#Ive given you multiple outs at this point if you read it and are mad at me for sharing my hurt

[atombombicarus]

Hello friends, I am not doing well. If you don't wanna know about that, then don't click read more. I literally just need to feel even kind of seen.

I needed to speak into the void and this is the only place I felt safe because I have two followers on here and nobody looks at my shit anyways. I am so worn down by life, by my home situation, by my work. I literally am a long pent up scream waiting to be released and thats not poetic, my throat literally hurts from holding back all morning.

I DO NOT feel safe in my home. It is so emotionally hostile all of the time. I feel like I am in non stop survival mode, I'm walking on eggshells, I am always on edge.

I want to die, like I so genuinely and seriously want to die, but I am so afraid of going back to the hospital. I can not do anything that risks me going back to the hospital, if you read this far I am at NO RISK FOR KILLING MYSELF DO NOT CONTACT THE HOSPITAL. I can not fucking go throug that again and I have even less support now than I did last year. If I went to the hospital again that would be it, it would be my last time there because I would never ven try to get better because of the fuck all I have to come back to.

I love my friends, they are so great, and I am alive simpyl because I can not put them through the trauma Ive had to go through. And I will continue to bear that burden forever because I am so afraid of being the source of any persons pain.

I just wish I was dead. I wish it would all stop.

[redstarwriting]

the clash | v. ever fallen in love

hobie brown x goth!reader

word count: 3.1k

genre: enemies to lovers

warnings: language, insults, hobie hating you, you hating hobie, mentions of death, demonic names, mentions of injuries, giving and receiving stitches, geniuses being dumbasses

a/n: these keep getting longer LMAO which is wild too bc i literally had an idea to make this chapter even longer, but i had to end up splitting it up. thank you to everyone who’s reading the series, i appreciate you all more than you will ever know. please enjoy this chapter, the next should be out either late tonight or tomorrow :)

previous chapter: iv. london calling

now reading: v. ever fallen in love

next chapter: vi. (with someone you shouldn’t’ve)

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It’s been a few months since you’ve become a part of Spider Society, and much to everyone’s disappointment, you and Hobie still hate each other. Even though on any given day the two of you will be seen around each other, you’re always arguing. Yelling. There have been multiple times where the two of you almost fought, but someone always breaks it up before it gets to that point. “Ready to go, Hobie?” Gwen asks, and he scoffs. “Can’t believe ‘m bein’ forced to go to that dickhead’s world by you of all people,” he grumbles, and she rolls her eyes. “C’mon man, we all know that you’ve both been way more irritable towards everyone because you haven’t seen each other in what? Like two days?”

“I’ll be a lot worse when I see them, I can promise ya that, mate,” he snaps and Miles shakes his head. “Yeah, sure. Whatever, Hobie,” he says as Gwen pulls up the portal to your world. “Are you excited to see them? I haven’t seen you two apart for this long ever, you’re always together,” Pavitr says, side-eying Hobie. He keeps trying to tell Gwen and Miles the two of you only hate each other because you have strong feelings for one another and don’t know how to face them.

“I’m telling you, they’re obsessed with each other,” Pavitr says as he, Gwen, and Miles sit in his home, sipping some chai. “Obsessed with wanting to kill each other maybe, but that’s about it,” Miles says, and Pavitr groans. “No! You’ve got it all wrong! Neither of them knows how to express their feelings and that’s the only reason they act the way they do!” he tries to convince them, but Gwen and Miles just glance at each other. “I don’t know, Pav,” Gwen says. “I picked up on the romantic tension between the two of you immediately, why are you doubting my genius social cue reading now?”

“You need to stop being such a romantic, Pav. The two of them would rather eat glass than be romantically involved in any way,” Gwen responded, but Pavitr was not convinced.

He still isn’t. Hobie laughs. “Excited? You must be mental to think I’d be chuffed to see them,” he responds, and Pavitr sighs. One day. One day he will get Hobie to admit he cares for you.

Gwen was honestly a little nervous for this little meet-up. The two of you had a really bad fight recently, and trying to get the two of you back to talking level seems a little ambitious.

“You what?” he yelled, causing you to roll your eyes. “I’m being mentored by Miguel.” Hobie stares at you, not saying anything, with his mouth slightly open before he shakes his head. He’s very angry, but you simply don’t care. “He’s helping me, Hobie. We both have the venomous bite thing, so he’s trying to help me out with it and helping me adjust to–”

“Don’t you dare say adjust to fuckin’ Spider Society like I ain’t been here the whole time.”

“You never necessarily helped, Hobie. Unless you count constantly insulting me and–”

“Nah, don’t gimme that fuckin’ rubbish, (Y/n),” he growls, and you cross your arms. “Why are you so mad about it anyway?” He laughs. “Why am I mad? Seriously?! You’re the right fuckin’ hand of the pitch and toss!”

“The what?” you ask and he groans. “The fuckin’ boss, (Y/n)! The man!”

“So what, Hobart?! In case you forgot you’re a part of this society, you listen to Miguel too!”

“I fuckin’ don’t!”

“You fucking do!” By this point, you’d pulled attention from several other spiders, not only because of the yelling but because their senses were going off. The two of you were too focused on each other to realize they were all ready to pounce on the two of you. “Fuckin’ piss off before I do somethin’ we both regret,” he growls, and you laugh. “Make me.”

The two of you were separated after that and haven’t talked to each other since. Granted, it’s only been two days, but that is long for the two of you, honestly. And it’s been making everyone a target of Hobie’s rude remarks and your cynicism. The two of you need to talk because clearly, not talking just makes the two of you feel worse.

Even though Hobie’s acting like this is the worst thing his friends could possibly do to him, he does kind of sort of miss you. Which he hates. It’s been two days and he’s already missing you? Disgusting. He can’t wait to yell at you about it. He’s able to keep his cool and pretend like he really doesn’t want to go, but in reality, he’s so anxious to see you. “Alright, come on,” Gwen says, motioning for Hobie to enter the portal. He glances around at them. “Makin’ me go first?”

“Can’t have you run off at the last minute,” Gwen says and he sighs. “Whatever,” he says, walking a little too fast into the portal. He only stops when he’s enveloped in a familiar darkness. He feels something brush up against his leg, and he lets go of a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding. “Good seein’ ya, Shadow,” he says, bending down to give your cat some attention. Shadow headbutts him and he scratches between his ears. Your cat loves Hobie, much to your disdain.

“You hurt him, I kill you,” you said to him the second time he was at your place. He picked up Shadow while you were in your room, and when you came out and saw him holding your baby, you were ready to fight. But you were ready to fight him at any given moment anyways. “I won’t hurt him. He’s much cooler than his owner anyways,” Hobie says, petting his head. You roll your eyes. “Yeah well– wait is he purring?” you say, and Hobie smirks at you. “Looks like he likes me better than his owner too.”

“Shut the fuck up. Shadow!” you call your cat, your voice going from a tone that screams ‘I hate you’ to one that screams ‘I love you.’ Of course, Shadow’s ears perk up and he hops out of Hobie’s arms and right over to yours. You stick your tongue out at Hobie, who rolls his eyes and looks away to cover up the dusting of a smile on his face. “What are you, 12?” he asks, and you scoff. “Can I hold Shadow?” Pavitr asks, and you hand him to him without a second thought. But no matter who you passed him to, he’d either end up in yours or Hobie’s lap.

He's so lost in the memory that he doesn’t even sense you approaching. “So, you decided to actually show up. I’m surprised,” he hears your voice and looks up at you. “Wasn’t exactly by choice, love. If I had it my way, I’d never be in this hellhole again,” he retorts, and you just shake your head and say nothing. That’s strange. You thought for sure you would mention something about him being forced to do something even though he always does what he wants. “What? Have you lost your spitfire after only two days of not talkin’ to me?” he asks, standing. You sigh. “I just… I don’t have the energy to fight today, Hobie. Okay?”

Don’t have the energy? You literally always have the energy to fight with him. Before he can say anything else, Pavitr comes through the portal.

“(Y/n)! How have you been?” he asks, excitedly, hugging you. Hobie doesn’t like that. But what he doesn’t like even more is the slight look of pain that spreads across your face for a split second. He observes silently as you play it off like nothing happened, and Pavitr is none the wiser to it. Gwen and Miles enter shortly after, and the dynamic you all had before yours and Hobie’s attempted murder of each other returns. Except for the constant bickering between you and Hobie. Instead, it’s just a lot of silent glaring, and subtle reactions. “Okay, hold on. What the hell is this?” Miles asks, and you both look at him. “What?” you say at the same time, ending in a side eye to each other. “That! That right there, why aren’t you two threatening to tear each other’s heads off because you said the same thing?” Miles asks, and Hobie shrugs. “I got nothin’ to say to them.”

“Ditto,” you say, and the three of them look at you two like your heads just got cut off. “Are you serious?”

“Do I look like I’m havin’ a laugh, mate?” Hobie snaps at Miles and he puts his hands up in surrender. “This… is odd. I can’t recall the last time it was quiet between you two.”

“Because it never was. They always went for each other’s throats like their own lives depended on it,” Pavitr says to Gwen, and you clear your throat. “We’re right here, you know,” you say with a forced grin. “Yeah, care to save the talkin’ bout us til we aren’t around?” Hobie grumbles and the three glance at each other before nodding. “Sorry, you two…” Gwen says, and you shrug. “It’s whatever. Dealt with worse,” you say, and Hobie nods. He glances over at you again. How is no one else noticing how weird you’re acting? Is he the only one who pays attention to you or some shit?

This isn’t the first time he’s picked up on your odd behaviors. Within the time he knew you, he was able to notice your behaviors unlike anyone else.

He wasn’t necessarily looking for you. He’d never go out of his way to look for you in a million years, yet here he was. In your world because you didn’t show up at the allotted time everyone was gonna meet up at in his world. He webbed up to the tallest building, the Ember Stake Building. It resembled that of a wooden stake, except all black and metal instead of wood. Sure enough, you were there. “You’re late.”

You turn and look at him, but don’t say anything. Instead, you just turn away. He frowns. “What’s that all about, then?” he asks, plopping next to you. You sigh. “I think I’m just gonna stay here tonight.”

“What? Why? Because you’re too borin’ to do anythin’ fun? Gotta work late tonight?”

“No. Personal reasons,” you say and he cocks his head to the side. “Such as?”

“Fuck off, Hobie. I’m not telling you.”

“Yes, you are. What’s goin’ on in that empty head of yours?” he asks and you give him an unamused look. “It’s the anniversary of my Uncle Belial’s death,” you mumble. He frowns. “Ah. I see.”

“...Yeah.” The two of you sit in silence, the wind the only noise happening before he sighs. “Well then, you’re definitely comin’ tonight.” He stands. You look at him. “I just said-”

“And I don’t give a shit. Come on, your friends are waitin’ for you. Besides, they can help ya get your mind off of it. Chop-chop.” You ended up going because you were forced to. But you did have a good time. Hobie was right, it helped you get your mind off of things. And maybe you were reading into it, but he seemed just a tad bit nicer to you that night than normal.

And you could tell his. 

“And what the hell is your problem today?” you appear behind Hobie who is angrily restringing his guitar in his common room at Spider Society. “Well now you’re a part of it,” he responds. You sit on the floor across from him. “As much as I’m happy just my presence can reduce you to a massive asshole, I don’t think I’m the only reason this time.”

“How could you even tell?”

You shrug. “You busy your mind and hands when you’ve got something on your mind,” you say, and he looks at you. He clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “Didn’t realize you were obsessed with me.”

“You wish,” you say. He sighs. “New group of fascist assholes showed up today,” he begrudgingly opens up and you nod. “Told you so.” He glares at you. “Had to say it,” you say, “But you’ll beat them. You always do.” He glances at you. “And if you can’t, I’ll just take care of it for you.” He laughs, unamused. “I’d like to see you try.”

He’s unsure why so many memories are flooding back to him at this moment in time. The answer is that he’s obsessed with you and Pavitr is right, but we don’t need to talk about that until he realizes it for himself. Maybe not seeing you has made him think about you more for some reason. He shakes his head, rejoining the conversation. Everything goes surprisingly well for the rest of the time you all are together. Unfortunately, Gwen gets a notice that something is happening in her world, and she has to go. Miles follows, and Pavitr is torn between going with them or staying with the two of you to make sure no one gets murdered. Or to see some romantic shit.

“We been behavin’, haven’t we?” Hobie says, a bit relieved they were leaving so he could find out what was up with you. You were close with the others, but even they’ve commented on you two only opening up with each other. “You actually have… and maybe it’d be good to leave them alone. Talk out whatever issues they’re having,” Miles says to Pavitr and Gwen, who look at each other but reluctantly agree. Miles and Pav rush into Gwen’s world before her. “I swear if you two kill each other I’m going to kill both of you,” Gwen says, walking backward into the portal to her world and pointing at the two of you. “We won’t.”

“Probably,” Hobie finishes, and Gwen rolls her eyes before disappearing. There’s a silent tension between the two of you before he speaks up. “What happened?”

“I don’t know what you’re–”

“Don’t play dumb with me, now. What happened?” he pushes, and you frown at him. Shadow leaps up into your lap and nuzzles you. You sigh and gently pet him. Hobie stays silent, watching and waiting. “Just… bad day,” you mumble. “Bad day, how?”

“Bad spider day.” He hums. “That why you looked like Pav stabbed ya after that hug?” You look at him, surprised. “You saw that?”

“Course I did. ‘m not fuckin’ daft,” he responds, and you look at Shadow. “Yeah… it’s nothing, though. Just a few scratches, typical Spider-Person shit,” you say, and he nods. “Let me see, then.”

“What?”

“Let me see.”

“Why?”

“Cause you’re lyin’,” he shrugs, and you glare at him. “Have I told you I hated you?”

“Not recently, but yeah.” You glare at him but sigh. “Fuck you, Hobie,” you mumble, but shrug off your oversized cardigan. His eyes widen as he sees deep lacerations and bruises spread across your shoulder and onto your back. He stands up and approaches you without even realizing it. You watch him as he studies your injuries. “Who did this?” His voice sounds darker than you’ve ever heard it. You look away from him. “Does it matter?”

“Yes,” he responds immediately. You turn your head to look at him again, only to have him staring directly into your eyes. “Prowler,” you mumble, and he frowns. “The worst of the worst in your world,” he whispers to himself, recalling a conversation the two of you had months ago. He glances around. “Where’s your first aid kit?” he asks, and you look at him with a side-eye. “Why?”

“Cause I wanna get high off the painkillers in it, why do you think, you dolt?” he snaps, and you point to your bathroom. “Under the sink.” He gets up and walks into your bathroom, grabs the first aid kit, and walks back out to you on your couch. “Turn round and move a bit,” he says, and you do. He sits behind you, starting to clean and stitch to your injuries up. You wince slightly and he frowns. “Why haven’t you done this yet?”

“I can’t reach back there myself.”

“Then ask someone else to do it.”

“I don’t have anyone to ask anymore.”

“Yes, you do,” he says without missing a beat. You turn your head to say something snarky to him, but he looks at you at the same time. Your faces are closer than the two of you expected, causing you both to quickly look away. You can feel your face burning, and you’re grateful the injuries are mainly on your back and not close to your heart because you don’t want to hear his comments about how fast it’s beating. On an equal note, Hobie’s happy you aren’t looking at him because he has his jaw clenched and swallows hard. His heart is beating just as fast, but he pretends like it’s nothing, just like you. He finishes the stitches, placing bandages over top of them. “Done,” he says, and you mutter a quick ‘thank you’ as he tosses the first aid kit onto your coffee table. “Should be healed by tomorrow,” you mumble, and he nods. “When did that happen?”

“A few hours before you all got here,” you admit, and he frowns. “And you were just gonna pretend nothing happened?”

“Yes. I told you earlier, I’m too tired to deal with any bullshit today, okay?” you confess, and he frowns.

“He get ya that good cause you’re tired?”

“I guess.”

“When’s the last time you slept?”

“Dunno.”

“Stop lyin’ love,” he says, and the nickname you hate oh so much sounds just a little sweeter to you than it should. “Couple days ago.”

“You haven’t slept in two days?” You shake your head, and he sighs. “Go the fuck to sleep. Now.”

“But–”

“Go,” he demands, pointing to your bedroom. You groan, “You’re so fucking annoying,” you mumble, getting up and dragging yourself to your room. “Yeah, yeah whatever,” he says, following you. You flop onto your bed as he leans against the doorframe, arms crossed. “Come to tuck me in?”

“You wish,” he watches as Shadow hops up onto your bed, curling up against you. You immediately put your hand on him and pet him. Hobie frowns as he feels a pang of annoyance toward your cat. “Gonna stand there and watch me sleep or something?” your voice pulls him out of his ridiculous thoughts, and he scoffs. “Gonna stand here and make sure you don’t try to get up as soon as I go,” he says, and you sigh. “Fine,” you mutter, rolling away from him. He stands there until he’s sure you’re asleep. He glances at Shadow, who is still awake and staring at him. He puts his finger to his lips to say “shh” as he pulls his mask over his head.

He and the Prowler of this world need to have a bit of a chat.

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if you asked to be on the taglist and i forgot, i’m sorry :( feel free to leave a comment on this or message me separately and i’ll get you right onto it!

[spamtoon]

DCRC week 3 time! ...In week 4.

you see. every time i wanted to open this comic. i wanted to do something else actually sosososososo bad. however now's the time

my history with the comics is ZILCH. i've had my friend show me a few duck comics they had in their first language and i've read some of the darkwing stuff but i haven't dived head first into scrooge's origins the way that many other duckblr members have

please note i might be off because i am very tired as of writing this. i will pass out directly after i finish this and so my judgements might be a bit. Strange

First comment I'd like to make her is how professional the comic seems, though that may just be because i'm viewing this though the don rosa archive on the definitely legal website. i'm glad at the very least that all of these like. little comics that are hard to keep track of are in one place

second off i just want to shoutout how tiny louie is here. ity bity. the 87 triplets are so small. sorry this is how it is with me i'm like wow... i appreciate these comics and all of the work people put into them and then im like oh louie little

Oh my aching eyebulbs! I did in fact misread that as lightbulbs

great panel we've got going on here. og glomgold acting quite fruity while donald needs to catch the thing... Glomgold you do understand you are also claiming other people's fortunes given the work for you in the south african diamond mines... a detail that i've only ever heard in trivia until now.

donald is so just continuously done with their garbage and he deserves to be i think. for all he's been through

sorry i just like the exaggerated poses here and the sillouettes and line effects. showcasing the them

Oh deliver us!

sorry i just love the expressions (and posing in the third) here. i know i'm mainly admiring comic panels so far but dang it. they...

aaaaand this is where the stuff that. didnt quite age starts. i've heard from chatter on discord that Things Happen in this comic and that scrooge should be wanted in Peru because of it. they way that some of the descendants are just casually helping him gnngnsn. i understand it was the 80s...

glomgold ate in this outfit and i'm sure you all agree. assuming this is glomgold i havent read that yet but look at him. that's glomgold. his goofy ahh smirk

FOEIJFIOUSGJEIAFEAFOJIUEAAEJOFEADAEFJIEA well. i did forget that glomgold held scrooge at gunpoint. and he does! i'm so . the way he's just. being held at gunpoint and scrooge's reaction is like THIS IS LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE i'm so. not even a gun can stop scrooge mcduck. or the triplets for that mater they also are kinda unphased at this point

another case where i just want to note these panels for the pose and expression contrast between the two of them... they

FEAHUIAOEJFEA the cogging way that the sound effects STREEEEETCH across the winds. priceless i think

i also want to note the action panels in the plane crash section i'm so. this one in particular but all of them really

Okay so i guess they were just. stuck with glomgold for multiple days. and scrooge is like where the barp is everyone ohhhh curse me cog darn kilts sorry

also omg calisota mention. calisota girls we're unforgesorry

glomgold's little happy handstand... you deserve to dark.wing cartwheel actually i think. also caro thinking about quack.erjack

parrot mention (context. im normal about that phone guy)

also please know before it registered that was a shine effect i thought the zebra's tail was a Bomb for a second and that the twist was going to be it all explodes in glomgold's face. but alas

HUIDAEJIOJFAEIJF THE WAY SCROOGE IS JUST. CASUAL ABOUT IT like dammmm you guys were slow. the fact scrooge has just had a little setup out here i'm so. yeah let's prank glomgold

im so mad... its beautiful. ive heard comics scrooge vs dt.17 scrooge described as business scrooge vs family scrooge and if this isn't way to differentiate between the two of them. the adventure's over because Business glomgold.

sorry every serious comic person that may or may not be reading this because i am. not very serious especially right now but please know i have so much respect for these and cant wait to read more. except i have to do an assignment first. two assignments. four. school is kicking my behind right now thats part of why i'm late but i will catch up eventually. now time to go to sleep

OH WAIT THERES MORE COMIC hold on wait what if you see this while i'm editing no you don't. i can't believe i actually got juked by the fake ending. i will admit i have been coasting along for a bit now but Now i am invested

the way he spends multiple panels gloating about the gems specifically... both of them are so petty here and its beautiful

rooooolling giiiiirl sorry my legitimate first thoughts. i am having an era right now. yes glomgold chase your big gem frisbee

the way that they're dragging both of them out and away from each other. like alright folks. time to break it up here. you're gonna destroy the temple. and they do!

GLEEP!

okay now its the end. this comic has made me a fan of comic glomgold and thats what i'm going to say here. good night everyone i hope this is a great start to my beautiful comic journey

[newtedison]

my thoughts on the crank palace

i touched about this a bit on twitter (@newtedison_) but i figured i would Try and touch on my points more here (spoilers obv) again, its sort of lengthy

1. im gonna start with talking about the ending because i need to get it out of the way. either i havent read the books in a while and i forgot some canon (which could very well be true, i literally forgot that Bliss was a thing) or this ending makes no sense and is (somehow) setting up for a tdc sequel? so first off, newt was shot in the Head with a Bullet and somehow didnt immediately die? i know that that can happen in real life but it just seems so unlikely that not only would he not die, but he would survive long enough for someone from WCKD to transport him back to their labs and try to revive him. and who the fuck was he talking to? did thomas get newt’s journal at some point and i just dont remember? like i said, either im forgetting stuff or this ending doesnt make sense and is setting up a sequel which...i’ll get to later

2. why was this written? like, what was the point? i understand that this wasnt going to be all sunshine and rainbows but i feel like i was reading torture porn. like, literally all that happens is newt gets tortured (which is described in detail) by WCKD soldiers, has bouts of insane-fueled rage where he KILLS MULTIPLE PEOPLE, and then he dies. ??? what did this contribute to the canon? what was this trying to accomplish? truthfully, i never really wanted a newt-POV...well, anything except for maybe those little nuggets he wrote some time ago. but even if i HAD wanted a newt-POV novella, this is not what i would have wanted. he KNOWS that newt is almost universally the most loved character in this franchise. you can tell because he constantly uses him as a way to get fans in his good graces again. so why on earth would he take that character that so many people love and write a novella where its torture porn and a descent into madness before death? i am not interested in that At All. i’ve read fics (and even written a drabble) where newt is a Crank, and those were more respectful and easier to read than tcp. the parts where newt is having bouts of the Flare were literally exhausting to read; it was described in such vivid and torturous detail that it made me sick reading it. and it didnt help that newt is a character i care a lot about. i didn’t need to know what becoming a Crank felt like. the way it was described in the other books (and even the movies) told me everything i needed to know. the way thomas and everyone found newt at the crank palace in tdc and hes described as obviously not well, but not knowing what exactly happened to him...thats good enough on its own. the mystery of what exactly newt had to endure is part of what gives his journey more emotional depth. not everything needs to be written out and explained. not every gap needs to be filled in. 

3. me saying “the characterization felt off” is going to make some people roll their eyes because ‘duh, sami, the characterization will be off because he’s going insane’ to which i say...exactly. we weren’t really reading a newt-POV novella, were we? even if he isn’t past the Gone in the beginning, hes clearly not the same person we knew him as. the whole novella felt like an uncanny valley situation; i knew i was supposed to be reading about newt, but it felt like i was reading about someone else who looked like him. and that is part of what made this such a disconnect and made me lose interest at parts. not only that, but the world building and lore is inconsistent. newt makes a comment about how it used to rain in the glade, and apparently (as ive been told) that is simply not true. keisha having somehow working cell phone that magically connects her to her family also doesnt make sense. how would they have each others’ numbers? what are the odds that they BOTH found working cell phones in an apocalypse? i get that its a novella but you cant just throw something that crazy in there as a plot convenience. actually work on your plot and world building in a cohesive way, please. and another thing that doesnt make sense...

4. ...is newt finding out that sonya is his sister. if there was anything i would have wanted from a newt-pov novella, it would have been this. him finding out that not only is sonya his sister, but he already knows her post-WCKD. something that would have made this novella actually captivating, contributing something worthwhile to the canon that i would actually want to read, is if newt found out while in the crank palace that sonya was his sister; the Flare would remove that part of the Slice in his brain, and he would realize it was her. then, knowing that he couldnt go past the Gone before seeing her, he would try to find a way to get back to her. he could learn this after thomas and everyone originally see him, so it could match up with the canon. and then, by the time 250 comes along, hes lost all hope of that actually happening, and lashes out to thomas in a fit of rage. the journey of him trying to find his ACTUAL sister would have meant more to me than the story of keisha and dante. trust me, i love a found family trope as much as the next girl. but this series is FULL of the found family trope. it pretty much is the backbone of the franchise. so to see a blood family dynamic would have been a refreshing change of pace that i actually would have been interested in reading. also, the way that newt DOES find out about sonya is...underwhelming. he just randomly says “you remind me of my sister, sonya” to keisha in the WCKD truck. first of all, sonya is not the name you would actually know her by. you would know her by her birth name (which is lizzy? elizabeth?). second, why does he act like he didnt already meet her in the series? when the WCKD doctor tells him sonya is his sister and is alive, hes so surprised. wouldn’t he have known that already? why is there not more emphasis on the fact he already met her? that would have been a really interesting dynamic to explore, and im sad they didnt

5. the pacing and dialogue of tcp is so dragged out. i remember specifically there was a section where newt goes to talk to keisha after she starts abandoning dante, and i swear to god there was a page and a half of text before anything ACTUALLY happened or anyone ACTUALLY said anything. dashner described a launcher at one point as “the energy dependent electric firing projectile device.” that’s SIX words to describe a stun gun. a fucking stun gun! we know what it is! why did you have to use six words??? it just felt like everything was dragged and stretched to the longest it could possibly be and it added to the exhaustion i felt while reading it

6. okay i cant end it without talking about newtmas. its very obvious by now that newtmas is a VERY large part of this fanbase. its clearly the most popular ship and what keeps a lot of people interested in this series. even the marketing team for the MOVIES used newtmas as a advertising tactic (i.e.; using thomas and newt standing face to face as a thumbnail for the trailer, emphasizing newtmas based questions in interviews, even making a fucking facebook memories video for them. yes that last one is real). not only does dashner use newt as a way to lure fans in; he also uses newtmas. the parts that were sprinkled into this were so obvious that it didnt feel authentic. i cant speak for the original trilogy; i dont know the culture around ships back then, and i dont know how much it influenced his writing at the time. but the scenes in those books felt more genuine than tcp. by genuine i mean; he wrote scenes without a relationship in mind, but the chemistry had noticeable subtext that, while unintentional, was largely agreed upon by the larger audience. the parts of newtmas he added into tcp felt artificial and forced, likely as a way for people to take snippets of and use as a free marketing tool for him. one example you might have already seen; “he had already gotten used to his post-thomas, post-WCKD life.” the fact that dashner SPECIFICALLY used the phrase “post-thomas” rather than “post-his friends” or something similar shows that he is using newtmas as a hook on purpose. not only that, but to make newt’s last thoughts as he died “tommy. tommy will understand...” is...wow. first of all, i never wanted to know what newt’s dying thoughts were, but thanks, i guess? and second, when we all initially thought newt died underneath thomas with a gun to his head, i was pretty much inferred that newts last thoughts would probably be about thomas; they would sort of have to be, given the circumstances. so adding that in gives me the same feeling that “i’m coming for you, newt” at the end of the fever code gave me. not as offensive, but written very much on purpose. and the ending is implying that there will somehow be a sequel where thomas gets newt’s journal from...someone. at this point, i can only think that this sequel will retroactively make newtmas canon somehow. now that newt has been confirmed as gay, it could happen. which brings me to my last point...

7. hearing dashner confirm newt is gay was already mind-boggling before. now that i’ve read the crank palace...im angry. im very angry. i think its safe to say that newt is the character that suffers the most in this series. you can argue with me but hes definitely high on the list, if not #1. so; you take this character. you give him a horribly sad arc in the original trilogy, then decide to expand upon it and tell us, your largely QUEER fanbase, exactly how painful and torturous his last days were, in detail. and then you tell us he’s gay. something that is never mentioned in the canon, only in an offhanded reply to a tweet of someone calling you out. on a base level, i can understand why people would be happy. representation (i guess), seeing themselves in the character, having their headcanons be confirmed. great. but what i see is you telling your largely queer fanbase “hey, you see the only confirmed gay character? im going to literally write torture porn about him before killing him off and offer it to you like im providing a service to your community.” how fucked up is that? “hey, kids, if youre gay, you WILL be violently tortured and become violent and a danger to the ones you love. then you will die and your love will never be reciprocated.” what a message! and if he DOES end up retroactively making newtmas “canon” in some weird sequel...i will start foaming at the mouth. THIS is an example of how not all queer representation is good or genuine.

i’ve definitely forgotten some points but this is long enough already. let me know if you agree or if theres anything else you want to add! im interested in what you guys think

(8. I JUST REMEMBERED!!! if WCKD needed to study newt so bad bc sonya is his sister and is immune while he isnt, why did they let him run around the crank palace in the first place??? you cant test his vitals or anything you’re literally just watching him. what is the point????)

[hi-there-buddies]

I feel like I have to say this because I’ve been on a Spider-Man fanfic binge where Peter tells others about or mentions Uncle Ben because he’s literally nowhere in the MCU (except for the briefcase, I know) and I’ve seen a lot of people say one thing that I just don’t understand. It’s usually fanfics about Tony or anyone learning about Ben’s death and comforting Peter, but I don’t think people understand

Ben’s death was Peter’s fault

(Btw, I’m gonna base the rest of this post off the movies. What happened in the comics is slightly different. Still Pete’s fault, but a little different)

Sure, not directly, but indirectly, YES, it was Peter’s fault Ben was shot. In the fics Ive read it’s always the people comforting Peter, saying it wasn’t his fault, and it always strikes a nerve for some odd reason. The whole point of Ben’s death was that it WAS Peter’s fault! Because Peter looked the other way, because Peter didn’t use his powers to stop the criminal, Uncle Ben died. Uncle Ben’s death is the REASON Peter Parker became the Spider-Man we know, because the person who he used to be didn’t think he was obligated to use his powers to save those who he could save.

It’s a statement in every Spider-Man movie. A statement everyone knows. It’s been changed, sneered at, made fun of, but by God, is it important:

With great power, comes great responsibility

If you have the power to stop something from happening, if you have the ability to stop evil from happening, and you don’t, and then something evil happens, it happens because of you.

That might sound familiar because that’s basically what Peter said in Civil War. That’s Peter saying that Ben’s death happened because of him. It was his fault.

“But Peter didn’t know that the criminal was gonna shoot Ben. He had every right to be mad!”

You’re right. Peter didn’t know that guy was gonna shoot Ben. And yes, he was allowed to be mad. If what happened to me happened to him then ya, I’d let the robber go too. I’d be pissed, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it was still his fault. Peter didn’t know the criminal was going to shoot Ben, but he did know he was a criminal, and he knew what he was capable of because the police officer called out for him to stop the guy. He had every right to be mad, but that doesn’t mean what he did was justified. He could have taken that guy down with literally a flick of his finger. “All [he] hadda do was trip him, or hold him just for a minute!” (Amazing fantasy #15)

But he chose not to

If you take Peter out of the equation(in the movies at least), Ben wouldn’t have been out looking for Peter, and the criminal wouldn’t have shot him.

But in the comics, if Peter didn’t have a chance to stop the criminal, Uncle Ben still would have been shot. Some of the blame just wouldn’t be on Peter’s shoulders.

But Peter did have a chance to stop the criminal

He had a chance to take him down, but he didn’t. He didn’t think of the consequences. And that’s why Unlce Ben’s death is so monumental to Peter’s story. To Spider-Man.

Peter saves people because he couldn’t save Ben. He saves people because if he didn’t, if he chose to not be Spider-Man, if he chose to not use the powers he was given to stop the things he could, then their deaths would be on him. Every person he saves, every life he protects, is one less orphan or grieving parent; one less widow or widower:

One less Spider-Man or Uncle Ben

Thank you for coming to my TED talk

(Btw in the comics Peter literally says multiple times it’s his fault but I digress)

[mysterylover123]

Does Bones have a BKDK ‘agenda’?

mysterylover123 

The speculation I’ve seen so far about why Bones cut the flashback from the TodoBaku scenes in Chapter 164/Episode 79 is because they were ‘so preoccupied with BKDK in the new movie that they forgot about Bakugou’s development with Todoroki”. Which does raise the question, does Bones indeed have a BKDK shipping agenda of some kind?

The idea of an anime studio preferring a pairing and adding in tons of extra material to bias fans towards it is an absolutely founded suspicion. Clamp putting out official homoerotic art of Suzaku/Lelouch, that foot wash scene Madhouse added to Death Note between L and Light, Pierrot pretty obviously liking SasuNaru and Naruhina and throwing in tons of extra material for both; Studios do do this. They prefer certain pairings and they play them up. So does Bones have a BKDK agenda? 

The answer I’ve found on examination is a resounding “YES”, but Ive preserved my ‘let’s find out’ tone of writing for the rest of the examination.

Well, let’s start with the OPs and EDs, the first original contributions Bones was able to make in the adaptation. “The Day” does indeed have a long sequence focusing on them, but it’s not unreasonable given the content of S1. “Peace Sign” doesn’t include anything in particular, nor do ED1 or 2. ED 3, “Sora Ni Utaeba”, does have a scene of Kacchan meditating about Deku and getting mad, then blasting towards him at the end and the match-cut with his eye. But this is pretty minor, and fits episode 2.24. ED3, “Datte Atashi No Hero”, is the first time an OP or ED appears to have an agenda of shipping these two, hardcore. LiSa’s song is, according to her, about their relationship, and the Fantasy AU ending has the mutual understanding shot at the end. But it also has smiling prince Shoto, Dragon Kiri and Uraraka greeting Deku, so other ships get a nod too.

“Odd Future” has very little, though one could interpret the snow behind Deku as meaning something romantic. “Update” does include the lines ‘love’ over and over again in the final shot where they stand together watching the stars, but others are there as well, like Shoto and Ochako. Aside from the symbolism of DVK2 in OP5, the rest of S3’s ops are pretty light on BKDK, as was Polaris and ED6, and our current OP too. However, ED7 did have those mirror shots of them brooding in bed, and growing up.

So yes, the OPs and EDs do have a lot of emphasized shots between them. But nothing too crazy. Let’s get into Filler, movies and changes to episodes now.

Season 1 features no filler and no overt tweaks to any episodes; the only bit of added on BKDK I can think of is Deku blushing as a kid during the flashbacks in DVK part 1. Nothing too dramatic in Season 2 either, as the filler ep is about Tsu and nothing is particularly altered from the manga, besides throwing in the Kabe-Don in Katsuki Bakugo Origin. OK, that’s a big besides, given the sexual implications of that in anime culture. Season 3’s filler ep has Bakugo challenging Deku to a swimming contest, but there’s also a bit of TodoDeku and KiriBaku and IiDeku extra teasing there, so again, nothing like a pure bKDK-based agenda.

The 2nd filler ep of S3 has a little BKDK, as does the film, but nothing overt. The film has a bit of KiriBaku agenda, given all their scenes together, and throws in extra TodoBaku (the first bit of extra TodoBaku, alongside Episode 58, that they tossed our way). S4 gave us Deku’s soft smile at Kacchan’s antics, and contemplating on the retake arc last ep, indicating that Bones is indeed including little nods. And now there’s Heroes Rising, though that one was Hori’s idea.

My theory is that Bones does kinda like the ship, but that they have started including more and more BKDK because of how popular it’s getting. Winning the Tokyo Tower contest for the film, the 12,000+ fanfics, the unceasing winners of the Popularity Polls….my guess is Bones knows how popular BKDK is, so they’re adding in more fan service of it. But they were adding in little bits since Season 1 (The cherry blossoms, the smol Deku blush), so saying they have a bit of a BKDK agenda might…not be inaccurate. They do throw in a bit of Fanservice for other ships too, like Izuocha, KiriBaku, Tododeku, and even TodoBaku a little.

But aside from the popularity of BKDK…I think it’s also the key relationship of the series. Everything at it’s core is about them, they’re the main characters and the main focus, so it doesn’t seem too silly to slip in lots of them. But they’ve never had trouble tantalizing other pairings before this, even if they always added more to BKDK than the others. So I don’t think they cut TodoBaku’s scene just because they like another pairing better. I mean, that wouldn’t make much sense anyway.

But that is what started this discussion, so now we come to the real main question. Is Bones downplaying TodoBaku for BKDK? Certainly, BKDK is the only platonic pairing in canon that they’ve slipped quasi-romantic fanservice into in the anime (the blush, the cherry blossoms, the kabe-don, all things that have more romantic implications than anything done with Tododeku or Kiribaku). This needs another closer look.

In Season 1, Bones doesn’t especially play up Todoroki, or his future significance. No extra glances that aren’t in the manga, no closeup shots on him when he’s not the subject of a scene, etc. S1 is pretty much a straightforward adaptation of Chapters 1-21, no filler added, no noticeable agenda either way. In S2, that remains the truth for most of the season. I did notice that Bones makes some small changes in season 2 to the framing on Bakugou in a few scenes, like In Episode 25 where he’s made to look especially menacing Pre-last match, or Episode 27 where Jeanist physically restrains him (not in the manga). I’m not sure what agenda that might push, if any, as far as the ships go.

The season added in a scene of Bakugou tutoring Kirishima, which is in one of the Light novels and not the manga. They also, of course, as I mentioned above, added in the Kabe-don in Katsuki Bakugo Origin, as well as that entire alleyway sequence. The filler episode has a small scene between Deku and Todoroki that could be read as shippy. But yes, in S2, Bones doesn’t add in any extra, non-manga Todobaku.

The drama CDs and Smash, interestingly enough, do. Neither seems to have a lot of Todo/Deku, but they sure like slipping in TodoBaku subtext. There’s 2 drama CDs where they get stuck together by villains who want to scandalize them with compromising photographs, and multiple Smash comics joking about how their heated interactions come off as sexual tension. Of course, Smash has fanservice for pretty much every ship at some point.

In S3′s filler ep, Bakugo does yell at Todoroki “you too” after challenging Deku. It’s pretty minor, but it’s new stuff. Everything for the rest of the Training Camp arc is manga-canon and straightforward, as is the hideout raid. No real playing up of any one pairing over the other. The PLE arc adds in some filler that does seem to be hinting at a slight Todo/Momo agenda, since it has her wonder ‘what would Todoroki do’?, and indeed if Bones has a Shoto Ship leaning in any direction, it’s probably that one. But nothing extra added to BKDK or Todobaku that wasn’t in the manga already.

Episode 58 and the movie, however, do add in TodoBaku scenes. Their same usual dynamic from before, of course. Bones seems to see TodoBaku as essentially, how a lot of the fans see them: Bakugou antagonizing Shoto and Shoto’s reaction being an unbrideled ‘meh’. They do depict them working together in the film, and having a secret grin - though that grin has to do with BKDK a little. In context, Baku is being soft that Deku and All Might won, Shoto sees it, and smirks, making him tsun-tsun. 

S4 did add an extra scene in Filler ep 3 where they talk about their future plans. There’s an adjusted reaction from Deku in the next ep, where he smiles fondly at Katsuki. The new OP also doesn’t show Todoroki and Bakugou together, alone in any of the shots of them; they’re always separate, brooding about their own problems, when this OP could’ve been a good time to show them together.  Outside of crowd shots, they don’t share the screen.

So yes, all in all, the conspiracy theory idea might not be so far off. Bones definitely does include little nods to BKDK that make it even shippier, and does seem to be downplaying TodoBaku a bit, at least more so than the Drama CDs. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, since at least unlike Naru/Hina vs Naru/saku, it’s unlikely to actually influence the series’ content - there is no actual love triangle here to be played up or played down, just fanon ships. Still, it is noteable.

[ftpthemovement]

Comfort or calling? Stop stalling it’s time to ride.

God doesn’t place a calling in your heart and not give you the ability to see it through. Are you choosing comfort or your calling?

Last week I was seeking God to inquire him about a word he gave me a few months ago revolving around FTP. Most people don’t know, but we are closing in on the last few months of our lease here in Kennesaw, and the word he gave me was in reference to what the furture would hold for us. When I asked, I wasnt given a direct answer, so I expressed a lack of assurance to close friends and members of FTP. Since the inception of FTP, God has always given a clear vision of what was to come, and this was the first time where there wasn’t a direct clear cut direction or instruction on what we were supposed to be doing. So I went walking in solitude spending time with God and he began to speak to me.

Often times when God talks to me the most, Its during these times where I’m walking with him in a remote location free from distractions and any input, or out side interference. On this particular day, God placed it on my heart that it was time to uproot myself from Kennesaw Georgia, and move to Las Vegas Nevada to do his will. Cause you know, that’s super normal and all 😂

At first I felt very worried because it’s moving across the nation to a place I don’t know, surrounded by people I also don’t know, to places I’ve never been before in my life. Automatically, my first inclination is to worry. Yet God choose to remind me of a word he sent me around a year ago, when he said, “I’m bringing a raging river to dry sands.” I quickly remembered that I used to walk around a repeat it daily, often times I still do; but I never really understood it until recently. On September 6th, I saw the post come up on Facebook, Circa Sept 6, 2019. Exactly a year later, God was reaffirming his word from exackty year ago, and it lined up perfectly with the message he had just given me! Guess you would have to be there to know the full gravity of the situation, but let’s just say it was all the confirmation I would ever need.

But, in the process of such a massive transition, you obviously have to iron out a few wrinkles with such an undertaking. So, I immediately reached out to Alex and Jordan, who are very close brothers and members of FTP to ask them what they thought. Amazingly enough, they not only supported it, but they felt lead to deployed there as well! Talk about faith in action! I really don’t think you could ask for more than that. God says go, thier answer figuratively speaking was, “Say when.” It’s literally the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

Obviously all of our intentions are there, but this is when the opposition likes to creep in. See, technically we are still here until the lease is up. We have to manage to somehow raise funding, continue expanding discipleship, and elect overseers to continue our work here in Georgia, while we expand to the west as God has instructed. In the middle we could come up with a number of excuses, fears, doubt, insecurities, distractions, and opposing opportunities in the process. Hence why the topic up top is, “Are you choosing your comfort, or your calling?”

Up until yesterday when I would think about the transition I would start asking questions that I think any sane, logical, rational person would ask. Stuff like, “Where are we going to stay?” “Are we shutting down the businesses we run?” “How do we all manage to uproot multiple families and make it work?” “Where will we work, etc.“ “Where will the resources come from to help make the transition happen?”

Now, everything isn’t complete, but the Lord has already answered about 90% of these questions, and in the coming months we are going to reveal the plan God has placed in motion, and we hope that you share in the vision and take the opportunity in helping be apart of Gods work! But, for now this is where God calls his followers to have faith, and to be prepared to put that faith in action by trusting that he will create the way to see it to completion!

Sounds tough, and it is! Yet, he specifically reminded me of one answer he gave that changed the complete trajectory of all of my thoughts. A question so imperative, that it shifted everything Ive ever known when it comes to following God. What’s that question you might ask?

The question was, “If I choose to stay and not go, would you be mad at me?”

Even reading the question as I’m writing it, it sounds loaded. But in the loving grace that only my Heavenly Father could answer in, I got a peaceful “No.” So, God is calling me to go do his will, but if I don’t go, he won’t be mad at me? Hmm..... I felt a prompting in my spirit to ask God another question. “If I don’t go, can I be just as successful here doing your will as I would be there?” He gracefully and calmly replied, “No.”

“So, if I go I’ll be more successful than if I stay, why wouldn’t I go?” I had a lot of answers to that question. It’s probably one the easiest list I could ever come up with. Because of job security, comfort, and fear. Because of being rooted in what I’ve grown accustom to on a daily basis. All of the things I take for granted that would simply disappear if i choose to be obedient. If you really think about it for awhile there’s sooo much stuff that I could list, and go on and on about. As I sat there and thought about every excuse in the book, God blessed me with a wave of insight that came crashing down on me, saturating me with love, insight, revelation and understanding. If you made it this far, stick around because I’m about to share it with you.

🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

God showed that I can be saved, be doing good works, and still be far outside of his intended will for my life....

Listen.... It’s the times that God asks for obedience, yet we choose to shrink back from it. You might understand examples like, “God telling you to say something to someone, but your scared to do it so you shrink back. Or, you know you should have done something in a particular situation but looking back would have handled it a million different ways, but froze up. All those are good examples, but imagine that times 100 million, it’s that deep of a revelation.

What God revealed is that often time we will ask Him questions, and he will answer them in accordance to the condition of our hearts. Re read that slow 5 times and meditate on it.

Jesus often times does similar in scripture, by answering people’s questions with a question first, to reveal the motive of there hearts. What God was showing me was that when we ask him questions, we often times ask out of good intentions, but it’s filtered through our intended desires. We ask with intentions on receiving what we want the response to be. Let’s slow it down cause it’s really heavy. It means we aren’t really seeking his will, but instead, we are seeking what we want his will to align with it.

This means when asking God, we can have all the best intentions in the world of serving God, but when we ask him for something, we are asking it for self, and he graciously and lovingly gives us the desires of our hearts. But if your hearts will, even though being good, isn’t what’s God wants for your life, is it a life worth living? It may appear to be good, you claim it’s for his kingdom, but if it’s not the mission he’s called you to....?

Walk with me bro...

How many of you have seen visions in your head from God, or felt a prompting in your heart to expand in ways you can’t even fathom, but then you quickly rationalize every excuse of why it can’t happen for you, and you write it off as a day dream How many times have you asked God for something but if it doesn’t happen how you wanted it to, or expected it to, you start questioning if you have unresolved sin, or if you did something not pleasing to God. How many of you reading this are weighed down by your past decisions in life, and they hauntingly become the excuses of your future?

God literally loves you enough, to bless you, save you, bring you into heaven, and you still not have lived the life he had intended for you. Most people I’ve met say, “Well everything happens for a reason, and God allowed x______ to happen to learn from it, so I don’t consider it a mistake. Yet they refuse to take ownership of truthfully considering if they were choosing their will or his!

God meets you where you are, when you turn to him, then He gives you beauty for your ashes. Things happen because you choose his way or your way, second by second day by day. When you’re on track and fully submitted to his will, you will live how he wants you to live. When you choose your will, and realize what you’re doing is wrong, he meets you where you are at. When you turn from your way, (aka repentance) Thats when he puts you back on the right path.

When you take ownership you realize, you can’t be focused on fear and faith at the same time. You’re going to choose one or the other daily. Several times God gives orders in scripture, man choose his own way, and he meets them where they are at. It’s literally the whole entire book. Man chooses flesh, God sets them straight, repeat. God tells Isreal do this, they don’t do it, they repent, he blesses them. You think he wanted them to mess up? No! He wants to bless them, but just as we do, we pursue our own ways, and then ask God to bless them.

Long segway, but I hope it was useful. Point is, how many times have you been given a vision, or felt the feeling and didn’t act? In my experience, JUST MY PERSONAL experience, everything God calls me to do, is wildly uncomfortable, and he always places me in a positions that my faith is required to go further than my flesh has ever been capable of. Meaning, God gives me visions that I cannot complete on my own, that I have to overcome fear, walk in faith, and be wildly dependent on him to complete the mission. Period.

So, what calling has you placed on your heart that you haven’t been listening to? Are you so far past having them that you don’t even ask God anymore? Are you just focused on, watch over my family, help me make it through this work day, get a decent spot at the mall, next promotion, and don’t let me get stuck in traffic?

Or is it, God you know what I’m going through, if you would just give me a sign, I’ll do whatever you tell me? But, then you don’t read the Bible enough to realize, he’s already given you the sign, your mission, purpose and calling, and you would just rather wait on magic to drop from the sky, settling for comfort and complacent over sacrifice and obedience?

Come on bro!! Excuses are void in the kingdom of heaven, act like you knew! Don’t be the guy who gets so far off path that you say you believe, but don’t seek Gods will daily, so you walk around professing God, but living nothing like what he’s called you to live. You’re better than that.

So, what’s the answer to this ridiculously long blog?

Fully submit yourself to Gods will daily, no matter how crazy it may seem to others. Use me as an example if you need to. If you know me, I’m not the trophy boy for exceptional Christian. I’m what most churches would call a heretic, a false profit, or lost in sin. Yet, all I eat sleep and breathe is doing Gods will daily. My point is, people will always have an opinion, even the people who thought they were closest to God, killed his son, and the prophets who came before him! Christ rebelled against their man made religion, called them a brood of vipers, prob some more stuff, and then went on to reveal love, care, generosity, forgiveness, and compassion! A little different example than what they had set. He goes on to show mercy trumps sacrifice, and forgiveness and love conquers all. He literally displayed the example of what it means to be his disciple for all to see, when he picked up his cross, took on the sin of judging hypocrites, and said “Father forgive them, they know not what they do!”

Yet in this world, being a true disciple is a stumbling block for most religious people. It’s the very ones who claim to know him the most, that continuously persecute his elect. So, if you don’t look like mans religious church, and you don’t look like the world, you might just find that your walking on the narrow path with Jesus, that he himself said very few will find.

So don’t choose the ways of the world and they will hate you. Don’t seek to align yourself with mans religious customs and narrow viewpoint, they will hate you too.

For they fear what they don’t know, and kill what they can’t understand. Blind guides, full of judgment, an outward display of selfish insecurity, masquerading itself as righteousness. They’ve been judging themselves their whole life, because it is all they’ve known to do. Some past judgment on the world, others understand the word enough that they don’t pass judgment on the world, but comprehend the word enough to pass judgment on the church. Yet when they do so its a perversion, because they do not know love, so they lack the truth. They themselves can’t even look in the mirror and love themselves, so they cannot rightly ever loves others! When they look in the mirror they see sin and not their savior. So they outwardly reflect their shortcomings onto others. Claiming to be free, yet they tie a burdensome yoke onto others that they themself cannot carry, because they have skeletons they cannot bury. Depraved bunch in high positions, appearing to be Shepard’s, but they are like chaff in the wind, being thrown to and fro, judgment to judgment. If the words I speak aren’t from God himself, then let this day be held in account for all to see, so that the motives of my heart be displayed for all to bear witness.

Take the time to seek his will, and you to will find yourself on a similar path. But in this walk of righteousness remember, God won’t place a calling in your heart and not give you the ability to see it through. You just have to have the courage to bring it to fruition.

So in closing, are you choosing comfort or your calling? Search your heart man of GOD, the end has yet to come. Will you have the courage to follow his will? Fear is for the fire lake, be bold and courageous, you’ve been called to go and spread the good news of the gospel, baptize in the name of The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit! You have been commissioned!

Stop looking for the approval of man, and rest assure in your approval and right standing in God through Christ, who sacrificed everything for you to be set free! Let God himself be the only judge you consider in your pursuit of his calling. Go to where the pastors don’t preach, and where the teachers won’t teach. Go be a light in dark in the dark, a city on a hill for all to see. Stop settling for tradition, and go complete Gods mission! May his spirit rage inside of you, calling you to relentless actions of faith, being bold as to laugh in the face of fear, and courageously walk out your destiny. God be with you always even until the end of this age. Don’t do, be. because you already are.

From the front lines, -ES

[dionysins]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ so today i woke up to someone i used to know basically calling me a bunch of names. so let me clear up a few things for you since this is a lot of accusing and you clearly are keeping track of me and every single one of my friends, those you haven’t even talked to before:

1. you have a lot of ppl you hurt on tumblr and they knew when you came back. unfortunately one of those people reached out to me and pointed out you were back contrary to what you may like to believe. 

2. beth was a toxic ass person and she has acknowledged this & said she’s past it so not sure what you’re trying to prove. also, you said im lying about me not wanting to be friends with you because of beth but how is that a lie? you knew every detail of what beth said about me and still befriended her so i naturally had to cut off ties. it’s not just you, i cut off ties with everyone who befriended beth in that time period. you think it’s wrong for someone to cut off people out of their lives if they’re not making them feel welcomed or heard? o...kay.

3. you did steal from me. and admitted it and just said “im not gonna change it.” you genuinely took a character i wrote then put what ive created into your rp. how is that not theft?

4. you know when i first realized you were toxic was when you accused m. (someone who has always been there for me btw, even through the single most traumatic event of my real life) of stealing from you just for reblogging something from an inspo blog for an old rp you ran, then lied to h. about it. you befriended someone that was pretty abusive towards me for awhile. you also have claimed on multiple occasions that a white person is a person of color to justify your choices. so yeah, i think i actually had ample reason to stop communicating with you. but if you want to claim we had “no reason” to cut you out, you are honestly lying to yourself.

5. i never unfriended u on fb? you blocked me & at that point i was like oh she has no interest in being friends w me anymore. also ur THAT MAD about us not being fb friends???? omg. you claim that i said you were stalking for looking at my fb page but there is...no way to tell someone is looking at your fb page so i’m actually so confused about this point.

6. i actually did try to reach out to you in private via my character blog if i remember correctly because we had each other blocked, specifically in regards to the situation with m. that conversation didn’t end with a real solution but for you to say i just “cut you out” without trying to speak to you is a blatant fucking LIE. i have DEFENDED your ass to some people especially when you were in my rp and i genuinely thought you were my friend until you started hurting the people around me. at first i didn’t even know if i should believe m but i also knew she wasn’t lying and boy when i saw the proof! it is completely unreasonable for you to lie about this. i’m not even sure why you’re doing it. because there may have been moments where i hurt you without meaning to, and in that case i apologize, but for you to sit there and accuse me of never giving a shit about you is you putting words in my gd mouth and you KNOW it’s not true - otherwise you would’ve stayed for an actual conversation instead of insulting me and running. 

7. icb i have to bother clarifying this but i left my ALIAS on tumblr - it’s creepy that you know this given how upset you seem that people have found you again! i have all of 7 followers here so it’s so fucking creepy that you managed to track me down all on your own, after supposedly blocking me. i left my alias bc im in the ent. industry rn and didn’t want people to track my real name down & also bc i wanted to leave that blog and its content behind. i’ve never said i’m leaving tumblr forever, just that i’m deleting that blog.

8. finally, i have never once claimed to be a better person than beth, so you deciding to come and verbally attack me by making that comparison is odd. beth probably is a better person than me in many aspects as are a lot of other humans bc ive certainly said some fucked up shit in anger and will gladly own up to all of it but this certainly shows she’s a lot more mature than you. at least she owned up to where she messed up but ive never seen you admit one single thing or even apologize. ive never seen her - or anyone else but you for that matter - slide into IMs to verbally harass someone then run away as you have today.

the only thing i have called you is toxic. you have called me a freak, not normal, obsessed, a liar, and a bad person all because i cut you out of my life for what i felt were valid reasons at the time. i’m allowed to discuss shit on my blog that only my friends know about. literally. your behavior, frankly, is scary.

i’m glad you decided to, um, “cowboy the fuck up” but next time try to have actual facts. my friends or myself have never tried to cut you down this way, by literally sending a fucking essay to attack someone, to call them “a freak” when you literally know 0 things about my life. not even where i live, what i do, or my personality. so really, you showed everyone that you’re capable of that kind of viciousness and resentment. 

if you read this - which i know you will - im more than willing to talk privately and apologize for my wrongs, if you’re willing to talk about facts and also own up to your shit. discord is at soj#3694. but coming in hurling insults at someone then not giving them a way to respond is not the way to go.

edit: also calling someone, esp someone with a history of mental illness that you are aware of, a “freak” right off the bat and implying they are not “normal” is ableist as fuck and apart from this strange discourse i found that genuinely disturbing. i hope you stop using that kind of damaging language in the future.

[aalt-ctrl-del]

ive watched a few other film reviews and comparisons with the 1989 film of Pet Sematary. Spoilers yknow

maybe they rewrote the script a few times, but films usually have cohesion despite multiple changes during filming and rewrites. The pacing felt rushed in the third act, and the Burial Grounds in the Little God Swamp essential became a fast pass for quick-resurrections r’us. I much preferred the suspense of the original film (omit the bad acting because it was made up for with creepy ambiance)

I don’t really get where people go “oh, it’s hard to make a toddler act in a horror film”. Miko Hughes did a great portrayal of Gage, and the Lavoie twins in the 2019 remake did good in the few scenes they caught - I wished they did more with the creepy Gage supernatural psychic child.

But where do people get the “oh, a toddler isn’t that creepy. You just overpower them, and that’s no big deal” Did these asswipes not read the book? Gage post-reanimation wasn’t a legitimate threat to people he encountered, or whoever knew he could’ve been dangerous. He was dangerous because he gave everybody fucked hallucinations and had Churchill to help take out the main threat - Judd. He disarmed his mother with more fuck all ptsd about Zelda, then when grief stricken Rachel goes to hug her baby - she doesn’t really fathom if he’s real or not - she’s RachelStoppedWorking.exe

Yeah, toddlers you can overpower. But how ‘bout we stick a fucked Wendigo monster in this babus body and he’s gonna fry your brain with grief beyond comprehension. By the end of the book and the 1989 movie, after Louis has dealt with all this supernatural bs, he’s a crispy dish of fucked noodles.  AND HE WAS A MAN OF SCIENCE AND MEDICINE WITH NO FUCKS FOR OTHER WORDILY NONSENSE. I’d like to see how a brave bro-dude, who can’t handle an open closet, deals with sin-toddler. The entity from the burial grounds has vision into your darkest secrets, and it’s all over that juicy gossip.

But that’s why Gage was a frightening presence in the original film, for one, this beautiful sweet cinnamon bun to pure for this world died, and then comes back to fuck up your day and murder. And there’s an ambiguous edge to that concept, we as the spectator don’t grasp what has possessed those that return from the burial grounds. It’s the Wendigo, whatever, but why did it curse the land, what was it’s initial motive? The burial grounds weren’t initially evil, and they were used to bring back benign if not ultra passive creatures - still eerie and fucked up, but typically harmless until later years as the grounds were - as I call - abused. But the grounds were cursed, and the more creatures (or people) buried there, the more toxic and sour the resurrected become - that was a take I grasped, since people were using the burial site up until Jud and... Spot.

In the new 2019 version, the deceased child is Ellie and her capture of this entity isn’t as potent as the original film. A few, like I, took it as Ellie was pissed and vengeful that she was reanimated against her wishes, and that was the reason for her evil streak. Also, much rage over that Louis saved Gage over her, btw ⁿᵒᵇᵒᵈʸ ᶜᵃʳᵉˢ ʸᵒᵘ ᵈᵘᵐᵇ ᵇᶦᵗᶜʰ. True, that could just be a misdirection on Ellie’s part, but it didn’t have the ambiguous edge like zombie Gage offered. Ellie’s character was a very explain reasons of her nefarious plot, and I go, “yeah, sure. Don’t really care if you have alternative motives for being an evil bean. Kill these people, I’m done.” I couldn’t really be bothered to grasp IF there was an alternative motive to her evil, aside from recruiting her whole fam into the undead cult.

Another point of the original film and the book, Louis loses his damn marbles. And events surrounding his mission to take Gage to the burial site are more blessed through his journey, rather than he having direct influence. The 2019 film, Louis was very involved, he had to do everything himself, and there was very limited presence from the spirit Wendigo - aside from a hello neighbor cameo out yonder. 

In the original, by the Act III, we think - all right. Louis has got his shit together, he’s headed over to Judd’s and he’s gonna end this madness. He’ll fix this. Only for Louis to haul Rachel out to the burial grounds to “third times the charm” this jinx. But in the remake, Louis isn’t ever under the true influence of the Wendigo, and he snaps back to sanity - or stays sane - throughout his confrontation with Ellie. So we don’t really get a fulfilling character ark - he’s dies, anticlimactically. And you expect that to happen, because what else could possibly happen? Louis learned his lesson; what else would there be? Have a riveting action packed adventure of trying to locate and end his own, murder wife, out in the fog filled swamp? That would’ve been exciting and suspenseful, I guess. It would’ve fit the theme of jump scares prevalent in new age horror.

Boo. Loud noise. Scary. 

I would’ve been really impressed if, given the changes and build in the initial lead, if more was done with Rachel’s character. Given, that she was a direct influence for Zelda’s death, and how she perceived herself; how death and Zelda’s demise haunted her all these years. There could’ve been great evolution for Rachel, having to be the one to kill her own daughter; after years blaming herself for Zelda. It could’ve been great, the film could’ve had a hay day with that direction. But it didn’t.

That’s why I say the script must’ve been re-written a few times during production. By the build, it seemed they had an idea for a direction and motifs to explore, had a powerful concept to delve through with those original ideals for grief and acceptance due to a quaking loss. But the dissolving climax had this cop out for something so boring and cliche, and I didn’t get the sense of haunting tragedy the original film masterfully conveyed.

The 1989 films acting was trash, but it had impacting moments. And it left me wanting to rewatch the original, with a hope that perhaps this time, the ending will be different. 

[seasaltmemories]

To Live As Free Men and Women

Over and over again I hear the conflict of echoes summarized as “shifting from relying on gods to relying on humanity’s own accomplishments.”  And on the surface that makes perfect sense.  All the endgame quotes are about refusing to bow down to Duma and wanting to fight for their world.  

However this reading has always not sat well with me because of two things.  First this celebration of humanity’s individual strength is not brought up until the last moments of Act 5.  To call it the main theme when so much of the earlier conflict was about class feel disingenuous.  Second, this reading tends to pit Alm and Celica as opposites where Alm shows Celica the light.  Aside from disliking the convenient dismissive treatment of the female protagonist, my obvious bias aside, it just isn’t good storytelling to have one of your leads solely exist to be wrong.  Not to mention the game is going for a sort of dualism between the two of them, so to paint Celica’s route as just one mistake is short-sighted.

So the question remains, what is the main theme of Echoes?  Does it have a theme?  Regardless of your thoughts on the game, it still sends a message, every piece of art does, even if it is as banal as “good will always triumph,” that is still a theme.  So to examine echoes, thoroughly we have to find a thread that manages to link the entire game together.

The best place to start is obviously the beginning.  After the opening video.  We are given a little exposition dump about the state of Valentia.  Two countries and two gods, one emphasizing war and the other emphasizing peace.  Makes sense, it is pretty obvious which one we’re supposed to root for and what country we’ll be following.  Cue the prologue where after everyone was so excited to meet the knight in the woods, he turns out to be totally willing to murder children.  It would be so easy to write Slayde off as a bad apple but the narrative makes no attempts to try and act as if anything about him is non-standard.  If anything the start of Act 1 goes out of its way to detail just how rotten Zofia is.  It’s fitting that Alm joins a rebellion first and foremost, and it is not until Act 3 Rigel really becomes an antagonist.  And much of Act 1 is targeting Zofia’s own corruption, its bandits and power-hungry nobles.  Despite being massive problems, Alm rushes headlong into them, wanting nothing more than to protect people.

Act 2 starts similarly, Celica learning of just how horrible the pirates are, and how they have been allowed practically free reign of the seas.  She has even fewer reasons to get involved, considering her party is literally five people, but she can’t secure safe passage otherwise so let’s do this.  If it takes fighting necrodragons then she will fight necrodragons.

Despite both of their reckless behavior, they accomplish real change and make things for the better.  And so after growing up into the people they are today, Alm and Celica in an obviously heartwarming manner.  Except quickly things tilt sideways.  

Celica’s hypocritical behavior has been long-pointed out, wishing him to avoid bloodshed after just killing a pirate king, but things still stay civil until this moment.

“Alm: Nrgh… If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear I was speaking to a blue blood. My station doesn’t matter, Celica. I’m here because I was called. I have a duty to perform, and I’ll perform it. No more, and no less.

Celica: Oh, Alm…

Alm: Do you think I WANTED this fight? This all started because Lima IV went and angered the empire. If you wish to point fingers, point them at the ruler who failed his people. It’s his fault we’re in this mess.”

Alm points to Lima and the system that failed Zofia, and while he is not wrong, as the Zofian heir, Celica is just as much a part of that system.  And to have someone so important to her throw the failings of the state at her feet, when all her life she has simply tried to survive, feels like the worse betrayal.  And when Alm still expects her to hold responsibility for all those mistakes (even if he doesn’t directly ask it of her) she explodes.  Now obviously Alm didn’t know how his words would impact her, and Celica was the first to go on the offensive, but often this discussion gets characterized as just being about violence, when that discussion is just a footnote to the real conflict.

Starting with Alm, Act 3 opens with Alm finally meeting Berkut face to face, someone who represents all of Rigel’s teachings about power and strength.  While a fearsome opponent, he has an utter meltdown after Alm’s army beats him.  As they go on their way to face Desaix, even Clive starts to fail Alm by doubting him and questioning if it is worth it to try and save Delthea, and depending on how well you play the next few levels, he really might fail Alm such as when/if Mathilda dies and he blames Alm for her death.  While he still will eventually come around to believe in Alm once again, we see that even after retaking Zofia, the old order is still not completely gone.

Celica meanwhile has to confront another outlaw king, but this time Greith is more personal, aside from people in her army having been directly harmed by him, there’s this lingering thread of Greith only having been able to grow so powerful because of Lima’s negligence.  In-universe there is no reason she has to go and stop him, it is a significant detour from her pilgrimage, still she refuses to enable this injustice.  Greith warns her that there will always be another one like him, and when they arrive at the temple, Mila is gone and unable to fix everything like she wanted to do.  So Celica does what she has been running away from her entire life, she reveals her status as the lost princess and promises to protect Zofia and Mila.

However while this is a good choice both for her development and from a logical standpoint, we start to see that even it is not without consequences in the Act 4.  Determined to save Mila, Celica eventually comes into contact with Jedah, who says as long as she gives up her soul to Duma, he will return Mila.  Now while Celica is often lambasted for this choice, let’s look at how she sees this and why she doesn’t immediately distrust him.

While we have seen Jedah be a creep all game, this is the first time Celica has seen him, and while he is othered and marked evil with a lot of traits, such as his blue skin, how stupid would it be if in real life you refused to work with people because “they looked evil” not to mention he is the leader of a similar faith, it would be like if a protestant Christian talked with the Pope.  Jedah is a scumbag but Celica has no reason in her eyes to immediately distrust him/assume he is lying.

And having traced Celica’s actions up until now, how she hates the suffering of others and will do anything in her power to fix things, why would she not consider herself a worthy exchange for Zofia’s restoration?  With Conrad’s reappearance, there’s even another heir ready to take over.  All her life she’s been confronted with her father’s failure, and what kind of ruler would she be if she followed in his footsteps?  

Still despite this mindset, she does not go to Duma Tower to die.  She plans to see Mila and rescue her first and foremost.  But when it looks as if Mila is completely gone and impossible to recover, she decides she will at least try and protect those she loves.

Before we can look at how that decision go, we need to return back to Alm.  In Act 4, we learn that Rigel is pretty much as corrupt as Zofia.  People like Nuibaba and Jerome manipulate good people like Zeke and Tatiana purely for their own selfish gain.  Throughout all this Alm is treated as if he is already King of Zofia, which Alm never really confronts and very obviously chafes at the thought.  He stands poised to become a living legend, when horror of all horror he ends up being the one to kill his own father.  

While Rigel welcomes him with open arms as there prince, Alm finds no joy in the title and learns that all his hard work was just to fulfill Rudolf’s plans.  And the closer he gets to the climax the more and more trauma he suffers,  having to kill his only remaining family left, Berkut having gone mad from his failure to live up to Rigel’s ideals of power over everything.  In the end it culminates in Alm having to even kill the woman he loves.

The only thing that keeps this story from becoming the tragedy we first saw at the beginning of the game is the fact Mila takes pity on them and decides to release Falchion for Alm.  So to act as if the events of Echoes were purely fueled by human ingenuity is disingenuous.

So what was the point of this little recap?  Well when you look closely you see it is not just Duma and Mila who failed them, but the entire way their world was structured, the sins of their fathers who created/maintained a world where the weakest were always exploited the most.  A world where they were denied happiness and set up to fail.  Celica has her entire life defined by being a part of this system, less an individual person and more a title.  What use was she as an individual, if she didn’t give her all for a country her blood had left down?  And Alm was denied a family, and forced to kill them simply because of Rudolf’s plan, even if it was for the greater good.  The world Duma and Mila set-up centuries ago is not the type of world these people need anymore.  Killing them is not enough, they have to change the entire structure of society as they know it. It’s why they get rid of Rigel and Zofia in the end to create the One United Kingdom, because only then can they start fresh, free from the influences of before.

Now some might say, why explain make such a big deal over such a minor detail?  Gods, society, what’s the difference?  But like I said earlier a theme needs to encapsulate the entire work, not just the climax.  And society’s failing manifest in multiple ways in Echoes, from classism, to tragedy of Sonya’s family, to Valber’s loss.  From start to finish Echoes never lets you forget what a broken world Valentia is.  And to fix it you can’t just take Alm’s impulsive idealism or Celica’s country-bound devotion.  Sometimes you need both, and to attack the problem at the source of its roots.

[teambakerst]

I miss my grandma so much. I keep thinking I’ll write in one of my journals and put down all the feelings I haven’t been able to express with family or friends, but then no one will read it, so what’s the point? The same could be said about strangers on the internet reading my personal posts, but whatever. Talking to family just makes me cry and talking to friends doesn’t happen, because no one asks about it anymore. At the same time, I don’t want to put a burden on them, they have their own lives to deal with. It’s too graphic, traumatic, etc. So, I don’t know what else to do but lay it all out here.

My grandma died in March from multiple forms of cancer, all diagnosed too late, and at different times. First, the doctors found black spots on her lungs. Then it was pancreatic cancer. Then we found out it was in her bones.

I couldn’t even react when I found out about the bone cancer. My dad called my mom to tell her, and she told me and my other grandparents. At the time, my mom was in the hospital for an infection, which can be deadly for someone going through chemotherapy. Surprise! Two family members with cancer. They caught mom’s at stage 2. She’s doing better now, about to start radiation...

So she told me my grandma had lesions in her skull. We knew she was dying, but this was terrifying. Cancer’s a fucking monster.

I left the hospital a while later, not feeling well. I caught pneumonia, which sucked by itself, but had another impact on what happened next. The doctors told us my grandma might have two more months to live. They don’t offer real hospice care unless a patient needs a qualified nurse around the clock, so they set us up with a hospital bed and some other supplies in our own home (and a nurse who visited once every couple days). We rearranged our living room for her and brought some of her clothes, pillows, and stuffed animals over from her house. She really, really, did not want to stay with us. Not because she didn’t love us, but because she loved her house and was used to being independent. She’d been suffering from dementia for a long time, so she was often confused about the state of her health and couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t take her home no matter how many times we explained it.

Everyone agreed I shouldn’t be around my mom or my grandma when their immune systems were compromised, so I spent a lot of the time I was sick in my room upstairs. My grandma only lived for two more weeks.

I was so mad for most of that time, mad I was sick, mad the doctors weren’t doing anything for her. And I mean, anything. Apparently, my diabetic grandma didn’t need insulin anymore, because cancer feeds on sugar. Except when her blood sugar spiked too high and they had to take her from our house on a gurney to a rehabilitation facility (??? not a hospital?) to try to bring it back down.

I had a bad feeling when they took her. And nothing but bad feelings every time I went to bed, afraid she wouldn’t wake up the next morning.

During the week she spent at our house, she started hallucinating from not getting enough oxygen. And she was seeing weird things. Squiggly lines and pictures on the walls, rays of light, strangely negative biblical phrases (something about her being a sinner). Hearing things, too. A man behind her calling her name. Her dad, who passed away a long time ago. She would talk to people who weren’t there, sometimes in Spanish. We got her some oxygen tanks, but her condition only improved mildly. She was in and out of sleep all the time. I just tried to reassure her she was safe, especially when she thought she saw smoke in the house. She had a hard time moving and it usually took a long time to get her from the family room couch to the bed. I made sure she was comfy and we would usually talk a little bit, just us two, before I went to bed.

There was one good day where I gave her interview questions and she was lucid enough to answer them. Stuff about college and her friends and vacations. I wrote it all down.

But there was a shift when they took her to the rehab place. I worked the next day. I was taking pay at the drive-thru window when I felt my phone start buzzing in my pocket, over and over. I didn’t want to answer it, because I knew it would be bad news. Then the DQ phone rang and my coworker brought it over to me--my sister called. She said Nani wasn’t responding and I better come over there quick, because it might be the end. I just started sobbing at work. My coworkers/managers were nice and they told me to go. So I cried while driving to the rehab place, too, I couldn’t stop it--don’t cry and drive! My dad called on the way over, he’d noticed me a couple cars ahead of him. That was a little bit reassuring, and I calmed down.

My dad and I met up in the parking lot and found my sister and my other grandma with Nani in her room. Nani was sleeping and wouldn’t respond to her name or her arm being shaken. We thought it was a coma. Hours went by, she had some of her friends visit and leave after sharing their prayers. And then suddenly, she gasped and raised her arms and she was awake!

We’d thought that was the end. The rehab staff weren’t very helpful, not offering an explanation one way or the other. Come to find out she’d been given strong painkillers (or sedatives? Hard to know). It was hard to understand her when she spoke after that, she was very quiet and mumbly. She did say she wanted a “little hug” from everyone, and that made me happy. She asked my uncle to play a song for her. He’d brought his guitar and sung something special for st. patrick’s day. It was very beautiful and I ran to the bathroom in her room, because I started crying again and I didn’t want her to see.

She stayed at that center for a few days, but because healthcare is weird and sucky they said they couldn’t keep her there. It was a rehab place, not a hospice, after all. (I’m still pissed they wouldn’t give her an IV when she stopped eating and drinking. AND they forgot her insulin and claimed they’d given it to her even when I told them I hadn’t left the room and never saw the nurse return with it. High blood sugar was the reason she was there in the first place.)

So they moved my grandma to another rehab place. This one wasn’t as nice. I visited her after school, because through all of this I was still trying to finish off the semester... The doctors helped my grandma into a wheelchair and we took her to a dinner table where the other patients could eat together. My grandma “ordered” some tea and did a little dance--I think my phone’s ringtone went off or something. She was almost normal. That was the last time I saw her alive. My dad, sister, and I let her have dinner with my uncle because he hadn’t gotten a chance to be alone with her.

They moved her, again, to what’s called a group home. My parents and sister visited her there, but I had school and work again. I got a text from my dad at work, saying I should probably leave now and come home. I knew she’d passed.

It was a strange feeling. I guess it would be called numbness. My sister was home and confirmed what I’d thought. My parents were on their way home from a family wedding. I went up to my room and kind of stood there.

Then my parents got home and we went to the group home. It was the first time I was seeing it. It was nice. The people there said they were sorry. I didn’t really realize we were going to see her body until my sister led the way to her room. I kind of lingered back, not knowing if I wanted to see. We all went in and my grandma was there on the bed, with her mouth open and her lips blue. My dad tried to “wake her up.” Kind of like before, when she hadn’t really gone. He blamed himself, outloud. But there was nothing we could’ve done differently. He told me she was still warm if I wanted to hug her or give her a kiss, but I couldn’t. I just wanted to remember what she was like alive. I knelt beside her and said a prayer instead.

I don’t remember what it’s called right now but we had a ceremony before the funeral where we prayed the rosary with my grandma preserved in her coffin. The priest had everyone make the sign of the cross over her forehead. I was the first to do it. I didn’t like it because her skin was cold and hard. I petted her hair, which felt the same. Soft. The funeral director gave my sister and I paper to write Nani a letter, which we folded up and put in her coffin. I thanked her for everything and all the time we spent together.

The funeral was very nice and I didn’t cry then. Lots of tears during the before-ceremony. I don’t know what it was at the funeral, but I’ve cried a lot since then. I still wish I could go back and not get sick. Go back and see her in the group home. My parents said she wasn’t really lucid or talkative when she was there, but I still want things to be different. I wish the hospital had given her a damn CT scan during the many, many times I took her there for her uncontrolled blood sugar, hernia, etc. Good to know the blood sugar thing is a sign of pancreatic cancer.

My mom having cancer at the same time is still something I’m dealing with. And she’s dealing with. And dad’s dealing with. On and on. I don’t like thinking about cancer in my future. We’re all trying to eat better and use natural products. Mom’s breast cancer isn’t genetic, but they never tested my grandma’s.

Everytime I think of a happy memory with my Nani, it’s followed by “and you’ll never see her/hear her/be able to do that with her again.” I would like the second part of the thought to disappear. I’ve been having weird dreams with her still. Not the kind where a family member visits you and bestows upon you wisdom, a friendly greeting, or an I love you. Instead, it’s her as a restless ghost, a corpse, or the confused version of herself before she died where in the dream I’m still aware she’s gone. I want her back, I want to forget all this sadness. I want the dreams to end. Or at least give me some peace.

[phantom-le6]

Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 6 (5 of 6)

Moving on with the episode reviews for Star Trek: The Next Generation, I present a fifth instalment from the show’s sixth season, beginning with the episode that finally gave some in-continuity reasoning for Trek’s alien races being almost all humanoid…

Episode 20: The Chase

Plot (as given by me):

Captain Picard is visited by his former archaeology teacher Professor Galen, who has recently made a ‘profound discovery’. However, he will only share information on this with his former pupil if Picard agrees to join him on an expedition that could last anything up to a year. Picard is tempted, but ultimately chooses his duty to command the Enterprise over his desire to join Galen, much to the Professor’s anger and disappointment. Rather than wait aboard the Enterprise, Galen opts to leave in his shuttle. Later, the shuttle comes under attack from the Yridians. The Enterprise manages to reach the shuttle in time to stop the Yridians attacking by accidentally destroying their vessel, but Galen has been fatally wounded, and apologises to Picard for being so harsh about his rejection before dying.

 Determined not to let his mentor’s death be in vain, Picard orders the Enterprise to go off-mission, ignoring their assigned task of mediating a conference on Altalia VII to find out why Galen was killed. A series of number blocks found in the computer of the professor’s shuttle are ultimately revealed to be mathematical representations of certain DNA fragments. The fragments have been found on planets across the quadrant from multiple species, and are revealed to be pieces of some kind of algorithm. As the investigation continues, the Enterprise finds others are pursuing the same genetic puzzle, as they encounter Cardassian and Klingon ships in orbit of a planet Galen had visited prior to his visit to Picard.

 Picard convinces the Klingon and Cardassian officers to combine their efforts with his, as they all have pieces of the puzzle. They agree, and the Enterprise crew is able to extrapolate where to find the final piece of the puzzle. When the location is learned, Gul Ocett of the Cardassians attempts to double-cross the others and attacks the Federation and Klingon ships. Luckily, Lt. Commander La Forge discovered Ocett’s attempt to sabotage the Enterprise’s systems beforehand, and their damage from the attack is faked along with the co-ordinates Ocett took. The Enterprise proceeds to the real location, the Klingon captain Nu’Daq accompanying them as a guest since his own craft failed to be prepared for the Cardassian betrayal.

 The Enterprise travels to Vilmor II, where the final DNA sequence is to be found in a partially fossilised seabed. Picard beams down with Dr Crusher, Lt Worf and Nu’Daq, where they are then joined by not only the Cardassians, but also a group of Romulans that had been shadowing the Enterprise under cloak since the attack on Galen’s shuttle. While Worf and Nu’Daq engage in the stand-off with the other two factions, Picard and Crusher scan the final genetic fragment to complete the algorithm. Their tricorder then runs a holographic message formed from the completed program; an alien from a humanoid race explains that they seeded many worlds across the galaxy with elements of their genetic coding. As a result, all humanoid life is effectively linked by a shared ancestry, but when the hologram ends, both the Cardassians and Nu’Daq are disgusted by the idea they have a common ancestry and refuse to believe what they’ve been told.

 On board the Enterprise, Picard laments to Dr Crusher that the message Galen had sought did not find a receptive audience, but later he is contacted by the Romulan commander, who implies that not all ears who heard the message were deaf after all.

Review:

This is about our third Picard episode on the trot, so for me that spoils it somewhat because the show isn’t mixing things up enough in terms of alternating which characters are getting episodes focused on them.  That said, it’s only Picard’s episode until his mentor dies and the crew learns what Galen was looking for.  After that, the episode goes from character piece to plot-driven mystery, and then when the solution is revealed, we get a little bit of issue exploration, as we find out that the humanoid races of Trek are all linked.  The different reactions we get to this is not unlike getting together people from different national and racial backgrounds, pointing that they all have a common ancestry, and having them all call you mad while one privately lets you know they agree with you.

 The problem, however, is that because the episode changes what it is so much, it ends up spoiling itself.  It should have committed itself to one thing; the character piece (in which case Galen should have spent longer on screen and the Enterprise should have had helping him as its mission), the plot-driven mystery (in which case we should have got to that sooner and had less or no Picard-centric plot) or the issue exploration (for that to work, we should have seen the hologram early on and spent the episode wrestling with what having a common ancestry would mean for all these different species).  Instead, it’s a total mangle that only just about works.

 Also, according to Memory Alpha, producer Rick Berman wasn’t wild about the episode’s concept of a humanoid race pre-dating our own, but then again that’s no surprise; much of what I’ve read on the Trek wiki suggests Berman was a mainstream TV producer with little to no understanding of what Trek is.  To my mind, this isn’t an issue at all.  If anything, I think it’s cool to have sci-fi come up with the idea that maybe the odd alien race or two pre-dates our own.  As a species we’ve often taken a very ego-centric view of ourselves and our place within existence, and if we’re not willing to entertain the idea that intelligent alien life doesn’t have to be largely humanoid, I think we should be willing to accept that we’re not the first humanoid form of life in the universe. If we can’t do that, how can we ever hope to even approach a Trek-like utopian future one day?

 So, in summation this is a decent episode, but it suffers from trying to be more than it needs to be.  As such, I’m only inclined to give it 7 out of 10.

Episode 21: Frame of Mind:

Plot (as given by me):

Commander Riker rehearses for a theatre play called “Frame of Mind”, in which he plays a man who is locked up in a psychiatric hospital, told he is insane and tortured under the guise of being ‘treated’. At the same time, he is preparing for an undercover away mission to Tilonus IV; a Federation science team on the planet had been on the planet during the collapse of the planetary government, and Commander Riker will have to go down posing as a merchant to make contact with them. During preparation for the mission, Riker is accidentally wounded on the side of his face by Lt. Worf. Riker has the wound healed by Dr Crusher, but thinks it still hurts. Regardless, he proceeds to perform in the play before the mission, but during the audience applause, Riker suddenly finds himself in a hospital for the mentally ill that looks just like the stage set.

 Riker begins to slip back and forth between being in the hospital and on board the Enterprise, and due to images from the hospital imposing themselves on the other reality but not vice versa, he begins to believe he really is a mentally ill patient. Eventually, Riker begins rejecting the idea that the Enterprise was ever real, going so far as to try and resist rescue by Worf and Lt. Commander Data. Back on the Enterprise, Dr Crusher heals a wound on Riker’s head in the same position where Worf cut him earlier. When the wound instantly reappears, Riker knows he is in an illusion, and turns a phaser on himself to end the illusion.

 Riker then finds himself back in a hospital room, but still holding the phaser, suggesting he hasn’t yet come back to reality.  A wide-beam shot with the phaser at high power turns the hospital room into the stage set on the Enterprise, and pounding on the set finally shatters the last illusion. Riker awakens on an examination table on Tilonus IV, a probe inserted into the point on his head that was apparently wounded in his illusions. Fighting his way to the concealed communicator Worf gave him, Riker requests an emergency beam-out. Back on the Enterprise, Dr Crusher repairs the damage to Riker’s long-term memory, and Captain Picard explains how Riker was abducted by one of the factions on the planet in hopes of gaining strategic information. However, Riker’s mind created a defence for him by combining his play performance with what was going on. Riker is urged to rest, but instead goes to take down the stage set for his own peace of mind first.

Review:

This episode is better than some that try to challenge the ‘reality’ of a show too late into its run; normally, I think if a TV show isn’t going to do that from the start and all the way through, it should never even try.  Every show has its own reality, whatever that may be, and once it is established it can never be altered, nor should it be.  However, this episode isn’t about altering reality but about wreaking havoc on one character’s perception, and perception is not the same as reality at all. Reality is finite and dictated by scientific laws and truths that cannot be affected by anyone, whereas perception is far less certain and more prone to be deceived.

 However, the episode wastes the effort by failing to address any real mental health issues or explore Riker’s character through the mania he is exposed to.  Really, it’s just a plot-driven mystery as we just wait for him to wake up to reality and work out when his altered perceptions took over from reality.  In its way that’s a cool concept, but frankly not enough to make this a truly decent Trek episode.  Not surprising, considering this episode was written in a late-season crunch from a very bare bones concept, so I think that rush to create an ok story prevented the writers from making this into true Trek.  End score for this, a mere 6 out of 10.

Episode 22: Suspicions

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Guinan visits Dr Beverly Crusher in her quarters, complaining of "tennis elbow". Dr Crusher breaks the news that she is no longer a doctor on the Enterprise and will be facing a court martial. She tells Guinan the whole story.

 A Ferengi scientist, Dr Reyga, had created a metaphasic shielding technique, but species profiling and his unorthodox methods had left most scientists in the field ignoring his work. Dr Crusher decided to play the role of a "scientific diplomat" and invite other scientists versed in the field to come to the Enterprise and view a demonstration of the doctor's prototype. As they were all sceptical, they decided that someone other than the Ferengi should pilot the shuttle outfitted with the shielding. Jo'Bril, a Takaran, volunteered.

 At the test flight, they all watched from the bridge as Jo'Bril entered the star. Everything seemed to be going as planned until suddenly Jo'Bril became short of breath, and barely piloted the shuttle out of the star before dying. Everyone considered Reyga a failure, but he couldn’t accept that something went wrong. No one could find any trouble with the shuttlecraft, and Dr Crusher couldn’t determine the cause of Jo'Bril's death. In fact, she couldn’t understand his physiology at all, especially why his cells seemed to be decaying at such a slow rate. However, he was judged dead. Reyga pleaded with the other scientists to allow him a second test. Dr Crusher reluctantly refused, but he seemed determined to prove himself. A few hours later, he was found dead due to an apparent plasma discharge. It is judged a suicide by Security Chief Lt. Worf, but Dr Crusher intuitively knows it was neither a suicide nor an accident.

 Dr Crusher discussed how unusual this seems with Captain Picard. She wanted to perform an autopsy, but the captain informed her that it was out of the question, as the family insisted the body not be desecrated before they could perform the Ferengi death ritual. Frustrated, Dr Crusher decided to perform an investigation. She confronted Christopher and T'Pan; the former became incensed at first, but eventually mentioned overhearing the Klingon scientist Kurak having a fiery argument with Reyga. Dr Crusher then confronted Kurak, much to her own peril. As she determined Kurak also did not murder Reyga, she found herself stumped and her confidence faltering. Knowing she would be disobeying a direct order, she performed an autopsy on Reyga, and found nothing. She informed Picard who was forced to relieve her of duty.

 In the present, Guinan encourages her to continue her investigation, as she has nothing left to lose. Dr Crusher then proceeds with further investigation as suggested, enlisting the assistance of Lt. Commander Data and Nurse Ogawa in turn. Commander Riker warns her not to do anything "foolish". Despite this, and suspecting sabotage was the result of the initial test flight failing, Crusher takes the shuttle with Dr Reyga's shielding into the star herself. Picard urges her to come back, but to no avail. In the shuttle, Jo'Bril emerges alive. He reveals his species can fake death. He also plans to fake the destruction of the shuttle and take it back to his homeworld. He plans to profit from the new shielding, turning it into a weapon. Jo'Bril attacks Dr Crusher, but she fights back and is forced to completely vaporize him.

 Dr Crusher returns the ship, relieved to have vindicated Reyga, and returns to active duty. She also replicates a specially designed tennis racket for Guinan so she would never get tennis elbow again, but Guinan admits she has never played tennis; she was merely trying to figure out what was wrong with Crusher.

Review:

For our second episode on the go, we get plot-driven plot in a series that’s meant to explore issues through metaphor or develop characters.  This episode does neither, only serving as a Trek attempt to do ‘Quincey in space’. Off the top of my head, I can’t remember if this show’s final season was this ‘experimental’, but I really hope it wasn’t.  It seems like in trying to do new things, The Next Generation was forgetting what it was supposed to be.  I give this episode only 5 out of 10.

Episode 23: Rightful Heir

Plot (as given by me):

When Lt. Worf is late to report for duty on the bridge, Commander Riker investigates and finds him in his quarters in a trance-like state. The incident is brought to the attention of Captain Picard, who goes to speak with Worf. Apparently ever since encountering the Klingon children in the Romulan prison in the Carraya system, Worf has felt empty; the fervour with which those young Klingons took to their true heritage has made Worf’s own faith seem weak and hollow by comparison, and his efforts to summon a vision of Kahless are now interfering with his duties. Picard asks if Worf needs to go somewhere to more fully explore his beliefs, and agrees to place him on leave so he can visit the Klingon temple on Boreth, provided that he returns to full duty when he returns.

 After ten days on Boreth and receiving neither visions nor insight, Worf becomes frustrated and prepares to leave, but is convinced by the high priest Korath to remain. Later, Kahless appears to Worf, but to his amazement, the being is no vision or phantom, but a real flesh-and-blood Klingon who looks like the Kahless of legend and claims to be him. Worf is sceptical, and neither tricorder scans nor challenging Kahless to combat yields conclusive results, though many at the temple believe this Kahless to be the real one on whom Klingon legend is based. Farther afield, Gowron learns of the situation and asks for the Enterprise to relay Kahless, Korath and another member of the temple to him, suspecting Kahless to be some kind of fake. The temple clerics have long opposed Gowron, and he suspects this to all be a ploy on their part.

 On board the Enterprise, the blood of the new Kahless is compared against the fossilised blood of the original, and when both are genetically identical, Worf finally accepts the new Kahless as the original. However, evidence then begins mounting to contradict this view; Kahless doesn’t recognise the difference between a replicated Klingon drink and the real stuff, he claims to have no memories of the Klingon afterlife or of Kahless’ life beyond sacred texts, and when challenged to combat by Gowron, he is easily bested in honest combat. It turns out the new Kahless is a clone that was programmed with certain knowledge so he would appear to be the real Kahless. This had been done by the clerics to put an end to the decadence and corruption destroying the Klingon empire from within.

 When Worf learns two of Gowron’s men have remained aboard the Enterprise in hopes of seeing Kahless, he realises many will not care about the nature of the new Kahless and make a ‘leap of faith’. He reveals the truth of this Kahless to Gowron and convinces him to accept a compromise. The new Kahless will be installed as Emperor, but will only be a political figurehead and spiritual leader; all political and legislative power would remain with Gowron as leader of the High Council. Faced with the possibility of civil war if he does not comply, Gowron grudgingly accepts. As Kahless leaves, Worf finds he is back to the original crisis of faith he had before, but Kahless points out that his progenitor left them a philosophy of life and being that is more important than whether or not he would return, and that the spirit of Kahless lives in all true Klingons.

Review:

It’s often interesting to see Trek take on matters of spirituality because it always involves having to go to your non-human characters to do so, meaning it can be a lot more allegorical and less literal than some Trek issue exploration.  This isn’t something Next Generation did a lot of, though, because for much of its run the series creator Gene Roddenberry was alive and producing the show, and Roddenberry’s vision of humanity’s future was highly secularist.  On the one hand I do agree with this, as a large amount of conflict within humanity is based of organised religions fighting each other rather than being friends or at least peaceful competitors, but on the other hand it makes exploring how religion can affect us in real life far harder to do.

 Much of the episode keeps the focus on how spirituality plays out within this era of Trek, and as such you’re really getting a Worf character episode more than an issue-oriented one.  However, the episode does make some interesting points around spirituality, the first being when someone comes along and claims to be holy, or even divine, how the heck do you measure that?  Every character Kahless encounters has their own metric that for them proves or disproves Kahless’ claims, and this kind of lacking consistency and ability to apply empirical testing and proving to the issue is why I personally steer clear of it.  To my mind, if something can’t be proved or disproved, I’m not going to take much real-life interest in it except as literary fodder.

 The second point is whether the details matter more than whoever wrote them.  Since the details tend to out-last whoever first made them, I’d say yes, they do matter more than whoever came up with the details.  That being said, I also think that the details need to change with the times, because some of the details are very much of a specific time in history and make no sense in modern times.  There are a few times in the West Wing that this has been flagged up with regards to the bible, and the Kevin Smith film Dogma makes similar points, and all point inescapably to the fact that unlike secular laws, religious lore has a tendency to remain fixed even when it is no longer adhered to, and is often misinterpreted to support prejudice and hate when a system of regular amendments with the times would probably close such loopholes.

 For me, this was a good episode and earns 10 out of 10; it would have been 9, but Data admitting to making a ‘leap of faith’ regarding the very nature of his existence helps to support the almost-perfect spiritual examination of the Klingons and take the whole thing to full marks.

Episode 24: Second Chances

Plot (as given by me):

The Enterprise arrives at Nervala IV to retrieve scientific data from a Starfleet outpost on the planet that had to be evacuated eight years earlier. The evacuation was led by Commander Riker when he was serving as a lieutenant on the Potemkin, and he remembers almost being left behind during beam-out. A distortion field around the planet prevents transport beams working except once every eight years when the planet passes close enough to its sun to disrupt the field and allow a few transport windows. When a transport window opens early, the commander leads an away team down, but finds the research station is tidier than when he left it. It soon turns out this is because someone has been there; another William T Riker.

 An investigation reveals that during the evacuation, the transporter chief on the Potemkin had activated a second transport beam to try and get Riker through the distortion field, but this had been an unnecessary action. As a result, the cancelled second beam materialised one copy of Riker’s transport pattern back on the surface while the first beam materialised another copy on the Potemkin. The returned Riker subsequently gained rapid promotion that resulted in him prioritising his career over his romantic relationship with Deanna Troi, while the abandoned Riker had to make do surviving on the abandoned research station.  Captain Picard asks Commander Riker to enlist his double in efforts to retrieve the information from the research station, as the double has made numerous improvised changes to the equipment to keep himself alive.

 The mission’s success is hampered as the commander and his subordinate double clash; Data later theorises that this is because neither man likes the notion of no longer being unique, while Worf speculates that each Riker is uncomfortable seeing their own flaws in the other. At the same time, Lt. Riker tries to regain the romance with Troi that Commander Riker abandoned. Troi is initially reluctant, but begins to entertain the idea until Commander Riker notes that his double might make the same decision to put his career first further down the line. Realising this is probably true, Troi begins to express a note of caution, which further frustrates Lt. Riker.

 During a final attempt to secure the scientific data, Lt. Riker almost falls to his death in a chasm beneath the research station, but Commander Riker saves his double despite the risk of being pulled in himself. With the information retrieved, the Enterprise travels to rendezvous with the Ghandi, Captain Picard having arranged a posting on that ship for Lt. Riker. Troi opts to remain on board the Enterprise, but suggests she remains open to getting involved with Lt. Riker someday. Commander Riker gives his trombone to his double, who in turn reveals that he’s decided to use their middle name of Thomas to distinguish himself from the commander. Will notes that this must mean they are different people, as he apparently never cared for his middle name.

Review:

There are a few reasons to make note of this episode. For one, it’s the directorial debut of cast member LeVar Burton (Geordi La Forge, to use his character’s name); Burton would go on to direct Trek episodes not only in TNG, but also across the spin-offs DS9 and Voyager, and the prequel series Enterprise.  The episode also features a cameo by Dr Mae Jemison, the first female African-American astronaut in space, which in turn resulted in a set visit by Nichelle Nicholls, better known to Trek fans as the original Uhura from the original Trek TV show and films.

 However, the main reason to remember it is that it’s the episode where Commander Riker turns out to have been duplicated, which would later result in a fun episode on Deep Space Nine.  Unfortunately, the episode concept was almost rejected until it was decided that it would be used to examine the Riker-Troi romance. Granted, that would later pay dividends in the TNG films, when the restrictions of episodic television allowed for more daring forays into things the show had restrained itself on, but for me that’s the wrong focus.  The right focus would have been to use the double to effectively define/confirm what Riker’s character was, or to use it as a way to question cloning science without actually using cloning in the story.

 As it is, we just two Rikers bickering like overgrown children, and since it starts before the one who eventually names himself Thomas starts trying to seduce Deanna, it’s not like the love triangle angle explains this.  Granted, I’m as overjoyed as anyone to see Trek abandon Roddenberry’s stupid idea about avoiding interpersonal conflict, but it’s stupider still to make two characters argue without a clear, present, explicit basis for said conflict.  Why are Will and Tom Riker having a go at each other?  Don’t just have Data and Worf try to guess in one scene; tell us straight out.  Show it, explore it, make the show about that. You had a great concept here, and you choked.  For me, this episode only ends up earning 6 out of 10.

[mismaris]

You know what?

I am mad. I am so. Mad. About this movie.

I have been awake for over an hour trying to sleep. And I can't. I just can't.

Were there good points in this movie? Yes. Absolutely.

But right now, I just need to get this off my chest.

Spoilers below. I'll add a cut when I'm off mobile.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Absolutely the thing that infuriates me the most about this whole thing is that JJ set up TFA so beautifully. TFA is an amazingly well done reintroduction to the story, and an introduction to new characters and concepts for the universe. It set up the tone and the feel for the new trilogy.

TLJ did nothing of that sort. It was a lot of showing but not a lot of telling. There was too much going on, too many plot lines. The focus shifted so many times that yes, I followed it, but it wasn't ever in the right spot. Namely, our main character, Rey, and the old main character, Luke.

Now I am admittedly biased. Luke is my favorite character, and I was rooting hard for Rey to be his daughter. I do think there's a sliver of hope that she still might be, but it's looking less likely by the minute.

And what we do get of Luke is mostly bleh. Mark Hamill does an amazing job with what he's given, but what we're given as an audience isn't a lot. We don't get to hear a lot about Luke's temple, or any specifics really, other than he had a split moment of trying to kill Kylo Ren. Which was shown three times. THREE TIMES.

If they really wanted to have suspense with Luke telling a semi-truth (could have had them harken back to the "a certain POV" line (which, btw, I remember Luke openly protesting on)) about going to see Ben, and then having Ben tell it the way it actually happened, and THEN having Luke tell it from his perspective, we only needed two of those flashbacks. Or one very long one, that detailed the temple burning and what went down.

And don't anyone tell me that there "wasn't time for it". This is a two and a half hour movie. It is the longest Star Wars movie to date, and I spent most of it watching space battles. MULTIPLE, space battles.

Back to Luke and Rey though. I feel like there was such a missed opportunity, regardless of parentage, for Rey to learn from Luke and vice versa, and for them to really create a bond like her and Han had, maybe even stronger if he had lived past the end of this movie, that was just lost. We don't see them getting to know each other, we don't see any understanding, whatsoever. At the end, she does say she felt he was at peace and had purpose, but feeling those things about someone you spent a tumultuous few weeks with (maybe) is very different than with someone who connected to you and had a connection to you.

Now, I fully expect Luke to return as a force ghost in episode ix. I'll be genuinely shocked if he doesn't. But man, does JJ have his work cut out for him.

And you know what, Ive loved all the new books and comics that have come out for this new sequel trilogy, but just because I'm infuriated with how it's turning out, im going to start reading the EU. Just because I am so angry right now.

[logh-icebergs]

Episode 11: The Actress Exits

Summer 796/487. LoGH is temporarily transformed into a tawdry soap opera when the Marquise Benemunde, a former mistress of the Kaiser, appears, bringing with her a desire for revenge against her unintentional usurper, Annerose. Together with Baron Flegel, who has his own anti-Reinhard motivations, Benemunde plots to kidnap Annerose, kill her, and leave her body in a compromising position that is sure to shame her in the afterlife. Luckily, Reuental and Mittermeyer, presumably on their way either to or from a date, spot Annerose traveling in a suspiciously unusual direction, and inform Kircheis. The three of them pursue Annerose’s abductors and, with some unexpected help from the sinister Oberstein, rescue her. Reinhard, meanwhile, sits in an endless meeting, eventually emerging to witness Benemunde being forced to drink poison as punishment for her attempted crime.

Love Triangles

The real star of episode 11 of Legend of Galactic Heroes is: Benemunde's wardrobe. Hot damn!

If you’ve yet to notice that love triangles are a huge thing in LoGH, that’s understandable—we’ve only encountered two of them so far, neither of which necessarily fits all the usual criteria for this particular dysfunctional relationship configuration. But episode 11 adds a third love triangle to the collection, and three makes a pattern! A pattern which will only grow more pronounced and central to LoGH’s narrative as a whole.

Eventually, we’ll even be able to point to characters at the corresponding vertices of multiple different love triangles and compare them to gain insight into their separate relationships. It sounds complicated now, but given the number of unhappy three-way relationships in this show, it’s surprisingly helpful to be able to stack them on top of each other and see how they line up. And there’s a huge payoff down the line for that type of comparative analysis, so without further ado, a brief description of the love triangles we’ve been introduced to so far:

Reinhard/Kircheis/Annerose

The first, which has been teased since at least as early as episode 4, includes Reinhard, Kircheis, and Annerose, with Kircheis positioned between the two siblings. As I’ve discussed at length, the explicit romantic developments surrounding Kircheis focus not on Annerose, but on Reinhard. However, there was some ambiguity in both the initial meeting between Kircheis and Annerose, and in Kircheis’s decision to follow Reinhard to military school, and Annerose has certainly done her best to drive a wedge between Reinhard and Kircheis—whether that’s romantically motivated or not, the push-and-pull tension between the three of them is characteristic of a love triangle.

Yang/Jessica/Lapp

Next up is Yang/Jessica/Lapp, which Rebecca covered in great detail in her episode 10 post. This relationship pretty much only exists to flesh out Yang’s characterization, in particular his asexuality and resultant discomfort with the expectations of heteronormative romance. Yang’s ambivalence about Jessica’s affections solidifies this as a subversion of the device rather than a straightforward “who’s she gonna choose” scenario—and adds that fucked up flavor that makes LoGH love triangles what they are.

Annerose/Friedrich/Benemunde

Which brings us to the love triangle episode 11 is all about, the one between Kaiser Friedrich IV, his former mistress Benemunde, and his current concubine Annerose.

“Hey,” you might be saying, “given that Annerose was sold into sexual slavery at the age of 15 and isn’t actually in love with Friedrich by any definition of the word, isn’t it kind of fucked up to say she could ever be part of something as romantic-sounding as a love triangle with him at the vertex?” Yes, you’re right! It’s extremely fucked up, just like all of LoGH’s love triangles, which is why they’re interesting instead of hackneyed as hell.

In fact, because LoGH love triangles exist first and foremost as vehicles for characterization, they are very rarely romantic, and in fact are often quite the opposite. Like in real life, “romance” in LoGH is never as simple as “I love this person more than this other person so I’ll choose them and we’ll live happily ever after.” Other factors intervene, from cowardice in the face of societal expectations to (as in the case of Annerose and Kaiser Friedrich IV) blatant coercion.

And I want to take lessons on being dramatic from the Marquise Benemunde, but we can't always get what we want.

Benemunde, however, does not see Annerose as an unwilling participant in her “relationship” with the Kaiser—in yet another example of someone assigning agency to Annerose where she has none, Benemunde decides that the blame for Annerose’s presence in the Kaiser’s life (and therefore for Benemunde falling out of his favor) lies solely with Annerose herself.

This is a striking visual representation of the constant denial of Annerose’s voice, as well as an interesting parallel with her own unwillingness to hear Kircheis back in episode 5.

But we already know that Annerose has no control over her own life, despite constantly being treated like her decisions have led her to where she is. Why use a love triangle to tease out that aspect of her characterization, when so many other scenarios have already hammered it home? The answer might come in the form of a quieter, less dramatic scene that takes place directly after Benemunde’s execution.

When Reinhard visits Annerose to inform her of Benemunde’s death, he’s met with an unexpected response: She encourages him to forgive Benemunde, despite her attempt on Annerose’s life.

Remember in episode 9 when Annerose chastises Reinhard for his intention to arrest Klopstock? Here, again, Annerose plays the holier-than-thou card when Reinhard expresses his satisfaction that Benemunde is dead. There’s a surface reading for this scene, in which Annerose really is just... the most selfless and least resentful person ever to exist. But that reading does her very little justice as a character: Annerose has been through hell, and she’s human; the fact that she never shows anger in overt ways is to be expected of how systematically silenced she’s been throughout her life. It isn’t a reflection of her actual feelings which, as we’ve seen repeatedly, are far more complex than surface readings would have you believe.

So, beyond just “I’m really nice and never get mad no matter what awful things people do to me,” what is Annerose actually saying during this scene? She’s imploring Reinhard to have empathy for Benemunde not just generally, but in the specific context of her position in the Annerose/Friedrich/Benemunde love triangle. And if we employ the love-triangle-stacking analysis technique I mentioned earlier, it becomes clearer why Annerose might be so inclined to sympathize with Benemunde’s plight.

Annerose, once you look beyond the heteronormative surface readings, is included in two different love triangles: the one with Friedrich and Benemunde, and the one with Reinhard and Kircheis. And she occupies very different positions in each triangle—in the first, she’s the “winner,” at least according to Benemunde, and in the second, she’s the “loser.”

Literally everything Annerose says here applies just as easily to Kircheis choosing Reinhard over her as it does to the Kaiser choosing her over Benemunde.

Annerose isn’t telling Reinhard he should be nicer about Benemunde because she believes in the fundamental goodness of humanity and has an innately forgiving nature; she’s suggesting to Reinhard that the grief-driven rage of a love triangle’s “loser,” even to the point of becoming murderous, is justified. In so doing, without showing any of the traditional signifiers of anger, Annerose—who occupies the Benemunde position in the Kircheis love triangle—is telling her brother—who occupies the Annerose position in the Kircheis love triangle—that she’s fucking furious with him. Jury’s out on whether or not Reinhard gets the message.

Stray Tidbits

Peep the subtle (and not so subtle) differences in how Kircheis’s rescues of Reinhard and Annerose are treated by both the camera and Kircheis himself:

Here’s how the scene leading up to this car ride went in my head, which is canon now because I said so: There was absolutely no discussion of who would sit where; Kircheis opened the rear door before even looking to see if Reuental would take the passenger seat; and Mittermeyer always drives when he’s in the car with Reuental, obviously.

*coughs discreetly* I’m fine.

Like episode 9’s Klopstock incident, Benemunde’s assassination attempt and subsequent execution-by-suicide are based on a chapter from one of Tanaka’s Gaiden novels, not the main storyline. There's a lot of that in the first season!

[thehalfworld]

Fanfic MST: Forbiden Fruit: The Tempation of Edward Cullen, a Twilight fanfic [part 4]

I’m on a roll.

There’s more rape in this one; it’s not really described in detail, though. There are also references to what occurred in the last chapter, and an instance of mostly consensual sexual activity (although it stops short of actual sex).

Recap: Last chapter, Tiaa’s foster parents Dave and Marie left on a trip, leaving her in the care of “Uncle Larry” (Dave’s brother), who promptly began beating and raping Tiaa. After one such incident, she ran off into the woods and encountered a strange man who claimed to be her father before blacking out.

Chapter 1

Previous chapter

AN = No flames pls, theres no point!if u dnt like my story dnt read it, its as simple as that!

I never got the whole “don’t like, don’t read” thing. How can you know if you like it if you haven’t read it?

btw atlantiana is NOT marisue be cause look she is NOT perfect and not everyone in the stiry likes her! she has problems and she has flaws and shes UNHAPPY would u like her life?i no i wouldnt, its totally tragic and horible.u flamers arent even makin sense1

Having bad things happen to your character doesn’t make her less of a Mary Sue. Loads of Sues have tragic backstories. Look at Batman.

Chapter 4 - la push

I sat quitely on the la push beech apart form the party that was going on beside me. Mike Nooton was following me round like a pulpy and he was so borin! None of the things he had to say were interesting but I was nice to him because he wasnt a bad guy.

That’s actually pretty in-character for the guy, if I remember the Twilight Saga correctly. He’s nice, but not very interesting. I think Bella even made the puppy comparison at one point.

My thoughts were elsewhere - i could'nt stop thinking about the events of last night, when uncle larry had raped me and I had had my scary vision in the forest and a tall p[ale guy in my mind had cale me his daughter. I didnt understand any of I felt so so awful that I had been rapped by that hideous pervy SICKO when I had bin saving myself for the right guy and for marriage and my virginity was torn from my grasp by that twisted guy, it was so crule and unfair, it made me want to cry

So uh… what happened after she blacked out in the woods? Was her dad gone when she woke up? Did Uncle Larry do anything else to her after she returned home? Did she return home?

"omg MIKE watt are you doing talkin to HER?" I turned round and saw four nasty faces learing at us. It was the chearleaders I had seen in the cafetearia, and one of them was the girl dateing Ewdard Cullen, the brown hare girl who was standing at the back looking moody but not saying anything

You know her name! You’ve called her by name before!

"Stop being mean Jessica" mike said angerly "tiaas' awesome and if you can't see that its just you bein blind and shallow and stupid like your all ways are"

Think this is the author calling out her flamers or what?

"yah I mean look at her clothes, she looks like a stupid goth biaach with her slutty top and short skirt and fithnet tights is she a RAT HOOKER or what?" Jessica screamed.

Man, I love this fic. “RAT HOOKER” is a great insult.

She was realy ugly when she shouted even though she was technology a hot chick and was dressed in skimpy pink clothes.

I don’t remember Jessica that well from the books, but I think she was described as short and a chatterbox. I don't think she was a cheerleader or had a particular fondness for pink. Also she was dating Mike at one point after Bella set them up with each other.

"you no what Jess, you and YOur frends are SO shallow and YOU are the real slut! you and bella and angela and laruen may were short skirts and low cut tops an stuff but that doesnt maek u beautiful! Its watt underneath that counts!" mike shouted

Wait, so are they sluts because they wear revealing clothes or because of their behavior? Because right here it seems like Mike is criticizing them based on how they dress, which is a bit weird when we remember Tiaa also wears revealing clothing (“fishnet top” ring a bell?).

"yah, speakin of witch" said a sly blond girl in the gang who was called lauren, pointing at me "watts with her breasts, they are huge, I bet they are fake!- she laughed and her friends all laughed too even bella and angela who had been quiet until then.

I don’t remember a damn thing about Lauren or Angela but I remember they both existed. One of them was definitely shy but I don’t remember which.

I got up and pushed past them and ran away into the darkness. I cold hear them all laughing at me and i felt so embarrased I was relay sensitive about the waste I looked I hated the fact that it made all girls hate me and all guys stare at me, I would have given anything to be ugly or just inviable. I wasnt stuck up and didnt think I was beta than anyone else because of how I looked I just wanted people to treat me like a normal person! I could'nt help being slim and blond with relay big boobs it wasnt my fault I hadnt done anything wrong!

Remember in chapter 1 when Tiaa talked about how she used to be self-conscious about her appearance but got over it and now doesn’t care what people say about her?

-are u ok?" said someone from beside me

If you don’t have that MCR song playing in your head right now I don’t know what’s wrong with you.

"who arr you?" i asked. 3 realy pretty goth girls were standing there smilin at me and I smiled back

Oh, of course, the Sue’s backup choir.

-we are tyffani, abigaille and rochelle" they said smiling "you seem cool, do you want to be our freinds?"

I like the idea that Tiaa could be multiple friends.

Judging from the names, these three are children of that white mom whose baby name photo went viral on the internet. The one who named her kid Lakynn or something.

"ya of course, i'm just a bit meloncolly cause those horrible chearleaders were bein mean jerks and saying my boobs were fake" i said

"omg, u mean jessica and bellas gang? They hate us too because we dont care what they think" said tyfanni "they are just jealous cause youre the prettiest girl in the school now and theyre all plain next to you but we dont care about stuff like that, we only care about peoples personalities “

“That’s why we made sure to talk about how pretty we think you are.”

"cool" I said, and we talked for hours

I talked to tyfanni, rochelle and abigail for hours and they were so cool.

How long was that again?

I'd never had proper freinds before who didnt care watt i looked like or where I came from they just liked me for me, and I liked them cause they were uber cool and we had loads of stuff in common! But after a while they all went home and I stayed on the beech.

Glad we skipped the scene where Tiaa has fun with her friends so that we can get back to the part where Uncle Larry assaults her again. Nice to see the author prioritizing.

It was getting late but I didnt want to go home to uncle larry in case he raped me on his car again.

Phrasing seems to imply that if he raped her in a different location it would be alright.

Soddenly I heard a voice from behind me.

I hope “soddenly” is an intentional double entendre.

"well tiaa, thou seem to be causing quite a stir at school" his voice was smooth and sexoy and from another time.

Who could this be?

Edward.

Never would have guessed!

"what do you mean!" I demanded

"basically every gay at school wants to have sex with thee, and every girl wants to eat thee alive for it, hows that for causing a stir my lady?" he smiled and kissed my neck.

Wait, every gay at school? Including the gay boys? This girl is powerful.

"shut up jerk! Btw I met youre girlfriend before, bella I think her name is! I dont like her or anything, but how the hell can u cheat on her like that and kiss me how u did? Its sick ur a cheatin bastard and i should tell everyone. Tyfanni told me you and bella are like the schools golden couple or something, watt would happen if I told ppl how you had acted in that corridoor with me?"

Uh… the fic would go in a direction I don’t expect it to and it might be redeemed somewhat by at least being less predictable?

"OMG SWEET LADY! THY MUST NOT TELL ANYONE! " he screamed "it was a moment of madness thats all! Im so so sorry for watt happened,i hope thine can forgive me, but ive promised myself to bella and thats just how it is, no matter how much thou intrests me"

Use of OMG may seem anachronistic, but that abbreviation has actually been in use since the early 1900s, so it’s totally reasonable that Edward might use it. Although probably not out loud.

"fine, then stay away from me " I shouted as I left to go home but he followed me and grabbed me and pushed me down on the grind.

I think he’s sending mixed signals.

I was burning with anger and fury but I wanted him so deafly i didnt even try to resist him.

So deafly?

He new how much i wanted him and it drove me mad. He put his hands inside my panties and i gasped. I was soddenly desperate to sex with him and i tore my clothes off and i was in my underwear.

Again, I hope that’s innuendo, but in this fic it’s actually possible the author thinks “suddenly” is spelled like that.

I took off my bra and showed him my naked heaving beasts.

Nothing turns a guy on like naked heaving beasts!

"have sex with me now edward " I whispered

" i cant " he said, although his body was on top of mine and his fingers touched my nipples

"please, i'm begging you" I said, hating myself for being such a dirty hore but unable to control my burning desire

No one in this fic has any self-control whatsoever, huh?

-NOOOO!" he shouted and ran away crying.

I put my clothes back on slowly feeling so ashamed and embarased i could hardly move. I could'nt beleive i had begged him to do sex on me and even worse he had said no!

Okay, I guess Edward has a tiny bit of self-control. Which is good, as he is a vampire and would probably be eating people left and right if he was totally unable to control himself.

I went home and uncle larry made me cook his dinner and suck his cock while he ate his food and then he raped me and hit me with a shoe all night and i didnt even complain cos i felt like i deserved it for being such a horrible slut even though it made me want to die inside.

Bread, eggs, milk, squick. Uncle Larry seems more interested in hitting Tiaa than raping her, incidentally.

Uncle larry finally left me alone and I thought about killing myself as i cryed and cryed as i fell slowly into a dreamless sleep.

Aw.

Next chapter

[cosplayinamerica]

Rey from  Star Wars : RethinkCosplay

I'm one of the biggest Star Wars fans out there. There are times when the outfit should be as big as my obsession. Every year since The Force Awakens came out I thought to tackle something huge from each of the new films in the Skywalker saga. When I saw Snoke for the first time, it was love. I knew it had to be him, and not only him, but his huge throne. That was my 2016 cosplay.

When Last Jedi came out I asked myself "now what is the hardest thing to replicate in this one?", but it be a luxury to think I could convince friends to pay for a ticket to stand in a line, so the next best thing was getting the cut outs. I'm not an attractive or meticulous cosplayer, but I am a clever one. You're allowed to be more better at constructing, you're allowed to be more popular, more attractive, but not creative. That is my absolute shit. I suck at make up and needlework, but not in ingenuity. I like working with illusions, the performance art realm. I wouldn't go to someone else's domain and try to be the best there, rather I play to my own strengths. I find that theres an air of female cosplayers take off a lot to be noticed, and men put on a lot of armor to stand out, kinda thing. But once you know what the lines are, you can break them.

You can crossplay, be off the wall, and thrive in the grey area; tapping into some unique cosplay without all the trappings of what a cosplay has to be. I knew at some point I wanted to do a gender-swap cosplay. I never done one. I think I ended up looking more like a soy wax candle, but lo and behold, Rey, nonetheless.

Photo: tascena

The response at #NYCC was spectacular and reminded me why I do this. I don't make my outfits for me, I do it for them. Cosplayers, Comic Con attendees are my people. I don't do this in the hopes to be popular or anything, it be nice, but I don't want to get lost in creating for that. I like making people laugh. I like seeing the laughter that I believe I had when I thought of the idea. I very much enjoy reading and seeing what everyone has to say online.

There are times where I could be feeling down, and I can pull up a picture and read a caption that brings me back to life. Seeing security and people you'd never expect to take your photo, take your photo. There is a beautiful magic that comes down from the air on days like those, fills the room and gets concentrated. The energy is beautiful. I don't think I'd ever like anything as much as I do the people. To be a fan of this stuff is already a mark of intelligence. And Con people, although snippy at times, have great taste.

Rey almost didn't happen at all. Like it was not going to make it inside the building or anywhere near the con. Security had stopped me, their advisors had stopped me. Said it was the longest outfit they ever had. No one wanted to risk bringing this into the convention, which is a miracle it even did. Ive always felt I had the right temperament to be a cosplayer cause I don't get mad if things go awry, my brain just re-calibrates the destination.

Photo : lykeleia

My friends Citizen Chris and Hye Young had to argue with security for an hour. We brought it in disassembled to make the transport of it easier, and I guess the look of these long grey rods startled them. We were allowed to assemble them inside, but was told I couldn't go in. Once it was all put together, and every superstar supervisor had been shown pictures of my work from previous years were they convinced I could be let in, provided I don't go all the way, and have two people making sure no one gets smacked in the face. I have days where I go in with a smoother cosplay to see the show floor and other days where I know I wont be able to. You have to choose wisely which. But every time I see a picture of my Rey now, I just think to myself "that almost didn't happen". Which, in and of itself, is a big compliment; the fact that you can make an outfit so wide for even Comic Con.

I started building in June. June kicks off Con season for me. Being its 4 days, I try not to aggravate myself with putting everything together the month before. I designate a month to each day. It was worn Friday so that would put us in July. I started building in July.

The construction is very simple actually. Once you get past the "awe", you'll see shower curtain hooks and aluminum tape. I don't use measurements. I rely on a "crude magic" to see me through. At some point if you are getting all caught up in the rigid dictatorship of everything needs to come out a certain way, thats not fun. It is a more delicate life form than a baby at times, but still. This is Cosplay. Even the makings of it should be fun. Some of it is like discovery, finding a new world. It should excite you to learn things in the makings of, for some of those things may inform how others could be built down the line.

As with anything, I feel like we all each make our cosplay three times or so before we get it right. I took two plastic rods that had some earth to them, dense enough to attach something weighty and not enough to weigh me down. Drilled holes in the appropriate areas, zip tied the hooks in and taped them down. Took shelving parts to make the shoulder holders, and painted everything grey Rey. Slid yarn through the cut outs so all I had to do was tie them to the hooks. Aluminum tape, zip ties, and galvanized wire make the Ariel Krupnik story. I've made it through a lot of miserable nights constructing with friends like that. I like my cosplays to be held together strong enough that I could go play basketball in them if I wanted. Peeing would have been genius though.

Photo: upaausedshimmy

Cosplay has saved my life on multiple occasions. It almost feels like every year is just me trying to get through the months until I can make it to Comic Con. It confirmed my beliefs that people do care about the work I produce. That there is an audience for it.

Cosplay is another art form that should be respected, and we are in a time period where I think its getting that close. It also saves other people as well. Its made the most of me, and given me the power to make someones day. There are people who travel to these cons, see you and say "that did it for me". I have seen and heard this first hand. Ive seen people cry.

As artists, as cosplayers are, we can get so caught up wondering whether all of this matters; that we feel it doesn't if it doesn't reach the attention of the one or two people we want it to matter to, but don't overlook the many people it does. Its had a profound effect on me. Its an art form that I don't have to rely on myself to come up with characters, ideas yes, but to rely on an industry that will give me things I can rework for everyone, forever. Technically one could cosplay forever if movies, comics, etc are always being released. I wish Comic Con was 361 days a year and we had 4 days of normalcy.