#Her powers give control and certainty to a degree

[jestingher]

Sometimes I think about wether Toritsuka really has privacy like ever?

I mean ghosts kinda perpetualy watch people and they're basically everywhere, but he actually knows they're watching, if he wanted to do something kinda awkward or the like he probably couldn't just shoo them away, just had to do it with company, on full display all the time

I think this also reflects in his attitude towards Saiki being able to read his thoughts, giving full honesty 'cause Saiki will know anyway, he's already sorta used to that

[thenightfolknetwork]

Hello,

So I was turned by accident about a decade ago. I struggled. I won't lie, several people disappeared because of me before I understood what was happening and was able to ask for help. I stayed in self-exile from people I could hurt for a long time, only making contact by phone with my loved ones for over five years. A little extreme, I know, but it was the option I was most comfortable with and most of them understood. I got through it, re-entered society and now have a near-complete grip on my feeding to the point where I can have donors.

When I told my friends, sapio and creature, about this personal milestone they were so, so happy for me. They threw me an amazing party and a couple of them even surprised me by volunteering to be donors themselves. It honestly brought me to tears, I'm so, so lucky to have them.

I gave them links, information packets and ways to stop me should things ever go too far, then we started feeding sessions, and that's where it began.

As it turns out, one of my best sapio friends… Well, it happens that feeding gives her a lot of pleasure. When she discovered this, I asked regularly if she wanted to stop sessions, but she said no. I'm asexual and feeding doesn't do anything for me (probably for the best given my history) but I don't mind, honestly? It actually makes me feel better that she's getting something out of it in exchange, and after some research, the rules and aftercare surrounding kink helped make the whole experience more comfortable for me and my donors.

This has been going on for a good six months, but things between us have started getting… weird.

Her heartbeat pounds every time she sees me. I find her continually glancing down at my lips, even when we meet up outside of feeding. I'll be talking and realise she hasn't said anything for ages, she's just sitting there staring at me with this little smile that I've never seen before.

She touches me any chance she gets too. Don't get me wrong, physical affection is the best, big hugger, me. But while it's not excessive; it is noticeable that she leans on me, puts her head in my lap, and adjusts my outfit when we go out. Small things that we did before because we're friends, just more. A lot more.

She's also become a little… jealous over feeds? For her height and weight, I can only take so much blood before it’ll put her out of commission for more than a couple of days and she knows I have multiple donors - hell, she knows my other donors - but I think it upsets her now in a way it didn't before. 

I'm really concerned that it's going to cause a rift of some kind, but I'm also worried that this has been bad for her in some way.

Have I given my friend some sort of Pavlovian response to me due to the nature of our feeds? Or worse, have I somehow put her under some kind of thrall? 

I can reassure you with absolute certainty on one front, reader: it is not possible to accidentally enthral a person. People with extremely strong powers of magnetism might find they have unconsciously exerted more influence over those around them than they intended, but never to the degree of full thralldom. In practice, the effect is barely distinguishable from the effect of natural charm.

Indeed, there are plenty of figures in history who have been thought, at one point or another, to be exerting magical influence on those around them, only to prove to be enjoying nothing more than the inherent social benefits of good looks and elegant manners. The claim that Hollywood is full of malevolent nightfolk tricking the humble American everyman with their magical wiles, for example, is a favourite among conspiracy theorists.

I think it's also safe to rule out the possibility of Pavlovian conditioning. Your friend is an intelligent adult, and while she may associate your feeding sessions with general feelings of comfort and pleasure, she is still very much in control of her own behaviours.

I'm afraid the solution seems to me at once far simpler and, in its own way, far more complicated. She's flirting with you.

Your friend already felt close enough to you to volunteer as your donor. She trusts you and enjoys your company. To that, you added the potent mixture of spending time with her in an intensely personal and vulnerable situation, paying her close attention, and performing an act which gives her a great deal of physical, erotic pleasure.

In short, I think it very likely that if your friend does not already consider herself in love with you, she is well on her way. This might be a comfort, in some ways – the worst case scenario here is a broken heart. Painful, perhaps, but not usually life-threatening.

You need to talk to your friend directly. Get this all out into the open, and then work together to find a solution. I understand you're concerned this will create a rift between the two of you. But it is far better to take that risk than to try and sweep these feelings under the carpet and just hope everything will be alright.

And the thing is, everything really might be alright. It might be that nothing needs to change. If you feel comfortable with your friend's romantic feelings, and are able to enjoy her increased physical affection and personal attention, then by all means, enjoy yourself.

However, I want to be extremely clear upon this next point. You do not owe it to her – or to anyone else – to embark upon a romantic relationship. You did not “lead her on”. That kind of thinking is nothing more than social pressure to conform to amatonormative expectations of love, sex and romance.

If you don't want your relationship to take on a romantic dimension, you need to draw that line clearly and firmly, and stick to it.

Finally, if that is how you feel, I would also strongly recommend removing her from your roster of donors. The alternative just feels rather unnecessarily cruel.

[For more creaturely advice, check out Monstrous Agonies on your podcast platform of choice, or visit monstrousproductions.org for more info]

[sarcophagid]

deep sigh. post nathaniel headcanons

sure thing, tumblr user @sarcophagid.

serious hc:

Key to my specific Nathaniel interpretation is that I think he's a faker (everyone who I've talked to abt Nathaniel has heard this a million times I'm so sorry. Here's repeat one million and one). I explained it in a previous post but the gist is: it makes the most sense if the Norwells were fanning the flames of preexisting superstition to maintain/gain sociopolitical power, rather than acting out of genuine belief in witches. I don't think Nathaniel believing in god or smth is out of the question but a large fraction of what he says is probably a lie.

Personality-wise I think Nathaniel tries to be as balanced as possible, he's capable of a certain degree of charisma and false trustworthiness. There's a specific outward image he has to project (smth smth masks. hilarity!). But at the same time, it's not perfect. I don't think he's immune to aggravation, and given he decided of his own volition to capture Ithaqua's mother, he might jump the gun when faced with an opportunity. I think he also has a sense of superiority or like, extraordinary uniqueness. He sees others for their position in fixed places, often hierarchical places. There's a clear divide in people who are subordinate to him and people he is subordinate to, and there's no one else on the same rung of the ladder as him (unless..? story for another day). Adds a bit of irony to having a secret identical twin.

I like the idea of Nathaniel being a character focused on structure and rules, because Ithaqua as a character is very instinct and emotion driven. Nathaniel lives in a relatively rigid and strict society, most of his life is governed for him, and in a sense he still doesn't have much actual control in the bigger picture despite how much power his status grants him. I severely doubt he was forced to persecute people (he's smiling in the Night Watch trailer he very much likes being there), but I don't think Nathaniel is motivated by inherent natural born sadism (this is a key part of Nathaniel and Ithaqua's characterization to me but that's another story for another day). Although, it's likely he derives enjoyment from the feeling of power and control. He may not believe what he does is "good" (he knows what the work he does is. And the ringleaders of these types of operations usually don't believe their own words) but he does truly believe it's "necessary" for the continued stability of the plateau. This isn't to excuse him, it's just the explanation I see as most likely.

He practices mortification of the flesh - this is a belief that the body's earthly desires are inherently sinful and must be 'deadened' through various rituals, such as fasting, abstinence, and the infamous self-flagellation. ^ I thought this detail fit thematically with Ithaqua's character. Ithaqua seems to have a philosophy about being figuratively 'dead' or 'alive' associated with one's humanity, being born 'dead' and returning to life and humanity with his mother. But when his mother loses her humanity he too abandons humanity, citing that 'the living will no longer come near her'. I thought it would be an interesting to add a similar philosophy about wanting to be deadened and free from human shackles, but in a very different way ^ But as aforementioned I think Nathaniel's kind of a fraud. I don't have a solid line drawn on how much he really believes the doctrine but aside from genuine belief, I think it's also possible that pain and harm give him a sense of certainty and control over an otherwise immutable physiology. (I'm not sure if if I'm articulating this the way I want to TOT, I might expand later)

less serious hc:

Between the two, Nathaniel is a bit pastier and scrawnier. Sorry but Ithaqua's running around touching grass, meanwhile Nathaniel's holed up in the basement doing you-know-what. They still look remarkably alike, but Nathaniel's... ever so washed out.

I think he knows a bit of ecclesiastical latin (ugh). I think he would've liked learning abt language structures etc in general (this is bullshit i just like etymology and all my faves do too)

Me and my mutual were talking abt this but access to spicy food aside, he'd be sensitive to spicy food (He is white.) but that wouldn't stop him from eating it he'd just be dying

On the topic of food Nathaniel is capable of many culinary mysteries like turning everything into grey mush. And oil fire.

I think he's scared of bugs & snakes. He worries about being spied on also 🤔

[wisdomrays]

THE SPIRIT and WHAT FOLLOWS: Part 9

The spirit has a deep, intimate connection with the body beyond consciousness. This connection is of a nature that the spirit experiences by means of the body itself, all bodily attributes and activities, each of which principally originates in a different manifestation of Divine Names, and is able to penetrate the nature of matter with certainty.

However, some Sufis use the spirit and the soul interchangeably. They categorize the spirit as the vegetable soul or spirit, the animal soul or spirit, and the human soul or spirit. They also categorize the soul according to its degree of spiritual evolution as the carnal, evil-commanding soul, the self-accusing soul, the soul receiving inspiration, and the soul at rest, and so on. According to the majority of scholarly Sufis, a soul that has reached the rank of being at rest avoids all evil and makes doing good, praiseworthy deeds a dimension of its nature. Taking another step upwards, it keeps even involuntary occurrences in its mind under control. Angelic qualities and holiness are observed in a hero of truth who has reached this point, and then the doors of the knowledge of the Unseen are slightly opened onto him or her. Over time, such a soul becomes a pure spirit, and its carnality is totally transformed into spirituality.

This point needs further elaboration, as follows: According to the Sufis, as long as the spirit is supported and strengthened through ever deepening belief, good deeds, the avoidance of sins, and true learning and reflection, the soul begins to display the traces of straightforwardness. When this continues with constant purification of the soul and the "refinement" of the body through regular worship, both the soul and the body can receive the gifts of turning to God Almighty under the guidance of the spirit.

We can also approach this matter from another perspective, as follows: If the animal soul is so powerful as to dominate the body, this causes the "death" of the spirit, while leading a life at the level of the heart and the strengthening of the spirit results in either the "death" or submission of the soul, or even in acquiring an angelic nature in some people of superior spirituality. Seeing the good side of everything, positive thought, sound belief, regular worship, orderly recurring supplications and recitations, and continuous imploring for forgiveness of sins constitute the securest way of strengthening the spirit and compelling the soul into submission. Those who follow this way sincerely have never been witnessed to fall halfway. Far from falling halfway, those who never give up self-supervision on this way and who are always careful of their relationship with God Almighty, continuously advance toward the highest of the high. The scholarly Sufis call them "the people with illuminated and illuminating spirits." But those who always see the evil side of things and events, who suffer deviances in thought, who spend their lives on worldly ambitions and daydreams, who have never been able to attain truth in belief, who are heedless of worship, who do not strengthen their inclination toward good through prayer, and who cannot overcome their tendency toward evil and sins through asking God for forgiveness inevitably fall to the lowest of the low. Such are called "the bodies of darkness."

The spirit becomes like a "pigeon" or angel, flying toward the heights of the Hereafter; this is to such an extent that people restrain their carnal desires, fill their heart with knowledge and love of God, and live a life according to the religious rules. If, by contrast, a person lives in dependence on carnal or bodily appetites, then the spirit weakens, the heart fades, feelings become polluted, and the "secret" is silenced. In brief, the dominion of carnality always results in the paralysis of spirituality, and the strengthening of the spirit leads to the submission and purification of the soul. To express this point, some saints say, "Those who care about their bodies cannot care about their spirits, and those who care about their spirits cannot remain as those who care about their bodies." These saints teach people how to discover their spirits.

An unpurified soul tends to carnality and pursues the satisfaction of bodily desires. Until it becomes a soul at rest and becomes almost identical with the spirit, it displays this characteristic to some extent. But when the spirit reaches the rank of being pleased with God and being pleasing to Him, by God's help, it begins speaking like the spirit. When a person attains this character, the reason, which is a curious, inquisitive faculty, rises to the horizon of being an analyzer of the proofs and essentials of religious commandments, taking on the "color" of the heart, and begins observing metaphysical realms from the observatory of the spiritual intellect. The heart lies in ambush to hunt the mysteries that pertain to the Realm of the Transcendental Manifestation of Divine Attributes and Names, and the secret breathes with yearning for the Divine Being.

The heart and the secret are like two eyes of the spirit with which we can look on eternity. Along the spiritual journey, the spiritual intellect beats with the dreams of the Realm of the Transcendental Manifestation of Divine Attributes and Names, and the secret with a yearning for the Realm of the Transcendental Manifestation of Divinity. When they have obtained what they are enamored of, each becomes intoxicated with what it observes in its horizon in great amazement. When Divine gifts, flowing from the secret to the heart and taking on the color of the Realm of the Transcendental Manifestation of Divine Commands in the receptors of the heart, are transferred to the spirit in the tongue of the heart, they begin to give voice with angelic accent. This may be analogous—even though imperfect and limited—to the conveyance of Divine mysteries to the Prophets by the angels, whom we may liken to spirits with the depth of their secrets and hearts. Indeed, in the verse, He conveys the Spirit (the life-giving Revelation, from the immaterial realm) of His command to whom He wills of His servants (40: 15), the Qur'an sometimes uses the Revelation in the meaning of the spirit. Just as the spirit is the essence of life in the body, so too, the Revelation is the essence and most important means of spiritual life and vitality. The spirit is a Divine breath, direct or indirect, and the Revelation is also a breath issuing from His Attribute of Speech. The most loyal trustees of this Divine secret are the perfect or universal men.[37] The spirit, which the greatest of universal men, the Master of creation, upon him be peace and blessings, received and breathed into his community is the Divine Revelation itself, and the gifts and inspirations that come to relatively universal men following in his footsteps are a means of mercy for the Muslim Community, provided these gifts and inspirations are tested and verified according to the basic standards that are established by the Revelation.

Both of these spirits—the spirit and the Revelation—are of vital importance for humanity. In the same way that the growth, health, and survival of the human body are possible through the spirit, the life and survival of all the worlds depend on the "spirit" that is breathed by the universal man. Before the creation of the first universal man—Adam, the first human being and also a Prophet who would read creation and illuminate reasons and hearts with the breath he conveyed—the world was dark. Especially through the light which the Greatest Spirit and the Spirit of Holiness diffused, the middle part of its history was illuminated. If one day this light disappears, leaving the world in darkness, and things and events begin to be interpreted as playthings of chance, a new way will appear before humanity. That is, like the alternation of night and day, the world, which will have been darkened, will be replaced by the illuminated world of eternity. Let us once more listen to Bediüzzaman:

Just as life is a pure extract distilled from the universe, just as consciousness and sense perception are extracts distilled from life… and just as the spirit is the pure essence of life—indeed, it is life itself stable and autonomous—so too is the physical and spiritual life of the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, the most refined extract distilled from the sense perception, consciousness, and intelligence of the universe. The Messengership of Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, is the purest extract distilled from the sense perception, consciousness, and intelligence of the universe. Indeed, as testified to by his works, accomplishments, and legacy, the physical and spiritual life of Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, the very life of the universe's life, and his Messengership are the light and very consciousness of the universe's consciousness.

It is truly so. If the light of Prophet Muhammad's Messengership departs from the world, the universe will die. If the Qur'an deserts the universe, the universe will go mad. It will lose its mind and cause the destruction of the world by striking its head on a star.

The spirit breathed into a human being potentially means the same as what Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur'an mean for existence, each as a universal spirit which encompasses the universe, and as its consciousness, life, and light. However, in order to manifest itself in the corporeal realm, the spirit needs a system or a mechanism. Whether transparent or dense, all things are receptors of the universal laws that issue from the Realm of the Initial Manifestation of Divine Commands and which are appointed for their creation and operation or life. All living beings, including humans, with their particular composition and capacities, and the universal men with their distinguished nature and the particular favors accorded to them, are where the spirit particular to each rises.

[janecrockeyre]

scum villain is a greek tragedy disguised as a regular tragedy disguised as a comedy disguised as a danmei

this is going to be long, and this is only PART ONE.

a.k.a, Analysing the plot of Scum Villain’s Self Saving System through Aristotle’s Poetics, because I Have Mental Issues

Part One: Introduction and the Tragic Hero

Scum Villain’s Self Saving System is a tragedy disguised as a comedy, unless you’re Shen Yuan, in which case it’s a mixture of a romance and a survival horror. It's a fever dream. It's a horrible, terrible book that made me feel new undiscovered emotions when I finished reading it. 

The thing is... SVSSS shares characteristics with some of the most famous tragedies in the West, such as Oedipus Rex, Medea, Antigone, the Oresteia... if you haven’t read these, I’ll explain everything. But the gist of my argument is this: SVSSS is the perfect tragedy. In triplicate. 

Tragedy as a genre is old as balls and so it has meant slightly different things to different people over the last few thousand years. I'll be focusing on ancient Greek tragedy, which was performed at the yearly Festival of Dionysus in Athens during the 500-350s BC (give or take a hundred years). Aristotle, when writing about this very specific subset of tragedy, had no idea that one day Scum Villain would be written, and then that I would be using his work as a way to look at Shen Qingqiu’s Funky Transmigration Mistake. Anyway!

Greek tragedy greatly influenced European dramatic tradition. I have a lot of opinions about white academics idolising and upholding the classics as the "paragon of culture" but I'll withhold them for now. I have no idea if MXTX has read Greek tragedy or not, so don't take this as me saying they are writing it. 

In my opinion, tragedy is a universal human constant. We are surrounded by pain and hurt and none of it makes any sense, so we seek to process that pain through drama, art, literature, etc. We want to understand why pain happens, and how it happens, and try to make sense of the senseless. The universe is cold and cruel and random. Tragedy eases some of that pain. 

On that note: Just because I am analysing Scum Villain through a Greek lens doesn't mean that it was written that way. I'm pasting an interpretation onto the book when there's probably a very rich and deep history of Chinese tragedy that I just don't know about. If you ever want to talk about that, please, god, hit me up, I would love to learn about it!! 

Anyway, tragedy. MXTX is excellent at it! Mo Dao Zu Shi? Painful dynastic family tragedy. Heaven Official's Blessing? Mostly romance, but she managed to get that pure pain in there, huh? 

But in my opinion, Scum Villain holds the crown for the most tragic of her stories. MDZS was more of a mystery. TGCF was more of a romance. Neither of them shy away from their tragic elements. 

Scum Villain would fit right in between the work of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. How? Let me show you. Join me on my mystery tour into the world of "Aristotle Analyses Danmei..."

Part One: The Tragic Hero

What is a tragic hero? Generally, Greek tragic heroes are united by the same key characteristics. He must be imperfect, having a "fatal flaw" of some kind. He must have something to lose. And he must go from fortune to misfortune thanks to that fatal flaw. 

There are two (technically three) tragic protagonists in SVSSS and all of them are tragic in different but formulaic ways. Each protagonist has their own version of “hamartia” or a “fatal flaw”. 

Actually, hamartia isn’t necessarily a flaw - rather, it is a thing which makes the audience pity and fear for them, a careful imperfection, a point of weakness in the character’s morality or reasoning that allows for bad things to happen to them. For example, in Oedipus Rex, the king Oedipus has a “fatal flaw” of always wanting to find the truth, but this isn’t exactly a flaw, right? Note: this flaw can be completely unwitting, as we see with Shen Yuan. It can also be something that the protagonist is born with, some kind of trait from birth or very young. 

Shen Yuan

Shen Yuan’s “hamartia” is his rigid adherence to fate and his inability to read a situation as anything but how he thinks it ought to be. He believes that Bingmei will grow into Bingge, and it takes several years, two deaths, and some truly traumatising sex to convince him otherwise. 

Shen Jiu

Shen Jiu’s fatal flaw is his cruelty. It is his own sadistic treatment and abuse of Binghe which directly leads to his eventual dismemberment. This is kind of a no-brainer. Of course, it isn't all that simple, and as an audience we pity him for his cruelty as much as we fear it because we know it comes from his own abuse as a child. This just makes him even more tragic. Delicious. 

Luo Binghe

Luo Binghe’s fatal flaw is a complicated mix of things. It is his position as the “protagonist” which compels him to act in certain ways and be forced to suffer. It is his half-demonic heritage, something entirely out of his control, which sets in motion his tragic reversal of fortune when he gets yeeted into the Abyss. He also, much like Shen Yuan, has the propensity to jump to conclusions and somehow make 2 + 2 = 5. 

As well as having their respective “flaws”, all three protagonists match the rough outline of a good tragic hero in another way: they are in a position of great wealth and power. Even when you split the different characters into different “versions”, this still holds true. Yes, Luo Binghe is raised a commoner by a washerwoman foster mother, but his dad is an emperor and he also ends up becoming an emperor himself. 

Yes, Shen Jiu is an ex-slave and a victim of abuse himself, but Shen Qingqiu is a powerful peak lord with an entire mountain’s worth of resources at his back. 

Shen Yuan is a second generation new money rich kid. 

Bingge is a stereotypical protagonist with a golden finger. Bingmei is a treasured and loved disciple with a good reputation and a privileged seat by his shizun’s side. 

In a tragedy, having this kind of good fortune at the beginning of your story is dangerous. Chaucer says that tragedy is (badly translated into modern english) “a certain story / of him that stood in great prosperity / and falls out of high degree / into misery, and ends up wretchedly”. If we follow this line of thinking, a good tragedy is about someone who has a lot to lose, losing everything because of one fatal point of weakness that they fail to address or understand. 

If we look at Shakespeare, this is what makes King Lear such a fantastic tragic protagonist. He is a king in control of most of England, who from his own lack of wisdom and excess of pride, decides to split his kingdom apart to give to his daughters, favouring his murderous, double crossing progeny, and condemning his only actually filial daughter to death. He loses his kingdom, his mind, and his beloved daughter, all because of his own stupidity.

This brings us to:

Part Two: Peripeteia

This reversal of fortunes is called peripeteia. It is the moment where the entire plot shifts, and the hero’s fortunes go from good to bad. Think of it like one of those magic eye puzzles, where you stare at the image until a 3D shark appears, except you realise the shark was always there, you just couldn't ever see it, waiting for you, hungry, deadly, always lurking just behind that delightful pattern of random blue squiggles. 

Each tragic hero has their own moment of peripeteia in SVSSS, sometimes several:

Shen Qingqiu

In the original PIDW, SQQ’s peripeteia presumably occurs when he finds out that Bingge didn’t perish in the Abyss but has actually been training hard to come and pay him back. There’s really not much I’m interested in saying here - as a villain, OG!SQQ is cut and dry, and the audience doesn’t really feel any pity or fear for him. As Shen Yuan often mentions, what the audience feels when they see OG!SQQ is bloodlust and sick satisfaction. There is also the trial at Huan Hua Palace, which I will talk about in Shen Yuan’s section. 

Shen Yuan (SQQ 2.0)

One of SY’s most poggers moment of peripeteia is the glorious, terrifying section between hearing Binghe for the first time after the Abyss moment, and getting shoved into the Water Prison. 

“Behind him, a low and soft voice came: “Shizun?”

Shen Qingqiu’s neck felt stiff as he slowly turned his head. Luo Binghe’s face was the most frightening thing he had ever seen.

The scariest thing about it was that the expression on his face was not cold at all. His smile wasn’t sharp like a knife. Rather, it showed a kind of bone-deep gentleness and amiability.”

This is the moment of true horror for Shen Yuan, because he knows what happens next: the plot unfurls before him, inevitable and painful, and he knows that death awaits him at Luo Binghe's hands (lol). Compare it with the bone deep certainty with which he faces his own downfall during the sham of a trial later in the chapter (I’ve bolded the important part):

“In the original work, Qiu Haitang’s appearance signified only one thing: Shen Qingqiu’s complete fall from grace. [...] Shen Qingqiu’s heart streamed with tears. Great Master… I know you’re doing this for my own good, but I’ll actually suffer if she speaks her words clearly. This truly is the saying “not frightened of doing a shameful deed, just afraid the ghost (consequences) will come knocking”!”

After the peripeteia is usually the denouement where the plot wraps up and the threads are all tied together leaving no loose ends, but because this tragedy isn’t Shen Yuan’s but the former Shen Jiu’s, it’s impossible to finish. 

Shen Yuan cannot provide the meaningful answers that the narrative demands because 1) he doesn’t have any memory of doing anything, and 2) he wasn’t the person who did them. Narratively, he cannot follow the same path as the former SQQ because he lacks the same fatal flaw: cruelty. 

This is why Binghe doesn’t kill him - because he loves him, rather than despises him. And this is why Shen Yuan has to sacrifice himself and die for Luo Binghe in order to save him from Xin Mo: because the narrative demands that denouement follows peripeteia, and SQQ’s fate is in the hands of the narrative. 

(Side note: I believe that this literal death also represents the death of OG!SQQ's tragic arc. The body that committed all those crimes must die to satisfy the narrative. SQQ must die, like burning down a forest, so that new growth can sprout from the ashes. After this, Shen Yuan's story has more room to develop instead.)

It must happen to show Bingmei that SQQ loves him too. And this brings us to Bingmei.

Bingmei

Bingmei has two succinct moments of utter downfall. The first is a literal fall - his flaw, his demonic heritage, leads his beloved shizun to throw him down into the Abyss. From his point of view, SQQ is punishing him simply for the status of his birth. He rapidly goes from being loved and cherished unconditionally, to being the victim of an assassination attempt. 

He realises that he is totally unlovable: that for the crimes of his species that he never had a hand in, he must pay the price as well: that his shizun is so righteous that no matter what love there was between them, if SQQ sees a demon, he will kill it. Even if that demon is Bingmei. 

The second moment is when SQQ dies for him. Again, from his point of view, he was chasing after a man who was struggling to see him as a human being. Shen Qingqiu’s death makes Bingmei realise that he has been completely misunderstanding his shizun: that SQQ would literally die for him, the ultimate act of self sacrifice from love: that SQQ loved him despite his demon heritage. 

Much like King Lear holding the corpse of his daughter and wailing in sheer grief and pain because he did this, he caused this, Bingmei gets to hold his shizun's cold body and cry his eyes out and know that it was his fault. (Kind of.)

(Yes, I’m bringing Shakespeare into this, no I am not justifying myself)

Maybe I'm a bit sadistic, but that scene slaps. Let me show you a comparison of scenes so you get the picture. 

Re-enter KING LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms; EDGAR, Captain, and others following

KING LEAR

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:

Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so

That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!

I know when one is dead, and when one lives;

She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,

Why, then she lives.

[...]

 KING LEAR

And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never!

Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.

Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,

Look there, look there!

Dies

Versus this scene in SVSSS: 

Luo Binghe turned a deaf ear to everything else, greatly agitated and at a loss of what to do. He was still holding Shen Qingqiu’s body, which was rapidly cooling down. It seemed like he wanted to call for him loudly and forcefully shake him awake, yet he didn’t dare to, as if he was afraid of being scolded. He said slowly, “Shizun?”

[...]

Luo Binghe involuntarily held Shen Qingqiu closer.

He said in a small voice, “I was wrong, Shizun, I really… know that I was wrong.

“I… I didn’t want to kill you…”

PAIN. SO MUCH BEAUTIFUL PAIN. Yes, I know Shakespeare isn’t Athenian, but he was inspired by the good old stuff and he also knew how to write a perfect tragedy on his own terms. Anyway. I’ll find more Greek examples later.

This post was a bit all over the place, but I hope it has been fun to read. Part Two will be coming At Some Point, Who Knows When. This is a bit messy and unedited, but hey, I’m not getting paid or graded, so you can eat any typos or errors. Unless you’re here to talk to me about Chinese tragedy, in which case, please pull up a seat, let me get you a drink, make yourself at home.

ps: if you want to retweet this, here is the promo tweet!

[feelingbluepolitics]

We Must Handle the Truth

There's no question that the management of Donald trump will be an issue of on-going global importance. Knocking him from his (alleged) official perch is only the first step.

The more crucial steps must follow, because trump will retain his influence and his supporters, and they will do whatever he hints that he wants, even up to treasonous attacks, assassination attempts, and mass murders.

We must be clear. There is no cozy "look to the future and heal" pretence of an option in our present situation. This is aside from the fact that taking that Pollyanna path repeatedly --from Watergate to Reagan to Bush-- helped to criminalize and radicalize the Republicon Party into the danger they are today.

Shame, honor, and true patriotism have become vestigial on the Right. Their criminal administrations and elected representatives keep getting away with what they do because we embolden them each time with a blind eye.

That is not how justice works. The blind eye of justice means that no one, no matter how powerful, is exempt. The time to work on that is January 20, 2021, and we are far overdue. Politicians, corporations, tax cheats, polluters: we still have laws, for all of trump's and his administration's destructive efforts.

We sully our government offices and endanger our nation by not requiring accountability to the office and to the people, over and above any present occupant. Where we are blocked by pardons we must still have thorough public investigation. That is not a waste of time for lack of a prosecutorial path. It is existential. It's the accountability we cannot do without. It's the foundation of the future laws we need to draft and pass to safeguard this country.

Pardons become entirely corrupt when we acquiesce to them blocking investigation. Democracies survive on information and truth, combined. We are where we are now in part because we still have corrupt actors left-over from Watergate active in our politics.

What are we to do about trump? That isn't initially, or perhaps ever, all about pardons, or state versus federal charges, or orange jumpsuits. In this instance, ironically, the potential solution is all about trump. This is where an examination of how trump interacts with the rest of the human world can guide us.

He forms specific categories of relationships which are actually invariable, because he is permanently shallow and unperceptive. Because trump the consumate narcissist is always the center of every relationship, and because he is, without introspection, forever fixed in all his defects, all of his various relationships fall into the same patterns within their categories. Here they are:

1) The Strongmen. Shades of daddy Fred trump, these are aspirational relationships teaching the type of utter control the core pathetic trump would like to wield. But because of daddy, trump is conditioned to the "love me, admire me, and be useful and loyal or I will harm or destroy you" format, but on the weaker side.

This is why we have seen trump pushing the United States of America into eagerly obsequious deference with respect to Russia, North Korea, and Turkey, and also pandering to Saudi Arabia's power which is additionally derived through vast transactional wealth.

But we cannot and do not want to transform America or Biden into this Strongman mold, because then it will have been pointless to remove trump.

2) The Assets. This category comprises trump's immediate family members and all Republicons in office, from Mitch McConnell to Kevin McCarthy, and from Michigan’s Republicon Senate members to, potentially, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. This category also extends to trump's supporters, mostly as a collective.

These are the flipside of the Strongman category, where trump gets to play the opposite role. These people are tools, who work constantly to remain in good standing with trump, rendering obsequious deference and servitude as a matter of advantage but also, essentially, as a matter of status survival.

trump is a horrible antagonist or enemy.

This, by the way, is exactly the relationship this country cannot continue to allow with trump, as a matter of national security.

3) The Targets. We know who they are. They caught trump's wrathful attention. Some of the targets are personal to trump to varying degrees, while some are a matter of expediency, or are demonstrated examples, or are, so far, peripheral.

But everybody knows trump will never stop -- that is the personna he cultivated-- unless a Target person has something of value to make them an Asset again. (This is why trump is called purely transactional, in combination with having no beliefs, no morality, and no honesty.)

Fauci, and Birx, (who for a while pulled off a mommy-style interaction with trump as he tried to impress her with nifty genius like injecting bleach), are in a no-man's land, transitional between Asset and Target, in part because trump doesn't like attention on covid if he can help it.

We don't know exactly what trump will try to inflict on Mary trump for writing her book, but we've already seen a variety of attacks against Bolton, Kelly, and Michael Cohen, along with innumerable others. (It isn't just books. It's that these people did not keep flattering, and obey.)

He ousted from political power Jeff Sessions, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker (White House as "an adult day care center"), and Mark Sanford, of "the Appalachian Trail." He can do the same to any other individual Republicon, because as a group, they are all too backstabbing, dishonorable, greedy, and cowardly to unite against him.

Certainty we have seen trump's behavior with respect to Fox Gnus, the Clintons, and Obama.

This is the relationship this country cannot allow itself to fall into with trump. But how possibly to prevent it?

For that, we look to another category of trump's relationships.

4) The Survivors. Of those not in the Strongman category, there are few people who have survived relationships with Donald trump and who can get trump to do favors for them -- to do what they want.

It is dangerous idiocy to call them trump's "friends," by way of explaining their leverage and longevity. The key is leverage.

Rudy Giuliani :

- A "very, very good relationship" with trump.

- "I've seen things written like he's going to throw me under the bus. When they say that, I say he isn't, but I have insurance."

- "I do have very, very good insurance."

Giuliani's insurance is knowledge; some knowledge about trump gives him leverage. The leverage has to represent knowledge that trump fears exposure of or consequences for. Giuliani doesn't fear being otherwise loose-lipped, or even crazy, and his relationship with trump is currently letting him pull in $20,000 a day for "legal work."

Roger Stone :

"[trump] knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn't."

This leverage allowed Stone to openly demand clemency from trump regardless of any amount of political capital it could potentially cost.

The succession of wives, too, possess whatever personal knowledge, likely far more powerful than negotiated pre-nups and settlements, which ensure the notorious litigious deadbeat abides willingly by contractual terms.

As a nation, we need to survive trump. We have observed what works. But as a nation, we must address the issue of trump just a bit differently. Unlike Giuliani, Stone, or even Putin’s special holds over trump, we must:

1) Investigate trump extensively. Entirely. Turn him inside-out. And then,

2) Make the findings public. This is where a nation, a government of, by, and for the people in a country ruled by law and not kingdoms or cults, differs from defensive black-mailers or manipulative foreign spies.

This part, making public everything that doesn't actually threaten our national security to reveal, is necessary to harden both our resolve and our democracy, and to peel off whatever of trump's support that we can, and to deter the next trumpian assaults, whether by trump or the people who will try to follow the path trump has scorched into the fabric of our nation.

Public reveals are also a safety measure. There is vast potential for corruption otherwise. But then,

3) Keep every single trump-related criminal prosecution -- legitimate, of course, because we are not trump -- on the table. That is the leverage.

That's how to survive trump. There must be no more talk of how investigating a former *resident will turn us into a "banana republic." In a so-called banana republic, powerful government officials pressure others, either to carry out vendettas, or favors of protection by "looking the other way". Government is bent toward personal exploitations. Been there. Done that these past four years under trump and Republicons.

They have actually installed what can be termed "a deep state," notably for the first time, and sane Americans must know its extant. Fcuk their cries of victimization and oppression of the Right. The only difference is, when we investigate, there are actual violations, crimes, and scandals, with evidentiary proofs; when conservatives investigate, it's fundamentally bullsh*t-and-paranoia based.

A "banana republic" is exactly what we are attempting to rescue our nation from. With all the recognition that the Right has systematically unmoored from truth, and the terrible dangers that threaten as a result, from a stupid civil war born of propaganda, to climate devastation, as much truth as we can discover is what we need.

Knowledge is power. With trump out of the White House, we can get it. We must have it.

[drivingsideways]

Hey talk to me about your top three favourite kdrama women. What makes them special? What's a fic you would like to write about any one of them?

Mystery anon! :D What a lovely ask. 

I’m going to cheat a bit and divide my answer into characters I loved a lot, but do not want to write fic about, because I think the canon gives me what I need; and characters that I loved a lot but NEED TO BE RESCUED ZOMG.  (My fic writing impulses are 50% spite and 50% fix-it )

Caveat being that I’ve still watched only maybe a dozen kdramas, so I’m pretty limited in my knowledge!

Characters that I love a lot, but have very zero fic impulses toward:

Han Yeo-jin from Stranger/Secret Forest: What a delight! What an iconique character! Is there anyone like her? NO. LSY-nim gives us a delightfully complex character, and Bae Doona knocks it out of the park in every single scene, so I’m just happy to be along for the ride. I think what makes Yeo-jin special for me is the intrinsic place of empathy that she operates from.  I think “righteous” is a word that often comes with negative connotations (self-righteous, for eg), but I do think she’s one of the most righteous-in-the-good-way characters I’ve watched in kdrama or any drama. I’m tired of stories that portray goodness as “boring” , as unworthy of narrative breadth or depth, and I love that Han Yeo-jin comes to us like a breath of fresh air in our particular dystopian narratives hellscape. She’s good, but never naive. She’s righteous but never cruel in her moral certainties.  I think that LSY nim, in the second season especially, gave Yeo-jin the kind of arc that character deserved when she’s forced to really dig deep into herself to figure out how she’s going to live in the world in the face of a deeply cutting, deeply personal disillusionment, and I’m really hoping for an S3 to see how that plays out further. 

Goo Hae-ryung from Rookie Historian: Ok, I will admit this may be rose tinted glasses view due to this show being my gateway drug into kdrama, but c’mon! She’s a reader! and a Thinker! And loves her wine! She’s plucky! She’s cute! She’s got a wry sense of humour! She’s got principles! She’s got a solid common sense to her that somehow doesn’t get in the way of her dreaming BIG! Oh dear, doesn’t she sound like the Mary-est of Mary Sues? Good for her.gif,  I say! Anyways, Shin Se-kyung is unutterably charming in this (AS IN EVERY SHOW OMG GIRL) and I just have a huge fondness for free-spirited heroines who get to tramp through the narrative changing the world as they do! 

Lee Ji-an from My Ahjussi: I’ve never had my heart broken more OR restored by any single character. IU is *phenomenal * in this, I think she really stepped up to what the script demanded from her. Ji-an’s weariness, her fear and vulnerability, her prickliness, her anger and her bitterness, and how, despite everything, she fights : GOD. Just. Again, what I love about the writing in this show is that it’s deeply empathetic without being cloyingly sentimental. I think a less, hmm, imaginative writer/PD might have focused on the Lee Ji-an the victim, and while the show definitely tells you in no uncertain terms that she is one,  of both circumstances and a cruel society, I think it refuses to take away her agency over her own life.(Lee Ji-an when we meet her is too busy hanging onto life by tooth and claw to indulge in self-pity, but we also see the toll it takes on her not to be able to say “this is too heavy a burden for me to carry myself and it isn’t my fault”; the show I think approaches Dong-hoon from the opposite side- his emotional isolation is partly a result of his own choices, but he doesn’t see it yet, and so his journey is also about letting people in and sharing the burden, but also recovering his own agency over his life. It’s an interestingly gender-bent arc, which is one of the things I love about this show. )

Ok, can I please add one more?

Hwang Han-joo from Melo is my Nature: She just felt SO real to me. She’s someone who doesn’t have the spectacular brilliance of either Jin-joo or Eun-jung, and struggles with accepting her limitations but not allowing herself to be defeated by them? I love her struggles as a mother, as a working woman in a sexist industry, a woman who’s perhaps having to rethink and reimagine what she wants from romance. I love that she’s a little silly, a lot kind, and an optimist, and just. I just think she’s the bravest of the three, tbh, and I LOVE HER AND I WOULD WATCH A SPIN OFF ABOUT JUST HER (i shouldn’t have faves among the three i know, BUT I DO, IT’S HER, IT’S HER.)

Ok! On to the next section! And I’m going to cheat again because I can’t stop at three. SORRY. NOT SORRY. 

Characters I love and SHOULD write fic for if I weren’t such a tired and lazy bunny:  

Song Sa-hui from Rookie Historian: Oh, girl, girl, GIRL. I love how she fights to snatch her freedom from the jaws of the patriarchy. I love that she unapologetically centers herself while doing that, because she knows that nobody else will.  I love that she’s prickly and calculating. I love that she’s smart and knowledgeable. I am SO HAPPY that she got to carve out a little bit of freedom for herself, even if it also is exile to some degree. She *should * be Emperor Jin’s Prime Minister and steering the ship of state, while also carrying on a tumultous affair with Queen Min Woo-hee, while ALSO commiserating with Emperor Jin about his boyfriend Historian Min Woo-won’s regrettable tendency towards Principles (TM) and masochism-but-not-in-the-fun-way. (This takes up much of his time which is why Song Sa-hui is running the country, of course. It works out well for all concerned, well, except her dad, of course.)

Song Ga-gyeong from Search:WWW: What’s NOT to love about our brilliant, beautiful, emotionally tortured gay icon? Nothing, absolutely nothing. I loved how the show allowed her to be flawed and make bad decisions, and then allowed her to make better decisions and regain control of her life. What I do need to do, of course, is see the CANON LOVE STORY between her and Cha Hyeon through to the end. It must, of course, include at least one baseball game, a lot of tequila and messy beach kisses. 

Oh Ji-hwa from Beyond Evil: Oh boy, this year’s runaway hit cleared the extremely low bar for standard crime/ thriller shows by leaving more than one of its female characters breathing and with all limbs intact, and got called feminist for it BUT it didn’t do justice to any of them in any meaningful way and that never hurt more than in the way they sidelined Kim Shin-rok’s talent by not giving Oh Ji-hwa anything much to do. She’s a tough as nails cop, a loving sister, a devoted but unsentimental friend-and by rights SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE HEROINE OF THIS SHOW. My secret fic fantasy is to rewrite the show entirely by making her , and the two other female characters in non-antagonist roles- Yoo Jae-yi and Im Sun-nyeo- as the central characters, as they investigate a serial killer who targets women.  It’s the only acceptable version of this done-to-death (ha!) genre, I have no idea what the Baeksang jury and tumblr fandom is smoking when they hype the show so much, I want none of it. 

Jung Sun-ah from The Devil Judge: I love her rage, her spite, her passionate defense of women, her style, her sexiness, her rage, her rage, her brilliance, her tenaciousness, her smartness, her clothes, her refusal to hate herself for everything she is and chooses to be, her ambition, her comfort wielding power, her EVERYTHING. Dead, her? NOT IF I HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT. Here’s what *really * happened at the end of canon- she gets out of the building by planting that lady-like but still deadly gun against Kang Yo-han’s temple and making him lead her through his own “secret escape route” or whatever the fuck it was the show wanted us to believe. From there on out, it’s all sunshine and beaches, and scheming and waiting for the right moment to strike again-though of course, this time around, she also has to reckon with vigilant, tenacious cop Soo-hyun -another character who REALLY didn’t die for manpain reasons and had the good sense to leave her gay best friend to follow his psychopath boyfriend to Switzerland or wherever it is that star crossed lovers in kdrama land meet up on the regs these days- anyways, Soo-hyun and her are in this catch-me-if-you-can epic transnational honest and cute cop-and-beautiful sexy villain chase and yes, they WILL kiss (and more) AND IT WILL BE GLORIOUS. 

*whew *

Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk.

[seyaryminamoto]

How much was azula and zuko blinded of the propaganda?I have seen someone say that" azula knew the propaganda was a lie and there evidence was the fire nation were willingly to burn ba sing sa to the ground so azula should have known better"

O_o um, no offense intended to that person but... where’s the evidence that Azula ever had any doubts about the Fire Nation’s supremacist views?

I can outright point at a key dialogue where Zuko blatantly proves he’s not blinded by his father’s propaganda: Book 1, episode 3. Zuko directly tells Zhao: “If my father thinks the rest of the world will follow him willingly, then he is a fool!”, quoted right out of the wikia. So... heh. Zuko seems to be critical of his father, of his conquest, of his colonialist pursuits...

... And yet he proceeds to continue chasing the Avatar, fighting against him, outright committing treason against his own nation by releasing Aang but ONLY so he could be the one to turn him in personally, still saying things like “My honor, my throne, my country, I'm about to lose them all.” (Book 1, episode 13), telling Iroh “I want it back. I want the Avatar, I want my honor, my throne. I want my father not to think I'm worthless.” (Book 2, episode 1), introducing himself in this manner: “My name is Zuko. Son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai. Prince of the Fire Nation, and heir to the throne.” (Book 2, episode 7), and the list goes on :’) basically, insert everything nefarious or gray Zuko does through the three seasons, and factor in that Zuko has proven he doesn’t believe his father’s propaganda since early Book 1... you get the picture.

So... what that line in “The Southern Air Temple” ends up telling us is that all his actions are self-serving! :’D Which takes away from Zuko’s big speech to Ozai, namely when he says that the argument about the war spreading the Fire Nation’s greatness was an “amazing lie”. No, it wasn’t an amazing lie, and no, he didn’t believe it, at least he didn’t ever since the show began, as far as we saw. Therefore... I give no free passes to Zuko over any arguments that he was doing Ozai’s bidding or acting in his behalf. No one who says “my father is a fool” with such conviction in the show’s very THIRD EPISODE can pretend he was completely unaware of how wrong the Fire Nation’s direction was until he finally had his change of heart and awakening to the goodness of the world. He knew it was wrong. He did everything he did because it didn’t matter to him that it was, his throne and honor mattered more. 

And considering I could quote at least three different instances where he talks about the throne as his own, or meant to be his own, I think it’s damn clear it was constantly on his mind. The only occasion when he says anything about wanting to do right by the Fire Nation itself is with Mai in the Boiling Rock... and by then he’s “redeemed”. Ergo, he’s supposed to know better at last. Before redemption? Zero signs that Zuko believes the Fire Nation needs new guidance and that he realizes the problem is Ozai’s propaganda and ideological indoctrination. That line in episode 3 suggests he KNOWS his father can and should be questioned, but later on he doesn’t betray any interest in doing so until he outright confronts him in The Eclipse. And that’s the thing: Zuko knows Ozai is bullshitting everyone, but it’s not his problem. That’s not why he’s doing what he’s doing. He’s not here to further spread Ozai’s gospel, he’s here to get the Avatar and earn his ticket back home, and he’ll do ANYTHING to achieve that.

Meanwhile, Azula... anyone can say she’s not blind to the horrors the Fire Nation has committed, that she’s an active participant of the war, that she’s her father’s enabler too... sure. But I don’t think ANYONE can say with any degree of certainty that Azula had broken out of the Fire Nation indoctrination on any level by the time we meet her in the show. Azula, as far as I’ve always seen her, is a product of her upbringing: she is sheltered, troubled, capable of dismissing any moral dilemmas in the face of any mission, absolutely unwilling to fail at anything she ever does. But really... where’s the evidence that she KNOWS the Fire Nation isn’t inherently superior to the others? Where’s the evidence that she knows Sozin’s doctrines are just excuses? I’m not saying she’s not smart enough to figure it out, I certainly write her that way myself... but I don’t think there’s anything you can point to in the show, the way there IS, objectively, with Zuko, to say “Yeah she’s 100% aware that the Fire Nation supremacist ideals are BS and she just follows fit with them because she wants a throne for herself.”

In contrast: how many times does Azula say the word “throne” in the show?:

“The fact is, they don't know which one of us is going to be sitting on that throne, and which one is going to be bowing down.” (Book 2, Episode 20) -- not the Fire Nation throne, but Ba Sing Se’s. Ergo, a throne she took via strategic prowess... that she then abandoned and left in Joo Dee’s hands SOMEHOW (why... Azula, just... why?? xD) before returning to the Fire Nation instead of merely relishing in having obtained MORE POWER!

... That’s literally it.

Where Zuko constantly talks about “his throne”, Azula only displays genuine, overt, blatant interest in becoming Fire Lord when Ozai directly offers her the position. She doesn’t shy away from it at all, of course, but when she’s seen talking about her alleged future as Fire Lord, her wording is... curiously different from Zuko’s:

“My father asked you to come here and talk to me, didn't he‌? He thinks I can't handle the responsibility of being Fire Lord. But I will be the greatest leader in Fire Nation history.” (Book 3, Episode 20)

This isn’t even fully healthy Azula, so using her behavior here as representative for her genuine views is a tricky thing to do. And yet... she says she will be the greatest LEADER? She’s not looking at the throne as something she is owed, she’s looking at it as a challenge she needs to prove herself worthy of. She’s not looking at a crown or a throne exclusively: she’s looking at LEADERSHIP. She’s ambitious enough to think BEYOND obtaining the power, and instead she’s already thinking of how she’ll use it.

This is a fundamental difference between both Zuko and Azula. Azula’s motivation wasn’t the throne, or a crown, or anything like that until the finale. If she’d wanted more political power, like I always say, she would’ve stayed in the Earth Kingdom and ruled over Ba Sing Se herself, getting high on the thrill of finally controlling a nation of her own. She’s the main artificer of the take-over, the Dai Li literally answer to her, and yet she didn’t stick around: she left the city for other people to deal with rather than going wild over her newly acquired power. Doesn’t this speak lengths about Azula’s priorities? And once she’s finally being offered the throne she does value, her troubled mind is set on LEADERSHIP. And while of course someone can argue she’s just vain and wants to be remembered forever, kind of like Zhao did, the question of what kind of leadership Azula has in mind is still worth asking: if she didn’t want the Earth Kingdom throne, it suggests she actually cherishes the Fire Nation above all else, and another nation’s throne doesn’t suffice or particularly prove fulfilling for her beyond the initial conquest. Prioritizing the Fire Nation, WITHOUT being Fire Lord yet, above Ba Sing Se’s throne... strongly suggests a belief that the Fire Nation matters more than anything else. And that’s basically what the Ozai propaganda impresses upon his people.

For further evidence... I present to you the Fire Nation Oath:

“My life I give to my country, with my hands I fight for Fire Lord Ozai and our forefathers before him. With my mind I seek ways to better my country, and with my feet may our March of Civilization continue.” (Book 3, Episode 2)

Just one reading of this oath explains Azula’s actions and motivations immediately. Recapping her actions throughout the show: 

She finds Iroh and Zuko under Ozai’s orders, attempts to take them home peacefully, then they rebel, she fights them and regards them as traitors, loses, still intends to continue chasing them after her defeat.

Gathers new allies for her quest, comes across the Avatar, decides to take him down, fails, decides she has two targets now.

Chases the Avatar, fights both him and Zuko, narrowly escapes before being defeated, all be it to fight another day.

Helps in the Drill’s operations in Ba Sing Se, nearly stops Team Avatar’s scheme, fails again once Aang finishes their plan perfectly.

Follows Appa, fights and defeats the Kyoshi Warriors, takes their uniforms, impersonates them and breaks into Ba Sing Se while no one’s the wiser.

Acquires crucial information about the enemies’ plans to attack her nation on the day of the Eclipse.

Acquires the support of the Dai Li, captures Katara, Zuko and Iroh, overthrows Kuei.

Offers Zuko one more chance to fight by her side, attempts to fight Aang and Katara by herself, then is shown willing to fight Zuko as well as those two until she joins forces safely with Zuko and they defeat Aang and Katara.

Takes Zuko home as a hero, he hides crucial information about the Avatar, Azula attempts to set up a trap so Zuko takes the fall if the Avatar isn’t dead.

Offers Zuko advice about not visiting Iroh so he stays out of trouble, which he disregards to no consequences.

Goes on a chaotic vacation with her friends.

Gives Zuko a history lesson with more than a few harsh burns.

Tells Zuko he should go to a war meeting, which he attends later to no consequences, and she was right to say he was expected to be in it.

Intervenes in the war meeting and cuts off Zuko before he says the wrong thing, Ozai extrapolates Azula’s suggestion into his perfect, megalomaniac villain plan, and she’s shown perfectly satisfied with supplying her father an idea he values.

Organizes and leads the resistance against the invasion, stalls the Avatar’s group, keeps her father safe.

Visits the Boiling Rock, presumably upon finding out her brother infiltrated the prison, and in all likelihood suspecting he didn’t do it alone, considering that she immediately barges into the interrogations about the escape attempts rather than appearing at Zuko’s holding cell.

Fights Sokka and Zuko, nearly dies when the Warden decides to cut the line but saves herself by flying off, loses her shit when Mai betrays her, gets chi-blocked, sends her friends to prison.

Attacks Team Avatar in the Western Air Temple, takes a near-fatal plummet but still manages to survive and return home while the enemies escape.

Intends to go with Ozai to set fire to the Earth Kingdom, loses her temper, Ozai loses his, he offers her the role of Fire Lord and becomes Phoenix King.

Loses herself to paranoia gradually, hallucinates her mother, pushes everyone away, agrees to fight an Agni Kai with Zuko instead of merely commanding to be crowned disregarding Zuko’s intrusion.

Loses the fight against Katara, is sent to an asylum.

I think there’s quite a lot in here that suggests Azula’s actions are meant to uphold the values and beliefs of the Fire Nation Oath. She gave herself completely to her missions, to the point of even facing deadly peril more than once. She fought many battles, lost a LOT of them, and yet she never backed down. She is by far the most strategic character in the Fire Nation side of the story, switching her tactics constantly while the show progresses... and what is she after? Victories. For whom? Herself? Why... again, if it were just for herself, why abandon Ba Sing Se, the crown jewel of the Earth Kingdom’s Ultimate Conqueror? Why allow Zuko to share in that big achievement, too, instead of merely locking him up someplace and taking all the credit for herself?

There’s seriously zero reason to believe Azula DOESN’T live by the Fire Nation Oath. I, personally, don’t see how any of her actions indicate she’s questioned her nation’s indoctrinated creed in any way. Do I think she’s smart enough to know that the war wasn’t about spreading “greatness”? Sure. Does this automatically mean she was doing everything she ever did for herself, and not for the Fire Nation AND her father? Absolutely not. And that’s where Zuko and Azula are crucially, fundamentally different: Zuko’s concerns are PERSONAL. Zuko’s battles are PERSONAL. Zuko wants HIS honor, HIS throne: Azula never says any similar words in the entire show. Azula’s biggest display of ambition is claiming she wants to be the Fire Nation’s greatest leader. Ambitious, yes, BUT... an ambition that is perfectly in line with the oath, again, especiall with this line: “may our march of civilization continue”. Whereas Zuko’s words and actions throughout the show honestly don’t strike any legitimate chords with the Oath, as far as I can tell?

And I’m relying on the Oath because it’s literally the only solid evidence we have of actual creed and speeches the Fire Nation people are taught. While we can make plenty of guesses as to what else their education includes, by judging Fire Nation people’s actions and behavior, the only solid things we have are the misinformation the teacher attempts to give the children in Aang’s classroom and the Oath she makes the children recite. I think it’s safe to guess most Fire Nation people would know that Oath by heart, and probably attempt to live by it, too.

But like I said, where Azula’s actions can easily be interpreted as morally awful ways of displaying the “values” present in the Fire Nation Oath, I don’t see how Zuko’s actions EVER had anything to do with those values. They plain didn’t. And that isn’t a bad thing, objectively speaking: it means Zuko wasn’t insanely attached to the Fire Nation to the point of valuing it above his own life, after all. And yet, it puts a spin on Zuko’s actions and behavior that definitely doesn’t do his character any favors: no, his actions aren’t motivated by the Fire Nation Oath or any similar creed, they’re motivated, above all else, by the hopes that his father will return his birthright and honor to him. And his redemption is, of course, coded as him realizing that Ozai doesn’t get to decide whether he has honor or not! Which... again... is a blatant way of saying that Zuko’s true motivation wasn’t “doing Ozai’s bidding and advancing the Fire Nation’s war”, it was his honor, his throne, and everything to do with what he’d lost after his banishment. The whole show is full of obvious signs that Zuko’s not motivated by any beliefs greater than this -- such as the fact that he returns home as a hero and it feels WRONG to him. It’s not only because his father now respects him under the false pretenses that he killed the Avatar, but also because he plain feels out of place and isn’t happy at all! Why? Because he “got everything back”, and it feels off. Why is it off? Because he wants honor and he doesn’t feel like he regained it at all in the first half of Book 3. Then he turns his back on his father and chooses a whole different path and he’s finally at peace with himself, so much he can’t even bend anymore :’D but the point is, simply, that there’s no evidence anywhere within the show that Zuko honest to gods was acting out of anything but his own, personal needs rather than a constant pursuit for the Fire Nation’s advancement.

And like I said before, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It probably makes his redemption “easier”, to a fault, since there’s less to address. Do I like it? No. Do I think Zuko is fundamentally a better human being than Azula because he questioned Ozai and she didn’t? Considering how many awful things he still did while proving he could question his father, not a chance. Do I think Azula is fundamentally a better human being than Zuko since her actions do seem to follow fit with what Fire Nation indoctrination looks like? Considering what that indoctrination entails, and the deeds she proves capable of to uphold it, the answer would once again be “not a chance”.

In short: neither buying the Fire Nation indoctrination or questioning it makes either Azula or Zuko objectively better people. Both are capable of amoral deeds and actions that should never be supported, encouraged or excused :’D and while I absolutely will impress that they have different motivations, which codify their actions, I don’t think Azula’s deeds would be objectively any worse if someone SOMEHOW finds solid evidence that she truly didn’t believe in any of these doctrines, just as I don’t think Zuko’s would be any better if it’s proven (though... I’d be pretty sure it can’t be) that he’s just as brainwashed as everyone else in the Fire Nation.

On a final note, directly answering your final concern there: both Zuko and Azula are shown reacting to the notion of Ba Sing Se being burned to the ground. Heck, Ursa is shown reacting to it too. If we need a refresher...

If this is somehow proof that Azula “understands” the FIre Nation is evil (How? She’s laughing like it’s a perfectly happy revelation? So is her mother? So is her brother? How does someone watch this scene and interpret this as “this messed up family KNOWS they’re the BAD GUYS!”, rather than “this messed up family thinks burning a city down is GOOD?!”), then it’s also proof Zuko and Ursa do. And they still laugh just as she does.

If the person in question was talking about Azula’s intervention in the war meeting? Zuko’s reaction shows he thinks burning down a continent is evil. Zuko’s betrayal of the Fire Nation shows he didn’t want anything to do with that (his reluctance to share this information with Team Avatar, however, is highly illogical?). Azula’s behavior doesn’t suggest at all that she thinks burning an enemy nation is anything but a sign of superiority, something both Ursa and Zuko are totally fine with in the scene above, and her suggestion, yet again, is something that is perfectly in line with the Fire Nation’s morally reprehensible values. As such, it’s not something that proves Azula somehow was acting of her own accord and is immune to Fire Nation indoctrination and propaganda, by any means.

So.

I’d think that answers that. :’)

[whetstonefires]

atla post concept that's been haunting me:

the moment mai turns on azula is so awesome in terms of Mai's character and the themes of the show and the way it leads into the next moment with Ty Lee, and just, it's such a great bit.

and i saw an analysis of how it lands for Azula that wasn't wrong, but which i felt fell short. because it's not just hitting her on an ideological level, in the challenge to her entire system of relating to people and the world, and with it the national policy and parenting style with which it's so intertwined.

it's not just having the power of love placed over the power of fear in a context where that's more than pretty words. and it's not just losing Mai, or even having Mai choose Zuko over her, though I'm sure those things did hurt.

that choice of words in that moment is absolutely perfect and very possibly calculated to cut her to the heart.

"I love Zuko more than I fear you."

because what's Azula's nightmare? what's the crack in her heart? my own mother thought i was a monster.

zuko lives with the strangling of the fear/certainty that he's unworthy--of his birthright, of his bending, of his life. Of his father's esteem.

azula carries the same degree of feeling that she's unworthy of being loved. impossible to love. a cruel, perfect, broken thing only good for fear and admiration.

what ozai gives her isn't love. they both know that. he'd probably sneer at the very idea. iroh never knew her enough to love her, not in a way she could value.

and ursa...probably did love her, but was repelled by her, too. found her frightening. preferred zuko, who was sweet and determined and not perfect or broken, not yet. who was easy to love.

she let Ozai have Azula.

and so when Mai explains her choice that way, lays bare all the abuse and coercion that's always been built into their relationship and reduces one of the most positive connections in Azula's life to nothing more than I obeyed you out of fear--which, to be clear, was absolutely what it was, it just wasn't necessarily all it was, but Mai has no reason to soften anything for Azula's sake now, at last, finally--

even before Ty Lee follows suit and emphasizes that this isn't even about the weird vagaries of romantic attachment, it's about how she, Azula, isn't worth following for her own sake and never has been, that binarization of Mai's relationships to the two children of the Fire Lord into love and fear is absolutely targeted at her most fundamental insecurity.

and I honestly believe Mai knew her well enough to have done it very much on purpose.

while the final touch-point was Ozai's betrayal with the whole Phoenix Emperor bullhockey, Mai's wielding the truth like a knife in that moment was a major catalyst for the impressive mental breakdown we see on the day of the Return of Sozin's Comet. it's why Ursa was in the mirror, insisting she loved her. it's why that made Azula scream.

azula knows there's something wrong with her. she's always known it. she's just never been able to do anything constructive about it.

which, i mean, you can put a little bit of that on her, both for voluntarily being a huge asshole because it feels good and for not being willing to actually give up anything whatsoever for the sake of being less toxic or even just more likeable, even though that's a necessary part of any change.

but also she's 14 goddamn years old and has never had any meaningful support in being anything except her most horrible self, because the only authority figure who's meant anything since she was six is a toxic trash heap with a deep vested interest in controlling her.

zuko had to take a really fucking long-ass life-changing field trip with himself to break out of his toxic patterns, and those were largely founded on pressure to act against his basic impulses.

the kind of field trip azula would need to go on, and the difficulty of finding anyone remotely qualified to moderate the process.................

[also for some reason there's a new post interface and it does colors]

[lairofsentinel]

Talking about the smidgens we saw of Gale, the wizard of Waterdeep.

[Baldur’s Gate 3 Early Access Spoilers]

Updated, AGAIN, because the hell of new aspects we saw when some bugs were sorted out. Warning:  all this analysis was done for game versions 4.1.83 and 4.1.84

Well, I had to rewrite all this because the explorations of dialogue options and the bugs being, somehow, solved, allowed me to see small details from Gale that stand out or end up being more than curious to me. I'll list his main features to make things short (hopefully), and useful for... eventual fics:

Gale is a char who approves any good treatment to animals (and creatures in general). He has a cat, a Library, and writes poetry sometimes.

He doesn't like gratuitous murdering which is implied in the anecdote he told us about how he stopped a massacre in a Waterdeep city inn just by buying a round to everyone. It is also implied in his approval in most situations; even in the one with the ogres having sex.

He gives you disapproval most of the time if you use violence and intimidation as your first approach in solving a situation. He prefers eloquence, diplomacy, and negotiation. However, he is flexible enough to approve a performance-intimidation in front of goblins to avoid bloodshed. Point (2) is primary. So... he truly is a pragmatic char. It's not white and black: “never use intimidation/lie” or that kind of over-simplistic view.

He likes logical and reasonable conversations. An action that earned his disapproval can be undone if the main char (MC) talks to him and explains their reasons. You can disagree with him without having approval penalties most of the time. You can question many situations and, as long as it remains a mental exercise, there are no penalties. That surprised me a lot. Most characters disapprove you if you wonder about a potential situation, but Gale no. He is the scholar, he will allow a safe space to think around things without being too judgemental. We will see if this attitude lasts in the full game. No wonder some players see in him “the Teacher” archetype. Quite so.

He was an Arch wizard while being Mystra's Chosen One, and fell from grace when she put him aside. What is hard for me to grasp is if he remained Chosen One and therefore able to cast silver-fire during that intermediate period when he stopped having Mystra's whispers and his folly with the netherese taint. We know that in that moment Mystra removed herself from his life completely. But before, she has only stopped whispering and sleeping with him. So far I understand, being her Chosen One doesn't imply sleeping with her, most of the time.

He was a teacher (not surprising, since his over-explanation vices and details such as the pronunciation of “Trashj” make us suspect it), and had some students that he could not keep longer since their ineptitudes irked him. 

Unlike the stereotypical “scholar” type, he knows how to cook, since he has been doing stews for the party in the camp. He also loves baths. A bit siding with the stereotypical “scholar” type, but a nice change for a “standard adventurer” type, in which most of the time it is implied that they are stinky with “animalistic” scents and uglier descriptors. No, Gale likes his lavender-scented baths. Good. 

He is an over-thinker strategist. And also a char who takes responsibility for his own mistakes to the point that, when he dies for the first time, a programmed image is activated to help anyone to revive him. Despite the fact that he is dead and can give a shit about that, he is still responsible of the catastrophe that may happen if that weird magic orb stuck in his chest erupts.

He is also forcing me to check the dictionary like no other game has done in a while... the fucker uses uncommon words a lot of the time. Smidges? really? Gale is a hard char for a non native English speaker.

We can assume that during his teenage time, he was a pretty prideful peacock to the point to be blind at the reality (well, yeah, he romanced a goddess; if that doesn't give you a hell of a ego boost...) He remembers his young self's pride with a thick level of regret. He is now a mature scholar that, for a change, does not patronise you or thinks of himself better than anyone. Sure, he over-explains a lot, but that's something that most scholars/teachers do when they are worried that, maybe, they won't be understood.

He is confident in his years of study (for that reason he is a capable wizard despite having lost Mystra's favours), but he acknowledges his limits. Which is a nice change to see in the “scholar” archetype, the typical know-it-all. He knows a lot, he knows that he knows (it would be ridiculous to hide his knowledge), but he is human, and like he says: “humans are fallible”. However, it’s more than obvious that he has a big ego for everything he does, which makes sense since he follows a motto in his life: “try to excel at everything”. High accomplished scholar lifestyle, indeed.

If you don't share the Weave with him, he will state that nights are lonesome. It seems he truly is looking for some connection with a keen fellow mind. Probably it's this loneliness which triggers his urge to see Mystra's face during the night. We also know he, in general, lives in constant fear due to the Netherese taint in his chest. So, very lonely, and very scared. 

I don't know if this is his poet side unable to be switched-off or it's another implication of how he sees sexual encounters: he never says sex (at least in my many runs, he never did it). He always gets around the word: love-making, art of the body, intimacy. For a scholar who is so prone to use the technical word for everything, and has already stated he is not coy at all, the use of these metaphors make me wonder if it's because he always conceives sex as something more than mere physical pleasure. For him, it seems to come with a more emotional connection (which makes sense if we think he will only sleep with those who connected to him through the Weave). Another small detail that may confirm this is when he asks the MC if the “other night” was wonderful. If MC claims it was “fun”, Gale shows a certain degree of uneasiness by that word choice, making us infer that he certainly doesn’t see sex as “fun” but as something else, deeper. 

His tadpole dreams are about Mystra (rather obvious). His most desperate desire is forgiveness. Mystra's forgiveness.

Mystra was his first love. The affair did not last long. And since soon after her abandonment he looked for the Primal Weave book and was infested by it; one could assume he has been focused on solving his problem for the rest of his life than putting some energy in romance, especially if we think about (13). It's hard to say with certainty (especially with banters like these), but since he is a char that you can only sleep with if you share a mind-connection through the Weave, it seems less plausible that he could encourage into casual relationships during all this period of his life looking for a solution to the Netherese orb. If he got previous relationships, they may have been meaningful, but clearly not enough to win over the goddess’ and his urges to see her, lol.

He did not mind Mystra having many other lovers besides him. It seems to be the same with the MC, since he will insist in sleeping with them even after the party and even after the MC slept with someone else (however, that only occurs if the romantic connection through the Weave happened.) This fact combined with (13) and (15) make me wonder if he certainly wants to be with the MC too badly, even in an open relationship. We need to see the rest of his romance to be sure.

Since he looks for forgiveness so desperately, he is a char who will forgive most mistakes made by the MC if they acknowledge them.

He is a char who knows how grey and complex situations can be. This is inferred by the way he speaks of the tiefling girl who tried to steal the idol in the Grove: “She is not innocent, but that doesn't mean she is guilty.” (of course there is a lot of self projection there). This is also implied in his (surprising) approval of raising Mayrina's husband and giving her the control wand to search for a solution in Neverwinter. That shows that he can accept the fuckest weirdest situations, recognising that “sometimes we can’t choose situations but we can try to do our best, not always having the best results”. Also self-projection.

He appreciates his privacy to the point to leave the MC if the abuse of the tadpole power continues. However, and honouring (4), you can abuse of these powers and convince him with reasons: if you don't lie to him and explain that you have a responsibility with the group to know what happens with his secret, he will understand, and despite disapproving the MC actions, will remain without major troubles.

Certainly, as long as you give him reasons and logical concepts, he can almost understand everything with no disapproval or at least little one.

Consent and negotiation are vital to him, apparently. However, this aspect reaches a flaw. He was too angry with Nettie when she almost killed the MC, and he made a short speech about how nobody has the right to decide your options for you. Yet, in his romance scene, we see that he deliberately hid his true relationship with Mystra and his bomb-condition in order to sleep with the MC. In fact, during the party, if the MC tells him that doubts if he is the one they want, Gale will drop a curious argument: “That’s because you’ve yet to find out what your’re missing” (implying that he himself is what you need), followed by his most curious “Doubt is a spoilsport. Cast it aside”. That coming from a scholar is rotten, lol. He tries every convincing argument to sleep with the MC (if they shared the moment of the Weave, of course)

This happens in every variation of the path: whether the MC sleeps with him in the party, or afterwards, Gale will always wait for sharing a night with the MC before speaking the truth. It's hard to read this aspect since, he is a char who, apparently, needs a mind-connection with his partner for intimacy (see (12) and (13)); so this terrible strategy is like his way of trying to guarantee that the MC will not abandon him. I guess there is something along those line, specially if we keep in mind the book he explained: a book which is not only about the art of the body and the night and sex, but of other things such as conversation, exploration, and acceptance of oneself and the other. He is expecting with this night to reach the MC to a certain degree of intimacy in which, despite the raw truth, the acceptance will prevail. Remembering (16), he truly wants to sleep with the MC, baaaadly. And somehow everything feels like he wants to push things in a subtle way to a certain degree of commitment. Following the concept in (12), I think he has been alone for too long, and desperately needs someone in his lonesome nights and in helping him to deal with his burden. Finding someone who connected to him through the Weave (such a personal experience for him as it is) made him a bit desperate or eager. We know his emotion for the MC may have grown over those days since the connection with the Weave. In two occasions he or the MC can ask if both of them think about that moment. Gale says yes with such enthusiasm, that it may imply...that maybe, he has been thinking about that more times than he truly wants to tell the MC. The Weave moment had such a strong effect on Gale that, if the MC spent the night with another companion and rejects Gale’s proposition later, he will trail off a sentence that implies he was convinced that the MC and he were heading into something serious and deep.

Of course, once he sleeps with the MC, he confesses the truth right afterwards, accepting--without approval penalties--the harshest responses that the MC can give. He clearly knows that such manoeuvre was truly disloyal, especially contrasting it with all his speech of consent and rights to know about the true situation one is in. In the next morning, he acknowledges it was a rotten thing to do and apologies. But this shows that his principles can be bend and even be broken when it comes to emotions. I'm still a bit wary of his emotional stability, what can I say.

Mystra is more than an ex-lover for him, it’s magic. And Magic is everything for him, even more than life. I wonder if, given the opportunity, Mystra forgives him and asks him to return to her side, would he accept it without second thoughts leaving the romanced MC? It's true he also acknowledges that all that fascination he had with the goddess was a product of his youth; he knows he was a plaything in her hands. But I don't see he got over with it. He still idealises her, as such a good poet does. Idealisation, especially when a Goddess is involved, is a terrible thing to fight against for the next partner. No matter what speech of loyalties and consent he states during the whole game, the MC knows that magic and Mystra are Gale's Achilles’ heel, and factors in which they  can’t predict his behaviour.

We also know that, because his bomb-condition, he tries to take all the opportunities to enjoy the little things of life that make him human.

Gale is a straightforward and honest (mostly, let's say) char. But we can see that he prefers to be honest in most situations, except in his Achille’s heel. Even when he wanted to hide all the stuff about the bomb in his chest, he did it by explicitly warning us that he was hiding something he did not want to talk about. Which is an honest approach considering the hardcore burden he carries and the immediate rejection it can mean if the truth unfolds too quickly among strangers.

When it comes to concepts, Gale has the symbol of the storm attached to him. So far, we see he talks comparing things with storms or storm elements: his lack of knowledge to explain why they are not Mind Flayers yet: the silence before the storm; the fear that rushes into his body when the Weave orb asks him for magic to consume: the thunder of a storm reverberating in his soul, the day it will erupt: the lightning striking, the consumption of magic: water running through a sore throat, Life itself: a tempest. When he asked the player if they were a wizard, he explains that he needs an Arch wizard and compares them with a Tempest. If we see the main image of Baldur's gate 3, it's clear that his main element is electricity/storm... so... full witch-bolt-guy here.

[updated later] The Weave moment is important to romance Gale. Leaving the moment in ambiguity will give the MC another opportunity to make their intentions clear during the scene of the Loss. However, remaining vague will lock Gale into a friendship path. What happens during this scene may suggest that the ambiguity in the Weave was enough to keep Gale thinking about the romantic possibility, but he will not engage into it by his own, which confirms (15). Unless the opportunity presents itself clearly before him, he will not pursue the MC. Further details [here].

Last moment detail: Gale says “I cherish you” when he explains he will await death alone if the Netherese orb goes out of control. I was not sure if that meant something more or less than love or like (I can’t not overlook the subtle meaning of the words coming from Gale’s mouth, he is a poet and his word choices matter). Checking the dictionary I found that “cherish” (in a relationship) is defined as to hold or to treat as dear, to feel love for and to care for someone deeply and tenderly. This man went straight into a commitment relationship without thinking it twice, and without (I believe) the MC knowing it either xD. 

Let's see how these characteristics shift or develop deeper once the full game is out there. Now we have to wait a lot :(

To see videos where all this stuff is inferred or explicitly said, you can check [here]

More videos added later [here] and [here]

More content of bg3 in general [here]

[kogo-dogo]

i like your skyrim stuff and i wanna know more about the funky little dudes you posted in those “sentences” lol. instead of asking for more snips

You have made a mistake. Prepare for an essay.

But, joking aside, they’re Morrowind characters. I do like Skyrim, but Morrowind is my favorite game of all time and the entire reason I got into the TES fandom years ago. I don’t talk about it much on here because everyone is here for Half-Life and HRV, but... you know what? I’mma take this opportunity. To yell.

About The Guys(tm).

So, basically, in my Personal Canon, I don’t just have a Nerevarine (i.e. Protagonist) character. I have an entire crew of people who help him get through things because it just seems... more realistic for my Extremely Flawed and Terrible Nerevarine. Also, I just had a lot of characters conjured up as a teenager and it was fun to evolve it over time so they’re all friends.

They are, as follows:

- Jo’Karsa (a.k.a. “Karsaga”). Battlemage born under the Atronach. Afflicted with Wombburn. Also the Nerevarine. He’s an abnormally large Cathay-raht who has had an unusual upbringing. He was originally an orphan plucked off the streets in Corinthe and trafficked to Morrowind where he was sold as a slave. As fate would have it, a houseman under his owner took a shine to him and stole him away when they fled to Cyrodiil to avoid political assassination. Karsaga has been raised Telvanni in Imperial territory so, despite being a mighty brute of a Khajiit, he has an extreme affinity for magic and an equally extreme disconnect from his Khajiiti roots.

He speaks like a Dunmer, carries himself like a Dunmer, and has very Telvanni sensibilities. He also has an extensive criminal record from his time spent as a bandit outside of Cheydinhal, and that is eventually how he ends up on the prison boat that sends him to Morrowind. He has a bunch of aliases and an unhealthy penchant for drink and smoke. Not a fan of skooma, though. As gruff and sarcastic as he is, he has a very silver tongue and a way of winning people over and talking himself out of trouble.

Also, “youth born under a certain sign?” Nah, this bitch is 34. And smells like a wet dog.

- Dasrazel. Altmer Nightblade and Quarra vampire. He contracted his vampiric curse while trying to save his lover from the clutches of an undead menace during the Second Era, after a life working various quasilegal oddjobs that brought shame on his noble family. In life, he was a likeable but lowkey individual, and in undeath he’s still very lowkey... but perhaps not as likeable. He has to take a low dose of a calming potion to keep the inherent, violent bloodlust of his Quarra curse at bay, and it does a lot to deaden his emotions. Combine that with hundreds of years to learn how to not give a fuck, and you have a very blunt, stoic, matter-of-fact creature who only very occasionally makes quips and usually just wants to be left alone.

He is Karsaga’s closest ally, right hand man, and platonic soulmate. They met after Karsaga robbed him blind at a bar (thinking him to just be some weird, frail elf), and Dasrazel took pity on him after Karsaga ran him through with an iron saber and panicked when it... did nothing. Their bond is one of a mutual distaste for most people and Dasrazel’s desire to have companionship again.

They’re very much bros, even if Dasrazel spends most of his time not understanding why Karsaga is the way he is.

-  Neira Brenur. Dunmer Witchhunter and low-ranking member of House Redoran. She’s the daughter of a Camonna Tong member and an Ashlander woman, though her mother is dead and she spends a lot of time trying to distance herself from her racist father. She joined Redoran in hopes of atoning for the crime of just being born into a bad family, but has a really difficult time fitting in. She’s very meek and empathetic and does better in controlled duels than actual combat. The idea of actually hurting an opponent makes her sick to her stomach.

She kind of just happened to Karsaga one day, courtesy of him running afoul of her not-so-popular friend, Vandrith (we’ll get to that trainwreck later). She mainly acts as a translator for Vandrith and tries to play mediator when Karsaga starts getting too aggressive with others. She’s in good with some odd folks in Redoran and a very aggressive supporter of the Tribunal Temple, which makes it hard for her to wrap her mind around Karsaga’s existence as the Nerevarine.

Also, the fact she’s an absolute pushover means she just accepts the less-than-savory people Karsaga pals around with. She’s got a big heart and feels actual pity for his blasphemous, undead, and criminal friends. They’re good people on the inside (probably).

- Vandrith Valen. Dunmer Ordinator and conglomeration of a lot of factors coming together in the worst way possible. He is naturally “blessed by Azura” and has some degree of prophetic power, though he’s choked it down after a life of being raised Indoril. He also came to the unfortunate realization after being stationed on Vvardenfell, that he is also a descendant of House Dagoth and is haunted by the Poison Song, a “song” sent out by Dagoth Ur that warps the minds of those who are of his blood and turns them into Sleepers and Dreamers.

These two traits do not mesh well and make Vandrith more than a little unstable.

Vandrith is... prone to erratic behavior and violent outbursts and is largely under the care of his paternal uncle, Tuls Valen, the head priest of the Ald’ruhn Temple. Vandrith is also a clever and tricky bastard who has been trying to figure out how to discern Dagoth Ur’s plans from the Poison Song in order to prevent bad things from happening. Usually, he can keep things under control, but extremely bad visions, close proximity to items/places corrupted by House Dagoth, and stress can cause him to be difficult.

Beyond this, though, he’s not what you’d expect from an Ordinator. He’s very witty with a somewhat bawdy sense of humor, a very devil-may-care attitude, and he’s a huge fan of causing mischief. He forced his way into Karsaga’s social circle due to his absolute certainty that Karsaga could bring down Dagoth Ur, and Neira is his closest (and for a long time only) friend, who has figured out what all of his weird ramblings mean.

- Bashinga. Sorceress and Aundae vampire. She is an old acquaintance of Dasrazel’s who has ties to Telvanni, the Mage’s Guild, and several circles of warlocks and witches. She’s very much a self-serving sort, more interested in the acquisition of power than the wellbeing of Morrowind, but she is fiercely protective of the people she deems worthy (and she has a soft spot for Neira she can’t really explain).

Once upon a time, she was a dancer and performer with a traveling circus, and her fall into undeath and wizardry was a happy accident after being taken as cattle by rogue Aundae. She’s got a good set of vocal cords and can move with grace and ease, but she speaks very bitterly a lot of the time and is difficult to get along with.

She’s one of those people who Karsaga immediately took a shine to because they both like to sit around and bitch about people. Dasrazel and Bashinga mostly get along by the time-honored tradition of “two very gay individuals being catty at each other as a sign of affection, though outsiders would think they hate one another.”

- Jai Swift-Fly. Cathay assassin and member of the Morag Tong. She was born and raised in Elsweyr in a more tribal environment, and is an old friend of Vandrith’s (odd, considering they met because she took a grey writ to knock him off and, instead, he knocked her out). She mostly comes into the fold because Karsaga needed somebody to break into the Ministry of Truth to free Mehra Milo, and she came highly recommended (by Vandrith; Vandrith recommended her). 

She’s a married mother of two, is big and strong and very proud of being big and strong, and a crack shot with a bow. She’s also deaf as hell and communicates through a series of homebrew gestures. Her decision to stick around and help Karsaga after completing the job she was hired to do stems primarily from her extreme curiosity. She has no stake in the Nerevarine Prophecy or this group of losers, but by god does she want to see what it looks like when a god dies.

Fun fact: Jai is dead by the events of Skyrim, but two of her descendants remain. Shevah and J’Rakka. They’re a brother-and-sister duo. Shevah is as much of a curious, troublemaking adventurer as her so-many-greats grandmother. J’Rakka is a werewolf who mostly hunts bounties to make a living.

- Dravyn Telvayn (no picture of him, sorry D:). Dunmer assassin and member of the Morag Tong. Former highwayman and current Berne vampire. Husband of Jai and perpetually confused, mainly over the fact he has kids with Jai and... well, every book he’s read has indicated that that should be impossible for a variety of reasons. He lives in the sewers of the Arena canton in Vivec City and is allowed work in the Morag Tong due to his efficacy at eliminating very high risk targets, though he’s basically “on his own” if he ever gets caught. They’re sure as fuck not giving him writs of execution to present to guards when the Tong could end up fucked over if their relationship with a vampire gets out.

He’s mostly in the background and tags along due to his extreme dedication to Jai. He doesn’t get along with hardly anyone but her, though he is the one who coined the term “Council of Accidents” in relation to him, Dasrazel, and Bashinga. He feels a loose kinship with them in that they’re all members of different vampire clans, but all members whose sires want nothing to do with them, rendering them outcasts. Even after the events of Morrowind, he keeps in infrequent contact with the others. 

After Jai’s death, he acts as a weird “ancestral guardian” to his own descendants. As of the time of Skyrim, he spends most of his time trying to keep Shevah from getting killed. He is very tired. She is a lot.

[princeescaluswords]

So, they think Scott’s certainty that Derek did ANOTHER horrible thing, after all he had already done, to Scott in particular, is Scott.... framing Derek? The inability to read a scene is astounding.

Can we talk like serious adults for a moment?

No, not you.

These people didn’t start out believing this stuff.  No one watched Teen Wolf and thought that Scott McCall was as bad as Peter Hale, Gerard Argent, Deucalion, or Theo Raeken.  They had to have understood, at least on some level, that Scott wasn’t going to be the perfect True Alpha in episode three and if he had been, it would have been bad storytelling.

They had to have some degree of empathy.  If someone, no matter how good looking, had broken into their house, threw them up against the wall, and threatened to kill them unless they did exactly what Angry Handsome White Werewolf said, they wouldn’t have decided that he was only trying to help and did what was requested of them.  They would have called the sheriff, the police department, the FBI, the NSA, and the National Guard.   If someone put a gun to their significant other’s forehead and ordered them to grab another victim by the throat yet cause no further physical harm, they would have done it without hesitation, rape victim or not.

Their perspective changes to suit their agenda.  They hate Season 1 Scott because he (and Stiles) jumped to the conclusion that Derek Hale was a murderer and called the police because Scott discovered that, as the only werewolf Scott (and Stiles) knew about (because Derek hadn’t told him about the alpha yet), he had buried half of a murder victim with, whose lower half was covered bite marks, in his yard.  This, supposedly, is ‘framing.’  However, they hate Season 5 Scott because he won’t hold Theo Raeken as a suspect (suspect of what we don’t know because “no one’s done anything wrong”) on the strength of Theo Raeken’s father’s signature which changed over eight years and totally-human Handwriting-Expert Stiles doesn’t like him, the way he didn’t like Derek, doesn’t like Peter, suspected Deaton, suspected Kira, and suspected Liam.  They don’t see a contradiction in these conclusions.

Oh, I’m sure that some of them have drunk so much of this Jonestown Kool-aid that they now literally believe the Scott is a Moronic Evil Mastermind Tyrant and Sinister Deaton, the Villain Who Never Hurt Anyone and Never Profited from the Non-Existent Evil Things that He Performed Off-screen of Which No One Had Any Evidence Ever.   There is a core group that have internalized this alternate narrative, and no amount of pointing out the inconsistencies and inanities of their  position is going to change their minds.  They have too much invested at this point, but what are they invested in?

They are providing cover.

The vast majority of fandom don’t think that Scott or Deaton were evil.  They just don’t like that the narrative focus of the show was on a Latino and not a white person.  They look at Season 1 Derek, sad and lonely, and feel sympathy for the tragedy that’s befallen him, all the while looking at Season 1 Scott, crying while his body shifts in the bathtub into something not human, quaking with fear as an alpha crawls up on top of him and mind controls him into killing his friends, having a panic attack because his life is slowly crumbling around him, being corned in a locker room by two adult werewolves and mentally violated, coughing up black blood as he dies alone in a forest, screaming in denial after the girl he’s fallen in love with looked at him like a monster, and staring, wide eyed and unbelieving, as a treacherous power-mad liar takes the only chance of him becoming human again away from him, and the fandom says “So what? When are we going to go back to the white characters?”

They don’t like minority characters, especially those who didn’t prioritize their favorite white characters.  Scott didn’t constantly listen to (read: Obey) always-right Stiles or meant-well Derek.  Deaton wasn’t sympathetic to Peter, was disdainful of Derek’s choices, and was unaware that he was supposed to be Super-Duper-Archmage-to-be Stiles’s magical mentor.   That’s why Deaton is somehow secretly evil and Scott is selfish and oblivious.  They didn’t kiss enough white ass.

You see, they don’t talk about Danny, Boyd, or Mason being secretly evil monsters and there’s a very good reason why.  Danny never stopped supporting Jackson no matter how badly Jackson treated him and stayed in his lane during Jackson’s arc, unlike Scott who actually opposed white people’s bad behavior.  Except for that one slip-up, Boyd faithfully followed Derek’s sub-par leadership until it killed him, saving his last words to talk about how much Derek misleading him and using him as a child soldier was worth it.   Mason was a human excuse-machine for Liam, always there to give Liam someone who believes in him even after he beat a friend of his to the point of death.  You might notice that fandom never pushes Mason to have his own development the way they did for Stiles.  Can you see the pattern?  I can.

What about Braeden?  Who’s Braeden?  Oh, you mean that black woman who, for most of the fandom, is only supposed to herald Derek’s return, like the first robin of Spring.   If she had her own wants and needs, fandom can’t remember them.

In much the same way that alt-right neo-Nazis provide cover for the majority of racist white political behavior, these extremists provide cover for the rest of the fandom.  It’s their distracting positions, such as Scott was somehow the Anakin Skywalker of Teen Wolf, which allows the rest of fandom to say things like “I don’t hate Scott, but ... I don’t like how his narrative was more important than literally any other white character; I will make fun of his morality, his pain, his wants, and his heroism; or I will create content that reduces him to a loyal follower, an emotional-support animal, or a minor obstacle.”  It allows the fandom to portray Deaton as evil and selfish simply because he’s black.

They’re the tip of the spear.  If you’re concerned by racism in fandom, you have to spend time and effort diffusing these extremists positions before you can actually grapple with a fandom that can’t seem to find any value in a character who isn’t white.  

[queen-of-deans-booty]

Swan Song: Part One

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 1,729

Warnings: typical supernatural violence, language, angst, blood, you know the usual

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. Any and all comments on these are appreciated. I really want to hear what you guys think about this one!

Feedback is the glue that holds my writing together.

Tags at the bottom

Your plan of getting Dean to trust you again isn’t going so well. He won’t even look at you, much less be in the same room as you. The only way he’s willing to work with you right now is because you’re dealing with the devil, and he knows your magic will come in handy. It’s kind of hard to get him to trust you when he won’t even give you the time of day.

Instead, you decide to rant to Sam about what’s been going on since he’s on your side. He’s the only one right now who you can freely talk to about this. Your dad would only try and side with Dean since they were close growing up.

“I acted on impulse, Sam. I never should have done what I did,” you whisper painfully.

You and Sam sat on the hood of Baby while drinking alcohol. He had a beer while you had bottled wine. You’ve had beer before, but you like wine better.

“I know,” he nods.

“If I can’t defeat Lucifer, Dean’s going to leave me. I can feel it. He won’t even look at me.”

“It’s not your responsibility to defeat Lucifer.”

“I’m the oldest, Sam. When Dean didn’t, I looked after you. Hell, I looked after Dean sometimes. It’s why Dean and I don’t want you to say yes to Lucifer. I look at you and see the six-year-old boy who was scared to sleep with the lights off. I see the boy who could only fall asleep when I sang to him. I keep forgetting you’re an adult now. My maternal instincts started with you, and I regret not passing them onto my daughter. I have to defeat Lucifer if Dean’s going to trust me again. I don’t know what else to do. I’m losing him.”

“We’ll figure this out together. You always got me, remember?” he says and brings you into a side hug.

“Yeah, I got you,” you sigh lightly and rest your head against his chest and close your eyes.

“Hey,” Dean calls as he approaches you two.

You turn back around so that you’re facing away from him. You know he’s going to talk to Sam and only him. Dean reaches down into the cooler to retrieve a beer for himself. He leans against the passenger’s side door with his back turned to both of you.

“Hey,” Sam replies. Dean takes a long pause as he plays with the cap of his bottle. “Dean? What's going on?”

“I’m in.”

“In with…?”

“The whole ‘up with Satan’ thing. I'm on board.”

“You're gonna let me say yes?” Sam asks, swinging his legs to the side so they are hanging off the side of the car.

“No. That's the thing. It's not on me to let you do anything. You're a grown—well, overgrown—man. If this is what you want, I'll back your play.”

“That's the last thing I thought you'd ever say.”

“Might be. I'm not gonna lie to you, though. It goes against every fiber I got. I mean, the truth is... it’s always been my job to watch after you. But more than that, it's kinda who I am. You're not a kid anymore, Sam, and I can't keep treating you like one. Maybe I got to grow up a little, too. I don't know if we got a snowball's chance. But I do know that if anybody can do it, it's you.”

“Thank you.”

“If this is what you want... Is this really what you want?” he asks and looks at his brother from over his shoulder.

“I let him out. I got to put him back in.”

“Okay. That's it, then,” he shrugs and takes another swig of his beer.

If only he can use that logic and reasoning towards you. While you understand the gravity of your mistake, and how it’s affecting him, he has to take some initiative towards you. He hasn’t even tried to put himself in your shoes which is the most upsetting. It’s like he doesn’t want to try and work this out—like he’s given up on you.

It’s not like you haven’t made grave mistakes in the past. He’s forgiven those. Why is he holding onto this so strongly?

Your dad found a demon hideout because if Sam is going to defeat the devil, then he is going to need all the power he can get. No one likes this, but that means he needs to drink buckets of demon blood. Your magic isn’t going to be enough to take down Lucifer, but it may work with Sam’s power.

You just finished drying out the last demon, and you cap the gallon bottle full of his blood. It’s grosses you out to every extent, but it’s necessary. You take two jugs out to the car, and Castiel and Sam take the other four. Dean isn’t happy about this and leaves to go to your father’s side. You place the two jugs in the trunk of Baby, wipe off your hands, and head over to the duo.

“What do you got?” Dean asks, getting down to business.

“Not much. Do these look like omens to you?” he hands Dean a newspaper, and passes one to you since he knows you’re hovering. “There’s a cyclone in Florida, a temperature drop in Detroit, and wildfires in L.A.”

“Wait, what about Detroit?” you ask with a frown.

“The temp's dropped about 20 degrees, but only in a five-block radius of downtown Motown.”

“That's the one. Devil's in Detroit,” you say with certainty.

“Really? As far as foreboding goes, it's a little light in the loafers. You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. He told us himself… in 2014,” you say and make eye contact with Dean for a few seconds.

“Good enough for me,” your dad shrugs and packs up his stuff.

“I really messed up, you know,” you say to Amara.

She stands in front of you with a calm exterior. It’s been a while since you’ve dreamt of her, but you’re glad you are now. It’s weird to say, but you feel safe with her right now. No one is telling you how she’s evil and trying to take over the world. Right now, it’s just you and her and no one else.

“I know. But don’t think it’s the end for you.”

“The only person I want a kid with is Dean.”

“Good things come to those who wait. Sometimes, it’s necessary to fall in order to climb. Things happen for a reason.”

“Like Sam saying yes to your nephew?”

“That’s one of the things, yes,” she says and puts an arm around your shoulder to comfort you.

“Can he do it? Can he shove Lucifer back in his cage?”

“I don’t have the answer to that. Just know that everything is going to be okay. I may be locked away, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still make a difference.”

“What does that mean?” you ask, but she’s already fading. Your consciousness is starting to take control. “Amara?”

The drive to Detroit is long and far, so you thought you better get in a good nap before the big fight. You’re going to need all of your energy if you’re going to defeat the devil in a few hours. Since Castiel doesn’t have his powers anymore, he’s napping with you in the back seat. His head is resting on your shoulder, and your head is on his. Dean went over a bump which is why you woke up.

“Sam, I got a bad feeling about this,” Dean sighs.

You don’t make it known that you’re awake because you want to know what they talk about when they think you’re not listening. So, you keep your eyes close and wait.

“Well, you'd be nuts to have a good feeling about it.”

“You know what I mean. It’s about Detroit. He always said he'd jump your bones in Detroit. Here we are. Maybe this is him rolling out the red carpet, you know? Maybe he knows something that we don't.”

“Dean, I'm sure he knows a buttload we don't. We just got to hope he doesn't know about the rings,” Sam sighs. He turns his head to look at you before turning back to normal. “Hey, I have to ask you something.”

“What?”

“What are you really afraid of?”

“What are you talking about?”

“With Y/N. She’s been working her ass off to try and make things right, but you’re not giving it the same attention.”

“Why are we having this conversation again? Seriously, leave me alone about it.”

“I might die today. Sue me for tying up loose ends.”

“Well, I appreciate you looking out for me, but stop it.”

“I’m serious, Dean. You’re not treating her fairly.”

“What can I say? She’s not the person I thought she was. I can’t forgive her this easily. Now, I don’t want to talk about it anymore so stop asking me.”

“Okay, on another note, if this thing goes our way and I triple Lindy into that box… y-you know I'm not coming back.”

“Yeah, I'm aware.”

“So, you got to promise me something.”

“Okay. Yeah. Anything.”

“You got to promise not to try to bring me back,” he says slowly, and the whole car is just silent.

“What? No, I didn't sign up for that. Your Hell is gonna make my tour look like Graceland. You want me just to sit by and do nothing?” he exclaims but lowers his voice when he remembers that you and Castiel are sleeping… well, Castiel is.

“Once the Cage is shut, you can't go poking at it, Dean. It's too risky.”

“As if I'm just gonna let you rot in there,” he scoffs.

“Yeah, you are. You don't have a choice.”

“You can't ask me to do this.”

“I'm sorry, Dean. You have to.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Make it work with Y/N or you find someone who’s dumb enough to take you in. You have barbecues and go to football games. You go live some normal, apple-pie life, Dean. Promise me,” he urges.

Dean doesn’t answer because he’s too emotional to even think. The thought of Dean being with another woman just breaks your heart. You have to defeat Lucifer so that you can restore your relationship.

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[rwmhunt]

Leviticus, Chapter 20

1. Are likely bullet holes; When his foot slipped, he sank, Said “but, it is easier To be sublimely unintelle- than It is to be compreha- atleast, Through this runcible ordure”. The which, in real time, Being commuted to scripture, Was the while in no wise elucidated, Except for the retort with which he rejoinded- “Explain yourself!”

2. Stiffed, moreover, by a soft Drink in the impact Lounge, eye shuddered sojourns So that the ball might flop into the sinus Of the brooding ground As stone stones fall at my back; Don’t break, weak fools.

3. For reasons personal As unto myself, I shall set my face against he Who grunts his seed to Molok, And shall cut him right off Dare he offer up excuses, As they pertain unto my holy name Along inabilities to reliably distinguish True memories from the digital Thence, rejigger their theories By a biometric magneto-debathification.

4. Here, the perceived Level of personal threat Needst be of increase Against a complacence, And by use of a hard-hitting Form of emotional messaging; So let clemency be a no-no. Kill; kill and provide not Comfort nor aide To the enemy thereunto.

5. Face set cut a hole off All who followed my pillow and me. Some, turning to the camera, Pulled masks over; Most didn’t bother. Me, me, my sunglasses Who made for a false invisibility cloak- An allowance for the human Of burning flesh To set beneath the sun; The house will be in order.

6. By Molok, by dybbuk,   Turneth to ghosts,   Tearing through familiar spirits- I am the way an element will jump up, Unread, from the line below, like Tungsten, parallax, the zeitgeist. These shall be your familiars, And you be stuck with them.

7. Keep me thy sanctity; This is uncertain on a really intense scale. Where staple news hath held the civil veneer, And it’s a long way to Trimorphic Protennoia, Yet god loves his cowboys So betimes, doth make employ of them   As to other things unto himself; See sedition and insurrection, which are Tossed insults across the upper midwest, Turning further, Unthinkably left; The house will come to order.

8.There are many gods unto themselves But you can’t sustain; I was once this other thing, And I’m doubting that is going to happen, Yet keep ye my statutes, And to the west be the property of Marduk.

9. Then afflict my people Through specific vulnerabilities   Of their own creation As they would have unto their elders By means of relations And with the environment, With foreign species,   And with each other. Curses, curses, Skyrocket downward, Defeated victoriously- If we are not prepared to fight, Then a fear-epidemic can.

10. Strick, tryst, Everyone dies Entropy-loss, From effort to heat, Heat-chaos, Chaos-destruction, Destruction-peace.

11. Uncover eyes of thy father as if You uncover my wife- By persuasion, see I A perceived threat, where A substantial number Feel quite sufficiently reassured By levels of concern, Having a good heave-ho about them And an understanding of risque; Death swipe the both of you.

12. Take not the wife You left your son to; O, Wait, what’ve you done? Behold; an exerted control- To do what you cannot, Seek elements of a naiveté Or credulity; but Your blood is upon you.

13. Abomination, so death, Lover of mankind, The blood is always mine. The impact is experienced Throughout the body, says she, because   When my people perceive a threat,   Abstract or actual, They activate cortisol, So let be the biological stress response Whence glucose is mobilized And the immune system triggered; Levels of inflammation are increasing Which is affecting the function of the brain,   Mark; - you are more sensitive to threats, Less receptive to reward.

14. Bring along your mother Go up through fire- Wickedness Whence comes from the Latin For “with” and “touch”;   While the street was burning i chanted An Argument from Silence

15. Of a beast lain on the alter   You shall not Know- Hearsay doth serve you as a first hand   For evidence of a belief,   But shall not attest proof   Unto that which Such beliefs portaineth to.

16. Nor her- The replaced reporter   With a mental instability who hallucinates; The apple of the eyewitness testimony Rests in the unreliability of human memory So make sacrifice of high standards; Lo, but hang;   For I neglect that I am not that interested in truth-telling.

17. Keep not your familiar spirits   In naked perpetuity, O You, incorrigible witness.   Let the train gaineth traction   O'er such a horrid body of evidence; The old “social dances”;   See, Terpsichore Maras-Lindeman,   It’s not good and you know it-  

18. If you go menstrual   Then there hath opened forth to you   A fountain of shame,   And the blood shall be cut from the people,   Lo, but hearsay, here goes Gambling against pornography’s outcomes-   So, humans are expressions,   But woman is form. Hm.  

19. Your aunts are agony, And recounteth   How old Miriam hath called, saying Her nephews had unto her a-visiting come, Usurping her of all such meats and monies As belongeth unto her personage, So that she had not had since Monday, Whence we delivered unto her a parcel And from her eyes there felleth tears, But you, incredible witness, How in the world can facts be obtained   From such non-clusive evidence? You needst bear an earthen iniquity.

20. Concubines are porcupines For others- be barren with you, Kenosha- Who was unready; For the worst hearsayer of all Is of a kind which comes corroborating   Out from delusion, And should you be accused of that which you have not done, Then just laugh at it and inculcate yourself further. For the world is a dowery toward your least resistance.

21. Go filial it’s all too much; Anything companied to the bowels In support of an assertion counts as evidence, As such, tender mercies, Your line is ceased.

22. Whence the land shall vomit you forth, Cannon fodder, And shouldst thou cross my rubicons; Your blood be cheaper than the water Which slips below it, And sacrifices for justice and accountability   Prove merely a nuisance.

23. And give a fuck For your colonialist appropriation- Once implanted, imagination Can become inflated, Creating false arbitrage. Those displaced were up to all kinds, I hate them.

24. And milk and honey Shall flow from their land As you shall see no good in them, For as with a supremacy have I blinded you.

25. And the ground which ye shall own, As teameth with unclean things Of a higher level of certainty   (i.e., as probables),   Shouldst remain, if credulous (only possibles, or),   On the bases of an otherwise Convincing argument   Against such teaming origins, Be downgraded (to impossible) As a lesser degree of certainty (than improbable), And in falsity, all shall be unclean.

26. And you shall be mine; Cede to me,  shouldst you be logically Compelled to withhold belief From nine-tenths of so-called Historetical facts about which You have really no doubt at all, But on the contrarie, cede, and,

27. Did I tell you the one about the wizard? Hearsay, you, the more unreliable spy Than my eyewitness’s can account for, Because you at least doubleth The reassurance of testimony, So to see yourself at the centre of it; A huge ego, Loving to create stories; You think you yourself very unique. False allegations have you committed, Casting the fallacy of the excluded middle fallacy By taking a psychologist hostage. Mutually, you aid selfish   And de rigueur people As are those which often take power,   Because I have created   Systems of reward that Exemplify how, sometimes,   A culture might falter, fail; Pick out the wrong hero.   If you can see yourself as very unique,   Then you are.

[aliaoutsider]

PICK A CARD LOVE READING

Choose between three piles:

PILE 1

Your own personality is mirrored in the first card. It is Cruelty. Consider it as the natural source of your perspectives. The Nine of Swords represents the belligerent power of its' element to the highest degree. Even in a difficult situation it will never surrender, will always fight for its convictions. As it lacks ability to compromise there is a danger of self-destruction. If you feel confident, get ready for confrontation. Sometimes struggle cannot be avoided, and you should be ready for it. However, if you are weak, consider carefully your situation in order to avoid dangerous rage.

As you are represented by the first card, your partner's overall condition is shown in the second card The Lovers which stands for an elementary tendency. The relationship of The Lovers is a colourful blend of beauty and doubt, understanding and eternity. Alas, the price for celestial correspondence is uncertainty. Inspiration and Intuition are powerful where The Lovers dwell - but so are contradiction and instability. Apply affection, delight and endurance to everything you consider important. Hasty and careless behaviour results in misunderstanding and creates distrust. Be aware of your own priorities and ensure yourself about the quality of your feelings.

This is the symbol for your emotions. The card is Futility. Try to perceive even the faintest of your feelings. Every toil is endangered to come to grief. Strength and power will be employed in vain where the Seven of the Swords rules. Exhaustion and depression are the results of wasted energy. Willpower and initiative are about to be obliterated. Do not waste your resources in useless attempts to achieve impossible results. If you do not employ your forces carefully, you might get stuck and neither find the way back nor reach your aim. Assess your possibilities carefully.

The range of the emotions of your partner is shown by Oppression. Beware of the multitude of meanings this card is carrying.The toiling energy of the element fire has turned itself into the tyranny of Strength. It is not the powerful advance, but a burning circle of endless repetition, leading nowhere. Stubbornness and narrow-mindedness attract bad luck. Try to perceive the circumstances beyond your daily life. The Ten of Wands is a warning to re-orientate as soon as possible. Otherwise you might find yourself limited by borders you have created yourself and that you cannot cross any longer.

Your partner's emotional development grows in the spirit of the card The Sun. Many unknown factors will meet here. Thus the interpretation has to be as intuitive as possible. In the blazing light of the most powerful star nothing remains in the dark. While the sun is shining, life and success grow securely. If abundance matches wantonness the warming rays will scorch the earth. Enjoy the warmth and sense the energy. With The Sun also power is your ally. Take initiatives as long as The Sun is with you. As long as the day lasts you should also enjoy it's beauty - but beware of nightfall.

Your relationship, the very centre of the cards, is represented by a single card called The Chariot, which is linked directly to all of the other cards. Full of strength and movement The Chariot is pure dynamic energy. It is moving restlessly and thus constitutes a symbol of the steady advance of all living things. If running too fast, The Chariot is endangering itself and others. Steer The Chariot with great care. It's strength will take you to your desired destination, if you can assess your potential correctly. The wheels of The Chariot often crush what should have remained unharmed. Control your emotions.

Future aspects are found in the card closing this reading. It is Virtue. The winding road that lies ahead may carry many of its' characteristics. The Three of Wands combines willpower with self-control - thus it results in virtue. The certainty of righteousness creates security and tranquillity. Enhancing self-consciousness Virtue is a silent but powerful force. Live according to your convictions in order to be in consonance with the universe. The strength of the soul guarantees a satisfactory balance of body and soul. Virtue is an important precondition for collaboration and cooperation.

PILE 2

Your own personality is mirrored in the first card. It is Saturation. Consider it as the natural source of your perspectives. Saturation The Ten of Cups marks the end of acquisition. Saturation is the name of this card representing ultimate triumph and success. Sometimes it may though announce a lack of orientation and insecurity - feelings sometimes arising after the completion of a difficult task. Perfect development according to your wishes and intentions is likely. Advance faithfully and optimistically. Do not concentrate all your longing into one single desire. Would not emptiness follow the completion of your dream?

As you are represented by the first card, your partner's overall condition is shown in the second card Change which stands for an elementary tendency. The eternal stream of life is a steady tide of loss and gain. Seeming treasures loose their importance little by little, while time gives birth to new values. These alterations generate experience and multitude. Change prevents stagnation and monotonousness. Do not cling to whatever is about to pass. Take advantage of the change, for there is as much to be gained as can be lost. Welcome the new circumstances and find your approach to them. Even material loss can offer a chance for a change for the better.

This is the symbol for your emotions. The card is The Empress. Try to perceive even the faintest of your feelings. Prosperity and wealth grow in the realm of The Empress. Love is her central attribute. She loves to host guests and cares motherly for her children. Sometimes she is living in prodigal luxury and boundless exaggeration. Enjoy your days and head for satisfaction in everything you do. Do not despair, if your situation seems troubled at the moment. Like The Empress you can attract new spiritual and material wealth with prudent decisions and firm faith in your strength.

The range of the emotions of your partner is shown by Page of Swords. Beware of the multitude of meanings this card is carrying. The Page of Swords is a strong symbol for activity. As a member of the family of Swords also the Page is dominated by the power of rational thought. His actions are always effective, but often impetuous and insensitive. In emotional issues you should follow the Page of Swords only with great caution. He favours vengeance and lacks sensitivity. If - on the other hand - you are in need of practical or logical advance the help of the Page of Swords is invaluable

Your desires, your dreams, and your development are displayed as the card Affluence. This aspect may be present consciously, or develop slowly in future. The Ten of Coins represents the completion of a wealth, that cannot grow any longer for it has reached its' limits. Only the prudent and careful investment of those riches can prevent stagnation and keep the stream of lasting growth flowing. Perceive the plenitude of what you have got. Use your means carefully. Beware - not only squandering but also greed and avarice are harmful. Control your desire for those things that are out of reach for the moment. The time has not come yet.

Your partner's emotional development grows in the spirit of the card Strength. Many unknown factors will meet here. Thus the interpretation has to be as intuitive as possible. Great deeds are done with the spirit of Strength. It faces perils wide awake and will never evade struggle. Where Strength enfolds its' power the path is straight. Self-consciousness is the precious fruit of inner Strength. Trust in your abilities and live an active life. Use the full potential of your Strength and activate all your powers. If you follow this path without compromise you will find the energies you need until you reach your goals.

Your relationship, the very centre of the cards, is represented by a single card called Futility, which is linked directly to all of the other cards. Every toil is endangered to come to grief. Strength and power will be employed in vain where the Seven of the Swords rules. Exhaustion and depression are the results of wasted energy. Willpower and initiative are about to be obliterated. Do not waste your resources in useless attempts to achieve impossible results. If you do not employ your forces carefully, you might get stuck and neither find the way back nor reach your aim. Assess your possibilities carefully.

Future aspects are found in the card closing this reading. It is Failure. The winding road that lies ahead may carry many of its' characteristics. Lack of effort, will, and hope is the attribute of the Seven of the Coins. What will be begun in their spirit is likely to end in an endless chain of disappointments and drawbacks. Often it is the fear of Failure, that finally causes Failure. Check carefully whether you are still at the right road. If there are doubts, you might better return. Conquer your fear, for fear is a bad counsellor. Uncertainty and Failure often cause each other - break this vicious circle.

PILE 3

Your own personality is mirrored in the first card. It is Affluence. Consider it as the natural source of your perspectives.The Ten of Coins represents the completion of a wealth, that cannot grow any longer for it has reached its' limits. Only the prudent and careful investment of those riches can prevent stagnation and keep the stream of lasting growth flowing.Perceive the plenitude of what you have got. Use your means carefully. Beware - not only squandering but also greed and avarice are harmful. Control your desire for those things that are out of reach for the moment. The time has not come yet. As you are represented by the first card, your partner's overall condition is shown in the second card Love which stands for an elementary tendency. 

Love is the most intimate bond between two souls. The two cups are symbols for a steady interchange, a continuous giving and taking in perfect balance. The nature of this card does not know of calculation and deception. Life and Love are an inseparable unity. Give your love joyfully - and never be ashamed to also accept the love that is given to you. Exchange is the only way to keep love alive. If honesty stays strong and dominant there is no room for disappointment.

This is the symbol for your emotions. The card is Page of Wands. Try to perceive even the faintest of your feelings. The Page of Wands is juvenile and full of power. He represents awakening desire, force and abundant vivacity. His weak point is the hastiness of decision. Often his deeds have to be excused with his juvenile inexperience and rashness. f want for activity and strong emotions meet, the Page of Wands cannot be far. Surrender to the enticement, if you feel confident and secure. If you can sense peril or doubts arise you should be cautious, as playing with the fire might burn you.

The range of the emotions of your partner is shown by Success. Beware of the multitude of meanings this card is carrying. A chapter will be closed successfully. There is time to celebrate the advance and to replace labour with enjoyment. After exhaustion and effort and toiling a phase of reward has to follow, in order to instil aristocracy in the achieved labour. Reward the completion of important plans, regardless whether it is your own project or the success of the ones you love. The truthful quality of whatever you may succeed in will become visible only in those moments of merry contemplation.

Your desires, your dreams, and your development are displayed as the card Futility. This aspect may be present consciously, or develop slowly in future.Every toil is endangered to come to grief. Strength and power will be employed in vain where the Seven of the Swords rules. Exhaustion and depression are the results of wasted energy. Willpower and initiative are about to be obliterated. Do not waste your resources in useless attempts to achieve impossible results. If you do not employ your forces carefully, you might get stuck and neither find the way back nor reach your aim. Assess your possibilities carefully. Your partner's emotional development grows in the spirit of the card Doom. Many unknown factors will meet here. Thus the interpretation has to be as intuitive as possible. 

The Seven of the Cups is a harbinger of wrong decisions and unfortunate interconnections. It announces a defect of judgement. Where this force enfolds it's power misery is lurking. Reorientation is the cure that can stop the misleading influence. A veil distorts your perception of the waking world. Be careful with your judgement in order to prevent the unpleasant developments at their roots. Check always all the possibilities and ask unbiased friends for their honest advise.

Your relationship, the very centre of the cards, is represented by a single card called Queen of Coins, which is linked directly to all of the other cards. Tranquil virtue is the noble quality of the Queen of Coins. She is neither living for the spectacular nor longing for risky adventures. Devotion and participation are her characteristics. As her emotions are balanced, she is strong in supporting others.Get rid of oppressive thoughts and dreams about the impossible. Accept yourself and others in order to understand your immediate environment which is forming your life. Spread affection and harvest the fruits of this precious seed.

Future aspects are found in the card closing this reading. It is King of Swords. The winding road that lies ahead may carry many of its' characteristics. Acuteness and vitality are the attributes of the King of Swords. His strong mind is free. Nobody is able to influence his reasoned judgement. Thus the power of thought joins the want for action. The King of Swords is a mighty ally. Follow him on his ways of independent thought and realize your ideas. If this king should ever appear as your enemy you should not underestimate him. Get prepared to counteract brilliant plans.

[aokane-eldarya]

Thomas ASTRUC : “In season 4, it will be a bomb by episode. This is the equivalent of the impact of a Cat Blanc episode in each episode.” Sebastien THIBAUDEAU : “All your certainties will be upset. And it will also be the season of the episode 100, it will be necessary to watch it.” - Translation of a French interview -

Interview made by Damien Mercereau for "Le Figaro"

INTERVIEW - Meeting with the creator, the executive producer and the writers of the tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir on the sidelines of the broadcast, this Sunday morning on TF1, of the finale of season 3.

After a first introductory season of the Miraculous universe and a second season in which Ladybug and Cat Noir were able to deepen their learning of budding superheroes, the third season was the testing of the heroine, Marinette Dupain-Cheng. In the heart of Paris, this shy and clumsy junior high school student has become in spite of herself Ladybug, an assertive superheroine. At her side, handsome Adrien Agreste, humble and sensitive, turns into a very confident and enterprising Cat Noir. Both don't know who is behind their costume.

Together, they fight Hawkmoth and Mayura and their army of super-villains. New miraculous and new powers have appeared in season 3 broadcast since last April on TF1, strengthening the potential of heroes. In parallel with this struggle between good and evil, the series also relates the tormented life of a small group of Parisian junior high school students, their friendships, their passions, their first love stories, their joys, their sorrows... In the middle of all this, there is Marinette's unconfessed love for Adrien and the fact that each of them becomes closer, respectively, from Luka and Kagami.

A few days ago, we met Miraculous's masterminds in a Paris office during their writing workshop... of the season 5 : Thomas Astruc, the creator of the series, Sebastien Thibaudeau, writing director and executive producer and screenwriters Mélanie Duval and Frédéric Lenoir.

LE FIGARO : What was the general idea of this season 3 of Miraculous?

Mélanie DUVAL : Very familiarly, we wrote the episodes telling us that Marinette was going to have hard times. She begins her school year by losing her place in the class. She already had Chloe as an enemy, she ended up with a second one, Lila. The love of her life is coveted by another ... She is overwhelmed!

Thomas ASTRUC : It was a season focused on Master Fu (the guardian of the miraculous, ed) and at the same time a test of Marinette. To pull our characters up, we have to agree to make them fall very low. Many things happen, shaken up and end in the final. The series could have stopped there with this bittersweet end. Nothing is predictable in Miraculous.

Is there a real chronology to respect following the episodes?

Sebastien THIBAUDEAU : Each story is an entry point, we give back all the necessary information for a non-initiate to the universe of Miraculous to understand.

Thomas ASTRUC : There are seasonal chronologies. The stories of the first season must precede those of the second one, which themselves must be before the third one. But each season has a particular taste with, in its first episode, an overview. In the middle, a set that can be viewed in almost any order where each episode will bring new information. And in the end, a last episode where all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. This is a serie that you can watch many times, you will always discover something new.

Sebastien THIBAUDEAU : In the first season, we had tested things like showing Chloe who plays to dress up as Ladybug. This started the development of her character. Gradually, we began to sow elements that made sense later.

How came the idea of the episode called "Cat Blanc" that shows what would happen in the future if the two heroes fell in love with each other?

Thomas ASTRUC : This is an episode that required a year of writing work and we finally see only small bits of what we had originally imagined. The TV channels had validated the first version (TF1 in France, Disney Channel in the United States and Gloob in Brazil, ed) but we had decided to review our copy. It is extremely rare for authors to make such a decision, but for us it was not good enough. We still did not have enough control over the world of our characters to be able to write it correctly, we had to take our time.

Sebastien THIBAUDEAU : We wrote flashbacks that I did not believe. They did not fit the mentality of our characters. We stopped everything to start from scratch with the initial idea : what would happen if Marinette and Adrien were together and if Adrien knew that Marinette was hiding from him that she was Ladybug ? It took us an extra week. Once this work was done, we were able to focus on the present of the heroes and disseminate plots of our flashbacks. We still have scenes that we loved but were not used for lack of space. Initially, Cat Blanc was a season 2 episode but it finally took place at the end of season 3.

Does the story of Cat Blanc annihilate the possibility of a love relationship between Marinette and Adrien?

Thomas ASTRUC : The episode Cat Blanc does not close the possibility of a relationship between them but it shows how delicate it would be. They are both heroes, the villain wants to steal their miraculous so a romantic relationship would be like dynamite. It is to be treated carefully, it could not happen anyhow or anytime. A priori, as long as a villain is looking for their miraculous, it will be complicated... Since the beginning, we know that if they know their respective secret identity, it would be enough for one or the other to have a negative emotion for to be akumatized and give Hawkmoth what he wants. With the episode Cat Blanc, you now know what would happen if they were in a relationship.

In the episode "Timetagger", you gave us another projection of the future of Ladybug and Cat Noir...

Thomas ASTRUC : The future is not fixed - that's what the episode Cat Blanc could demonstrate. But we can afford to assert certain things because we have a very long-term vision of the series and we know where we want to bring it. Time travel is often double-edged. A child will consider this phenomenon for the first time while a teenager or an adult will have other references like Terminator, Back to the Future, Doctor Who and be more critical. Paradoxically, a child will understand things more naturally.

Frédéric LENOIR : We master the universe of the series so it's easy to play with our characters and to confront them to different situations. We seek above all to build stories that are interesting and understandable.

Thomas ASTRUC : We think that what children do not know, they learn. When they are confronted with new things in Miraculous, we become their first explanation. It does not matter if they do not immediately understand some winks, they can understand them later. The names of the protagonists, the costumes of the superheroes, the places ... There are a multitude of small clues to dig which are full of cultural information. For example, the story of Master Fu's girlfriend in "Backwarder" is a tribute to the grandmother of our screenwriter Frédéric Lenoir who is a former resistance fighter. We called her Marianne Lenoir.

What values do you wish to convey through the episodes of Miraculous?

Mélanie DUVAL : We are sensitive to the impact of pop culture on young people. We are very careful not to show in the series some things that could have a bad influence on their imagination. I remember having hated this figure given here or there to the class-nerd abused by his comrades. In Miraculous, we have the sportsman, the nerd, the good friend, the nuisance... But nobody is abused. We show a kind of ideal where the big sporty can be the best friend of the intellectual. And facing a negative character like Chloe, the question is not going to be how to make her nice, but rather how to react to her. Her friend Sabrina is abused but she did not say her last word.

Thomas ASTRUC : This degree of submission to the bad person is something that we have to deal with. But to achieve this, we must first establish the basics, show the facts and behaviors. Sabrina's problem requires time to be effectively settled.

Frédéric LENOIR : If you approach and solve a problem too quickly, you may treat it too mechanically and theoretically. Our principle is to approach each theme in a constructive and rewarding way. We go over what should not be done because we strongly believe in what has to be done. Our characters also believe in it. We always try to go to the light.

Sebastien THIBAUDEAU : We are careful to show things that are right, to convey good values and this leads us to have long philosophical debates during our writing workshops. You can spend a whole day thinking about the meaning of an episode. When we meet parents who tell us that what we tell their child is good, we are really flattered.

What is waiting for us in season 4?

Mélanie DUVAL : This is the season when the characters really take control of the series.

Thomas ASTRUC : In season 3, Marinette suffered and in season 4, it will be a bomb by episode. This is the equivalent of the impact of a Cat Blanc episode in each episode. Everyone will be flabbergasted. She has new responsibilities and she is maturing. At the site level, after the Grévin museum and the Saint-Martin canal, we will visit the Swan Island.

Sebastien THIBAUDEAU : Season 4 is the one that surprised us the most. All your certainties will be upset. And it will also be the season of the episode 100, it will be necessary to watch it. And a special episode will wait before the release of season 4. Many events will mark the year 2020.