#DH: “Free them they did nothing wrong :(“

[spectrum-core]

hi if you don’t mind me asking I’d love to hear more about serrated duo parallels?

Alright, just to make sure we are on the same page because I'm not sure if many people know who am I even talking about when I say serrated duo, I mean this pair of goofballs who I love very much.

Fuckass essay about them and how this thing even came to be (which is not what you asked for but it's still important I think) under the cut, as a warning though this is EXTREMELY long, i'm also writing it assuming the readers have played ruina to completion, have at least glanced at the ruina artbook once and are decently familiarized with the pjm universe and its terminology.

"But Spec", you may (and reasonably so) say, "these guys show up in different story tiers, one is a glorified ranged attack tutorial with a minor lore exposition attached to him and the other doesn't even have anything going on due to being a general reception, what the hell".

So let's get into this, more meticulously organized than some essays I've submitted for my uni classes because I care that much about these guys (don't be like me and do your uni projects, please).

Table of contents:

How the fuck did this even come to be 1.1. Me yapping about character dessign

Liwei as a character 2.1. The surface 2.2. Emotional internal nature 2.3. Resentment

Dong Hwan as a character (sorry can't separate him into many categories bc there's NOTHING THERE man i'm absolutely grasping for straws here i KNOW it, but please bear with me)

Summarizing parallels

If you don't feel like sitting through my attempts to contextualize how this ship came to be and me desperately grasping for straws, feel free to skip all the way down to part 4

1.- How the fuck did this even come to be

Honestly the whole thing started as a sleep deprivation shitpost I rolled with because yeah i like these two guys a lot (if you read that one post talking among other things about why I like liwei so much in the first place, the short reply also applies to dong hwan and... Yeag, the only thing that's better than one hot guy is two hot guys and so on).

There was also an interesting aspect about this because maybe it's just me but based of liwei's dialogue lines and keypage text he suggests not trusting, or even liking/admiring/looking up to, high graded fixers (despite feeling that he's supposed to). With an emphasis put into colors because, I mean, he fucking died because he met one at the wrong moment, but I feel it's a general thing he feels for grade 2s and above.

With this in mind, putting him to interact with a grade 1 is... at the very least it has the potential to put them into a funny mutual vitriol kind of dynamic with lw constantly thinking "what's the deal with this guy? does he expect me to praise him just for having a high grade? well, tough luck, i'm no bootlicker" and dh constantly thinking "what's wrong with this man? is he unable to recognize greatness even if it punched him in the face...? should i punch him in the face?", but it becomes far more interesting when you try to imagine (and, with dong hwan being an absolute background character we can only assume things of from extremely vague hints, pretty much all we can do about him is imagining) what made them both special enough for each of them to think "wait, hold on, i actually like this guy" of the other.

After the initial shitpost stage was over, we (the guy who came up with serrated duo while sleep deprived and me) started talking about why we liked both characters and we essentially concluded that, at least dessign wise, they are the same type of guy (ofc I also added a couple of characters I like and who fit the criteria to my post but this post isn't about them).

1.1.- Me yapping about character dessign

On top of that, if you pay attention specifically to liwei and dong hwan in there, you can notice that there's a pretty neat balance of common and contrasting themes in their dessigns, almost in a two sides of the same coin way, so here's a non exhaustive list:

both characters have a primarily monochrome/dark aesthetic going on, with their eyes being the primary colored element that stands out in their dessigns (yeah, you could say that dh has brown hair too but it's a dark shade of brown that doesn't catch the eye nearly as much as the bright-yet-deep shade of red of his eyes)

on top of that, liwei's eyes are blue while dong hwan's are red (i thought they were reddish brown at first but that's just an effect of the transparency, if you separate the sprite in it's different parts, you'll notice his eyes are actually red), which happens to link with a certain trope about two-sides-of-the-same-coin pairs... (will elaborate on this later trust me).

despite the previously mentioned similar monochrome aesthetic, there's a clear contrast between their styles and how they wear their clothes, with liwei having a much more "only informal if it's more practical that way" type of look, with a focus on practicality over trying to stand out too much (for the most part at least, he was dessigned with the idea of a cool guy in mind after all), while dong hwan is essentially wearing a business suit in the most fucked up way possible (really, what the fuck dong hwan), which of course makes his dessign incredibly memorable. To further elaborate on this (and to add details that don't really follow this formal until unpractical/informal AND unpractical pattern): -Liwei's clothes stay in similar shades of grey and black giving him a more uniform look, while dong hwan uses more contrasting shades in his clothing (despite wearing primarily black clothes, that light grey shirt absolutely stands out, and by extension he does) -Liwei wears long boots, while dong hwan wears regular shoes -Liwei wears a long coat, while dong hwan wears a short jacket -Liwei has a fully buttoned dress shirt with a tie, dong hwan wears his shirt unbuttoned, in an universe where clothes are basically like armor this is essentially him saying that he's confident that his opponents won't be able to hit him in the chest, or that even if they did he wouldn't get too hurt from it, and it's a dessign detail that absolutely stands out in an universe where most characters only show skin in their head, neck and hands at most, as we know since its stated in multiple keypages and cutscenes, if a character shows more skin than the absolutely bare minimum, then that means that A. they are inmensely strong, and B. they are even more confident in their capacities, with this being a tactic to intimidate potential enemies for many factions -Liwei wears fingerless gloves while dong hwan wears regular gloves, while at first glance this detail seems to subvert the pattern, let's be real here... have you tried to hold any object and using it properly with gloves? unless you're wearing latex gloves or something made of very thin fabric that shit's absurdly hard, of course i assume there's weird city tech involved in dh's gloves but at least that's my own personal impression of that particular contrast)

and going back to common but not really details: both characters have something noteworthy in their ears (this is most likely just a result of the characters being visible as chibis in game so the best way to give them memorable dessigns is by slapping somewhat unique stuff in their faces and heads BUT IM GRASPING FOR STRAWS HERE OK) with liwei's earpiece (which serves a practical function) and dong hwan's earrings (which look cool as hell, going in line with both characters' general priorities)

similarly, both have something in their opposite eyes, with liwei partially covering his right eye with his hair and dong hwan having the scar going through his left eye.

the right-left motif is actually very relevant in their dessigns. You see, most character sprites in ruina switch the hand in which they're holding their weapons for certain frames (or at least, this is not uncommon to see), either for rule of cool, clearer silhouettes or whatever reasons. However, in every frame in which liwei is visibly holding his knife, he holds it with his left hand (and when he uses his pistol he holds it with both hands), suggesting that he may be left handed. On the other hand (see what I did there?), dong hwan consistently holds his knife with his right hand, in every. single. frame. of his sprite, suggesting that he's right handed instead.

And of course, both of them have elements in their opposite legs too, with liwei having these two stupid fucking belts (affectionate) in his right leg while dong hwan has... whatever the fuck that thing is, in his left leg.

Of course I'm not here saying that they were given contrasting dessigns on purpose, but all these details end up making both of them looking really cool when put together, specially with how their dessigns emphatize their personal preferences and priorities, something I will elaborate upon in each character's section later.

2.- Liwei as a character

Liwei is one of my favorite pjm characters as a whole, yes i like him more than ayin, yes i like him more than angela, yes i like him more than carmen, yes i like him more than dante, yes i like him more than your favorite sephirah/patron librarian/sinner, no im not saying i think any of these characters is bad or poorly written and in fact i think pjm has made an amazing job with protagonists so far catching my interest even with characters i thought i wouldn't vibe with at all, but i have a thing for unremarkable background guys.

As you may have guessed, this means that i have a lot, and i mean A LOT to say about him.

This also means that I have a very specific interpretation of him, this interpretation, while clearly taking bases from what we can see of him in game, is entirely fanmade and i'm not trying to claim this is what anyone intended to convey with him, but it's what makes sense for me.

This interpretation also strays away from some other fan characterizations I've seen of him. So if you think he's actually, at his core, a serious, formal, emotionally detached and unbearably professional, even outside work hours, guy who's deeply dedicated to the honorable task of murder and who is in good terms with the shi association or holds them in high regard? sorry, but for me he's nothing like that.

2.1- The surface

"But Spec", you may say again, "he does act emotionally detached during his cutscene, he even says that people die all the time! are you sure you are actually reading this character right?"

Of course I'm not, I'm just saying that I'm reading him in a way that makes enough sense to me, but I do have reasons to believe that the serious and emotionally detached attitude is an akward mixture of a facade he puts up to be taken seriously by others and an incredibly unhealthy coping mechanism, so let's start by analyzing his artbook profile...

Wait a minute, is that..?

Ok, I'll see myself out and continue writing the actual character analysis this is what people are here for.

Anyway, going back to the character profile, you may be inclined to see it and assume "well, that actually just proves that he's a serious and formal dude" at first, until you realize that artbook profiles, due to their in-universe explaination being that they were compilled by roland and angela from the information they could take out of the guests' books, are most likely to be about what the guests perceive themselves as/would say to describe themselves rather than what they actually are when looked at from an outsider's perspective. Further proof of the artbook profiles being subjective comes from how the profiles change almost erratically for distortions and ego users, with people in the middle of both states simply not knowing how to describe themselves, the fact that we lack any information about the agents of the head as they were never booked, or how characters such as tomerry have...

This, which I mean, it's very clear that's just tomerry talking about themselves.

Now, liwei's personality traits, or at least what he'd use to describe himself, are "Meticulous, Efficient, and Sharp". We know that he has to be efficient at the very least, considering the nature of his job and guns in universe, the same thing goes for meticulous, we can assume he wants to do things the right away so that he gets paid, sharp as a personality descriptor can take multiple meanings and frankly i don't know which was the original korean word used to describe him so i can't tell which is the right one but most of them seem pretty accurate, at least when looking at him from a surface perspective.

To be honest, I don't think any of the traits mentioned there is precisely wrong, I simply don't think that they are the main or core ones, but they are the traits liwei tries to show, at least.

Another interesting detail is that all full stop fixer artbook profiles have food related items for the likes and and dislikes sections, except for stephan disliking dangerous jobs.

Not particularly noteworthy for this category in particular but still tangentially linked to a point that I believe is also a core characteristic of all three full stop fixers and that is key to understand all three of them, their dynamics and the choices they make during their reception: they are Poor As Shit, because guns and bullets are expensive of course, we also get to see this in stephan's obssesive fixation in money (come on nobody actually checks their bank account as a hobby... right, guys?), and of course this ties in with wanting to be seen as someone serious and professional people will trust with their money AND with the idea of them having the need to maximize efficiency to... well... you... you know... not end up even worse than they actually are.

2.2- Emotional internal nature

Alright, and here we dwell into the actually spicy part of the essay, at least for liwei's character: the moments in which the mask of a professional and emotionally detached guy cracks and he shows his more emotional, and mostly caring, side. This is focused in the way in which he treats stephan and tamaki (compared with how several other faction leaders treat their underlings).

While I should probably need to read all the dialogue in the game to make sure this is a particularly notorious detail, something that inmediately caught my attention is... the fact that liwei never uses a single honorific when refering to other people, neither he's bothered by stephan's more informal speech and the fact that he doesn't refer to him by any honorific or title either (sure, you could say this is because they were in a life or death situation but also y'know, it says something about you that the people below you don't feel the need to use formalities when talking to you), the only person he calls by title instead of first name is... well, the blue reverb, whose real name we can assume he didn't know, with also him being someone perfectly capable of killing not only him but the guys standing beside him as well, you'd want to be as respectful as possible when talking to a guy like that and trying to negotiate.

(even then he doesnt use any sort of honorific towards him, at least in the english translation of the text, he simply refers to him by title)

He neither uses any title or honorific when talking to angela, despite keeping a formal/respectful attitude, i honestly believe that he is genuinely formal and respectful but... you know, that's not the beginning and end of who he is.

Of course, this isn't a major point, but I think it's worth mentioning considering how important honorifics can be to establish the speaker's relationship with the people a message is directed to, they can be used to distance oneself from others. So in a way it could be seen as him putting himself at an "equal" position relative to stephan and tamaki, as opposed to trying to assert that he's their superior (at least in the context of the mission they were working in, since his title is merely fixer, not operator, president, director or anything implying some form of leadership on his end).

Another extremely important detail is his inmediate first reaction once argalia shows up and ruins their plan is... not coming up with a plan b, not trying to fight him in any way, not doing anything about trying to save what little money they can, he quite literally tells stephan "forget about money, we need to survive now".

His initial reaction is directly just yelling at his team to run away, and this stays consistent once he:

Notices that stephan and tamaki are beginning to argue over the future of their mission and how much money they lost.

Realizes that they can't outrun argalia as long as they're wielding their heavy (and again, extremely expensive) equipment. This says a lot as it shows that he cares enough for the people under his care to let the office go bankrupt if it means they can live.

Needless to say, stephan and tamaki refuse to do so and while he clearly isn't precisely happy about the inevitable confrontation with argalia, he doesn't argue about this, he does understand their concern about money, he's not like the other authority figures who will ignore their underlings' concerns at best and ditch them once they outlive their usefulness at worst (at least, that's what i imagine he thinks as he makes these choices).

Not to mention, once they are in a, if only slightly, safer situation in the library, his inmediate response is trying to comfort stephan and tamaki, things dont look good but theyre at least alive, for now.

And there's this line which... doesn't seem to fit at first glance with the idea of him wanting his office to survive at all costs... right?

That is until you realize that he says that line during yet another argument between stephan and tamaki, as an attempt to get them both to calm down, this could also fit in with him trying to keep or restore the cynical, stoic and serious act, but then again we get to see his more emotional and sincere side once he:

Gets killed, quite literally saying that he didn't want to die yet, at least to me this line alone is enough to pretty much confirm that he didn't really mean it when saying that trying to delay their deaths was pointless, but if you need more, he also acts against that same line when he...

Sees his allies die, and inmediately starts freaking out.

Wins the reception, in which case his inmediate first concern is, again, not money, lost ammunition or anything, but rather if stephan and tamaki are okay and if they will be safe once they return.

I don't think that line was him fully lying though, it does say something about him that makes enough sense to me and fits with the rest of the characterization: that his cynism runs much, much deeper than stephan's.

Tl;dr he is extremely caring and emotional deep inside, and even though he tries to suppress that side of himself it always finds a way to show itself, I feel like in other contexts this makes him prone to emotional outbursts and generally make him an unpleasant person to be around... save for people who are already familiar with his personality quirks and the fact that he is Like That.

2.3- Resentment

Of course, this dissonance between the person he tries to pretend to be to fit in/keep his job and the person he actually is made him grow a pretty strong disliking of... well, everything he considers related to the fact that he has to act like that to get enough money to feed the people in his office.

I also feel like he feels genuine guilt over the fact that his job is essentially just glorified murder, I have no base for this other than the more detached way in which he refers to the church of gears, it almost feels like hes forcing himself to not care because its them or him and his office, and that he has genuine self-hating tendencies because of it (which he also uses his stoic act to hide, he doesn't want to worry his office and become a burden to them, after all), in a way he may be trying to overcompensate by being nice to his office to feel like there's people he can help/protect.

But this hatred towards himself also manifests in the form of hatred towards anything he can blame over him being the way he is and working the job he has.

As I said before, I don't think liwei likes colors, or most high grade fixers for that matter, you may also extend this to figures of authority, influential organizations or even the city's society as a whole (and honestly? i do personally, i don't think he's actually capable of forming any particularly healthy bond with people outside his office because of this, and even then saying that the relationships he has with his office are healthy is... generous to put it softly, this is not to say that he secretly hates the other people in the office, but rather that he fears that they may secretly hate him, because he's the highest graded member of the office, he hates people sitting above him so it only makes sense that people below him hate him for being above them, right?), and of course I'm not saying this because I'm projecting or because I think it's cool and edgy and sad but I actually have bases for this from what I can see in the game.

The first example of him not trusting high grade fixers AND influential organizations being one of the very first things he says when being introduced: that having an important person, from an important organization, belonging to an important section of said organization, approach him and give him a request was shady as fuck.

And he turned out to be right, as Yujin was planning for him and his office to get sent to the library and die there so she could read their books and find some passage saying shit like "well we were found by the blue fucking reverb and our only choice was to come here and die even though we were royally fucked either way life sucks see you all in hell my final message 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕" so she could use that on her favor.

In this topic too, I'm personally firmly opposed to the idea of full-stop office being affiliated to the shi association and this is the hill i'm willing to die on, but I digress.

We see this same resentment on an even deeper level in his keypage where he talks about colors (and we can assume this view extends to other high graded fixers, and to a lesser extent to the hana association), he doesn't sound like he wants to become a color, he doesn't sound like he even likes the concept of colors being a thing that exists in the first place.

The most important lines from these fragments to me being the following:

"A color is the dream [...] of all fixers who wish for freedom.", freedom is a VERY relevant concept in project moon and ruina makes a very clear point about how nobody is free in the city, roland says it, most plot relevant guests say it, some patron librarians say it too... a huge part of the story is how angela comes to terms to the fact that turning human wont grant her freedom and how she ultimately becomes free by embracing her nature as a machine (so free indeed that the head decides to kick her and the entire library out of the city, not only shes a machine that acts like a human, which is already a major city wide taboo, she made a choice that no human in the city should ever make). Essentially, liwei seems to see colors (and im assuming that by extension high graded fixers) as the ultimate example of an impossible aspirational class (think of these "self made" enterpreurs who received extremely generous financial support from their rich parents to start massive companies as the closest irl equivalent, except that obviously not the same, i will elaborate more on this later).

"They put forward the colors as great and successful people that other fixers will look up to. They dream of earning wealth and fame, and to be free like them one day." Why would he be talking in third person here if he too admired colors, or wanted to be like them, or thought that were free in any way? Also that separation between money and fame (something that colors objectively do have since they can afford exclusive high tech weapons and armor) with freedom (something that is debatable, but liwei seems to assume colors don't have) feels too much like a deliberate choice to further push towards that point of him seeing colors as not only an impossible goal to achieve for the average fixer but also that the ideal of a color as someone who is free is something impossible to achieve even if one were to become a color.

"Colors are assigned by the 'Hana Association'. [...] The title of a color is forcibly given to fixers who qualify essentially. Can a fixer be truly happy with freedom that was forcefully handed to them?" This particular fragment, specially the last sentence, is absolutely key for Liwei's characterization, and the final and most important part of him saying "wait, no, colors aren't free, because nobody is" to me. It is also worth noting that this fragment can be read in multiple ways, all of them are important and accurate for his characterization.

He thinks that the responsability and risks that come with being handed the title of a color are far greater than the prestige that comes with the title, can you really say that someone who cant afford to decline requests due to being contacted by the most important organizations in the city, whose closest friends or family WILL be regularly targetted by rivals either to extort them for money or just try to attack them to the point in which most high graded fixers abandon any personal attachment to others, who will have to see the horrible things that happen in the city in an almost day-to-day basis and will likely have to do even worse things in the name of corporate interests is free? Can you really call it freedom if you can't refuse it? Essentially he is saying "actually every single aspect of being a color is terrible and to make matters worse that life is forced on them after they go through extreme miseries in the hopes for a better life but all they get is more of the same if not even worse, they aren't free and shouldn't be refered to as such."

He thinks that in order to become a color (or any highly graded fixer, really), you must essentially lose yourself, which is to say abandoning all friendships or familiar bonds, only keeping shallow interactions with people, desensitizing themselves to whatever horrifying shit they may have to see, abandon all sense of morality as they never know what their next request will be and "im sorry but i dont do xyz, it does against my personal morals" isnt an argument that will work in a place like the city, this also fits into the whole "actually having a much more chaotic emotional side he's trying his absolute hardest to supress but failing" theme mentioned in point 2.2., someone who is so deeply emotional and whose actions are ultimately defined by what is the most likely to keep the people around him alive is obviously not going to like the idea of keeping his distance to them, or to dispose of people with lower grades than him because they were supposed to be expendables anyway.

I don't remember the exact quote and i dont feel like looking for it but in one of gebura's cutscene she claims that all power in the city only serves to strike those below but never up. You have to climb to get stronger and then you'll only be able to assert dominance (through violence) over people weaker than you are, and she grew to dislike this, as she wanted to protect others but was never able to do so because of how the city was dessigned.

Of course, liwei reached the same conclusion but he took the much simpler but much more unhealthy approach of assuming "well, if things are like that, then that must mean that everyone in a position of power (over me) must be responsible for this".

Of course this also comes with the side effect of him being as caring for the rest of the office as he can because he doesn't want to be like other figures of authority as i mentioned in point 2.2, but thats not to mean that things are all fine in the office, i feel like there are several moments in which he internally curses his position of authority but not quite (bc i don't think he's actually The Big Guy In Charge of the office, really), most obviously the aforementioned moment in which he yells at tamaki and stephan to drop their guns so they can run away and live when they clearly dont want to, i feel like at moments like that he feels like they only do things because he tells them to and they "can't argue" (except that they do, fortunately for him the enviroment in the office is healthy enough for the rest of full stops to not abuse this fact, but the "what if"s are absolutely eating him from the inside). As ironic as it sounds his earnest desire to not be Like The Others is the same thing stopping him from being the perfect and efficient leader he wishes to be, and he probably isn't sure of which thing he values more than the other (it's staying true to his own morals and keeping the people under him safe).

However, there's a key detail here that's worth noting: liwei has a tendency to treat everyone else as equals, sure he is formal and respectful when doing so (pressumably even when talking to people he'd rather never interact with if we assume his conversation with argalia was actually how he is and not him just walking on eggshells to not get killed) but he doesn't bother trying to make a clear distinction of who is above and below him, no matter what their title and rank may be, and for people who are used to being looked up to by everyone else this will be seen this as him insulting them in some way, it may come from a sincere desire of him to come off as insulting while not breaking any (major) social convention in an act of malicious compliance or just the type of person he is, that's up to you to determine.

"But how the hell does any of this relate to dong hwan?" we'll get there right now.

3.- Dong Hwan as a character

This is kinda... the hardest point to talk about, because sure I can yap all I want about him but... it's hard to without going "Source: I made it up" too much.

So, looking at his combat sprites you may notice one thing: he is unbelievably hot for real what the hell he has an incredibly smug aura, most people who care about him to some extent i've seen tend to depict him as a very prideful person, and honestly i dont think differently either.

HOWEVER, i feel like despite this he's still a levelheaded guy who can aknowledge his own flaws. On top of that, i think he's a pretty charismatic guy and he's capable of noticing other people's strenghts, and he'll let people know about their own strenghts too.

Also, to contrast with his smug and cheerful exterior, his combat lines depict him as someone very serious when at work, he doesn't even react emotionally to getting killed.

His first "on kill" line is also particularly interesting, as it shows that he prefers to work on his own (unlike everyone's favorite monochrome moody boy), which makes sense considering that he comes alone to the library when you fight him, he may belong to a one-man office (which is the closest a fixer can do to be fully independent, as far as we are aware).

His keypage story also fits this more serious and analytical personality but not much of it is particularly noteworthy from a character analysis perspective, it doesn't say much that you couldn't notice from his combat lines anyway.

Another important factor to me and to contrast him to liwei is... okay, this may be the fact that he's a solo fight and he is, pressumably, an independent fixer, so he's not titled as a member of a particular organization, instead his title (for him, his reception, his keypage and his book) is "dong hwan, the grade 1 fixer", which i mean, again, is most likely just so we dont fight this guy with zero context on who he is and what hes even doing in the library in his own is he stupid? but i like to imagine that the in universe explaination is that he has tied his perception of himself and his own self worth to his grade, to the point in which using both his name and grade is what comes naturally to him when introducing himself, since books are essentially physical manifestations of the soul, then it just makes sense then that his book will give both his name and grade the same importance. This may come from a need to compensate for something else and i actually like to imagine that's the case because it adds yet another layer of parallels with liwei (source: trust me).

Another point is... remember that I mentioned how food was a very consistent thing in the full stops' likes and dislikes sections in the artbook? this point is also not relevant but dong hwan is frequently assumed to be the owner of that pub that shows up at that short side story about roland and angelica which i never watched because i Literally Can Not Care about angelica sorry, but, hey, it's a cute detail, i think he should cook for the full stops.

I feel like there's something to be said about dh's red eyes because in pjm when a character has red eyes you know that means one thing: they will be a big deal, but dong hwan, other than looking incredibly fucking cool and carrying me through the snow queen suppression (FUCK THE SNOW QUEEN ALL MY HOMIES HATE SNOW QUEEN) and star of the city tier 1 (thank you dong hwan i love you dong hwan)… he is rather unremarkable on the grand scheme of things, he's a general reception so you don't even need to defeat him to beat the game, and he only serves to give us some insight on who the fuck was the vermillion cross, and even then he does a terrible job at explaining who he was other than "well, he was a guy i guess" and honestly, the relevance of both liwei and dong hwan is ALSO an important factor in these parallels, as with one being the guy who introduces the concept of colors and the other being the guy who introduces one particular color fixer by casually mentioning being friends with him, both feel like characters who would be much more narratively important in any other story, but here they... aren't.

4.- Summarizing Parallels

Aka the part you may want to skip to if you don't care about me analyzing characters with little background info about them.

So, basically a list of personality (and background, i guess) traits they have in common and how they're different:

Both characters are putting some sort of facade, with liwei trying to act serious and stoic so he's taken seriously while dong hwan... i dont think he even knows what the facade he's putting even is, he's been putting an act for so long that his mask became his true self

In both characters' cases, the first impression they give isn't really the kind of person they truly are (in lw's case this is a deliberate choice and in dh's case i assume that's just the type of person he is), HOWEVER, while liwei acts serious and analytical (and to some extent he is), his true self is far more emotional and prone to form deep bonds with people, while dong hwan has a more passionate, smug and cheerful external attitude but he's much more serious and levelheaded deep down

Both characters have different, conflicting views about their grades, however these differences ultimately lead to both of them being able to treat each other as equals, or as close to that as possible in the city, i feel like liwei can see dong hwan as someone of worth so to speak for reasons unrelated to his grade, while dong hwan does see liwei as a good person (well, good is a subjective term specially in a place like the city) and far better at teamwork than most people in the city, in a way both value something in the other that the other never stopped to consider "hey this is actually a good thing i have"

Both characters are (pressumably?) trying to compensate over something, with liwei putting his professional and formal act to compensate for his sentimental self while dong hwan puts a strong emphasis on his high grade for... who knows, really, i just like this parallel being there because i think it adds a lot

Both have problems forming relationships, with liwei being a generally unpleasant person but being capable of forming deep, meaningful relationships with the people capable of seeing through it, while dong hwan is a charismatic guy liked by almost everyone he's met, but whose relationships tend to be shallow

Not really a personality thing but both characters have a thing for being remarkably unremarkable guys, dong hwan is obviously forgotten by most ruina playes because he's a general reception and the biggest impression liwei leaves in most players is "OH SHIT HE HAS A GUN", even though both are pretty intentionally dessigned with the intention of making them look cool however ive very rarely come across full stop or liwei fans (by which i mean people who like them particularly instead of "actually the entire pjm cast is cool and that includes them) and dong hwan fans are.... yeah, i think ive met like, 4 of them at most (thanks guys i owe you my life)

Something about their combat styles including their passives, liwei's only visible passive is called Concentration and gives him extra strenght for the first turn of a fight, after which he relies in the fact that his attacks weaken the enemy, so he comes off as the sort of guy who prefers to keep his distance and figure out the opponent's weak spot(s) (something he canonically is good at doing) to keep an upper hand at combat, however despite this he's still lacking in both strenght and technique, being only a grade 4 (which i mean let's be real the grades go from 9 to 1 and i feel like a majority of fixers are in the lower grades so he's still pretty much above average but he isnt doing all the cool shit you see the stronger characters do, because that's not the kind of character he is). On the other hand dong hwan's passives have much more cooler sounding names (Fervor, Carver of Scars, Toughness...), all of them focused on either inflicting bleed (status ailment that gradually makes the opponent lose hp)/buffing him against enemies with bleed or buffing him as he gains emotion levels, and his focus is just inflicting bleed like crazy, as well as delivering harder blows against people with bleed, prioritizing raw damage over strategy (but likely being able to figure out an opponent's weaknesses as well, brute strenght alone are most likely not enough to get you far in a world where the powerful people are INSANELY strong bc physical enhancements are commonplace)

I feel like in a way both admire each other, liwei admires dong hwan's capacity to keep a cool head at all times when at work and not letting his feelings have too much weight over his desicions, but dong hwan admires how honest liwei is about himself as well as his capacity to work in a team taking in consideration what will be best for the team as a whole even if it's perjudicial for him in particular.

In Conclusion

Your honor, two of them

[chaztalk]

Literally no one tells the people in their real life that they have a tumblr account so idk why you’d feel embarrassed. Delete your account if you feel that bad, or grow up.

Ah, yes, promoting abuse in the name of “love”. Lovely.

That said, you asked why I think Romione is badly written and to “use words”. I did. You called it one-dimensional and tried to disprove my points (even though you skipped over the 2nd paragraph, in which, you didn’t debunk any of those lol) with 99% of it being non-canon/speculation. Such strong arguments, amirite?

“Use your imagination”. Seriously? I didn’t know canon shippers knew this word, when they themselves have problems with other people “imagining” non-canon pairings together. And there’s honestly not alot to do at Hogwarts lmao. And imagination, for me, is hard to do with Ron and Hermione’s relationship because they have 0 common interests and 0 activities they enjoy doing together that’s believable for me.

“They were prefects, which means they were spending hours walking around the school alone together”. This is not canon. You’d know this if you’ve read the Chamber of Secrets cuz we see Percy Weasley patrolling the Slytherin halls alone.

And it’s not “Kreature”, it’s Kreacher. For someone that claims I haven’t read the books in a while, it’s seems like you haven’t either 🤷

As for the house elf argument, you’re telling me Ron changed his views on house elves because two house elves helped them in DH? So he shrugged the state Winky was in. And if Ron and Hermione are so close cuz they just spend so much time alone together, why did Hermione never ask Ron to help her knit clothes for house elves? I think it makes a lot more sense that that Ron learned that “agreement” is works for well from his 12 Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches book cuz he does nothing but mostly agree with Hermione to get in her good graces again once he comes back from abandoning Harry and Hermione on the hunt. Regardless, I still think the scene came out of no where, it’s literally during a battle, and the condition of the house elves and wanting them to be free is forgotten about.

And I think you’re misinterpreting what I’m saying about confiding in Harry about their relationship, and I mostly mean Ron telling Harry that he likes Hermione. Harry Potter is oddly one of those pieces of media where a guy friend doesn’t confide with his other guy friend about his relationship troubles or at least a “hear me out”. The HBP movie at least had some semblance to that.

Um, the epilogue is a clear sign of their little to no development. It’s not what’s even inside the epilogue. It’s just 19 years later to confirm the garbage written pairings lol.

You claim that this was easy for you. Of course it’s easy to type up a lot of biased non-canon nonsense.

Honestly, I don’t understand why you’re arguing with me. You’ve already said that the author “hardly tried” writing romance, but you have a problem when your OTP’s writing is in question?

In conclusion, Romione is badly written. Heck, every canon ship is badly written. If you want go die on the hill that Romione isn’t badly written, so be it (you’re wrong either way tho).

“I used to ship Harry and Hermione together but that was back when I was 12 years old. Now, I’ve grown up and realized that Ron and Hermione make much more sense together and are good together” is a sure-fire way to tell me you didn’t “grow up”.

[echo-three-one]

Chapter 39

The Road So Far

Is this still worth it?

The SEVEN Inch Wound

Gary 'Roach' Sanderson

Task Force 141 Base - Gym

Roach finally got his seal of approval. After weeks of physical therapy and daily check ups, he was now finally fit for battle and he was lucky enough that Nero was still under the radar. He wouldn't want to miss out on the battle he started. He was lucky enough that they were exonerated when Shepherd surrendered, because if they continued to be fugitives, Roach would not have access to appropriate medical attention.

It has been almost a month after the events in Afghanistan and Task Force 141 was already re-established, Samantha and Maxine were housed on a nearby compound where veteran's families lived under the safety of government protection. During his time in the infirmary, Maxine was always there to visit, telling him tales about dreams she recovered as time went by. Roach was glad she was returning to normal and that no matter how her memories came back, her treatment towards him was the same.

"Good to see you back on your feet, my man." Rocket went up to him and did their fist bump, a series of elaborate claps then finished off with finger guns accompanied by their almost realistic attempt at pistol fires.

"Haha. Yeah? I'm glad I'm back." He waved as Rocket pointed at his back. Roach turned to see Maxine, carrying a packed lunch, waiting at the end of the hallway.

"Hey you. Just in time for lunch as always." He smiled, wrapping an arm around her as they made their way to the mess hall.

"Glad to see you smiling and walking about." She says, as her palms ran across his firm chest, tracing the scar that changed his life.

"Yeah, finally passed the damn physical test." He grinned as they sat down at their usual table, the only table which consisted of two tables stuck together to form an eight seater.

The rest of Roach's closest comrades were already there. Alex, guessing what Samantha packed for him. Soap and France arguing which meal choice was best for them and Ghost, who was already halfway through his lunch while the rest of his comrades haven't even started yet.

"Good to have you back, buddy." Ghost greeted with a wide grin on his face, well technically only half of his face was shown.

"Hey man. I sure am glad. How have you been doing?" he joked. They constantly visit him in their free time, so there was actually nothing to catch up on.

"The rest of the squad proceeded to badger Roach with questions about everything they wanted to know. Roach enjoyed the hot seat as the military mess hall felt like the university cafeteria.

"So, any news about Nero?" He finally asked as soon as everyone was done with him. The table felt awfully quiet.

"None." France was the first to speak up. Everyone else nodded and frowned.

"Shit. Guess our only choice is to wait." He added.

"Shepherd didn't have any leads towards Nero. Their last contact was the exchange of blueprints and after that, he was gone." Soap explained the situation.

"The missing persons?" Gary asked.

"Still missing." Alex commented.

"And there are still a few additions every other day as indicated by the FBI and DHS." Ghost added.

"Is interpol still involved?" Roach turned to Ghost.

"They're still after the traces of EMP equipment from the missing persons. Their new lead is that Nero's team is trying out a lethal kind of grenade. One that explodes without damaging property. If he's planning invasion, this is actually a good idea without ruining too much of the invaded country." He replied. Roach nodded at the theory. EMPs only damage mechanical equipment and this was a good call for the bad side.

"I never knew they'd think of this kind of weaponry. I always expected bioweapons being the last of modern warfare." Ghost muttered.

"Well, that was what happened in Verdansk and we stopped it. We could do that again." Alex tried to boost morale.

"Yeah. We'll do whatever it takes." Roach agreed and they continued lunch.

By the time he started training, Roach focused back on his Sniper techniques. His wound may have affected his previous breathing training and it was only inevitable that he'd train it again. He wanted to master the long ranged rifle as it was vital towards his development as a soldier.

"Back on the scope huh." Ghost huffed as they reached their 200 yard mark, by the hill just outside the base.

"Glad you could help me on this one." Roach unzipped the sniper bag and began scouting the area.

"You sure this is your spot?" Ghost asked, using his hand as a visor against the hot afternoon sun.

"Yeah. This fits."

"Suit yourself." He chuckled as Roach snapped every attachment of the rifle, from the bipod stand to the clicker adjustments.

He peeked at the scope and looked at his target. Five small cans standing on top of a log 200 yards away.

"Remember what I told you." Ghost mused as he looked at Roach steadying his breathing.

"Damn." He added as he noticed the change in wind.

"Yeah, damn. I just was about to fire it." Roach muttered as he took another deep breath and began to hold still as his crosshairs adjusted to the shift.

A loud fire echoed across the hills as dust scattered on the ground where Roach fired. He was about a few inches off.

"Great. Do that again but change your adjustments." Ghost said as consolation.

"Yeah got it." He rolled his dial once again and accounted for the wind, easing his breath and fired again. The loud sound once again echoed through the hills, followed by a soft metal can flying away from the log.

"There you go! A clean hit." Ghost congratulated as he tapped Roach's back while he reloaded his sniper and aimed again.

Roach stayed at that spot until it was too dark to continue and Ghost accompanied him until such time. On their way back, Ghost opened up to something that has been bothering him ever since.

"Roach. Do you mind if I say something important?" He asked and it made Roach stop on his tracks.

"Yeah. What's up." Roach asked.

"I've already sent my formal letter, but I just wanted you to have a heads up on the matter." Formal letter. Roach's heart started to pound as his mind automatically thought of him quitting or leaving.

"Letter about?" he asked. His mouth almost felt dry. He didn't want him to leave. Not again.

"Transferring department. Alexandra offered me a spot on the Interpol. I told you this first because I knew that if you were on my shoes, you'd go too, right? Do whatever makes you happy?" he said, quoting Roach's famous words.

He isn't wrong about doing what makes him happy, but his decision didn't feel right either, or maybe because he just doesn't want Ghost to go.

"Well, you bet I'd go for that option too!" Roach said, trying to validate his decision despite not wanting it. It was sad to see him go, but for the first time in ages, Ghost actually acknowledged the term happy.

"I knew you'd understand." he smiled and continued their trail back to the base where Roach remained quiet until they reached the base just in time for dinner.

After dinner, Roach opted for a night jog around the base to clear his mind off of Ghost leaving. After the second lap, he soon noticed Alex catching up to him.

"Wonderful weather for an evening run, huh?" He asked all cheery as he's quite used to his heavier and more realistic leg.

"Yeah. It is. Good to see you're liking Samantha's surprise." Gary nodded and removed his earphones.

"You know, it's really a surprise when I'm the only one who doesn't know about it." He commented.

"It feels like a real leg, actually. The wonders of modern technology never ceases to amaze me." He mused as they both took the turn.

"Yeah? That's good to hear. Pretty sure Samantha loved the way you thanked her." Roach teased as Alex chuckled, like he recalled some memory.

"Oh yeah, she did." Alex nodded suggestively, the kind that Roach didn't want to ask anymore.

"This your last lap?" Roach asked as Alex slowed down for his cooldown, turning to the set of exercise bars.

"Yep. See ya!" He waved as he started his cooldown.

Gary took three more laps just to make sure he's exhausted for the night, so that once he got in his bed, no more thoughts would assault his mind, hindering him from sleep.

There was only one way out of it. And it was accepting Ghost's inevitable departure from the 141.

The next morning, the 141 was briefed on a possible lead on Nero. This time, Ghost wasn't in the room and that meant that his letter was now approved.

"Okay lads. We've received word on a supply drop activity from Nero. We intercepted an unencrypted call signal to an abandoned port just off the coast of Sierra Leone, Africa. If intel is correct, we're going to be dealing with someone who goes by 'Volt', Nero's bomb maker." Price paced in front of the huge screen showing details regarding their mission.

"Volt is a high value individual who must not be killed. He's our only hope towards Nero. The intercepted call came from the USA, and it's quite impossible that Nero is here, so he must've used a secure line. Jack will be staying in the base as our new Operations Command as suggested by Laswell. Overlord will continue his role as our commanding officer as well." Price added making clear about the jurisdiction.

"Damp and dry Africa." Soap muttered.

"Have you been there?" France asked.

"Only in Egypt. My mom used to tag me along her trips." he replied.

"Recon suggests a high chance of militia activity, so our standard rules of engagement; treat anyone as hostile. Volt's compound will be surrounded by his own personal army and they're willing to shoot any unwanted visitors. He also has access to a port, so I'm sending the Charlie team to stand by the shore and make sure they're not planning an escape." he added.

"I'm leading the Alpha team and our task is to infiltrate his base and secure Volt for intel. Bravo team, led by Alex, will act as our support when things go south. As bonus, we need to destroy any trace of bomb making equipment.

Roach, I want you to man our new air support tools from above as soon as we confirm that there are no SAMs on his base." He shot his glare on Roach and he nodded. Guess he isn't on the ground tomorrow.

"We leave tomorrow at 0300. Make your necessary preparations especially on our brand new comms equipment. Ones that are immune to EMP blasts. Dismissed." He said as everyone got up and went on their way. Gary purposefully left himself behind so he could ask Price about the Ghost situation.

"Hey there lad. You feeling good?" Price approached as soon as he noticed Roach.

"I just have a question about the mission."

"Sure. What about it? Any suggestions?"

"No no. The plan is fine. Where will Ghost be?" Price gave him a worried stare.

"Ah. Didn't he tell you about his transfer?" He crossed his arms and stared at Roach.

"He did… but why did you allow it?"

"Well, it certainly looked like he was happy to go there. And I had no power over his commendations." Price reasoned as they walked out of the briefing room.

"Oh. I thought he was going to have one last mission with us." Roach smiled as he walked back to the room. Ghost wasn't a fan of goodbyes. Maybe because he knew they'll meet again.

0300H

Sierra Leone, Africa

"This is Hunter One-One requesting sitrep, over." Roach phoned his allies who were already on the ground for support. This mission was their vital lead towards Nero. He wished that the guy Volt was here so that they could finally finish the war before everyone else gets hurt.

Before he could man the air support, he needed to confirm that there were no SAMs present on their base so he could safely provide suppressing fire from above.

Next Chapter : The SIXth Ship

Notification Squad my Beloved

@whimsywispsblog @ricinbach @bumblingbee1 @smokeywhalee @samatedeansbroccoli @enderio

[mc-doppomine]

Day 19 Bonus: Buster Bros!!! vs Dotsutaire Honpo

I’m gonna start with the music this time because just writing like one of the story/character bit...was taking a while. So in terms of music...I have to give it over to the Buster Bros. With their individual albums, it just got so much better for the Buster Bros as they’re becoming more distinct with their personality in their sound. Like Break the Wall is one of my top solos and y’all just unfortunate that Saburo used like one of the classical pieces I thought fucking slapped even before he messed with it. And I’m so happy for them. 

DH has a bit of a disadvantage of being a new group and thus having less to compare. But so far....eh. I think DH is very hit or miss for me. Like Matenrou, they have such differing talents and subject matters that it either turns into a strange symphony or some mishmash that just makes it eh. Which is generally my feeling with their group songs as I really love Ah, Osaka Dreaming Night but I am not impressed with Wara Osaka. And I am okay with their solo songs but to be fair to them, a lot of the songs I prefer for the already established group was their second solo, not the first, which is their introductory ones. 

As for Joy for Struggle, yeah, Buster Bros took that for me. DH I get is supposed to be more carefree than a lot of the other teams that are a bit more serious but I think that attitude really bit them in the ass for this battle. And BB did not have time to be playing around. I thought Saburo had more confidence this time and let that truly nasty attitude leave some spikes behind. Saburo really was like ‘How many times we gotta teach you this lesson, old man?!’ Jiro actually had some good retorts! I’m so sorry, I love him I swear but he had so much to grow in terms of coming with bite and it’s starting to show! The chihuahua vs tiger comparison! And while I do appreciate that Rosho and Sasara stay true in their manzai act...it really just didn’t land for me in the battle and Jiro and Saburo were quick to gnaw at it. 

And then...there’s the verse against Ichiro. I won’t say they stick with me as well as War War War but quite frankly Ichiro vs Sasara and later Rei are more of a battle of ideals. And to me, Ichiro poured more into his than those two. Because Rei’s were just belittling the boys because they’re younger and like they went down some wrong path. Both Saburo and Ichiro weren’t having any of that. Like who the fuck are you to step in and tell us off? At least MTC were more of like ‘come back when you’re more polished.’ And with Sasara, I think Ichiro delivered the line that is my entire thing with this battle: ‘Floaty words like that won’t sting us at all.’ I feel like DH lacked enough bite against BB and it shows. The only real bite back is from Rei and even he doesn’t seem to have that much that actually phased BB in my opinion. 

In terms of story/character wise...it’s really hard to make a decision. Because for all the teams, it’s really a matter of the dynamics against the others. And DH have it so stacked for them just because of Rei. Sure, I may not like him but he is very interesting in terms of being a vehicle for developments to happen. He seems to know a lot of things and people so he becomes such a presence that could tempt so many things into happening. Like if it was DH vs FP, he knows the fuck about Ramuda! He fucking made him! And I have little doubt it was him on the phone with Ramuda in Catch Us If You Can drama track. And at the end of the previous DRB...at least what sticks out in my mind and I may have to double check but I think he mentioned some interest in Ramuda after telling about how the true hypnosis mic being used would’ve shot Chuuoku in the foot. Also added to that, Rei likely knows Gentaro. For what reason? We don’t quite know but it can be assumed it’s because he’s doing something for Gentaro. Either looking into Ramuda since the ‘legal’ way wasn’t reaping anything or if Gentaro is hiding something, then Rei might be helping him hide it. Also also, Rei is one of the few rappers that know who Dice is! He and Otome were talking about their kids! That’s HUGE since Dice hasn’t told anyone about this aspect of his life. Rei alone would make such a juggernaut for FP.

I honestly can’t think of anything for DH vs BAT, sorry. They don’t seem to have any history besides Kuko and Sasara both being in MCD for a time...but I don’t recall that time really being elaborated on soooooo yeah.

If it were DH vs MTC, that’s more of a dynamic between Sasara and Samatoki. Which I think would be the time to figure things out between them. Because Samatoki was left with why and never got an answer. And seeing him again, Sasara can’t run away. He can try but pretty sure that Samatoki could outrun him. It also would be a time of like Sasara’s dynamic between the two men that have been his partners, Samatoki and Rosho. The people that were close to Sasara and whom he feels the most towards. I honestly can’t think of much else besides that but I’m sure KR will find a way to have the guys piss each other off. I’m just here for SamaSasa and SasaRo shenanigans. (I guess we could see if Rio does know Rei since in theory he SHOULD know who he is since it sounds like the hypmic was in development when Rio was serving and he tested some aspect of it).

I think DH vs MTR would be kinda funny. Like for some reason I think that Sasara and Rosho would get really fucking mad at how Hifumi and Doppo just naturally have that manzai energy by virtue of being best friends and roommates. I have personal experience of people being like ‘this IS a show’ of just watching and listening to me and my best friend and roommate just going back and forth. I feel like it’d just be so damn funny if it was over something not as serious I guess? But then that’d all be ruined because I feel like Rei would either expose to Hifumi and Doppo of Jakurai’s cooperation with Chuuoku, which while they don’t have any personal reason to really hate Chuuoku, wouldn’t feel comfortable with it either. Or. OR, my god, let him expose Jakurai’s assassin past, something he seems to feel nothing but shame for and also ruining his perfect image. Because Rei just seems like he’d be willing to do that. 

So yeah, a lot of drama that could happen because of frickin’ Rei and some loose ends to deal with from Sasara. By comparison, BB has some things but they wouldn’t be as dire as DH’s. Like with BB vs BAT, this could be the chance for Ichiro to get his answers from Kuko. He never got an answer either. He was left with heartbreak and never given the why. And Kuko either has rationalized or will be in for a rude awakening having to go head on with Ichiro. Because they were close. Kuko had to care about Ichiro in some capacity to willingly help some group he knew was sketch and didn’t like. Why did that change? He had to have meditated on this at some point! Meanwhile, I really hope that Jiro and Jyushi and Kuko can get along if the reconciliation with Ichiro doesn’t happen! They’d be such an eclectic group but would be so much trouble too! (And please let Jiro and Jyushi play together. Ever since someone wrote about it, it lives in my head rent free) I really am hoping for it. All the while, Hitoya is like ‘shit, now I gotta adopt MORE kids. Why are there so many of these little shits running around without supervision???’ 

I can’t think of much for BB vs FP since I just don’t see their circles running that close and it just didn’t feel like Ichiro was close to Ramuda even back with TDD. Most I can think of is Jiro, who is also pretty thoughtless, saying the wrong thing to Gentaro and it’s The Rivalry 2.0. But overall can’t think of anything too specific. 

It’d hurt me if it was BB vs MTR. Because for some reason I see that most of MTR treat the BB like their little siblings and in Jakurai’s case, it’s like going to go fight his kids (I will go down on the hill of occasional dadkurai shenanigans!). And while Saburo and Jiro have and still do make fun of Doppo, I think he also has their respect because he looks out for them in a different way but still same energy as Ichiro does. Probably because he is an older brother. I don’t really think any of the guys can say anything to bother Hifumi and it’s more of Hifumi being fucking thoughtless and saying the wrong thing. I feel like he’d piss off Saburo somehow. And with Jakurai and Ichiro...it’s a ‘nothing personal, just business’ although I think Jakurai would be proud of Ichiro either way.

And then there’s just rematch energy if it’s BB vs MTC. Honestly? The real thing I would love to see from if this happened is for Jiro and Saburo to have a reevaluation of MTC. Because the main reason they were so aggressive and hostile towards them is because of Ichiro’s grudge with Samatoki. They just took it as ‘if they’re Ichi-nii’s enemy, they’re our enemy.’ But since they’re taking this step of coming on their own, they also need to think about if they can still dislike these guys because Ichiro’s beef isn’t theirs. I mean, Jiro probably still doesn’t like Jyuto because he’s a delinquent and fuck cops y’know sorta rebelliousness. And I don’t think Saburo particularly dislikes Rio and vice versa. The thing with Ichiro and Samatoki is honestly secondary to this. And I feel would be the time for Samatoki to let go since he KNOWS now that it wasn’t Ichiro that got Nemu to leave but Ramuda but it’s a matter of if his pride would allow him. And Ichiro would have to realize that while he lost their fight...he won in the end since he’s the one that kept his brothers while Samatoki lost Nemu. He’s gotta feel for him and understand why Samatoki was/is mad at him. (Also long shot but if they could talk about how Samatoki also exacerbated his hesitance to trust others, that’d be greeeeaaattttt).

So yeah, I’ve thought about how these dynamics and things and you’d think weighing them all would make this choice easy. And it is. In a way. Because for me, I’d choose Buster Bros. I do like Sasara a lot and Rosho I think is fine but their third really sours for me. I know some can keep that bias aside and look, I did talk about what all he can do...but he alone can’t carry the sound for the team. Story, sure, but not the music. While I really would like some of the threads that Rei brings...it’s not completely impossible for him to still be around if any of the other teams do advance. I mean, they’re all the only men stuck in Chuuoku for the time of the DRB and having to pass each other while going to their own rooms or box seating. He has ways. So yeah, if I had voted on DH vs BB, this is what I would’ve gone with.

[roguephoenix85]

Final chapter - is Ymir badly written or is it something else? (spoiler for the end of SNK)

TW: mentions of child abuse, sexual abuse 

So I’ve seen a few people confused, upset, and a little angry about the explanation for Ymir “loving” Fritz as the reason why things were as they were, and claiming it’s bad writing and rushed and what have you. I don’t claim to know all the nuances and in and outs of long form storytelling such as Attack on Titan, but I do know some things about being a victim of brainwashing, abuse, and defending the people who abused me. Some are saying it’s Stockholm syndrome, and while I don’t necessarily disagree, it’s a bit more nuanced than that. Because I did everything I could to get away from my family that hurt and abused me, but I still kept them in my life for some inexplicable reason, year after year, involving them in it and divulging information to them that they would use to harm me psychologically and mentally for their amusement and sense of power and superiority. Why? Everyone outside of my family who observed it could see that they were shitty and awful and I didn’t need them. But after 30 years of being told I’m incompetent, no one loves me like they would, I can’t take care of my life responsibly like an adult would, and that I’ll never have enough money to live unless they helped (and the condition of their help was to give them control over my care - they picked doctors, therapists, everyone, that would give them the diagnoses they wanted so it would be an easier case to be declared legally incompetent and have my mother control my financial and housing freedom), I had internalized it to such a degree that I truly believed those things about myself. My depression and suicidal thinking sprung from the conflict that this treatment wasn’t right vs. but they’re your family and they love you so they MUST be right, you MUST be an evil child to be controlled, and YOU’RE the problem. When that is all you know, you think that it’s love. Because the love you receive is conditional upon subservience.

Ymir wanted love and the only “love” was from the king once she acquired power. As much as she wanted the love she observed the only love available was manipulative and abusive. If you’ve never known actual unconditional love, you’ll take anything that you’re given.  That’s why I was raped. That’s why I was molested. That’s why I allowed myself to compromise myself to stay with people who only sought to use and manipulate me for their own ends.

Because there was none around me. And when you’re terrified of death and attached to the world, wanting and hoping that someday something good will finally happen, you latch on to people, ideas, objects that end up doing more harm than good to you, because all you know is that abuse is what love is. Mistreatment is the norm. But inside, you know it’s not right. Something doesn’t feel right. So you hope. You pick the first person who gives you any value, even if it’s your value to them and not your own inherent value you’ve found for yourself. You never truly live for yourself. You’re living so that others will give you your value. Because when you did do things for yourself - you’re ridiculed. You’re betrayed. You’re humiliated and abused more. You’re kicked so much that you go back, again, and again, because the humiliation is worse than just letting them do what they want to you. That’s what happened to Ymir. The one time she did something she wasn’t “supposed to”, what happened? She got hunted and almost murdered. And when she found that power, she had value to her oppressor. Her tribe betrayed her to save themselves. This “king” tried to have her killed. But she found power. And once she had power, her abusers sought to capitalize on it. She had no one. So when you gain power and all of a sudden you have value to someone? You latch on. Because now you’re important. Now you’ve elevated yourself. But that value isn’t something for YOU. It’s something that is for the benefit of someone who only values you when you’re doing something for them.

I’ve noticed a lot of “I don’t get why Ymir would love the king, that’s bad storytelling”. My mother is a sociopath and allowed my molestation when I was a child because “everyone else went through worse and you’re a nasty little girl” - to a nine year old. She schemed to take my inheritance away from me. When my visitation with my father was over for the weekend, she would abuse and manipulate me for three days after every visit to “get me back to where I needed to be.” I would be choked, slapped, hit, have my room ransacked and destroyed if I didn’t comply with her wishes. When I wanted to kill myself because I found no solace with friends, teachers, therapists (that my mother sought out and paid for because she wanted someone to declare me incompetent or bipolar so she could take away my legal rights and exert control over every aspect of my life), neighbors, no one, even my own stepfather told me I was stupid for wanting to kill myself and that I’m ungrateful for everything. I would later discover this man was a heroin addict for longer than I had even been alive and that the only reason my mother stayed with him was because he had a large inheritance that would come to him and she could easily have his power of attorney taken away from him and control him because hey, he’s a drug addict and can’t be trusted. Better to let her take care of it all, right?

And even after all of this, I loved her. Well, I used to. I would keep wanting her love and respect because to give it up meant I had no value to anyone. The two significant others that I did have didn’t really love me, my last one was also a sociopath who convinced me to snort adderall, take hallucinogens, and stole my car to commit sexual assault against a mutual friend who had been assaulted not even 6 hours prior by someone else. When all you know is abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, and harming yourself to get a modicum of dignity and respect and love, of COURSE you stay. Because no one else loves you, right? You’re worthless and stupid and have no value except to me. I’m the only one who can love you. I’m the only one who can use you properly. Just do what I say and what I want and don’t complain or worse will happen to you. Families don’t do this to each other, you’re just mad that I’m better than you. Choices are hard, let me make them for you because clearly you can’t handle the “real world.”

When you are told these things and unduly punished for pushing back against it, of COURSE you think it’s love. Because no one is giving it to you otherwise. They isolate you, triangulate you so you HAVE to go back to them. And you do it. Because there’s nothing else around you showing you otherwise. It’s only when you share the story with others, or view it through the lens of someone else, that you understand how fucked it truly is. Under the under, Ymir is a child. She’s a child who wants to be loved. And all she’s known is manipulation and abuse. For thousands of years, because each “founder” was just her original abuser in a new body. Like Zeke. 

Until Eren. Who saw her story, and instead of using her, validated her. Saw her experiences through an objective lens and said ENOUGH OF THIS. This is WRONG. It’s SICK. And it won’t end unless I do this. Until I give her the choice to break free. All it takes is one person to listen to you and hear you and your world is changed. But she never appeared as she did when she died. She was still a hurt child beholden to her abusers. And in this instance, the only thing that could make it stop is destroying it completely. 

Is genocide wrong? Yes. Is scapegoating an entire race of people in the name of world unity wrong? Yes.  Is using children for war and power and brainwashing them wrong? Yes. This world is cruel. It always was. That’s been the thesis of this story from day one. But. It’s also beautiful. But you have to allow that beauty in. You have to show it to people. Ymir wasn’t able to see any of it until it was far too late, but not from her own conscious choice. She’s just a child who wants to be loved and only found manipulation. And was scared of “death” because that meant there was no love in the world. None for her. Her existence was to be used and fucked to death metaphorically. And when that’s the only love you’re given and told to expect, you hold on to it and believe there’s nothing better.

Until someone or something objective comes along, hears your pain, shares it, validates it, and then tells you it’s fucked up that that’s how you were forced to live. When everything you’ve known is a fucking lie, you do want to scorch the earth somewhat. All these people that could have helped you and they said fuck you, I’ll use you too. Standing up to your abuser is scary. I’m currently suing my mother now, and I’ve been terrified of her retaliation even though I’m 35. Because she has money and people she can manipulate into harassing me on her behalf. Even though I’ve taken as many precautions as I can, there’s still things she can do - ensure I get none of my inheritance, destroy my childhood memories, slander me publicly, fly out to where I live and stalk me or have others stalk me, or find people loyal to her to assert that I should be declared incompetent because of my autism, even though I have my own doctors I see now who disagree with that sentiment. It’s scary, but it’s right. But I’m also an adult now, and when I realized that my stepfather was telling everyone in the family that when he was high on ketamine I convinced him to murder my birth father, and that it was MY IDEA, and that my mother lied about reporting my sexual abuse to DHS because she wanted to protect her brother, his kid that abused me, and their family over me, and also had me lie about my birth father abusing me by convincing me “Oh it was so traumatic you can’t remember” so she could get custody of me just because she hated him, I finally said enough. But I didn’t have an Eren to help me make that decision. Or a Mikasa to do what needed to be done.

Ymir is still just a child mentally. Separation from that, especially when you’re a child and have no other allies in the world and you’re told worse could happen to you if you separate from your abusers, is difficult. And sometimes nonsensical. I know a lot of people were confused as to why I would still try to involve my mother in my life after the insanely fucked up shit she would do. But you don’t know any better when you’re the target. My reasoning is that I’m an adult now and I have a life of my own I’ve built despite her. Ymir didn’t have, or didn’t understand, that choice. So she stayed. Asking for breadcrumbs of love and respect and dignity from lesser beings. To quote Chelsea Hart “You want to be worshipped by a goddess without having to be a god.” She had the power, and she didn’t know what to do because she was a child. So she gave away her power. And by then it was too late to be properly reasoned with. The only way to stop it was to destroy all of it. Because when you’re a child you don’t have the benefit of retrospect. You have a limited view of the world because you’re a child. You’ve been sheltered and told manipulative bullshit to keep you down, so breaking free is the radical thing. And when you’re a child, you don’t know moderation. You’re impulsive and your emotional intelligence is limited. So of course the rumbling is the result. But you also think you still love your abuser. Because that’s all you know truly, and when you don’t see it until it’s too late, this is the result. It’s tragic, but Isayama never said this was a happy story. And considering how he WAS going to end it, giving who remains another chance at life and evening the playing field by having Paradis’ army now be comparable to the opposition army, and having the curse of the Titans eliminated from the world, that’s a pretty good ending for them.

I mean, isn’t that what Eren’s goal was since he was a child? To eliminate the Titans from the Earth? I’d say that mission is fully accomplished now.

[confusedhalfofthetime]

Like. Dh!master x fem reader super smutty and lay on the cheese!!! Ive been quarantined and i wanna kneelllll. (If this dont cross any boundaries lol. I literally just saw this)

Hey! Thanks for the ask. So this is literally the first time ever I write smut so forgive me if it’s not perfect. Also, english isn’t my first language so I apologize for mistakes of any nature. 

I gotta say tho, I’m pretty satisfied of how it turned out. Hope you enjoy! ;)

Warnings: smut

The door of the TARDIS slammed shut and the Master rested his back against it. You raised your head from the book you were reading and your gaze met a nothing less than disheveled Master. His wide eyes, his jacket burned at the edge and his chest heaving up and down was proof that his latest plan hadn't gone as expected.

-I take it they didn't accept the peace offer? -

The Master sent you a not so friendly glance as he pushed himself off the door. He passed a nervous hand through his hair and started pushing bottons on the TARDIS counter.

-Everything is under controll- he said, his expression focused on the screen. -It's just gonna take some time-

You put the book down and studied his face. His forehead was covered in sweat and his teeth were nervously nibbling at his bottom lip. He looked hot and incredibly stressed.

-Is there something I can do? -

He hadn't exactly told you...well...anything about his plan, you hardly knew where you were.

-Raxacoricofallapatorius-

-Try saying that quickly five times-

The Master had looked at you with an annoyed expression.

-It's the planet we're going to next- he had said moving towards the console. -At least, I'm going-

-What do you mean you're going? What about me! - you had pouted.

The Master had smiled at your childish expression. -Love, this is important, I can't risk you ruining it-

-Now this is just rude-

The master hadn't given any sign of having heard your comment as he quickly pushed bottons and levers.

-And what is so important that you'd rather do it alone? -

-The Blathereen have something I'd like to own-

-Something? -

The Master had turned toward you with a slight smile, clear sign that you would know nothing more. You had huffed and rolled your eyes.

-Fine, don't tell me. I have plenty of things to do here anyway-

-I bet you do darling- he had said with a smirk.

And that was it. You weren't able to find out anything else and frankly, you didn't care. The master had a huge collection of alien artefacts in many rooms of the TARDIS. Sometimes he'd tell you stories about them, where he got them, how he got them. Most of the time it was through clever and violent means. His stories never ceased to amaze you. Maybe that "something" was just another one of those pieces to collect. In that case, he would tell you about how he got it either way.

-Damn it! - you heard him shout as he punched the consol. You were used to his outbursts, but you worried nonetheless. You got up from your seat and walked toward him.

He ran his hands through his hair once again.

-Are you okay? -

-Yes, yes fine- he replied coldly. -But I need to sort this out-

The Master walked out of the room and left you alone. He needed his time, you understood that. You just wished you could help, somehow. Not to mention, you were incredibly bored. You had spent the whole day just wandering around the TARDIS, in search of something to do. The Master had been gone for what felt like ages and now that he was finally here he was still busy with his latest adventure which you didn't know anything about. You picked up your book from the chair and looked at the cover. You could have just kept reading, you knew bothering the Master when he was in one of his moods was a really bad idea. 

Then why were you walking confindently toward his study? Oh well.

As you arrived in front of the half closed door, you could hear the Master cursing under his breath. You knocked, getting his attention. The room was dark, if not for a single candle on the desk where he sat. He glanced at you over his shoulder and the orange light of the fire exposed his tired features.

-I'm busy- he muttered before turning his back at you once more.

You weren't discouraged by that. You reached his desk covered in papers with strange drawings and words in a language you didn't understand.

-I know- you said, your hands behind your back. -I just thought you maybe needed some company-

-You thought wrong-

He really wasn't going to make it easy for you, was he?

-I was just thinking...- you could practically feel him rolling his eyes.

-Y/N- he warned.

-Come on, Master. It's been a long day, you've been away a while- as you talked you put your hands on his shoulders, feeling how tense they were. -Why don't you just relax a bit, mh?-

-I don't expect you to understand such a delicate matter- he said arrogantly but he made no effort to push you away as your hands massaged his back and shoulders.

-Oh I don't pretend to understand- you said with a velvet voice. -I just want to make you feel better. If you'll let me-

The Master closed his eyes as you purred sweet words into his ear.

-You're distracting me- he said weakly.

-Mh you don't seem to mind- you said pushing your hands under his jacket and leaving a kiss below his ear. You could swear you felt him shudder.

-Let yourself go- you whispered leaving a few more kisses on his neck. The Master tilted his head to the side to give you better access and you smirked. -You know you want to-

At that, the Master opened his eyes and before you noticed, he had gotten up and flipped you around so your back was hitting the desk's edge. His angry lips were on yours, cutting your breath short but you didn't mind. Your hands flew to his hair, gripping it tightly.

-You want me to let go? - he asked as his hands held your waist possessively. You nodded, looking into his deep, dark, lustfull eyes.

-You asked for it- he said, his voice hoarse. He took a step back.

-Kneel for me love-

His hair was messy, his dark curls falling on his forehead, his lips red and parted as he tried to steady his breath.

You didn't need to be asked twice. Your knees hit the floor sofly and you looked up at him with dilated pupils.

-Now, will you be a darling? - he asked with a smirk.

Your hands reached to unzip his trousers and free his hard cock. He drew in a deep breath as you stroked it steadily before slowly wrapping your lips around it. 

The Master closed his head and pushed his head back. It was such a sight to witness. You swirled your tongue around his tip and sucked hard, drowing a loud moan from him. He gripped a fistfull of your hair and tugged as you picked up a pace, bobbing your head to take as much of him as you could. His length hit the back of your throat and you moaned. The vibrations sent him a wave of pleasure and he gripped your hair tighter.

-Such a good girl- he praised and you closed your eyes. You could feel him getting closer and closer as his hips started to move frantically. You could feel your throat starting to burn up but you couldn't care less. The noises the Master was making were enough to make you forget the pain. You put your hand at the base of his cock to finally push him over the age and he groaned.

-Stop stop stop- he said urgently and you looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.

-Get up-

You quickly obliged and got to your feet. He caressed your cheek and you leaned into his touch. His finger traced your bottom lip, whiping some of his cum off it. You promptly put it into your mouth to lick it clean and the master parted his lips. His breath coming hot and heavy against your face, you held eye contact as he replaced his finger with his toung, pushing it deep into your mouth in a heated kiss.

-Bedroom- you muttered between kisses.

-No- he breathed without letting go of you. -I wanna fuck you right here, right now-

You moaned against his mouth and he pulled you up to sit on the desk. With a quick move of his hand he pushed everything off it and his precious papers ended up on the floor. You glanced briefly at them with a pleased smile before the Master pushed you gently on the desk. You looked up at him savouring the look of lust and adoration he directed you. He pushed your arms up to take your shirt off, suddenly gentle and careful. You helped him undress you, taking your bra off before unbottoning his shirt and pushing it off his shoulders. As soon as you were both naked he kissed you hard, your tongues dancing together. Soon, his lips left yours to leave a trail of kisses along your neck and down, on your stomach. You threw your head back feeling his mouth on your clit, hot waves of pleasure washing over you, making you blush.

-Master...god yes- you moaned and he moved his toung quicker, pushing a finger inside you. You gasped and gripped his hair with one hand and the edge of the desk with the other. You couldn't be sure you'd last long, considering the pace at which the Master was using his toung. As soon as he added another finger you felt like you could explode. -Oh god, go faster- you pleaded. The Master took his toung off you and smirked.

-Look at me- he asked as he curled his fingers inside you. You pushed your head further back.

-Y/N, look at me- this time it was an order. You did as you were told and met his big, beautiful eyes. His face got closer to your just a few inches away from kissing your needy lips.

-Do you want to come? -

What. A. Bastard.

You bit your bottom lip, not wanting to give in so easily.

-Oh you're being difficult. I see- he said. At that, he added another finger. You almost screamed in pleasure. -Answer- he whispered in your ear. His pace was getting slower by the second, making you groan in frustration. -Answer. Me-

-Yes! - you shouted. -Yes, I want to come-

-Ask nicely-

-You're such a...ah! -

He had placed his thumb on your clit, circling it gently.

-I did say you were asking for it- he replied smugly.

You finally fave in.

-Please- you begged. -Please, Master-

The Master drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes.

-It wasn't so hard, was it? - he said kissing your neck. Soon, his fingers had left your entrance and you moaned in disappointment but you were soon filled by his erection.

The sound he made when he entered you was your favourite sound. Maybe second only to the sound he made when he came.

He started with a moderate pace, growing more rapid by the minute. You clinged to him, keeping him close to your body as he kissed your breasts. You weren't going to last long and neither was he, you could tell.

-Say my name- he whispered against the skin of your neck.

-Master- you said.

-Again- his thrusts were becoming sloppier and his groans more desperate.

-Master- you said a little louder.

-One more time love-

You got closer to his ear, your hot lips touching it. -Master- you whispered. And that was it.

He came inside you with a loud groan, thrusting forward as he finished. The feeling of being filled by his hot cum was enough to push you over the edge and you came right after him.

You stayed like that for a while, you stroking his hair and him resting his forehead on your shoulder.

-Feelling better? - you asked aftere a few seconds of silence.

-Mh yes- he said leaving one last kiss on your neck before getting up. -Now get out. I need to work-

You rolled your eyes at him but got up and got your clothes back on.

At least you had helped him relax. You needed to interrupt his work more often.

[spraxinoscope]

Oct. 14: Why I still think Trump has a ~75% chance of winning

Epistemic status: Who even am I? You shouldn’t listen to me. But see the final section for details.

By ‘winning,’ I mean still being president on 1/22/21, and there being no serious actionable plan to get him out.

2500 words of paranoia and bad math after the cut.

Polling factors:

Today, 538 gives Trump a 13% chance of an EC victory, so let’s use that as a starting point. As Nate Silver will tell you every chance he gets, 2016 presidential polls were only off by a few percentage points, and that’s probably still true. But a similar (or even smaller) systematic polling error would be enough to flip some battlegrounds, bumping Trump up to something like 25-30%. Have pollsters managed to correct for the systemic errors of 2016? There’s true meaningful debate around this, but the balance of evidence seems to be that the pollsters never figured out what caused the errors, and so were not able to fix them.

Note that Trump’s decline in the polls is driven by voters who approved of the president until very recently. Consider the sort of person who still had a favorable of opinion of Trump right up until fall 2020. Generally, dips in Trump’s favorability ratings seem to have been due to conservative infighting. Often, when a person stops supporting Trump, it’s because he is being insufficiently racist. These constituents’ loyalty may be wavering, but they are not likely to switch sides.

As a complete asspull hypothesis, I’d guess that some people who tell pollsters they no longer support Trump are trying to pressure him into adopting more hardline policy and will never vote for a Democrat.

I would posit that the 13% number is the absolute hard minimum chance of Trump winning an EC victory, fair and square. Error bars push that number higher. Taking average polling data over time also pushes that number higher, since it’s almost never been this low.

Dysfunction factors:

So, those are the odds for a free and fair election. What are the odds of the election being free and fair? I’m glad you asked! Zero. 

Election integrity has taken major hits recently. Citizens United turned elections into ad campaigns. Shelby County v. Holder made laws against discriminatory election practices unenforceable. The Hatch Act is also not being enforced. The numerous alleged campaign finance law violations brought against the 2016 Trump campaign all amounted to nothing (except jail time, and subsequent pardons, for some functionaries).

Fine, let’s say elections can never be perfectly fair, but even if we grade on a curve and request that elections be as fair as possible, we’re still not doing great, and it’s been getting worse since 2010.

Hey, remember all those jokes from like 2004 onwards about how unreliable and insecure electronic voting machines are? That shit never got fixed. Remember the story from this week about some 90,000 New Yorkers getting the wrong mail-in ballots?

Remember when the Russians got into the Illinois voter database in 2016? The institutions that were supposed to defend against that kind of thing have since been gutted or captured by republicans.

Hey, remember when the Iowa primary was so dysfunctional that they ended the vote count without ever producing a final tally or figuring out what the problems were?

Election integrity groups have been sounding the alarm continuously on this one. Electoral commissions and underfunded, understaffed, and undertrained in use of modern systems. This is a huge problem all by itself, and it gets worse when applied to the next issue.

Malfeasance factors:

In my American public school civics education, I learned that Richard Nixon was a crook who paid some burglars to spy on the democrats, because of how crooked he was. I did not learn that ratfucking is bog-standard procedure, in every election, all over the world. I had to learn that on my own, later. Generally speaking, the election integrity talking heads take the opinion that most countries routinely interfere in the elections of most countries, and the Ds and the Rs have never not been spying on each other. The extraordinary thing about Watergate was that Republican congressmen were weirdly amenable to allowing an investigation into one of their own, a mistake they have never since repeated.

Some amount of ratfucking is to be expected. The nation has weathered this factor before. But, like electoral competence, this may be getting worse over time. State governments have very wide purview when it comes to voting procedure, and Republican states are wasting no time in finding creative new ways to toss out ballots. The most common reason for a mail-in ballot to be rejected is that the signature on the envelope doesn’t match the voter’s signature on file. There is no official criteria or standard practice for how close a signature has to be to count as a match. Signatures are not useful security for anything, anyway.

Georgia’s 2018 election was arguably illegitimate. Irregularities included voting sites closed at the last minute for unclear reasons and fraudulent ballot collectors stealing ballots. Calls for recounts all failed. Other southern states are on thin ice. All the big Texan cities are getting one ballot drop box each, in case you thought Texas would be allowed to turn blue.

Red states already have various laws permitting them to throw out ballots that arrive after the election. Sabotaging the post office or throwing out all uncounted ballots soon after the election, as most sitting Republicans in congress and governors have already gone on record to suggest may be necessary, is a violation of the letter but not the spirit of existing restrictive voting laws.

The big thing, of course, is that the right wing media landscape has been fully saturated with the idea that Democrats will engage in conspiracies to steal the election, and action will need to be taken to thwart these plots. To that end, Republicans at all levels of government, including at the DOJ, have repeatedly signaled willingness to take unprecedented measures to stamp out fraud. These include numerous voter purge plans, new criteria for dismissing ballots, and sending the DHS or other law enforcement agencies to take custody of ballots.

In addition, the MAGAs are organizing ‘poll watcher’ groups to secure urban voting sites. Even if these groups fully obey the law and do not engage in anything that could legally be termed intimidation or harassment, that’s still a lot of leeway. Of course, over the last couple years, we’ve all learned that right wing protesters can sometimes bend or break the law and get away with it, and sometimes receive cooperation from the police. This goes triple for blue cities in red states, which is exactly what we’re worried about.

Malfeasance in general is made easier by the unprecedented levels of geographically-sorted voting blocs. It is trivially easy to tell whether a district will go hard for Trump or hard for Biden. So, whether interference is coming from law enforcement officers, protesters, or semi-sanctioned militias, they will know which lines to intimidate and which boxes to steal.

Russiagate set a clear precedent: It doesn’t matter if it’s blatant, outrageous, or corrupt. Republicans do not want to defect, and right wing media will keep the base in line. Democrats will be outraged, and then fold. There are no remaining nonpartisan referees to appeal to.

Pundits like to imagine that sitting Republicans in congress will not blatantly steal an election for fear that it will lead to them getting voted out of office, to which I would suggest that the obvious answer is the correct one: Voted out how?

Democrats shooting themselves in the goddamn foot factors:

Trump likes to say that the election will be illegitimate if he loses. Mainstream news outlets like to push back against this. The NYT, for instance, has been loudly insistent that the election is totally secure all year.

It’s not, and they’re morons. No experts agree with them on this. Trump fabricating a bunch of fictional threats does not invalidate the numerous actual threats.

Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer would not be anyone’s first pick for the task of contesting an election, but that’s who we got.

Possible October surprises:

Hey, what do you guys think this year’s James Comey is going to be? The only real prediction I have is that something very destabilizing happens in the week before the election, but the particulars could be anything. Some fun possibilities:

DNC hacked again

Federally sanctioned repeat of the 1985 MOVE bombing

Hunter Biden cocaine sex tape

Anything that startles people, destabilizes institutions, and distracts from other issues is a viable possibility.

Scenarios after a contested election:

There are plenty of bluechecks and think tanks who have already gamed this out in detail. You don’t have to take my word for any of this part. The choices are:

There are rival sets of state electors, and Congress decides which ones count. Result: McConnell and Barr play Calvinball until they get the outcome they like, Trump remains in office.

The supreme court decides. Result: Trump remains in office.

The militias decide. Result: Trump remains in office, plus the Handmaid’s Tale happens.

There’s an orange revolution. After months of protracted struggle, Trump is ousted from office. However, in the meantime, ~8 states have seceded and Russia has annexed Alaska. In the ensuing chaos, John McAfee claims the presidency.

Probability estimates:

Trump’s odds of a ‘legitimate’ EC victory are only at 13% as of this moment, but the running average is higher, with occasional spikes above 30%. Polling errors add a little extra. Let’s say 25%.

Trump’s odds of losing the EC vote, but clawing it back through malfeasance until enough Republicans agree that he’s won, are very low in the case of a Biden landslide. But a landslide is unlikely, and as the results are closer, the probability of Republicans declaring themselves winners approach one. Note that, at least from mainstream news coverage, this won’t look like the power grab that many democrats fear. It will look like a lot of confusion and disarray, with an unclear EC count, followed by a cascade of authorities and sources declaring Trump the winner and securing the acceptance from government bodies one at a time. For the most likely election outcomes in which Trump doesn’t win straight up, I’d say a 30% chance Trump remains in office.

The election being a total dysfunctional disaster, with multiple states unable to certify results, is at least 5%. At least! In such a case, I’d give Trump an 80% chance of remaining in office.

In general, I believe that the only way that Biden gets to be president is if everything basically holds together and works like it’s supposed to, and also Trump legitimately loses the EC. There is one way for everything to go right. There are many ways it can go wrong.

The NYT has fixated on the possibility that Trump clearly loses, but refuses to leave office anyway. I’d give this no more than a 1% chance of happening. But I think there’s a major blind spot around the possibility that we have no idea who won, because the whole thing is obfuscated by multiple layers of confusion and malfeasance. What tools to democrats have for investigating malfeasance? What tools do they have for persuading people that they won when the results are in question? What tools to they have for enforcing election laws that they didn’t have in 2017?

I think they have approximately one asset, and it’s a populace that’s willing to rise up in defense of their rights. But the DNC spent the last five-ish years antagonizing and alienating anyone left of Dianne Feinstein, so, the efficacy of a potential national mobilization has been severely compromised.

Any protracted contested election scenario either favors Trump remaining in power, or the eventual balkanization of the US. One reason there are no good scenarios for a contested election is that mainstream media has been so adamant that the election is secure. When the Democrats are trying to contest results, they will be struggling against their own narrative.

Then, I add a 10% chance that a last minute October surprise tips the race to Trump. It happened last time, and Comey wasn’t even trying; now that every government office is staffed with Trump appointees who are trying, they have a decent shot at this.

Summing up these odds, I arrive at Trump having around a 70% chance.

Then, I add another 5%, because I bet there’s things I haven’t thought of, and every year there’s some small chance that the far right will go all in on a race war, and this would be a good opportunity for them.

I will take actual bets on these odds.

My biases:

Numerous.

I grew up in a red community in a red state and was bullied a lot by kids who grew up to be far-right; I have a chip on my shoulder about this that precludes dispassionate analysis.

I believe the RNC has looked at US demographic trends and likely consequences of climate change, and has accepted a certain amount of fascistic will to power as a necessary evil. This is mere supposition on my part.

Despite the fact that I am more or less an asshole stoner burnout weeb, I remain convinced that the editorial staff at the NYT and several other major American journalistic institutions are somehow even dumber than I am. Although this may sound unlikely, this assumption has been invaluable for making predictions about the world.

I am a paranoid person.

My motivations for writing this:

Believe it or not, I’m only doing this to assuage anxiety. I’ve been convinced that Trump’s odds for remaining in office have been significantly higher than polls would suggest since 2018, and it’s maddening to see so few other people agree even though my core assumptions keep not going away.

If anyone read this far: I’m sorry, and I hope this motivates you to vote, if you weren’t going to already. If Trump remains in office, protests against him will benefit from having the mandate of a clear popular vote win, even if not an EC win, so I do believe that even people outside battleground states should vote.

I don’t know about Tumblr, but on Twitter, ‘no-hopers’ are characterized (fairly or not) as being defeatist Bernie bros who think that Trump should win the election to teach the DNC a lesson. I disavow this idea in the strongest possible terms. I think Biden can win and urgently should win. But every time I see someone talking about the Biden presidency as if it were a sure thing, it takes another year off my lifespan.

No matter what happens, we will be fighting racism and corruption for the rest of our lives, because that’s what ethical behavior entails in this world. But a Biden term vs. a second Trump term are in no way equivalent, and things can still get worse.

In conclusion, [that picture of the guy at the folding table with the ‘prove me wrong’ sign]

[erintoknow]

these sweet instincts ruin my life

fallen hero fanfiction! ~2.9k words, gay disasters inside [ao3]

title from [Impostor Syndrome by Sidney Gish]

–––

“You were right, it does exist.” Mia Ochoa toys with the sealed envelope in her hand. “This is… and the DHS covered it up. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Jane’s smile is cold, “I’m sure you’ll figure out the missing pieces Ochoa. You’ve always been resourceful.”

“A complete regeneration device…” Ochoa’s voice is hushed, awed. “No stem cells needed, no cloning required. It’s miracle science.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Jane nods. “And who benefits by keeping it away from the public?

Ochoa frowns, then sighs and hands over the envelope. “They’re auctioning it off under The Boulevard Casino of all places.”

“That’s Hollow Ground territory.” Jane slips the envelope in her pocket.

“Exactly.” Ochoa nods. You don’t need telepathy to read the question on the woman’s face. How is government repossessed property showing up in a black market auction?

The ringing of Jane’s cellphone pulls her out of her head, a quick glance down at the number makes her heart skip a beat. “Excuse me, I need to take this. I’ll get back to you about arranging that interview with Adrestia.”

Ochoa sighs, “You better. We’re even now.”

Tight smile. “For now.” Jane gathers her things and waves goodbye to the reporter. Walking briskly away from the park bench she flips her phone open. “Julia! It’s good to hear from you again.” Try to keep the ice out of her voice. “Finally.”

Ortega’s voice is scratchy on the other end of the phone. “It’s good to hear you too, Jane.” There’s a pause. “Listen, are you busy right now?”

Jane tilts her head, slows her walking pace. “Just finished some work business. Why? What’s up?”

“Can we meet? Our usual coffee shop?”

A worm of anxiety turns in Jane’s gut. “Y–yeah? Sure. I’ll be right over. Give me like, twenty minutes, tops?”

“Great. I’ll meet you there.”

Three weeks with no Ortega at the training Dojo, no response to Jane’s calls, and now a call on today, of all days? You shouldn’t let it get to you. It’s just a coincidence. Don’t worry about it. Focus on the Regenerator instead. It does exist. And it’s even within your reach. A device that provides full medical revitalization and regeneration. Black tech that had been seized by the government and its creator company’s assets frozen and shut down.

If you could get your hands on something like that, you wouldn’t have to try to topple the entire United States government. You could just… excise your tattoos. Maybe even do more than that. You could finally be free. Be yourself. Live your own life. Be with–

–––

Ortega sighs, one hand on the back of her neck, the other holding her coffee. “Jane, we uh… we need to talk.”

Jane smiles up at Ortega as they exit the coffee shop together, “Sure Julia, what’s up?”

Ortega’s pace picks up, fast enough that Jane has to power walk to avoid falling behind. “Look, there’s… there’s no easy way to say this–”

You can feel Jane’s shoulders tense, the smile on her face become brittle. “Is everything okay? Do we need to reschedule our next date?”

“Jane…” Ortega stops, in her tracks, still not looking at Jane. “Please.”

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Look, I… I don’t think this is going to work out.”

No… Tightening her grip on her plastic coffee cup, Jane tries to step into Ortega’s field of view. “What? What isn’t going to work out? Julia, what are you talking about?”

“Jane. Please.”

“What?” Jane blinks, dread yawning open in her chest. She’s… she’s really doing this? Now? She has to do this right fucking now!? “Oh. Oh my god. You’re… you’re breaking up with me?”

“I’m sorry.”

Chest tight, throat tighter. A pain behind the eyes. “What– why? I thought everything was going great?”

“I… I haven’t been entirely honest with you.” Ortega still won’t look at her. It’s maddening. Look at her, you coward. Look at the woman you’re breaking up with.

“Did I do something wrong? What did I mess up?” Why are you trying so hard? Isn’t this what you wanted? Ortega is interested in you, somehow. The real you. Not your puppet, not Jane. Sure, you can’t actually be with Ortega but… This is… this is supposed to be good right?

So why does Jane feel so awful?

“Jane, please. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Ortega’s voice is low, pained.

You can feel the tightness in Jane’s chest, the too-rapid breathing. “Then what? What is it? You vanish on me for three weeks and suddenly you ask me out for coffee so you can dump me!?”

“Look… Jane, it’s…”

“Oh.” Jane’s voice goes cold. “I get it.” She puts the edge to Ortega. “I was right all along, wasn’t I? That other woman.” Why are you doing this? There’s no need to make this into a show.

“Jane–”

“Your ‘old friend’ you insisted there was nothing going on with.”

“I was telling the truth then.” She still won’t look at you – no, at Jane.

“And now?”

“That’s why we need to… stop doing this. I don’t want to lead you on.”

Jane stamps her foot against the ground, “Well good fucking job doing that, Julia Ortega!” Panic and tears give way to a tension all over Jane’s body, hands balling into fists. “How fucking noble of you! Julia!”

She finally turns to face Jane, a pained expression on her face. “Jane, Jane please. I just– I just want to be honest about this. I hope we can still be friends.”

“Honest my ass!” Jane throws her coffee against the ground, the cup bursting open and spilling across both their shoes. “God. I–I’m so stupid.”

“Jane…”

Jane slaps Ortega’s hand away, glaring at her through wet eyes. “Don’t touch me.” Jane keeps talking and it feels like you’re just along for the ride. “Don’t talk to me ever again Julia. I don’t want to see you. I– oh fuck.” She covers her face in her hands, fighting back tears.

Don’t wait for her response, don’t look at her face. It’s all you can do to hold Jane together, march her away fast before she does something you both regret.

Julia doesn’t call after her.

Just.. lets you – no lets Jane walk away.

This is… you need – Jane needs not to be alone right now. She slips a hand into her purse, roots around for her cellphone. Knows the number by heart. One, two, three, four rings. Come on woman, pick up the phone.

“Nnnyees? Who is this?” Sleepy voice. Late night?

“Mortum?”

The voice perks up, “Jane? Mon amie, how are you?”

“Like S–shit.”

“Are you alright, mon amie? What happened?”

“A–are you, uh– busy? Right now?”

“Right now…?” There’s a pause, some shuffling paper in the background, “Nothing that can’t wait. Do you need to come by?”

“Please.”

–––

“Another glass.”

“Mon amie, I think you’ve had enough.”

“Don’t be homophobic.”

“…excuse me?”

“Fuck, Just give me the whole bottle.”

Dr. Mortum snatches the bottle away before Jane can reach for it, soft concern on her face.  “Mon amie… you’ve had enough.”

Jane groans, tilting her head back to stare at the ceiling. Sprawled out on the chair without any pretense to dignity. “I– I can’t fucking believe her.”

“Heartache is always hard, but you’ll get through this.” Mortum spares the briefest glance over to the bank of computer screens on the far wall. If Jane were in a better mood this would be your chance to get a sense of what she’s working on. But –

“I f–fucking blew it. We could have– could have still worked it out but I… I panicked, I got so… so mad at her.”

“Are you… going to be okay?” Mortum watches Jane carefully, bottle of wine still firmly between her hands. “With your boss?”

Jane makes a face. “With my boss?”

Eyebrows furrow together. “Weren’t you getting information on the Rangers from Charge for your Boss?”

“Oh. Oh yeah.” Jane clutches at the side of her head and screams. You can’t see Ortega as Ariadne. Not any more. She wants things from Ari that you can’t provide, can’t do, can’t be. It hurts like a dull knife but this is the only way to be safe. At least for now. Until you can get your hands on this regenerator thing.

You’d forgotten Julia had promised to end things with Jane. Had hoped she wouldn’t. But she stuck to her word. And now she was out of your life. Both of them. “Thanks for the reminder doc! Always cheering me up!!”

“Perhaps it’s time to resign?”

“It’s… not that simple.” Mortum is all you have left now. You can’t risk losing her too. The truth only ruins things.

“This… boss of yours, this woman,” Dr. Mortum gestures with a free hand, “She is a danger to you. She’ll burn out and everyone nearby will suffer with her.”

Jane sighs, rubs at her eyes smearing mascara. “You’re plenty happy to take her money.”

Dr. Mortum winces at that. “Actually… I’ve been thinking about it.”

You true to push Jane’s heartache down, Jane pulls herself up, frowning. “What does that mean?”

“I… am saying…” Mortum’s words are the slow pace of something with a lot of thought being spoken aloud for the first time. “I think it’s time that I… end my relationship with your employer.”

Jane’s heart freezes. “What.”

“I’ve… put a lot of thought into this, and It’s the best decision… for both of us.” A pained smile in Jane’s direction. “I’m asking you to quit too, with me.”

“I– I can’t.” Jane’s voice is tight, her hands digging into her arms.

Mortum puts the wine bottle down on a work table and steps over to put a hand on Jane’s shoulder. “Don’t mistake me for toothless, mon amie. I have been making… preparations.”

Nothing to crystalize your emotional state like cold panic. “Preparations?” Jane whispers. “Have you been sabotaging her equipment?”

“Not as such, I do have a reputation to maintain.” Dr. Mortum’s laugh is without humor. “But let us just say, if your boss thinks to come after me, she will regret it. Deeply.”

Jane avoids looking at Mortum, at the grim determination set on her face. Why is today the day where everything decides to fall apart? “Y–you’re serious.”

Dr. Mortum nods, her hand squeezes Jane’s shoulder. “I am. So, please Jane. I can protect you. I’ll make sure your boss doesn’t touch you.”

“I…” Jane takes a deep breath, finally brings herself to look up at Mortum, searching her face for any hint of a bluff. Mortum is serious. Probably not lying, you think. So. So the good doctor is going to be your enemy too, now? That’s… Jane already feels like shit, you don’t even know how to parse what she / you is feeling now. But if Mortum is going to pose a threat to you, this is your chance to find out what it is.

When you’re inevitably killed, it won’t because some self-important lab tech got the better of you.

Jane exhales, “Okay. I’m in.”

The relief on Mortum’s face is instant. “Thank you, mon amie. I promise you, we’ll get through this.” She lets go of Jane shoulder and walks over to the bank of computer monitors. “I’m still putting together the last steps of my contingency plan, and I was hoping you might help me with acquiring one last item.”

Jane gets up from her seat, stiff and fuzzy-headed from the alcohol. With a little work, she crosses the room to stand next to Dr. Mortum. “What am I looking at?”

Mortum nods her head, “These are plans for The Boulevard Casino.”

She has got to be fucking kidding you.

Jane chokes. “Wh–why do you have these?”

Mortum sighs, “You are aware I used to be a proper villain, yes?”

“Yes…” Jane nods, watching Dr. Mortum from the corner of her eye. “I made sure to do my research; you ran with Dr. Vitruvian, right?”

“Mm.” Mortum gestures with one hand and the screens blank, replaced with a rough sketch. “One of our inventions, the one that made me famous has turned up again.”

“..the disintegration ray? You lost it?”

Dr. Mortum tsks, “It was stolen from me. And now, some no good thief is putting it up for next auction at The Boulevard Casino. I’m going to steal it back.”

“You’re going to steal it?”

“Yes.”

“From under Hollow Ground’s nose?”

“I didn’t say it was a perfect plan.”

Jane pinches the bridge of her nose, rubs her forehead. “Why not just buy it?”

“And reward the ruffian that stole it?” Mortum bristles, glaring at the bank of computer screens. “And besides, this is a one-of-a-kind tool. It won’t go cheap.”

“One-of-a-kind? I thought it was just a gun?”

“Just a gun!?” Dr. Mortum glares at Jane for a moment before her expressions softens into a smile. “Oh, but mon amie, it’s so much more than a mere disintegration ray.” She waves a hand and the schematic changes on the screen. This one is incomplete. “This is a prototype mobile teleportation device.”

A full minute of silence passes.

“What.” Jane asks.

“It can store items as pure quantum information and reconstitute it somewhere else.”

“…anything?”

“Anything.” The pride in the doctor’s voice is palpable. “Well,” her tone drops, “there are two caveats, what with this being a prototype.” She holds up a finger, “First is we never got to finish the receiving station. So for now items are merely stored on the gun, on the next firing. And second, storing patterns like that can result in degradation from quantum flux. Fortunately that only only really makes a problem for the most delicate goods and with…” Mortum coughs into her fist, “with people, and other living things.”

Jane looks at Mortum, wide-eyed. Is that horror or fascination you feel? “You used it on people?”

“Only on those that insisted on getting in my way.” The smile on her face is polite and cold. Some days it’s easy to forget Dr. Mortum is a criminal scientist working an illegal underground lab. Today isn’t one of them.

Jane shakes her head, “But I don’t understand, if that kind of thing is possible, why isn’t there tech like this everywhere by now? Why not just build a new gun?”

The smile on Mortum’s face melts. “I haven’t been able to replicate the prototype. Not yet.”

“I’m sorry,” Jane laughs, anxiety clawing up her sides. “Did you just admit to not being able to do something?”

“Don’t rub it in, mon amie.” She looks away, refusing to meet Jane’s eyes. “It was a different time of my life. And a… very particular partnership.”

“Mortum…?”

“So you see, Jane? I need to get the gun back, not just for nostalgia but so I can finish and replicate the prototype. My masterpiece work.”

Jane chews her lip, lets out a breath. “And it’s a trump card if Adrestia goes after us.”

“Exactly.” Mortum waves at the screens again and the go dark. “So, what do you think? I admit it’s been some time since I’ve been out in the field. Any advice?”

Jane puts her hands on the desk in front of her, trying to steady herself. “Honestly? I think you should just swallow your pride and buy it. It’s the safest and surest route.”

“But the gun is priceless.”

“Does anyone one else know what it does?”

There’s a pause from Dr. Mortum, a frown. “No. No one still alive, at any rate.”

“Mm, charming qualification there.” Jane arches an eyebrow. “So to everyone else there, it’s just a fancy gun. Nice, but not special.” Jane holds out a hand as Mortum bristles under the words. “I’m not saying it’s true, just what it looks like to anyone else. It might hurt your piggy bank, but you’re better off this way.”

“Perhaps you are right.” Dr. Mortum crosses her arms, head tilted in thought. “Would you join me for the auction? Two sets of eyes are always better than one.”

“Join you?” The breath catches in Jane’s throat. You can’t help Dr. Mortum as Jane and also steal the Regenerator as Adrestia. The amount of body hopping that would require is way too risky. “I’m sorry,” Jane shakes her head, “I can help you with everything else. But I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Mortum’s eyes narrow in understanding. “Adrestia is attending isn’t she.”

“Just decided today, in fact.” Jane purses her lips. “Maybe we could have her steal it for us?” Jane glances at Mortum, “I wouldn’t tell her what it really was of course.”

The doctor frowns, raps fingers against the wooden desktop. “No. No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s too risky.”

“I’m sorry. I can help you with everything else; putting the funds together, scoping out the place ahead of time, emergency escape plans… but I don’t want to be anywhere near the place when Adrestia makes her move.”

“I understand.” Mortum sighs. “Well,” the smile returns to her face, “no time for the present is there? Let’s start planning.”

Jane’s laugh is shaky and broken. The emotional drain of the day taking its toll. “Let’s get to it then.”

You’ve lost Ortega. Maybe there’s a way you can play this crazy scheme so that you don’t lose Dr. Mortum. But first and foremost: Adrestia is going to this Auction, and by hook or by crook she is taking the regenerator.

Anything less is unacceptable.

[geniejackman]

Harry Potter: What the Movies Got Right

Because the movies get a lot of shit for the ways that they differ from the books, here is a way too overly-detailed list of moments from the Harry Potter films which IN MY OPINION improve upon the source material.

Sorcerer’s Stone:

The Norbert Storyline: Cutting out the whole midnight hand-off of Norbert to Charlie’s friends story-line was a good move. It slowed down the plot in the book, and come on, how were Charlie’s friends able to sneak into Hogwarts in the first place? There are literally entire chapters of people trying to figure out ways around the schools security.

 Chamber of Secrets:

Nothing to add, the book and movie are almost entirely one and the same (Sure wish they’d followed through with this on some of the other movies. Lookin at you Half-Blood Prince).

-ONE THING THOUGH; at the end when Harry tricks Lucius Malfoy into freeing Dobby and you can hear him start to cast ‘Avada Kedavra’ at Harry. It’s a small and HILARIOUS addition. Like, really Lucius? The killing curse? At this little twelve-year-old, right in front of Dumbledore’s office, in broad day-light, over literally nothing? I heard somewhere that this was because Jason Isaacs thought he should say some spell but nothing was scripted, and Avada Kedavra was the only one he could think of. But it’s just really funny to think about Lucius legit about to murder a kid in public over losing his house-elf.

 Prisoner of Azkaban:

-Aunt Marge’s Big Mistake: I love that Marge blows up and floats out of the house, rather than just bouncing off the walls like in the book. Hysterical!

-Lupin scenes: Lupin talking about how Lilly “was there for me at a time when no one else was” and how she had a gift for finding beauty in people “even and most importantly when that person could not see it in themselves”… just… fucking David Thewlis man. Actually, all the Harry & Lupin conversations in the movie have this sweet parental energy that was mostly there in the books, it just feels so much more potent here thanks do Dan & David’s incredible chemistry.

-Harry’s Patronus Lessons: the powerful memory that finally gets him to cast the spell is thinking about his parents talking with him. Kind of an understated change from the books, but it helps to underscore that the memory doesn’t need to be big or even all that happy, just emotionally poignant.

 -“WHY DON’T YOU RUN ALONG AND PLAY WITH YOUR CHEMISTY SET?!?!?!?”

-Snape protects the kids: Even though Snape was being a dick the entire time in the Shrieking Shack, he still acts as a HUMAN FUCKING SHIELD between the kids and Wolf Lupin and even takes a blow to the chest while protecting them. Book Snape was unconscious the whole time. Also, Movie Snape is so much more sympathetic than Book Snape, fight me. More on this down the line.

 Goblet of Fire:

-Really scraping the bottom of the barrel here, because there ain’t much.

-David Tenant is fun as hell as Barty Crouch Jr: I mean, there isn’t much fleshed out motivation in the character in the movie besides being bat-shit-fucking-crazy, but hey, it’s fun to watch! Also, I love the added detail (which I believe was improvised by Tenant) of Jr’s lip twitch and how this gives him away when he’s pretending to be Moody in front of Crouch Sr.  

-Cedric’s bravery: It’s a very small thing, but in the book when Cedric and Harry realize something’s off in the graveyard, they don’t really react much, or even say anything. When Harry’s scar stars burning, my man Cedric has enough presence of mind to draw his wand, ask Harry what’s wrong, takes a defensive stance, and shouts “Who are you? What do you want?” bravely to an approaching Pettigrew. Guy spends his last few moments being an absolute champ. Hollywood did you wrong Robert Pat.

 Order of the Pheonix:

-The DA training sequences: They’re wonderful and full of teen-whimsiness and the score makes me happy. Seriously, go listen to the ‘Dumbledore’s Army’ track, it’ll make your day! https://youtu.be/fZane0CwAGg

Harry’s cheesy one liner which somehow still manages to be great: “Every great wizard has started out as nothing more than what we are now, students. If they can do it, why not us?”

-Neville’s Character growth: “We’re gonna make them proud Neville. That’s a promise.” Man, I really wish there had been scenes of Harry and Neville talking about their families in the books. There’s so much that they share in terms of past traumas. I like that they bring it up in the film, even if it’s a very quick scene.  

-Fred and George: It’s been said before, but the scene with Fred and George comforting a young student who’s had the Umbridge hand-slicing treatment is UNPRECEDENTED and I LOVE it. This helps show them as more than just loveable jokesters.

-“Neville Longbottom is it? How’s mum and dad” “Better, now that they’re about to be avenged!” FOUR FOR YOU NEVILLE LONBOTTOM, YOU GO NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM!

-Possession: I’m gonna be honest, this movie is my next-to-least-favorite of the adaptations. I’d be prepared to write it off as a bad movie altogether if it weren’t for the way they decide to end with the Ministry battle: In the book, Voldemort finishes dueling Dumbledore and starts possessing Harry, who tells Dumbledore to kill him. Possessed Harry says: “Kill me Dumbledore, death is nothing compared to this. Kill me. And I’ll see Sirius again.” This moment is really quick, and it’s not really made clear until the next book that Harry’s love and grief in this moment is what drove Voldemort out. In the movie, the scene gets more time and attention and shows Voldemort possessing Harry, forcing him to remember his worst memories of losing people he loves. For anyone who’s ever suffered from depression or anxiety, the way these horrible memories overwhelm Harry is shockingly familiar. But then, Ron, Hermione and the others come running in. The sight of them makes Harry remember all of the best moments with his friends: “You’re the weak one. And you’ll never know love, or friendship. And I feel sorry for you.” HOLY HELL. All the tears. Just all of them. I fuckin love this moment. Congrats Possession scene, you single-handedly saved this movie for me.

Half-Blood Prince:

Oooooh boy. Full disclosure, I kind of hate this movie. It’s just… it’s not ABOUT anything. Like, SO much was changed in Order of the Pheonix to make it tonally different from the book, AND YET: Sirius’s line in the OOTP film about how “we all have light and dark inside of us” is so cliched and not from the book at all, but it PAYS OFF and shapes the theme of the movie at the end when Dumbledore reinforces “It’s not how you are alike. It’s how you are not.” So yeah, not really from the book, but it’s at least trying to have a theme. HBP the movie is a mess. Instead of having a central theme, the main idea for the movie appears to be: “stuff is happening”.

-Despite this, there were one or two instances of “stuff is happening” which the film added that built positively on the book. One of those is, hear me out, the Burrow attack. HBP the book is pretty void of any action until the very end, and this addition (nonsensical as it is. Did they ever explain how the Death Eaters were able to break through the Ministry’s protective charms to get to the Burrow?) gives us some pretty cool visuals and some much needed tension. Too bad it’s totally meaningless as we see in the first few minutes of Deathly Hallows Part 1 that the Weasley’s have completely rebuilt the Burrow. Cause, ya know, magic.

-Draco on the Hogwarts Express: “Hogwarts. What a pathetic excuse for a school. I think I’d pitch myself off the Astronomy Tower if I thought I had to come back for another year.” HA! Oh the irony.

In general, the characterization of Draco is so much more engaging here than in the book. The fact that the movies are less exclusively only what Harry thinks and sees gives us opportunities to see more into other characters perspectives. Draco’s experiments in the Room of Requirement really add a lot to the characters emotional struggle. And boy howdy does Tom act the HELL out of the bathroom cry scene. Really makes you wish they’d followed through on that redemption arc in DH part 2 (more on that later).

-Last but not least; Slughorn and the Lilly fishbowl. HOLY SHIT is this scene powerful. Not only is it an incredibly touching story, but we get to see the parental and emotional aspects of Slughorn’s ‘collecting’ of promising students over the years. And the sadness of Slughorn’s unfinished sentence; “the day the bowl was empty… was the day that your mother….” Just, damn. I both love and hate this moment, because it adds something positive to HBP and that makes me mad because I guess I can’t totally hate it now.

 Deathly Hallows Part 1

-Opening montage with Hermione Obliviating her parents. In the book, Hermione tells the boys about how she did this in order to make them see how much she’s already sacrificed to their cause. But damn. SEEING it really makes it even more devastating.

-Hedwig’s Death. Damn, just typing those words hurt my heart. I really liked that Harry lets her fly free at the beginning, only to have her come back during the sky battle to save Harry. It’s sad in the book having her die in her cage, but they really amped up the cry factor for the movie by having her sacrifice herself.

-“Hey losers! He isn’t here.” Goddamnit, Neville just keeps wracking up those ‘Biggest Badass’ and ‘Best Character Growth’ points. It’s great foreshadowing for what’s to come with his hero moment in the Final Battle.

-Harry and Hermione’s dance. I know some people have called this scene unnecessary and awkward, but here me out. The dancing itself is, in my opinion, EXACTLY how awkward fools like Harry and Hermione would dance, and the moments where they slowly change from depressed and dead-eyed to light-hearted and goofy, it shows you that despite all the hardships they’ve gone through, they’re just kids. A little awkward, a little uncertain, but still able to enjoy the small things in life. Also, the little moment where they linger for a moment all serious after the dance always played to me like “hey, you know how Ron just stormed out after accusing us of having a thing? Maybe there’s a possibility that we actually do… nah.” It’s a nice little moment.

-Scabier’s creeper moments with Hermione. That scene in the forest when she’s put up the enchantments so they can’t see her, but he can smell her. It’s a great acting moment between Emma and the dude playing Scabier (even if this should have been Greyback).

-Draco at Malfoy Manor. Small but touching scene; when Draco is brought in to make sure the Death Eaters have caught Harry, he does the same thing in the book where he claims he “can’t be sure”. In the book, Draco says this while refusing to look Harry in the eye. In the movie, he looks Harry dead in the face and looks scared to death while asking “What’s wrong with his face?” Just… the concern and fear dripping off of him is DELICIOUS. (AGAIN WITH THE REDEMPTION ARC!!! THE POTENTIAL WAS THERE WARNER BROTHERS!!!!!)

-Hermione Tortured. Not really all that much was changed for this scene, but Bellatrix carving ‘mudblood’ into Hermione’s arm and the way it evoked Holocaust concentration camp victims was a stroke of genius.

-Dobby at Malfoy Manor. Way to give this ‘lil dude a moment to shine! Specifically; “of course I can, I’m an elf!” “Dobby never meant to kill anyone. Dobby only meant to mame or seriously injure!” And then… the death scene. I love that in the movie, Dobby gets a longer farewell. “Such a beautiful place… to be with friends. Dobby is happy to be with his friend. Harry Potter.” UGH! At least give me some warning before you rip my heart out.

 Deathly Hallows Part 2

-Snape vs. McGonagall; I’m torn, because I love the scene in the book where Harry defends McGonagall against the Carrows leading into the scene where she confronts Snape, but I also really love this big dramatic scene in the Great Hall with the “How dare you stand where he stood?” and McGonagall dueling Snape. Alan’s expression as Maggie steps up is PRICELESS.

-Harry and Malfoy in the Room or Requirement; “Why didn’t you tell her? Bellatrix? You knew it was me.” Yeah Warner Brothers, why didn’t he tell her? Gonna maybe follow through with this redemption-arc you seem to be building up? No?? OKAY THEN!!!

-Snape’s death scene. Changing the setting was a stroke of genius. This scene is wonderfully done and we all know it.

-The Prince’s Tale. Okay, I feel like I’m going to take some flak for this. At first, I wasn’t thrilled with how much was cut out of Snape’s flashbacks concerning his friendship with Lilly and their falling out. But when you really think about it, they cut out all of the really gross stuff. For instance, it’s never implied that he enjoys bullying people for fun, he doesn’t call her a mudblood, he isn’t shown being toxic towards Lilly and jealous of James, never has the moment where he asks Voldemort to kill Harry & James and leave Lilly for him, and in general is WAY less problematic than in the books. This might be an instance of a ‘less is more’ win in favor of the film. I know, I’m as shocked as you are.

-Malfoy’s Redemption: So this might be confusing for some folks since this wasn’t in the final cut, but here’s a link for what they originally had in mind for Draco’s redemption arc: https://youtu.be/hS5Z2YbyePg

I am SO MAD that this was left out of the final cut, since it’s so obviously built up in part 1. Also, it would have been a HUGE improvement on the source material since Draco effectively has NO character growth there. This moment, where he makes a huge stand by yelling “POTTER” (also, GREAT inverse from the way we’ve become accustomed to hearing Draco sneer at Harry by invoking his surname over the years), throws him the wand, and runs back to join the fray, is a great addition to the series. I really wish the filmmakers had stuck with this plan.

 Incredibly long ranting list over.

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

Random anon here. I recently saw your ask about Severus Snape and I wanted to know, what are your reasons for supporting him? I'm not trying to start an argument I swear (personally he seems to fall more on the "love to hate" side of morality, but that's my opinion, not yours!) I'm just struggling to find my own opinion and I've seen both extremes on the topic. I realize this is kind of a racy question so feel free to just ignore me if'n ya want!

Okay, so I am not well off, and it was especially worse when I was younger. I grew up in a ghetto, on the worst side of the city. I didn’t have friends for the longest time. It was hard, and even then, I wasn’t aware of just how hard it truly was for my mom and I.

When reading Harry Potter, I never saw Severus as a bully. In fact, I just really didn’t take him seriously because he came off exactly as McGonagall, which is really strict. I’ve had teachers do far worse things than he’s ever done, so to me, Professor Snape was just really strict like a nun. At least he couldn’t hit the kids, which is different compared to the school I went to for years. Comparing my experiences at school, to his actions toward students, is nothing.

For the longest time I didn’t hold an opinion on him, other than why the hell does he care what happens to Harry if he doesn’t like him, you know?

PoA starts to put it together really. Dumbledore’s stupid comment in PS wasn’t really considered because I was more angry over Slytherin getting shafted out of points after being declared winners. (I was 6 when I saw the film the first time, and my sister was only a year older when she saw the film the first time and that was her first reaction too.)

But in PoA, Harry gets dragged into Snape’s office where he mouths off and Severus reveals that Harry’s father and his buddies nearly got him killed, and that whatever Dumbledore said, was greatly watered down to make James appear great. However, I was still very young and didn’t comprehend everything. Only that Remus literally admits at the end of the book, that Severus would have died because of Sirius using Remus to play an awful prank, and Dumbledore made Severus stay quiet about it, which wasn’t fair.

Sirius allows Severus’ unconscious form to bang into everything, Severus conjurs stretchers for everyone, including Sirius, and there was banging in sight.

In GoF Sirius tries to make him out to be someone super horrible but I couldn’t take him seriously because he obviously hates Severus and is really immature about it if we use the banging his head off of stuff as an example. How would he know that Severus was evil before coming to school?

The next time I truly consider him beyond that of a strict teacher, is in OotP when Harry rudely rifles through his memories and we see a scene that I have personal experience with. We see his ‘worst memory’, meaning it’s bad.

As stated earlier, I grew up in a ghetto. Mom and I were the only ‘white people’ in said ghetto that was African/Mexican. And while most people backed off when they learned that my sperm donor is a black man with many large, black brothers, some still bothered me. And when I transferred to the public Elementary School down the street, I wasn’t safe there either. I got bullied in my neighborhood, and bullied at school by the popular kids.

So we all know James was supposedly well-liked, meaning popular. And Severus wasn’t. And with how the series treats Slytherins, it’s not shocking Slytherins are bullied just for their House.

Severus is assaulted by 4 people on one, which annoyed me because I was used to that. Sometimes even more people. And if I fought back, they would claim I was the bully and try to get me in trouble at school. I had a bad reputation, and no one questioned the favorites because how could they ever do wrong?

The unfairness of a many on one scenario, made me so angry as a tween and to see him going through that just immediately put me off to James Potter. They held him down and choked him and stripped him, and a similar situation happened to me once in the park down the street where they struggled to pin me and managed to get only my pants off before I got free. 5 boys against 1 girl. Just because Severus has a dick, doesn’t mean the situation is any better with him in it.

James says he does it ‘because he exists’. Something else I’m familiar with. And then we get right from Lily’s own mouth, that the Marauders are arrogant and cocky and pick on anything just because they feel like it. She makes that observation. Severus saying a bad word once in the whole series wasn’t really enough to suddenly get me to hate him. I was disappointed with him, but was more hyped up at the time, on the fact that the great and wonderful Marauders, were just a group of bullies.

And then 1 chapter later, Sirius and Remus confirm EVERYTHING, but try to play it off as something simple. They said they never stopped bothering him, but that they got better at hiding it so Lily wouldn’t know. The bulling continued all throughout school. They graduated as bullies. It was very clear to me.

Effin wonderful.

And by the end of the book, we see that Severus was giving water to Umbridge instead of a truth serum. That he alerted the Order to Harry’s vision and told Sirius to remain behind on Dumbledore’s orders. That he went into the FoD to search for them when they didn’t return with Umbridge. He did all this when he didn’t have to.

I was a mixed bag of emotions in HBP because I don’t like Dumbledore at all so Severus killing him didn’t affect me in the least. His supposed betrayal though, hit hard and I was so sad. I read that book during the utter height of my Depression, so it was especially hard for a character that I formed a close bond with due to mutual experience, would truly be Voldemort’s man. This was before I understood that liking an evil character doesn’t make you evil. And it just contradicted all I knew about Severus’ actions during Harry’s school years and was difficult to come to grips with.

And yet in DH his actions made no sense. Sending Ginny to Hagrid for detention instead of to the Carrows? That was supposed to be a punishment when he knew they were friends?

And then all is revealed and we got more back story. He was just as poor as me, bullied before school even. Petunia bullied him for being poor. She bullied her own sister for having magic. Like, seriously, she’s horrible. 

On the first day, James and Sirius began picking on him for wanting to be in Slytherin. They hadn’t even been sorted yet and they were already bothering him.

And I felt Lily, the Prefect, expecting him to control his Housemates who aren’t even his friends, wasn’t fair since he was at the bottom of the ranks in Slytherin for his blood status. She made no attempt to control the actions of the Marauders, which Remus didn’t either as he too was a Prefect. They actually had power in those situations and never used it, which isn’t Severus’ fault.

Dumbledore’s plan comes into the light and nooooo, Severus was never on Voldemort’s side! Thank God!

And then he died to see Voldemort taken down.

It was pretty cut and dry in my eyes. He worked for Dumbles the whole time, just to make up for his mistake.

I am much older now. I know more things. I am in a better mental state than I was when I finished HP. I love Voldemort and I am unashamed of it, because I know that I can like an evil character and not approve of their actions.

I have seen other people’s thoughts of Severus and looked at his actions from different points of view.

How he treats his students is still nowhere near to what I was used to growing up. From my personal experience, he was very easy on his students when in such a dangerous class. It however, is bullying. I know that now, and I am disappointed in it, though can understand that half is for show, and the other half is because he’s a bitter asshat.

I too am bitter. I don’t like kids. I hate people in general. I lack tolerance for most things that annoy me. I am not mentally healthy despite being better than I was.

Harry had similar experiences to Severus. People use him somehow coming out perfectly as the only possible example of an abuse victim to become. He is in fact, unrealistic. To the extreme.

I understand now why Severus is the way he is. I understand why I am the way I am. That will not excuse the shitty things we’ve done, but it makes sense. Our experiences shape us, and people expecting someone who went through what Severus went through, to come out fine, are stupid.

I connect to Severus Snape very deeply. And with wiser eyes, I can see even more problems deeply entrenched in the things that happened. The stripping of someone without consent is sexual assault for example. Every now and then I re-read and pick up the more abusive aspects of what I read, and Severus was on the receiving end of some terrible shit that people overlook or excuse.

And it angers me when people ignore his plights as a teen because to them, he was the world’s biggest bully as an adult. Yes, it’s immature that he took his justified anger at James out on Harry. No, it is not okay behavior. No, he is not the biggest bully to ever live. No, his actions to stop Voldemort are not diminished simply because he was an ass to kids. Yes, he earned his redemption for joining the Death Eaters by helping to end Voldemort. Plain and simple.

If people can blame 15 year old Severus for what he did then and in the future, I am allowed to hold the Marauders accountable for the shit things they did as teens. Simple concept.

My #Severus Snape tag would take you on a trip.

[shadowofdarkness22]

prompt: its Ji An's birthday, DH & the ajusshis take it upon themselves to organize a small birthday party at Jung Hee's bar?

My first prompt and its full of fluff!! Sorry for taking a while Anon, but I really hope you like this. It literally turned into a long monster while writing it and while I was trying to keep it short the story wouldn’t let me. My life. lol 

I have two other prompts in my inbox! I will get to them soon I promise, but consider I work a lot and I need to come up with fresh ideas. Anyone want to post a prompt please feel free to send me an anon! I will also be posting this on ao3 because I want others to be able to write fics as well! 

Enjoy! 

Today was her birthday.

The date on the computer screen stared back at her as Ji An stopped typing out the receipts sitting on her desk. She stared for a moment before continuing her typing as if not noticing that fact. Birthdays were usually very special to normal people, but that was for people who had families to go home to and seaweed soup to eat. Ji An had no one to go home to. She had her grandmother, and perhaps she might take off early to spend a few hours with her, but after that… what did she have? She glanced at Park Dong Hoon’s desk and watched as he worked diligently, typing away on the computer or staring at designs of buildings.

Ji An looked away when he looked towards her and continued typing like nothing happened. She only glanced up when he stood and went to get something from the break room. She heard the fridge open and glanced down at the papers on her desk wondering which receipt she left off on before she heard Dong Hoon clear his throat at her. She turned to look at him and he held out a drink towards her. She accepted it automatically, a bit surprised but thankful. “Wait for me after work, i’ll treat you to a meal.” he said. It was almost too quiet for her to hear, but she heard it. He walked back to his desk and she followed him with her eyes.

She glanced at the drink and felt the warmth of the coffee ease the pain of her hands from scrubbing dishes and floors all last night. She looked at the clock and thought perhaps this year her birthday would be just a little bit different.

–

They walked together along the familiar path side by side. Ji An kept glancing at Dong Hoon, wondering just where exactly he was going to take her to eat. She didn’t think he knew that her birthday was today, but Ji An selfishly wanted him to know anyway. She thought at least her Ajusshi of all people would make her feel special on the day she was born. Yet, as they headed down the path towards her home her excitement began to change to one of confusion. Especially since they stopped in front of Jung Hee’s bar. She passed by this bar many times and never actually walked inside, but listening through Dong Hoon’s phone, she caught a glimpse of what it was like. How lively his friends were. How kind they were despite all their problems. Ji An still wished she could be their age as soon as possible, if just for a moment so she could finally be a part of it.

“Here?” she asked, looking at Dong Hoon as he nodded.

“Jung Hee has good food and everyone wanted you to come by.” he said and let her walk first. Her confusion didn’t ease, but she walked to the door anyway. This time, she would know what it looked like on the inside. However the moment Ji An opened the door she wasn’t greeted by a bar filled with middle aged men drinking and talking about their lives. Instead she was greeted with a pop of confetti and a shout of excitement. Everyone in the bar stood up at the same time and cheered causing her to step back in surprise and back into Dong Hoon who caught her. He chuckled and eased her forward through her surprise and as soon as he let her go Jung Hee came over and dragged her to sit down.

Everything happened at once, people were singing and clapping. They handed her a drink and told her to join them, laughing when she downed the glass in a shot. “Oh! She drinks well!” one says and Ji An tries not to feel embarrassed. Eventually Jung Hee brought out a small cake with a few candles and put it in front of her. Everyone sang to her and told her to make a wish. The loud room became silent and Ji An stared at the cake for a moment, wondering what to wish. Her eyes found Dong Hoon and found he was looking at her, waiting just like everyone else in the room for her to make her wish. She thought for a moment before blowing out the candles.

“What did you wish for?” Dong Hoon asks her a little later as everyone gets a piece of cake (Jung Hee cutting her the biggest piece of course). Ji An merely shrugs.

“It’s a secret.” she says and he chuckles and shakes his head.

“Fair enough.”

The party continued on for a few more hours, Ji An receiving far more presents than she ever expected. Some were new clothes (that was from Jung Hee), a new make up set (from Yoo Ra), and a bit of money of course. But there wasn’t a present from Dong Hoon anywhere in sight. “Hey, Dong Hoon did you forget her present?” Jung Hee asks, looking like she was about to drag Dong Hoon out of the bar. Her Ajusshi stood quickly and shook his head.

“No, No. I didn’t forget.”

“Jung Hee relax! He’s the one that set this whole thing up remember? Called us all last minute yesterday. That’s probably the best present right there!” said the guy who Ji An remembers as the one who apologized to her last time for saying weird things while he was drunk. Ji An looks over at her ajusshi as he sits back down at the table while everyone continues talking. She looked down at her drink and realizes then and there why Park Dong Hoon always comes down to this bar. It wasn’t exactly the bar itself, but the people. There was a close bond with everyone that resembled something like a strange family. They were each holding each other together and despite not knowing her as other than Dong Hoon’s colleague, they had accepted her into their little family.

It was a feeling she never thought she would feel again.

“What’s wrong?” Dong Hoon asks as he’s suddenly right there in front of her. She was confused as to why he would ask, but then she realizes everyone else is staring at her and there’s a wetness on her cheeks. She wipes her eyes hastily. “Nothing.” she says. “I’m not sad.” she quickly counters, trying to reassure everyone. “I’m just… not used to this.” was all she could say. Everyone seemed to understand quickly enough and let her be, but Dong Hoon didn’t leave her side for the rest of the party.

–

The excitement finally died down and everyone finally started to leave. Ji An managed to get all of her presents into one bag to carry home and couldn’t wait to crawl into bed and fall asleep. She hadn’t done this much in a while and she was exhausted, but she had a lot of fun. “Ahh, I haven’t partied like this since I was young!” one of the men said causing the others to laugh and agree. They turned to her and wished her a happy birthday. “Take care and live well!” they said before walking off to go home to their wives. Dong Hoon’s younger brother had already left with his girlfriend to take her home, but not before giving Ji An an unprompted and unexpected hug.

“Good luck!” she beamed before running to Gi Hoon’s side where he scolded her for hugging someone without permission. She proceeded to hug onto his arm. Finally that left the eldest brother Sang Hoon, Jung Hee, and of course her Ajusshi.

“Ready to go home?” Dong Hoon asked her and she nodded feeling like she was going to sleep well tonight. She thought they all were going to walk together again, but Jung Hee complained of a mess and headed inside her bar after wishing her happiness on her birthday. The eldest brother simply waved at them goodnight and told Dong Hoon to keep her safe as he walked home. It left the both of them alone as they made their way to her place.

It was familiar and quiet. Ji An felt relaxed and looked up at the sky. The moon was round and full tonight and Ji An made a note to visit her grandmother first thing tomorrow. “Do you like the moon?” Dong Hoon’s voice pulling her from her thoughts as she looked back ahead.

“My grandma does.” she answered, taking in a deep breath. “She likes the way the moon makes her feel.”

“How does it make her feel?”

They were climbing the steps to the blue door and she stops in front of it. “I’m not sure.” she answered honestly. She never asked why her grandmother liked the moon so much. Ji An turned to her Ajusshi and he was looking at the door behind her as well as the area around them before looking at her. They looked at each other for a moment before Dong Hoon broke the contact first and pulled out a small long box from his bag. “Here.” he said. “Happy Birthday.”

Ji An took the present from him already curious about what’s inside. “Jung Hee thought you forgot.” she said, feeling strange and content as she held the box. Her Ajusshi simply huffed in laughter before pulling the strap of his bag further up his shoulder.

“Head inside and open it later. Get some sleep.” he said before turning away and walking down the steps. She stood there as he headed further down, a bag in one hand and the wrapped present in the other. She clenched tightly onto both just wanting to do something once. Just once. So without thinking she set down both of her presents and ran after him down the steps. He didn’t have a chance to turn around as she collided into him and wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face into his back. He staggered forward and Ji An held on tighter, thinking he was going to take her hands off, but she refused to let go. Just for a moment she thought. Just once. “Thank you.” she said and meaning it. Her heart was pounding against her chest as his breath caught in his throat before he let out a loud sigh. She squeezed her eyes shut, thinking he was going to force her to let go, but instead he patted her hands gently.

“Alright.” he said with the calm voice she couldn’t help but love. “Head inside. It’s late.” he said again and she slowly let go before turning around and running up the steps as fast as she could. She grabbed her things and headed inside, quickly shutting the door before she could see his face. She already knew what to expect.

Later when she was unpacking all the presents everyone gave her and getting ready to go to sleep, she saw Dong Hoon’s present sitting on the table, waiting for her to open it. She was naturally curious and grabbed it, opening up the wrapping paper to reveal a white box. When she opened the lid her expression morphed immediately into one of confusion, wondering if this was actually a gift from Dong Hoon. But after looking at it for a long minute she realized why her Ajusshi gave her this particular gift. She let out a small laugh, before covering her eyes as the laugh built up into a bigger one until she was lying on her back clutching the box to her chest laughing so hard she was crying.

When she calmed down she stared at the ceiling of her room. This gift made her love him even more as silly as it was. Park Dong Hoon gave gifts with meaning after all. She made a note to buy him those new slippers and turned off her light to go sleep. Right beside her inside the box was long white socks for the winter with small dots of ladybugs printed on the top.

[sinrau]

The email from the Federal Protective Services Commander in Philadelphia was stark and alarming: “Apparent anarchists are numerous and are attacking banks, public structure, and statues,” he wrote on May 30, under the subject line “Ongoing Violence toward Law Enforcement.” “They are discussing burning down the Federal Reserve.”

As the country erupted in protest after a Minneapolis police officer killed Geroge Floyd on May 25, the federal government scrambled to respond, dispatching a range of federal law enforcement agencies in a sweeping effort to police the demonstrations from coast to coast. In Portland, Oregon and Washington DC those efforts drew widespread condemnation after videos showed authorities using tear gas against protesters and, in Portland, detaining them inside unmarked vans. Records obtained by BuzzFeed News through the Freedom of Information Act reveal that officers from at least one federal agency, Federal Protective Service, a division within the Department of Homeland Security, arrived at protest scenes braced for combat.

The mission of the Federal Protective Service is to “prevent, protect, respond to, and recover from terrorism, criminal acts and other hazards threatening” the US government and its infrastructure.

Officials at the Federal Protective Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment. BuzzFeed News requested all records pertaining to the protests; the agency’s response indicated that some documents were withheld because of ongoing law enforcement investigations.

An “Information Bulletin” issued May 29 by the FPS investigations branch warned that “many of these demonstrations will continue to include destruction and/or violence” and that “participants may be wielding rudimentary weaponry and improvised incendiary devices” and “may conduct their attack if an opportunity exists.”

FPS records show that top officials from the Department of Homeland Security, including DHS’s under secretary of management, Randolph “Tex” Alles, the former head of the Secret Service, were provided daily updates on the protests and the impact the demonstrations had on federal property.

Agents monitored social media for “intelligence” on upcoming Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Minneapolis, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and elsewhere, cataloguing Facebook and Instagram posts announcing protests and logging the number of people who expressed interest in attending.

“I have not found any information regarding PLANNED violence/destruction for any of these events,” and FPS intelligence research specialist wrote in an email listing upcoming protests in Minneapolis.

In at least one case, authorities used social media posts to try to identify protesters who may have witnessed a molotov cocktail being thrown at an ICE facility whose location is redacted in the documents. A May 28 email to FPS about the incident points out a “video on Twitter that does not show the Molotov cocktail being used but does show the faces of some protesters. A hashtag on the post indicated the protest was in support of George Floyd.”

Email threads tallied even minor incidents of vandalism on federal property, including isolated cases of graffiti. Spreadsheets identified the damage to federal properties the agency claims was committed by protesters and the response by DHS’s police force.

Yet the documents, marked “law enforcement sensitive,” are just as revealing for what is absent.

The hundreds of pages of emails and intelligence reports makes only a single explicit mention of white supremacist groups or other far right extremists, despite the fact that their presence at the protests was known by federal law enforcement officials.

A May 29 DHS report found that white supremacists on Telegram, an encrypted messaging service, discussed using “cocktails, chainsaws, and firearms” against “riot police.” But the single mention in the FPS intelligence reports merely notes that protesters in Washington DC had informed authorities of a “small group of approximately 4-5 White Supremacists in the crowd.” It says nothing further.

In another instance, an “operational readiness bulletin” warning agents to be prepared for possible “vehicle ramming attacks against pedestrians” states that “offenders aligned with violent terrorist extremist ideologies, such as those espoused by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and al-Qa’ida, probably will increase their use of vehicle ramming attacks.”

The report references high-profile vehicle-rammings in France, Spain, the UK, and New York City, as well as the 2017 attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which a white supremecist killed a protester. But the report gets the state wrong, placing Charlottesville in North Carolina, and makes no reference to white supremacy.

In fact, there would be at least 18 incidents of vehicle rammings during the Black Lives Matter protests, but none tied to Islamic extremists. Rather, a Ku Klux Klan leader was convicted of one such June incident in Virginia.

The reports also show that while agents repeatedly attempted to track protest networks through social media — sharing screenshots of Facebook pages and online fliers — there was far less effort to track members of the Boogaloo Boys, a right-wing extremist group linked to the fatal shooting of a federal security guard in Oakland.

The only mention of the group comes from a quoted social media post included in a roundup of “recent incidents.” Though the post stated, “If someone really wanted to kick off the boogaloo, now would be the time to fire some shots and frame the crowd around you as responsible,” the report provides no additional context, listing the post as a line item alongside incidents of vandalism, looting, and “Civil rights activists visited Minneapolis and called for nationwide demonstrations to continue.”

Records show that top agency officials were aware of the sensitive situation they were tasked with handling. A report on May 27, two days after Floyd’s death, indicated that FPS agents underwent a “First Amendment Pre-Event Briefing.”

In an email to agents two days later, an FPS official, whose name is redacted in the documents, wrote that he wanted “to remind” them of their constitutional duty to ensure people’s right to free speech, no matter the “reasons for the protests.” “Property can be replaced, lives cannot,” the email stated. “Remain calm and professional at all times.”

When the US Park Police requested that FPS send officers to help them manage protests in Washington DC, it wasn’t initially clear to FPS officials whether they were legally able to assist.

“Lawyers, do we have the authority/jurisdiction to assist the Park Police at the federal owned Lafayette Park?” Kris Cline, Principal Deputy director of the Federal Protective Services, asked in a May 30 email.

The response, four minutes later from an attorney advisor for FPS, is redacted from the document.

Newly Released Documents Reveal How The Feds Were Monitoring BLM Protests. #web #website #copied #toread #highlight #link #news #read #blog #wordpresspost #posts #breaking news# #Sinrau #Nothiah #Sinrau29 #read #wordpress

[helloyukimura]

Yongguk’s Route - Chapter 3

Hi everyone,

I'm sorry for not updating for a while. I've got myself a new e-reader and got addicted to reading. I would really recommend the Kingdom series written by Marie Hall. I love her books! Her writing is very interesting and fun. 

Hope you guys will like this chapter as well! 

Here are the links to chapter 1 & 2:

https://helloyukimura.tumblr.com/post/162160497577/bap-castle-yongguks-route-chapter-1

https://helloyukimura.tumblr.com/post/165218938727/yongguks-route-chapter-2

Are you guys excited about B.A.P’s next comeback? Because I am! 

Admin S

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

Today is the day for Yongguk to bring you home. You were sitting on your bed reading books about vampires. You were lost in the story when suddenly someone tapped your shoulder.

You: "Aaah!!"

YG: "What are you doing?"

You: "Ehm... reading a very interesting story."

YG: "Are you scared?"

Yongguk glances at you. He saw your hands shaking. Your eyes moving around quickly.

You: "No, but Yongguk oppa would you ever want to be human again?"

YG: "Of course I do. Living as a vampire is awful. You will face the death of your family and friends while you are immortal."

You imagined losing your friends and family one by one. You watched his expression. You never knew what he was thinking but something deep in his eyes made you can feel his sadness.

You: "I'm sorry for asking."

YG: "It's okay, you're just curious."

Yongguk pets your head smiling at you.

You: "I want to listen to your song."

YG: "It's not finished yet but I will let you hear a bit of it."

You listen to his music, it's filled with sadness and hatred but at the same time there was hope. You want to know more about him. What is it that makes you feel like this? He starts to rap with his deep and sexy voice. It made a shiver go down your spine. His voice so beautiful and strong. You feel attracted to him.

YG: "What do you think of it?"

His face full expectation waiting for your answer.

You: "I liked it very much! You really brought your feelings into this song. It makes me want to hear more of it. I'm sure it will be a hit song."

YG: "Thanks."

Yongguk smiles at you and you answered his happy smile. A second later Yongguk starts to distance himself with his back turned to you.

YG: "Today is the day."

You: "What do you mean?"

YG: "It's the day for me to send you away."

His words were painful to you. You know that there would be a day for you to leave him forever. You didn't realise you were attached to him before he told you these words. You want to stay by his side, but at the same time, you want to be home again.

You: "Ah... I guess it's time to go home."

YG: "You wouldn't like to stay here. Today is the perfect day to send you away. When it's full moon the other members are busy hunting and chasing the werewolves away. We can leave without them noticing us. I will guide you."

You: "Thank you Yongguk oppa. I will always be grateful to you."

You walk away with a hint of pain and sadness in your eyes. It's better this way you thought by yourself. When you left the room Yongguk starts talking to himself.

YG: "The faster you leave the better it is for the both of us. You should live the way you want (y/n)-ah."

You entered the garden, it was dark but you could see the roses in dim light. You stare at the white roses, totally not aware of your surroundings. Youngjae saw you standing there not moving. He keeps quiet leaving you alone. He could see you reach out for a white rose.

YJ: "Watch out!"

You: "Ah! It hurts!"

YJ: "Babo-yah! This is not the first time you cut yourself. Aish I will take care of it."

Youngjae stood in front of you with your hand in his. Just before Youngjae licks your fingers again Yongguk appears. He glares angrily at Youngjae.

YJ: "I want to help her nothing more."

YG: "I'm here already, you can leave now and tell the other members not to come here."

YJ: "Yes sir!"

Youngjae left and Yongguk ripped a piece of his sleeve to tie it around your hand. You could see his trembling hands, he was restraining himself from drinking your blood. The sweet scent making him dizzy. His eyes turning red. The red in his eye made you think that he was sexy. Compared to the first time you saw Daehyun's red eyes you were not scared. You trust Yongguk with your heart, you know he won't hurt you for blood.

YG: "Are you okay?"

You: "I feel sorry for ruining your white shirt."

YG: "My shirt is nothing."

You: "I think it stopped bleeding."

YG: "Let's go back inside."

You: "Okay."

In his room, you could feel the awkwardness between the two of you. Yongguk was walking around restless.

You: "Why don't you take a seat?"

YG: "No I feel restless if something happens to you and therefore I cannot leave you alone."

You: "Don't worry about me, I'm a grown-up woman. I can take care of myself."

YG: "You're fragile and mortal."

You: "If I die you can make me a vampire right?"

YG: "No, only the pureblood vampires can make you a vampire. I can only feed on you. But I will never drink from you even if I die."

You: "I'm saying careless things. Sorry for making you worried."

You backed away from him and crawl into your bed with the blankets over your head. You feel down and something was bothering you a lot. The fact that you felt rejected by Yongguk. Every time you thought that you were close to him he starts to push you away. You closed your eyes and remember his smile, his sexy smirks and the way he laughs when he is really happy. You won't be seeing this again after you've left the castle. Your eyes watery as one drop of tear left your eye. It's too late, you fell in love with him the moment you had to leave.

YG: "Yaaah wake up! It's full moon."

You: "Eh?"

You fell asleep without knowing. Yongguk pulled you up. We have to hurry, the others are outside they won't notice it if we go now. He swings you over his shoulder.

YG: "Let's go!"

You: "Aah! Yongguk wait!"

YG: "Sssst stay quiet and don't make sounds."

You: "But I can hear wolves howling."

YG: "Have you never heard of wolves howling at the full moon? They're howling to mark their territory."

You: "Huh? I thought that handsome guys will turn into their wolves form in full moon."

YG: "You watch too many movies."

You: "Maybe I did watch some Twilight movies, but I love watching TV."

YG: "I'm going to jump down from here."

You: "Wait! You seriously want to jump down from this window? Omg, I can't even see the end."

YG: "Would you want me to walk through the castle?"

You: "Yes please and if you don't mind can I mentally prepare myself before you're doing things without me knowing."

YG: "Whatever."

You: "It's our last night together. Can't you be a little bit more considerate?"

YG: "You have to leave tonight or you won't be able to go until the next full moon."

You: "I don't get it. Do you really hate me that much that you want to force me out?"

YG: "Yah what are you talking about?"

You: "Why do you keep your distance? You make me feel rejected all the time."

YG: "No I didn't."

You: "Yes you did."

YG: "Let's not fight about this. We don't have time to fight like an old couple."

You: "No it's too late!"

YG: "We still have time if we move now."

You: "I fell in love with you! You idiot! Why don't you know?"

You could feel the tears welling up and pushed Yongguk down. You broke free from his grip and ran away on the stairs. Yongguk was standing there.

YG: "Aish! I should have known at the moment she chose me! Ah, I'm frustrated!"

You cried and ran circles not knowing where to go anymore. You fell down and saw a pair of shoes. It was Yongguk holding his hand out to you.

You: "What do you want from me?"

Yongguk didn't talk, he grabs your hand and pulls you in for a hug.

YG: "I'm sorry."

You: "I know that I'm stupid to fall in love with you. I don't know how it started but my heart keeps beating for you."

Yongguk caress your hair and moved his face closer to you.

YG: "You fell in love with the wrong guy. I can never make you happy."

You put your hands on his shoulders pushing him hard.

You: "Take me home Yongguk. I'm done here."

Yongguk let his hand slid down to your wrist. He nodded, his eyes closed. He holds your hand and walks away with you. The only thing you remember was a lot of doors, doors and doors. The main door opens and a thick fog covers your eyes. Not that you could see with your tears running down your face. You keep drying them with your other hand. Why is love so complicated? Your heart sinks and you couldn't think anymore. The only thing you see was Yongguk's hand and some rustling a and howling sounds. You don't feel scared anymore as your feelings took over.

You: "Yongguk?"

YG: "Yeah?"

You: "Thank you for everything. I hope that we will never have to see each other again."

The moment you let go of his handmade you think that you would be able to see the world again. However, this was not what you see. You were surrounded by dead wolves all over the place while Yongguk's hand was covered in blood."

You: "Aaaah!!!"

YG: "It's not as bad as it looks like. Calm down and come hold my hand."

You blacked out the moment you saw all this blood. But the worst thing was how Yongguk's hand was covered in blood.

YG: "(y/n)-ah!!"

The moment you fell down Yongguk got distracted and a big wolf jumped on his back and bit him on his shoulder.

YG: "Argh! Get away from me! (Y/n)-ah!"

Wolves were surrounding Yongguk and you, growling and showing their wolf teeth.

HC: "Bbang! You okay?"

Himchan kicked away the wolf who had attacked Yongguk and used his power to make a protecting wall around you all.

HC: "Jongup and Zelo come help me fight these wolves! Youngjae and Daehyun take Yongguk and (y/n) back to the castle!"

JU & Zelo: "Yes Himchannie hyung!"

YJ & DH: "Let us take care of Yongguk hyung and (y/n)!"

The End of Yongguk's Route Chapter 3!

[dcnativegal]

Another autumn behind the sagebrush curtain

Something I’m getting used to in Christmas Valley is body odor. I don’t want to embarrass my smelly clients but I also need to breathe, so I regularly plug in one of those melted wax aromatic thingamajigs, and it does help. But I was in line at the Chevron, which is also kind of a fast food joint and a grocery store, and the gentleman before me was quite odiferous. Wow, phew, ack. A lot of my clients and perhaps a significant part of the population up in North County is without running water, sewage hookup, and/or electricity. Maybe you’ve heard of that zen saying’. Before Enlightenment: chop wood, haul water. After Enlightenment, chop wood, haul water. Well, all that chopping and hauling is the day to day reality here with no pretensions for spiritual edification.

I did a couple’s counseling session recently and one point of contention was who does the dishes. Sounds familiar to most couples, amiright? In this case, it’s a matter of hauling water and sometimes but not always heating it to do the dishes. Good grief. Same with gardening. You want vegetables? You gotta haul the water.

When money is tight, and a felon and his disabled girlfriend are living on her disability check, and sometimes his phone is out of minutes and sometimes hers is, and they haul water, and sometimes pay for a shower at the RV park ($4. Not sure if shampoo is provided), and the laundromat is 40 miles from your homestead…. Body odor will result. Me and my nose will adapt.

**

Winter is on its way. We’ve already had several frosts. The outdoor potted plants are now indoor. We never did plant the azaleas that Karen gave us to prove that azaleas are possible to grow in the high desert. (I remain skeptical.) One just up and died, and the other one is on a window ledge by the wood stove. I’m back to keeping a warm coat in the car just in case the car breaks down and I have to wait in the cold for help. I have an emergency kit, a spare tire, bottled water and protein bars. I don’t plan to break down any time soon or to hit a deer or god help me an elk, but you never know. I’ve learned from last winter to be prepared. Cell phone reception is an iffy thing, and we all depend on the kindness of strangers in bad weather.  At the beginning of November, I’ll have my studded tires put on and then I’ll be ready for whatever ice and snow gets tossed on us humans in these high altitudes.

I learned recently that for every 1000 feet in altitude, it is 5 degrees color than at sea level. So at 4,000 feet up, it’s 20 degrees cooler. Lakeview, the county seat, is the highest altitude town in Oregon. That doesn’t seem right, since there are the Cascades and all. Maybe the highest county seat.

It’s gonna be in the 80s today in DC. A bit warm for early October but by no means unusual. It was 29 last night in Paisley.

**

I’ve graduated a bunch of people with Substance Use Disorder since I started in February, giving them a certificate, notifying their probation officer, closing out their treatment plan, changing their diagnosis to say, in remission, making a compliance note, and then a service conclusion note. They are so happy not to have to call in every morning to see if their random urinalysis color is on for the day. If their color is called, they have to get to our offices during the day, and if they work a job during the day, it’s a hassle, although most employers are cool with it.  I’ve been flexible with my clients since I started practicing in North Lake, allowing the clients to come in for a spit test (for guys because I’m a gal) or a pee test or UA (for gals because I’m a gal so I can watch them pee. Oh joy.) when they are already in town, saving them gas and another trip to come in between 4 and 5 when we’re supposed to be most available for drug tests. And I’ve been happy to oblige. However, I’ve been informed from people above my pay grade that I’m not supposed to be that flexible, ‘cause then everyone will want to come in whenever. So new clients are going to have to come in from 4 to 5pm when their color is called. Gas or no gas. If they ‘no show’, they have to start the 90 days over again.

I have an ambivalent relationship to the punitive aspects of drug treatment. Sometimes I think, just have abundant available treatment options, people, and come on, taxpayers, pay up. And other times I see that, in one case or another, threat of jail and even brief time in jail scares them sober. I’m particularly worried about the poverty around here. A gallon of gas is beyond some folks some days. I do encourage my clients to quit smoking because you could buy gas with that cigarette money.

Or food. One of my clients just had kids taken by DHS and now the client is not eligible for food stamps. Apparently, when single years ago, this client could get food stamps for a month near to $200. Not anymore. Do folks realize that it is Democrats who shore up the ‘safety net’ and increase food stamp allowances? Not these folks. If they vote, they vote Republican. Do I point this out in session? No, I do not.

**

I wish I could tell you some stories from my clients’ worlds but I can’t. I will share themes, instead.

One theme for people with ‘substance use disorders’ is about cannabis.  I have at least 4 clients who have stopped using methamphetamine, and good on them. Seriously. But they still smoke pot. Weed. A bowl. Now and then or several times a day. And they object to the fact that their body fluid drug tests (spit or pee) are ‘dirty’ with THC. They stopped using meth! They aren’t drinking whisky or beer. Why can’t they have weed? It’s LEGAL. It’s NATURAL.

If you’re under 18 it is NOT legal.

If you’re on probation for a drug offense, and sometimes if it is not a drug offense but you’re on probation, or you lost your kids to foster care for domestic violence, then YOU CAN’T USE POT. PERIOD.

I tell them, I’m so sorry, but that’s the rules. And my job is to help you get off probation. I did not make the rules. Neither did the probation officers. If they want to lobby Oregon state legislature, get on to Salem, and knock yourself out. Meanwhile, YOU CAN’T USE IT.

So then I hear, but I can’t sleep without it. I get so angry without it. It helps me cope with my PTSD. Which is for real.

It’s MEDICINAL.

Do they have a medical marijuana card? Nope. And even if they did, most judges say, tough, no THC in the drug test. No nothing in the drug test. Not a single beer.

Okay then, let’s look at the options for treating the PTSD. Nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks, hypervigilance. There are options. Some of them has to do with talk therapy, and that’s where I come in. but there is help from medications. There really is. I’ve seen it work since I got here. We have a psychiatric consultant who is a nurse practitioner. He treats half the rural counties in Oregon, and does it remotely from The Dalles. Thursday is Lake County day. He looks like Arlo Guthrie, and recently failed to kill a single elk with his bow during a 10 day vacation.

Okay, so these clients then say, drugs aren’t natural. Pot is natural.

My retort is that arsenic and uranium are natural, too.

They don’t want to be dependent on a drug. Excuse me, what is cannabis? They don’t want to have to pay for a drug. They grow their own medicine in the form of pot and why is that a problem? I mention again, it’s against the terms of probation.

But, but, I once was on a drug and it made me crazy. Did you try another drug? Nope.

I don’t believe in drugs. So if you had an infection in your leg and it was either take an antibiotic or have it cut off, what would you do? Stuff it with herbs and wait.

See what I’m up against? Those clients who kicked meth but work daily on 6 bowls of pot, chopping wood, hauling water, hustling cigarettes, bartering for hay for the goats and feed for the chickens are going to be on probation forever. I’ve had clients on probation for 7 years. Alrighty then. I’m taking your spit and meeting with you and your probation officer looks at you with the stink eye and Oregon Health Plan pays for me and the spit, and taxpayers pay for the probation officer, and here we are.

For the folks who finally get clean of all of those substances, gosh they are my favorite clients. I miss them when they graduate. They are so glad to be done, to be off probation, to have a simple life with a job and their kids at home, and church on Sunday. I give them their certificate, tell them to stop by to visit if they’re nearby, lend them movies for free, and remind them to be nice to gay people. (Especially at church.) Off they go.

At some point they made a decision to get clean and stay clean. For most but not all it was residential rehabilitation that did they trick. Removed them from their day to day, sat them down with a counselor and with a group of fellow ‘substance use disordered’ folks, and forced them to gaze at their navel. After a month or 3 months, boom, they are clean and sober. They return to 90 days of random testing and weekly visits with me in what is called aftercare. And then, they are DONE.  And their sweet simple life is so sweet and so blissfully simple.

Mostly I sit and listen to their stories. I am grateful to be a witness to their transformation.

**

I wish I could do a study of all the gay people who grew up in Lake County. I’d like to know how they survived high school at one of the three schools (North Lake, Paisley and Lakeview). When did they came out to themselves, to one other person, to their parents, and what happened then? Where did they move after high school? How out are they now? And are they okay. (Did it get better?)

I have pretty darn good gaydar which I keep refining over the years. I’ve been wrong a few times, because effeminate men can be straight, and butch women can be, too. But I knew the first few minutes of the movie Juno that the actress, Ellen Page, was gay, and that was years before she came out. I just knew it by how she marched to the convenience store for yet another pregnancy test. I said, lesbian. Queen Latifah is gay, too. I don’t think she’s ever coming out. Jody Foster. Most definitely, and finally out. Anyway, there are two boys in Paisley that I think are gay. And I don’t know for sure. But I wish I could cast a protective aura around them. Because whatever they evolve into, (gay, bisexual, trans) they could be targeted because they are gentler, more creative, and have emotional intelligence.  We’ll see. I’m not close enough to either of them to offer protection. And one is related to a very conservative family. So I’m just watching. I’m not sure what else to do. I go to the same church as these boys (when I go to church in Paisley). So that’s something. My mere presence as an out gay person must mean something.

Maybe next June I’ll hang a rainbow flag on the house. I fear a stray bullet. Or rather, an intentional bullet coming from a 12 gauge.  I know, from good authority (Valerie’s daughter), that ‘nobody cares.’  But I don’t quite believe that. I still don’t have the nerve to put on my car, in defiance, the brilliant bumper sticker: I don’t mind straight people if they act gay in public.

I miss gay people. There is Valerie. And a few lesbians in Klamath County that I located with the help of google, the Herald and News (out of Klamath Falls) and one lesbian in particular who hooked me up with the others. I am ridiculously glad to see my one gay male friend who works with some of my clients, and now that another of my clients has moved to a third foster home, he is no longer the client’s worker so I see him less often. But he stopped by last week in Christmas Valley and is investigating a former client so maybe I’ll see more of him. Not that I ever wish anyone to be investigated because some kid is neglected. But sometimes kids need to be rescued and parents need a wake up call. He’s an awesome social worker, and all around great husband and father to four kids (who were born to substance use disordered cousins). Gay men make perfect friends for women, gay or straight. They have emotional intelligence. They don’t want to get in your pants. And sometimes, they share your interests, like knitting. Or social work. Valerie’s first husband’s husband knits AND crochets.

**

It’s dusty out here. Sometimes it’s alkali dust from the dried patches of the lakes, when the wind is just right. Sometimes it’s dirt dust. This weekend I’m staying in a tiny town in Deschutes county where Valerie is cow and puppy sitting. The ranch house is full of flies; she says it’s because of how close the leppies (baby calves whose mother rejected them) are to the house. But when I visited her here when she was the main ranchhand, a few summers ago, there were piles of dead flies in the window sills. She was just now talking to her sister on the phone and walking around killing fly after fly. I am amazed at her deadly skill. And then there’s dust. On everything. Thick layers of it. She apparently mopped thoroughly ever single floorboard just yesterday. Today I can write my name in the dust with my be-socked toe. The views from the house are beautiful. The house itself is adorable, with a lovely porch, decorated in Rustic Cowboy. But I am having trouble with the dust. Val says, at least it’s not bus exhaust and city soot. Yea, true. But when I close the windows in the city, the soot stays outside. She says it’s because of the wind here. And the dirt is just real dry. The dirt can go wherever it wants to! I just don’t want to live in it.

I didn’t realize I’m such a prissy butt.

**

I’m near to Bend while visiting Brothers, which is a proper city, with stop lights and everything. I have a ‘must visit’ list now every time I approach a city: If it’s Sunday, I attend church. I check out the ethnic food. (I highly recommend the salmon pho with the cheerful all-male waiters at the Vietnamese.) I check out the local yarn shop and make a bee line for the sale bin. And I see a movie.  If I’m lucky I can do all four.

Tomorrow, we’re going to an episcopal church, and sing hymns with multiple verses that I recognize. Alleluia. Not sure where we’ll eat. I’m voting for Indian. I have enough yarn (for the rest of my existence) so I’ll pass on the store this time. On Monday when I’m heading back south, I’ll go into Bend again and I’ll probably see Blade Runner 2049. I loved the first version, and I’ll love this one, too. I’ll have had my fix, and head south into a food desert, conservative churches, and zero movie theaters. Although the chili and cornbread at the Sage Hen Café is pretty good and I love the chicken and avocado Caesar salad at ‘erry’ restaurant. It used to be Jerry’s, but the J and the s are missing.

**

Dallas is not in Texas. Springfield is not in Massachusetts or Ohio. Lewisburg is not in Pennsylvania.  Florence is not in Italy. Newport is not in Rhode Island. Bridgeport is not in Connecticut. Warrenton is not in Virginia. Oakland is not in California.  I’ve mentioned before that Albany is not in New York, and Ontario is not in Canada, either. They are all in Oregon. The ocean, known as the coast or the beach, is West, not East, of wherever I am. Do not under any circumstances pass a snow plow on the right. That’s just dumb. And never go into a rural area without a full tank of gas. I started out at the edge of a reservation on the way to Portland recently and figured there was a gas station. WRONG. I spent about 30 miles wondering what I would do if I ran out of gas. With no phone signal. And way past the age where all I had to do was show a little leg (a la It Happened One Night.)  I figured maybe I write a big sign that said OUT OF GAS, and pray. But I finally made it to a gas station just in time.

Also in Oregon: Sweet Home, Bonanza, Remote. Halfway, Paradise, Pendleton, Aloha. Eightmile, Thirtymile, Tenmile and Friend. Chiloquin, Keno, and Paisley.

**

One benefit of living in a frontier outpost is that there are virtually no chain businesses, with the exception of a couple of gas stations and the one Safeway in Lakeview. One Dollar Store and a True Value. Everything else is a small business. You can buy almost anything from a store that has only one location. I can buy excellent quality yarn at Willows in Christmas Valley. There are at least 3 thrift shops with big selections. I bought a little bit of furniture for my office at a store in Lakeview. Many stores serve multiple functions, like the Chevron/fast food/grocery store. The True Value sells toys. You can buy clothes and rent movies at Santa’s Hardware in Christmas Valley. Ammo, knickknacks, milk, nails, and deodorant are available at the Paisley Mercantile. If you’re into quilting, there are shops in Lakeview and Paisley. The county could use more pharmacies—there is only one, called Howard’s, in Lakeview. And there is the one hospital, of which I am an employee since they took over the county mental health service. Folks in north lake county go shopping up in another county, Deschutes, where there is Costco and Walmart and BiMart, which has a pharmacy. Is BiMart only for bisexuals? No. Bisexuals are the largest category of not-straight, though you’d never know it by popular culture. I guess I’d have to dust off my official bisexual card. Kidding. No such thing. I’m a lesbian-identified bisexual, based on my history, and a persistent crush on Ryan Gosling. Anyway, we support small businesses out of necessity here in the Oregon Outback because we have no choice. And I gladly pay a little more for gas at the Summer Lake General Store and the Chewaucan garage to thank them for persisting and existing.

**

Since I moved out here, I’ve been especially interested in stories in the news about people who are building bridges, across class and race and political party. Black friends on facebook encourage all their white friends to be a proactive ally against racism in all its forms. I do speak up when there is an opportunity, which is a tricky thing to recognize. Speaking up in a way that communicates, and builds a bridge. I listen to a bunch of podcasts which are focusing on studies of bias (Hidden Brain, Invisibilia, Freakonomics.)  A recent story from Sincerely x was narrated by a black woman who was told repeatedly by her mom and her teachers that she ‘ain’t nothing, and ain’t gonna BE nothing.’  She has proven everyone wrong. I listen to This American Life, Moth Radio Hour, Strangers, Terrible Thanks for Asking, and a couple with funny names like “Conversations with People who Hate Me.”  There’s a podcast called Home of the Brave, and the narrator interviews Trump supporters hoping to understand them better, and another called Strangers, same thing. Us & Them is a podcast out of West Virginia. It had a recent episode called Hillers and Creekers which described the bullying that upper class (Hillers) did to working class (Creekers) residents. Wow. To make sure I don’t lose touch altogether with black culture, I listen to 2 Dope Queens and Historically Black. I’ve subscribed to Reparations but haven’t listened yet. There’s Still Processing from the New York Times, which focused on biracial folks in the most recent episode. I fill my ears and mind with hours of podcasts every week, what with all the driving I do beyond the reach of radio. I am the better for it.  I may work less than 30 hours a week, but I drive another 8 hours for my commute.

I confess I wish someone would like to build a bridge to me. A friend of Valerie’s invited us over for dinner early on, and included one of the resident gun-worshipping, trump-supporting curmudgeons. She proceeded to start a conversation about racism. It did not go well. Of course, the curmudgeon did not have a racist bone in his body (where are those blasted racist bones, anyway?) And, naturally, he’d had one unfortunate encounter with a black person in which the black person was mean to him and so, that’s it: black people had a chance and they blew it. It was too vast a territory to traverse over tri tip. He didn’t trust me. And I don’t know what our host intended. Self-described as a moderate republican, she is a decent person, and noble to the point of saintliness in some of her activities here in rural America. But I felt put on the spot, and discouraged. I’m game. But I do not desire to be put on a hot seat and ask to explain 400 years of white supremacy, and why it is still real and still important, as a sort of freak show. I had an idea about starting an anti-racist book group when I first arrived. Let me get my health together first; i just don’t have the energy right now.

**

Have I mentioned how gorgeously beautifully picturesque this place is? How happy I am to snuggle next to my beloved girlfriend in the fake brass bed I got off of the DC Craigslist? How much I enjoy all the wool I am collecting? I am one prolific lap blanket maker right about now. How glad I am that I made this move?

[under-the-lake]

Fenrir and Greyback: a liiiiiiitle digression about werewolves - part 4: Norse Mythology

The Middle Ages in Europe are fascinating. Not only do Southern and Central Europe bloom and blossom in arts and literature, but the North is home to the boom of civilisations often forgotten: Vikings, Saamis, Finns. And yet, Vikings did have a huge influence on the development of economy in Europe and the Middle-East via Russia, they discovered Iceland and Greenland and Canada and settled there (even if the Canadian colony was only short-lived), they raided the British Isles and dominated them for centuries. And their helmets have NO HORNS. Just saying.

The Saami and Finns are small peoples but they do have a different type of society and their myths and relationships to animals and shape-shifting are not similar to the ones we can see in Central Europe. Therefore it is rather interesting to have a look at them, even if sources are scarce. But let’s start with the more widely-known things: the Norse Fenrir.

NORSE MYTHOLOGY

Many people are familiar with Norse mythology through watching the Vikings-series on their coms or on the telly. I must admit not having watched it. Lack of time is to blame I reckon.

Warning: I know many of you are experts in the domain I’m going to travel now, and I ask for your forgiveness as to the shortness and lack of detail I shall provide. This isn’t meant to be a thorough study of either the Edda (or Eddas) or any other source.

So. Fenrir, the fen-dweller (that’s what it means in Old Norse). He’s not mentioned often in Norse mythology, but he’s an important character. He goes by many names, yet his genealogy is doubtless: he is the son of Loki and the frost giantess Angrboda of Jötunheim (Angrboda means ‘she who bodes anguish’ - see the rest of the tale). The story goes Loki was leaving his wife Sigyn from time to time, but always came back to her, eventually. One day Odin asked him about his children. Loki answered the names of his legitimate kids. Odin knew, thanks to a dream, that Loki had illegitimate descendants as well, with the giantess Angrboda. Those kids were the strangest things on Earth: they were three, as different from each other as the rose is from the Devil’s Snare. Odin had foreseen that those children would be the downfall of the kingdom of gods. He sent his best people to get them to Asgaard to try and have them under his control.

The first child was a serpent called Jormungundur. It grew and grew all the time and spat deadly venom at his foes. Odin made him live in the ocean circling the Earth and people would call him the Midgard Serpent.

The second child was a girl, but the most unusual and strange being ever seen: one side of her was a beautiful lass, while the other side of her was a dead one, decrepit and rotting. She was called Hel. Odin sent her to guard the lightless world, the kingdom of death, Niflheim. I don’t know if there’s a link, but hell is something like that, right? A place where, as Hel puts it, her companions are Famine and Hunger and Sickbed.

How Odin’s plan regarding Fenrir went to the dogs

The third child, Fenrir, is the one that interests us for this time.  The gods were so much afraid of what he could do when grown up that they wanted to keep him under their watchful eye. Yet Fenrir was only a wolf-cub when it reached Asgard. Only Tyr was willing to feed it. It grew quickly, on a diet of raw meat. It ate like a wolf but spoke like a human being. Odin knew Fenrir was going to be a threat to the realm, as would both the other children of Loki’s. He held council with the other gods and they decided to tie Fenrir so that he wouldn’t harm the gods, as Odin has foreseen. So they bound him in chains, telling him it would be to test his strength. Fenrir broke the chains and the gods weren’t happy. They forged a second set of chains. This time, each link was so heavy that no single man could lift it. The chains were called Dromi. They thought that would do the trick with Fenrir. Well, they were wrong. It took much time and effort from Fenrir, but he eventually exploded the chains. It is said that bits of them could be found all over the place for ages after this event. This was a blow for the gods.

Odin thought. And thought. Finally he came up with an idea. A new set of chains called Gleipnir (it means ‘open’ - which the gods weren’t towards Fenrir…). Odin had to pay a huge lot of cash to the dwarves who made it for him in Swartalfaheimr. Gleipnir was to be woven out of six magical ingredients: the footstep of a cat, the beard of a woman, the roots of a mountain, the sinews of a bear, the breath of a fish and the spittle of a bird. No wonder the price was high. The result was what looked like a silk ribbon. When the Aesir saw the ribbon, they were happy and went to find Fenrir near the Black Lake (see, that too is like in Hogwarts… a Black Lake with a beast nearby). Fenrir despised Gleipnir. When the gods insisted upon his trying his strength on it he started feeling suspicious. He was thinking the gods weren’t being entirely open with him, and that they wanted to bind him forever rather than merely test his strength (a bit slow on the uptake, the Fenrir…). The gods said they’d free Fenrir if these were ties he couldn’t break. Fenrir didn’t believe them. In the end Fenrir suggested he being tied only if one of the Aesir would put his hand in his mouth. Fenrir wouldn’t bite on it unless there was some treachery. None of the gods would risk their hands, though. Finally, Tyr put his hand in the wolf’s mouth, and the gods bound the beast. As Fenrir had thought, the gods were never going to free him. They had taken a leaf out of Loki’s book for a change. So the wolf chopped the god’s hand off.

For those who want to see the work of the writer of this cartoon and read the text as it is, here’s the link: https://blacklemonjuice.deviantart.com/art/Loki-and-Fenrir-Tyr-s-Hand-351526878

All this happened only because the gods were scared of Fenrir. Fenrir, out of spite, told the Aesir: ‘I’d have been a friend to you had you not been treacherous to me. Now look what you got yourself: a death sentence. At the end of the times, at Ragnarok, I’ll kill you, Odin, Father of the Gods, and I will eat the sun and I will eat the moon.’

Fenrir was brought to a far-away place, and Gleipnir was tied to a boulder. A sword was placed into Fenrir’s mouth to keep it open. Fenrir howled and howled. A river, called Ván (meaning ‘expectation’ in Olde Norse) flowed from his drooling mouth until Ragnarok. He had an oath to fulfill, and he wasn’t the like to break it. He waited.

How Fenrir’s plan regarding Odin didn’t go to the dogs

Fenrir kept his word. And here’s how it happened.

Slowly, the end of the Aesir and the World as it was known would come. Signs showing that would be the falling honour standards and the lessening importance of kinship and human relationships. Oaths sworn weren’t kept. Not only did humans act in this way. The gods weren’t strangers to such betrayals or lack of honour. See what they did to Fenrir, among other tales.

Among other prophecies about Ragnarok (that’s the Norse name for the periodic end of the world they face), one said that three winters would come in a row without a summer to part them, and that then Loki and his son Fenrir, who had been bound to prevent the prophecies from happening, broke free of their fetters and started doing exactly what the Aesir had feared they would.  Loki went to gather an army of giants to destroy Asgard, the fortress of the gods, but also the rest of the land. Fenrir, on his own, set off to destroy the world too. He roamed the world with his jaws open, the lower one on the ground and the upper one in the sky. And he ate the sun and he ate the moon. And one part of his prophecy was fulfilled. Then Fenrir killed Odin and Tyr. And the other part of the prophecy was fulfilled. Fenrir didn’t go on wreaking havoc forever. He was eventually slain by Odin’s son Vidar, who survived Ragnarok to be the bearer of ancient knowledge with the new generation of gods who would reign on Asgard after the earth has risen from the sea again.

SO WHAT ABOUT ROWLING’S FENRIR, THEN?

Fenrir Greyback is a werewolf, we know that. He’s a special one, that we know too. So is there an influence of the Norse Fenrir on the wizarding world one? Yes, yet small. I don’t know how much Rowling knew about Norse mythology but to pick such a name as Fenrir 20 years ago she should have known. The Vikings series wasn’t aired yet, and there’s an awful lot to say about the comparison. Here is a small bit.

Greyback is exceptionally strong for a man. He resists Bellatrix’s Stunning spell in Malfoy Manor, after she discovers they have the Sword of Gryffindor, while the other Snatchers are… well… stunned.

‘What is that?’ [Harry] heard her say.

‘Sword,’ grunted an out-of-sight Snatcher.

‘Give it to me.’

‘It’s not yorn, Missus, it’s mine, I reckon I found it.’

There was a bang and a flash of red light: Harry knew that the Snatcher had been Stunned. There was a roar of anger from his fellows: Scabior drew his wand.

‘What d’you think you’re playing at, woman?’

‘Stupefy,’ she screamed, ‘stupefy!’

They were no match for her, even though there were four of them against one of her: she was a witch, as Harry knew, with prodigious skill and no conscience. They fell where they stood, all except Greyback, who had been forced into a kneeling position, his arms outstretched.

(DH, Chapter 23)

We can draw a comparison between Fenrir and Greyback based on this. Fenrir, as we saw, has extraordinary strength, so much so that it takes the most skilled dwarves and the rarest material to make chains that would bind him. In comparison, Greyback is nothing, of course, but he retains that sort of inhuman strength from his condition. Being a part werewolf even when the moon is not full has apparently granted him some wolfish qualities along with the werewolfish lust over blood. Greyback’s strength is not natural. ‘Normal’ people are knocked out by Stunning spells. He isn’t. He was ‘forced into a kneeling position, his arms outstretched’, which means he got the blast but it didn’t affect him more than that. Hagrid either, on another scale, doesn’t get the full blast of a Stunning because of his giant blood. It’s a bit strange though that the strength and resistance to spells has been kept out while the werewolf hasn’t transformed. I can’t help wondering how that could happen. In Hagrid’s case it’s genetic. In Greyback’s it’s not. Being bitten can’t affect the genes that much. Or has his will made his genes mutate in some weird extra-quick way? That’s most unlikely. This is a total mystery to me. As for the general idea of werewolves being resilient to curses, there is a theory that goes like this: Werewolves in general would be more resilient to curses and therefore wizards would tend not to use spells on them but rather bind them, like Snape did to Lupin in the Shrieking Shack in PoA (Chapter 19). If we link Fenrir and werewolves as having similar characteristics, we can draw a bond again: Fenrir too was bound and not killed, yet the Aesir could have got rid of him when he was a cub.

Fenrir has as an aim to get revenge by killing the chief of the gods, the Aesir Odin, and then eating the sun and the moon. While doing that he aims to destroy as much of Asgard as he can. While not aiming to destroy The World, Greyback wants to destroy a world, the world of wizards. He is bitter and resentful because he was bitten and because werewolves are shunned by wizarding laws, and also because of what he heard Lupin’s dad had said while the Ministry officials were interrogating him: werewolves were ‘soulless, evil, deserving nothing but death’. Greyback wants to make a society of werewolves, killing all the wizards to the last one. Plain revenge. In this, Fenrir and Greyback are similar.

A third comparison, maybe a bit more far-fetched, is that both tend to kill innocent beings: Fenrir wants to deprive the world from the sun and moon (who did nothing in the tale of his binding), and Greyback wants to kill children, who are the epitome of innocence, at least according to common canon (I mean Tom Riddle wasn’t exactly an innocent child… but that might be the exception): ‘Greyback specialises in children … bite them young, he says, and raise them away from their parents, raise them to hate normal wizards. Voldemort has threatened to unleash him upon people’s sons and daughters; it is a threat that usually produces good results.’ (HBP, Chapter 16). This quote covers both the use of children and the revenge part of Greyback’s motivations...

Then we can also examine the descent of both creatures. Loki and the giantess Angrboda gave birth to Fenrir. Loki is the son of a giant, Farbauti, and someone who could be a goddess, a giantess or some other being, we don’t know. So Loki’s ‘classification’ is a bit tricky, but he’s commonly considered a half-god because he lives in Asgard. Fenrir came to the world the son of an unfaithful father. We know nothing about Greyback’s lineage. There’s however something remotely linked between being illegitimate and being bitten. None of the situations is ‘normal’, and both are leading to the individuals being shunned by a part of the society for some reason, be it good or bad.

Both Fenrir and Greyback embody the outlaw. Fenrir is exiled from Asgard and from doing anything because he’s feared by the gods. They bind him so that he can’t move and keep his mouth open so that he can’t talk. He’s exiled from the world, in a way. His name, the fen-dweller, refers to marshlands that are usually on the outskirts of human living places. They are regions which are hostile to ‘common’ people and where outlaws seek refuge. They are also regions of weird tales and strange beings. Greyback is an outlaw as well because his position as a werewolf makes him dangerous to the society and also because he has decided to be a fully-acknowledged one by pushing the boundaries of his werewolfitude out of the full moon-period. Both Fenrir and Greyback embody a death of some sort, and death by murder is out of the law. Fenrir will kill Odin and eat the sun and the moon, and Greyback kills people in a very uncivilised way (I don’t know if there’s a civilised way though). Remember, if you read the part about medieval times, that outlaws in Knut’s Laws in the 11th century in England named outlaws ‘werewolves’. Literally.

We can also ponder how the Battle of Hogwarts involved werewolves and how it’s related to Norse mythology. After all, Ragnarok is also called ‘wolf-age’ in Völuspa, and Voldemort started recruiting werewolves from the start. We know that because Lupin was sent as a spy among them, as he tells Harry in Half-Blood Prince: ‘I’ve been living among my fellows, my equals. [...] Werewolves. Nearly all of them are on Voldemort’s side. Dumbledore wanted a spy there and here I was …  ready-made.’ (HBP, Chapter 16) So that means werewolves, as well as giants, were part of Voldemort’s plan for an army. He had had them with him in the First Wizarding War too. Well, interestingly enough, wolves and giants are The Enemy during the Norse Ragnarok as well, and both were there to help destroy the old world and bring a new one to birth. In the Harry Potter series, it’s hard to imagine the positive role of werewolves in the Battle of Hogwarts, the Rowling version of a Ragnarok, but they are finally defeated, like Fenrir was at Ragnarok, bringing a new order to rule. Fenrir, like Greyback, have a further similarity linked to the new order that is set after the battles: both are killed or vanquished by members of the new generation. Fenrir is killed by Vidar, who is said to be Odin’s son and survives to bring knowledge to the new generation of gods, while Greyback is defeated by Ron and Hermione. However, the importance of both characters in that battle is hugely different. While Fenrir’s presence is paramount to the success of Ragnarok and the rise of a new era, Greyback’s presence is not important at all per se. He doesn’t kill significant characters (Fenrir killed Odin, the Father of the Gods), nor does he have a prediction to fulfill upon his shoulders (yet, as Dumbledore would put it, predictions are only fulfilled because we know about them). Furthermore, Greyback doesn’t actively kill many people during the battle. He merely scavenges on weakened bodies:

Two bodies fell from the balcony overhead as [Harry, Ron and Hermione] reached the ground and a grey blur that Harry took for an animal sped four-legged across the hall to sink its teeth into one of the fallen. ‘’ NO!’’ shrieked Hermione, and with a deafening blast from her wand Fenrir Greyback was thrown backwards from the feebly stirring body of Lavender Brown.’ (DH, Chapter 32) In that respect, Greyback is completely different from Fenrir.

One could argue that wolves aren’t that special a representation of the enemy. Indeed, most of the civilisations which had wolves among the list of their natural predators didn’t like them much, but often they revered them in a way or another. Man’s relationship to wolf, apart from the completely manicheistic one the Christians have, has always been ambiguous. In Fenrir’s case, it’s symptomatic that he is The Enemy, but he is also the son of a half-god, and the most feared creature by the Aesir (notice the Aesir didn’t kill Fenrir as a cub, as they could have). We sense that in the Harry Potter  books too. Greyback is not The Enemy, that’s true, but he’s nearly his right hand in cruelty, obscene cruelty. Even Bellatrix doesn’t reach that level of lust in her actions. Maybe not even Voldemort. The latter only kills by habit, sort of. You annoy me, I’ll get rid of you. No pleasure in there, because there’s probably not enough human left in him to feel emotions. Greyback on the other hand is rejoicing at the perspective of biting, licking, sucking and everything that is not mentioned as such in the book but that can be guessed via the vocabulary Rowling uses. All these elements make Greyback probably the most disgusting creature in the book and one of the most feared.

There are many links between the Norse Fenrir and the British Greyback. Was Rowling aware of all?, I have no idea, but one day I’d like to ask her…

PS: If you are a gamer, and you want to plunge into Norse mythology, why not have a look at Senua’s Sacrifice? Description here! Just follow the link:

http://under-the-lake.tumblr.com/post/164632016201/hellblade-senuas-sacrifice

Sources for Part 4:

Page 394

Gaiman, Neil, Norse Mythology, Bloomsbury, London, 2017

Ward, Renée (2008) J. K. Rowling's Fenrir Greyback: identity, society, and the Werewolf. In: Terminus, 7-11 August 2008, Chicago, ILL, USA.

Rowling, Joanne K., Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Bloomsbury, 2005

Rowling, Joanne K., Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Bloomsbury, 2007

Fenrir: https://norse-mythology.org/tales/the-binding-of-fenrir/

Loki: https://norse-mythology.org/gods-and-creatures/the-aesir-gods-and-goddesses/loki/

Ragnarök: https://norse-mythology.org/tales/ragnarok/

Wikipedia, Fenrir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenrir

Völuspa (Annotated text): http://library.flawlesslogic.com/voluspa.htm