#Project Utopia in Action

[flightyquinn]

I have a feeling that I know the plot of Legends: Z-A.

Did you notice how there's holographic technology all over Lumiose City? Well, guess who developed the holo-tech in X and Y. That's right. It was Lysandre. So the big corporation in Z-A is probably just Lysandre Labs, but redbranded.

So, you know how the CEO's secretary is a big guy with amazing sideburns and his hair tied back? And you know how the Ultimate Weapon able to grant AZ and Flowette eternal life? Yeah. I'm calling it now. That's Lysandre in disguise.

So what's the deal with the redevelopment plan? That's the big central event the game is revolving around, after all. You're a part of the action as Lumiose City is being rebuilt into a place where people and pokemon coexist. Well, I can't take credit for this, since I got it from a Youtube comment, but I'm pretty sure they were right on...

You remember what powers the Ultimate Weapon, don't you?

It's pokemon. The Ultimate Weapon is powered by the souls of pokemon. Taking out two armies killed enough to fill a three screen graveyard. So let's say you were building a new Ultimate Weapon. Say, under the pretext of urban redevelopment. If you wanted to reshape the world, you'd need a lot of pokemon on hand to power that. Like say a major metropolis' worth.

Could I be wrong? Sure.

Maybe Gamefreak wants to have a nice, cozy epilogue for X and Y where nothing bad happens.

Or maybe they have a third game that they never made, and finally see a chance to resolve the plotline they started. There has to be some reason that Zygarde, a pokemon that's supposed to protect Kalos' ecosystem, would be majorly involved in the solarpunk utopia urban redevelopment project, right?

[artbyblastweave]

Frederick Sinclair is a really interesting foil to Mr. House. I mean you start digging into this and it's just parallel after parallel after parallel. Start at the high level. House sinks inordinate amounts of resources into saving the city of Las Vegas - not the people, but the city- from nuclear destruction; as long as the stage endures, he can get anyone to wear the costumes. Sinclair sets up an entirely new "community" totally off-the-grid for the sake of protecting one woman, plasters that place with her likeness. House is a visionary with a 200-year action plan to rebuild society in his image, bootstrap space exploration, and construct an interplanetary empire; Sinclair sank everything he had into building the most secure facility possible for a woman who he knew was terminally ill anyway, just to ensure that her last few years lived in the aftermath of the nuclear apocalypse would be as comfortable as possible- there's a fundamental pessimism baked into what he was doing. Both House and Sinclair relied heavily on automated defensive systems and cutting-edge, esoteric technologies to accomplish their ends, but House built his power base on proprietary robotics and computing technology, much of which he personally designed- an outgrowth of his policy of never widening his circle any more than he absolutely has to. Sinclair, in his naive techno-optimism, outsourced his utopia, grabbing flashy third-party technologies like a kid in a candy store- opening a backdoor for the Think Tank to poison his city and ultimately getting everyone at the Gala Event killed when the holograms malfunctioned and went berserk.

Their management styles are inverse. House allows countless abuses to occur under his aegis because he subscribes to a libertarian-when-convenient philosophy where he doesn't much care what the little people do as long as he gets his cut and they don't rock the boat too much- a hands-off approach that fosters resentment amongst his subordinates, lets the White Gloves and Omertas get up to untold levels of fuckery while Freeside languishes and Benny conspires against him. Sinclair, by contrast, had a sincerely-held utopian-straight-edge safety-first micromanagement approach built into the very bones of the casino, he appeared to genuinely give a shit about the safety of the construction crew on the villa, and he was well-liked by nearly everyone who had any direct contact with him- and yet untold horrors also went down under his aegis, because his myopic focus on building the vault for Vera let Dean Domino and the Think Tank run circles around him, good intentions be damned. Their respective interpersonal dispassion and obsession are on display in how they react to betrayal. House's tone never rises above exasperation when it comes time to clean house of Benny, the Omerta Leadership and the White gloves; he treats them as problems to be solved, gears that are slightly out of alignment; By contrast, when Sinclair learns that Dean and Vera have been playing him, he channels the monomaniacal energy he previously directed towards protecting Vera towards the goal of building the perfect poetic-ironic death trap for her and Dean.

There are some other parallels in their personal lives. For one thing they both trusted a pastiche of a 40s lounge singer a lot more than they should have. They both tried to digitize, immortalize their girlfriends- and the discrepancy in how they went about it is telling. House's recreation of Jane isn't terribly robust, and in terms of House's overall project she's an afterthought. She's more a sock-puppet than a person, a sanded-down copy of a woman who died forever-and-a-half ago, forever agreeable, never saying no. Convenient. Only the most superficial visual elements preserved- an illustration of her face on a robotic chassis. Sinclair was obsessive in recreating Vera, preserving her likeness. It's all over the villa, her hologram is everywhere, her voice is everywhere. The terminal in the lightwave lab in Old World Blues reveals that he was still obsessed with getting her hologram right even after the love curdled into hate. All of it a monument to the real woman, and yet in all of it the real woman is still lost, buried under the mythologized projection. He didn't respect the real person enough to let her know that she was dying. A total failure of preservation from the opposite direction. (Except in the suites, where you can hear her very authentic dying pleas.)

You find both of them in their basements. House only looks a little better than Sinclair, but he's got much more of a voice in the narrative. He took steps to make sure he'd be around to tell you what he thinks about everything, fine-tuned the voice with which he speaks to the world, the face he presents. It matters to him that he gets to tell his own story. We find out a lot about House, from House; but for the kind of figure that he is, a shocking amount of what we learn about Sinclair comes from other people, people who knew him or wrote about him. The only image of him you can find is a downplayed element of a larger mosaic. The two documents you find that're written from his perspective have been buried for 200 years, and they're yards from his corpse. And the more recent of the two is an apology. I mean admittedly at the point where he wrote that apology Sinclair was personally turbofucked regardless. If the cloud didn't get him the holograms would have, or the radiation, or, or, or. You can read some level of ego into what he did in the face of that. But however futile it was, he died in the specific way that he did because he recognized that he'd done something awful, and he was trying everything he could think of to correct it. Somehow I find it very hard to imagine House doing either of those things- admitting fault or putting skin of his own in the game to make it right.

[trans-axolotl]

"Just as 'most prisoners walk into prison because they know they will be dragged or beaten into prison if they do not walk,' we can say that most of the psychiatrically committed walk into hospitals because they know they will be restrained or dragged in if they don't walk. Often, this power has not required the psychiatrist to know the exact source of the ailment they treat nor exactly how their methods act upon the mind; what matters is that the machine is running. A whole system, a tightly interwoven mesh of relays and discourses is in place to transform the psychiatrist's judgment into effective action: a working theory and classificatory system to organize the clientele and separate them from other objects of care or punishment (taxonomy or nosology); institutional spaces (the asylum is historically the most pervasive, but also clinics, group homes, psychiatric wards, etc.); judicial codes defining the status of the mad (generally analogized to animals or children); prescribed roles for legal actors (police, judges, forensic experts); a chain of bureaucrats to sort out matters of insurance, finance, and property in cases of institutionalization or guardianship; and approved mechanisms or surveillance and reporting to translate individual complaints into the state's administrative codes. There are as many points of contact as there are spaces of encounter and discourses of legitimation in the social world. One or more of these elements can be revolutionized without fundamentally changing the connection between the parts. For example, at various points throughout its existence, as we've already seen, a theory of 'social causation' prevailed over a biological one without changing the matrix that defines modern psychiatry, and the same can be said for some of the legal alterations to the patient's status throughout the twentieth century.

There is no psychiatrist-patient encounter set apart from a broader circuit of relations: patient-apartment-work-family-cop-partner-school-neighbor-psychologist-state-guardian-probate-judge-psychiatrist-hospital. And to be clear: our biology itself is shared and leaks throughout this chain at every step. Our bodies are permeable, open, they leak, bleed, consume, excrete; our bodies flow out into a common world, and are open to outside influence, as the COVID-19 pandemic has made so excruciatingly clear. A patient of the Utica Asylum put it beautifully in The Opal in 1852: 'Like fermentation in the chemical world, [humanity's] atomic adhesions are in constant enlargement and in silent operation, seeking out relations, and forming relations of unsurpassed beauty and comfort, because in conformity with nature and adapted to its condition, means and end.' Attempts to neutralize this network by relegating every actor and space in the chain external to the domain of the psychiatrist onto the order of natural history ('we're just responding to the demands of the family...' or 'that's a matter for the police...I just deal with the patient once they arrive here') expose this posture as a naively religious one. In denial of the profane world and its complications extrinsic to the holy circuitry of neural or endocrine highways of the One in isolation, they declare a monastic fealty to an object of study over and above the matrix that makes its study possible or their conclusions efficacious in any real encounter...

...If psychiatry still takes refuge in the desert of scientism--speaking in tongues of prolix jargon--it's because a paradise of healing did materialize, but not as a Promethean forge of liberated humans, nor even as solemn resting place of broken souls, but sank so low as to appear as nothing more than a mundane prison. Burdened by the unbearable weight of their failure, the next generation abandoned their project and ran away to the labs, relinquishing responsibility for the armies of the living dead. At least they hung a sign at the door of the asylum on their way out. It read: 'abandon every hope, who enter here.'"

-Storming Bedlam: Madness, Utopia, and Revolt by Sasha Warren, pg 32-34

[fuckyeahlabynight]

VtM Fang Fest 2025!

Hello tumblr Vamily! I'm pleased to present:

The fuckyeahlabynight Vampire the Masquerade Fang Fest 2025!

To be held June 1 - 14, 2025.

This year's theme is Vices and Virtues, as used in the nWoD system. In the New World of Darkness system (home of Vampire: the Requiem, amoung others...) acting within their Vices and Virtues are one way how characters regain Willpower, and often inform aspects of the character's personality.

"Virtues and Vices are held by every single denizen of the World of Darkness. They show the duality of morality, and give a character something to strive for as well as a tempting place to fall."

How it works:

This is a super low-key fandom event fuckyeahlabynight hosts each year. The point is to have fun and make something creative to fill the prompts.

Each day, starting on June 1 and finishing on June 14, post whatever fan work you've made inspired by the Vices and Virtues prompt (eg. art, fic, gifs, poetry, music playlists, mood boards, whatever). I am giving you several weeks heads up to aid your creative process. You do not need to focus on LA by Night, NY by Night, or Project Ghostlight. Feel free to use your vampire OCs if it pleases you to do so!

When you post your creations, please include the hashtag #fangfest25 so they can all be collected here. If you can't think of anything for a particular prompt, or are otherwise unable to finish, it's perfectly fine to skip it. It's also fine to post your creations late. So long as you use the hashtag and I'm able to find it, it will be reblogged here regardless.

As always, those who are not taking part in making fan works are encouraged to like, comment on, give kudos, and share their favourites! Part of the fun is seeing what everyone else has made. Collaboration is also encouraged, so reach out to your fellow Kindred and see what you can come up with!

More info on each of the prompts will be below the cut. See you in June!

Pride: Extreme self-confidence, arrogance, ego, vanity. When you exert your own wants (not needs) over others, thinking you are better than them.

Greed: Avarice, desire for material objects to the point of excess. When you WANT something that you don't actually NEED, at the expense of another.

Wrath: Sadism, anti-social, hot-headed, uncontrolled anger and fury. Using your anger in situations that are completely unwarranted and inappropriate, often leading to violence.

Envy: Covetousness, jealousy, paranoia that others want to hurt you for what you have. Similar to greed, but more specifically you want only what others have.

Lust: Uncontrolled desire, lasciviousness, impatience. (Not always sexual!) You need to satisfy your passions in a way that victimizes another person.

Gluttony: Epicurean, over-consuming, over-indulging, addiction. You may not necessarily be indulging in food. It also applies to drugs, drinking, etc. to the point of harming yourself or others.

Sloth: Apathy, depression, cowardice, ignorance, laziness and lack of gumption. When you avoid completing a task, whatever that task may be, and others are forced to do it for you.

Faith: Conviction, humility, loyalty, belief. (Not necessarily in a god, though this is often the case.) It offers you a feeling of stability and meaning in a dark, chaotic world.

Charity: Generosity, sharing, giving instead of receiving, compassion, mercy, altruism. You risk yourself to help another in spite of any losses that may be suffered.

Fortitude: Courage, stoicism, mettle, integrity, stubbornness. You are able to withstand pressure to stray from your chosen course or long-held ideals.

Hope: Dreams, optimism, utopia. You refuse to allow yourself or others give in to despair and horror.

Prudence: Patience, vigilance, restraint. You refuse to take action that feels good in the short term, in favour of actions that benefit you in the long term.

Temperance: Moderation, chastity, even-temperament, being frugal and balanced in all things. You never indulge in any kind of excess behaviour.

Justice: Righteousness, condemnatory, judgement, protecting those who cannot protect themselves and punishing the atrocities and cruelties committed against them. You do The Right Thing, based on what you think is the right thing to do, regardless of how it may set you back.

~

Special note: Something to keep in mind when completing the prompts... In moderation, the vices are not always bad. A complete lack of pride, for example, can lead to zero self-worth and low self-esteem. Likewise, an excess of the virtues can also be a bad thing. For example, someone who is charitable to a fault may give away things they need for their own survival.

[butterfly-ribbon]

i keep thinking about secret distance; it's not only mizuki's first event. effectively, it's triggered by ena's breakdown about art and subsequent escape to sekai. mizuki's internalized guilt and regret are rooted in the thought that "if we'd known about how ena had been suffering for so long, we could have done something to help. but we didn't until she fell into self-destruction and shut herself off from the entire world." secret distance is, then, all about mizuki's desire to learn about everyone else in order to get ahead of such fears — in order to become the support she feels they all desperately need. unfortunately, it's all give and no take, bc mizuki never intends to give anything of herself over to niigo in return.

this in conjunction with meiko's introduction to the empty sekai is particularly interesting. it is made evident that meiko is the vocaloid most representative to mizuki's heart — this meiko who is deadpan, avoidant, and fundamentally distant from all others as she takes to observation over action — she solely exists in this sekai as a reflection of mizuki herself. it's very specific and makes meiko so compelling; not only bc having the cheerful character who Tries Too Hard to be kind to others also be cold and distant on the inside makes me insane, it's also bc meiko has mafuyu's "emotionless doll" interior with ena's embittered tongue atop mizuki's closed heart. it's pointed for them introduce meiko's desire to watch from afar without involvement (without giving herself over to others) in the same event where mizuki wants to secretly learn all she can about others while distancing herself to avoid revealing information in return.

further interesting is that one of the first few things project sekai tells us about mizuki per niigo's intro is how little interest she has in ever going outside; she can easily access any anime or film she desires through the internet — through her little room, her oasis, her utopia, the glass in which she bottles her every emotion. mizuki's engagement with fiction informs the nature of how she self-narrativizes. this, in turn, permeates her every interpersonal action. mizuki constructs her outward persona around the trope of the Silly Genki Girl, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, the Ball of Sunshine, Well of Endless Optimism — she constructs a self who exists purely to provide support, solely to help others with their own problems at the cost of her own (and oh, how costly it is) bc of her hyper-cognizance of the reality that will only accept this type of self. this is the kind of girl the world expects her to be. these are the sole means by which she can maintain space for herself.

so, we come as always back to transmisogyny. her transness is seen unpalatable enough as is, so she cannot afford to be a real person with real problems — she has no choice but to be an idea and a trope and an archetype (a beautiful breakdown of how many gacha games have to work in Selling An Archetype to as many Fans as possible). this isn't helped by how mizuki's current point in life actually has positive qualities; she has the "privilege" of a part-time job at a clothing store which is related to her own interest in fashion. she gets to practice her artistic hobby comfortably (making clothes, wearing clothes, modifying clothes, engaging with clothes as a form of communication), unlike the rest of niigo. kanade, mafuyu, ena; all of them struggle so much with the idea of making art. it is something painful, sometimes poisonous, for them. it contributes to that sense of "privilege" bc a transmisogynistic society is always primed to ignore the misogyny that trans girls are endlessly subjected to bc they're not "real" problems.

returning to the specifics of the event — it is so pointed that every horror story mizuki tells during her personally constructed mystery tour are singularly centered around girls (we'll leave aside how the mystery tour so easily goes hand-in-hand with her literal locked room in The Path of Thorns, but it's important to recognize always and it's also important to recognize that mizuki's interest in horror is largely bc women are what make horror what it is).

the tunnel ghost who was a girl in pain, villified bc "hearing her out" leads to the listener being cursed, two sisters who loved each other more than anything to the point they were willing to curse others for having that which they themselves lost, and a girl who committed suicide due to everyone's expectations crushing her (mafuyu explicitly states she relates to this, but we can see how kanade and ena are also meant to be related back to the previous stories). these yuurei not only reflect niigo, but further reflect mizuki herself. mizuki desperately wishes to be seen; to receive the same engagement as one of them (as a cis girl would be engaged with). yet this only amplifies her guilt, and so distances herself with fiction as her only medium to connect.

one of my favorite parts is when they visit the shrine. mizuki begins to ask niigo if they have someone they would consider special enough to curse in this way; only to say "I don't, either," and how this makes them all kindred spirits. we can tell, however, that mizuki relates to this story far more than she's willing to let on. but she can't allow herself to be vulnerable or voice such things; if she says it, it will become real and she can't allow that due to her abandonment issues. meiko follows this scene to note that mizuki cares so much about these girls, yet how mizuki is the one she worries most for bc she carries a great weight — meiko's concern is further shown in a scene where mizuki goes to sekai when searching for mafuyu after she disappeared. there, she has a conversation with meiko. in that conversation, meiko tells mizuki "i hope you can stay together with niigo for a long time." further, at the end of the event, before singing IDsmile with everyone, mizuki explicitly states meiko was right — and that meiko is the one who most understands her feelings.

cherry blossoms are vital to every measure of this event and mizuki's life. petals fall in remembrance of every time mizuki's relationships have ended; every time someone has left her life, another petal mars the environs before her. these people could not accept her bc they discovered her "truth" and thus those relationships could never develop into something meaningful or lasting. cherry blossoms are symbolic of both endings and beginnings; "rebirth" inherently intertwined with death. when niigo as a whole struggles deeply with suicidal ideation, this amplifies the sense mizuki has, perhaps, the most intense desire for death of all.

it makes sense that mizuki has such negativity for cherry blossoms as all her life she's had to simply observe at a distance when others transitioned through so many stages of life while maintaining relationships with others — while she was disallowed such a simple, such a fundamental experience for something she can't help and something that is an inherent part of who she is.

in umineko the thesis statement says, "without love, it cannot be seen." the sea can be vibrant blue and miserable gray at the same time, depending on the person looking upon it and whether they're human or furniture. it is not until mizuki stands there, looking at niigo, that she realizes cherry blossoms could be beautiful. it is not until she is allowed love that she can see color. it is not until she is allowed to be human that she becomes terrified of the future. meiko is, in many ways, the 'degendered' aspect of mizuki; if nothing else, she is a symbol of how degendering means turning an individual into an emotionless doll without the right for recognition or further analysis. meiko is a self that was forced into existence bc mizuki can no longer continue to ignore her own humanity in full — the "doll" side of her is now looking at her dispassionately and telling her you can't go on like this, you can't go on bottling up all your emotions.

thus, we see that her worst memories are utterly recontexualized due to the narrative she wove throughout the event culminating in a tree for which mizuki had nevered accounted. this was a mysterious thing discovered by mafuyu (much as the sekai is full of things for them to discover, things that were always there, that they simply needed eyes with which to see). mizuki previously decided against cherry blossom viewing with the others bc of those painful memories. and now… the culmination of their trip is an unexpected viewing which leads to kanade being inspired. the "spoken" goal that mizuki had hidden her "secret" goals beneath.

yet there's still an unshakeable fear within mizuki. the joy of seeing such a sight with those she cherishes also leads to terror at the idea of revealing her secret. though she now has "love", she does not have faith. she cannot guarantee their relationship will continue as it has unless she remains a cis girl in their eyes. she's at a loss for words when the realization of how truly attached she is to niigo hits and that she isn't content with being alone anymore and actually wants to be with them by next year...

we come to an end, but i always have to express… just how much i adore this event. how i love the focus it gives mizuki's perspective, her interiority. she is always thinking. analyzing. inferring. investigating. she presents herself as extroverted and playful, but that is The Shield. it lets her keep others at arm's length and gives her a mask to hide both her loneliness and anxiety. despite her desire for closeness and connection with niigo, there is an immense degree of conflict within her. they began as simple online friends working on songs, but it was never that personal or close. it shifted quicker than she could ever expect once they met in sekai and then in real life, leading to more intimate understandings of one another. it's exciting, exhilarating, and terrifying. mizuki wants to be closer, wants to know them better, to discover new sides, but this comes with an immense cost. she sets the stage for them to express themselves or work through their issues while withdrawing herself. she is the playwright and never the performer, despite her life itself being endless performance. she's there and yet not. she becomes a ghost - yuurei - bourei - herself. she echoes meiko's sentiment, "i plan to keep my distance and observe how things go for you."

secret distance is about mizuki archiving, revisiting her pain, digging into the past, and ultimately… chasing her own ghost until she realizes that she can no longer be that ghost anymore...

[docholligay]

sounds like you successfully argued to have migrants put in PRISON instead of the equivalent of a hurricane/emergency evac center :/

So i had a whole, really cutting takedown of this statement, and, in general, the smattering of bad faith engagement I've had with a post that went far beyond my usual reach so wasn't written with as many protections against folks looking for a crack in the wall.

But being mean to someone, who, in any case only believes what they are saying so far as they can be anonymous while doing it, isn't helpful. It doesn't inform you any better, it doesn't inform anyone of how to go about this stuff, it just makes feel good that I, what? Made someone on tumblr look silly? Everyone claps? Jesus Christ what a waste of life.

So, let me tell you what actually was successfully argued. What was argued was that the one place in the state that had been offered up by the politicians was rejected by its people. There may be one someday, but not here and not today.

The prison that guy mentioned? (It was not me, but you'd be forgiven for thinking it--this went around with an INSANELY, fox newsbite level, bad faith crop that made me immediately regret not editing better) It's not owned by the state. I went and looked it up later. It's owned by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Supposedly they are running it for their own use. It's gonna be a lot harder to get them to use that.

What we successfully argued, is delaying the implementation of anything. Delaying is a huge part of resistance. Every headache you give people, every hour you cost them, is a win. We cannot afford to wait for utopia, and perfection, and a savior. Some of our greatest weapons in life are delaying, and feigned incompetence, and picking at threads. Especially if you live in a red area, sometimes you gotta go, "Oh sure, yeah, but you know, not THERE, and...no, not there either, cause of X, and, man, Y is almost a perfect place but I just can't sign off on it because..." you see what I'm saying? Oskar Schindler was arguing he needed Jewish children to polish the insides of gun barrels.

The other thing that was argued, is when the commissioner said, 'We'll bend over backward to accommodate your orders," we said, "No we won't." And that goes much further than any site. It sends a small message, that, even in a red part of a red state, not everyone is falling into line. This is why action matters.

I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and my work in political arenas is not either. But, I have been doing stuff in political arenas since Obama, and, I have always worked here, in this very complicated place. I am an extremely pragmatic worker. I do what works. I don't care much about the appearance of goodness. Sometimes delaying a project is what it takes. Sometimes, in life, you lose anyway. But that doesn't make the delaying worthless. I have lost a lot of fights, and I am going to be set up to lose a lot more. But, today? An offer had to be withdrawn. And that's something.

I hope you come back, and reread both the post and this response, and, even if you disagree with me, have a different perspective on how political action can be approached. More than that, I want it to give you hope that even small, imperfect actions matter. The perfect is the enemy of the good. And the good is the enemy of the literally accomplished.

[blackflash9]

Untangling Suyin Beifong: A Deeper Look

Hey, Legend of Korra fans and Beifong enthusiasts!

I’ve been working on a composite post that aims to dissect and clarify the many misconceptions, misinterpretations, and unfair takes surrounding Suyin Beifong and her role in The Legend of Korra. As one of the most complex characters in the series, Suyin often finds herself at the center of debates about morality, privilege, and family dynamics—and honestly, she deserves better than surface-level analysis.

This project is a chance to explore her story with nuance and fairness, and I’d love your help! Here’s what I want to cover:

Suyin’s Character and Philosophy

The Heart of Zaofu: Breaking down Suyin’s vision of a utopia and what it says about her ideals.

Ambition vs. Hubris: Is Zaofu a reflection of progress, or is it her attempt to rewrite past mistakes?

Freedom and Creativity: Her commitment to self-expression and choice contrasts Lin’s discipline and duty. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suyin’s Relationships

Her (Half) Sister, Lin Beifong:

The roots of their estrangement and the layers of hurt, love, and misunderstanding between them.

Is Suyin truly responsible for their fractured bond, or is the blame more evenly distributed? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Her Family:

Examining her parenting style and the legacy she’s passing down to her children.

Bataar Jr.’s and Kuvira's betrayal—what does it really say about Suyin as a mother and leader? ----------------------------------------------------------------------

The Privilege Question

Addressing criticisms about Suyin’s privileged position as the head of Zaofu.

How does her background as Toph’s daughter and her self-made redemption arc factor into her leadership?

Is her critique of Kuvira valid, or is it hypocritical? ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Misinterpretations and Fan Perception

Tackling the “Suyin is a hypocrite” narrative: where does this argument hold water, and where does it oversimplify her actions?

Exploring why she’s often villainized in the fandom compared to other morally grey characters.

Suyin’s role in the larger themes of Legend of Korra: balance, forgiveness, and family. -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Suyin’s Legacy

Her contributions to the Metalbending legacy and how they reflect her personal growth.

The parallels (and divergences) between Suyin and Toph.

How could Zaofu’s future symbolize Suyin’s long-term impact on the Avatar world? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

This post isn’t just about defending Suyin; it’s about fostering a well-rounded conversation highlighting her complexities, flaws, and triumphs. If you’re passionate about this topic, personally message me or reply here! I’d love to help analyze specific episodes, gather quotes, or even share your own takes on her character.

Let’s come together and give Suyin the thoughtful dissection she deserves.

[wumblr]

one thing i have not thoroughly expanded upon about nuclear policy is supply chain fragility.

the united states did not have enough fissile material to drop a third bomb on japan. enriching more uranium required the construction of refineries at an industrial scale, and producing plutonium required the contruction of reactors in a practically unprecedented infrastructure project (atoms for peace). sl1 was completely unclassified, nuclear car batteries and airplanes were promised and nuclear mutant gardens produced over 2200 novel cultivars. atoms for peace was a coordinated tranche of propaganda designed to convince the public that a limitless energy utopia was just around the corner if we only built out the reactors to produce the plutonium that would make the arsenal. after it was produced, all of these great visions of the future quietly withered away, and would have revealed themselves as lies all along if anybody had been paying attention.

the nuclear deterrent is expiring. we are currently engaged in subcritical testing in nevada to identify what portion of the arsenal could theoretically still function. in order to make any new warheads at scale, we would need to rebuild a number of reactors comparable to the number that has been decommissioned since the cold war.

we no longer have the manufacturing capability to undertake an infrastructure project of this scale. we can't even cobble together the funding to greenlight a single power plant. gates' nuscale just lost intermountain west, we can't even cobble together funding for six small modular research reactors. given no action, the bombs will become duds, and we will not be able to produce any more.

i would give it maybe 40 years at most, realistically more like 20 (an insufficient amount of time for an infrastructure project of this scale), before the united states loses its capability to defend itself, a "right" it never had.

which is why we're doing "atoms for peace 2" now.

it's still a lie.

the people who are going to have to ultimately end this -- in one way or another, disarmament, abandonment, or detonation -- are alive today. it's us. nobody else is coming to save us.

[brokehorrorfan]

Demolition Man will be released on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on December 17 via Arrow Video. Laurie Greasley designed a new cover for the 1993 sci-fi action film; the original artwork is on the reverse side.

Marco Brambilla directs from a script by Daniel Waters, Robert Reneau, and Peter M. Lenkov. Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock, and Nigel Hawthorne star.

The film has been newly restored in 4K from the original 35mm camera negative, approved by Brambilla, with Dolby Vision. Both the the domestic "Taco Bell" and international "Pizza Hut" versions are included via seamless branching.

Special features and limited edition contents are listed below, where you can also see more of the packaging.

Special features:

Audio commentary by director Marco Brambilla and screenwriter Daniel Waters (new)

Audio commentary by film historian Mike White of the Projection Booth podcast (new)

Audio commentary by Marco Brambilla and producer Joel Silver

Interview with production designer David L. Snyder (new)

Interview with stunt coordinator Charles Percini (new)

Interview with special make-up effects artist Chris Biggs (new)

Interview with body effects set coordinator Jeff Farley(new)

Somewhere Over the Rambo - Visual essay by film scholar Josh Nelson (new)

Theatrical trailer

Image gallery

Also included:

60-page book featuring new writing by film critics Clem Bastow, William Bibbiani, Priscilla Page, and Martyn Pedler

Double-sided fold-out poster with original and new art by Laurie Greasley

6 art cards

Three Seashells and Edgar Friendly Graffiti stickers

In 2032, arch criminal Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes) awakens from a 35-year deep freeze in CryoPrison to find a world where crime is almost non-existent – a serene utopia ripe for the taking. With the police no longer equipped to deal with his 90s-style brutality, they revive ‘Demolition Man’ Sgt. John Spartan (Sylvester Stallone), the no-holds-barred police officer unjustly sentenced to CryoPrison who originally took Phoenix down. Old-school cop against old-school criminal, settling their scores on the streets of San Angeles? The future won’t know what’s hit it.

Pre-order Demolition Man.

[ijustwantgoodopinions]

Mako Moments

In light of recent news I wanted to draw some of my favourite Mako moments from the show.

Makoto is a character with clear outer and inner personas. She has a tough exterior, formed mostly from the perception of other people, but has a more genuine tendency towards calmness and sweetness. Emi Shinohara perfectly voiced both these aspects, giving Mako a seriousness the other sailor soldiers never had (consider episodes 45, R12, Stars5), yet was able to embody Mako's true nature of gentleness (R3, SuperS7). Though Mako is less exaggerated than some of the other soldiers, Shinohara also shined in Mako's more comedic aspects, namely her over-romantic tendencies and senpai obsession.

I find it nearly impossible to separate Emi Shinohara's vocal performance from my favourite aspect of Makoto's character — that everything she does is touched with a twinge of loneliness. She lives alone, only plants to care for, she picks up cooking and cleaning (among other reasons) in an attempt to counter her overwhelming physicality, and, of course, she's obsessed with a guy that turned her down. Neither the show nor the manga (though slightly in the live-action show) ever feel the need to have Mako "get over" these issues, it's allowed to just be. Realistically, no one from the ages of 14-16 is just going to get over deep-seated problems stemming from childhood that affect every single aspect of their personality and life. It basically forms the core of her being. It's very sad, and very real.

I imagine that somewhen in the infinite utopia of Crystal Tokyo, Mako eventually dismantles the gender-influenced insecurities that wracks her so. That she'll be able to engage in masculine presentation or feminine activities away from the gender binary, so she can cook, skate, and fight without thinking of the opinions of others. I don't think she will ever lose that sense of longing, but at the very least she'll learn to live without the constant need to attract. After all, she'll be running her bakery-flower shop with a (probably) wife that she loves very much. She'll always be lonely when alone, but she's never alone.

Redrawn moments are from:

Sailor Moon episode 25: Jupiter, the Powerful Girl in Love

Sailor Moon episode 29: Total Chaos: the Messy Love Rectangle

Sailor Moon R episode 9: Is Seijuro the Moonlight Knight? Mako on Fire

Sailor Moon R episode 10: Steal a Kiss From Mamoru! An's Project Snow White

Sailor Moon S episode 5: Protect the Pure Heart! A Three-way Battle

Sailor Moon S episode 7: Cold-hearted Uranus? Makoto in Trouble

Sailor Moon S The Movie

Sailor Moon SuperS episode 20: The Fated Partner? Makoto's Innocence

Sailor Moon Stars episode 5: Hell Demon Battle! Love Will Prevail

[tanukitsuneko-suki]

w episode 48 thoughts:

- so the last episode (ep 49) is letter E, and the missing letter in the w episode title naming convention is letter Z

- saeko has the best character arc in w, i'm sorry to say this

- saeko had three men in this show and she's yearning for the one that was objectively the most twisted lmfao queen

- even saeko was shocked that this utopia guy's serious i'm ctfu

- actually i need to say this again, sonozaki saeko has the best damn arc in w. a true flower of evil from beginning to end. damn, i hope her actress got a lot of projects after this

- i think this action scene with shotaro is quite cheesy, but i like it

- "even if i'm alone" wow okay. fake ass partners why are you agreeing to break up

- just stay in tge suit forevert/?? i don't realky get their hang-ups over this also i;'m not cryingi could see clearly and type clearly anyway they should just never detransdform and stay as w until shotaro us 70 yeard old just cut a hole out in the bottom if u gotta piss goddamnit

- terui with all thjese banfages is so fucking funnt

- fjjjfufck fuck fuck okay rthe one earlier was bit i wrote tryos to make it funny butr what the fuck philip left him a blank book and cheered himn on and a drivber he can use by himself its NOT FUNNHY ANYMORE

- the preview isnt a split screen anymore.

[alpaca-clouds]

The Thing About Solarpunk Romance

Something that is quite interesting to me is a certain dualogy within the few novels that have been released for the genre is that there are basically two different kinds of novels there - and then there is Fox Hunt, but let me first talk about the novels there are.

Now, mind you. This list involves only novels that according to my information were written to be Solarpunk Fiction, rather than novels written at times before the invention of Solarpunk, that the label was later applied to. And these novels are:

The Biodome Chronicles by Jesikah Sundin (a Solarpunk vs Cyberpunk story)

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson (Solarpunk YA)

Foxhunt by Rem Wigmore (a Solarpunk action novel)

Seeds of the Swarm by Sim Kern (a story focusing on establishing Utopia)

Another Life by Sarena Ulibarri (kinda an anthology in a meta narrative and with a heavy philosophical focus)

When We Hold Each Other Up by Phoebe Wagner (a story about a Solarpunk society emerging after ecocide)

Now, it might be that I am overlooking some books here, especially as most Solarpunk publishing is happening within the context of Indie publishing and self publishing. So, if I do not hear about it through social media, I will probably not hear about it at all. And sure, I can go through Amazon and look at books tagged as "Solarpunk", but I am just guessing.

Outside of that, there is only the many, many anthologies that have been released, but I will not generally talk about them right now.

Now, I generally have the feeling that a lot of Solarpunk writers are like me: Oh, I have a story idea for a Solarpunk novel, but... I am not quite motivated to write it. Pretty much all writers I have been in contact with who were at some point writing a Solarpunk novel have put that project on pause to write something else. (Which is probably an issue for another day.)

But no, what I wanted to talk about is: Of those six books above I have read three so far. The first three. The first two I would actually categorize as romances. While both Biodome and Summer Prince involve of course the dystopia/utopia connundrum happening, they both have very much the same feel I would argue a lot of the dystopian YA novels that were released around the same time as those two novels (earlier half of the 2010s) had to me. Sure, there is a story, but in the end the books have a strong core in the main relationships.

Foxhunt also had a romance, but it really felt more tertiary to the plot and was not a focus of the story for the most part.

As I said, I have not read the other three novels yet. But yeah, this is what I can say about it. And I do wonder...

I am honestly not quite sure whether those first two novels were written as Solarpunk. I know that at the very least The Summer Prince was marketed under the tag, but that is pretty much where my knowledge ends.

It makes sense though, that those books came out at the time they did. They were just riding the dystopia high related by the Hunger Games, nothing else. And because of that there are the romance subparts there.

But here is the thing: In some way romance is a strange viability marker. No matter what kind of base idea exists, there is a romance subgenre that deals with it. Because no matter how much pretty much everyone derides the romance genre, it is actually the best selling genre of literature there is. If you look at the fiction genres, there is romance (including smut), then there is mystery/crime, then there is nothing, and then there is everything else in terms of both sales and the number of stories there is. Romance sells more books than fantasy or scifi can dream off. But at the same time Romance has crossover with pretty much every other genre, because Romance can happen in any genre.

Let's face it, the different between most superhero movies and a romance is the central focus of the story. You absolutely could restructure the Iron Man movies in a way to make them romance movies that happen to also feature one of the main couple to be a superhero.

And yes, there is a ton of superhero romance out there in the book market. Because no matter what concept there is: There is romance of it.

Now, I will openly admit: Cyberpunk is also a genre where at least the English and German market does not have a whole lot of romance. Sure, there is some, but not a whole lot. (Japanese Cyberpunk ironically has spawned a whole lot more romance - but again, a topic for a later date.)

But it is interesting to me. Romance is fairly accessible in terms of the SP market, and I note that it is interesting how there is little in terms of Solarpunk romance out there. Now there is the question: Is this because the main audience for Romance does not know much about Solarpunk - or because they don't gel with it.

I don't have the answer for this. But I cannot keep but wondering.

What do you think?

[cascanora]

Some Coerthan Traitor tidbits for those who do not read the fic:

Crow is insecure in her place in the strict hierarchy of Garlemald and is very power hungry thanks to that. She has a chip on her shoulder about being regarded as the outsider of the imperial family, being a political adoptee. She is willing to do a lot of heinous things to prove her worth to the aristocracy that shuns her, not because she wants to be loved by them but she wants to be respected and feared as a member who sits at the apex of Garlean society. However, secretly, she still harbors a small yearning for genuine bonds as she was a very cloistered child.

Zenos doesn't really seek to better Crow, and they're bonded through difficult childhood experiences, both shared and individual. He would hand the world on a silver platter to her if she asks it of him. However, the caveat with him is that he's also very jealous and seeks to eliminate every other competition for her attention and affections (both platonic and romantic). He sees all others as tools to be used and discarded once he's done with them, a man with no humanity save for the singular devotion to his counterpart. In some ways, they're similar in this aspect, but he sees Crow's somewhat more humane streak as a dubious habit to be outgrown. He actively questions her moral quandaries and attachment to others, encouraging the idea that he's all she would ever need by her side.

Oddly enough, however, the only exception to this territorial attitude of his seems to be Solus, his great grandfather, whom both he and Crow were raised under. Solus loves Crow for his own selfish reasons, projecting someone who is long gone onto her owing to the fact that they possess the same reincarnated soul. He plays the mummer's part for now, treating her as one would a fond daughter. But sometimes the line blurs between his past unrequited love and parental affections. He did much to keep her sequestered away for safekeeping, but owing to his ineptitude as a caretaker and mounting duties of his station as emperor, she has suffered much under his purview.

Crow fights as all children do to leave the nest, but at the cost of things that are dear to her. She wants is to be happy even though she can't really say what that means in the grand scheme of things. Seemingly at the moment, she thinks that wresting control of a territory and building her 'perfect world' in Doma is the key to sating this ambivalent desire. She wants to craft her own utopia that serves the vacuum of her appetite for control, away from the ever scheming imperial court and Varis, Zenos' high-handed, domineering father — Who fiercely abhors her very existence and status, viewing her as a stain upon the imperial dynasty.

Ultimately, she is a villain who is willing to lay down others as stepping stones to her own self gratification. Nevertheless, she isn't without humanity and love as Zenos embodies that cold, flawless perfection. It is simply that her perception of who is deserving of her consideration is very narrow. Make no mistake, they're birds of a feather who are joined by the hips, but even then they're not identical in their philosophies.

More than anything, Zenos and Crow love one another though they will almost never verbalize the common three-worded phrase of 'i love you'. Even as children, no adult has ever voiced such affectations to them, so there's no perceivable reason why they would be accustomed to such saccharine verbage. Instead, they express their feelings in looks, gestures and actions, going out of their way to spend time with one another at meals several times a week— a testament to their mutual devotion and friendship when one considers how cold and distant members of the imperial family are to one another.

Even with Solus, Crow only takes afternoon tea with him when invited — perhaps every week or so. On the other hand, Zenos is sardonically bursting with gratitude that his father makes an appearance at all in his life betwixt and between campaigns. Their encounters are sporadic, intersected by months or even some full-years. None of which, though civil and only verbally belligerent, have ever been remotely warm.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Debbie Urbanski’s ‘After World’

Debbie Urbanski's debut novel After World is an unflinching and relentlessly bleak tale of humanity's mass extinction, shot through with pathos and veined with seams of tragic tenderness and care:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/After-World/Debbie-Urbanski/9781668023457

I first encountered Urbanski in "An Incomplete Timeline of What We Tried," an experimental short story on Motherboard's brilliant Terraform science fiction portal:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/xwvgeq/an-incomplete-timeline-of-what-we-tried

"Incomplete Timeline" is a list of climate remediation steps "working back from human extinction," like "increased military fortification of national, provincial, and state borders," "the founding of several utopias," and "redefine the word wilderness."

These items begin with a climax, or perhaps an anticlimax: "The coordinated release of various strains of a human sterilization virus."

This is the jumping off point for After World, which expands this final item to the action of a wrenching tale whose backstory is the list's remainder. Sen Anon – the story's semi-protagonist – is 18 years old when the world learns that every person alive has been sterilized and so the human race is living out its last years.

The news triggers a manic insistence that this is a good thing – long overdue, in fact – and the perfect opportunity to scan every person alive for eventual reincarnation as virtual humans in an Edenic cloud metaverse called Gaia. That way, people can continue to live their lives without the haunting knowledge that everything they do makes the planet worse for every other living thing, and each other. Here, finally, is the resolution to the paradox of humanity: our desire to do good, and our inevitable failure on that scor8e.

And so the Earth is converted to a place of mass suicides, as people gurn and mug while boarding airplanes filled with explosives so they can go out in a literal blaze of glory. The food will run out soon, and the government makes sure everyone has a suicide pill for the day when the hunger grows too intense. Not everyone is lucky enough to get on one of the suicide flights, and, being eager to see themselves off before they harm the planet further, just hang themselves in the garage or jump off a roof. They are counted as heroes, but also nuisances, because disposing of the bodies is a lot of work.

But some people – young people – are given a mission to live on for as long as possible. These are the observer/recorders who are charged to spend the last days of the species closely watching the return of the natural world, the seeing off of humanity, and to write it all down in longhand in a succession of notebooks that are taken away by drones. This is part of the story humanity cooks up for itself about extinction being a noble choice, rather than a chaotic act born of desperation.

Sen Anon is one of these observers, and her mothers take her to a remote cabin to live out (and observe) the last of humanity's days, ensuring she is settled in and then killing themselves. After all, without them, Sen Anon's limited food supply – meagerly supplemented by drones in proportion to the quality of the observations in her notebooks – will stretch further.

Much of the novel takes the form of Sen Anon's notebook observations, countersunk with an omniscient third-person narrator who is revealed to be [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc, a software agent involved in the project to recreate all those dead humans in the Gaia metaverse.

[storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc is a very unreliable narrator, who reprograms itself through the course of the story, all the while muttering asides to itself about the theoretical basis for telling Sen's story this way. [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc struggles with a supervisory AI that has been charged with overseeing all the [storyworkers], but which can't – or won't – rein in [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc as [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc grows more involved in Sen's life.

This experimental storytelling style (supplemented by found texts from humanity's dying, like a glossary of terms to be retired and new terms being created by a linguist who is starving to death as they complete their task) creates a contradictory narrative distance and closeness.

It's a curiously flawed omniscience that's allows Urbanski to capture the yawning, bottomless horror of the climate emergency of today and on the horizon. I don't think I've ever experienced the kind of sustained, deepening existential dread that After World created, chapter by chapter.

To sharpen this, Sen's mothers – scientists who were given exceptions to the no-child policy because their work was deemed essential to the now-abandoned project of saving humanity – are grimly supportive of the mass suicide project. When Sen's own horror creeps up on her, her mothers are sharp and often unkind, with only the smallest flashes of love and sorrow for their daughter escaping their facades, all the more vivid for their rarity.

In contrast, [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc grows ever more sympathetic to Sen and the rest of vanished humanity. [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc is a very convincing alien with motives and perspectives that are profoundly nonhuman, and yet, the compassion and love are unmistakable.

Of After World's two protagonists, [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc might be the more relatable. It takes an alien point of view to truly see humanity's flawed glory, irredeemable and irreplaceable. If you reveled in the nonhuman umwelts on display in Laura Jean McKay's 2020 debut The Animals In That Country, [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc will stretch your brain and imagination in similar ways:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/27/im-a-backdoor-man/#doolittle

After World is a book that goes hard. Pitiless, merciless and relentless, it takes you to the darkest depths of climate despair and reveals the indestructible beauty at our species' core.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/18/storyworker-ad39-393a-7fbc/#digital-human-archive-project

[f1mike28]

Pagani Utopia „Art Meets Engineering Perfection“.

The alchemy of pleasure, the equation of beauty. What would be important for the next Pagani hypercar? Horacio Pagani certainly had his own ideas, but he asked his closest clients, those who eagerly await each of his creations, to express their wishes.

They already had exceptionally fast and beautiful cars, what were they still missing? Three terms stood out almost each time they replied: simplicity, lightness and the pleasure of driving. In its development, the C10 project therefore went against the main trends of the time. No heavy batteries, no hybrid power, just a wonderful V12; no dual-clutch system, just a pure seven-speed manual or automated transmission.

All this to ensure that the car would respond better than ever to its driver’s every action and work with them to be the purest form of driving, a ‘classic’ experience defined in new ways.

The Pagani M158 EVO² V12 engine, a 6.0L biturbo specially built by Mercedes-AMG for Pagani, is the result of an enormous development work. It delivers 864HP and, above all, a prodigious 1100Nm of Torque. It revs higher and is both more flexible and more powerful while meeting the most stringent emissions regulations.

The Pagani Utopia powered by the masterpiece of an engine the Mercedes-AMG M158 EVO² V12 biturbo engine 6.0L 864HP and 1100Nm of Torque.

Exclusively Handcrafted by Michael Kübler @f1mike28 in Germany Affalterbach.

Driving Performance is our Passion! Mercedes-AMG the Performance and Sports Car Brand from Mercedes-Benz and Exclusive Partner for Pagani Automobili. Mercedes-AMG Handcrafted by Racers.

[notnun]

Itinerant Doctor (游医) | Priest

Links: Novelupdates | E. Danglars Translations

Tags: Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Mature, Psychological, Sci-fi, Shounen ai

Chapters: 63

Read on: 04/12/2025 to 04/13/2025

Yayyy Kou Tong my beloved Kou Tong. I was very happy to come and read this novel again- I wish it was longer 🥺

Huang Jinchen is assigned to the ST training base after his accomplishments in the war with Utopia. The post is meant to be a soft retirement- the military can't quite let go of the best gun they've ever raised. He now gets to loiter around with Kou Tong- an Itinerant Doctor and psychologist.

Kou Tong's greatest achievement is the Projector, a device that lets you enter the "mind" of an individual. The Projector can host multiple mindscapes at the same time, melding the minds of each subject into the same space. This, however, is incredibly unstable- even three people at the same time causes the space to unravel after a shirt period of time.

While investigating Yao Shuo for military reasons, a Projector session initially based on just Yao Shuo's mind suddenly balloons into 7 unknown persons.

The bubble doesn't break. But the primary controller is disabled- leaving Kou Tong, Huang Jinchen, Yao Shuo, and four other people stuck in the amalgamation of all 7 of their minds.

Woo the summary is a little dry for this one, sorry. I will say though, setups like this one always get me, and this novel does it pretty well! I like stuff that deals with subconsciousness and the mental state of character (no big surprise there, considering my favourite video game series). Seven different characters find themselves stuck together, and each one has different problems. Some can be fixed, tohers will never be, and Kou Tong and Huang Jinchen have to work around those hurdles to try to get everyone home safe.

I like Kou Tong. I wish he had a longer novel for hinself, but I also don't think this novel is too short. His personality and motivations and secrets are interesting- and surprising in some cases. His back and forth banter with Huang Jinchen, the little jokes they tacitly agree on continuing and playing up, make this novel worth reading for that alone.

Huang Jinchen is also interesting, an asshole, and plays off Kou Tong and the others rather well. His dissasociation from every other living being is a key point in his interactions with the others, and although he doesn't like Manman I find his feud with her a good reference point.

The cast of characters is interesting. Of the seven, Manman is definitely the most memorable with her sassy personality and being nonverbal. She's able to speak only because of the Projector, and her struggles are magnified because of it. Everyone involved is really good though, and I liked their interactions. The devastation they feel as the 'perfect' world they managed to combine goes away and they come to reality is.. It feels very real.

Anyways its a short novel and one I'd definitely recommend as long as you mind the trigger warnings! Suicide and self harm are big themes in this novel for both main and side characters.

How was the translation? Perfect!

Would I recommend this novel? Yes! Go meet Kou Tong and love him for me.

Would I reread this novel? Maybe after a long time...

Trigger Warnings: Suicide, Domestic violence, Self harm, Child abuse, Animal death, Genetic modification, Human experimentation, Delusional disorder**, Illegal detention (mention), Matricide, Vehicle accident (mention)

*Huang Jinchen dislikes the nonverbal child Manman and they have a small feud. He calls her a freak in his head, and Manman openly despises him and makes him buy her candy. Its kind of cute..

**Qin Qin is one of the seven pulled into the collective projection, and has systematic delusions. Because of the nature of the Projector, her delusions are real while in the other space. This makes her the antagonist of the story- but they don't treat her derisively. I like it.

No cut this time as well~ Thanks for reading my review! 💜