#(( I'm assuming he's blind so it's after the main series ))

[cpirits]

(( @shouxryuuxha | ask

❛ Seiya? Hm--to answer your question direct, I am doing very well, thank you. & now to impose a question to you, what did you to or planning to do? ❜ 𝐒𝐊𝐄𝐏𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐄. It wasn't that Shiryu didn't expect Seiya to be cheerful. Just...usually things that are unassuming tend to have an underbelly of sorts. Knock it out the way early; no need for small talk that means nothing. 

Pegasus knew that Shiryu had been a little more wary of his visits, of everyone really, ever since everything that had happened, everyone was on edge in their own ways. But Seiya was forever an optimistic person, though he got down on himself sometimes, the other Bronze Saint were there to lift him back up.

"I didn't do anything, Shiryu I swear!!" He pushed a sneaker clad hoof into the ground, a hand rubbing his chocolate mane, as his face went a nice shade of pink, embarrassed-- feathers a little ruffled.

"I just wanted to come and visit, am I not allowed to do that?" He seemed a little hurt. They were friends after all.

[retromotherfuckers]

When the Sun Sets - Part 4

Adriadne

Characters:

adriadne/morgan winchester (OC), dean winchester, sam winchester

Summary:

adriadne finds out who she was before she went to hell. and the winchesters will not rest until they fix what their sister did all those years ago.

Warnings (for entire story):

SPN typical violence, so so much suppressing of emotions, vague mention of SA, depiction of torture, a very pro-torture main character, murder, vague mention of not eating for a while, parental abuse, slight suicidal ideation, SPN typical alcohol abuse, spoiler warning up to the end of season 10, following canon stops after the end of season 2 but things are sure to be mentioned

Word Total:

4k ~ roughly

A/N:

hi, so sorry its been so long, but i finally got the inspiration to continue writing this little mini series. i'm not convinced anyone is still interested in this story, but here's part 4. there's a little hatred towards blondes in this chapter - guys i actually love blonde hair i think its gorgeous - your girl is just a demon. my search history after writing this chapter, god help me.

this takes place loosely around season 10 and i kind of combined when sam tries to cure crowley with when he cures dean.

let me tell you, writing about a person who has no idea what's real is not easy to make good - its a 0/10 for me and i'm not convinced i even succeeded at that

italics = inner thoughts/memories

dean: 36, morgan: 35 (her body is 27), sam: 32

Adriadne vaguely remembered hating the moon coming up when she was human. For some reason, she detested nighttime and all that came with it. She had wanted to believe she wasn't as bad as the humans when she was one. But as she roamed the street of whatever bumblefuck town she was in, she remembered staring blankly at a street lamp once.

It was the only light she had seen for several miles. It illuminated a small bus stop with a bench and a pay phone attached to it. She was in some loud car, with even louder music playing, with her intolerably quiet family. The faces, names, and details of any of them had been long washed away. Somebody in her family needed to make a call, so they stopped, and she was left alone for a few minutes. The yellow beams that kept that area lit were the only thing keeping her from panicking. She had assumed she was only a child in the memory because, I mean, seriously? An adult scared of the dark?

If she had been an adult, Satan help her if she was, it would have been further proof of how weak humans are. Actually, regardless, it was proof. There was no light in Hell. Everything was dark, and only with the sight of a demon could anyone see. She bristled at the thought. Since being on Earth, she had no desire to go back downstairs. 

The darkness of the night did give her a little sense of reminiscence, though. Of home, Alastair, Crowley, her tools. Where she could roam freely without having to cling to that damn sack of flesh. But the daytime was a close second, in her opinion. The sun, as bright and almost blinding as it was, was warm. And it felt…kind of nice.

Turned out, she was a natural blonde, a type of blonde that got even lighter when she lay in the sun. And that rubbed her the wrong way. Like, who was actually blonde nowadays? Every blonde Alastair assigned to her was quickly scalped. And when they were healed, she would do it again. Then, she'd make them drink anti-freeze because many of them had blue eyes. It really had been a fun game.

Watching them die slowly and painfully was always an excellent way to waste an hour. And when they were brought back to life, it was back to her regularly scheduled programming.

It sucked even more that she had blue eyes too. They were so light. Like the human fucking sky or some shit. She liked her black eyes. They were who she was, a dark and malevolent visitor on this planet of fluffy little bunnies. 

At the sound of a whistle, a very loud one, she turned to find the source. "Damn, baby." The man said. He was some random guy on the corner of the street, watching her as she walked. "What's your name?"

She planted a demure little smile like she was so flattered by the attention. With a blush, she said, "Mary."

He smirked. "Are you a virgin, too?"

Imbecile, she groaned inside her head. She had heard that joke back home. It was usually the first thing a demon said when assigned someone with that name. After hearing it for the first time, she chuckled. The second time, she grinned. The fifty-seventh? She ignored it. 

Come up with something new, people, will you?

She flashed some doe eyes at him and pretended to blush even more. "How did you know?"

"I tend to sense these things."

"Oh, do you?" She asked with a grin, flashing her natural eyes at him. But before he could scream, she was slitting his throat.

When the jugular veins are severed, there is a relatively low spray of dark red blood, accompanied by the sound of escaping air, and the human coughs it up. So, to get a forceful spray of bright red, Adriadne's favorite, she cuts the carotid. And usually aims to sever the trachea so they gasp and wither at her feet. And with this guy? She hit the nail on the head.

It only takes a few minutes, but it's such a satisfying death. Being in the land of the living, slitting throats quickly became one of her favorite forms of sending them exactly where they belonged.

When Sam and Dean Winchester caught wind of a case; six hundred sixty-four bodies across the country with a slit throat and the Latin symbol for "hellhound" carved over their right eyebrow, they got on it. They didn't want to let it get to that magic number.

And when they got to the most recent crime scene, Lena Franklin, a thirty-one-year-old female - mother of three - with the same injuries, they found who they were looking for, taking another victim. Only they weren't expecting to find their sister standing over the body.

After knocking her out and locking her up, they summoned Crowley as soon as possible. It was like their lives depended on it, or really, it was their sister's life that they were worried about.

And when he explained the situation to them, they knew what they had to do.

With a whine, Adriadne awoke in a strange room. Filled with walls of file cabinets and Enochian or Latin symbols. She tried to rub at her head, where that damn vase had been thrown at her, but she noticed she was chained down. Usually, she wouldn't have an issue with chains; she could break through steel, and they were so satisfying when some human tried to escape them. But not only were these not steel chains, they were iron. And they had warding signs carved in them.

Fucking hunters.

Surprisingly, if there was any human she didn't entirely detest, it was hunters. They were more robust than the rest and really knew what the real world was like. But they were after her, so now, they had to die. Slowly, bloody, painfully.

"Welcome back, jackass," A voice she recognized said. The same voice threw the vase at her however many hours ago. It was the shorter of the two, but he had the more resounding voice. They were tall for humans, but the other was way bigger. Gigantor also seemed like he was friendlier, the dumbass.

She had heard of the Winchester brothers in Hell. Sam and Dean, she believed their names were. Two brooding brothers with mommy and daddy issues that jumpstarted the apocalypse. Then they fixed it and sent Lucifer back into his cage with Michael. They'd been in and out of hell themselves a few times. The only humans to ever accomplish such feats.

Clearly, they weren't stupid, but goddamn, were they annoying.

Sam was younger but a bit more book-smart, and Dean was the older but sarcastic one. She vaguely knew they had a thing for dying for each other, but that only made her roll her eyes like she so often did at these creatures.

"Dean," Sam scolded.

"And what a warm one at that. You ever have people over?" She groaned. The boys didn't respond, both just shaking their heads. They started pulling stuff out of a cooler, and she read what it said on it with a scoff. "Human blood? You're seriously gonna try and cure me?"

"Yep," Dean deadpanned.

"Oh, please," Adriadne drawled as her head fell back on her shoulders. "Spare me."

"You're a demon, Mo," The youngest said, like it was the worst thing in the world she could be. "We're not just gonna leave you like this."

"Mo? Who the hell is Mo?"

"Morgan," Dean explained, his voice monotone but somehow angry at the same time. "Our sister. The human that you used to be. So we're doing what we should'a done years ago. And saving you. Even if it is from yourself."

"Your sister?"

"Yeah," Sam quipped, annoyed. "Crowley said you wouldn't remember."

"Crowley's the one that-"

"We know," Dean said. "Just shut up."

I didn't even know the Winchesters had a sister, Adriadne thought. But to hell if she wanted to become a damn human. Why would she even consider it? "Ever think maybe your sister wouldn't wanna be saved?"

"Doesn't matter." The oldest Winchester remarked, his voice flat. "You don't get a choice."

With a huff, Adriadne chuckled darkly. "Just let me go do what I wanna do. I don't bother you; you don't bother me. So what the hell do you care?"

"What do we care?" Sam asked, almost dejectedly. He shook his head, not dignifying her with a response, and started pouring holy water around the devil's trap. Reciting the Latin to start the ritual, he grabbed a needle, loaded it up with human blood, and handed it to Dean.

Adriadne looked at her supposed brothers, she didn't even know their birth order. She knew Dean was the oldest and Sam was the youngest. But where did she fit in the lineup? "You got anything stronger in there? Some heroin? Meth? Maybe it'd really make me feel somethin'."

"Don't worry, honey, you're gonna feel a lot."

And before she could fight it, he put the syringe in her arm and pumped the blood directly into her arm. She could feel it coursing through her veins, traveling through her bones, her arteries, her cells. Weaving its way throughout her body like an itch you can't scratch. Involuntarily, she let out a loud roar, a demonic roar, of pain. This damn human blood did not agree with her.

"Look," Sam said as both brothers backed away from her. "We've got a whole bunch more of these to go. You could make this a lot easier on yourself."

"And just in case some part of you gives a crap, we got your blood type."

"You wanna know something?" Adriadne asked, but a new wave of pain from the human blood cut her off. She groaned but wouldn't let it cut her off too long. She was a demon, after all, and pain had never been something she feared. It was something she admired, longed for, craved. "The part of your sister that cared died a long time ago."

Five times, the Winchester brothers had streamlined her with human blood. They didn't say anything when they came in this time, silently injecting her with round six. Like it was the only thing keeping them from breaking.

Adriadne was a demon; she knew that. But now things were becoming a little muddled. There had been small things, small tidbits of images popping in and out of her brain.

They weren't like dreams or nightmares. They were more like poorly done movies of being beaten by someone she was supposed to call her father. Dreams of fighting with her siblings, where even they'd beaten her - but also when she fought back, and they took the beatings themselves. She won and lost over and over, losing the fight when Sam left them for school, winning when Dean tried to get her to stop seeing her high school boyfriend, losing when Dean took away the knife he gave her, and winning when she eventually stole it back. She remembered watching their so-called father yell and scream, practically torturing who she was told were her brothers. She remembered not being able to do anything about it.

She saw herself hunting other creatures - not humans, but monsters. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, djinns, banshees, rugarus. She saw herself taking beatings from them, nearly dying from her injuries several times. She saw herself lose her virginity to a sweet guy from her high school at the time. She saw herself take that night and turn it into a string of drunken one-night stands.

She saw her father coming home drunk almost every night, beaten up. She saw herself patching him up, giving him stitches when necessary. She'd been the one to set her brother's bones when they were broken or dislocated. She'd have to be the one to reset her own because none of them were as good as she was at it. She saw the woman who was supposed to be her mother burn to death on a ceiling as her older brother - a toddler himself - pulled her and her little brother to safety.

And she remembered her father dying, making a deal with a demon to keep his oldest son alive and breathing. Then she remembered doing the same thing for her younger brother.

"You're the Winchesters," Adriadne drawled. "You're hunters. So am I an idiot to assume what you're gonna do once you realize this won't work? You think you got the stomach for that? Killing the girl you think is your sister?"

"We're not worried," Sam denied. "Because we've done this before."

It had been nine hours, nine injections of human blood in her veins, and she could name nine parts of her body she could barely move. She hadn't felt so useless since she was on the rack, and even then, she had a purpose. To postpone, to make it as long as she could. Alastair had given her a choice. Stay on, deal with the consequences, or get off, and then do it to someone else who deserved it too.

She had been at the end of her rope; her soul was already ripped to shreds. And then they healed her and broke it again.

The humans deserved it - that's what she was taught.

But then, why was I the one on the rack? I'm not human.

Yes, I am. Or...I was.

No. My name is Ad-Adria-

She had been having so many memories over the last several hours. But they had to be dreams; she didn't remember them belonging to her. Of the Winchesters, of growing up on Earth, of being a part of an admittedly screwed-up family.

My name is-

"How you doin', Mo?" That was Sam, her…younger brother, she had remembered. The memories were like a plague, keeping her sedentary in a time she had long forgotten. A time, she didn't know if she wanted to go back to or not. It was a time when she cared about them, about humans in general. A time when she had the ability to care.

Mo. Morgan.

She was confused when they called her that. She didn't know how to describe it. But something was weird about that name. These were people that she knew before she went to Hell. People she loved. People she would've sacrificed everything for. People she did sacrifice everything for.

"It doesn't feel right," She rasped, shaking her head as much as possible. Which, apparently, was not a lot.

"No, shit," And there's Dean.

"When you call me that," She explained, despondent, trying to blink away the new memory attempting to take hold of her reality. "It doesn't feel like my name."

"Well, what is your name?" 

She didn't know. Adriadne was supposed to be her name. Morgan was supposed to be her name. How could someone not know their own fucking name? It was the most basic form of identification. Even demons had names. A new wave of pain hits her, and she grips the chair with all her strength. It wasn't a lot; she was so weak. But then another memory took over, and she wasn't even in that room anymore.

"What is your name?" He had asked, his voice cold and unemotional. The girl only shook her head in response, knowing what was coming with her answer. "You will answer me when I speak to you, girl.

"Morgan," She choked out, tears already rolling. "Morgan Winchester."

"You don't deserve my last name." Before she could blink, her cheek was stinging, and she was on the motel room floor. More tears fell involuntarily at the searing pain, at the blood dripping down her face from his ring. She flinched at the hand he rose again, but no hit came. Instead, he laughed - a heartless and calculating laugh. Like it was amusing watching his thirteen-year-old daughter cower at his feet. "You are no Winchester."

He was ready to strike a second time when someone got in the way. 

"Get out of the way, Sam."

"No," his little voice announced. She could hear the emotion in his words as he continued. The little ten-year-old was scrawny, even smaller than she was. "She knows what she did. You don't have to hit her again."

Ignoring the boy, her father turned back to Morgan, practically looking through her little brother. "So this is what you've come to? Making little Sammy fight your damn battles for you?"

She looked him straight in the eyes; the green they usually held was almost black in the room's dim lighting. She had seen this so many times when he was angry, when a hunt didn't go his way, when his children disobeyed him. When she did something wrong. 

"Boys," Her father called, ordering them to shut up and listen. Dean took his hands away from his face with a wince. Sam winced, too, backing away from his father. Nearly crashing into her. "Take this as a learning opportunity. We fight our own battles in this family. And we don't rely on other people to do it for us." 

And with that, Sam was pushed out of the way, and he was on top of her.

"Dad," She gasped, finally back in the present but staring into space. Both brothers' heads shot up at the recall. "He was- he was mean."

"Yeah," Dean agreed, making her eyes lock on his. The whites of his eyes were red like the mention of his father had him holding things back. A storm was brewing behind his eyes, one he wouldn't let come to fruition. "He had his moments."

"He was so mad all the time," The girl croaked, her voice breaking even more. She was lost, not looking at them. Keeping her eyes down, they darted back and forth as she practically stared through the flesh and bone before her. "Watch out for Sammy. Make sure Sam's safe. Don't let anybody touch Sammy. If anything happens to him, I'll know whose fault it is." Her older brother only nodded, but Sam's eyes fluttered back and forth between his siblings. Like he was realizing something he hadn't before. "We were always watching out for Sammy. Who- who watched out for us?"

"Well, for one, Sammy watched out for us. And I watched for both of you, and you took care of us."

"I took care of you?"

"Yeah, Mo, you did," Sam said plainly.

"But I-I went to-" She denied, not entirely believing them. "I went to Hell, and now I don't know anything. You're my brothers? My family? My family tortured me. They-they're the ones that put me on the rack."

"Is that what they told you?" Sam asked, bewildered.

"I saw it!" She roared. Everything came back to her in waves, and not like a movie this time; these were memories. She knew it; she couldn't question it. "You hurt me- you- you touched me." She finally looked up at them, unable to hide the tears. She shook her head, trying to shake away the red, the blood, the screaming, the agony. "You- you- family isn't supposed to do that!"

Sam and Dean stared, their faces pale and drained. They didn't hide their emotions - like she remembered they did so often. They wore it plainly on their faces. Sam was a mixture of deep regret and sorrow. Dean wasn't just angry; he was simmering with rage.

"Now, you listen to me," Dean ordered, and she could almost hear a trace of their father in his voice. He leaned against the arms of her chair - her current prison - and gave her a stare that kept her captive in his gaze. "I went to Hell, too. They did the same thing to me. It. Wasn't. Us. And I know you don't believe that. But you will. Eventually."

When he finished, she nodded. He was wrong. Some part of her did believe him. The conviction in his words, the way he didn't bother to hide the angry tears in his eyes. Some part of her - a minuscule part - hoped he wasn't lying. That her family was still there for her. That maybe, even after everything that had happened, they would hold her when this was all over. 

At her slight confirmation, he nodded, too, and stepped back, giving his younger brother room for the next shot. Sam came forward and quickly, without hesitation, put the syringe in her arm and pressed down.

"I don't even know my own name."

Sam didn't balk at her words. He just shook his head and gave her a small, barely there smile.

"You will."

"I don't wanna be human," She cried. Eleven injections in, she could feel the human blood becoming her own. Integrating into her bones, her DNA changed with every second that passed. Her power was draining, and she didn't like it. She was returning to who she was before Hell, the young girl with daddy issues, with two brothers who loved her - but could never get along with.

"Humans are weak, they- their emotions, it's too much," She continued, shuddering. "They feel too much, they don't see how useless they are. How- how small they are. There are eight billion of you, and all of you think you're the most important one. You all think you have some fucked up purpose, that there's something more you can do with your pointless little lives."

"No one here is gonna tell you that being human is a walk in the park," Sam said, his voice calm and steady as if he was expecting her to say this. "But it is better than being a demon. Than killing for no reason. Because even if you don't believe it, I believe we do have a purpose. Maybe it's a tiny one, maybe you're just supposed to be here to make someone else happy. Maybe you're here to teach someone a lesson. Maybe you're here to save the world." His words got light at that, like it was an inside joke, and Dean let out a small laugh. But just because you don't know what it is or can't see it doesn't mean you don't have one." 

Before she could respond or give any words to the contrary, he put the needle in her arm and gave her the twelfth shot.

Morgan Winchester opened her eyes. And they were black. She could feel it, feel the remnants of Hell in her eyes. But as quickly as it came, it went. And as they cleared, she groaned. It was a strange feeling, but she felt lighter. Like there wasn't as much weight on her shoulders as before. Her eyes were blue again, like the sky people loved to stare at. Then she remembered she was human again. She was just a young girl again, not a demon, not a monster. 

And then the weight returned. Only this time, it was even heavier, as if someone had tied an anvil around her neck and thrown her into the ocean. She remembered everything. Her life, her father, her mother, her brothers, Sam dying, her dad dying, her deal with a demon, Hell, being tortured, then turning around and doing the same, becoming a demon, becoming Adriadne, taking a joyride upstairs, murdering so many innocents. Then, being in here, the crowded but well-protected safe room in some place she had no knowledge of. 

She could see her brothers a few feet away. Sam stood in front of Dean, holding a flask - their postures were identical. Tight and reserved, with their brows furrowed and their feet cemented into the floor.

Her face contorted into a question, and she greeted them with their names. She didn't know what else to say. But before she could speak again, Dean threw whatever was in the flask at her face.

Water. Water. Water.

And without needing a second to think about it, Morgan realized it was blessed. Holy water. They were putting her through one final test. To see if their work had paid off. When it didn't burn, sizzle, or boil her skin, her brothers let out a deep exhale of relief. Then, so did she.

"Welcome back, Morgan."

[alexanderwales]

Anime Review: Rising Impact

Rising Impact is a shonen sports anime about a third grader who is really ridiculously good at golf. This is a review, along with some thoughts on shonen sports anime and what makes them tick. Spoilers for the first season follow.

I don't watch a ton of anime, so tend to just go in blind to things whenever something looks good to me on first blush, having not read any discussion, review, or sometimes, not even a blurb. I sometimes get surprised with something great like Frieren, and more often drop out after three episodes when there's no spark of artistry.

I usually don't have a problem with a sports anime, so long as it's above a certain quality waterline. I've watched Yowamushi Pedal, Kuroko's Basketball, Yuri on Ice, Keijo!!!!!!!!, most of Haikyu!!, some of Bluelock, I'll include Shokugeki no Soma, I read the manga of Prince of Tennis ... probably a smattering of others, including a ballroom dancing one that I watched with my wife, enough that I think I have a grasp on the genre, even if I'm not "well read".

So far as I understand the average shonen sports anime, the first step is explaining the sport to the audience, which can last for at least half a season. The mechanism for this is that there's a character who knows basically nothing about the sport in question and can get slowly introduced to it as we go. And because it's shonen, usually our protagonist is absurdly talented, which also helps to propel the plot forward: they're so good that they immediately get wrapped up in the sport, mentored by teammates who see their potential or accelerating through all the beginner stuff without all that much effort.

Rising Impact takes this to its logical endpoint in a few ways. Our protagonist, Gawain, is in third grade with an ambition to hit a ball as far as humanly possible. Once he gets shown by a passing professional golfer that maximum distance can be obtained with a golf ball and a driver, he's all in despite the fact that he doesn't know the first thing about golf. He practices with neurodivergent fervor until his hands are blistering and bleeding, honing his ability to send a golf ball flying, then his grandfather sends him off to Tokyo to seek his fortune.

I had thought and hoped that after the first episode we'd be in for a time skip, but nope! Our protagonist is just a third grader for the whole series, in spite of how little sense this makes (even for shonen anime). This choice is easily the worst part of the anime, because I am a father to a third grader and kept imagining him being sent out to become a professional golfer, and it beggars belief. I generally find myself aging up people in my head anyway (most of the main cast is like ... 6th grade), but can't really do that with Gawain, who really does act like an impulsive child.

After coming to Tokyo to live with this random woman he'd come across, he gets embroiled in some golf happenings, first challenged to see if he can hit the ball the furthest, which he wins, then challenged to putt the ball in, which he loses because he has never tried to putt and didn't know that it was a part of the game of golf. This is the first time he suffers any kind of loss, and it's an important part of the setup, because it's showing speciation.

Everyone is good at different kinds of things, and sports anime will always take this to extremes. Rather than having someone with a good drive, they will have The Best Drive. Someone can't just be good at putting, they have The Best Putt. Initially it looks as though our protagonist has The Best Drive, but actually he has a (named) ability called Rising Impact which is an ability to see the exact point of contact between the club and the ball, which makes him really good at golf. And also he has insane stamina, upper body strength, lower body strength, and luck.

I haven't watched Jojo's Bizarre Adventure but I'm assuming that all this was influenced by Stands, which are (for my purposes) a unique superpower that an individual has. In sports anime, everyone has a Stand, but specific to the sport, because of course everything revolves around the sport. How entertaining this ends up being sort of depends on the sport and the variety of mechanics it has, but also the creativity of the author. Part of why you want to keep going is to see how the different Sports Stands stack up against each other, how they work in different scenarios, and what wrinkles they have. When evaluating a sports anime, one of the first questions I'm going to ask myself is "how are the Stands?"

In the case of Rising Impact, the biggest problem is that the sport of golf kind of sucks, at least from a narrative standpoint. Golfers aren't going against each other, so the different Stands can't actually interact with each other. Sure, some guy is the Wind Master who can read wind really well, and there's a woman who sees the Serpentine Path when putting, but when they're golfing they're individually going for the lowest score and counting strokes. It largely would not matter if they were playing sequentially instead of being on the green together. With that said, the first season had enough creativity to hold my interest and did enough to ensure that the matches were interesting, so my complaint is mostly about the sport, and I think "should have made an anime about something else instead" is probably not good criticism. They should have though.

After an early tournament, Gawain goes to Camelot Academy to learn golf with other (older) students, leaving behind pretty much all of the established characters. From a writing perspective, I kind of hate this, but it's super common for anime: we've said everything we wanted to say about those characters, so they're dead to us, at least for a little bit. Partly this is because new characters have new Stands and it's interesting to see fresh ideas, but I don't know, it also kind of smacks of someone writing with a gun to their head, and also that gun is going to go off the very moment someone loses attention.

The whole cast of new characters didn't really grip me, though I will say this in favor of Rising Impact: one of the things it gets right is matching the Stands to the characters. I don't think it's rocket science, but you do want these two things to work in harmony with each other (or working against each other in a narratively satisfying way). After the first week of study, we get introduced to another cast of character who also go to Camelot, and they're ... mostly fine, though one guy's Stand appears to be cheating, which is dumb as heck, and also he makes monkey sounds.

Most of the conflict in these episodes is about who's going to be going to the UK for the Camelot Cup, and this is also one of the staples of a sports anime, which is that we have to have constantly escalating stakes in the form of bigger and more important competitions. The first season has its climax between two master putters with nearly identical Stands, and the final episode stops just before the start of the Camelot Cup arc, which I assume would be the whole of the second season. Personally, I think it might have been better to escalate a little bit more slowly, but I haven't read the manga, so maybe this is escalating slowly.

Rising Impact really seems like it wants to go as hard as it can as soon as it can, and I can't blame it for that, because ... well, it's golf, what else are you going to do to make it fun? The courses they play on get ridiculous very early on, with all kinds of bullshit you would never see in a real golf course, like they had been designed by the same people who did Green Hill Zone. They're not shown on screen in the first season, but there's apparently a set of legendary clubs which I would assume have special abilities of some kind. I tend to admire this kind of approach, and it's part of the reason I watch anime, but this one accelerates toward absurdity with full force, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Something I've noticed in a few sports anime is that as the series goes on, it gets more and more decoupled from the actual sport. Part of this is because we quickly exhaust the author's knowledge of the sport, even if it's their hobby, and part of it is the need for escalation, but eventually you reach a point where there's full separation from most aspects of the sport. Especially if the show has any mythology to it, we eventually have someone looking at players with a jeweler's loupe and saying "ah yes, his skill Eagle Talon, which will allow the Golden Minute" or whatever. Toward the end of the short first season, Rising Impact is basically already there. It's a dangerous place to be, because that means it needs to be carried by its "fight scenes" and character work, and as I've said, the choice of golf as a sport handicaps the "fight scene" approach to depicting sports.

As for the character work, Gawain is essentially just comic relief and "wow I can't believe he's so good", and the only other character that has a significant story is Lancelot, the quiet and thoughtful master putter. He has a golfer sister in the hospital and ... I just did not care, which doesn't bode well for my interest in future seasons. If I'm watching, it's for the golf.

And look, the issue is the golf. I think it's a dead boring sport. I've played maybe two rounds of golf in my life, and it was fun enough, but it's got so little narrative to it. There's very very little strategy or tactics, and instead it's heavy on the biomechanics. The central question of golf is "how efficiently can you hit a ball to the hole", and there's just no meat there. I think in a different life I could be a guy who enjoys a weekly game of golf, but there's just no story in it.

I guess I can vaguely imagine a shonen golf anime that I would enjoy more, but I think a lot of the ways Rising Impact heads deep into the genre trappings right from the beginning makes up for golf being a narratively poor game. I'm still not sure that I can actually recommend Rising Impact, but I had fun with it, and it was thankfully light on the "anime weirdness" stuff that often puts me off. If there's a second season, I'll probably end up watching it, but I'm not going to seek out the manga like I sometimes do if an anime has really gripped me.

[assassinationclassroom-studyblr]

Trying to organize my schedule so I can at the very least get 7 hours of sleep because I can't function without more than 6 hours (also I should be healthy) got me thinking about how much the ass class kids sleep.

People say teens should get 8 - 10 hours of sleep and that's my goal, but I have to keep making that time lower and lower... so like did the ass class kids get the right amount of sleep?

I think Nagisa may have? Like after a long day of school, climbing up and down the mountain, dealing with... everything, plus coming home to his mom, I think he'd use sleep as a way to avoid her. So the moment he comes home, he sleeps and when he wakes up he tries to leave away. He seems like a morning person to me, and personally as a morning person, I'm only a morning person when I get like a refreshing amount of sleep (which is about 7-9 hours).

Must I even talk about Karma? Because no way. Istg he cannonically does not sleep enough. Wakes up with a struggle bc he stayed up way too late studying or playing video games and has to run out his door to not be too tardy ( he only gets enough sleep if he's late to school bc he physically can't get up )

Kayano must have traumatic nightmares fuelling her anger throughout most of the series... and even after she finds out the truth, I don't think it gets nightmares of her dead sister out of her mind, so I think she tries to sleep well and struggles because of the nightmares (plus the uncomfortableness of the tentacles).

Terasaka may get some good sleep too? I mean physically he's very fit and also he acknowledges the stupid things Karma and Nagisa do a couple of times. He calls out their behaviours of overworking (like during the nagisa v karma fight) and killing intent (? like when Nagisa goes blind with rage bc of Takaoka) so I think he's pretty in tune to his own behaviour esp after his spotlight episode where he reforms. Basically I think Terasaka promotes a healthy sleep schedule and makes sure that all of his friends get at least 8 hours a night.

Isogai works, studies, trains, helps out at home, is the class president... boy has a lot on his plate and I think he gets very little sleep bc of this. Like he is responsible and knows that he should sleep more but he can't because of all the responsibilities he has (which I think is a very very relatable issue).

Asano... lacks sleep. Literally looks sickly. Sleeps like 2 hours a night. He learned his sleeping habits from the worst person to learn sleeping habits from; his father. (idk how his brain isn't fried)

Kirara lacks sleep too, but it's a choice. She stays up all night reading or writing after finishing up everything she has to do and loses track of time. Terasaka is trying to fix this poor habit of hers. (He definitely does by the time high school rolls around)

Nakamura does try but she's also a natural genius. Unlike other geniuses in her world, her brain functions with the perfect amount of sleep, so she sleeps enough.

Megu sacrifices her sleep to help others and has a ton of extra responsibilities, like Isogai. So, she usually doesn't get enough sleep. On the rare occasion that she does, she sleeps in way too much.

Wow, I had more thoughts about this than I thought I did. I was about to leave this with the main trio, but started thinking more. (Takebayashi lacks sleep too, with the cram schools and studying)

I wish we had like an exact schedule of these kids' days because they have so much on their plate. Analyzing the kids probable schedules under the cut.

Ik this varies, but I'm assuming their school day starts at 8:45 and ends at 3:15. That's 6.5 hours.

They can't go to extra curriculars, BUT they have their after school training, which I would say, is probably fairly extensive. I want to say it's about 1-2 hours a day? With school, it's 8.5 hours.

Not to mention, the climb up the mountain itself. There's multiple mentions of how long and exhausting it is. I think it takes about 30 minutes a trip, on average? Bc plenty of ppl have made it up, but it does take a while and it's tiring (could take longer cause of this) bc it's a mountain. So this is one more hour, just going up and down the mountain.

So, so far, these kids have school, where they learn and study at for 6.5 hours. And not including P.E, they work out/train for 3 hours a day.

Then there's the trip home which varies for all of them, not including the mountain trek. I think most of them have to wait for transit aND walk to the subways, which aren't too close, so I'm gonna say this is another hour? On average, I'd say. So that's two hours gone with transit a day

So far, 11.5 hours of their day is gone, outside of their homes, doing their like typical day responsibilities. Now they have 12.5 hours of their day left. With getting that max amount of 10 hours of sleep, they'd have 2.5 hours to work on homework, study a bit more, eat some food, take care of themselves, do their chores, and poor Isogai's got work. Plus you know, ppl have hobbies, things they enjoy.

Basically, it's impossible (or rlly hard) for the ass class kids to be getting the right amount of sleep. It is also rlly hard to get the right amount of sleep as a teen or an adult... good luck with the new school year guys.

Anyways get enough sleep! (or do your best to)

If you've got any time management tips, let me know!

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

heyyy how many episodes of jjk would. in theory. i need to watch to read sea glass gardens and understand wtf is going on. i love your writing but idk this show and based on your descriptions if i try to go in blind i'm doomed. i have a bad habit of exclusively watching shows so i can read fics about them because my taste is fucking cursed, thanks

If you're looking to just understand at a baseline level what's going on in sea glass gardens, the answer is actually zero episodes.

sea glass gardens takes place before the main series, directly after the prequel movie Jujutsu Kaisen 0. And, good news, the fic takes place entirely from the perspective of the protagonist of JJK 0 (who is not the protagonist of the main series), who is also new to the sorcerer society of the JJK universe. So the movie does a good job of explaining the premise of the world and introducing most of the people who I use as the main characters of sea glass gardens as like, new people whose entire schtick needs to be explained. There are some characters in sea glass gardens who don't appear until the main series, but they're also strangers to the narrator of sea glass gardens, so I actually introduce them to the narrator and explain who they are.

I do not do that for the panda. I assume you also know why the panda is supposed to be there. The panda is in JJK 0.

Now, just watching JJK 0 and not the main series means you won't be confused and you'll be able to enjoy what's going on in sea glass gardens, but you admittedly won't have all the relevant context. But it shouldn't make you unable to follow the plot and what's going on, you'll just miss out on a few nods to the main series. Again, the narrator is also new to the world, so if you've watched JJK 0, you have pretty much all of the same context that he has. You'll just basically be getting a different introduction to some people or concepts than you otherwise would if you had met them in canon. So basically, like Yuuta (the narrator), you'll be meeting characters like Naobito for the very first time through sea glass, whereas people who have watched all the way through will have more background knowledge from what they know of him in canon, but you don't need any of his canon appearances to understand Naobito or his role in the fic.

And anyway if you want to have like, 100% of the same knowledge of canon that I had going into writing the fic, then you need to join me in hell with a total deep dive. Some of the characters mentioned in sea glass haven't shown up in the anime yet. Some of them haven't shown up in the anime or the manga, but the mangaka referenced them as a single bullet point in a character sheet and I decided to use them. You will be totally fine without this background knowledge. It is completely useless.

The thing about sea glass gardens is that it sort of exists in this niche part of canon that canon does not. actually. care about. Its primary conflict centers around the major clans of the Jujutsu Kaisen world and the tensions between them.

And the thing is. That canon. Doesn't. Really. Talk about that. It's just the tiny irrelevant part of canon that I cared passionately about. I don't know why I'm like this.

Like, one of the most important characters in the series, Gojo Satoru, is the head of the Gojo clan. He is also the only gojo clan member that we ever meet. Canon's just got other shit going on and the clan drama is mostly a background thing. I have built my little house of a few vague, scattered lines throughout the series and then wholesale made a lot of shit up.

That being said, that means sea glass gardens should actually be intelligible even if you're bypassing the main series, because it's a terrible representation of what this series is actually about. Whatever you think the plot of JJK is after reading sea glass gardens, it isn't that. The protagonist of the actual main series will never even appear in sea glass gardens. the primary antagonists of the main series will, for the most part, not be there at all. I am playing in my little sandbox of clan political intrigue because it enthralls me.

The prequel movie is actually really well done, and it only requires under two hours of investment. If you want a slightly more comprehensive introduction to the world before reading sea glass, I'd watch the first six episodes or so of the main series as well, but it isn't mandatory to understanding the fic.

I personally stream the prequel movie off of crunchyroll. I'm not sure where else, if anywhere, it's available, but it should be fairly easy to track down and watch if you're just looking to dip your toes into the JJK world.

[wario-speedwagon]

SHAGGY'S SHIRT IS GREEN!!!!!!!!!

Out of context, this is a hilarious first ask I've received lmao

But I'm assuming this is about the Scooby fruit snack post where I said it'd make more sense to switch Daphne's red and Shaggy's purple because Daphne's only known for purple and Shaggy's known for having a red shirt sometimes (and I still stand by this.)

But my time has come! *ahem*

Time to recite the Scooby lore.

Obviously I know he's typically green in most media and I lack any sort of color-blindness. But there are those weird spin-off shows and movies where he has a red shirt, particularly in that fever-dreamish era of Scooby after the original series where Hanna-Barbera did not know wtf to do with the dying Scooby-Doo IP (before they started making those awesome movies and the What's New series)

His first appearance with a red shirt was in the series The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo. Daphne also had quite a different look--different hairstyle and outfit, though still purple themed. And yeah, the main cast was not the typical gang, but was comprised of Scooby, Shaggy, Daphne, Scrappy and a boy named Flim Flam (bless him). Fred and Velma were supposedly away for summer camp lol.

Red Shaggy also makes various reappearances those early movie specials where it was just Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy, namely Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers, Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf and Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School (which I need to see again because it was so cute)

After that, he went back to status quo green, and any brief red-shirtness has been as a throwback to that era (for example, the alternate Shaggy with a red shirt in Scooby-Doo and the Cyberchase)

Now why does he have a red shirt? idk, no official answer was ever given. Probably just to keep things fresh I guess.

But yeah, red shirt Shaggy is real and can hurt you.

[chaoticacademicdemon]

Series Agogé, personal proyect

Chapter 1.2: “Aike”

On my way to the Agogé

I can assume that it is one to measure our intellectual capacity, another for Evepyoc and the one we just did for physical fitness. Although it doesn't make much sense for it to be like that, since releasing a record doesn't measure almost nothing, I suppose the director will have something in mind, after all she's obsessed with making it fair for everyone.

We go to where the group was attacked by my record that is leaving when we arrived. Here the ground is no longer grass, but well-kept stones with very beautiful shapes. And then I look at my next big enemy, an Evepyoc meter. I knew there must be one here but I didn't want to believe it, now I know I'm definitely lost. Focused on my own disaster, I feel the small current of air that forms a gray owl flying over our group. Obviously they had to spy somehow.

The guy next to me accidentally nudges me, apologizes, and starts biting his nails. His English level was not the best judging from his response. This blond boy is going to end up making me even more nervous if he continues like this. I look at him to get his attention and when he turns around I give him the mythical thumbs up to encourage him. He looks like he's calmed down a bit, better.

The instructor calls me up front and I do what I've already done thousands of times. Although I first ask what the limit is, to which he answers 700 E. Please get me out of here now, now I'm going to break a measuring instrument, how can my day get so bad? But like a Band-Aid, I'll rip it off quick.I place my hand on the orb and it begins to levitate, heat up, change color multiple times until it reaches the height of my shoulders and glows with a blinding white light. After less than 5 seconds, to my luck, it breaks up into thousands of little crystals, still with small unsynchronized waves of that white light.

And with that I'm off, that's it, I run to my spot at the end of my group. We are like 24 people more or less, they are not exactly few but it does not give me as much anxiety as before. The second round of disbelief doesn't affect me as much anymore, so I just stare at the ground until we're led to the next test. I got a 100 as expected and the blond boy a 78, he didn't have much to worry about, although it's normal to get nervous.

In this test we enter a room, surely the main classroom. There's another group doing the test so we sit on the opposite wall. Evelynn sits on my right side, while on my left is a guy who gave me a bad feeling. The tables are high, comfortable and the seats lightly padded, it must be great to teach here. The blackboard is huge too, and our monitor looks like chalk with the difference in size and its white uniform. While the exams are being delivered to us, I realize that the other monitor is not there.

I thank you for the exam and the pens that you are distributing and I write my name in the corresponding section. I see "name" and I write it in full, without realizing that it says "surname" below, a good way to start the exam, and without a tipex on top.Then out of the corner of my eye I watch our monitor walk away and walk out the door. I have no idea what they want us to do, although I can assume they will see that people are honest and don't copy each other.

The exam was relatively simple, a question with several sections of arithmetic, a commentary on a guided historical text, counting the main ideas of a given poetry and to which style it belongs and an exercise made up of 3 questions on general knowledge, I call them that way because they do not I know very well in what matter to classify them. The questions were "Which macronutrient consumes the greatest number of calories when digested?", "In what year did Christopher Columbus discover America?" and “Who is the God of Greek agriculture?”. I answered all the exercises, even the last trick question. The Goddess of agriculture is Demeter, but she has been named masculine to confuse.

Looking at my exam, I realize that if I really do everything right on the exam, I will have a perfect score on the tests. I review the exam and look specifically at one question, the date of the discovery of America. I change it to the year 1492, I'm pretty sure it's in the year 1469 although I'm terrible at dates. The one on my left looks at my test and, confused, he hands me his test that he says 1942 on. Dude, I think you've got the date off by a few hundred years.

I look at the date, look at my exam again, and leave it as it is. I give him a thumbs up but when he points to my exam and his for me to copy I turn my head telling him no. In an hour and a half we finished the exam. The monitor from the other group comes in to get them out and tells us that we still have 20 minutes left. Bored, I put my head in my hands and start to close my eyes when Evelynn lightly touches my shoulder with hers with a wide smile. If what she's trying to do is cheer me up, she's more than succeeded. We play tic tac toe at the table and wait until our monitor comes back and takes us to the square again.

I just realized what an idiot I've been, if they leave us in a room this big without supervision, it was certain that they were watching us on a camera. It didn't even occur to me to look at the ceiling to know where they were. I hope we don't get penalized for scratching the tables or playing on the exam.

Then the results pop up on my phone that had been blocked all this time, and my legs feel weak. 600/300. Impossible.

I click on the "elaborate in the results" tab and see all the perfect tests and next to it a 100 bonus on each one for completing the "secret task". You must be kidding me. Then the director sends the classification list and I appear first. I'm ahead of a guy with an exact 300 points, well now that I look at it it's three people with perfect scores. They're going to think I'm a genius or something. I am class α, and I have the 600 points that I just earned.My heart is going to break from how fast it beats. And then people start talking and I hear my name being called over and over again accompanied by my nickname, “the contractor”. I don't want to be here, I don't want this attention.

On top of that, my sister, whom I don't even know, she's here too. Nice family reunion. Oh no, I look at the list again and she is the third person with 300 points. Why does this happen to me? Running, I follow the instructions of the monitors that indicate that we take our luggage and go to the area of ​​residences. My sister is going to be in my class, my mother's second daughter, the one who made her leave my father with me and run away with his lover. Anyway, my family history is very convoluted. This day was going to come whether he wanted it or not. Now what matters is finding a good room with a common kitchen and gym and calming down with hot tea and a good movie.

.

.

.

(Ty so much for reading. Any suggestions or corrections are wellcome, english is my second language)

[goldensadnessdolphin]

That's been rattling in my brain a bit. I think a big part of that was distance to the audience.

HIMYM was a pretty closed off thing. Yeah, it was big and all, but there was barely anything to grab onto and have a conversation about. Talking from a mainstream cultural perspective:

GoT had it's houses people would sort themselves into. HIMYM had Neil Patrick Harris as pretty much THE character that carried the show. Mostly because it was good enough for the rest of the cast to just bounce off of them specifically. I'd bet that more people could quote all house slogans of GoT than tell you more than one significant difference character difference between *has to check wikipedia* Ted and Marshall. Hell, I barely watched both series equally much (a few episodes at a friend's place) and even I can tell you that the House Stark had a wolf as their crest. There is a level of branding and emotional investment expected in GoT and (likely) actively avoided in HIMYM.

The second major difference is merch. GoT had merch versions of EVERYTHING. Without looking them up now, I'd wager GoT had their own Monopoly set, blind bags, funkos, maybe even a TTRPG or other niche market product. If they felt extra spicy, they might've even made a video game? What did HIMYM have in comparison? What COULD they have that would go beyond the logo so you can tell people you like the show? I can't remember ever hearing any catch phrase that entered the zeitgeist. Definitely none that I'd immediately connect with HIMYM. Fuck, Big Bang Theory at least had BAZINGA! There was no real emotional connection to the series for most watchers. And I assume, that was by design.

I'm gonna get unnecessarily deep into some real meta stuff under the cut, so if you're leaving the train here, leave with this hypothesis: HIMYM needed to stay background noise or else they could not have been producing the show for as long as they did. You wanna know what that means? Come with me into the wonderful world that lies beyond:

The big restriction of episodic TV and especially sitcom type media is you can not leave the start of the episode by the end. By which I mean, episodes are produced in a way that a casual watcher can expect the characters to be the same at the start of ep 01 and ep 126. The Simpsons could not have Bart age, the Golden Girls could not have one of them die, The Nanny could not be permanently fired/find a different job. Yes, there are some changes you can make, but those have to keep the character and central tension at the same place. The Nanny (spoiler) did at some point kinda sorta actually hook up with her boss, but it was treated as a very off-and-on relationship if memory serves. Their professional lives and power imbalance was still the biggest obstacle. Bart has to stay young to be mischievious. His pranks would hit a lot differently (both for the character and their effect on others) if he was 17 or older.

Things like this are a necessity to air the show in effective perpetuity. Any major change MUST be explainable by a sentence or two at most. Because that way, you as the audience know exactly what to expect and the writers can't stray so far out of character that the next episode's writer struggles to tell their story. That is the reality of the business of these shows: Writers, more often than not, would write individual episode scripts instead of season spanning archs.

That also makes it way easier on the actors. If you change the character or base conflict regularly, you are causing your actors to need a lot more prep to deliver the change to the needed quality. That's just not possible, since these shows generally give the actors the script the day they shoot it. Being able to act in those conditions is a very specialized skill you have to pull off. It's one of the big reasons you don't really see soap/sitcom main cast in anything else, even after the show has ended (NPH being the exception that proves the rule)

Coming back to HIMYM. They likely targeted being background noise. If I remember correctly, around the time that they began, a lot of established soaps/sitcoms were either finished or going into their last seasons. While audience tastes were changing, there was a gap in the market. A gap that could be exploited if it drew as many people into watching it regularly as possible. For that, they needed to be knowingly bland. No major edges, no big drama, no strong emotional core. They were specifically riding on two things: The titular mystery and being just interesting enough for people not to flick away when it was on.

Which is entirely opposite to GoT and why it's actually very puzzling why it washed away as it did. GoT had an incredibly dedicated and active fanbase. Yeah, the ending was shit, but that would generally mean people would be loud about it being shit. How they'd fix it, what exactly went wrong, "watch until Ep. X and then stop watching, that's a better ending". That certainly happened, but it left no mark. It's like the fans were ashamed of ever liking the show.

So, there you have it. The thoughts of someone who grew up with sitcoms and now wants to tell people how insane it actually is for sitcom characters to live for 20 minutes more-or-less Groundhog style instead of us getting a momentary glimpse into their life.

remember how utterly inescapable how i met your mother used to be with the memes and references and barney and bro code and wait for it... and then the finale was so hated it vanished overnight

[shana-reviews-tmblr]

I have never seen a more mean spirited list where its options misunderstand the series

1- Rushed AF. look guys, S1 for most streaming services get the 8-10ep treatment because that's what gets order, unless stated, this is NOT always in control of the creators, also the series has 1 season to its name, you can label it as rushed when it's completed, otherwise, you don't know what a slow burn is.

2- Racism, WHERE TF DID YOU EVEN SEE IT IS S1?

3- Graphic Sex Scene - WHERE!? if this is in ep 4, we didn't see any dicks going around outside of seeing Val grind up on Angeldust and even then, it wasn't graphic and used to show how awful Val treats Angeldust, if it's not to your liking that's fine, but many SA victims within the fandom and some outside have at praised ep4's rep.

4-Painfully bad songs, man you must not be a musical stage show fan then and it shows.

5- "even more r4pe jokes" WHERE? you mean the scene with sir pentious at the bar called CONSENT where he emerged unharmed, clothes intact because any rationally thinking person can tell he said no, and they let him go?

6- Lute get completely forgotten. Dude SLOW BURN, Lute won't be the main antagonist this season, but we'll definitely be seeing her

7- "5 + new characters who add nothing" At this point why do you even watch the show? everyone who is introduced in this season is being set up so future seasons won't be saddled with trying to introduce them. and even then, half the cast outside the hotel staff ARE SIDE/MINOR/SUPPORITNG characters they aren't the main focus

8- Adam never gets brought up apart from jokes" - oh no the misogynist gets laughed at also kinda hard for him to be brought up when he's dead outside of flashbacks

9-"an actually good song" - you must have ignored how most of the songs in the show actually hit the top lists on spotify

10-"rushed redemptions" Pentious's redemption was shown in the season and was believable, his small acts of kindness and his willingness to put his life on the line to beat adam earned his redemption it wasn't rushed, but even if it was, again this goes back to the order Prime gave to have 8eps, until we know for certain, we can only guess it wasn't in the teams control.

11- "pentious contributes nothing" i'm beginning to think this list is biased against Pentious and is just looking for reasons to put a bingo

12- "Only 1 real Chaggie Scene" Sapphic-phobia must be blinding this person because Chaggie has moments throughout the season, they don't need a makeout session, the simple gestures, eye contact, hand holding, etc. all show they are a couple and there are couples who act this way. just say you hate sapphic couples

13-Alastor's backstory sucks" - picking something just to fill the hole

14- Ace/Arophobia - idk man this list is against sapphic couples so i'm going to go with this just being something random they wanted to put

15- Vee's get too much focus, AGAIN" Oh my god this one hurt, out of all the Vees, Val and and Vox got the most screen time and even then they're establishing ep was just that, ESTABLISHING them so they don't feel like they come out of nowhere when S2 comes since Vox is the big bad there. Val got his establishing ep in ep4 so we know what is at stake and what is Angeldust's situation, his guest spot in ep6 was to establish that Angeldust can resist Val and took a stand against his abuser, which showed he was someone who can be worthy of redemption, but oh guess an important character peiece is too much. Vel has the least screen time, but her enterance was memorable and she'll probably get more. so idk WTF this is about.

Gonna be honest i was going to do all of these, but 15 is where i got my limit because everything else after is just repetittive dribble that's insult a character who hasn't shown up yet and insulting another character who plays an important part

Antis of this show really are just Lily Orchard wannabes because they assume the worst of something just because they don't even like it.

if you are anything like this or follow this type of mindset you need to reevaluate your view points.

[yurtletheturtlehenderson]

COSMIC - S1:E5; Chapter Five, The Flea and The Acrobat - [Pt. 4 - FINAL]

A Will Byers x Male!Reader Series

𝘏𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘣 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘴 𝘔𝘳. 𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯.

|| 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐏𝐎𝐕 ||

With Dustin in the lead, we found ourselves stopped atop a hill, at what I assume is a scrapyard. Old vehicles like abandoned cars and buses scattered around the area.

Dustin came to a stop and looked around.

"Oh, no." He muttered.

"'Oh, no'? What's, 'Oh, no'?" Lucas asked in a panicked tone.

Dustin turned around to look at us.

"We're headed back home."

"What?" Even Mike seemed to be frustrated.

"Dustin, are you sure?" I ask, irritation and exhaustion creeping up on me.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Setting sun, right there." He pointed past us in the direction of the sky. "We looped right back around."

I sighed, shifting on my feet as I run a hand down my face.

"And you're just realizing this now?" Lucas snapped.

"Why is this all on me?"

"Because you're the compass genius!"

"What do yours say?"

We all checked our compasses, mine was wobbly but nevertheless, pointing North.

Lucas, Mike and I all spoke at once.

"North."

We all sighed, and Dustin began slowly pacing, looking off into the distance deep in thought.

"Makes no damn sense."

"Maybe the gate moved," Mike offered.

"No, I don't think it's the gate." Dustin began looking all around us. "I think it's something else screwing with the compasses."

"Maybe it's something here?"

As Mike spoke, I didn't fail to notice the look that crossed Lucas's face as he slowly turned to face El.

"No, it has to be like a super magnet." Dustin replied.

Lucas rose his hand and began pointing at El accusingly. "It's not a magnet. She's been acting weirder than normal. If she can slam doors with her mind, she can definitely screw up a compass."

El stood rooted in place, a look of guilt and fear in her eyes.

"Why would she do that?" Mike snapped.

"Because she's trying to sabotage our mission. Because she's a traitor!"

As much as I hated to admit it to myself, it was the only logical explanation we had. It could be all too easy for her to screw with our compasses after what she showed herself capable of.

I shook my head, ridding myself of the conclusions my brain wanted to jump to.

"Lucas, come on. Think about what you're saying. Why would-" I rested a gentle hand on Lucas's shoulder to try and calm him down, only for him to rip his arm from my touch.

"Enough, Y/n! I'm so sick of you defending her! You of all people should be more worried for Will."

"I am!" I snapped, feeling the anger, fear and confusion of all I've been carrying the past few days shoot up to the surface unexpectedly.

I took a deep breath, trying to compose myself. "Just... Please. Hear her out."

Lucas never met my eye and only stomped towards the poor girl intimidatingly.

"Lucas, what are you doing?" Mike asked, following behind Lucas worriedly.

"You did it, didn't you? You don't want us to reach the gate. You don't want us to find Will." Lucas was in her face by now, and it as if the poor girl was on the verge of tears.

Dustin and I were toe in toe with the others and I walked up to Lucas, ready in case he decided to something rash.

Mike seemed to have the same idea.

"Lucas, come on, seriously, just leave her alone!"

"Admit it." Lucas spit.

"No." El muttered.

"Admit it!" We all jumped when Lucas began screaming.

He grabbed her right arm and examined her sleeve. There was a streak of shiny dark crimson on her sleeve.

Lucas swatted away her arm in disgust and frustration at the sight.

"Fresh blood. I knew it."

Dustin and I watched speechless as the boys began fighting.

"Lucas, come on!"

"I saw her wiping her nose on the tracks! She was using her powers!"

"Bull! That's old blood. Right, El?"

We all whipped our heads to El, waiting for her response.

At this point, she was fighting back tears, and her breath hitched.

"Right, El?" Mike asked again, less confident.

She began sobbing as she choked out her words.

"It's... not... it's not safe."

My stomach plunged as Dustin and I shared a look of worry and shock.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"What did I tell you? She's been playing us from the beginning!"

Lucas and Mike seemed to be having it out now and they wouldn't stop despite the many protests from either Dustin or I. My body seemed to have shut down, staring helplessly as my two best friends fight, at a complete loss for words from shock and knowing my words will make no difference.

"That's not true. She helped us find Will!"

"Find Will? Find Will? Where is he, then? Huh? I don't see him."

"Yeah, you know what I mean,"

"No, I actually don't. Just think about it, Mike. She could have just told us where the Upside Down was right away, but she didn't. She just made us run around like headless chickens."

With every word my body was feeling more and more on edge, my anxiety set in as I felt uncomfortable in my own skin at my friend's tearing each other apart. I started shifting back and forth, my hands rubbing the back of my neck.

Either Dustin noticed this, or he was sick of the fighting as well - or both for that matter - he stomped towards the boys and intervened.

"All right, calm down!"

"No! She used us, all of us! She helped just enough so she could get what she wants. Food and a bed. She's like a stray dog."

"Screw you, Lucas!"

"No! Screw you, Mike. You're blind... blind because you like that a girl's not grossed out by you. But wake up, man! Wake the hell up! She knows where Will is, and now she's just letting him die in the Upside Down."

"Shut up!"

"For all we know, it's her fault."

"Shut up."

"We're looking for some stupid monster... but did you ever stop to think that maybe she's the monster?"

'I don't want to believe it. I don't want to believe that El is the monster. I don't want my best friend to be missing, I don't want my friends to fight all the time. But at the same time, I can't afford to dismiss the possibility that maybe Lucas had a point. Not about her being a monster. No, that I refuse to believe, but her having something to do with everything that's been going on.'

What came next was a blur.

Mike couldn't take it anymore and lunged at Lucas, the boys toppled to the ground and began wrestling in the dirt. Dustin, El and I screaming at the top of our lungs for them to stop.

I looked to Dustin and El and back at the fighting boys. I ran to them attempting to pry Lucas off of Mike in a panic, knowing there was a big chance I'd get hit. But I didn't care and I couldn't stand by and do nothing.

"Enough! Please, stop! Just-"

I closed my eyes as I saw the blur of Lucas's hand strike me accidentally as he swung his arm back, ready to punch Mike. I felt the back of his fist collide with my nose and I fell back with a painful yelp.

I heard a shrill shriek and opened my eyes in time to see Lucas fly backward in the air about five feet and slide into an abandoned car door, lying unconscious.

I looked to Lucas in horror and ran to him, not caring about my gushing nose.

I dive in front of Lucas, trying to shake him awake.

The boys were right behind me.

"Lucas! Lucas, wake up! Lucas."

Nothing. I checked his head for injuries, my hand never leaving him as I look over my shoulder at El, horrified.

"What did you do?"

El stood rooted to the ground, sobs wracking her body as blood dripped down her nose. I could tell the guilty look in her eyes was genuine but I didn't have time to feel bad for her right now.

Lucas was my main priority. I turned my attention back to my friend.

Dustin and Mike were just as panicked as I was.

"Come on, wake up. Come on!" Dustin yelled.

"Come on, man. Lucas?" Mike muttered worriedly.

"Lucas? Lucas, come on!" I sniffled, weakly shaking him.

To my tremendous relief, Lucas slowly came to with a groan and his eyes fluttered open.

The three of us chuckled and laughed in relief. The weight in my lungs and heart were lifted at the sight

"Lucas." Mike let out in a shaky breath.

Lucas slowly sat up and blinked a few times, processing what just happened.

"Lucas, you okay?" Mike asked.

There was no response from our friend.

Dustin spoke up shakily as he held up three fingers.

"Lucas... Lucas, how many fingers am I holding up? Lucas, how many fingers?"

Mike began reaching forward towards Lucas's head, already one step ahead of me.

"Let me see your head." He offered gently, he was cut short went Lucas angrily shoved Mike's hand away.

"Get off of me!" He grunted, struggling to stand up.

"Lucas, come on, you could be hurt. Let us help." I try, my voice soft reaching for his shoulder.

He pushed my arm away in anger as he stood up, storming past me.

"I said, get off of me!" I detected a hint of fear in his voice this time and less anger, making me more sympathetic than angry at him.

Mike began to chase after him but Dustin and I seem to have the same thought as we both caught each of his arms

"Let him go."

I watched sorrowfully as my friend left without us.

"Man, let him go."

We all shared a somber silence when suddenly Mike spoke up.

"Where is El?"

I looked to where she had been standing previously only to find no one else in sight.

Mike's breathing increased and he began shouting for her.

"El! El!"

"Eleven!" Dustin had joined in.

I stood frozen, my voice failing me. I looked around me as hopelessness sunk in and solidified into guilt. The icy wind whipped my collar as the desperate voices of my friends was lost to the wind.

She was gone.

[ncji]

[ There is a post in the Neji tags that has got me

because, no, Hinata is not a super-privileged uncaring Main House bitch, even though she is privileged af. She's Hinata. I'm sure she cared, though she didn't do much about the whole branding system. Did she ever even bring it up to her father? It's whatever. She had her own issues to worry about. Sure, they were never on the level of being branded into a slave class, but it is what it is. She's still a sweet bean. I just think she could have shown a little more understanding, though, some care.

Pretty much everyone in the series downplayed Neji's situation, except his father, anyway. I guess Hinata couldn't have been any better.

But the Branch House was a slave house and will continue to be one until the last branded Hyuuga dies.

The fact that they were fighting together was nothing new. The Main House was apparently always a fighting class in their system. They knew all of the most powerful techniques, so they had to have been prepared to fight. Not only that, but Hiashi was the most powerful among them. I've said this before, I'll say it again: Hiashi is not protected, he is the protector. He is the frontline. You won't have to go through the clan to get to Hiashi, you'll have to go through him to get to the clan. The Branch House was also capable of fighting. So what must have happened when war came? THEY FOUGHT TOGETHER. That was always the case! Any other scenario would not have made sense. In fact, since the Branch House was the weaker one, it would have made more sense for the Main House to protect them. I hate when people bring up the fact that Neji and Hinata were fighting together as some sort of proof of reform in the clan. Hyuuga are made to fight together. Having a person constantly trying to meat shield for you would only prevent you from attacking your opponent.

It's on par with people using Neji training with Hiashi as evidence there was no longer a branding system. Neji was always at that home. So often that I assumed he lived there. All of his memories of the Hyuuga compound were spent with Hiashi's family. After the whole...letter moment, which made zero sense, they were on better terms. The whole family was on better terms. Since Neji was already there, why wouldn't Hiashi train his nephew, the clan's prodigy, who already knew the Main House techniques? They were close relatives, and Neji clearly had brain damage from Naruto's uppercut, so the scene was set for happy family moments all around.

Hiashi's claim there was no more fate of servitude in the Branch House was just straight-up blind. Because you're definitely free when your masters tell you you are. You're still wearing the deadly shock collars, but you're free. Oh, I'm sure the masters are all fine with it too, losing their servants. No, guys, you're free. Go ahead! Do what you want! Stop doing what was expected of you. Argue when you're disrespected. Fight back against your masters. Why are you so scared? No, I'm sure they won't activate your shock collars. Well, they can't drop the controllers that activate them. What do you mean you don't feel free? What do you mean you're not safe?

I just, ugh. You can tell when someone cares as much about the Hyuuga's branding system as Naruto did. ]

[historia-jaeger]

EreMika is the second m/f Shipping in the ranking of Japan's most shipped couples from 2024. The first shipping is Levi x Hange and everything else before that, is yaoi stuff. Additionally, the couple is ranked 6th in Fandom's most searched shippings 2023. EreMika are usually always involved in general shipping rankings. So we can assume that this couple is quite popular among fans. But how do I come to the conclusion that Isayama went after the most popular shipping? Eren's "declaration of love" pretty much came out of nowhere for many. One reason for this is that the family aspect was always present. For many, Eren's "declaration of love" came out of nowhere. Still, many EreMika Shippers see that their couple had romantic undertones from the start. Since I don't see these, I used this article as a guide: The Main Agenda – Top 10 Eremika Moments 1# Eren saves Mikasa from the slavers: Eren protects Mikasa from the slavers. This scene is very important, because it represents a turning point in Mikasa's character. As a child, she seemed friendly and open. After she lost her parents, she lost the meaning of life. Eren gave her a purpose in life by telling her to fight. That Moment I remembered, I´v seen this scene before, over und over again. It was happening right in front of me. But I pretended not to notice it. That´s right. This world is... merciless. That moment my body stopped shaking. From that moment on, I could perfectly control myself. I thought I could do anything. Fight. But this scene does nothing for the Shipping EreMika. Eren ultimately protects each of his friends. Rather, Eren is a protector by nature. That's why it doesn't particularly stand out that he protects Mikasa. 2# Mikasa's protective instinct towards Eren The article now addresses the moment where Eren is referred as Mikasa's boyfriend and she refers to him as her family. I can agree that Mikasa has feelings for Eren, that go beyond a family relationship. It wasn't just the commander of the team she was traveling with, who noticed her feelings. Levi and Jean seemed to know it too. Even though she repeatedly refers to Eren as her family, which makes it difficult for the audience to interpret this as a romance, you can clearly see how much she loves Eren. She blushes when asked about her feelings for Eren. She blushed as she and Eren were attacked by the Titans. And she blushed when Eren spoke directly to her about her feelings for him. Because she is in love with him, she is very afraid of losing him. This causes her to act very selfishly on team-missions just to protect him. There are also various scenes in which Mikasa holds Eren back and slows him down. Isayama even gave an interview about it.

This interview comes from "Gekkan Shingeki no Kyojin, Volume 3" and must have come out three years ago. 3# Cave-Scene and Protection Maybe I'm particularly blind or stupid. But I don't see a moment in the cave, where Eren prioritizes Mikasa's protection or puts a special mark on her words. Rather, it is Levi who motivates him to try hardening and it is Historia, who helps him to see meaning in his life again. One could perhaps cite the scene where Mikasa, Eren and the rest of the Survey Corps are attacked by the Titans. Isayama said in an interview that he wanted to let Eren and Mikasa kiss. But was to embrassed to do it. However, this interview took place after the manga ended. It's strange that three years earlier Isayama wrote that Mikasa was like a mother to Eren and then wrote: they should actually kiss. At what point did Eren make the leap from mother to lover? Especially since Mikasa's protective instinct doesn't diminish throughout the series. The scene could also be listed, in which Eren happens to be a Titan and protects Mikasa at the right moment, before she is eaten by the Titan. I thought the scene was beautiful, because she still wanted to stay alive despite Eren's loss. However, this was accidental, because Eren, as a Titan, did not recognize humans and almost killed Mikasa. It was only through Armin that he came back to his senses. 4# The timeline moment I left out the next part, which is about Mikasa exepting Eren's decision to go to the Survey Corp and always protecting him. We know Mikasa has feelings for Eren. For me, however, it's a one-way street. And I'll also skip the part after that about the eye contact between Eren and Mikasa, while the Survey Corp is attacked by titans. Yes. They had eye contact and Mikasa was certainly a motivation for Eren the fight the Titans. But he looks more like a scared bunny without blushing and turned away from her. It's unclear to me at what point the two should have kissed. Next is the moment when Mikasa has a dream about what it would be like, if Eren spent his final years with her. I honestly don't understand why they had to put this scene in the manga. Just like the aspect that Mikasa is Princess Azumabito. It didn't contribute anything to the progression of the story. Likewise the what-if moment with Ymir and her children. Anyway, it's a dream that has nothing to do with Eren and his feelings for Mikasa. He seems more depressed to me. It's important to note why he asked Mikasa, if she had any feelings for him. He wanted Mikasa to take off her scarf and let him go. That's why he called her a slave and told Luise to take the scarf away from her. And that's why he reacted so emotionally coldly towards Armin when he asked him about Mikasa. That doesn't mean he had feelings for her. That just means he care about her. Armin and Mikasa were the people who were always closest to him. Part 2

Tr: "Erehisus needs to stop saying that Isayama changed the ending for money, it’s okay to admit you guys were wrong all along, it’s not Isayama’s fault that you guys were too focused on theorizing about who the father of Historia’s child was when the point of her pregnancy wasn’t who the father of her baby was. You guys can still enjoy erehisu even if they are not canon or just a crackship."

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

[platonic-prompts]

An important thing to think about when you make your characters (especially when said characters have powers or there's a crap ton of them) is can they be combined or do their powers make sense?

For instance, Michael Vey, a series I got into for a little bit, but had to look at the list of characters every time someone other than like 4 characters popped up. Spoilers for that are ahead so...maybe skip this post if you dont want those

There are 17 kids with powers, and the main character feels like a Gary Stu, especially in the last book

But a list of the kids and the powers they have

Taylor-- reads minds and memories can 'reboot' people

Ian-- Sees solely through electro-location

McKenna- Can create heat and light, but heat makes her dehydrate

Abigail- Can stimulate nerves to reduce the amount of pain felt

Grace-- Can download large amounts of data

Zeus-- Can throw lightning bolts, but shocks himself when exposed to water

Tanner- Can crash airplanes

Nichelle-- Can detect and drain electricity even from the other 'Glows'

Tessa-- Can enhance other glows powers

Tara (taylors twin) --Can manipulate emotions and can create hallucinations

Quentin- Can generate electromagnetic pulses

Torystn-- Can microwave objects

Cassy- Can paralyze any part of a persons body, including their hearts

Bryan-- Can focus energy into a beam, essentially a plasma cutter

Kylee- human magnet

Zara- Can absord (and I believe mimic) other glows powers

And then there is Michael Vey himself

Michael-- Make his body electric, throw electricity as a ball, make himself magnetic, melt objects, also can basically teleport around, and I'm pretty sure he managed to deflect bullets away from himself

Right off the bat, Abigail's power makes 0 sense since that's not how pain works at all. Especially in cases of actual serious injury not just the type a TENS machine would be used for (TENS machines aren't even proven to work)

Ian's power is used to make him be able to have essentailly super-vision like seeing through walls but renders him blind if his power is suppressed. Now, okay first, there's a reason terrestial animals don't have electro-location. The high resistance of air limits the flow of electric current, so he's probably worse off than if he just had regular eyesight. And even if you handwave that since this is a series with electric rats that eat people, well here's a question. Wouldn't the other Glows around him just completely screw up his vision since they give off electricity. But if that had been taken into account, then he could've taken the place of Nichelle's sensing glows ability.

Taylor and her identical twin Tara have different sets of powers, though both do involve the brain. So they can get a pass, though it could've been interesting if their powers were the same (since I'd assume the way they gained said powers would have to do with biology) and they used them and trained them in different ways, instead of there just being luck and coincidence with having unrelated but still similarly localized powers.

Grace can be replaced with a flash drive. She shows up enough that you could give a character a flash drive and you wouldn't really notice the difference.

Zeus, while his power and weakness are cool, well, the boy has not been able to get a bath or swim since he was an infant. And when he does come into contact with water, it didn't really live up to the 'oh no its super dangerous!' thing it was hyped up to be. In the first book he sets off the sprinkler system and gets away basically scot free even after being in water

Tanner is very confusing, because he screws up the electric systems onboard. From the ground. 5-7 miles away from the plane (9,000 to 13,000 meters) And yet Hatch doesn't use him on things other than airplanes. And I'm pretty sure you could achieve the same result by taking a kid on board and giving them a parachute. Please put your child on airplane mode sir.

Nichelle and Tessa could be combined into one person, which would make so much more sense than to have the electricity machine thingy, turn a kid into a literal ground wire. Nicessa could absorb power and then give it to other people, essentially acting as a battery instead of a generator (which the kids already all are)

Torstyn- I just want to know, are his bones magnetrons? Does he have hollow bones working as electron tubes? How is he making these microwaves?

Also the guy can and im pretty sure does use this to cook people

Cassy- Zeus, Michael, and Abigail can potentially do this. Even though Nichelle doesn't have an effect on normal people, well, regular people have electricity in their bodies too. Easily could've been a Rogue situation where she sucked all the electric out and killed people

Bryan and McKenna could also be fused, since their powers are essentially the same thing. I mean a plasma cutter works by electrifying pressured air. So in essence, there could've been a character who 'breathed' plasma to cut through things.

Kylee is essentially an electromagnet since i think she can turn the stuff of, and I dont' even remember what she does in the books except she's one of Hatch's kids and probably could've been cut with no real consequence. Half of his kids could've been cut and would've given him more reason to want to go after the rogue kids. It's very odd since he seems to 'want the whole set' but also kinda wants to eat forbidden meat after murdering one of them. His motivation makes no sense to me, even by the end of the book I had no real idea of why he was doing everything with the kids.

Zara shows up for two seconds as 'ohho im you but better' and then immediately gets killed or zapped or whatever.

And then Michael has pretty much every power possible, seemingly got killed in one of the books only to come back in 'god mode' and zap Hatch into ash at the last minute in the last book. And no, that's not a joke. That book read like a bad fanfic.

Also the fact that he decided: imma climb up this metal silo with my electric powers and no one tried to stop him, really says how much they care about his well being. Because one accidental discharge or a little spark and that thing would've exploded. He's literally the epitome of 'oh i wrote my character into a corner, here have a new power' Limiting your characters power set allows them to have to come up with interesting ways to apply it.

And having fewer character can allow for deeper characterization and more 'screen' time. Making Ian one of Hatch's kids, combining 4 kids into 2, and then cutting 4 kids would make only 11 Glows to keep track of.

More characters doesn't equal a better story, especially if said characters feel shallow or you can't remember what their powers are without looking back at the stupid list eight times in the same book.

[nerdygaymormon]

Do you have a link to your thoughts on the CES letter? Because I'm sure plenty of folk have asked you about it. I'm, struggling.

The CES letter has been mentioned to me a few times in asks, but I don’t recall being asked to respond directly to it. 

Before getting into it, I want to make you aware of this post about Faith Transitions, I think it may be useful to you. 

I read the CES letter many years ago, probably the original version, it’s changed a lot since then. I think the CES letter is sloppy, and twists quotes, uses some questionable sources, and frames things in the worst possible way. It’s basically an amalgamation of all the anti-Mormon literature. But many of the main points of the CES letter are important and correct, even if the supporting details aren’t.

In a way, the CES letter has done the Church a favor. For a long time, Elder Packer insisted that anything which isn’t faith-promoting shouldn’t be taught. As a result, most members of the Church were taught a simplified version of Church history, leaving out anything that is messy or difficult. Although those things could be found if someone was looking for them, I found many of them simply by reading Brigham Young Discourses or other works of the early church. 

With the internet, Elder Packer’s approach to history turns out to be a bad one. This information is out there and now most members learn about it from sources seeking to destroy their faith. One response to this has been a series of essays where the Church talks about some difficult subjects. 

————————————————————

I’m not going to go through all the claims & challenges of the CES letter, but let me address some of the main ones.

1) There are errors in the Book of Mormon that are also contained in the 1769 edition of the Bible.

From the more faithful point-of-view, Joseph recognizes these passages, such as those from Isaiah, and knows they've already been translated into English and copies them from his family’s Bible. The non-faithful point-of-view is that Joseph copied these verses from his family Bible and tried to pass it off as his own translation.

2) DNA analysis has concluded that Native American Indians do not originate from the Middle East or from Israelites but from Asia.

This is correct. The Church has an essay which admits this and then spends a lot of time explaining how genetics works and one day we might find some Middle East connection. I find the Church essay convoluted as it goes through many possible (and unlikely) reasons for why no DNA of the Jaredites, Nephites or Lamanites has yet been found in the Americas.

3) There are things in the Book of Mormon that didn’t exist during Book of Mormon times, or in Central America (assuming this is where the Book of Mormon takes place), such as horses, chariots, goats, elephants, wheat, and steel.

This is also correct. Maybe the translation process was using a common word in English for a common item in the Book of Mormon. Maybe these are errors. Maybe it’s made up. 

4) No archeological evidence has been found for the Nephite/Lamanite civilizations.

Correct. When it comes to archeological evidence, it's true that we haven't found any. For one thing, we don't know where the Nephite & Lamanite civilizations are supposed to have taken place. If you don't know where to look, it's easy to have no evidence. Perhaps Nephites & Lamanites didn’t actually exist and that’s why there’s no archeological evidence. The Book of Mormon does seem to do a decent job of describing geography of the Middle East before Lehi & his family boarded the boat for the Promised Land.

5) Book of Mormon names and places are strikingly similar (or identical) to many local names and places of the region Joseph Smith lived in.

This seems like a funny thing to get hung up on. First of all, it’s not very many names that are similar. Secondly, many places in the US are named for Biblical places & people. If the Book of Mormon people came from Israel, it makes sense they did something similar. For example, the word Jordan is in the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and in many places in America. 

6) He points to obscure books or dime-novels that Joseph Smith might have read and the similarities between them and the Book of Mormon. 

Those similarities are mostly at the surface level. To me it doesn't seem like Joseph plagiarized any particular book, and these specific books seem to not been very popular so difficult to say Joseph, who lived on the frontier, actually read them. Funny how no one from that time period thought the Book of Mormon resembled those books, probably because they hadn’t heard of them. But Joseph did hear and read a number of stories and some of that phrasing or whatever of the time influenced him. Think of songwriters, they create a new song then get accused of plagiarizing because it's similar to another popular song. Even without intending to, they were influenced by things they heard. 

7) The Book of Mormon has had 100,000 changes.

Most of the "100,000" changes to the Book of Mormon were to break it into chapters & verses, to add chapter headings, or to add grammar such as commas and whatnot. There are some changes to fix errors that got printed but differed from the original manuscript. And there's been some clarifications made, but these are few in number. By claiming "100,000" he's trying to make it seem like there's a scam being done. It's easy to get a replication of the first Book of Mormon from the Community of Christ and read it side-by-side with today's version. I’ve done that and occasionally there’s a word or two here or there which differ, but overall it's mostly the same.

8) There were over 4 different First Vision accounts

True. Over the years, the way Joseph described the First Vision changed. I think different versions emphasize different aspects of the experience. I don’t find them to be contradictory. Oh, and the Church has an essay about this.

9) The papyri that Joseph translated into the Book of Abraham has been found and translated and it’s nothing like the Book of Abraham.

This is true. The Church has an essay about it. The Church now says that the papyri inspired Joseph to get the Book of Abraham via revelation, much like his translations of the Bible weren’t from studying the ancient Greek & Hebrew. It is a big change from what the Church used to teach, that this was a translation of the papyrus. The papyri has nothing to do with the Book of Abraham, and the explanations of the facsimiles in the Pearl of Great Price don’t match what the scholars say those pictures are about.

10) Joseph married 34+ women, many without Emma’s consent, some who had husbands, and even a teenager. 

This all appears to be true. Emma knew about some of them, but not all. As for the married women, they were still married to their husbands but sealed to Joseph (I know this is strange to us, but this sort of thing was common until Wilford Woodruff standardized how sealings are done). 

Polygamy was illegal in the United States. Most people who participated were told to keep it secret. So of course there’s carefully-worded statements by Joseph and others denying they participate in polygamy.

The salacious question everyone wants to know is if Joseph slept with all these women. We don’t know, but a DNA search for descendants of Joseph has taken place among the descendants of the women he was ‘married’ to and none have been found. But still, if he wasn’t doing anything wrong, why is he hiding this from Emma? 

11) The Church used to teach that polygamy was required for exaltation, even though the Book of Mormon condemns polygamy. 

This is accurate. The Church says polygamy was part of ancient Israel and so as part of the restoration of all things, polygamy had to be restored, see D&C 132:34. Now we no longer say polygamy is required to get to the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom.

12) Brigham Young taught Adam-God theory, which is now disavowed by the Church.

True. Joseph Smith didn’t teach this and John Taylor & Wilford Woodruff don’t seem to have any time for this teaching. It’s a thing Brigham Young was hot about and taught, but seems a lot of the church didn’t buy it as it was discarded after his death. 

13) Black people weren’t allowed to hold the priesthood until 1978, despite Joseph having conferred it to a few Black people during his life. 

Very true and very sad. This and the Mountain Meadows Massacre are the two biggest stains on the Church’s past. There is a Church essay on Race & the Priesthood. The ban appears to have begun with Brigham Young and he developed several theories to justify it, and these explanations expanded over the decades and bigotry was taught as doctrine. The Church now disavows all explanations that were taught in the past.

No reason for the priesthood ban is put forward in the Church essay other than racism. The past leaders were racists and that blinded them to what God wanted for Black people. There’s a big lesson in that for LGBTQ teachings of the Church.

14) The Church misrepresents how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. 

The accounts of Joseph Smith putting a seer stone in a hat and reading words from it, that's part of the historic record. Quotes about it don’t make it to our Sunday School lessons, but if you go back to the Joseph Smith papers and other accounts, it’s there to read. Joseph also used the Urim & Thummim, and wrote out characters and studied them, but he seems to have most favored the stone-in-hat method. I think the main problem here is the Church in its artwork and movies does not depict this, and therefore most members are unaware until they see anti-Mormon literature. Why does the Church not show Joseph looking into a hat? Because it seems magical and weird to modern people. But how much weirder is it than he put on the Urim & Thummim like glasses and could translate that way, or he wrote out these characters from some extinct language and was able to figure out what they mean?

————————————————————

A number of the main points in the CES letter are true (even if explanations/supporting details in the CES are problematic). Some of the main points have simple explanations and don’t seem like a big deal. Others challenge what the Church has taught. To its credit, the Church put out essays by historians & scholars, with sources listed in the footnotes, addressing several of these controversial topics. 

————————————————————

Religion is meant to help humans make sense of their world and our place in it. Most religious stories are metaphorical but end up getting taught as literal history and, in my opinion, the same is true of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And that’s why the CES letter has power, it points out things aren’t literally true but were taught by the Church as factual, and the CES letter shows us part of our messy history that the Church tried to hide. 

————————————————————

The story of Adam and Eve can’t literally be true. It doesn’t fit our evolutionary past, but it’s meant to make our lives important, God created us and we have to account to Him for our choices, and it’s important to find someone to go through life with. We can say the same of Job and the Book of Ruth, fiction with a purpose. 

While there are some real events included in the Bible, much of what’s written is there to teach lessons, culture, and give meaning to life. Jesus taught in parables so at least he was upfront that they were stories that contained morals.

Can I believe the same about the Book of Mormon, that it’s inspired fiction with meaning I can apply to my life, or must it be literally history to have value?

————————————————————

I went through a massive faith crisis while attending BYU. I had access to materials that told a different story of this religion than I’d been taught (the sorts of things in the CES Letter) and it threw me for a loop. 

It felt like the floor of faith I had stood on shattered and I fell with no way to stop myself. After I had a chance to process through the things I was feeling, I looked at my shattered faith and picked up the parts that were meaningful to me.

I had lined up my faith similar to a line of dominoes. If the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph was a prophet. If Joseph was a prophet, then this is the true church. If this is the true church, then...

This works until it doesn’t. Once a domino topples over, it starts a chain event.

Now I look at principles and concepts and decide if they’re meaningful to me. 

I love the idea that we can spend eternity with the people we love most. 

I believe we should be charitable and loving to others. 

People on the margins need to be looked after and helped and lifted. 

Poor people deserve dignity and the rich to be challenged. 

We have a commitment to our community and we all serve to make it better. 

All are alike to God, we’re all loved and God has a grand plan for us. 

Those who passed away can still be saved through the atonement of Christ. 

Those are all principles I find in the Bible and Book of Mormon or at church and I find Love flows through all of those. 

This new approach works for me. I don’t have to believe or hold onto problematic teachings. I can drop them and still hold the parts that I find valuable. I can reject the teachings and statements which are bigoted, homophobic, transphobic, racist, ableist, misogynistic. Prophets can make mistakes and still have taught some useful things.

That little voice of the spirit and what it teaches and guides me to do, I trust it over what Church leaders say. Overarching principles are more important to me than specific details for how this gets applied in the 1800′s or 1950′s or Biblical times. 

————————————————————

I truly hope some of what I’ve written is helpful.

There’s no use pretending that the CES letter doesn’t get some things correct. It’s also helpful to understand it’s not just trying to share truth, but has an agenda to make the Church look as bad as possible.

What about the things the CES letter is correct about? 

Has this church helped you learn to connect with the Divine? 

The Church has some very big flaws, but also has some big things in its favor. Some of its unique teachings are very appealing and feel hopeful and right. 

Can you leave the Church and be a good person and have a relationship with God? Absolutely. 

I also know this church is a community and it’s hard to walk away cold-turkey with nothing to replace it, without another network to belong to. It’s as much a religion as it is a lifestyle and circle of friends. 

Are there parts you can hold onto? Parts you can let go of?

You have a lot to think about and work through. 

[elmaxlys]

(og 083)

(:re 096)

(:re 098)

(:re 171)

I'll stop with the panels now but for real. The cross has so much significance for him, for his journey as a character and for others. I'll try not to makes this all about Donato because we're here to talk about his baby son so let's go.

Amon's character (and the whole manga) resolves around the idea that "the world is wrong". Amon starts the manga with the idea that ghouls are the ones that makes it so wrong (due to trauma and likening ghouls to demons <- that part being my own interpretation in the light of him being Catholic). Unlike the main character, who shifts from "The world is wrong" to "heeeh it be like that sometimes", Amon shifts from "The world is wrong and these bastards are the cause so we can solve this by genociding them" to "The world is wrong and it's everyone's fault so changing individually still makes a change and i'm starting with myself" which huh. Catholic character of all times.

As he says, to him the cross he wears represents his naivety. His sin of ignorance. When we look closer, the cross represents faith, not only in God but also in people.

Regarding his path, he had faith in his father - and was utterly betrayed when he turned out to be a ghoul eating his siblings. He wears the cross not to forget that part of him. That stops him from realizing the answer to his big question (why didn't his dad also eat him), because he can't allow himself to see the good in him.

Later (but still in a pre-canon flashback - og ch029 - see expansion on my thoughts relating the cross in this chapter here), he's seen not wearing the cross. He assumes someone is innocent - and is immediately betrayed. After that, he always wears his cross. A reminder not to let his faith in people blind him to the wrong they can cause. Basically don't let the log blind you, look at the speck in the other's eye.

Said faith wanes over time and he's left with immense distrust and only seeing logs everywhere. He's wearing the cross. Then he's stripped of all that makes him himself. He's stripped of his humanity and left looking like the ones he hated so much and on whom he was blaming the world's wrongs. There starts the second series of the manga, :re. In this one, the cross is a symbol of regaining faith. In himself (he was about to let himself die martyr bc he didn't want to be a ghoul then he was convinced that he could still act for the good even with that body), in others' (him giving the cross to Takizawa saying he believes in him which is both symbol of "you won't run off bc you still have to give it back to me" and really. him passing on the faith in himself. The way you can still be good and still be redeemed for the wrong you've done. Very Catholic of him.

(:re 115)

Getting the cross back from Takizawa in 171 reinforces all its meanings: see the evil in other people (Donato is undeniably evil), have faith in people (he still loved you), have faith in yourself (you can love him too, that doesn't make you bad) and faith in God (the hugeass cross he uses to "exorcise" Donato from the world. (and just like demons, that didn't kill Donato, just made him leave. anyway.))

Hope this made sense.

Also! In the first movie (everyone go watch it now), he is pinned in cross position and given stigmata-like wounds which is insane. Watch the scene here.

And have this chapter 124 cover because on top of amazing foreshadowing, the visual is absolutely incredible.

Vote for my boy.

Round 1 - Side B

Propaganda below ⬇️

Amon

Being catholic is literally the only thing he allowed himself to keep that he got from his father (who was a priest who turned out to be cannibal feasting on children in the orphanage he built). Anyone else would go 'the person who taught me this never lived by this and was using it as a cover, there is no reason for me to believe in it anymore' but this madlad decided it's go big or go home (and he just lost his home ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) and hold to it as if his life depended on it (which totaly doesn't represent how conflicted he really feels about his father despite the superficial hate, no sir, not at all, why would you even think that). His cross necklace was a plot point at other character's moral turnabout, his weapon takes a form of a cross, he talks about God when fighting etc. On a lighter note, he once spent all night doing pushups to stop feeling horny about his coworker. What a loser <3

Literally so catholic he cannot fuck he was in the same room as a woman and felt so guilty about being attracted to her he did push ups all night

He's such a catholic himbo he did push ups for 9 hours to distract himself because had a singular horny thought. I'm not even joking, that's canon

He's like if the antichrist made him catholic and he didn't find out until later

This idiot has the general disposition of a communion wafer.

Orphan raised by a serial killer catholic priest that I'll submit in a second. The priest killed and ate (he's a ghoul) the kids in the orphanage and it's even implied he fed the other kids the flesh of the killed kids like hello eucharistic parallel??? He did not kill Koutarou tho bc he loved him like a real son. 15 years after his father's been caught and thrown in ghoul prison and Amon's become a ghoul cop, Amon still wears the cross he had when in the orphanage *puppy eye emoji* also!! His weapon's ultimate form was a giant cross sword made from a part of himself (he became a ghoul at some point in the story). He used it to kill his dad (he failed bc it wasn't his dad's real body but kudos for trying)

I mean homie was raised by a potentially *censored* human eating priest so that’s. Something.

Simon

no propaganda

[mantra4ia]

Debris 1x13 "Celestial Body": rewatch Reaction'd, questions and comments

So if all those people are experiencing emotional convergence, who are they converging from? Who's sending the emotional signal that the debris is channeling, or is it the debris manifesting it's "consciousness" in a way that we can understand it by way of human conduits?

Maddox is clearly trading debris pieces with Irina (perhaps the piece that he took out of storage off the books), and Irina is on the phone with presumably her handler/ boss to negotiate this trade. She gives him lateral (which I assume means latitudinal) readings and then he asks for longitudinal readings which we don't get to hear. They are: Lateral 105, 112, 115, 120, 113, 110, 109

What's the significance of these measures? Latitude goes from 0° to 90° from the equator, so that doesn't track unless the scene is cut wrong and they're meant to be longitudinal (E/W) readings, which go to 180° relative to the prime meridian. That would make more sense, because after Irina is done with the first set of readings, the unknown caller on the phone says "drop to level two for vertical" and latitudes are North/South.

If we're talking Western longitudes, notable landmarks include: Denver, Salt Lake City UT / Phoenix AZ / nearly Sedona AZ - aka where the telesphere went, Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe/ Nevada border, Great Salt Lake, Alberta-Saskatchewan border, and the Utah-Arizona border.

Or perhaps they're not part of terrestrial measurement at all. The act of "lateral reading" could just mean verifying your sources/accuracy as you go, where as vertical reading is reading for content first to see if something is worth evaluating for sources.

However, if they are part of coordinates, then is the fragment that Maddox is trading with Irina a legitimate "mapmaker" piece like George previously said Influx was seeking? Ya know, when he lied to his daughter. Can a mapmaker piece track moving/animate debris akin to the telesphere? Are those black dust cloud beings George is running from made up of animate debris?

Bryan: After becoming a parent you're in a heightened emotional state, emotionally raw.

George: Higher highs, lower lows, the joy of having a child, the postpartum depression, and the fear of getting it wrong.

Me: Are we in a pensive, self-reflective mood, George? Are you practicing your pub trivia Bryan, delivering exposition, or are you speaking from personal character experience? Seriously, how would you know?!

John Noble as Otto, man why does he always make such a good villain?

What is with the cryptic vagueness when Maddox tells Irina, "You know I can't let you leave with that case right? I mean you know that. There's another door for you Irina, one that only you can go through." They seemed almost on good terms in a previous episode, like friends or something more in a past life "nice car, i almost left / no you didn't", he wouldn't kill her, would he? Or is it more like a code between them, a sort of "I'm being watched, take the back exit"?

Hey, so why is it that sometimes George's eye seems opaque and damaged from the debris implant, but then when he's talking to Finola after he distracts Bryan while being Debris whisperer, his eye seems fine? PS: I googled Tyrone Benskin just to see what he looks like when he's not playing George Jones and I didn't know he's a former member of Canadian Parliament. Don't trust the government, eh?

George: "You're such a compassionate person, you always have been. So much of your mother in you." That's the second time that Finola's mother has been mentioned in the series, back from the pilot. Is it a coincidence that the first piece of debris that chose to interact with Finola resonated her mom? More than just Finola's desire being reflected by the debris, but the debris emoting it's first impression of her as someone compassionate that it can trust?

It also raises my heckles that George repeats, almost word for word, something that Finola said in episode 3. "If we can't help people, we do not deserve this debris / if we don't use this debris on these people, we are not worthy to have it." Are father and daughter that ideologically similar, or has he been spying on her progress this whole time, or both?

George: "I took my life to allow myself a rebirth, I paid the price. I want you to know that not one day goes by that I don't think of you and your sister. I want you to know this." This coincides with my initial impression that George staged his death to get away from Orbital after he assessed how his research was being used/abused.

George: "You never wanted to go into the pool, I had to throw you in, and you kicked and screamed, but you always did better that way." Immabout to throw you George, just keep talking!!!! I'm sorry, this charicature of absentee father reminiscing about the good old days really ticks me off from personal experience.

Also, as a person with a disability, I am not particularly pleased with the use of Dario as a plot device instead of a thoughtful character with a backstory at this point in the show for 13 whole episodes now. Pretty pissed off actually, so they better do something phenomenal and pivotal with Christian Rose (Dario) in season 2 [maybe have his character interact with debris in a similar way to Caroline]. But that's another rant about ableism in screenwriting for another angry day....

George: "A telesphere was born yesterday. It came from a pocket dimension inside Orbital. I think it's birth may have triggered the debris." This is perhaps the one-ish episode that I find George remotely interesting and also infuriating, particularly because of the way he speaks, like he's finally taken off the guise of the old, well-meaning eccentric and turned into a sharp, cunning, and at times calculatingly ruthless individual. I find it peculiar that he says a telesphere is born. Makes me think that the debris is not just part of a spacecraft, but a hybrid of the beings piloting that craft.

I get tremendous satisfaction from Finola head-butting people. This should continue.

I'm not familiar with all of the work of JH Wyman to know if this is a running theme or an ongoing joke. But does he keep his writing staff in a constant state of starvation? Is that why pieces of debris are called "Nachos", and why Influx has "Beans" to shield them from debris side effects, and why Bryan is always eating junk food? Should I be worried about the writer's room and start sending them healthy snacks?!? Just give me an SOS in the credit roll.

Speaking of: is the "Bean" that Finola ingested a piece of debris? Similar to the pieces of debris that fused with Anson Ash? Will it impart some physical benefits to her moving forward?

"I won't lose you again...you belong with me." What are you talking about George Jones, you made the conscious decision to leave your family. You didn't lose Finola, she lost you. In this version of reality at least. Or (unscripted backstory) did Jones and his wife separate prior to her death / was Finola brought up mostly by her mother? That doesn't seem the case if she was buying her father birthday presents and took it upon herself to settle his affairs after his death.

Why do the Influx Operatives Otto and Anson have tattoos on their hands, but not Loeb? Is he like the low end of the totem pole FNG who hasn't earned his stripes, hence why Otto gives him s***: aka "Careful you cretin. All the finesse of a butcher."

What is the hierarchy of Influx anyway? Despite being an anti-government "for the people/ elevate the human consciousness" organization they do still seem to have a governing hierarchy and Otto and George seem to be on the same level, pretty high in rank / they talk with confidence to each other like they go back a while.

What is that weird thing that Otto does with his hands to Bryan's head? What are all the weird things Otto does, including his massacre at the petrol station? Ick.

Why is it that Leob and George are freaked out by the black smoke (debris particle?) man, but Anson and Otto aren't? They seem to see them(?), but don't overtly react.

Bryan: "It seems like we're entering some kind of new phase." Gee where have I heard that one before? Oh yeah, the story of "Blackwater grandfather" and the black wind that they're still teasing endlessly while refusing to tether it into some kind of world building lore. Agggghh!

Lololol, Bryan and Finola's dynamic even in the midst of a very serious episode makes me laugh. "Devon Reese / two e's? / Two e's!" "This one smells like baby diapers. Almost as bad as the tech section of the plane/ You mean your section of the plane. / Almost." That zinger 👍

Paraphrasing Bryan: "[recapping, recap, and did I mention recap]...something about George doesn't feel right." Personal pet peeve: I HATE IT when episodes have intentional explanatory lines like this to point out the fact that we as audience are privy to information that the main characters aren't. Not only does it make the main characters seem less intelligent, it breaks the fourth wall a little bit and gives the impression that the audience, which is ahead of the plot, is not as intelligent and needs a reminder that we're ahead. Lackadaisical writing drives me nuts!!! I can't outright say that it's "bad" dialogue, but it's not a choice I would make if I wanted uninterrupted viewer immersion.

Finola: "My instincts are good" Me: You are an emotionally intelligent decision maker with gaping personal blind spots.

George: You belong with me, your father.

Finola: My father died six months ago, and you are not him.

Me: Chef's kiss 👏👏👏

Otto: "It would never have worked out with that girl [Finola], not in any iteration." Definitely makes me lean towards the fan theory that the alt!Finola in (presumably) suspensia in Sedona Arizona got plucked from another reality.

Surprisingly, the ending credit roll has no voiceover as all the previous episodes of the season have. Disappointed that there's no potential teaser to a season 2 if the show gets renewed. But I find it curious that the extras who were demonstrating emotional convergence were credited as: chess board persons. Not sure if that's relevant, but I definitely feel like this show is playing games with me and my emotions.