#They’re not complete monsters but they’re not wholly innocent either

[stars-obsession-pit]

Following an accident, Danny wakes up in Gotham City in a DC universe. Lacking any forms of ID or possessions beyond the clothes on his back, he’s forced to commit some crimes to survive. Minor crimes, but still.

And then he gets caught.

During the court proceedings, they come to the mistaken conclusion that he’s a Meta suffering from some psychiatric issues such as Cotard’s Syndrome (a real rare condition where a person holds the delusional belief that they’re dead/don’t exist/etc).

Thus, between his “need for mental treatment” and the concerns about housing someone with his unique physical traits, he is sentenced to spend time in Arkham Asylum. He’s under pretty low security aside from the anti-Meta stuff and with has more freedoms than some other inmates, but it’s still not a great experience. Even at the best of times, Arkham is hardly a nice place.

Some of his fellow residents are decently chill all things considered, but lots very much aren’t.

[estroniaid]

“essay on my desk by noon” well. reversed uno upon the you.

🪤💔🚆for belle | ☄️🖍🎁 bhu | 🌌🌏🎀 iffy | 📎☁️💓 raf

( ơ vơ)b

ily, if you make me write this much again i'm hunting you for sport.

Belle.

🪤 MOUSE TRAP - what will always lure them into certain danger? a loved one in danger? a promise of something they are always searching for?

he has very little regard for his well-being, self-destructive adrenaline junkie, so he’s very easily led into danger. However, he’d go happily if there came to be a time where someone he loved was in peril and he couldn’t shift for whatever reason. otherwise, and not to sound like an edgy mfer, he’s the danger.

💔 BROKEN HEART - what could their partner do that would absolutely break their heart?

betray him; lie, use him. he’d act like he’s used to it, he isn’t.

🚆 TRAIN - what is their answer to the trolley problem?

he’s selfish, he’s human. it would depend. does he know anyone on the tracks? or maybe on the trolley? that would absolutely sway him. but if he knew nobody on either (antagonistically or otherwise), if they were completely innocent, he’d try to keep them all alive. even if it meant running at the trolley himself...hope that made sense.

Bhupendra.

☄️ COMET - what do people assume about them? are they right?

that he’s mean, cruel. that he’s a lapdog who sucks up to whoever is closest, whoever is strongest, to feel better about himself. parasitical. selfish, immature. they’re right.

🖍️ CRAYON - what advice would you give to them?

suck it up, get over it, and be kinder. to yourself, to others. this hate will eat you up and there’s people waiting to love you.

🎁 PRESENT - what types of presents would they be most happy to receive? are they good at gift giving?

i know this isn’t in the question but he’s shit at gift receiving. guy who can’t just say thanks and let it go. otherwise, he’s pretty solid at giving gifts. he spirals a lot, but this just means he latches onto lots of tiny details. while its shit for his mental health, this means some gifts that fuck! something handmade, it doesn't have to be by a skilled hand or even that good, it’s the process that’d get him. he’d say he prefers simple gifts and while he wouldn’t not like it, there would be something that drops in his gut whenever it’s handmade.

Iften.

🌌 MILKY WAY - what was the inspiration behind your oc? what was the first thing you decided about them?

sigh. that he'd be a piece of shit. a right cunt, insane (medically) and insane (titfully). a right weirdo <3

🌏 EARTH - will they give up the world for someone they love? is this decision easy for them?

yes.

🎀 RIBBON - how would they fit into other worlds / aus? what aus would you like to try out? what fictional world would they fit / not fit into?

i've put him into a few au's since he was made, he fits well into modern au's, slasher au (he's a cheerleader, or the killer. or both). i'd definitely like to try him out in a high fantasy, urban fantasy, monsters, etc etc. for not fitting in.....i'm not wholly sure, he's a pretty versatile oc. maybe just one where being a good person is the only way to exist?

Rafael.

📎 PAPERCLIP - a random fact.

he doesn't match his socks, ever. and loves novelty socks (his favourite are doggy themed)

☁️ CLOUD - a soft headcanon

he can’t cook but anytime he’s focusing in the kitchen, or watching someone else cook, he can hear the music his mum would blast whenever he was a baby. something in Darija, he thinks. or maybe Spanish, or neither. he’ll hum it sometimes while helping around the kitchen. it makes him smile.

💓 BEATING HEART - what gets their heart racing?

he wouldn't know. but i say it's laughing at his dry sarcasm, playing with his hands. thumbing his face, right under his eyes where his scar curves. making food with him knowing he won't be as good as you, letting him be excited about plants and flowers and gardening. letting him exist without needing to try to act like he's more lively would melt him through and through.

[ethrenisnotthehero]

@hogwartsmystory is a predator (final)

If you haven’t read the other parts of this callout, I encourage you to start here. As in both previous posts, the normal tags are not included in order to allow this to reach as many people as possible. Potential triggers are listed below, and the main content is hidden to keep sensitive individuals from being unintentionally exposed.

TW: Pedophilia, Abuse, Gaslighting, Sexual Assault, Self Harm, Suicide, NSFW Topics, Faked Illness, Faked Mental Illness, Faked Death, Victim Blaming

Originally, I intended to craft this final part to you, the reader, as an emotional appeal. To be wholly honest, there’s only so much evidence that can be utilized without either forcing Jill to relive unnecessary trauma or exposing deeply intimate or personal parts of her life. Until now, everything I’ve told you and everything I’ve shown you is what was enough to convince me when Jill first reached out to me. If you, the reader, don’t believe the factual information that’s been presented so far, then I don’t think that you will. If you, the reader, believe Jill and her story, then no further evidence is going to magically make her story more true.

However, I don’t have to. Instead, I can let the friends-- the family--that Ren created on his website speak for themselves, and show you with their own testimony just the kind of person he was. Jill wasn’t the only person that Ren hurt. Jill wasn’t even the only person Ren preyed on as a sexual predator. Many people on staff, and many people outside of it, knew Ren and grew to have what they thought was a close relationship with him. People regarded him as someone to look up to, to find comfort in, to aspire after, to lean on; people thought of him as a friend and a hero in his community.

On April 12, 2021, at 9:57 AM Greenwhich Mean Time, the current administrators of Advanced Scribes issued a statement addressing Ren’s actions and his faked death. An additional announcement was made the following day. While the announcements themselves and the replies (including moderator statements) are publicly available, I have saved a print-to-PDF versions on Google for you to browse at your leisure. 

I intentionally waited until the initial panic and outrage died out a little to let the most important statements come to light. Included in the PDF are sentiments that I personally thought were the most important sentiments; edits have been made and pages have been deleted, so you can see the current state of the conversations by visiting them directly. You can find the first discussion at https://advanced-scribes.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=42100#p1454263 and the second discussion at https://advanced-scribes.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=42107#p1454361.

Before you continue reading, please look over the statements and replies. The words of former staff former friends say more than I can ever hope to about Ren and the kind of reality that he stood for. Additionally, Jill herself has added to the conversation (username Rakuen), so you can read a bit from her perspective by looking into these announcements. After you’ve taken a look, continue below and I will sum up my final thoughts on this predator and his legacy.

Advanced Scribes • Our Statement (PDF)

Advanced Scribes • Change (PDF)

The Act of Grooming, Part 3: Entrapment

One of the reasons that predators get away with their crimes for so long is because they trap their victims. When they gain access to and successfully lure in their prey, they then engage in entrapment behavior to separate victims from other people and build reliance. The reason why kids are so prone to predation is because of how vulnerable they are. Young people just want to belong. They just want to have community, security, and affection. When they can’t get those things in their lives, they seek it out and take it where they can get it even when the situation is obviously bad. Kids can’t be held accountable for being smart because they’re kids. Jill was vulnerable. She wanted belonging and support. She fell into Ren’s lures, and he trapped her. He used his affection as a tool to solicit sexual favors and pictures from her, but never shared his face with her. She was always chasing his love, and all the while he was simultaneously preying on other individuals in the community. For God’s sake, this man had a selfie thread where underage girls would send pictures of themselves publicly on the site for him to look at, and he even intentionally disabled the website’s COPPA features.

Before Jill, there was Buttercup. Buttercup was also an admin, and she was also 13 when she met Ren. While Ren was a minor during he and Buttercup’s relationship, his behavior with her was just as predatory and Buttercup attempted to warn Jill via PM before she ended her relationship with him.

The picture he sent Buttercup wasn’t even him.

The entire time that Ren was convincing Jill that Buttercup was evil, and jealous, and a spiteful, hateful person, he was manipulating her the same way he was manipulating Jill. Ren is a predator who knows what he’s doing; he always has. He draws in his victims and makes everyone hate them so that he’s the only person they have. He makes them so desperate for his approval that they let him screw them over time and time again, and for what? Just to see his face. Think about what you read. He didn’t just do this to Jill and Buttercup. He did this to every person he cheated with or got close enough to get a grip on. Even if he didn’t sexually exploit someone, he emotionally did. An entire community of people suffered through this over and over and over again. Read the statements again. If you only read the live version, read the PDF. 

I also want you to bear in mind that everyone on staff was equally a victim as they were an enabler. It doesn’t erase their responsibility, but their roles in this story or more nuanced than “moderator bad, burn the witch!” Some of Ren’s supporters were as young or younger than Jill when they met him. The two people most notorious for standing at his side right now were both “rewarded” with a relationship with him in the fallout of his faked death.  

At some point, this man looked at his behavior and not only decided that he didn’t need to take responsibility, but that his victims daring to try and claim some kind of ownership over their own story was a personal affront to him. 

Ren is a monster of his own creation. He chose to be that monster again, and again, and again.

What makes his enablers equally to blame is when they became adults and made a conscious choice to ignore what was happening, which brings us to the next topic.

Finally... How Old Was Jill?

Despite everything I’ve said and shared so far, I still get this question in my inbox.

How old was Jill? Did she lie about her age? Is she free of guilt because she was a kid? Did he know how old she was? Was she legal in her country?

I gave you all everything I had. There were some things I just couldn’t confirm because there was no proof either way. However, all of that changed when the announcements were released. I now know exactly how old Jill was when they began dating, exactly how old she was when people knew about their relationship, and even that Ren was public with all of this information. I also know that staff knew everything, and chose to do nothing.

As you can see in the screenshots above of Buttercup’s message, it was sent on Jun 17, 2015. At that time, Jill was 14 years old. By Buttercup’s estimation, they had been dating for around a few months, which is how I was able to discern the previous exact age of 14 years old at the time they began dating.

However, Ren himself refutes that fact in a Valentine’s post for Jill. As pointed out in the “Our Statement” thread, the post that user amnesia. references includes very sexual and disgustingly graphic descriptions of Ren’s activity with her. It also says this:

As per the timestamp of this particular post (as seen below), Jill was 16 at the time. Ren, a man claiming to be twenty-five years old at the time, was proud to admit that he had been with Jill since she was 13.

You can view the full PDF of this post to see what else he said here, but please be warned that his descriptions are NSFW and absolutely disgusting. 

Warm Fuzzies Post (PDF)

No adult should talk about a kid like that. In the statements, several staff members admit that they knew that the two were dating when she was 16, and that it grossed them out. But none of them did anything. To amnesia.’s credit, they claim they tried to pursue legal action but found no viable routes. 

From the discussions and statements, we can discern five things:

1. Jill was 13 when she started dating Ren. 2. She did not lie about her age. 3. Ren did not lie about her age. 4. Ren knew how old she was. 5. Staff knew how old she was.

Jill’s feelings and her opinions on staff and their behavior are separate from my own. She does not share my beliefs here, and I need to make it very clear that what I’m saying next is entirely my own opinion.

To everyone who was staff at that time: shame on you. It’s one thing to be a victim yourself and to not understand how or when to stand up for what’s right, especially when you’re young; it’s another to become an adult and to have let something like this permeate your legacy and your community for all this time. From what I understand, none of you are completely innocent in this. Ren wasn’t secret, he was loud and proud and he didn’t give a shit what anyone thought. Everyone who was an adult then and is an adult now shares some responsibility for that. Those of you who mean your apologies, thank you, but those of you who are using this event as a stepping stone to make that website into your own personal playground know who you are. Stop. There’s an entire generation of kids between AS and CS who have lost years of their childhoods to this shit and the only right thing at this point would be to turn the site over to the police so that Ren can answer for his crimes the right way.

To everyone else: protect the people around you. People like Ren don’t think about how other people think or feel. They don’t care who gets hurt or who they trample under their feet. Look around at your community, and ask yourself if those who interact with you know that you are safe. Inevitably, someone is going to get hurt. Are you the kind of person that they can come to when it happens, or are you the kind of person who will turn your head away? 

Be the person that everyone knows they can come to, because, eventually, someone’s going to need you.

[sammyblep]

i'd love to hear your thoughts on sam too!

thank youuuuu also sorry in advance this is gonna get so long--

(edit: also sorry about the formatting tumblr said fuck this post in particular)

How I feel about this character

sam is one of my most favorite characters of all time. the first time i watched spn i was an unapologetic dean girl (gnt) but now i am FULL sam girl (gnt.) This is a character who is told that the world is a dark and dangerous place and that no matter how hard he tries he’s going to become one of the monsters that inhabits it and makes it worse. he’s raised on the leash held by his father and in the shadow of his brother (a shadow that protected him) and he just wants to be able to love them both but they won’t let him. he wants to be able to love and nothing will let him!!! He wants to be able to experience the world in a way that isn’t blood and gunsmoke and pain and he just wants so desperately that he’s willing to rip himself away from what little he’s known to do it.

and the thing is, the world proves him right! he IS a monster. he lets the devil free, the people he loves die endlessly, he chooses a demon over his brother, he allows himself to become demonic for the sake of revenge, because that endless love he has was twisted against the world he wanted to love and used to wound it. and the fact is - it WAS his decision. it’s a decision he has to live with forever and deal with the consquences of. the world proves him right - zachariah’s voicemail, dean telling him to pick a hemisphere, the angels using dean to warn him off his demon blood path, the murder of an innocent woman to kill lilith (cindy I think) - those are all monstrous things.

and sam, after all that - when he realizes what his love has been used for, the hurt and irreversible damage its caused, he takes it back for himself. he realizes he was wrong, and he - the boy who wanted nothing more than to love the world and be loved by it in return - offers up his love to that same dark horrible world that he ruined further. and he does it with no expectations, just determination to make it right. that love overpowers the devil and destiny and the writing of god himself. the same way cas’s love for dean overwrote chuck’s writings in 4x22, sam’s endless love and belief that the world is worth fighting for averts the apocalypse.

this is a man who ruined the world, and willingly; and this is a man who saw what he did and ruined himself, wilingly, endlessly, because he believed in fixing his mistakes. because he believed there was still love and good in the world that tried to kill him over and over. because sam winchester wants nothing but to be free to love anything and everything, and to have even a sliver of that love returned to him.

basically: i love him. i love him so much. sam winchester THE character of all time for me. (him and ned chicane and merle highchurch but that’s another thing-)

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Eileen the love of my life Eileen Leahy!!! She’s badass and understanding and CHOSE to love Sam, and that’s truly what he needed and wanted more than anything else. She’s just - KAJDFNSKAJF i love eileen so so SO much and I think she and her wife Sam Leahy are head over heels in love. They love learning from each other and teaching each other and defending each other with the full knowledge that they can cover their own ass totally fine but that’s not the point the point is that they want to show their love and in their lifestyle this is a good way to do so. I think Sam is absolutely utterly disgustingly in love with Eileen and they want to constantly make that clear to the world and I think Eileen is completely wholly sickeningly in love with Sam and wants to make that clear to Sam. I think they’re neat and I think they’re perfect and I think they’re in love and I love them

Rowena - I haven’t seen a single episode with Rowena but i adore her energy and I think Sam being a sucker for the 600-yr-old queen of hell Rowena MacLeod is INCREDIBLE. Sam sees an incredibly powerful woman with knowledge and experiences beyond his understanding and says ‘is anyone gonna fall in love with her’ and doesn’t wait for an answer.

Gabriel! From the first time I saw Tall Tales I crackshipped him and sam, fun fact. I think there’s a LOT of complexity and nuance to any potential relationship of theirs (which is further complicated by any potential s-13 sabriel bait you wanna incorporate into your own personal good version (i haven’t seen it yet but love and light to y’all)) but I ALSO think too many people lose Gabriel’s characterization in order to make him palatable to Sam. And like no that’s not the point the POINT is they’re enemies-with-instant-tension to lovers! This is the ‘hedonist meets repressed man and they are instantly attracted but also hate each other and have to navigate that’ dynamic that I so rarely see done properly. However the MOST important part of Sabriel for me (as with any ship) is that it’s fun and DOES have a lot of cute potential. (Hedonistic-hugger Gabriel with touchstarved Sam my BELOVED)

Also Sabrieleena is fantastic I am a poly truther for a lot of things

Sarah Blake my first gay crush Sarah Blake... she deserved better and also she and Sam would have been a fantastic wlw relationship

I’m sure there’s more but I’ve forgotten them because it’s been ages since I saw past s5 and I frankly don’t remember much after the beginning of s6!

My non-romantic OTP for this character

I think he and Cas should have been best friends more. Also I *DO* wish we’d gotten a better Sam&Crowley dynamic but alas j*rpad couldn’t step up to the plate :/// fuckin coward

My unpopular opinion about this character

I’m both a Tall!Sam truther and a Tiny!Sam truther... I don’t think either of these concepts are unpopular but idk anyone else who loves them both like i do. Then again I also don’t know many people in spndom sfkjnjkfjaks

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

WE SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN TO SEE SAM HAVING A HORRIBLE BREAKDOWN AT SOME POINT. I HAVE OPINIONS ON WHEN AND WHERE BUT THIS MAN MADE OF LOVE FEELS EMOTIONAL PAIN SO HARD AND WHEN THE LOVE HE’S FILLED WITH IS TURNED AGAINST HIM I SIMPLY THINK HE WOULD HAVE LOST IT.

this is technically not him butttt I wish Max Miller had lived so he and Sam could have been best friends (I have s1e14 Nightmare derangement syndrome)

ok i know this said ONE thing but also like you said and like i said in the tags of your response for sam. HE SHOULD HAVE KEPT HIS POWERS.

(send me a character and I’ll break their asses down)

[detective-with-one-arm]

I love how I have three different flavours of sirens when it comes to my muses. Like, they all have the singing to lure people towards them schtick but they’re all very different from each other and Nathan isn’t even a siren. He’s just a nerd, but an underwater nerd.

Siren!Rachel mainly just wants friends. She goes through seasons where she feels like she needs to relieve some sort of itch and she knows what it means, but overall, she’s really lonely. The only memory of her parents she has is an extremely vague one when she was born. She technically doesn’t even have a name until one is given to her (either by the Aquarium or by a lakeside npc or muse). Her songs reflect this, being very upbeat and happy songs that encourage people to come together. Like when you hear some fun bar music somewhere and you can’t help but want to join in.

Siren!Howard wants someone to capture and keep. Someone to bind to himself completely and wholly. He lurks where he knows people come to escape or detach from stressful situations. He seeks out the sort of places where one would come to think. And he lures them with songs that sound like love songs. He weaves promises and affirmations of devotion, phrases and bait meant to pull at the ache in one’s soul. Meant to draw someone to seek the attention of someone who could whisk them away from such strife.

Siren!Serena is a monster in her entirety. Her songs are equal parts haunting and alluring. She’s reclusive, appearing and hanging out in places where none would think to look for you. Places where it’s easy to pick someone off and have no one notice. Her songs whisper promises of satiation. Satisfaction. False promises of pleasure and bliss. Of peace. Before you’re dragged to your watery grave.

The same is sorta reflected in their ichthyocentaur verses, but a bit differently. Rachel’s a bit more shy and easy to scare away, but is still a bit lonely and wants connections. She’s just a bit more skittish.

Howard is still the same level of ‘I will keep you forever,’ but he’s a lot more selfish and savage about it. Very much leaning into the ‘you’re mine however I see fit and if I can’t have you then no one can.’

Serena is largely the same, but more friendlier in her approach. She’ll more likely approach in a casual and seemingly innocent way before quickly dragging her victim into the deep to drown and eat them.

[x0401x]

hiii so i was going through the VE tag and saw your posts about how much you dislike anime gilbert compared to novel gilbert; im so confused though about how you said he was shallow and a dick because i didn't get that vibe when i was watching? i liked the anime gilbert, and then when i read the novel, i just liked him even more. but it didnt make me hate the anime version. so i just wanted a breakdown of what anime gilbert did so wrong, thank you!

Okay, this sure took up a lot of time to reply to, so I’m sorry for answering so late! I tried to keep it simple, so keep in mind that there’s a lot more to unpack from anime-novel comparissons when it comes to VE. I just didn’t want to turn this into an essay, because that’s what it would’ve become otherwise.

I’ve broken down five main reasons why anime!Gilbert is an asshole if you put him side-by-side with novel!Gilbert. And I want first to stress out that I know the intention of the adaptation wasn’t to make him an asshole at all. The studio really seemed to believe they were doing it right, but it turned out as the same old “so close yet so far” thing. The director did say before that he had made changes to the original because the source material was “too righteous and orthodox”, so I guess novel!Gilbert was one of the “too righteous and orthodox” things that he deemed in need of alterations. Apparently, loving someone way above yourself is just not realistic if you’re a man and the other person is a woman (totally okay if it’s the other way around, though).

Anyway, here are the main negative points about anime!Gilbert (long post in-coming):

He only ever did the bare minimum for Violet.

KyoAni is hellbent on insisting, not just in the anime but also in episode summaries, the starter book and the official fanbook, as well as other medias, that Violet loved Gilbert because he was the “first person to be nice to her”. It makes me want to rip my hair off, because this means it could’ve been anyone. The novel states time and time again that it was fate, because Gilbert was the only character in the VE universe who would watch this monster-child brutally murder five men and still take her blood-covered hand and try to protect her. She was a kid being led to commit crimes by fucked-up adults, and even though there was a chance she might kill him too, he still wanted her to live, because she was ultimately innocent. He also wasn’t just “nice” to her. He tried to defend her from his brother for real. The hotel scene is actually very important and not having it takes away a lot of Gilbert’s weight in Violet’s life.

Other than that, he wasn’t shown doing even half the stuff he did for her in the novels. He constantly protected her from harassment, threw shade at any lesser officer who badmouthed her, tried to make it so that she wouldn’t have to risk herself too much during battle, often attempted to convince her into less reckless stunts, and was always the first and only one to rush to her aid. He personally took her meals to her bedroom and ate with her, arranged for her to have a room for herself, took her shopping for civilian clothes so that she could wear them after the war, and requested that her personal needs were seen by officers from the female division. He quit smoking because it made her cough, gave her his old clothes to wear when she grew out of her pajamas, took care of her whenever she fell ill from overworking, and the list goes on.

All of this aside, I think the most important was that he was always trying to bring out the human side of her. He was always testing out her interests in mundane things, and always wishing that she would show signs of having a personality. It didn’t have to be girly stuff; anything that didn’t have to do with him was fine. He often tried to instigate the humanity in her, because she was unquestionably human to him despite not knowing what being human even meant, and this is the most essential part of Gilbert in the Great War arc.

He didn’t care about her that much.

I know this might seem like a drastic claim. I mean, he did show that he cared for her, just not nearly enough, and quite certainly not as much as he cared about himself.

It starts with the fact that he let her into the military simply because his brother had already told everyone about her. Anime!Gil didn’t see her kill five people in that hotel. All that happened was Dietfried throwing at him the vaguest-ever argument that “this isn’t a child; it’s a weapon”. Like... that was literally all it took for him to send a ten-year-old amnesic, orphan girl who couldn’t understand the local language to a war that had been dragging itself on for several decades. In the men’s troops, no freaking less.

The eptome of anime!Gil’s fake selflessness is when he gets shot at the end of the war. When Violet takes him by the arm, he just... lets her carry him. She gets shot and shit, and she could very well have died (anyone explain to me how they managed to hit him in the head but not her even though they were walking so slowly), but he still clung onto her. He literally put his own life above hers.

A++++ parenting.

He was dry with her most of the time.

In the novel, Violet and Gilbert have a bond of respect and trust. In the anime, this bond is wholly one-sided. We don’t see this respect or trust from Gil’s perspective, and neither do we see any bigger signs of affection other than occasional guilty faces that show him regretting something, but don’t exactly make clear what it is. Does he feel guilty that he took her to war? If so, then he contradicts himself during certain moments. He literally thanks her for “always fighting so well” at one point and only refrains from finishing the sentence because he sees the bruises on her neck. Meanwhile, while novel!Gil asserts that she should have former recognition for her deeds (like ranks, medals and people’s well-earned respect), she should also not be in the battlefield at all because she’s just a child and constantly berates himself for keeping her there.

The dedication and devotion to her is also basically all gone. We don’t see him vowing to raise her as someone worthy of a flower goddess’s name, we don’t see him doing his best to make this happen, and we don’t see it happening until Violet is out of the hospital. Novel!Violet had a fame of grim reaper, witch and god of war because she was an extremely fierce and skilled killer. Anime!Violet is all over the place when she fights, slamming rifles into people’s faces and choosing hand-to-hand combat instead of having the common sense to fire the weapon she’s holding. There’s no such rumors about her other than that she’s “dangerous”, and she’s always injured, with her hair perpetually disheveled. She’s an absolute mess, making it impossible to forget for a single minute that she’s just a little girl being made to serve in the frontlines, and yet anime!Gil still pulls bullshit like “you fought good”.

He abandoned her to sheer luck.

As if the fake grave weren’t bad enough, he apparently offed to the woods without giving much of a fuck about her. In the novel, we see that Gil keeps aiming for higher positions in the military and to have as much power as he can so that he’ll have all the means possible to protect her. He might have been contacting Hodgins in the meantime, but this isn’t nearly enough to ensure her safety.

There’s a lot he had to do when it comes to Violet. Covering up her identity and making sure nobody tried to use her for killing ever again are examples. He also needed to be ready for whenever he had to go for her rescue, like in the case of the hijackin, so staying in the army was of utter importance. It was also important to show that this was a sacrifice he did for her, because all his responsibilities were pushed onto him due to Dietfried running away from them.

He is portrayed as being the complete opposite of her.

You might be wondering what this has to do with anything. It’s very obvious in the novel that Violet and Gilbert are mirrors in the novel. This also has to do with the fate thing: they’re basically one soul dwelling in two bodies. The two had keenly similar life stories where they went through different situations that were actually alike in essence and brought out the same results. This is basically the reason why Gil empathizes so hard with Violet and why he’s so insistent in allowing her to experience what he didn’t get to have. It’s not because he’s “righteous and orthodox”. It’s because he sees himself in her. She’s him, and he’s her. They’re one and the same at the core. But apparently a guy relating so much with a girl isn’t realistic either.

This is it (or more like a condensed version of it)! I hope it cleared things up.

[peterparkerincorrectquotes]

The other day, my classmate said the first Iron Man movie sucked, and a little offended, I countered with,“But the character development was so good in that one!” 

He responded, “Well, when you start with the worst person ever, character development is pretty easy.”

Honestly, a fair point! That said, I don’t think it applies to Tony. Tony before Iron Man 1 was not a great dude, but I’m gonna go through some reasons why I don’t think he was particularly terrible, either. Certainly not the worst person ever. I’d like to take this time to clarify this is merely MCU Tony, and all my evidence will be from the movies! :) 

Here are the things people usually take issue with about younger Tony: the fact that he was a weapons dealer, a playboy, and overall, just selfish.

Now I definitely see where people come from with the first one. Being a weapons dealer isn’t exactly the most admirable career choice; it’s profiting off of war and that’s… not an ideal job. Not to mention, his weapons were being sold to the other side, too. To terrorists. Like… yikes. 

But look at it this way: ask yourself why he made weapons.

Naive as it is, he probably wanted to help people.

I really, truly believe Tony thought he was helping people with his weapons. 

You might be going, “But how could building weapons ever possibly help people?” As I said, it was a naive thing for Tony to think, but you can tell by his actions that he wants to help people, even before being captured and almost dying, like, 700 times. 

Look at the way he interacts with the soldiers in the car (before they’re attacked) in Iron Man 1. He’s a tad stiff, but he’s clearly happy to take pictures with them, talk to them, have fun with them. It’s not a bother to him. In fact, he actually goes out of his way to make them feel more at ease, to make them laugh because he knows they are working so hard to keep innocent Americans safe. And it’s not just so he can convince the army to buy his weapons, either, because these are just normal soldiers. They’re not the ones making the purchases. 

He wants to help them, to make a few moments of the war easier for them. 

Back to the question at hand; have you considered that maybe he wants to produce weapons because he wants to protect those soldiers? That’s a naive mindset to have, but come on; how many civilians can say they truly know what it’s like out there, on the battlefield? We’re all naive.

Before you point out, “You need evidence to claim that’s why he became a weapon manufacturer,” think about the weapons you see in the first movie. You see weapons that don’t require soldiers beyond initiation of the launch. You see missiles and bombs—things that are fired remotely. You hear about his most legendary inventions (in the little introduction film from 36hrs before the attack), and they’re described as using “satellite targeting,” which also means humans aren’t needed on the battlefield to launch them. These are the things he is famous for, and they’re things that keep those American soldiers off the battlefield. You don’t hear about things like guns or grenades. You hear about soldier-less weapons. 

If you’re still not convinced about his motives, I get it. 

You think he should have known his weapons wouldn’t work like that. He should have seen them ending up in the wrong hands, and he should have been less naive. Tony should have thought about war for about 10 seconds and realized that, obviously, things aren’t that clean cut. So, you’re not convinced he really cares about people. You think he only cares about money because he had to have known better, and if he cared about people, he wouldn’t have sold weapons at all. 

Sure, it seems like he would have been able to piece together that terrorists would end up with the weapons, but I truly don’t believe he did. I mean, the day he got back from being in Afghanistan, he was already ceasing the sale of his weapons. He found out innocent people (by that I merely mean people who weren’t terrorists) were being hurt with his weapons, then as soon as he was able, he shut it all down. 

If he’d really started off as an irredeemably terrible person, one only interested in making profit, he would have done what terrible people do: turn away. He would have come home and averted his eyes from what he’d seen while in captivity. 

But he didn’t. He immediately worked on righting his wrongs. Terrible people don’t do that. Terrible people don’t get that much better. Greedy people don’t do that. Greedy people ignore the facts in their own self interest. 

To summarize, you know when holidays rolled around in, like, kindergarten, and your teacher made your class write those nice letters to deployed soldiers? Tony physically went to Afghanistan, personally communicated and bonded with U.S. soldiers, and made those few precious minutes they got to spend with him memorable. It’s quite possible, to Tony, that his sale of weapons was just one of those nice letters kindergarten teachers made you write. One that could actually save people’s lives. He truly thought what he was doing was helpful and heroic. Maybe that’s his father’s voice in his ears, maybe it’s naivete, but from his actions and words, you can tell that was 100% what he thought.

Phew! Next up on that list, we have his playboy lifestyle. Now, I’m not going to take too long on this one ‘cuz it’s fairly simple. 

It comes down to this: it’s okay to be promiscuous. 

Okay, it’s not always okay, but look at the way Tony was a playboy. He wasn’t looking for a steady relationship, nor did he ever lead people to believe he was. Every person who agreed to sleep with him, did so knowing full well it would be a one time deal. No one expected a relationship, and if they did, that wasn’t due to Tony misleading them. And there’s nothing wrong with that kind of playboy-ing because both parties fully consented to that. One night stands between two single, consenting adults are completely allowed. There’s nothing illegal or even morally wrong about that lifestyle in the modern world. 

Tony being a playboy never made him a bad person.

Finally, the whole selfish deal. For the most part, I’ll give you skeptics that one. He was selfish! And I’m not gonna spew some, “But everyone is selfish,” BS because he was way more selfish than could be considered socially acceptable. Pre-Iron-Man Tony was, undeniably, an asshole. 

He had zero consideration for other people. 

I could defend that with how he was raised by a selfish man and how he probably acts selfish as a coping mechanism because he’s scared of getting close to, and then losing, other people. But I know that’s no excuse. You can distance yourself from attachment without being a dick. 

My only defense for that part of him was that he did try with the most important stuff. It wasn’t a very wholehearted try, nor a very successful one, but you can tell he does care. When Pepper revealed it was her birthday before Tony left for Afghanistan, he doesn’t really make up excuses for forgetting. He begrudgingly acknowledges that he should have remembered by simply telling her she’s allowed to buy herself anything she wants with his money. Yeah, it’s impersonal, but you can tell he values people as human beings. If only a little. 

Besides, people who are wholly, disgustingly selfish wouldn’t be able to keep friends like Rhodey around, and Tony was able to. 

In the end, being an asshole just makes you an asshole. It doesn’t make you, “the worst person ever.” Unlike being a murderous monster who sells weapons out of a selfish place in that hole where your heart is supposed to be, being an asshole can be entirely redeemed. So, unlike the other parts of Tony, I think being selfish is one of his lesser issues.

Overall, I never really saw Iron Man 1 as a story about Tony’s morals getting better because—if you’ve paid attention to any of this long piece of writing I hope you’ve realized that—his morals weren’t ever really in the wrong place. He meant well. From the very beginning, he meant well. His morals were fine.

Iron Man 1 marked nothing more than a change in Tony’s behavior. He didn’t change as a person. All that happened was he realized that the way he was attempting to help people wasn’t working, and he changed the way he was helping people, so it was actually effective. Weapon manufacturing backfired, and he moved to the invention of Iron Man instead. 

Iron Man 1 wasn’t a story about a terrible person becoming a hero. 

It was about a man who had always tried to be a hero finally succeeding.

[nightslain]

So I guess it’s that time of day where I get up on my soap box to once again talk about the incongruities and gaping chasms in the Netflixvania plot that have yet to be addressed, specifically those that strengthen the case for why shoehorning Leon into this mess divorced of his supporting cast and story is probably a Bad Idea. 

TL;DR I am perpetually tortured by the fact nothing makes sense right now so I am going to whinge exhaustively in a post to exorcise myself of misery and potentially spare my poor friend’s ears.

So. The show’s version of the origin story has not been properly detailed in any meaningful length except for the fact that a) Leon is indeed the patriarch of the Belmont family and b) he entered Wallachia specifically to hunt for Dracula. Sounds like the same story beats from LoI at face value, but just like everything else about this house of cards, it completely falls apart under the faintest bit of scrutiny. I’ve beat the dead horse of Mathias no longer being canon enough as it is, but Mathias is arguably the most pivotal character in the entire story. You cannot make a Castlevania adaptation that excludes his history and expect it to make actual sense. If you remove Mathias, you dismantle every facet of the plot in one fell swoop, especially if you’re going to try and wedge Leon Belmont into your story without him. The two are mutually exclusive, you cannot have one without the other unless you completely rewrite the canon to follow a wholly different trajectory that is free of those trappings (i.e Lords of Shadow, which I do not like, but I appreciate that it was trying to do something totally different and therefore don’t take great issue with it.)

And I would have accepted this level of reimagining was the show’s intention, if Leon wasn’t paid such a heaping dose of aggressive lip service to indisputably assert him as this universe’s Belmont patriarch as well. But put in context with the rest Ellis’ interpretation as is, this just ends up making no God damn sense.

Dracula has been explicitly stated to be the first vampire to exist in this universe. That solidly affirms that Mathias is not canon, so therefore Leon’s history with him is also non existent. So in turn, that logically means Walter Bernhard also never existed, Mathias never hatched that elaborate plot with him to betray Leon, Sara was never kidnapped, Leon never had to rescue her, she was never bitten by Walter, her soul was never sacrificed to make the Vampire Killer. So what did happen, then? If Dracula was never Mathias, then what the fuck was he up to in the 11th century? Getting his distance mirror apparently, which he made an oddly specific point of mentioning he acquired 400 years prior to the events of season two, which would have been approximately 1075. This would leave us 19 years prior to Lament of Innocence, so presumably Dracula was already a vampire when Leon was just a child. Which in itself just more effectively dispatches any expectations of their history together being the same or even just similar to what it was in LoI. 

Albeit, Trevor treats us to some pretty loaded exposition in saying that the Belmont family hailed from France, moving to Wallachia when “the dark things all moved into the east”--followed by Alucard affirming that Leon was in Wallachia looking specifically for Dracula. So Dracula and his monsters were obviously in France at some point in this canon causing a stink that attracted Leon’s notice--we also have evidence of this with one of the storyboard artists drawing Leon in his knightly garb slaying said monsters. But if Dracula was never Mathias in Ellis’ interpretation, what was he even doing dicking around in France in the first place? And furthermore, what did he do to convince Leon to chase him into the east as well as devote his life and the life of every Belmont after him to killing Dracula specifically? Because it’s gonna be a pretty weak downgrade in motivation from the original story if he just wants to kill Dracula because Vampires Are Evil ™, or Dracula just offhandedly killed someone important to him without nary a drop of history behind them to give it weight.

Also another discrepancy between these two canons is Leon is still a knight when he goes into the east whereas he gave up his knighthood in the games; this is quite boldly showcased by his depiction in that big ass painting as well as the fact his sword is present in the Belmont hold--which is also coincidentally the thing that kills Dracula, not the Vampire Killer. And oh yeah, how the fuck is the Vampire Killer here if the whole plot behind its existence has been effectively erased? I repeat, it’s going to be a weak downgrade if it came from anything less than the tragedy of Sara Trantoul’s sacrifice--which its starting to seem like it will be, based on everything else that’s been exorcised from the show canon.

There’s just no sensible way to knit these two interpretations together at this point if Ellis is going to dig in his heels and maintain that Dracula’s history as Mathias is not part of his vision, so I really can’t say I’m sure what in God’s name he’s going to inject into the story to fill this gaping hole he’s gnawed into the canon. I strongly believe Leon should just have been quietly excluded if the most vital elements of his story have been erased along with Mathias as well. I would not be here complaining about this at all if Leon hadn’t been forced into this version of Castlevania unnecessarily, which then just opened up a black hole of inconsistencies. Why even add him? Why have your main cast keep talking about him? Why sprinkle in fresh lore about him? Why make his sword the thing that kills Dracula? Why do all this if he’s going to be either a non-entity in the future of the show, or you’re going to just ignore the entirety of the canon that he is inextricably attached to?

This is why I’m kind of in a purgatorial relationship with the show right now as we wait for season three; I have no idea if there’s going to be even a molecule of exposition showing off the “New and Improved” vision for Leon’s and Dracula’s backstory--a part of me finds their constant chatter about Leon a little too heavy-handed for his character and history to just be swept under the rug thereafter, but another part of me is pretty solidly convinced the show isn’t even going to attempt to address that elephant in the room from here.

However, if Alucard’s going to be left by his lonesome with nothing but his father’s castle and the Belmont library, then he better be busting his ass down there reading up on some Belmont family history. Because honestly? There really is no other purpose his character can serve when isolated from the rest of the cast, the action and the plot, besides acting as a vehicle for exposition. I’d like to believe that this was the intention behind that very sudden and very off-handed plot point of Trevor bestowing his family’s library upon him in season 2. Why else do that and then just leave him there? If Alucard is just going to be steered back into the fray early into the new season, then what was even the point of having the team go their separate ways? 

Anyways. I’ve said before I really wouldn’t mind if the staff decided to rewrite Dracula and Leon’s history together a little due to the bizarre and convoluted nature of LoI’s plot which definitely needs a fresh coat of paint, and I still maintain that; but they seem to be both borrowing the outline of the premise while erasing the primary facets that made it work, and I’m entirely confused about how they’re going to actualise such a shaky narrative structure. Not very well, judging by this janky mess of plotholes they’ve dug for themselves--if they don’t just conveniently forget to ever address it again, I’m half sure their answers to these questions are going to be some wacky nonsense that probably even further diminishes the symbolic importance of the story as a whole.

If the show completely erases any meaningful relationship between Dracula and Leon as well as the gravity behind the Vampire Killer’s origins, then it will have truly sunk to a whole new depth. These are the only things I am begging Ellis not to fuck up. You know, the entire crux of Castlevania’s plot as we know it, and the entire reason this story is even playing out in this universe the way it is.

There’s no shortage of us already frustrated with his treatment of the canon as it is, and its a damn shame. I really like a lot of things about the show. The animation is still gorgeous, the music is wonderful, the atmosphere is great, and I felt genuinely moved by some of the scenes they curated for us. I appreciate the hard work the team as a whole has poured into it in the limited time frame they have to complete every season. There’s no taking away from the fact that the show has value in many areas. But Ellis to date has sadly cocked up more facets of the story than he has improved, which is what is consistently holding the show back. As much as I crave answers from this series though, I’m equally as afraid that I am not going to like them when I get them. Or that Leon’s character is going to get dragged backwards through a thorn-bush should he ever appear in the flesh.

I would love nothing more than season three to blow me away and restore my faith in the future of the series but at this point, I’d honestly settle for a few minutes of icon material and whatever answers there are so I can finally leave this bespoke Silent Hill Ellis’ writing has crafted for me, amen and good night.

[beautifulfearhorrorblog]

Top 10 Horror Movie Guilty Pleasures:

In no particular order.

1) Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers (1992) - Okay so maybe the graphics don’t quite hold up nowadays, but they’re still the perfect amount of cheesiness. Sleepwalkers follows the mother-son duo Mary and Charles Brady, who are the aforementioned Sleepwalkers, an ancient species who prey on virginal females, needing to consume their life force. There’s a lot of weird sexual energy between the two and there is incest abound. Charles sets his sights on Tanya, one of his classmates, and while he does charm her, he doesn’t count on her being a formidable foe to the two of them. If you love cats, I’d highly recommend this film, seeing as how the Sleepwalkers find themselves enemies in the furry little creatures. It’s also slammed full of fun cameos, including King himself, amongst others like: Tobe Hooper, Clive Barker, Mark Hamill, and more. 

2) Thirteen Ghosts AKA Thir13en Ghosts (2001)- How do you improve upon the gimmicky style of horror icon William Castle? Easy answer, you don’t. But that doesn’t mean that the remake to Castle’s 13 Ghosts (1960) is bad by any means. It’s one of my guiltiest pleasures. After a house fire takes the life of his wife, Arthur and his children are told by his late-uncle’s lawyer that he has inherited a beautiful house. The only problem? The house actually contains multiple spirits, spirits who, more often than not, are out for blood. Thirteen Ghosts is a fun reimagining, it even takes Castle’s original gimmick of Illusion-O (glasses that the audience could use, if they were brave enough to want to view the ghosts) and gives the glasses to the characters themselves, which honestly, is probably even more frightening for those poor souls. It’s the perfect amount of early 2000′s cheese and honestly, any movie starring Matthew Lillard is worth a view from me. 

3&4) The Mummy & The Mummy Returns (1999 & 2001) - While 1999’s The Mummy is technically a remake/reboot of 1932’s The Mummy, it is more of an action film, rather than the horror that is the 1932 version. There are many purists who insist that the original is the very best, but I’m here to just say, I absolutely love and cherish the ‘99 version and its sequel The Mummy Returns. The films follow Rick, Evelyn, Jonathan and an assortment of other characters as they accidentally resurrect ancient evils that they should’ve known better about. There are bits of horrific imagery scattered throughout the films and that’s enough for me to count them amongst some of my favorite horror films. Even with those though, they are light-hearted films with such interesting subject matter. 

5) Van Helsing (2004) - No one will claim Van Helsing is a masterpiece, and they aren’t wrong. But the movie is wonderful for what it is: an action-packed love letter to the horror monsters of our past. It’s no wonder that this movie holds a special place in my heart, it was directed by Stephen Sommers, the same man who directed both The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. It stars Hugh Jackman as the titular character, Abraham Van Helsing, as he hunts down Dracula. Along the way, Van Helsing comes across Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein’s Monster, and even a werewolf. The story is full of love for the characters and the Gothic aesthetic and, in my opinion, gives the monsters the respect they deserve. It is a must-watch for anyone who loves the monsters who came before us. 

6) Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005) -  Fun fact! Urban Legends: Bloody Mary was directed by Mary Lambert. Who’s Mary Lambert, you may ask? Only the director behind one of my favorite Stephen King adaptations, Pet Semetary (1989)! While this film does not have as much of a following, it still does right by me. The movie follows Sam and her brother David as they try to solve the mystery of Mary Banner, while the children of those responsible for Banner’s untimely death are killed off one-by-one. Being the third movie in the Urban Legend film series, this movie forgoes the slasher premise of the first two films, instead opting to go full supernatural. Some of the deaths have been used before in other films, but it doesn’t make them less effective, i.e; burning to death in a tanning bed will ALWAYS be terrifying. I also absolutely love the song heard throughout each death, “I Will Always Be There,’ performed to perfection by Niki Harris. It completely embodies the time period in which Mary’s innocence and life was lost, and it’s so bone-chillingly amazing. 

7) 5ive Girls (2006) - 5ive Girls is a lesser known supernatural horror film helming from Canada. The only actor in it that is particularly well known is Ron Perlman. For that to be the case honestly sucks, because the acting is so criminally underrated in this film. 5ive Girls takes place at an all-girls Catholic school and follows five different girls along as they all discover they are powered and then immediately begin being possessed. There’s even a sweet romance that buds between two of the girls, Mara and Alex, but seeing as this is a horror movie, long-lasting love is never a guarantee. The film is a neat hidden gem and deserves more praise for the acting of all the young women, who nailed all of their characters wholly. 

8) Stay Alive (2006) - A video game centered movie where if you die in the game, you die in real life? Sign me up. A movie loosely based upon one of the most prolific female serial killers ever known in history? Sign me up even more! Stay Alive never got the credit it deserved and to a degree that’s understandable; for a horror movie based around a group of gamers playing a game, none of them truly feel like they realistically game. The concept is there though and its villain is none other than the Blood Countess herself, Elizabeth Bathory, though her backstory was changed for the film. Bathory in real life was a Countess who was thought to have murdered up to 650 young girls to use their blood as a way of staying young, the movie sets her as a headmistress who murdered 30+ of her students for their youth. The change does not make much sense, but whatever works for the screenwriters works for me, because I still enjoy this movie so much. Sophia Bush’s, October, is a standout character in particular; she’s a take-no-crap type of woman who fights until her bitter end and she provides the rest of the characters with the keys in which to survive Bathory’s depraved game.   

9) Final Destination 3 (2006) - The Final Destination series had a good run, mostly producing great films. One stands above the rest though, and that is Final Destination 3. The plot follows the same layout as the rest of the films, hot young people cheating death and then immediately learning the hard way that death doesn’t allow that sort of nonsense. FD 3 centers around Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s character, Wendy, having the standard vision of a deadly accident, this one being a rollercoaster flying off of its tracks. Winstead portrays Wendy as a somewhat prissy character, but honestly, the girl is smart and does stave off death for quite a while. The DVD for the film also offers one of the coolest bonus features: Choose Your Fate, which allows the viewer to help save lives and in some cases, end the film almost as soon as it starts, allowing the main characters to survive unscathed, though their fates later on aren’t exactly desirable either.  

10) Beyond the Gates (2016) - An innovative and more recent horror film staring horror icon Barbara Crampton? Why isn’t this getting all of the praise it deserves? The film follows two brothers as they are clearing out their father’s video store, seeing as how he has been missing for over half a year. While there, they discover an old interactive VCR game entitled Beyond the Gates and are drawn to playing it. The game is more than it appears though and eventually the brothers find that it is much more than they bargained for. They must then go “beyond the gates” to save their father’s soul and themselves before it is too late. Crampton stars as the games guide, growing more menacing as the film progresses. The film is gorgeous with its retro aesthetic and fun neon colors. You’d be a fool to miss out on this piece.

[amwritingmeta]

A Clarification of my view on Dean’s Psychological Profile

I’m focusing on Dean here, because the narrative is focused on Dean as our protagonist - though yes, absolutely, all of TFW are going through changes at the moment - and I’m going to keep this incredibly brief and borderline superficial (there’s a world of psychology out there and this is basically just scratching the tip of the Dean shaped iceberg, but it’s a significant tip) and pull on these, and hopefully deepen them, whenever I go into deeper deconstruction mode —>

The Alter Ego: the act of creating a second personality in which we feel complete confidence in our abilities, where we can separate ourselves from what we perceive as weak or unacceptable in ourselves, the existence of this second personality enabling us to do so whenever we feel a need to.

Like any superhero who has an alter ego ever in the history of super heroes. Like the shapeshifter from Monster Movie, who didn’t just create one alter ego, but a myriad of alter egos who all had similar traits of conflicted identites.

Dean’s alter ego comes into focus when he steps into his soldier persona, but this is and always will be a double edged sword, because what Dean needs isn’t to shed all of his masculine characteristics - he doesn’t need to let go of this alter ego - he just needs to find the inner balance to utilise this alter ego without fearing the more violent side to him will take over. That the more violent side to him is really one of bloodlust that he’s keeping at bay.

He scared himself in Hell, broke his trust in himself completely, and he’s carried that fear with him, but he needs to understand that he is in control of his own actions - if nothing else in this world - and its his choices now that define him, not the mistakes he’s made in the past.

Masking: we have a tendency to adapt to those around us and put on different masks and feel different levels of comfortable depending on the person we’re with. A mask is not a lie, but it isn’t showing the whole truth either. One’s true identity can be concealed behind a layer of these masks, and a mask can be culturally or socially constructed.

I believe this is what Dean often does with Sam. He has had a tendency to mask certain aspects of himself - like how much and exactly what he reads (holy hell he reads romance novels), his wider taste in music, the types of films he enjoys watching - and to me this is all tied to Dean’s conflicted sense identity and having spent most of this series battling with his fears and allowing them to dictate who he should be, never fully landing in who he is because of all of the insecurities surrounding his true identity. Insecurities that I would say were born in John’s lessons of manhood, survival and avoidance of feelings as distractions and weaknesses, but insecurities in himself that I believe has then been wholly perpetuated by societal norms throughout his life.

Neither Winchester has ever showed any kind of judgement of sexuality. Dean gets self-conscious and understandably so - because he believes and has possibly even experienced societal discrimination and judgement for being queer, and so he’s using techniques to blend in rather than stand out - while Sam just smiles and goes with it. Sam, I believe, would never judge Dean for being bi and, honestly, I don’t think John would’ve either (look at how Mary is and how it’s in text that the John she knew was of course different to the John who raised the boys into hunting) so this is not how they were raised to be.

For me this is important, because I believe Dean’s masking behaviour is all about Dean’s conflicted sense of identity, which feeds Dean’s need for purporting Sam’s idea of the big brother and asserting his authority by sticking to well-known patterns, rather than his masking having to do with masking his sexuality. His insecurities surrounding his attraction to men, to me, has to do with societal judgement, rather than the worry about familial judgement.

Deep down Dean has an idea of what he wants, deep down Dean has a good idea of who he is, too, but he’s gotten very good at leaning against his alter ego in order to avoid exploring these ideas further, especially since Sam can’t challenge that alter ego without knowing the other sides of Dean in full, no matter that Sam is our way into understanding that Dean should open up to communicating honestly and without hesitation. It’s very clever that Dean’s masking stands as an obstacle for Dean to take Sam’s prodding seriously, and, of course, it has also been detrimental (and narratively necessary) in ensuring the codependency has remained intact for so long.

Good thing someone was introduced into the narrative that sees clean through Dean’s act, has little patience for it and, more than that, knows every aspect of Dean inside and out and continously is shown to accept him and want to stay by his side no matter what… *glances to the ceiling*

Suppression: is the conscious act of pushing down an unwanted emotion or impulse - a defense mechanism at the ready whenever it’s needed. For example, we can choose to suppress undue anger, fear or desire if we feel the situation makes these emotions inappropriate.

Suppression is a healthy way of dealing with unwanted emotions in the moment. However, suppression can become a habit that actually gives the suppressed emotions enormous power. If you routinely suppress your emotions this technique only works for so long before the emotions come flooding back - they may go away for the moment they’re unwanted, but it doesn’t mean you’ve dispelled them completely - and an outlet will have to be found.

If the suppressed emotions can be funnelled into healthy coping mechanisms - such as artistic endeavour or even physical labour - then that’s great, but some people don’t have access to those types of outlets and, instead, turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Ah, Dean.

Repression: is the unconscious act of pushing down an unwanted emotion or impulse - a defense mechanism we have no control over and that may even result in blocked or reshaped memories. For example, our mind can repress childhood trauma out of self-preservation without us consciously being aware it’s done so.

Inner Child: True adulthood hinges on acknowledging, accepting, and taking responsibility for loving and parenting one's own inner child. For most adults, this never happens. Instead, their inner child has been denied, neglected, disparaged, abandoned or rejected. We are told by society to "grow up," putting childish things aside. To become adults, we've been taught that our inner child--representing our child-like capacity for innocence, wonder, awe, joy, sensitivity and playfulness--must be stifled, quarantined or even killed. The inner child comprises and potentiates these positive qualities. But it also holds our accumulated childhood hurts, traumas, fears and angers. "Grown-ups" are convinced they have successfully outgrown, jettisoned, and left this child--and its emotional baggage--long behind. But this is far from the truth. [x]

I wrote a bit about this in relation to the glorious 13x16.

To my mind, Dean is repressing a lot of the pain John caused him growing up. In S13 Sam even called him out on his behaviour around Jack, telling him that he was starting to sound like John and Dean merely replying with “good”. Dean doesn’t understand the extent of the damage John did to him, and until he can stop idealising this behaviour, until he can stop making excuses and defending John’s inability to show both his sons complete and unconditional love, I believe Dean will struggle with admitting to himself what it is he truly wants for himself.

Here’s the thing - Dean needs to learn how to acknowledge and nurture his inner child - not stifle it, but also not allow it to rule him ie. regress into a turtle shell in a self-indulgent manner if he’s face with a situation he doesn’t know how to or doesn’t want to handle - in order to let go of the past and heal. 

I believe there’s a sincere need for Dean to articulate a forgiveness for John’s choices and mistakes. For Dean to begin truly working on himself - be it in subtext (as it has been ever since 13x01) or actually textualised - he needs to let go of his idealisation of his father’s toxic masculinity traits and admit to himself that all he wanted from his father was unconditional love.

Once he can admit this, I believe he’ll be able to acknowledge his inner child and all that neglect that Dean himself is responsible for within himself, and finally begin to nurture that inner child and open himself up to what he wants for himself, which is what his father made him believe and feel he should never want because feelings are weaknesses, but more than that, the loss of his mother made Dean fear the idea of loving completely, not only because of how it instilled the belief that Good Things Don’t Last (which has been perpetuated throughout his life experiences), but because Dean could see how John’s love for Mary utterly broke him.

In spite of this crippling and wholly repressed fear, it’s what Dean has always longed for more than anything else: lasting love and a home and a family that is able to communicate through trust.

And because of this longing, Dean has suppressed his everyday emotions and his longing for real intimacy for a very long time, engaging in coping mechanisms for emotional outlets of varying kind, dressing himself in the toxic masculinity traits inherited by his father because the soldier in him means strength, assertiveness, determination, getting the job done without hesitation and being brutally merciless because the situation calls for it - his alter ego is an armour that has always made Dean feel safe and in control.

But, of course, the truth is that Dean has never been fully in control. He’s always been ruled by his fears, and until he can face those fears and be honest with himself about what he wants, he narratively shouldn’t be allowed or even be able to fully heal.

Dean finding his way back to his childhood and the home, love, family of that time, essentially undoing the wreckage that Azazel left him with, would also be a lovely emotional bookend for his journey. 

The fact that he’s now stepping into the father role for Jack has traces of all the best lessons for Dean, because for him to open up to an understanding of John the human man who made a helluva lot of mistakes, rather than John the father figure that Dean is protective of and which he emulates to this day, it’s important for Dean to gain perspective, and because of his complicated relationship with Sam of brother/father/mother and the forced parenthood, rather than the chosen, he simply can’t get there based on past experience alone.

Jack speaking the truths that Dean so desperately needs to hear in 13x06 is, honestly, quite remarkable.

Passing: is the ability of a person to be regarded as a member of an identity group or category different from their own, which may include racial identity, ethnicity, caste, social class, sexual orientation, gender, religion, age and/or disability status. Passing may result in privileges, rewards, or an increase in social acceptance, or be used to cope with stigma. Thus, passing may serve as a form of self-preservation or self-protection in instances where expressing one's true or authentic identity may be dangerous. While successful passing may contribute to economic security, safety, and avoidance of stigma, it may take an emotional toll as a result of denial of the authentic self and may lead to depression or self-loathing.

Passing is a common mechanism to use especially when unsure of how you would be received should you come out as anything but straight, or should you reveal you’ve suffered through mental illness or have any form of handicap that might be easier to hide than have out in the open. Passing - and any of its inherent strategies - is employed to avoid societal judgement, discrimination, ostracisation and, in some cases, physical harm.

I feel that passing and masking - along with stepping into his alter ego - are mechanisms that Dean uses when he’s out in public. These mechanisms have become so habitual that many aspects of this behavioural pattern have become part of his only idea of who he is, and because it’s who he’s always believed he should be in order to protect Sam and everyone he loves, whenever feelings related to his true identity stir within him, all the fears that are so deeply rooted make him immediately suppress this true self. 

The root of Dean’s fear of rejection and fear of failure, which is where all his insecurity, self-blame, low self-esteem and conflicted sense of identity originates, is the loss of his mother and the upturning of his entire world, but there’s a flip side to everything, because the root of Dean’s core traits have all grown and flourished thanks to everything he’s been through, thanks to the lessons of John Winchester and thanks to Mary’s choices, not merely because of it.

I want to clarify this, because I’m not saying that his alter ego isn’t also him. We’re dealing with real facets of his actual personality and he is the soldier, he is the fighter, the weapon and the shield, and these traits aren’t meant to go away simply because he begins to heal and reaches a point where he’s able to be himself fully, speaking his truths without hesitation and going for what he truly wants for himself. 

It’s all about striking a balance and getting rid of the internal need Dean has of hiding who he is behind a facade. 

He’s come extremely far.

All those masks and dual natures of episodes 1-11 of last season felt like a continous visual manifestation of Dean beginning to take a closer look at this toxic masculinity armour he’s dressing himself in and hiding behind, the anger and the fear and the control and the lack of trust (in himself even more than in others), and growing aware of the necessity to let it go. The necessity was hammered home in the final scene of 13x20, where he realised that his mode of being was now directly reflecting itself in Sam, who told him that if they die, they’ll do that together too.

This season is digging at the theme of parenthood, at the themes of truth vs. lie, judgement, identity, choice and - I barely even dare believe I’m able to include it in this list - the theme of fear, and it’s digging at them with delightfully sharp tools. I’m very curious to see how deep these tools will actually get to dig. We’ve been on a continous growth streak ever since S11, guys, and the threshholds and cusping of S13 have been pushed to a whole other level in the first five episodes of this season, but… we shall see.

Now I’d like to take a moment and talk to you about unhealthy coping mechanisms and sublimation.

In psychology, sublimation is a mature type of defense mechanism in which socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are transformed into socially acceptable actions or behaviour, possibly resulting in a long-term conversion of the initial impulse. [x]

This pretty much means that if you have an urge to grab a gun and go out and shoot someone in the head because they’ve angered you, if you successfully sublimate that urge or impulse you will turn it into a healthy action instead, like going into your woodwork shop and building something useful or beautiful or both.

Now, does Dean Winchester engage in sublimation?

Let’s have a look at coping mechanisms that are labeled as negative: 

Avoidance — ie. not confronting a particular situation out of fear. Hi Dean having such trouble articulating emotions through words. *hard side-eye*

Smoking (hmh - including recreational drug use?)

Compulsive spending (meh)

Drinking too much caffeine — well

Escaping — pretty much running away, you know, like Dean did in 14x03 when he ran the fuck away from Cas. *harder side-eye*

Binge drinking — well

Sleeping all day (meh)

Promiscuity — meaningless sex takes the mind off what the heart truly longs for…

Stop eating/overeat — he doesn’t really care about being healthy; overeating is a stretch, but —>

Emotional eating — like eating pizza in a bed littered with empty take out boxes and snack food

I mean, looking at this list and I think we can say that Dean’s coping mechanisms have never been healthy and definitively are nowhere even in the vicinity of showing him off as a mature adult capable of handling his feelings.

I’m so fucking excited about how far he has been shown to have gotten, though, because 14x05 was head explosive goodness.

However, Dean labeling his behaviour as being linked to a healthy strategy of coping with, say, his anger, is a fallacy, and what’s always made me raise my eyebrows the most at it is the fact that it’s the man himself providing the label.

Dean does not have the emotional maturity - especially in S11 - to label his behaviour, and for him to actually believe his behaviour is a healthy and mature way to handle what life throws at him is worrying, to say the least, because it tells us that he’s kidding himself that there’s no need for him to actually work on himself.

The truth is that Dean has not been engaging in sublimation, but Dean using that label for himself in S11 - the season when the cogs truly started turning in his beginning to mature away from old habits - was a plant for where he should end up.

And boy oh boy is he learning lessons left, right and center.

Once he’s matured into self-actualisation and is centered and balanced in himself, he will be able to sublimate any of the above unhealthy coping mechanisms into behaviour that is healthy and sustainable. I cannot wait for that day!

[italicwatches]

GAMERS! Episode 11

Okay, up and down, up and down. Let’s get to it. It’s GAMERS!, episode 11! Here we GO!

-It all begins at the end of the last episode. With Aguri bantering with Keita, and everyone just staring and seeing what’s grown between these two…

-Over to Tasuku, walking so very slowly as he tries to figure it out aaaaaand that’s Karen in a much worse funk than him. Just ignore it. Just get pa—

-…Karen’s got it bad, guys.

-And that’s how they end up walking together, and Tasuku can’t help but feel like he’s being watched by everyone. And they’re…Yeah they’re in a funk. On the one hand, Keita’s loosened up and Aguri’s gotten more mature and focused, from their interactions with each other. On the other hand…Well how would you feel if your significant other was getting all their growth and change from another X?

-And if you look at it with both of them maturing, becoming more wholly rounded and aware people…Well, that sounds like a perfect couple, doesn’t it. …My sympathies, both of you.

-Opening! We’ve got one last game, and it’s the Continue screen from Street Fighter II! The Street Fighter series basically defined the entire fighting game genre, and in one stroke completely built the standards of the genre. Major game mechanics, from many of the special move inputs that we know today, to the entire combo mechanic, to the six-button layout that was standard for a lot of games for a long time, all got born here. It revolutionized gaming, it revitalized arcades and gave those in the West another couple years of relevance, and it built an entire genre. That this happened on a game where half of its innovations were mistakes or outright glitches(the entire combo system was because of an overlooked glitch that let you cancel the recovery between moves and do a move faster than the opponent could recover!) just shows how much history is defined by the whims of fate.

-DAY 11: Gamers and Youth Continue

-So back where we left off. Karen’s insisting that she doesn’t genuinely believe Keita is two-timing her. And yeah, okay, they both know Keita and Aguri. Those two are good eggs, they’d never intentionally betray the people they love. The problem isn’t intentional cheating…The problem is that self-doubt fueled question, about whether or not sticking with them is the right thing, instead of letting them both go to find each other…

-But, no! They can still turn this around! Tasuku has a plan and Karen wants to know everything. …Wait isn’t this your place? Aren’t they in front of your house now? House later, plan now! So, just for the record, Karen is legitimately a little bit scary when it comes to matter of Keita. Like, she’s not full on Nice Boat, but she’s got a little bit of yandere in her. Be careful, Keita.

-So, the plan? How do you completely lock down your relationship status when you yourself doubt it? You create an indisputable, raw, locked down fact. Which is to say, you hit a milestone of action. Which means bumping their relationships up a level. Which…Woo boy, Karen’s lost in her own fantasies. And that’s when Tasuku realizes that this is all screwing his attempts to try and find Chiaki a happy ending of her own…

-And, oh, the whole thing got seen by Konoha. …So before we go forward, Konoha was watching from across the street. Given the way all of that was animated, I’ll bet you a Bison buck that she thinks Tasuku just confessed to Karen.

-To Keita’s place, where Karen’s just called him and suggested a double date! Him, her, and then Tasuku and Aguri…Isn’t that a little…cheesy? It is not now obey. But he’d be so embarrassed! …Well so will she, but…

-…Keita.

-Keita Keita Keita.

-I’m just gonna quote the subs here. “A double date could be higher-level than even marriage or child-birth!”

-What do you…How does that…

-At least Karen talks some sense into him. And his final answer? As a man, he wants to obey Karen in all things, but his pride…But, Karen…HE’LL DO IT! DOUBLE DATES ALL THE WAY! So if these two manage to stick together through the end of the show and their time in high school, they’re gonna find out they’re into some weird bedroom shit when that time comes. We all realize that, right? Like, I’m not reading too much into it?

-So, okay, plans made, Karen has a whole detailed plan put together already, and Keita is deeply uncertain…

-Cut to the trip, at the amusement park! Spiel Kingdom, the fantasiest place on Earth! And they’re both going nuts because it’s based on an RPG franchise, as Aguri just stares, and Tasuku is a bit embarrassed for his dorky, dorky friends. They’re normal, right? These two aren’t acting like normal people?

-Of course, it’s not long before things calm down…And Karen and Tasuku end up mulling around together a lot to scheme and plan, leaving a doubtful Aguri and Keita in their wake…

-Speaking of, let’s flashback. This morning, Aguri and Keita went to the cafe again, where Aguri had gotten nowhere near enough sleep panicking over what this double-date could mean. Contrast Keita’s bouncy, bubbly hysteria over the entire waveform collapsing. in front of his eyes.

-So back to where we left off, where Keita and Aguri are both increasingly convinced that Tasuku and Karen have a secret relationship going, because why else would those two be spending so much time around each other?

-By the time they’re all in line for a ride, Karen gives the signal that it’s time to go for a push, and they both go to reach for their dates’ hands…

-When Konoha and Chiaki find them! Well, mostly Konoha. Chiaki is very confused.

-Commercial break!

-And we’re back! Last night, Konoha forced Chiaki to go to the amusement park with her, having acquired two free tickets that needed to be used together…And she just barreled all over Chiaki’s fears and doubts because she’d just lose this stupid idiot if she kept worrying about game development instead of love development…She even pretended she’d invite Keita herself, if Chiaki didn’t want to go, and THAT did it. Great committed don’t forget to dress up goodnight!

-Oh, I guess I owe you a Bison buck. (OF COURSE!) Because Konoha actually heard Karen’s shouting and got enough of the gist to know it was time to fight to ensure a Hoshinomori stayed in this race…!

-So into the present again, where Konoha acts all innocent in wanting to know why her dear big sister didn’t get invited to a meet up event! Oh, that hurts Karen right in the feels. But the open reveal of this being a date hits Konoha, as it’s a back-and-forth of verbal sparring, until Keita finally ends up awkwardly inviting the sisters to join in just to make the battle stop…Which leads to a reaction that stings him the worst of all.

-But this feeds us into a montage of the whole group! Rollercoasters, wandering, log flumes, tons of awkward doubt in Aguri and Karen…All while Konoha’s twisted schemes are working. But perhaps too well, I’m noticing in this montage she’s a lot more forward than Chiaki…

-Eventually, they’re off there spinning teacups, where Chiaki is nauseous enough for Keita to get concerned…But then it’s right to the main attraction, the Kizuna Dungeon! And Karen’s starting to get really really discouraged…But she’s still got a shot at this.

-Unlike the rest of the park, the dungeon is actually pretty well done, complete with air-burst “traps”(one of which manages to scare Aguri enough to cling to Tasuku), and buzzing(god I hope it’s just buzzing) shock traps like the one that Keita trips when he touches a sword! Seriously I hope that wasn’t actual electricity you could’ve killed him. Oh and the springy monster popouts that scare even Karen and get Keita to be all concerned. Konoha’s plan isn’t working…

-And then they hit a spot where people go in two at a time, locked to their partner…They can use this! Tasuku and Aguri somewhat awkwardly go together, and then it’s time for Karen to…

-Karen to…

-To…

-Where is everyone?

-It appears that Konoha has convinced Keita to take the still nauseous Chiaki out through the surrender door. Much to Keita’s frustration since he got shoved through it, but he is genuinely worried about Chiaki…

-Who then collapses against Keita like a sack of…Well she’s too scrawny and malnourished to be a sack of bricks or potatoes…A sack of old anime merch? Sure why the hell not.

-Either way she doesn’t wake up for a while, and finds herself on a bench, her head in Konoha’s lap, and Keita still there all worried. He even carried her the whole way here! So all of this has Chiaki freaking out, as Konoha sees her time to slip off and stick them together. And this, gets, awkward fast…

-Which is when Keita gets a phonecall from Karen, ruining the whole moment…Only for Chiaki to realize she’s clinging to Keita’s shirt. And Keita, being a good guy but also a complete idiot, thus ends up staying with her instead of going off to answer the call. But this gives Keita and Chiaki a chance to talk, and him to actually ask what brought her here today, and it comes out that it was scouting for a date, and wait she has a date? Sh-shut up!

-But…Is she gonna do it? You gonna, Chiaki? Well she kinda gets there when she asks about his thoughts on Mono-san and Nobe-san. And of course they’re important to him. …More important than Karen? Oh god that just slipped out. Of course, for Keita, he doesn’t rank things like that. His girlfriend, his friends, even someone like Chiaki who he has lots of disagreements with…They are all so very, very important to him. And it all came from just Karen saying hi to him one day…

-Aaaand Konoha is watching this whole thing.

-Eventually it’s time to go back…Though Chiaki thinks she’s going to call it a night. She wants him to go enjoy the night with Karen…

-…Nope. Come on. They’re all enjoying this together! And that’s when he finally gets back to the others, explaining what happened, and everyone’s glad to see Chiaki still on her feet, and they’ve gotta all hurry if they want to catch the big night parade! Because every amusement park is Disneyland.

-The credits music starts, as the electric night parade starts…And Tasuku finally takes up Aguri’s hand, and takes her up front with him…And then Keita offers Karen his hand, in turn. Oh, Karen, just admit you got it bad for him. Which leaves Konoha to apologize to Chiaki, and did she get rejected by him? No? Good! And she insists that she will, and I quote, “someday make that man a slave to my overwhelming charm.” You’re not an overwhelming charm type and you know it.

-But the whole group ends up in the front, as Aguri clings to her beloved Tasuku, their relationship at least stable again…And Keita I think just twisted his ankle in that open grate.

-Fin~

Well, that…Wasn’t quite the actual end. Oh no, we’ve got one more episode. But in terms of actual core story, I think that was our big climax. And for the most part, it all worked out! Chiaki and possibly Konoha have some stuff to figure out regarding Keita, Karen’s got to loosen up with her emotional state, and Keita will hopefully finally realize what’s been going on around him…But this is the most stable things have been since, oh, the end of episode 2. So I’ll take it. We’ll have one last match with these plucky kids next time, in episode TWELVE of GAMERS! Wait for it!

[kendrixtermina]

Kenny Reacts to: Ramayana (& Hindu Mythology in General)

So, for those who don’t know, “Ramayana” is one of the big epics of Hindu Mythology, comparable to the Illiad or other legendary Kings such as David or Arthur, centering around Prince/King Ramchandr, one of the Avatars of Vishnu

My boyfriend (who happens to be Indian) introuced me to a TV show based on it, and I, being a mythology nerd, couldn’t resist...

Since a lot of people actually believe in this as a religion, first a disclaimer: I’m a complete atheist with no belief in the supernatural whatsover, but I’m a huge believer in the value of storytelling (and a writer - the more mythological references the better, at least if you’re aiming for as much of an ‘universal’ flavor as possible) and do hold that myth holds an important place in the human experience. I will be approaching this completely from a literature perspective. 

My boyfriend is not a believer either, though he used to be an actual Hindu growing up & still has it as a cultural background (I know myself that the stories you’re brought up on do influence you just by the archetypes and poetic shorthands they make available to you) - apparently he found it quite interesting to see me react to it & see it properly from start to finish. (though it has actually caused a resurgence in childhood song earworms)

So, with that out of the way, let’s get to the actual “review”

What did I watch

It’s a somewhat older show from the 80s or 90s so the special effects could have been better - but I say that only because with a concept like “Demons versus monkey people” and “battles with dark sorcery and vaguely described divine weapons” there is a lot of potential for creative visuals. 

In this implementation the style of costumes was more “historical” overall, but great care was taken nonetheless. 

Indeed, though childhood nostalgia filter my boyfriend likes this particular version because it was made by an 80 year old dude who dreamt all his life of making a TV show out of this story & worked hard to make everything ~just right~ - there have been never, fancier interpretations since but they tend to be more generic & plasticy in terms of the actual screenplay (my boyfriend, though biased by childhood exposure, says that “You don’t get the feeling that you’re looking at Ram, you’re looking at a supermodel”) whereas in this one, the director took great care to write all the songs & handpick the actors - 

Which, with those mythical, ‘archetypical’ characters is quite important, they have to have the right ‘aura’, ‘presence’ or ‘atmosphere’ around them to connect to the larger-than-life timeless ideas they’re intended to embody. They made sure to cast tall, wry dudes as the monkey people, had some really good acting, made sure supposed relatives actually look alike etc. 

This adaptation (at least insofar as I’ve watched it) seems to have gone with the “good ending”, that is, the version where the Prince & his wife live happily ever after returning to their home city (for a change, the original/older one... though it makes little sense to debate about the true version of a myth, it’s their very nature to be passed around & reinterpreted and for each listener & reteller to put their own spin on it) - there’s a second one that’s much more anal about social divisions, harder on the mysoginy and ends with him disowning her ass, though there’s some ring to the idea of the Princess returting to whence she came (mother Earth) in humiliation. It depends on what sort story you want though it doesn’t seem to fit with Ram’s characterization as the type who always looks to resolve things peacefully & reasonably & think before acting, & he may lose some of what makes him interesting if you take that away. 

Indeed the director saw the need to sanitize even the orginal “chastity test by fire” scene - more than I would have done even if I wanted the Prince to keep looking heroic, I suppose, a lot like how many Christians will explain away many inconsistencies in the bible (and pretty much everything in the book of Judges) because they need their headcanon to be consistent with what they associate with the deities. 

The Cosmology

One of the interesting parts about this particular ‘verse that got me more interested in it beyond my initial watching of that show is the rather complex makep of the world -

In most places religion has gone though certain discrete stages in accordance to the civilization that thought it up, with the various ideas (animism, polytheism, dualism, monotheistm etc.) all influecing each other subtly by the need to react to each other but in this case you had this evolution happening gradually without the previous being completely discarded.

So you have river spirits, sacret trees, elemental monsters, demons,  titan/jötnar like entities, your basic greek style deities,  a big head honcho lord of the universe, concepts of self-enlightenment and pantheist universal unity all coexisting in the same setting.

It’s basically a religion kitchen sink. (and I mean that in a good way, though I get why some may prefer the more ‘streamlined’ ideas of modern Christianity or Islam)

Impressions & Surprising things

Very interesting - because of my familiarity with mythic universals & certain shared cultural roots ( They even have their own wandering handsy thunder god! -  though he’s squarely in the middle of the cosmic hierarchy and seems to be the designated Worf Effect recipient) , I could count down all the tropes and see a lot comming but because of different cultural ideals there were many points where I REALLY didn’t know what was going to happen next

Also, it was a veritable soap opera and I did not expect the feels. The heroes were more adorable than I’d ever have thought. 

The level of “Honor Before Reason” and “Because Destiny Says so” is about comparable to the ancient greeks, but the “humble sinless all-loving hero come to earth for an ardurous mission” might remind one of Jesus, especially in the conception that “The Hero”, in the most archetypical sense, is to be not just badass but moral - though rather, Jesus resembles Ramayana because Ramayana came several centuries first; Just a sign IMHO that there myths come from the human mind and humans everywhere are more similar than different.

Funny thing is, since christian apologetics have this complex to prove how “special” their religion is (I mean it is unique in that no one has the exact same combination of traits but that’s true of every religion and the elements are universal), they spend a lot of time dismantling Islam (often with bonus racism) but usually completely dismiss Hinduism because “Well, they’re polytheists” when the two religions actually have a lot of ideas in common - indeed a lot of beievers will speak of the Hindu Trinity (or their favorite part thereof) or the Mother Godess much like the average dualist or monotheist would talk of their god, like, “O supreme being that dwells in all goodness” etc.

Unlike Jesus (who, despite his popular interpretation,  in the original bible had quite a temper) Rama’s patience & forgiveness is a bit less of an informed ability, though you do get the sense that this comes from a warrior culture as well as a very stratified society where living up to your given social role (including that of a wife) is everything - in a Western work Ram probably would’ve seized the city with the support of the citizens. XD

One could comment that Ram & his brothers are still royalty & that the focus is on that whereas Jesus deliberately took the shape of an ordinary dude, though Ram still gets to spend years as a hermit & Jesus is still convolutedly made to be descended from David - the Jesus myth being the way it is probably has more to do with the political circumstances of its origin (conquest by rome) than the nobler meanings ascribed to it later. 

Another, subtler/ less apparent aspect of the destiny trap thing is that if everyone has their fate, no one can be blamed all too badly. (Deathbed redemptions galore) Nonetheless, as the prover goes, “karma is a bitch” and these people invented it.

That said, tough still a simplistic story (that purtports there’s only one clear universal law everywhere and that the good guys always win - That’s an air castle if there ever was one, we need to work for that) I was actually surprised by the sophistication of morals & politics at times, it went into specific questions (hypocrite accusations, hypocratic oaths, how to charioteer, what a good king should be like etc. )

This is probably an artefact of being written from the PoV of royals & warriors, or just an indication of the great asian civilizations having existed so long & relatively unbroken compared to the many shifts in where things where going on in the nothwest. 

This is the first time in ANY mythical story that I’ve seen anyone raise the concern of preserving the innocent citizens of the enemy faction and how to stabilize the political situation afterwards (after dethroning the local evil overlord, they put in his turncoat brother who joined the good guys for damage control), something that I haven’t seen a SINGLE time in the Bible (and I’ve read the whole thing), though the heroes steer clear of the line to “simplistic stupid good” if you discount the “honor before reason” parts.

There’s 4 ways you can do ‘archetypical’ characters: Wholly & completely stick to the simple archetype, bring the archetype to full circle & detail while milking it for maximum symbolism, “not what they seem/contrast” and giving them depht without having them ever stop to be their archetype - it’s the latter that was done magnificiently here, especially in terms of 3Dimensional antagonists, they have enough redeeming qualities for it all to strike you as a tragic waste of life, but not enough to let go of their pride and avert the divine punishment. 

(The “wicked cultured” Dark Sorceror Evil Overlord being interesting is a given, but of all characters, the cocky big mouthed Demon Prince was the last one I expected to have hidden dephts)

[cutepresea]

6-13 Innocent Sister: False Sisterhood

Sorry again for the spam.

If you want to blacklist these, you can use either the tag #innocent sister for just this event, or #xdu event scripts or #xdu scripts

Reminder that these are copied straight from XD Unlimited itself, so any grammatical weirdness, mistranslations, and/or mischaracterizations are not my doing.

Kirika Akatsuki: "Two of these things in a row?!"

Maria: "Another one of the offspring? And this one is absolutely out of control!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "How frustrating..."

Serena: "This way, everyone! All of you, escape while we take care of the monster!"

Maria: "Having Noise spawn at random like this certainly is annoying, but I'd say it might work in our favor."

Kirika Akatsuki: "We'll start with the small fry, then work our way towards Nephilim!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Kiri-chan and I will cut our way in from the sides!"

Serena: "Sis and I will cover the front!"

Maria: "Yaaah!"

Serena: "Let's do this! Yaaah!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Let's flank it, Kiri-chan!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Time to meet your maker, Nephilim!"

Maria: "That's another down! Those mini Nephilim don't stand a chance against the four of us!"

Serena: "The third's on its way, Sis!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "We've turned the tables on you now, Nephilim!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "We take down this one, and there'll be no more offspring left!"

Maria: "Wait... Something's not right. It knows we're right in front of it, so why isn't it attacking?"

Nastassja: "We have an emergency! Nephilim is at the facility!"

Maria: "This was another diversion!"

Serena: "Mom!"

Maria: "But we can't let the mini Nephilim run wild! We'll just have to make this quick!"

Nastassja: "There are Nephilim in the town, too?! Damn you, Dr. Adolf!"

Nastassja: "Well, for the moment, at least, we can hold off Nephilim with our barrier wall."

Nastassja: "You all need to focus on minimizing damage to the town!"

Maria: "Are you sure, Mom? Mom?!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Maria, you can leave this to us."

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "You two go make sure Mom's all right."

Maria: "Just because they're the offspring doesn't mean just the two of you can--"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Maria, please..."

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Please trust us."

Maria: (...Of course I believe in you girls.... I can't let you two down! I have to save Mom!) [1]

Maria: "This area's all yours! Get back to the facility as soon as you're done!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Roger that!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Got it!"

Maria: "I'll never get tired of seeing those smiles. Just leave Mom to us!"

Maria: "Let's hurry, Serena!"

Serena: "Right!"

Serena: (Mom... Please be safe.)

Kirika Akatsuki: "I haven't seen Maria smile like that in a while."

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Yeah. Now, we have a job to do!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Right! Let's do this! Ignite Module!”

Shirabe Tskuyomi: "Drawn Blade!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "It may only be the two of us--"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "But our bond is stronger than all of our foes combined!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Maria believed in us..."

Kirika Akatsuki: "So now we have to show her she made the right decision!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "I'll slow Nephilim down!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "And I'll slice off its head, nice and clean!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "W-We beat it... We beat it, Shirabe!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Pretty thoroughly, at that."

Kirika Akatsuki: "We'd better hurry over to the facility!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Right! Please be safe, Mom!"

Maria: "No... Don't tell me we were too late!"

Serena: "Sis, look over there! Mom's--"

Maria: "Mom!"

Nastassja: "Urgh... Maria, Serena. You came for me? Don't worry, I'm okay. More importantly, Nephilim's still--"

Maria: "I'm not letting you out of my sight! You need to rest."

Serena: "I'll go and check if the medical room is still okay!"

Dr. Adolph: "So, you're still alive? My, how improbable." [2]

Maria: "You!"

Dr. Adolph: "I think it's about time you started accepting reality. Now, I see Prof. Nastassja is looking worse for wear."

Dr. Adolph: "And here I thought her unbalanced diet was making her look pale recently, heheh..."

Nastassja: "So you still intend on feeding Nephilim more relics, Dr. Adolf?"

Nastassja: "Can't you see that Nephilim is beyond your control?!"

Dr. Adolph: "Now! Consume all the relics you can eat, my precious Nephilim!"

Serena: "We're going to keep you safe, Mom."

Dr. Adolph: "Fools, her life is of no concern to me. Though saying that, I can't say she didn't have her uses."

Dr. Adolph: "By keeping her alive... I was able to attract Nephilim's next meal."

Nastassja: "So you used me as bait?!"

Maria: "How much more despicable can you get?!"

Dr. Adolph: "Hah! If one's character really mattered, the world would be overflowing with saints."

Dr. Adolph: "Exploiting your fatigue, using you as bait... It was all to ensure I'd triumph. It's nothing personal."

Maria: "I have a hard time believing that!"

Serena: "Dr. Adolf... I can finally see you for who you really are."

Dr. Adolph: "Enough! Nephilim is nearing its final form, a form that shall crush all uncertainty! Now, flatten them!"

Maria: "This twisted obsession of yours ends now!"

Serena: "Aaah!"

Maria: "Serena!"

Serena: "Ngh... I'm okay..."

Maria: "Nephilim's tough, all right... But we're tougher!"

Dr. Adolph: "How are you still standing?! My calculations predict your Gear should be well past its breaking point!"

Maria: "Heh... You really think resilience is something you can measure with numbers?"

Dr. Adolph: "Grr... How can you rely on such uncertainty? Humans truly are abominable... Nephilim, what are you doing?!"

Dr. Adolph: "You must feed on more relics! Eliminate all uncertainty!"

Maria: "Are you okay, Serena?"

Serena: "Yeah. I have you by my side, after all."

Serena: "Nephilim doesn't frighten me anymore. Nothing's scary when you're with me!"

Serena: "So let's do this... Together!"

Maria: "You said it! Let's take this thing down!"

Maria: "Raaah!"

Serena: "Yaaaaaaaaah!"

Dr. Adolph: "Nephilim is truly suffering... Is it still not complete?! I have to hurry and..."

Dr. Adolph: "...Heh. Pffft, ahahaha! Well, would you look at that!"

Maria: "What's so funny?!"

Dr. Adolph: "It looks like my reinforcements arrived before yours did! How fortunate!"

Dr. Adolph: "And it's all thanks to the phonic gain amplification device I activated beforehand!"

Maria: "An amplification device?!"

Serena: "Sis, look!"

Maria: "I see... A Karma Noise was lured here by the amplified phonic gain!"

Serena: "Aaah!"

Maria: "Agh! Serena!"

Serena: "I... I can still fight. But Sis, you--"

Maria: "I have some fight left in me yet. We're going to have to use our last resort, Serena!"

Serena: "Okay!"

Maria: "If we can at least stop its growth--"

Serena: "We can do this!"

Dr. Adolph: "Obstinate girls... Stand aside, Nephilim! The black Noise will--"

Serena: "Oh no you don't!"

Maria: "I hope you're ready for this, Nephilim!"

Maria: "Damned Noise! Get out of the way!"

Maria: "I'll cover you, Serena! Now, break through to Nephilim!"

Serena: "You got it, Sis!"

Dr. Adolph: "Yes, indeed... Now, Nephilim! Feast!"

Maria: "It'll even feed on Karma Noise?"

Serena: "L-Look... Nephilim's..."

Dr. Adolph: "Finally... It is complete! Total power, and total peace!"

Maria: "No way... It's become so powerful!"

Serena: "Is this from the relics Mom said it consumed?!"

Dr. Adolph: "To be honest, even I don't know which one of those countless relics did this."

Dr. Adolph: "But honestly, who cares how you get there?! Such completeness... So wholly complete!"

Maria: "Guh!"

Maria: (The last time we took one of these on, we had the power of six X-Drives on our side.)

Maria: (There probably isn't a chance in hell that Serena and I alone can beat it.)

Maria: "But even so... There's no way I'm giving up now!"

Serena: "I was the one who awakened this thing... So it's up to me to put it back to sleep!"

Maria: "U-Urgh!"

Serena: "Aaargh!"

Serena: "N-Ngh... Sis... What is this pain?!"

Maria: "This is Nephilim's rage... Serena, if this combines with the Karma Noise's curse, we'll be done for!"

Dr. Adolph: "Hmph. Now that you're complete, these relics are irrelevant. Do with them what you will, Nephilim."

Maria: "I won't let it hurt you, Serena!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "You'll die before you touch her!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Maria! Serena!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "We... barely made it... Huff... Huff..."

Kirika Akatsuki: "Thank god... we made it in time!"

Serena: "Tsukuyomi-san! Akatsuki-san!"

Maria: "The curse is too much for you to handle in your Ignited states! What were you thinking?!"

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "It's not like... there was any other way... to make it in time..."

Kirika Akatsuki: "If it can save you two... then it was a risk worth taking... Haha..."

Serena: "Are you okay?!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "I can barely move my toes..."

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "It's taking everything I have... just to keep my eyes open."

Maria: "Honestly... You girls barely made it out alive again... I"ll deal with things from--"

Maria: "Aaargh!"

Maria: "...It's going to take more than that to knock me down! I have to protect Serena!"

Dr. Adolph: "How do you still stand? Oh, don't tell me your precious 'bonds' give you strength?! Crush her, Nephilim!"

Maria: "U-Urgh!"

Serena: "Stop! Please, just stop! You're going to die, Sis!"

Kirika Akatsuki: "Ergh... Maria..."

Shirabe Tsukuyomi: "Maria..."

Dr. Adolph: "I'm not fussy, but I can stand neither uncertainty, nor these infuriating 'bonds' everyone speaks of."

Dr. Adolph: "I'm compelled to verify that which shouldn't quantifiably exist."

Maria: "I feel sorry for you... That you don't know the power of bonds firsthand!"

Serena: "Maria-nee-san!"

Serena: "Aaaaaah!"

Maria: "Serena!"

Dr. Adolph: "Don't make me laugh. You two aren't even real sisters. Your 'bond' is nothing more than hollow theatrics."

Maria: "No, don't!"

Dr. Adolph: "When there's only one recorded Airget-lamh, it's quite suspicious for another to simply pop up, no?"

Dr. Adolph: "Luckily for me, I was able to acquire all the info I needed just by using a good old-fashioned bug."

Dr. Adolph: "I didn't think it could be true, but the array of wielders in front of me is hard evidence to the contrary."

Dr. Adolph: "Serena, that girl isn't your older sister. In fact, she's not even from this world."

Serena: "......"

Maria: "You're wrong! I'm... I'm Serena's--"

Dr. Adolph: "Older sister? The one who saved Serena seven years ago?"

Maria: "Doctor Adolf..."

Dr. Adolph: "Haven't you seen the gate? She's just an imposter from a parallel world! The real Maria is dead!"

Serena: "......"

Dr. Adolph: "She's been taking you for a fool, posing as your older sister to gain your trust."

Maria: "How dare you! Serena, don't listen to him!"

Dr. Adolph: "Silence, imposter!"

Maria: "Ngh!"

Maria: "...We may be from different worlds! But Serena is still my--"

Dr. Adolph: "Your little sister? Your REAL little sister? But I thought you let your real little sister die?"

Maria: "No, I--"

Dr. Adolph: "A fake older sister for a fake little sister! Well, you definitely have to bring this one up in therapy."

Maria: "But I... I... Ugh!"

Dr. Adolph: "Ultimately, all you did was lie for you own sake. It's what your selfish human nature limits you to."

Dr. Adolph: "Cry all you want, but I know the truth which lies behind those crocodile tears."

Dr. Adolph: "Humans are horrifying, Serena. They're unknowable, terrible creatures..."

Dr. Adolph: "Therefore, the only way to guarantee peace for humanity is through overwhelming force."

Dr. Adolph: "And now, you've finally activated the complete power! The certainty you've brought about is praiseworthy!"

Serena: "......"

Notes:

[1] A rare case of an ellipsis with four periods in this script. Usually it's three or six.

[2] You know the drill. They can't decide if he's Adolph or Adolf

[liberatingflame]

ocs interview OC: Alice, answers would change with verses, but @larvaloverlord​ was doing maf for the children, so I’m doing that for Alice as well.

1. Which should be saved – a bus full of innocent lives or a loved one?

Should be? Innocent lives. Would be? A loved one. There’s no question, I value a loved one’s live more than the lives of people who are presumed to be innocent and my loved ones are innocent as well.

2. You meet a man who has killed someone and done time for it before. Does this factor into how you treat him? Will he ever truly escape that sin?

It would only factor in because he was caught. Other than that, it entirely depends on the situation he was in. Why do I know, though? Is he the kind of person to tell me? That’s obnoxious.

3. If you could jump back through time to save a loved one’s life, would you? Despite what it might to do the timeline? To everyone else? Do you believe it is their fate to die regardless?

It depends on what loved one and what circumstances. I have yet to lose anyone I’d go back to save.

4. You have a secret you swore not to reveal. But this secret is the only thing that would prove your innocence in a separate matter. Is it worth risking your own well-being for the secret? Or would you betray the trust given to you?

There’s a reason ride or die is phrased that way. If I had a reason to swear that, it’s coming with me to the grave.

5. Is it better to hurt others before they hurt you or let yourself be walked all over and hurt by others?

Neither, if possible. Hurt others before they hurt you, if you can’t avoid either.

6. If you tell the truth, an evil person gets to walk away free. If you lie, you may be able to send them away like they deserve. Is honesty worth more than justice?

I’m a skilled liar, I believe in my own abilities more than I fear the punishment of perjury.

7. You have the key to immortality in your hands. But not for free. If you want it, as a price, your worst enemy also gains immortality. Is it worth it?

I don’t see the need for immortality, all I can see coming from it is bad.

8. If you could gain as much money as you want for losing a sense, would you do it?

I could do without taste, I don’t take much from it at this point. It no longer really matters to taste food that’s bad. I could always have my family taste things I’m suspicious of or I could smell it. Not as if I need money or really desire more.

9. Can people be held accountable for things people close or related to them did or are they innocent?

Why would you consider someone accountable for something they didn’t do? Is a brother responsible for his brother’s idiocy? No. Unless they are at fault for causing the situation, it’s not on them.

10. If a lot of people, possibly innocent people, have to die in order to make a real change, is it worth it? Can you live with their deaths even if it helps people in the present?

Possibly innocent. If it’s a real change, a good change, any death is worth it. I can live with death if other people are better off because of it

11. Imagine there is a beast that craves attention. If you ignore it, despite being deadly, it will leave you alone. Could you live like that? Even if it possibly attacked others? Would you try and challenge something that unknown?

Do you mean my daughter? She satiates her affection desire with other people as well, I’m sure this monster could do the same. It doesn’t matter, I’m ignoring it anyways.

12. If someone else stole something and you stole it back is that a good deed, a bad deed or one of equal worth? Are you better than the original thief?

It’s a good deed, especially if you return the item. It’s a neutral deed if you keep it. The item was already stolen, it doesn’t matter. Stealing from a thief is not equal to the initial theft.

13. Could you sacrifice yourself for the good of everyone else?

I could under some circumstances, I don’t want to.

14. What of love? Say you discover your lifelong crush on another has finally been reciprocated… but they are currently dating a family member or a dear friend the crush feels responsible to honour. Do you force the break up? Date on the side? Bottle it up forever?

If they’re dating me and the other family member, they’re not worth shit. Break up or stay together, I’m not some side-chick.

15. Is lying to others to gain their approval more important than being genuine and hated?

Lying to others is fine, but if you’re genuine and people hate you, you’re shitty and your opinions are bad unless they’re idiots and not worth it.

16. Have you ever contemplated killing someone? Who and why? Would you ever act on it? Are you frightened you might?

I have. Interrupted Leva’s plan to do the same. And that’s only the one I’ve done with my own hands for actual personal reasons. He had a completely innocent woman killed to try to keep his brother in check when... he wasn’t doing anything. Needless to say, I killed him. Oh woe is me, poor Riiyo. I was a widow for a year or so? Awful.

17. Have you ever gotten sheer joy out of hurting someone else, either physically or mentally? To whom and why? Did it scare you?

To answer last first, no. I genuinely enjoyed hurting Riiyo, I never liked him.

18. Have you ever done something morally wrong? If it’s morally wrong do you regret it?

Not based on my morals, but based on society’s definition. No, I don’t regret any of it.

19. What is more likely a thought to you – that this world is wrong or that you are wrong?

The world is wrong is the more common thought because it’s always thought first. Sometimes I’m wrong, but it’s never the first assumption.

20. Are there people in this world who, no matter how much time and penitence is given, should never be forgiven?

Of course.

21. Are there people in this world you simply think the world would be better without? If you could erase them out of existence without physically murdering them, would you?

Yes.

22. How do you feel about having an intimate relationship with someone you don’t love? What if they love you in return? Does that make you feel guilty?

I was married to someone I don’t love and I don’t regret it. I just regret not ending it sooner.

23. Could you ever become your own hero? Is that a role you can fulfill or is it something you look to others for?

I am my own hero.

24. How do you feel about tears? Are they cowardly and weak? Do you cry? Would you consider that shameful?

Cry in places it doesn’t make other people uncomfortable unless you absolutely cannot control it. If someone died or someone is incredibly sick, it’s fine, but think of other people in public.

25. What is more important to you? An idea of yours being used and appreciated or the credit for that idea beings yours and yours alone?

Credit me if you’re using my ideas, more people will look to me in that way. Don’t be rude.

26. Is your personal happiness more important than anything else in the world? Than fame? Than the happiness of others?

My personal happiness is what drives me. There are certain things that I will change for others, but not if it makes me unhappy. If I’m hurting others and having fun doing it and they’ve done nothing wrong, then it’s a problem and their happiness is more important, but that doesn’t often happen.

27. How far would you go to achieve a dream or ideal? Does it matter who suffers? Does it matter if you suffer?

If I’m suffering, I’m not enjoying the dream. If it’s my death at the end after achieving said dream, that’s fine, but if I have to suffer while I’m working on it and it lasts a long time, not likely. I’ve suffered, but that caused me to change paths, even if they were similar.

28. How long would you wait for the one you love? A year? Fifteen years? Forever? Could you honestly be loyal to an unfulfilled love?

If they don’t love me fast, I don’t wait, I get what I want.

29. Is genius equal to hard work? Does a genius deserve praise for doing well without effort? Are they above us?

Someone can be a genius, but it’s easy to lose motivation and not work towards good work. Nobody is above anyone if they’re doing good work and trying. Praise people for improvement and improvement to the world.

30. Do we live in a world of parallels? Can there be no hope without grief? No happiness without suffering? Or is a utopia possible?

Utopia is impossible, we live in a parallel world of parallels.

31. What is more important to you? Being respected and praised by your elders or being looked up to and championed by those younger or of the same age?

If one group respects me, the other group should look up to me. That’s what

32. If you could choose to remove certain feelings such as anger, confusion, sadness, would you remove them?

No, all those are necessary to understand to know what to do.

33. If you could wipe certain memories from your head, would you? Why would you? What memories?

Yes. I’m not bringing them up because I’m an expert in doing just that.

34. What path appeals to you more? An exciting dream that leaves you possibly penniless and alone or a drab existence where you have steady success.

An exciting dream that could possibly leave me penniless. I would never dream something that doesn’t have some chance of success. You have to gamble something to achieve anything really big if it’s not handed to you.

35. Is every person in this world wholly unique or can they be categorized? Can they be grouped and mentally dissected? Are you just another sheep in another flock or are you the sole unique soul?

Everyone is the same, but there are some stand-alones. You can group people by their ambition. Not everyone successful is a stand-alone, though, it’s good to remember a good deal are handed that and don’t work for it. It’s not hard to recognize. Just look at how they handle their power.