So it’s recently come to my attention that not everyone in the world has actually watched The Old Guard (WHO KNEW?!) so I’m going to try and do some info dumps about the world, the general canon and Andy’s history, personality, powers etc.  This will ... probably get kinda lengthy. 

Also: MAJOR MAJOR SPOILERS FOR COMICS & MOVIE.

The first thing you need to know is that for the main part, the history and the world that TOG takes place in is the exact same one as the real history of the world.  It’s set in modern day, though the plot points stretch back to 7k+ years ago.  It’s also important to note that there is a lot of historical inaccuracies and some things in canon that conflict themselves so it’s best to just take it all with a grain of salt and just go with what works best for your particular preferences etc. 

The main difference between reality and TOG is that in TOG there are a very minute like .00000000002% of the population that are immortals.  Now, it’s important to note that these people can die but they resurrect pretty close to immediately after they die no matter the amount of damage done.  Now it can take some time to fully heal or reform, depending on how extensive the trauma (being blown to bits or burned etc. will take longer to fix but there’s no amount of damage that we know of that can actually keep them dead).  

There are times when, for reasons unknown to the characters in character (or to us as readers  of the comics / viewers of the movie etc) that the immortality just stops.  There’ll just be a time that they suffer injuries that just don’t heal, and they die.  There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to this, be it age, number of times they’ve died, whatever.  Now, I have my own entirely headcanon and personal preference based theory which you can find HERE but it’s totally just a random idea that I had that I liked to explain the loss of Andy’s immortality in the movie (that doesn’t happen in the comics) and lets me say that she regains her immortality post canon so that I can nudge things back in the direction of the comics for post movie plots and so on.

Andy is, as far as we know, and as far as she knows, the oldest (human) immortal, coming in at around 7,000 years old.  She was born into a tribe, the Scythia (hence what she’s generally called: Andromache the Scythian).  A nomadic warrior tribe that I headcanon to be a matriarchy, Andy was betrayed by the ‘queen mother’ when she was sixteen and killed in battle because the leader feared that Andy posed a danger to her continuing rule.  This person was practically a mother to Andy and it was a horrific betrayal.  What was almost as shocking to Andy was the fact that she got back up again after being literally stabbed in the back and killed.

In the vein of trying to thwart prophecies making them happen, Andy killed the matriarch and took her placce ruling the tribe, eventually becoming a God King to her people and ruling over them for hundreds of years until her loneliness absolutely overwhelmed her and one day she just vanished.

At some point after this, she began to dream of a woman, feeling a pull towards this stranger that she couldn’t begin to explain.  After dozens, maybe hundreds of years, she managed to track down the woman in question (Noriko in the comics, Quynh in the movie) and realized that they’d been dreaming of each other.  (In the comics she meets Lykon before Quynh/Noriko, whom she had also been dreaming of).  

Now, the connection between these immortals isn’t explained in canon, and for a long time, Andy, Lykon, Noriko (and eventually Joe, Nicky, Book) thought they were the only ones but there is a scene in the second set of comics that implies that there are other ‘packs’ of immortals.  I headcanon that it’s a ‘like calls to like’ / kind of Sense8 simpatico type thing - like minded souls drawn to each other, which is why Andy and the others didn’t know about the other immortals, but again, that’s just entirely my thoughts on the matter. 

Lykon is the first to succumb to the loss of immortality, a short couple hundreds years after he and Andy find each other.   He dies on a battlefield, one that he and Quynh/Noriko and Andy fought on like a hundred/thousand before, champions for the abused etc.  Skip forward a couple hundred years again and enter Joe & Nicky, a Knight and a Muslim warrior who kill each other on the battlefield only to both wake up and spend (an unspecified amount of time) hunting and killing each other before eventually Andy & Quynh/Noriko find them.  In time, Joe & Nicky realize that they love each other.   (Important to note that Quynh/Noriko and Andy were also lovers).  In the movie, when the first major surge of witch hunts began, Quynh/Noriko and Andy go to help the women that stood accused, only to be captured and accused of witchcraft themselves.  After being hung, drowned, burned at the stake and coming back to life every time, the witch hunters settled on locking Quynh into an iron coffin and dropping her into the ocean.  (In the comics, Noriko is lost at sea during a massive storm that had thrown their ship entirely off course with Andy having no clue where they actually were at the time.) 

Joe & Nicky arrive in time to rescue Andy, but Noriko is already gone and despite spending decades tracking down every person even remotely involved in the so called ‘investigation’ into the women’s inquisition and punishment, Andy wasn’t able to find anything about where Quynh could be. 

Cue angst & depression & guilt for ages after.

The trio still steps in over the following decades, trying to help prevent the worst of atrocities, but Andy quickly begins to spiral into an, at best apathetic, at worst, entirely distant and withdrawn mindset and steadily begins to lose hope that they’re actually making any difference at all.

Skip ahead a century or two and enter Book; a Russian conscript who had been forced into the fight after being convicted of forgery.  Hung for desertion, Book spend days dying over and over again as he hung there, unable to attempt an escape until the troops finally packed up and moved on.   He and Andy, Nicky and Joe meet up and Book kinda reluctantly joins their little group.  It’s revealed that Book dreams, still, of Noriko/Quynh and while he can’t tell where hse is, dreams of her still dying, drowning on the floor of the ocean over and over and over like she had been for the last hundred or two years.  

Book returns at some point to his mortal family which ended in disaster when his last remaining son was dying of cancer, cursing and screaming at Book for ‘choosing not to save him’ by making him immortal too, even though it’s something Book had no ability to transfer or make happen.  Between his nightmares, losing his son and a number of other factors, Book decides he wants to end it all but no matter what he tries, doesn’t die and stay dead.

Eventually he’s approached by a pharmaceutical company that has figured out what he is and wants to run tests on him to see if they can unlock his healing / immortality for other people.  Merrick’s company works in league with an ex CIA agent whose wife died of a horrific terminal disease who hopes that they can find a way to keep anyone else from dying if they don’t have to.    Initially it was just supposed to be him, but he’d set up a display to stream for proof of what he was / they were and the corp decided they wanted all of the immortals.   Book ends up betraying the team, and he and the others end up locked up and tested on / killed / experimented on etc.  

There’s another character introduced in the meantime, the first new immortals in centuries, an American soldier named Niles.  There’s a lot more that goes on here, but the main point is that in the movie, Andy stops healing from her wounds shortly after she tracks down Nile and is put into incredible amounts of danger when Merrick (the leader of the pharmaceutical company) captures Andy, Joe, Book, Nicky.  Book is devastated, Nicky and Joe are furious, Andy’s just tired.

Eventually, Andy and the others break free with Niles’ help, destroy the lab they were originally held in etc and set out to try and hunt down any other proof, lab results, anything that Merrick got his hands on during the tests.

The group meets and settles on a hundred year exile for Booker (which I think is one of the stupidest things - like, the man’s clearly desperate and depressed and lonely and mentally unstable so by all means let’s isolate him for a fully century) and at the end of the movie we see him stumbling home to his apartment six months later to find Quynh standing in his apartment, pouring and drinking a glass of water which is a whole power move considering how many millions of times she died by drowning.

In the comics, Quynh/Noriko was driven entirely mad and to the point of wanting vengeance against Andy for abandoning her and spends a while gaslighting Andy and torturing her physically and emotionally and what not until she manages to isolate Andy from the other immortals and scoops in to ‘rescue’ Andy.  IDK what they’re going to adapt this to in the second movie, 

Again, via the link posted above, my Andy slowly begins to regain her immortality (again, IDK what they’re going to do with the next movie).  

Uhhhh yeah.  So I .. think that’s the majority of what you need to know for canon info about Andy.  THIS is also an important PSA regarding my Andy’s history & her longest lasting relationship that has nothing to do with canon at all but that is part of Andy’s bg in every verse, even if it never comes into play.

[tanoraqui]

okay I have to do this today because even I wouldn’t do it after the godforsaken finale airs, and it’s basically my specialty and I did spend like an hour thinking about it last night while washing dishes. Definitely partly inspired by @words-writ-in-starlight​‘s insightful post on everything Supernatural did wrong, and apologies in advance to all the characters for dragging them into anything related to Christian mythology:

Wei Wuxian’s parents die in a house fire when he’s 6(? I refuse to look anything up) months old

Jiangs are a hunter family I guess? That whole disaster of a family dynamic, except WWX dips out at some point to be idk an environmental activist bc at the time, that seems like the larger threat to the whole world. “Mom and Dad went on a hunting trip and they haven’t come back”, “bitch” “jerk”, 2 brothers in a beat-up old car, you know the drill

Jins are also an old hunting family, but more Men of Letters energy - they have a fancy bunker and do research and avoid getting their actual hands dirty. Jiang Yanli ducked out of the active hunting life a few years ago to be happily married to her peacock and settled down with a baby and she’s fine. We’re not going to bother Yanli. She’s safe and happy and doesn’t need to involved in any of this

so, WWX is the demon blood child developing exciting new abilities like telekinesis, mind control, exorcising demons by sheer force of will...etc, and Jiang Cheng is the Righteous Man. Lucifer, Michael, etc.

s1-3 probably proceeds more or less as spn canon...which I more or less remember...by the time they find their parents at the end of s1, Jiang Fengmian is...ugh, we probably shouldn’t kill him offscreen, I mean, we should probably meet him before he dies. I guess. Madam Yu lasts longer because I’m way more interested in her. But we do know that both Jiang parents are totally inclined to fling the boys into a metaphorical or literal escape boat and go hold the line for as long as possible, so...that’s spn energy...

Xue Yang is the one who’s like “fuck yeah, demon powers” and opens the gates of Hell, because I want him to have nice* things

*nice for Xue Yang

from characterization rather than memory, I’m 90% sure that Dean tried to hide his crossroads deal from Sam, but Jiang Cheng does it...better. I think it does come out, though. Right before the hellhounds do.

here’s where it starts to go farther off from spn canon. Jiang Cheng crawls his way out of the grave, gets stalked by a menacing presence that explodes windows for an episode, incidentally can’t find WWX...*Lan Wangji voice* “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition” (a baller line then and a baller line now)...and then the next episode starts with them all awkwardly standing around, and JC is like, “ok well let’s go find my brother then”, and you think there’s going to be an mdzs-riffing JC+LWJ Roadtrip To Find WWX...and they’re immediately attacked by like a dozen demons

in fact, the first time we see WWX in s4 is here, wherein he goes toe to toe with an angel and...holds his own. that’s new and terrifying! also is leading a squad of demons??

because here’s the thing: for the last 3(?) months, there’s been war in hell

because unlike Some People Mooses, upon finding out that his brother’s soul was legally nearly-owned by a crossroads demon, heir-apparent-to-Satan!WWX went, “actually fuck that” and kicked open the door of Hell (metaphorically, not loosing any demons this time) and was like, “who do I have to beat the shit out of to get a specific crossroads contract around here”

this did not work, obv. He didn’t know until it was too late, Lilith had already snapped up the contract, etc. etc.

obviously he also tried to offer himself instead, and got rejected for some reason

Since Jiang Cheng died, however, there’s been a war for control of Hell. Leading one side, Lilith, the Original Babe, who wants to break all 666(?) seals keeping Lucifer bound and in the meantime, break the Righteous Man so Heaven won’t even have Michael’s destined host ready for the Final Battle. Leading the other side, Wei Wuxian, infamous upstart, who wants to rescue the Righteous Man and restore him to life, tear Lilith’s guts out through her nose, and also stop her from doing the Lucifer thing because Wen Qing explained that yes, that’s a Thing, and it’s Bad.

Wen Qing! I’ve decided to combine Bela and Ruby’s roles and let WQ be both the cool badass example of how demon deals can go Bad and the demon deliberately leading our heroes astray for most of s3-4. Wen Qing is a very new demon; she used to be some sort of herbalist/witch but then she sold her soul in a crossroads deal to cure her brother of some lingering illness. 10 years of happiness and then boom, hellhounds. WQ is so obviously competent, though, that they (Lilith, I guess?) immediately offers her a job, with the promise threat that gee, that’s a nice brother you’ve got there, even with his Designated Chronic Health Condition getting all relapse-y. It’d be such a shame if something were to...happen to him...

we find this out at some point in last s3 I guess? some Monster of the Week case involves WN as a witness or something, or possible next victim, and WQ shows up to be A Normal Amount Of Invested In This, while desperately trying to avoid actually interacting with her brother (who thinks she’s dead). YES, the truth comes out; YES there’s a tearful reunion

now in s4, Wen Ning is fine actually, health-wise, bc he maybe made a crossroads deal with Wei Wuxian personally, and Wen Qing may or may not have admitted that she’s supposed to be working for Lilith to get WWX ready to host Lucifer? Or potentially that comes out later, idk. Either way, she’s 100% his top lieutenant in this exciting Hell War they’re waging

[insert whatever the hell (ha) happened plot-wise in s4 of supernatural]

we obviously mix up the relationships, too, bc it’s like, *LWJ internal monologue* I’m too young to remember my brother Lucifer as he was before he Fell, but surely Wei Wuxian is his Heir and Destined Vessel in truth, for he is Charismatic and Charming and Makes Me Feel Things, with his Clearly Feigned Righteous Drive and Compassion for All God’s Creatures and - why does heat keep pooling in the lower abdomen of my vessel when I look at his lips, which I am definitely doing a Normal and Not-Weird Amount - I’m just keeping an eye out for the famed Silver Tongue, and not in any way wondering how it would feel in my own mouth -

it’s actually DEFINITELY plausible for Lucifer to still be released even if our designated Heir Apparent is using his demon powers to his full potential and no one’s lying to each other about their motives. You just need to let Lilith be more scary too, and especially bc by “no one” I mostly mean Wen Qing; the angels are still totally hiding the fact that they, too, want to jumpstart the shit out of this apocalypse.  LWJ decides at the last minute that that’s a bad idea actually, gets himself discorporated to send JC to intercept WWX because he accidentally releases Lucifer, etc. etc. Oh yeah, the boys were def fighting before this, bc JC has actually fairly reasonable concerns about the sort of things WWX is getting up to in his quest to become King of Hell...

SO

...I neither know nor care what happens in s5

it does end with both Lucifer and Michael locked in the cage probably, bc I rather liked that solution. Fuck both of ‘em, basically.

I was toying with the idea that WWX also found Madam Yu in whatever hellish torment she was suffering after making a deal so her idiot son(s) would survive, and she was leading forces for him in the war against Lilith as well. If she came back to life somehow, body and all, it’d probably be compelling if she offered her own body to Michael - bc it’s her lineage! - and we’re all led to believe that she’s, uh, being a bitch and actually wants to risk destroying the world in order to destroy all demons...but then she seizes back control and flings herself/Michael and Lucifer into the Pit, because she’s just That Hardcore?

which means we’d actually have had her around and having characterization for most of s4-5, too, which would be fun

More importantly, it ends with newly crowned King of Hell Wei Wuxian appointing Wen Qing as Queen-Regent and ditching to go on an indefinite honeymoon with his new angel boyfriend (they’re going to fuck for like three weeks straight, then roll up their sleeves and go conquer Heaven in the name of free will), and Jiang Cheng gets to live out his hitherto-unknown-to-himself life’s ambition to be the sugar baby of the Queen of Hell. It’s very Hades/Persephone, except he goes back down to the underworld at least once a month. He gets his own demon squad whom he trains up in all the hunting techniques and it’s gr9. Wen Qing is reforming the crossroads deal process to make it more fair to the humans.

the end

Addenda:

it should go without saying but Jiang Yanli is definitely a recurring character, like, at least once a season there’s a filler episode where they go to Jiang Yanli’s for dinner and have to get along as a family, and also do the much easier job of defeating some sort of terrible demon that gets loose in the bunker and turns the evening into a horror movie. She’s their main research/emotional check-in person, a la Bobby, more often appearing in later seasons when there’s, uhhh, more to emotionally check in about.

Jin Zixuan is actually a perfectly competent hunter; he’s just a priss and we don’t Like him

we like Mianmian, though. Oh, I guess the official Hunter’s Guild or w/e tries to declare WWX a public enemy on account of the whole “King of Hell” thing and she’s like “actually what if you’re morons and assholes?” and joins hte team in s4 or 5? Yeah.

idk how the 3zun disaster happens in this ‘verse but I do encourage it to be happening in slow motion as a recurring subplot for several seasons. NMJ is a hunter, LXC is obv an angel, and JGY is...I wanna say one of the more human monsters, like a vampire? Or, you know, something that could be born from JGS sleeping with someone/something he shouldn’t have

[thedinanshiral]

My personal DA4 wishlist + thoughts

I’ve been teasing this post for a couple of weeks over at Twitter, i’m the worst! But anyway, since game journalism has decided to confirm, once again, that the next Dragon Age game will be set in Tevinter like that’s breaking news, now’s as good a time as ever to write all this down.

Locations: Tevinter, clearly. It’s been pretty much a given since the end of Trespasser in 2015, with that scene where the Inquisitor stabs a map on a table directly on Tevinter as they promise to go after Solas to stop him. But also concept art and several stories from Tevinter Nights heavily imply Antiva, Nevarra, the Anderfells, and maybe Rivain. For those of you who don’t know your Thedosian Geography 101, that’s basically Northern Thedas. And it makes sense, since so far for three games straight we’ve been first stuck in Ferelden, then the coast of the Free Marches, and later the rest of Southern Thedas. We’ve never been North, only heard of it. So in DA4 i’m sure we will finally be able to visit.

Characters: If we’re going to Tevinter, we must meet Dorian again, maybe meet Maevaris Tilani as well (previously only seen in comics), judging from the latest comics series, i’m hoping for Fenris too. And going by the latest teaser trailer, we might see Varric again. As for characters that so far we have no news of, i’d like to see Cole, the Iron Bull, and if by any chance BioWare feels like blessing us with a Hawke/Fenris reunion i might just die happy.  I’d also very much like to see the Inquisitor, but more on that later.

Companions: considering concept art and the latest teaser trailer, plus Tevinter Nights stories and new characters, we have an interesting repertoire of new potential companions. A Tevinter mage, an ancient elf (like a temple guardian) or a dalish elf (like Strife), a Nevarran mortalitasi or spirit, Antivan Crows, Lords of Fortune (new faction, kind of like treasure hunters), Qunari lady, maybe an alchemist or shapeshifter, Grey Wardens (possibly a dwarf), a liberated or escaped slave, a Siccari (Tevinter spies/assassins)..even past agents of the Inquisition could return. 

Plot: We know Solas wants to take down the Veil. We know there’s two archdemons left, and Grey Wardens are regaining some spotlight in concept art lately. We might have to fight on multiple fronts simultaneously and be strategic about it. Solas might even unleash a double Blight just to keep us distracted while he focus on his own goal, who knows. But many other things are happenig in the margins and all over the place. The Qunari Antaam is having a crisis with some of its members supposedly going rogue, the order they’re so proud of is breaking up, and the whole of Northern Thedas is facing an imminent threat of invasion. Tevinter is still dealing with remnants of the Venatori and might soon be dealing with a slaves rebellion and/or a political and social reform (Magisters Dorian and Maeveris have been working wirh the Lucerni, a group aiming to restore and redeem Tevinter). The Antivan Crows -the de facto rulers of Antiva - may be dealing with a succession crisis, as their First Talon, a powerful feared and respected but old lady, might not be around for much longer and seems her chosen heir has died before his time. Meanwhile in the Anderfells nobody’s heard anything from the Grey Wardens’ HQ at Weisshaupt since the end of Inquisition, and as told in the novel Last Flight, the sudden reappearance of griffons may have had something to do with that radio silence. So you see, get ready for another +100 hours long game because BW has plenty of stuff to keep us busy with. But in short, DA4 seems will be about primarily searching, finding, and dealing with Solas. Regardless of what you decided at the Exalted Council in Trespasser, the Inquisition or what’s left of it is most likely the group orchestrating that mission. As it was so clearly stated then, they need new people Solas doesn’t know so he can’t foresee their actions, so it’s possible the DA4 protagonist is a new agent or a third party hired to do what the Inner circle can’t due to their familiarity with Solas in the past. But at the same time -and this is assuming we get to find Solas in this game - i definitely think the Inquisitor could easily show up again. No, losing an arm doens’t mean they’ve retired forever, prosthetics do exist in Thedas, a world where you can combine dwarven craftmanship with enchantments, seriously, i don’t ever want to hear “but they lost an arm” ever again as an excuse to write them out. And no, marrying Cullen or joining the Red Jennys is no impediment to join the “Stop Solas” Squad; the end of Trespasser means something, mainly that this is personal. Be it they loved them as lovers, as friends or ended up hating his guts for using and betraying them, the Inquisitor’s relationship with Solas makes this very personal, and so having any other character do that face off would cheapen all of it, all that bittersweet angsty development and expectations of either revenge or closure. That moment should happen between those two. It adds a ton of motivation due to their past historyas well, something a new protagonist would lack entirely.  My personal best hope is for a sort of dual protagonist thing, say we play new protagonist for most of the game but a selected missions or scenes where we play as the Inquisitor once again and take over for key and heart-wrenching dialogue options. My second best hope is for the Inquisitor to show up as playable for the moment we catch up with Solas. My third and final best hope is for the inquisitor to be a sort of advisor but more like new protagonist’s boss/employer to whom they report back to and get new missions from. The Inquisitor can be stuck in meetings for the most part of it, i just want to know they’re there, behind a door, super busy but there. A cameo like Hawke’s in Inquisition is the bare miminum i can take, anyhting less than that like a mention in a sidequest description or a footnote in a codex entry would be a total  injustice. 

Romances: I’m open for pretty much anything, as any good BW fan would be. But i’d like romances to feel more alive in the sense that they don’t abruptly get stuck once you exhaust all related quests and dialogue options. As much as my Adaar liked that spank from the Iron Bull, that it was the only thing they could share after their romance was locked was a bit..meh. I liked Dorian’s tho, because his gave one the option to talk a bit, go for a walk, gossip, and sure, it all happened off-screen, and there were limited possibilities, but it was nice and made their relationship feel a bit more real, like they had more to it than kissing and stuff. It happens in most games, once you secure a romanceable companion suddenly you run out of things to do and share with them, and you get stuck with the same 3 lines of dialogue over and over again. There should be a way of solving that.

Side quests: i’m ok with fetch quests initially as it is a good way of forcing the player to go out and explore huge maps, but i’d also like the fetching to have some meaning other than checking things off a list. I want to explore many ruins, and -can’t believe i’m actually saying this- i want a Fade quest. Wait! I know what you’re thinking but don’t kill me just yet, here’s my idea: what if we could visit the Fade at certain locations to witness memories or meet with spirits and recollect information on Solas, his past, his present? Both to understand him better (keep in mind we’ll most likely get a new protagonist who isn’t familiar with him like we are as players) and try to locate him or predict his next move. It would be i think i great way of having visions of Arlathan in its golden age, maybe seeing some of the other Evanuris, how they interacted with each other and with the elves in their service, what really happened ...i just want that sweet, sweet lore, i need it.

Technical stuff: ok, graphics will be amazing for sure, but i also would really really like: better, more varied and longer hairstyles, PLEASE. Body sliders, it’s damn time we get them. Mounts that actually make a difference! Let staves blades make damage in combat, I’M BEGGING HERE. Combined classes, MAGICAL ROGUES! A homebase we can fix up/build on/redecorate as fully as possible (Skyhold was great and i love it to pieces but why were those walls NEVER repaired????) . More casual outfit options, idk i love to dress up my characters, maybe some transmog? A day/night cycle and please i would love to see Thedas’ second moon, also weather variations depending on the region. Yes, i’m ambitious.

Gameplay: i’d like more AI options for companions, but not quite like in DAO, that was too much and i rarely used it. I’m curious how they’ll do combat this time but i know for sure i don’t want the kind of combat that has me going almost frame by frame pausing at every second, it’s annoying for me. I want large areas like in DAI but with a bit more stuff to see and do although one of my favourite maps is the Hissing Wastes so i won’t complain if we get a literal desert but i’d also like it to have secrets hidden around, make me work to find and solve them, i love exploring, i jump and click on EVERYTHING like i’m still a kid playing Monkey Island. A companion in concept art seems to be holding what looks like some form of rifle, so i’m curious how they’d incorporate that in the game. I know Tevinter has the magics and dwarves have the skill, a firearm is totally within the possibilities in-game without breaking any lore; also super curious what sort of skill trees Crows or Lords of Fortune could have, are they rogues, or warriors, or both??

So far, that’s what i got in my head.Well, most of it anyways, i may have missed something but this post has to end somewhere lol

What’s in your head? Feel free to share! Have you been thinking on how you’ll create your next protagonist? All i can think of is magical rogues and that  glowing bow was all the hype i needed.

[wildberryoras]

STAR PLATINUM In Battle Basics  *:・ﾟ☆

☆ Semi-corporeal ☆ Super speed ☆ Super Strength ☆ Super precision ☆ Flying ☆ Unable to be killed unless by another Stand, soul-based creatures (such as mist reapers), or Deities

    Star Platinum is a team player and though his main directive is to survive to return to his User, he is a guardian to his core. He will viciously defend those who need it. Primarily a close-range fighter, he’s perfectly capable of switching to improvised ranged attacks.

[st-just]

Barely coherent rambling about nation-states, culture, the Hapsburgs, and Canada

Because why have a blog except to occasionally purge one of the essays floating around half-formed in your brain. To be clear, it’s still half-formed, just on tumblr now. 1,666 words, here’s the Deveraux essay mentioned. Book is Martyn Rady’s The Hapsburgs: To Rule The World

So I’ve had like, nationalism on my mind recently.

And so there’s a kind of recurring beat in left-of-centre American political discourse (like, not ‘internet rnados screaming at each other’ discourse, ‘people with doctorates or think tank positions having debates on podcasts or exchanging op eds’ discourse) where you have some people on the radical end list some of the various horrible atrocities the country is built on, the ways that all the national myths are lies, and how all the saints of the civic religion were monsters to one degree or another – this can come in a flavor of either righteous anger or, like, intellectual sport. And then on the other end you have the, well, Matt Yglesiases of the world. Who don’t really argue any of the points of fact, but do kind of roll their eyes at the whole exercise and say that sure, but Mom and Apple Pie and the American Way are still popular, and if you’re trying to win power in a democracy telling the majority of the population that their most cherished beliefs are both stupid and evil isn’t a great move.

Anyway, a couple weeks back Deveraux posted an essay for the 4th of July (which I don’t totally buy, but is an interesting read) about why the reason American nationalism is so intensely bundled up into a couple pieces of paper and maybe a dozen personalities is precisely because it isn’t a nation at all. Basically, his thesis is that in proper nation-states like England or the Netherlands or wherever, there really is a core population that is the overwhelming demographic majority and really have lived in more or less the same places since time immemorial, and that once the enthographers and mythologists finish their work, all those people really do identify with both the same nation and the same state as its expression. America, by contrast, is by virtue of being a settler nation whose citizenry was filled by waves of immigrants from all the ass ends of Eurasia in a historical eyeblink, even before you add in the native population and descendants of slaves lacks any single core ethnicity that is anywhere close to a majority, as well as any organic national traditions or claims to an ‘ancestral homeland’ that aren’t obviously absurd (and we are trying to include the descendents of slaves and the native population these days, to varying levels of success). All this to say that his point is America is a civic state, not a national one, with the identity of ‘American’ being divorced from ethnicity and instead tied to things like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the whole cult around the Founding Fathers, Lincoln, and [FDR and/or Reagan depending on your politics].

Which, like I said, don’t totally buy, but interesting. (to a degree he overstates how homogenus ‘actual’ nation-states are, he makes America sound very special but if his analysis holds that it’d presumably also apply to several other former settler colonies, in the American context there’s a fairly solid case to be made that the whole ‘nation of immigrants’ story and the racial identity of whiteness were constructed to function as an erratz national ethnicity, with incredible success, etc, etc).

But anyway, if we accept that the American identity is bound up in its civic religion and the mythologized version of its political history, it’s absolutely the case that there’s several segments of the left who take incredibly joy in tearing said civic religion and national mythology apart and dragging whatever’s left through the mud. I mean, hell, I do! (reminder: any politician whose ever had a statue dedicated to them was probably a monster). And, well, call it a greater awareness of historical crimes and injustice, or the postmodern disdain for idols and systems leaking out through the increasingly college-educated populace, or the liquid acid of modernity dissolving away all unchosen identities, or a Marxist cabal undermining the national spirit to pave the way for the Revolution or whatever you like, but in whichever case, that critical discourse is certainly much more prominent and influential among left and liberal media and politics types that is was in decades past.

And, okay, so I finished Martyn Rady’s The Hapsburgs a few days ago. And I mentioned as I was reading it that the chapters on the 19th and 20th centuries reminded me quite a bit of courses I’d taken in school on the late Ottoman Empire and Soviet Union. Because all three are multi/non-national states (Empires, in Deveraux’s terminology, though that’s varying degrees of questionable for each, I think. Moreso for the Hapsburgs than the rest) who outlasted their own ideological legitimacy. And in all three cases it just, well, it didn’t not matter, but even as all the ceremonies got more absurd and farcical  and the politics more consumed by inertia punctuated with crises, things kept limping along just fine for decades. Even in the face of intense crisis, dissolution wasn’t inevitable. (The Ottomans are a less central example here, admittedly, precisely because of the late attempt to recenter the empire on Turkish nationalism. But even then, more Arab soldiers fought for the Sultan-Caliph than ever did for the Hashemites, and most prewar Arab nationalism was either purely cultural or imagined the Empire reformed into a binational federation, not dissolved).

But as Rady says in the book – losing WW1 crippled Germany, it dissolved Austria-Hungary. And in all three cases, as soon as they were gone, the idea of bringing them back instantly became at least a bit absurd.

And okay, to now pivot to talking about where I actually live but about whose politics I (shamefully) know significantly less than America’s. I mean, maybe it’s because most of my history education from public school was given by either pinko commies or liberals still high off ‘90s one-world universalism, or maybe it’s just a matter of social class, but I really can’t remember ever having taken the whole wannabe civic religion of Canada seriously (the only even serious attempt at sacredness I recall was for Remembrance Day). Even today, the main things I remember about our Founding Father is that he was an alcoholic who lost power in a railroad corruption scandal.

Really, in all my experience the only unifying threads of national/particular Canadian identity are a flag, a healthcare system, those Canadian Heritage Minute propaganda ads, a bill of rights from the ‘60s, and an overpowering sense of polite smugness towards the States.

And that last one (or, at least, the generally rose-colored ‘Canada is the good one’ view of history) is taking something of a beating, on account of all the mass graves really rubbing the public’s noses in the whole genocide thing. At least among big segments of the intellectual and activist classes, most of the symbols of Canadian nationhood are necessarily becoming illegitimate as Canada is, in fact, a project of genocidal settle colonialism.

But it really is just purely symbolic. Most of the municipalities who cancelled their Canada Day celebrations are going to elect Liberal MPs and help give our Natural Governing Party its majority in the next election, no one of any significance has actually challenged the authority of the civil service or the courts. And, frankly, most of the people who are loudly skeptical of all the symbols of the nations are also the ones whose political projects most heavily rely on an efficient and powerful state bureaucracy to carry out.

(This is leaving aside Quebec, which very much does have a live national identity insofar as the vigorous protection of national symbols is what wins provincial elections. If I felt like doing research and/or reaching more there’s probably something there on how pro-independence sentiment has largely simmered down at a pace with the decline of attempts to impose a national Canadian identity).

I mean, Canada does have rather more of a base for a ‘national’ population core than the US (especially if you’re generous and count the people who mark French on the census as a core population as well). At the same time, no one really expects this to continue to be the case – even back in Junior High, I remember one of the hand outs we got explaining that due to declining fertility most or all future population growth would come from immigration (I remember being confused when my mother was weirdly uncomfortable with the idea when it came up). I suppose our government gets credit for managing public opinion such that anti-immigration backlash hasn’t taken over the political conversation. Which you’d think would be a low bar but, well.

But anyway, to try and begin wrapping this rambling mess up – it does rather feel like Rady’s portrayal of the late Hapsburg empire might have a few passing similarities to the future of Canada. A multinational state whose constitution and political system and built on foundations and legitimized by history that no one actually believes in anymore, or at least no more than they have to pretend to to justify the positions they hold, but persisting because it’s convenient and it’s there and any alternatives are really only going to seem practical after a complete economic collapse or apocalyptic war. (Though our civil service is a Josephist’s dream by comparison, really.)

Or maybe I’m premature, and the dominant culture will just be incredibly effective at assimilating immigrants into that civic identity. Anecdotally, the only people I know who are at all enthusiastic about Canada as an idea are first generation immigrants. I could certainly just be projecting, really – I’ve never really been able to get all that invested in the nation-state as an idea of more moral power than ‘a convenient administrative division of humanity’, and certainly liberating ourselves form the need to defend the past would certainly rectifying certain injustices easier.  

Or maybe I’m just being incredibly optimistic. Half the economy’s resource extraction and the other half’s real estate, so decent odds the entire place just literally goes up in flames over the next few decades. BC’s already well on its way.

[pl-panda]

Damienette aranged marriage: part 3

Whoa... Two parts in one day. Sorry if this one is worse, but yet again I wrote this instead of sleeping. 

Warning: there will be some cursing from Jason, but can you really blame him? Credits: Miraculous Ladybug team for the elements I take from MLB show. DC for their characters, @ozmav for the AU, @maribat-archive for giving me access to so many different stories to have take inspirations from, @thyladyanput for idea for Chat Damian and me for the plot.

Part 1

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Damienette arranged marriage: Part 3

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“And why would you tell her everything?!” Jason screamed, still hidden behind Batman’s towering posture.

“Because she is my wife Todd!” Damian screamed. The silence in the room was thick enough that if the assassin swinged his sword, he would be able to cut it in half. Finally, Bruce was the one to break it.

“Fuck.”

This worked like detonating a bomb. Immediately, Red Hood, Red Robin and Nightwing pushed their way into the room and surrounded the two teens. 

“You were gone for less than forty-eight hours!” Dick

“How did you manage to get married!” Drake

“You are just fifteen demon spawn!” Todd

“And who is she!?” Drake again.

Talia watched this whole ordeal with no small amount of amusement. That is until Bruce suddenly appeared next to her. His frown was downright scary even for her. “Explain. Now!” The growl was low and emotionless, but it was enough to yet again put the room in dead silence.

“Beloved. It is good to see you too.” Talia smiled seductively.

“I am not in the mood. Now talk!”

“Fine.” She dropped all illusion of niceness. “I made peace with old enemy of the League. Or even a shaky alliance. But to seal the treaty, an assurance was required.”

“And that assurance was?” Jason asked confused, earning a facepalm from Dick.

“The Royal Marriage. An heir of the League and future leader of the Order.”

“And that leader would be… her?” Batman asked, not fully convinced.

Marinette was standing there the whole time, greatly uncomfortable with the attention Bat Family was giving her and Damian. She did read a bit on them, but it was always Alya who never shut up about heroes. For the most part, she preferred talk about Ladybug, but lately there was slowly forming a rift. The aspiring reporter was falling into Lila’s lies, posting unreliable videos on Ladyblog. Rossi had it for Ladybug and Alya, together with the rest of Marinette’s class, was falling for her machinations. They still hanged out with Marinette, but there was this distaste forming around her. She was no longer their to-go person with personal problems, being replaced by Lila who was awful at helping others unless it benefited her. But now Marinette had more pressing matter than a pity little liar. She looked at Batman, then at the bat-kids and finally at Damian. They were all looking at her expectantly.

“Oh right! Sorry. I did it again…” She gave them a sheepish smile. “I am Ladybug, hero of Paris and Great Guardian of the Miraculous.” She stated. Most of the heroes (bar Damian who knew a tidy bit about the Order of the Guardians) were confused.

“Paris doesn’t have heroes. There aren’t even any supervillains there.”

“Excuse me?! How does nobody knows what is going on in Paris!” Ladybug shouted. “Ugh! Seriously?!”

Batman narrowed his eyes. “Forgive me, Ladybug, but the Justice League would know if there was a threat in Paris. So who are you really.”

“Then ask Green Lantern. He was the one who laughed at my plea for help.” She scowled, but then her demeanor changed. She calmed down and gave a sheepish smile. “But guess I should thank him. I can only dread what would happen if Superman was akumatized. Or Flash. Or anyone really. I don’t think I could win.”

Batman frowned. He would have a talk with Hal once he dealt with this. If there was really a threat like that, ignoring it was not only stupid, but dangerous. And the girl was at best Damian’s age. She was dealing with this for how long? The way she spoke suggested that she was in charge. A child fighting in a war all alone. 

“For now beloved, it should be enough for you that the two of them are legally married.”

“Like hell!” Jason shouted at her, waving his gun. “They are fifteen. No court would accept this.”

“Actually,” Tim started, “under some laws they can be married. For example ‘The Personal Status Law of Muslims’ in Sudan sets the minimum age at ten.” He spoke like he was reading an encyclopedia.

“But we are somewhere between Nepal and China. I don’t think there are such laws here.” Dick said, but his confidence wavered.”

“Tt. First of why don’t anyone ask me or Marinette about our opinion?” Damian asked irritated.

“Shut up Demon Spawn. Adults are working here”

“If you don’t shut up, Todd, I will make you eat your dirty socks until you choke on the stench.” The young boy threatened. Marinette cringed at this, not really wanting to imaging such situation. 

“The marriage stays.” Talia stated coldly. “Otherwise, I will not be able to stop League from going to war against Order of the Guardians.”

“You are their leader.” Batman pointed out.

“That may be correct, beloved, but I am but a regent. Only after Damian finally assumes the leadership, his word will be law. I do try to reform the league, but there is little I can do in this situation.”

“Bullshit!” Jason cursed. “You are just manipulative bitch.”

“Jason!” Dick hit the back of Red Hood’s helmet, causing him to almost tumble. “Language. There are minors in the room.”

“Don’t worry Mousier.” Marinette noted that the whole debate shifted to English. She learned it years ago when she first got interested in fashion. Some of the greatest fashion critiques wrote only in English and she didn’t want to be left behind. And other foreign critiques and designers were always translated into English. “After today, cursing is the least of my worries.” During the talk, Marinette pulled her yo-yo to check the situation in Paris. The good news were that there was no Akuma attack since her confrontation with Hawkmoth. Bad news: she was gone for over forty hours already.

“What exactly is the deal?” Bruce sighted. He loved his boys, but he could practically feel his hair graying. At least the girls didn’t go around marrying total strangers. “I want the full story Talia. Don’t even try to deceive us.”

“As you wish Beloved.” She smiled and sat back at her chair. Jason was about to hop onto where Marinette sat, but Damian ‘accidentally’ tripped him. Ladybug detransformed and Tikki flew out. 

“What is this flying mouse?!” Dick screeched upon seeing a kwami.

“My name is Tikki. I am kwami, or if you prefer a small god, of creation and luck.” 

“Okay… I’ve totally seen weirder.” Jason shrugged and Tim was too busy trying to plug in his pocket kettle to make himself some coffee.

“Ekhm.” Bruce faux-coughted to get their attention. “Begin Talia.”

“Many centuries ago, magic jewels bestowing extraordinary powers were created. These were... the Miraculous. Throughout history, heroes have used these jewels for the good of the human race. Order of The Guardians was responsible for protecting and distributing the Miraculous for the good of all humanity. Some time in the past, League has learned about the existence of this artifacts, more powerful than even Lazarus Pit. A secret war began between two organizations. There was a constant stalemate until the Order was mysteriously destroyed without a trace. We believed all miraculous to be lost until two years ago heroes and villains using them appeared in Paris. Initially, we ignored them, long since abandoning this war. But then, some month ago a temple of the Guardians suddenly reappeared with the Order in chaos. The League attacked, but they were strong enough to withstand the initial strike and turn it into a siege. In time, we would have succeeded and wiped them once and for all. But instead, the Guardians understood their situation and reached to us with agreement. A truce and alliance, in exchange for sparing them.”

“Yeah right! Only an idiot would take such offer!” Red Hood kept arguing with the Assassin woman.

“Or a strategist. Either way, the League wins. They no longer need to worry about threat, but this way they also get an ally.” Batman remained expressionless, but he kept sending Damian and Marinette side-glares. He wanted to know how they are coping with this. The girl was a bit shaken, but that was to be expected. He would talk more with her later. What surprised him was that Damian seemed to show concern for her. The kind he usually reserved only for his brothers and father. 

“Yes. While our methods differ, the League and the Order have a common goal: prosperity for all humanity. But to ensure that neither side would go against the other, there needed to be a more tangible symbol of this union.”

“Marriage of the heirs. In the past such method was often used to symbolize an alliance. It symbolized equality of both partners and parties they represented.” Tim acted as an universal encyclopedia again, which Jason did exploit to tease him mercilessly while the others focused on the discussion.

“And let me guess” Dick frowned. “If they break the deal, it means war?”

“Yes.” Damian simply nodded. The memory of his mother’s threat hanging over the girl’s live was still fresh. Now that he got to know her better Damian was surprised that someone so brave and strong could at the same time be such emotionally unstable or open. It was almost refreshing. His family was awful with emotions and beyond that women only saw his last name. Many times he dealt with liars who tried to use him to get into the pockets of his father. But with Marinette he was sure that she was genuine with her feelings. He could not find any reason for her not to be at the moment, especially after she revealed her secret to him. 

“So what? We are just supposed to roll with it? What will press think? You will give Alfred a heart attack Damian.” Dick rambled. Youngest Wayne decided to ignore him and turn to his father. 

“While this might be a bit inconvenient, I believe it is the best course of action for now.” Damian spoke with cold and calculative voice.

“And what about you?” Batman turned to the girl, who for the most part lately was busy discussing something with the kwami in French. Bruce was proficient, but he was too focused on Talia and Damian.

“I… I accepted that my duty as Great Guardian comes with certain responsibilities. If this is what it takes to preserve peace, then I guess… I guess I will roll with it.” She smiled at Dick, almost daringly. Damian smiled too. Anyone who teased his brothers like that earned some points in his book. “But I can’t just leave Paris. For now it’s peaceful, but I don’t know how long it will last. And there are my parents… Oh Kwami! What will I tell my parents! Or my friends! Or my class! What if they reject me for this and I will be kicked from home, then I will not become a professional designer and I will never fulfill my dream and I will be forever lonely…” She unintentionally rambled in mixture of English and French while walking in circle and waving her hands. Damian grabbed her by her wrists to stop her before she accidentally knocked someone out and then cupped her hands with his. She was still talking random stuff, which made absolutely zero sense. Damn. She is cute when she is rambling. What!? He shut down the intrusive thoughts and focused on the girl… his wife.

“Calm down. Take deep breaths. You will not be alone.” He hoped it would work, but she barely slowed down. He sighted. Damian looked her deep in her bluebell eyes and she saw the two whirlpools of jade green he had. They were more prominent that Adrien’s. “Listen to my voice. All is going to be fine. We will not leave you.” This time, it did work and she calmed down. 

Rest of the Batfam watched in shock how Damian has acted. It was most unusual for him to initiate physical contact at all, much less act this gentle. They looked at Talia, but she shrugged.

“I didn’t do anything if that’s what you think.” She smirked. “But I don’t think I needed.” Two newly-wed were just standing there, starring in each other’s eyes.

“Robin!” Batman finally got him to break out of this. “We gotta go. We will figure out exactly what to do later.”

“Fine. But we are taking Marinette with us.” Damian stubbornly stated.

“Yes. She should not stay here. And I have more questions for her.”

The flight to Paris was surprisingly fast. They traveled in perfect silence, but she felt rather uncomfortable with how everyone (bar Damian) sent her a suspicious glares. Finally, they landed around 8 PM on the rooftop of local Wayne Enterprises headquarter. She walked out first, happy to finally get back onto her home turf.

“Now there are some questions that needs to be answered.” Batman spoke.

“Uhm… Okay?”

“Stop intimidating her Father.” Damian scowled. 

Bruce reluctantly nodded. “Maybe it would be the best to discuss it in private of my office.” He pressed some buttons on his glove and the bat-plane camouflage. Well, it was probably more of Bat-cargo plane since it could fit six people comfortably and still have much space free. 

They got into the office, where Bruce had a total of five armchairs set around the coffee table. Immediately, Damian and Dick took two of them, leaving the head one for Bruce and one in between the two Waynes for Marinette. Tim didn’t bother trying to fight with Jason over who gets the last place, instead opting to just jump onto computer chair at the desk and activating a holo-screen. He quickly connected to Batcomputer and started to pull various files (mostly on Marinette and her close ones, but she didn’t see it). 

“So tell me. What is our young couple planning to do now?” Dick teased them.

Jason was standing next to the alcohol bar, pouring several glasses of whiskey. Before Bruce could protest, he brought five and placed them on the table. His reaction to disapproving glare from the other adults was to just shrug. “What? They are married. I think underage drinking would be the least of the problems. Oh! That reminds me.” Jason grinned maliciously and pulled his wallet. He tossed something square and silver at Damian. “I don’t want any demon spawns junior running around soon.”

Once Marinette realized what was that and what was he implying she turned redder than Tim’s outfit. Damian scowled. “I have a sword on me Todd, so watch what you are saying. I might not have chosen her to be my bride, but I will not let you embarrass her just for your fun.”

Jason saw an opportunity and he would be damned if he didn’t take it. “Which sword are you talking about?”

Damian hissed like an angry cat and drawn his sword, lunging at his brother. Todd initially wanted to block the attack with his gun, but fine steel cut right through it. Seeing murder in Damian’s face he did the only plausible thing: started to run.

Marinette was inventing new shades of red with her blushing. Bruce gave her an apologetic look. “Please, don’t take his comments to heart. Jason is…” before batman could find a right word there was a sound of something crashing, followed by a painful yelp. In just a moment, Damian returned happy, his sword a bit bloody.

“Please tell me you didn’t kill him…” Dick begged. Marinette was not sure whether this was a joke or not, but the longer she stayed with the batfam, the less sane they appeared.

“Nah. But he didn’t look where he was running and toppled the stack of boxes and I ended up stabbing him in his left calf. He will live.” Damian assured them. And true to his words, a limping Jason appeared in the doors. He grabbed a fresh bottle of whiskey on his way to the armchair and slumped resigned. “Demon spawn!”

“Idiot!”

“Enough!” Bruce wanted to pull his hair out. “We came here to discuss a certain situation not stab each other. Marinette?”

“Yes monsieur Wayne?” She asked, still stunned with what happened. She had to admit Damian acter chiviliarus protecting her honor, even if his way was pretty violent. 

“I was trying to ask you, what do you plan on doing now?”

“I… I don’t know. This all happened so fast…”

“It’s okay. I don’t think anyone would have a plan for such situation.” Dick reassured her

“Bruce does. It’s inside the safe in the batcave in folder labeled ‘Talia never gives up’.” Tim chimed in before returning to his research. 

“Well, no one sane has such plans.” Dick tried to cheer her up. It did work even if just a bit. “But ask yourself what do you want.”

“Well… I would wish to finish my education and I always dreamed about becoming a professional fashion designer.” 

“And how is this plan working so far?” Bruce inquired.

“Well, I do run a small internet boutique, where I take commissions and uncle Jagged refuses to wear anything that wasn’t personally designed by me.” She said casually.

“Wait a moment… Uncle Jagged as in Jagged Stone, the world-class rock musician?!” Tim suddenly shouted.

“Uh… yes?” She got confused

“But his only designer is the mysterious MDC! That would mean you are MDC!”

“Uh… yes?” Marinette had no idea why Tim acted like that.

“Oh god! Oh god! I got to meet MDC! Can I get your authograph?” He was suddenly next to her, holding a copy of the her first album cover she made for Jagged.

“Sure.” She signed it and handed it back. It read: ‘Good luck TD, MDC’.

Tim Fainted.

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Taglist (sorry if I missed you)

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[aethylas]

For anonymous: a series of answers/clarifications/amendments on The Goldenrod Revisions! (I've answered these all in one post just to make it easier). Thank you so much for the asks, this helped me a) clarify my thoughts b) solve some canon continuity issues so I really appreciate them!

THANK U for agreeing to answer my questions! I'll have to ask them separately so they're not in 1 super-long impossible-to-read ask. I have 3 about 15x19, 1 about 15x20, 2 about 15x21, 2 about 15x22, and 2 about 15x23. quick disclaimer: i don't mean any offense at all by my question count! I didn't even notice these oddities the first time I read this; once I read it and accepted it as the true canon, I took a closer look and then noticed. but plz don't think these made your fic any less great!!

No worries anon! It is literally my pleasure to answer them and I am VERY very happy to find discrepancies with canon in the fic - then I can hopefully fix them and make the fic better :) Also I really appreciate the very systematic way you laid all these out, it really helped me reply, and also subsequently make a couple of edits to the fic!

For 15x19:

1. Why did Chuck trust Michael with the task of killing Jack? As God he should know Michael betrayed him in 15.08; did he expect Michael to disobey him again?

I think in this case we're/Chuck is relying on knowledge from the canon 15.19, i.e. Chuck would assume the outcome predicted by the show - that Michael WOULD betray the Winchesters/the world in order to please his father. So God assumed Michael would act the way he did in Inherit The Earth. But additionally, Chuck isn't actually very keyed-in to his own characters' motivations (esp. when love is involved) or very attached to certain results - he basically sends Michael and Lucifer to kill Jack because he figures it will entertain him no matter what happens - whether Michael and Lucifer kill each other, whether they kill the Winchesters/Jack, etc. - either Jack dies this way or Chuck will think of another way to do it.

2. How was Sam able to kill Lucifer? It was said only an archangel could kill another archangel with the archangel blade; was this a total lie or could Sam do it since he's Lucifer's true vessel? (plz don't change it to have Michael kill him; Sam being the one to do it was perfect, I just wanna understand how he could do it).

So glad you raised this because I honestly totally forgot! But now that you have, I have corrected that lore continuity with a line about biblical metaphors.

3. How is Rowena alive? She said she was dead in 15.08, so I initially assumed as a witch and the Queen of Hell she found a way to travel between Hell and Earth despite being dead. But then Sam says "Michael could've killed you" and then Chuck kills her twice in 15.21, both of which indicate she's alive here - does this mean Michael resurrected her when she summoned him?

God okay this is like - please call me out if this is incorrect or still confusing - but it's kind of like, based on the very inconsistent and confusing lore of the SPN afterlife that I assume Rowena is 'dead' but also 'alive' in the sense that Crowley was 'alive' and is now 'dead'. Does that make sense? She's not 'alive' as a human but rather as a demon (or something like it). So as Queen of Hell and a presumably demonic-adjacent entity, when she's 'killed' she gets sent to the Empty now vs. being 'killed' as a human and going to Heaven/Hell. (Based on when we see her in Hell, I assume she possesses her own body? Unclear. Just go with it. They've never been great with what it means to show vessels in Heaven/Hell etc.)

4. I thought asked all I wanted to know about Goldenrod but I just thought of 1 more thing: I don’t get why some dialogue implies Michael was dead? He mentions how he “found himself back on Earth” and tells the Empty it couldn’t stop Chuck from resurrecting him & Lucifer, but prior to 15.19 we last saw Michael leaving the bunker with Adam alive and well in 15.08, and it seemed like he was gonna stay on Earth for Adam’s sake. So what happened to him?

Oh that's a great point! I think that is actually just a confusing choice on my part that Chuck killed absolutely everyone including Michael/Adam in 15.18 Despair and THEN chose to resurrect Michael (but not Adam) alongside Lucifer when he was bored/wanting to kill Jack. I made some slight adjustments in-text to hopefully make it less confusing because I know that's different to the lore of canon 15.19 Inherit the Earth.

For 15x20:

1. How did the angels and demons in the Empty wake up? Did Michael use the last of his grace to wake everyone up? Were they already awake thanks to Jack blowing up in 15x18 or did they somehow sleep through that? (Not expanding on the Empty's claim that "you made it loud" is one of countless things I'll never forgive the actual show for, so THANK YOU for taking the show back to the Empty in the first place; I was just curious about this one element.)

So the Empty was already 'loud' according to canon, but since canon is vague on what exactly that means (thank you writers!...) I got the impression it meant the Empty wasn't 'peaceful' anymore but still powerful enough to suppress the beings inside, like the beings in there were awake and suffering but unable to rebel. Sort of what we see with Cas in this version of 15.20. Maybe like, additional suffering in sleep paralysis? Regardless, Michael does expend his grace to weaken the Empty enough that other beings wake up and/or are able to fight back and exist outside their own personal nightmare chamber. So whatever your impression of 'loud' is with regards to the other beings in there, assume Michael was able to free them from the Empty's control.

For 15x21:

1. Having Jack & Amara take out Hell & Purgatory was a BRILLIANT idea; I love that they ended all the places of suffering and changed the system. I just wonder - what happened to the souls and the demons still in Hell at that point, and the Leviathans and other monsters still in Purgatory? Were they just wiped out completely and sent to the Empty? Or did Jack turn them human and add them to the cycle? (I don't think the show clarified whether or not Leviathans have souls, so...)

No matter whether they were monster or demon or even angel, they would eventually be given human life. I broke it down to 'human enough souls' vs. 'not human enough souls'. Human-enough were immediately brought to life with memories and versions of their original bodies, and not-human-enough were sent to the Soul Queue to be born as infants. I assume Leviathan and most demons fall into 'not human enough', therefore, whatever tiny microbe of personality/soul they had was added to the cycle of rebirth and would be translated to a new human soul. Of course this might have a WILDLY different impact on the world depending on how many people go to hell in this system, how many people were 'human enough', etc.... But we're basically fudging those numbers a bit one way or another just to give certain characters the revival they deserve haha.

2. Did Cas drown and die after Chuck threw him in the lake and Jack left their limbo-dream world? If so, did he go through the same question-&-answer situation with Death that Sam & Dean did? Or was he with Jack & Amara when they rebuilt the world?

Cas was already dead/dying even when he was talking to Jack, he was sort of in a different version of the 'Veil' per se. VERY wishy-washy, but basically he and Jack were on a different dream-plane that they were jolted to in the chaos of the disorganised no-Death world.

I think Cas, Rowena, Lucifer, Michael, etc. as beings who were killed after the snap is a bit ambiguous. Rowena and Lucifer, I think, as entities who were demonic-dead or Empty-level-dead pre-Snap probably went through the reincarnation Yes/No Death questionnaire. Cas and Michael might not have since they were technically 'alive' and human before the Snap. Regardless, I think they probably wouldn't remember the interaction even if they had it.

The reason the question happened to the Winchesters AND that they remember it is Main Character Syndrome... they were the only people left alive when Jack and Amara did a hard reset, and that honestly Death took time to chill/exposition at them because he likes them. Really. Despite all appearances. Or respects them enough to let them know what's gone down, anyway.

Metatextually, it was really just to reaffirm to the audience that Dean (and Sam) want to live, in contrast to 15.20 Carry On 😅

3. Did all the snapped people (Eileen, Adam, the Waywards, etc.) also go through the Death question-&-answer process but not remember it, or did Jack & Amara just send them back?

Snapped people were reset automatically! Normally the new-humans also wouldn't remember their interactions with Death/reapers, just like in canon lore when someone like Dean has a near-death experience.

I realise this whole section and various other lore reformation parts of the fic aren't SUPER clear on specific logistics but on some occasions I'm like, I've done enough info-dumping, I don't want to overwrite exposition. But if you think it's worth clarifying certain points let me know and I can try to do so!

For 15x22:

1. The twenty something blonde guy in sunglasses getting hot tea, is that Belphegor? sure sounds like it but I wanted to confirm.

Yep!

2. Since Death mentioned that Jack only resurrected the angels, demons, and monsters from the Empty who had enough of a soul, and since all the human souls from the Veil went to Heaven as confirmed by Kevin's presence, how exactly are Anna's human parents and Bela alive now?

Great question - 1) I SOMEHOW FORGOT ANNA'S PARENTS DIED? Complete screw up on my part, I don't know how that happened. I fixed this so it's her grandparents now. 2) Bela was sent to Hell as part of her deal, so I was assuming she was a demon by this point in canon (since it would be... MANY Hell-years since she died.) Therefore she had a 'human' enough demon soul to be put back as a human.

3. Oh, and the tall woman with the flyer in 15.22; who is this supposed to be? Hannah I’m guessing?

To be honest I didn't have anyone in particular in mind for that scene; it was kind of a catch-all for missing characters like, it COULD be Hannah. It could be Raphael. Hell, it could be Abbadon. I didn't want to do a full shot of every single person missing from the cast who had died (esp since like - we wouldn't know who they were anyway! Their bodies would be different). So this one is literally just fill-in-the-blank. But if I had to assign a character there I'd say it would probably be one of the more arrogant angels like Raphael or Uriel.

For 15x23:

1. How is Bobby in the Roadhouse with the gang? 10x17 seemed to imply the angels were about to throw him in the dungeons to punish him for helping Cas; did Ash hack him out of prison, or was he never imprisoned at all? Also, is Jack not surprised to see another Bobby in Heaven because the boys already told him there was another Bobby besides the one he knows from Apocalypseverse? (I was half-expecting him to comment about that and confuse Bobby).

Oh that's a great point! I think that's another sort of fill in the blank since it's been five years since 10.17... even if he was in prison of some kind, I think it's likely either Ash helped him get out in the same way he helped everyone else, and since the angels were extremely short-staffed I doubt getting Bobby suitably imprisoned/punished was their top priority. But honestly I'm not super clear on how the angels intended to punish Bobby, I don't think canon is clear either... like, We Just Don't Know.

Finally I'd like to know, has Sam proposed to Eileen yet by the end of the final episode? The script doesn't mention a ring on her finger, and as Sam's fiancee, I'd assume she'd also have carved her name on the table. Sam mentions the innuendos Dean has said "in the past year," so it's been a while since Jack's prayer scene, yet Cas says Dean & Claire's argument was the last time they spoke, and it doesn't seem likely to me that Dean wouldn't call Claire in a year given how close they are...

Nope! I think Sam is saying 'I'm going to marry her' as a declaration of certainty of his feelings and faith in the future, not neccessarily as something that immediately happens. With regards to 'in the past year', that referred to the period when Eileen was alive during s15 as well! I assume Dean did teasing off-screen (and I mean, he did plenty on-screen too.)

I honestly think that Sam and Dean are just very very busy in the aftermath of the events of the 15.20 reset, like they have to deal with the new world AND try to wrangle all these hunters into this new system of collaboration. I didn't put Eileen on the table because she isn't there in the finale and because I do think the Sam/Dean/Cas/Jack family unit was a bit more central and important to the show, but maybe they add her (and any possible kids, if they have any) later on. God, imagine generations of hunters and/or Winchesters carving on that table. Sacred Artefact...

(1) Ok that's all the questions I have. Again, so sorry to blow up your inbox - I really appreciate your willingness to clarify these things! If there are some things you'd rather not explain and leave ambiguous, I totally get that. And in spite of these aforementioned confusing parts, I still ADORE your fic and will continue to read it whenever I feel like re-"watching" how Supernatural really ended! Thank you so much!! .... (2) I’m SO sorry to overload u! I know I asked a lot and I didn’t mean to sound like a hater saying “none of ur story makes sense”; that’s not what I meant at all! If this was a regular good ol fix it fic I wouldn’t have said anything but since u said u wanted it to wrap up the show as replacement canon, I thought maybe I should point out places that didn’t line up. But take as MUCH time as you need! Good for you working to meet your deadlines; I hope you succeeded!! And again I really appreciate you taking the time to answer whenever you have time—absolutely no rush!! Have a GREAT Memorial Day Weekend!!!

Anon thank you SO SO much for all these questions, as you can see it really helped me identify problems or straight up errors in my work wrt continuity and I'm so happy that means I can improve it. If any of the answers weren't clear or you think I should modify the fic to make certain things clearer than they are right now (other than the things I said I'd fix in-text for sure) let me know! It's really been a pleasure answering them too, I'm sorry it took me so long to get around to it, I actually went back and proofed/edited the whole fic as part of adding some of these corrections in (and that took like... three weeks...) and as you said, it's very important to me to get it as true to canon as possible so - yeah, just, once again, thank you!! You're wonderful! ♥♥♥

[stillness-in-green]

If it's any consolation, I'm sure that the Advisors and the rest of the MLA (Re-Destro, Trumpet, Geten) will show back up sooner than the final arc, just because we're going into Year 2 and the students would find great 1 on 1 or team opponents with the Advisors. Re-Destro and Geten are heavy hitters (and Geten could be tied to Dabi, Shoto and all that somehow) and they were locked up with Mr. Compress and Machia, but who do you want to see first from the Advisors?

Thanks, anon; I certainly do hope we'll get to see more of them.  Admittedly, my main concern is that I so liked what was going on with the Paranormal Liberation Front that even if we do see all of the MLA types again, if it's only in the context of speedbump battles for the students, that's still going to be a letdown.  Better than nothing, to be sure, but I really do want them to join back up with the League, even a League that's confused and out of sorts under All For One's hand.  I love RD's big spiritual-awakening-flavored crush on Shigaraki, the cross-organization tensions and relationships, just as much as I love the depth the MLA brings to the world outside of just what's going on with the heroes.

I'm fairly frustrated with how the MLA fared during and after the raid, largely because it's awfully hard not to conclude that, if what we have right now is all the erstwhile-MLA are ever going to come to, Shigaraki would have been significantly better off if he'd just killed them all and shacked up with Ujiko for four months.  And that would be such a waste!  The end of My Villain Academia was such an enormous triumph for Shigaraki! I want his victory to amount to something more than what we've seen, something that shows that both his strength and his mercy will pay off for him in the long-term, will be a concrete benefit to him rather than, with the benefit of hindsight, the reason everything went so wrong.

Particularly with Re-Destro, since Horikoshi saw fit to have Dark Shadow all but one-shot the man, and Edgeshot defeat him off-panel, it's really not going to mean much to me for him to have a big fight with students unconnected to anything else.  The drama's rather gone out of it at this point.  That's particularly the case since, if he's no longer connected to Shigaraki's plot, it's that much easier for him to just be off-paneled and forgotten about.  But, if Rikiya gets looped back in with the League, if his gratitude and admiration of Shigaraki mean he still has a role to play in Shigaraki's arc, that makes it much easier to get invested in any fights that role will lead him to. Ditto the MLA more broadly; it's categorically ridiculous to present that organization with the kinds of numbers, breadth of influence and legitimate grievances they have, only to try to sweep them back under the rug exactly like Shigaraki accuses heroes of doing with everyone they can't save. 

To say the least, I'm pretty invested.  But I appreciate your consolations and am trying to hold out hope that we'll get some good stuff with them yet!

My anxieties aside, and to hit the other portion of your ask--who would I like to see first among the Advisors?--hit the jump:

(All nicknames and shorthand are taken from this post.) 

Well, it'd be nice if they could all get at least as much to do as the Eight Bullets back during the Hassaikai arc, seeing as they got a similar splash page spread introducing all their faces.  There are considerably more than eight of them, of course, but even if they never get more attention than e.g. Galvanize or the hose-faced guy who iced Midnight did, at least then we'd have some idea of their power sets and at least one angle on their personality.

Assuming we aren’t going to get full breakdowns on every single one of them, there are still four things I'd really like to see happen with the MLA/the Advisors: the student fights we're expecting, the jailbreaks we're being told about, the reunion with the League I'm praying for, and for literally anyone in the in-world media to try and get their side of the story.

Student Fights: Seeing the guy who killed Midnight again is as sure a bet as any of these get.  Momo is an important enough character, with enough sustained arc, that she will have to get something else to do before the series is over.  Taking command of a group battle against real opponents--ones with more responsiveness and agency than Gigantomachia--would be in-line with what she's been moving towards so far.  I would, however, love it if that fight would be more challenging than a straightforward battle of tactics.

I headcanon Hose Face and Scarecrow as, respectively, an ex-con and a dude with physical disabilities--both people who have ample reason to want to change the series' status quo irt human rights abuses in prison and overly restrictive quirk use laws.  I'm not expecting the canon to validate me on what amount to wild guesses, of course, but I want those Advisors in particular to have motivations more nuanced than, "They're quirk supremacists; who cares why they're willing to put their lives on the line over this?"

A feel-good revenge match in which a bunch of teenagers lay the smack down on characters whose humanity the audience is asked neither to know nor care about would be lazy, and counterproductive to the series' current thematic concerns. Give Momo her victory, by all means, but don't give it to her easy.  A confrontation like this would be a good way for the less central Class A students to begin wrestling with the question of who, exactly, heroes "save" and what it is that people need to be saved from, exactly the way Deku and Uraraka and Shouto are now wrestling with these questions.

As far as other fights go, I'd also love to see Brand and The Question pop up again. They're probably the two I'm most curious about purely in terms of what their quirks are.  Why does The Question wear a mask, and what's he like that he wound up in Mr. Compress's chain of command?  And with Brand, what kind of quirk does he have that's powerful enough to land him a ranked position in the Guerilla Warfare Regiment but indirect enough that he fights with a sword?

Prison Breaks: I wouldn't expect this to be particularly involved, probably more of an aside than anything, but I want the Bindi Ladies to spring Hole Punch Face, thus getting us an angle on what's going on with that particular trio.  Aviator Teeth can come too because I want at least some hints about what his deal is.

I'd also love to watch Horikoshi even attempt to retroactively justify some of the logistics of the single-day capture and subsequent detention of 17,000 super-powered, combat-trained people.*  I mean, I don't think there are any feasible explanations for that, but I'd be curious to see what he'd come up with, especially if every possible answer just makes Hero Society look worse! We have only ever seen Tartarus as an example of the prison conditions in this country; I'd love to hear more, and an MLA-focused jailbreak would be a great way to show it.

PLF Reunion: Of course, my number one thing to see with a reunion is Re-Destro being just as dismayed as Spinner is over Tomura's possession.  I crave more serious attention being paid to Rikiya's profound awe over Shigaraki's freedom, and would love to see his reaction to Shigaraki apparently losing that freedom.

Aside from the obvious, though, if the PLF does start piecing itself back together, I expect to see Sanctum again, given the attention he's gotten so far, and the fact that he's now the highest-ranked member of the Tactics Regiment.  It'd be great to get some explanation for how he can possibly be "the longest-serving member of the Liberation Army," given that the Army was generations old already when Re-Destro was just a child.  (If we do get that information, I imagine my own explanation will be jossed hugely, so I would also be happy to take time with Sanctum that doesn't explain the discrepancy but also doesn't invalidate my headcanon.)  

In the context of the regiments reforming, I'd also like to see Nimble and Aster, both because this manga needs more women, and because I'd like to see more of how Spinner and Toga interact with the people they were nominally commanding.

Media Attention: Trumpet's my number one hope here--the lack of any look into the state of the government in HeroAca Japan has been a total let-down since his introduction**, but I was particularly annoyed that the last time we saw him he was smiling (albeit in a fairly haggard way), giving me hope that we might next see him doing his part to portray all of this in a light that would sway public opinion.  And then literally one chapter later, we get prison guards talking about how the Hearts & Minds Party, a perfectly legitimized political party with representation on the national level, has been perfunctorily dissolved less than twelve hours from when the raid started.  How is there even an argument that the system heroes were upholding desperately needs to change?

I'm very tired of the media in BNHA only ever showing up to beg for/demand that heroes tell them what’s going on, particularly those damn press conferences. Journalists do investigative work! Newspapers employ reporters to actively seek out news!  Reporters in free countries don't just sit around waiting for the government or heads of major industries to graciously hand them press releases!  For heaven's sake, Trumpet was the head of a major political party.  People should be foaming at the mouth trying to get a statement from him!  

Especially with public trust in heroes breaking down, there should absolutely be intrepid reporters out there looking to get to the bottom of any of the layered conspiracies the public's just been hit with and told to just write-off as a bump in the road on the return to normalcy.

Anyway, Trumpet's the obvious choice, but if I could be sure the manga would validate my headcanons about Nimble and Scarecrow's disabilities, I'd be happy to put them in this position, too.  Trucker Toad would be another good candidate, if there's any basis to my idea that he is or used to be a transport driver who's seen a lot of the country outside the areas e.g. the Top Ten Heroes are patrolling.  He's obviously a good candidate for getting back to that idea of anti-heteromorph bias, too.  But really, I'd take anyone who can give a cogent explanation of the MLA's position on self-determination and the various ways Hero Society has exacerbated quirk-based discrimination.

Anyway, that's about where my thoughts are on where I hope the MLA people are and what we might see of them.  Thanks for the ask!

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

*Or as many as 100,000 more than that, depending on how through the statement, "Their bases around the country were also attacked, and their supporters rounded up," was meant to be.  An influx of 116K people, incidentally, would triple Japan's current carceral population.

**Why! Why would you introduce a politician and then never even glance at your setting's political situation??

[highladyluck]

For the fic title meme: Lay Down Your Crown and Sword

So, I was thinking maybe this is about Aviendha's feelings about Rand when they're in the Aiel Waste... just kidding, I know what the people want from me.

Wheel of Time, Mat/Tuon, post-canon, ANGST. This is one take on a scenario where Mat attempts to achieve his stated relationship goal, which is convincing Tuon to abdicate and run away with him.

(This sucker is LONG and SPOILERY so I’m putting it under a cut.)

It's ~2 months after the Last Battle. There's growing danger to Tuon- an almost-successful assassination attempt (my money's on Moghedien) that scares Mat, Selucia, the Deathwatch, and maybe even Tuon herself, just a little. The sul'dam secret is leaking out and emboldening the faction that wants to kill her, there's worry it'll lead to local rebellion, plus there's still the Seanchan homeland power struggle. Mat uses all this to convince Tuon that she needs to lie low for a while. His idea is for her to fake her own death, install a puppet successor secretly loyal to her, and go hide out with him in a place no one will be able to find them for a few months.

She's not thrilled about it initially, but it's not like she hasn't faked her own death before (love that about her!) so she agrees to Mat's plan, which is 'hang out in a Portal Stone alternate timeline'. (Mat would not come up with this on his own, Mat does not like Portal Stones, but Min suggested it and he eventually agreed it would suit their needs.) Tuon would prefer something where she could keep an eye on political conditions more easily, but she feels safe with Mat & appreciates that this is definitely a secure option, and she's been out of contact with home base before for a while and been fine. Selucia stays in the palace, to keep an eye on things and do intrigue (and also give Mat and Tuon actual alone time- I am entertained by the grudging truce between Mat and Selucia, but her chaperone services are not needed this time around.)

They've got an official pickup scheduled in a few months, about a month before Tuon's due; Mat thought about waiting more time to go back but he'd rather have the option to call in trusted medical help for the birth and he wants to leave a wide margin of error for the actual due date. He intends to rope in Nyneave if it seems necessary, although he doubts he'll be lucky enough that Nyneave would help Tuon out of the goodness of her heart or even as a favor to him. More likely Nyneave's help would cost Tuon in political concessions, which he will have to either convince Tuon to accept- assuming she's in a position to make that kind of choice- or negotiate on her behalf, if she's in too much immediate danger. Either scenario keeps him up at night, but the alternative is worse. Also, he hasn't run this contingency plan by Tuon yet- likely because he isn't totally against the idea of extracting political concessions from Tuon, so there's guilt as well as fear of how she'd react. The other thing Tuon doesn't realize about this vacation plan is that Mat is hoping to convince her to move there forever- if it's nice- or at least to keep faking her death and start a new life with him somewhere in disguise in their reality.

The Portal Stone world is one that's relatively close to their world, so it has people and feels fairly familiar, but the apocalypse hasn't happened yet and doesn't appear to be doing so in the near future. (For fun let's say the obvious divergence is Damodred-related; maybe the non-asshole Damodred branch is in charge, so you don't get Laman's Sin and/or Tigrane is actually happy in her political marriage, so the Dragon hasn't been reborn yet.) Tuon's ok with the 'vacation' vibe at first, we get some cute romantic bonding moments between her and Mat as they do normal people things, they have some cute dates in taverns or whatever. But Tuon becomes increasingly bored and anxious and frustrated about not being able to keep tabs on what's happening- probably some residual trauma from the last time she went AWOL with Mat, and came back to find her homeland in shambles and her family dead. So that's a source of conflict, especially since she doesn't actually confide that in Mat. She also keeps wanting to hash out political/military plans for when they get back, but Mat keeps trying to distract her, or makes arguments she doesn't like (re: Seanchan policy reform). Maybe Mat brings up the Nyneave contingency plan because he got worried about her health, and Tuon's like 'uh how long have you been sitting on this idea, when the fuck were you going to run it past me, the person it most concerns?'

Their relationship has always had an element of conflict in it, but back then they were strangers, had rules of engagement constraining them, and a kind of shared purpose. Their conflict was a kind of game that they played together, and it drew them closer. Now they know how to get under each other's skin and aren't constrained by witnesses or promises, and they have a shared mission (keeping Tuon safe) but don't agree on who is in charge of it. What's holding them together still is their own compassion and affection for each other, but they're not great at communicating it with words and now they're using words as weapons sometimes, so most of the reconciling is with gestures/gifts/actions. In general, things are tense and there's not much going on outside of their own interactions to distract them; Tuon's temper is flaring, she's feeling powerless and like her personal integrity is being attacked sometimes; Mat's being propelled around by his gut reactions and he's scared of losing her (and the baby), in any number of ways, and mad that she doesn't want what he thinks is best.

Finally the scheduled transit date arrives and they pop back to their original universe and get caught up on the news (maybe from Min?) Over in Seanchan, possibly emboldened by news of Tuon's 'death', a warlord has consolidated most of the warring factions. Now they know who to go after, and a war in Seanchan would help unify the Seanchan in the westlands; the Seanchan military-industrial complex loves a good patriotic war. Things domestically are a little better than before they left. Selucia flushed out the network from the earlier assassination attempt and is generally keeping things running and the puppet ruler honest.

Tuon's relieved; she was really worried that everything was going to fall apart when she was gone and now she's kind of grateful for the break. She tries to tell Mat this without actually admitting that she's got trauma around it, because the Empress doesn't admit weakness and Tuon the person is extremely bad at talking about feelings anyway; she's like "Ah, that's much better news than I came back to last time you kidnapped me. I'm glad to be back to work again, let's get to it." Mat's irritable, not catching on that she was actually really worried about it based on her previous experience, and thinking she didn't appreciate the break, and also worried that his plans to convince her to leave with him aren't going to work. Tuon catches that he's cagey and unhappy and not getting her jokes, and she remembers that this was what he seemed like when she first saw him in the Tarasin Palace. Mat argues that they should at least wait until the baby comes, that the person she put in charge is doing well, they can certainly let them rule a while longer. He says he's not sure it's the right time to attack Seanchan, he'd need to check the troops out, sniff out local sentiment. He's not decisive or commanding or focused when he says these things- it's stalling, it's bravado covering panic. It dawns on her- oh shit, he's gonna run.

Tuon's spooked. She KNOWS Mat now, but that doesn't mean she knows what to do to hang on to him. She doesn't know how to deal with a loss of control in her personal life, so she turns to what she knows she can control- the empire, her role, her property. She takes refuge in past promises. She tells him they will discuss the disposition of the army and the prosecution of the war in Seanchan once her heir is born and she's officially 'off the hook'. Mat looks grim.

Tuon wanted to announce that she's back immediately, but she starts having contractions and Mat's like 'you are absolutely not going to return from the dead right this second, you're super vulnerable right now.' They stay in a relatively secret spot in Tuon's territory with a small coterie of loyal retainers until the baby is born; it goes fine. There is one (1) cute bonding moment between Tuon and the baby and Mat; then the baby vanishes. Mat was on guard along with the usual people you'd expect to be on guard (not Karede, Selucia, or Min though). Tuon FUCKING KNOWS Mat did it with Aes Sedai help, she's initially furious and betrayed, but Mat isn't admitting it and within the extremely tight circle of people who know about the vanished baby, he's doing a reasonably convincing job looking as freaked out and upset as everyone else, and she's still hoping she can resolve this privately without any drastic public actions.

She takes Mat to a private place and she tells him that she has always, always been able to trust him. She trusts him so much it terrifies her. She does not know if this is what love is, but it is what she feels for him. She asks him to honor that, to honor himself, and not to lie to her. She then asks him why he kidnapped their child. Mat staggers, and blurts out that he can't bear the thought of their children constantly at risk of assassination, from strangers or their own siblings. He has nightmares about their child beginning to channel, or being able to learn, and what that means for them in the Empire. Tuon's made her choice and he'll respect that, though he hates the risks to her, and what the Empire does to her and others. But their child deserves the choice Tuon didn't have. He loves Tuon, but he cannot love the Empire, and he will not fight in the Empire's wars, and he will not let the Empire own his children, whether that's as royalty, sul'dam, or damane. He says he trusts she'll come to the right decision about what to do with this information.

The next scene has Tuon in mourning white. It's neither Tuon's nor Mat's POV- probably Karede, or maybe Min. In front of the whole court Tuon, as Empress back from the dead, bestows the Bloodknives ring and blessing on Knotai, and orders him to take a few members of the Deathwatch (the ones on watch the night the baby vanished, our observer notes) and assassinate the warlord in Seanchan on her behalf. She says she trusts he will succeed. They stare inscrutably at each other. The court is shocked into silence at first, but the whispers rise behind Mat as he straightens from his extraordinarily polite leg and heads out of the chamber. It is left up to the reader to decide if this is an elaborate plan to fake Mat's death and set him free, or his execution.

--- You may notice this is suspiciously fleshed out for a prompt I received this afternoon. XD I've been kicking around some of this premise for a while, though this ask made me finally come up with the circumstances that get Tuon to actually agree to temporarily leave her job, as well as most of the details. The main emotional beats came from stringing together several Mountain Goats songs, because of course it did. The whole sequence is Twin Human Highway Flares, Riches and Wonders (Eliza Rickman cover), Alpha Incipiens, Fault Lines, New Britain, Family Happiness. I’m not sure if I’ll actually turn this into a finished story with description and dialogue and everything, but it’s possible. This is also not the only Mat/Tuon post-canon idea I have kicking around! It’s not my ideal scenario for them for sure, but it’s a lot easier to write a ‘bad ending’ for them than to work on my ‘good ending’, because I have a lot more emotional investment in the ‘good ending’... perfectionist problems. :/

[marithlizard]

First impressions of RWBY v8 finale, “The Final Word”

Finale time!  uh.   That is NOT a content warning I was expecting.

A suicide prevention hotline message?   When I said Qrow might jump, I wasn't *serious*. Mostly.  Damn it,  there isn't a single character  I want to die that way, villain or no.   This is upsetting and I haven't even started watching yet.

GDI Rooster Teeth you better not have had that kind of end in mind for Qrow all along.  I imagine everyone else saying something similar about their favorites.  (My tentative guesses right now are Cinder or Harriet, but there are so many plausible awful possibilities.)

Dissolving whale, looking like the biggest murmuration of birds ever.  So we're skipping back in time a bit.  Something flickers in the ashes.  Salem starting to reform? I can't tell.

GO WINTER don't you dare die here  either.  Ironwood's actually pleading his case with her,  as he hasn't deigned to with anyone else.  It's not a convincing argument, but he cares what she thinks of him enough to try.

Penny looking like a brilliant dragonfly, darting around with her swords like wings.

Just how far can that Grimm arm extend?

Jaune my boy! You remembered mission priority!  You've grown so much since the fall of Beacon, when you forgot all about calling Glynda for help in favor of melodramatically smashing your phone.   This is a horrible situation, but you've got a job to do and you know what it is.  

...Maybe you should just stop trying to sound like Mignogna, Liebrecht.   Right now you just sound like you've got a painful sore throat.  

Harriet finally looks unsure of herself.

One last flicker of luck...was it real? I dunno. But Qrow certainly believes it.

Watts, what did you just do?  I thought the bomb was already on a countdown.  Did you stop it, or start one?  And am I going to be right about where you want it to go off?

Ruby vs Neo round two!  They've both improved a lot.  Interfering with her umbrella is still a good tactic, though.

And YEET she goes through the portal to Vacuo!  One threat deferred to next season. (I highly doubt she'll get there and start slaughtering refugees, she has no reason to. She'll  fade into the background and regroup.)

- wait, how'd she do that?? The portals are one-way! Was that an illusion of herself that got yeeted? Someone explain this.

oh carp, Ruby's unarmed now.

30-second countdown.  Harriet is right, that's not enough to escape.  You were about to blow up thousands of civilians out of spite,  woman - Vine, what are you going to do?  You can't possibly shield a thing like that, how could you get it out of range?

You ARE going to shield. Huh.  Qrow doesn't have a word to say - they never knew each other more than slightly, and there's no time to fumble with phrases,  but he could've said "thank you" or "sorry".  

I didn't think that would work, but heroic sacrifice  gives you a lot of power points, we all know that from anime and superhero movies.  

Yeek, they're really teasing this fall thing.

YEEK did not expect that.

YEEK

Knowing it was going to happen takes a lot of the shock out of it, but still.  And *Penny* doesn't have any meta knowledge.

Jaune goes off mission, but despite what I said earlier, I can't fault him - Cinder's holding two relics! Ooh, and he and Nora don't know the portals are one-way yet.   They weren't even present when Weiss announced the specs.

Oop, what's going on with the arm?  She's had it under control for a long time, is it just coincidence that it would rebel now?

"She's  back".  OH.

Oh, that's disturbing.  Almost as much as the bug she used on Amber. Cinder doesn't need proxies to Grimmsuck the power out of someone anymore.

oh no Penny - that isn't going to WORK is it?

oh, no, no, no, Penny

You can't ask that of Jaune. You just can't.

You did.

Aw man, now i'm crying.

I mean, that's seriously badass, and all, but - but -

Those frost birds are beautiful!

And that makes four.

That was Salem screaming, wasn't it?  I can only imagine how loud it sounded outside of gatespace.

Why are the portals  disappearing?  Cinder didn't use the staff, she's just holding it.  Did RWBY specify an end condition when they designed them?  

Five!  Did not expect that.

Could really use  some Vacuo cavalry about now.

Or, y'know, a Maiden. That'll do.

Cinder, lying as rapidly as possible.   She blames the loss of Ruby and the lamp's last question on others.  Will Salem buy it?

She will!

They're just going to ignore Ironwood.  Seems fitting.  Why even bother?

Oh.  Cinder *wasn't* lying about that part. She did use the staff, and that's why the portals disappeared.  Can't really bring myself to mind much.    (Especially since the portals being gone means they can't follow the survivors.) But I would’ve liked to see her talking to Ambrosius.

And Ironwood is left alone on a  crashing Atlas.

Qrow, Robyn, Elm, Harriet, and Marrow overlook the rubble. 

Oh,  no....Qrow's getting the news through an earpiece,  I don't  know who from.  I think we're all glad not to be able  to hear him.

A flood? Pretty,   but where'd the water come from?  

Annnnnnnd that's a wrap. For Atlas and Mantle.

While the credits are playing,  let me take stock.  Where is everyone?

RIP:  Ironwood, Penny, Watts, Vine.

The ruins of Atlas:  Qrow, Robyn, Elm, Marrow, Harriet, Pietro, Maria, Salem, Cinder.

Vacuo:  Nora, Ren, Oscar and Oz, Emerald, Winter, Willow, Whitley, Klein, and an unknown number of refugees. And Mercury and Tyrian and CVFY and SSSN.   And presumably FNKI.   And the rest of the Happy Huntresses, what was that about slimming down the cast?

Fallen:  RWBY,  Neo, Jaune.  

(who *did* give Qrow the news?  Maybe no one, and he’s just calling and not hearing any response.  I’ll go with that, it’s less awful. He can hope they made it to Vacuo and are simply out of range.)

Post-credit scene!  Water. Ocean of magic water.  Beach. Jungle, with giant shells.  Crescent Rose is waiting for Ruby.  A very big tree.  And that's it.

I'm...not really sure what I think, overall.   Ironwood just seemed to fizzle out into irrelevance, and while I'm sure a lot of people will find that appropriate, none of it is what I  would've hoped for his character arc.  Penny's fate was moving and unexpected.  (In contrast to her first death, they took care not to show her body or what Jaune had to do to her. They didn't want this to be gruesome.)     Amity, Maria and Pietro just seemed to get totally forgotten.  Watts didn't seem to have a plan for the bomb after all besides idle malice.

RWBYJNeo will be fine, but the others are going to spend the volume believing almost all their friends are dead.   That's  just brutally depressing. It does not put me in the mood for wacky Alice-in-Wonderland adventures.  (Time travel or somesuch that shows us  more about Oz and/or STRQ,  that I'd still love to see.)    

We didn't get despairing suicides, we got heroic sacrifices, and not wasted ones either.  That part's okay with me.  

Mmph. Mostly I think I feel numb. How about the rest of you?

[newstfionline]

Friday, November 6, 2020

Biden sees path to 270; Trump attacks election integrity (AP) With his pathway to re-election appearing to shrink, President Trump on Thursday advanced unsupported accusations of voter fraud to falsely argue that his rival was trying to seize power. “This is a case when they are trying to steal an election, they are trying to rig an election,” Trump said from the podium of the White House briefing room. The president’s remarks deepened a sense of anxiety in the U.S. as Americans enter their third full day after the election without knowing who would serve as president for the next four years. Neither candidate has reached the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House. But Biden eclipsed Trump in Wisconsin and Michigan, two crucial Midwestern battleground states, and was inching closer to overtaking the president in Pennsylvania and Georgia, where votes were still be counted. It was unclear when a national winner would be determined after a long, bitter campaign dominated by the coronavirus and its effects on Americans and the national economy.

Win or Lose, Trump Will Remain a Powerful and Disruptive Force (NYT) If President Trump loses his bid for re-election, as looked increasingly likely on Wednesday, it would be the first defeat of an incumbent president in 28 years. But one thing seemed certain: Win or lose, he will not go quietly away. At the very least, he has 76 days left in office to use his power as he sees fit and to seek revenge on some of his perceived adversaries. Angry at a defeat, he may fire or sideline a variety of senior officials who failed to carry out his wishes as he saw it. And if he is forced to vacate the White House on Jan. 20, Mr. Trump is likely to prove more resilient than expected and almost surely will remain a powerful and disruptive force in American life. He received at least 68 million votes, or five million more than he did in 2016, and commanded about 48 percent of the popular vote, meaning he retained the support of nearly half of the public despite four years of scandal, setbacks, impeachment and the brutal coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 233,000 Americans. That gives him a power base to play a role that other defeated one-term presidents like Jimmy Carter and George Bush have not played. Even if his own days as a candidate are over, his 88-million-strong Twitter following gives him a bullhorn to be an influential voice on the right.

‘The whole world waits’ with unease as drawn-out, contested election batters America’s global image (Washington Post) As the world reckoned with another day of uncertainty over the result of the U.S. presidential election, Trump’s premature victory claim, unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud and the threat of legal challenges continued to overshadow the drawn-out vote count, from which no clear winner has emerged. The indecision was met with deep unease around the globe over what lies ahead for the U.S. political process—and more than a little glee from America’s traditional adversaries. In Canada, lawmakers have been relatively silent on the aftermath of the vote, but election coverage continued to dominate the country’s largest newspapers, to the point that they nearly resembled U.S. dailies. The Toronto Star described a “nagging, palpable sense of dread” that no matter who prevails, Canada has never felt “so far apart” from its southern neighbor. “America has represented optimism, looking forward and ideas,” said Tatsuhiko Yoshizaki, chief economist at the Sojitz Research Institute in Tokyo. “And yet, over the past four years, we have come to see the dark side in the United States.” The same sentiment was echoed in Europe on Thursday, where Germany’s left-leaning Der Spiegel newsweekly compared Trump to a “late Roman emperor” who has “set a historic standard for voter contempt.” In Britain, some commentators responded with disgust—with the left-leaning Daily Mirror calling Trump “a liar and a cheat until the bitter end”—while other papers turned to humor, especially over the slow pace of the vote count. The front page of the Metro newspaper read: “Make America Wait Again.” In China, a number of publications used the election to highlight shortcomings of the American system. Still, China’s vice foreign minister, Le Yucheng, voiced hopes on Thursday about repairing bilateral relations after the election. “I hope the new U.S. administration will meet China halfway,” he said, according to CNBC.

US sets record for cases amid election battle (AP) New confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. have climbed to an all-time high of more than 86,000 per day on average, in a glimpse of the worsening crisis that lies ahead for the winner of the presidential election. Cases and hospitalizations are setting records all around the country just as the holidays and winter approach, demonstrating the challenge that either President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden will face in the coming months. The total U.S. death toll is already more than 232,000, and total confirmed U.S. cases have surpassed 9 million. Those are the highest totals in the world, and new infections are increasing in nearly every state.

Riot declared in Portland as protesters smash windows (AP) A riot was declared in Portland, Oregon, and protesters took to the streets in Seattle on Wednesday as people demanded that every vote in Tuesday’s election be counted. Hundreds were protesting in both cities against President Donald Trump’s court challenges to stop the vote count in battleground states. The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office at about 7 p.m. declared a riot after protesters were seen smashing windows at businesses. In the interest of public safety, Gov. Kate Brown activated the use of the state National Guard to help local law enforcement manage the unrest, according to the sheriff’s office. Portland has been roiled by five months of near-nightly racial injustice protests since the police killing of George Floyd.

Tired of blue state life, rural Oregon voters eye new border (AFP) As a hotly contested election highlights the United States’s deep divisions, rural voters in liberal blue-state Oregon have approved a radical solution—splitting off to join neighboring deep-red conservative Idaho. Two conservative counties voted in favor of a non-binding measure to “Move Oregon’s Borders” during Tuesday’s polls, which also saw their northwestern US state predictably vote for Joe Biden in the race for president. “In the United States, the differences between liberal and conservative... there’s hatred there,” said chief petitioner Mike McCarter, of the votes in Union and Jefferson counties. “Populated urban areas are controlling the mass of everybody,” the 73-year-old retired gun club manager told AFP. Oregon—whose politics are dominated by the liberal city of Portland—has not voted Republican in a presidential contest since 1984, while landlocked Idaho to the east last chose a Democrat in 1964. But the high desert and mountainous swathes of eastern Oregon—where resource-intensive industries such as timber, ranching and mining prevail—are far more conservative than the environment-minded coastal stretches of the state. McCarthy said his movement’s goals rings true for outnumbered rural conservatives across a nation in which most states apportion their electoral college votes—to choose the president—on an all-or-nothing basis. “It’s a definite clash between blue and red,” he said. “Indiana and Illinois have got the same issue because Chicago controls all Illinois. In New York (state), New York City controls all New York. There’s a constant rub going back-and forth on life values between urban and rural.”

Eta brings heavy rains, deadly mudslides to Honduras (AP) Eta moved into Honduras on Wednesday as a weakened tropical depression but still bringing the heavy rains that have drenched and caused deadly landslides in the country’s east and in northern Nicaragua. The storm no longer carried the winds of the Category 4 hurricane that battered Nicaragua’s coast Tuesday, but it was moving so slowly and dumping so much rain that much of Central America was on high alert. Eta had sustained winds of 35 mph (55 kph) and was moving west-northwest at 7 mph (11 kph) Wednesday night. It was 115 miles (185 kilometers) south-southeast of La Ceiba. The long-term forecast shows Eta taking a turn over Central America and then reforming as a tropical storm in the Caribbean—possibly reaching Cuba on Sunday and southern Florida on Monday.

Arce’s opponents go on strike in Bolivia (Foreign Policy) Conservative opponents of Bolivian President-elect Luis Arce will begin a two-day strike today in the department of Santa Cruz, home to Bolivia’s largest city, in order to voice their opposition to the results of October’s presidential election. Governor Ruben Costas has asked Bolivia’s electoral tribunal to audit the result, but the tribunal rejected the request, citing the election’s certification by outside groups such as the Organization of American States (OAS). Arce is set to be inaugurated as president on Sunday.

Pix (Rest of World) Brazil’s Central Bank will launch a national instant payment system called Pix, which will be free to use by its citizens and mandatory for major banks to implement. It’s required for the 34 banks with 500,000 clients or more to roll out, and that group serves 90 percent of the 175.4 million Brazilians with bank accounts. As a result, this change could revolutionize digital payments in the country. Right now, fast money transfers cost 10 Brazilian reais in fees, or about $2. Pix will be effectively free for consumers: the Central Bank charges banks 1 Brazilian centavo, or $0.0018, for every 10 transactions. The five largest banks in Brazil make $440 million a year from same-day money transfer fees. The free price point of Pix will likely undercut their offerings.

In Spain, coronavirus puts the poor at the back of the line MADRID (AP)—Erika Oliva spends at least three hours a week standing in line at a soup kitchen. She spends a couple more at the social worker’s office with her 8-year-old son, who has autism. She waits on the phone to the health center or when she wants to check if her application for a basic income program will get her the promised 1,015 euros ($1,188). So far, it hasn’t. “They are always asking for more papers but we still haven’t seen a euro. Everything seems to be closed because of the pandemic. Or you are told to go online,” said Oliva. She managed to apply online, but others in her situation don’t know how to use a computer or simply don’t have one. “Poor people queue. It’s what we know how to do best,” Oliva said. Lower income families around the world have often suffered most from the pandemic for several reasons: their jobs might expose them more to the virus and their savings are typically lower. In Spain, their situation has been worse than in much of Europe due to the big role of hard-hit industries like tourism and weaker social welfare benefits. “The pandemic is extending and intensifying poverty in a country that already had serious inequality problems,” said Carlos Susías, president of the European Anti-Poverty Network, which encompasses dozens of non-profits. He says insufficient welfare spending, too much red tape, lack of access to technology and a resurgence of the pandemic are likely to widen what is already one of the developed world’s biggest gaps between rich and poor.

Pope Francis: A Day Without Prayer Is ‘Bothersome,’ ‘Tedious’ (Breitbart) Pope Francis insisted Wednesday on the centrality of prayer in a Christian’s life, declaring that prayer has a way of turning all things to good. Prayer “possesses primacy: it is the first desire of the day, something that is practised at dawn, before the world awakens,” the pope proposed in his weekly general audience in the Vatican. “It restores a soul to that which otherwise would be without breath.” “A day lived without prayer risks being transformed into a bothersome or tedious experience” where “all that happens to us could turn into a badly endured and blind fate.” Through prayer, the many occurrences of every day—both good and bad—take on new meaning, the pontiff suggested. “Prayer is primarily listening and encountering God,” he said. “The problems of everyday life, then, do not become obstacles, but appeals from God Himself to listen to and encounter those who are in front of us.” “Consistent prayer produces progressive transformation, makes us strong in times of tribulation, gives us the grace to be supported by Him who loves us and always protects us,” he said.

Greece orders nationwide lockdown to curb COVID surge (Reuters) Greece ordered a nationwide lockdown on Thursday for three weeks to help contain a resurgence of COVID-19 cases. Under the new countrywide restrictions to take effect from Saturday, retail businesses will be shut with the exception of supermarkets and pharmacies. Civilians will need a time-slot permit to venture outdoors. Primary schools will stay open, but high schools will shut.

Debt trap? (Nikkei Asian Review) China has lent large amounts of money to many developing countries, and critics contend—though China disputes—that this is in pursuit of “debt-trap diplomacy,” where a powerful country offers money to a less powerful one, and when the less powerful one defaults, the powerful country will take important resources like ports, natural resources, or infrastructure. China’s loans typically have interest rates of 3 percent or more, compared to International Monetary Fund and World Bank loans where the interest is about 1 percent. Critics point to the China-Sri Lanka relationship—where Sri Lanka signed a 99-year lease on the port of Hambantota in 2017—as a key example, and there are others. Regardless of the broader motivations, lots of African nations are in the hole to China, and the pandemic has exacerbated default risks. Zambia—home to voluminous copper reserves—is a particularly interesting case, as the country owes $12 billion in total, of which $3.4 billion, or 29 percent of its external debt, is to China, up 8 percentage points from four years ago.

China blocks travellers from virus-hit Britain, Belgium, Philippines (Reuters) Mainland China has barred entry to non-Chinese visitors from Britain, Belgium and the Philippines and demanded travellers from the United States, France and Germany present results of additional health tests, as coronavirus cases rise around the world. China has temporarily suspended entry of non-Chinese nationals travelling from the United Kingdom even if they hold valid visas and residence permits, the Chinese embassy in Britain said, in some of the most stringent border restrictions imposed by any country in response to the pandemic. Starting Nov. 6, all passengers from the United States, France, Germany and Thailand bound for mainland China must take both a nucleic acid test and a blood test for antibodies against the coronavirus. The tests must be done no more than 48 hours before boarding.

Japan’s expensive oranges (CNN) How many mandarin oranges can you buy with one million yen—or roughly $9,600? For one fruit-loving buyer at an auction this week in Japan, the answer is just 100. A single, 20-kilogram crate of 100 Japanese mandarins (also called mikan) hit the auction block on Thursday at Tokyo’s central wholesale Ota Market. It was the year’s first auction of satsuma mandarin oranges, a famous citrus species from Ehime prefecture, on the island of Shikoku in southern Japan. Nishiuwa is one of Ehime’s mikan-producing regions and its semi-seedless citrus species of oranges is known for its good balance of rich and sweet flavors, its easy-to-peel thin skin as well as its melt-in-the-mouth texture. It wasn’t the first time the sweet mandarins fetched such a staggering price in an auction—the highest bidding price last year was also in the million range.

West Bank village razed (Foreign Policy) Israeli forces have demolished a Palestinian village in the West Bank, leaving 73 people homeless, in what the United Nations reported as the largest demolition operation in years. The demolition brings to 689 the number of structures demolished across the West Bank, the highest number since 2016. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said the mass demolition was likely an opportunistic move by the Israeli government while the eyes of the world were focused on the U.S. election.