#a actual good father is a rare fucking phenomenon

[apostate-in-an-alcove]

Men spend so much time worrying about whether or not a child is biologically his and live in this fantasyland where men are tricked, on a grand scale, into raising children that aren't theirs meanwhile the fuckers don't actually contribute much into actual childrearing or any domestic labour around the household, even when the children in question are technically his.

[badedramay]

what i find interesting about the whole hamza phenomenon on twt is the insistence on him not being a nepo kid even though he himself has admitted to how his connections have been helpful. like he got the raqeeb se gig bc he was interested in tv production and asked kashif nisar if he could work as an assistant, only for nisar to ask him to audition and subsequently offer him the role. not just anyone can walk up to kashif nisar and even ask that initial question. there was a foundation there that hamza was able to capitalize on, and then it resulted in even more success than he expected. and he's clearly grateful for that opportunity so i'm not sure why people want to obscure his attitude about it. it's good he's humble and understands his privileges, it's good he's trying to take it a little at a time and work his way up to the stronger roles. no need to project the babygirl image onto him when what he is is an accountable adult clearly passionate about this line of work and willing to put in the effort to succeed at it bc he's lucky to have access to certain opportunities (something i comparatively don't notice in people like zaviyar, for example, who seems to more or less cruise on opportunities rather than actually value them lol)

Yeah I do see his privilege being very deliberately wrapped in a package of struggle by his fandom. the narrative about how he didn't immediately get a lead in Kashif Nisar show and how he had to "audition" and he started as "supporting actor" is passed off as his struggle when, like you said, just him being able to go up to Kashif Nisar to ask to be on his set already put him leagues ahead of contemporaries who actually struggled to get in the building in the first place.

Being a nepo kid and being untalented are not two mutually exclusive things. he seems like a decent lad. he's aware of the privilege that he has (according to what his fandom says) and he is well-spoken. that's good. nothing wrong with that. but I do feel his fandom tries to make up for his privileged background a LOT by projecting an image to him that's quite far from the truth imo. like how the fandom vehemently tried to keep his old private posts private when some pictures of him smoking? doing sheesha? something like that came out..because those pictures didn't necessarily align with the "babygirl" image they have going on for him (the same people had no issues cooing over the "non-problematic" pictures). and how they are now busy calling out people who post about his very expensive wardrobe choices because it puts in light just how loaded his bank account actually is because..again..it doesn't align with the "struggling" image they have going on for him (whereas fanpages dissecting any celeb's looks is a fairly common practice in fandoms across the board now and is not a "hate" campaign like some of Hamza's fans would like to believe).

He IS a nepo kid. He IS privileged. that's just facts. he got a headstart in the industry because of his father's name. he/his fans can try to wrap it all up by saying "oh no his father didn't help him at all~" all they want but the reality of this country is that the father's name on the identity card opens huge doors for you. i don't think anyone in the industry in their right mind would've seen son of Sohail Ahmed come up to them and treat him with anything but their full attention. like..how is this up for any discussion or confusion??? do people not know how this country works in terms of having connections???

Imho, it's the fans who want his image to be completely disassociated from his privileged background more than Hamza himself. there's always this stigma around stanning nepo kids of the industry. also with two other nepo kids being Hamza's contemporaries and them so clearly benefiting from their last names..yeah I can see why the fans are extra defensive. then there's this thing of Hamza's claim to fame being a "green flag" character which acc to his fandom is so fucking rare in dramas ke usse pehle toh kabhi koi itna acha huaaa hi nahin dramas mein and how they take stanning Hamza's character in FT as a thing of pride..they don't want anything to stain Hamza's perfect offscreen image lest it ends up affecting his character onscreen. i also have this theory that the last nepo kid that the fans hailed as a great addition to the industry despite his privilege was Ahad Raza Mir and how he basically ended up using his stint in PakDramas as embellishments on his CV to pursue international work which he was always more interested..that has cautioned the fans from being too trust worthy of talented nepo kids. but ab Hamza pe dil aa gaya hai aur woh utar bhi nahin sakta toh chalo uski image cleaning karte hain and package him as "just a regular guy" like all of us. "yaaar yeh bechara apne abba se maar khata tha..ye toh bilkul meri tarah hai!" they write as captions of his pictures where he is decked head to toe in Gucci.

[ladyoftheblackpaint]

Dad-for-One Theory Breakdown

So now that the big man is out and on the loose, I was reading about this theory, and honestly it’s pretty interesting.

All For One being Izuku’s father.

Other people could probably write better analyses of the theory itself than me, but from what I understand these are some main arguments to support this being a possibility:

Firstly, let’s talk about AFO’s appearance.

He’s shown with white hair in the anime when he was younger, as does his younger brother. His eyes are constantly shadowed even before his face got jacked up by All Might.

So genetically speaking, here are the traits that constitute Izuku and his parental figures:

One of Izuku’s parents would need to have freckles

One of Izuku’s parents would need to have green hair (check)

One of Izuku’s parents would need to have curly hair

One of Izuku’s parents would need to have green eyes (check)

One of Izuku’s parents would need to have his eye shape (check)

One of Izuku’s parents would need to have his skin tone (check)

The thing with genetics, though, is that they’re weird things and parents are not always the sole givers of traits.

As we can see, from the parts of All For One’s face that is visible, he doesn’t have curly hair OR freckles, which is sort of a big kick in the gut for this theory.

Irregardless, I do have to say that theory, though, does have a point with the fact that his eyes are hidden. Most of Izuku’s traits seem to come from his mother, and the fact that two of his most telling traits (his curly hair and his freckles) just so happen to be in the same spots that are covered up by scar tissue in the design of present-day AFO is pretty interesting.

Coincidental New Abilities Given To Izuku & Izuku’s strange pain threshold.

So this is one that I have been asking questions about. OFA is a stock piling quirk, but from the looks of it, only strength is actually passed down from one individual to the next, like an energy reserve. However, if that is the case, why is it that all of a sudden the vestiges decided to change the rules of the game and bestow onto Izuku all of their abilities.

Why not All Might? He was the closest to killing AFO in the past, so if they had done so with him he might have actually done it.

It’s possible that the reason they chose Izuku was because of the impending catastrophes that were obviously coming to fruition with the League of Villains and Tomura.

I’m left to wonder if there was another reason, though:

One of the themes of My Hero Academia is how quirks harm the user over time. All Might gets wounded and then forces himself to keep using his quirk,  Bakugou hurts his arms if he uses his quirk too much, Aizawa gets dry eye, Ururaka throws up, and the most obvious of them is Izuku-- who breaks his bones with the intensity of his quirk.

This didn’t happen with All Might and apparently not with any of the past users, either, since All Might seemed surprised at the extent since it was easier for him, even though he suspected what the consequences might be. Add onto this that the ability is now supposed to be stronger than All Might’s was, and you get the picture.

The point is: Izuku gets wounded a lot and yet seems to have the pain resistance of a freaking monster I mean:

COME ON.

Taking that into consideration, AFO has been described as being concerned about how his quirk affects his body. Since he has so many quirks that could potentially harm him and overwhelm him. I mean, look at the experiments with the Nomu-- people are obviously not supposed to have more than one quirk.

So someone with the capability of wielding multiple quirks with possibly painful drawbacks would, probably, be able to pass on some of the needed traits to keep that up genetically to Izuku, amiright.

And it’s possible the vestiges could tell that Izuku could handle it because of this genetic connection.

He didn’t have a quirk, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t get other traits from AFO if he was his father, such as his endurance and pain threshold.

Which leads me to my next point:

Extra Toe Bone

I actually just thought of this when I was writing the last point, so if it makes no sense welp...

Izuku was born quirkless, something that is considered relatively rare, expecially as the generations go on. Quirks are genetic phenomenon, and so if two people who have quirks have a child, it is VERY slim that their child will be born quirkless, unless they had a grandparent or someone else down the line who was quirkless.

Now, AFO was part of the first generation of quirked people. Meaning, his parents would have likely been quirkless, something that would have made it much easier for his offspring to be quirkless, as well.

Fire-breathing Absent Father

This is one of the more easy and obvious ones.

Horikoshi has said that Izuku’s father would show up later in the story, meaning that he has had a plot planned out for Izuku’s parents. Whatever that might be.

So that obviously shuts down the idea that his father is simply an unimportant character. To be introduced so that into the story as if he’s a vital piece for the future story seems...strange. Pretty suspicious.

Anyways, there’s also the information that’s been given about Izuku’s father having the quirk of fire breathing, and, obviously, a man who has numerous quirks would have the possibility of being a fire breather.

There’s not much else to say about this point.

Parallelism

OH, this one’s my favorite.

Okay, looking at Tomura Shigaraki’s character for a moment, we see the connection he has with Nana, one of the previous holders of One for All.

This is a plot technique that is basically just a twist in the narrative. How could someone SO GOOD and someone that All Might looked up to have a grandchild so inherently evil? His family was relatively normal, even if his father was abusive (god, that’s a terrible thing to say but I digress). His father’s abuse came from the trauma he experiences when he was abandoned by Nana, but all in all his family was full of ordinary people. He had grandparents, a mother, a sister, and his abusive dad (oh god).

Even with the heroic heritage and the normal family life, Tomura becomes one of the worst villains in the series.

By parallelism, I mean, imagine the DRAMA if Izuku-- pure, wanting-to-be-a-hero, saving everyone’s ass, sunshine child Izuku-- was the most powerful villain’s child...that’d be fucking awesome. I would shit bricks. It’d be amazing!

Possibly predictable...

But amazing!

Plus, if you look at both Izuku and Tomura’s parents, if the Dad For One theory is true, they would each have one caring parent and one “bad” parent.

It would fit so well. With the narrative of the “heroes” of society not being inherently good (Nana abandoning her child-- even if she believed it was for his best interest) and villains simply being misunderstood until the point that they snap (look at literally ANY villain in the series. There’s some type of narrative about being abandoned by society).

One of the best heroes ever producing one of the greatest villains, and vice versa.

It’d be beautiful.

THAT’S some badass parallelism.

PLUS, it would fit with the narrative of ending the cycle of violence. For a story so based on the intricacies of society and what is truly “evil” and “good”, to have an ending where the two characters stray from their genetically defined path and decide their own destinies would be SO satisfying I’m getting excited just thinking about it.

ANYWAYS, I’m not so sure how much I believe this theory might come true, but I know that it’s not a silly theory at all. Looking at the narrative, the possible hints, the parallelism (GOD the PARALLELISM) it would make sense in the long run and, in my opinion, be super interesting.

[ohpsshaw]

~DFS Christmas Special~

No desire to draw lately, so I’ve been doing little prose sketches instead.

Just in time for December, here’s what turned out to be Uncle Jack taking Al Christmas shopping. This would be circa 199X B.G. (Before Glenn), making Al in his early 20s.

(Watch out if you have high blood sugar, cos this gets KINDA SACCHARINE.)

It had finally stopped snowing, thank goodness. The fresh white blanket reflected crisp light in through the windows, making him feel chilled inside. Luckily Pop was a comfort creature who kept a stock of hot chocolate mix in the pantry. Al never seemed to reach for it back at his apartment, but something about visiting home in the winter months made a warm mug feel as essential as a limb.

Uncle Jack had asked Al to accompany him for some holiday shopping later, and a chocolate briquette would be good to have heating his gut. He took it to the couch in the living room. Someone had dug up the old photo books and left them on the coffee table a few days ago. Flipping through, he noticed that half the pages were completely empty— photography had never been a popular concept in the Czar household. The preserved moments were of family trips and landmarks, rambunctious sepia-washed office parties, Al’s school portraits. Rarer was anything taken inside the house. One shot of himself at four or five years old, standing on the yellow-sunlit staircase and showing the camera a toy car, surfaced a memory of being coached to keep his mouth closed so as not to alarm a 1-hour photo developer. Thinking on it, it may have been more than coincidence that most of these were instant Polaroids.

Through the window, he heard the muffled sound of a car door, then: “What the fuck are you doing!?” Hey, Pop’s home. Al pulled back the curtain to watch the drama unfolding at the end of the driveway, where Uncle Jack had been chipping at the wall of powder the afternoon snowplow had left. Xav had just returned from morning errands and parked in the street, storming over the slush to stop his brother from working.

Cold air blasted from the foyer. Snow crunched as Xav shook out the snow shovel behind him. “Why was he doing this by himself? Did you become a quadriplegic when I wasn’t looking?”

Al flipped through the Rolodex in his head for the answer that would earn him the least amount of grief. He shrugged, as if confused by the absurdity of the question. “He didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t ask, Max.” Jack took the shovel back. “But you’re right, I should have. Reckon it was my vanity what did me in— I can’t stand to be upstaged by some young buck doing the same job in half the time.” He winked at his nephew. “Well, three-quarters.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Xav spat, the corners of his mouth curling up against his will. “You both know I’m not being unreasonable. You’re not a guest, Alan Henry. As far as I’m concerned, you still live here. You earn your keep during the day, and MAYBE I’ll consider putting on my robe and letting you suckle dinner from my left tit.”

Al choked on his hot chocolate.

“Shit. Careful on the carpet. I’ll get you a paper towel.” Xav left for the kitchen, grumble-exorcising demons as he walked. “If Papa caught one of us sitting on our ass while the other did chores...”

Why did Pop have to save his best lines for when people were eating? Bent over and lapping chocolate out of the crevices of his palm, Al thought he saw a piece of marshmallow among the bubbles. Heh... hope that didn’t come out of his nose.

“You still need me to shovel?” he asked Jack.

“Son, I would be honored,” Jack nodded, holding the shovel on the doormat like a knight leaning on an orange sword. “Gitcher boots on and you can finish the job before we head out. I’ll make sure your Pop watches the show from inside.”

Xav returned with the towels and a smirk. “Talking shit about me, Jack?”

“I was just sayin’ how you’ll hate to see us go, but you’ll love to watch us walk away.”

“Got that fucking right.” Al cleaned his face while Xav dabbed each of his fingers individually. An oddly tender gesture. “What are you two going out for, exactly?”

“Juuust... shoppin’. I need Alan’s opinion on somethin’.”

“Uh-huh.” Secrets being a rare and dangerous thing in this family, there wasn’t much question as to what this was really about. Especially between brothers who were as close as twins. But the holidays were about giving, after all, so Xav seemed to decide to give them the benefit of the doubt. A game is more fun when everybody plays along.

Truthfully, even Al wasn’t sure what they were going to get for his father. A successful family man hitting his sixties doesn’t want for much. By this point, Xav had enough neckties and “#1 Dad” mugs to be buried surrounded by them like a pharaoh. Jack could always steal the show by reaching into his deep D.D.S. pockets or by making a new piece of furniture, but the son was held to no such standards. Xav had simple hobbies, and he seemed to have the house exactly how he wanted it. Was Al too old to make a coupon book, redeemable for hugs and remembering to use a coaster?

Or maybe his gift to Pop could be giving college another shot. Dropping out had caused some... friction, a flint-strikes-wood situation that had led to Al moving out of the house, and eventually out-of-state. He had to admit, the independence felt good. Putting his shoes on the coffee table, not having to tell anyone where he was going... he’d definitely become more promiscuous. No independent murders, though, which was starting to grate on him. He’d realized lately that he had always expected to be allowed to do more, without his father and uncle. Maybe if he did what Pop wanted, things would calm down so he could move back to Michigan and use the cabin. But the idea of sitting in another classroom, taking notes on a subject he didn’t care about, all for the promise of 50 years chained to a desk... It made him want to sleep forever.

When the car pulled up to the mall, Al was not surprised at all by the entrance his uncle had chosen. “Mind if I peek in Sears?” Jack asked, as if wild horses could stop him.

Home improvement and appliance stores were another phenomenon Al only seemed to experience at home. The dusty, unvarnished smell and high ceilings had been a frequent backdrop during his childhood— for Jack, they seemed to be akin to a candy store. He was talented as a carpenter and repairman, and sincerely relished something going wrong with the house if it meant he could pull out his toolkit. He also liked to make things go wrong with human bodies on occasion, but there was a separate box for those tools waiting up at the cabin.

Two steps in the door, and a weary-looking holiday hire hit them up with a canned pitch: “...and I’m happy to help you find whatever’s on your list!“ Aggressive customer service, the bane of the paranoid shopper. Jack was the front line for shaking off overly helpful greeters, which Xav had called “the second-worst thing to come out of the 80s after Iran-Contra.”

“Just lookin’, God willing— I brought my conscience with me to make me behave,” Jack looked to his nephew. “Don’t let me buy a single screw, y’hear?”

“Got it. Bulk purchases only.” That earned Al a shove.

Salesperson successfully deflected, Jack ducked toward his usual corner: the big ticket carpentry goods. When Al caught up, he was running his hand over a table saw. As much as he loved his uncle, Al wasn’t particularly interested in watching him fantasize about cutting wood, or even bone. “You have a project in mind?”

“A bit of a science experiment, next time we play cards,” Jack’s pupils darted along the equipment, still in reverie. “I’ve been readin’ a book about crucifixions, and how they affect the body.”

“Oh, that’s seasonal.”

“‘Course, I won’t be able to try it ‘til next year. You think your Pop would let me pick out a rabbit by April?” Jack chuckled. He was not talking about the Easter bunny. “We can see if she comes back to life after three days.”

Al snorted. “Jesus.”

“Precisely. Y’know, Christ is usually depicted with holes in his hands, but in actuality, the Romans would have put the nails through his wrists.” Jack picked up Al’s arm to demonstrate, dancing fingers across his palm. “Ain’t much to take hold of in here. It’s too fragile and open-ended. But if you move up the arm,”— he pressed his thumb into the straightened portion of Al’s median nerve— “You can hook the radius and the ulna. Much better support.” Jack’s eyes flickered with glee. “And it hurts like a bitch!”

“Wait, are you going to go first, or last?” Playing cards was usually a once-a-year affair, and the night Al looked forward to the most. If Jack snuffed her out before he had his turn...

“Oh, don’t worry, son. Done right, she could last for days.” Not that she would, since Pop would probably have something to say about that. “I just want to try, er... doin’ as the Romans do. And who knows, maybe you’ll like it. Every bachelor eventually needs to have a girl nailed down!”

They cackled and then shushed each other, wincing like sneaky little boys at the idea that someone would hear them over the store’s ambient shopping muzak. They really shouldn’t talk like this in public, even with code words and euphemisms. Though over the years they’d learned that people can be experts at ignoring what’s right under their noses. Certainly none of the men had ever overheard anyone else planning a murder.

“It’s just a pipe dream, I’m still in the plannin’ stages,” Jack added. “Ain’t even got the lumber yet. So if you wanna put some packages under the tree that are, say, 4-by-6 and 72 inches long... I promise to be shocked when I unwrap ‘em.”

Al’s attention shifted over his uncle’s shoulder, to a shelf of handheld orbital sanders. Al was more of a hands-on kind of guy— he still got a little queasy thinking about Jack’s experiment to see which sandpaper grit was the best at removing skin.

“So what was it you wanted me to look at? I don’t think Pop needs a crucifix for Christmas.”

“Oh, I’m just killin’ time before our appointment.”

“Appointment?”

“At the photo studio. I want you to give your Pop a picture.”

“...of us?”

“Naw, just you.”

Al loved that. “Yeah, that’d be hilarious. Merry Christmas, Pop, I got you me!”

A pause. “Oh, you’re serious.”

“As a heart attack, son. It’s just what he needs.”

“Do you have, I don’t know, a backup plan?” Al faltered. “Something less self-centered? I’m not exactly his favorite person right now. He kind of thinks I’m a failure.”

“Alan, you are not a failure. You are...” Jack patted his nephew’s cheek. “An unbroken mustang who has not yet found his ranch. And your father is just tryna keep you from bein’ sold as horse meat.” He slid them into a far aisle for more privacy. “He worries about you a lot, and he misses you somethin’ fierce.”

Al chewed his cheek. “Well, talk to him about showing it sometime.”

“No, son,” Jack took him by the shoulder, looking around to make sure they were alone. “Your father cries. At night when he talks about you, he starts wellin’ up like a waif. He doesn’t need to hear that you know about it, but it’s the God’s honest truth. All he talks about is wantin’ you back home.”

“I think movin’ out has been good for you, and I’m happy you did it. But it wounded him to his core. You’re his heart, kid.”

Al wasn’t sure how he was taking this information, but he knew how he was supposed to. He scrunched his eyes closed and took a deep breath.

“Okay... If you’re completely sure he won’t think it’s stupid.”

“Are you kiddin’? He’ll put it on the nightstand.” Jack grinned. “And if you smile for it real nice, I’ll take you to that steakhouse in the plaza after.”

Al cocked an eyebrow. “You were gonna go there anyway.”

“Yes. Yes, I was. But won’t you enjoy your ribeye that much more knowin’ you’ve earned it?” Mmn, maybe. “Besides... did you have any better ideas?”

⬥ ⬥ ⬥

Come Christmas Day, Xav had unwrapped the waist-up portrait and just said “thank you”— which was worrying because he was usually much more verbose than that— and gone silent in his chair. At least he wasn’t mad. Al looked to Jack, who smiled knowingly and handed him a package to keep the gift exchange going.

Al figured it was because Jack had given him something funny, but then he heard his father breathe in sharply.

“Maudit tabarnak... you fucking assholes,” Xav’s voice sounded high and squeaky, like it was being squeezed through slabs of rock. He ducked his chin into his bedshirt collar to hide his face.

“You, fucking... why’d you have to...” He shook his hand at the framed photo. Oh boy, he really did hate it. The whole idea was idiotic. Al had sat in front of that artfully-mottled green backdrop and squinted for a man with a bow tie and no indoor voice for nothing, except for the sheer discomfort of it. And a ribeye steak with a baked potato.

Xav blinked up at the ceiling and gulped, his Adam’s apple fluctuating grotesquely. Eventually he seemed to find his voice again. “Why didn’t you tell me you were having pictures taken, so I could make sure he had his fucking hair combed?” He showed them the photo. “Look at his bangs— they’re all over the fucking place.”

Al had to admit, they did look a little wild. “Aw, shoot. Sorry, Pop,” he laughed.

Jack tutted. “I think it looks nice. Rugged.”

“That’s because you don’t know how to comb your hair either, Jack.” Xav brought the photo back into his lap, looking it over. “Looks like he fought a bear before sitting down. But don’t worry, I still like it. You look handsome, kid. Maybe I can find some space on my nightstand.” Al and Jack exchanged victory grins, and didn’t catch Xav wiping tears from both eyes.

[thefeastandthefast]

Thoughts on Serenade of Peaceful Joy as propaganda...

I was just thinking about Serenade of Peaceful Joy as propaganda tool and political morality play and realized... 

If the drama is intending for the Chinese viewer to put themselves in the shoes of “the people” and not in the shoes of Danshu or Huirou or the other female characters, then I can see how the writer might think that the characterization of the emperor is sympathetic and that Huirou should ultimately accept her fate. All of the utterly illogical writing suddenly makes way more sense if that was the goal. I’ll explain my theory:

So... the emperor is constantly going on about how “the people” want peace and economic prosperity and most importantly, they need the imperial family’s conduct to be a moral example. In the last episode, he takes Huirou to visit a lantern-making family and shows her how everyone, from the oldest to the youngest, is working hard to make a living. He tells Huirou that her actions need to be considered above reproach because she owes it to “the people”, because “the people” didn’t pay taxes to support her posh princess lifestyle for twenty-some years so that she can hit her working class mother-in-law, canoodle with Huaiji, burn her house down, and interfere with government policy- you, if you are a Chinese viewer, are supposed to think, “EXACTLY, I DIDN’T PAY MY TAXES SO THAT SOME FUERDAI CAN GO CRASH THEIR FERRARI STREET RACING, HAVE ORGIES IN SANYA, AND USE THEIR PARENTS’ POLITICAL INFLUENCE TO GET AWAY WITH IT.” 

Fuerdai (富二代) is the term for the rich children of China’s current political and economic elite. They are a much-reviled group in China, because they’re often the very public, scandalous face of the type of corruption that enormous economic inequality has wrought in the past few decades and because they are often shielded from the consequences of their scandals by powerful parents. 

Badly behaving fuerdai are also considered dangerous to the stability of the CCP, because their existence has been used to levy criticism at the CCP’s failure to manage party officials. This Bloomberg article is worth reading to understand the whole phenomenon and I’ll just quote a little bit here: “The fuerdai (pronounced foo-arr-dye) aren’t just an embarrassment. The Communist Party seems to consider them an economic or even political threat. President Xi Jinping himself spoke out this year, advising the second generation to “think about the source of their wealth and how to behave after becoming affluent.” An article published by the United Front Work Department, the bureau that manages relations between the party and nonparty elite, warned: “They know only how to show off their wealth but don’t know how to create wealth.” Some local governments have taken steps to reeducate their wealthy elite. In June, according to Beijing Youth Daily, 70 heirs to major Chinese companies attended lectures on filial piety and the role of traditional values in business.”  

The failure of Huirou to understand Huaiji’s attempts to explain poverty makes sense if this was the show’s message. She wasn’t meant to understand that lesson from his mouth because the writer needed Huirou to be taught this lesson by her father, emperor Xi Jinping... I mean, Renzong. So Renzong putting her in her place is presented to us as an act of benevolence to “the people” even if it destroys Huirou. Actually if you follow this logic, the story’s emphasis on Renzong’s love for Huirou makes his sacrifice of her happiness even more an act of selflessness for “the people”. You’re supposed to think, “WOW, even his daughter is not as important as justice for the people!” 

The character of Zhang Bihan is interesting to consider from this angle too. Her love of extravagant luxury goods like ivory, pearls, and rare porcelain are shown repeatedly to be a political liability in addition to a personal failing. Add to that Lady Jia’s black market salt and human trafficking ring. Zhao Zhen’s weakness for Bihan and everything she and her circle represented and his rejection of sober, sensible Danshu was a sign that he still needed to learn how to put his own desires second to that of “the people”. Bihan is his fatal flaw to overcome on the path to sainthood. Because propaganda is most effective when you feel like those in power are just nice people trying their best even as they are fucking you over. But of course, in the end the writer makes Zhao Zhen realize that Danshu was always the best choice and choosing her signals his apotheosis. This is why Bihan and Danshu could never evolve beyond their tired archetypes. Never mind the ahistorical characterizations and relationships! Evidence-based depictions of a more complex Zhang Bihan that remained Renzong’s true love to the end and an adversarial Empress Cao/Renzong relationship wouldn’t fit the story that this propaganda requires. 

Huaiji, his brother Yuansheng, and their family clearly represent “the people” starting from the very first episode. They’re the equivalent of the coal miners that American politicians love to talk about in the abstract as representatives of the working class. If you take Huaiji and Yuansheng’s journey as citizens who were deeply wronged by their government but who were then given opportunities to thrive later by the same government, you’ll see how the writer has very purposefully created a narrative (not in the book!) where lives destroyed by bad policy are merely accidents of fate but lives improved or justice restored are credited to compassionate government policy. The brothers losing the family business and each other, Huaiji losing his bright future and becoming a eunuch- none of the Liang family’s misfortunes can be attributed to Renzong or previous emperors purposefully making decisions to hurt people. Whereas their reversals of misfortune CAN be attributed to deliberate action on the part of the emperor and the government. 

And when forcing a corrupt government to see and address injustice through unorthodox means, the writer wants you to know that you should expect and accept without complaint punishment for using those unorthodox means, even if you are justified in your cause. Yuansheng, after capturing and publicly reporting his aunt and the local official who had colluded to sell off his brother, doesn’t resist army exile and sees it as an opportunity instead. He’s later rewarded for his unquestioning submission with imperial patronage of his restaurant, becomes a successful businessman, and is reunited with his brother. 

The emperor, after discovering that Huaiji is Yuanheng in the last episode, gives him back his real name and reunites him with Yuansheng. Though Huaiji is brutally parted from Huirou, his loss and longing are neatly tucked away from view in the end, unlike in the novel. Drama!Huaiji’s end is presented as a relatively happy one, where you see him sitting in a schoolhouse next to a beautiful river, quietly mounting a painting. He hears that the emperor has passed and makes a respectful obeisance. The drama wants you to think that he is grateful and he will recover, despite all the trauma that he has gone through. Because he HAS to recover, as a symbol of one of “the people” who has enjoyed the emperor’s grace. 

The only wrench in the gears, though, is that Huirou, Huaiji, Danshu, He’er, Maoze, and Qiuhe got their personalities and backstories from a book with different priorities. And so that persistent feeling of wrongness I kept having watching this show was the feeling of seeing the visible seams stitching this Frankenstein’s monster together.

[joontopia]

Evolver: Chapter 1

pairing: namjoon x reader, jimin x oc, jin x reader

genre: mafia!au, evolver!au, superpower!au, soulmate!au with angst, smut, & violence 

summary: Evolvers are humans with special powers. Your father, Min Seojun, is one of the most powerful businessmen and CEO in the country. Known in the underground as the most feared mafia leader, Zeus, due to his evolver ability. Growing up alongside your twin brother, Yoongi, all you’ve ever known was the harshness and dangers of the mafia lifestyle.  Until you met him...

word count: 3.7k

author’s note: this is the shortest chapter of the series. Most chapters will be around 6k words or more. Prologue and Chapter 1 are combined in this chapter. 

warnings: nsfw, cursing, soft dom!joon, bratty!reader

Evolvers are humans with special abilities. While some have come out to the public and flaunted their abilities, most keep their powers a secret. Evolver abilities could range from Elemental abilities to Mental or Superhuman. Evolvers are rare, with the tendency to skip generations in families. Most are feared due to their historic use of their powers for personal gain, typically landing them on the wrong side of the law. On the day of an Evolver’s birth, their eyes will turn a shade of red for the first full day before fading, not turning red again until each time they activate their ability. Evolvers’ abilities tend to manifest at a very young age. Although rare, evolvers can experience a phenomenon called a ‘pairing.’ A ‘pairing’ occurs when two evolver ‘soulmates’ touch and meet for the first time. If these ‘soulmates’ have not completed the ‘pairing’ and come into close proximity, they will feel a supernatural pull towards each other. When they touch for the first time, a burst of energy is released into the surrounding area. It has not yet been discovered what causes the phenomenon or the true meaning of this event. When two evolvers have become paired, they will experience heightened control of their abilities and, in most cases, develop new manifestations of their existing power. It has not yet been determined if every evolver has a ‘pair’ with only a few known pairs confirmed to have existed.

“Welcome home, Miss Min.” Myung, the family butler, was the only one to greet you as you walked into your family home. “How was your flight?”

“Early,” you said with a tight smile. You stood in the main entrance of your family home, still wearing the black skinny jeans, black hoodie, and tennis shoes from the night before. Myung gave you a smile of his own in return. Your business trip to Japan was cut short when your father requested your early return home. Having finished your business early, you were hoping to spend the next few days exploring and partying your way through Japan with your best friend, Ashley, who accompanied you on your trip. A business trip he insisted you take in the first place. Instead, you were met with an abrupt phone call from your father stating he booked you two a private flight back to Korea. Leaving at 5 AM sharp. “And you better be on it this time.” You knew by the tone your father used before he hung up that now was not the time to argue. 

“I’ll have someone collect your bags from the car and bring them to your room,” Myung said as he closed the front door behind you while you made your way to the staircase. You were already tired of the small talk and desperate for a shower. “I’m sorry, Miss Min, but I would need you to follow me to your Father’s office. He asked me to bring you straight to him the moment you arrived.” 

You stopped at the bottom stair, turning around to face the butler. “This can’t wait?” The annoyance in your eyes must have been apparent with the way Myung avoided your gaze. He slightly cleared his throat and quickly responded. “I’m afraid it can’t,” he said as he straightened himself and looked at you, “now if you would please follow me.” 

You step down from the stairs and roll your eyes. “Unbelievable, what could possibly be so important,” you thought. You walked past your family butler and towards the hallway that leads to your Father’s office. “Don’t bother, I know the way.” 

You make your way down the hallway, spewing off curses and complaints knowing good and well you wouldn’t be able to voice them once you are inside the office. Your father, Min Seojun, is one of the most powerful businessmen and CEO in the country. His business as an Arts dealer and hotel chain owner being fronts for his real position of power, the notorious mafia leader, only known to the world as Zeus because of his power. Your father was known in the underground as one of the most feared mob bosses and evolvers across the country. Crossing him is the last thing anyone should want to do, unless you had a death wish. That didn’t stop you, his beloved daughter, from pushing your luck. Being one of the only people brave enough to challenge him didn’t come without consequence. Your father’s evolver power is an elemental ability. The control of electricity. A power he shows no remorse using against anyone who crossed him, not even his own daughter. Not in the mood to deal with any physical pain, you decide you will behave during this conversation. Hoping that doing so will make it short and sweet. Your decision of playing the “good daughter” was cut short with how hard you threw the office door open. The door slamming against the wall before closing shut. “Fuck,” you thought as your father looked up from his desk. 

“Nice to see you too, jagi. Sit.” Your father glared at you from across his office, motioning you to one of two chairs that are positioned in front of his desk. You walk over and sit down, crossing your arms and legs while doing so. You both sit there in silence staring at each other. After a few minutes, you decide to speak, trying to mask the annoyance and tiredness in your voice with calm.

“So why exactly did you call me back from my oh-so important recon mission 3 days early? Surely, it wasn’t just for me to sit here while you enjoy my company.”

“A father can’t miss the company of his daughter?” Your father tilted his head to the side, still looking at you.

“You’re not the type. Why am I here and not upstairs taking a much needed shower and nap.” Your father chuckled, before standing behind his desk. He was dressed in one of his dark blue suits that he usually wears. Rarely have you seen him in anything else.

“You know, you are just like your mother.”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t remember her.” Your father walked around his desk, ignoring your comment, and stood before you with his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. 

“I didn’t realize I was keeping you waiting. I figured you would have informed yourself while you were sitting there,” he said with smugness in his voice.

You rolled your eyes, uncrossed your legs and brought your left foot up into the seat, leaning into the armchair to make yourself a little more comfortable. Normally the evolver gene would skip generations, sometimes multiple times. But not you. You and your twin brother, Yoongi, share a common ability, only differing in how you specialize in using it. You both have the ability of attacking the human mind. Yoongi specializes in inducing nightmares, bringing forth your worst fears and making them stay on the forefront of your mind. He also has the ability to take away or hide memories. Even able to alter them, something we like to take advantage of when we are called to interrogate an enemy. You, on the other hand, specialize in reading thoughts and locating memories that people try to hide. These were abilities that help establish you and Yoongi as some of the scariest evolvers along with your father. No one likes having their mind poked and prodded. 

“I'm running on only three hours of sleep after being thrown onto a flight at five in the morning. Forgive me for not wanting to put in any effort to do anything. Now what is this about?” You leaned forward in your seat, your tone laced with more spite than you meant to give. Your father frowned at your response. You can tell by the way your hairs stood up on your arms due to the shift of energy in the air that he is already growing tired of your attitude.

“Don’t forget who you are speaking to, girl.” Your father growled as he looked down at you.

Reminding yourself what you said you were going to do while walking in here, you plastered the sweetest smile you could possibly muster onto your face before saying, “I’m sorry, daddy. I guess I’m just really tired from my trip.”

Your father continued to glare at you, pursing his lips. Your fake smile has long since past the point of actually working on him. You started to wonder if he was going to continue to scold you when he finally spoke.

“I need you to be in attendance during our meeting with the Kims today.”

“Seriously… You called me back for a meeting we hold basically every week. Why not just bring Yoongi?” You don’t even try to hide the annoyance in your voice. This is ridiculous.

“Yoongi will be there, too. They specifically asked for you to be there.” Your father seemed unbothered by your annoyance. Not surprising to you. He’s only shown concern for your emotions barely a handful of times in your life. 

“Since when did you start complying to the beck and call of the Kims?” You said with a little edge in your voice, knowing good and well just the mere act of insinuating that your father is someone’s call boy would piss him off. Just as soon as you felt smug with yourself for your smart remark, you just as quickly regretted it when a spark went off by your left ear causing it to ring painfully. You involuntarily let out a hiss, causing your father to smirk.

“I don’t answer to anyone, girl. You will watch your mouth when you speak to me.” He was glaring at you again, eyes glowing red, and you could swear you saw sparks in his eyes. “I only agreed because I need you there for intel. Kim Won-ho has recruited his nephew to join his ranks and I need to know what their intentions are.”

“Won-ho knows what I can do. He’s many things, but he’s not stupid enough to leave his mind freely open for me to explore. Maybe he is offering his nephew up as another potential son-in-law.” You roll your eyes as you make that last statement. 

Your family and the Kims have been in a contractual partnership for as long as you could remember. You and Yoongi grew up alongside Won-ho’s sons, Seokjin and Taehyung, the two elemental evolvers of the Kim family. Fire and Ice, respectively. For the last few years, Won-ho has been determined to marry the two gangs together. Figuratively and literally. Only God knows how long he has been wanting this union, probably thinking he had a fighting chance when Taehyung caught you and Jin in a very compromising (but also very, very pleasurable) position. Jin was very quick to try and claim you and him as an item, which more than likely sparked his father’s campaign of joining the two families. Your father was just as quick to shut it down, demanding you to end whatever was going on immediately. Something you found easy to comply with, seeing that, for you, it was just fun. Fun that you and Jin did still have on rare occasions, despite your father’s order. Occasions that would still occur if that very handsome and deliciously wide shouldered idiot didn’t try and confess his love for you. He was so embarrassed from the rejection, he had Yoongi remove the memory from his mind. Yoongi happily accepted to help his friend, only after enjoying making the memory replay in Jin’s mind for a good 30 minutes. You had to give it to Won-ho, though. He had to have a big pair on him to continually ask your father for this union.

“Whatever his reasons. I need you there to seek them out. Is that understood?” Your father continued to stand in front of you.

“I’m assuming I don’t have a choice in this.” You stand up from the chair, glaring back at your father.

“You would be foolish to think you did.” He said, his tone so matter-of-fact.

“Fine. Is that all?” 

“Yes” You read from your father’s mind as he turned to walk back around his desk and sit down.

You turned around and made your way out of his office and back up the hallway to the staircase. Once you made it back to the main entrance of the house, you were greeted by your brother who was whistling the bridal march. You look up to see him sitting on the stairs with his back leaning against the railing, smiling at the obvious annoyance on your face. You look him dead in the eye, and watch his smile turn to a frown once you pull a memory of him pissing the bed when he was 6. He flipped you off as you laughed and started up the stairs.

“How was your trip? Heard you finished your recon early,” Yoongi asked as you walked past him. You looked at him suspiciously, wondering if your father sent him to keep tabs on you. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Your father always believed you to be the more reckless of his two children and, honestly, he wasn’t wrong. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t know how to conduct yourself on a mission. Yoongi, knowing exactly where your mind was going, answered your unspoken question. “Jimin told me.” 

“Ha, of course.” Park Jimin was one of you and your brother’s best friends. His family being part of the Min family mafia since before you were born. Him and your best friend, Ashley have been dating since you were kids. Both of them being the first evolvers you’ve ever known to undergo a pairing. “Intel gathering tends to be pretty easy when all your targets have a weakness for pretty girls. Barely had to read anyones mind or have Ashley torture them. It was very boring.”

You stand a few steps above Yoongi, leaning up against the railing.

“Well, it's good to have you back. It’s been boring here without you. I’m sure Jin-Hyung will be happy to see you,” Yoongi said with a wink as he got up from his seat on the stairs. This time it was your turn to flip him off.

“How is our beloved father today? Did you warm him up for me?” Yoongi asked as he walked toward the hallway leading to the office.

“Oh yeah. He’s a warm ball of loving emotion right now. Enjoy.” Yoongi laughed at you as he disappeared around the corner. You turned back around and continued to head back up the stairs towards your bathroom, where a much deserved shower awaited.

Namjoon looked out the window of his uncle’s car while they drove through the city. It’s only been two weeks since he’s moved up here from Busan, the city where his father was stationed to run his sector of the Kim family mafia. When his uncle showed up at his door, asking him to join his ranks in Seoul, it was a dream come true. Namjoon always felt like he was wasting his potential in Busan. Especially with the type of evolver ability that he had. Power of persuasion. Able to more or less bend people to do his bidding, even making them think it was their idea if he wanted to. He never really got to put it to the real test though. Only using it to settle petty squabbles against shop owners back home. Now on his way to a meeting with his uncle and cousin, he might be able to finally put it to the test. 

“So who's all supposed to be there today?” Namjoon’s older cousin Seokjin asked his uncle, who was sitting in the front passenger seat. Namjoon’s attention left the outside world and he turned towards his uncle, curious to know this information too. 

“Just Min Seojun and Yoongi. His daughter will not be there today. I asked, but he made it very clear. Apparently, she is still in Japan on her mission,” his uncle said, causing Seokjin to scowl in response. “No worries. She doesn’t necessarily need to be there for when Namjoon — how should I say this — talks some sense into Seojun about joining our gangs.” Uncle Won-ho smirked at his clever words. 

“You don’t think Seojun will figure out what we’re doing? Isn’t this a bit risky?” Namjoon asked. Tales of Min Seojun’s ruthlessness and power spread across the entire country. Ruthless businessman by day, sadistic mafia leader by night. Most only knew him by his code name Zeus. Only his business partners and close friends knew his true identity. Those who weren’t labeled as such were not allowed to live long enough to spill his secrets. Namjoon had no interest in joining the latter group of people. Won-ho chuckled from the front seat.

“Don’t worry about Seojun, nephew. Him losing our partnership will hurt him and his status a lot more than he is willing to let on. We don’t have much to worry about,” Won-ho said as their car pulled up in front of a tall building with dark tinted windows, the Min’s company office building. Namjoon exited the black sedan and followed his uncle and cousin into the building. The large lobby was mostly empty with only a few paintings decorating the wall, a couple of couches and coffee tables for a waiting area, and a receptionist desk by the elevators. 

“Good evening, Mr. Kim.” The girl sitting at the desk greeted Won-ho with a smile, dressed in a black suit dress with her blonde hair in a bun. “Mr. Min is waiting for you in the usual conference room.” 

Won-ho gave the girl a nod and headed straight for the elevators. Namjoon, not wanting to be rude, gave the girl a soft “Thank you” and smiled, causing the receptionist to blush. He followed his uncle to the elevators, his cousin slapping his back behind him laughing. 

“You gonna flirt with every girl you meet up here, Joon?” Jin said, still laughing. 

“Just trying to make a good impression, Jin. What's wrong with that?” Namjoon laughed along with his cousin, Jin’s windshield wiper-like laugh being funny on its own. The three men entered the elevator. Won-ho pulled a keycard out of his pocket, placing it before a scanner located on the control panel of the elevator. When the small light on the scanner blinked green, Won-ho withdrew the keycard and pressed the button for the 7th floor. Shortly after, the elevator began to move.

“You ready for this, kid?” Won-ho looked at Namjoon with a serious look on his face.

“Ready as I’m ever going to be, Uncle.” Feelings of anxiety and excitement coursed through Namjoon. He looked at himself in the reflection of the elevator doors, readjusting his dark brown colored contacts before the doors opened. Namjoon and Jin followed Won-ho off the elevator, taking a left down the hallway.

“Jin-hyung!” 

The three men turned around to look behind them. Yoongi, dressed in a dark blue button up and black pants, was walking towards them from the other end of the hallway. 

“Yoongi-ah, new hair color I see,” Jin said, walking towards his friend and giving him a hug. Namjoon took a look at Yoongi again, now noticing his hair to be a light silver. Differing from the dark brown that it was just a week ago.

“You can blame it on boredom. Can I steal you away for a minute?” Jin and Yoongi walked further down the hallway and out of earshot. Namjoon turned and continued following his uncle into a medium-sized room that looked more like a parlor rather than a conference room. The room was low lit from the two chandelier type light fixtures that hang from the ceilings. There was one wall fully made of windows with little light coming through due to the dark curtains. Namjoon’s scan of the room was interrupted by his Uncle’s loud voice.

“Seojun, old friend. It’s good to see you,” Won-ho said loudly as he walked over to the man standing between two armchairs over by the far wall. 

Namjoon made his way over to that side of the room, following his uncle when he noticed a girl, arms crossed, leaning up against the wall behind Seojun, eyes focused on the floor by her feet, her hair loose around her shoulders.

“Woah, she’s beautiful. Is this Yoongi’s sister? No, wait. They said she’d be in Japan. Does Seojun have a wife? Maybe Yoongi’s girlfriend?” Namjoon thought as he looked at her.

“Whoever she is, I wouldn’t mind having a go. She looks like the fun type.” Namjoon continued watching the girl, scanning her frame. His eyes falling on her neck as he imagined biting at it as he had her pushed up against the wall, one hand by her throat while the other hand was trailing down the black dress she was wearing before raising her skirt. All of a sudden, the girl looked up from the floor, eyes snapping to his while raising an eyebrow, catching him off guard. She tilted her head to the side and reached up to start putting her hair in a loose ponytail, exposing her neck fully as she did.

“Can she hear me?” Namjoon thought as he eyed her suspiciously. He looked closer at the girl, focusing in on her eyes, finally noticing the faint glow of red around what appeared to be dark brown colored contacts. “Wait a minu-- “

Namjoon’s thoughts were cut off by the close of the door behind him as Yoongi and Jin entered the room.

“Hey, what a nice surprise. Y/N, you’re here!” Seokjin said with a smile on his face as he made his way over to stand by Namjoon. Yoongi continued around the room to stand on the left side of his father.

“Ah, yes. Let me not be rude,” Seojun said, turning to the girl behind him. The girl pushed off the wall, walking to stand on the right side of Seojun, across the way from Namjoon. “Namjoon, this is my daughter, Min Y/N. Mind reading evolver of the Min family.”

Namjoon’s eyes widened as he looked at you in realization. He watched your red-tinted lips slowly spread into a smile across your face as you gave him a knowing wink. Namjoon’s cheeks flushed red, mentally kicking himself over his last few thoughts. Ones that he knows you most definitely read.

“Fuck.”

[allthebest20]

A Simple Favor (2018)

This movie was surprisingly good?  I’d give it a 6 or 7 out of 10.  To be honest, I already wrote a review for this that I liked, but it didn’t save, so I partly want to recreate those thoughts, and I partly want to give up.  I thought the plot was decently smart and interesting, the characters believable and funny, the dialogue natural enough, the ending satisfying.

It is a very trendy plot: encapsulating the hot-lady-murder-mystery trope, the single-white-female trope, and the hot-lady-narcissist-psychopath trope.  I mean, as a young white lady, I don’t dislike these tropes.  I love watching hot woman, like Blake Lively, just doing mundane stuff or, even better, being cunning and mean to people.  I mean, that’s why we watched Gossip Girl, right?  It’s definitely why I watched Pretty Little Liars.  More and more it feels like directors just pick hot people to do the job of actors, and that frustrates me.  However, here, Lively isn’t just hot, she actually does a pretty good job.  Herself a rich mother with a celebrity husband, I can see why she does so well playing the wealthy narcissist working mother with the troubled background.  It’s also easy to imagine that the narcissist-psychopath character is not a difficult character to create.  This is because 1. most actors (and most people) are a bit narcissistic and 2. writers rarely give these characters complex thought processes.  Sure, there’s usually trauma there, but that fades into being blindly motivated by self-interested and anger.  Unlike “regular people,” these characters do not often their options or consider factors outside themselves.  In that way, they are not very complicated.  I’ve never met anyone who truly follows this trope, but I’ve also never met a serial killer.  It’s almost like Hollywood’s current obsession with those two plot lines (serial killers and hot lady psychopaths) is a way to take about gendered evils.  Almost as if these psychopaths are the female equivalent of a serial killer, and, at least in this case, Lively’s character does have a body count.  However, the victims she leaves dead, her sister and her father, arguably deserved it.  Her lovers, who she uses, do not, but she does not kill either of the two featured.  Real life male serial killers are sometimes thought to kill family members, but mostly, they kill their intimate partners.  So, I would argue that there is no female equivalent of the serial killer phenomenon.  I also don’t mean to imply here that all narcissists are psychopaths, because there are a lot of people with NPD who are just trying to manage their systems, deal with their trauma, and live a healthy life in our fucked up society.  But hot women with compromised morality are a big threat to cishet white men, who don’t have to worry about serial killers, date rape, or hate crimes, so I”m sure that plays into the commonality of the trope and the demonizing of people with NPD.  It’s not to say that I have not heard about dangerous lady psychopaths, but they aren’t usually serial killers.  They are con-artists and domestic abusers.  Of course, Hollywood has no interest in showing what a real domestic abuse situation perpetrated by a women looks like.  No one wants to talk about people being hit and emotionally abused by their female partners.  Lively’s character is a domestic abuser who seems to manipulate and emotionally tear down her husband, played by cutie Henry Golding, but this is mostly alluded to, not displayed.  There is one scene where Lively pulls a gun on him in a restaurant and forces him to say bad things about Kendrick’s character, but that’s more fantasy than reality.

What separates this movie from others of lesser quality, besides the acting and the dialogue, is the way the plot unfolds and the character’s motivating forces.  If Lively had nothing on Kendrick or if Kendrick was really as goody-two-shoes as she makes herself out to be, then nothing would make sense.  Kendrick’s secret though is perfectly believable and well-aligned with her character: sleeping with her long lost half-brother after her beloved father’s funeral. I like how Kendrick tries to play it cool, tries to pretend like they only made out, her desire to finally share her darkest secret tied with her sensibility to keep it hidden from this mysterious stranger. I love the way their relationship and their backgrounds are slowly unfurled to the audience. The way the director splices together scenes of the two leading characters revealing their secrets and their flaws, is simply enthralling.  The woman are both very alike (haunted by personal past mistakes and dead/dying family members), but while Kendrick takes steps to make things better for the people around her, Lively does the opposite.  Kendricks biggest mistake was her first ones: sleeping with her half-brother (ew), carrying his baby to term (um?), and not telling her husband (sigh... understandable, but side note: were they married before she slept with her brother or did they get married quickly after because she got pregnant? why wasn’t he at her father’s funeral?This alludes to either her sleeping with him more than once OR the baby isn’t the brother’s but she still feels responsible for her husband thinking it could be).  However, it isn’t her fault that they both die, it’s her crazy husband who drove them off the road.  He seemed like not a nice guy, even though she said that he was great.  Finally, her last sin, of sleeping with Golding, who she thought was a widower, and moving into Lively’s life.  Not ideal, sure, but there was something between them, and they thought Lively (the bitch) was dead.  Everything else she does is to find out the truth. 

Lively, on the other hand, starts by helping her sister kill her abusive father (I can get behind tbh), then exploits a hard working artist (:/), lies and cons her husband (:( ), kills her addict sister (she is blackmailing her but... :( ), and finally tries to kill both Kendrick and Golding (:(( ).

The only other thing I have to comment on is the use of bisexuality.  It seems like a lot of narcissist/psychopaths/liars in Hollywood are bisexual, which is not great representation.  It’s supposed to show how the psychopath does not view sex and attraction as an intimidate thing, but a tool to get what they want from a person of any gender.  Did Lively secretly love Kendrick? Maybe a little bit in the beginning?  Besides that kiss, there’s little to no evidence of that.  The kiss is what makes it so single-white-female-y, shows how desperate Kendrick is to make a connection, to be known and loved.

Overall, I enjoyed it, and I would recommend it.

[thatoneidiotdts]

Comforting them when they cry.

(Headcanons party !!!)

Gifs aren't mine and requests are open

Warning: fluff and angst

Ok so we all know that izuku cries a lot so you will need to comfort him a lot

Usually he is crying when he is under a lot of stress or he is just overwhelmed

But when something bad happens (All might died, he couldn't save somebody ect.) he would just break down in your arms

When he is crying the best way to comfort him is by taking his mind off the topic watch a long movie/have a movie marathon with him , preferably Lord of the ring/The hobbit or Harry Potter franchise

P.S. : Make sure that the movie doesn't have the same topic as the one he was crying about

Bakugou is a hard one to get through and don't think he will be all lovey dovey with his emotions

He just straight up doesn't talk about his emotions, he "doesn't want to be like stupid deku"

If he is crying it's because he thinks he isn't worthy enough to have you or to be a hero

Here is a step-by-step guide you need to go in order to make him feel better :

Step 1: Make a giant fort out of blankets and pillows that can be used for hibernation

Step 2: Stack on some good snacks, preferably something salty, Bakugou doesn't like sweet things

Step 3: Get a laptop and put on a good Netflix and DoN'T YoU DaRe tO pUT On SomETHiNg FuNnY

He doesn't like funny shows at all so your best option it to put a recently made kid show like She-Ra or The Dragon Prince

He likes kid shows because they have a perfect balance between sad and funny with a pinch of pop culture

Behind an icy glare and a cold voice is a fucking mess

He just straight up doesn't show emotions 90% of the time

He would usually cry after he had nightmare , the nightmares are usually about his father hurting you, his siblings or his mom and Touya leaving

If you want to comfort him you should talk to him about the nightmare and tell him that his father will never hurt anyone again because he is too much of a coward

And ESPECIALLY tell him that Touya is somewhere safe away from their father

If he shows any kind of emotion when with you that means you two are pretty fucking deep in this relationship

Like shoto keeps a cold face with everyone except of course you

It's a rare phenomenon to see him shed a tear and when you do it's because he yawned

But the first time you actually saw him cry was when you got home from a hospital after almost loosing your life when you fought a villain

Not even a second you entered the front door you were pulled in tight hug and soon you felt tears streaming down from the top of your head

The previous methods of comfort won't work on him and the best way to actually comfort him is to just snuggle up with him on the couch or bed

He is completely silent while he is crying and maybe letting out a few sobs and light gasps

Don't talk or watch a movie just hold him while he is trying to calm himself down

Also kiss his forehead a lot,it calms him down and makes him remember that you are here alive and safe in his arms

P.S: Play with his hair! He loves it! Comb it, braid it, brush it with your fingers, whatever you do he will just jump to cloud 9

He doesn't cry

The end

[vintagegeekculture]

You once said that Captain Marvel's Golden Age popularity tends to be overstated. Could you please elaborate?

I was specifically referring to the idea that “CaptainMarvel was the best selling superhero of the 1940s,” which I have seen a fewplaces, and is untrue. Though Captain Marvel was very famous and tremendouslypopular, the best selling superhero of the 1940s was exactly who you’d thinkit’d be: Superman.

A closer look at the era shows that our concept of the era,with Captain Marvel/Superman as this Gobots/Transformers or N’Sync/Backstreet Boys rivalry is untrue, because the reality is that there were several tremendously popular charactersthat were second-banana to Superman in the comics world at different points inthe 1940s: Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, Nedor’s Black Terror, and mostextraordinarily of all, the Blue Beetle, who is a pretty good candidate for my“dead fandoms” series in that at one point, he was in the top three ofsuperheroes, a radio phenomenon with a coast to coast fan club.

The narrative that Captain Marvel was the biggest hero apartfrom Superman hides how huge these other characters were, and it’s moreinteresting to talk about how, say, Black Terror was huge but vanished, or howthe best selling female adventure comics character of the 1940s wasn’t WonderWoman but Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.

(You’ll probably note the absence of a few characters thatwere only big in retrospect: Batman comes to mind. In the Golden Age, he was in  the top 10 of superheroes, sure, but his popularity wasn’t that great until thehit TV show of the 1960s made him a semi-rival in popularity to Superman. Anycollector can attest to this: it is truly rare to find any Batman merchandisebefore 1966.

If this was Snopes or something, I’d call the “Captain Marvel was the top selling superhero” as partially true, because it is: the origin of this misconception is the totally true claimthat Captain Marvel’s comic was the top seller at certain points in thedecade, certainly, but (and this is the key part) from what we can tell, he wasnot consistently the top seller,which I think is an important distinction. Part of it was the astounding dropof interest in superheroes after the war, but part of it was also that CaptainMarvel just plain ran out of gas creatively at a certain point.

In other words, Captain Marvel had what we today call a“shark jump” point, Simpsons Season 9 style. And that point is, rightly orwrongly (mostly wrongly), associated with the introduction of Mr. Tawny theTalking Tiger in 1947, a Jar-Jar Binks-esque character of unclear purpose.

Let me be absolutely clear: Mr. Tawny the Talking Tiger wasnot the reason later Captain Marvel comics lacked the pizzazz and charm of theearlier ones, just like Jar Jar Binks is notthe reason a lot of people didn’t connect to the Star Wars prequel movies.The issues were a little more fundamental. But like Jar Jar Binks, Mr. Tawny isidentified as the point at which dissatisfaction crystalizes.

Captain Marvel until 1946, might just be some of my favorite comics ever. The Monster Society of Evil was easily one of the creative highpoints of the Golden Age, the first time 23 or more issues in a single comicwas dedicated to a sweeping story, the first time all villains of a hero cametogether. It was easily one of the most ambitious and memorable stories of the Golden Age. It’s had a lot of trouble getting reprinted in modern times, due to racially insensitive, caricature-esque depictions of Asians and blacks. The story nonetheless should be reprinted, with such depictions relevant for their historical importance. 

For those who are unaware, in a time before serial storytelling, close to 2 years of Captain Marvel were dedicated to a single over-arching story. All of Captain Marvel’s enemies, from Oggar and Black Adam to the Crocodile Men, the robot Mr. Atom, Goatman, and Captain Nazi were unified by a mysterious cackling voice on a speakerbox, into the Monster Society of Wvil, by a creature called Mr. Mind, who’s identity was totally unknown. At the end, after two years of battle, Captain Marvel finally unmasked the mysterious voice on the speaker box - only to reveal the sinister Hitlerian genius that threatened the world was actually just a tiny worm.

But in a few years, perhaps because the comic was done by a single creative team, as inevitably happens, they started to run out of ideas. This  makes sense to me – if “anything can happen,” nothing is eventful. One exerciseI do with stories and settings is to identify three things that can’t happen – if they can’t identify three things that won’t happen in thestory, their setting doesn’t have a unique identity.

History has a way of eliminating our sense of the passage oftime completely. To someone born after the Golden Age of Comics and looking back,the introduction of Mr. Tawny, the Talking Tiger, happened at the same time asMonster Society of Evil and the other legendary Captain Marvel stories; unlessyou read them in the original order, or read them in reprints in the DC 80 PageGiants, they’re a big undifferentiated mass that came out simultaneously. ButMr. Tawny came several years later after the truly great Captain Marvel storieswere told, and did not participate in them. Reboots scrambled things up evenfurther, some of which have Mr. Tawny there from the beginning (like Ordway’sPower of Shazam! Mini where Tawny was Mary’s stuffed toy who came to life).

There are some people who defend the later Golden Age Captain Marvel in much the same way that there are people who defend Star Trek V: the Final Frontier. More power to them if they see something of value. Personally, I never hate anything when it comes to fiction, even the bad things you can learn things from (never, ever hate a movie…and never forget that disliking things is not a personality trait). The internet being the internet, however…well, I can’t help but wonder if a lot of modern Mr. Tawny fans like him because they want to fuck him. 

Just like with Jar Jar, it’s better not to forget him – he’sthere, use him somehow. I rather liked how he was used in the Captain Marvel/Shazam movie that came out last April, not as a character, but as a Kubrick style visual motif that keeps showing up in Billy’s life to reflect his desire for a realhome, on his backpack and everywhere (notice that his costume has tigertoken cape claspers). I also liked the idea in Ordway’s Power of Shazam series that Mr.Tawky was a friend of Mary Marvel, not Billy, a friend who gives her emotionalsupport and who is a semi-father figure. And there was an absolutely wonderfulissue of Astro City clearly inspired by Mr. Tawky, where the Astro City version was kind of a sad-eyed drunk and failure chewed up and spat out by the venomousculture of showbusiness.

It was so funny to me that this year, they had two CaptainMarvel movies come out from competing studios within weeks of each other. That’s such an asshole move that I kind of admire it, and I seriously doubt the timing is a coincidence. I am100% sure that some ultra-competitive alpha dog studio executive said, “hey,can we have them come out the same weekend?” It reminds me of how Golan and Globus after they split, both simultaneously made movies about the Lambadadance craze, and released them the exact same weekend to spite each other, with one named “Lambada”and the other named “The Forbidden Dance.”

[lacrossepapi]

Fragility

@steterweek day six: the bite was a proposal

Just a warning for everyone this is pretty heavy and angsty! Also some Gore!

Ao3 link| words:

“You must be Stiles.” The words fond and amused.  

“You’re the clever one, Stiles.” Pleased words accompanied by a surprisingly soft grip on his chin despite the claws digging into his skin. 

“I like you, Stiles.” This time the words were whispered like a lover’s caress against the sliver of skin peeking out from his sleeve. 

“Yes or no, Stiles?” Words delivered with impatience and demanding, but with no heat.

Odd that Stiles found himself thinking of the time he’d made a choice, as he lay bleeding out in the middle of Shakespeare Park knowing he’d never get to make another choice again, much less take Peter up on his offer from so long ago. 

How many times had he said “No” this time? 

How many times had he screamed it? 

How many times had he prayed that one of his pack members could hear him? 

He didn’t even know who he was praying to, he hadn’t believed in a higher power since the last time he’d seen the inside of the hospice. 

Maybe that’s why his prayers went unanswered. 

A chuckle ripped through his shredded chest causing blood to well up in his throat. He spit it out as best he could and tried to get his cold, numb hand to work. He wanted to say goodbye to his father, but did he want his father’s last memory of his only child be the sound of him dying? 

No, that wouldn’t do at all. He slowly wormed his hand into his back pocket, the phone slippery with blood. 

He sends what he thinks is a goodbye text to his father, but he couldn’t really be sure through the tears, blood loss going to his head, and blood staining everything. Then as his head swam with the ever approaching black out before death he decided to call Peter Hale. A man he hadn’t seen since he’d left for college two years ago. A man that Stiles was thinking about a lot in his last moments.

What if Stiles had said yes four years ago? 

What if Stiles had left with Peter to travel the world two years ago? 

What if Stiles had been able to call him sooner?

“Stiles? How lovely to see your name on my phone. I’m actually on-” 

“Stiles why does your breathing sound like that? Stiles! Why can’t I hear your heartbeat through the phone?!” 

The dying human could hear Peter growing more frantic with each breath that wetly fell from his lips, but he didn’t think he could speak even if he tried. 

“Stiles please answer me. Where are you?” Peter’s voice sounded wet too. 

It wasn’t funny, it really truly wasn’t funny, but Stiles found a giggle bubble out of him. It didn’t really sound like a laugh, but he didn’t really think it was funny that he wasn’t going to die alone and yet he couldn’t actually speak to let Peter know he was dying. 

“Darling I heard that. I heard your sound. Try to tell me where you are. Please Stiles. Please try for me.” Peter Hale sounding that broken should be a crime against humanity, and the sound of it tore at something in Stiles. 

The ‘sh” sound that came out of him sounded more like a groan and less like the beginning of the word “Shakespeare”, but he was trying. 

“Sh- what sweet boy? Keep going, please.” Peter was sobbing now. 

Stiles hated that sound, hated it more than he hated almost anything in the world. 

“Ache” The word came out guttural and broken. 

“I hear you. Shake what Stiles? Shakes and Tots?” 

“N-No.” 

“Shake Shack?” 

“No.”

“Shakespeare?” 

“-es.” 

“Okay. I understand. Shakespeare. Does that mean Shakespeare park just off campus?” Peter was always the second smartest in the pack. 

“-es.” The ‘y’ sound was hard to make so Stiles didn’t even try that time.

“I’m almost there Stiles. I’m so close. Are you still in danger? Is it still there?” Peter was close? How?

“K-kill-ed” It fucking hurt to speak so much, but Peter needed to know that Stiles was going to die but at least he took the mother fucker down with him. 

“Good boy. What was it?” Peter sounded more put together this time. 

“O-meg-a.” 

“Oh my sweet boy, why would you ever go after an Omega alone?” Peter’s question irritated the part of Stiles that didn’t care that he was dying, that only cared that no one thought he was an idiot. 

An angry grunt escaped him followed by a pained groan.

“So not on purpose, an accident then.” Peter sounded angry now. 

Peter angry brought back memories Stiles was almost fond of. He closed his eyes and let his memories roll over him in warm waves of contentment. 

-

Stiles groaned, his head throbbing as streaks of light burned his eyes. He pushed through the pain and blinked himself into awareness. He was in a hospital bed, which made sense when his memories finally came crashing back in. He should've been dead, might actually be dead if he let himself go down that particular road. 

"Son." 

His father's words came out in a soft creak instead if the warm rubble they normally were. Almost as if the former Beacon Hills sheriff had cried himself hoarse, and that thought punched a hole through Stiles more than any supernatural enemy could ever hope to do. 

"D-a-d" Each letter a dry rasp. 

His father hushed him gently as he moved closer to hold his cheek in his calloused hand. 

"Your throat was pretty torn up. Most of you was pretty torn up, actually." His voice lost volume leaving him to only mouth the last word. 

"S-s-orry" Stiles needed his father to know he never ever wanted him to grieve a family member again. 

Before his dad could say anything the door was opening and Peter Hale was walking in with two coffees. He looked like he hadn't slept in days, and at the sight of Stiles he shuddered. A shudder Stiles felt in his own chest. 

"Good morning Briar Rose." Peter smiled gently at him as he approached. 

"Name w-was A-A-uor-a." Stiles tried to snark back but once again was reminded of how sensitive his throat was. 

"Yes it was but I don't think you're some beautiful, unknowable phenomenon. The other name suits you much better." Peter's gentle smile shifted into his typical know-it-all smirk. 

Stiles found himself smiling as a string wave of nostalgia washed over him, reminding him of days spent researching or just talking with Peter. 

Instead of trying to speak again Stiles just nodded at him before turning back to face his father, whose blue eyes were filled with tears. 

"'m here." Stiles whispered, his numb hand coming up to rest against his father's arm. 

"And I'm so glad for that, son." 

Peter spoke up again, drawing his attention away from his dad, "You're probably wondering how I was able to get you here." 

Stiles nodded again, shifting to watch Peter as the older man handed his dad a cup and both men sat down on either side of his bed. 

"It was a serendipitous chance that lead me to visit Beacon Hills. I landed at LAX and was going to get a hotel room, but the flight left me with a need to smell fresh air free of the stench of humanity." Peter intoned melodically, almost as if he was a bard in the dark ages. 

Stiles rolled his eyes, and immediately regretted it. 

"So I started the arduous trip back home in the middle of the night, on a whim. A song came on the radio that reminded me of you and I suddenly found myself taking the highway that went by your school instead of the one that went straight to Beacon Hills. I don't know what I was thinking or why I was being so impulsive, you know I rarely act on impulse after the disasters of my youth." Peter said with his own eye roll. 

Stiles huffed a breath of laughter knowing Peter was referencing biting Scott, but an image of Peter alone in a hospital bed reminder Stiles that much of his young adult years were spent in a coma. 

"And then by some chance you called me. Not Scott, or Derek, or any of the others who could've potentially saved you." The look Peter gave him communicated that he knew Stiles hadn't called him to save him. He just hadn't wanted to die alone. 

"You're alive right now because nostalgia and romantic notions of the past brought us back into each other's paths on the one night you truly needed me." Peter gripped Stiles' hand in a rare moment of tenderness.

"How?" Stiles was having a slightly easier time talking now that he'd worked his vocal chords a bit. 

Peter's face shuttered and a small shiver went through him, "I regret not having your consent but I do not regret giving you the bite." 

His blue eyes were blazing as he stared into Stiles' before flashing them red. 

Something in Stiles snapped awake and a whine released from his shredded vocal chords. 

Peter had bitten him, but didn't he say all those years ago that survival wasn't guaranteed? Stiles had seen the wolves say that if someone was too close to death the bite could speed things along instead of healing them. Peter clearly realized the risk was worth a try, either it took or it didn't. The outcome of Stiles dying was three out of four. A scary thought now that he was here and alive, he didn't want to feel that peaceful finality again for a long long time. 

"I had always planned it so much differently. I had so many scenarios in my head, but you always did ruin my plans, clever darling." Peter smiled at him and Stiles remembered the charged atmosphere of the garage all those years ago. 

The bite was sacred, pack was more than family and Peter had wanted Stiles since day one. Stiles wondered about the different scenarios Peter had drummed up for a moment before dismissing those thoughts to listen. 

"Once I bit you I knew the change wouldn't be enough. I-" he cleared his throat before continuing " I hadn't seen that level of carnage in a long time. You needed a hospital and fast. I had to make a gurney out of tree branches and a blanket I found in my trunk, even with the gurney I still had to drag you to my car and leverage you into the bad seat." 

Peter swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet room. 

Stiles couldn't look at his father, he knew there would be tears running down his dad's face. 

"Thank you." Stiles whispered. 

Peter grinned at him, though his eyes were pained. 

"Anything for you, darling."

"All those," a pause to work saliva into his mouth, "y-years ago, you offered more than pack." Another pause to lick his lips. 

"You offered more than being a beta."

Peter sat frozen staring at Stiles in shock, the former sheriff's wet, surprised laughter breaking the tension. 

"Hale, did you really not think he would research bite locations and their meanings?" Stiles looked back at his father, a smile on his lips at his father's words. 

"You know?" Peter was like a fish out of water, flopping between the Stilinski men's gazes. 

"Of course I know. He doesn't keep anything from me anymore. He figured it out right after you left." Father and son turned identical grins on Peter, though one was slightly hidden by a split lip and bruises. 

"He whined and cried about not going with you for weeks after he found out he had denied you twice." This time only father grinned while son turned an afronted look on him. 

"Stiles?"

 Stiles didn't really know what Peter was asking, but he didn't think Peter really knew either. 

His throat was beginning to hurt more earnestly so he gently, carefully lifted his hand to caress Peter's cheek before baring his wrist to the alpha werewolf. 

"Yes." Stiles whispered his eyes burning supernaturally gold. 

Peter's whole body practically lit up, a genuine, pleased smile stealing its way across his face before he bared sharp fangs and bit down gently. 

[scholarsofthedas]

Case Study: Feynriel - Regarding Elf-blooded & Elven traits

While roaming within the streets of Kirkwall as Hawke & Co. encounter more shenanigans they didn't ask for. Or maybe they did. Something has, in particular, has piqued my interest.

Or perhaps should I say someone.

Feynriel - an elf-blooded apostate, who Hawke would later be informed by Keeper Marethari during [Night Terror] that he is a "Somniari," or "Dreamer," an exceptional skill that makes him able to enter and change the Fade at will, even killing people within it. A rare talent, if developed at all, that was thought was thought to have been extinct for two ages ( as far as Southern Thedas is concerned), since dreamers attract demons and most prove too frail of mind to survive a demonic possession.

What is quint about this young man wasn't the fact that he turns out to be a Dreamer; while his body physique is unmistakably human. If we take a closer at his facial features and compare to his parents, he much resembles his elven mother Arianni

than his human father Vincento

Such as the spacing between the eyes and its shape, and the tip of his ears appears to be a little sharper (although one might argue it is due to the angle of the picture) 

Which is a rather peculiar phenomenon considering that elf-blooded (often refer to offspring sired by a human and elven parent) would appear physically human and are in fact considered purely human. The reason why we don’t usually encounter individuals that have elvhen traits unless they are full elven was that the elven genome has been described as "adaptive" and elven reproduction in this regard has "much more to do with magic" than science or simple breeding.

Even his wiki page has sited that the developers have more or less acknowledged his more elven features, although Weekes has dismissed it as a “mistake” in Feynriel’s model.

What I propose is the notion that it is more to do with the environment. Let me explain:

*[link] 

Elves generally don’t mingle with other races much already due both cultural and practical reasons (as offsprings between human & elf is a [elf-blooded] human, general social discrimination and hostility).

Regarding Dwarves, they aren’t very fertile race to begin with due to the fact that darkspawn has taken over and tainted majority of the Deep Roads, not to mention the notion of mating with other races (humans & elves) was in fact so rare it is considered an oddity than a group of its own; In addition, Orzammar is very restrictive on who they allow into their territory, thus being contact with one, let alone forming an intimate relationship (or at all) is very rare. A “half-dwarf” would mainly be a result of a union between a surface dwarf and human.

As we learn throughout the lore, the very essence of elves are deeply connected to the Fade. In fact, it is heavily implied that elves were once spirits themselves but later take on flesh, mortal form.

And the existent of the Veil has muffled (not mute) that connection.

Typically, cities and settlements avoid locations where the Veil is thin for practical reasons such as spirit and demons unless the place is of political and/or religious significance. Not unlike the people in real life have superstitions and/or avoid such places that are said to be haunted or supernatural essence in general. Normal civilians usually stay away from regions and buildings that harbours the Circle of Magi as well. Even where were signs of any civilization in such place where Veil is thin are usually of the wilder folks such as the Avvars and the Chasind in which they are lived in the region for generations and more intimate information we know about them are often the tip of the iceberg. Majority of Dalish clans generally refrain from human contacts. 

Now, Kirkwall is where things get interesting. 

You see, while most people might have just assumed that it is only the Gallows where weird [magic] shit happens (“expected” in most Circles ).

If one did take the time to search, gather and read all 12 parts of [Codex entry: The Enigma of Kirkwall], one would realize the “City of Chains” and it’s surrounding region (including Sundermount) is one special place of fuck-up.

Literally

The investigation notes conducted by “The Band of Three” has revealed that the underbelly of Kirkwall aka Dark Town is not simply sprawling mess of a labyrinth. The layout plan of the city shows there were patterns in the intersections, back alleys, and boulevards. Some magisters believed in the power of symbols or shapes. In the oldest parts of the city, one can make out the outlines of glyphs in the very streets.

 Later notes shows, the records of slaves entering Kirkwall, the numbers did not add up.  "For every thousand slaves that came to Kirkwall, a hundred disappeared", that's one out of ten slaves. A disproportionately high number and quite alarming.

"The mages of Kirkwall have a more troubled history than those in other Circles. A greater percentage of them do not survive the Harrowing, and a greater percentage turn to blood magic—almost double that of Starkhaven or Ostwick." (Why the Chantry decided it was actually a good idea to set up a Circle here in the first place boggles the mind. But that’s topic is for another time)

"It is well known that the Veil is thin in Kirkwall, small wonder given the suffering in the city. But we've discovered the magisters were deliberately thinning it even further.” Basically, with the information above, we can come to the conclusion that those ‘missing’ slaves were being sacrificed to whatever blood magic ritual the Ancient Magisters were preparing.

(This is some level of *FMA horror right there; City state-scaled instead of the whole nation. Not that it was any better)

Whether the citizens & inhabitants acknowledge or unaware of the haunting history that their resident used to be the heart of the slave trade in the height of the Ancient Tevinter Imperium, we do not know. Perhaps they choose to be ignorant of such history for better sleep at night.

You might be wondering why I brought up all these grim past and what is it has anything to do with being elf-blooded and elven traits.

The point is, Kirkwall is a rare case that contains all the ‘required’ elements - a city with a fair amount of residents - including an Elven Alienage. But also where the Veil is extremely thin, dangerously so. However, it also means the connection to the Fade is stronger as well - strong enough for the ‘recessive’ -like (word loosely used) gene of the elven blood to surface and affect one’s appearance.

Therefore the word “adaptive” is being used because it is affected by the level of connection to the Fade in the region.

 Conclusion: I have come up with 2 theories + 1 potential variable.

Theory I.) “Inborn” - The elven-gene is affected by where the child was conceived and where was the mother during her time of pregnancy. The energy from the Fade is absorbed by the child and nurtured at its most vulnerable stage - the fetus, in the purest form.

Theory II.) “Postnatal” - where the mother was during her pregnancy might be irrelevant. What is more important was the environment the child themselves was in. Just as the local diet and culture practice would affect the physique of a person, so does the energy of the Fade would influence the essence of the said elf-blooded individual, nurturing them as they grow up.

Variable) The parents of the child - the elf-blooded child who has an elven mother has a slightly higher chance of having their [physical] elven traits surface than compare to elf-blooded child who has mother of other races (Humans, Dwarves, Qunari(?)) due to the fact that the child is [usually] more closely connected (emotional & physically nurtured) by the mother as the result of the pregnancy.

--

Let me know what do you think? 

Drop us an ask or discuss away in the notes and/or reblog! 

Thank you for reading.

- Curator Justine ✹

 ----------------------------

*FMA - Full Metal Alchemist [Brotherhood];

[bullet-farmer]

Okay, I’m having a horrible mental-health day and feel overwhelmed by work, and talking about something that’s been bothering me really feels liberating. Because I feel like it’s one thing I can control right now.

Please don’t reblog this or tag it. I don’t want this to become Discourse, especially in an awesome fandom. But I needed to get this out in a space where people I trust can reply if they wish. I’m fine with disagreement and discussion, as long as people respect my feelings, or ask for clarification if they don’t understand what I’m talking about.

This got long. And it’s about pronouns. And fictional characters. And idk.

Another thing that kind of bothers me about assuming they/them or ze/zir for Beelzebub’s pronouns, and why I’m using both less and less*: I’m really uncomfortable with how few authors do the same for any other character (save, of course, for Pollution, whose pronouns are clearly mentioned as they/them and really should be used exclusively, because that’s just the decent thing to do).  Of course, some people use they/them across the board, or pronouns other than she/her and he/him in any combination. But in my experience, authors who do this are quite rare, at least on Ao3. In most cases, I find authors using “gendered” (for lack of a better word) pronouns for everyone else--namely, those that (presumably) match the gender of the actor who plays each role. For example: she/her for Michael and Dagon, and he/him for Hastur and Gabriel. 

I don’t want to make assumptions about why people do this. For one thing, making sweeping generalizations about people is always a bad idea. It’s even a worse idea when talking about why a group as diverse as fanfic authors. For another, I don’t know what is in people’s hearts or minds, and I’d rather not try to arbitrate any thoughts but my own. That said, in the West, we are swimming in a sea of gender essentialism and binarism. And I can’t help but feel that both are somehow in play in this phenomenon.

Angels and demons in Good Omens are nonbinary. But from a binarist point of view, you could say that nearly all of the angels and demons have at least a few stereotypical masculine or feminine qualities. For example: Michael wears makeup, and a very frilly blouse at one point; Michael’s suit and Uriel’s have what we would call a feminine cut. Dagon has long hair in a style we would call feminine, Sandalphon has male-pattern baldness, Hastur has a deep voice and wears “masculine” clothes, etc. 

But Beelzebub breaks this pattern. She’s what people in the West tend to think of when they hear the term “androgynous”: somewhat boyish and youthful in appearance, dressing in typically “masculine” clothes that don’t emphasize her shape, and behaving in a way that many would call more masculine than feminine. To put it another way, she is aggressive, she speaks forcefully, she shows no hallmarks of being a queen or princess, and she entirely lacks subtlety. Women, of course, are socialized to do the exact opposite. Save for her appearance at the airfield, she is also far more unkempt than any character in the series with the possible exception of Hastur.  I’m beginning to see several problems as I go deeper into this deep dive.  First problem: the assumption that “nonbinary” means androgynous or genderless. And, as a subset of that problem, the assumption that androgynous and agender/genderless are synonymous, and that they/them and ze/zir are “genderless” pronouns. For some people, they very much are. For others, they are not. (For example, a blogger I follow identifies as a cis woman and uses both she/her and they/them).  Second problem: The fact that a character played by an actress simply must be agender or “not female” because said character is androgynous and behaves in stereotypically “masculine” ways.  Third problem: ...Why are we only insisting on they/them or ze/zir for the dirtiest, least conventionally attractive character in the show? I mean, being dirty and unkempt isn’t a stereotypically nonbinary trait, but considering how society sees women who don’t obsess over their looks as “not real women,” this has some very unfortunate implications to me. Fourth problem: Y’all, Neil didn’t say that Beelzebub would probably use they/them as pronouns. He said “zir” (and to be honest, I think that was him being witty rather than making an official statement). I understand that some people can uses these interchangeably to describe themselves, but they really aren’t interchangeable. And acting like they are, strikes me as basically saying “well, these are all nongendered pronouns, so just pick whichever you like best when talking about someone.” Imagine calling someone whose pronouns are they/them, “ze/zir” and thinking that isn’t misgendering or upsetting. I also don’t see posts that insist we respect any other character as nonbinary--particularly characters like, say, Hastur, Ligur, or Gabriel. (Perhaps I’m mistaken, but I really feel like people are even more hesitant to call more “masculine” characters nonbinary than they are Dagon, Michael, etc. Which also strikes me as having really unfortunate implications. But that’s a whole other post.) Or regular use of “Nonbinary Character” and “Canon Nonbinary Character” tags on AO3 for any other demon or angel.  All of this is really starting to get to me as a nonbinary/genderfluid person who absolutely does not see myself as agender or androgynous, even if people regularly describe my looks as “masculine” for reasons I’ll get into in a second. I’m genderfluid and nonbinary because I do not fully or consistently identify with the gender I was assigned at birth--and because I never have. While some days I feel fine with having society see me as a cis woman, some days I am deeply not okay with it--and am actually dysphoric because my body doesn’t look more stereotypically androgynous. However, when I realized that stereotypical androgyny is a concept that cisheterocentric society forces on nonbinary people--and DFAB people in particular--my dysphoria became a bit more manageable.  I also do not attend to my appearance. I have no interest in wearing makeup, flattering clothes, or even feminine ones. I wear skirts for comfort; I’ve always hated pants because of sensory issues, but if I didn’t, I’d probably wear a lot of “men’s” clothes. As it is, I wear T-shirts cut for men, rather than the fitted versions for women. And baggy clothes that men can get away with wearing, but women not so much. I don’t regularly style my hair despite having it long. I don’t shave any part of my body--which began upsetting people when I was twelve, y’all. Adults constantly bothered me about it, and about looking more feminine and stylish. I may be the only “girl” on the planet whose father encouraged her to wear shorter skirts and more flattering tops when she was in her early teens.

It really upset me, but at the time I had no language for why--other than that I felt pushed and harassed. Thankfully, people have since mostly cut that shit out, but when you deal with it as a child, it really leaves some scars and some gender confusion--a fact I only realized while typing this out! Of course, I don’t believe that any of these life choices inherently make anyone any particular gender. But society thinks differently. To it, I’m a failure as a woman, and when you add on the fact that I’m nearing forty, childfree, offbeat, clueless about ‘appropriate” interactions with men, and loud and messy because of ADHD, I’m labeled as even less of a woman. I would have no problem with this if it didn’t come with the pejorative baggage. I have never been a girl or a woman, though I feel I share enough in common with this gender to be comfortable having it be part of my identity to some degree. Even as a child, I felt this but I had no name for it because no one was talking about trans issues in a conservative red state in the 80s and 90s, and they sure as fuck wouldn’t have done it around kids. I didn’t even hear the word “nonbinary” until the early 2010s.  All of this also means that I don’t get many characters or images that represent me. Again, media portrayals of people like me (DFAB and not consistently woman-identifying) are so rare that Beelzebub is the ONLY one I have found in my adult life who isn’t, you know, the butt of a joke about viragos and lesbians who are too ugly to get a man, and “undateables.” So having people insist that using she/her is somehow misgendering is...well, I get that it’s not directed at me. That it isn’t about me personally. That it isn’t meant to hurt me. That it is a lot of nonbinary people and genderfluid people talking about their own experiences. I know all of that, and I don’t begrudge people their feelings. But it still kind of hurts when they disapprove of disagreement. And it makes me worry that fewer people will read my fic, and may accuse me of misgendering if they do, even if I always “warn” for pronouns. I’m even hesitant to make posts like this or to refer to Beelzebub as she/her in casual conversation. Which, well...kind of makes me feel like I do in life. Almost no one but my therapists knows I’m not cis, because I don’t think I could explain it to them without causing confusion and some distress. Which I don’t want to cause and don’t have the spoons to deal with, especially when my own gender issues are so complicated and unclear even to me.

I also just don’t have the spoons to deal with people for assuming I’m a cis, straight girl writing a hetero relationship when I use she/her in most of my Beelzefic. And to be honest, I’m just sort of hurt at the inconsistency around pronouns and the issues said inconsistency raise for me. 

I mean, like I said, I know this isn’t personal, and I do my best to keep that in mind. But I don’t like having to hold my thoughts in because they might upset other genderfluid and nonbinary people.** I have to do that enough in my life already as a queer person, and as a mentally ill person whose feelings are not always appropriate to the situation. Having to hold them in here, too, feels really unfair and frustrating to me, and kind of like I can’t be myself even in LGBTQ+ spaces. so... tl;dr  Use whatever pronouns for Beelzebub you like, or no pronouns at all. I am not the pronoun police, and I would never tell anyone what to do with their writing. But please don’t accuse people of misgendering if they do otherwise, or mistreat them if they do, or make assumptions about them or their reasons. You don’t know who they are or what experience they’re writing from, just as they don’t know who you are and your experiences. I guess that’s it. thank you. 

* Yes, I am aware of what Neil said on the subject. I’m genderfluid and allowed to disagree and to present an alternate view. ** I really don’t care too much about cisgender folks’ opinions on this issue. I’m sorry, but I don’t. Especially when cisgender people opine about what pronouns we should use for a character. I’m glad that they’re concerned and think they’re trying admirably to be good allies, but this really is an in-house and stay-in-your-lane issue. 

[sundaynightbombers-blog]

TONIGHT WE DINE IN THE BASEMENT; OR, IF A CGI WOLF IS KILLED WITH A REAL SPEAR, IS IT MURDER?

            Have you ever watched/read/listened to something you knew was bad, but did so purely because of how popular it is or was at some point? Ever gone on a disco bender to try and travel back to the seventies, mostly because you can afford only used records and not cocaine? Hosted a French new wave marathon because you keep hearing how wonderful Jean-Luc Godard is, despite him only having maybe three good movies? Gone to one of those hip small art galleries to see what’s new in modern art, except you don’t why that woman is birthing raw eggs?

            In this article, I’d like to detail my findings from a recent excursion into a cultural phenomenon years after the fact: I watched Zack Snyder’s 300.

            Background: 300 is based on a 1998 graphic novel by controversial-and-not-in-a-fun-way cartoonist Frank Miller (see Sin City and The Dark Knight Returns). The film, released in 2006, directed by Snyder, and starring Gerard Butler (who is not a terrible actor, let’s be real here), was in fact stupidly successful at the box office with an international gross of $456 million against its $60 million budget. However, critics were completely divided, and this days the film is considered not very good.

            Total disclosure, it is a bloated, tan-coloured, man sweat-flavoured lemon of a movie.

            But why was it such a big deal? Well, I think we can blame the 80s. Specifically, 1982’s Conan the Barbarian. See, Conan was also a massive success upon release, especially among young adult males, similar to 300. Both films were adaptations of successful works within geek culture at their respective times, both made by well-regarded creators, and the fan hype machine obviously had a role in both films being hits. But I think there might be something else, something more… sociological, going on.

            Consider: Both films feature a main character who embodies absolute masculinity. They both contain things like honour and respect, all amongst manly men, as emotional cores for the audience. These are films that explicitly tell male-orientated stories, something I’d argue rarely happens. A lot of films that’re made for male audiences are less blatant about it; there’ll sometimes be female love interests, themes and ideas that aren’t absolute in how they addressed from a men’s perspective, and are typically trying to appeal to wider audiences (usually). Movies are about making money at the end of the day, so they need to throw a wide net. These movies? Their net is shaped like a scrotum and carries enough testosterone to power a brigade of Interceptors down a highway.

            Now, it’s extremely easy to say that most films cater to male audiences, and I will not deny that. There is truth to it, but in the case of Conan the Barbarian and 300, these films are so grossly direct in who they’re trying to get to see them, it’s kind of amazing. Neither film came out at a time when their genre- swords and sandals- was popular, they were not Oscar bait or major blockbusters, and frankly should’ve seen minor success, let alone become flops. But no, these films soldiered on (literally) and ended up being cultural touchstones for their respective generations of men. They presented male-oriented stories in a way that appealed directly to them. They gave them characters that personified a sense of masculinity that, I would argue, young males secretly desired. They wanted father figures that, in their mind, could treat them like a real man treats his son. It gave them something they didn’t get.

            But is any of this a good thing? I dunno. I know some will say it isn’t, some will say (not quite as loudly) that it does, but frankly, I don’t think it really matters. Check it, Conan is now a mere cult film that only appeals to fans of Robert E. Howard or Arnold Schwarzenegger. 300 is basically a joke these days. A too-little-too-late sequel in 2014 confirmed that it had absolutely no staying power, Snyder’s career has gone on to achieve rather abysmal depths (side note: I feel Justice League is somewhat forgivable; he understandably and rightfully left due to a personal tragedy, and I think the film was doomed regardless of his involvement or not), and Frank Miller is seen as a senile old man who had a pretty racist/batshit-insane phase in the 2000s that completely ruined his winning streak. Hell, the graphic novel 300 has become his last masterwork. All that is left in the film’s wake are countless hours of ‘this is Sparta’ memes buried deep in the recesses of the internet, as well as a mediocre and forgotten PlayStation Portable beat-em-up.

            I want to end on a few small notes. Firstly, as much as I disliked 300 (no, really, it’s pretty godawful), I did get sucked into it at the end. When the 300 Spartans are dying on the battlefield, and Michael Fassbender grabs Gerard Butler’s hand, and they have an exchange expressing their mutual respect for each other, it kinda got me. The climax is effective, not gonna lie. Also, the blue screen work is sooooo fucking bad, it’s actually distracting.

            Finally, what about the book 300? Well, it’s not bad. I kinda dig it. The real kicker is that, Snyder recreated the graphic novel shot-for-shot, and in the process diminished the effectiveness of those scenes. You also see Frank Miller do what he does best one last time, which is made more sad as it makes you remember why Miller was so highly-regarded as an artist; 300 came right before the abysmal The Dark Knight Strikes Back, but it wouldn’t be until the immensely offensive Holy Terror that his reign would ultimately end. Basically, everything after this has never reached those heights in the 80s and 90s. This is his last masterwork, and it’s kind of a fitting one to end on. Didn’t give me much insight, but as a fan of comics it was not without merit.

            Too bad we got a shit movie out of it.

 ~M.C.

[pomegranate-salad]

Pom’s Summer reads (as she was stuck in the hospital)

Hey guys ! Sorry I haven’t been around in a while. The reason is… I was back in the psych ward. Mental health is no fun. But this time around, I was so bored out of my mind that I actually took a look at the scarcely furnished, yet surprisingly eclectic hospital library. Which consisted of two shelves of donated books in various states of decay. But since beggars can’t be choosers, I went and started reading randomly selected books from this motley collection. And I thought it would be fun to make a reading list out of it to share my findings. I have terrible ideas.

 So, here’s what I read over the last two weeks :

- Mythologies by Roland Barthes

Genre : Essay – Philosophy

Length : average

Available in English : partially

 I had only read excerpts of this staple of cultural criticism before, so I thought it was high time I read the whole thing. This takes a look to the making of modern myths from a Marxist perspective, finding meaning in items as deceptively trivial as laundry detergent and haircuts in movies. This book consists of a first part made of a series of small commentaries, and a second part that takes a deeper look into the mechanisms and power of myth making. Some of the essays of the first part are not included in the English version of this book, presumably because the references studied were too “French” to speak to foreign readers. The references as a whole have aged (I had to google quite a few things, even as a French reader) but it speaks to the quality of the commentary that the thoughts expressed in this book are still relevant to our modern culture. You can probably find one of its most famous bits online, an essay about wrestling and the theatrical culture it illustrates.

This is an important and interesting book, but one that’s maybe a bit arid to read cover to cover : I found picking it up at intervals to read one essay or two was the best way to enjoy this book. You can of course also check out Barthes’ highly influential essay on the Death of the Author, but I also enjoyed his lesser-known essay The pleasure of the Text and his collection of Critical essays.

 - The Sand Child by Tahar Ben Jelloun

Genre : Novel

Length : average

Available in English : Yes

Content warning : explicit sexual content

 This was a weird, weird but pretty amazing one. Assuredly the best surprise of the lot. This starts off as a straightforward tale of a girl raised as a boy by a traditionalist father in modern Morocco as told by a storyteller on a marketplace, but it quickly devolves into several levels of metatextuality and dreamlike elements until story, characters and storyteller are interweaved into a reflexion about the nature of stories itself.

Aptly enough, this reminded most of Sandman, but also of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, both excellent things of which to remind someone. This is also the rare reflexion on gender roles and identity within the context of Islamic culture. But most of all, this is all written with a unique style, as if the author was drunk on language ; it’s a bit hard to get into, but it’s also captivating at the same time. Of all the books in this list, this is the one I would reread again and again just to try and understand all its levels. If you like this kind of surreal literature, definitely check this one out.

  - Oyster by John Biguenet

Genre : Novel

Length : average to long

Content warning : mild violence

 This was a frustrating one. It’s not a great book, yet it could have been one. This is yet another story of rivalry, secrets and revenge between two poor white families, this time living from oyster farming in Louisiana in the late fifties. The plot is fairly standard, and narrated in such a way that it constantly gets in the way of its dramatic potential. The writing is I think the problem here, especially around dialogue and plot progression, making the whole thing feel flat. Which is a shame because when the book lingers on details of the life of poor oyster farmers, it can be remarkably evocative.

This is the kind of book I want to put in a shaker and shake to put each element back where it belongs. I’m not difficult when it comes to Southern Gothic : I will basically read anything as long as it reminds me even a little bit of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams. So it was frustrating to see this one being able to conjure its own atmosphere while not sticking the landing with its story. If you know of any good modern Southern Gothic novels, please send them my way, I’m hungry.

  - The ghost in the Noonday sun by Sid Fleischman

Genre : Novel

Length : short

 I have no idea how much of a staple of children’s literature this book is, so maybe all of you are already familiar with it. Personally, I hadn’t read it in quite a while since the version we have at home is now missing some key pages. But if by chance you haven’t read this, please go invest an hour of your life into reading this funny, witty and earnest pirate story about a teenager who gets kidnapped by a superstitious pirate who believes he’s able to see ghosts in order to locate the treasure of his old captain who was buried with it.

In a just world, there’d be a cult movie based on this book instead of one of dubious quality staring an erratic Peter Sellers. This is children’s literature of the best kind : one that takes its audience seriously, is able to create an atmosphere and is still a fun to reread as an adult. This was kind of super-nostalgic to me to pick this one, but I couldn’t resist.

  - The Awkward Squad by Sophie Hénaff (and its sequel Stick together)

Genre : Novel – Crime

Length : average

Available in English : Yes

 I had to have read at least one crime novel in this lot, but in the end I only read two, since the other options were Mary Higgins Clark books and since I have a grandmother, I had already read those. It’s a shame that French crime novels don’t have as much of an international reputation as Scandinavian or American ones, since we do have an interesting tradition of our own : books mainly based on ensemble casts of motley characters, with a poetic streak and a sensitivity to absurdism. The premise of this series is that in order to get better statistics, the new policer commissioner has decided to regroup all undesirable police officers they can’t fire in one single squad, and make sure this lame duck unit doesn’t attract any attention. But some people from this unit have of course decided otherwise.

These books held pretty well as far as crime novels go, they are a lot of fun at times and read easily. The character work and dialogue are definitely this series’ best asset, as it is the case with many French crime books. If you want the best the genre has to offer, check out my all-time favourite, the Adamsberg series from author Fred Vargas, in order : The Chalk Circle Man, Seeking whom he may devour, Have mercy on us all, and Wash this Blood clean from my Hand.

  - The Three-Arched Bridge by Ismail Kadaré

Genre : Novel

Length : short

Available in English : Yes

 This was hardly a surprise that I loved this one : I’ve been a fan of Kadaré for a while. This is yet another of his books that explores the frontiers of reality and legend, superstition and magic within a fascinating historical context. Here, his subject is the building of a bridge in Albania toward the end of the 14th century, as the Turkish invasion is looming. The narrator, a monk, relates both political and mundane events surrounding the isolated region, as increasingly troubling phenomenon surround the construction site, announcing the troubled future of the country.

I do love my historical/supernatural novels, and Kadaré is a master of the genre. This reads easily while making a lasting impression and leaving you hungry for more. If you do, I can’t recommend enough checking out more of Kadaré’s work, his classic The General of the Dead Army, and my personal favourites The Pyramid and The Ghost Rider.

 - The Pursuit of Happiness by Douglas Kennedy

Genre : Novel

Length : long

 I picked this one deep in my “I’m fucking sick of reading, but there’s still nothing else to do” phase, since I needed something that would be easy to read and at least somewhat good, and old Douglas did not disappoint : this book might be almost 800 pages long, it reads in a dedicated handful of hours. This is primarily the story of two women, one who just lost her mother and the other who appears in her life after the funeral, apparently knowing a lot about her family, to give her a manuscript retracing her story. The portrayal of the main characters is realistic, both are flawed individuals with distinct stories and personalities, so cheers to that.

This is the kind of familial saga-that’s-also-a-reflexion-on-destiny-and-the-American-dream you never get tired of until you do. Don’t let my snide deter you though : this is a very good book, maybe just not singular enough for its genre. If you’re looking for something more particular, you can of course check out Steinbeck’s East of Eden, the metric by which all American familial sagas are judged, and Roth’s American Pastoral, which contrary to what you may have heard, is a weird goddamn book.

 - Allah is not obliged by Ahmadou Kourouma

Genre : Novel

Length : average

Available in English : Yes

Content warning : extremely disturbing and graphic description of atrocities in wartime

 A first-person description of tribal wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone during the nineties from the point of view of a fictitious child soldier. It doesn’t pretend to stick by its premise though, and dives into detailed record of the political climate, all while taking us through the daily horrors of life in war-torn countries. The extremely down-to-earth and downright crude descriptions are interweaved with magic realism rooted in West African voodoo and culture.

This one was one of my favourites, despite the writing and narrative bordering on gimmicky at times ; especially at the end, where the story seems to have exhausted itself and seems more interested in recounting the political history of the region. The subject in and of itself is fascinating (and this is a great read if you’re not familiar with it) but sorts of impinges on the main storyline and the development of its characters.

Despite its flaws, I can only recommend this book, especially if you’re looking to delve into West African literature as this makes for a good introduction to the genre. Be aware however that this book is extremely hard to stomach and triggering in about every way possible. If you do like it, I recommend checking out my favourite book by this author, Waiting for the Wild Beasts to vote.

 - Hymns of Hate by Dorothy Parker

Genre : Poetry

Length : short

 I have a complicated relationship with poetry : as in, I am fond of it and some poetry books have come to mean a lot in my life, yet for some reason I never seem to be in the mood for picking one. So the reason this chapbook got picked is probably that your brain functions differently when the world around you is an ocean of noise and agitation due to a little event called the World Cup. Yes, even at the hospital, the French victory was dutifully celebrated, so this was the best time to isolate yourself with some earplugs and a poetry book.

Dorothy Parker is an acerbic poetess from the twenties who takes a comical and critical look at society, which leads to what I’d call comedy roast as poetry. It’s not the most moving kind of poetry, but it will make you laugh and reflect on yourself a bit, as I can guarantee you’ll recognize yourself in at least some of the vivid portraits this book draws. Of course, since I read it in French, it probably lost a lot of its musicality, which is the eternal dilemma when it comes to poetry : would I rather have something be lost in translation, or in reading in your non-native language ?

This kind of impertinent poetry, even if it doesn’t get as much press as big romantic oeuvres, is still a breath of fresh air that puts a smile on your face while still giving you an insight into the author’s personality. The only poet I can think of that produced the same effect on me is Jacques Prévert. I highly recommend checking out his two chapbooks Paroles and Stories.

- Six characters in search of an author by Luigi Pirandello

Genre : Play

Length : short

Available in English : Yes

 So before you say anything, I didn’t know he was a fascist before I picked this one. But you do now, so feel free not to read this one as a matter of principle. That being said, this is a very good play. This is the kind of hyper-conceptual play that interrogates the relationship between characters, writer and comedians. The story is exactly what it says in the title : six characters imagined by an author but who never got their play written tumble into a theatre as actors are repeating a play and ask them to write their play.

This play has stage directions for days and is a little bit hard to get a sense of when you read it instead of seeing it, yet once you get how the whole thing works, the ideas expressed are extremely interesting. This reminded me of Ionesco’s works, particularly The bald Soprano and the criminally underrated The Chairs. The theme of characters escaping the grasp of their authors can also be found in Paul Auster’s Man in the Dark which, while by no means one of the author’s best works, is still a fun and meditative read so don’t hesitate to check it out.

  - What money can’t buy, the moral limits of markets by Michael J. Sandel

Genre : Essay – Economy

Length : average

 I picked this one primarily because it was the only one in English, and also because I like to periodically remind myself why I left business school. I ended up having a good time reading it, because it’s more about thinking the market than explaining it. This book discusses the things that money can buy today – cutting in line, naming rights, stakes on someone’s life – and whether we should be alarmed of this growing market mentality. In the true tradition of English essays, this book makes its thesis clear at the beginning and then reiterates its point through examples. This is completely different from the French tradition of essays, which starts at the observable phenomenon and then takes us to its core thesis through organic reasoning. This means that past the introduction, you’ll know what this book is trying to prove, and the rest of the book is more about illustrating the demonstration. However, each set of examples come with their own ethical and practical problems, and you end up being more conflicted than you originally thought. A fiery onslaught against capitalism it is not, but this has the advantage of considering market mentality from the inside and then wondering how it looks from the outside. If nothing else, it should give you a good set of arguments to shut up libertarians and their ilk.

  So that’s all I have today. Do tell me if you want me to make more reading lists like this !

[mistermcdee-blog]

Eyyyyyyy. I did it. My god. Those some fine-lookin’ losers though.

To recap:

Mr. Durand Poppeacock

Owner of Poppeacock Inc., fashion house and luxury goods company. Comes from similar origins as Scrooge, immigrating to America from Britain to make his fortune. LGBT celebrity, prefers power over money. Ruthless, shrewd, gay as a blade, loathes and loves Scrooge. It’s complicated. Loves his grandchild Nizar more than life itself and would raze Duckburg to the ground for his grandchild’s sake. Late night glasses of wine laced with diazepam hides a deeply traumatized and unwell psyche. Don’t mention his daughter.

Nizar Poppeacock

Grandchild of Mr. Poppeacock and apparent heir to the Poppeacock fortune. Self-effacing, bashful, cowardly, anxiety-ridden, and almost the exact opposite of his grandfather, wanting to do good; succeeding is another story. Under the lopsided, nervous smile is a mind as ruthless, intelligent, attention-seeking and sadistic as his grandfather--something he tries desperately to keep under wraps and push away for want of being a good person. Parkour and martial arts, especially aikido and muay thai, make him upsettingly strong and swift--not a great combination with the previous statement. But he tries. Lawd do he try.

Eddy Cottontail

Nathan Drake-style adventurer-for-hire at his best and opportunistic thief at his worst. A former archaeology professor turned anarchist adventurer, he’s experienced about everything, he’s old, he’s lost every last fuck to give, and looks every part the grumpy old man. But where Mr. Poppeacock hides vitriol under his sugary facade, Eddy... well, his grumpy exterior is just who he is. But he is also sharp, with a heart bleeding so bad it’s a wonder he hasn’t exsanguinated yet. The first to help someone in need, even when not the smartest move (he knows he KNOWS trust him he knows), it’s a wonder he’s not dead yet. The universe has tried to fix that though. And so has he.

He’s seen a lot.

Pelagosa Cottontail (actual last name: ???)

Silver-tongued, bratty, over-dramatic and sassy, teenaged Pel seems the opposite of her father; the Han Solo to Eddy’s Indiana Jones in their treasure-hunting duo. Quick getaways and quicker schemes are her forte, with a mechanic’s mind and little regard to consequences. While her father understands emotions like the back of his hand, Pelagosa has zero understanding of her own emotions. Under her seeming disregard though for the feelings of other people for the sake of having fun is a want to do good though, she just... has her own way of doing so. Feeling blue? Let’s go vandalize someone’s property. Someone giving you trouble? Kill them throw eggs at them. She wants to help. Really. She’s just kind of terrible at it. But behind a whiny and selfish teenager is a quiet, lurking Imperator Furiosa.

Dr. Lijiang

Child of Chinese immigrants, Lijiang is a highly-educated scientist in particle and quantum physics, teaching at the Duckburg School for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing. He is mostly likely to be seen waddling at the speed of an electron through the hallways of the research laboratory he shares with Professor Ludwig von Drake, quick to hug and make sure you are aware of just how special and rare of a cosmic phenomenon you are. In his own way, as a childhood incident with illness or accident (only his parents know) took his voice. It takes an understanding of ASL though to know what a sailor-mouthed cuss and rapier-wit smart-aleck the little cormorant with the feet that go plap-plap-plap is.

[gotgifsandmusings]

GoT 7x01 Musings

My initial reaction to “Dragonstone”

Jess summed it up best in her review when she said there was nothing overly offensive, or interesting, or really...anything. I couldn’t find a ton of ironic enjoyment, because this whole episode was just...beige. Unlike Cheryl’s map. That was damn vibrant.

Arya Todd and...William Sherman

I’ve given up on being pissy about the way faceless man mask magic works. Of course she created it off-screen. Of course she could wear it with a puffy coat and stand on a box and change her voice and becoming convincingly Walder Filch

Do the FM give a shit that she’s running around with their methodology to personal vendettas? Will this catch up with her?

Apparently ALL THE FREYS are in this room, and female Freys are incapable of perpetuating a House. That makes a lot of sense.

Like. What are we supposed to make of this? Are we supposed to be happy? Is this supposed to be poetic justice? It was just so out of place for “oh and then this shock happens” that we have to accept off-screen poison making and implementation (guess she still has control of the kitchens), and frankly separated from the moment where this would have had any impact anyway--her murdering Walder in the first place.

To make matters worse, she THEN stumbles into nice Lannister men, making her rethink her broad-brushing (just like Jonny didn’t want to!), so....does she take back her Smirk of Empowerment? Are we supposed to view this as a negative now? Why show us the “parallels” of Cat and Walder’s death in the “previously on’s” then? I’m just so confused, and once again it’s obvious the show has no idea about it’s own messaging.

We’re glad Maisie Williams got to meet her favorite artist. That was the point of that scene. Gr8 writing. Glad “Hands of Gold” was just shoved in, because it’s not like that context had mattered or that it was foreshadowing anything, or written on the spot about Tyrion and Shae...

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: For what it's worth, I had no idea who Ed Sheeran was until people started complaining about his scene, and if you've never heard of him and don't recognize his face, it really doesn't come off as mugging any more than any of D&D's other "let's cut in a close-up reaction shot!" shtick. I think people (not you, but people) are getting too hung up on this to notice the real awfulness of the first episode, like literally everything about Euron.

I think you can walk and chew gum. If you know it’s obvious and cringe-inducing.

Bran and Gloveless Meera

The Army of the Dead looked kinda cool, but I still think of Pirates of the Caribbean

Did this scene need to exist? It wasn’t bad, or anything really, but they’re quite obviously not wildlings, and I fail to think we would have been lost had we jumped to them already inside Castle Black. Hell, one line of establishing dialogue would have taken care of it.

Sam hunts for Nicholas Flamel

Poor Sam finds himself both in a sitcom and Harry Potter. What the fuck was that montage? Why is this novice training?

The Archmaester Slughorn scene was just for some bad Maester exposition from what I could tell. Are we meant to believe Sam wasn’t asking for assistance before this point? Also this whole thing really highlighted how dumb it was to send Sam here when the army was literally approaching and had just res’d the entirety of Hardhome

Why did the maesters put books about Dragonstone and the Long Winter in the restricted section? Did they know it was dramatically important to the plot?

Okay, correct me if I’m wrong, but the plotline as we know it is: Stannis tells Sam that there’s dragonglass at Dragonstone. Sam forgets about this and goes to the Citadel. Sam gets reminded by turning to a random page in a random book that there’s dragonglass at Dragonstone.

Amazing Shrinking Baby grew!

GREYSCALE JORAH! Omg that was fucking hilarious. Stop trying to touch the novices, dude

Can’t wait for next week: 

expecto pa-groan-um!

Sandor Specs Destro

@saintjustitude said to gotgifsandmusings: The preview bringing back that peasant father and daughter just to remind the viewers who they are when we see that they are soooo dead seems like another example of their narrative sadism and acedia phenomenon. Except now they do it with previews of scenes long forgotten from past seasons. (Unless they've already done it before and I missed it somehow.) -_-

I mean, it’s not out of that pattern, but I think the intent was to instill some meaning in Sandor’s arc? He’s like...coming to face his past demons. And rejecting his formerly nihilistic attitude? Except all we saw was him embracing this last season, so...

Also those skeletons looked ancient.

I guess it’s nice that there was actual character growth? If that’s what you call it? He just kind of suddenly had these fire-seeing powers.

Is it because he almost died? Do other people with near death experiences have these powers? Has he always had this and he just never looked at fire?

Boy oh boy those signs in the fire were beyond detailed for someone who’s never done this before

Where was any of this seeded? Like, was it when he asserted the complete opposite views about faith and how to navigate the world?

They kept trying to tell us it was poetic because it’s “fire based”, but it felt like such a random moment it’s hard to connect it to anything at all. Why did he go on a rampage with the Shire? What was any of that?

Cheryl’s Cartography and Coalition Building

No one questioned the logic of the floor map. Why floor map? How does this help plan troop movement?

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: to be fair we don't know what kind of paint was being used for the map (there are ingredients you can add to paint to make it dry quicker) and we're in King's Landing which is pretty warm - even during winter.

DUDE JUST LET ME HAVE THIS

So Cheryl talks about how everyone is an enemy, including Olenna who is a “traitor” (what? She teamed up with you before your dumbass brother forgot basics of military strategy). Is there a reason she decided to provoke the North by sending that letter? Doesn’t she have other things to deal with, apparently?

They talk about Tyrell bannermen which is a good fucking point, since the Lord Paramount of the Reach kind of blew up. But then…why would they have any chance of getting them to follow them?

Cheryl wants to build a dynasty, Larry points out that they have no heirs, and then Cheryl says “a dynasty for us, then.” That’s not…what a dynasty…ah forget it

She says Tommen betrayed her, and it’s presented as her refusing to process grief. This is actually fine, tbh?

My main issue is that this situation is completely unsurvivable for the Lannisters. Even with an Ironboor alliance, they don’t have the resources, have no sizable allies, especially for land-based warfare (oh ALL THE FREYS are dead and I guess there aren’t other River Lords), and have pissed everyone off, which by all rights should include smallfolk. The idea that there aren’t riots every day is stupid, and there’s really no tension here since they’ll clearly get smushed like a bug. Unless...

That’s right, Euron the new Villain Sue! His fleet is already massive because that’s how many trees they have on the Iron Islands.

And...okay, we’re told Euron is going to be “worse than Ramsay” this year but he comes in with his stupid eyeliner, leather diesel jacket, and new Johnny Depp-esque persona, with the first words out of his mouth being a long whining speech about how mean his niece and nephew were to him. It’s like some drunk pathetic rock star wandered onto the set and was sad he got snubbed for a Grammy. We’re supposed to take this moron seriously?

Also, Cheryl INVITED HIM. She even told us this marriage proposal was coming. Why would she reject his offer? Did she know that he was going to double down on his attempts to win her, even when he has a history of unpredictability, and oh yeah...he could just sit happily as king of the Iron Islands without getting involved with this idiocy?

Boy it would be shocking if his magically materializing fleet secured major military victories. Shocking.

Was Larry given Jorah’s accomplishments from the Greyjoy rebellions?

Winterhell

I’ve had it up to here with Lyanna Mormont’s Feminist Speeches (which demonstrate a complete lack of political and military awareness). OMG all the women will fight! (What a rare trait for Bear Island.) They won’t just be sewing, a complete societal necessity. Yahhhs slayyy empowermentttt!

This could have had a lot more poignance on Jonny’s part too, if we had seen any female Wildling fighters past Ygritte and Smurfette. Like if they had given a Night’s Watch Castle to spearwives, for instance. The Wildlings have all been dudes for a full season at this point, and Jonny’s idea seems to come out of basically nowhere.

How many Wildlings are still alive at this point? Or anyone for that matter? Before the Vale Lords swooped over the battlefield like the army of the dead, there looked to be about a few hundred left in Jonny’s army?

I love how easily this room is won over by whoever speaks. Royce idiotically wanted to tear down castles (was he worried the Army of the Dead might take them and set up reinforcements?), and Sansa is like “no that’s dumb. We should obviously give them to people who helped us” to uproarious applause.

Then Jon just gets really pissy, mostly because she spoke, and decides the hill he’s going to die on is letting castles stay in the hands of the family they’ve been in historically, even though that also means asking a 10-year old to be commanding what’s left of his bannermen at these strongholds of strategic necessity. And the room agrees.

It’s a good message I guess? Though does that mean we’re supposed to look back on Arya’s slaying as a bad thing? When the music was empowering? And it was framed as coming from such a petty place on Jon’s part that I’m just not sure what to make of it at all.

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings: Sansa: Ned died because he made stupid mistakes. Sansa, a minute later: Cersei kills her enemies no matter what. Sooo... which one is it?

Whichever makes creative sense, of course.

Oh and Sansa admires Cheryl. I wonder if she might betray Jonny?? It’s so mysterious. And glad they’re having the same arguments over and over.

If Ayra picks Jonny over Sansa in this tiff because Jonny is so much more smarterer and badass (the show seems to think so), I’m going to flip something.

Then we cut to Brienne punching Pod in the face to impress Tormund? I honestly have no clue. I’m sure it was really funny to someone.

I actually did like Sansa telling off Littlefinger, even if the dialogue was clearly written in 2017, but it also begs the question: why doesn’t she tell the Vale Lords the truth about him selling her to the Boltons or murdering Lysa so she can be rid of him? Brienne digs it.

Deadpan touches sand

I can’t help but feel this segment would have been more emotionally poignant at the end of a season than the first we see of her. We already saw her sailing West an new this was coming. All this consisted of was us marveling at the set design, while trying to get back into “oh yeah this is what it means to Deadpan” mode. For some people, they just watch this show the 10 hours it’s on and don’t think about it for a year, you know?

I guess it was fine? “Shall we begin” is kind of hilarious since I’d have to assume they were planning something on the ride over, but whatever.

And yeah, totally unmanned castle. Way2Go Stannis. I think it’s hard to believe no one attempted looting it (they’d need a boat but people are like starving and junk), or that there was just NO ONE THERE. The doors were nice and unlocked, at least. Drama.

Top 3 Nitpicks:

Sewing is not necessary during war

The Maesters locked up the books of plot-based knowledge

Euron’s GIANT fleet