#a new proxy character or just a new character in general to obsess over would be SO GREAT RN

[creepy-blot]

We need more modern day creepypastas. 2024 creepypasta writers rise up, the fandom is starving. Feed us, woof woof bark bark/pos

[makoredeyes]

Keep it coming you say? 👀 I saw that tag! I'm ~quite~ bored, so here's a couple questions/whatever they're considered, lol.

Yes, flattery will get me very far here, indeed! To where? I do not know, but whatever, compliments! You deserve them. I'm rather sure my friends are tired of hearing me go on and on about destiny characters, ':)

How's your writing wip's going so far? I'm waiting very (im)patiently for any updates, I've totally not re-read everything forty-two times.. hope their all going well!

A little self indulgence here, but I like to think Andal Brask was the Hunter Vanguard when Osiris and Saint-14 were in, because.. come on, I'm rather sure the time frame adds up. I like to believe before, because their dynamic just seems really fun to me. Lots of great opportunities. (I partly blame that one fanart sylenth-l made of Andal and Osiris for this, it was really funny). What do you think their dynamic would be like?

What do you think it'd be like if the Iron Lords mysteriously came back alive? 👀 I'm talking, SIVA couldn't actually kill them because their ghosts hid in the light in their bodies, and SIVA only goes after non-organic materials right? Maybe it couldn't work it's way into the light, and as long as their ghost + light are intact, = alive. But *only* after the Warmind managed to get control over SIVA and free their physical bodies from harm? It's a thought I had, influenced by a few fics but I quite like the idea. Just imagine, a ghostless, lightless Osiris receiving word that maybe, they weren't as dead as he thought they were. Or Fel and Timur coming back only to realize what happened to Osiris?? Poor Sagira?? Learning lady Efrideet's alive? 👀 (Is that her name?)

Or perhaps, In this one fic, it's Timur and his special, take over your will little stunt he has, was keeping SIVA at bay, I think that's pretty neat too! So many possibilities! (If you were the one that wrote these, I hope you see this as a compliment cause I am not about to go dig through Ao3 to find them xD)

Either way, it'd be like a modern!au of the iron lords, for them at least, hah (I can just imagine Gheleon having a mental breakdown that their memorial involved fighting one another)

I can't really think of anything, but rest assured I will *probably* be back once I'm dome tormenting my poor boy Tevis

Ahaha yeesss YESSSS I feed me I'm such an attention whore lmao RIP XD. (fr tho bless you ;_; )

I am writing! There are longer gaps between posts rn because I have lots going on in my life, but also, because I am working on many fics at once. I counted the other day I have 26 WIPs but six I am actively working on in concert - three for Housefire that are all directly intermingled plot and timing-wise to the point where I'm not even entirely sure what order I'll be posting them in yet, another chapter for Things Found (I am trying to stay 2 chapters ahead with that to make sure I have a cohesive story for it), and two XXX stand-alone one-shots! I should fish out another teaser for everyone soon. I think it'll be one of the one-shots that makes it out next tbh they're the furthest along. But the naughty stuff is also the slowest to get written bc I yanno...can't write that stuff at work, etc. haha. But I've felt a new wind of motivation lately for writing and am picking away at these projects pretty regularly. <3

I'm going to admit I am not very well-read on the hunter squad in general, BUT iirc I believe Andal was Vanguard during the City Age. He was definitely around as I recall his presence in the comics. The problem with that time is that Osiris was largely absent. This was when the Cult of Osiris was gaining traction, and Osiris' obsession with the Darkness and the Vex was really heating up. He was neglecting his duties to the Vanguard (with Ikora often standing in as proxy for him) and he wasn't really paying attention to anyone else. Like. At all. There was a lot of unhappy tension even with Saint at that time. Andal, by all accounts, was a damn good fella though, and while I think just about everyone nettled Osiris, Andal also stuck up for him where he could. Even if Osiris couldn't appreciate that in the moment I'm sure he would come to later. I look at Osiris and see him as he is now, with some hard lessons learned and some hard losses under his belt, realizing a little too late some of the damn good souls he had in his court, Andal included. All of that said, 100% in a lighter, easier setting, a free-spirit like Andal (and/or Cayde...heaven forbid them both together!) would drive a stuffed shirt like Osiris up an absolute freaking wall with pure comical results, hands down.

(a side note, a brain storm, an insane thought that just poisoned my brain - a sweeter moment hidden from time: Andal's guitar and this gift of song Saint has hinted Osiris has....??????! I'm not melting it's just hot in here, right???)

As for Ironsbane and SIVA... I have INDEED put an awful lot of thought into this. Quite a lot. So much. I have my own ideas on ways to circumvent the disaster, O Reader Mine, but you're going to have to wait a while longer for me to write it. :3 (Housefire is, after all, ultimately, a fixit )

*but no SIVA attacks whatever it is programmed to, organic or not: and Rasputin set it on hundreds of Iron Lords and wiped them all out with the sole exception Efrideet and Saladin with the directives “REPLICATE, ELIMINATE, IMMUNIZE” it was not what SIVA was made to do but he deliberately repurposed it into a weapon. (I could go on for years about Rasputin and his darker epochs, but especially his misappropriation of SIVA lol)

** Your mention of Timur and his spooky skills DID remind me of another fic I need to get back to as well OTL TT_TT I still have requests I took in January I have yet to complete. At this rate it's going to take me all year to get them all done and by then I'll be taking more aahaha whuups.

[zargontari]

leans awkwardly against wall . why hello there

i don’t think (?) you’ve ever said anything about this, and i am very sorry if you HAVE said something about this, but what is this new TTTT species’ appearance like and/or what are they based on? stupid question but i’m stupidly obsessed with character design in general and would love to hear how you imagine the little blorbos! love your au as always c:

SO.

Let's talk about hothken.

A long, long, long time ago, two elder AI had a huge battle over a planet that was the home of a sentient species that "somehow" had slipped the radar. One genocidal AI, one protective AI, and the two sentinels that they brought to bear against one another.

As they fought their proxy war against killing machines they could only just control, too focused on each other to pay attention to the planet, one of the sentinels took a massive blow— sending a gigantic chunk of itself spinning at great speeds to impact the single, massive continent of the planet below. As it died, it made a final, desperate attack, and blew itself to hell, becoming briefly a new sun in the sky and killing not only the second sentinel, but the ship of one of the AI, and greatly damaging the other. One ship was blown into space; the other crashing into the ocean below.

The original species did not survive the attack that, in the end, was no longer about them, but the two AI that they had no knowledge of. Hundreds of years of infrastructure and millions of years of evolution became dust and ash; the continent forcibly separated and scattered in each directions by the blow that split it. The ocean, the largest known in any habitable world, rushed to fill in the gaps, becoming steam as the smoking wreckage burned. The sky blazed with the new sun. Anything on the surface levels of the oceans fried in an instant.

The battle lasted minutes, and killed quadrillions.

Now, we just give it a couple million years. Megaflora begins to spring up, stretching from beneath the waves. From the ruins of the great continent, new ecosystems have formed. Deep, deep beneath the waves, gigantic beasts roam the seas, unhindered by the last devastating attack, and allowed to grow.

But we're going to look a little higher up, within the root systems of massive trees not dissimilar to mangrove trees on earth.

Look at it;; (art by @batstabb)

This is a creature called an Ora; a pack-hunting, intelligent species that takes up the same space on the ecosystem's board as dolphins do in our world! With their head lights, they easily follow each other in the dark, as most animals in their ocean do not use sight to navigate.

This is what the Hothken evolve from! Primarily living in flotillas created mainly of lightweight rocks, wood and metals found in different parts of the world, they're still built for the sea, but they've become much more adapted to life on the land.

(our very own Joskia, as done by Rúe Moon on Twitter)

there's so much more I could ramble all day but alas, I have tired for now. Expect updates (a lot of lore has gone into these guys. Did you know that the second dead sentinel is in the planet's orbit, and passes behind their moons? And when it eclipses their sun, a kaleidescope of light hits the planet as the light shines through all the dead pieces? And that the thing's name is Carcass, because in their old religions they thought it was a dead god? That's pretty cool I think...)

Size wise, they're about five foot long (general rule) and eight feet long. They have slings to hold their tails up. If they leave the planet, they have to have environment suits because they can't stand the low humidity of other planets/ships. Their language mostly consists of clicks, whistles, and other tones like that.

[justforbooks]

CJ Sansom

Lawyer turned novelist who enjoyed huge success with his bestselling Shardlake historical mysteries

The novelist CJ Sansom, who has died aged 71, saw the dream of many aspiring writers come true when in mid-career he swapped a routine occupation for the life of a widely acclaimed, chart-topping novelist. By 2020, the former lawyer’s Shardlake historical mysteries had sold almost 4m copies. He built up a fan-base vast enough to guarantee that a new title would enter the UK bestseller charts at number one.

Sansom’s switch, however, was no lucky break but the fruit of deep thought, hard work and struggle against stiff odds. He overcame the blight of intense early suffering to create a much-loved series of novels conspicuous for their intelligence, integrity and humanity. An underlying idealism united the two, very different, halves of his professional life.

His debut novel Dissolution (2003) introduced the hunchbacked Tudor lawyer Matthew Shardlake, who investigates a death at a Sussex monastery menaced by the assault on England’s religious orders led by Henry VIII’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell. Over the next decade, further Shardlake titles appeared, and succeeded, at regular intervals: Dark Fire (2004), which won the Crime Writers’ Association award for historical fiction, Sovereign (2006), Revelation (2008), Heartstone (2010) and Lamentation (2014), with a plot set in the paranoid, heresy-hunting atmosphere of London during the final act of Henry VIII’s reign.

Set in London, Sussex, Norwich, Portsmouth and York, the books map not just the topographies but the mentalities of mid 16th-century England. They indirectly mirror, too, the political ferments of Sansom’s own age: Heartstone sees a spin-obsessed king unleash a disastrous foreign war. The seventh Shardlake novel, Tombland, its writing delayed by the author’s serious illness, appeared in 2018.

He claimed that the character of Shardlake, the Lincoln’s Inn lawyer disfigured from childhood, dropped into his head “fully formed”. Shardlake finds himself reluctantly immersed in the cruel and devious political intrigues of the 1530s and 40s. He remains a reflective outsider who seeks to help those bruised or crushed by the upheavals of an age of tumult. His disability gives him solidarity with outcast people.

In an interview, Sansom once spoke of the depression left by his early anguish as “the monkey on my back all my life”. The connection with his series hero could hardly be clearer.

Shardlake is both a man of his times – all the books rest on a bedrock of thorough, sometimes original, historical research – and a credible proxy for the 21st-century reader in the dogma-driven era of Henry VIII and his heirs. Sceptical, curious, free-thinking, he has sympathy with the Protestant reformers but feels alienated from the savage realpolitik practised by his patron, Cromwell.

Shardlake dwells in a sharply rendered, richly detailed Tudor England but stands outside it by virtue of his inquisitive, open-minded humanism. “I’m not saying a man like Shardlake did exist then,” Sansom commented, “but he could have, where even 20 years earlier he couldn’t.”

Born in Edinburgh, Chris was the son of a Scottish mother, Ann, and English father, Trevor, a naval engineer. An only child, he remembered his upbringing as Presbyterian, constrained and conservative (“with a small and a capital C”). Later, this private man who shunned attention-seeking gestures would nonetheless emerge as a vehement opponent of Scottish nationalism – part of his general distrust of any “politics based on national identity”, which he found “anti-rational, demagogic” and always destructive.

His Shardlake novels depict the dilemmas and ordeals that face a sensitive, compassionate man in a brutal and treacherous society. Sansom’s own, formative experience of persecution and survival under a despotic system took place at school. At the elite George Watson’s college in south Edinburgh, he endured sustained bullying that left him on the brink of suicide. Much later, he revealed that his “inattention” – which today might be diagnosed as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – had made him the scapegoat of “vicious” teachers and pupils alike.

He described his school-age self as “seriously mentally ill: completely isolated … consumed with rage, plagued by migraines and tormented by thoughts of suicide and burning down the school”. At the age of 15, he took a “massive” overdose of his mother’s sleeping pills. Despite, or perhaps because of, this teenage misery, he developed a profound interest in history, politics and the workings of state power that would fuel both wings of his career. While still young, he recalled, “I arrived in my head at a sort of radical, independent socialist position which … I’ve basically retained.”

Sansom’s harrowing schooldays led to a spell as a voluntary in-patient at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. “I think the staff there saved my life,” he remembered, “just as Watson’s almost destroyed it.”

At Birmingham University he studied history as an undergraduate, then stayed on to research a PhD on mid-century Labour party policy towards South Africa. Rather than continue with academia, however, he qualified as a solicitor and spent much of the 1980s and 90s devoted to legal aid work, seeking to help vulnerable people. Living in Brighton, he attended writers’ groups as a hobby but never considered literature as a means to earn his living.

In 2000, his father’s death left him with a small legacy. He decided, without much hope, to try his hand at full-time fiction, though allowed for the possibility that: “I would be back in the law within the year.”

To his surprise, Dissolution rapidly found an agent. Publishers bid eagerly for the title (with Pan Macmillan becoming his UK home). Inspired in part by Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, it reached two prize shortlists, and won over not only crime-fiction fans but a broad span of readers fascinated by the Tudor period and the distant mirror it holds up to our own fragmented times. Sansom had discovered, as he said, “how like the 20th century it was in its anxiety and uncertainty, even though people thought so differently then”.

Dissolution preceded Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall by six years in its portrayal of Cromwell and his circle – although Sansom’s chief minister is a much darker figure than Mantel’s. Among authors of historical mysteries set in medieval or early-modern England, he became a rare male luminary in a genre dominated by women, from pioneers such as Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter) to Sansom’s contemporaries, such as Susanna Gregory.

Over the next decade, the Shardlake titles became regular fixtures in the bestseller lists. Adapted versions for BBC Radio extended the books’ appeal, even though Sansom – who continued to live in Brighton – experienced more than a touch of imposter syndrome. “I still half expect to wake up in a meeting about the latest legal aid forms,” he once said.

His mass-market popularity won him some unlikely fans. Shortly before she resigned in 2019, the then prime minister Theresa May bizarrely inaugurated a miniature library (housed in a redundant phone box) in her constituency by donating her copy of one of Sansom’s books. No figure, and no event, could have been worse suited to a writer who believed in a properly-funded public sector and detested the politics of nationalism and xenophobia.

Sansom’s two non-Tudor novels proved the breadth of his talent: Winter in Madrid (2006), with its accomplished depiction of a captive nation, set in the Spanish capital during the gloomy aftermath of Franco’s victory in the civil war, and the remarkable Dominion (2012), which reanimates the hackneyed genre of counterfactual history with its chillingly believable account of Britain as a satellite state of Nazi Germany in 1952. “Given the right circumstances fascism can infest any country,” a character in Dominion remarks.

That novel presents Scottish nationalists as accomplices of fascism and ends with an afterword that excoriates the policies of the (actual) Scottish National party. In all Sansom’s books, history’s convulsions test thinking people who try to stay decent and honest in tough times. He acknowledged that he had “found myself particularly drawn to the moral dilemmas the literate classes often find themselves in at times of ideological conflict – whether Reformation England or the second world war”.

In 2012, Sansom was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable bone-marrow cancer, and began to receive chemotherapy. Lamentation followed two years later, but medical treatment inevitably slowed his pace of work.

Yet the voluminous Tombland, published in 2018, proved one of the most richly imagined and researched of all his Tudor mysteries. Shardlake is caught up in the wave of rebellions that shake the realm of the boy-king Edward VI in 1549: “A colossal event that has been much underplayed”, in the author’s words. The typically scholarly essay attached to the book framed this emphasis on poor and marginal people as an overdue antidote to “the ‘royalisation’ of popular Tudor history”.

Sansom lived quietly in Brighton, on his own, and worked with a fierce dedication. Illness put a brake on his output but never doused his determination. He avoided the limelight, and once listed among his pet hates Facebook, Twitter and Christmas – as well as the “really ridiculous” television series, The Tudors.

In 2023 Sovereign, the third Shardlake novel, was staged by York Theatre Royal as a large-scale community production at King’s Manor, York, where much of the novel is set. A four-part television adaptation, Shardlake, directed by Justin Chadwick with Arthur Hughes as the eponymous lawyer and Sean Bean as Cromwell, is due to be screened on Disney+ this week.

A good man in trying times, his Shardlake became a firm friend to countless admirers. Erudite but approachable, his creator spoke engagingly about his work in a voice that bore soft traces of an Edinburgh upbringing. Above all, the one-time solicitor ceased never to explore the meaning of justice – or to tell timeless truths about power and its victims.

🔔 Christopher John Sansom, novelist and lawyer, born 9 December 1952; died 27 April 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[calamitaswrath]

Cal Lucia plays Fire Emblem Path of Radiance: Chapter 13

Not much of a lead-in for this chapter, huh? I'm just plopped right into my pre-chapter preparations. But then again, since in previous cases that was always accompanied by a change in location, and we're still very much on a boat, I suppose that makes sense. Let's start with Jill!

"Why are you still here?" - Blunt, Ike. Blunt. And calling soldiers stupid, too! Reminds me of that one post that's like "everyone who died for their country is a clown". It does make me wonder why exactly Jill really is still with us, though. The basic interesting is obvious, but where does it come from, and why is it enough?

Conversation with Daniel, about the best means to defend on a ship map. Very subtle, game. And they're playing an in-universe war game? Fire Emblem-ception?

Aimee continues to simp for Ike. The game really does make a running gag out of him not caring for women romantically or sexually, huh?

Sibling interactions between Oscar, Boyd and Rolf!! Those are always fun. Judging by the fact that it was a three star one, I thought that it would actually lead to something, but I haven't noticed anything yet. Do they get their own triangle attack now, or. . .?

Right, time to start the actual chapter. And we get more worldbuilding! Begnion's got an empress, Crimea and Daein used to be part of it, and we seriously gotta wonder why they want to see Elincia in the first place

Tanith. . . woag. . .

Hmm, we got a high priestess? The only context in which I've heard of priestesses in the context of PoR/RD is with Micaiah's classes, but I really don't think that she's going to make an actual appearance here yet

Heyy, Gatrie's back! And he got himself a new job. Have to wonder about that other character, though. . . her name in the German version is Stella, but I don't think that's gonna be the same in English. And after looking that up, her English name is Astrid. . . okay? Seems to be another instance of the German version carrying over the Japanese name.

Ohoho, defend map! And one with a lot of chests, too. Gimme gimme gimme!

Ah, there's Nasaela. Based on these early vibes, I can already somewhat understand my friend's obsession. I am curious though why the king of an entire nation is out here making deals with rather lowly soldiers for money like this. Is his country not doing well financially speaking?

Ergh, as I'm playing through this map, I'm beginning to realize that I really don't have the turns to actually get all the items with just Sothe. I think I'll need to restart and hand everyone chest keys. . . lovely.

Well, that second attempt went a lot better in general. I got all the enemies on the upper ship, including the boss, by just turn five! Let's see what else is gonna happen on this map.

Ah, so that other character flying near Nasaela is. . . well, a character. Kinda funny to see an old winged man like that. And pfft, he Nasaela doesn't like being called. . . what would it be in English? Hatchling?

Tibarn and Janaff. I would say these two have the look of playable characters to them.

Hold on, Tibarn's a king as well? Do the bird Laguz have multiple kingdoms? So far, I was under the impression that they only got the one. . .

This lot really was just there to show that they're there, huh?

. . .And I left the defend point unguarded on accident. I thought the enemy ravens would make a beeline for the treasure, NOT that point. Guess that's my first game over!

Jesus fucking christ, my luck on this second attempt was terrible. Astrid missed a ~90% to hit twice, Rolf also missed one, I took longer to beat the boss. . . but at least I managed to still turn things around in the end. Still just absolutely stucks about Astrid though, because she did get a lot more kills, and by proxy, exp, the first time around.

Sigrun! I heard the name before, but I don't have any associations. With Sanaki however, there are some half-remembered tidbits there. I think she's related to Micaiah somehow?

Ah. So the high priestess is the empress as well. Then why even make a distinction in introducing her?

Ike and Soren having a little heart-to-heart! That's nice.

Sanaki's found, and Ike really can be rather thick at times. . . let's see where that leads him

It gets him invited to court, is what it does. Fair enough.

[eden-regained]

The "Creepypasta Cinematic Universe" Characters if you will would work uncannily well in a Changeling: the Lost campaign in both themes and overall tone. Cringe, I know, but hear me out.

Slenderman is one of the True Fae. His domain resembles deep, dark woods with a great mansion (albeit a disheveled one, don't judge him) in a clearing basked in eternal twilight. He takes highly vulnerable children and teenagers through the hedge to make them his sons and daughters, hoping they'll stay with him. His hospitality and kindess would be so warm and pleasant weren't it for the fact that he warps all of his victims with his Arcadian might to the point they're near unrecognizable for selfish reasons.

The number of titles Slenderman holds can be identified by the amount of shadowy tentacles that always seem to slip through no matter the for he takes on (his preferred embodiments are Actor and Realm). They are many for he is ancient, wise and thus; powerful.

His "Proxies" are split into the "Frontline" and the "Guard", both meant to aid him in his quest for power over lesser faeries. The Frontline are the warriors made for direct offense, they raid other keepers and their unfortunate Changelings all while generally scouting out the depths of Arcadia. The Guard is the defense, they shield their keeper directly, going on a "cleansing spree" when someone uninvited treads on mansion grounds, on top of that they maintain a more ordinary lifestyle with their captor.

Members of the Frontline:

-BEN (Darkling Seeming, Gravewight/Water-Dweller dual-Kith) may not look like a proficient fighter, and to be honest he really isn't, but he doesn't have to be. BEN is a spy and he ambushes unsuspecting Changelings by either lunging at them from convenient watery depths or by seeping into their domains with his ghost-like forms as if he were no more than a light breeze. BEN has never had a fetch made to replace him and with Slenderman telling him that his family just presumes him dead, he's not developed the desire to escape in any way, though that may change soon.

-Clockwork (Wizened Seeming, Soldier/Chirurgeon dual-Kith) is a jack of all trades; both a quick-witted blade wielder and pinpoint-accurate healer. She's cold and has a crippling obsession with time and counting to the point she removed one of her own eyes to replace it with a clock-face so she can hear every second echoing by within her skull. Lucky for her this affinity for timetelling makes her remember the world outside the hedge in bits and pieces until this nagging feeling of so much wasted time compells her to claw her way back out through the hedge, although she understandibly has no desire to reclaim her family life.

-Ticcy-Toby (Ogre Seeming, Stonebones Kith); dang, that kid sure can grind a gristle and he's not even a Gristlegrinder!! Toby was born without the capability of experiencing physical pain, a trait that Slenderman cranks up to 11 by giving him the ability to actually turn his skin to stone. When all else fails, BEN and Clockwork will just yeet him at the problem. What can I say, it's usually a rock solid plan. He's the second one to abandon Arcadia as he misses Clockwork, wondering where she possibly could've ran off to.

Members of the Guard:

-Jeff (Fairest Seeming, Flowering/Mirrorskin dual-Kith) already had little of his own identity back in the mortal realm. His parents truly adored him in their own twisted, deluded way, they wanted the whole wide world to marvel at his beauty. And so, he became a pageant boy (yes, I'm including my own AU bc I can!) and he had this oh so radiant smile plastered on his face all day, every day. Once Slenderman "saved" the poor kid, Jeff was so burned out he genuinely could no longer smile and he had those tired bags under his eyes. His new "father" wanted him to look happy. Very, very happy and thus he carved him a permanent smile, bleached the blemishes out of his skin and burnt his eyelids off, and no, the permanent flower crowns on his head do not make his scars any less heartwrenching to behold. But there's hope for Jeff. Liu, his younger brother, once promised him he'd find him no matter how hard the search, and that he'd rescue Jeff from anyone and anything. As a fae-touched human, Liu can do what most mortals can't; rescue the loved one he's lost to the True Fae.

-Smile Dog (Beast Seeming, Hunterheart/Antiquarian dual-Kith) is, to put it bluntly, shit outta luck. While all the other Proxies still somewhat resemble the human form in both body and mind, Smile Dog appears completely animal like, save for their offputting human teeth and, atleast for a pet, above average cognitive functions. The other kids know next to nothing about them; no age, no gender, no time of durance, though it is somewhat known that they're one of the first abductee Slenderman has acquired. Smile Dog's job is simple but delicate: watch over the dungeon library of old lore collected by the Fae over millenia.

(Overall, Slenderman always gave me those fairfolk vibes and I simply couldn't let this figment of my sleep-deprived imagination rest)

[sepublic]

Kikimora’s Motives?

            I wonder if Kikimora is motivated to access Belos’ secrets, and that’s why she hates Hunter and tries to kill him?

         Like, it’s obvious that Belos has a LOT of secrets and all sorts of weird, hidden knowledge… Kikimora could be like other characters in that she’s extremely fascinated and curious with magic, and/or powerhungry, so it makes sense that her obsession to learn more would drive her to latch onto the Emperor- The mysterious Emperor, with his inexplicable abilities and skills, who can hear what the Titan has to teach!

         That might be why Kikimora prizes herself and wants to be Belos’ confidant so much… She wants in on the secrets, she wants to learn more- And someone like Hunter gets in the way of that. Kikimora knows that Belos isn’t invincible nor infallible, he’s struggling and needs help, he can’t do this on his own and needs a person he can trust with most of everything…

         So, Kikimora offers herself up- To take advantage of this closeness and trust by Belos, by someone who has no choice but to rely on and trust someone with that… And that’s what she does, for a few decades! Belos needs people to help him with things, his most personal rituals and whatnot… So he needs Kikimora, and by her involvement, she inevitably finds out a LOT of things!

         Belos may or may not be aware of Kikimora’s desires, and he might tolerate it simply because he needs someone to help him, anyhow… And Kikimora doesn’t seem interested in betraying him anytime soon necessarily, just being that confidant by his side, who can access Belos’ knowledge and plans as a requirement for her role. But, maybe Belos was wary of Kikimora, which would then influence a later decision in life…

         And so in comes Hunter! This young brat, who lived at least a few years before being ‘found’ by Belos… So it’s even less than sixteen years ago, when the Golden Guard came into the picture and usurped everything! For decades, Kikimora has been faithfully acting as Belos’ right-hand witch, she’s schemed and fought and worked to achieve this, those precious secrets, she’s acted as the Emperor’s proxy for him in public!

         And this is how he thanks her- By replacing Kikimora with Hunter, this little brat? This nephew, who showed up out of nowhere, because why now, why now does Belos suddenly fall back on this elusive family that he ignored for so long as Emperor? Maybe Kikimora knows the real reason as part of her aforementioned understanding of a lot of things…

         But with Hunter, with Hunter as a kid who feels dependent upon Belos, whose entire life is revolving around pleasing his uncle because he actually cares for him, unconditionally… Hunter is more useful and trustworthy as a secretkeeper and a proxy, then. Hunter knows nothing else and seemingly has no desires of his own, he feels obligated to take care of his last family member- So Belos won’t have to worry about Hunter rebelling, he won’t have to worry about Hunter using his position to find forbidden knowledge.

         And even if Hunter DID do so, it’d at least be for Belos’ sake, not his own… So, Belos replaces Kikimora with Hunter. Kiki still does her normal duties and legislation, but when it comes to personally caring for Belos? Being trusted by him, being privy to his deepest, darkest moments of vulnerability? Hunter gets in on that, too… That ruins the pride and prestige for Kikimora, as the ONLY one Belos trusts…

         But now, Hunter isn’t just with her here- He’s completely replaced her! Hunter is leaving Kikimora out, because he doesn’t trust this gremlin despite her decades of actual experience and willing, ruthless murder for Belos… Because Hunter is ‘family’, so obviously that means more!

         And Kikimora is resentful… Hunter doesn’t see Kikimora as truly in it for Belos’ sake, so it’s better to keep her out of the picture, now that someone better-suited for the job is here. And Kikimora, she’s angered by that- She found pride in being the only person that the invincible Emperor could, and HAD to be vulnerable around...

         It gave her a certain power, a special superiority- To know that she’d seen Belos at his lowest, and he had to trust and need her for this! So even if it’s not a literal position of power at the top, in a way… Kikimora feels above even Belos, as someone whose health isn’t deteriorating, as someone he’s dependent upon, as someone who takes care of him- And she derives plenty of power from that realization.

         Having Hunter come in, taking that special power, that prestigious role away… Taking away Kikimora’s power over Belos, the most skilled witch of all- That displaces Kikimora and knocks her down at least two pegs. And, because Belos has found a new confidant, he doesn’t need to let Kiki in on his later plans and ideas anymore… Effectively barring Kikimora from the knowledge she so craves and desires.

         Does Belos not care for Hunter at all, and does Kikimora recognize this? Or at least, understandably believe the Emperor doesn’t care… She overheard everything that went on, so it’s likely that Kikimora is aware of Belos’ physical abuse. That’d motivate her to believe that Hunter isn’t TRULY important to Belos, he isn’t really attached… Meaning there’s less risk and repercussion in being found out, if Kikimora had Hunter killed.

         And then Hunting Palismen occurs as we know it- Belos is vulnerable, he needs to let someone in on this moment of dependency, this deep and dark secret… And Kikimora instinctively goes along out of the habit of decades, only to be rudely reminded when Hunter makes it clear that Belos no longer needs her for that, that Kiki can no longer have this kind of leverage over the Emperor in a sense, of being needed by him- Of Belos having no choice but to let someone else see him, and know his weakness.

         Kikimora hates that… She likes lording power over others, like when she taunts Lilith- And she likes having information and dirt on others. She likes that sensation of leverage, of knowing something that others don’t, something a person is trying to hide. Kikimora likes to snoop around and know people’s secrets, and wave that in front of them in her arrogance- She’s a little gremlin who controls a huge and powerful dragon, Kikimora potentially has a Napoleon Complex like King… So she compensates through knowledge and other forms of leverage.

         Kiki likes to feel better than people, to have her thumb over beings that should theoretically outclass her- Lilith, her pet, Hunter, even Emperor Belos himself! And Hunter is an outlier she can’t control, someone she doesn’t really know, who just sort of showed up out of nowhere- So out he goes! And now Kikimora knows that Hunter was the one who sabotaged her Palisman delivery, and Hunter doesn’t realize that…

         Hunter might have his own dirt on Kikimora, he can confirm that Kiki’s Handragon attacked him, it’s no secret that it belongs to her! That could land Kikimora into trouble, but presumably out of his innate mercy and chivalry, Hunter doesn’t tell this to Belos… But still. With how her eye narrows and its pupil shrinks, you can tell Kikimora is up to something- And she plans to weaponized it, no doubt… Because she likes having things as insurance in general.

         So if Hunter tries to put her back in line by threatening to reveal her assassination attempt by Belos, who knows? Kikimora might reveal her own hidden ace in the sleeve… And that’ll put the two at a tense stand-still as they try to figure each other out, and navigate. Hunter sees himself as protecting his uncle AND himself, now- And Kikimora is trying to defend her power and sense of control, at being relied upon and needed by others, because she’s needy that way.

         As for Belos? Maybe he thinks the competition encourages ‘growth’, he sure likes pitting witches against each other, after all- Hence competition to join his coven. Maybe he’s secretly aware and is amused by it… Maybe he was actually the one who put Kikimora up to the task after all, to ‘test’ his nephew and his resolve and power! Maybe Belos and Kiki are mutually aware of their own selfish desires…

         But because they need each other for that desire, because Kikimora prefers the subtle power of being Belos’ confidant –openly being the Emperor would paint a big target on HER back- they can sort of, weirdly, trust each other… Trust the other to act in their own self-interest, which includes their own benefit;

         So while they’d gladly sell the other out for a corn chip if the opportunity came up, Belos and Kikimora know it probably won’t ever, so they’re content in their little adversarial alliance! They can count on the other to serve their self-interests, which includes one another out of necessity in the end.

         It really is nothing personal, so they don’t take it that way- Belos is using Kikimora, Kikimora is using Belos! But with the Day of Unity, with the ‘Titan’ having plans for Hunter… Well, if Hunter is already here and truly loyal, why not make use of him instead? Belos is cracking down on loose threads and preparing for a merging of worlds, there’s a pivotal moment approaching- So he should play it safe and confront the liability that is Kikimora’s self-interest.

         With the likelihood of Hunter betraying Belos and siding with the protagonists, for his own gain, or possibly being rejected by his uncle for petty reasons… Who knows? Maybe we’ll see Hunter demoted but still kept around for whatever plans that the ‘Titan’ has, and Kikimora? Depending on how things turn out, she’ll carefully watch and play her cards, for the right opportunity, and hitchhike off of whatever happens for herself!

         She might not have to do much at all, really- Belos might just get rid of Hunter for her, after all! Because Hunter might care, but he’s fettered by the morality that forms the foundation of his concern… And THAT might be the bigger liability after all, unlike Kikimora’s lack of morals. So Belos might recognize that this is playing into what she wants, but so what? She’s more useful to him anyway, and Kiki recognizes this vice-versa and goes along. It’s nothing personal in the end, so it doesn’t hurt to be well-mannered with one another in the mean time, when things are still good.

        Maybe Belos and Kikimora will even come to a mutual understanding in regards to their suspicions of Hunter… And THAT will bring back that power and special privilege of being a secret-keeper, that Kiki always wanted! Especially with her knowledge on Hunter being the one who fought her, and the possibility of his palisman being discovered. Kikimora and Hunter have their pro’s and con’s, so Belos has to figure out which is best for him in the end, and Kiki seems more aware of and involved in the competition than Hunter anyway- So points for actually trying!

        In Slavic mythology, Kikimora are house demons that can enter through keyholes. Maybe listening at keyholes or going through them plays into Kiki’s desire and ability to eavesdrop on others, unnoticed- And in a scene where she DOES eavesdrop on Belos and Hunter, the doors to his throne room have no keyholes. Which, they originally did in Agony of a Witch, which makes me wonder if Belos is wizening up to Kikimora.

        She does seem inquisitive when it comes to Lilith’s bias towards Eda, so what with catching her off guard, and Kikimora might be the kind of person who has a tendency to stick her nose in things and snoop around, much to the detriment and annoyance of others- And she resents being left out as a result. I guess it’s like King’s feelings of abandonment, except way more sinister.

[scope-dogg]

Long post about Mass Effect below

I noticed that there’s a big mass effect trilogy remaster coming out and it just made me think back on how badly the ball was dropped with that series. When the first game came out it immediately became perhaps my favourite game of all time, it was the kind of game where I was tearing up at the ending and then immediately started up a new playthrough the instant the credits got done rolling. The game was extremely jank and rough around the edges and it ran like total shit on the 360, but I loved it anyway because I fell in love with the lore of the universe, the characters and the story. It was one of those games where I’d play it in the most obsessively completionist manner possible, doing every singe sidequest possible, talking to every character on the ship after every mission, browsing the ingame codex for hours on end and dosing up on lore. When it was confirmed that Mass Effect 2 was in development I had such high hopes, of course I wanted to see the gameplay tightened up and the technical side of things improved, but more than that I just wanted to see more of the universe, get more of the universe to explore and learn more about it, and I was especially excited at the possibility that the choices I’d made, especially the massive ones in regards to the council at the end of ME1, would carry forward and really shake up the way the fate of the universe would pan out in the long term.

When the game finally came out, I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t really what I was hoping for. While the combat was much improved over ME1, I couldn’t help but feel like everything else was pared back too much - like, levelling and loot in ME1 weren’t all that well done but I was still really disappointed to see how they were all but stripped out in the sequel. I especially hated how crap sidequests on uncharted worlds were, they were basically just short combat sections with almost nothing in the way of meaningful dialogue or choices to make. Like, don’t get me wrong, uncharted worlds in ME1 felt like the maps were procedurally generated and the Mako had wacky controls, but they still managed to pull off the right atmosphere of going to these dangerous and remote places on alien worlds, and there was some legitimately intriguing stuff going on in some of those sidequests, and it was honestly a little infuriating to see all that basically get the axe entirely instead of getting some polish. I also just felt like the additions to the lore and story were disappointing. I was excited to find out about how society in the Terminus systems was different from Citadel space and meet some new alien races, but that didn’t really happen - I guess they tried with Omega, but that just felt like a mildly edgier version of the Citadel. The only new alien race aside from the Collectors they introduced were the Vorcha and I guess the Batarians if you didn’t play the DLC for ME1, but neither ended up being all that interesting. People remember ME2′s story fondly because of the characters, and I agree that the characters are great, Legion and Mordin especially stand out though all of your squadmates and major supporting characters on the ship are great (except maybe Jacob I guess) as are each of their accompanying stories that get resolved through their loyalty missions, but I think that the actual core plot of ME2 isn’t good at all. The whole thing about you dying and coming back to life seems like it was done just to have the excuse of having a timeskip happen, and I never felt particularly compelled by the Illusive Man or Cerberus as a faction - they were in a sidequest chain in ME1 technically but I still felt like they kind of came out of nowhere and never really fit into the grand scheme of things properly - there’s nothing that they really enable Shepard to do differently that wouldn’t have already been justified by you being a Spectre. The revelations about the Collectors and ultimately what they were doing with the colonists they were kidnapping felt really stupid and pointless apart from giving you an excuse to have a really cheesy and out-of-place final boss. The final mission was only exciting because of the tension of potentially losing one or more of your squadmates than because of what the actual consquences of failure for the galaxy were if you failed. There was no compelling antagonist to square off against like Saren in ME1, and ultimately the whole thing felt kind of pointless - it wasn’t until later after the trilogy was done that I realised that you could take ME2 out of the equation entirely and it wouldn’t make that much difference, but even in those moments as the credits were rolling after I beat the game for the first time, I was struggling to make up my mind about whether I’d actually enjoyed the game or not. I mean, it wasn’t like the game was bad or anything but I was thinking more about the opportunities that they missed rather than the good things they added. I was really missing that sense of discovery and exploring an alien galaxy that the first game had and got left by the wayside for the second. I did start up a new playthrough after that like I did with ME1 but IIRC I didn’t bother finishing that playthrough.

Then along came ME3. Everything about that game is depressing. The whole path of the plot and just the unrelenting apocalyptic tone of the game in general feels like it’s actively punishing you if you actually like the setting, characters, lore and so on and so forth. I know a lot of people like the Citadel DLC that they released because it lightened the tone a bit, but even with that I find it hard to set aside the fact that the universe is literally ending while you’re trying to take a break from it all with how hard the rest of the game beats you over the head with it. How bad the endings were even with the “fix” DLC that got added is a horse that’s been thoroughly beaten to death by now, but it’s not just the endings either. I already didn’t like the Illusive Man or Cerberus and had a hard time buying them as an organisation with the kind of reach and pull they had as portrayed in ME2, but seeing them turn into the Hellghast in ME3 not only betrays that portrayal of them as an org that works through subterfuge but also stretches my disbelief beyond breaking point, plus it brings you into contact with Kai Leng who has to be up there as one of the most obnoxious rival characters in any videogame ever. Otherwise, it did a few things that ME2 did slightly better and some things slightly worse, and didn’t really do anything to recapture the stuff that made ME1 so memorable to me that ME2 skipped out on. And then there was the way that Javik, the game’s most interesting new squadmate by far, was preorder DLC, and then there was the multiplayer that you were kinda forced into playing if you wanted the best ending in the singleplayer (for all the difference that made) and was riddled with lootbox microtransactions (the first major implementation of that in a AAA game IIRC.) The coup de grace for me was when dipshit vidya journalists circled the wagons around Bioware and were taking a dump on angry and disappointed fans who were demanding a change to the ending. Like, looking back I think there was a lot of histrionics involved with that from the fanbase, and let’s just say that the Bioware fanbase has earned a reputation for being particularly turbulent, but even so I really couldn’t stand the attitude that they were taking and it made me hate the game itself by proxy that much more. (I honestly think that entire saga set the stage for Gamergate two years later.)

Eventually when ME Andromeda ended up being a stillborn flop, it didn’t even really move the needle for me that much because ME3 had already set the bar so low. Worse though is that the first game was retrospectively ruined for me. Like I said earlier, I was a hyperfan for that game when it came out, but now I can’t go back to it without thinking about the disappointments that followed it, and its flaws stand out extra hard now. After I beat it for the first time it was my number 1, now I’m not sure it’s in the top 10. There’s probably the added factor that I played it to death and know it almost off by heart which takes the shine away, but that’s also the case for some of my other all-time favourites like Metroid Prime 1 and 2, Ace Combat 2, or Command and Conquer Red Alert 2, but those never really dropped in my estimation the way Mass Effect did. Honestly to this day I’m still waiting for someone to do another star-hopping sci-fi RPG in the same vein as Mass Effect and to pull it off well, because at this point I’m all but certain that it’s not going to be Bioware that does it, not with the new one they’ve got coming in the works or the trilogy remaster.

[joannalannister]

Anonymous asked:

Hey there, Lauren! I love your blog and metas! I have a question for you, in terms of the book, could you tell me when and where Daenerys shows signs of being a tyrant or a fascist? I see lots of metas say that she is, but from what I've read, I don't see any signs of that? Sure, she kills her enemies, but what powerful monarch doesn't? I just feel like the fandom has a very biased and double standard hatred when it comes to her, and I would like your opinion! Thank you!

Before I answer your question, we need some sort of working definition of fascism. To achieve this, I would like to quote a disabled person who helped lead the fight against fascism for years, and who died in the line of duty:

Over a year and a half ago I said this [...]: "The militarists in Berlin, and Rome and Tokyo started this war, but the massed angered forces of common humanity will finish it."

Today that prophecy is in the process of being fulfilled. The massed, angered forces of common humanity are on the march. They are going forward [...] 

We will have no truck with Fascism in any way, in any shape or manner. We will permit no vestige of Fascism to remain. [...]

In every country conquered by the Nazis and the Fascists, or the Japanese militarists, the people have been reduced to the status of slaves or chattels.

It is our determination to restore these conquered peoples to the dignity of human beings, masters of their own fate, entitled to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

We have started to make good on that promise. I am sorry if I step on the toes of those Americans who, playing party politics at home, call that kind of foreign policy “crazy altruism” and “starry-eyed dreaming.”

--President Franklin D. Roosevelt, July 28th, 1943 Fireside Chat

What did the fascist Nazi Party stand for in WWII?

Historically, there was no Nazi Party apart from their racial and social agenda. It was a party founded on racial distinctions, with a vision to dramatically transform their society. The Nazis disliked and persecuted anyone who they did not consider Aryan. They persecuted and killed Jewish people, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and communists, and they wanted to eliminate people with mental or physical ailments. The Nazis pushed women out of the workplace and actively promoted patriarchy. [x]

But where does GRRM come into this?

I wasn’t a complete pacifist; I couldn’t claim to be that. I was what they called an objector to a particular war. I would have been glad to fight in World War II. But Vietnam was the only war on the menu. [x]

GRRM’s ethical views are at their clearest and most concise while discussing slavery and dehumanization in his (most excellent and highly recommended) vampire novel, Fevre Dream:

I never held much with slavery […]. You can’t just go… usin’ another kind of people, like they wasn’t people at all. Know what I mean? Got to end, sooner or later. Better if it ends peaceful, but it’s got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see? Maybe that’s what them abolitionists been sayin’ all along. You try to be reasonable, that’s only right, but if it don’t work, you got to be ready. Some things is just wrong. They got to be ended.

Some things are worth fighting for. Fascism requires opposition, some form of opposition, or it will steamroller all over you. 

My regret now is not that I stayed my arm, but that I remained aloof in my window while others protested peacefully outside. It would be naïve to think that those marching in neo-Nazi parades could have a change of heart from such efforts, but I am more concerned with those who are not marching for anything. We must convince the apathetic to care, and stop those who are walking down the path of hatred before it becomes too late.

--David Olin, The View from My Window, Berkeley 2018, written for the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity 

Now, let me apply this to ASOIAF piece by piece. 

In every country conquered [...] the people have been reduced to the status of slaves or chattels.

This is Tywin. This is Tywin enslaving people as part of his militaristic campaign of aggressive force in the Riverlands. This is Tywin sanctioning the capture and torture of innocent people. This is Tywin “using” other kinds of people and disregarding the fact that they are human beings. This is Tywin enslaving Arya Stark. This is Tywin impressing people to work in his gold mines on a whim, as we learn in AGOT. This is Tywin reducing people to the status of slaves or chattels. This is Tywin. 

I don’t know how many different ways I can say it, but as I’ve said before and will say again: Tywin is the character in the ASOIAF books who most prominently espouses fascist ideology. 

There are other characters in the main series -- Roose Bolton and Randyll Tarly, for example -- who also exhibit characteristics of fascist ideology, but I would argue that it is Tywin who is the fascist poster boy of ASOIAF ... and it is also Tywin who is one of the main villains who is drawing humanity’s attention south away from the true threat of the Others, who wish to turn every living thing into their slaves and playthings. (Littlefinger also comes to mind.) Tywin is an unwitting general in the Others’ army. Tywin is fighting the Others’ Campaign of Dehumanization on their behalf. 

The Nazis disliked and persecuted anyone who they did not consider Aryan. 

Substitute “Aryan” for “Lannister” and this is Tywin. “a Lannister, and worth more.” It is Tywin who pushes an agenda of Lannister superiority and it is Tywin to whom non-Lannisters aren’t human, to the point that he had to marry his own cousin. He dislikes non-Lannisters so much he had to marry his own cousin!!!! It’s Tywin who passed down his obsession with blood purity to his children to the point that they literally have to fuck each other. It’s Tywin who puts his House (a proxy for his race) above the individuals in it; it’s Tywin who doesn’t care if Cersei and Jaime and Tyrion are ground to dust under his disgusting ideology as long as House Lannister reigns supreme. 

"Spice soldiers and cheese lords," his lord father called them, with contempt. 

This is Tywin. 

Non-Lannisters aren’t fully human to Tywin. This is fascist ideology!!!!

It was a party founded on racial distinctions

This is Tywin and Kevan, refusing to allow the Westerlings to marry into their family because of “doubtful blood”!!!!! (”Ser Kevan seldom had a thought that Lord Tywin had not had first.”) 

It was a party founded on racial distinctions

This is Tywin and his refusal to allow a betrothal between Jaime and Elia. 

they wanted to eliminate people with mental or physical ailments. 

This is Tywin and his hatred toward disabled Tyrion. This is Tywin and his refusal to allow a betrothal between Jaime and disabled Elia. 

The Nazis pushed women out of the workplace and actively promoted patriarchy.

This is Tywin. This is Randyll hating on Brienne of Tarth. (And you can bet your ass Tywin doesn’t approve of women with swords.) 

I don’t know how many ways I can say it: Tywin and others like him are the fascists. 

Tywin is one of the cold fucks the AGOT prologue warns us about in the very beginning: “the real enemy is the cold.” 

The central conflict of ASOIAF is between the living (the fire) and the dead (the cold), those who would recognize your humanity and those who won’t. 

It is our determination to restore these conquered peoples to the dignity of human beings, masters of their own fate

^^ This is Daenerys Targaryen ^^

Daenerys Targaryen is a freedom fighter who kills slavers in the books. 

Her breakup of the economic system of Essos (meaning SLAVERY) is more akin to a communist revolution than a fascist takeover imo. Daenerys associates herself with people of all races, all classes. She gives Missandei, who canonically has dark skin in the books, a place as one of her closest advisors. Unlike Tywin, Daenerys is not pushing an agenda of Targaryen superiority. 

Daenerys is not perfect. She does not always get it right. Daenerys has got some things wrong. But I don’t think there has been any other option for Daenerys. You ... you can’t just look the other way when evil men are crucifying children, and I truly do not think that non-violent opposition would change anything in Essos. “Better if it ends peaceful, but it’s got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see?” 

Sometimes innocents like Hazzea have died on Daenerys’s journey. 

And I fully believe that more people are going to die in TWOW, and that Daenerys will hold herself responsible, whether she is or not. I know that TWOW will give all the antis of every character a lot of ammunition. TWOW is going to be a dark and depressing book. 

I think that Daenerys is going to reach a very low point in TWOW, just as Tyrion is nose-diving in ADWD, but I think that’s just what GRRM does with his greatest heroes. It’s the moment in a movie when the hero falls off the cliff, and the Evil Villain starts cackling maniacally and you think all is lost, and then you see the hero’s hand reach up over the edge and the music crescendos as the hero pulls himself up. Except the real villains that GRRMs heroes are battling are themselves. The cliff is a metaphor for our darkest impulses. 

Characters tell Dany in AGOT that “she is nothing” but Dany’s story is about proving them wrong. It’s about her finding her own dignity and worth as a human being out on the Dothraki Sea, and becoming the master of her own fate. As her story progresses, she helps others to do the same, helping people to rediscover their dignity, to regain their names (or take new ones), to find the humanity that was stolen from them. 

(This is why it’s so important to me that her story intersect with zombie!Jon, so that she can help a dead man remember what it is to be human and remember why it all matters. Because if none of it matters ... if a man can’t find a fuck to give, well, that’s Tywin Lannister, who was a cold dead man long before Tyrion shot him.) 

I brought up FDR in the beginning of this post. Although FDR died before GRRM was born, he was one of the great American cultural figures of the 20th century and I have no doubt FDR’s legacy was a formative influence on GRRM. And that’s the thing - so many of these, these great American cultural figures of GRRM’s life died before their work was completed: FDR, JFK, MLK, so many others... The promised land is somewhere ahead of us, despite the opposition making accusations of “crazy altruism” and “starry-eyed dreaming.” No one is going to drive us there and drop us off; we have to get there by ourselves, and the journey isn’t an easy one. It’s a place we have to keep striving for, working for. A dream of spring...

It’s not Daenerys’s destiny, I think, to rule humanity in the long term; Dany’s destiny is, I think, to make sure that humanity doesn’t, well, lose their humanity. To make sure that humanity doesn’t fall into eldritch slavery.

The Others would make us automatons in their icy, inhuman regime. The Others would steam-roller all over humanity, and take away humanity’s freedom to choose, as Tywin Lannister tries to do to his children, trying to take all of their choices away and control them completely. The Others would take away our self-determination, our freedom to choose good or evil, our freedom to be the rulers of our own fate. 

I don’t think it’s Daenerys job to be a ruler in the end. I think she’s fighting evil now so that other people can keep fighting that good-and-evil “human heart in conflict with itself” fight long after she’s gone ... I’ve never believed in a “Targaryen restoration” ending although I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to it. 

Like Moses, Daenerys won’t lead us into the promised land ... we have to get there ourselves. 

And I’ve strayed from your question into a topic that’s more interesting to me because I cannot fucking belieeeeeeve that you are even asking me if the compassionate, caring, teenage-girl, sexual-abuse-survivor, messiah-figure Daenerys Targaryen is a fucking fascist when everything Daenerys “the fire is mine” Targaryen does is in narrative opposition to Certified Fucking Fascist Tywin Racist Lannister oh my god I cannot believe this is where we’ve come to as a fandom, I cannot fucking belieeeeeeve. 

Anon. Honey. Baby. I say this gently, with love: Whyyyyyyyyy are you reading “Daenerys is a fascist” metas? That didn’t even work on the show. 

When I googled “Daenerys Targaryen fascist” to try and figure out what you could possibly be reading to argue against it, the top result is an alt-right thinkpiece website about how dangerous Dany was all along in freeing slaves!!!! And the next results are people who think the iron throne actually matters when GRRM himself has said that the political war is a red herring. 

The endgame rulers don’t even particularly matter because what matters in the end is that humanity wins against the Others and we still have control over ourselves, what matters is for that human heart conflict to continue to exist inside ourselves and that we rule over that conflict inside ourselves. 

"We all must choose," she proclaimed.

Practice some self-care; go read Armageddon Rag, and remember this: TWOW is not going to save us. 

[dem-cp-hoes]

Sorry to bother you, but can you do some wholesome/cute head canons for the creepypastas please?

You're not bothering at all, no worries😊

Though I think these turned out to be general hc rather than cute but... 🤷‍♀️

---------------------------------------------------

Jeff:

I think it's pretty much canon that Jeff names his knives. Most people would think that he gives them badass names but nah...

His favorite is named Martha, no one else is allowed to touch her

There's also Kule, Austin and Annie, sometimes he talks to them (mostly about Liu)

No, you can't point it out/comment on it, it'll upset him

Smile is his best friend, Ben is jealous

His hair gets curly after a few days, which means he has to straighten it with an iron

He also puts his hair buns, or ponytails around the house (he looks good tbh)

^the reason he always has hair ties as well

He's either dead asleep or hasn't slept for 4 days straight, there's no in-between

Not a total asshole all the time, surprisingly

He doesn't make mean comments about things that hit too close to home

Like, sure he's gonna tease Toby for his ticks but he's never gonna mention his sister

He makes up his own curse words

He puts on chapstick, but no one knows

Everyone knows, they've seen him, Ben has a video

He talks during movies, questioning the logic and making comments about characters' decisions, nobody minds bc it's hilarious since everything he says is on point

He drinks the sweetest coffee with milk and 3 spoonfuls of sugar at least

Loves romantic movies, but he has a reputation

Has a small cactus in his room, it was a gift from Ben, he takes good care of it

Ben:

He has freckles!!! He has freckles everywhere!!! (sorry I got excited, I just love freckles) but bc of the whole dead/demon thing, you have to get close to him of you want to see them

Owns a lot of fandom themed hoodies and t-shirts

He can mimic a lot of cartoons' voices, including the jigglypuff song, it's quite impressive

He's very proud of it

Ben is a genius, since he's mostly attached to a computer he has access to anything the internet has to offer, so lots of knowledge

Sometimes he can answer like Alexa/Siri does if someone calls his name and asks something

The others think he can't control it and ask him things all the time

He absolutely can control it and only does it to fuck with them by giving them bullshit answers that sound legit

He collects action figures, what a dork

Has a hamster, his name is Picachu

He gets teased a lot over it, let him live pls

The others secretly love it tho

Loves to watch people argue through their cameras

He lives for the drama

"Ben what are u doing?" "I'm watching this couple in New Jersey, apparently Sharon cheated on Nick again, but this time with his sister!!!"

When he giggles/gets embarrassed his ears become bright red

Sits on the floor, sits on tables, sits on Jane, Slender is convinced he doesn't know what a chair is

Jack:

Any perfume with a very heavy scent makes him sneeze a lot

He refuses to believe he is hurt/sick

Jack, while being held down by all the proxies: Guys, I told you I'm fINE, I CAN WORK TODAY, JUST LET ME GO!!

He has a lot of animal mannerisms

Like licking someone he likes on the cheek, purring/growling, sniffing etc

Bruh, you scratch behind his ears or under his chin and his whole chest vibrates with purring

He tilts his head on the side when he's confused, like a dog

Loves scented candles, he has a bunch of them in his room

His favorite scent is lavender

He can in fact eat human food, it just can't sustain him all that well and anything that is not overly seasoned tastes bland

With that being said, he loves spicy food bc he can taste it properly

Jane screamed when she saw him eat an entire plate of ghost peppers with no milk

The jingle of keys makes his head turn sharply towards the sound, once again like a dog

He can fall asleep anywhere, and I mean anywhere

The porch? More than once

In another's room? Of course

In slender's office? That was quite an interesting thing to explain

In the middle of the kitchen? Yeah, once

He's just a sleepy boi

Jack is the one who knows everyone's ticklish spots bc gives check ups

Likes listening to audio books on his free time

Masky:

He drinks Irish coffee (for those of you who don't know, it has alcohol in it)

Once Masky called Slender dad (sleep deprived) and then proceeded to slam his head down on the table and say a bad word

Sally once made him a flower crown for his birthday

He refused to take it off for 5 hours!!

Won't sleep with less than 2 pillows

He considers his one True near death experience to be when he almost choked on one of Jane's fake eyelashes (long story)

He has mastered the 'disapproving face' game', even when he wears the mask, you can feel it's there

He's around Toby, what did you expect?

Doesn't trust giraffes ("why are they so fucking long????")

He has a very contagious laugh when he really laughs, even when he just grins

Can give the best hugs, hands down

Like you feel so warm and protected when he hugs you

And it doesn't help the fact that he smells like the forest after a rainy day.... (now I want a hug)

Hoodie:

He has dirt on everyone

Mainly bc he's quiet and reliable so people tell him stuff

Has Masky saved in his phone as 'Bae' and when people see it they ask, "Is he your boyfriend?"

And he replies with, "Nah, it stands for Biggest Asshole Ever"

Drinks tea by the gallon

Reigning champion of "How many objects can we put on Jeff while he sleeps"

Hoodie has those "hoe don't do it" moments pretty much every day

Jeff trying to start shit, Ben is planning a prank on someone, someone insulted Slender. Every time

Award winning smile

His hair is the softest thing ever I swear-

Will make tea for anyone he sees that's having a rough day

He likes to sketch people, he's actually pretty good

He likes to read books to calm down

If someone wants to he will read out loud to them

Toby:

Don't give him energy drinks

It won't make him hyper, oh no, but it will make him do dumb shit

Once, Helen made the mistake of handing him a red bull, and let's just say he was found playing a mix between 'the floor is lava' and 'don't let the balloon touch the floor'

It was intense

President of Protect the Bees and very proud of it

Will follow through with literally any dare, he takes impulsivity to new levels

Will let Sally do his hair and dress him up to play princess

That friend who sends you fucking memes at 3am just to be a prick

It's easy to get him flustered, especially if someone flirts with him

He is obsessed with sour sweets, not even he knows why

There's no such thing as personal space, he's comfortable around everyone

Gets excited when he sees a cartoon on tv from when he was a kid

Places the stickers Sally gives him on the headboard of his bed

He knows how to say, "can I pet your dog?" in 4 languages

[starrypockets]

Megamind My Hero Academy AU

Metroman kinda has a Todoroki backstory but not exactly the same

Where his parents have these crazy high expectations of him being a hero, but not nearly as overtly abusive as Todoroki's are

His dad is more or less uncaring, doesn't really give a shit

But his mom is always pushing him to rise to exceed expectations

And both his parents have pretty tame quriks

So metroman's was like this out of nowhere crazy happenstance of powerful quirks

And it's such a rarity that the whole world is watching him from the day he was born

So he grows up with the pressure of the world on his shoulders, never really getting to pick his own path, everything is predestined

Gets into UA and all that

And then you have Roxanne, who maybe has a quirk for truth telling (in a sense, people trust her easioy/tend to let things slip) or maybe she has a knack of being able to feel when something big is about to go down and the general direction it will happen

Which means from an early age she becomes accustomed to tracking down these events

By her high school years she's been running a wildly popular YouTube channel and blog of the ongoing of hero vs villain stuff

And since she has a "spider sense" for danger she regularly goes out to battles and records it while making commentary

Which leaves us to the most important character

Megamind

Maybe Megamind had two parents who loved him very very much, but who lost their lives due to 'heroical malpractice' (I. E. It was the heros fault and not the villains)

Leaving poor megs to be thrown into the system, being bounced from foster home to foster home

(side note, metromans parents are also dead, from the same fight as megamind parents, but as a result of the villains actions)

So mega, although he may be a sweet baby, his quirk of hyper intelligence and the resulting curiosity means he gets tends to get himself into trouble easily. And while this may be considered cute when he's 6 months old, the older he gets the worse it gets and the more people start to hate him for it

He grows up deeply distrustful of heros and the system and the lack of checks against heroic malpractice

And of course he knows about metroman, who is in the public eye from the word go

And he actually shares metroman's birthday

And so by the time mega is 18 he's landed himself in juvie so many times it feels more like home than any forster him he's ever been in

Usually due to designing wacky inventions that somehow cause lots of property damage to wherever he's staying

Minion is an AI his parents created hosted in a stuffed fish plush

That's kinda like what Jarvis is to tony, but with minions personality

So we have 18 yo metroman, with the most powerful quirk the world has ever seen (which is basically just ofa, but like, early early days ofa when it wasn't reaching quirk singularity yet). He's spent his whole life with the eyes of the world watching his every move, never getting to choose what he wants to do in life, people always just assuming he'd become a hero. He has no one who really knows the true him. The closest thing to a friend he has is Roxanne Ritchi, wonder reporter, who's been following his progress like everyone else, except she doesn't ever report on his love life or his backstory, she's always interested in the real truth. But even then he hasn't really truly opened up to her

Then you have Roxanne Ritchi, wonder reporter, who's got ever single hero news agency in the world fighting over the chance to hire her. While she has millions of followers on YouTube alone, not even counting Facebook Twitter or Instagram, and is gaining attention around the world for her truthful and factual, yet empathetic and humanizing hero profiles, as well as her A+ field reporting, never missing a second of the action, going out to cover the fight even when all others wouldnt be within a 10 mile radius of the fight, and not least of all her interviews that manage to engage even the most restrained heros, and always bring out the best in whoever she's talking to

(and of course, the whole planet plus the next one over all assume she is in a secret love affair with metroman. There's never any proof of course, but isn't it obvious that two such clearly talented individuals would be together, especially since metroman seems to be one of miss Ritchi's favorite heros to work with? It's only natural /s)

But despite all that fame, Roxanne doesn't really have anyone she's every truly connected with off the camera. Sure, she's always happy to catch a meal with metroman, but surely he can't really consider her a friend, not when he must know so many amazing heros of his caliber

And finally, that leaves us with megamind, the up and coming villain that everyone seems to think they have all worked out, but not a single human actually knows. While he hasn't achieved anywhere near the renown roxanne and metroman have, he's determined to become known as the world's greatest supervillain. Sadly he doesn't quite have all the kinks worked out, because no matter how many times he tries his plans always turn into a flaming dumpster of failure. But he swears that one day he'll go up against that stupid metroman and win. He's obsessively watched every fight, read every article, seen every interview, all in the name of gaining the knowledge to find his weakness

This also means that, by proxy, he's become quite well acquainted with miss Ritchis work, and has made it a point to leave a multiple paragraph comment on all of her work regarding metroman, filled with "creative" insults towards the hero, and yets still somehow managing to give heaps of praise to miss Ritchi. He's also watched and read every single video or article she's ever published.

Including the one and only video she made about megamind himself, back when he was first stepping into real villainy. He may have watched that more than once. Maybe a lot more than once. possible at least once a day, more if it was one of his failed plans days

((oh yeah all his comments are made under a fake name. 1 guess what that name is. Spoiler, it's Bernard))

He leaves a veritable essay on that video, critiquing and examining every line she says, except the ones that hit too close to home, of course

Anyways, that's the stage set for years of battles and hijinks to come, with a seasoned reporter documenting every second

Even though she seems to get kidnapped more than literally any other civilian out there

[mittensmorgul]

Why has Chuck resurrected Cas so many times if he doesn’t want him to be part of the story?

I don’t think Chuck didn’t want Cas to be part of the story. I think he realized how useful Cas was to Sam and Dean. Which is painfully, wonderfully, what a lot of us have been saying about Cas and his own personal issues for years.

Cas has struggled with his purpose. But there are some things Chuck can control (ooh people will like this cool new monster!), and things he can’t (Cas struggles mightily to understand Free Will and humanity). So after all that, I think the bigger question is why DIDN’T he bring Cas back after 12.23?

Chuck has entirely lost the emotional thread of his characters, precisely because he can’t control characters exercising their free will. He can control scenarios, not people.

Like Lilith, for example. She had very precise limits literally written into her character. Like Chuck handed her a character sheet and a specific mission goal, and sent her off to accomplish the task (weirdly, seduce Dean and destroy the Equalizer). She failed at the first bit (Dean is Not That Guy anymore, he didn’t take any of the random drugs she left out, Lilith literally had to knock him unconscious to arrange the second half of the plan). She needed the ability to improvise like that, to “go off script” to complete her tasks, so Chuck infused her with insight into his “writing process.” And even as a limited character within the story, she criticized his story and her part in it. Including her bitterness over how her “original purpose in the story,” back in s4 where she sacrificed herself for the Grand Plan she believed in with her entire being-- to free Lucifer from the cage-- and then nothing even came of it. The promised glory never came to pass, the apocalypse failed. So... why did Chuck “resurrect” her now (because I don’t think he literally pulled her from the Empty, but basically brought a character sheet to life... SHE was the puppet, but in order to play the role, she needed to know enough and have enough flexibility to adapt to a changing situation, or it would’ve been like interacting with a robot pre-programmed with a few dozen set lines). Why bring HER SPECIFICALLY back to the story now? Because of how she functioned in his story before. He doesn’t write “people,” he writes plot devices.

And to Chuck, for a long time, had written Cas as a plot device, instead of as a person. Because Chuck has proven he’s not terribly interested in the actual humanity and emotions of his characters, but in the endless drama he likes to watch unfold. The rest of what *WE* see, of what *BECKY* sees and then writes about, well, Chuck ain’t writing that. That’s all TFW.

I mean, what is the ONE REASON we ever got Cas in the story at all, after Kripke insisted for YEARS that there were no angels in Supernatural? He needed a plot device to free Dean from Hell, because he’d written them into a corner right before the writer’s strike, and had their 22 episode season cut to 16. They just... ran out of time to have Sam save Dean before he ever went to Hell. Which had been his original plan. Oops? Except... Cas didn’t STAY a plot device. He was supposed to be gone after a few episodes. I’ve even heard it suggested that the entire angel plotline was only supposed to last MAYBE a season. And yet... here we are.

Partly BECAUSE Cas just... isn’t and hasn’t been a tool for years. He’s so much more than that, because of the choices he’s made along the way. Look at s8, how desperately the plot circled around Cas’s “brainwashing” by Heaven into literally being the good little soldier to accomplish plot for them again. And then he was manipulated by Metatron because of his need to feel “useful,” to solve the problems he blamed himself for. And then Metatron showed us EXACTLY how Chuck “writes” in s9, using the angel tablet to power his typewriter. Metatron didn’t write every little detail, and his story DID fall apart anyway. He was using Chuck’s template exactly, though, and the one thing he couldn’t account for 

Unfortunately, it’s led to some painful failures of communication, especially when Chuck hasn’t left room in their mission for them to actually step back and process-- like the 7 episodes between 14.17 and 15.03 where they barely had a chance to stop at all. That would burn anyone out. But Cas is left feeling “useless,” and Dean is left feeling adrift and desperately trying to find one thing in his life he can anchor his broken self-identity to, and pushing Cas away SPECIFICALLY because he couldn’t be sure Cas WASN’T just Chuck’s plot device, because of the entire nature and history of their relationship.

Messed up, right? And CHUCK doesn’t CARE! Because I don’t think he really sees Cas as much more than a plot device, despite having “watched the story” all these years. I mean he still somehow thinks Dean’s a 26-year-old dude who would actually seduce the victim of a MotW that was now under his protection. His conversation with Becky was actually super enlightening. He doesn’t actually care about any of the characters, the way Becky has come to. She was obsessed with them, and with Chuck, for a while, but she’s had some counselling and GROWN. Chuck, for all of this, hasn’t. He either needs to let go of his need to control the “story,” allowing his characters full agency by not meddling in their lives, or he needs to be stopped.

And we know Chuck’s favored storytelling style, how he crafts the “mytharc” plot, which we’ve had pointed out to us in 15.04 is what he really cares about. And he’s trying to reach the ending by going back to the beginning. He’s writing an ouroboros, and I’m not sure he’s really aware enough of how much his characters have evolved, how much the story has changed them all, and the fact that he can’t just erase all of that while trying to tell the one story he’s never really been able to get Sam and Dean to provide him-- which is Chuck’s OWN “origin story,” of shoving his sibling into a box to generate all of creation oin the first place. Chuck wants people to side with him. He wants to feel “big,” when if you look at him longer than five seconds, you can see he’s entirely self-obsessed and willing to tell any lie, manipulate any story, to frame himself as the Hero, when just like Metatron he’s actually the petty villain of the piece.

I mean sure, we wouldn’t have creation at all if it hadn’t been for his actions, but the fact he can’t “let the story go” and let creation tell its own stories (and even Metatron understood that to a degree, his obsession with human storytelling an integral part of his arc), but feels the need to vindicate himself as if he was the unproblematic fave is just... creepy, you know? And it’ll probably end up being his downfall.

And I think it will take all of Team Free Will working together to bring that about, because Chuck long ago lost the thread of ANY of their stories. Because he’s not writing THEIR story, he’s writing HIS. He’s just using them all as proxies to pat himself on the back, except TFW aren’t actually his proxies. Chuck created free will, but he doesn’t understand it at all. :’D

[soyouareandrewdobson]

A (wind)blast from the past...

So.. lets talk about Dobson and anime.

No, I am not meaning in the way that I am going to dissect his biased spiteful opinions on Japanese animation and comic culture on general (believe me, we are going to get there one day) but in regard of something that even got me by surprise when I learnt of it the day before.

You know Rumiko Takahashi? Mangaka of work such as Ranma ½, One-Pound Gospel, Mermaid Saga and most famously Inuyasha? Not only is this woman one of the most popular and richest mangaka on the planet with multiple awards under her belt (including the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême in 2019) but if you know anything about Dobson at all, you know that she is one of his idols. Meaning of course he plagiarized her wacky tone of humor, certain characters and overall style in his earlier works, primarily Formera and Alex ze Pirate.

Honestly, growing up with Ranma ½ myself (and being disappointed in the ending even today, though the ride was entertaining) I can confirm just how much he was “inspired” by her. Be it by the fact that Perry the Pirate acts like Happosai if he had the genes of Brian Blessed halfway split into him, that most of the wacky sledgehammer humor his characters can engage in is way too similar to what Akane Tendo would do, to Altea being everything Miroku from Inuyasha would be, if you removed his redeeming qualities.

  Well, here is the thing: Although Dobson likes her work, for reasons he never elaborated on, he can’t stand Inuyasha.

Which I assume is related to the manga being less “wacky” than Takahashi’s previous work (though she did also write darker stories like Mermaid Saga before that) . I can’t however say so for certain. All I know is that the manga (in my opinion) ran for longer than was necessary and that Naraku got off easier in a way than he deserved, even if he was killed by the end of it all, which are like two major criticisms I can think of.

 That said, I would be lying if I said I did not adore Inuyasha back in the day and see why other people liked it too. It was one of the first manga I followed regularly and while I can look back at it and see all the cheese to it, I genuinely liked reading the adventure of Inuyasha, Kagome, Shippo, Sango and Miroku, with Sesshoumaru, Jaken, Rin and Kouga as flavor adding side characters. I have fond memories of listening to “Change the World”, I still own the third movie on DVD cause I really like it and the anime and manga is always good for a read down memory lane. But I digress. This is not about me self indulging into my weaboo past, this is about Dobson potentially changing his opinion about Inuyasha soon.

Why? Because it gets the Korra/Boruto treatment now. In short, there is going to be a girl centered sequel.

To elaborate: Last month (May 2020) it was announced that Sunrise, the same studio that did the first Inuyasha anime adaptation, would release around autumn (though that is more or less an estimate) a new series by the title of “Hanyou no Yashahime”, which roughly translates into “Yashahime: Princess Half Demon”. And not just that, Rumiko Takahashi herself will work as character designer on it and anime scriptwriter Katsuyuki Sumisawa, who collaborated with Takahashi on the scripts of all Inuyasha movies and has credits on many other popular Shonen Anime of the 80s, 90s and 2000s, is in charge of scripts.

Here is a link describing a bit more about the show

And here is a description of the plot, courtecy of livechart The daughters of Sesshomaru and Inuyasha set out on a journey transcending time!

In Feudal Japan, Half-Demon twins Towa and Setsuna are separated from each other during a forest fire. While desperately searching for her younger sister, Towa wanders into a mysterious tunnel that sends her into present-day Japan, where she is found and raised by Kagome Higurashi’s brother, Sota, and his family.

Ten years later, the tunnel that connects the two eras has reopened, allowing Towa to be reunited with Setsuna, who is now a Demon Slayer working for Kohaku. But to Towa’s shock, Setsuna appears to have lost all memories of her older sister.

Joined by Moroha, the daughter of Inuyasha and Kagome, the three young women travel between the two eras on an adventure to regain their missing past.

I am not gonna lie, I am baffled, excited and a bit concerned about this. Baffled because it has been over a decade since the manga ended and half a decade since the plot was also wrapped up in animated form. Add to that also the fact that this is the first time Takahashi actually does a sequel to one of her previous works and it is quite a surprise.

Then obviously, I am excited as someone who liked the original story and I kinda want to see where this is going, even if I was okay with the story ending in the first place. See, I am one of those people, I do not need endless continuations of some plots because I have nothing else going on in my life than one work of fiction I can never let go off and call others nazis if they do not agree with me mindlessly consuming it (*cough* Start Wars *cough*)

And Inuyasha is one of those things where I was overall still happy with the end. Ater all, Kagome and Inuyasha together, the villain defeated, Kohaku back to normal, Sango and Miroku busy being parents. YAY! So I do not need a sequel outright.

In addition, I am not necessarily a fan of the entire “sequel series about an offspring of character X” hook that Naruto for example went for with Boruto, because it feels like just doing the same shit over again with a new paint job instead of trying something slightly more original. That and quite often a sequel is only possible by the writer going for “happy end override” where the struggle our original heroes went for is essentially made pointless and their happy end taken away, so that a new conflict for the sequel can even happen. (again, Star Wars, or as one example in videogames that really stunk for me, Golden Sun for the DS).

Which are in the end the things I am actually worried about. That this sequel may turn the end of Inuyasha more tragic than it needed to be. But hey, we still have till autumn. So who knows, perhaps the show will be quite upbeat in its own way. Hopefully at least as “good” as the original. And if not, I can still perhaps enjoy it in a “so bad its good” way.

 But independent of how I may perceive it, I am curious if Dobson, that is, if he even hears of this thing existing, will be interested in it. may do so. After all, on one hand it would be a sequel to a work by his favorite mangaka, who he likes so much, he feels even guilty about inflating characters by her.

 On the other hand, he does not like Inuyasha for never really elaborated reasons.

Then again, this will be a sequel involving the offsprings of Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha. And knowing his boner for lesbians that went so far as to hint he looks regularly even on incestuous shipping art for the characters of Frozen…

 Who knows? Perhaps this will “cure him” of the notion that “homosexual shipping” in anime is creepy and he will join the group of Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha shippers via offspring proxy (sarcasm).

After all, it is”less” creepy when they are cousins, aren’t they? And even if it is “incest” it would still be progressive because it would be two girls. And even if they are not going to kiss and cuddle like the precious tiny little lesbians Dobson likes to imagine a lot of women as, he can still ship them because there is nothing wrong about shipping, as long as he does it.

Can you tell that I am not a fan of his hypocrisy?

Look, in all honesty, I am curious what he would think of the show and how he would “perceive” it. Primarily because it may give additional insight in how far his hatred for anime as well as his lesbian obsession goes.

And on a geekier note to end on,, are Towa and Setsuna supposed to be Sesshoumaru’s daughters? Congratulations on getting busy, you old white haired pretty bo- Wait. They are half demons. Sesshoumaru mated with a human. But the only human he ever even showed a slight level of affection to was…

 Oh…. oh, no!

For the love of god, please let her have been aged up enough! I know she was already aged up in the last chapter of the manga, but considering he was like her father figure... well, that is if Rin is the mother, but... come on, who else?

[theangrypokemaniac]

I'll state from the beginning that the images below display the sort of sweet synchronicity to which only love can give life:

MaAndPaShipping is the best ship, and here are five reasons why:

1. It Made James

Like the boy do yer? Ever felt the slightest tingle of warmth at the mention of his name?

Well get down on yer knees and give thanks to his mother and father for gifting him to the world!

Where would we be without their remarkable commitment? Could James have grown into the dandified dream boat of your desires if deprived of the safety provided by his parents?

Had they not brought him up, he'd be dead, The Dog of Flanders fantasy made reality. If miraculously he survived, foraging in the wild is not conducive to a foppish personality.

Is that to yer fancy? No? Then let's have a little respect. The luxury Ma and Pa gave enabled his macaroni tendencies to reach such heights.

Their love created him! How can it not be celebrated?

You lot would ship Jessie's parents but you can't, because she has no dad, and I don't suppose you'll ever assent to his obvious identity of Windy Miller, although 'Jessie Miller' has a wonderful ring to it, so what can be done?

Should a Pa Jess be conjured for the purpose, he still buggered off, didn't he? Where's the allure in a faithless git?

I can't comprehend the obsession with Ma Jess. As soon as here she's stiff, and what is there to remember but coercing her daughter into eating snow?

Hey, I named her. What more do you want from me?

I'd rather have the living, visible ancestors, if you don't mind.

Yeah, says the history fanatic.

Why not make the most of the chances offered, and follow a devoted couple whose love made a difference to your existence?

2. Canon!

There are many ships which I find repulsive for involving depravity, or absurd as the subjects haven't met, or don't inhabit the same fictional universe.

Video et taceo: I see and I say nothing.

Neither does anyone. Forcing decent folk in to incest, bestiality etc. is quite alright.

Perverted ideas are left alone, but woe betide a Rocketshipper, because that's offensive.

It may be the only original ship left standing, with proper evidence and sanctioned by Nintendo, but no, it's fair game for undermining. People pick at your arguments, quibble constantly and NEED to register their objections NOW. You MUST be made aware of opposition. You're not to be permitted your views the way those with twisted tastes are indulged.

Why, out of tens of thousands of combinations, does making Jessie and James an item provoke hostility?

The strength of negativity actually serves as validation, for why be so concerned if it's an impossible relationship?

However sick they are, I'm not anti any ship. I can't muster sufficient interest to do it, and if I scroll on, I forget. I certainly don't attack those responsible.

Anti-Shipping is inherently nihilistic for promoting loneliness. They aren't against Rocketshipping through wanting Jessie and James to be with someone else, as an alternative is not readily available, so the outcome of it is neither finding a companion.

MaAndPaShipping attracts no sourpuss silliness, for 'tis canon beyond question. There's nothing about being 'just friends' when married with a son.

How's the state of your O.T.P.? Not looking too clever I expect, and what's your contribution: wishing, and hoping, and thinking, and praying?

Cast it off! None of that longing is necessary in these quarters, as MaAndPaShipping is a fait accompli.

Hallelujah! Wallow in that Love!

Don't you yearn for at least one ship that all of us accept by default, to the extent these aristocrats are spoken of as a single unit?

Across the internet, Ma and Pa are bracketed as 'James's parents', never 'he' and 'she', always 'they', barely counting as distinct characters. That's how undeniable the love is between them. Sheer indifference has awarded it a blessing from everyone.

MWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!

Of course, now I've drawn attention to it the moaning will start, but we all know a spoilsport when we see one.

If they had any legitimate complaints they ought to have mentioned 'em before this piece highlighted the marriage!

Except it won't have occurred to 'em previously, proving the eternal, indissoluble quality of MaAndPaShipping.

You get good value with this one.

Find a post referring to Ma and Pa as individuals and I'll have written it, for that's what you call ironic.

3. It's a Fine Rocketshipping Proxy

I was at primary school when Pokémon hit the West like the bright, bearded meteor it is, atomizing all competition for a child's attention.

I have shipped Jessie and James before I knew anyone else did it, unaware shipping was even a thing.

There are other pairs where I think: 'That seems to fit', but it's incomparable to what I feel for them.

It is part of me. I bleed it.

I have shipped it longer than most Tumblerries have dwelt upon the earth.

I used to believe, what with the hints and manga finale, that this resolution was  inevitable, and all I had to do was wait.

Well I've been patient for two decades now, thus when I look at the modern incarnation, and realise it's no nearer to that goal, and instead is further away, waiting starts to wear a bit thin.

I resent the lack of appreciation shown to the fans by the cretins in charge, how any meagre shippy inclusion is done not with an interest in deepening bonds, but with the blatant cynicism of moulding us into performing monkeys dancing to their manipulative tune.

I dislike being treated like a sea lion, expected to clap me flippers at the wave of a fish, or as a panting dog begging at top table, where, because they're desperate to maintain the status quo, every scrap flung down from above now comes with an Anti-Ship kick in the teeth, just to be sure nothing progresses. Not whilst the franchise can still be milked for all it's worth.

I have lost faith Rocketshipping will happen. What passes for Pokémon today carries not the remotest indication of any intention on the so-called writers' part to finish it that way.

Even if it did, it's not my Team Rocket, it's those skeletal, gargoyle bastardisations. My Jessie and James never got the reward they deserved.

I'm somewhat in the market for a replacement. Beneath this loathsome carapace of acid and ice beats the tender heart of a true romantic, and it must have an outlet!

Shipping Ma and Pa provides a certain spurious relief, because it's as close as you can get to Jessie and James without it being them, both biologically as his parents, but they're so similar to the duo it counts as proof in itself.

Holy Matrimony! is prime Rocketshipping territory, not merely the balloon lift, but many slight additions are as important, like the haircuts matching.

Ma and Pa are therefore Jessie and James in the past, present and future:

The past for representing Jess 'n' Jamie gone Victorian, and we've all wondered how that'd turn out.

The present as it's there right now, absent of suffering the shameless whims of morons to get what you want. 'Tis yours to savour.

The future as a glimpse of Jessie and James once married with children, and they agree:

That's how they play it given the opportunity!

What, James in blue, for his and Pa's hair, and Jessie wearing purple, like Ma's, with a red shawl for her own, and Ma Jess's orange earrings to copy the beads?

• Money!

• Bun!

• 'Tache!

• Classy pad!

• Fancy gear!

• Pampered pet!

• Identical cups of Earl Grey!

4. Original Blend

Ma and Pa have only got two fans! We care more than the entire fandom has in twenty years!

Rocketshipping art is ten a penny, so why not display a pioneering spirit, sharpen up those pencils and be inspired?

Let your mind expand and marvel at the possibilities of these unchartered territories, and I'll reblog it if it's nice.

Pay attention to the condition of it being nice. I'm not putting up with any old toss.

Real Ma and Pa is what I want too, not those Sinnoh coffin-dodgers.

It's never been done! Every drawing breaks new ground!

I don't like fan fiction, but I wouldn't say 'no' to that either. Recall the 'nice' stipulation again.

Come on, be the first amongst your friends and get ship shape!

5. It Gives Us All Hope

Suppose your favourite amour one day became canon: you imagine that's the end of the matter?

Well it ain't.

Between Ash, Misty, Brock, Jessie, James, Gary and Tracey, there are three-and-a-half out of fourteen parents (Flint doesn't count as a complete man) and one out of twenty-eight grandparents, and that's not enough!

If the series drew to a close with your beloved couple apparently walking into the happily-ever-after, there's no guarantee it'll endure. In fact, the odds are they'll split up within a few years and leave another generation to fend for themselves or starve.

That's right, so don't presume the final episode is all you need to worry about. Can you rest easy knowing it'll go pear-shaped once the camera stops rolling?

It's futile soothing one's worries with:

Oh, but they know what it's like to be alone. They'd never inflict such stress on their children.

Oh really?

Look at that poor showing of grandparents. Either Pokémon has a system reminiscent of the sci-fi film Logan's Run, where everyone over thirty is vapourized, or these disappearing maters and paters were themselves victims of abandonment.

I bet when they settled down, they thought it'd be different for their kids, they'd make sure of it, but no, off they went down that same route of feckless self-indulgence, and that's being kind assuming they intended not to repeat history.

Depressing eh? What's the good in any of us surrendering to romance, real or otherwise, if love is but a mayfly of emotion, and all dreams are doomed to die?

Then Ma and Pa arrive, and suddenly the storm clouds part for a ray of heavenly light.

It's not only that they made the effort in what was probably an arranged marriage and have stayed together from youth, it's that they've stayed together when no one else has, which augments its value.

When separation is commonplace, sticking it out becomes rarer and rarer as any belief in the sanctity of wedlock erodes with every failure.

If they didn't bother, why should I? What's the use when it won't work?

Once that idea enters your head, it's over, and your gloom-laden attitude fulfils itself.

Society is collapsing about Ma and Pa's ears, but they persevere nevertheless, refusing to buckle under the turgid malaise engulfing the arrogant and weak.

It's bloody beautiful, man!

You may suggest an environment of supreme wealth erases normality, and to their class and time period divorce is still taboo, so they don't really have much of choice but to remain wedded.

Ah, but it's not as if they simply tolerate one another for appearances, or carried on for the sake of their son (which is more than anyone else did besides), not when he walked out on them.

They've been married longer than James has lived, so at least eighteen years (don't all squeal at once), and they're still blissfully contented!

They hold hands!

They use terms of endearment like 'dear' and 'my precious'!

They were made for one another!

They work as a team!

They want the same thing for James!

It could bring a stone angel to tears it's so beautiful!

See what success can be achieved when you try? When you endeavour to love the one you're with and make yourself worth loving in return?

Better that than chucking 'em at the first sign of trouble.

Ma and Pa is such an irrevocable union even the despair of losing their only child failed to tear 'em asunder, and that'd defeat many, but not this husband and wife.

Be grateful, for it means all is not in vain.

It doesn't have to be misery and pain: love can last despite the pressure of a wretched, hollow culture bent on self-destruction. Your ship might just succeed too.

God bless 'em for keeping the magic alive!

...

Why do I have the presentiment that I'm going to regret encouraging support?

[thecomicsnexus]

BATMAN: WHITE KNIGHT #1-8 DECEMBER 2017 - JULY 2018 BY SEAN MURPHY AND MATT HOLLINGSWORTH

SYNOPSIS (FROM WIKIPEDIA)

Batman corners Joker in a pharmaceutical warehouse, beating him excessively as Nightwing, Batgirl, and the GCPD look on in horror. Joker boasts that medication would let him do more good than Batman, prompting Batman to force a bottle of pills down Joker's throat. With a recording of the beating leaking and the Batmobile causing huge collateral damage, debate is sparked over whether Batman is doing more harm than good. Barbara and Dick learn Bruce's violence stems from Alfred being near death, kept alive only by Freeze Tech. Joker, now stable and using his real name Jack Napier, wins a case against GCPD for insufficient evidence and for non-intervention in his beating.

Freed, Napier visits Harley Quinn, who attacks him and insists he's not himself. Saved by a second Harley, Napier learns she is the original but was replaced: with Joker's obsession culminating in Jason Todd's torture, Quinzel left to try and help Batman save Todd, and was replaced when Joker unwittingly adopted an obsessed hostage named Marian Drews. Bruce and Victor Fries develop a treatment for cryogenic illnesses. Despite not being fully tested, Fries attempts to resuscitate Nora; anticipating this, Wayne hooks the system up to Fries' suit, curing him but aging him to his natural elderly state. Running for councilman, Napier funds construction of a library in poor district Backport and befriends Duke Thomas, an ex-GCPD officer who runs a local youth group. Meanwhile, Bruce discovers that many of his fellow billionaires have been profiting off of Batman by purchasing properties destroyed by Batman's battles and then flipping them after the city repairs them; Bruce is left shaken by this discovery. Using the Mad Hatter's tools to control Clayface, Napier gives Gotham's Rogues Gallery drinks secretly laced with his dust to control them by proxy.

Making the villains rampage across the city, Napier uses the distraction to access restricted documents and discovers a tax fund for Batman's collateral damage. In an attempt to move the villains to a less-populated area, Batman baits them into attacking Backport and Napier's library, thinking that they wouldn't attack a property owned by the Joker; the villains proceed to damage Backport and raze the library. Injured when Napier's library crumbles, Bruce later collapses at Alfred's bedside; waking to find himself stabilized on Alfred's life-support, Bruce finds Alfred dead in the bedside chair. Dick and Barbara discuss whether to intervene in Bruce's developing obsession in convicting Napier.

Drews, now Neo Joker, recovers the Clayface's remains, taking the Rogues Gallery into her control. When Batman intervenes in his protest, Napier goes willingly to GCPD. Warning he knows of the collateral fund, he offers to reallocate it to GCPD as councilman, giving Gotham a culpable Batman equivalent known as the GTO - the Gotham Terrorism Oppression unit.

Neo Joker attacks the GCPD, prompting Gordon to side with Napier and place an APB on Batman. Batman asks Quinzel for help taking down Napier, convinced he's pulling a long con; Quinzel refuses, certain Napier is legitimate. Bested by the GTO, which has recruited Duke, Nightwing and Batgirl and has built their own makeshift Batmobiles, Batman is arrested by Napier. Neo Joker uses a revealed superweapon to freeze Gotham harbor, demanding she be given Joker. Earlier, Bruce discovered Thomas Wayne funded Fries Sr. to create Freeze-Tech, circumventing US laws by tunneling under Gotham's German embassy; Fries Sr. later cut ties with Thomas to build the superweapon against his wishes.

Napier's medication becomes ineffective, making him periodically revert into Joker. Napier frees Batman, asking for help stopping Neo Joker in exchange for a confession (provided Quinzel isn't arrested). Napier, Batman and the GTO organize an assault on the freeze ray, piloting a fleet of Batman's Batmobiles. During the assault, Napier attempts to focus on Joker's memories and recalls that Todd is alive: Joker drove Robin to hate Batman and reveal his identity. Napier explains he already knew Batman's identity as all collateral taxes indirectly come from Wayne Enterprises. Making peace with Dick, Barbara and Gordon, Batman races through Gotham tunnels with Napier, who has reverted to Joker. The GTO bests Neo Joker's forces and reverses the freeze ray, flooding the tunnels. Overpowering Neo Joker, Joker releases Clayface and undoes the mind control. With Batman protecting him from Clayface, Joker and Quinzel pursue Neo Joker in the Batmobile; Napier returns and professes his love for Quinzel. Approaching a closing floodgate, Napier launches Quinzel through the gap in the Batcycle, causing him to crash. Quinzel beats and apprehends Neo Joker, and Batman saves Napier.

Confessing to his crimes, Napier surrenders and is granted a nicer Arkham cell and a wedding to Quinzel; as he finishes his vows, Napier permanently reverts to Joker. Using Napier's remaining funds, Quinzel begins restoring Backport. Confronting Quinzel, Batman reveals she manufactured Joker's medication and orchestrated events so the chase would end in the factory and be recorded. Explaining he only learned the truth from Joker, Quinzel explains she did it to break their stalemate before they destroyed Gotham.

Meeting with Gordon, Batman gives him the keys to the original Batmobiles for the GTO and confesses that Napier was right about him. Revealing that he's realized that he's been taking pleasure in harming criminals and that he's allowed himself to go too far in his war against crime, Batman unmasks himself in front of Gordon to earn back his trust.

REVIEW

To say this story is about role reversals would be an underwhelming generalization. There is more to this story and it is a product of our current times.

The first thing that comes to mind while reading this story is the how Trump got to be a president and how the UK voted for a Brexit. It’s about trust in the good guys, and how when that trust is broken, people will trust anything but the good guys. I’m not saying that Trump is a villain, but, you know, he wouldn’t be in power had he had better (trustful) competition. And coming from a third world country, this happens a lot, in many countries, with politicians in particular.

But it goes beyond that, when you feel like the authorities (like the police or the army) acts like a bully, you do not trust them anymore. You second guess all they do. That is actually a very good practice though, you SHOULD think rationally about motivations and goals of those you trust. But it doesn’t help institutions, it breaks apart trust in other things that may be actually good for society, and you open the door for crazy conspiracies and hoaxes that do more harm than good (like anti-vaccination fanatics or climate change denialists).

So it is fitting that this story ends with Batman revealing who he is, because had the people known he was paying for his own destruction all along, the Joker wouldn’t have had the upper hand. And people were eager to believe in the Joker, who in the shadows, was still doing evil (even if it was for a good cause).

And that is another thing to consider, that no one is right in this story (just like in real life). All these characters are wrong at some point, the Joker is right in his views most of the time, but the alternative is also flawed.

I am saying this is a story of our times, because it feels like the good guys are not as trustful as they used to, and they really need to step up and be more transparent in order to stop hate and corruption from coming into power (many countries seem to go for fascist ideas at this moment, last time something like that happened was before World War II).

Going to specifics of this story, Jason is alive (but thought dead) and he was also the first Robin. Dick is not the loyal partner here and Barbara is a bit less mature than we are used to. The whole story feels like a remix of the Batman movies and the animated series, but it is clearly not in any of those continuities. It also introduces a second Harley Quinn, who looks pretty much like the new 52 version of the character.

And of course, the stand-out of the series is the original Harley Quinn, and how he was the actual mastermind behind everything... for a good cause. That kind of reveal was justified and throws mediocre mystery arcs like Hush and The Long Halloween out the window.

There are a lot of easter eggs in the art, and it helps create this big landscape that is Gotham City. You can feel these backgrounds as being a very important part of the story.

It also leaves some unanswered questions to justify a sequel.

I give this story a score of 10.

[dreamboundedstar]

I’ve been wanting to post the fan character of mine for a while on here. However, I wanted to wait until I had somewhat of a proper profile for this character so people would know what purpose she serves in my headcanon of the HA! universe. So anyway, Here’s what I have for her profile so far. I most likely will edit this profile slightly every now and then if I notice I forgot something or made a typo. Either way, this is what I have so far.

Name: Debora Winifred Blaney

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Straight

Birth Date: November 24th, 1987

Eye Color: Greenish blue

Height: I suppose around the height of Helga, but I can’t be too sure because we don’t have canon heights for these kids. I have so far 4’7 for 9, 4′8 for 11, 5′ for 12, 5′3 for 15, 5’4 ½  for 17 and onward. I just went with my heights throughout my life. I only hope one day somebody can measure and headcanon the heights of Arnold and the gang.

Family: Loanne Winifred Blaney(mom), Elias Nathaniel Blaney (dad), and Molly Belloma Blaney (younger sister by 7 years)

MBTI/Enneagram Personality Type: INFP 4w5

Strengths:  Polite, kind, creative, empathetic, pacifist, idealistic, passionate, encyclopedic knowledge of specific topics she enjoys, loyal, honest, a good listener, and tries to see the good in people despite her past experiences.

Weakness: Her Asperger’s syndrome, tends to stim when overemotional, sensitive to criticism, shy, tend to obsess over the things she loves, prone to being moody, doesn’t have a good hold on her intense emotions, nonconfrontational, cynical, difficult to get to know, she finds it hard to trust people despite trying to be open-minded, tend to have a fight/flight response (which she mostly chooses flight), is a bit cowardly,  has trouble reading subtle social cues (for example, when somebody is truly interested in her conversation or just waiting for her to shut up),  Sets high standards for herself to compensate for her mental illness, tends to be brutally honest which leads her to be accidentally insensitive, and overly apologetic.

Likes: Drawing in her sketchbooks, reading (comics, manga, and regular books), creating new words with the names of people that she assumes are a couple or she personally thinks could be a good match (for example, Helga + Arnold = Gnarled Halo), musicals, Greek mythology (or mythology in general), flowers (cherry blossoms, lilies, lilacs, or any flower that fits symbolically in a situation), Chinese zodiac, Greek astrology, astronomy,  whatever the equivalent D&D in Ha! is (Kings Rule doesn’t count, that’s more of a Magic: the gathering type of game), video games, daydreaming, talking about theories, brainstorming story ideas, and Yo Ernest!

Dislikes: Loud crowds, people seeing as well as laughing at her when she stims, liars, being pinned down, disappointing people she cares about, her social anxiety, her struggle of understanding people’s true intentions due to her poor observation of subtle social cues, her fear of people are just waiting to see her fail, being talked down to once people find out about her condition, being touched/hugged by people she isn’t close to or she didn’t initiate, people assuming she is smart when she really isn’t; she’s just passionate about certain topics, revealing her elf-like ears, and math.

Favorite colors: Lilac and vermilion

Favorite animal: Hedgehogs, cats, and rabbits

Bio: Debora was a small-town girl from Tennessee that moved to Hillwood at the age of 5. She had no real ties to the place though except for her love the starry skies and all the wildflowers that grew there. Her parents decided to homeschool her at the age of 4 due to her being bullied for being different and annoying in preschool. For example, her last encounter with the group of kids that bullied her; chased her until she tripped, pinned her down, and pretended they were going to beat her with a big stick just to scare her. She doesn’t meet Arnold and the gang until the age of 11. Before that, she watched them from a distance behind her home window. However, their first, true encounter didn’t work out because Debora couldn’t take being laughed at due to a stimming incident reminiscent of the head hitting that Arnold did in his “I’m Crazy” number, only no music this time. Arnold tried to convince her that his friends were sorry and that they didn’t mean to make her sad. Debora was too afraid to try again though. Debora’s mother had her join the Campfire Lasses for a while to help with her social skills. She still kept tabs with Arnold through letters. She appeared to be making progress and had slightly better control of herself. Her birthday of 2001 however, something happened that made Debora question if she was even good enough to be friends with anybody. Would she always be too weird for people that they will never accept all of her, especially the ugly parts? She quit the Campfire Lasses at age 14; her heart just wasn’t in it anymore.

However, at the age of 15, due to events beyond her control, she had to go to public school so she can be accepted to colleges around Hillwood for they did not accept homeschoolers. Lucky for her, the school she could go to was PS118. Unlucky for her, Arnold wasn’t around to help her fit in with the sophomore class. With no one to help her fit in, she decides it would be best to just not to try at all. She’ll be polite in any way she can in hopes that people will notice her kindness, but she will not make the first move. She’s tired of being betrayed by people that claim that they want to be friends with her only to be abandoned the next day. Although, deep down she knew that this method wouldn’t work and people would be too caught up in their own groups to notice her. Besides, she needed all that time to work on her homework anyway.

However, due to some weird twist of fate, Debora somehow finds herself interacting with Edmund of all people at a party she didn’t even want to go to that Rhonda gave her an invitation to. Rhonda clearly only gave her it because Debora was a part of her class, just a plain, obligatory, pity invitation. To makes things weirder, Debora somehow can empathize with Edmund and his relationship with Wolfgang. Debora has spent so much of her life isolating herself because she never wanted to be hurt again by abusive people like Wolfgang. That time in preschool was still a trauma that she carries to this day. It was her first glimpse of reality that she was different from other kids and that people fear or hate things they can’t understand.

For one reason or another, Edmund the abused loser and Debora the lonely loser found comfort in each other and decided it might be nice if they hung out a bit more. Thus leads Debora and Edmund’s unlikely friendship having everybody around them confused, especially Wolfgang. Surely a girl that genuinely likes Edmund has to have something wrong with her. This leads to the butterfly effect of Wolfgang finding out Debora has Asperger’s syndrome, him exposing that information to the students of PS118, Debora having a break down in the supply closest, Edmund and Wolfgang’s falling out, Helga of all people come to give what Debora needs to hear in her time of need, Helga gaining a renewed purpose in an attempt to move on from Arnold, and Debora finds a true friend in Helga, Edmund, and Helga’s friends are by proxy. Sure, there are still people who treat her terribly when they found out she had a mental illness, but she’s finally content with people knowing because of all the sea of people that see her as a broken person, there are still a few good people that accept her, all of her.

Edit 8/2/2019

I gave her thick eyebrows because I thought she was too pretty and the point of her character is that she is plain looking.

Edit 11/24/2019

I changed her surname to have more of an Irish variant, even if it isn’t technically a real surname as far as I know.

Edit 12/5/2019

I decided to change her surname again so it could be a real Irish surname instead of an Irish variant of a British surname that’s only a variant on a first name basis.