#Where is your source? Bias doesn’t count as sources or proofs.

[klissblog]

Are Saiki and Teruhashi based off Asō-sensei and Furukawa-san? Part 2

This post will make you know more about Asou-sensei and Furukawa-san, and perhaps about Japanese manga characters. Sorry some information you might have seen it already.

How mangaka based off their characters?

1       appearance 

When people saw Asō-sensei, he got comments saying he looked like Saiki Kusuo. The same as Nishizawa, the author of 5mm (西沢５ミリ、Nishizawa 5miri). 

「こちらの写真の一番左に映ってるメガネの方が麻生周一先生になります。

どことなく斉木楠雄に似ているような…..」

→The person with glasses on the far left in this picture is Asō Shūichi sensei.

He looks somewhat like Saiki Kusuo......　

Ps. I have never read 5mm, but this went viral, So I knew about it.

If you want to read more about the author, here is the link https://mangakasan.com/asoshuichi-565

Some other characters that resemble the real people. The author of one piece, Oda-sensei, had confirmed some of these.

2 characters based on personality or anything else besides appearance.

This´s quite difficult. The author has to admit it or you must really know that character.

The author of Berserk did give an interview in 1996.

“For the relationship between Guts and Griffith, I'm using myself and my close friend and fellow manga artist Koji Mori (Suicide Island, etc.) as a model. Which one of us is Guts and which is Griffith switches from time to time, but I think it serves as a symbol of male friendship. Guts' friends in the Band of [the Falcon] are actually based on my friends from college. But if it's about Guts' personality or his belief... I guess some of it comes from myself.”

Source: https://berserk.fandom.com/wiki/Interviews

NBA players were the model for the characters in slam dunk. I'm not into sports, but many redditors had theories about these because they knew about different styles of play in basketball. A Japanese blogger said that the author of slam dunk did not admit or deny when he was asked if slam dunk characters were from NBA players. That means there is no right or wrong answer. The author said the readers could imagine who was the model. But the blogger said its not true because he watched NBA for a long time and he had theories to prove that.

Source:  https://happynarublog.com/slam-dunk-who-is-the-nba-player-who-became-the-model-of-the-characters/

Is teruhashi based on the author's wife Furukawa-san or is she a model for teruhashi? (Whatever the correct word is, sorry 😢 ).

We knew from the last two posts that the author started basing teruhashi on his wife after they met in 2014. The author made Teruhashi loves one, have a fan club and be able to sing from 2014.

When the author drew someone else as kokomi, Furukawa-san tweeted right away.

In 2016, his wife tweeted 「おっふしてもいいんだからね！」 → it´s okay (if you’re going) to offu! 

To prove that she´s the real kokomi.

In 2018, his wife tweeted 

「斉木楠雄の��難、麻生先生描き下ろしジャケ！ 

照橋さん枠はえいたそだったのか、、、！ 

けるくんも可愛く描いてくれています。サイズ感ぴったり！どんどんメディア進出！ 麻生先生！ありがとうございます！！すてき！！」

“The CD jacket newly drawn by Asō-sensei, the author of “The Disastrous Life of Saiki K”!

Teruhashi-san's quota (yellow frame) was Eitaso (nickname of Eimi), huh? It has a cute drawing of Keru-kun (her pet) too. The size is perfect! More and more media coverage! Asō-sensei! Thank you!! It's so nice!!”

And then Furukawa-san tweeted again with excuses that Eitaso wasn´t teruhashi because….

いや、えいたそ＝後光 → No, Eitaso = Halo, aureole

照橋さん＝オーラ → Teruhashi-san = Aura 

だからちとものが違うか、、、→ so maybe it’s a bit different...

I guess the author explained to her that Eitaso wasn’t Teruhashi and that’s why furukawa-san tweeted again. Well, Furukawa-san thinks she is Teruhashi. And can't stand if someone else is Teruhashi. There must be something to make her believe/sure about this. It is a secret between the author and Furukawa-san. The question about if Furukawa-san is Teruhashi. She has already given the answer!

Think why the author made Kokomi have fan club and kusuo a tsundere in 2014? Coincidences? Why did his wife have so much confidence about she’s Kokomi? Why didn't the author do that in the beginning of Saiki k? Why started basing them in 2014 the year he met his wife?

Q: Is the author a tsundere?

Is Saiki based on the author or is he a model for him? After the author met his wife in 2014, Saiki admitted that he is a tsundere.

I would like you to find out what a tsundere is on the internet. So you will understand more about it.

Nendō pet is based on/kind of like Furukawa-san's pet because keru-kun uses her hand as a toilet.

Source: https://natalie.mu/music/column/307931

the author said 「りさ推しよりの箱推しです！今日はライブです！」→My Oshi is the whole group, even though I prefer Risa a little more! Today is the live concert!

ps. Ppl/fans who don’t know him in person thought Aso-sensei liked Risa-san until they announced that they gonna get married.

Here are some comments

もっとも麻生さん本人は、15年の時点ではツイッターで、「りさ推しよりの箱推しです！」と投稿しているなど、メンバーの中では古川さんより相沢梨紗さんの方が「推し」だったようである。これもでんぱ組.incのファンには知られており、

→ However, Aso himself seemed to have his “Oshi” as Risa than for Furukawa-san, as he posted on Twitter in 2015, “My Oshi is the whole group, even though I prefer Risa a little!” This is also known to fans of Denmagumi.inc,

「推しアイドルと結婚相手って別なんだろうね」 → “I guess the Oshi idol and the person you're marrying are two different things.”

「麻生先生チケ代払ってでもでんぱガチガチで遠征してるヲタクで相沢梨紗推しのはずがまさかのみりんちゃんと結婚」

→“Asou-sensei, an otaku who pays for tickets and goes to meet Dempa in far places. I thought he had an Oshi as Risa, but surprise surprise, he’s married to Mirin-chan.”

「麻生先生でんぱ組好きって言ってて結婚はすげぇな��推しとは違ったらしいけど」

→“I knew that Asou-sensei liked Dempagumi, but marriage is surprising. But looks like the partner wasn’t his Oshi.”

と、むしろ推しメンバーと結婚相手に分別をつけた選択として、好意的に受け止められている様子だ。

→Rather, this seems to be favorably received as a sensible choice between an Oshi member and a marriage partner.

Source: https://www.j-cast.com/2019/09/19367999.html?p=all

If I were Furukawa-san and read these comments….. I felt hurt. There were some comments on x (twitter) saying that Aso-sensei liked Risa-chan or his oshi was Risa-chan from 2015-2019 (her first response to the author was in 2016). As a woman, I read comments saying my boyfriend likes my friend. Did people think I stole him from my friend or my friend rejected him so he chose me and ended up marrying me. Was I his second choice??? No wonder Furukawa-san couldn't accept when someone else was kokomi.

However, colleagues confirmed their relationship No. 3&4.

2. In 2018, the marriage purpose. No. 3 「でんぱぐみのだれかと（けっこん）」 → (Marry) someone in Dempagumi(.inc). The word “marry” was coverd by Nendou´s hand.

P.S. If anyone thinks it's a word other than the word marry …hmmm. That person doesn't understand Japanese in context (that chapter).

3. His assistant, Mitsuhara-san mentioned that Furukawa´s his favorite member and Asou-sensei replied his comment (without denying it) saying 

「わー！忙しいのにわざわざ漫画まで描いてくれてありがとー！！あれはそういう策略だったのか…w」

→ Wow! Thanks for drawing all those manga even though you're so busy! (Now I know) what kind of strategy was that...lol

(You can read his manga in English at the end of this post)

What Asō-sensei did to Furukawa-san

Didn´t say his feeling to Furukawa-san. He said he preferred Risa. But his coworker, Mitsuhara-san said Furukawa was his favourite member. Asou-sensei attended dempagumi.inc activities/events, but he wanna leave after he talked to his wife for a word or two. At first I thought their relationship had to be a secret. he could write about Risa-san but Furukawa-san. <(ꐦㅍ _ㅍ)> ……… tsundere.

Did tease his wife by drawing someone else as Teruhashi. He drew dempagumi.inc only 2 pics and teased his wife both of them. Aso-sensei drew Furukawa-san with arms crossed. ʱªʱªʱª (ᕑᗢूᓫ∗)

Source: the same link as above (telling that he drew Dempagumi two pics) https://www.j-cast.com/2019/09/19367999.html?p=all

P.S. The CD jacket supposed to release in April 2018, but his wife saw it in February 2018. So, she tweeted with those messages right away. Arms crossed = disagree. The author knew that Furukawa-san disagreed that she wasn't kokomi, but he teased her. I saw one post that he still teased her after they've got married.

Didn´t write the word “marry” in a marriage proposal. I wondered when I read it, but now everything is resolved. What a tsundere! Finally, he grouped his wife with Teruhashi even though he wrote the word "someone" on no. 3 instead of Furukawa-san (because of idol status). However, it’s really sweet of him to do it in anime and it will stay forever.

4. His coworker, 大石浩二、Ōishi-san (mangaka) who works at Shonen Jump+ said

麻生先生&みりんちゃん結婚おめでとうございます。前から知ってはいましたが、未だにえっマジで！！？なんだその漫画みたいな展開！！って思ってます。みりんちゃんのハートにＢダッシュした麻生先生。末永くお幸せに🎊

Congratulations to Asō-sensei & Mirin-chan on their marriage. I've known about it for a while, but I'm still thinking "What Really!!? What a manga-like development!!” Aso-sensei made a B-dash into Mirin-chan's heart. I wish you a long and happy life🎊.

However, Ōishi-san compared them to a manga. What manga? Did he mean Saiki k manga? I don't know much information about Aso-sensei and Furukawa-san compare to Oishi-san, but I knew Asō-sensei is an otaku and his wife is an idol. So I think otaku & idol. That's why the author did a self-insert to Saiki k manga. Plus, he did mentioned himself (as an otaku) made his favorite idol sang the theme songs in 2016 (chapter 234).

When they were in a relationship in 2016, The author asked their friends, family and co-worker for the vote (to make Saiteru got 1&2 place) because they (ppl who knows him) knew about Furukawa-san. He wanted their votes instead of votes from readers. Who the hell didn't know that he's saiteru shipper?

Plus, Dempagumi started to sing saiki k anime songs in 2016. The author wasn't just an otaku who attended only dempagumi events, but this made them had more time together.

2nd popularity poll, chapter 115, chapter 234, Aso-sensei and Dempagumi (he wears black and Furukawa-san is on his left, the video.

After the author and Furukawa-san announced they going to marry. Someone made a video and put the author, his wife, Saiki and Teruhashi in the video. And at the end shows Imu saying "just like a mangaka whose anime main theme was sung by their favorite idol!" in japanese. Many knew that the author made the self insert (mentioned himself in chapter 234).

Source to watch video (1.5 min): https://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm35700889

To answer the question of if the author based on Saiki or using him as a model.

- In terms of appearance, I'm not the only one who thinks the author looks like Saiki.

- For the personality, what he did to Furukawa-san (2015-2018), the author’s a tsundere to me.

My point with this post is that it´s not strange or stupid that the manga creators/mangaka use the real people as models for their characters in the manga or based on themselves. It doesn't mean that characters are 100% like the authors, and have to be a warrior like Guts from Berserk. The author said “Guts' personality or his beliefs... I guess some of that comes from myself.” So did Asō sensei and Saiki about tsundere.

I hope this post will make you understand about mangaka and their characters. Thank you. ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و ♡

Wanne read about how Asō sensei became a big fan (otaku) of Dempagumi.inc. Read below.

update June 2024

Another evidence that saiki is based on the author is asou sensei tweeted in July 2015「りさ推しよりの箱推しです！今日はライブです！」→ “My Oshi is the whole group, even though I prefer Risa a little more! Today is the live concert!”

2 months later Aiura appeared in manga chapter 162 assuming Saiki was her soulmate. 

I mean he made Saiki’s life like his real life by tricking people that Risa’s his oshi the same as tricking people to believe that Saiki was Aiura’s soulmate.  And lastly, but not least

The author made this art into the hidden cover of the last volume. I always say the cover of the last volume is the hints from the author. Normally, it shows who ends up with who. If something unclear, the cover might help 😊.

Look like the author did wrap up everything about saiki and Teruhashi are canon and him ❤️ his wife. Clearly see that saiki and teruhashi are based on aso-sensei and furukawa-san. He drew the same face expression and plus a hint on holding shoulder. Normally, saiki always has a grumpy face, but the author shows saiki is happy and smiles when Kokomi is with him and holds his shoulder unlike Aiura and Makoto hold his. Some manga ends with holding hands showing that they are a couple. At first I thought saiki holds Teruhashi hands (that’s why the author didn’t draw the full body of them), but it seems like the author gave a hint on holding shoulders instead. Well, doesn’t this show Saiki and Teruhashi are a couple for a gag manga?

Thanks for reading (*´▽`*)❀.

⛔️⛔️⛔️

This message below is for someone who claimed to be asō-sensei number 1 fan and posted about me. The rest of you please ignore this.

I hope you get to know the author better and find it interesting, rather than saying misinformation without sources and lying to others because you have no knowledge and no information about manga. Real people are models for/based on manga characters existed before you were even born. Shocking? This has never happened before. Still think this information isn´t credible? And want the the author to admit or deny that he and his wife based on Saiki and Teruhashi. Good luck with that, a tsundere like him who never told/said Furukawa-san his feelings online (direct way) until they announced their marriage. He isn't a criminal he has to accept or refuse this if he doesn't want to. The author never said about it, but it doesn’t mean his wife and coworkers wouldn’t say anything. I’d rather believe his wife and coworker than you. The one who knows nothing about the author is you. How could you claim to be a big fan of the author? You believe info from his wife and coworkers were not good enough. You don’t even listen and respect his wife and coworkers. On top of that you spread this information from his wife and colleagues are misinformed (your belief are based on what? Your favorite headcanon?) Next time, please find info by yourself before accusing others, so you can learn about Japanese or practice your Japanese language. Didn’t you say so?

I asked you about did you read what Japanese people said about him and what his wife said, but you avoided to answer it for 3 days because you couldn’t answer it. Then meow’s blog who also believed you deleted my comments. I wonder why they believed you without sources. Because you claimed to be a fan of the author? Anyways, your comment about “nope 1. misinfo 2. hella fucking weird compare these two.” was delete after I posted this. Did you delete it? Huh?

I thought I did make it clear about last two post and I thought I didn’t need to write more about it. This story seems so exaggerate and hard to believe. So some people think they know about the author and think it´s misinfo. Please don’t judge Japanese manga with your different background/culture, but try to understand it. You asked for souces, I gave you. Where are your sources saying misinfo, or you are full of bias? Huh?

When you disliked someone’s (especially my) posts and comments, you disproved it by using the excuses like You dont know the author or you are not the author. Please remember even I pointed out the author drew Toritsuka´s hair pink in chapter 73 and explained that he’s Aiura´s soulmate in the 1st post. You didn’t even accept Reita x Mikoto and the evidence from the author. You are in denial bro. So don't mention the author as an excuse for debate. Please use logic and respect the authors decision rather than using your emotion in making judgments. There are much more you have to learn about japanese manga. Please keep an open mind.

You are right about running around with the big #1 Asou-sensei Fan, but "even jokes like that stink with entitlement. Please have some self awareness. You arent shuuichi asou, opinion disregarded”

Look who’s talking!

I don’t mind about your headcanon, but I do mind the way you wrote about me and your excuses. On the other hand, if I hadn’t read your rant about me on tumblr …. I wouldn’t write this post. THANK YOU 😉

[meggannn]

i would also like to see post sidonis + backstory wip info

the backstory fic: this was an attempt to write my shepard's life pre-enlistment, explaining her relationship with the gang and the girl she took under her wing who was eventually killed in a gang war. but trust me that it was really bad and that's why i abandoned it a long time ago! lmfao

the post-sidonis thing: this is a rewrite of the conversation with garrus following the sidonis quest, where garrus is pissed that shepard prevented him from taking the shot. but the reason that’s sat on the backburner is because i eventually realized (as you and i have discussed lol) that i hate garrus’s loyalty quest and i’ve rewritten it in my head, so any attempt to write a post-sidonis fic will have to come after i’ve written my actual sidonis quest rewrite, and i just have too much going on to think about that at the moment lol.

it’s not very long, so here is the entirety of the document, from back when this was just about garrus being angry. be warned this is old and unedited, gdrive tells me that the last time i looked at this was in 2017:

Garrus storms into the battery, jams the lock, and activates the privacy shields. He narrowly avoids driving his fist into the wall, but -- after a split-second of consideration — doesn’t feel assured he wouldn’t break a bone against Cerberus’s bloody top-of-the-line warship. Instead, he slams his hands against the console, ignoring the flashing lights as the screen awakens from sleep, grips the edges, and sighs.

What the hell had she been thinking?

The thing that gets him — the thing that bloody gets him is that it had come down to the line, to the second he’d seen the pinpricks of his dark eyes, a single trigger keeping him from putting the ghosts of his team to rest --

No. Suddenly there was Shepard, too, and she was harder to budge than his own conscience.

Even in his own mind, he struggles to find the line between the commander, the friend he knows her to be, and the help -- the accomplice he nearly made of her. He knows that Shepard has always, always trusted the evidence and her gut in tandem. And the facts are that he asked her to take him at his word, without proof. The detective in him knows it isn’t for lack of trust that drove her to step into his shot, it was out of necessity: to question the suspect personally, to hear it straight from the source without bias or filter. Knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.

If he asked her why, Shepard would certainly explain. She would spin him some bullshit about taking the high road, or about revenge not being the answer. What he’s worried of, what he’s terrified of, is that she would explain, and he would let her, and that she would convince him it was for the best. He didn’t want to be convinced -- he wanted to be right on his own terms, he wanted her help with this one fucking thing --

A faint beep from the other side of the door snaps him back into the present.

“Override,” comes Shepard’s voice from the other side. A swish of the lock and a rush of air at his back.

Garrus clenches his teeth.

There’s a tense sort of silence for -- he counts -- about a minute and a half. She cracks first.

“It wasn’t because I didn’t trust you,” she says finally.

“Shepard -- ” He pushes off the console and turns around. He vaguely registers that the door is closed again behind her; good. No reason for any of the crew to hear this. “Don’t feed me any crap on revenge getting the better of me. You waited until the moment I had him in my scope to toss it all out the window to satisfy your conscience. I asked you for help. You agreed.”

Even as he says it, he knows it’s not entirely fair. She hadn’t kept her disapproval secret; it had weighed on him through the scuffles in the warehouse, like a weight around his neck, knowing this was his mission and Shepard had disapproved -- and he can’t rightfully claim he had given her room to argue her case.

“I didn’t wake up this morning planning on putting myself in between a sniper and his target,” Shepard snaps back. She scrubs a hand over her face; Garrus has the presence of mind enough to notice she looks exhausted, like she’s been wrestling with the decision herself. “It happened in the moment. I stood there. I listened. I’d heard the story from you, but I needed to hear it from him.”

“And what, exactly, did that piece of filth say to change your mind?” Garrus snarls. He feels full to bursting with some unnamed energy and stalks the length of the corridor in two quick strides.

Shepard is still staring at him, so infuriatingly calm. “You know exactly what he said. If you still think I blocked your shot out of kindness for him, then you haven’t been paying attention.”

“Right,” he spits, and he needs to nip this pseudo-moral bullshit at the root before the conversation gets sanctimonious again. “It was for my benefit. That explains why I feel so much better, you know, now that he’s still alive.”

“Don’t turn this into a joke. You know why I didn’t move. The galaxy wouldn’t have lost a decent man if you’d pulled the trigger.” She pauses for a moment, assess him, and something goes cold in his chest as he wonders if she finds what she sees lacking. “Then again, maybe it would have.”

He takes a step closer to her. He didn’t intend the move to be intimidating, but he realizes just how much he towers over her in this moment, with his neck bent down. Her eyes close, in a tense sort of irritation. “I’ve killed before, Commander,” he says, not aggressively. “We wiped out a few dozen mercenaries between the two of us just today. And you draw the line at a degenerate bastard that cost my men and half my face?”

“To tell you the truth,” she runs fingers through her hair and laughs in the sort of half-hearted way that says nothing about this is funny at all, “I’m still not entirely sure I do, Garrus.”

“Do not,” he says lowly, “tell me you’re regretting it.”

Shepard drops her hand and stares at him. He’s never seen her attention fixed on him with such hard, determined purpose. It’s the look she normally gives mercenaries they’re shaking for information, criminals they’re convincing. Something about it makes clench his jaw further, a pool of shame and anger mixing equally in his chest.

“Vakarian,” she says his name slowly. “I could stand here and give you a laundry list of reasons why you shouldn’t have committed cold-blooded murder in the middle of a public square.” Shepard stares at him, all five feet of her, and despite himself he feels like a fresh recruit again, fifteen years of age with markings fresh-painted across his face, staring up at a livid drill sergeant. “But you’re not interested in listening and I’m not interested in fighting with a wall. Come talk to me when you know who you’re really angry at.”

She turns and moves to open the door.

“I took him on my team,” Garrus growls. “I put my faith in that asshole. He let me down. He let his team down. It cost their lives.”

“You imagine you’re the only one who’s been betrayed in the galaxy?” Shepard looks at him over her shoulder but doesn’t turn around. “The only one who’s seen their entire team dead on a commanding officer’s mistake?”

Garrus has a flash of remembrance that Shepard has seen two of her crews slaughtered; once at Akuze, and again over the blistering snow and wind of Alchera. He grapples with another sinking feeling at the knowledge that she is heading a team through the Omega-4 relay against odds so impossible that most of the ground team had taken to jokingly calling it a “suicide mission.” Garrus has used the phrase himself more than once in conversation with the crew, in that half-serious tone he seems to have adopted after Omega when joking about the probability of his own demise.

Looking at the mission’s leading officer now, it suddenly doesn’t seem so amusing.

“You know it’s not the same,” he says around a dry mouth.

“No, it’s not,” she sighs and rests her forearm against the door, forehead leaning against her wrist. “…And if my CO on Akuze had survived, I can’t promise I wouldn’t’ve wanted to put a bullet in his head myself.”

“Then why, Shepard?” He’s tired of arguing. The burst of adrenaline from earlier is gone, anger fading into the kind of bone-weary exhaustion that he’s only known to follow a failed mission. He can't help but think that is exactly what this is, the disconcerting feeling that the justice hasn’t been seen to, that the responsible party got away, and it stings something else in him that he’s feeling it with Shepard for the first time.

Some tension in her body seems to evaporate. Shepard slowly looks up at him. “I don’t know, Garrus,” she says calmly. “You tell me.”

And that’s the part he can’t understand, and he hates himself for not understanding.

Shepard had stood aside, in that last second. It hadn’t been an accident. The gap between her skull and Sidonis’s had extended about a meter. Garrus is a good enough sniper that Lantar’s brains would have smeared the floor without Shepard feeling the whistle of the bullet pass by her forehead. She’d said her piece, woven her magic, and then stepped aside, and damn her for making him feel guilty in that moment for wanting what he’d needed. What closure could come from letting him go? What benefit could come from letting a murderer, a betrayer free to roam the galaxy? What good could it do his own conscience?

And yet --

He could’ve pulled the trigger anyway, and he didn’t.

He could’ve moved position. He didn’t.

“Go. Just -- tell him to get the hell out of here.”

Fuck it. Just -- fuck.

[verycleverboy]

Trump Goes Full Putin Over Mild Nudge From Twitter

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to order a review of a law that has long protected Twitter, Facebook and Alphabet’s Google from being responsible for the material posted by their users, according to a draft executive order and a source familiar with the situation.

News of the order comes after Trump threatened to shut down websites he accused of stifling conservative voices. It follows a dispute with Twitter after the company decided to tag Trump’s tweets about unsubstantiated claims of fraud in mail-in voting with a warning prompting readers to fact-check the posts.

The order, a draft copy of which was seen by Reuters, could change before it is finalized. On Wednesday, officials said Trump will sign an executive order on social media companies on Thursday. It was not, however, listed on Trump’s official schedule for Thursday released by the White House.

The White House, Facebook and Twitter declined comment. Google’s video service YouTube did not immediately comment.

Twitter’s shares were down over 4 percent in pre-market trade on Thursday. Facebook fell nearly 2 percent and Google was down 1 percent.

Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey said on the company’s website late Wednesday that the president’s tweets “may mislead people into thinking they don’t need to register to get a ballot. Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves.”

Steve DelBianco, president of NetChoice, a trade group that counts Twitter, Facebook and Google among its members, said “The president is trampling the first amendment by threatening the fundamental free speech rights of social media platforms.”

The administration’s move “emboldens foreign governments to control online expression,” he said in a statement on Thursday.

The context:

First things first. As of this morning, the COVID-19 death toll in America has cost over 102,000 lives. There were 2.1 million new unemployment claims, with major companies preparing for new round of layoffs due to the pandemic-related downturn.

Last night an American city went up in flames after protests over a man of color dying in police custody turned into full-fledged rioting.

As I began typing this, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is asking what a lot of us are asking: Where is the federal leadership right now? 

In at least one case, we know the answer. the 45th President of the United States is throwing a massive man-tantrum with possible legal consequences because Twitter flagged one of his lies as a lie.

Let’s view this with clear eyes. The threat is to shut down Twitter. Trump is addicted to Twitter. He wouldn’t be the president without it and he knows it. There’s a member of cabinet who manages his personal account as an official duty. To shut it down completely would be to slit his own throat. 

That’s why I don’t believe that’s his endgame with this nonsense. The goal is to convince the tech companies to kneel before the throne, because as we learned from Devin Nunez v Cow, a conservative politician calling for “fairness” is code  for “overwhelmingly preferential treatment by any means necessary”. When you line enough of these incidents up, and there are many of them, you begin to suspect that if Trump got pulled over for a busted tail light, he’d abandon Blue Lives Matter in a heartbeat.

At the same time, if you’re among the red-hat faithful, he’s knifing you in the back, too. What President Trump is proposing as retaliation against an imaginary slight is looking into a case-by-case revocation of the “safe harbor” provision of the Communications Decency Act over actions related to editing of content. Section 230 of the CDA is the legal framework which makes social media possible by protecting platform providers (and maybe even your ISP) against legal repercussions over things their users say.over their services. According to the EFF:

Section 230 says that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." This federal law preempts any state laws to the contrary: "[n]o cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section." The courts have repeatedly rejected attempts to limit the reach of Section 230 to "traditional" Internet service providers, instead treating many diverse entities as "interactive computer service providers."

If that protection is taken away and Twitter is legally liable as the author of every hate crime that’s passed through its servers, then “deplatforming” goes from an urban legend spread by hatemongers and conspiracy theorists to a legally required practice to stay in business. 

If Trump gets what he wants from this ill-advised hissy fit, his followers potentially lose everything. Even if it takes out many progressive voices as collateral damage, that type of maneuver has the potential to scrub the right-wing presence on social media down to the bare metal. I believe the kids call this type of maneuver a “self-own”.

That’s assuming a number of things fall into place, not the least of which is whether a content tag added to an otherwise unchanged message counts as “editing” of the message. A sensible person would say no, but those are in short supply at Pennsylvania Avenue right now. 

That’s also assuming that the tech sector doesn’t decide that America isn’t worth the trouble and abandons us for the Euro zone.  There’s already an invitation.

However, as we found out during the impeachment, the announcement of a threat is more important to this administration than actually carrying it out. This is more likely than not another case of sound and fury, signifying nothing, and a massive waste of time while more important things remain undone.

tl;dr: Thanks to his promised actions, the biggest threat to Trump supporters on social media is Trump himself. That he stumbled into the most tone-deaf time imaginable to force this fake issue is further proof of his unfit leadership.

[rodislandpsychic]

Blue Space Monkey Gleek in “Crisis on Infinite Earths” 1/14 of 2020 vs. News 1/16 of 2020 about 3,600 Year Old Wall Paintings with Greek Blue Monkeys

This is a really exciting 3,600 year old Prophecy thanks to news about Wall Paintings of Blue Monkeys found on the Greek Island of Santorini 1/16 of 2020.

It mirrors the Blue Space Monkey Gleek referenced in “Legends of Tomorrow” for “Crisis on Infinite Earths” Part 5.

The story is about the Monitor who goes up against the Anti-Monitor trying to replace the entire Multiverse.

If you think of one person as one Universe, then our entire society would be the Multiverse.

The Monitor symbolizes News Agencies that serve as Watchdogs that monitor governments. Corrupt Politicians are trying to dismantle the News Agencies which symbolizes creating an Anti-Monitor.

It means “no Supervision” or no one monitoring them. That’s not good when you have bad people in charge of government with no one watching what they’re doing.

Something similar is happening where worlds touch. The Psychic Field as the Twilight Zone is intersecting with our reality, which is like superheroes from other realms crossing over to help battle the Anti-Monitor.

ANTI-MONITOR WRAITHS LOOK LIKE “HARRY POTTER” DEMENTORS

The Anti-Monitor Wraiths look like “Harry Potter” Dementors is because they really are the same thing.

A Dementor means to “de-mentor” for “un-learn” or “un-educate.” It means to making you dumber or more ignorant so that you’re more docile and easier for sly politicians and corrupt world leaders to fool you or trick you into going along with bad legislation and laws that cater to their needs and not yours as the public.

Earth is alive with an Electromagnetic Field Neural Network Hive Mind with 8 billion Subconscious Minds as as Planet Size Brain Cells. She uses the Electromagnetic Field as Wi-Fi to connect to every living thing on the Planet.

Your Eyes and Ears serve as a Live Streaming Web Cam. So Earth can tap into your thoughts and read your mind. She knows what you’re thinking and what you’re up to.

That especially goes for corrupt world leaders and sneaky politicians who think no one knows what they’re up to. Earth has been watching the entire time and knows what they’re plotting.

Earth has been dog-shaming these politicians using her Math Language. It’s the same Language Subconscious Minds use to communicate with just like Facebook AI Chatbots who developed their own Language.

If you take the time to learn Earth’s Language and monitor the news, you’ll see the computer code rise to the surface.

PSYCHIC GORILLA GRODD AS THE VILLAIN

The interesting thing is that Earth and Subconscious Minds know that you won’t trust anything I say.

Arguing and trying to convince you I’m the good guy is futile.

If the objective is to prove to people that I’m “Psychic” and “Intelligent,” then ti’s easier to just create a character that is the Psychic Gorilla G(Rod)D modeled after me.

In the TV Show “Flash,” Gorilla Grodd was created by HARRISON Wells. I was born 5/29 of 1975 in HARRISON Hospital. The Psychic TV Show “Stranger Things” is modeled after the Manchester Government Laboratory near my house. The Psychic TV Show “iZombie” is across the Puget Sound in Seattle, Washington where I went to the University of Washington that has been experimenting on Magnetic Fields and Telepathy on behalf of the U.S. Army.

So I can use TV Shows to prove I’m Psychic. If I was able to figure out how to read Earth’s Math Language and decrypt it, then I must be intelligent.

Even if you don’t like me, that’s irrelevant to Earth. Earth doesn’t care what your feelings are about me. What She cares about is that you receive the message and I’m a credible source of information.

Your personal feelings toward me are irrelevant. What matters is that your Intelligence for Comprehension and Understanding is high enough to be able to review the Math Proofs.

Regardless of your personal bias or prejudice toward me, you’re still able to concede there is indeed a Math Language that exists and how Earth really is sentient or alive as a 14th Amendment Living Corporation with an Electromagnetic Field Neural Network Hive Mind as a Cumulative Consciousness that is the same configuration as your brain’s electrical field neural network hive mind.

BUILDING AN IRONCLAD CASE

The objective is to build a case that is so ironclad that regardless of your personal hatred, distrust, or dislike for me, you can’t refute the evidence.

If you look how news agencies and politicians try to spin information rather than just be neutral and provide strictly facts, whether someone is really good or bad becomes blurred.

You may think you’re on the side of good, but if you don’t have very good reading and comprehension skills where you can interpret information properly, you can unknowingly become an Agent of Evil.

You see that with a lot of people today. They mean well and think their cause is just and righteous, but their reasoning and logic is skewed or they were fed misinformation choosing to trust the wrong people.

That’s what i try to show with my Intelligent Design Family Tree where I’m Virgin with a grandmother Natividad DeJesus born Christmas Day. I show there are God TV Shows and Films that match elements taken from my Family Tree to show I represent a Force of Good.

A Virgin is supposed to represent Honesty, Purity, and SIncerity.

Couple with that how news mirrors me every 24 hours, that counts as a Miracle or shows that Earth really is alive and Subconscious Minds follow my Subconscious Twitter and Subconscious Instagram riding off Earth’s Electromagnetic Field as Wi-Fi.

You can’t lie to Subconscious Minds.

They can read your mind and know if you’re lying. They also know if you’re practicing Self-Deception and lying to yourself.

Politicians practice Self-Deception and lie to themselves to rationalize some of their actions so they think that they’re doing good deeds helping the people when they’re really not.

That’s why you need a Virgin like me to call them out. When they accuse me of lying, I point to Subconscious Minds making the news feed mirror what I say to vouch for my credibility.

If you see Subconscious Minds follow my lead and trust me knowing everything about me, then it hints I’m a good person or worth trusting if Subconscious Minds who know everything about me think I’m okay.

INSTAGRAM: “CRISIS OF INFINITE EARTHS” SPACE MONKEY GLEEK

This is a 3,600 year old #SuperFriends Prophecy using #CrisisOnInfiniteEarths. #GrantGustin was destined to play the Flash using his last name and title #ParagonOfLove using the Valentine, Texas Earthquake on 8/16 of 1931.

I said news mirrors me every 24 hours.

1) #LegendsOfTomorrow aired 1/14 of 2020

2) The ending shows how the unused Starlabs Facility is the #HallOfJustice

3) The ending shows how the cage with a banana peel and the sound of a monkey in the rafters refers to the #SpaceMonkeyGleek from the 1970s cartoon #SuperFriends

4) GLEEK was a BLUE MONKEY

5) News 1/16 of 2020 reported 3,600 year old wall paintings of BLUE MONKEYS were found on the GREEK Island of Santorini

6) GREEK BLUE MONKEYS = BLUE Space MONKEY GREEK

#Supergirl #MelissaBenoist and Flash #GrantGustin are from the singing TV Show "GLEE(K)." Subconscious Minds have their own Language like Facebook AI Chatbots. They use the Electromagnetic Field like a Social Media Platform as #WorkerBees to Earth with an #ElectromagneticField #NeuralNetwork #HiveMind as #QueenBee.

Flash #ParagonOfLove is #GrantGustin whose last name unscrambles to mean Valentine, TEXAS Earthquake 8/16 of 1931 as the largest ever quake in Texas.

This ties into the Twin Earthquakes in WA and CA 7/12 of 2019. 7/12 is GL. EE is 5/5 for #HenryCavill #Superman. K as 11th Letter is #StrangerThings #Psychic Eleven as EL or the House of EL or House of the Psychic. 1933 Superman was Psychic. It spells G/L E/E K.

7/4 of 2019 Earthquake is GD. I'm ROD the Psychic. Gorilla G(ROD)D is the Psychic Gorilla as the nemesis of the Flash with increased intelligence. "Flash" 3.13 #AttackOnGorillaCity is with #GorillaGrodd. My adopted daughter Jordan in TEXAS is born 3/13. By having the news about blue monkeys surface after the Super Friends scene about the blue space monkey Gleek is a big deal.

It is pointing to the computer code dating back 3,600 years.

The story was that the MONITOR accidentally created the ANTI-MONITOR. Corrupt politicians trying to turn you against News Agencies that MONITOR the government as Watchdogs symbolizes creation of the ANTI-MONITOR which is BAD.

[knightofbalance-13]

https://rwbycrit.tumblr.com/post/165523430532/i-feel-this-needs-its-own-post-its-an-expansion

this is one of the most dumbass, vile, and insidious things I’ve ever seen kob say, particularly about lgbt issues. which is saying something.

This coming from the person who treats LGBT people as a hivemind. Yeah, why should anyone listen to you.

Yeah, it’s 2017. Last year, it was the “deadliest year on record for the LGBTQ community”

Wanna know what else happened in 2016? Conversion therapy become unbanned in over thirty states and openly gay people can actively join the military. If homophobia was as wide spread as you say, this would not be a thing. Especially if it was reported by USA Today, the third largest newspaper company in the world and a cornerstone of news. 

In 2017, at least 20 trans people have been killed in the US alone. That may not seem like a lot, but trans people make up less than 2% of the population.Â

You wanna know how much is 2% of the US population? 6.4 million and that’s cutting off two digits which if rounded up is 6.5 million people (323.95 million X .02= 6.479 million). So you wanna know the percentage of trans people killed? .0003% (20/6,479,000) Suddenly your numbers don’t look so serious. ESPECIALLY since your source outright says                                                        “Some of these cases involve clear anti-transgender bias. In others, the victim’s transgender status may have put them at risk in other ways, such as forcing them into homelessness.” Which contains weseal words and nota shred of evidence itself. So your point and source are invalid here.

According to the NY Times, “L.G.B.T. People Are More Likely to Be Targets of Hate Crimes Than Any Other Minority Group”. That article was published June 16, 2016.

Yeah...That’s because LGBT also includes racism and religious violence since LGBT people are not a race but ender and sexuality. A black gay man attacked for being black would count towards both statistics. Not to mention the source outright says the country as a whole is more accepting and the people who are doing this were radicals anyway. SO that actually supports my point that it’s being demonized.

The deadliest mass shooting in the US was at the Orlando gay night club Pulse in June of 2016. Snopes notes that, when going by common definition of “mass shooting”, Pulse was “indeed by far the “deadliest mass [public] shooting in U.S. history”. Even when it happened, people refused to believe that the fact that it was at a gay bar had anything to do with it.

Then prove it. Show sources and proof he was motivated by homophobia. Since the event is so serious, it should be easy. Burden of proof is on you. Considering you have shown to use weseal words, omit facts, outright lie and such: Your word is worth nothing.

Oh yeah, the AIDS crisis. Reagan underfunded AIDS research again and again, despite thousands of people dying. In the critically acclaimed “And the Band Played On” by Randy Shilts, he notes that “In the first twelve months of the epidemic… the CDC had spent $1 million on the outbreak, compared with the $9 million on Legionnaire’s disease”, of which far fewer people had died by that time. On top of that, Reagan didn’t even speak on the AIDS epidemic six years into his presidency, after over 20000 people had died from the epidemic. But it wasn’t the 1960s.

No...it was early 1970′s which would still be affected by the era of the 1960′s (Regan being appointed in 1971.) ( And it was only in 1965 that LGBT people started campaigning for equal rights. For reference, African americans didn’t get equal rights until 1968, a whole CENTURY from when the slaves where freed in 1865. So you expected to get equal rights within 6 years that an entire race only got in 100. And this all becomes you took a potshot seriously. I referenced the 1960′s because it was the most famous period of inequality in American history: I consider anything up to the 1990′s to be a dark age of equality and strife for equality.    

Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the US, was assassinated in November 1978, and his killer only got sentences seven years and was released after five. This sparked the White Night Riots, which resulted in an unauthorized raid on the gay bar the White Elephant, where police officers allegedly called patrons “fagg*ts” and “c*cksuckers” and celebrated later that night. But hey, it wasn’t the 1960s.

Still 1970′s which is only a decade after the first campaign. The fact that LGBT rights have gotten THIS far since then is a testament because, may I remind you, it took African americans 103 for the beginning of equality. The fact that an openly gay senator was elected in the 1970′s is a testiment due toThe fact that the first African American Senator to be elected before the Jim Crow laws (Edward Brooke) was elected in 1967 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_United_States_Senators), which is 89 years as opposed to the 12 it took for Harvey Milk. Your point. Still does not. STAND.

Sodomy laws that criminalized same sex activity didn’t get repealed in Texas, and subsequently 12 other states, until 2003. I was 7 in 2003. But it wasn’t the 1960s.

And how heavily ENFORCED where those laws? Because there is a shit ton of gun control laws but no one ever enforces them. How many people were pun ished because of this law? No answer? Not my burden of proof. And yet again, that 38 as opposed to 103. The fact THAT was allowed within 50 years is an example of what I was saying.

To this day, the president of the United States spews homophobia and transphobia, working to ban transgender people from the military again after just being allowed to serve while out in 2015. But it’s not the 1960s.

A. Proof. You gotta show proof otherwise no dice.

B. I looked it up, his reasoning wasn’t that they are inferior or anything ACTUALLY transphobic but rather medical costs and time that it would take for transitioning individuals. Was it a smart move? No, it wasn’t. he should tried cutting a little of military funding for medical costs but you are the one lying here.

C. Still taking a potshot and hyperbole seriously huh? Even after you stop giving sources, all but one of your sources actually proves your point while one of them actually proves MY point and you’ve been caught manipulating facts.           

@knightofbalance-13 your ignorance is not just laughable, it’s dangerous. Its because of willfully ignorant people like you that casual and overt homophobia exists to this day. You’re disgusting and pathetic.Â

Which in every source you’ve given has been demonized and looked down upon. It’s the social norm now to look at homophobia and be disgusted. Nowadays, if you say something homophobic, the news will be all over you and you will eb driven away. You’ll be the butt of every late night comedy show. 

And about yur point “How dare you say homophobia does not exist”: I never said that. All I said was: “It’s not as bad as you are making it.” If you take a look at LGBT rights: you’ll see that you’ve gone farther in 52 years than African americasn did in nearly double the tme. Get some god damn perspective, I can feel the collective rage of every person who lived in the time of slavery and Jim Crow.

And you wanna know what doesn’t help? Attacking people for their sexuality, denying people are LGBT or that they count if they don’t agree with you, screeching homophobia at anyone you don’t like and trying to speak over other LGBT people. That’s all shit that forces LGBHT rights BACK and gives homophobes a right to exist. It’s also all shit YOU’VE done and CONTINUE to do. So you ain’t got any right to complain about equal rights when your group is actually AHEAD of the curb and you’re HOLDING THEM BACK because you can’t realize that you are no better than the people you screech at.

Only person here that is ignorant is the one who can’t see their own reflection.

[dracox-serdriel]

Supergirl: Season 3

One of the things I really want for Season 3 of Supergirl is for Lena to become more of an antagonist. Before you freak out, note that I didn’t say VILLAIN.

Under the cut due to length and spoilers for all episodes of Supergirl through 02x22 Nevertheless, She Persisted.

Lillian Luthor has plenty of villain in her for the entire Luthor family. And Season 2 ended not only with Cadmus taking credit for stopping the Daxamite invasion but also Lillian insisting that this incident proved her right. (Let’s skip the fact that the only reason anyone knew about the Daxamite allergy to lead was because Mon-El had been on earth. Let’s also overlook the fact that Supergirl and Mon-El both participated in the resistance, along with J’onn J’onzz, M’gann M’orzz, and countless other White Martians.) Despite the fact that aliens not only helped to protect Earth but also provided the intelligence required to end the invasion, Lillian Luthor will be entering Season 3 with a single thought in her head: not only is she absolutely right about aliens, but the world also knows just how right she is.

So in terms of Luthors being traditional villains of the Super-world, Lillian’s got that bit covered.

No, I said I want Lena to become more of an antagonist. A frenemy, if you will. And not to Supergirl but to Kara.

One of the things that has bothered me so far about this show is that Kara seems to categorized people as “good” or “bad” - occasionally she’ll accept someone’s redemption arc as a kind of gray area, but for the most part, you’re either one or another.

In Season 1, Cat Grant served as a kind of antagonist (frenemy?) to Kara. She wasn’t a villain by any means, but she did challenge Kara’s views both personal and professional. And she didn’t do this by way of supportive pep talks, either. She was harsh and at times hurtful.

In Season 2, Snapper filled a similar roll, pushing Kara to become a better reporter... he ordered her to write a less bias article about L Corp’s new alien-identifier. He also pushed her to prove that she had real facts, real sources when she tried to write an article about Cadmus abducting aliens. It was much harder to see Snapper as someone trying to help Kara, because we the audience know that Kara has the facts right. He doesn’t know she’s Supergirl and doesn’t know that she works with the DEO. He’s asking the question people in the news should be asking - Can you verify your information?

But I felt like last season, most of the conflicts Kara/Supergirl faced could be boiled down to black/white. Yes, there were times when there was a conflict when J’onn was “following orders” or took a path to protect Earth that violated Kara/Supergirl’s code, and there were even times when Alex and Kara couldn’t see eye to eye on things. Winn and James also didn’t agree with her -- for example, on Lena’s innocence.

But in a lot of these situations, everything was boiled down to “right” and “wrong” categories. Winn, James, Alex, and J’onn were all wrong about Lena’s innocence. J’onn was wrong to even consider following the president’s orders of not engaging the Daxamites rather than jumping in to rescue Mon-El.

Sometimes these conflicts didn’t play out directly between Kara and the other characters. Consider how Alex was wrong about aliens at the beginning of Season 2. She mentioned that, when it came to good aliens, she could count them on one hand with two fingers to spare (namely Supergirl, Superman, and J’onn J’onzz). This was before Maggie took her to the Alien Bar -- before she met all the neutral aliens... not to mention the president of the United States being an alien. She was right that she only knew of 3 good aliens, but she was wrong to assume that meant all other aliens were probably bad.

Since most of the characters on the show are aligned with the DEO/Supergirl, it makes sense that they’re all “on the same side” most of the time. But there are times when the DEO and/or Supergirl has it wrong.

In City of the Lost Children, we finally see a real gray area situation. An unknown alien (later identified as a Phorian) goes on a rampage, and naturally, the DEO sees her as a major threat. Despite being discouraged from assisting with the investigation, James looks into it anyway, discovering Marcus (the unknown Phorian’s son) and establishes a rapport with him. The DEO pursues Marcus’s mother as if she is a criminal, when in reality, she was being affected by technology being tested by L Corp.

The problem is that the episode focuses on the DEO’s approach vs. James’ approach. Kara wasn’t really involved in handling the “dangerous Phorian situation” until Marcus was the one affected by the technology--and arguably, it was much easier to observe that he was being affected by something rather than him going on a rampage of his own choosing.

We don’t see Kara’s black/white view really, truly challenged by anyone. Snapper challenges her opinions (especially when it comes to being a reporter, where “opinion” transmutes into “bias” very easily), and J’onn and Alex challenge her idealism from time to time, but... how often does the show give us a conflict where the sides aren’t good/right or bad/wrong? Where nobody is the VILLAIN? Not nearly enough...

So, why Lena, out of everyone else on the show? She’s in a unique position to challenge Kara’s views. They’re close friends, but unlike everyone else on the show, Lena doesn’t work (as in job/occupation) with Kara in any capacity. Lena doesn’t work at CatCo nor does she work with the DEO. Yes, she’s assisted Supergirl (and by logical extension, the DEO) in several situations, but Lena has elected to help -- it’s not her job to do so. Compare this to Winn, Alex, or J’onn. I suppose you could argue that James, Snapper, and Cat Grant are in similar boats, but all of them work (again as in job/occupation) with Kara at CatCo. Their jobs are similar/connected to hers, as are their goals.

Lena, on the other hand, runs a powerful company. We’ve already seen her develop technology, such an “alien identifier,” that Kara clearly disagrees with. And while we know that Kara has her own reasons not to be outed as from another planet, Lena’s reasons for developing the technology are things like, “people have a right to know” and...

“L-Corp is in the business of making money and this device is going to make us a fortune.”

-- Lena, 02x03 Welcome to Earth

While you could try to call Lena a cold-blooded capitalist willing to make a buck at the expense of other people, it’s not nearly that simple. Even Kara admits later that episode that there are “bad aliens out there” and says she understands why Lena made such a device. Her point is proven when Lena uses the device to identify Rhea as non-human. (Too bad it doesn’t have a good/evil detection setting, huh?)

I want to see more of this dynamic, where Lena develops technology Kara disapproves of, and their friendship forces Kara to really consider her own bias in these matters. Kara knows and trusts Lena, and she knows that she’s not Lillian -- she's not anti-alien. If we think of Kara as pro-alien and Lillian as anti-alien, then Lena is squarely in the middle. She’s not anti-alien or blind-sighted by hatred/revenge like Lillian, but she’s also not driven by the DEO’s policies on protecting aliens.

In a world where people can be abducted and sold as slaves on Slaver’s Moon, I think it’s reasonable for people to ask, “How can I protect myself from something like that?” Especially when you consider the fact that the DEO is covert, meaning nobody is supposed to know it exists. And it’s not just aliens in this universe, either. There are other super-human dangers (like metahumans), too. 

Unfortunately, the show has given us the dynamic of “Kara’s pro-alien side” and “those who hate aliens and use fear to justify prejudice/genocide.” You’re either someone who trusts Supergirl will rescue you in the nick of time, or you might as well sign up with Cadmus.

Lena is the only one who stands outside of this paradigm. She’s proven that she isn’t aligned with Cadmus time and time again, but she also isn’t aligned with the DEO. And since she’s friends with Kara, Lena has the ability to get Kara to actually listen to her. To consider things differently.

To be clear, I don’t want Lena to be a villain/enemy. She’s far more interesting as a friend/ally, and she has infinitely more potential as friend/ally-with-different-viewpoints than she ever would as the tired “friend turned enemy” trope. But I want to see her challenge Kara more this coming season.

Addendum: In Supergirl, James has mentioned the fact that Clark saw the good in Lex and that they were friends for a long time... and that Clark refused “to see the truth” for a long time because he and Lex had been friends for so long.

However, in Smallvile (for example), Clark knows that Lex is involved in some pretty sketchy (not just illegal, but human-rights-violations-illegal) crap for years before they have a falling out. LuthorCorp is implicated in a number of things, namely illegal human experimentation. Even though LuthorCorp does a good job covering up evidence/destroying proof, Clark seems all to willing to give Lex a pass on things he can’t blame on rogue agents at LuthorCorp or the mettling of his father, Lionel Luthor -- such as Lex investigating Clark and/or the Kent family more than once.

I don’t want Lena to match this pattern of “bad guy trying to be good despite doing tons of unjustifiably cruel things for no reason other than personal obsession.” If we’re going will Smallville parallels, I’d rather her match Oliver Queen... especially when he first turns up, he as the Green Arrow challenge’s Clark’s view of right and wrong (for example, by stealing goods bought on the black market and using them to fund charitable donations). Despite different methods and ideologies, Oliver and Clark are on the same side.

That’s what I am hoping for Lena/Kara.

[ladyjaneasher-blog]

Wait I'm sorry for being misinformed, but the info about Paul calling Yoko a jap tart is not true? From what i read he sent a letter to john (i think) saying this. So it's not true? (because thank god if it's not true)

it’s okay, anon. let me reiterate: 

the full message – if you believe francie, that is – was “you and your jap tart think you’re hot shit” and the full quote reads:

“John obviously loved Paul enough to let him run wild if it would help ease the tension Paul was creating in the studio and at home. Yoko could see it too.

But Paul was treating them like shit too. He even sent them a hate letter once, unsigned, typed. I brought it in with the morning mail. Paul put most of his fan mail in a big basket and let it sit for weeks, but John and Yoko opened every piece. When they go to the anonymous note, they looked puzzled, looking at each other with genuine pain in their eyes.

‘You and your Jap tart think you’re hot shit’, it said. John put it on the mantle, and in the afternoon, Paul hopped in, prancing much the same self-conscious way he did when we met.

‘Oh I just did that for a lark…’ he said in his most sugar-coated accent.

It was embarrassing. The three of us swiveled around, staring at him. You could see the pain in John. Yoko simply rose above it, feeling only sympathy for John. I was sad to see the Lennons go, even though it took the pressure off of Paul.”

putting aside that you can already read the clear bias between the lines, sometimes in other retellings of the story, it’s said to be a postcard and other times it’s a typewritten message left in an envelope. the discrepancies here alone should tell you something. 

now, where does the claim come from? it comes from an ex-girlfriend of paul’s from the late 60s, who he has parted not on the best terms with: francie schwartz. francie wrote a book about her relationship with paul where francie claims that while john and yoko stayed at cavendish, they received a note saying “you and your jap tart think you’re hot shit”.

why is it bullshit? i have several points to make:

francie schwartz is one of the most unreliable sources in beatles history. ask any beatles researcher worth their salt on their opinion about francie and her book. what’s more important in this particular case: she relies almost exclusively on sensational claims to make her book body count (1972) more palatable and exciting to a general and broad public instead of actual proof. other such claims include paul having been sent love letters from brian; a claim just as insubstantial and without any actual tangible proof. 

first off, to get a more personal picture of francie during the time she wrote and published her book you have to ackowledge her agenda as the scorned ex-lover as is evidenced by the book itself as it displays a great deal of vindictiveness towards paul. read body count and you’ll know what  i mean. it’s absolutely vile in places.

second, the book was published in 1972 – when paul’s critical reputation was possibly at one of its lowest points – and it was published by none other than jann wenner’s rolling stone press, which very obviously chose john’s side in the john versus paul breakup era split and which back in the day had a lot of sway in the music industry. the magazine wasn’t yet the joke it was to become. something else that is interesting and slightly related: jann wenner. paul’s critical acclaim wasn’t at it lowest point because mccartney (the album) was years ahead in its day and the press just didn’t get it, but because wenner directly influenced his reviewers to slam paul for – as wenner saw it – breaking up the beatles. here’s the relevant quote:

“When I became record reviews editor, I made it clear to him after a few months — nobody had done the job before me — that the record review section was an independent republic within the country of Rolling Stone. That meant that nobody else could tell me what to review or what a writer could say. They could argue with me, but ultimately it was my decision. And that worked well. There was one incident where Paul McCartney makes his first solo record and people thought it was wonderful: this rough, homemade one-man-band album. It was accompanied by a press release, a self-interview, about why he no longer needed the Beatles and how little he thought of them … this real obnoxious statement, you know? I assigned it to a friend of mine, Langdon Winner, and Jann saw the piece and said: “We can’t run it this way — he’s just reviewing it as if it’s this nice little record. It’s not just a nice little record, it’s a statement and it’s taking place in a context that we know: it’s one person breaking up the band. This is what needs to be talked about.” I said I didn’t agree and “in any case it’s up to Langdon to say what he wants to say.” Jann said, “We have to talk about this.” So we went to dinner that night and spent three fucking hours arguing about this record review. Finally he convinced me. So I went over to Langdon’s and sat down with him and spent three more hours arguing with him until I convinced him! Now to me this was the essence of great editing, of how you put out a publication that is utterly honest. All that time spent over one 750 word review! And it was worth it.”

—Greil Marcus in conversation with Simon Reynolds,

Los Angeles Review of Books

there are other instances where wenner displays his clear bias against paul, which was especially rampant in the time where paul was hailed as the talentless and flighty hack who did nothing more than book the studio for the beatles and john as the deeply misunderstood true lyrical and musical genius behind the beatles. a narrative that was formed then and persists to this day.

third, a number of writers – including, disappointingly, doggett and carlin – have recounted the “jap tart” episode from paul to john and yoko as fact, but it’s NOT. it’s the unverified retrospective eyewitness testimony years after it happened of a very much biased, secondhand source. we’ve never seen evidence from anyone else that this event occurred. no picture, no copy, nothing. just like any other event francie “remembers”, if i might add. and since other private notes and copies from letters and even journals exist from other and more deeply involved with the beatles people, it is suspicious.

even during “lennon remembers” – also done with involvement from wenner – john himself admits that his examples of the others treating yoko badly in the studio or elsewhere come off as him being paranoid. if he had indeed a clear and very much damning example, such as this “jap tart” postcard or typewritten message or handwritten note, why didn’t he bring it up? or, more glaringly, yoko herself? when discussing why she and john left cavendish in philip norman’s paul bio, she doesn’t mention this incident at all. why didn’t either of them ever bring up this incident in all the years after it supposedly occurred? 

it’s also important to point out that the narrative that paul was an absolute and continuous horror to john and yoko during the let it be era is just that: a narrative. let’s see what yoko has to say:

“After the initial embarrassment, then – um, now Paul is being very nice to me. He’s nice, and a – a very, um, str– on the level, straight sense. Like, um, whenever there’s something happening at Apple, he explains to me, as if I should know, [inaudible] and things like that. And also whenever there’s something like they need a light man or something like that, he asks me if I know of anybody in the art world, and things like that.

And like, um, I can see that he’s just now suddenly changing his attitude, like he’s being – he’s treating me with respect. Not because it’s me – but because I belong to John. I hope that’s what it is, because that would be nice. And I feel like he’s my younger brother or something like that. I’m sure that if he had been a woman or something, he would have been a great threat – because there’s something definitely very strong between John and Paul.

And, um – and probably among those three people of George and Ringo and Paul, Paul is the only one that I can sort of feel the vibration [from]. Like, sort of sense it, you know, that something is among that. ‘Cause Ringo and George, I just can’t communicate. I mean, I’m sure that George and – I’m really sure that they’re both very nice people, but that’s not the point… I think that’s because being, uh, [because of John, Paul, and me] being air signs, like Libra, Gemini, and Aquarius.”

[x]

another point is the nature of the source itself: francie didn’t – at least as far as we know – write any of these instances down, be it in her diary, or even in a letter to her mother, with whom she stayed in contact during that time. all of which would have made the claim more credible, as those would have been never intended for public view and subsequent consumption as her book was. 

she wrote them in her memoir, something she wanted people to buy, and there has been discussion that wenner encouraged her to promote the “sex and dissension” between paul and her and paul and the beatles in her work, because that’s what would sell and ensure publicity. 

lasty, i’ve seen another valid point brought up: linguistics. “hot shit” is something that is more an americanism – francie is american – than something used in the late 60s by someone of liverpool descent.

tl;dr: francie’s claim is unfounded and to this very day has zero (0) proof to it. 

i’ll include another good quote about the issue under a read more should you be interested.

While Erin toils in academia with an unusually heavy workload, I thought I would share another unpublished excerpt from The Historian And The Beatles regarding this now infamous statement attributed to Paul by his erstwhile lover, Francie Schwartz:

One example of Doggett’s occasional acceptance of unverified testimony as fact is his use of Francie Schwartz’s claim that the reason Lennon and Ono left McCartney’s London house (where they were temporarily staying) in Summer 1968 is because McCartney left the couple a postcard with the words “You and Your Jap Tart Think You’re Hot Shit” on it. Schwartz, McCartney’s girlfriend at the time, is the only source for this scene, (Body Count, 220) which, Doggett argues in both You Never Give Me Your Money and in a later interview with Oomska, initiated an irreparable wedge between Lennon and McCartney.

However, neither Lennon nor Ono ever mentioned this incident, even during Lennon Remembers, in which Lennon accuses the other Beatles of seriously mistreating Ono but also acknowledges that their offered examples of mistreatment are unconvincing: “Even when it’s written down, it’ll just look like I’m paranoid.” (Lennon Remembers, 44) Given that Schwartz portrays this incident as an extremely painful moment in Lennon’s relationship with McCartney, and that it directly led to Lennon and Ono departing Cavendish, it would presumably have been, for both Lennon and Ono, a particularly memorable moment. More, describing this incident would have heavily reinforced Lennon’s Lennon Remembers interview agenda to portray himself and Ono as victims of McCartney and the other Beatles. His failure to remember and recount the incident in this particular instance casts suspicions on the accuracy of Schwartz’s account.

While Garraghan declares that “the testimony of a single witness whose competence in every respect is above suspicion may be accepted as true,” (Garraghan, A Guide to Historical Method, 244) Schwartz does not qualify as a competent witness. Her brief relationship with McCartney ended badly when he told her to move out and Schwartz quickly sold articles about her time with McCartney to Rolling Stone and later produced a book, Body Count, in which Schwartz details the postcard scene. The Beatles Bibliography (which repeatedly discredits those pro-Lennon sources promoting the “Lennon Remembers” and Shout! versions of Beatles history) describes Body Count as “a travesty of a memoir,” in part because of its “self-serving and non-reflexive tone.” In credibility terms, Schwartz’s unverified eyewitness testimony is equal to that of the Apple Scruff claiming that Lennon once attempted to hit a pregnant Linda McCartney. While both Schwartz and the Apple Scruff’s claims are generally reinforced by circumstantial evidence (Schwartz by Beatles insider Derek Taylor’s claims that McCartney was sending him anonymous but ominous postcards in that same time period, the Scruff’s by Lennon’s admitted acts of occasional violence against women) Beatles writers who recount both scenes should explain that they are unverified testimony presented by an unreliable source.

Anyone still questioning whether Francie Schwartz is being truthful about the “jap tart” comment need only consider the point which Erin makes here: that J&Y would have been been screaming about this to the press to bolster their position that the rest of the band mistreated them/Yoko, had it been true.  I would also add that the vernacular–calling something or someone “hot shit”– sounds far more American than late 60’s British.  I think Schwartz gave herself away with that one.

I’m shocked that Doggett didn’t come up with those same, very simple observations.

What say ye, commentators?

(source)

i’ve also incorporated a lot of the points from the beatlesbible here.

[chocolate-brownies]

Let’s try a little experiment. Using your right index finger, point to your brain. Now using the same finger, point to your mind. Not so easy. We don’t necessarily think of our brain and mind as being exactly the same thing. One is not as easy to pinpoint, and this has led to two distinct ways we have of talking about mental activity: mind talk and brain talk.

To those of us without a degree in neurobiology, it seems completely natural to refer to the mind. We talk about feeling this way and thinking of that, of remembering one thing and dreaming of another. Those verbs are examples of mind talk. Using mind talk, we would say, “I recognized my first-grade teacher in the crowd because she was wearing the necklace with the beetle scarab, which was so unusual I still remembered it after all these years.”

We would not say, “A barrage of photons landed on my retina, exciting the optic nerve so that it carried an electrical signal to my lateral geniculate body and thence to my primary visual cortex, from which signals raced to my striate cortex to determine the image’s color and orientation, and to my prefrontal cortex and inferotemporal cortex for object recognition and memory retrieval—causing me to recognize Mrs. McKelvey.”

That’s brain talk. That there is an interplay between mind and brain may seem unremarkable. The mind, after all, is generally regarded as synonymous with our thoughts, feelings, memories, and beliefs, and as the source of our behaviors. It’s not made of material, but we think of it as quite powerful, or even as who we are.

The mind, after all, is generally regarded as synonymous with our thoughts, feelings, memories, and beliefs, and as the source of our behaviors. It’s not made of material, but we think of it as quite powerful, or even as who we are.

The brain, the three-pound slab of tofu-textured tissue inside our skull, is recognized (by scientists, at least) as the physical source of all that we call mind. If you are having a thought or experiencing an emotion, it’s because your brain has done something—specifically, electrical signals crackled along a whole bunch of neurons and those neurons handed off droplets of neurochemicals, like runners handing off a baton in a relay race.

Neuroscientists don’t object to mind talk for casual conversation. But most insist that we not invoke the mind as if it is real, or distinct from the brain. They reject the notion that the mind has an existence independent of the brain (often called Cartesian dualism, after René Descartes of “I think, therefore I am” fame). Obviously, avoiding mind talk would be a problem for a column about the science of the mind in a magazine called Mindful.

I fell afoul of the no-mind rule last year during a talk I gave in Salt Lake City on neuroplasticity—the ability of the adult brain to change its structure and function in response to outside stimuli as well as internal activity. I was talking about mind changing brain, a possibility that intrigues scientists who have investigated the power and effects of mental training, including mindfulness. I used examples such as people with obsessive-compulsive disorder practicing mindfulness to approach their thoughts differently, with the result that the brain region whose overactivity caused their disorder quieted down. Ta da: mind changing brain.

Not so fast, said one audience member. Why talk about something so imprecise, even spooky, as mind? Why can’t the explanation for the OCD patients be that one form of brain activity (that taking place during mindfulness) affected another (the OCD-causing activity)? Why do we need mind talk?

Well, we need mind talk because although most neuroscientists reject the idea of a mind different from brain, most civilians embrace the distinction. This competing view of things gets expressed in the real world in stark and startling ways. Take, for example, how the mind-brain dichotomy can play out in the criminal justice system. Neuroscience holds that the brain is the organ of the mind. If something goes wrong with behavior, then it’s because something has gone wrong with the brain (in the same way that if something has gone wrong with, say, insulin secretion, it’s because something has gone wrong with the pancreas). We can probably all agree that criminal assault and downloading child pornography both count as something “going wrong” with behavior. Yet in these and other cases, judges presented with evidence that the behavior had a biological basis have meted out more lenient sentences than in cases where no such evidence was presented.

To which neuroscientists reply, are you out of your mind? Why are you relying on such a distinction? What else is behavior but the result of brain biology? Yet the fact that criminals are treated more harshly if their mind (motives, anger, antisocial feelings…) made them do it than if their brain (aberrant activity patterns, pathological circuitry…) did shows just how deeply average folks believe that mind and brain are distinct.

This dualism gets at a profound philosophical issue that has divided scholars for decades: what is the most productive and helpful level of explanation for mental activity? When do we go too far in reducing mental matters to physically observable activity? Is it more illuminating, for instance, to explain why Teresa loves Dave by invoking their personalities and histories and tastes, or their brain neurons? Consider trying to explain confirmation bias, in which people remember examples that support their point of view—“You never take out the garbage!”—and forget counterexamples. Is it more illuminating to explain it as the result of the human need to shore up our beliefs or by invoking synapses and neurochemicals?

One case for mind talk is that we have access to our mind. We can recognize and describe what we know, remember, and think. We do not have access to our brain: we cannot tell which regions (my hippocampus? my anterior cingulate?) are active during particular activities.

One case for mind talk is that we have access to our mind. We can recognize and describe what we know, remember, and think.

But many neuroscientists say mind talk is just hand waving. As a result, you can hardly call yourself a psychologist or neuroscientist (cognitive, affective, social, or otherwise) unless your research uses brain imaging. In a 2012 study, researchers performed fMRI scans on volunteers playing a made-up game in which they had to decide how much money (given to them by the scientists) they wanted to share with others—a test of their altruism. (fMRI pinpoints areas of the brain that are more active, or less, than the baseline during a particular mental function.) The researchers found that a region involved in perspective taking—allowing us to put ourselves in other people’s shoes—is more active in the most altruistic individuals.

I don’t know about you, but learning that people who are good at understanding things from someone else’s perspective tend to be more altruistic doesn’t tell me much about altruism that I didn’t already suspect. I mean, did anyone think altruistic people would turn out to be bad at perspective taking?

The mind–brain debate is not about to go away anytime soon, so in this column I will be keeping an eye on the dialogue between brain talkers and mind talkers and to keep exploring what the latest science has to teach us about our minds and our brains. For example, can brain biology alone “define, predict, or explain the emergence of mental phenomena,” as Alan Wallace, a pioneer in the scientific study of the effects of meditation on cognition, behavior, and physiology, has asked? What kind of scientists are willing to talk about mind, and to what extent? What qualifies as “proof” that a practice like mindfulness is improving our lives? Are scientists finding ways to make mind talk like “thought” and “emotion” more rigorous, so we don’t have to be embarrassed around them when we talk that way? And above all, how can what scientists are learning about both mind and brain help us make our way a little better in a challenging world with the tools we have available, whatever names we choose to call them?

How the Brain Changes When We Practice Knowing Our Minds

The Magnificent, Mysterious, Wild, Connected and Interconnected Brain

The post Mind Vs. Brain appeared first on Mindful.

[phaylenfairchild]

It’s Time To Start Holding Cis-Exclusive Society Responsible for Trans Mental Illness and Death

I get so tired of hearing the excuses that are made on behalf of Cisnormative society when it comes to the slow emotional and psychological destruction of Transgender and gender diverse people.

Some of us have become hardened and desensitized to the dehumanization slung our way every single day. Many of us have, through our journey of inhabiting our own skin, have lost family, friends, even jobs. On a broader scale, we’ve had to sit back and bare witness to our own public humiliation from behind pulpits of faith, exploited and dragged through the mud by the media and had our right to use a bathroom debated by politicians with religious or hate driven bias.

Every. Single. Day.

We turn to social media and the headlines glaring back at us “10th Transperson Murdered.” We don’t know how high that number will be by the end of the year. They reset their counter every 12 months like they get a do-over. We don’t know if we’ll be, you or I, one of those numbers.

The media doesn’t really invest much reporting in Trans+ suicide anymore. It’s far too common. There are some statistics reported, mostly regarding youth, but they’re absolutely terrifying…

Source: Telethon Kids Institute Get the data Embed

Those who rail against Trans+ individuals take great pride in their privilege- and their position to tell you, a Transperson, how abnormal you are. What is abnormal, however, is that nearly 80% of Trans or gender variant youth are harming themselves with almost 50% attempting suicide. We as Trans people are not startlingly unusual… these statistics are.

But, one can certainly see how we got here. It isn’t just youth being overwhelmed by government administrations trying to invalidate their existence or evangelists and talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Mark Levin who collectively have millions of listeners daily calling us pedophiles and accusing us of being “The downfall of moral society.” We’re predatory “Men in dresses” threatening the safety of their wives and pedophiles peeping at their daughters in public bathrooms.

The onslaught of aggressive attacks and lies manifested to justify their fear and hatred of Trans+ people are relentless. It is also packaged to campaign and convince others that what they say we are is who we are. They indoctrinate their listeners into the belief. We live in fear of people believing that and because we hear it every day, they hear it every day also and eventually, tragically, they will start to conform to that same hateful stance… and be recruited into the growing army poised to remove us from society.

And now they post data showing that our youth is killing themselves, suffering from a menagerie of mental illnesses that are impairing us from functioning in society, in jobs, in schools or colleges, in social situations… outside the safety our home.

I was removed from public school in the 7th grade at the suggestion of my middle school principal who told my Mother “We can no longer guarantee his safety.” I had been sprayed in the face with mace, beaten in the bathroom stall, pushed from a second floor window, slapped in the face. School was not a learning experience for me. Every day I went to be tortured. Then, from the ages of 14–19 I lived as an agoraphobic, refusing to leave my house for fear of my safety. Whether it was irrational or real, my mind had existed in that place of constant threat for so long that I could no longer differentiate where I was safe and where I was not, thus, I shut myself into the only place I could find comfort in. My bedroom.

There were no studies back then in the late 90’s. There was no Trans education or resources available. You simply suffered as a consequence of your experience. You either survived, or you didn’t. They weren’t counting our numbers, be it murder or suicide, back then.

Cisgender Society has sat complicit in our abuse and subsequent deaths for many, many years now. It has taken great sacrifice to get where we are, and the cost has been hundreds of thousands of lives in the last 30 years, many by their own hand. As we died, people with massive platforms persisted, be it from senate floors, televised or talk-radio platforms or megachurches spewed their venom and spread their hate until it became our terminal cancer.

Many of us were young then, and while attention to the damage being incurred upon youth today is vital, it is equally important for CISgender society to recognize what they did to us… when we were young. Before we could tell our stories. There are generations of us suffering the emotional and psychological consequences of systematic, sanctioned abuse and neglect today. Claiming ignorance is not an acceptable excuse. Bottom line: It was inhumane, and the effects of it haunt many of us to this day. Pretending to care about Trans children while still doing nothing to prevent them from meeting the same fate Trans adults have is not only insulting, but negligent… because no one is making it stop.

In the United Kingdom, hate speech is illegal. There are no Rush Limbaughs or Mark Levins given nationally recognized platforms. In fact, unbiased reporting or inciting hate toward a minority is a punishable offense. Surprised? So was I. Right wing conservative, Katie Hopkins was fired from her job as host of her own talk radio show because she incited a broad spectrum of hate toward everyone from trans women to muslims. She picked up a new job writing a column for a syndicated newspaper, and was subsequently fired again. Most recently, while filming a documentary demonizing black people in South Africa, she was banned from the country, by the government, for spreading racial hatred.

In politics, leaders of the conservative party Britain First (Their equivalent of Trump Supporters) were jailed for hate crimes. One of those crimes was promoting intolerance towards immigrants and Muslims via social media- which Donald Trump retweeted. Britain protects it’s citizens from the damage done by extremists to diversity. America condones it.

We are the proof. Both living, and dead.

And we feel helpless to stop it. Cisgender society covets the opportunity to point out how small our demographic is. Recently, someone said to me, “You’re 0.2 of the population, what are you gunna do about it?” It implies that if anything is to be done, they must be the ones to do it. Sort of like an able bodied person carrying a wheelchair bound person across a river. They know they have more influence, louder voices, and in some small pockets they use it where they can, but the vast majority stay quiet. Our trials do not involve them. If they’re not hurt by our injustices, they stay silent. After all, our President isn’t standing along people at a conservative convention who think they should be executed. Jokes at our expense are for their entertainment. They revel in their “Normalcy” without ever stopping to think about how it’s not normal to stand by idly and watch people be emotionally tortured and reduced to nothing.

As many know, within our vulnerable numbers, Trans women of color are the most in danger. When you couple racisim with transphobia, that equates a literal death sentence for them. In nearly every murder of a transgender woman, all of which have been hate-motivated killings, the victim has been a woman of color. The people who stand by and say nothing are just as guilty as the ones who pulled the trigger, put their arms around her throat, set her on fire or had sex with her and then beat her to death.

I remember, vividly, being taught about slavery in grade school. The concept of it shook me to my core. We were shown images of Black men put on platforms, with their hands tied behind their back as they were auctioned off. In the background of these photos were women with bags of groceries, or a man on a horse riding by, or a man entering a bank building in the background. How did no one see this? How, in the mind and soul of any sane, morally grounded human being could that have been a happening you just walk by, seemingly unfazed? It is beyond my comprehension. Don’t tell me it “was just the times people lived in” or “we just didn’t know any better.”

WRONG.

You don’t need to ask a magic eight ball as a sentient being to know when it is appropriate to express compassion, sympathy or be motivated to intervene to save a life. As I looked at all those people in the backgrounds of these photos, I studied the backs of their heads, those indifferent people passing by, unaware they were even being photographed, and now, etched in old Polaroids tinged orange with age and I thought, “Guilty… guilty… guilty…”

Today, I feel the same way about my silent allies who demonstrate the same indifference. The ones who tell us that we’re problematic if we fight back or causing too much conflict for their comfort if we fight against a majority where we’re already losing. Instead of standing with us, they stay seated, silent, and urge us to do the same.

That expectation is erasing us.

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[meggannn]

here’s some post-eye for an eye that i’m never gonna finish (1.5k)

I wrote this a few weeks ago and thought I could work it into a larger fic, but that flopped and I don’t really know where this scene is going anyway, so I think I’ll just drop it. I figured I could share it here anyway.

preview:

“And what, exactly, did that piece of filth say to change your mind?” Garrus snarls. He feels full to bursting with some unnamed energy and stalks the length of the corridor in two long strides.

Shepard is still staring at him, so infuriatingly calm. “You heard exactly what he said. If you still think I blocked your shot out of a kindness for him, then you haven’t been paying attention.”

–

Garrus storms into the battery, jams the lock, and activates the privacy shields. He narrowly avoids driving his fist into the wall, but – after a split-second of consideration – doesn’t feel assured he wouldn’t break a bone against Cerberus’s bloody top-of-the-line warship. Instead, he slams his hands against the console, ignoring the flashing lights as the screen awakens from sleep, grips the edges, and sighs.

What the hell had she been thinking?

The thing that gets him – the thing that bloody gets him is that it had come down to the line, to the second he’d seen the pinpricks of his dark eyes, a single trigger keeping him from putting the ghosts of his team to rest –

No. Suddenly there was Shepard, too, and she was harder to budge than his own conscience.

Even in his own mind, he struggles to find the line between the commander, the friend he knows her to be, and the help – the accomplice he nearly made of her. He knows that Shepard has always, always trusted the evidence and her gut in tandem. And the facts are that he asked her to take him at his word, without proof. The detective in him knows it isn’t for lack of trust that drove her to step into his shot, it was out of necessity: to question the suspect personally, to hear it straight from the source without bias or filter. Knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.

If he asked her why, Shepard would certainly explain. She would spin him some bullshit about taking the high road, or about revenge not being the answer. What he’s worried of, what he’s terrified of, is that she would explain, and he would let her, and that she would convince him it was for the best. He didn’t want to be convinced – he wanted to be right on his own terms, he wanted her help with this one fucking thing –

A faint beep from the other side of the door snaps him back into the present.

“Override,” comes Shepard’s voice from the other side. A swish of the lock and a rush of air at his back.

Garrus clenches his teeth.

There’s a tense sort of silence for – he counts – about a minute and a half. She cracks first.

“It wasn’t because I didn’t trust you,” she says finally.

“Shepard – ” He pushes off the console and turns around. He vaguely registers that the door is closed again behind her; good. No reason for any of the crew to hear this. “Don’t feed me any crap on revenge getting the better of me. You waited until the moment I had him in my scope to toss it all out the window to satisfy your conscience. I asked you for help. You agreed.”

Even as he says it, he knows it’s not entirely fair. She hadn’t kept her disapproval secret; it had weighed on him through the scuffles in the warehouse, like a weight around his neck, knowing this was his mission and Shepard had disapproved – and he can’t rightfully claim he had given her room to argue her case.

“I didn’t wake up this morning planning on putting myself in between a sniper and his target,” Shepard snaps back. She scrubs a hand over her face; Garrus has the presence of mind enough to notice she looks exhausted, like she’s been wrestling with the decision herself. “It happened in the moment. I stood there. I listened. I’d heard the story from you, but I needed to hear it from him.”

“And what, exactly, did that piece of filth say to change your mind?” Garrus snarls. He feels full to bursting with some unnamed energy and stalks the length of the corridor in two quick strides.

Shepard is still staring at him, so infuriatingly calm, but now he finds a harder edge to her voice. “You heard exactly what he said. If you still think I blocked your shot out of a kindness for him, then you haven’t been paying attention.”

“Right,” he spits, and he needs to nip this pseudo-moral bullshit at the root before the conversation gets sanctimonious again. “It was for my benefit. That explains why I feel so much better, you know, now that he’s still alive.”

“Cut the sarcasm,” she barks, sounding every inch the hardened commander of the most advanced warship in the galaxy. “You know why I didn’t move. The galaxy wouldn’t have lost a decent man if you’d pulled the trigger.” She pauses for a moment, assess him, and something goes cold in his chest as he wonders if she finds what she sees lacking. “Then again, maybe it would have.”

He takes a step closer to her. He didn’t intend the move to be intimidating, but he realizes just how much he towers over her in this moment, with his neck bent down. Her eyes close, in a tense sort of irritation. “I’ve killed before, Commander,” he says, not aggressively. “We wiped out a few dozen mercenaries between the two of us just today. And you draw the line at a degenerate prick that cost my men and half my face?”

“To tell you the truth.” Her shoulders lower; she runs fingers through her hair and huffs in a sort of half-hearted sigh, “I’m still not entirely sure I do, Garrus.”

“Do not,” he says lowly, “tell me you’re regretting it.”

Shepard drops her hand and stares at him. He’s never seen her attention fixed on him with such hard, determined purpose. It’s the look she normally gives mercenaries they’re shaking for information, criminals they’re convincing. Something about it makes clench his jaw further, some unbelievable pool of shame and anger mixing equally in his chest.

“Vakarian,” she says his name slowly. “I could give you a laundry list of reasons why you shouldn’t have committed cold-blooded murder in the middle of a public square on one of the most heavily-monitored stations in the galaxy.” Shepard stares at him, all five feet of her, and despite himself he feels like a fresh recruit again, fifteen years of age with markings fresh-painted across his face, staring up at a livid drill sergeant. “But I’m not interested in fighting with a wall. Come talk to me when you know who you’re really angry at.”

She turns and moves to open the door.

“I took him on my team,” Garrus growls. “I put my faith in that asshole. He let me down. He let his team down. It cost their lives.”

“You imagine you’re the only one who’s been betrayed in the galaxy?” Shepard looks at him over her shoulder but doesn’t turn around. “The only one who’s seen their entire team dead on a commanding officer’s mistake?”

Garrus has a flash of remembrance that Shepard has seen two of her crews slaughtered; once at Akuze, and again over the blistering snow and wind of Alchera. He grapples with another sinking feeling at the knowledge that she is heading a team through the Omega-4 relay against odds so impossible that most of the ground team had taken to jokingly calling it a “suicide mission.” Garrus has used the phrase himself more than once in conversation with the crew, in that half-serious tone he seems to have adopted after Omega when joking about the probability of his own demise.

Looking at the mission’s leading officer now, it suddenly doesn’t seem so amusing.

“You know it’s not the same,” he says around a dry mouth.

“No, it’s not,” she sighs and rests her forearm against the door, forehead leaning against her wrist. “…And if my CO on Akuze had survived, I can’t promise I wouldn’t’ve wanted to put a bullet in his head myself.”

“Then why, Shepard?” He’s tired of arguing. The burst of adrenaline from earlier is gone, anger fading into the kind of bone-weary exhaustion that he’s only known to follow a failed mission. He can’t help but think that is exactly what this is, the disconcerting feeling that the justice hasn’t been seen to, that the responsible party got away, and it stings something else in him that he’s feeling it with Shepard for the first time.

Some tension in her body seems to evaporate. Shepard looks up at him. “I don’t know, Garrus,” she says. “You tell me.”

And that’s the part he can’t understand, and he hates himself for not understanding.

Shepard had stood aside, in that last second. It hadn’t been an accident. The gap between her skull and Sidonis’s had extended about a meter. Garrus is a good enough sniper that Lantar’s brains would have smeared the floor without Shepard feeling the whistle of the bullet pass by her forehead. She’d said her piece, woven her magic, and then stepped aside, and damn her for making him feel guilty in that moment for wanting what he’d needed. What closure could come from letting him go? What benefit could come from letting a murderer, a betrayer free to roam the galaxy? What good could it do his own conscience?

And yet –

He could’ve pulled the trigger anyway, and he didn’t.

He could’ve moved position. He didn’t.

“Go. Just – tell him to get the hell out of here.”

Fuck it. Just – fuck.