#✕ interaction: cooper savage

[angie-words]

Rivals Interview & Photoshoot

CW for mentions of sex, nudity

Highlights from the article (abridged! Full article by Caitlin Moran here):

Jilly Cooper’s raunchy Rivals: ‘You will see a lot of willies’

It’s taken 36 years, but finally Jilly Cooper’s legendary bonkbuster Rivals is on TV. Caitlin Moran — who was such a fan, she changed her name to one of the book’s characters — meets the author and stars on set and asks: how was it for you?

Guess where I am.

Oh my gosh — I am in RUTSHIRE.

If you own one of the multimillion copies sold of Jilly Cooper’s infamous Rutshire Chronicles books, you will a) be as excited as me, and b) know exactly where I am.

Yes, I am standing in front of a beautiful, honey-coloured mansion.

Yes, it is a beautiful summer’s day.

Yes, the herbaceous borders are magnificent.

Yes, there are adorable dogs milling around.

Yes, there are champagne bottles strewn hither and yon.

And yes, everyone is dressed in alternately fabulous, or ridiculous, Eighties outfits, with gigantic hair.

The ladies have electric-blue eyeshadow and golden, heaving bosoms.

The men, meanwhile, have tanned legs, huge Rolexes — and, in many instances, their gigantic hair manifests lower down: in moustaches like that of Tom Selleck.

And yes, of course, there is drama. David Tennant — wearing a lavish, gold, silken man-blouse and sucking on a cigar — is furious. He is savaging a roomful of party people, all looking stricken — and all, incongruously, wearing swimwear.

“How the f*** has this happened?” Tennant screams, as all the tits and legs fidget, gaudy piña coladas abandoned. “Get the f*** out there and sort this out! And why are you all wearing bikinis?”

Tennant storms from the room, apoplectic with rage — and then sees me.

“Oh, hello, darling,” he says, all sweetness and light.

“CUT!” the director calls.

Today, David Tennant isn’t, of course, David Tennant. He’s Tony Baddingham, the infamous, nominative-determinist baddie of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals.

“So, is this fun?” I ask him.

The last time I saw him on set, he was being the Doctor in Doctor Who, in a floor-length coat, trying to save the world from being exploded. Again. In the rain. In Wales. At 1am.

“Oh yes,” Tennant says. “I mean, look at my blouse. It’s like my aunt’s! Actually, I think it might be hers — it closes right to left. Don’t men’s buttons close left to right? Am I wearing,” he asks the room at large, “a woman’s blouse?”

“We need to go again, David,” the director says.

“Back in a tick,” Tennant says, running back on set, sucking on his cigar. Getting ready to be really evil, and Eighties, again.

-----

When it comes to the atmosphere on set, I later talk to David Tennant about this subject.

“Yes — there was a lot of due diligence about only having … joyful people on set. Crew and cast,” Tennant says, carefully.

(Dominic) Treadwell-Collins - executive producer - is more forthright.

“We had a very strict ‘no arseholes’ policy,” he says.

-----

Your mother was a Jilly Cooper fan? And, therefore, presumably … a Rupert Campbell-Black fan?

“My mum, you know … blushed when I told her [I’d got the role],” (Alex) Hassell admits. “A lot of women blushed when I told them.”

I’m interviewing Hassell, 44, and Tennant, 53, together. As a former Doctor, Tennant has, of course, a lot of experience in playing a role women find attractive.

“Once you’ve made [Rupert Campbell-Black] flesh, I think a lot of people are going to find it difficult to interact with you, Alex,” he says, helpfully.

It seems Hassell is aware of this.

“Yes,” he says. “One friend, when I told her, said, ‘Oh, that’s a bean-flicker role!’ I said, ‘Ah, I see.’ ”

“Huh. I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone come up to me and say, ‘I’ve masturbated thinking about you,’ ” Tennant says, thoughtfully.

“David!” Hassell exclaims, hurt. “When we met, that’s the first thing I said.”

-----

“Tony’s from a lower class, while Rupert was born with an entire silver cutlery canteen in his mouth,” Tennant says. “So whatever Tony does, he never has that class advantage. Tony needs to taste the blood of his betters in his mouth to make him feel better. Rupert’s blood.”

“And while Rupert is, in many ways, a shit,” Hassell says, thoughtfully, “he’s not a bad man, like Tony. Tony is jealous of Rupert. He wants his house, his women, his life.”

Accordingly, this suit-based class war plays out as Campbell-Black tries to take over Baddingham’s TV station — and the backstabbing, shenanigans, shagging and skulduggery commence.

-----

The tennis court at Cooper’s house is the setting for one of her most iconic scenes — where Campbell-Black first meets his love interest, Taggie, while he’s playing naked tennis. He is adjudged to have lost a match point because something is over the line. Oh, why am I being so coy? This is Jilly Cooper. It’s his penis. His massive penis is judged to be over the line. A note to diehard fans: this scene is shot exactly as written. You will see a lot of willies.

“We’ve been equal opportunities in our nudity,” Treadwell-Collins says. “There’s a willy for every pair of tits.”

“That was my great disappointment over the TV show,” Cooper sighs. “The tennis court is a terrible mess — no one’s played on it for 20 years — and I thought [Disney] might be darlings and build me a new one.”

She looks around, hopefully.

“Do you think anyone here has some booze?” she asks. “It is the afternoon.”

Cooper has been an invaluable muse to everyone on set while filming. In one scene, she handed over an urgent note that read, “Rupert would never say ‘spouse’ — that’s very lower-middle [class]. He would say ‘wife’.”

She argued for particularly Cooperesque jokes and puns to stay in, and was firm that the whole “First of May” tradition remain.

“Oh, yes,” she says, looking delighted, and then quotes herself. “ ‘First of May, first of May — outdoor f***ing starts today. But if as usual it do rain, we f*** off indoors again.’ ”

This ribald rhyme kicks off a massive shagging montage, involving the entire cast. And all outdoors, of course.

-----

I can’t tell you what fun it is interviewing all the Rivals people. Because of the show, everyone talks about their memories of the Eighties (David Tennant: “No, my Eighties weren’t like a Jilly Cooper book — I was at school in Paisley with my glasses held together with sticky tape, and a very unappealing haircut”), and smoking (Hassell: “Everyone smoked everywhere, didn’t they? Even on planes. They’d draw across that little … health curtain, and everyone smoked behind it”), and how hard it was to leave Cooper’s world when shooting finished (Hassell: “No one was looking at me like I’m the most sexy man on the planet any more. It was tough.”)

-----

In the event, (Aidan) Turner, 41, is an absolute hoot — particularly on the subject of the massive moustache he sports on the show. It is a magnificent specimen of upper-lip pelt. It looks like a vole fell asleep under his nose.

It looks like the one Ned Flanders has on The Simpsons, I tell him.

Turner gives a huge, barking laugh.

“Ned Flanders? I mean, I was thinking more … Irish stag? Super-masculine?”

He starts giggling again.

Turner’s relaxed stance towards his sex god-dom comes with an interestingly meta twist. In Rivals, one of Baddingham’s TV shows is called Four Men Went to Mow — where sexy farmers, sexily stripped to the waist, carry out sexy agricultural duties.

Turner, of course, infamously stripped to the waist a few times in Poldark, for that scything scene or lying in bed or emerging from the sea. In a pleasingly postmodern moment, one scene sees Turner rail against Four Men Went to Mow — raging, almost camply, “TV can’t just be men taking their tops off!”

Rivals is on Disney+ from October 18

[fenharel-is-so-swell]

I’m very sleepy so there are probably mistakes and redundancies galore below buuuuut read on for a rant about how weirdly Trick Weekes treats Qunari characters/culture.

I said this in a comment elsewhere buuuut I just realized that Trick Weekes does something VERY odd with the Qunari they write. As a black woman it does not sit right with me.

The Qunari, racially, are the group most evocative of people of color in western society Irl. They are treated as savages, visually very different (scary by Thedas’ standards), often hypersexualized, and generally perceived as hyper aggressive.

With that in mind I’d like to dig into Taash and Iron Bull a bit.

Iron Bull and Taash have narratively similar character arcs — raised under the teachings of the Qun, enter an identity crisis, do they conform or deconstruct?

Iron Bull is a Ben Hasserath that is surprisingly cooperative and ‘worldly’, compared to all other Qunari we’ve interacted with in games past. He’s got a lovely little band of misfits, is well spoken, and generally open minded/kind. As we get to know him we come to discover that all his charming qualities are exactly what make him ill suited for Qunari society—everything GOOD about him is other. UNLESS you enter a romance with him, in which case the ‘fun’ hold overs from a sex-as-a-biological-imperative society are BDSM. So, compared to the other available romances he’s quite lewd. His character development stalls a bit if you romance him UNTIL you get to the Bulls Chargers portion of his mission where it is either—sacrifice everyone and remain with the culture and world you truly do care about, or do the ‘right thing’ and cast off everything you know to save your found family. The narrative treats the latter as the ‘right choice’ in Trespasser when a non-Tal Vashoth Bull turns on the inquisitor regardless of relationship. Affirming to the player that all those who follow the Qun are mindless dogmatic murderers without real empathy or attachments. (Obviously there is more along the way with guilt and loss of identity, but I’m painting the broad strokes)

In a vacuum, this feels…fine. It could just be a story about a guy in a culture. A tale of deconstruction. It feels uncomfortable considering the cultural allegories that are easy to make with the Qun—it feels non western religiously. An amalgamation of maligned cultures BUT it’s easy to feel like maybe we’re reading too deeply.

Then enters Taash and the Qunari we see in Veilguard.

I have not seen what happens with Taash and their choice to “be more Rivaini or more Qunari” (I’m a biracial black woman and that makes my skin fucking crawl) but the implication is damning when looking at it next to Iron Bull’s story. (I’m also still playing VG so take this with a grain of salt. Taash has also been the most overtly sexual character the earliest in the game, I haven’t gotten more than a hint from any other character (save for Davrin, but it was a subtle flirt) but Taash? They’ve sniffed my neck, growled, and asked if I wanted to fuck them. So, once again, hypersexualizing the Qunari companion.

The Qunari in Veilguard are beyond flattened and instead split into two groups—the civilized, understanding, assimilated Qunari & the near mindless, violent, occupying, murdering defected Antaam.

The Qunari NPCs I’ve over heard in game have all been quick to yell “I’m just Antivan!” Or “I’m not Antaam” or the below grossssssssss dialogue (paraphrased from a convo I head at the LOF base)

“So, you’re Qunari”

“No, I don’t follow the Qun.”

“But you have the horns”

“I was born in X city. Qunari means ‘people under the Qun’ and I wasn’t raised with that”

“Oh then, if you’re not Qunari what do I call you?”

“How about X name”

…IM SORRY WHAT?!?!?! This gives entirely “I don’t see color” and is INSANE to put in a game in 2024. We are familiar with Tal Vashoth, we’ve been able to play as Tal Vashoth Qunari (racially) characters in two games. Hell, we have a similar allegory for it in real life with Jewish folks!! There is a distinct difference between being ethnically Jewish (I.e ashkenazi, etc pls correct my terminology) and religiously Jewish but erasing either is fucking gross????

Just like yeah, I’m [my name] but I’m also visibly fucking black and pretending I’m not does nothing but provide more room for the marginalization I experience to go completely unchecked because “I’m just [name]”

The handling is especially upsetting because I was REALLY hoping we’d get a slice of normal life in this game in a perfectly average Qunari settlement/encampment or something so we could see some of this culture outside of their violent defectors and “one of the good ones” Tal Vashoth.

[scalefeathers]

Arcane Daemon AU:

Character: Sevika Dæmon’s name: Rustam / 'Rust' Dæmon’s form: Spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta)

As a consequence of being so vertical (and so dangerous a place to live), Zaunite daemons tend to be nimble and agile, if only so they can keep up with their humans as they parkour across the rooftops. If your daemon can't do that, then when backed into a corner you've got no choice but to fight. A Zaunite with a daemon who can't fly, climb, or hide, therefore, is clearly not someone to be fucked with.

And with a bite force of over 1100 psi, spotted hyenas are one of the most not-to-be-fucked-with critters around. In fact, the only animal in their environment that's arguable even more not-to-be-fucked-with is the African lion, which makes it all the more tragic that Ambessa and Sevika never got to interact in season 2.

Hyenas are social animals, but compared to other animals that live in groups, their dynamics are more competitive than cooperative. Likewise, Sevika, though a team player rather than a lone wolf, generally prefers to assert her dominance rather than seek consensus.

Speaking of dominance, hyena clans are matriarchal, with females being larger and more dominant than males, which seems fitting for Sevika being the bossest-ass bitch in Zaun.

In fact, due to their larger size, aggressive behavior, and some unconventional sexual anatomy, female hyenas have often been mistaken for males, and the species in general has long been associated with hermaphroditism and gender deviance (as well as just deviance in general). And while she isn't exactly butch, cigar-chomping, hard-drinking, hard-brawling, whiskey-drinking, brothel-patronizing, Clint-Eastwood-ass poncho-wearing Sevika is (in my opinion) the most masc-coded female character in the show.

That said, Rust is a male hyena, which are less dominant than the females; and while she can (and eventually does) have the skills to be a leader, we see over and over that Sevika would rather follow a strong leader than have to be one herself: first with Vander, then with Silco. She only steps up into a leadership position in season 2 because there's literally no one else who wants the job.

Despite her serious demeanor, Sevika has bit of a wild streak, as displayed by her fondness for gambling and the savage joy with which she fights. If a person's daemon represents their true self, an expression of the parts of themselves they usually keep under wraps, then it makes sense to me that Sevika's daemon should be one associated with chaos, violence, and wild, hysterical laughter.

(That said, hyenas are not nearly as vicious or scary as their reputation might lead one to think, and I believe that's true of Sevika as well.)

Though the fur of wild hyenas is quite short and sparse, hyenas taken to live in colder climates do grow thicker coats. Since Zaun is a lot more temperate than the Serengeti, I decided Rust is likewise a bit of a fluffy boi.

Although their fur is normally short, spotted hyenas still sport their distinctive mohawk ridge along their spine, which seemed fitting considering Sevika's punk-rock glow-up in season 2.

Like Sevika, Rust also has some scars from the hextech explosion (although he was able to keep all his limbs). Also, like Sevika, his eyes glow whenever she injects Shimmer.

Although they resemble canines, hyenas are actually more closely related to cats than to dogs--and as it turns out, they're even more closely related to mongooses. Since I consider Sevika to be a pretty clear narrative foil for Vi (especially in season 1) you can imagine how this realization delighted me, since I had already decided long ago what Vi's daemon was.

Rust's name is also tied in with Vi's daemon, whose name is Setanta, i.e. the childhood name of Cu Chulainn, the Irish folk hero. Rustam, or Rostam, is the name of a Persian folk hero whose legend shares several features with Cu Chulainn's. Coincidence? Quite possibly! But I thought it was neat anyway. And I wanted to continue the trend I'd established of Zaunite daemons having names that could be shortened to one-syllable, thematically-appropriate words (Set, Rig, Sin, Rust).

[tremendouskoalachild]

Plausibility of Different Toxic Workplace Yuri in the Inquisitorius: a Very Serious Report

there are seven known female members of the Inquisitorius across star wars canon, not counting the unnamed inquisitor mentioned in Ghosts of Dathomir, and the unidentified inquisitors of unknown gender mentioned in Savage Spirits and Crimson Climb. they are summed up in a previous post, and include:

the Second Sister (Trilla Suduri)

the Third Sister (Reva Sevander)

the Fourth Sister (Lyn Rakish)

the Seventh Sister

the Ninth Sister (Masana Tide)

the Thirteenth Sister (Iskat Akaris)

and Barriss Offee, for a limited time frame.

that gives us 21 potential pairings. i have examined them all based on their time in the organization, the likelihood of having met before joining, their appearances together and their personalities. let's take a look.

2 x 3

Second and Third Sisters have a somewhat similar personality and role in their main media. they have never interacted to our knowledge. Trilla dies just five years into her tenure, while Reva joins at an unknown date after the organization's founding. she would be 17 at the time of Trilla's death, and may not have even been a member at that point. they may well have met before Order 66, as Trilla's master was a Seeker and they both worked with younglings (and were captured while trying to protect a group from clone troopers), but obviously no relationship happened there.

PROBABILITY: LOW for timeline reasons

TOXICITY: EXTREMELY HIGH. what if you were a teenager full of rage and i was reminded both of myself just a few years ago and of the children i failed to rescue every time i looked at you 😳

2 x 4

Second and Fourth Sisters were concurrent members for around five years, and may have known each other or been peers before (i don't quite believe they were, as Lyn's dynamic with Barriss Offee seems to go against that). we have never seen them interact but there is no reason to believe they haven't, as they were present in the headquarters at the same time for at least a while; inquisitors are often sent on missions in pairs or teams, and there aren't that many of them.

PROBABILITY AND TOXICITY: MODERATE. Lyn was very much not over Barriss leaving her for basically the whole time these two knew each other. Trilla the inquisitor is not one for socializing but who's to say she never needed to blow off some steam.

2 x 7

Second and Seventh Sister were both inquisitors for the first five years of the organization's existence, and both were likely broken by torture. we've seen them together once, standing around in disinterest while their colleagues toast with shitty local alcohol, shortly before Trilla's death. they may well have met before becoming inquisitors but both are keen to forget their pasts.

PROBABILITY AND TOXICITY: MODERATE. neither is particularly sociable, and Seventh especially is difficult to get along with. they have a lot in common but not the good parts, is what i'm saying.

2 x 9

Second and Ninth Sister were concurrently members for five years, and were sent together on a mission to Bracca in Jedi: Fallen Order. while they get separated (forever) seeing it through, it isn't the only time we've seen them cooperating. they were both broken by torture and have quite a bit in common, though they picked different coping strategies. they almost certainly didn't know each other before Order 66 (Cere, Trilla's master, didn't know Masana).

PROBABILITY: MODERATE to HIGH. by which i mean that we've seen them comfortably work together in canon, which automatically puts them to the top of amicable inquisitor relationships. Trilla is very closed off, but Masana might have more success getting her to open up than most.

TOXICITY: MODERATE. neither is dealing with their extreme trauma in a particularly healthy way so putting them together is. hmmm.

2 x 13

we know Trilla and Iskat have interacted at Inquisitorius HQ, and they die in quick succession five years after joining. we have Iskat's POV attesting they hadn't met before Order 66, and that she was never in anything resembling a relationship. new recruit Iskat is desperate for friends but is put off by Trilla's hostility during training, and gets a boyfriend relatively soon after, whom she keeps until they die.

PROBABILITY: LOW. Iskat is not successful trying to get close to Trilla in canon and gets a long-term inquisitor boyfriend instead.

TOXICITY: HIGH. Iskat was famously a voluntary recruit, while Trilla had to be dragged in kicking and screaming, broken by torture and betrayal. she makes it clear she wants nothing to do with Iskat, or anyone for that matter. timeline-wise any relationship Iskat could have with her would involve a lot of jealousy and borderline cheating on Tualon.

2 x Barriss

Barriss spends a short time with the Inquisitorius, seemingly in a different facility entirely from their HQ. it is possible Trilla is currently there getting tortured but that isn't exactly conductive to a relationship. Barriss doesn't appear to meet any inquisitors apart from those shown in Tales of the Empire (the Grand Inquisitor, Lyn, guy killed later by Ahsoka, other guy killed later by Ahsoka) before deserting. they might have met back as Jedi but nothing suggests that.

PROBABILITY AND TOXICITY: LOW. there is no real space for them to interact in canon.

3 x 4

we don't know how much Third and Fourth Sister's time with the Inquisitorius overlaps, but we have seen them working together. Reva has a lot of friction with Fifth Brother and the Grand Inquisitor in those scenes, but is chill with Fourth Sister. it has been almost ten years since Barriss left by that point, shortly before Reva leaves, and a couple years before Lyn follows them both.

PROBABILITY: MODERATE. Reva is extremely focused on her mission but then again, there is downtime during transportation and such. Lyn is there, much more approachable than others present, and pining for Barris.

TOXICITY: MODERATE to HIGH. Reva goes from the lowest-status coworker to Lyn's boss to presumed dead traitor over a couple days, which is also the only period we can be sure they spent together.

3 x 7

we have no idea whether these two ever interacted. they don't have that much in common compared to some other pairings but i don't see anything making it impossible for them to hatefuck at some point 🤷‍♀️

PROBABILITY AND TOXICITY: MODERATE.

3 x 9

we don't know when Reva joined up exactly, but they both left the Inquisitorius around the same time (well, Reva left. Masana got decapitated). their missions had some small overlap so it isn't out of the question that they would have cooperated off-screen. i think Reva would have reminded Masana of Trilla, who she used to work with quite well. they both have complex relationships to Darth Vader (Reva wants to murder him to death for killing her family, while Masana was mutilated by him several times over and copes via humor).

PROBABILITY: MODERATE. you can't tell me Masana wouldn't be up for it, while Reva seems much more likely to fool around with someone who also lost so much to Vader.

TOXICITY: MODERATE because inquisitor Reva absolutely cannot have a healthy relationship but also there isn't much about Masana making it worse.

3 x 13

similar to Trilla, it's doubtful Reva ever set foot in the Inquisitorius before Iskat's death. if she did, she would have been 17 at most when Iskat dies, and Iskat would have spent the entire time having her evil romance with Tualon. Iskat also joined the organization willingly and always felt Order 66 was completely justified, so i can't imagine Reva would be chill with her.

PROBABILITY: LOW for both timeline and general compatibility reasons.

TOXICITY: EXTREMELY HIGH. Iskat juggling her possessive broken jedi boyfriend who halfheartedly tried to kill her and this teen who very much wants to end her life. someone would die and it wouldn't take long.

3 x Barriss

one of only two pairings on the list i'm practically completely positive couldn't have met while inquisitors. they both deserted though, so maybe they'll meet up eventually...?

4 x 7

they served the Inquisitorius concurrently for around 16 years but we never saw them interacting, or heard of them working together. they don't have much in common personality-wise, other than being capable and dedicated enough to keep their jobs (and lives) that long in this rather intense work environment. however, while Seventh is quick to piss off her colleagues, Lyn is generally level-headed and willing to work with others. maybe opposites attract?

PROBABILITY: MODERATE. their other coworkers drop like flies and their dating pool is pretty limited otherwise due to their careers. also they're both green-yellow?

TOXICITY: MODERATE. you can't have a non-toxic relationship involving Seventh tbh

4 x 9

ten years working together. we haven't seen any notable interactions between them but i don't see why they couldn't have become work buddies at some point, since they're the more pleasant to work with inquisitors around. similar to Reva and Masana, their missions around 10 years post-Order 66 overlap a bit, so they might have cooperated.

PROBABILITY: MODERATE. neither of them is seething with hatred 24/7 or completely isolating themselves, and their other colleagues keep leaving or dying. what's a girl to do but fuck that huge alien gal?

TOXICITY: LOW. i don't really see why they couldn't have a fling. being colleagues is like the most questionable thing they have going on.

4 x 13

Iskat tried to become friends with Lyn, got brushed off, and soon afterwards got reunited with Tualon, who became her hobby until they died 5 years later. they decidedly didn't know each other back before Order 66. i suppose they have a bit in common in being willing recruits, and that Lyn might become more receptive to Iskat wanting companionship once she gets over Barriss (or the wound becomes less fresh, i guess).

PROBABILITY: LOW. they missed their shot.

TOXICITY: MODERATE because of Tualon's existence, Lyn pining over Barriss, plus their first impressions not being great.

4 x Barriss

they knew each other before Order 66, and Barriss spent most of her inquisitor time under Lyn's wing in some way. Lyn clearly feels strongly about Barriss leaving her, for quite some time. there isn't much space for yuri shenanigans before Barriss leaves but plenty after their reunion.

PROBABILITY: PRETTY LOW if we're concerned only with true workplace yuri, since Barriss was still very much getting her bearings and then left right away. you can't prove it didn't happen though.

TOXICITY: HIGH. your heartbroken almost-ex gets you out of jail after a government coup, recruits you into a weird culty organization, becomes your boss, tries to get you to kill civilians, you throw her of a cliff. regardless where we imagine the kissing happened it's pretty weird.

7 x 9

they have 10 years of working for the Inquisitorius, and have been on missions together before. also one of those missions involved going undercover at a casino and gambling on company time. Seventh wore a dress. that's practically a date innit

PROBABILITY: HIGH. both are snarky gals coping with their extreme trauma through having irreverent fun on the job. what's more fun than putting your mouthy coworker in her place?

TOXICITY: MODERATE mostly because Seventh is involved.

7 x 13

they've been thoroughly introduced to each other shortly after Iskat's recruitment and it didn't go well for either one. Iskat keeps well clear of Seventh afterwards for both life preservation purposes and general ease of life. she also has a thrilling pseudo-romance with her somewhat murdery boyfriend Tualon, so i don't imagine she's likely to seek out Seventh for thrills.

PROBABILITY: LOW. they hate each other but not in a sexy way, and both have better outlets.

TOXICITY: EXTREMELY HIGH. murder murder murder.

7 x Barriss

even at her most morally questionable i don't think Barriss would ever be drawn to Seventh Sister. they well may have met as Jedi, since it is suggested Mirialans stick together at least somewhat during the prequel era. it is very doubtful they met while Barriss was with the Inquisitorius, however.

PROBABILITY: LOW for timeline and compatibility reasons.

TOXICITY: HIGH. what if you found the timid healer-turned-terrorst girl in a hallway, all alone and wide-eyed in her new evil uniform, and decided to show her the wonders of the dark side...

9 x 13

they know each other for five years, and Masana essentially becomes Iskat's closest companion showing her the ropes in the Inquisitorius, until she reunites with Tualon. they talk pretty freely and Iskat considers Masana a "lively sparring partner". they didn't know each other before being recruited. Iskat had done so voluntarily, Masana not so much but has accepted her role by the time they meet.

PROBABILITY AND TOXICITY: MODERATE. i'd envision it as part of Iskat's self-realization arc. there is a parallel between Masana and Tualon's recruitment, and maybe Masana could do as him and make the most of it. that doesn't mean she'd forget, though.

9 x Barriss

there is very little probability they ever met, as inquisitors or otherwise. i think Barriss would find Masana intimidating at best, and Masana "it would be fun to bring you in, watch you crack like the rest of us" Tide would probably have thoughts about Barriss' recruitment.

PROBABILITY: LOW for timeline and compatibility reasons.

TOXICITY: HIGH. let Masana show this pipsqueak just what she signed up for.

13 x Barriss

Barriss is long gone by the time Iskat properly joins the Inquisitorius, and Iskat's story rules out them having a fling either as jedi or afterwards.

[blueyluu]

howl jenkins pendragon x gn! reader

The living castle chugged steam from it's tall engines, emitting smoke up into the crystal-blue sky after every lanky movement. With each savage huff that escaped the living home, you teetered across the rugged wood floors.

You were busy cleaning away at the lonely rooms, each inhabiting disparate articles of knick-knacks and eye catching souvenirs. It was like caring after a bunch of children really, Howl and Markl always on the move and not bothering too clean up after each other.

Perhaps that was just the reason the fire demon had 'hired' you too clean up this place.

You had spent long, atrocious hours sweeping away at each room, shooing pesky soot gremlins that had found their way into silent corners. The hard work was appreciated from Calcifer, the occasional coal stirring praises from his flame-coated mouth, but was quick to be destroyed when Howl came dragging himself through the house.

You perked up to see Markl bounding after his mentor per usual while the blond dragged a green substance across the mostly-clean floors, now stained with goo.

"Now this won't do, Calcifer keep the castle headed west, down to the folding valley." You corrected the direction before throwing the demon a hefty stack of wood that he eagerly gobbled into the flickers.

The trip running up the stairs and down - twice - was a brief exchange. You had croaked out directions to the child and a full Calcifer. Going as far as to draw a steaming bath in the nearest lavatory, next rushing a sticky Howl into the room.

"Well then, I'll need you to cooperate if this is going to work out. Arms up-" The only noises that left his mouth were strangled mumbles about god knows what, but it was obvious in the way he sank against the rim of the tub that he was out of it.

"You only get like this if one out of two things have happened," you huffed into the steaming room, busy putting your elbow into scrubbing off the green liquid from his person "you've bitten off more than you can chew or someone's rejected your feelings."

You could tell by the way he grumbled on cue that it was the latter. Occasionally some foreigner, man or woman, would whisk Howl away to keep their minds (and bodies -) busy for a while. But in the end, he was always the one sulking about passionate feelings and the strands of hope he had clung on to for a relationship that was doomed to break. Sometimes you'd wish one of these failed flings would knock some sense into the hopeless romantic but the next thing you knew, he was smitten for the first vixen passing through.

Regardless of the repetitive broken hearts and sob stories that he spewed out from pretty-pink lips, you were always there to calm the storm, wiping salty tears from his face.

"Don't waste your tears on that woman, Jenkins, she was no good to begin with." You usually quipped up a response with honeyed words and embraces but you were honest with him this time 'round. "She doesn't deserve your heart, so don't bother dwelling on what could have been. It's best to look past that and move on, dove."

Anyone could tell you it was easier said than done but you had already heard that over the many break-ups and each time, you reluctantly soothed him.

In the end it was you and him in a steam-filled bathroom, wind-chimes twirling up against the high windows to fill the silence, along with the swirling waves of bubbles that pooled over the rim and leapt in crashes. You had a puffy-eyed Howl leaning up against the edges of your shoulder while he sniffed away remnants of his story, hands tugging at the hems of your white sleeve. He was dramatic, truly, but you let the emotions reel on.

The negative aura seeped out of the room after his last tear fell, the crystal arching over his cheek before leaping into the unknown. By then you had cupped his cheeks into your hands, thumbs brushing away the evidence from his skin.

"Thank you," Howl spoke in his lilted voice for the first time in that interaction, throat bobbing when he swallowed down the pained emotions.

In reality you had cleaned away the gooey mess from his body, but you'd also stripped him of the grief weighing him down. Giving him a chance to breathe.

[clay-cuttlefish]

I am still on my bullshit about the Vic + Renee + Helena + Jean-Paul + Ted teamup. Here are three unrelated character elements I have been rotating in my mind for it.

Thing 1: Helena's Thoughts on Jean-Paul

Azrael: Agent of the Bat #63-65 and Cry for Blood came out right after each other and reading them back to back fills me with Helena Emotions. It's been a while, but as far as I'm aware this is the most Helena and Jean-Paul ever interact?

Gesturing at these. You get it. How has this never been explored in more depth.

I'm attached to the idea that Helena's resentful of Jean-Paul for getting the benefit of the doubt and a second chance when she didn't, and it would only make her more frustrated that he barely remembers her and would be genuinely apologetic if she brought it up. It's not cathartic to yell at someone who gets weird and self-deprecating about it.

It'd be especially frustrating because it's not like her concerns about JPV are unfounded, but also she is 100% aware that if she went "I am not going to hang out with him, he's killed people" Vic and Renee would be insufferable about it and they wouldn't even be that wrong.

Thing 2: What The Questions Are Actually Good At

If Vic and Renee going to be active together, it'd be nice to flesh out their respective skills so they don't feel overly similar, ideally without pinning them down into their 52 roles (since Renee's evolved a fair amount since then) or making them excessively competent.

To do this, I want to contrast how Vic is generally pretty grounded and city-level while Renee's out there chasing cults across the world. Partly because I think this is really core to what makes them distinct and has been overlooked in both of them recently, partly because I don't like Vic's conspiracy theorist characterization and want to push back on it because I'm petty.

For Renee, I'd lean into the "witness to the bizarre" angle. She's found a space at the edges where the weirdness of the DC universe blends into the day-to-day - the places where multiversal skeleton assassins are a job risk for reporters, or where chasing organized crime sometimes leads her to Vandal Savage.

I'm pretending she last appeared in Lois Lane because making her the commissioner sucked and I can ignore a few years of appearances without breaking anything. In this version of reality she got her private investigator license as part of working with Lois so that she can operate semi-above-board, but she's mooching off of Tot (and maybe Lois still) so she doesn't have to take on real jobs. Anyways she's actually A Detective who has real investigative skills.

On the other hand, Vic's primary methods of investigation are asking directly and eavesdropping. A lot of what he does best relies on him either being recognized as a local reporter or being supernatural, neither of which I want to do, but I think it could be fun to take elements from the "city emissary" version into the "guy who has really strong opinions about municipal safety inspections" side of his writing.

What I'm saying is: let him get into a building by pretending to be a fire code inspector and then listen in on the employees until he figures out what he's looking for.

Thing 3: Ted and JPV Do Not Have to Be In Costume

This is just a kind of story I want to see for them tbh.

Ted does not need to be out there in tights at all. He's bad at staying retired, but that doesn't mean he has to be doing the legwork himself, and this is a group with minimal expectations for what he should be doing. Let him be the tech guy/world's least subtle getaway driver!

JPV enters the story in armor since he's trying to investigate, but once he's out of that first sequence, he doesn't have to suit back up. This being a heist/investigation focused group means that Azrael's skillset isn't super helpful, and they're working on their cooperation so he can actually try using his own skills.

He doesn't have, like, great skills for vigilantism, but half a comp sci degree and some medical training is more than Vic had. Depending on how much Azrael's able to dip into deeper System knowledge without freaking out, it might also be able to apply some of its engineering skills to things other than edgelord weaponry, or at least understand what Ted's showing off better than the others.

He can have an adventure where he gets to make a friend and be a nerd and not maim anybody. As a treat. He has more than enough unresolved emotional hooks to play off of already.

[wibble-wobbegong]

Ross Duffer, Shawn Levy, Brett Gelman, and Noah Schnapp have signed the #NoHostageLeftBehind letter to Biden which reads,

“Dear President Biden,

We are heartened by Friday’s release of the two American hostages, Judith Ranaan and her daughter Natalie Ranaan and by today’s release of two Israelis, Nurit Cooper and Yocheved Lifshitz, whose husbands remain in captivity.

But our relief is tempered by our overwhelming concern that 220 innocent people, including 30 children, remain captive by terrorists, threatened with torture and death. They were taken by Hamas in the savage massacre of October 7, where over 1,400 Israelis were slaughtered - women raped, families burned alive, and infants beheaded.

Thank you for your unshakable moral conviction, leadership, and support for the Jewish people, who have been terrorized by Hamas since the group’s founding over 35 years ago, and for the Palestinians, who have also been terrorized, oppressed, and victimized by Hamas for the last 17 years that the group has been governing Gaza.

We all want the same thing: Freedom for Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side in peace. Freedom from the brutal violence spread by Hamas. And most urgently, in this moment, freedom for the hostages.

We urge everyone to not rest until all hostages are released. No hostage can be left behind. Whether American, Argentinian, Australian, Azerbaijani, Brazilian, British, Canadian, Chilean, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Eritrean, Filipino, French, German, Indian, Israeli, Italian, Kazakh, Mexican, Panamanian, Paraguayan, Peruvian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, South African, Spanish, Sri Lankan, Thai, Ukrainian, Uzbekistani or otherwise, we need to bring them home. “

You can read it yourself here, alongside every celebrity who signed it.

Knowing that so many people involved with Stranger Things’ production are going out of their way to support this, I’m no longer going to be posting about or interacting with Stranger Things content and I won’t be watching season 5.

I suggest reading the full list as others may disappoint you as they have disappointed me.

From the river to the sea,

Palestine will be free.

[eleemosynecdoche]

ngl you're vastly overexaggerating the racist aspects of prax if you think they're as bad as korerala. even the faux native thing isn't as shitty as...literally nearly everything about the later.

I didn't say that the reason Prax sucks was solely because it was racist. (Although Prax is pretty racist when you step back and evaluate that it's a part of Glorantha where the primary population is faux-Amerindian *and* Mad Max postapocalyptic raiders, where the basic modalities are of the American Old West, where the imagery and worldview of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories also come into play, and then there's, as a tiny part of that, Argrath and the whole White Bull thing.) I mean, I played a game with lengthy sections in Caladraland, the presence of overt racism in the source content isn't the root problem I mean when I say a place "doesn't exist" as a joke.

Prax and Kralorela, to me, suck because they don't have playable content that I'm interested in. Prax has playable content that is entirely focused on Pavis and the places downriver of Pavis, and none of that really interests me. (In fact, Sun County/Mo Baustra as presented textually could be just about anywhere, because there's not that much about how its people interact with the Animal Nomads. This, too, is unfortunately downstream of the racism in the content there.) But stepping outside of that zone and wading directly into the Animal Nomads, the conflicts are over... what? Which of the big five is on top for the next little while? There's microscale content for, idk, fantasy life-sim stuff, but unfortunately the whole "strong and hard barbarian savages" element becomes really damaging there, because you're playing people who exist in an environment where cooperation across ethnic boundaries is downplayed and submerged.

I'm also, steelmanning the position of the hypothetical Prax defenders out there, straightforwardly ignoring the nu-Chaosium intent, which is that the Lunars conducted a genocide against the Bison and Impala People after First Moonbroth and then Argrath conducted a more thorough genocide against the Sables after Second Moonbroth, killing 40% of the adult population. I am ignoring this because it is content that goes so far out of tone for Prax that it's functionally gibberish. Metaplot metastasizing. But I'm also not that interested in playing with that kind of content either.

So that's Prax- I think Prax sucks because playing there with the content provided doesn't do anything which interests me, and it's also reveling in brutality in a way I find distasteful.

Turning to Kralorela, yeah, it's cartoonishly racist. I don't know if there's a clear way to quantify these things even in theory, but Kralorela is down there with Fonrit and Teleos and the Vadeli and Teshnos and, frankly, Pent as far as wanton racism baked into the content goes.

And Kralorela also does have a kind of proto-playable content thing going on, which is utterly fucking rancid because it's centered around a drug called "black lotus" and a guy named "Can Shu" who's positioned about where Manchuria would be and who's scheming to invade and overthrow Kralorela and ha ha ha, if you count the Kralori emperors they roughly match up with Chinese dynasties/Chinese states- and that's when I start screaming internally.

And yeah. Both of us could go on at length at how much racism is embedded in the content, and one area Kralorerla exceeds anywhere else in is that you really have to take a fire axe to almost all the names because of how they're pseudo-Mandarin (written in Wade-Giles or sub-Wade-Giles) rather than vague fantasy bullshit or recognizable words.

Setting that parade of misery aside, Kralorela is also fundamentally disconnected from the entire rest of the setting because it's built on the trope of Chinese isolationism, and that extends to the "East Isles"/Vithela which are ostensibly part of the same "zone", but which have significantly more interesting content on their surface. The Guide included a stream of racist vomit that attempted to lay out the desired metaplot for the whole area east of the Zola Fel, but it's metaplot and doesn't have more than the faintest hit of actual tensions or conflict you could play.

Also, Godunya is one of Greg Stafford's many self-inserts.

With that being said, I am now going to, out of sheer perversity, talk about the content in Kralorela that I think you could get to without too many swings of the fireaxe and which I think is interesting.

Kralorela has a pretty decent amount of pure fantasy content- chocobos! Bridges big enough to be entire cities stretched out across their length! Magical injection-molded fortifications!- that you could pick up and play with. Kralorela also has the advantage that there's a lot of external media you can use as a source for content once you've chopped away the vast majority of it. Cultivator novels aren't high art, but they're perfect to inject into Glorantha.

There's also- There's a way in which Kralorela having thus far avoided the nu-Chaosium reduction of Glorantha to working in a single way and via a single metaphysics opens up Kralorela as a place that is potentially valuable for wide-scope play with the Lunars, or the Holy Country. Again, a hard job with the fire axe, but once you're done, there's something interesting about the Kralori as "Lunars who sold out" and accepted their cosmic revision would only go so far and no further, and as a "Holy Country that escaped Belintar" and went on to develop a system that continued on without the deaths and annihilations of ruling demigods actually destroying it. That's, uh, really wide-scope play, the point at which the Altinelans and Luatha become polities interacting with other polities, and it's fairly limited in examples... but there's something there.

And you could very easily use Godunya the self-insert and Genertela being a horizontally flipped United States and just make Kralorela California or the whole American West Coast. Chen Durel is Idaho, Fethlon... okay, bad idea.

None of this makes Kralorela "good" or playable, just something that has more nascent content that interests me than Fonrit.

[mariacallous]

Days after Meta launched its new app, Threads, this month, a software engineer at the company named Ben Savage introduced himself to a developer group at the World Wide Web Consortium, a web standards body. The group, which maintains a protocol for connecting social networks called ActivityPub, had been preparing for this moment for months, ever since rumors first emerged that Meta planned to join the standard. Now, that moment had arrived. “I'm really interested to see how this interoperable future plays out!” he wrote.

Warm replies to Savage’s email filtered in. And then came another response:

“The company you work for does disgusting things among others. It harms relationships and isolates people. It builds walls and lures people into them. When that doesn't suffice, brutal peer pressure does … That said, welcome to the list, Ben.”

Meta’s embrace of ActivityPub, used by apps including the Twitter-like Mastodon, was bound to be a little awkward. The constellation of small apps and personal servers that currently use the protocol, known as the Fediverse, is marked by an ethos of sharing and openness, not profit-seeking or user bases denominated in the billions. ActivityPub is designed to allow users of different apps to not only interact and view each others’ content, but also move their digital identity from one service to another. Mastodon, the largest app in the Fediverse, is open source and run by a nonprofit, and smaller Fediverse apps like PeerTube and Lemmy are often held up as a repudiation of the closed nature of services such as YouTube or Reddit. Corporations like Meta are typically held up as the enemy. No surprise that, despite appeals from ActivityPub leaders for civility when Meta arrived on the listserv, some couldn’t hold their tongue.

Weeks-old Threads already dwarfs the Fediverse, which has been around for more than a decade and recently peaked at about 4 million active monthly users. Some Fediverse fans see that imbalance as a win: Suddenly, the network could become many times more relevant. Others consider that view naive and expect Meta’s size to push the small world of apps built on ActivityPub in undesirable directions. Some have circulated a pact to preemptively block content from Threads’ servers from appearing on their own.

“The Fediverse community has been jolted into motion—due to fear and loathing of Meta, and also excitement,” says Dmitri Zagidulin, a developer who leads the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) group responsible for discussing the future of ActivityPub. The prospect of Meta joining the decentralized movement has people trying to spiff up their projects and prepare for the spotlight. “There are furious meetings. Grants being applied for. Pull requests. Pushes for better security, better user experience. Better everything,” he says.

Zagidulin is himself a member of a Mastodon server that operates as a social cooperative, where users collectively decide major decisions. They recently held a vote on whether to preemptively block Threads, a process known as defederation. The result: 51 percent in favor, 49 percent against.

That divide reflects different visions for the Fediverse’s future. One involves embracing Threads to bootstrap the network’s stagnant growth. The ideals of openness and giving users more control didn’t tempt many people to join platforms like Mastodon until Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter sent many longtime users looking for new digital homes. Even then, the bump quickly went bust. Some users gave up after finding federation tools confusing compared to Twitter. Then came Bluesky, a competitor supported by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey that reflects many of the same principles but is developing a rival decentralized protocol to ActivityPub.

Amidst those challenges, Meta’s interest dangles the potential of the company’s vast resources and reach to inject new life into the Fediverse movement. “This is a clear victory for our cause,” wrote Eugen Rochko, CEO of Mastodon, in a blog post on the day Threads launched.

Others simply want Meta out. To Fediverse users like Vanta Black, the warm response from community leaders to Meta’s interest felt like betrayal. In 2017, as she navigated her gender identity, she found a home in small Mastodon communities where moderators and users intermingled and held shared values for how to filter out hateful posts. She fears the arrival of millions of Threads users will unleash volumes of content into the Fediverse that are impossible to manage.

This spring, after rumors that Meta was planning a project that would integrate with ActivityPub, Black launched the “Anti-Meta FediPact,” a pledge for Fediverse communities to defederate from the company’s future offering. So far, the pact has been signed by a few hundred admins, most representing smaller Fediverse groups. Others are having similar debates to Zagidulin’s group, part of a lively discussion about whether members of an “open” ecosystem should preemptively block new participants.

Black points out that there’s precedent: a collective effort in 2019 to block the far-right social network Gab after it began using Mastodon’s software. The effort was considered broadly successful at blocking Gab content from filtering into the Fediverse. Meta’s content moderation policies, as well as its role in human rights abuses and global conflicts, Black argues, put it in the same must-block bucket. She sees the hunger for growth expressed by some Fediverse leaders conflicting with what’s best for the community. “Success for the Fediverse to me is retaining what makes it the Fediverse now,” she says.

Johannes Ernst, a member of the W3C’s ActivityPub group, says he can sympathize with those who wish to defederate for reasons of personal safety. But at the same time, he can’t help but feel that attracting Meta realizes an elusive dream for the open protocol.

The Fediverse’s small size can feel intimate—but also isolating for people who want to connect with family and friends not interested in the arcana of distributed online services, or who want to build new Fediverse services to serve large user bases. Suddenly, rather than trying to build a network from scratch, they will potentially have access to more than a hundred million users. “It’s an entirely different conversation,” he says.

How Meta decides to implement ActivityPub in Threads will help determine the outcome of what could be the Fediverse’s big bang. “It’s not plug-and-play,” says Ernst. The company will have to choose how closely to allow Threads users to integrate with other Fediverse servers. That includes deciding how easily users can migrate their accounts and networks to other services, and whether to provide support such as tools that redirect followers to a user’s new home. Meta’s leaders will also have to decide what kinds of Threads content will be broadcast out into the Fediverse—including, potentially, the role of ads—and how users outside of Threads will be able to see or interact with it on their own platforms. Meta did not respond to a request for comment.

Given that Threads could at a stroke represent the majority of Fediverse users and content, those choices will be deeply felt by existing users of decentralized apps. And anyone building a Fediverse app could find themselves essentially forced to optimize sharing content with Threads users. Mastodon plays a similar role on the network right now because of its large relative size, Ernst says, but so far it has a good relationship and open dialog with other Fediverse developers. A giant for-profit corporation might not manage to do the same.

Meta executives told staffers last week that ActivityPub integration “is a long way off,” according to The Verge. There’s a history of large platforms being quick to announce their interest in the protocol but slower to implement any integration, Zagidulin says, pointing to Tumblr’s as-yet-unrealized announcement last year of ActivityPub integration. Meta itself has a fickle history with open protocols. A decade ago, the company briefly embraced XMPP, an interoperable messaging protocol, along with competitors like Microsoft. But the effort was quickly abandoned.

But conditions are different now. Government officials mulling how to regulate large tech platforms today often turn to the idea of requiring interoperability, says Georgios Petropoulos, a researcher at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. Threads is not currently available in Europe, due at least in part to uncertainties related to the EU’s new Digital Markets Act and other regulations—especially rules related to how Threads user data will interact with data on other platforms, Petropoulos believes. The new EU rules also contain provisions on interoperability that are still being hashed out. It’s logical, Petropoulos says, for Meta to work with a protocol that’s partly managed by W3C, a respectable global standards organization, and that has already attracted other mainstream platforms like Tumblr. But it’s too soon to know how seriously the Facebook parent will take interoperability.

In the meantime, users like Zagidulin and Black are already taking action in response to just the specter of Meta’s integration into—or engulfment of—the Fediverse.

Zagidulin’s co-op server is planning more votes to determine how exactly to proceed. With the community evenly split, he says, one scenario would be to split the community across two servers—one that communicates with Meta’s empire and one that doesn’t. Black isn’t so optimistic about managing the divide. “I’d prefer the status quo, rather than two castles where one is sunny and one is dark,” she says.

[universe-in-the-void-in-the-cube]

Dark Empire - Anthrax

Anthrax (formerly Scourge)

Faction: The Dark Empire

Function: Squadron Leader

“Where my master leads, I will eagerly follow.”

Biography:

Originally known as Scourge, Anthrax has undergone a chilling metamorphosis into a figure of primal savage loyalty. His surface has transformed from a frigid blue to a vibrant blood ruby, embodying his heightened ferocity and commitment to the Decepticon Royal Family, specifically the oppressive rule of Queen Singularity and her dark partner, Prince Nightscream. Anthrax’s demeanor is characterized by an even deeper cruelty and sadism than his predecessor, making him a formidable force on the battlefield.

In his cybernetic form, Anthrax manifests as a marauding hovercraft, adept at traversing various terrains while serving as a relentless hunting machine. His hovering capabilities grant him an advantage in speed and stealth during aerial assaults and reconnaissance missions, as he expertly scans for "victims" who become nothing more than playthings for his sinister urges. Anthrax is often found stationed by Queen Singularity's throne, exhibiting a somewhat disturbing, almost pet-like loyalty that draws the ire and jealousy of his superior, Dark Starscream, who remains vigilant to ensure his mate's safety from the increasingly unpredictable Anthrax.

Personality Traits:

Primal: Anthrax's actions are driven by an instinctual ferocity, reflecting an animalistic predatory nature that makes him both malicious and unpredictable.

Loyal: His unyielding allegiance to Queen Singularity and Prince Nightscream defines his very existence, propelling him to defend their reign without hesitation.

Cruel: Anthrax thrives on brutality, exhibiting sadistic tendencies in combat; he shows no mercy to his enemies, relishing their suffering in the name of Decepticon dominance.

Obsessive: His fervent devotion to the Queen, bordering on obsession, influences his actions and interactions both on and off the battlefield.

Abilities:

Advanced Scanning Equipment: Anthrax possesses highly sophisticated detection technology, allowing him to locate mechanical and biological entities, even down to the size of a virus on a pinhead, across vast distances, including bluish geological anomalies on the moon.

Diverse Weaponry: Anthrax wields an astounding arsenal, including acid rays, variable caliber laser rifles, disintegrator beams, and various demolition and fusion devices. His versatility in combat makes him a fearsome adversary.

Marauding Hovercraft: His ability to transform into a robust scouring vehicle provides him unparalleled maneuverability and stealth when hunting down targets.

Weaknesses:

Anthrax's one known vulnerability lies in his overt fixation on Queen Singularity, which may cloud his judgment or priorities, making him susceptible to manipulation or distraction.

Tech Specs:

Strength: 8

Intelligence: 8

Speed: 9

Endurance: 8

Rank: 9

Courage: 9

Firepower: 8

Skill: 8

Teamwork: 5

Cooperation: 9

[thevisibilityarchives]

There There (2018), Tommy Orange

BIPOC

Summary: From the ill-fated Alcatraz Occupation to the nonprofit cubicles and projects of millennial Oakland, three generations of Native Americans are brought together for an annual Pow Wow that provokes questions of identity, and oppression, and highlights the experiences of America’s overlooked. 

Full review:

“What does it mean to be a real Indian?”

It’s the question that lingers in Tommy Orange’s There There, the celebrated debut novel that erupts with a brutal, but profound message: you think you’ve erased us, but we’re still here. 

The question itself is posed by Orvil Red Feather, an earnest teenager who ironically embodies the most passionate and solidified sense of self of all the characters presented in Orange’s vignette-style novel. Even as he questions and doubts himself, his identity, and his authenticity, he does so as someone attempting to connect with his heritage in a way that is admirable–and enviable. 

Orange makes it clear from the outset, that no community can be represented monolithically. While Orvil ponders whether he is “Indian enough”, a young man named Tony suffering from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and his friend Octavio hatch plans to heist an upcoming Pow Wow, stealing the prize money from their community so the latter can pay off money owed to his drug supplier. 

Set against the backdrop of Oakland, California is a prominent theme: poverty and oppression, rooted in white supremacy starting from the initial first contact and colonization of The Americas. When judging the actions of Octavio and his friends, or observing the prominence of alcoholism, drug addiction, or destitution prevalent within Orange’s novel, one cannot do so without examining how scenes of the past come together to form the full picture. 

In 1492, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus (today, arguments question whether ethnically he may be of Portuguese, Spanish, or other descent, but outside of the United States nationality is viewed with far less complexity. A person of Ghanaian descent born in France would simply be identified as French. Likewise, an American with Irish grandparents would not be wise to call themselves Irish when abroad.) set out on a wayward journey to India, instead landing on the other side of the globe. Upon landing in the “New World”, he noted the dark-skinned individuals and erroneously deemed them “Indians”, however in their interactions quickly found them to be far inferior to those he expected to find in India. 

They were uncivilized and barbarous creatures, serving Pagan gods, living in filth, exhibiting laziness, and lacking the technological advancement that made Europeans so righteous. Columbus recognized they were fit for conquer, relaying the following to Queen Isabella:

“...They have no arms and are all naked and without any knowledge of war, and very cowardly, so that a thousand of them would not face three. And they are also fitted to be ruled and to be set to work, to cultivate the land and to do all else that may be necessary, and you may build towns and teach them to go clothed and adopt our customs..." (Morgan, 2009)

It could of course seem as though he sought to do kindness to these poor savage creatures, but the reality was that Columbus’ methods varied depending on the tribes, and cooperation of the locals. They also eventually involved slavery, a practice that would come to grow into the largest, deadliest, and most consequential slave market in all of history: the West African Slave Trade. 

Today in the United States, he is held as a representative of Italian culture, his name marked by a celebratory bank holiday associated with cultural heritage despite the fact that other Italian figures–Leonardo Da Vinci, Julias Caesar, and Michelangelo to name a few–have all had immense contributions to culture that did not result in bloodshed that continues indirectly centuries later. 

 According to this map, a small number of states have thus adopted Indigenous People’s Day (in name only, mostly) in place of Columbus Day. Meanwhile, the holiday of Thanksgiving itself still serves as a celebratory recognition of the first shared holiday between European settlers and Native Americans, with no mention of all that would come next: slaughter, the despoilment of lands, and an intentional erasure of culture that lasted up until the last few decades. 

The dropoff of this government-sponsored erasure is where There There picks up, with a group of Native Americans attempting to occupy the island of Alcatraz in the momentous year-long preservation that served as a catalyst for Native rights protest movements of the 1970s. It is a turning point in which Orvil Red Feather’s grandmothers Jacquie and Opal Victoria come to understand that they will return to their lives in the city, struggling to make ends meet because it is all they can do. Alongside the other black, brown, and yellow people tucked into ramshackle houses and forced to fight for a way into the suburban sprawl to achieve the American Dream–combatting brick walls of stereotypes, the realities of poverty, and the toll racial trauma takes on our mental health–they become lost in the melting pot of urbanization. Another statistic, another person of color, another welfare recipient. Some intermarry. Some retain the old ways of life. Some die off too soon. Most adapt, persevere, and continue on. 

Orvil’s question is never answered. It can’t be, but it provokes poignant observations nonetheless. Most notably, can this definition change over time? Today, most people who are of Indigenous heritage have the unique perspective of having access to their culture, as well as the recent cultural memories of oppression and pain other ethnicities do not. It’s an enviable ability, one that cannot even be claimed by European-Americans and exists solely within Indigenous people of the world who have faced the pressure of assimilation, adapted, yet retained parts of themselves.

The full puzzle these pieces come together to create over time is a portrait that Orange displays in full gravity: a small sampling of the lives that each Thanksgiving, more and more of us are beginning to think about, despite being pressured to forget and focus instead on family, turkey, and American football. 

Which seems strange, given the purpose of a holiday seemingly rooted in the mythos of remembering these very people. 

You can find There There at your local library, here, or at your local bookstore. 

Citations:

[rityl2]

Chapter 5. (Fieldwork)

Racialization: the textbook defines racialization as, The process of categorizing, differentiating, and attributing a particular racial character to a person or group of people.

For example, the media paints the African American male to be a savage by their overrepresentation of violent crime. Because of this, many people who aren't black (and even some who are) become uneasy around African Americans because they think they could pop off and go feral at any second. The overrepresentation of violent crime committed by African Americans is not only destructive to those being held responsible, but for the entire community as well; Stereotypes can not only be created, but also enforced by this negative aspect of media.

(https://www.americanprogress.org/article/dangerous-racialization-crime-u-s-news-media/)

White Privilege: White privilege is essentially the unfair advantage that white American citizens hold all other ethnic groups, simply because of the color of their skin.

White privilege is still alive to this day despite the claims of many white people arguing that it doesn't, and never existed. One criterion where white privilege is abundantly clear lies within police interaction. In the past decade we've seen countless times in the news how unarmed black men have been shot, tazed, and choked to death for misdemeanor and minor felony offences. Last year in July (2022) a 25 year old unarmed black man later identified to be Jayland Walker was shot dead by 8 police officers after fleeing. Bodycam footage displayed Walker running away from a traffic stop, obviously unarmed, before all 8 officers discharged their firearms into his back killing him on the scene. Just a year prior to this event, a white man named Robert Aaron Long went on a murder spree in Atlanta Georgia, targeting and killing people of Asian descent. Long was apprehended, given a fair trial, and sentenced to life without parole with an additional 35 years. In the end, Long's life was taken from him in a sense that he had to spend the rest of it behind bars, whereas Walker didn't get the opportunity to be tried in a courtroom. Excessive force and malice is seldom used against a white suspect even if all fingers point to them committing the crime.

(https://www.npr.org/2021/09/28/1041137210/atlanta-spa-shooting-suspect-pleads-not-guilty-robert-aaron-long)

(https://abcnews.go.com/US/black-man-unarmed-ohio-officers-opened-fire-family/story?id=86149929)

Microaggression: refer to common everyday verbal or behavioral indignities and slights that communicate hostile derogatory and negative messaged about someone's race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion.

Prior to the 2021 election, Joe Biden made a few questionable statements, some of which regarding the race and racial identity of African Americans. In one instance, Biden is being interviewed by Charlamagne and says, "If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, the you ain't black". This statement stirred up a lot of controversy due to the fact that it offended many individuals who are black and unsure of who to vote for. Although the statement was not made to be intentionally offensive, Biden was under fire nonetheless.

Racism: individuals thoughts and actions, as well as institutional patterns and policies, that create or reproduce unequal access to power, privilege, resources, and opportunities based on imagined differences among groups

After the abolition of slavery and the riddance of Jim Crow laws, racism remains to linger in the United States. In 2020, a black man was bird watching in New York City's Central Park when he confronted a women walking her dog. Christian Cooper (bird watcher) asks Amy Cooper (dog walker) [no relation] to follow park rules and leash her dog. Amy cooper then calls the Police and tells them that there is an African American male threatening her life; Christian cooper records the interaction. While Amy Cooper's intentions were not clear, it can be inferred from the video that she was using the police as a weapon against Christian. The video was uploaded on May 27th 2020, 2 days after George Floyd was killed by police officers in Minneapolis.

[theworstfoundingfathers]

Who is the worst founding father? Round 3: James Madison vs Benedict Arnold

James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.

During the early 1790s, Madison opposed the economic program and the accompanying centralization of power favored by Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton. Alongside Thomas Jefferson, he organized the Democratic–Republican Party in opposition to Hamilton's Federalist Party.

Madison was elected president in 1808. Motivated by the desire for acquiring land held by Britain, Spain, and Native Americans, and after diplomatic protests with a trade embargo failed to end British seizures of American shipped goods, he led the United States into the War of 1812. 

By treaty or through war, Native American tribes ceded 26,000,000 acres (11,000,000 ha) of land to the United States under Madison’s presidency.

Upon becoming president, Madison said the federal government’s duty was to convert Native Americans by the “participation of the improvements of which the human mind and manners are susceptible in a civilized state”. In September 1809, Governor Harrison invited several tribes to a meeting in Fort Wayne. During the negotiations, Harrison promised large subsidies and direct payments to the tribes if they would cede the lands under discussion. Madison agreed to the Treaty of Fort Wayne, negotiated and signed by Indiana Territory’s Governor Harrison. In the treaty, the American Indian tribes were compensated $5,200 ($109,122 in 2020) in goods and $500 in cash ($10,900 in 2020), with $250 in annual payments ($5,450 in 2020), in return for the cession of 3 million acres of land (approximately 12,140 square kilometers) with incentivized subsidies paid to individual tribes for exerting their influence over less cooperative tribes.

Angered by the treaty, eventually hostilities broke between Shawnee leader Tecumseh’s followers and American settlers. Tensions continued to rise, leading to the Battle of Tippecanoe during a period sometimes called Tecumseh’s War. Tecumseh was defeated and Indians were pushed off their tribal lands, replaced entirely by white settlers.

Madison did not believe American Indians could be fully assimilated to the values of Euro-American culture. He believed that Native Americans may have been unwilling to make “the transition from the hunter, or even the herdsman state, to the agriculture”. Madison feared that Native Americans had too great an influence on the settlers they interacted with, who in his view were “irresistibly attracted by that complete liberty, that freedom from bonds, obligations, duties, that absence of care and anxiety which characterize the savage state”.

When Madison moved to Washington, D.C. in 1801, he brought slaves from Montpelier. He also hired slaves from other slave holders in Washington, D.C.. During Madison’s presidency, his White House slaves included John Freeman, Jennings, Sukey, Joseph Bolden, Jim, and Abram. By 1801, Madison’s slave population at Montpelier was slightly over 100. During the 1820s and 1830s, Madison sold land and slaves to repay debts. In 1836, at the time of Madison’s death, he owned 36 taxable slaves. Madison did not free any of his slaves either during his lifetime or in his will.

Benedict Arnold (14 January 1741 [O.S. 3 January 1740] – June 14, 1801) was an American-born military officer who served during the Revolutionary War. He fought with distinction for the American Continental Army and rose to the rank of major general before defecting to the British side of the conflict in 1780. General George Washington had given him his fullest trust and had placed him in command of West Point in New York. Arnold was planning to surrender the fort there to British forces, but the plot was discovered in September 1780, whereupon he fled to the British lines. In the later part of the conflict, Arnold was commissioned as a brigadier general in the British Army, and placed in command of the American Legion. He led the British army in battle against the soldiers whom he had once commanded, after which his name became, and has remained, synonymous with treason and betrayal in the United States.

Historians have identified many possible factors contributing to Arnold’s treason, while some debate their relative importance. According to W. D. Wetherell, he was:

[A]mong the hardest human beings to understand in American history. Did he become a traitor because of all the injustice he suffered, real and imagined, at the hands of the Continental Congress and his jealous fellow generals? Because of the constant agony of two battlefield wounds in an already gout-ridden leg? From psychological wounds received in his Connecticut childhood when his alcoholic father squandered the family’s fortunes? Or was it a kind of extreme midlife crisis, swerving from radical political beliefs to reactionary ones, a change accelerated by his marriage to the very young, very pretty, very Tory Peggy Shippen?

[maxwell-grant]

Ok, but how would the Shadow get along with Superman?

I'm gonna try something a little different with this ask, because I couldn't really find the right words to answer it the way I usually do. So instead I took the more complicated route and ended up writing a fanfic of sorts, about potential interactions between these two I could think of.

I don't think I'll make a habit out of answering replies through fanfic but, I don't know, something about this question kinda demanded from me a different type of answer. I never wrote Superman before but I do need to get back to writing.

So here you go, the Shadow - Superman fanfic I wrote to answer this. Hope you enjoy.

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They were not friends. They were not enemies. They had their separate worlds to watch over, and rarely did they cross each other. Rarely did they meet under desirable circumstances. 

 The Shadow, as Superman knew him, was not a part of Superman's world. In more ways than one.

Clark knew that he was a man who was mainly active during the 1930s and 40s, that he had been a crimefighter active in the United States during that time, that he has some connection to Bruce and other heroes he knew, and that he has an associate related to Lois named Margo, but somehow, Clark could never find him on his own accord.

Even when he time traveled to said period, he could never find him. Lois and Margo share a bloodline, but Lois does not recall what exactly of what sort, not even under Clark's machines. When he asked some of The Shadow's associates, they could not recall him, and Clark knew for a fact they could not have been lying. Some of them existed in this world but with "ordinary" lives, and others didn't.

Although he seemed to come from an alternate world,there were times when The Shadow appeared to have history in this world as well. Real, tangible history, that seems to be willed out of thin air and to dissappear when Clark goes looking for it. Even Bruce seems to not remember him, and Bruce's the one who seemed to have spent the most time in his presence.

He couldn't quite say he looked fondly on his meetings with The Shadow, if he could be honest with himself. He was cold, remote, harsh and manipulative. He murdered criminals without remorse, something that even he admitted had soured his relationship with Bruce, and terrorized those he fought to a much greater extent than even Batman, who Clark already thought was going too far at times.

Clark knew he was not an evil man, he was certain of the compassion within him that thundered to protect the innocent, but Clark could hardly be certain of how much he knew about him in the first place. Clark, who could see through crowds and make a shopping list out of what each person had eaten for breakfest that morning, could not identify The Shadow's face through his mask, could not see what was behind his eyes.

Clark is extremely aware of the standards he must adhere to in order to operate as Superman, the ways in which he must be held accountable as someone operating above and within society. He understands the importance of his friends and allies that can stop and defeat him, the family he must look after, the reputation he must uphold, the control over his powers and a lifetime of experience in holding himself back. At times he was even grateful for the existence of Kryptonite as a desperate measure. He knows that Bruce goes through a lot of measures to keep himself in check as well.

But he knows little about The Shadow, who works for him, why they do so, who can hold him accountable, who is going to help him when he can't help himself. He worries about what his world must look like, to create a man like him, brainwashing people and gunning down criminals in the streets while laughing. How much good can such a man do if this is what his approach to justice looks like? What is the toil that such a grim approach to life has taken on this man's life?

He knows that overthinking is one of his worse flaws, but Superman can't help but dwell sometimes on the worlds he cannot save, on those that must take on such realities. He only wishes he knew how to find The Shadow of his own accord and try to bring peace to the man, even if he knows better than to assume peace is what he's looking for.

It is the nature of Superman to never stop trying to bring everyone to a world beyond death, darkness and sorrow, and to blame himself for those he cannot save even from themselves.

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It was a well-known fact that The Shadow always worked alone. And like most known facts about him, it was not entirely accurate.

The Shadow strives to cultivate the image that he's alone, untouchable, that all who work for him do so because he forces them to. That he always tells those he saves that their lives belong to him, that they are trembling slaves to a monster sniffing blood in gutters.

Distractions, lies, smokescreens he must create, to allow his agents to operate as spies, and spare them from the wrath of the police and the criminal underworld alike, too busy hunting a legend to notice the flesh and blood people working under their noses, people they would otherwise be all too happy to neglect or stomp on.

Misdirection, the secret of any magic trick. The true secret of The Shadow's invisibility.

There are days where the only positive thought in his mind is that his agents cannot join him wherever he goes.

The success of The Shadow depended heavily on the vast networks of agents and allies he'd gathered over the years, people from all walks of life who trusted him and had chosen to join him. Every courageous move, sacrifice and pivotal role they played was carefully recorded in his files, and never forgotten. They had skills and capabilities The Shadow did not, and The Shadow was proud to see the ways in which they would cultivate those into the betterment of the world around him.

And though the bridge between them was unassailable, though his ways and actions were secret and mysterious to them and they could never know more than he allowed, they received constant signs of The Shadow’s appreciation of their reliable cooperation, and at many points The Shadow had made said bridge less unassailable for their sake.

But they were not his friends. His allies were distant and occupied with fights The Shadow could assist, but not fight for them. His agents were subordinates rather than equals, expected to play the necessary parts and leave the scene for their own safety just as quickly. His friends were few, and often dead. And when it was the moment of danger, The Shadow fought alone. The protection of others came above all else, and on field, although they were expected to think and strategize for themselves and work together, The Shadow's word was final.

There could be no distractions, no hesitations. Those had cost him more than enough on the battlefields of the Great War, mistakes he would never repeat again. The sacrifice of companionship, his own personhood and self-preservation is an acceptable loss for the sake of those he must protect.

There are occasions when The Shadow is forced into circumstances beyond what logic and physics should allow, and in some of those occasions, Superman had been involved in them. There are occasions also where he has to work side by side with other vigilantes, and sometimes, they also include Superman.

He couldn't quite say he looked forward to working with Superman. His arrival almost inevitably carried chaos into the inner workings of reality. The existence of an omnipotent being able to crack planets with a footstep and liquefy crowds with a gaze, held back only by his human personality, was a danger that thankfully did not exist in The Shadow's own world, but was a worrying prospect regardless.

Few of his experiences with aliens and superpowered warriors could be said to be positive ones, and a lifetime of knowing the evil in the hearts of men had taught The Shadow how easily even the best of intentions and the most solid of morals could be corroded and destroyed. It didn't help matters that this being was also a public crusader and celebrity passing judgement on criminals, even while secretly holding a private dimensional prison to throw them into should they be sufficiently dangerous. Someone completely unstoppable and unaccountable, even to death itself.

The Shadow understood Superman to be a good man, a moral man who had been raised well to be the best he could. The Shadow respected and treasured the existence of those like him, men and women and everything in between that could breathe in the sun and uphold mankind, while he dwelled in the underworld to make sure those more like him would not rise to attack them.

But whatever the rewards of these partnerships, he was glad when they were over. His work requires full control. He cannot tolerate the loss of it.

Others can dream of better tomorrows and work to make them happen, his is the task of clearing the darkest paths so others need not tread them.

Hope, light and comfort are noble gifts, but they are not his to give.

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The first time they met had been the result of Vandal Savage's Hypertime Collider, a trap designed to keep Superman running circles through the timestreams, cycling through alternate versions of himself. He had landed in the 1930s, somewhat depowered, in a world where some allies of his existed, but superheroes were nowhere to be found (although some people reacted in terror at him, shouting "IT'S DANNER! HE'S COME BACK TO KILL US!", the significance of which was lost on Clark).

He had met a woman named Margo Lane when looking for this world's Lois, telling her he was a farmboy from Kansas lost in the big city looking for a friend with the same last name. Margo didn't recognize anyone named Lois, and Clark could tell she was only pretending to believe his story (even though it was true, in a sense), but through her, he met a tall, gaunt and hawk-like millionaire by the name of Lamont Cranston, a name Clark recognized from an old radio show Jonathan used to listen.

He had an idea of who The Shadow was. An old detective from a radio show or pulp magazines, sure, Superman's been to worlds he used to think were fictional before, some people still think he's as real as Santa Claus (who was going to join him and the Easter Bunny for checkers next Sunday).

Their conversation of platitudes was cut short, as it wasn't long before the Hypertime Collider was soon transporting him to a different time period, but before he was ejected, he remembered the moment their conversation ended.

Shortly before he could feel the Collider breaking and warping time and space in a chokehold around him, he remembered an eerie silence fall on the room. Though his hearing senses in this world were diminished, he could still pick up minute sounds from miles away, and it was a strange sensation to hear the sound of nothing. A sound that did not exist but silenced everything around it with deafening precision, a sound that Clark had not heard even in the deepest recesses of space, when he could still hear his body's metabolism at work. For a moment, though he did not need it to survive, Clark worried his heart had stopped working, for he could not hear it.

It surely was the Collider's effect at work, he reasoned.

But in that brief moment, whatever surprise he expected to find on Cranston's expression was nowhere to be found. Instead, scattered shadows slashed across his face as the air around him changed and he closed his eyes. He was still wearing Cranston's face when he opened them, and once again, they did not match his face.

The last thing he remembered before his ejection was a voice that cut through the air and the meters separating them, that sounded like a python hissing in Clark's ear, from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"This is not your world."

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The second time was in another dimensional sojourn, this time of his volition.

Having borrowed a portal from Cyberwear Enterprises, Clark was rehearsing a speech intended for the Reginellian people of the Bohren System, one he was expected to give through blinking in reverse morse code, and in order to ensure the atmosphere of their planet would allow them to hear him, Clark intended to pay them a visit. But instead, he was transported somewhere else.

Before he could properly register the time period and location he had landed, he had encountered The Shadow in the middle of rescuing a steamship on fire from sinking.

He was clinging to the side of it unseen from the panicking passangers, drilling bullet holes to the bottom of the ship so it would fall to the side and steer clear from a passing fireworks yacht. He was holding a rope attached to a nearby tugboat with one hand, and with the other he was clinging to the boat's window. The tugboat was moving outside of the steamship's range, and as it moved, it would drag The Shadow and tilt the steamship as he gripped it, just enough to prevent the steamship from colliding head-on with the coming barge.

The tugboat had three men within it, one piloting it and two holding on to the rope that The Shadow had attached, working along with The Shadow to try and pull the steamship. One of these men had a missing eye and was dressed in aviator gear, presumably the pilot of the autogyro atop the tugboat. The other was a tall, muscular black man in suspenders, who dwarfed the pilot in both size and strength.

The strain of their pull could dislocate The Shadow's arms at the very minimum, if not outright kill him, his plunge would carry him 20 feet into the water and potentially under the sinking steamship. Still, they pulled with grim determination, although the boat driver had his eyes closed, and Clark recognized the Yiddish mutterings coming from his mouth as a desperate prayer.

Though they did not see him, these men were extremely thankful when Superman had blown out the inferno with a single breath, and pushed the boat all the way necessary for it's passangers to land on the barge safely, and rescued The Shadow.

Of course they knew the Chief was gonna pull through, he always does.

If The Shadow was thankful for Superman's interference, he didn't show it. In the second he had regained enough strength to talk, he rattled off dozens of names, of passangers in the steamship that had been bruised, by either the flames, the panicking crowd, or the criminals that The Shadow had stopped. People that needed to be taken to medical assistance faster than the ambulances could carry them, of family members that had to be contacted.

He did so without looking at his rescuer, for he remembered Superman, who expected his presence in this timeline to have been erased after he'd destroyed the Hypertime Collider.

Nothing indicated it hadn't been.

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Their most recent encounter was the outcome of an accident where Vandal Savage had trapped Superman in the Arctic and rebuilt his Hypertime Collider, in the hopes of contacting alternate versions of himself so they could all gain Superman's powers and conquer their worlds.

One of said versions was hunted by The Shadow through the portals. The adventure ended rather quickly as the Savages all turned on each other in their tried-and-true method of solving problems with large rocks, but amidst the chaos, a final burst of energy had granted The Shadow a temporary access to Superman's powers.

Thoughts passed through Clark's head of the last time Bruce had accidentally gained access to Superman's abilities, and how despite his best intentions, Bruce couldn't help but overestimate his own ability to wield said powers responsibly. Of how many times he's come across iterations of Bruce who've gained superpowers and used them poorly or tyranically.

He thought of how often he needed to reign himself back, and of the man in black who stood before him, with eyes like thunderstorms ready to break.

The ways in which he is like Bruce, and the ways in which he is decidedly not.

But before Superman could take any sort of action or even ask how he was feeling, The Shadow turned around silently and started walking, straight in the direction of the Fortress of Solitude.

Upon reaching it, he took the million-ton key from beneath the rug that spelled Welcome in a million languages, opened the door, and walked straight into a high security anti-Superman cell within it, designed specifically as a desperate measure against rogue Kryptonians, only stating Superman was going to have to watch him so he couldn't escape.

Clark had never even told him about the Fortress.

He stayed there for the next 12 hours, as Superman ran tests on him to ensure his body wouldn't be negatively affected by the transformation. Clark chose not to remark that some of the bone-deep injuries he had spotted on The Shadow's body previously had healed, as he knew it wouldn't take long for him to acquire new ones after this was over.

They talked briefly at points, and for much of it, The Shadow assumed the façade of Cranston. Sometimes he remembered to breathe and blink, things he forgot to do with startling ease once he no longer needed them.

Clark understood it to be a diplomatic gesture, a façade over the untameable and fearsome Shadow who was frankly unnerving to be around. Even a kind gesture, an effort to address Superman as a man asking for help. Not different than how Superman would prefer to be Clark Kent in order to approach people and ask questions and say things that Superman could never say.

There was a discomfort, of course. There would always be one between the two.

Still, Superman took it as a victory when, after the 12 hours were over, he heard that familiar hiss, with equal intensity but no aggression or even contempt, spell out a "Thank you", as he turned around and was unsurprised to find The Shadow no longer there.

They were not friends, they were not enemies, they belonged to different worlds. They were opposites in their battles for truth and justice.

But truths are often opposite. It is a truth that not all opposites are opposed.

Truth is often as chilling as it can be comforting.

[mortallyclearwonderland]

Star Wars Alien Species - Esh-kha

The Esh-kha were an alien species that inhabited the galaxy before being imprisoned on the planet Belsavis thousands of years ago.

Only the ancient warnings carved on the prison walls of Belsavis provided an in-depth history on the Esh-kha race. According to these writings, this race were once considered one of the most feared species in the galaxy during its distant past. They were known to have arisen from their isolated homeworld, whereupon they began to cut a swath of destruction across countless systems. These campaigns saw entire races being hunted to extinction by the savage Esh-kha, who expanded into their conquered worlds. The population of the Esh-kha expanded as their living space increased and this led to the rise of a new rival patriarch, even as the old one was still alive. Such an event was unmarked by this species and this new patriarch known as Hallow Voice proposed a more peaceful approach in their dealings with other races through cooperation. As the Esh-kha population grew too large, Hallow Voice took a number of his followers away who settled on other worlds in order to reach out to other nearby cultures. During the height of their race, they were known to have conquered half the galaxy.

Despite their works, the Esh-kha became well known for violence and mass destruction with only a few tentative alliances being formed. During this time, the marauding Esh-kha destroyed dozens of slave worlds that belonged to the Infinite Empire. These incursions eventually attracted the attention of the fearsome Rakata, who assembled a massive military force against this threat. Their conflict was known to have engulfed the entire galaxy which nearly saw the Esh-kha wiped out. Ultimately, the Infinite Empire won the resultant conflict and took the defeated hundred thousand surviving Esh-kha to the prison world of Belsavis. Once there, they were imprisoned within the Tomb in stasis beneath the surface, where they were kept in a conscious state, though immobile The Esh-kha were left in the darkness for thousands of years. A monument of this achievement was placed on Hoth, where an interactive hologram detailed the punishment of the Esh-kha and that their imprisonment was meant for them to reflect on their mistake in challenging the Infinite Empire. Scattered mentions of this imprisoned army were present in numerous texts that were later available to the Noetikons.

In later years, Jedi historians came to wonder on whether the legend of gray-skinned warriors in the Outer Rim did not refer to the Taung, but may have been sightings of Hallow Voice's followers. By the Cold War era, the security systems of Belsavis began to break down leading to the Esh-kha being freed from stasis. Once freed, they began to resume their campaign of ruthless expansion and zealous combat. Among their noted goals appeared to be releasing their kin that remain trapped on Belsavis and spreading as much chaos within the prison planet as possible. As time moved on, they continued to recover more technology and strange weapons as they attempted to return back to the stars. Freed Esh-kha also began pillaging nearby vaults for weapons, such as plasma dischargers, for use against their enemies while others worked as saboteurs who began disabling the stasis field generators in order to free more of their kind.

Following their release from the Ancient Prison Caverns by the Sith, the Esh-kha attacked both Imperial and Republic forces equally where they devastated their lines. An Imperial individual was tasked with preventing the Esh-kha from salvaging Rakatan stasis technology for their own uses. A Republic Individual was also dispatched to prevent Esh-kha from salvaging a crashed starship on Belsavis as a means of escaping the prison world. The Barsen'thor of the Jedi Order sought out the Esh-kha as a possible army for use against the Sith and was aided in freeing Hallow Voice by the Rakata Lhunu. Among the noted patriarchs that controlled the freed Esh-kha included Gore Claw who intended to free an ancient entity known as the World Razer that was trapped deep within Belsavis. In addition, they sought to take control of the Rakatan transportation technology as a means of escaping Belsavis. A group of Esh-kha also attempted to harness the great power of the Dread Masters until they were freed.

Darth Synar was noted to have held an interest in the Esh-kha and sent her servants to acquire some of their High Savants that were talented in the Force. However, her followers failed and she tasked a Sith spacer with capturing the specimens with a subjugation device.

In terms of society, their race's culture resembled that of a hive society though each individual retained their own thoughts and aspirations yet all being bred for a specific role that they were eager to fulfill. A caste system was present amongst the Esh-kha which included Force-sensitive simple minded savants, more numerous skilled determined warriors that watched over them and finally the patriarchs that acted as leaders who provided their wisdom as well as decisions to their entire people.

Whilst their kind were individuals, Esh-kha were not named at birth but instead earned their names through their actions. Thus, those members of their kind that displayed cunning were able to be called "Razor Mind", "Water Thinker" or a similar such naming convention. An Esh-kha that displayed great skill in battle could be called "Swift Blade", or maybe "Deadly Cutter" or some other such name. It was believed that this partly explained an Esh-kha's zeal in battle with young warriors seeking not only victory but an opportunity to lay claim to a name and forge their own identity.

Esh-kha appeared to outsiders as a savage violent species that cared only for the destruction of all other races. This hatred for other sentient species was believed to had stemmed from their tightly-knit hive-like society. It was suspected that the Esh-kha were simply unable to tolerate or even adapt to the existence of thinking of outsiders who only suffered their wrath. Their race only turned violent against one another in the most extreme of circumstances.

The Esh-kha are a gray-skinned humanoid Species with equine features, including muzzles and digitigrade legs. They also had small black eyes, your skins and hair is gray, horizontal head protrusions, and tridactyl limbs.

Esh-kha age at the following stages:

1 - 11 Child

12 - 14 Young Adult

15 - 34 Adult

35 - 49 Middle Age

50 - 59 Old

Examples of Names: Esh-kha were not named at birth but instead earned their names through their actions, gaining such "Titles" as: Sharpest Eye, Hidden Blade, Red Walker, Blood Scream, Skull Shatter, Hallow Voice, Gore Claw, Hunter Moon, Heart Rend.

Languages: The ancient hissing tongue of Esh-kha. By default, it is one of the oldest languages in the galaxy.

[fallenrepublick]

I think it’s quite interesting how Ventress had to speak calmly to get Savage to stop choking her. Thoughts?

Oh absolutely I do, and it's a pretty simple concept of Savage having to stop a threat dead in its tracks before it has the chance to hurt him first. Despite the fact that he was barely aware of his actions during his time, he knew that Ventress was a threat, something dangerous considering his interactions with her previously. Her panic response and constant struggling told him that there was a possibility of retaliation should he release her, and her calm response was what reassured him that he would not be harmed more than he already had been.

There's also the idea that he responds extremely well to positive reinforcement, as opposed to negative. He hates feeling like there will always be something to fear, and should Ventress continue treating him with the promise of a worse future, he will not cooperate well out of sheer stubbornness and anxiety. If she gives him a reason to listen well, he would be able to trust her and see that it's the "right" thing for him to do. He prefers softer, kinder words, embarrassing as it may be. But with Ventress... well, we all know how that one turned out.