#Which is why he has that confused and polarized morality

[deviant-writes]

How did Noé sexually assault Mikhail? I thought Mikhail threatened to kill Dominique if he didn't bite him which seems pretty nonconsensual the Other way to me but is there a different scene you're talking about?

i’ll be real i did expect hello charlotte to be pulled on me but regardless. i do understand noé feels no *desire* towards children but the majority of the characters who commit acts of sexual violence don’t feel attraction for their victims, but they are still portrayed as vile for it, and noé feels really exempt from this? for example, i sincerely doubt ruthven is attracted to jeanne, but he is still portrayed as despicable for sexually abusing her. similarly, i doubt luna felt such inclinations towards their children, or even had any desire to hurt them, but i have no choice but to call them a pedophile seeing as they definitely sexually abused both vanitas and mikhail. i get the feeling that the author is concerned that fans may dislike noé, and is just running herself frantic telling us he is a nice person. which i don’t really think is a cause of concern since i’m pretty sure people love vanitas despite what he’s done. i guess i’m just not a fan of how the story is handling noé.

I think this is all a very reasonable response to the story and the way it's presented and I in large part agree. The last few chapters especially have, I think, been pretty odd and tonally discordant with the series as a whole. I have a few ideas as to why this might be (including that the author... is evidently having some personal issues right now) but for now I'm treating what has been presented recently in good faith and assuming the story will generally continue with its established themes.

All that being said, I think a very important thing you're missing in this analysis is that Noé is the narrator. Every moral judgement made explicitly by the narrative is, in fact, Noé's judgement, and the thing that makes Noé interesting to me is how effectively this fact is erased, despite his being the narrator having been explicit since the first chapter and repeatedly brought to attention since.

You're in fact completely correct that the story exhibits a lot of inconsistencies in its moral judgement specifically when it comes to Noé; it's also made clear that Noé is an unreliable narrator and extremely inconsistent in his moral judgement. In a particularly obvious example, the chapter immediately prior to VnC's year long hiatus has Noé dismiss his own sexual assault on the basis that Chloé and Jean Jacques are "nice people," which multiple characters immediately acknowledge as disturbing.

The arc in which Noé assaults Misha is by far most overt about emphasizing that Noé is both morally inconsistent and an unreliable narrator. The arc is framed by Domi's account of Louis's death and how it differs drastically from that which Noé previously gave, and its conflict, in contrast to previous arcs, mostly relies on Noé's failures to appreciate his relationships and the effects he has on others. He loves Domi, but is ignorant to the abuse she faces and her feelings toward suicide. He's obsessed with Vanitas, but as repeatedly pointed out, he knows almost nothing of substance about him, and is particularly blind to Vanitas' feelings towards him. In this arc, Noé (who is being presented as 'neutral' narration) contradicts his own account of his first meeting with Vanitas, then acknowledges that he ignored his own capacity to cause Vanitas harm. In this arc, a third party explicitly states that Noé's capacity for violence stems mostly from Noé's self-assurance when it comes to his own morality; Noé understands himself as a good person with strong principles, and so Noé assumes any action he perpetuates is morally righteous or at least neutral, regardless of its effective violence. I do not think it was an accident that all of this happened in the same arc!

I think it's also important to point out that all of this is a very long time coming in terms of Noé's character development. Noé's driving conflict as a character is mostly that he is very principled and very strong willed, but that these principles were developed were developed in effective isolation, and quickly break down when applied in real moral quandaries. Noé is a very good person in the abstract (he clearly has a real understanding of sexual consent, unlike Vanitas and Jeanne!) but has no way of resolving moral problems in material conditions. Thus when he is sexually assaulted during the Gévaudan arc he makes no effort to actually morally analyze this, regarding Chloé and Jean Jacques not as generally well intentioned people who are nonetheless clearly capable of great harm, but instead ontologically Good People, and thus not real perpetrators of sexual assault, even when Noé was perfectly willing to acknowledge their actions as such before getting to know them. Similarly, when Noé struggles in his conflict with Astolfo on the basis that the latter is the child, Vanitas' assurances during the conflict are evidently taken not with respect to the actual conditions, but as an assurance that Astolfo has been removed from an ontological Good category but is now Deserving Of Violence. Noé is incredibly distressed at the idea of hurting Astolfo until he is given permission to ignore the conditions of their fight, at which point he attacks Astolfo with near-lethal force and does no further moral reflection on the matter! And while we are led to believe that in Astolfo's case this force was necessary, it's still, in my opinion important to acknowledge that Noé's conflict with Misha was immediately preceded with Noé being told that he is "allowed" to commit violence against children.

All that being said, I do understand if you think that Noé's behavior surrounding Astolfo does not necessarily precipitate his behavior surrounding Misha, and I do agree that it is a severe escalation. I think another important factor to bring up when I say that Noé's apparent moral degeneration has been very heavily foreshadowed is that Noé is a very clear foil to Ruthven who, as you point out, is clearly morally condemned by the story as a rapist. There honestly isn't much to analyze on this one, it's just kind of true! Specifically, Noé is shown to have the same or very similar ideals to that of Ruthven in his youth, and it's strongly implied that Ruthven's assault of Noé immediately prior to the Gévaudan arc was in some way instigated by Ruthven recognizing Noé as very similar to himself. It's not hard to see what is being foreshadowed in comparing Noé, a scholarly, intellectual idealist whose conflict centers on his attempts to apply his ideals to the real world to Ruthven, a former idealist intellectual-activist who grows into a violent and cynical politician after years of disgrace. Take this also with Ruthven's assault of Chloé and Jeanne, then with Vanitas as foil to Astolfo and Misha, and Noé's patterns of violence begin to strongly cohere.

Sort of the nail in the coffin, however, is evident from the conceit of the story itself: Vanitas' motivation throughout the entirety of the story has been to die and disappear. He wants to hide his past trauma and especially that related to Luna (which, we agree, is that he had been sexually abused by his adoptive parent) and is apparently so scared of having this being revealed that he attempts to kill Noé and risks his own life in his efforts to conceal it.

And we fucking know that Luna raped Vanitas, because Noé killed him then made the fucking Case Study of Vanitas!!!!!!!!!!

[verdemoun]

Hiii I wanted to ask what you think happens to Micah in the timewarp au cause modern Micah is such an enigma and it's so funny to me. Do you think he's coping well with modern times? Or does he just respawn and immediately tries robbing a mc Donald's or smth. Could def see him doing Florida man throwing an alligator through a Wendy's window type shit or just being the Wendy's employee getting the alligator thrown at him.

Also speaking of Florida man do you have an idea of what state they live in currently in modern au? (I love hearing peoples takes on where in America they think rdr takes place, especially when they're talking about where they'd be in a modern au)

i am so conflicted because like. gang with memories and knowledge of what happens in the future.

arthur wants to kill micah. yes he's been thriving and has a happy life with hosea and bessie and the boys and being a part of isaac's modern life but imagine the guilt he would feel knowing he was dying anyway but if he'd killed micah in 1899 it would've literally saved lives and it might have meant the bureau never went after john in 1911. the absolute arthur 'blames himself for everything that ever happened' morgan would consider himself personally responsible for every life micah took/destroyed post 1899. and arthur has 8 years to plan. 8 years.

but i did let dutch live so why not micah. gotta give rat bastard man a of love

micah respawned in a denny's parking lot to the sight of arthur morgan with a baseball bat. no context. no understanding what's happening. it's late evening. there's street lights and neon signs and who fucking cares they immediately pick up where they left off in 1899 which is beating the living shit out of one another.

cut to them both bloody and bruised in holding cells at the local jail still hurling insults at each other while hosea is just standing there wondering what the actual hell he is meant to do.

said incident immediately landed micah on a list of people not allowed to be sold guns and it is like neutering a feral dog. the first time micah cries in his life is at a walmart being told he isn't able to buy a gun. even if the gang want nothing to do with him like they are getting a phone call sorry to interrupt your evening sir but there's an adult man throwing a tantrum on the floor

the gang are forced to admit it isn't morally correct to a) let micah loose unsupervised in modern era or b) leave him to fend for himself and die. micah ends up living in a trailer park. he embraces redneck culture. he eats so much fast food the servers will call for a welfare check if they haven't seen him in more than three days. he gets a job at a paintball center because damnit if he can't have a gun he will have gun-adjacent. he is the conservative dad-bod southern hick hero of teenage boys everywhere

what's really funny is isaac morgan's best friend (other than jack, obviously) is malachi bell who is a direct descendant of amos bell. because he has known isaac since elementary school: and young isaac did not understand his experiences of being murdered and reawakening in modern era were not universal: kai is fully aware of how the timewarp works ie sometimes he goes with isaac to visit grandpop hosea and there will be a very confused freshly warped outlaw sitting on the couch. the fucking phone call of 'hey remember how my family was super weird around you at the start because you look scarily like your grand uncle who kind of killed my dad and was murdered by my uncle GUESS WHO JUST TURNED UP'

micah is the best terrible uncle a kid could ask for and is honestly super attached to kai even though kai is his polar opposite in every way out of spite. kai goes to micah's trailer for dinner. says he's vegetarian. goes again and micah went through the effort of getting tofu. says he's allergic to soy. inherited all the bell snark and none of the tendency towards evil

micah and arthur in a fistfight at a barbeque while kai and isaac are both just standing there 'i'm sorry about my family'

an underappreciated micah fact is how much he cared about baylock. he would get the exact same level of giddy as the rest of the gang being around horses in modern era. while living in a trailer is not ideal for having a horse he does have a massive black 'looks like he could kill you but is actually a giant cuddle bear' bully-breed dog because as much as he was afraid of dogs (fight me) he is actually more afraid of being alone. his dog eats at the table with him. micah eats mcdonalds while his dog gets lovingly pan-seared steak.

his dog is a kill-shelter rescue named baymax and micah has no idea about disney movies and doesn't understand why people giggle at the name.

to the second point i am not american and have no idea wheeze but i think texas?? texas is where most people seem to think new austin is based on?? in rdr terms they're probably on the northern side of modern day blackwater like there's the bay to the east, mountains to the north and desert to the west. pls if there are any americans what fast food place would micah bell III dedicate his life to and what state should they be in

[missadmyre]

Sorry for the slightly stupid question, but could you explain to me the concept of MoV in general terms (no art part, just text)? In order for me to have more specific questions, of course...

I see that this AU is significantly different from MIS, and I want to get rid of the feeling that I don't know/understand something when I see your work in the list of works for this tag. This feeling... confuses me.

If you have any deep psychoanalytic thoughts about MoV, feel free to share them. I love this <3

Oof, deep psychoanalytical thoughts huh...

I do have thoughts about how complicated both First and Chase's relationship would be, especially with their clashing ideals, just can't explain it with simple words.

Imma try to explain it though, but beware, it might cause more confusion since I'm not really a native English speaker.

By concept, you mean how MOV au works or started as a whole? Imma roll back to the start of this au and then we delve on what specific details this au has on both First and Chase (both the obvious ones and the ones I still haven't discussed about).

STARTING DETAILS (BACKSTORY) OF THIS AU - First and Chase first met during 1213, after First had trapped the Sorcerer.

- Chase purposefully planned this meeting for fact that he knew what First is capable of after getting the knews from one of his fallen warriors

- First is absolutely confused at the creepy guy that keeps disturbing him when doing work, he tries to shoo Chase off while Chase tried to offer mortal greed to him

- Chase then knew that normal methods of convincing wouldn't work so why not get the Ninja to join him through competitiveness, aka battles.

- which escalated to when Chase had messed with First's villagers, which pissed him off, causing a fight and a deal to not mess with the villagers but not including him.

- ofc, Chase would be intrigued since this is a guy that can go toe-to-toe with him, which is special bc Chase had lived for 200 years and had lots of experience yet somehow a mortal can equate him in a fight?

- as playful teasing and sparring with sexual tension began to earn meanings, they both started to be conscious about the feelings they harbored towards each other, they both find ways to justify that it is NOT what they think it is.

Now, here's the part where I just really don't know how to translate into text, so bare with me with my explanations.

- See, they both know they are in love with each other BUT they are afraid of changing themselves just to be able to love each other.

For First, he's afraid he has to change his morals, his beliefs, everything he stands for, just to believe in Chase, to think it's okay to love Chase for what he is, actually evil with no way of changing. It feels as though he is staining the family name, the Norisu Clan, as he has fallen in love with a man who is the polar opposite of what he stands for, he feels guilty about it.

For Chase, he's afraid because then he would have to change to be able to fit into First's ideals, to be good, just so the man couldn't leave him. He's scared of attachments because he doesn't know if he can let go of said attachment without it being seen as an obvious weakness, a vulnerability. He has been manipulated once when Roy Bean had offered him to drink the Lao Mang Lone soup because of his attachment to power.

Yes, power, even if lost, can be regained once more with time, but what about loved ones? Death and being forgotten is something Chase is afraid of imo, and those fears can and will happen on a mortal, so what happens when that comes to a certain mortal that he loved? The deep feeling of experiencing such loss is far more scary than any monster in the world.

When Chase and First had done the dragon bonding, that fear increased to a hundred, because there is no going back on this. So when First disappeared from the face of the earth, he was relieved, because yes, he can confirm that First is still alive, but now that his weakness cannot be found, he feels safely secured because no one can take advantage of him. Still doesn't stop him from almost tearing out mountains just to find his man.

Yeah, that's all I got, it's still incomplete as I don't know how to put it into text, but I'm sure I can, one way or another. I'm really sorry if this isn't enough info, I'll try to be more lore-heavy but I can't really blurt out info that I can't even explain in my own terms.

[bob-mcbobbinson]

The Whale: "my room is my head"

Hello, and welcome back (or just welcome if you are new to this page) this is my review of Darren Aronofsky's The Whale.

The Whale is a very beautiful movie, you can tell it was done with very much care; from the dialogue to its equally powerful visual language, every single element is intentionally placed and fits with one another really finely. Today I'd like to take you through this movie and why I think it works so well. enjoy :)

The film follows the story of Charlie, an obese, middle-aged man who has lost contact with his family and the rest of the world and lives in almost total isolation in his apartment. Apart from his only friend Liz, nobody enters his house, no one is allowed to. The place crumbles, and folds on itself as it becomes the man’s mind, his inner struggles and thoughts displayed for the viewer. It’s the sad coziness of the living room, the messiness of the kitchen, the stillness of Alan’s room, untouched and crystallized in time.

We're dealing with a character that has been stuck in the same situation for decades; as his body grew larger, his room shredded thinner, encapsulating him completely, as if the flesh and the room were one. He became an inanimate object the day he stopped fighting for himself, for the ones who once loved him, and the ones who still did. The narrow format of the frame contributed to creating this sense of unescapable claustrophobia and helped the viewer get into the protagonist's private existence. You can feel the heavy load of isolation and the weight of the many words unsaid; the light is dim, and the grain of the film falls static in the air, collected like dust.

Before we go on discussing the story and characters I need to clarify that whenever I find myself to particularly like a film on first watch, I always get informed on the criticism it has received, by taking a look at the other extreme of its polarized reception. In this case, I’ve come across many reviews criticizing its confused moralistic messages; the shameful portrayal of “fat people”, in a way that reinforced stereotypes and misconceptions; the uncomfortable abuser/abused relationship of Charlie and Ellie, and how the director seems to have given him way much more kindness and empathy that he actually deserved.

What I’ve noticed throughout the years is that we tend to look at films with merciless scrutiny; we search for the morals and hidden meanings of everything and deem every choice as intentionally thought out to lead to an ultimate purpose. If it’s subtle then it’s ambiguous, if it’s explicit then it’s too preachy, and if it’s preachy it’s either right or wrong, condemned or acclaimed, and to me, that makes little to no sense.

The truth is that we will always find what we set ourselves to look for if we search hard enough and squint our eyes at the minuscule acts that take place on the screen. We tend to look at movies as universal thesis on life, death, and human relationships rather than individual stories, of individual people, examples of humanity in which we may or may not find resonance (or reasoning) with our personal experiences.

In my opinion, this is a story of a man (not the story of a man) whose selfishness and self-hatred lead him to do horrible things to the ones he loved. Selfishness and self-hatred, both of them are necessary to reach a point this low, and I don’t think the author is trying to save him, I don’t think Aronofsky helped him to redeem himself or forced his daughter to forgive him. And as we take our seats at the cinema or in the sad coziness of our living rooms, we are invited to witness the consequences of this man’s actions, we’re not asked to pick a side and root for The Whale, and that’s what makes this film beautiful.

[ramrodd]

Why did Joe Biden finally fire Anthony Fauci? Was it the failed vaccines or the Wuhan leak of his lab?

COMMENTARY::

The premise of the white supremacist agenda is that America would work better if dumb-ass thugs like One-Eyed Elmer Rhodes, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, and George Lincoln Rockwell were in charge of a transnational criminal meritocracy. You know, a Tucker Carlson block party. I am a white guy who has lived in DC since I got back from Vietnam in 1971, From that summer until 19 January 1981, DC was the most racially mellow city in America, if not the world. Everybody was hooked into Nixon’s Affirmative Action and Apollo 11 and, in 1973, the adult leadership of the Nixon White House colluded with the Democrats to implement Home Rule in DC and, good bad or indifferent, DC was just beginning to get traction with being in charge as a rainbow community with Chuck Brown’s Bustin’ Loose bringing the spirit of the Bicentennial into the neighborhoods east of Georgetown. And Georgetown. And then assholes like Tucker Carlson came to town with Ronald Reagan and his Hollywood John Birch Society and the racism meter went to 11 in a cocaine blizzard from Donald T. Regan’s Wall Street cabal, the Miami Vice culture and Ed Meese and Charles Z. Wick, and all the white male executives who benefited from McCarthyism clearing the way up the corporate ladder from liberal competition. The assholes from the Nixon Plumbers now had budgets in the Supply Side Economics agenda and dedicated to paybacks for Watergate, which was a direct result of the Plumbers as the leading edge of William F. Buckley’s campus strategy for the takeover of America by the John Birch Sockety, had fucked up Nixon’s Presidency by trying to run America the way the January 6 conspiracy believes America should be run. This question is an example of Fascist disinformation being generated to cause moral confusion in the public debate and amplifying the sedition alienation and polarization characteristic of Newt Gingrich’s GOPAC political strategy for a Trotsky insurgency leading to the violent overthrow of the host government. Like on January 6. Writing as an Eisenhower Republican, I’ve been avoiding right-wing assholes in the Republican Party since before I went to Vietnam, but, specifically, Pat Buchanan and his Plumber cabal in the Republican party. At one point, I probably could have had a White House job working for Ray Price as a researcher. He took me to the Navy Mess a couple of times to entice me to consider the job, but I was on a venture capital track and wanted to get into government on that basis. Nixon’s Affirmative Action was all about doing business with the Soviets as part of creating the global economy displayed in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I bet the ranch on Affirmative Action. The agenda of the John Birch Society since William F. Buckley’s Sharon Statement has been to prevent 2001: A Space Odyssey because it requires the transformation of the Military Industrial Complex and the stupid white Harvard MBA graduates taking over the Fortune 500 in 1980 who think like Peter Thiel didn’t want to change the whole corporate ladder basis of their ambitions. That’s who the Plumbers were and who the January 6 Republicans are in the House Freedom Caucus. Speaking as an Eisenhower Republican, Michael Steele is the only authentic Kemp Republican left standing, with the exception of Mitt Romney. In terms of my focus on venture capital, I am more like both George and Mitt Romney than Jack Kemp, but Jack Kemp is the GOP;s version of Daniel Patrick Moynihan: they share a common command of economic policy and grass roots, retail politics. Nixon’s Affirmative Action was the product of a collaboration with Daniel Patrick Moynihan and was on track to transform the Military Industrial Complex to the Aerospace-Entrepreneurial Matrix of 2001: S Spce Odyssey by 2001 with Stage 3 of Eisenhower’s mobilization for WWIII until Reagan’s Supply Side Economics stopped the process cold. America was a cunt hair away from achieving the critical mass required to make the paradigm shift form the quantity of the Military Industrial Complex to the quality of the Green New Deal, which is what the Starship Capitalism of 2001:A Space Odyssey. The Joh Birch Society wants the economy to work like it did in 1947 when a white American businessman could get a blow job in Berlin for a loaf of bread. That’s the political agenda behind the Fascist disinformation of this question.  

[cave-monkey]

Late-night sleep-deprived babbling where I talk about being confused by Yu's choice to say "why don't you drop the matter" and it goes on for paragraphs:

Why say "why don't you let this matter drop now"? What is he talking about? Monkey King was the one to bring this topic up in the first and Tripitaka has barely said anything. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense in English to use this phrase here. After puzzling over it for a bit, I think he's trying to convey that Monkey King is just trying to say "Psh, yeah right" to Tripitaka's assertion that he won't use the spell again, but it's not super clear. In that case I'd guess that what Monkey King was after here was just to make it known to Tripitaka that he knows Tripitaka is going to do this and he just doesn't want Tripitaka lying to himself or Monkey King about it ("drop it" = "stop kidding yourself"), just to make sure there are no misunderstandings in the future and they both know the situation they're in. Namely: That they both know Monkey King's still wearing a leash that Tripitaka can yank whenever he likes and he's going to make sure they're both aware of it and pissed about it. A parting jab more than anything, or potentially a last ditch attempt to get Tripitaka to reconsider by throwing in his face that they're connected no matter what. I mean, hey, it worked earlier. "Drop the matter" would then be about the whole banishment subject in its entirety, which still doesn't make a ton of sense in its placement, since both of them have already been talking like the banishment is a done deal before this. They've moved on already to hammering out details.

(Or maybe he's trying to manipulate him into doing what Tripitaka does in the very next paragraph with the official letter of remediation, which, considering how much the thing upsets Sun Wukong, would be a pretty ruthless and calculating thing to do to his own feelings, but necessary for self-preservation.)

The other possibility I can think of is that he's telling Tripitaka that they both know this is how it's going to go down and "drop the matter" is meant to convey that he's not manipulating him, but straight telling him (in a sort of snide way) that he needs more assurance than Tripitaka's word that he won't reel him back in the second the going gets tough. And since this is still something that greatly upsets him, is still pretty ruthless with his own feelings. Also still a really odd use of that phrase in English.

Overall, though, no matter what he means by that last line, Yu's version feels more biting and harsh. The Great Sage is hurt but he shows it with his teeth. It feels more like a simmeringly-hostile business discussion. The behavior of someone clinging to civility by their fingernails in the office of a divorce attorney (/non-romantic). think I prefer this version, since, to me, it makes the later emotional collapse when he's out of sight and the in-control warlord exterior drops and he's just sad hit harder.

Jenner's, comparatively, is the polar opposite. Monkey King bites in the previous paragraph and then abruptly softens when Tripitaka stiffens. He feels far more earnest and sincere as he builds up to the final line, which is a heartbreakingly gentle but firm outlining of what it would take to end Sun Wukong's debt and, subsequently, their entire relationship ("Call for me if you need me, and I'll come...but then we're done."), or a statement of his willingness to mend the relationship in the future, if in a maybe sort of insulting way. ("Listen, kid, when you realize you've been wrong about all of this and you do need me, here's my number, but also when I come back I expect all the power in the relationship to transfer back to me, m'kay? None of this silly moral outrage business. Good talk.") I'm not convinced about that one, though. The only real agreement in these lines between translations is in the idea of "dropping" or "never again", so I really do think he's angling for a clean break. Also it sort of ruins the "sad dog in rain dejectedly but nobly enduring unjust treatment" mood Jenner seems to be going for. Kind of funny to consider, though.

And of course, no matter what he's meant to be saying here, Tripitaka gets angry, I imagine at either being straight-up called a liar in Yu's version (which, fair), or, in Jenner's, at Sun Wukong's continuing in his very sincere total lack of confidence in Tripitaka and his remaining disciples' ability to survive without him. (Truth hurts, I guess.)

So part of Yu's translation confused me, prompting me to go dig up my Jenner books because sometimes looking at multiple different versions helps clarify matters. It did not actually clarify anything, but I thought the wildly different ways each translator handled this section was interesting.

“...There’s only one thing left for us to settle, and that’s the Tight-Fillet Spell.” The Tang Monk said, “I won’t recite that again.” “That’s hard to say,” said Pilgrim. “For when the time comes for you to face those treacherous demons and bitter ordeals, and when you, because Eight Rules and Sha Monk cannot rescue you, think of me and cannot stop yourself from reciting it, I’ll have a headache even if I’m one hundred thousand miles away. I’ll have to come back to see you, so why don’t you let this matter drop now.” -Yu, Revised translation, Kindle

And:

"I won't recite it again," said Sanzang. "You shouldn't say that," replied Monkey. "If you're ever beset by evil monsters from whom you can't escape, and if Pig and Friar Sand can't save you, then think of me. If it's unbearable, say the spell. My head will ache even if I'm tens of thousands of miles away. But if I do come back to you, never say it again." -Jenner

It's like...*chin in hands* Huh.

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

I’m a bit confused as while JC’s actions are worthy of criticism, so are LWJ’s actions. LWJ didn’t do anything even though he had more resources, power, and political power compared to JC considering what happened at Lotus Pier. LWJ didn’t take a stand either

Anon... do you... really know how to read and process media? Because Jiang Cheng was a sect leader, one of the most renowned after the war. Lan Wangji was a second son and not a sect heir. How does this process Lan Wangji had more power? Given the Gusu Lan sect had been burned to the ground and had to rebuild Cloud Recesses. Yunmeng Jiang did not lose its main Sect home nor was it pillaged like the Lan library had been.

At Jiang Cheng's disposal was personally being Wei Wuxian's sect leader. They had built up Lotus Pier to what it had been months after the war due to disciples flocking to them. He had WEI WUXIAN AS A RIGHT HAND MAN. He could have had the Jianghu in the palm of his hand if he was politically savvy. Yet he listened to... Jin Guangshan. Lan Wangji did try to vouch for Wei Wuxian and left that open as well for a SECT LEADER who's power socially held more clout to do anything. None of them listened. And really, when you have an army of men behind you, who is going to be followed?

Tell me, anon, what exact political sway did Lan Wangji hold more of over Jiang Cheng, the leader of Sect Yunmeng and a seat amongst the highest cultivation leaders? Lan Wangji according to cultivation standards is just a gusulan disciple, he is not in the run for holding a position as leader just as Jiang Yanli did not being a woman. He was the one to stand up with the smaller people (Mianmian) to say slandering Wei Wuxian was a lie and he was not a danger unless provoked. He was ignored even by his own brother who had gone with the crowd and coming to the assumptions that Wei Wuxian was indeed trying to cause a rift and trying to make a power claim.

The one to provoke was Jiang Cheng, who had no need to call Wei Wuxian an enemy to the four clans after going to the Burial Mounds. He is the one who was made to go to see for themselves, and solidified that Wei Wuxian was doing as Jin Guangshan and Jin Guangyao suspected.

I will also posit, Lan Wangji had little aid to give as well by that point, he had lied about being on a nighthunt to tell Wei Wuxian of Jiang Yanli's wedding. He also goes just as Jiang Cheng did to "really see" what was going on. Their visits are the polar opposite in reactions. Jiang Cheng exasperated a dire situation where as Lan Wangji tried to at least listen and hear what Wei Wuxian had to say himself and aided the awakening of Wen Ning. The actual listening is what Wei Wuxian wants in his life and to be able to solidly have that which he was never given in his first life.

There is a lot put upon by many that Wei Wuxian should have accepted aid, yet he as a character at that point will not because he is already labeled as a danger. Any help he would accept would have been seen as some sort of ploy by him and yet another blot on ruining the foundation of safety the sects kept preaching about. However late it was, Lan Wangji did decide to take a stand, why else would he have been there when the Sect's secretly went on to attack Wei Wuxian behind his back? Lan Xichen was just as shocked to have seen Lan Wangji there and fleeing to protect Wei Wuxian from the whole of cultivation society. His stand by Wei Wuxian's side at that point, and after in his second more grounded in this belief, is the point of Lan Wangji's arc. He has matured enough to not let his heart be swayed by the distrust of others in Wei Wuxian because he has learned to trust in his own morals that are like Wei Wuxian's.

[aishathetaurus]

I feel like there's a large group of people that feel like Luke and June aren't gonna be together in the end... and she's probably gonna end up with Nick... I wanna know what in the show has led you to believe this?

I, personally, don't care who June ends up with, because I don't think her relationship has much to do with the storyline. Whether she's with Nick or Luke... her story remains the same. Regardless of who she's with her story is still: "I must save Hannah and I've been through so much I desperately need to heal." So, it just doesn't matter to me, because no man is gonna change June's reality.

I just don't understand how people are gathering enough information to say one is better than the other for her. Realistically, we know nothing about Nick and Luke... All we know about Nick is that he's a literal Nazi and Luke is a cheater. Outside of that, not much has been shown to us about either one.

Nick is a Nazi that's the reason why June was enslaved and raped. Luke is a cheater that left his ex wife so he can cheat on June in peace, which is probably the reason June was forced into being a handmaid anyway. I will say... one of these is A LOT worse than other other, but nonetheless... neither are that great. So, I don't understand why there are so many people that are pro Nick or pro Luke... they both suck. June deserves better than both of them?

Personally, if I had to pick, I'd pick a cheater before I ever pick a Nazi... But I have no bias towards either. That's just my personal morals. I'd kill myself before letting myself fall in love with a Nazi. I think being a cheater is a far more forgivable than a Nazi.

Nonethless, I don't get why there's such polarized opinions? Especially when the show is barely about romantic relationships? I won't lie, considering Nick is a Nazi, its a bit confusing seeing so many people pro-Nick, but that's as far as my thoughts go.

Actually, I have other thoughts... like how I don't think June could really consent towards someone that's holding her captive, but I feel like if I get into that it would come off as if I had some sort of bias, but I don't... I think I'm pointing out the obvious, but people rarely tend to treat that info as if saying someone is a Nazi is biased. I think saying someone is a Nazi when they are is a pretty unbiased opinion.

Clearly, the love between all of them is complicated and I'll leave it at that.

[twh-news]

How Loki Shapeshifted From Nordic Folklore to a Marvel Icon

by Sara Durn

There are more than 800 years between the stories of Viking god Loki first being written down and his arrival (in the superb Tom Hiddleston) in the Marvel cinematic universe in 2011’s Thor. The new Disney+ series Loki, set to be released on June 9, is primed to explore more antics of Thor’s trickster brother as he attempts to fix the timeline he helped break in Avengers: Endgame. Among his many talents, Loki has cheated death a few times in the MCU, but that amounts to child’s play for this god.

In Norse mythology, Loki causes just as much confusion as his Marvel iteration. Though there aren’t any stories of him outwitting death, there are plenty of myths where he shapeshifts, swaps genders, or tricks gods into killing other gods. In the Marvel universe, he’s quite prone to allegiance swapping. Let’s dig into this troublemaker’s journey.

What is Loki’s origin?

The legends surrounding the Norse god are first documented in writing around the 13th century, primarily in Iceland. There are two versions of these legends that enter the historical record around the same time—the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda. The Poetic Edda is an anonymous collection of Old Norse poems that are mainly pulled from an Icelandic medieval manuscript known as the Codex Regius (some of the poems date back to 800 CE). The Prose Edda is an Old Norse textbook for composing poetry that was written by a single author, Snorri Sturluson, a colorful Icelandic historian, scholar, and lawspeaker.

“Within the myths, you can see Loki moving from being just mischievous to being absolutely evil. If you think of him as only being mischievous, he’s actually a creative force and often ends up getting the gods much of their magical possessions, like Thor’s Hammer, through his cunning.”

“Pretty much everything we know about Loki came from Snorri Sturluson,” Viking scholar Nancy Marie Brown, author of Song of the Vikings: Snorri and the Making of Norse Myths, told io9. Brown says this was very appropriate given that “Snorri was quite a trickster figure himself.” While calling him the “Homer of the North,” Brown also acknowledges that Snorri spent a lifetime “double-crossing friends and family… scheming and plotting, blustering and fleeing”— a life that eventually led to his unheroic demise in a nightshirt where his (supposed) final words were “don’t strike!” In both Eddas, Loki is always portrayed as a cunning trickster. In the Prose Edda, Snorri describes Loki as “pleasing and handsome in appearance, evil in character, very capricious in behavior. He possessed to a greater degree than other [gods] the kind of learning that is called cunning.”

Besides appearances, Loki is always getting the gods into trouble and then cleverly extricating them from the mess he’s made. He fathers the Midgard Serpent destined to bring about Ragnarök, the end of the world in Norse mythology. He convinces the blind god Hodr to kill the beautiful and favored god Baldur. He kidnaps the goddess Idun to save his own hide from a furious giant. The mythological character is constantly switching sides—sometimes supporting the gods and sometimes their enemies, the giants. In the MCU, Loki is both hero and villain—in The Avengers he opened a wormhole in New York City releasing alien monsters and in Thor: Ragnarok he helped Thor save the Asgardians from Hela’s wrath.

Thorwald’s Cross, a fragmented runestone depicting Odin being consumed. Image: Public Domain

Loki might have begun as a Norse god of fire—fitting considering how fire can be both “helpful and destructive,” said Brown. Fire can both burn down your house and cook you dinner. It’s tricky that way—like Loki. As Brown puts it, “You can see his two sides there [reflected in fire].” Brown also explains that there was likely a transformation in Loki over the centuries. “Within the myths, you can see Loki moving from being just mischievous to being absolutely evil. If you think of him as only being mischievous, he’s actually a creative force and often ends up getting the gods much of their magical possessions, like Thor’s Hammer, through his cunning.” Again, it’s just like Marvel’s Loki, who sometimes helps the other gods out, like when he teamed up with Thor to escape the Grandmaster in Thor: Ragnarok.

What is Loki’s relationship with the Devil?

In the long, slow conversion of the Vikings to Christianity that took place between the 9th and 12th centuries, Loki became a parallel to the Christian Devil. The creative, positive elements of him fell away leaving only the god favored by the Father (Odin/God) before getting cast out. (It does sound a bit like Lucifer, right?) Christianity paints a world that is far more black and white, good vs. evil than the Norse pagan religion—here’s little room for a grey, ambiguous figure like Loki. As Brown puts it, “The Christian religion insists that you’re either with us or against us. Whereas in what we understand of the pagan Viking religion, there were a lot of shades of grey. There was a spectrum on which you could move back and forth. You weren’t all one thing or all the other. You weren’t all female or all male. You weren’t all good or all evil. It was more human.”

Loki always moved fluidly between those two polarities—helping Thor in one story, causing an overthrow of the gods in another. In one tale, Loki shapeshifts into a mare, becoming the mother of Odin’s great 8-legged horse, Sleipnir. In another, he fathers the wolf Fenrir. The Church couldn’t really handle all that grey area Loki liked to inhabit, and so it eventually cast him as the devil himself. “[Monks] had to sort the gods into saints and devils, and Loki by being sexually ambiguous and also morally ambiguous falls into the devil [category],” explained Brown. Though Marvel’s Loki certainly channels a bit of the devil at times, we’ve luckily yet to see him become both mother and father to world-ending, multi-legged monsters in the Marvel Universe. But, there’s still time, especially with the new Disney+ series hitting the small screen.

When was Loki’s Revival?

After the Viking conversion, the Norse myths started to fade, and Loki with them—until the 1600s, when medieval manuscripts like those containing the Prose and Poetic Edda began to be translated. “The reason [these myths] became popular was because of nationalism,” Brown told us. “In the mid to late 1800s, there was the idea that what distinguished one nation from another was its cultural heritage.” This spurred Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm and Wilhelm Carl Grimm—known to many simply as the Brothers Grimm—to go “collect the stories of the local people to prove that Germany was a nation, not a collection of states. You had the same thing happening in Ireland to prove that they were different from the English and you have the same thing happening in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.” This eventually gave rise to the Nazis appropriating Norse myths in their twisted pursuit of alleging Aryan supremacy.

Following the Civil War, the United States also looked to the Middle Ages to redefine the country’s fractured identity. As Chris Bishop, author of Medievalist Comics and the American Century, explained to io9, “[the Middle Ages] offered an aesthetic that was individualistic (think: the knight errant, Robin Hood, etc.), given to interpretations of exceptionalism (Camelot, the once and future king), venerable (where old equalled established and respectable), and (unlike Classicism) Christian.” The Middle Ages, or more accurately the remixing of the Middle Ages known in academia as “medievalisms,” appealed to many Americans obsessed with ideas of American exceptionalism and singularity in the 19th century. Eventually the U.S.’s obsession with the Middle Ages made its way into comic books starting with Prince Valiant in 1937, a comic strip created by Hal Foster set in and around the legends of King Arthur. Other medievalist comics followed eventually leading to the inclusion of Norse gods like Loki, Thor, and Odin.

First appearance of Loki in the 1949 Venus comics. Image: Wikicommons

When was Marvel Comics’ Loki introduced?

While Loki first appeared in the 1949 comic book Venus styled after (you guessed it) the devil, the modern-age Loki didn’t hit the comic book scene until co-writers and brothers Stan Lee and Larry Lieber adapted him in 1962’s Journey into Mystery #85. It’s in that issue where Loki “becomes Thor’s enemy/ally/brother/adopted brother/etc,” said Bishop. The mischievous personality of the Norse god remains largely the same in the Loki of the comic books and films and even retains the ability to swap genders at times.

In the comics, Loki is raised as Thor’s brother in Asgard—somewhere the Marvel stories diverge from the Norse mythology. It’s Loki and Odin who are sworn brothers in the Norse myths, not Loki and Thor. As Brown explains, “Loki and Odin are blood brothers, which means they are even closer than real brothers.” In the Viking world, two people who swore a blood oath to one another formed a bond that went beyond kin, and so went the Norse Loki and Odin’s relationship. As Bishop points out, the Loki/Thor dynamic of the comics and movies is a “classic, formulaic archetype.” Thor is the “big, hunky, handsome (but slightly dumb) hero” and Loki is “his slight, quirky but super-smart frenemy. Loki is the dark, misunderstood, vulnerable shadow that audiences can relate to, reach out to, care for. Thor is that dumb jock who everyone looked up to at school, but Loki was that cool, quiet kid who went on to found a tech-empire.”

Why is Loki called a Trickster?

What does remain consistent with Loki is that he always plays the trickster. He is the manifestation of psychologist Carl Jung’s archetype: The trickster disrupts the individual and/or society causing either growth or destruction. Social scientist Helena Bassil-Morozow points out that when it comes to Loki, “despite the fact that the narrative details between the medieval Loki stories and their contemporary versions vary, the main idea remains the same—the trickster mercilessly attacks those in power and nearly causes the end of the world.” Both in the Norse myths and in Marvel, the world needs saving from Loki. He acts as the catalyst for a whole lot of upheaval—upheaval that in the Norse myths causes Ragnarök.

Loki “functions as a locus of salvation (literally, a prodigal son).” Loki just might be a savior. He’s someone audiences can look at and think “if Loki can be redeemed, so too might I.”

Perhaps that’s where the two narratives differ the most. In the Norse tales, the end of the world at Ragnarök is inevitable. Odin and Thor will die. Everything will change. Vikings lived with the knowledge that their world would end. In the MCU, we don’t know how the story ends, plus Ragnarök took place already and yet the Asgardians live on. There’s still hope that Loki will prove to be good and that the other superheroes will save the world from whatever mayhem he’s caused, or so we can hope in the upcoming Disney+ series. As Bishop puts it, Loki “functions as a locus of salvation (literally, a prodigal son).” Loki just might be a savior. He’s someone audiences can look at and think “if Loki can be redeemed, so too might I,” explains Bishop.

While the Vikings’ Loki caused the end of the world, today’s Loki might just save it. Or maybe not. And, perhaps that’s the fun of the trickster—you never quite know what they’ll get up to.

[jaredpostz]

hey hey hey i made a mpdsap iceberg a little while back and i thought it would be fun to yell into the void about it, because why not. i havent explained the lore to my followers yet and ill probably reblog this to my main tbh

[little disclaimer that a lot of these are based off of made up lore and ocs on my main account. if youre strictly canon only then i wouldnt recommend this for you. if you’re interested but have no knowledge about said lore, i will give basic explanations]

LAYER 1

Joey Perleoni: joey perleoni is well known as the poster of the anti-piracy videos, who, recently, has involved himself more in the videos. joey in my lore is depicted as mostly emotionless or “empty” with no remorse for his actions.

Mario Party DS Anti-Piracy OST: on the channel, there is pretty convincing fake music for the series, there’s not much else to say about it other than it’s SUPER bangin’

Joey was arrested: in a video titled ‘the police are at my house’, joey is taken in by the police. he is presumably in prison

Luigi is the victim: in all of the videos posted, luigi is the main character, and is often considered the victim of the horrible events happening.

Hex code translations: in the videos, there are several hex codes, which can be translated to several different things. the ones we’ve found are hellsatan, luigimod, thx4luv, watchdemon.jit etc.

Reggie Fils-Amie video: on joey’s channel, his first upload has nothing to do with mpdsap, but rather it’s a video filming a joke reggie made about mother 3. it’s unknown if this is connected or not.

LAYER 2

Joey interview: a user by the name of simonejoys interviewed joey perleoni, he said some pretty interesting things actually, here’s the link if anyone’s interested: https://youtu.be/v6AkkxS9LK4

Luxury station and Quiznos: luxury station is joey’s second account, revolving a few strange videos about a place named quiznos. it’s unknown if this is connected or not

Hudson (the man): in my lore, there is a character named hudson, who inherited the company. he’s considered the person who made the anti-piracy screens, or at least encouraged it strongly. this character is based off of some text in host hoedown, which translates to “hudson - this is not necessary. it will extend the launch considerably.” (also i know hudson is the name of the company but the time i found out it was too late)

“Joey no longer runs the account” theory: there was a theory going around after joey’s arrest that someone else is running the account, since there should be no way he should keep posting. this is probably deconfirmed by now

Joey doesn’t feel much emotion: as stated before, my depiction of joey is that of “mostly emotionless or completely empty”. there is no reason for this currently (it’s kind of a case study at this point tbfh)

DJ Hallyboo is based on MC Ballyhoo: in mario party 8 for the wii, there is a character that bears extreme resemblance to DJ Hallyboo, named MC Ballyhoo. they have the same voice clips used, similar names, and somewhat similar designs. MC Ballyhoo is the host of mario party 8. it is general considered that DJ Hallyboo is a beta version of MC Ballyhoo by fans.

LAYER 3

Electric chair: in the video simply titled “mario party ds anti piracy |”, where joey sits on a chair and boots up mario party ds, a few comments were floating around joking about him getting the electric chair. this hasn’t been confirmed

Hudson and Joey used to be friends: this is mostly outdated now, but there was a joke timeline where hudson and joey were friends in the past. not gonna cover it any further than that because it’s an old concept now

MC Ballyhoo and DJ Hallyboo are the same person: in my lore, the general consensus is that MC Ballyhoo and DJ Hallyboo are the same person, with split personalities. he is also either sentient or extremely aware.

Joey is god: in my lore, there is a mostly bizzare idea that joey is divine and has always been divine. he became “a god” by doing criminal acts, or sacrificing luigi. i can’t tell you if this is canon to my lore or not yet though - it started as a meme, but i really do like the idea somehow.

“Waiter, your finger’s in the soup!”: a mysterious quote with no real meaning that was quoted by joey a couple of times. it is connected to a short comic. nobody has found out what it means yet or why it’s being posted about.

LAYER 4

“Joey does drugs” joke: (TW // DRUG ABUSE)

this joke spawned from something i learned in school. apparently people who abuse illegal drugs gradually start feeling less dopamine doing normal activities over time, due to drug overstimulation. this was jokingly connected to joey’s chronic emptiness and inability to feel anything, with the joke that he does meth or some other illegal drug. it’s also noted that drug abusers are likely to commit other crimes. this is of course, not serious at all.

Joey stole MPDS from mcdonalds: this is a personal theory of mine. mcdonalds and MPDS have absolutely no connection - so why are they attempted to be connected at all? in the video, it describes a demo being sold in happy meals at mcdonalds - it’s a possibility that joey stole the demo from mcdonalds, and doesn’t actually have the full game.

Joey wearing the same clothes as the character: i have drawn joey with a yellow sweater (with orange sleeves) and grey shorts for a while now. in the mcdonalds video, he was wearing nearly the same outfit (with the exception of the shorts being pants). he also has brown hair, which i predicted, but it’s much darker. this is probably a coincidence but it’s pretty freaky honestly.

Techwalker: this will probably be the longest segment in the iceberg and the most lore heavy. techwalker was joey’s old channel. he made extremely different content - mainly of which was just bothering random people on the street and at conventions. he has described himself as a “journalist”, but this is all basically fun and games. these videos are now unlisted and i will not be linking them nor telling you where to find them for privacy reasons. i don’t want to get in trouble. if i find any of yall spreading it around im taking down the post and will probably not talk about this again, you dont want that, i dont want that, nobody wants that really.

in the lore, techwalker is not joey. they are 2 seperate people - but they live in the same body. what this means is that either one can take control at a time - joey is completely numb to everything around him, but tech is a pretty happy go lucky and social person. they have different personalities, morals, names and lead different lives. tech even wears glasses (assuming he has some kind of impaired eyesight), and joey does not.

(this has been confused with dissociative identity disorder. while i don’t mind people interpreting my content in whatever way they’d like, considering this is just fan-lore, this was not the intent. i do not have DID and i don’t want to speak for anyone who has DID.)

the general consensus is that tech is dead, or at least completely drowned out, and joey has taken complete control. joey and tech were practically mortal enemies and polar opposites of each other. (joey constantly being annoyed or uninterested in tech’s hyperactivity, and tech not trusting joey to be responsible or ‘law abiding’)

anyways

whew

i typed a lot of stuff.

thats all i have to say about this, if this gains any major traction (and i doubt it will) or causes problems, i will probably delete the post entirely. so be good lol

alright im gonna go ive been writing for 45 minutes or so

im out

[infinitesimalyerkesdodsons]

Me: okay im feeling kinda good about the el noli au time to work on i--

Motivation: JANUS SILANG AU CONCEPT

Some messy bullet point explanations for the characters under the cut (since they contain spoilers and might get too long to read and scroll past lmao)

Warnings: death mention, cannibalism, gorey descriptions, betrayal

Thank you for considering reading this explanation lmao 🍪 have a cookie!!!

- so what i wanna say here is that the janus silang stuff has themes that revolve around twins and duality

- I'll also refer to janus sanders as deceit here so as not to cause confusion with his namesake

- there are three sets of people that have something to do with twins: miro and mira, the tiyanak and tala, and probably Janus himself, given his name and some stuff about his character that gives him this sort of dual nature thing

- i was actually tied between whether I make thomas or janus as Janus Silang in this, because thomas' red shirt with the star on it looks similar to the one Janus usually wears, but Deceit and Janus are essentially namesakes

- i decided to go with both of them because of how i saw Janus as a character. His duality in my opinion is brought by the fact that he used to know and be super close the main baddie of this story, the tiyanak, and was used by the tiyanak to gain important information (sorry remus!!!) and yet he's also the only one that has the power to help the counterpart of the tiyanak, tala (roman)

- it's also interesting to note that I also think that Janus' duality will fully come out in the fifth and final book in the series

- during the fourth book he was fated to die in order to set the world right, however this death wasn't just physical death, but an existential death in which his sacrifice reset the whole timeline and created a world wherein he never existed in the first place.

- only one person, who used to be a diwata, now human, remembered him. I hope that Janus returns in the fifth book and things are set back into place.

- anyway, the fact that this happened shows a big duality; his past existence saved the world and his nonexistence created an alternate world in the future that didn't need saving at all

- the timeline where Janus existed (2015 when things went down), I assume is simply an alternate universe where magic exists and is based on Philippine Myth and belief. The nonexistent Janus timeline (which is 2018), I assume, is this world we live in right now, a more realistic version of the original timeline.

- i want to think that janus, tala, and the tiyanak disappeared permanently from existence in order to set the world right

- it was said that only tala and the tiyanak can match each other in power, but in order for one to die the other must die as well.

- meaning that whatever happens, both tala and the tiyanak will disappear to save the world, but janus still has to die permanently in order to make tala's existence possible.

- which brings us to the other twins, tala and the tiyanak

- some important stuff in this is that the tiyanak and tala were twins born from a curse from humans in the Tabon cave.

- the tiyanak was cursed as a baby to be a man eating baby who eats the innards of people who neglect their family (or so i remember???)

- their very existence as cursed magical twins was a mistake, so bringing back to the saving the world part, in order to set the world right they both have to yeet out of existence

- as for their duality

- the tiyanak as i said earlier is a cannibal, and can create creatures to do his bidding. These creatures are from Philippine Mythology and each have their own abilities. He emerged from his mother's womb fully able to walk and talk, and can shapeshift into a child. (He cannot shapeshift into an adult though, so his underling creatures, the do-ol, do it for him)

- the tiyanak during the first book, disguised as Janus' brother in order to gain information about his twin, since Janus was supposedly the only one that can help Tala reach maturity to counter her twin.

- tala on the other hand was born without enough physical maturity, and is said to age by one year every 1000 years. When the events of the story play out tala is nearing her true maturity and only needs janus to do so.

- interestingly, before she appeared as her true form, before Janus' whole dying from existence thing, she looked like the tiyanak.

- anyway this is an abrupt end to this part of the explanation but let's get to the third set of twins

- miro and mira

- the thing with miro and mira is that they're not polar opposites unlike tala and the tiyanak. they have the same ability of switching and seeing between a purely magical world and the lesser magical earth.

- i chose logan and patton based on their personalities and the dynamic of the duo

- miro is more extroverted of the two, which seems like a good fit for patton

- mira is more reserved and quiet, and less open with talking about her ability. She preferred to figure things out on her own, retreating into the pure magic world in order to experiment with her ability.

- they die tho, miro by literally getting vertically cut into half in the middle of teleporting to the pure magical world, and mira by the hands of a mambabarang in the fourth book.

- the thing about these twins is that they don't necessarily completely oppose each other, and only their personalities seem to be different.

- i can see a similar thing happening with logan and patton, how they're not moral opposites but differ with how they work.

- next up is mica and renzo

- they're not twins but their characters are really important to the story

- mica is janus' crush, who gave him a usb necklace in the shape of a star (at the same time, star can be translated to "tala" in Tagalog, and the usb necklace played an important part throughout the series as well.

- she also played an important part in the third and fourth book, being a regular human without any power gave her advantage to magic (and lack thereof) related problems.

- And finally renzo

- did i mention that janus was orphaned? Well he was and another important character took him in. Renzo was also an orphan and he and janus had a brotherly relationship.

- that is, until janus got stuck in a dilemma where he could only save either Mira or Renzo from falling off a literal cliff, at the very end of the third book. Janus saved mira and renzo was left hanging and eventually fell (Well that was a cliffhanger amirite heheehe)

- one bit of lore about renzo is that he was a creation of the tiyanak as well. The tiyanak saved renzo from his doom and revealed this and I dont exactly remember why but it definitely had something to do with Janus as well.

So uh that's it i think hsjdjs this is kinda messy but yea if you made it here 🍪 have a second cookie!!!

[qqueenofhades]

Could you expand a bit on the "death of expertise"? It's something I think about A LOT as an artist, because there are so many problems with people who think it isn't a real job, and the severe undercutting of prices that happens because people think hobbyists and professionals are the same. At the same time, I also really want people to feel free to be able to make art if they want, with no gatekeeping or elitism, and I usually spin myself in circles mentally thinking about it. So.

I have been secretly hoping someone would ask this question, nonny. Bless you. I have a lot (a LOT) of thoughts on this topic, which I will try to keep somewhat concise and presented in a semi-organized fashion, but yes.

I can mostly speak about this in regard to academia, especially the bad, bad, BAD takes in my field (history) that have dominated the news in recent weeks and which constitute most of the recent posts on my blog. (I know, I know, Old Man Yells At Cloud when attempting to educate the internet on actual history, but I gotta do SOMETHING.) But this isn’t a new phenemenon, and is linked to the avalanche of “fake news” that we’ve all heard about and experienced in the last few years, especially in the run-up and then after the election of You Know Who, who has made fake news his personal brand (if not in the way he thinks). It also has to do with the way Americans persistently misunderstand the concept of free speech as “I should be able to say whatever I want and nobody can correct or criticize me,” which ties into the poisonous extreme-libertarian ethos of “I can do what I want with no regard for others and nobody can correct me,” which has seeped its way into the American mainstream and is basically the center of the modern Republican party. (Basically: all for me, all the time, and caring about others is a weak liberal pussy thing to do.)

This, however, is not just an issue of partisan politics, because the left is just as guilty, even if its efforts take a different shape. One of the reason I got so utterly exasperated with strident online leftists, especially around primary season and the hardcore breed of Bernie Bros, is just that they don’t do anything except shout loud and incorrect information on the internet (and then transmogrify that into a twisted ideology of moral purity which makes a sin out of actually voting for a flawed candidate, even if the alternative is Donald Goddamn Trump). I can’t count how many people from both sides of the right/left divide get their political information from like-minded people on social media, and never bother to experience or verify or venture outside their comforting bubbles that will only provide them with “facts” that they already know. Social media has done a lot of good things, sure, but it’s also made it unprecedently easy to just say whatever insane bullshit you want, have it go viral, and then have you treated as an authority on the topic or someone whose voice “has to be included” out of some absurd principle of both-siderism. This is also a tenet of the mainstream corporate media: “both sides” have to be included, to create the illusion of “objectivity,” and to keep the largest number of paying subscribers happy. (Yes, of course this has deep, deep roots in the collapse of late-stage capitalism.) Even if one side is absolutely batshit crazy, the rules of this distorted social contract stipulate that their proposals and their flaws have to be treated as equal with the others, and if you point out that they are batshit crazy, you have to qualify with some criticism of the other side.

This is where you get white people posting “Neo-Nazis and Black Lives Matter are the same!!!1” on facebook. They are a) often racist, let’s be real, and b) have been force-fed a constant narrative where Both Sides Are Equally Bad. Even if one is a historical system of violent oppression that has made a good go at total racial and ethnic genocide and rests on hatred, and the other is the response to not just that but the centuries of systemic and small-scale racism that has been built up every day, the white people of the world insist on treating them as morally equivalent (related to a superior notion that Violence is Always Bad, which.... uh... have you even seen constant and overwhelming state-sponsored violence the West dishes out? But it’s only bad when the other side does it. Especially if those people can be at all labeled “fanatics.”)

I have complained many, many times, and will probably complain many times more, about how hard it is to deconstruct people’s absolutely ingrained ideas of history and the past. History is a very fragile thing; it’s really only equivalent to the length of a human lifespan, and sometimes not even that. It’s what people want to remember and what is convenient for them to remember, which is why we still have some living Holocaust survivors and yet a growing movement of Holocaust denial, among other extremist conspiracy theories (9/11, Sandy Hook, chemtrails, flat-earthing, etc etc). There is likewise no organized effort to teach honest history in Western public schools, not least since the West likes its self-appointed role as guardians of freedom and liberty and democracy in the world and doesn’t really want anyone digging into all that messy slavery and genocide and imperialism and colonialism business. As a result, you have deliberately under- or un-educated citizens, who have had a couple of courses on American/British/etc history in grade school focusing on the greatest-hit reel, and all from an overwhelmingly triumphalist white perspective. You have to like history, from what you get out of it in public school, to want to go on to study it as a career, while knowing that there are few jobs available, universities are cutting or shuttering humanities departments, and you’ll never make much money. There is... not a whole lot of outside incentive there.

I’ve written before about how the humanities are always the first targeted, and the first defunded, and the first to be labeled as “worthless degrees,” because a) they are less valuable to late-stage capitalism and its emphasis on Material Production, and b) they often focus on teaching students the critical thinking skills that critique and challenge that dominant system. There’s a reason that there is a stereotype of artists as social revolutionaries: they have often taken a look around, gone, “Hey, what the hell is this?” and tried to do something about it, because the creative and free-thinking impulse helps to cultivate the tools necessary to question what has become received and dominant wisdom. Of course, that can then be taken too far into the “I’ll create my own reality and reject absolutely everything that doesn’t fit that narrative,” and we end up at something like the current death of expertise.

This year is particularly fertile for these kinds of misinformation efforts: a plague without a vaccine or a known cure, an election year in a turbulently polarized country, race unrest in a deeply racist country spreading to other racist countries around the world and the challenging of a particularly important system (white supremacy), etc etc. People are scared and defensive and reactive, and in that case, they’re especially less motivated to challenge or want to encounter information that scares them. They need their pre-set beliefs to comfort them or provide steadiness in a rocky and uncertain world, and (thanks once again to social media) it’s easy to launch blistering ad hominem attacks on people who disagree with you, who are categorized as a faceless evil mass and who you will never have to meet or negotiate with in real life. This is the environment in which all the world’s distinguished scientists, who have spent decades studying infectious diseases, have to fight for airtime and authority (and often lose) over random conspiracy theorists who make a YouTube video. The public has been trained to see them as “both the same” and then accept which side they like the best, regardless of actual factual or real-world qualifications. They just assume the maniac on YouTube is just as trustworthy as the scientists with PhDs from real universities.

Obviously, academia is racist, elitist, classist, sexist, on and on. Most human institutions are. But training people to see all academics as the enemy is not the answer. You’ve seen the Online Left (tm) also do this constantly, where they attack “the establishment” for never talking about anything, or academics for supposedly erasing and covering up all of non-white history, while apparently never bothering to open a book or familiarize themselves with a single piece of research that actual historians are working on. You may have noticed that historians have been leading the charge against the “don’t erase history!!!1″ defenders of racist monuments, and explaining in stinging detail exactly why this is neither preserving history or being truthful about it. Tumblr likes to confuse the mechanism that has created the history and the people who are studying and analyzing that history, and lump them together as one mass of Evil And Lying To You. Academics are here because we want to critically examine the world and tell you things about it that our nonsense system has required years and years of effort, thousands of dollars in tuition, and other gatekeeping barriers to learn. You can just ask one of us. We’re here, we usually love to talk, and we’re a lot cheaper. I think that’s pretty cool.

As a historian, I have been trained in a certain skill set: finding, reading, analyzing, using, and criticizing primary sources, ditto for secondary sources, academic form and style, technical skills like languages, paleography, presentation, familiarity with the professional mechanisms for reviewing and sharing work (journals, conferences, peer review, etc), and how to assemble this all into an extended piece of work and to use it in conversation with other historians. That means my expertise in history outweighs some rando who rolls up with an unsourced or misleading Twitter thread. If a professor has been handed a carefully crafted essay and then a piece of paper scribbled with crayon, she is not obliged to treat them as essentially the same or having the same critical weight, even if the essay has flaws. One has made an effort to follow the rules of the game, and the other is... well, I did read a few like that when teaching undergraduates. They did not get the same grade.

This also means that my expertise is not universal. I might know something about adjacent subjects that I’ve also studied, like political science or English or whatever, but someone who is a career academic with a degree directly in that field will know more than me. I should listen to them, even if I should retain my independent ability and critical thinking skillset. And I definitely should not be listened to over people whose field of expertise is in a completely different realm. Take the recent rocket launch, for example. I’m guessing that nobody thought some bum who walked in off the street to Kennedy Space Center should be listened to in preference of the actual scientists with degrees and experience at NASA and knowledge of math and orbital mechanics and whatever else you need to get a rocket into orbit. I definitely can’t speak on that and I wouldn’t do it anyway, so it’s frustrating to see it happen with history. Everybody “knows” things about history that inevitably turn out to be wildly wrong, and seem to assume that they can do the same kind of job or state their conclusions with just as much authority. (Nobody seems to listen to the scientists on global warming or coronavirus either, because their information is actively inconvenient for our entrenched way of life and people don’t want to change.) Once again, my point here is not to be a snobbish elitist looking down at The Little People, but to remark that if there’s someone in a field who has, you know, actually studied that subject and is speaking from that place of authority, maybe we can do better than “well, I saw a YouTube video and liked it better, so there.” (Americans hate authority and don’t trust smart people, which  is a related problem and goes back far beyond Trump, but there you are.)

As for art: it’s funny how people devalue it constantly until they need it to survive. Ask anyone how they spent their time in lockdown. Did they listen to music? Did they watch movies or TV? Did they read a book? Did they look at photography or pictures? Did they try to learn a skill, like drawing or writing or painting, and realize it was hard? Did they have a preference for the art that was better, more professionally produced, had more awareness of the rules of its craft, and therefore was more enjoyable to consume? If anyone wants to tell anyone that art is worthless, I invite you to challenge them on the spot to go without all of the above items during the (inevitable, at this rate) second coronavirus lockdown. No music. No films. No books. Not even a video or a meme or anything else that has been made for fun, for creativity, or anything outside the basic demands of Compensated Economic Production. It’s then that you’ll discover that, just as with the underpaid essential workers who suffered the most, we know these jobs need to get done. We just still don’t want to pay anyone fairly for doing them, due to our twisted late-capitalist idea of “value.”

Anyway, since this has gotten long enough and I should probably wrap up: as you say, the difference between “professional” and “hobbyist” has been almost completely erased, so that people think the opinion of one is as good as the other, or in your case, that the hobbyist should present their work for free or refuse to be seen as a professional entitled to fair compensation for their skill. That has larger and more insidious effects in a global marketplace of ideas that has been almost entirely reduced to who can say their opinion the loudest to the largest group of people. I don’t know how to solve this problem, but at least I can try to point it out and to avoid being part of it, and to recognize where I need to speak and where I need to shut up. My job, and that of every single white person in America right now, is to shut up and let black people (and Native people, and Latinx people, and Muslim people, and etc...) tell me what it’s really like to live here with that identity. I have obviously done a ton of research on the subject and consider myself reasonably educated, but here’s the thing: my expertise still doesn’t outweigh theirs, no matter what degrees they have or don’t have. I then am required to boost their ideas, views, experiences, and needs, rather than writing them over or erasing them, and to try to explain to people how the roots of these ideas interlock and interact where I can. That is -- hopefully -- putting my history expertise to use in a good way to support what they’re saying, rather than silence it. I try, at any rate, and I am constantly conscious of learning to do better.

I hope that was helpful for you. Thanks for letting me talk about it.

[unnursvanablog]

The books I read in 2020 / part 3.

I read over 50 books this year... so I had to section it off into three parts.

The Subtle knife - Philip Pullman: ☆☆☆☆ I wanted to revisit the story before watching the second series of the TV show. This book was always my favorite in the series, or at least when I first read the trilogy. I just loved the blossoming friendship between Will and Lyra so much. There are lots of answers we get here, but we get far more newer questions than I remembered.

Lyra’s Oxford - Philip Pullman: ☆☆☆ I am so fond of this world that Pullman has created and I always find it so wonderful to visit it again. I really enjoyed this story, I but I also found it just a bit too short.

Perfume: The Story of Murderers - Patrick Süskind: ☆☆☆☆ I really enjoyed this one. It's not a large book, but it's really interesting and very unusual. I had the movie in my head the whole time I was reading the book, which took a bit of the fun out of reading it though. But the writing was beautiful.

Archenemies, Supernova – Marissa Meyer: ☆☆☆, ☆☆☆. All the books that I have read by Meyer have really interesting premise, nice and likeable characters with some great dynamic between them and comradery, which is just so fun to read and this series certainly delivers on that. The romance is cute, and the plot is very fast paced and exciting. It's a very fun and easy read. Now, while I do think this series explores some interesting themes such as abuse of power, challenging your leaders to recognizing that the views that other around you and those you admire aren’t always correct, I also felt part of the last book, and the ending fumbled over some of them or didn't really uphold them well enough or go as hard as I wanted them to go. It almost felt too easy. Just like some of these superhero movies it's very entertaining, but might not always leave a lot behind in the end.

The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, Oatbringer, - Brandon Sanderson: ☆☆☆, ☆☆☆☆, ☆☆☆. When I first started this story I felt like it was really slow, a bit boring and just sort of dragging it's feet through clunky worldbuilding and backstories. The first part of the Way of Kings was not a fun read to me. Although Sanderson is great at creating a interesting and dynamic worlds and setting for his fantasy story (it's one of the things he's known for) I wish he could do so with a little less info-dumps. It really bored me, there wasn't enough story to hook me and that was the main reason why I switched to the audiobooks for this series. The audiobook finally managed to draw me into the story.

All the books in Stormlight Archive suffer from a similar problems as the first one, in various degrees, although the stakes do increase as you go further into the story and towards the plot has escalated so much that you do not seem to be able to put the book down, it's the start and the meandering middle that kinda suck a lot of excitement out if this story for me. The story is sometimes a little too slow for me, although I find some of it enjoyable. I just personally like a bit more plot. You're constantly learning more about the world and how it works, but I wish there was more rise to the story all throughout the books, and I think Sanderson is extremely weak when it comes to such political intrigue. I want a bit more escalating tension. I experienced very similar thing with Mistborn. There is also the fact that some parts of the books are more interesting than other depending on the POV, but that can happen with a story as big as this one. I just wish there was a little less info-dumps, a bit more suspense throughout the plot and that the worldbuilding could be mixed better in with the actual plot.

The Burning God – R. F. Kuang: ☆☆☆☆ The Poppy War series is one of the most stand out series I have read in a while! I flew through the first two via audiobooks earlier this year and then I picked up the last book in the trilogy as soon as it came out. It is very dark and does not shy away from the gruesome details of war and what it can do to people and how it can just break them and the aftermath that it leaves behind. Even with all the magical powers that some of characters have things never get easy. They only seem to get worse.

I admired Kuang's use of real history as inspiration for this series and how she did it, as I read a little bit more about the Chinese civil war and the opium wars in the process, and how truly morally gray the characters were (the term morally gray gets throw around a lot) and how everyone could turn on each other at any given moment, the characters are someone you can empathize with but they are also so flawed and unlikeable at the same time. You are supposed to be conflicted on these characters and I think Kuang manages to do that so well and I enjoyed reading a whole lot.

The story surprised me at almost every turn, and it was so satisfying when every piece fell into place and we got to the ending that this story deserves. The writing itself is quite straight forward and to the point and not very flowery, which I think suits the story and the subject matter quite well. It does have some pacing issues, especially in the second book for me, which can sometimes be a bit of a drag. But the overall story is super strong. It is not for people who want to have a light, fun fantasy read or cannot stomach a lot of violence. This is an adult grimdark after all. Lots of trigger warning for this one like substance abuse, self-harm, rape, death, violence etc. I can personally handle a lot, but even I found it hard to read at times. But the way these things were handled or written about in the story and how it was handled did usually not bother me. It was not done for sheer shock value.

The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden: ☆☆☆☆ I actually sort of knew before I read this book that this would be something I would really enjoy. And I was right. I loved the atmosphere, the feeling of it, and this world that was brought to life by this book. It felt like reading a folk tale by the fire, it had that feeling, as it is some sort of retelling of Slavic folktales, I think. The story is rather slow and I felt it dragged its feet in some places. Especially towards the middle. But I always found it really fascinating and captivating read.

The Polar Bear Explorers ’Club - Alex Bell: ☆☆ This story never really captured my attention. I often found it rather confusing, a bit vapid and even a bit all over the place. There was not enough danger, not enough conflict and the main character got on my nerves a bit as I thought she was this typical 'I'm not like other girls' female character that you meet from time to time. Although I associate it mostly with YA books.

Daemon Voices - Philip Pullman: ☆☆☆☆ I did not read this book page by page, but when it comes to such a collection of essays and so on, I personally don't think you need to. I often have a hard time reading non-fiction and I usually find it more fun to listen to them. It's not a straightforward story that really pulls me forward as there is no plot. I am a plot driven person. So reading it did take some time, but I still found a lot of interesting thoughts and ponderings about what it means to tell stories, write them and publish them. It really made me ponder at least. And I also found a lot of great quotes as well.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S.Lewis: ☆☆☆☆ I just wanted to reread one good and short classic that gives a little Christmas feeling. However, I was not always in the mood to re-read books and I didn't always find myself in the mood for it this Christmas. But that is not the fault of the book. I've read it before and loved it. I just do not re-read books often and I just often am not in the mood to read books during the Christmas holidays for some reason.

[primergon]

I probably still adore you with your hands around my neck, wheeljack/reader

Summary : " You can never stay in one place, Jackie. You always move from one thing to another, and sooner or later that'll be me."

Your expression was shrouded by the night, only visible under the passing streetlights. You sounded so helpless. As if the chill had washed away the warmth in your voice, you offer him a dry laugh. Wheeljack wanted something to fill the silence, the grinding of rubber against gravel just wasn't enough.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning : Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category: Gen

Fandoms: Transformers - All Media Types , Transformers: Prime

Relationship: Wheeljack (Transformers)/You

" What do you mean you're leaving?"

He slowed down his driving, drifting closer to the side of the road as he went. The song from the radio hardly mattered anymore, your favorite song falling into the background as your silence filled the air.

A gentle breeze slinked through the gap by the windows, caressing their fingers against your thigh - he could feel you shiver.

" It means I'm leaving," You repeated.

Jackie snorted, " Why?"

The hurt in his voice gave way to shock, he had no time to conceal it - they tumble out of his lips, the same way his thoughts would whenever he's around you.

You curl a hand atop the steering wheel, " I'm leaving Jackie. Before you can leave me."

He almost hit the breaks, almost, if it wasn't for the car behind him. The cobalt impala swerved to the side, giving Wheeljack a honk he would have returned if it wasn't for the way your lips curl into a rueful smile. He had seen you frown, he had seen you cry - but he had never seen you force such kind of sympathy.

' I'm not going to leave you.'

The words hung in the air, unspoken, yet not unheard. They were written in the way his side-view mirror reflected your eyes. You two stare at each other, for a moment, Wheeljack almost forgot to take a turn. The spell was broken and you were left to gaze at the moon as it follows you on your drive.

Wheeljack had once told you how much he hated lying. It was a sudden confession that took you off guard, nearly knocking your perception of him as a special ops agent. He had tossed the empty grenade shell aside, lowering himself to sit next to you.

You sipped on your wine while he drank his high grade, the grass sinking against your arms as you perched yourself dangerously close to his face.

You watch him recall his time as a wrecker. Wheeljack wasn't sentimental, nostalgic, yes - but never sentimental. But maybe it was the alcohol talking, but he had explained how lying goes against his moral code.

" Oh, so you have a moral code?" You shoved his shoulder lightly, to which he retaliated with a lazy grin.

" Everyone has a moral code, sweet spark."

In the middle of all that hazy flirting, you manage to cling onto his words. After explaining that talking his way out of things and bending the truth doesn't qualify as lying, he indulged you.

Wheeljack didn't like to lie because he would get confused telling apart what's real and what's not. He hated that kind of deception, it makes fighting harder, it makes  leaving  harder.

Now, under the starless sky, all you can do is stare ahead at the empty road before you - and you can't help but think if what you shared was nothing but that. An empty promise, just like this drive - it will end with him ditching you without a word.

He seemed to have read your mind, tightening the seatbelt in what you could only guess as a comforting gesture - or perhaps a goodbye? You couldn't tell. You blinked away the stinging in your eyes, with Jackie, you can never tell - even if you thought you could.

You could see the base approaching in the distance and all of a sudden you can feel him. You can feel the coldness in his hands as they graze your arm, the wicked smile he gave between your legs, and the way his teeth would nip at your lips.

You gripped the steering wheel

" You can never stay in one place, Jackie. You always move from one thing to another, and sooner or later that'll be me."

Your expression was shrouded by the night, only visible under the passing streetlights. You sounded so helpless. As if the chill had washed away the warmth in your voice, you offer him a dry laugh. Wheeljack wanted something to fill the silence, the grinding of rubber against gravel just wasn't enough.

You stepped out of the car, closing the door before you. You start to notice how obnoxiously bright the lights were, and Optimus's conversation with Ratchet seems to be louder than it should be as you locked eyes with Wheeljack.

There was a polarity between you, a constant battle between push and pull. Most days you could tell, but tonight, your silence crawled under his skin.

" Where are you going?" He asked.

" West."

He nodded, " I heard it's sunny this time of the year. I'll visit."

You bit the inside of your cheek, looking down. There was something holding your tongue back, anchoring it against your jaws. This was something you never do, you have always been one for talking - but around Wheeljack, you could be worse than Smokescreen.

Yet, nothing seems to be going the way it should be when it comes to Wheeljack.

" You're not just another weekend getaway for me."

His whisper sounded so vulnerable, so  real . An emotion he had never given you because war doesn't allow him that, no matter how much he thinks he earned it, no matter how much you think he has earned it.

You were tempted to reach out for it, to hold out your hand, and cradle it right above your rib cages. His eyes were open, inviting - ironic considering how chillingly blue they were.

All you needed to do was reach out, yet you gave a half-hearted shrug.

" Yet you never stick around long enough to call it home."

You make a move to memorizing his face before turning around, leaving a trail of footsteps, slowed by the heaviness of your heart. You had greeted him with open arms. You gave him home, but the prospect of finally staying was too frightening for a mech who can't remember a time where he wasn't running.

" Where are you going?" You once asked, " What are you running from?"

It was never the final destination - it was always getting away from something. You didn't want to make him feel obligated, grounded, trapped. What can you offer a man who has been desperately searching for things to make him whole?

You waited, you hoped - even if you had reminded yourself not to, that he would do something.

Stop you, call out for you, anything.

Yet you stood by the other end of the ground bridge, the portal closing in to reveal the orchestra of nocturnal animals. You listened to their lullaby, staring at the grass that had weeded out of the concrete by your driveway.

The flowers were wild, untamed and in full bloom - swaying against the wind.

Wheeljack didn't like to lie because he would get confused telling apart what's real and what's not. He hated that kind of deception, it makes fighting harder, it makes  leaving  harder.

That was the last time you saw him.

A/N :   This piece is based on 505 by Arctic Monkeys + I honestly just have a lot of feels for Jackie and I feel like he's that kind of guy that can't stay in one place. The song playing in the background could be 505 ( a great song if you haven't heard it btw ), but it's your pick ! I just wanted to do angst, so here it is - I love Jackie and this is in no way Jackie slander ( not in my house ) but tell me what you guys think !

You can find more of my work in AO3 under sirensangel !

AO3 link : I probably still adore you with your hands around my neck

[hackedmotionsensors]

Hey I feel like you’ve already answered this but what are some of your favorite iron man or Captain America comics and why? What story lines would you recommend? I’m curious about the more modern stuff. What’s some of your fav comic artists when it comes to marvel?

OKAY SO. 

holy shit this got long so UNDER THE READ MORE WE GO

This is always kind of a hard question to answer because I personally have not read everything in regards to either Iron man or Captain America. I’ve read the Tales of Suspense stories a lot because I keep trying to start over from the very beginning. And that’s not always helpful if you just wanna dip your toes or give Iron Man/Cap a go.

So what I CAN tell you is here’s what I did when I was first getting into comics around 2012.

I went to Borders/Barnes and Noble and a I read a bunch of the compilations they had in the store. Someone has already done the work FOR you so its really easy to just pick up a book and read from there. 

I started out with Invincible Iron Man  (I’m gonna link to Amazon but I suggest not buying from them because Bezos is a demon [comixology is owned by amazon as well but it is a convenient app]) 

Marvel has its own comics app but if you also read and pay for other comics its not ideal. There are places to “read comic books online” and for older stuff I definitely do this now but for newer comics I’ll try to pay for them especially if its indie. Support indie comics!!! 

Anyway. Invincible Iron Man. A polarizing story in terms of Iron Man lore. But its definitely an easy one to get into and read especially if you’re coming in from MCU and are just testing things. You don’t necessarily need to know all of his history but it covers the basics. 

Next I’d try Demon in a Bottle It’s the original alcoholism arc. A must read for general Tony’s lore. This isn’t the one where he ends up a hobo on the street where Cap helps him escape from a burning building. But this is where he goes off the rails the first time. Bethany Cabe is his current girlfriend and tries to help him. And he kind of recovers. I’m not sure this is exactly a FAVORITE but it has a lot of the important shit for Tony. His temper is something that doesn’t get talked a lot about I think but he DEFINITELY has one. The art is very..........lol its not BAD per say but its also not like wow what gorgeous art. 

Another important Tony lore is Armor Wars So you wanna read the first few times Tony and Steve fight about REAL SHIT. This is it. This is the classic story where he realizes his tech is being used by bad guys and HE’S THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN STOP THEM NO CAP NOT EVEN YOU BECAUSE YOU’RE A GOOD GUY AND I MIGHT HAVE TO GET DIRTY. It has the classic Steve sitting in a dark room waiting for Tony to come back with his date and then throwing his shield at Tony going “I don’t want your trash”

It also has a lot of good Tony being in a morally grey area. *chef’s kiss* 

And then basically read all the fun stuff with Kurt Busiek in Vol 3 (This isn’t an amazon link but the marvel database so you know roughly where to start) 

VOLUME THREE HAS SUCH HITS LIKE

The Sentient Armor: Tony accidentally kills Whiplash in a lightning storm. The Armor comes to life. The armor falls in love with Tony and WANTS TO BECOME ONE WITH TONY. Tony does not want this. Tony is beat up and kidnapped and taken by the armor to a deserted island. The Armor is like Tony I love you so much GET IN ME NOW. Tony is about to die from a heart attack. The armor RIPS ITS HEART OUT AND SHOVES IT INTO TONY. Bye Tony I love you now we’re one forever. RIP

Tiberius Stone’s 2 arcs (they’re not in consecutive order but they’re both hella gay): Tony’s old boarding school friend shows up again and is a TV mogul and is DEFINITELY NOT Slandering Tony in the press or blowing up his buildings or framing him for MURDER oh my god Tiberius is a pain in the ass and we definitely boned down as teenagers but he would never frame me for MURDER but his TV devices that seep into your brain like the boob tube thing from Batman Forever are pretty suspicious. Oh no Tiberius IS a bad guy and he got me naked (why?) and hooked the both of us up to the TV machine and now we’re trapped in his horny tv dream why am I dressed like Alice in Wonderland???  ALSO HE SLEPT WITH MY GIRLFRIEND!!!!??

(This is why I will FOREVER get upset that Killian in Iron Man 3 isn’t Tiberius Stone. He IS LITERALLY FOLLOWING THE TIBERIUS STONE PLAYBOOK INCLUDING THE PHYSICAL LOOK WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE FEIGE YOU OWE ME MONEY!!!!)

Also at the beginning of Vol 3. Tony gets the absolute holy hell bejesus shit beat out of him. And that lasts for a WHILE and seeps into the Avengers Vol 3 (which you should also read its fun and I like that George Perez actually tries to make people look ethnically diverse but also you can tell Clint from Cap)

There’s also a part in vol 3 where Monica from FRIENDS shows up at a party and that’s a wild thing that happened.

But basically I think you can start just about anywhere with Iron Man and have a good time if you’re a deep Tony fan. He has a lot of great stories and its why he’s my favorite. Even this last run with Slott I still KIND OF LIKE ANYWAY??? bc its Tony. Its not always written to what a lot of long standing Iron Man fans would say is canon but I mean.....he’s got 57 years worth of comics behind him so he’s bound to change here and there. He was once a super villain, died, brought over as a teenager from an alternate timeline, and then merged with another Tony I forget the details but its silly lol

Side universe reading Iron Man Noir, Ultimates (Hickman’s run is very fun but also Ultimates 1 and 2. DO NOT READ ULTIMATUM IT IS GROSS, I HAVE READ IT FOR YOU ALMOST EVERYONE DIES ITS GROSS.

Ultimates is literally half of the basis for the MCU. Don’t read Ultimates Iron Man tho. Not only is it written by a creep its also extremely stupid and doesn’t even really make sense in terms of what happens later in Ultimates. It basically gets RetConned immediately.

Also Ultimates universe has Gregory Stark. Tony’s fun evil twin brother who for some reason is blonde. I can’t really give you a specific story to read with Ultimates because its the most god awful confusing universe to try and find stories from so I literally don’t even remember. I’d check an Ultimates fan blog for that.

AS FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA.

I love Steve Rogers. I really do. I think he’s a fun character. B U T. His comics for me can be very boring. He has some great arcs as someone who is supposed to be a representation of what a GOOD AMERICA can aspire to or whatever. But America often times SUCKS A LOT (our current times being very obvious). Cap definitely fights for what he believes and so that’s why he often takes off the garb of Captain America and runs around in a slutty v neck and a cape as Nomad. Or when he comes back from the dead and his BFF is the new Cap (WITHA  KNIFE) and wears the sexy Secret Avengers uniform. Very sexy. We stan the Colonel Rogers uniform very much. But his early comics are a lot of “OH MY GOD I KILLED BUCKY ITS ALL MY FAULT BUCKY!!!!! RICK JONES PUT ON BUCKYS CLOTHES THIS ISNT CREEPY I PROMISE”

A GREAT run in Avengers is the Cap’s Kooky Quartet or as I call Cap Joins the Baby Sitters Club. This goes WAYYYYYY back to Avengers 17 

It runs for a very good while before Giant-man and Wasp come back because Giant Man can’t shrink back down lmfao idiot. But its a lot of fun and establishes Cap as being a really good leader even tho he’s thrown into the hot seat because he was out on a mission and everyone else was like “We’re taking a vacay bye Cap. Good luck with the kids” *John Mulaney doing Andy Cohen impression* HUH WHAT WHY

I have no idea what to Rec really lol I know @sineala is part of a SteveTony 616 discord and they do readings every month(?) of either very SteveTony based arcs or specifically Steve or Tony arcs. But I think they have a better grasp of Steve stories than I do.

I would say most recently the run with Mark Waid and Chris Samnee as the artist is a VERY good read. The story is pretty nice and dry lol but the art. Holy shit.

I know there are a bunch of artists that really REALLY get Cap but Chris Samnee is probably my number one favorite Cap artist. Even his sort of retro style works with Cap SO WELL. And I like Mark Waid’s writing. Or at least I don’t think I’ve ever been really mad at it like with Dan Slott or Gillen (We will never forgive for what he did to Tony’s backstory and taking Maria from him) lol

Uh...but as far as I could tell the entire run where Bernie is his girlfriend is VERY good. She first shows up in Captain America 247 . Cap is an illustrator on the side (or as his main job) and man what a dope. His art habits are worse than mine like get a desk Steve. But this arc through Bernie goes through a lot of Steve being kind of stuck in the past and not knowing how to embrace the modern or future and Bernie is there being the coolest fucking chick in the world who’s studying to be a lawyer, watches Wrestling, listens to Bruce Springsteen (I think lol I forget), dunks on Cap for being a weirdo old dude. Very put together woman of the 80s. She proposes to Cap and because I think the writers changed he’s like I HAVE TO LEAVE IMMEDIATELY BYE. 

This isn’t on any of the main timelines but its a good read Captain America Man Out Of Time. Basically Cap coming to grips with the future and realizing the past sucked ew. lol Also he listens to Radiohead which Tony gives him a personal concert for because of course he does.

And then of course there’s this fucking TOME of a story Captain America: The Winter Soldier .

Im gonna sound a little negative but I don’t mean it against anyone’s favorite but I have the most exhausting time trying to read this story. I’ve tried at least three times lol. I think maybe Brubaker’s weird obsession with the Cold War (Remember when he called people who were yelling at Slott for being a creep a ‘Bunch of Commies’) is just so fucking heavy handed that I can’t personally get through it. I would much rather watch the movie.

HOWEVER. There’s good old Bucky coming back from the dead. Natasha. Sam Wilson. Sharon Carter. All big players in this story. So uh lol good luck with this one. If you’re also a Bucky fan this is a must read but as I only peripherally like Bucky I don’t care to read this one. 

So I’d check out this arc.

Also a personal fave of mine is 

It starts here on Captain America 402 . Its the best story IN THE WORLD. ITS SO ICONIC. NOTHING CAN COMPETE. I LOVE CAPWOLF SO MUCH lol

[basicsofislam]

ISLAM 101: Muslim Culture and Character: Reflections (Tafakkur): Abuse of Religion and Religious Sentiments

ABUSE OF RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS

The quest for truth has two principal branches which, if the quest is motivated by sincere love of the truth sought, are radically joined – that is, they have fundamentally the same root and goal even though the branches diverge. The two branches are the seeking represented by religion and the seeking represented by science. The effort of the quest is aimed at discovering the relation between existence and human consciousness and perceptive powers within that existence. But the effort is also directed at what it (the effort) is for, and what attitude is to be taken to the knowledge we are given or obtain. This means that purpose and moral judgements enter the quest for truth and shape and colour its achievements. Now some people pretend that the science of nature is neutral about such matters. They are wrong to do so. In fact, though an individual working at some particular problem may believe him or herself to be applying neutral, objective procedures, that person’s work nevertheless entails sharing in all the structures of thought, the assumptions and purposes, which are a part of the culture of science as a whole in any particular epoch. That culture is not independent of questions of purpose and meaning: it is simply that such questions are not the immediate objective or concern of the individual scientist, and, for that reason, they remain implicit in the work being done. They become explicit in human attitudes (personal and societal) and in the technology that funds and (by its success) justifies the quest for scientific knowledge.

True science and true religion should be, as it were, fellow-travellers in that both passionately oppose superstition and falsehood; and, in any case, both have the same right of appeal to reasoned argument and to experience. Religion is the older quest in two important respects: first, in that it teaches and inspires love of truth for its own sake (that love is not and cannot be generated by science itself, though it motivates the best science); and, second, in that it upholds the Authority which gives to human reason its conditional authority – the Revelation of Gods Will to His Messengers, most comprehensively, reliably and finally in the Qur’an and in the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace. Religion has a moral and philosophical, as well as a historical, priority. Denial of that priority in human life robs it of its most vital element, its deepest dynamic, and it deprives science of nobility of purpose. Scientific endeavour which does not aim to understand existence, which does not depend on the love for and zeal to know the truth, is liable to blindness and falling into contradictions. Perhaps without knowing it, but (surely) sometimes also knowingly, science becomes captive to ideological and doctrinal preconceptions, cultural prejudices, to the pursuit of power (instead of knowledge and understanding). When that happens, the inquirer’s way to truth is blocked up, and the endeavour of science as a whole does not yield understanding or improvement in either physical or human nature, but leads to the opposite, the ruin and degradation of both.

The priority of the religious quest for truth over the scientific quest for truth does not mean that it is exempt from falling into error and wrongdoing. Rather, it is the reason for even greater vigilance to maintain the soundness of beliefs and principles, the purity of intention and practice. Just as science can be rash and intolerant in attitude towards that which it regards as outside its culture, and so fail its vocation to seek the truth, so too religion can be abused and turned from a quest for pure, heavenly truth into a means for hatred, rancour and vindictiveness. A dogmatic and narrow-minded scientific community, enslaved to certain philosophical or ideological prejudices, can become more fanatical and dangerous in its consequences than ignorance. So too can a religious community when it reduces religion to a device to serve certain political interests or worldly advantages. Religion then ceases to be a heavenly inspiration for thought and conduct, and becomes instead an assemblage of meaningless ceremonies and a worldly ideology.

Institutions where sciences are taught and scientific studies are conducted are to be esteemed as highly as places of worship. However, the institutions where sciences are used to promote certain ideological biases or impose certain concepts to obtain material advantages, no longer deserve respect, as they are structures where selfish, ignoble desires and passions are nurtured. Likewise, if religion and religious sentiments are exploited to promote political ambitions and to divide people into factions, and if religion is taken as a rigid ideology giving rise to polarization and disruptions among people, then religion is no longer a means serving to lead people to God; rather, it is an obstacle before the true religion of God, an obstacle made up of fanaticism, enmity, hatred and belligerence.

However he may outwardly appear, a man unconscious of the true nature of belief and deprived of knowledge and love of God, who cannot measure the principles of religion in the scales of the religion itself, who does not give priority to that to which God gives priority, is disrespectful of the heavenly and universal identity of religion and has no right to claim to be truly religious. What is most opposed to both religion and science is that selfish desires and fancies are presented in the guise of objective knowledge and religious sentiments. This is a weakness in human nature leading people to ostentation and worldly expectations. People tend to sublimate their defects and shortcomings and science and religion are two important devices they use to this end. The most effective weapon of conscience against such a tendency is love of truth; if there is an elixir to dissolve from minds the ‘scientific’ dross, and remove from hearts the tendency to false show of religious devotion, it is love of the Creator and love of truth and the love of His creation arising there from. If hearts are ardent with love and spirits with yearning, it is possible to mend moral defects and elevate human beings to true humanity.

The world of mankind recognized love of truth through the Prophets, and it is this love which leads people to love of God and to build healthy relations with existence. From the very beginning, all Prophets guided their followers to that love and based their relations with their people on that love. It was only when absorbed in love of God that men have been able to find their true identity and value. The Prophet Jesus upon him be peace, composed a poem of life based on love of man and fulfilled his mission by conveying it to others. The Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace, honoured the world as, in the words of a classical Turkish poet, ‘the commander of the army of lovers’ and expressed love throughout his life. When love of God became in him irresistible, he went on to the other world. The Qur’an, when recited with conviction and concentration, will be understood as a declaration of love, in addition to the charm of its music and phrasing. Love of truth, love of science, the urge to research, the call to reason and to exercise self-control – these are the points which the Qur’an reiterates and about which it warns people. They are like mines in which a careful, believing reciter of the Qur’an can find new, different jewels every time he seeks.

How unfortunate it is that, despite its wealth of power to heal all our wounds, to end all our centuries-old pains and cure our diseases, this precious Book has long been approached with superficial attitudes and disagreeable intentions and used by many capricious persons, desirous of the world and in pursuit of self- interests, as a device to always accuse others and acquit and absolve themselves, and exploited as an excuse for the hatred, belligerence and impudence originating in their own dark souls. This is why many seeking truth and the true path come to it with suspicion and doubt. Approaching people with anger and feelings of enmity and vengeance in the name of the Qur’an, and confusing communicating its message with looking for ways to satisfy certain political or worldly ambitions disguised under religious aims, results in imitating others in atrocities and wrongdoing. It should be understood that Islam is neither an ideology nor merely a political, economic and social system, nor is the Qur’an a book calling its followers to kindle fires of war and enmity among people.

The Qur’an came down to the world with a balance. It seeks to establish a perfect balance – the balance observed in the whole of the universe which the Qur’an orders us not to destroy – in the relations of an individual with other individuals, with his family, his community and with the whole of existence. The Qur’an aims to establish peace and harmony. So, it ought never to be used to cause disruptions and mischief among people and it by no means sanctions or allows putting pressure on consciences and minds. Rather, it seeks to remove pressure from consciences and minds so that people may find truth.

Those who set their hearts upon the lofty ideals established by the Qur’an continue to live until eternity and have an honoured place in the hearts of others, similarly inspired. But those who exploit those ideals in pursuit of their debased ambitions remain as chained slaves of their desires and fancies. Their lives are spent in humiliation and end in doom.

A true, sincere student of the Qur’an aims to convey others to eternity. While he is constantly advancing to his destination along his own way, those drowned in their wrong suppositions and ambitions regard him as mad and see him as misguided.

The aim of a sincere student of the Qur’an is like a catapult throwing him directly into the world of pure spirituality beyond this base world tainted with selfish interests and mean aspirations, or it is like a rocket put in orbit round the truth. Religion is the pure source feeding him and the Prophet is the one who offers it. Those who cannot approach this blessed source through the gate of the Prophet, those who cannot dive deep in this source after the guidance of the Prophet with the necessary equipment to find the gems of truth required in this age, will not succeed in presenting as religion the ideas originating in their dark minds and souls, nor succeed in disguising their fancies and desires as religious ideas.

The Qur’an is a resource of infinite depth; whoever dives in it with a sincere intention to satisfy his needs of every kind – spiritual, intellectual, social, etc.- will find the cure he seeks. The deeper one grows in understanding and knowledge, the more one will find the Qur’an, like a rainbow, far above one’s level, impossible to reach. Following religion means being able to see the light of the Qur’an and the Prophetic way of life reflected through the prism of one’s time, place and conditions and being illumined by it.