#a lot of important things to say but also maybe highlighted some weaknesses(?) in both books?

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Those Beyond The Wall

sequel/companion to The Space Between Worlds, set a decade later

character-focused sci-fi set in an area divided in two, the rich protected city on one side and everyone else in the post-apocalyptic desert

follows a woman who works under the Emperor in Ashtown, keeping the peace

when mangled bodies start showing up with seemingly no murderer, she’s tasked with finding the cause, and finds out that it’s the result of corruption spanning both cities and multiple worlds

explores oppression and messy revolution, police violence and apartheid

bi & polyamorous MC

[stuckinapril]

Hi Cianna, just wanted to say I really admire your study ethic and general vibe on this blog (you inspire me to do better!)

Do you have any advice/tips for good study habits and staying focused? I find that I get some work done, but after a break I can't get back on track

Sorry for the long ask/ studyblr type of question;; what is your favourite hairstyle that you do with your hair! (I also have curly brown hair :)

Have a lovely day also <3

🌻🌻

hi! i touch on a lot of points in this other ask, but a few specific learning techniques i abide by are:

parkinson's law. parkinson's law states that work expands to fill the time. basically if you have an essay that's due in a week, it will magically take you one week to get it done, even if the task itself could've been done in one day. to counter this i just set artifical deadlines for myself--even if an essay is due in a week, my personal deadline has it due in two days.

prime your brain prior to learning. if you need to study a biology chapter, pre-skim it the night before. this is not the time to go into detail--it's the time to familiarize yourself with the overview of the topic, so you should only be making a quick scan of the chapter. another priming method is to make a concept map of topics before diving into a chapter. as you skim write down key terms haphazardly, google those you don't recognize, and draw a concept map linking them together. this is effective bc it requires you to actually put effort into connecting the topics, takes no longer than 15 minutes, and speeds up the learning process that follows. it doesn't matter if you find out you're wrong once you dive in; what's important is you're actively thinking of how these topics coexist, as opposed to mindlessly taking notes or highlighting only to forget what you learned a couple hours later. i'm also a fan of concept maps bc i get to go back and highlight stuff i'm weak in, which is always a plus.

if you like to take notes, use it as another means of active recall. don't just passively take notes as you go along. what i like to do is i read a paragraph, close the book, then try to take down notes based off memory alone. this helps me both phrase the topic in my own words and realize what my learning gaps are, rather than just passively summarize without putting effort into truly understanding/memorizing something. anything i get wrong i hammer into my brain until i can't get it wrong anymore.

take notes effectively. our brain does not learn in sentences and paragraphs. it learns in bullet points, diagrams, and figures--and that's how i like to frame my notes. first i ask myself if i actually need to take notes to begin with, or if there are online notes out there i can use to save time (which, as a stem student, there typically are). if i do decide to take notes, i never mindlessly summarize. i always condense the material into bullet points, diagrams, concept maps, or visual representations. i also like to phrase my notes as questions rather than just passive summaries, so that when i review them i'm already testing myself in a way. most people would not understand my notes bc they're either very low-yield stuff, stuff i'm weak in, or bare-bones fragments of information.

always prioritize weaknesses. if you're weaker at chapter 18 of your textbook vs chapter 1, maybe start with chapter 18. don't spend 6 hours taking notes on chapter 1 if you're already strong in chapter 1. always attack your weaknesses first.

practice practice practice!! so so important. i owe all my As to mock exams, quizzes i make myself, end-of-chapter questions etc etc. imo practice matters a lot more than passive content review.

interleaving concepts helps with retention. an example of this is i like to do biology and chemistry one day, biochemistry and organic chemistry the next day, physics and psychology the day after... i'm not just doing biology all day, every day. another thing i like to do if i'm in a massive rut is i hop between tons of different subjects on the same day, which keeps me from getting bored/helps me understand the subjects better through distinguishing their differences.

retrospective timetable. an example of this is if i find i'm pretty weak in a particular physics topic, the next few days will disproportionately focus on physics over other subjects. inversely, if i just breezed through a biology chapter, the next few days will have less biology than initially planned. i'm constantly going back and revising my study timetable based on my performance of the day, rather than relying on a rigid prospective timetable that doesn't take into account my progress.

less passive learning, more active. spaced repetition is a big one. i love anki for this bc there's an algorithm that dictates how often topics come up again based on how well you answer them. other methods include active recall, having friends quiz you, and trying to teach the topic to others (or the plushie in your bedroom haha). if you find you're struggling to simplify topics and explain them, that's a sign you don't understand them very well yourself.

[lgcjaehwa]

YEAR END CEREMONY: 2023 REVIEW word count: 429

what were some of your greatest accomplishments this year and out of all of them, which one was the most memorable one for you?

"this year brought numerous accomplishments, including my solo b-side for our japanese debut and the addition of new members. things also seem much smoother now compared to last year, maybe because i was still a rookie idol gaining new experiences. however, the most memorable highlight was the asia tour. considering crystallis is still less than three years old, the speed at which it happened was a pleasant surprise. meeting overseas fans was the best part — it felt amazing to perform for those who had supported us from afar and finally meeting them was akin to reuniting with a long-distance friend."

what area(s) do you think you’ve personally improved on since the beginning of this year?

"throughout this year, i dedicated myself to improving my singing and acting skills. while some have praised my singing, i believe there's always room for improvement, especially when performing live. so i focused on practicing that and eventually gained more confidence in hitting higher notes on stage. another skill i think i've improved on would be my acting. although i haven't been participating in a lot of acting gigs this year, i've taken the time to review my past drama experience and improved them with the help of my acting coach. i feel my performance skills improved slightly too. although the change may not be drastic, i feel more at ease expressing myself on stage now than before."

what are some of your personal goals for 2024?

"i hope to concentrate more on composition — both in lyrics and music. expressing my feelings through my work is important to me and though creating a song entirely on my own will take time, i aim to be part of the composition team by year-end. seeing my name credited under the song title would be an incredible accomplishment."

in the group, what do you consider your biggest weakness and what can you do to improve on it?

"in terms of performance skills, i feel i'm in a good position at the moment. i mean, i already own a main position so i don't want to steal the spotlight from the other girls. but in terms of entertainment skills, i'll say my biggest weakness would be variety and hosting. i've never been on a variety show before so i guess participating more in those would not only help me improve personally but also contribute to promoting the group to a wider audience."

[theartofwholeliving]

Bold Move

I got laid off. 4 words I’ve [luckily] never had to say before and [truthfully] never thought I would. But that’s my reality. And if you read the headlines, you know it’s also the misfortune [fortune?] of countless other people who’ve built their careers in tech and other affected industries. 

For a lot of us, this particular layoff is the sum of a complex equation involving hyper-growth during a global pandemic + a volatile macroeconomic climate + constantly evolving market dynamics + declining profits + a looming recession. Add that up and it equals corporate restructuring, downsizing, the elimination of positions and even entire teams, and the end of sometimes decades-long careers for the Loyalist employees.

So why all the smiley pictures? Because for me it turns out the saying is true, timing really is everything. By the end of 2022 I had already made some career shifts that were simultaneously broadening my skills and my sphere of influence while also deepening my drive for leadership and autonomy. And, I wanted more. I decided 2023 was the year I was going to invest in me and my future self, professionally. Right away, this turned into booking a brand session - hence the pretty new headshots - and joining CHIEF, the only private membership network for women in leadership. See - timing. But while these events were fortuitous, they did little to soften the blow of that fateful Zoom call.  

Honestly, I took the lay off to heart. It was a blow to my ego, my ability, my decision making and, most importantly, my trust. But in sitting with those feelings, I’ve realized while it felt bad and disappointing and like maybe I wasn’t good enough, it’s really none of those things. Being great at what you do and working your way to the top gets you noticed and puts you under a microscope. Because the choices are not personal when you are a number on a spreadsheet in a boardroom of decision makers, and leadership’s only job is to make the math add up. So even while I question some of those choices, I don’t envy, or blame, the leaders who had to make them. It’s simply not about me.

Since my transition, there have been a lot of thoughts and feelings swirling in both my head and my heart. Many of them, conflicting. I’m used to winning, but this feels like losing. I want to make a career change, but this wasn't my choice. I’m confident in my skills, my experience and what I bring to the table, but what if no one will hire me. My internal dialogue constantly assessing the pros and cons of my involuntary exit. But I’m also finding peace with the duality that two things can be true at the same time. I can be sad and happy, nervous and excited, angry and grateful. Above all, I can turn this negative into a positive. I can choose to see this as an opportunity instead of a setback. Knowing that in six months, or one year, or five years from now I will look back on this exact moment as a catalyst and, ultimately, the kick in the ass I needed to make a bold move, to live my values and place my career [ and my life] ahead of my job.

Speaking of duality, it feels important to highlight, at this point in my story, the dichotomy of expected and completely unexpected people who reached out to me in the days and weeks following my departure. Whether to express their surprise, offer advice and support, or just to say hello and listen to me talk [rant]. Talk about humbling. And, flattering! People have praised my work, my impact on the organization and my leadership. People want to follow me, to work with me, to be led by me. A job is just one piece of your puzzle, it’s not who you are. And you think you know your strengths [and your weaknesses], but hearing consistent feedback from people you’ve worked with, some for decades and others for a matter of months, is a lesson in self-awareness, acceptance and appreciation. 

It’s also a timely reminder that we are hyper-connected in this world. You don’t lose people when you lose a job. Quite the opposite. You get to grow your network as you job search and ultimately find a safe place to land. Even better, you get to purge yourself of toxic colleagues from your past life and keep the career- and life-enriching ones in your professional bubble. That’s the opposite of misfortune. So, you can be relieved and sentimental about leaving the old behind. Appreciative and aloof. You can harness the good and dispose of the bad as you move forward on your professional journey. Two things can be true, at the same time.

Another ah-ha. As we get older [sigh], the opportunities we have to make a fresh start gradually decrease. Life choices, especially big ones like career and income, become more about experience, aptitude, responsibilities and obligations. Youth was the time for limitless potential, big dreams and taking risks. Adulthood is typically less … unstructured. Decision upon decision [upon decision] has been made, leading you on the path to your current destination. This is what I am now. Or, this is what I do. This is where my choices have led me. But who’s to say your path is a straight line, or one you can’t go off track? Who’s to say there’s not another decision waiting to be made that would change your trajectory. That would change your life! 

I know from experience there are many reasons to play if safe, to stay in your lane and stay the course:

You’ve spent time and energy to get here.

You’ve made sacrifices.

You feel rewarded and happy.

And, maybe that’s enough. Not everyone needs the aforementioned bold move. I’ve always thought contentment is an under celebrated form of gratitude that’s too often mischaracterized as apathy. But no longer in the safety of my professional comfort zone, I’m beginning to see this speedbump for what it is. What it always has been. A detour not just to a better job, but to a better life. 

SPOILER ALERT 

I got hired. !!! And while I’m not quite ready to reveal all the details of my next chapter, you know I love to share so stay tuned. What I’ll say for now is after multiple phone calls, recommendations, LinkedIn job searches, interviews, offers, negotiations, options and totally unexpected opportunities, I’ve found my safe place to land. 

My exit was not on my terms, but placed firmly back in the driver’s seat, my future feels like it is. Seeing the blessing through the disappointment of being made redundant, I realize now what an incredible opportunity I was given, one I had been looking for in fact, to pause, to let go, to step back. To seek out exactly what I want in my role, my company and my career. The last two months, I took a breath [and lots of long walks]. I wrote down and communicated my non-negotiables, my must-haves and have-nots. I honed the areas of business where I excel and want to focus, articulated the kind of leader I know I am and want to be. I asked for what I want and I didn’t settle for just another paycheck. Bold move. 

While temporarily unemployed, I read a lot, including a book titled, Involuntary Exit - A Woman’s Guide to Thriving After Being Fired. One quote spoke to me that articulates the undeniable lucidity that comes from being terminated. The moment in time is unique in that everything right before and right after those words are spoken, is different. Since this was my first time on that side of the desk, I thought it might also resonate and provide some needed perspective for anyone else who’s experiencing the #layoffs2023

“We are rarely given the chance, with such clarity and immediacy, to question how we have been spending our hours and how we will manage our lives from this point forward,” Bob Cooper, Professional Coach

If this speaks to you, take it as a sign that better, brighter days are ahead. You are still you. This is your path to take. Stay the course, or chart a new destination. And know that both, are bold.

[themainspoon]

See, this is a great example of the importance of collaboration and cross diciplinary work. While I may be able to do proper critique of the social, cultural, and ideological elements at play, I am clueless when it comes to the preservation of historically important works of art, and completely missed a genuinely good criticism of the decision made. You're completely right, maybe we shouldn't be putting historically important in bathrooms.

In fact, this made me think about the bathroom thing more, because I think it really does say so much. The quote from Kaechele, the person who is responsible for all this directly states: "We never had female toilets at Mona before, they were all unisex," meaning that their response to the lawsuit involved re-gendering the bathrooms in the gallery. This is an action that makes the space less inclusive and egalitarian, and not in a way that is at all in line with the way they were trying to make the space more discriminatory and less egalitarian.

To re-gender the bathrooms becauase of the lawsuit seems, if I may be blunt and uncharitable for a moment, petty, spiteful, and almost even childish in a way that demonstrates a clear faliure to understand why the museum had unisex bathrooms in the first place. Gender nonconformity and non-binary identity is to be accepted and welcomed, unless it gets in the way of us being exclusionary to make a point. If accomodating the queers would have the effect of making us unable to exclude men, than the queers must also be excluded.

The point I made about chivalry is one I want to return to now: "Ladies love the Lounge — a space away from men — and given what we have been through for the last several millennia, we need it. We deserve both equal rights and reparations, in the form of unequal rights, or chivalry — for at least 300 years."

I cannot get over this quote, this is a direct quote from Kaechele, and it has been looping in my mind all day, because I almost cannot belive the lack of self awareness it displays. I will not restate what I said about chivalry above, because there isn't anything more to say. But this quote really does highlight something about the lens through which Kaechele views reality and understands feminism, even though I don't think that it was intended to do so.

Kaechele's "feminism" is seemingly less interested in the question of abolishing the patriarchy, ending the unjust systems of gendered opression that exist within our society, and instead focused on asking "When will it be my turn to benefit from inequality?". The chivalry mention is perfect, because the entire concept is rooted in misogyny, but it still benefits a certain group of women who perform a privileged form of femininity. The way the patriarchy demeans women as weak pathetic creatures who need big strong men to do everything for them is warped and twisted into a tool of some misguided idea of equality, because it benefits the person talking about it.

In the quote she also portays women as a unified whole, who all share the same experiences and identities, and who all face the same opression. I should not need to explain how this directly spits in the face of black, trans, muslim, disabled, queer, and working class feminists. It ignores literal decades of intersectional theory and genuinely good, challenging, and important advancements in feminist thought in favour of a worldview that ammounts to a non-critical, easy to regurgitate, black and white "Us VS Them" narrative.

I would actually like to clarify one thing, it may have seemed like I thought the exhibit was a faliure. But after everything I just said above, I think it actually got the exact emotional responses it desired. By all accounts the exhibit was effective. However, while it may not have been "bad exhibit" on a technical level, it is an effective exhibit that communicates a deeply flawed understanding of feminism held by a person who, in my opinion, is bad at being a feminist in a lot of basic and fundamental ways.

Sorry, just saw a headline and wrote a whole thing on it and felt compelled to share it here too:

Article in question:

I understand what they're going for, but I can't help but feel that the potential problems of something like this outweigh the possible artistic impact.

Firstly, excluding men and allowing women requires creating hard, inflexible definitions of those things that force everybody into one of those two categories, and the thing is that you can't actually do that without being actively bigoted. Even beyond what you all likely already know I'm taking about, there are also lots of cultures that understand gender differently and have categories beyond just our binary. What this exhibit tries to do, to cleanly allow entry for one objective group while cleanly excluding the other objective group isn't possible, because those groups are not objective, their meanings, what they look like, and how many there are differ across time and place.

Secondly, this temporary solution treats womens bathrooms as a neutral space, which they simply aren't. There is a long history of lots of women being excluded from womens bathrooms, there are plenty of accounts of butch lesbians being forced out of womens spaces for being to masculine. Womens bathrooms are a space where the norms of dominant and privileged forms of feminity are enforced. This also ties into about the function of gendered space within Patriarchal culture.

The function of "womens spaces" is pretty straightforward, they create spaces where women can feel safe from men. But let's dwell on this idea of men as inherently threatening, what it communicates to both men and women, and what that does to actually reinforce patriarchal ideas about gender for a moment. Centeral to all of this is the idea that saftey for women can only be achieved through excluding men and masculinity, which are conceptualised as inherently violent. Positioning segregation as the solution to the reality of gendered violence is to refuse to ask men to change. When it is accepted that the only way that women can be safe is to seperate them from men, than there is no reason for men to try and challange the behaviours and social conditions that make women unsafe. Avoiding gendered violence becomes the responsibility of the group that is overwhelming victimised by said violence.

The patriarchy will never be overturned if people are too afraid to demand that women be safe around men, that a woman can walk into a bar filled with unfamiliar men and still be completely safe. If we accept that women are allowed saftey and equality only in spaces from which men are excluded, than men never have to learn to become safe, they never have to reflect and change, they remain unchallenged and unaware that they actually need to change, and the same sexist patters of behaviour continue. If men cannot change, if they are in fact somehow inherently violent and predatory, than the patriarchy is forever, women can never become truly equal, and feminism becomes a failed experiment. I do not believe that the patriarchy is forever, I do not believe that feminism is pointless, and if you don't either, than we need to understand that the only way to make possitive change is to challenge the status quo, not try to work out how to live safely within it.

It is also worth discussing the power that women's fear has. This is where I get to a critique that others have communicated poorly (and possibly in bad faith). This work is clearly one of a very privileged woman. This entire concept reeks of psudo-radical white liberal feminism. Back in feminism's second wave one of the main radical ideas was that of "lesbian seperatism", the idea that women needed to liberate themselves from men (This idea and the history surrounding it is going to be covered only breifly, this will not be in depth, this is perhaps too simplified). This idea collapsed, because of primarily black feminists, who wrote not only about the discrimination they faced as women, but also as non-white people, and the specific forms of bigotry faced by non-white women. They found that in their fight for racial equality they had more in common with black men than they did with the sometimes actively racist white feminists who were calling for seperatism. The idea of seperatism only made sense for middle to upper class white women for whom patriarchy was the only form of discrimination worth challenging. White women benefit from white supremacy, and in fact patriarchal ideas surrounding gender are important in white supremacist ideology (and many other bigoted ideologies).

If we accept that women can only find saftey in segregation, than women are cast in our discourse as inhabiting the position of a sort of weak, delicate prey animal that needs to be protected from predators. Not only does this justify traping women within the household and perpetuating the idea that they need a strong stoic male protector, it also contributes to a lot of bigoted narratives. In White Supremacy it is the job of the white man to protect white woman from the "impure" non-whites, and the fear of the white woman becomes a justification for the violent opression of non-white peoples. In the past homophobic portrayals of lesbians treated them as sinful predators, who wanted to corrupt "good, god-fearing straight women" to the ways of homosexuality. Modern day transphobia relies on portraying cis women as prey for trans women, who are percived as predators who want to invade their spaces, and it sees young girls as vulnerable to being "corrupted" by the idea that they can become men if they so choose (which is seen to somehow permenantly damage them and "tarnish" their "purity"). When Bisexuality began to enter the public eye, bi men (specifically black bi men) were demonised as being "aids spectres for straight women", and were falsely blamed for aids being transmitted to heterosexual populations. Throughout history the idea that women are vulnerable and in need of protection has consistantly informed bigotry. Demanding that women can be safe around men, and that they can be seen as strong and independent as opposed to weak and vulnerable is not just a feminist cause, it is one important for doing a way with a lot of social injustice.

Chivalry, which the creator of the exhibit says is needed for about 300 years in order to make up for patriarchal opression, is a form of benevolent sexism. It treats women nicely, but it does so becuase it views them as weak, delicate lessers. I do not know the creator of this exhibit, I do not know enough about them to make personal judgements of their character. However, I can judge and critique this artwork as a feminist statement. That is in fact what I just did, it should be clear that I do not think it is very good. This exhibit stands for the "feminism" of only the most privileged women, of those who haven't moved beyond the thinking of the second wave, of those who have refused to engage with modern feminist theory and discourse that would actually meaningfully challange them.

To overcome patriarchy we must demand that women be safe with men, not safe from them. If you want to make a meaningful feminist statement aimed at confronting men through an exhibit, do not "challenge" men by excluding them and saying "well this is what you did to us so suck shit". Instead, demand that they change, confront them in ways that cause reflection, make them uncomfortable about things they can do something about. This exhibit just vomits forth the same narratives they already get: "the only way for women to be safe is to exclude you, you are not expected to change", what if instead we were to meaningfully ask for change and reflection, if we were to tell them what they needed to do to make the world a better place, would that not be more constructive?

[olderthannetfic]

RE enjoying HP content: Personally I don't give two shits about HP, but I'll admit, I have a hard time justifying the "Don't engage in HP fandom!" stance. Not giving the creator money and only pirating stuff from the franchise, fine, makes sense. But the argument that people shouldn't even engage in fandom feels strange, because I can't really separate it from the age-old "You shouldn't participate in X fandom because one of the people involved in it is a rapist/wifebeater/union-buster/was abusive towards their actors/[insert long list of other ways people can be shitty]". Is the singular focus on JKR due to her disproportionate impact and celebrity status? The reach of her platform? Even there, I hardly doubt that she is unique in her evil, there are doubtless many others who don't get the same publicity due to not being involved in something central to the pop culture background for so many Westerners.

I can see three arguments for not participating in fandom: One, to punish, and the other, to reduce impact. First argument has the consistency issues I highlighted above, the second one I COULD see, but at the same time, don't we as fans tend to overstate our own importance? (In censorship discussions we frequently discuss that fanfiction has very little power to normalize anything and is ultimately a drop in the bucket.) HP gave rise to a massive mount of licensed spinoff content from videogames to multiple blockbuster movies, including a new franchise that collects millions at the box office each time. In light of the overwhelming marketing and reach, it's hard to see how some people making fanart on Tumblr or whatever matters, and as much as I side-eye HP fans, I find it very hard to actually judge them for the extremely bland crime of not wanting to sacrifice a source of entertainment for some abstract moral good.

The third argument for abstaining from HP fandom is to make nonbinary people feel safer (both people in your circle and strangers coming across your content), but this feels really circumstantial. Abandoning the HP fandom to take a stand with trans people is a nice gesture, but ultimately it's just a gesture, and one that doesn't actually mean anything outside of very specific circumstances. Someone NOT being an HP fan doesn't mean they can't be a transphobe, and someone being an HP fan doesn't have to mean they're anything worse than maybe a little bit selfish/unwilling to sacrifice a source of entertainment and comfort for the sake of other people. This kind of selfishness may be something to judge, but it's also extremely mundane and common, and hardly more offensive than, say, refusing to put content or trigger warning tags on your blog because it's your blog and you just can't be bothered.

To conclude, I personally share the distaste for HP content but I'm not convinced I'm actually being rational in it. At the same time, I'm very much a person driven by hyperfixations, and the fact that I dodged a bullet in not caring about HP is just sheer dumb luck. I do have a lot of sympathy for people obsessed with HP and drawing joy from it, because god knows I can't imagine myself simply forcing myself to stop caring about the thing that's held my imagination in a vice grip for the past few years and inspired me to create so many things. I have a lot of nb friends, so I like to think that if I were interested in HP, I'd be able to choose their sense of security over my hyperfixation. But that's a much more personal argument that can't really be generalised to fandom as a whole...

End ramble. Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

--

My argument about fandom participation is that you, the fan, have limited time and brainspace.

If you want to support some other less known creator, put your time and emotions towards that. Don't carve out 50% of your free time for HP or Supernatural or whatever canon we're mad at today.

"I'm not paying them" is a weak argument when you put that much of yourself towards having whatever thing as a lifestyle. "I read the occasional fic. You're making too much of it" is a reasonable argument in my book.

Of course, if people don't care, they don't care, but I keep seeing people who are like "I would leave [bad large fandom] if only I could find the same experience in another". But they don't go build that world they want to see, so it continues to not exist.

[vampkomori]

anyone else think neo’s reports are weird about composers i think theyre weird about composers. lets make sense of joshuas status as composer and hazuki as comparison

this is gonna be a bit long. so anyway the og reports are p straightforward about what Composers (specifically, joshua) can and cannot do:

- Joshua can only pick up Hanekoma’s vibe, because Angel vibes are too high frequency for him to pick up

- Inter-planar contact (so, communication between the UG and the Higher Plane in this case) is difficult, which is brought up because

- The Composer, Joshua, only resides in the UG.

- But the Producer, who is an Angel, mainly resides in the Higher Plane, and only occasionally lingers in the UG.

The whole matter of jumping between worlds highlights the difference between their abilities even more:

- As Composer, Joshua is one of the beings who can jump between worlds, but isn’t meant to do so often. His vibe dipped too low, so Hanekoma had to come retrieve him, because as an Angel this sort of travel is simple for him.

the OG reports make it pretty clear Joshua isnt an Angel

*But. unfortunately its not that easy. because by clearing the final time trial joshua gives you an item called Angel Feather (天使のハネ in JP), of which the description says “Our buyer used divine means to acquire this mysterious feather that was once in the possession of Shibuya's Composer.“ (which some have interpreted as, “in the possession of” meaning “it was given to him” potentially by hanekoma, who actually IS an Angel)

and if things are vague, we turn to the JP to clear us up! but its. still vague there bc it says “バイヤーが特別な力で入手した渋谷エリアのコンポーザーが持っていた謎の���根“ (The mysterious feather that was held/carried by the Composer of the Shibuya area that the buyer obtained with a special power)

so. we are none the wiser about whose feather this is. i imagine its up to interpretation whether its joshuas feather or hanekomas, who then gave it to joshua. but given how clearly the reports differentiate between the Composer and Angels in regards to their abilities, suffice to say theres two interpretations that are most likely

- Composers arent Angels, their power disparity is just too much

- Composers are Angels, but theyre so much weaker compared to the Angels who reside in the Higher Plane that they’re never referred to as Angels, just as Composers

which takes us to neo, and hazukis little lightshow

i think its notable that the reports dont comment on kubos so-called “exorcism”, and only on haz erasing his noise.

haz himself refers to his little stunt as “exorcising” kubo, while in JP he actually says haiki 廃棄, get rid of, revoke, invalidate.

i think its important that he clarified “i didnt erase him, i exorcised him”. because with kubo, the executor, being an Angel from the Higher Plane, a Composer shouldnt be able to erase someone of higher ranking than them. i think as the person who called upon kubo in the first place, haz could specifically revoke his services and send him back to the Higher Plane.

which means kubo wasnt erased, he was just sent back. hes still kickin

we could leave things right here as they are. Canonically, Composers are so far beneath Angels to a point where even if they were Angels themselves, they are so much weaker than them that they could hardly be referred to as such

this is where the facts end. but im gonna keep going and have fun speculating about things and include some i dont have physical proof of (yet)

its notable that in JP, hazuki says that kubo tried to purify shibuya probably because he wanted to be praised by Hazuki. which is weird if kubos supposed to be higher ranking than haz. (in EN, haz just says hes always been an overachiever) but lets put a pin in that for later 📌

which takes us to the matter of Shinjuku’s Producer. or their lack thereof

throughout all of neo’s reports, there is not a single mention of Shinjuku having a Producer. before neo, we kind of assumed every UG’s setup follows largely the same structure. a Composer, a Conductor, a Producer, and then some Reapers. but Shinjuku does not seem to have a Producer. and i think its because it doesnt need one.

its important to remember Who is writing these reports and Who theyre for. the reports are written by shibuyas Producer, and theyre written for the Higher Plane. and shibuyas Composer cant pick up the vibes of any Angel except hanekoma, so he cant be the one writing the reports for beings he cant even pick up the vibes from, especially since he only resides in the UG.

and yet, hanekoma comments that Hazuki should have filed a report, and that haz is disinterested in the lower planes.

in English its a little vague about who hes talking about, but the JP specifies Shinjukus Composer as the subject of this sentence.

throughout both reports, the UG and RG are considered part of the lower planes. its strange for a Composer to have no interest in the very planes they govern, plus for a Composer to file a report to the Higher Plane when its been established that Joshua, as a Composer, cant even perceive anyone from there.

so i think Hazuki may actually be a proper Angel from the Higher Plane, who was potentially demoted to become Shinjukus Composer.

though you can very much interpret haz “exorcising” kubo as simply “sending him back whence he came”, its of course pretty anticlimactic to see this massive laser beam essentially disintegrate kubo on a molecular level, only for it to have been a quick ride back to the higher plane with kubo being perfectly in tact after. if haz were actually much more powerful than an ordinary Composer, itd make sense why he would have been able to erase an Angel like kubo so. thoroughly.

this would also explain why kubo may have wanted to be praised by hazuki in the JP dialogue. with hazuki potentially being an outlier for Composers and being far Higher ranking than kubo, our executor may have wanted to sucker up a bit. maybe get promoted and away from his “basically a janitor�� job if haz puts in a good word for him upstairs

theres also hazukis entire demeanor, and how Bad he is at acting like a normal person

we know of four paths that Players can take

they can choose erasure

they can choose resurrection to return to the RG

they can become Reapers

they can become Angels

and Reapers can eventually become Angels, though its yet unclear if the only way for that to happen is

for them to become Composer (potentially the Lowest Angel-rank there is) and thats it.

or if Composers can ascend and become Actual Angels and eventually reside in the Higher Plane, though how a successor for the seat of Composer is chosen in that scenario is yet entirely unknown since Usually the seat only becomes vacant when the previous Composer is defeated

or if they, as a Reaper, need to Ask the Composer who then asks the Producer to send a guy for evaluation or something

or if the Higher Plane has like, a talent scout guy somewhere.

potentially more than one may apply but at least the last point is the most likely, because

Conductors are invited to the Higher Plane (probably to become Angels) upon purification

(interesting to note that Composers are not mentioned as being invited, which would point to “theyre Angels, but like, weak-ass Angels”)

anyway, the point is that so far weve been told that Angels were Players or Reapers at one point. we know Joshua was a Player for sure, given the morsels of backstory we get from him and Hanekoma. but we dont know if All Angels came from the RG at one point, or if Angels that have always been Angels exist.

either way, the point is that for Hazuki to act so non-human like and to be disinterested in the UG and RG, he either must have been an Angel for a very long time, or he was never human to begin with.

this is relevant to how he interacts with joshua in the Secret Ending, though its a lot less obvious in English, in JP their dynamic is clear: Joshua is his senior, and as his junior, Hazuki looks to him as an example.

for one, thats hilarious. secondly, that recontextualizes like everything

‘course, you could keep the interpretation that theyre just Both weak-ass angels and hazuki just made kubo use a flashy dramatic elevator to the HP and nothing groundbreakingly powerful happened, but thats kinda anticlimactic

so. staying w the idea that hazuki may be a demoted Angel from the Higher Plane, then itd make sense for Joshua to have been Composer for longer than him, and for haz to act Like...That, since he couldve been not-human for a Very long time, or Never was one in the first place, but is still a younger Composer bc he got demoted like. 4 years back or something.

it also explains why Shinjuku may not need a Producer, and why Hazuki is the one writing his reports. its because hes still an Angel from the Higher Plane, so he does not need an intermediary to contact other Angels.

so to summarize what im tryna say here

Hazuki may have initially been a regular Angel from the Higher Plane, before he eventually got demoted to become Shinjukus Composer, despite how disinterested he is in the UG and RG. (he is considered to be “infamously unsympathetic”, a trait which is reinforced in the JP version to be something he is known for amongst the Higher Plane, which could potentially be the reason for his demotion)

Since hes Joshuas junior, that means he hasnt been Composer for as long as Joshua has, so Hazuki looks to him to know what youre even supposed to do/how to act/etcetera as Composer. With his Special circumstances, he does not need a Producer as an intermediary to interact with the Higher Plane, because hes already an Angel so he can do it himself.

whatever Angel Hierarchy there may be, Hazuki is at the very least a higher rank than an Executor, considering how kubo wanted to impress him, and how haz effortlessly got rid of him. with kubo being from the Higher Plane, joshua is decidedly lower ranking than kubo, and cant even pick up his vibe. which clearly positions haz into a unique circumstance as a Composer bc of this discrepancy in ranking and power. amen

<><><> <><><> <><><> <><><> <><><> <><><> <><><> <><><> <><><>

theres other things that back this up but i unfortunately do not have a source for them, so This section, take with a grain of salt.

Supposedly, in neo’s data files:

Joshua is referred to as an Advanced Angel

Kubo as a Junior Angel, and

Hazuki as a Senior Angel

i only heard this secondhand and have no way of corroborating this myself, but if this is true then that lines up with the super long super sexy little essay i just wrote up there

this “ranking” solidifes Kubos position as Hazukis underling. which, if he were an ordinary Composer, wouldnt even be possible.

Joshua is notably a different rank from Haz, though its difficult to figure out if “Advanced” is supposed to be Lower than junior, or Higher than senior. thats up to interpretation until its possibly ever acknowledged,

but my interpretation is that an Advanced Angel is lower than a Junior Angel. i think “advanced” in this case is meant to refer to the traditional evolution of players to reapers to the composer, advancing from one status to the next.

--

**Little post-edit, @/inkerii gave me the actual designation in the files! (so this ones backed-up!)

so in the files, theyre designated ranks are as follows

Joshua: 男、天使上級 ※前作  (Male, Senior/Advanced Grade Angel ※from the Previous work)

Hazuki: 男、天使上級 (Male, Senior/Advanced Grade Angel)

Kubo:   男、天使下級 (Male, Junior/Lower Grade Angel)

so haz and joshua are the same rank bc theyre both Composers! since thats an internal data text kinda thing it might not have any bearing on like, potential Technical exceptions since they Are both the same “job”, but mightve gotten it under different circumstances.

as for kubo potentially being lower ranking than even a Composer, i think unless we find out what a Producers ranking is, we cant say much abt whether an Executors lower or higher. i kinda mean it in the sense of,  Producers are a Composers subordinate bc they follow their orders and have to create the things theyre tasked to make by the Composer (pins, etc), but may still be “higher” in ranking because they reside in the Higher Plane/jump between parallel worlds, while a Composer cannot. an Executor may be in a similar position where theyre a Composers underling, tasked by Composers to purify things, but may actually be “higher” in ranking because they reside in the higher plane, etc!

i think regardless of whether kubo turns out to be lower ranking than joshua or not, hazuki could still be Even More Higher in a way where he actually has like, sway over whether he could get a promotion! if that was his intent. he could also just be a huge suck up. a real kiss ass. teachers pet for angels

---

theres also the ntwewy Official Guidebook, which has a small comment beneath hazuki that says

and i additionally remember an interview, though i dont have a source for this claim and i could very much be misremembering, but i recall seeing the reason for hazuki not being the final boss is because they did not think players could suspend their disbelief far enough to accept that the twisters would be able to defeat a being from the Higher Plane.

which is perfectly reasonable, but

Composers are meant to be able to be defeated by Players or Reapers. if hazuki really was so powerful that itd be impossible for them to defeat him, then hed be far too strong to be an ordinary Composer, since thats. how you take over in the first place. thats kinda the whole plot of og twewy.

anyway that concludes my case

[narutakijune]

About ATLA Relationship Arcs

So, this is me, finally trying to write some meta after lurking in my little tumblr corner for months! Hi!

Although I’ve tried to tag properly, if you are a Kat*anger and just want to enjoy your favourite couple in peace, this might not be the post for you. I am not trying to bash characters but I do have a lot of critical stuff to say about the writing.

Anyway, you have been warned and here is my story about my personal first Atla experience: I watched the show this year for the first time, and after the end of Book 1 I decided to look up spoilers, because after what happened to Yue, I wanted to make sure that Zuko and Iroh would be ok. So I knew what was going to happen: Kat*ang endgame and absolutely no Zutara at all. Still, by the end of Book 3, I was convinced that I had read wrong - that there would be an epilogue with a different ending or at least that Aang would only get together with Katara post-show- in that Korra series or something - because anything else wouldn’t make sense- right?

….

After I got over my shock and surprise, I went online and found out about that decade-long aggressive passionate ship war and how even the showrunners got involved.

And then I really worried that I might have missed a few points. Apparently ”Aang and Katara were the DNA of the show”, according to the creators themselves, and “Zutara could never have happened”.

Another popular anti-ZK argument I found was: Why do you always go on about Katara and Zuko? Just look at Zuko and Aang! They are the hero/ anti-hero and each other’s foils, their relationship is much more meaningful!”

So I tried to find out what it was that I apparently couldn’t see.

(Another disclaimer: I love analysing stories (like many Zutarians apparently) and this will get long and rambly. If you get bored to tears when people start talking about “narrative structure” you will probably not like this.)

Talking about narrative structure, I do believe that, in order to let your story, your characters and their relationships really shine, a good basic structure is important. There should be a recognizable development and individual parts of the story that build upon each other and lead to consequences and change, until there is a completed arc - because it is all about the journey that takes you to a satisfying ending, right? So that’s what I tried to do, with my personal Kat*ang vs. Zutara take, I tried to look at the structure and development of their relationship arcs.

The argument that threw me off track for a while is that compared to Aang and Zuko, Zuko and Katara’s relationship is not supposed to be that relevant for the plot. After all, Zuko is the foil, the anti-hero, the deuteragonist to Aang, who is the hero protagonist.

This is all true of course. But then why is it that in every finale, Zuko’s main opponent (and later ally) is not Aang but Katara? Why is it that their sun/moon, red/blue, fire/water dichotomy is so obviously highlighted?

I think one reason why Zuko and Katara are paired off so frequently in the story - as opposite elements, as opponents and as allies - is that they BOTH are Aang’s deuteragonists. While Zuko also acts as antagonist and Aang’s foil/mirror, Katara takes over the more traditional deuteragonist role of confidant / best friend/ narrator.

Protagonist Aang is what connects them, although they are on opposite sides: Both need Aang because he represents their hope to save their world. Very simply put, Katara protects him, so he can make the world a safer place again, and Zuko wants to capture him, so he can go home and be safe again. That rivalry between them is already established in the first episode, even before they meet each other: Katara, who hopes that the Avatar will return (as she tells everyone in the intro), and Zuko, who seems to be obsessed with finding him for more sinister reasons.

And just to make sure, I am not talking here about the characters’ feelings and emotions! This is just about the abstract roles they have been assigned within the narrative.

When regarding Zutara’s special connection to Aang and their rivalry with each other, it makes absolute sense to stress their “same but different”ness as well, visually and metaphorically: Red and blue, fire and water, sun and moon, arguably Painted Lady/Blue Spirit, and, when you put into account their story arc, also Oma and Shu.

With this basis, which puts them together and sets them apart simultaneously, their relationship already becomes very dynamic and interesting, even before you consider any romantic potential.

And here’s another thing, Zuko and Katara also have their own story arc within the main plot. Although they don’t have many scenes together before Zuko joins the Gaang, when they do meet there is always a new shift in their relationship and in quite a few cases their interactions are important for the main plot as well. If you just look at their “end fights” at each book’s finale, there is an obvious and consequential build-up, like any decent story arc should have:

Book 1 starts with Zuko as the powered-up enemy and Katara as the weak newbie waterbender. Both are battling over Aang. At the end of Book 1, they are finally established as equally powerful fighters but still fundamentally different (You rise with the moon, I rise with the sun!)

In CoD at the end of Book 2 happens the next step: they realize that they are not different at all! But Aang still doesn’t represent the same for them and they end up on opposing sides of the war again.

In the Book 3 finale, when Zuko has completed his own (anti-) hero's journey and Aang represents the same “hope” for both of them, they do not only join forces: Their “same but different”- traits make them such a uniquely suited match that they are even able to save each other’s lives during their fight with Azula (who in turn happens to be Katara and Zuko’s antagonist/mirror/foil).

And in addition to their own story arc they even get an individual recurring theme, which also appears in every book whenever their relationship status changes: The lost mothers, especially Katara’s mother.

In Book 1, Katara’s necklace (the symbol of Kiya) plays not only a major part in two of Zuko’s capture attempts, it is the reason for their very first one-one one encounter in the story.

Their first friendly connection in COD in Book 2 happens because they start talking about their mothers. And in Book 3, their final reconciliation (sealed with a very cathartic hug) happens after their life-changing trip which is, of course, all about Katara’s mother.

Again, I am not even trying to analyse their characters and motivations within the story - there are many metas that have already done that much better, more detailed and with screenshots. This is just dry structure and tropes and themes. But I think people recognize and connect with a well-structured arc, even subconsciously, which is one of the reasons that makes Zutara such a compelling couple. They complete and contrast each other, their relationship dynamic constantly changes, builds up, falls apart, reconnects. Such a setup is the perfect playground for a lot of creative takes on what-ifs and alternative scenarios and of course, shipping them romantically is extremely tempting - think of all the possibilities! It’s no wonder that the Zutara fandom is still so active decades after the end of the show. And it’s also no wonder that the Zutarians are known for “over-analysing everything”. You can only over-analyse if there is anything that gives you enough food to analyse to begin with. Which brings me to

KAT*ANG

I just go right to the top and take the quote from Br*yke themselves:

Kata*ng was in the DNA of the thing from the start…. [Zutara] was just dark and intriguing.

If you read this quote and then start watching the show, I would (grudgingly) agree that:

Aang and Katara understand and complement each other really well. Aang gives her the chance to have fun and go on adventures and in turn, Katara is his fiercest supporter from the very beginning, something that he really needs after he lost all his people AND has to find out that the world thinks the war is sort of his fault. In turn, the journey to the North Pole is as important to Katara as it is to Aang, because it is her dream to learn waterbending properly. That’s what she literally says when Sokka & Co try to banish Aang: (Sokka: Where do you think you’re going? Katara: To find a waterbender. Aang is taking me to the North Pole.) In that way, they are friends who give and take equally and are equally taken care of. They even have the last Airbender/ last Southern Waterbender status that connects them. The few times they have a fight, Aang does something in the end to redeem himself (perform some heroic feat) and Katara sees that she is right to believe in him.

Aang has this very sweet crush on her and it will be very sweet and wholesome when Katara will return his feelings at the end of their adventure after he has hit puberty. On the other side, there is also some heavy shipbaiting with Zuko: I save you from the pirates. The betrothal necklace. June and her excellent shipping taste. But in the end they are enemies, they barely know each other and, come on, it would be too dark and intriguing! There is no real threat against friends to lovers Kat*ang, the soft heart of the story. It’s very straightforward and there are a lot of simple “the hero saves the day” scenes for Aang but that’s fine! It’s not really my kind of ship but that’s not the point, it works for the story they want to tell.

End of Book 1.

In my - probably harsh- opinion, everything you really need to know about the Kat*ang relationship has been told by this point. If you want to be really mean, already by Book 1, episode 3.

That explains maybe why many (not all! but many) pro-KA arguments sound as if their shippers have not watched Book 2 and 3 at all. The Book 1 synopsis also perfectly sums up Bry*ke’s quote above. But then Book 2 and 3 are still there and I don’t know what happened but it seems as if they somehow decided that the Kat*ang story does not need any new and lasting input. Maybe because they were afraid that too much new development and change would stray too far away from their original Kat*ang vision. But there are still 2 more books and more adventures and Kat*ang somehow has to be kept apart until the finale.

So the tension in their potential romance is based largely on the question whether or not Katara will return Aang’s feelings. In general I don’t have a problem with that will-she-won’t she-technique. It works well in books where the love interest is not a POV or in shows/ movies where the love interest is not one of the main characters. But Katara is not only the female lead but also arguably the narrative voice of the whole story! As a result, this kind of writing makes Katara look as if she doesn’t have any agency in their relationship, which is not surprisingly a very popular anti-KA criticism.

Additionally, since her dream - learning waterbending - has been fulfilled by the end of Book 1, the relationship work becomes a bit one-sided. Of course Aang is the hero and his journey is the heart of the story. But in order to highlight their special connection it would have helped to give Katara another personal agenda, which Aang could have supported in some way. She is still the last Southern Waterbender and he the Last Airbender but this is not really explored in the Kat*ang relationship. And her other personal agenda, her mother, is already reserved for the Zutara arc.

Instead, in Book 2 and 3 the Kat*ang story is somehow all over the place. Of course there is new conflict and a few romantic scenes as well. But obstacles are either introduced too late or just dropped when not needed anymore, conflict is not resolved and their flirty, romantic moments never lead anywhere- and if they do, they lead to more conflict that is not resolved (yes, I am looking at you, EIP Kiss!).

Take for example Katara’s very sudden argument that they cannot be together now because there is a war going on. We hear her saying that for the first time in the very last episode (EIP) before the 4-part finale. That is too late to have any impact! That she has these kinds of thoughts was never even alluded to before. Not once.

Or the pattern Aang runs away/ is flaky - Katara is upset - Aang comes back and does his hero thing - Katara is relieved. In regards to their relationship arc, nothing changes here between Book 1 and the finale, only the stakes for Aang’s heroic performances get higher.

Or Katara being the one who is able to calm Aang down when he cannot control the Avatar state (which, in my personal opinion, is neither romantic nor healthy). This is also connected to the problem with the seventh Chakra, that Aang needs to let go of his attachment for her. I will be angry forever with how they wasted this for a possible relationship development! That Aang has to decide to either do his duty or save his forever girl (because let’s be fair, he did try to let go and only ran when he had the vision of Katara in danger) - that’s a fantastic setup!

But no, it doesn’t have any real consequences for Kat*ang at all. Instead there were only half-baked attempts – Aang does lie about his failed practice with Guru Pathik but the ultimate reason why his chakra is blocked is Azula, not his decision to run. Aang does try to let go of Katara for a little bit but then Azula shoots him. Nothing in Book 3 shows any change in his feelings that could have been a result of his instant let-it-go. If anything, he gets weirdly obsessive - which could have been used as a side effect of his blocked chakra but – again, no, nothing happens.

I suspect the whole thing was just introduced to create temporary drama for poor Aang, but it is never explained why Katara holds him back, what aspect of the attachment is blocking him or what would happen if he did let her go. Maybe they tried to make a statement about how love is more important than Avatar rules – which would have been fine but it’s also never properly explored. Instead, as soon as that plot point becomes inconvenient it’s simply dropped like a random rock™.

Compare all that to the Zutara arc, where both characters’ feelings about each other are always very much in the open, and where every interaction causes lasting effects in their relationship. Yes, it is unfair to compare that to Kat*ang, because up to the end of Book 3, Zuko and Katara almost never meet, while Aang and Katara spend almost every episode together – of course they cannot do meaningful things all the time. But on the other side, with Kat*ang, there would have been a great chance to show a subtle, gradual build-up instead.

It also doesn’t help that the Zutara arc seems hellbent on sabotaging every romantic moment Aang is allowed to enjoy:

There is Kat*angs first maybe-kiss in the dark before the background of the Oma and Shu legend. But it does not lead anywhere. Instead, Zuko and Katara almost reenact the legend itself in the Book 2 finale as two real enemies to almost-friends, including a glowy rocks-backdrop and the right costume colours, just so nobody misses the message.

In Footloose The Headband, Aang and Katara have a really sweet dance together, and everybody can see how they almost intuitively know each other's moves. This could be a great hint on how well they will fight together in the finale. But is it plot-relevant? No, because the final tag team is Katara and Zuko! While Aang gets paired off with random rock™.

Then there is Aang’s riding off to battle- kiss in DotBS, which Katara is not even allowed to enjoy, because keeping her feelings vague is apparently more important than character development at this point. It is the only romantic moment that gets mentioned again, but in a way that sinks the former cute and wholesome ship into the deep ocean, and the reason is - Aang is jealous of Zuko!

If all of this was only done for the sake of shipbaiting, then it really went out of control at some point.

In the end, the showrunners still had their reasons to choose Kat*ang, maybe because that corresponded more to their own vision, and there are still enough people out there who agree with them. Which is absolutely fine! In the end, what matters most is how you personally connect to the characters and nobody needs to defend their personal taste. But the typical anti-ZK claim, that all the Zutarians with their crazy analysis and rambling meta essays are reaching and delusional and that they desperately try to construct something that isn’t there, is not only a very lazy argument but simply not true.

And I’d claim that in spite of the canon choice, Zutara is technically the better written relationship. By far.

[tangibletechnomancy]

Okay, so, disclaimer that I, as one person, absolutely do not have all the answers, but I do have a strategy for how to fight for these things that I welcome expansions on. I do think it's possible for this to come to fruition, but yes it is going to be difficult, because...novel fields do get regulated eventually; it's not a matter of "if", it's a matter of "when, how much, and for whose benefit". Which means, unfortunately, we...do have our work cut out for us, because like we both pointed out, AI has a lot more uses than just investment scams and pyramid schemes, and has a lot less educated resistance and more public support...because there's so much more to learn in order to be ABLE to resist the bad parts without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

That said: this is my strategy.

Step 0: Research the problem. Hate it accurately. Know what neural nets do and do not do.

Point 1: Avoid relying on arguments that ultimately will do more harm than good when talking to others about it. E.g., avoid using copyright as the framework for your data ethics argument; if that's the legal framework we lean on it will guarantee that, say, Disney, who owns more copyrighted frames of film and animation than you can shake a stick at, will have no problem training a model to abuse however they want and strengthen their chokehold over the media industry, while hobbyists and researchers aiming to use this tech in ways to actually help human people will be SOL and more dangerous uses of ML will go untouched. Avoid calling AI operation "lazy" and "not real work"; these arguments WILL be used as an excuse to horrifically underpay AI operators and bring about all the worst parts of new automation even faster in the end ("why shouldn't I bundle this into your already excessive duties? Why should I pay you even minimum wage for it when I can outsource it for $5 a piece? It's just pushing buttons! You're so entitled!"). Push the data security angle. Push the fact that these webcrawlers have caught data they should NEVER have had access to.

Point 2: VOTE IN STATE AND LOCAL ELECTIONS, I cannot stress this enough, it's getting more and more common for candidates who think UBI is a great idea, unions are important, and we need more privacy and data security to actually get places at the state and local level, and given that we haven't fallen into dictatorship yet despite the GOP's demands, that is significant. Remember, voting is to change as wiping your ass (and/or using a bidet if you're so inclined) is to personal hygiene - is it all you should do? Absolutely not; it's the bare minimum. Does that mean you should just skip it if you do other things? Also absolutely not!

Point 2.5: Keep pressure on your elected officials, whether they're the ones you voted for or not. Submit petitions for privacy reforms, whistleblower protections, and union support, if that's not on the agenda already. Contact them. Call them. Write them letters. Lie if you must, when talking to politicians - no matter what, you are one of their supporters or maybe-supporters, and the issue in question is make-or-break. If you have a strongly anti-privacy conservative representative, then you're a red-blooded conservative American patriot and you agree with them on everything else and would vote for them but you're DEEPLY concerned about their internet surveillance ideas exposing you to your shitty PC libcuck family and causing them to harm you in some way. If you have a representative who's broadly cool but pulling a "think of the children" toward NOT voting for an online privacy bill, then you have a 13-year old daughter who's getting cyberstalked for LACK of proper privacy protections. Whatever makes them feel like their actions on the relevant issue might lose them votes, using their own logic.

Point 3: Highlight the weaknesses. Do it honestly - refer back to points 0 and 1 - but keep talking about cases like the ChatGPT lawyer and other such cases, and point out, this wasn't just some rando; this was someone who went to law school, this was someone who passed the bar, and yet the half-hearted disclaimer that ChatGPT might produce incorrect information - as if that's just some kind of rare fluke and it TOTALLY knows what it's talking about most of the time - wasn't enough to make him think this wasn't an appropriate use of it. AI in search engines is doing the same thing, which is even worse because they straight up advertise themselves as reliable to an audience of laypeople - not long ago I saw an AI-powered search result claiming lilies are safe for cats, which they are absolutely not. Talk about how Snap's My AI was caught for being initialized to deny having access to your location, even though it absolutely did. Use these stories to push for a false advertising crackdown. This kind of thing is a valuable thing to push, because we already HAVE a solid framework for false advertising and lying about your privacy policy being illegal.

Point 4: Support privacy advocacy organizations, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in whatever way you can.

Point 5: Support striking workers - in general, but particularly when part of their concerns are irresponsible usage of AI and other automation. If you have money to donate to strike funds, do it. If you can show up to the picket lines to stand in solidarity or hand out water or something like that, do it. Don't cross the picket lines. This is important when it's as visible as the WGA strike because that has people watching and can sway them, but arguably more important when it's something less visible, because less visibility means less backing and less bargaining power; be the person who helps fight that.

Point 6: Be cautious and picky about what, if any, AI tools you use. If you want to abstain completely until these reforms are enacted or until forced otherwise, then do it. If you want or need to use some AI tools for any reason, be it as AAC or some other kind of disability accommodation, as a slice in the Swiss cheese model for safety, to make a statement about the tech, or just for fun or convenience, try to stick to free and/or open-source models wherever possible, and use adblock and tracker-confusing browser extensions when using anything free but commercial - don't let just slapping "now with AI!" on something be as profitable as the techbros want, both for the sake of making them look for a more lucrative fad and taking your drop out of the bucket of their lobbying power. Part of my strategy is transparency about my process when I use it - talking about my motives, the human aspect of my input, and of course the amount of time it took. It's common for me to take just as much time on just the image part of an AI-based piece as I would spend on an equally detailed conventionally drawn one, and I want people to know that, because I want them to know exactly how much work their boss wants done for $5 or so and be horrified about that!

Again - it's not a complete solution, not by any means, but it's the strategy that I personally am taking and recommend to others. Again, I more than welcome expansions on it.

As much as I complain about the (at its core, justified) backlash to corporate AI going in counterproductive-at-best directions here, I would like to take a moment to talk about what I would like to see done about the problem of corporate swarming all over AI as a moneymaking fad.

First, I must address the true root of the problem: as we all know, a lot of the types of people known derogatorily as techbros jumped ship from cryptocurrency and NFTs to AI after crypto crashed...multiple times. Why AI? Why was it the next big thing?

Well, why was crypto the previous? Because it was novel and unregulated. Why did it crash? Because of the threat of regulation.

It is worth mentioning, at this point, that the threat of regulation ended up doing massive harm to people who used crypto for reasons OTHER than speculative investment scams. This included a lot of people who engaged in business that is illegal but lifesaving (e.g., gray-market pharmaceuticals), and people who engaged in business that is technically legal but de facto illegal due to payment processors hating it (e.g., porn and other online sex work) - i.e., a lot of extremely vulnerable people. Stick a pin in this, it will be important.

AI is a novel and largely unregulated field. This makes it EXTREMELY appealing to venture capitalists and speculative investors - they can fuck around and do basically whatever they want with little to no oversight, and jump ship the moment someone says "all right, this is ridiculous you CANNOT just keep pretending it's a rare fluke when your beefed-up autocomplete chat bot makes up garbage information, and the next clown who decides that a probability function trained on the ableism and pop-psych poisoned broader internet is a viable substitute for trained mental health counselors is losing any licenses they have and/or getting fined into bankruptcy." They've always been like this - when technology is too new for us to even know how we SHOULD regulate it, the greedy capitalists flock to it, hoping to cash out quick before an ounce of responsibility catches up to them, doubly so when it's in a broader field that's already notoriously underregulated, such as the tech sector in the US right now.

That tendency is bad for literally everyone else in the process.

Remember what I said about how the crypto crackdown hurt a lot of very vulnerable people? Well, developers aren't lying when they say that AI can have extremely valuable, pro-human applications, from AAC (which it's already serving as; this is, imo, THE most valuable function of ChatGPT), to health and safety - while we absolutely should not entrust things like reading medical images and safety inspections to AI without oversight, with oversight it's already helping us find cancers faster, because while computers are fallible, so are humans, and we're fallible in different ways. When AI is developed with human-focused applications in mind over profit-focused ones, it can very easily become another slice of Swiss cheese to add to one of our most useful safety models.

It can also be used for automation...for better, and for worse. Of course, CEOs and investors are currently making a hard push for "worse".

That's why I find it very important to come up with a comprehensive plan to regulate AI and tech in general against false advertisement/scams and outright endangerment, without cutting too deep into the potential it has for being genuinely good.

My proposals are as follows:

PRI. VA. CY. LAW. PRIVACY LAW. PRIVACY LAW. As it stands now, US law regarding online privacy and data security - which is extremely pertinent because most of the most unscrupulous developers are US-based - is at best a vicious free-for-all that operates entirely on manufactured "consent", and at worst actively hostile to everyone but corporate interests. We need to change that ASAP. As it stands, robots.txt instructions (and other similar things, such as Do Not Track flags) are legally...a polite request that developers are 100% allowed to just ignore if they feel like it. The entire mainstream internet is spyware. This needs to change. We need to impose penalties for bypassing others' privacy preferences and bring the US up to speed with the EU when it comes to privacy and data security. This will solve the problem that many are counterproductively trying to solve by tightening copyright law with more side benefits and none of the drawbacks.

Health and safety audits and false advertising crackdowns. Penalties must be imposed on entities who knowingly use AI in inappropriate and unsafe applications, and on AI developers who misrepresent the utility of their tools or downplay their potential for inaccuracy. Companies using AI in products with obvious potential hazards, from robotics to counseling, are subject to safety audits to make absolutely sure they're not cutting corners or understating risks. Developers who are found to be understating the limitations of their software or cutting safety features are subject to fines and loss of licenses.

Robust union protections, automation taxes, and beefing up unemployment/layoff protection. Where automation can and cannot be used in the professional sector should never be a matter of law beyond the safety aspect, but automation rollouts do always come with drawbacks - both in the form of layoffs, and in the form of complicating the workflow in the name of saving a buck. The government cannot make sweeping judgments about how this will work, because it's literally impossible for them to account for every possibility, but they CAN back unions who can. Workers know their workflow best, and thus need the power to say, for instance, "no, I need to be able to communicate with whoever does this step, we will not abide by it being automated without oversight or only overseen by someone we can't communicate with adequately, that pushes the rest of our jobs WAY beyond our pay grade" or "no, we're already operating on a skeleton crew, we will accept this tool ONLY if there are no layoffs or pay cuts; it should be about getting our workload to a SUSTAINABLE level, not overworking even fewer of us". Automation taxes can also both serve as an incentive for bosses to take more time considering what they do and do not want to automate, and contribute to unemployment/layoff protection (and eventually UBI). This will ensure that workers will be protected, even when they're not in fields as visible and publicly appreciated as arts.

In conclusion, the AI situation is a complicated one that needs nuance, and it needs to be approached and regulated in a pro-human, pro-privacy way.

[stellocchia]

So, I once made a post about c!Tommy and c!Dream’s relationship throughout season 1 (which you can find here), but today I was thinking, why not do the same for the Exile Arc?

There are some people that still don’t seem to have a comprehensive idea of what actually went down during that time (either because they joined the fandom afterwards or haven’t watched it at the time) so I’ll try to do that here. I’ll cover the first 2 streams here, and then continue in the next part because this is gonna be way too damn long otherwise...

As always I’ll be talking only about the characters and the roleplay from here on out and also I’ll be touching on some very heavy topics under the cut (such as gaslighting and abuse). Also this is gonna be another one of my Overly Long Analysis, so... you know... be warned of that.

I’ll be going through this vod by vod, so It will be so long... God why do I always do this to myself?

Let’s start with TommyInnit Is Exiled From The Dream SMP... which is the vod when Tommy actually get’s exiled.

So, the exile scene per se has been covered a 100 times over, but, right after Tubbo asking Dream to “please detain and excort Tommy out of my country” Dream yeets Tommy off the walls and then he immediately establishes the general idea of how it’ll be in exile: “I don’t think you wanna die Tommy. You need to- to listen to me”.

Also it is to be noted that in this “exile” time and time again Dream establishes arbitrary rules that were most certanly not meant in the initial sentence (which is why it’s much more of a kidnapping then an actual exile). Starting from before they even leave L’Manburg completely. In fact when they are still in the vc with the others and still just down from the obsidian walls, Tommy and Dream have this exchange:

“Do I have any time to speak words? What can...” “NO. NO. NO. NO!” “what the...” 

And then right after (just after leaving the vc):

“Do you have food?” “Yeah...” “Good, we’ll be going a long while still” “Am I not allowed- well surely- surely I’m only exiled from L’Manburg-” “Oh, no no no. You’re exiled from everywhere that’s been touched”

The sentence was only for him to be exiled from L’Manburg. Dream theoretically only had authority over the Greater Dream smp in any case, so how come immediately Tommy’s “sentence” becomes being exiled from “everywhere that has been touched”? What authority did Dream have to exile him from the Badlands? Or the Holy Grounds (considering those are widely considered neutral)?

This is from right after Ghostbur joins them:

“Well, I don’t- I don’t have to come with you” “Well, I mean, I’ll kill you” (...) "I don’t have to follow you! I don’t-” “Tommy! Then I’ll just kill you. What happens if I kill you?” “I die...”

Again, technically Tubbo only asked Dream to escort Tommy out of his country, not all the way to his place of exile. Tommy here is right, he is exiled, he is not supposed to have a jailor going with him, he is not supposed to be imprisoned. All he supposedly had to do was get off the lands he wasn’t allowed into and then he’d be good. Of course Dream’s plans were different there.

Also the trend of constantly undermining anything Tommy is feeling at any given moment sure doesn’t stop with the Exile Arc! 

“No, no! I don’t want to head anywhere! I wanna to go back! I wanna go back!” “Fine fine, we’ll head this way then. It’s fine, this is fine” “I don’t wanna go!” “Tommy come on...”

Honorable mention to Dream talking about the first time he exiled Tommy:

“Do you remember- this is actually funny! Do you remember the first time you ever joined the server? And uhm... you got exiled? By me?” “Yeah?” “It’s kinda like that, except now if you don’t listen you die”

And the conditioning begins all the way here, with Dream trying to decide Tommy’s emotions for him:

“Oh... I hate you” “*laughs* Okay Tommy, you don’t hate me” “No, no I definitely do” “Noooo, you don’t hate me”

Cue Dream just blowing up Tommy’s second Summer Home after he explained that it was supposed to be a safe haven for him and Tubbo. Also note that Dream is already getting rid of any mob attacking Tommy even if at this point he still had armour and weapons to defend himself. I talked about this before, but Dream does seem to want Tommy to be as dependent on him as he is on Tommy, which is why during exile he made him dependent on him for protection/safety and company and in prison for food. Also Ghostbur going: “I don’t think this man is very nice...”, thank you Ghostbur, I wish you could remember that, but you’re trying your best and I appreciate it...

“How long is- how long am I exiled for? When can I just go back?” “You can’t (...) if you go back you die”

Again, not Dream’s decision to make. Tubbo was the one exiling Tommy meaning that, if Tubbo actually had the decision power in that istance, Tubbo was the one who should have decided when he could come back. Also, again reiterating the point from before:

“I thought I was only banished from L’Manburg, that was the deal, not the entirety of the smp-” “Oh no. No you’re banished far enough where they don’t see you”

Also, a little look into Tommy’s mentality here:

“Tubbo said he wasn’t thinking with emotion, but with reason, but: what the fuck is the point if there isn’t any- any emotion?!”

This is honestly why he is Dream’s exact opposite and probably why he finds him fun, while Tubbo is irrelevant to him. Tommy thinks emotions should always be taken into account when making decisions and he values sentimentality over everything. Dream is the opposite, to him emotions are irrelevant and sentimentality is a weakness. Tubbo is a bit of both, which makes his clash of ideologies with Dream a lot less evident. 

Anyway, they get to the island and Dream builds Tommy a dirt shack for him to set his spawn into. And then there is the first istance of Dream taking all of Tommy’s stuff (building blocks and food included) and blowing it up. Which, again, is in no way an actual exile condition. Tommy is in jail basically. He got kidnapped and now he is in jail. Also right after that Dream gives them food and obsidian (of course acting like he is doing them a big favour, when he actually just created that need), which Tommy bromptly refuses, later burning the obsidian.

Also Dream’s parting words here are: “I’ll see you never”. Which couldn’t be less true! There is quite a bit more after that, of Tommy and Ghostbur settling in, finding a ruined portal with some armour and the village nearby and Techno visiting, but this is about c!Dream and c!Tommy and it’s already incredibly long as is, so maybe I’ll talk about everything else another time...

Onto the next one: Tommy Is Alone in Exile with Dream...

This stream starts off with Bad visiting Tommy to give him a few presents (which consist of Chirp, 2 diamonds, an enderchest, and almost dead diamond pick with silk touch, some coocked chicken some bones and a few stacks of oak wood logs). Also Tommy sees Logsteshire for the first time. Then Dream arrives and he is not happy about the present (something something, having other people giving Tommy useful stuff would make him less reliant on Dream). Also Bad seems to be slightly scared of Dream since he immediately tells Tommy that he should not say that any of the stuff he gave him was from him. Anyway, Dream destroys everything, but Tommy, with Bad’s help, manages to save Chirp. Here’s their exchange in this scene of course:

“Tommy?” “Yes! Yes?!” “Do you have uh... something you wanna put on the floor here?” “Yes *throws in 3 red concrete blocks*” “Anything else Tommy?” “No! You’re evil by the way, you’re an evil man-” “Come on... I know there is something else you wanna drop down here...” “No there-... *gives disk to Bad* I don’t reckon there is!” “Okay are you sure...?” “Yes!” “Alright... how about uh- how about your armour Tommy?” “No this is- I actually earned this myself” “I know you did! Just drop it in the hole Tommy” “No, no! You can’t just come and demand things from me! I’ve been exiled, I’ve done your shit! What- what do you mean-” “Tommy~” “What?” *Dream hits Tommy with an enchanted netherite axe* “Drop them down~” “Hooooo okay okay okay!”

So, in case anyone was wondering, physical abuse is there as well. And this is fully depicted as physical abuse. Like, normally, with this being Minecraft, it is implied that violence is generally inconsequential, here though c!Tommy reacts to it clearly in pain and shock. There is no doubt there. 

Sapnap arrives at this point as well. After that Dream makes it a point that Tommy cannot have the enderchast that Bad gave him because you can never have enough random arbitrary rules when kidnapping someone apparently! 

“Why are you here? Why are you here? What- what could you- what could you possibly want more from me? You’ve tortured me-” “I’m just! I’m just... keeping an eye on you Tommy” 

I’ve highlighted this because, considering the last time Dream was there he said he would never see Tommy again, Tommy’s confusion here is more then understandable. But of course Dream acts like it’s obvious that he would be there and that it’s necessary to make sure that Tommy is not “up to no good”. Also, another extremely important exchange: 

“You’ve exiled me you stupid manipulative green bastard!” “Yeah I know! I know! And you know why I did that” “Yes? Yes?” “No, you know why” “Why?” “Because you don’t listen to me ever. You’re the only person who doesn’t ever listen to me (...) listen, you are like a little annoying bug in my room and it pisses me off so I take you and I put you outside and that’s what I did. And now I’m just making sure that you stay outside”

So... the bullshit about this being about George’s house is out of the window by the first proper exile stream. Also Dream goes in the ever increasing list of villains who, if annoyed enough, will reveal all their evil plans to the protagonist. Like Tommy screaches enough and Dream will immediately go in evil monologuing mode...

“So what do you actually want from me then?” “Well nothing, I’m just here to talk to you. Tommy, we’re still friends ok? Just because I exiled you doesn’t mean we’re not friends-” “Just because I killed your friends and family doesn’t mean we can’t be bros...” “Well, it’s true!”

Ok so, it’s confirmed that Dream would still go on with this “friendship” facade even if he killed Tubbo or Wilbur then. Also:

*Tommy sees a creeper* then in the most monotone tone ever: “Help me” Dream sprinting from the other side of the cave: “TOMMY!”. I love this scene and I love this two dumbasses (and I mean the cc’s here). Also, to go back to the serious stuff: once again Dream is the one killing every single mob around Tommy because he blew up all his means for defence. Also Bad and Sapnap are still there as well, but Dream is always the on interveening (mostly because he is the one following Tommy around more closely). I’ll have a few of the more interesting quotes here afterwards until the next interesting scene:

“If I had 8 legs I would fuck you all up” “Oooh, no you wouldn’t” (Dream de-valuing Tommy’s anger once again)

“Stop following me” “NO” “Well okay then...” (honestly this was just funny...)

“Can I call you Wilbur? Or is it Ghostbur...?” “You can call me whatever you like” (for those saying that Ghostbur not correcting Tommy was weird)

“Alright Wilbur, what do you need an enderchest for? I might make an exception but-” “We- we need it so that we can access our stuff from the old world, the old world” “But not to go back” “How would we be able to go back with an enderchest?” “Well I don’t know maybe there is stuff in there that’s... better” “Tommy do you have anything that could get you to go back? In the enderchest?” “A boat? What’d you mean?” “Yeah to be honest we just need wood to get back, it’s not really-” 

Here we have Ghostbur poking holes in one of the new rules that Dream added that day. As a matter of fact, why would an enderchest be dangerous? Tommy mostly keeps sentimental stuff in there and a bit of iron. Still that’s the whole point: Dream is trying to get Tommy under his control so he needs to bring him to a point where he’ll listen to his orders even when they don’t make any actual sense. Also, btw, Dream doesn’t actually give them an enderchest after this exchange.

“Do you want to come with me Tommy? Do you want to come with me and visit the old library?” “No no no” “Yes! Yes please!” “No he wants to stay here with me” “I don’t. I definitely don’t” “He does! He’s just trying to be nice to you Wilbur. He’s trying to be nice to you” “I’m not Wilbur, I want to come with you” (way to gaslight an amnesiac ghost...)

“So how long is Tommy supposed to be here?” “Like a week?” “Oh, a week is not bad!” “*laughing* No he’s here forever” (Like goddamn, imagine if every minor griefing was punished with permanent exile!)

“M-maybe like- does Tommy gets like visitations? Like once every month he get’s to go to L’Manburg-” “No! No no no” “No visitation, huh?” “No visitation” (well, let’s thank Sapnap for trying...)

So, after this Tommy gets his plan to go through the Nether and find a quick way to and from L’Manburg to, perhaps, sneak in unnoticed at some points. Dream “allows” him here to go to the Nether (even though technically there is no reason why the exile would extend to there as well), so they get to work on fixing a ruined portal. “Did you know, I apparently blew up a nation and killed everyone” (thank God we have Ghostbur, he makes everything better). One thing I want to note though: at this point Tommy still kills the mobs attacking him when Dream is not stalking him and doing it for him, which is kind of nice. We are still at the first exile stream though...

“Can I go back for like an hour and see all my friends?” “No, they can come here though. I-I mean Tommy, I think- I think that someone could come here and visit you, but you can’t ever go back. Like I-I don’t have anything against people coming here and visiting you if they want to. They don’t HAVE to, but they can if they really want to” “Tommy think of it this way: whenever you’re in prison you can’t just go and visit your friends, but they can come and visit you” “They can come and visit you, yeah, that’s actually a very- that’s a perfect analogy”

I wonder why the best analogy for Tommy’s situation is not a f*cking exile analogy, but actual prison. Maybe because he is confined to one place, not allowed to keep any personal items and never allowed to go back? Also they actually get to Nether hub at this point and there is the famous scene with Tommy looking at the lava: 

A curious thing about this scene (aside from being a clear indication of the beginning of Tommy’s depressive spiral) is both that Dream didn’t seem to particularly care about Tommy dying up until now (and in the future as well) as long as he is the one to kill him. Meaning that he seemed fine with it as long as he had control over it. And yet at the end there he agrees with Tommy’s statement of “it’s never my time to die” which kinda makes me think that Dream by this point was already entirely set on his idea of Tommy needing to be alive for Dream to control the whole server. Tommy and Dream head back to Logstedshire after this scene.

*Tommy looks at the lava while standing very close to the edge* “I’ll go back through just to... check and see” *Dream hits Tommy away from the edge* “Come on” *Tommy goes back to the edge and Dream pushes him away again, this time covering the hole* “It’s not your time to die yet Tommy” “It’s never my time to die” “That’s true” 

“Home sweet home...” “Home sweet home. I think it’ll be good! People might visit you all the time, I mean, I can visit you! It’s- it’s actually fun to come here! It’s a little bit- it’s a change of scenery, you know?” “It’s not fun to be stuck here” “Well... you’re not ’stuck’ it’s your vacation home!” “Can I go back? I’m ready...” “No but you can leave this area, you can go somewhere else. This is just- like, I took you far away, you can go further if you want”

So, if anyone is wondering, this is not, in fact, Dream giving Tommy more freedom. Especially considering that when Tommy does leave Logstedshire later on Dream literally hunts him down, so no, that was never an option. What Dream is doing here is make himself sound benevolent by comparison by telling Tommy that the only other options he has are worse since they are even further away.

“I’m here for a good time, not for a long time” (more hints towards Tommy’s depressive spiral)

“Guys how do you know when it’s too much?” (and again)

“Can I go and see the tree?” “Tommy, you can’t go and see the tree” “Dream why don’t you let him just- it’s not in L’Manburg! Why don’t you let him just see the tree and then escort him back?” 

Ghostbur my beloved, pointing out holes in Dream’s rules all the time. Something tells me that’s the reason why Dream tried to kill him later on...

Anyway! This concludes this first post because it’s... Oh fuck this is REALLY long.... welp! I’ll make the others in the next few days! 

[twinklelilstarkey]

“Please don’t go” with Freddie Andersen 🥺

"Please don't go" - Frederik Andersen

Words: 3.6k+

Type: ANGST

Warnings: A lot of crying from both Y/N and Freddie. Break up. Mentions of long distance relationships.

It was a tough decision to end your relationship with Freddie.

You two had dated for a few months, after being extremely good friends for years. The whole relationship was a quite sudden decision, but right as it started, it felt so right that you felt stupid for not admitting your feelings sooner.

You feel like it’s fair to say that everything, absolutely everything, was just pure perfection when you were together. And that is why what you two shared will always be kept in your hearts:

All the smiles, all the laughter, all the hugs, all the kisses. The way one would always support the other on whatever decision. Or the way you two believed in one another, no matter what. 

There was just nothing bad about it. There were no arguments. If anything there was just disagreements, which if they did escalate, you two would fix it or just calm down in the same breath. 

Ending it, even though expected, was as painful as anything can possibly be. Both of you cried, constantly itching to comfort one other, feeling as helpless like never before.

You two sat opposites on your couch. Freddie looked at the ground, elbows over his knees as he listened to you, and you stared at a wall to contain your tears. Yet as soon as the first one escaped, you were done for.

Sobs in the middle of sentences, almost as if your heart was pleading your brain to stop you from putting an end to it. To what made you happy. 

An imaginary weight, which would always be lifted off when together, had now set over the two of you again. As well as the cold of familiar loneliness, and the horrible pain of heartbreak.

But it was for the best... right?

You got a huge offer for your job, some kind of promotion, which consisted of you moving to America.

It has been so many years since you started calling the Toronto streets your home, that you just know that this change will be unfamiliar and hard, yet the outcome always seems worth it. 

In your eyes, there’s absolutely no way for you to refuse it.

But for you to have it, you have to lose a lot too since work never makes it easy for anyone to take days off. Especially if those few days are to be in another country. Canada, in your case.

And sure, you had holidays and a week or two offered to you as some sort of vacation in a whole year of work. But not enough for you to try and leave everything behind you intact and act as if it will stay like that while you're away.

Whether you like it or not, strong friendships will become weak, the constant communication with your family will not even seem like half of what it used to be, and when it comes to relationships, trust will be tested. And god, even if you trust someone with your life, nothing can stop your brain from thinking of all awful possibilities. As well as your heart from hurting due to missing them so much.

Long-distance relationships are painful and you do not want to go through them. You would prefer to let the love of your life live his life with someone else, then let them wait for you for only God knows how much time.

That decision is the opposite way of looking at life selfishly. You prefer to go through an immense amount of pain if that means that the ones you love will be happy. Something Freddie always loved about you and sometimes would bring it up in conversations.

He also wouldn't let you refuse such an offer and you know it. The opportunity of you going after your dream was more important to him than anything, because it is your dream. He just didn't really know what would come with it.

He didn't know how much he would cry, how much he wouldn't want to open his eyes in the morning to see an empty bed, how much he would come to hate the silence in his home, or the absence of your perfume in his hoodies. It was a whole list of horrible things that he feels while following the same routine as before, yet all it gives him is pain. 

While you were packing your whole apartment to move far away, fighting off tears, Freddie had to work.

In morning skates, he would find himself skipping almost half his playlist when stretching because everything would remind him of you. He wouldn't look up at the clock in anticipation to go home. Or even be quick with getting off the ice when the last minute of work ends.

Sometimes he would sit on the bench for so long that the lights would eventually turn off around the arena. But he would just sit there. Head hung low with his eyes either closed or staring at nothing in front of him, letting his head run free.

Those weeks were rough. If rough could even come to describe half of what you two felt.

Today is your last day. The day to get on an airplane and not be sure when you're going to step foot into Canadian soil before Christmas. Or even see your loved ones before that too.

Your family and your friends have texted you a lot this morning, letting you know that they'll meet you at the airport. As well as asking how excited you feel.

You truly aren't even slightly excited to leave. All you feel is regret. And it's heavy and painfully stabbing its way into your back while closing its fists around your heart.

Why didn't you start dating way before all of this? Maybe that would've worked out in a way. You two could've argued and hated each other for what you've swarmed it could be forever. 

Or why did you have to meet him at all? Why didn't you ignore him like every other guy that talked to you on that specific bar? It would've made your friendship impossible and he would be nothing but a goalie you would see on the TV.

Getting up from bed today was just as bad to you as it was for Freddie. You two both dragged your feet into your separate bathrooms and undressed, pulling yourselves under the water of the shower. The water would soak you but neither of you moved to actually start doing anything else, you just stood there for a minute.

And with that, a loud sob jumped out of your mouth and you're back into your circle. Back to doing the same things with the same make-up-less face, your eyes swollen from tears and gaze fixed in nothing but the tiles of your floor.

Freddie didn't sob, but he isn't sure if he didn't cry either. If tears fell they left with the water falling from on top of him. The water that is trying to embrace him back to comfort, but failing miserably.

You throw the rest of your things inside your last bag and close the zipper slowly. Your gaze lifts up to the mirror of your bathroom and the reflected image breaks you as reality sets in.

You have to leave.

Walking around the apartment to check on everything was difficult as you continue to battle your emotions and throw all the memories to the back of your mind.

After that, you leave the key on the place you had previously planned with your landlord, and off you went into your Uber to the airport with your last belongings in your bags. Ready to leave home.

The driver was nice. He made small talk about where you were going and how he had gone there with his family last summer. He also must have sensed your uneasiness, so he decided highlight how nice the locals were and how everyone would always be ready to help you.

It relaxed you in a way, but not entirely as that wasn't even what was on your mind in the first place.

On the other hand, Freddie's late. Stuck in traffic to be more precise. His leg bounces with stress as he hides his face under his hat and hood of his shirt. All he could think of is how he won't get there in time.

His driver is silent, bobbing his head to the soft music playing on the radio while he stares at all the cars in front of them.

When taking a quick peek at the lines of cars in front of him, Freddie's starting to lose hope, no matter how hard he tries to be more optimistic.

He unlocks his phone as his fingers itch to text you, but he freezes at the picture of his home screen. He still doesn't have to heart to change anything he had with you, not even his god damn home screen.

A picture just a few weeks old, before you even had told him about the job offer. You were smiling at him behind the camera while holding a puppy up to your chest, eyes bright and wide with excitement. And your smile... just as breathtaking as heart-wrenching.

Freddie blinks harshly at the painful happy memory and looks ahead of him as the car moves ever so slightly. He has to at least say bye to you.

"You're going to love it, I know it!" Your mom says excitingly.

She squeezes you into another hug and you close your eyes at the feeling of her squeeze. Your hands are shaking for some unknown reason so you hesitate before wrapping your arms around her as well.

"You'll meet so many new people and learn so much new stuff."

She's starting to sound more excited than you at this point, yet you don't do anything but a short nod against her shoulder.

When you pull away, you look down at your phone, expecting to see any sort of notification... but there's nothing.

"Hey, I want a hug too." Your friend says over everyone's voices as she elbows her way to you.

You offer her a broken grin and she sadly smiles at you, throwing herself and her arms around you. 

Freddie almost rips the door open as the Uber parks right in front of the airport's main doors, not even realizing that he hasn’t acknowledged the driver verbally ever since he got inside the vehicle. 

His feet feel heavy and his legs tired, even though they have no reason to feel that way, yet he drags them into the building.

He walks fast-paced through the airport, looking through every group of people. His eyes scanning every single backpack, shirt, head of hair, beanie. Everything to find you.

You unwrap your arms from around another one of your friends and she smiles at you while cupping your face in her hands.

"If you ever need anything, I'll be on the first plane to you." She tells you and you grin at her.

"Promise?" You ask.

"I promise."

She kisses your nose and that's able to make your scowl break onto a smile, making everyone around you feel a sudden weight being lifted off the air around them, relief.

You adjust your backpack on your shoulder as you look around the group to see if you've hugged everyone and it sure seems like it. Your heart tightens in your chest and you take a deep breath.

"Are you ready to go?" Your mom asks you, laying her hand over your shoulder.

"I think so." You tell her.

She gives you a light squeeze in comfort and looks over behind her to see the line where you need to do your check-in.

"Well, I believe you just need to go over there," She starts, looking back at you, "and get your-"

She stops talking out of nowhere and you lift your gaze from your bag at her. She’s staring at something behind you.

Your heart quickens and at the sudden bit of hope runs through you. You look over your shoulder and your eyes meet Freddie walking towards you.

He's wearing grey sweatpants, a black hoodie, a hat over his head, and the hood of his shirt over it. If it wasn't for all the light coming from the large windows beside you, you wouldn't have noticed his reddened eyes and the broken look he's giving you.

Without any sort of hesitation, you take the backpack from your shoulder and lay it on the ground, taking steps towards him.

Freddie meets you halfway, wrapping his arms around you as yours move up to wrap around his neck and cling onto him. He holds you by your waist securely and lifts you in the air to hold you as close to him as possible.

A soft sob you’ve been holding in falls from your lips, sounding slightly muffled by his clothes, and you lay your head over his shoulder. Freddie closes his eyes to stop his tears from coming up again, snuggling his face close to you.

Your family and friends, when seeing and noticing you two, let sad smiles appear on their faces and decide to step aside, giving you two some space and privacy.

"I ran the whole airport to find you." He says, some humor deep in his tone.

A small smile lifts over your face as you cry your eyes out again, more out of relief than anything else.

One of his vacant hands lays on the back of your head, almost as it holding steady and his thumb caresses the nape of your neck, softly and carefully.

"I thought you weren't coming."

You pull your face away from his shoulder and take a look at him, locking gazes with him. Your hands rest over his shoulders and Freddie looks back just as directly.

"I got stuck in traffic." He explains.

Your hands come up to his bearded cheeks, a small pout influencing your forced smile, and your thumbs caress his skin.

His hand also rises up and he quickly wipes the tears off your cheeks.

“Don’t cry, come on.” He tries to tell you in a whisper over the sound of everyone’s loud voices around the airport.

“Sorry.” You tell him almost automatically, voice slightly cracking.

“No, don’t be sorry.” He corrects you. “I just don’t want to see you sad.”

You sniffle, your hands still over his cheeks, and give him a little nod, almost as your way to acknowledge his words since you’re not really trusting your voice right now.

Freddie kisses your palm and you lift your hands to wrap your arms around his neck again. He holds you as well and tries to swallow the ball of emotions at the back of his throat as your body shakes as you let out another overpowering small wave of silent sobs.

His eyes water ever so slightly and he blinks the tears away. 

“Do you feel ready to go?” He asks against the fabric of your hoodie, leaning his head closer against you.

“No.” You tell him.

Freddie swears his whole body reacted to your words. Maybe it was because you said it so close to his ear and that was the reason why he felt all those chills, but in a way, he knows it’s more than that.

He gives you more squeeze and your heart aches over what it could possibly mean. His hand rests over your leg and he leans forward to motion you to get back on the ground.

You do as requested but your body almost acts as if in denial when you order it to let go of him.

Freddie’s hands lay loosely by your waist, while your arms still hug his neck close to you, making him have to lean down over you.

“You still want to go, right?” He asks.

He doesn’t even know if he’s just checking on you or if he’s just hoping for an answer that would mean that you could go back home with him, but either way, he awaits it.

“I think so.” You try to say, but your voice falls in a whisper.

He forces your arms a bit away from him and you lift your head from his shoulder, sending him a look so broken that Freddie swears it broke his heart even further. He stares back into your eyes silently and observes your expression.

Without thinking twice, you close the small space between you two and lay your lips against his.

The sweet kiss is more than welcomed by Freddie, who can’t help but feel the small bit of hope course through his veins. The relief he felt over feeling you just hugging him again was able to destroy so many doubts in his head, and now that you’re kissing him, it’s like he’s falling in love all over again.

His hand rests in the back of your head, not letting you pull away just yet from the kiss he has been thinking about and needing for the past few weeks.

When you do pull away, you two just feel reality wash over you like a ice cold bucket of water. It’s heartbreaking to the point of you to want to gasp for air. 

You feel horrible.

Freddie looks back into your eyes as he pulls away further and he feels his eyes well up in tears again. And this time, it doesn’t go unnoticed.

Why do you have to go?

Your hands lay over his shoulders even when he stands upright and his hand continues rested over your head, against your hair, feeling it under his fingers.

He breaks his gaze from your eyes to check the time on the screen a few meters behind you. You follow his gaze, hands now sliding and resting over his chest, and your heart skips a beat at how the time flew since you had gotten there.

You don’t have much time left.

Your eyes go back to Freddie and he looks absolutely broken. And that is not making anything feel any easier for you.

“I love you.” You decide to tell him, “So much.”

He looks down at you and brings his hands back to your cheeks, holding your face.

“I love you too.” He answers.

His voice is so much lower and so much weaker than you’ve ever heard it before, it feels like a nightmare. 

It feels so unreal and so scary that it seems like something only the back of your mind can create to terrify you.

You grip onto his shirt and pull him down to you again, ignoring how the tears are starting to come up your eyes once more. He does as you request him to and this time doesn’t even even think twice before kissing you.

Your lips press against his as he lays various small pecks onto them while holding your wet cheeks in his larger hands.

“Please don’t go.” You hear him plead after a kiss.

You reopen your eyes and stare back at his. A tear has been able to escape his eyes and you’re quick to wipe it with the end of your sleeves.

“I need to go, Freddie.” You tell him, fighting off a sob. “I already signed everything.”

Frederik lays his forehead against yours and looks back onto you.

“Then I’ll wait for you.”

No.

You shake your head at him as a sob escapes your lips again and he fights off your denial with a nod.

“I will. I’ll wait for that contract to end, or I’ll retire early, I don’t care.” He tells you, feeling some more tears wet his face again, “We’ll be together again. I’ll visit you as many times as I can. I promise.”

You wipe his tears and quickly lean back to just pull him into another hug.

You cling onto his shirt, feeling more powerless than anything. 

The pain you’re feeling due to leaving is so strong that you almost don’t feel like yourself. Your body is shaking, you feel light headed, your chest is aching as your heart beats just as fast as your mind runs through all your options. 

You didn’t want it to be like this. For you to feel so sad and in so much pain. 

Freddie holds you back before you pull back, squeezing you close to him.

“Honey, it’s time to go.”

Your mom’s voice.

You quickly wipe your tears and lift your head from Freddie’s shoulder. He lets you go and a sudden rush of cold fills your body. The lack of his warmth is almost able to freeze you.

After that and a harsh and hard swallow of all your emotions, you pull your parents and friends into another set of hugs. Rushing back to Freddie for a last hug.

His hand is over your back, moving up and down to try and comfort you. You lay your wet cheek over his shirt, not caring if you wet it. And as soon as you look at him, your chin over his chest, he kisses your cheek.

A last squeeze later and you step back, offering everyone a small smile. Freddie grabs your backpack from the ground and gives it over to you. You take it silently and look up at everyone once more.

A small broken whisper moves past your lips as a small ‘bye’ to everyone that is looking at you and you soon turn on your heels, and... leave.

You don’t look back. Scared that if you do, you’re not able to keep going. And with that, Freddie stays back, standing right next to your family and friends.

Your mom has her hand over his back, comforting him just like he just did to you, in silence. And as soon as you’re out of the view from everyone’s eyes, she doesn’t hesitate to pull him into a hug.

“You’ll be together again. I’m sure of it.” She reassures him.

I hate this, but it can’t stay on my drafts for longer than it already has. Hope you like it...?

[girlbosstom]

Something that I think really makes succession work well is that each and every one of these characters are incredibly compelling if you think about them long enough. (Cousin greg is... getting there imo but also he serves his own important purpose)

But with the four siblings... I really don't see a weak link here. And it's something I envy so much as a writer. Each of them are so important. Each of their stories and flaws is necessary and important and function as a way to highlight the other's flaws.

Succession is incredibly written and I just can't understate this enough from a character perspective. It takes such care to breathe such life and complexity into all four of the Roy children and the people around them and I just cannot understand the idea that only one or two characters are well written while the others are nothing but set dressing. I think of that video about how all of them represent a different type of trauma response all the time! Because its so true! And they're all so.... !!!!

Like even the character that I relate to the least and root against the most (It's Roman, sorry) I have such a deep fascination with. I love his scenes. And he, just like the others, is despicable, but god I feel for him.

Then there's Shiv, whose been raised to resent her own emotions. To learn they don't help. Who treats everything like business because sincerity and love feel both foreign and terrifying to her. I've already written like a whole ass essay on her, and she deserves her own novel.

Connor lives on the outskirts. Terrified of conflict. Desperate for love but unable to get it unless he tries to buy it. Constantly both isolated by his father, his siblings, and then himself. He's a deeply sad individual who seems to love and care about the people in his life a lot more than they care about him and that has to be agonizing.

And don't get me started on Kendall I'm sorry really don't because I really cannot imagine looking at him and thinking he's completely irrelevant and uninteresting and if you do that's fine its whatever it's your opinion on a TV show but I see him and I just ?!?!. His constant need to change and re-invent himself and escape himself. His terrifying relationship with addiction and how that's taken his life, which was already in such a deeply tragic place, completely off the rails. How he carries his guilt with him wherever he goes. How he wants to do good and be good but he just... isn't a lot of the time and he hates himself for it. How he's both desperate for his father's love and resentful of his father for making him feel desperate.

(Also, don't get me started on Tom and how important he is to this story and how complex and fascinating he is. On how his story is both a tragedy and a commentary on hypocrisy and self-sabotage and how he serves as an incredibly important look at being in this world as an outsider because that's also a whole essay)

And I'm barely scratching the surface of these characters here. Seriously! And the cool thing is is they're so complex and equivocal that people could easily argue with some of my surface level interpretations! You could write whole fucking studies on all four of them! And if you had ten people do so, all of those essays would look incredibly different!

And I don't know. Maybe what I'm saying is super obvious but I just can't help but go wild at how well fleshed out these people are, and maybe you find some more compelling than others, but god. All four of them are the heart and soul of this story and so necessary to how its told. Incredibly important mirrors and foils for each-other. Deeply human and deeply disturbing and written with so much TALENT! I hope i can imbue even half of that kind of complexity into my own work.

[somnianus]

On Eastern dramas vs Western dramas

Part 2: On Theatricality and how it transfers into Chinese/Eastern Dramas and Cinema

Part 1   Part 2

Here, I reference a fantastic article from the Asian Theatre Journal, 2008.

So to recap, the problem I’m exploring is this: Why do some East Asian dramas/movies look so over the top? Overacted? Overemotional? Why is it not more realistic?

My answer is in part 1, on the concept of mo, which is the traditional Chinese thought that emotional revelation is more important than accurate realistic depictions in art. Western audiences are more used to plot-heavy, realistic depictions of dramas, whereas traditional Chinese audiences are used to the opposite. They find the plot not so important, but focus more on the content of the work, the spirit of it, how it makes you feel.

1. How traditional Chinese drama translate into cinema/screens?

Making the jump from Beijing/Peking opera stages, or jingju, to cinema screens caused a lot of trouble.

a. Production-wise, early 1900s

It was difficult to adapt the very open, 3d stage into a “realist flat screen,” which was much more advantageous to Western eyes because the camera lens was invented based on “Renaissance principles of fixed point perspectives and foreshortening.”

b. 1950s-60s

Many still tried to adopt the Beijing opera style into film, but it was still very hard because the two mediums were so contradictory. Beijing opera relied on live, grand aesthetics along with the knowledge that the important aspect of drama was emotion and internal struggle, vs film at the time was very focused on accurate “mimesis,” or imitations of real life. One such example was critics actually laughing about the adaptations because the opera actors mimicked riding a horse in the traditional style - that is, minus the horse. Film would have them ride a prop or real horses.

Eventually, many changes were made to the style to better incorporate it into film, and it still kept a lot of its original roots (i.e. makeup/grandiosity in costume, emotions, etc). Western concepts of a limited stage, and emphasis on plot and tragedy were expounded upon. And eventually you have the modern-day dramas (1970s+).

2. Japanese Noh  能 theater - Kurosawa’s Ran

Noh is a Japanese form of theater that is a dance-based dramatic work. It tells stories of supernatural beings transformed into humans and etc. One of its major notes is its very stylized conventional use of specific gestures to portray emotions. Iconic, specific masks are used to portray the roles of the actors such as the ghosts, women, deities, and demons.

Akira Kurosawa’s Ran is lauded as one of the greatest films ever made. It’s a Japanese-French production heavily inspired by Shakespeare’s King Lear. There are many many detailed videos on YouTube about his precise filming methods and movement aesthetics. The body language can be seen as “over-acted” if you come from a Western background. Why? Because it takes from traditional Noh theatre:

Long periods of static motion and silence, followed by an abrupt, sometimes violent change in stance. Heavy ghost-like Makeup. Highly emotive gestures, sometimes repetitive to emphasize the characteristic of a character. All very unrealistic, but that’s not the point, right? Because this also displays mo, it takes the emotive expression, the revelation of fear/action/hope to the front of the stage.

3. Japanese Kabuki theatre - acting style is also larger than life

Kabuki actors also make great effort to express themselves in highly stylzed gestures (i.e. the men play women’s roles and over-act their femininity). 

One major difference between Kabuki and much of Western theatre is that kabuki actors make less of an attempt to hide the “performance” aspect of the work. They’re fully aware that they’re performing, and the audience isn’t there to get “lost in the moment.” Everything -- actors, costumes, dialogue, is larger than life. Realism is far less emphasized, the form generally favoring what is often referred to as “formalized beauty.”

One example of this is the highlight of an aragato kabuki performance: the famous mie. The mie is a dramatic pose adopted by the main (oftentimes male) character during moments of emotional intensity. (The proper phrase for this action is mie o kiru, or to "cut a mie.") Announced by the beating of wooden clappers, the actor freezes in a statuesque pose and crosses one or both eyes. Often it's preceded by a head roll. The idea is to capture the highest moments of tension into one physical gesture and to more or less hold the actor and the audience in a breathless trance. After a few seconds, the actor relaxes and the play continues. A mie can be cut in various specified positions, depending on the character and the moment. When exiting, an aragoto character may perform a roppo exit, which combines several of these poses in rapid succession, before leaving the stage.

The mie pose

This is not to say that modern Japanese dramas and works directly descend from Kabuki or Noh or other theatrical traditions. But like the Chinese beijing opera, the concept of aesthetic beauty/mo, emotional revelation, these ideas all combined with Western influence and modern Western perceptions of good story-telling/acting to make up the modern Eastern dramas of today.

4. How do all of these things combine into the supposed “cheesy/corny/over-acting” of modern Eastern dramatic works?

All of these cultural roots combined with Western depictions of a modern story (i.e. Shakespearean tragedy in five parts: Exposition, Rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement, ofc there are other ones but this is the one I learned in school), I believe make up what we see today in modern Eastern dramas. 

A. Acting Comedy: My specific examples are first, comedic examples from the famous 1986 Journey to the West

Comedy and the feeling of happiness and joy are also very important aspects of emotional revelation. Journey to the West depicts one of the most beloved comedic characters, Sun Wukong, who goes on a journey with Tan Sanzang, a Buddhist priest, to find the sacred Buddhist texts. His exploits are highly unrealistic and highly comedic. It is one of the epitomes of the “spirit” over the “form,” the internal emotional journey over the actual realism (or unrealism) of the journey. Many of the characters exhibit over-the-top facial expressions, some expressions too subdued, and the plot can be very winding and haphazard, but that’s not the point! If you’ve been reading this far, you’ll know why. It’s about how his adventures make you, the audience, the reader, feel. 

B. Acting Villainy: More modern Chinese dramas i.e. The Untamed & Word of Honor

I cannot attest to the quality of the acting nowadays, but it’s a common idea that the supporting cast of the international hit, The Untamed, was a bit weak in terms of acting. If I were to step into my Western lens, I would agree that yes, many characters over-act (i.e. Xue Yang, below):

And Wen Kexing, Word of Honor:

And Journey to the West, Underworld Lord:

However, now with all that cultural context, I can see this choice of acting in a different light. The over-acting and depiction of villainy is over-the-top because it’s meant to inspire that emotion of (this guy is whack, like really). It’s not supposed to be realistic villainy, like how a real person would look if they were these people in real life. To judge it by a completely Western lens is doing a disservice to them I think. You could say that maybe they just can’t act well, but in a Chinese/Japanese/Eastern cultural theatrical context, their acting is actually par for course. It’s even more subdued than the traditional roots of Eastern theatrical performances actually.

This goes for many other C-dramas / Eastern dramas that have these instances of highly emotive performance. It’s a product of hundreds of years of Eastern cultural theatrical/artistic production combined with Western acting styles and cinematography. 

Is it cheesy? Maybe. Is it over-acting? Could be, but what is “over-acting” vs what is “enough?” Is that not the distinction between mo and Western realistic imitation? For me, as someone who’s very used to this uniquely different style of dramatic production, I’m not too bothered by it. It, after all, makes me feel such an incredible range of emotions that the acting is just a fun, interesting perk. 

Thinking that these dramatic productions were originally seen as extensions of poetry, I can see why the exaggeration is necessary to fulfill what mo means:

If I feel some intent, I must write it - it becomes a poem.

If that’s not enough, I must sing it - it becomes a song.

If even singing isn’t enough, then I sigh, and have to express by dancing - it becomes a performance.

Part 1

[bard-llama]

Ciri contemplating on the Geopolitical chessboard that has formed: "Let's see, we have Meve in Lyria and Rivia, Anais could take up Free... Well, whatever... Temeria, Adda has a strong claim in Redenia, Skellige seems fine under Cerys, the Free Pontar Valley has Saskia, Kaedwen is leaderless, we don't care about Dol Blathanna... Stennis in Aedirn is a problem, but I'll find some way to get rid of him." Vooris is confused on why she would like to get rid of such a sycophant.

Ooooh, I like that! Like, politically, I think Ciri has to marry Morvran Voorhis, because we know that the Nilfgaardian nobles are displeased with the war and how much Emhyr has committed to it. So bringing in a daughter no one has ever heard of? Yeah, she would have to marry someone that appeases the noble families or she would face civil war.

Morvran was groomed by Emhyr as a potential successor (+ his dad was part of a plot to remove Emhyr and place Morvran on the throne, but he wasn't involved in it. Still, I might be a lil pissed if my mentor hanged my dad, even if my dad betrayed me). But we know that Ciri will be a very different ruler from Emhyr. She takes the throne wanting to make real change the way a lone witcher cannot, which likely means she'd enact a number of social reforms, even if she has to fight the nobility to get it through.

But all that is to say, Morvran's expectations of what his Empress will be like are probably wildly inaccurate at first, so he'd be very confused why she would get rid of someone who can so clearly easily be controlled.

But she doesn't want tools, she wants people. She wants to be able to make life better for peasants and nonhumans and other such marginalized groups. She wants to see leaders of other kingdoms that care about their people. That are reasonable and can be worked with. (That they all happen to be women is a happy 'coincidence'. But uh... turns out that in patriarchial societies, women tend to do a better job of not thinking with their cocks).

So there's the Free Pontar Valley with Saskia. There's Enid an Gleanna/Francesca Findabair in Dol Blathanna, Meve in Lyria and Rivia, and Adda the White in Redania/Kaedwen (Redania invaded Kaedwen and took over under Radovid). That's a lot of the North's real estate. All that's really left is Aedirn, like you said. And Stennis would be a problem, but it kinda depends on what state Aedirn is in. By which I mean, if Nilfgaard took over Aedirn after Demavend's death, even if Stennis was left alive (the coward probably ran from battle), then Aedirn would just need to be governed locally by someone loyal to Nilfgaard. Which some could maybe argue Stennis is, but uh... yeah, we know better. Also, he's a shit leader and if he was governor, then Aedirn is falling into ruin, esp after the invasion. So getting rid of him would be more like getting rid of an irritating beaurocrat. She could probably even do it without killing him, but where's the fun in that? Or maybe she extradites Stennis to Saskia and they put him on trial for the attempted assassination?

On the other hand, if Stennis takes over the throne after his father dies in W2 and somehow manages to not get taken over by Nilfgaard (which actually is possible, but only if we ignore the probable canon that Nilfgaard takes Lyria and Rivia too). Then you've got several strong (potentially) rulers and one weak link in the chain. But if Ciri wants to conquer Aedirn, then her army has to get there. Which is important for several reasons.

1) After the Nilfgaardian War + the White Frost, her army is... probably not in the best state. And Nilfgaard enlists their infantry, meaning if you're a farmer or whatever of eligible age and fitness, you are now fighting on the front for Nilfgaard. But a lot of their infantry dies (because they're inexperienced and not soldiers), which means suddenly her realm doesn't have enough farmers to bring in the crops or to sow new ones for next year. That's likely part of why Nilfgaard was demanding grain as tribute from conquered villages. But locally, they probably destroyed most of the crops ('cause walking an army over a farm will do that), so there's already gonnna be (already are) issues with famine in her empire.

2) If Ciri did somehow put together the fighting force to take Aedirn, she has to get there. This is getting super long, so I'll put the map under a cut, but the only direct way from her territory (i.e. all of Nilfgaard below the Yaruga + Temeria and Temeria's protectorates (Brugge, Sodden, etc.)) into Aedirn is north of the Mahakaman Mountains, through Iorveth's forest. Which means she's have to march her army all the way to the northern tip of her territory and then establish supply lines through a forest that is filled with monsters and murdrous squirrels (well, maybe).

Okay, I guess technically a second way to get to Aedirn would be to go by sea and then sail up the Pontar. But transporting infantry by sea is a huge undertaking, so it's still not terribly practical.

And, frankly, their ability to sail up the Pontar could be limited. Because they probably lost a lot of their navy during the White Frost thing, but also, it's in Redania's best interests to prevent Nilfgaard from accessing the Pontar. Even if it means blockading the busiest trade route in the north. Which doesn't exactly help with the famines.

Besides, even if Ciri's army could make land on the Aedirnian shore of the Pontar. That is a very narrow strip of land. Dol Blathanna is kind of on Nilfgaard's side, so they might agree (or not be asked) to letting an army travel over their land.

There is a river off the Pontar that goes to Vengerberg, so potentially she could make land there. But once again, that means supply lines dependent on waterways that she doesn't control.

So how does Ciri take Aedirn? Well, I'd say 2 ways, maybe 3:

1) Send in a covert strike team to assassinate Stennis and sweep in during the chaos. Which is good in that the strike team could probably get to Aedirn easily enough. But if she's going to occupy territory, she needs her army. Which leads to:

2) Try to encourage Meve to take over Aedirn, maybe even promise trade agreements and/or support to make it happen. The bright side: all that extra territory is not Ciri's problem and Stennis is still gone. The downside: well, if Meve is the expansionist sort (i don't know her well enough to say one way or another), then potentially Meve might try to conquer Dol Blanthanna (bad for northern stability and geopolitics, but not that big of a deal to Ciri personally) and might try to push Nilfgaard's border further south, because she knows that having an expansionist on your border signals future fighting.

3) Or, Ciri could negotiate with Meve, get permission to bring her army through Rivia to get to Aedirn. Some problems with this: Meve really kinda hates Nilfgaard, so is not likely to be inclined to agree. Ciri would have to establish supply lines through Rivia, which would at any time be subject to Meve's whims, plus probably attacks from the locals, who both hate Nilfgaard and might be short on food.

Hahaha, this is a very long and political answer, so sorry about that, but theorizing like this is really fun!

Maps:

Here’s the best map we have for the continent:

And here’s a map with some very messy political territories highlighted.

Okay, sorry it’s horribly messy, but essentially what we can see is that Nilfgaard owns the western side of the continent all the way up to the Pontar. Above the Pontar, Redania owns a HUGE chunk of land spanning east beyond Nilfgaard’s reach. Nilgaard owns everything south of the Yaruga and the territory west of the Mahakaman Mountains below the Pontar. (Just an interesting note: Mahakam was a Temerian protectorate, so technically Nilfgaard owns them. But having a city inside a mountain is not the same as getting an army across said mountains.) On the eastern side of the Mahakaman Mountains, we have the main territories that Nilfgaard doesn’t own. First, the northern border of Nilfgaard in the east is with Lyria and Rivia. Then there’s the huge chunk of land that belongs to Aedirn, except Aedirn might not have an heir to rule. And above that (previously a protectorate of Aedirn) is Dol Blathanna aka the elven state that Scoia’tael aren’t allowed in. Then, on the other side of a mountain range, the Free Pontar Valley lies between the Pontar and Dol Blathanna. 

Which is all to say: Aedirn’s fate is very questionable, but they’re actually in a pretty good location to avoid being conquered by Nilfgaard.

[hellothere-generalangsty]

I HAD A BRAIN WAVE MOMENT

DO YOU REMEMBER WAYYYY BACK WHEN EVERYONE HATED ASOKA? DAVE DID THAT ON PURPOSE SO HE WAS IN CONTROL OF WHAT PEOPLE HATED ABOUT HER. OK NOW THIS MIGHT BE A LONGSHOT THAT HOPEFULLY DOESN’T END UP LIKE LONGSHOT THE CLONE, BUT, IM HOPING THATS WHATS DAVE IS DOING WITH TBB. BEING IN CONTROL OF WHAT THE FANDOM HATES ABOUT IT AND THEN IMPROVING IT SLOWLY BIT BY BIT.

PLEASE IM DESPERATE FOR A EXPLANATION!

(also where’s my explanation about why the clones are white washed, dave? hmm? where is it dave?)

OMG LOOK.

It wouldnt excuse the whitewashing or the weak scenario, because he got us used to some good stuff now (tcw s7, Mandalorian, that kind of things)

But it would make sense - to a certain extent - to work that season as a "cliché team in a cliché scenario" and see how people react to be able for a second season (if there's a second season) to improve it

_

Disclaimer: I'm a white, abled person so I'm not trying to speak on behalf of poc/disabled people, but I think it's important to support them and listen to the critics they make about SW and it's content

Also this is quite long I got carried away but worth it it is!

I linked some of @rebekadjarin 's post here because I read a bit through her blog today and agreed with her posts; and I invite you to check out the "#whitewhashed tbb" if you want more extanded and developed information about that matter! (As my knowledge on the matter is still quite limited/ incomplete due to my privileges, and this post is more of a summary than a real analysis)

_

So here, we know that the fans are unhappy about:

- the whitewashing of the Bad Batch (especially since they proved they could animate dark skinned people/ more generally poc with the first seasons of tcw, Kanan in Rebels and the Separatist in the latest TBB episode)

It is a real problem and it shouldn't have happened in the first place. Even if they are different, the Batchers are still clones and it's really not that hard to show their enhancement while keeping Temuera's features and skin colour (I mean, look at all the artists who did and do it everyday on this app; no excuse here)

Star Wars has wasted a lot of potential on numerous occasions because they keep doing stuff like this; and it's quite ironic (and very sad) to see that racism, ableism and stereotypes are prevalent in a universe where people fight for equality and peace...

Here and here are two posts about it (if you're the author of these posts and want me to delete them from my post please tell me so; I took the liberty of adding them because I think they highlight quite well the issue and do a clear job at showing the whitewashing in SW/ around the clones)

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- the way Crosshair is treated; both by the Batchers and the writers, he's manipulated by the chip yet no one is talking about rescuing him and we see nothing about the effect of his absence on the Batchers (they don't mention him, don't try to save him, and Hunter is more distraught by Omega's absence than by his own brother's)

And don't get me wrong, Omega is a kid and she's nice, of course they have to take care of her and protect her

But they also don't know her purpose; why is she here? She could be a bad omen (maybe she doesn't even know it! The Kaminoans probably didn't tell anyone about her real purpose and I stand by the idea that the infos they got about her are all wrong and purposefully misleading) and I have the dark feeling that she will be the end/ death of the Batchers by the end of the serie, even if she didn't wanted it that way

But Crosshair is never mentionned, except for when he's needed in the scenario. Which is a shame, because he's a Batcher too even if he's mind-controlled and (for now) working for the Empire. He's supposed to be a main character, and he's a key element to the plot; yet out of 10 episodes we saw him in only 3, and only the moments where he was acting bad (i'm excluding the lonely moment at the end of ep2 because it had a lot of potential about him fighting the chip but that was all we had and i'm still bitter about it lol)

Here is a post about it

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- speaking of plot; I feel like it's always the same disk playing since episode 2-3: They have a mission given by Cid, they do it, things go wrong, Omega saves the day and they get the money.

Crosshair is doing bad guy stuff so no need to tall about him (haha right?)

Now. I'm a good public. I know when to activate the Dummie™ in me and enjoy a show about a found family doing crazy jobs for a criminal and raising a newly adopted daughter at the same time. It's fun, it's sweet, sometimes it get emotional and the animation is beautiful (the lights are amazing I am always in awe)

I can enjoy it and be in awe and see Echo sniffing food and Tech smiles and Wrecker playing with Omega and feel happy about it.

But I also expected more. I hadn't any clear idea because I didn't wanted to set expectations (how ironic) but I can't help but feel sad about the wasted potential around Empire! Crosshair and the rise of said Empire.

If you want to antagonize one of the main character, do it, but do it fully and do it well. Show us Crosshair getting really invested in a plan to catch the Batchers and suddenly making a scene for a tiny detail that could blow it up; show us Crosshair and Hunter fighting each other hand to hand after they disarmed each other, and Crosshair getting the upoer hand until something holds him back; just enough for Hunter to take control again

Show us a complex character who suffers but doesn't fully realise it, and show us brothers mourning yet hoping to get the family back again you know?

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- the way Echo is treated by the Batchers. And as much as it saddens me, they do him dirty in the show.

Echo is a war veteran, an ex- prisoner and a disabled character. He went through a lot; first he lost the Domino squad, then he lost brothers on Kamino (including 99 who was close to his squad), then the Citadel happened and he lost both his legs, an arm, his freedom, his brothers and probably any hope to be saved.

Then they found him in that freezer, and he probably realised that, if Fives wasn't here to save him, it meant he lost him too.

Then he left Rex to go with a team of 4 because he probably didn't feel like he belonged with "regs" anymore; he chose strangers over brothers because he thought he couldn't find his place there. Which in itself is sad and problematic.

And now he's with the Batchers, and they don't seem to grasp the importance of his trauma. I mean; they always had the 4 of them and never lost a brother (apart from Cross; which is another wasted potential here because they could have exploited that trauma and made a parallel with Echo being so used to losing brothers and them experiencing it for the first time on such a personal level you know) and they do some crappy stuff to him.

Selling him as a droid? Not cool.

Brushing off his trauma for a mission and some credits? Not. Cool.

And Echo can't say anything because he chose them, and now he has nowhere to go anyway because Order 66 happened; and he probably doesn't want to be a burden to Rex, and he probably doesn't want to abandon his brothers especially now that Cross is gone and they have a child to take care of

But yeah there are a lot of things happening - or NOT happening - around Echo and his trauma and his disability that are wrong and people are right to talk about it

Here is a post I read and I agree with it

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- Overall, the way the show and the characters are handled; they often feel very stereotyped/ cliché and the basic plot doesn't really help for character development or improvement

I read a post about it and it was really interesting; they linked the whitewashing of the characters with their abilities/enhencement

Tech and Crosshair are the smartest and the whitest in the group (which is bad)

Wrecker is portrayed as the Bid Dummie™ and he's the one with the "darker" skin and the features closest to Temuera/ Maōri features (also very bad)

Hunter is straight up a Rambo with a face tattoo, and Echo - and you guys know I love him - is whiter than a sheet of paper (all so bad)

Not only this, but there is no improvement in their personality or thinking

They don't seem to evolve, and just like their mission, they end up playing the same song over and over again

Hunter is the broody soldier and though people enjoy talking to him as a Dad (count me in) but he's not a good dad for Omega (he calls her soldier and is always acting awkward and uncomfortable around her)

Wrecker could be a better dad for her; but again they display him as a big dummie and give the impression he couldn't take well care of her

Tech is here to be the smart one, we only see him when they need someone to do the smart speaking and the complicated computer things

Echo is the grumpy reg, the "more droid than man" and sometimes the Mom™ but they never show him talking about the Empire or the trauma or how the I am not Freaking Out™ I did came back for this Shit™ he's just here to... Be here and be grumpy and bring the oldest clone wars fans to watch TBB

And Crosshair is almost non-existent.

Here is another post about it

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What could it be then?

So either Dave is pulling a Ahsoka on us; but he'll still have a lot of things to correct and explanations to give because I can excuse a bad plot but I draw the line at blatant racism ans ableism (especially when they KNOW the fans and they KNOW what people want and they KNOW it would probably bring more people to enjoy and get invested in the show)

- If he's doing this, he will probably work with the animator to correct the whitewashing (because it really is the only really wrong thing in the animation, the rest of it is quite good to be honest like the light, framing and all)

- Understand that Tbb and Mandalorian are two different shows and cannot be treated the sale way; so he'll get back to the main plot and hopefully work on Crosshair's arc and hos his absence/ him being controlled by the chip affects him/ the Batchers/ their relation

- He'll probably work more on displaying the effect of their trauma; collective and personal, and see how it reflects on their relations (and give Echo the healing he deserves)

- By extension, give the characters more depth and complexity, dig their stereotypical surface and reveal their true nature (show me a ruthless yet easily overwhelmed Hunter; a smart but constantly anxious Tech, a very emotional Wrecker playing the big explosive dummie to protect himself, etc.)

Well, that's what I would do

Or he's just... Doing this and not planning any changes; in which case I'll probably do what I did with SPN s15: stop watching, scroll through tumblr to get some infos and gifs and tell everyone about how dirty they did the characters, and they did us.

~

But I really hope he's hearing us and taking our remarks into account; the show in itself had a lot of potential and I'm still hanging on the thin hope that the ending could "save it"; but I also have no expectations and am in fact waiting for a disappointing ending

On a brighter note, I'm glad the fandom exists because I see artists and writers and gif-makers and theorists and all kind of people creating and sharing their own content, headcanons, art, writing and they all feel right and better than the canon

Like yes, give me a in-character dark skinned clone who deals with his trauma and the sudden changes around him in a realistic way

Tell me about the real effects of the war on soldiers, and the truth behind the corrupted government taking over the galaxy, and the efforts everyone has to make to survive, exist and live together

If Dave and his team cannot do it, I know you guys can and that's why I'm glad to be here too; you give me hope when they fail to do so 💙

~

I hope I like... Answered this correctly? 😂 I got carried away but yeah, though I'm usually not vocal about it and try to enjoy it with my Dummie Energy™ I still see and read about what you all think, and usually I agree with you; the show deserved better and we deserved better

Now back to ignoring the canon and writing a fic about my very much alive and beloved Fives 🥰

[lassieposting]

💘 for violent?

send me 💘 + A SHIP and i’ll tell you—

This got uhhhh really long whoops sorry

where they first met and how

Vile shows up to a battle Mevolent is fighting and just. Joins in.

Mevolent doesn't personally spot him, but several of his officers do - Vile has no colours on his armour, so they have no idea which side he's on, and he doesn't seem to care very much which side the men he's killing are on either. He's after the big prize - the Sanctuary general leading the opposing side - but anyone who gets in his way is fair game, no matter who they support.

One of Mevolent's men reports this after the battle is over, because it's strange enough to warrant a mention: the Necromancers have hardly left their temples in a hundred years, why is this one showing up now? Mevolent dispatches some people to round up the stranger and bring him in (which makes for a lot of very uneasy soldiers), but they find him loitering around outside the camp and he surrenders without a fuss.

When he's brought to Mevolent, Mev has had some time to bathe and get changed and is lounging around in a bathrobe with a glass of wine. He asks some questions, Vile answsrs them. Mev idly mentions that Vile seems very confident for a man who killed some of Mevolent's own soldiers - ordinarily, this would be something Mev would execute him for. But Vile tosses the enemy general's head at Mevolent's feet - ("Killed a few of theirs, too.") - and essentially prompts, do you want me on your side, or theirs?

Mev takes him.

how long their ‘flirting’ phase was before feelings got involved

Actually - from the first time they meet.

At some point, Mevolent prompts Vile to take the helmet off - it's rude not to, how is he ever supposed to trust a man he's never seen? And Vile knows it's a risk, but he's also fairly sure Mevolent never saw Skulduggery Pleasant up close anyway, so he does as he's asked.

Mevolent lets himself have a minute to be shocked. He was expecting another Baron. But Vile can't be any older than Nefarian, which means he's absurdly young to have that much power. And he's pretty, even if there's something...a bit off...about him.

(His first thought is that he's talking to Vile's reflection. He dismisses it almost immediately, but he knows something isn't right. He doesn't know that he's picking up on Vile needing A Lot of practice to get his fake body to look properly alive; he's a bit too pale, keeps forgetting to blink, he's unnaturally still...it's all a bit uncanny valley.)

He starts flirting shortly after that. Just a little bit, to see if Vile leans that way or if he's visibly uncomfortable. He hooks up with China occasionally and has Serpine in his bed whenever he wants him, but he's always after something new, and Vile's arrogance and lack of deference is as refreshing as it is irritating. It's not love at first sight or anything though - all he's after is another notch on his bedpost.

who asks who out and how ( with a sign? spelled out on a cake? just a simple ‘will you go out with me’? )

They never actually discuss it, they just sort of...accidentally fall into monogamy? Their relationship begins with casual sex, stress relief on Vile's side and a novelty (someone who regularly tells him no and makes him work for it) on Mev's. As they realise they actually get along very well outside the bedroom, it becomes more friends with benefits. But somewhere along the line, Mevolent stops and realises that he hasn't shared his bed with anyone else in over a year - and he hasn't minded. His primary hesitation over getting married to Serafina is whether consummating his marriage will upset his lover, when all that should matter is the political power and money she brings witj her. And he realises that somehow, without his noticing, Vile has become more important than Mevolent ever intended for him to be.

who proposes first

It's. Less a proposal, and more a discussion. Sometime after Serafina's death, Mevolent starts getting social pressure to marry again. Mothers are starting to fling their daughters at him at every opportunity because they all want to be the mother of the new queen. And he doesn't want to do it again, have another political marriage that will definitely cause problems between him and Vile. He's in a position of considerable power by this point and his inner circle has been made aware of his sins thanks to Serpine, so he decides that fuck it, he wants to go public with their relationship.

Vile lets him - on the condition that it's not a big public spectacle. So Mevolent combines their family crests (called "impaling") which is what happens with married couples - so instead of having a banner with Mevolent's crest hanging in the Great Hall, it would be half his crest and half Vile's, joined together in the same shield (escutcheon). He has to have a crest drawn up for Vile, of course, but it's a quiet way of making it Very Clear that he's off the market.

if they keep / kept their relationship secret or let everyone know right away

They're a secret for the better part of fifty years. Mevolent is taking a big risk getting involved with a heretic, so he doesn't want to chance being open about Vile until he's completely confident in his victory and his power as ruler of the world. Vile is absolutely fine with this arrangement - not because he cares what people think, but because it's court custom to fawn over Mevolent's favourites to try and curry favour with him, and being the highlight of a social event is Vile's idea of hell.

where the proposal happens and how ( kiss cam at a baseball game? on a hillside surrounded by ducks? at a disney park? )

Nothing quite that romantic. Mevolent is over 1000 years old, and in ancient Ireland, if a couple decided they were married? They were married. There was no need for a ceremony or vows or a priest involved. They might announce it to a few witnesses, just to make it Extra Valid, but even that wasn't necessary.

That had changed quite a bit by the time Vile was born, but if Mevolent says something is legal, it's legal, because who's going to stop him? And he knows that's preferable to Vile, because he hates being the centre of attention. The sort of big extravagant ceremony he had when he married Serafina would have Vile running for the hills.

It's not valid in the eyes of the church, of course. Vile is a heretic - the church barely considers him human. It takes balls to say no to Mevolent, and it's not usually a wise idea, but that is just a little bit too far for the Faceless Priests, and they turn him down.

(He accepts it with good grace once he realises they really won't be pushed. Convincing Vile to say vows in a church of a religion he finds ridiculous would be. A Challenge™ anyway. He's learned to pick his battles over the years.)

Once they've decided "okay, we're in this for the long haul, guess we're married now" Mev takes off to one of his summer palaces for a month to "supervise repairs" and takes Vile with him "as a bodyguard", which is common enough that nobody bats an eyelid. They're long since back from their honeymoon by the time anyone realises that's what it really was.

if they adopt any pets together

Mevolent, like any self-respecting monarch, keeps horses.

Animals can sense death, so Vile is unsettling to them by nature. But he spends so much time around them that they eventually get desensitized to him. He's been a big rider all his life, surrounded by horses and riding and hunting since infancy, and he knows a lot about all things horse.

Mevolent starts feigning interest in the horses when he's trying to get Vile into bed, as an excuse to run into him and start talking. But he was born a peasant, raised a slave, and has only ever really seen the horses as a status symbol, proof of how far up he's come in the world, so he's not prepared for...quite how horsey real gentry can be. He tries to start a casual chat about maybe breeding this stallion with that mare, complete with a clever double entendre about how sometimes couples who don't look all that compatible on the surface have the most explosive chemistry, flirtily asks what Vile thinks, and Vile...infodumps all things horse-breeding at him for four hours straight. Which was not what he was expecting, but the enthusiasm is actually pretty endearing.

who’s more dominant

The short answer: Mevolent.

The long answer: It's complicated.

In bed, Mevolent dominates because Vile lets him. He gets off on the power exchange, microdosing the subby side he had as Skug by handing control over to someone he trusts not to hurt him. It's also part of how he tries to deal with his trauma - subconsciously reenacting having his control forcibly taken away when Serpine was torturing him (by willingly ceding it to Mevolent) but with a different, more enjoyable result. He still makes Mev work for it, though - he won't just roll over without a playfight first. That's part of the fun.

Outside the bedroom, their power dynamic is all over the place. Mevolent is Vile's boss. Vile is Mevolent's bodyguard. Mevolent is 600+ years older. Vile has been through hell and takes no shit from anybody. Mevolent is Vile's benefactor, as a heretic living in a theocracy that would burn him alive again. Vile is the most powerful Necromancer in known history.

It's a constant struggle for control between two very dominant personalities, and they thrive on it.

who’s more protective

They both have shades of this, even though they know the other can handle himself.

After the war is more or less over, and the affair is still going strong, Mevolent essentially assigns Vile to be his bodyguard. It's a good excuse to be together all the time, but Vile takes it seriously, and he's good at it. He's the one who warns Mevolent about Aby's assassination plot, and he also foils Serpine's bid for Mevolent's throne - he might have gotten the better of Mevolent alone, because he took him by surprise, but Mev and Vile fight as a team and cover each other's weak spots, so once Vile arrived, Serpine had to cut and run.

Mevolent is protective too, but he's less sensible about it. He sends Vengeous to investigate the draugar, even though Vile would've been the obvious choice - if nothing else, he has the ability to shadow-walk out of danger, which Mevolent would've known would be useful. But he sent Vengeous in blind, and took Vile to safety instead. On top of that, Vengeous is methodical and organised in a way Vile could never hope to match - he actually would've been more useful to Mevolent during a large-scale evacuation, just as Vile is perfect for one-man in-and-out recon missions. But keeping Vile safe was more important.

how long it is before they sleep together ( can be as in ‘had sex’ or as in ‘shared a bed’ )

Vile joins Mevolent in early 1854, they first have sex in late 1854 and first sleep together while Vile is recuperating in early 1855.

Mevolent marries Serafina in 1856, so their early years are full of drama.

if they argue about anything

"But really, do you think the gods will punish me for this [relationship]? Oh, stop laughing. I'm serious."

"Perhaps? How tragic. No Faceless heaven for you. Not that you'd enjoy it anyway. Nobody will fuck you once your face is all melted. You wouldn't cope."

"Do you have any idea how tempting it is sometimes to just have you executed?"

"Then nobody would be fucking you in this life either."

(They've been having this argument for 200 years.)

who leaves more marks ( lipstick, hickeys, scratchmarks etc. )

When they're really going at it, Mevolent tends to leave little finger-bruises where he's been holding Vile up or pinning his wrists. Vile is the one who leaves scratchmarks. And he actually bites - mostly Mevolent's bottom lip, when he's pissed off about something. Mev doesn't mind though - if they're in the mood for rough, they both enjoy a good power struggle.

On a soft day, it's just hickeys from both of them, but Mevolent also gives Vile several sigil tattoos, so (aside from the fact that they're invisible until they're used) he definitely leaves more marks.

who steals whose clothes and how often

Vile - mostly to doss around their rooms in when he can't be bothered to get dressed or they'll be fucking again shortly so there's no point. He also steals Mevolent's shirts and robes if he's injured - the good thing about having a partner so much bigger than you is that everything is baggy as hell. Perfect for hiding bandages or not chafing a healing wound.

how they cuddle ( spooning? facing each other? )

Vile's a burrower. He likes to get as close as he can, to steal as much body heat as possible, and bury his face in Mevolent's chest/neck/shoulder. It's a leftover thing from Serpine's dungeon - protecting his face while he snatches at sleep so he can't be woken by a sudden kick or punch to a vulnerable area. He's also that horrible gremlin partner who will use Mev's skin to warm his cold hands/nose/feet on.

Mevolent often absentmindedly plays with Vile's hair while he's waiting to fall asleep, just as something to do while he's thinking over anything he has to do the next day, etc. So he'll doze off with one hand tangled in the curls and the other resting on a hip or thigh or back.

what their favourite nonsexual activity is

They have A Lot in common. They're both big readers, they both like tactical games like chess, they spar together and teach each other battle tricks, they both like to ride, they both enjoy music and poetry and culture. They're also that couple who like to be antisocial together - Mevolent will get on with his paperwork at his desk, and Vile will be on the couch with a book, and they'll sit there in silence together for hours, just being companionable.

how long they stay mad at each other

Long enough for angry sex. That's usually how their fights get worked out.

what their usual coffee / tea orders are

Mevolent got a taste for green tea while he was campaigning overseas during the war, and still prefers it now. Vile drinks a bitter black atrocity, and anyone with sense won't speak to him until he's had at least one in the morning.

if they ever have any children together

I do have an AU where Mevolent decides he does actually want an heir, and they end up raising Caisson together - or rather, Mevolent raises Caisson dubiously assisted by Vengeous and Serpine, and Vile claims hs wants nothing to do with "the brat", but can't help sticking his nose in every five minutes because he has residual Dad Instincts and Mevolent is doing it wrong. Any family where Lord Vile is the responsible parent is probably not going to churn out a particularly well-adjusted child, though.

if they ever split up and / or get back together

Nope. They go into it as a casual thing, very much expecting it to fizzle out once one or both of them has had their fill. Two hundred years later, they're still together.

what their shared living space is like ( messy? clean? what kind of decor? )

A very grand, opulent goth baroque palace. Mevolent spent a lot of his youth in medieval France, and he was highly influenced by extravagant court style. He likes to be surrounded by beautiful things, and his home is no different.

(Yes, material wealth is a sin. No, he's not sorry.)

He likes rich, dark colours and fabrics, ornate furnishings and dark wood and disturbing religious artwork. He also indulges his own vanity every now and then by commissioning religious artwork of himself - including an exquisite stained glass window in the Great Hall, which Vile scoffs at for a year or so and then gleefully flings Abyssinia through.

Most of the day to day running of Mevolent's household is down to a small army of servants, which poses some problems for him early in his relationship with Vile. A maid will slip into his room early in the morning to light the fire so that the room has time to warm before he has to get up for morning prayers. Another servant delivers his breakfast, and for quite some time he has a valet who helps him dress. Any of them could see Vile in his bed and let the secret out.

Luckily for Mevolent, for all his faults, he's a good boss to work for. He knows all the servants he interacts with by name, and asks after their families. He's well-liked, and although the servants know about Vile a long time before Mevolent's inner circle, it's Serpine who spills the beans, not one of the workers.

if they have any ‘couple traditions’ ( buying a new mug for their collection every year? baking every friday evening? )

They have a rather warped version of a regular date night.

When Mevolent is interrogating Valkyrie, and she thinks she hears Skug coming to save her, three things are really notable:

1) Mevolent knows those footsteps too, and he smiles when he hears them. So not only is he happy to see Vile, this is probably something they do at least semi-regularly - interrogating interesting or high-profile prisoners together. Either Mevolent sent for him, or he knows Vile is too curious to not come look in on an interrogation.

2) The fuckin? Horny shadows? Mevolent has just died a violent death here, Necromancers are confirmed to be able to sense the lingering echoes of death and pain and anguish, and Vile's shadows are like mmmm tasty. This is where the headcanon comes from that he's rabid horny for recently-resurrected Mevolent. And Mev knows he does this, just soaks up all that energy, and he doesn't care. Love is letting your SO get a bit high on your agony vibes every day, I guess?

3) Vile comes to stand right beside the throne, without so much as a hello. This is...considerably more informal than the relationship Mevolent seems to have with Vengeous. In fact, for some reason Mevolent seems to treat Baron very unkindly in Leibniz - Vile is still very much a general and Mevolent's personal bodyguard, but Vengeous has been demoted to prison guard in all but name. When Mevolent starts investigating the draugar, he sends Vengeous into a situation that will very likely kill him, but takes Vile - the most powerful Necromancer alive and a living nuclear bomb of power - with him when he evacuates the city and flees for safety, even though the logical move would've been to reverse those assignments. Vengeous is clearly not personally close with Mevolent, but their synchronicity, constant proximity and the way others speak about them (like Serpine's lapdog comment) imply that Vile is.

This is actually the scene that made me start shipping them in the first place.

who falls asleep first and who wakes up first

Vile isn't a great sleeper - he has nightmares, and he'll often get up several times in the night for water or to go onto the balcony for fresh air or to quietly freak out in the bathroom for half an hour. But he sleeps better once he's sharing a bed with Mevolent. Mev generally runs hot, and he actually quite likes to be close, so he's A-OK with Vile burrowing into his side or under his arm and leeching all his body heat. When he's warm and feels safe, he has fewer nightmares, and he's more likely to get a decent amount of sleep.

Mevolent doesn't always wake first, but he does get up first: he goes to morning prayers, and leaves Vile to sleep in because he's a rotten little heretic.

who’s the big spoon / little spoon

Mevolent is the big spoon. Vile was freakishly tall for most of the centuries he's been alive - the average height of an enlisted soldier in the 16th/17th centuries was 5'5 - 5'6, and 25% of recruits were under the required height to use a musket (5'). So having someone he can sprawl out over who makes him feel small and protected is a novelty.

who hogs the bathroom

Vile. He has long-ass baths because he likes to nap in the warm water. He gets cold easily because he's technically dead and making his fake body thermoregulate takes focus he often just doesn't have, so he just sprawls out in a hot bath or in front of the fire like a fuckin lizard under a heat lamp

who kills the spiders / takes them outside

The servants. They live in a palace. There's an entire staff dedicated to cleaning and tidying and keeping the entire massive building shipshape. Neither of them have to lift a finger.