#all nazis should die immediately

[yogurtverse]

List of things in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure that have actually happened (mild spoilers for part 7 and 8 if you care)

• A major plot point is foreshadowed by a man having four testicles.

• Two guys start what is basically a magic CIA investigation after a guy gives them suspiciously good tasting water.

• Said guy actually has an extremely powerful healing ability that just makes the healing process look super fucked up, and can cure basically anything but just uses his ability to make really good Italian food.

• A man falls under a spell that turns him into a dinosaur, which he can then permanently control after he gets Jesus Christ's eyeball shoved inside of him.

• A god tests his new abilities by turning his hand into a squirrel which he then effortlessly kills an entire legion of Nazis with.

• A man is quizzed on Weird Al trivia to prove he isn't possessed by vampires.

• A guy blows himself up, straight up disintegrates and comes back. The only explanation given is 'German science is the best in the world!'

• A woman uses her magnet powers to make two men look like they're having sex in public.

• 3 guys do a hypnotic dance to a severed head as an interrogation technique (the head is still alive) (this works)

• A main character melted and readers went eight real world months without knowing what happened to him (the melting wore off in the sewers)

• The main ability of one of the villains was to remove your powers and memories in the form of discs, which kills you incredibly quickly. He can also put a CD inside you and turn your dying body into a CD player.

• Two of the main villains elite guards were so bad at their jobs that the heroes didn't even know they were being attacked. (People also say this arc predicted 9/11)

• A man survives having a dozen knives thrown at him at once by lining his pockets with books in case this exact thing happens.

• A guy randomly gains coloured lips mid-fight and the only explanation is that he uses his time manipulation abilities to put on lipstick secretly.

• Two different characters do this btw.

• A main character that's just a sentient colony of plankton.

• A villains ability basically boils down to 'if you think about hurting me reality itself will kill you'

• There's a guy who's power looks exactly like a Lego replica of the white house. Once you bury the Lego white house a pressure field appears around a certain area and makes everyone inside bleed out.

• A main villains origin story is becoming a serial killer after seeing a picture of the Mona Lisa and getting really horny.

• A main character presumed to be dead enthusiastically shows up at his own funeral. However, it should be noted that he didn't know that was his funeral so as far as he knew he was just showing up to some guys funeral to announce that HE didn't die.

• A mans power is just being trapped in a transmission tower forever.

• A guy who canonically shot a god into space almost dies trying to get up an escalator.

• There is an Italian man who's ability is making ice. His name is Ghaccio, which is Italian for ice.

• A main character is implied to be bisexual through a monologue she has about snail sex.

• A main character meets a man claiming to be an alien and immediately uses this to scam a millionaire manga artist out of money.

• Whether or not this guy is an alien is never proven either.

• A main villain has 9 elite bodyguards. One is a bird. Another one is a sword.

• A man gets so mad about a guy insulting surfers he becomes addicted to drugs and bites all his fingers off.

• A child in elementary school has top of the range hidden cameras to watch his parents marriage fall apart in real time.

• It's a real possibility that a guy is so good at drawing manga that he survived the destruction of the universe.

• A guy throws a man out of a window and then compares it to putting on underwear.

• There's a guy dressed like a rabbit who lives on the moon who's sole purpose is fucking with one family and killing them if they don't look at the moon at a specific date. This family is seen once in a spinoff and not important to the actual plot at all.

• Mormonism is the true religion in the JoJo universe.

• A guy has a heart engraved into his skull somehow. Not important to the actual plot, it's just shown at some point and never brought up.

• A man accidentally puts his sock on inside out. This action stops him from being impaled.

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

If fighting vampire nazis, gore and guns wasn’t the focus of hellsing, what do you think the actual plot/main conflict could have been? I came across a post where you said alucard is wasted potential so … what kind of plot would show his potential? Also, what kind of a character arc do you think he should have had in a better and more thoughtfully plotted hellsing

Well I wouldn’t say the story isn’t thoughtfully plotted out :C

Like yes, it’s an over the top, campy, gorefest that makes no sense, but it succeeds in what it’s trying to do basically. I think it is genuinely, astonishingly good in a few ways. Hirano is fantastic at pacing and using his panels to give the impression he wants— when he bothers. And it’s surprisingly sound when it comes to structure and thematic motifs? The external plot is bonkers, but the way it handles these characters dealing with/being consumed by their pasts, and the way it uses vampirism/monstrosity as a metaphor is really solid.

Hellsing’s main thematic argument is one of comparing monstrosity and humanity, and pitting them against each other.

All the relevant monsters in Hellsing are presented to be unmoored, destructive, and unable to cope with the present in a meaningful way. They are defined by being incapable of moving beyond their pasts, so they seek out as much destruction as they can until they finally find something that can destroy them in turn. (This is consistent throughout the series but most clearly stated in volume 9)

All the monsters presented in Hellsing grapple with the inability to move on. Explicitly, Millennium’s entire raison d’être is bringing about a final “glorious” war they can die in because the modern world has no place for them anymore. They fight with fucking zeppelins. They’re relics.

Seras’ fight with Zorin hinges on a flashback, digging up all the trauma she never confronted. Walter and Alucard’s final battle is entirely about their history, and it has both of them looking like they did during the Dawn era.

Meanwhile, when Anderson uses the Nail of Helena (directly following the unraveling of Iscariot, and the death of Maxwell, who may as well have been his son), that is him refusing to cope. That is what drives him to monstrosity, to self destruction. That’s why he dies.

And Alucard, as the de facto protagonist, has spent the entire plot with the single motive of finding someone worthwhile to defeat him. He has no personal motivations outside of doing whatever Integra/Hellsing tells him to, and just… killing things for the love of the game until he eventually, finally dies. And his past hangs heaviest on the series. The entire present state of the series basically hinges on the shit he did as Dracula. The one thing we know about this guy is that if he could, he would very much like to die while killing things.

Anderson is meanwhile his main foil and most strongly represents the past/the siren song of death to him. He’s suspiciously similar in appearance to Van Helsing in the Bela Lugosi movie (despite Van Helsing looking different in the series itself) Meanwhile each encounter with him is immediately followed by a flashback, and then in that final fight Alucard ends up confronting his past human life.

And he almost gives up during that last fight, until Seras (a representation of the present and future) rouses him out of it. That’s his first real choice to move on. But it’s also established that eventually his past is going to catch up to him, and outweigh his future. It’s treated as a foregone conclusion, even if he’s not to that point yet.

So the Schrodinger thing at the end is really interesting. Because bullshit anime logic or not, the point is that he explicitly has to kill every single familiar he’s accumulated over the centuries, in order to exist in the present. Even then he’s “everywhere and nowhere” (lmao. whatever) which basically gives him the option to fizzle out of existence? So the epilogue existing at all, despite my various annoyances with its writing choices, is an interesting culmination of his arc! He chose to come back to his silly little found family when he really didn’t have to! I like that as an arc.

And in any sort of restructure I would want that preserved, even if the entire plot isn’t conveyed through boss battles. Anyway I’ve said for ages that I would want a monster of the week version of the series, so probs something like that.

Something with like the BTVS (or Supernatural lol) classic structure of small fry enemies per episode that culminate in a season arc/big bad. The ideal tonal and stylistic comparison would be X Files, but their overarching narratives famously sucked. Anyway I just would’ve liked a procedural vibe like that. I think the implications of Integra taking over the Badrick situation in the first volume is really interesting. And Seras being a police officer who was super not in the know— when higher ranking people are— was something that could’ve been explored in much more depth. I would’ve loved to see her as a recurring character in their like procedural episodes who keeps brushing up against this weird paranormal leaning stuff she doesn’t understand, until she finally gets involved in something that goes wrong and has to be turned into a vampire (ostensibly to save her life… but maybe to keep her quiet)

I also would love more intra organization drama that doesn’t result in immediate blood shed. We’re told that Iscariot and Hellsing have clearly mapped out jurisdictions based on majority religion, and treaties and diplomatic relationships, however strained. Maxwell going “fuck your treaties” is apparently a new thing, so like how does that go! What are the repercussions! What brought this on! And like are there any other similar organizations abroad? Are there team ups? I would like there to be team ups.

Meanwhile the existence of the round table implies that… the entire UK government.. is a sham? That they’re actually living in a secret feudal society? I want to know about the families and the politics and the very likely cartoonish degrees of corruption! The original Studio Gonzo show, very poorly, implemented a plotline where Hellsing became too much of a liability and the Queen specifically decided (lol) to have them publicly labeled as a terrorist organization and arrest everyone involved, pretending that they never had any government ties. That was fun! I would like a good version.

Or like it’s set in the 90s, let’s talk about how much harder it’s going to be to keep the supernatural quiet with the rise of technology, and the Internet. Like idk there’s room for a lot! I would basically just love to see a more sprawling version of this story and world.

My main issue with Alucard also is just that he’s so overpowered physically, that it seems like a waste to always put him in fights where he is 100% no question going to win. Putting him on a ship because the plot simply wouldn’t happen if he was there is 😭😭😭 I think we can have some boss battles, gore, and body horror, bc that is fun and the main series identity. But he just needs more restraints. I’d put more focus on him answering to Integra, who in turn answers to the slow moving machine that is bureaucracy, and just not let him do as much, and with severe consequences if he gets too out of line to maintain some stakes. Meanwhile, having a more mystery procedural approach would’ve balanced things out a bit more imo!

[presidentdisastraofgallifrey]

A Blind Eye liveblog

Romana just outright telling this conductor guy she's the President of Gallifrey, she's so chaotic

And THEN she acts all horrified (justifiably) at the idea of being married to Arkadian, so the poor flustered man does in fact call her Madame President

And the way she has to fight with herself to refer to Arkadian as a gentleman

I hate him so muuuuuuch

"Discretion advised" uh-huh. That was never going to happen

Now that I know Charley, and know how Romana knows Charley, Cissy being here hits so much harder

I love that she brought Leela

Love Leela insulting Cissy

And immediately tying up the conductor I mean Torvald I mean...

Do you know that she tries/threatens to kill him three separate ways in this story?

"Madame, the Alps are in the other direction." "Are they? Damn"

"You'll break it!" "I'll break you in a minute" <3

"You brought that savage to an embargoes time zone?" as if she hasn't definitely been here with the Doctor before

Speaking of, are they implying that WWII specifically is embargoed because there's too great a risk someone would try to undo it and ruin the timeline? Or am I reading too far into this?

Leela's speech gives me chills! She's so delightfully vicious! And something about the idea of her making an excuse and Romana knowing she's lying but shrugging it off is hot

Ha! They're too alive via "I don't black out"

Romana is sooooo Doctor-like sometimes. Calling it "your gadget" and then snapping "I know what it is!" when reminded of the name

Oh, Cissy is so horribly chilling

"Then who is dragging who down?" You go, Leela!

Her pouty, false innocence is such a thing; I wish Leela got to stab her

Torvald playing a Nazi is so on the nose but so good

First, we have no sense for what he looked like in his first regeneration but playing a young Nazi romancing Cissy tells us exactly what he looks like and how he carries himself

Second, his disgust/boredom at her "Jew-hating" but then immediately showing disgust at lesser species

Third, Torvald really is nasty. Like, Andred doesn't even come close in throwing around a few slurs at Leela. He's also apparently a one-man conspiracy

"Ugh, I give up, agreed." "Really?"

They leave their own planet so rarely none of them even realize that Joy should be much more alarmed by all this

I don't think I realized the first time that Narvin is actually considering prosecuting Romana for this

Oh, Leela...is she actually right? If she killed Torvald here and now, would Andred still be himself?

Narvin is fine with the idea of Romana getting shot apparently--and it comes up TWICE

Oh, I forgot about this! We really should get more into the fact that there is an intergalactic market for people and things from dictatorships

I remain convinced that Romana had no idea if she would be willing to let them all die or not, and still doesn't know because Andred caved

Torvald asking Cissy if she knows how to break a fall and then immediately breaking his own legs lol

Oooh, there's that Imperiatrix word again. Is it baked into Romana's blood like Pandora is, or are there rumors about her that seep in from the future?

Torvald is the actual worst, but he does actually sort of have a point about her nepotism

"I never lie!" you liar

"I see you, I see my enemy in my enemy's clothes" :'(

I'm so proud of Leela for her strength here

I do wonder what Narvin feels here about Torvald/Andred. I know we talk about Torvin with varying degrees of seriousness, but I can actually see Narvin having an interest in Andred-as-Torvald far more than what we see of Torvald as himself, who is halfway to being a far-right renegade and generally a superior asshole, which is not a type of person Narvin seems to enjoy (the superior asshole part or the renegade part more than political side at this point)

But also...

There was a plot, there was truth into what Andred was looking into, Torvald just said so

But he found nothing

Was it really just a one-man conspiracy?

Also also, that means he threw away his life for nothing at all

Also also also, why exactly was this Andred's responsibility to take care of? The Chancellery Guard are the front-facing cops, not the secret police or spies or anything

The one thing I still don't get was why Cissy was going to kill herself originally; it sounded almost like a whim, like she just had nothing better to do

I do like her ending; she's changed, a bit, she realizes she's been an awful person her sister would hate, but she's not really a better person now. She's still selfish and self-pitying

Oh, that clock ticking at the end!

[bruceburgdorf]

Two officers credited with saving over 100 Jewish lives

Now recognised as

Righteous Amongst the Nations

Albert Battel 1891 - 1952

Max Liedtke 1894 - 1955

Albert Battel was a reserve officer having fought in the First World War but was a lawyer by profession. In 1933 he joined the Nazi party although it is likely this would have been essential to continue practicing as many professions required party membership. He had already come under suspicion of the Party for showing friendliness towards Jews including lending money.

Battel was called up to join the Wehrmacht and was assigned to the depot at Przemyśl in Poland in 1942, under the command of Major Max Liedtke, a former journalist dismissed for criticising the Nazi Party in his writing. Battel was reported to have been on good terms with a few of the workers from the Jewish ghetto who were employed within the depot.

When Battel learned of the plans for the ghetto’s residents to be handed over to the SS for transportation to Belzec, an extermination camp, he proposed that the soldiers at the depot should make a stand and Liedtke agreed and told him he would back him up.

When the SS tried to cross the San river which separated them from the ghetto, Battel and his subordinates used weapons to threaten the SS unit and refused them entry, telling them that there were people living there who were essential for their work in the Wehrmacht depot and that they couldn’t take them away. With Liedtke giving his support they had no choice but to leave.

The officers would then go even further by using army trucks to transport the workers and their families, over 100 people in all, to the Wehrmacht depot where the families lived undetected in the basement for several weeks and would eventually resume their work.

Once the act of defiance reached the senior Nazis the officers were transferred from their postings with Himmler arranging for their arrest after the war. Unfortunately the remaining residents of the Przemyśl ghetto would be transported to Belzec.

After the war Bettel died from heart disease not long after release from captivity. He had been dismissed from duty in 1944 but would be called up to the Volkssturm in 1945. Liedtke would die in soviet captivity having been transferred to a unit on the eastern front.

Posthumously and over four decades after the event the two officers were recognised by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations with Major Max Liedtke being the highest ranking German officer to be awarded the honour.

Holocaust survivor Toni Rinde who was just two in 1942 was told by her father of Battel’s kindness towards people living in the ghetto and his actions which along with other people’s intervention saved the life of her family.

Why did the men not face immediate punishment?

Little is known about why the men escaped immediate trial given that it was against the law to assist Jews, however it has been debated that it could have due to Battel’s legal background. Up until as late as 1944 a passage in military law remained from before the Nazi era which stated,

A subordinate could face punishment for following the orders of his superiors if,

“It was known to him that the purpose of the superior officer’s order was a military or civil crime or offence”

Since the Nazi laws had NOT changed the definition of murder to exclude killing of Jewish persons it has been speculated that the arrests were suspended to avoid embarrassment of having drop the charges on a technicality should Battel have used this in his defence in court. It is unclear how widely known this passage in the law was, particularly among conscripted soldiers.

[rei-ismyname]

Mutants of the multiverse

Xavier edition part 1

X-Treme X-Men is a goldmine of alternate Chucks, seeing as the entire premise is hunting evil Xaviers across the multiverse. Here's Lord Xavier, Witch King of Gha-No-Shah. I assume The Wizard of Oz doesn't exist in this universe, or maybe he just doesn't care about originality.

This is the 'good' Xavier who recruits the multiversal X-Men for a Chuck Hunt (way better name for X-Manhunt IMO.) He's just a head in a ... bottle. Not a jar for some reason. Looks more like a goldfish bowl to me. This is his gig and his fault, naturally. Joining him is Dazzler, Logan - husband of Hercules, Emmeline Front, and a 14 year old Kurt Waggoner. Some bozo boyfriend of Dazzler's shows up a lot, but this is about Chucks.

Anyway, he and a hundred other Xaviers got together to do something good - to save an entire planet. Unfortunately, they broke the multiverse. Uh oh. Their actions caused the rise of 10 super evil Xaviers, who are also fucking around with multiverse stuff. He's like 'let's kill them!' and Dazzler is like 'the X-Men don't kill' but they follow him anyway.

Here we have a mutant circuit of sorts - a hundred Xavier brains hooked up together to achieve, uh, multiverse travel. When you're just a head all you can do is dream, and break stuff accidentally. Or get together with a hundred different versions of yourself and form a Chuck hive mind. Chuck city, bitch.

This, obviously, is Eldritch Octopus Chuck. It doesn't say a lot, preferring to let its actions do the talking. Also, it probably doesn't have vocal cords. Then again, the Xaviers that are just a head should have the same limitations. Whatever, it's a Chucktopus!

These aren't Xaviers. They're the self appointed gods of this place, a warped version of the X-Men - Storm, Namor, Iceman, Sabertooth plus Thor for some reason. They're massive dicks and rule with an iron fist plus lots of melodrama. They're opposed by...

Xavier and Magnus, freedom fighters! This world is an anachronism stew, with weird gods and steampunk. This Xavier has a body, which I'm sure Magneto appreciates. After head in a bottle Xavier betrays the heroic X-Men, these two swooped in to save the day.

This freedom fighter Xavier has a strict code of telepathic consent. Just kidding, he reads their minds immediately. At least he's honest about it, and he wants to be friends. No strings attached, I'm sure. I like his cute little goggles and Magneto's Spartan-style helmet.

They take them to Utopia! I wonder what it is with naming very precarious dystopian strongholds Utopia. Maybe it's the Greek usage, meaning no place. Maybe it's ironic. Or maybe there was a Utopia in 616 so everywhere has one too. Probably the last one. Reed defers to Chuck here, interesting. Looks like the Gods/X-Men took over the whole world except for this place. You gotta admire the ambition if nothing else. Chuck has plans.

Hmm. I think the multiverse might have a Xavier problem. This one wants them to kill the other one. He's a head in a bottle - I feel like they could just smash the bottle or something pretty easily. The X-Men aren't being given much of a choice here, surely they can't leave this Xavier-led Victorian society to die, can they?

Next time - find out which Xaviers are full of shit! Nazi Xavier! Alien Xaviers! Unethical telepathy! (Obviously.) And more!

[davekat-sucks]

lute x adam is better than davekat and chaggie. they both sound killer singing together.

also just like wish's "villain", I find no fault in adam's reasoning, sinners such as rapists and pedos should be eradicated. i dont give a fuck about how apparently there are random kids in hell to emotionally manipulate the audience, for all we know that could be a grown ass man pretending to be a kid, and maybe that could have been more interesting: to see a hell's citizen take advantage of vaggie's kindness. it'd explain her trust issues & lute's bizarre reaction to actual mercy.

whats up with modern shows/films these days and their weird morals...

Adam x Lute is better than Davekat and Chaggie. Funny enough, Vivziepop confirmed that pedophiles, Nazis, and racists are already wiped out after they died. Like, human pedophiles/Nazis/racists who die, don't go to hell, limbo, purgatory, or heaven. They just get erased from existence. Angels have nothing to do with it. The Hazbin/Helluva universe already does its work. Of course, imps and hellborn creatures like hellhounds or the Sin ringleaders, can still be pedophiles, Nazis, and racists. But they are exempt from extermination. So the only sinners that do get sent to Hell to just do the same old shit would be murderers, con artists, human traffickers, rapists, and those who commit slavery, are still around. Which makes me question where does child murderers or those who lead child human trafficking and slavery fall in. Do they get wiped out from existence too if they didn't touch the child in that way? Do they get wiped out from existence for harming a young soul? Or do they get straight sent to Hell because murder is bad, regardless of age? Probably doesn't help that Heaven already admitted they don't know the requirements of people getting into Heaven, so it's a mystery on who is even checking since apparently at this point, even innocent souls who likely died of accident or bad circumstances, get sent to Hell regardless. It probably will be answered later on by some bullshit means, but it raises more questions on when in point did that become a thing. People pointed out that Angel Dust's sister, MOLLY, is there. What point in time Heaven allowed others to get in before it all changed with the extermination? Does even something small as when you were a kid stealing from the cookie jar, count as a major sin to be sent straight to Hell and that's why the child is sent in? Who the fuck knows. Maybe it will get answered in finale. Maybe they will hold it off for season 2 since it is confirmed and they are already recording the lines as we speak. I think the reason for these weird morals in recent modern media, just only goes for the straight black-white mortality, but hide it differently in these recent times as an act of justice that we won't make the same mistakes like we did in the past. Unfortunately, they are but are too ignorant to see it. Also in the case of how Hazbin Hotel is presenting with its rushed pacing, people, audiences and creators, would rather get to the heart of the matter fast and immediately than to build it up on how to get there. Why the fuck should we know about Camille and her backstory when all that matters is that she is a protective mother and that's it? No need to build up sustenance, all it matters is just the emotional factor to pull at your heartstrings for one moment like a quick sugar rush. No need to show the slow burn romance of why Vaggie likes Charlie. All it matters that she is now cute lesbians with her and its a good rep for LGBT. TL;DR of that is people are impatient.

[dcpridefanzine]

🌟Team Interview- Walking Through the Wreckage 🌟

@breakingthespacetimewall: I kinda helped choosing the villain of the story and the characters that would show up. Having trans heroes kicking nazi villains butts is something that I would love to see everyday in comics(and real life). This story was planned before the USA elections result but now than never I think it really says a lot about today with past enemies coming back with their old ideas but new technologies and while we don’t have superpowers we too learned new ways to fight. My favorite part to illustrate was all the panels with Kate, I really liked the design I come to her and specially her nose that I had a certain way to draw. But I just love drawing comics so is always a pleasure when I have the time and capacity to do so.

Here is a panel they've chosen to share!

@www-wonderfulmistakes: I was initially inspired to write this story after first learning about Kate Godwin. As DC Pride seemed to be a success to DC Comics and therefore more of a priority, they thankfully started showcasing the talent who had contributed to the queer characters in their stable as a result, the late Rachel Pollack and Kate being among them. Kate had significance as being the first trans superhero from either of the “Big Two” comic publishers, as well as the first created by an actual trans woman in Rachel Pollack. Having learned through research that Kate was unceremoniously killed off in a past Doom Patrol run pre-New 52/DC Universe Reboot, I was delighted to see her resurrection in the 2024 DC Pride: A Tribute to Rachel Pollack One-Shot story “Shining Through The Wreckage.” Wanting to see more of her, I immediately dove into Rachel Pollack’s run on the second volume of Doom Patrol.

Admittedly, Doom Patrol running with the bizarre concepts that it usually does as well as being 30 years old, there are moments where the run shows it’s age, but Kate was imbued with a sense of self-confidence, humor and humanity that I think is noteworthy even today, no doubt informed by Rachel Pollack’s lived experience. I was excited and had questions after “Shining Through The Wreckage” and immediately wanted more: what would life be like for as a trans woman like Kate, to effectively die and then come back after two decades (give or take how time actually passes in these comics) and see how things have and haven’t improved? I thought bringing back one of Rachel Pollack’s, a trailblazing writer and creative, most notable creations not long after her death (in the pages of a comic specifically designed to highlight and showcase her contributions, and written by her friends no less!) was significant, and was disappointed in that there have been no further announcements on what is going on with Kate, or the Doom Patrol in general, since then. This story to me is a lot of things: it is an escapist fantasy in the way a lot of superhero stories are (in the specific scenario where a group of superpowered trans women joined forces to defeat and humiliate a Nazi; I have to credit my collaborator lady G, as it was her ideas to both have Degaton as the main villain and bring Dreamer, Galaxy and Circuit Breaker into the story. However, when people read it, I hope that their takeaway is that these are actions that can be performed in real life as well: listening to, uplifting trans women, and allowing them to be angry and voice that is something that we should be doing in real life. We should be fighting and humiliating those who would call themselves Nazis at every turn.

I think I can narrow my favorite part down to two! The first being the opening conversation and walk with Kate and Cliff…their dynamic and relationship was a central point of Rachel Pollack’s Doom Patrol run. I was really impressed and delighted by how much their relationship defied easy classification. I think it’s important to have a reminder (in and out of queer spaces) that labels are not the end-all be-all of the queer experience, and they should never hinder more than they help: they ideally should only go so far as whatever works for the people involved in a given relationship. I think Kate and Cliff embody that really well: you don’t need to put a label on the relationship to know that they care about each other in ways that both leans platonic and goes outside of heteronormative standards. As I said earlier, of course there are parts of both Pollack’s run and Kate & Cliff’s relationship there are dated, including some moments that involve blatant transphobia from Cliff directed at Kate that never really got a full resolution, so one of my priorities in writing this story was to at least try to clear the air about that. I wanted to address it in a way that I didn’t trust corporate DC Comics too. (Cliff owed Kate an apology at the bare minimum! Even if he wasn’t entitled to her forgiveness, he needed to make that attempt!!) I’d say my second favorite part of the story would be the general team up at the end, especially Kate touching base with Galaxy. The 2023 DC Pride special included a few pages with text columns giving thanks for Rachel Pollack and her contributions and one of these columns was written by Galaxy’s creator, Jadzia Axelrod. Among other things, Axelrod went on to say how seeing Kate as a teenager showed her that a lesbian trans woman could be a hero, a viewpoint character, and live a good life.

[beifong-brainrot]

Kuvira's unsustainable empire.

Stalin is here too. For some reason

I do often find myself wondering just how sustainable the Earth Empire Kuvira created was. Outside of the whole ethnostate thing, I have seen plenty of people argue that what Kuvira was doing was good for the Earth Kingdom and its people.

Kuvira: Growing up in Zaofu, with Suyin Beifong, I learned that the idea of a royal family passing a title from one generation to the next was archaic, and that technology and innovation should be what drives a nation forward. [...] It's taken me three years to get it back on track, and there is no way I will allow it to slip back into the dark ages. [...]

I find myself both tentaively agreeing with and vehemently against these opinions.

It's true that Kuvira helped stabilise the crime problem of the Earth Kingdom post the death of the Earth Queen. She also seemed to have greatly modernised and industrialised the Kingsom as well.

Of course, this actually makes perfect sense when looking at the real life inspirations behind Kuvira and her empire.

A lot of people compare Kuvira's rule over the Earth Empire to the Nazi party. And there is good reason to. But there are also huge ties between her and the rise and rule of Stalinism over the Eastern Bloc.

I think the main reason people compare Kuvira to the Nazis (other than the comparison seeming easier) is the ethnic clensing, concentration camps, etc.

But the thing is, the USSR also did that. The NKVD targeted many ethnic minorities, often accused for secretly plotting against the country.

Now, we never really are given a good reason for why Kuvira went through with an ethnic clensing in her empire. Which honestly kinda fits because from most testimonies I've read, a lot of people who were detained by the NKVD weren't told what they were being detained for either.

Bolin: So how did a bunch of water and firebenders end up in one of Kuvira's reeducation camps?

Ahnah: [Angrily.] Call it what it is: a prison.

Baraz: Kuvira's been purging states of anyone who's not of Earth Kingdom origin and locking them up.

Now the use of the term 'purging' immediately brings to mind the aptly named Great Purge (also known as the Great Terror.), which was essentially Stalin killing a lot of people in order to consolidate his power and remove influence of his political opponent. (A lot of people is apparently from 700,000 to 1.2 million)

Utilising violence in order to remove political rivals is also a pattern for Kuvira.

Of course tlok is stil a kid's show, so no oke is getting shot in the back of the head, but Kuvira uses implicit threats of violence to bend others to her will.

Kuvira was quite alright allowing the people of the state of Yi to starve and die purely because they refused to completely submit to her. (the idea of starvation is a surprise tool thay will help us later!) She also sends men after Wu, due to him posing no immediate threat to her. This is a very smart tactic of methodically stripping away anything that can question the legitimacy of her rule.

The branding of people who disagree with her, even people who were never allied with her, as traitor is also a very smart tactic.

Kuvira: Bring the citizens of Zaofu to kneel before the Great Uniter! All who pledge their loyalty to me will keep their freedom and will be dealt with fairly as full citizens of the Earth Empire. The rest will be imprisoned as traitors, like Su Beifong and her sons. Now bow!

Whoever is against Kuvira, is against the nation... questioning the leader equals treason... got it.

However, Kuvira's... strong punishments don't exactly extend to the very outlaws she was meant to weed out.

Kuvira: Stop groveling as if this is the worst day of your life. This ... is a good day. I'm going to give you all the opportunity to rehabilitate yourselves, and become productive members of your nation. Right now, you're lost, but pledge your loyalty to me, and I'll give you a new purpose in your lives. Of course, if you don't want to join, you could always stay right here.

As you watch the show, you can clearly see that Kuvira valued her Empire's militaristic power more than anything, including her people's actual well-being.

This actually gives us a little insignt on Kuvira herself. Kuvira, ever since she was a child, has dealt with a lot of pain. And the way she dealt with it was by reacting with violence and by pushing others away, keeping her defences up, so to say. This is most seen in her relationship with the Beifongs, and how she would rather push them away and convince herself they never cared for her, than open up.

We also see that Kuvira projects her trauma onto the Earth Kingdom which is an.... interesting way of coping to be sure.

Kuvira: [...] I was cast aside by my own parents like I meant nothing to them. How could I just stand by and watch the same thing happen to my nation, when it needed someone to guide it?

And that's where we get into the unsustainability of Kuvira's empire. She prioritises what she percives as safety. However, she seems to be pouring an astronomical amount of resources into her military.

I mean, how much money do you think was dumped just into this thing alone:

FUCKING LOOK AT ITS GOOFY ASS

To give Kuvira the benefit of the doubt, we don't really get to see what really goes on in the areas she's conquered. (which kinda sucks like did we really need all those episodes in Republic City)

We do however have Opal's testimony, and while she is biased against Kuvira, I don't really think she has any incentive to lie here.

Opal : They might have been happy when you first arrived, but I've seen what happens after you leave. Citizens are forced to work as slave labor, dissenters are sent off to who-knows-where!

I wouldn't be completely surprised if it were revealed that Kuvira introduced some manner of collectivisation in the Empire. Since this would also mirror the USSR's collectivisation of agriculture in real life. Plus, it would allow Kuvira to handle more respurces she could funnel into the army. This is also kinda supported by Varrick telling Bolin this:

Varrick: Relax, kid, what can they do? Kuvira controls the whole nation now, and Republic City is begging for the metal that we're mining. This train has left the station, and we own the track!

This implies that Kuvira excudes at least some amount of control over all the aspects of the country's economy.

More proof of this lies in Kuvira's words about literally seizing and redistributing Zaofu's resources as she sees fit.

Kuvira: [...] Zaofu cannot continue to rule itself. They have been hoarding their riches and technology too long. I'm here to distribute those resources fairly throughout the nation. This is about equality.

How much do you want to bet that 99% of those riches and technology went to the invention of Avatarverse's equivalent of nuclear warfare?

How much money was spent on Kuvira's military. More important question, how much food would it take to keep this military alive. Especially that you must also count other batalions and forces stationed around the country, so this isn't even all of it.

So we have a country where the citizens are forced into slave labour and most likely are poorly fed, in order to bolster and uphold a military (that probably consists of at least a few criminals). This is... not really good nor sustainable.

But it is in character for Kuvira, someone who prioritises her percieved 'safety' over everything, even her own other needs. Such as her very obvious desire for relationships.

Sadly Kuvira projecting her poor coping mechanisms onto an entire country isn't the best idea lol.

"But, Quill!", I hear you say, "If Kuvira ran the country so poorly, why did she have so many fans and supporters? "

That's where we get into ye ole cult of personality. Propaganda can be a shockingly effective tool, one that was used a lot by Stalin.

Similarly, we see tons of propaganda surrounding Kuvira. Even her title, The Great Uniter reeks of it. There's a lot of spectacle and performance in how Kuvira intracts with her people.

There's many examples of Kuvira twisting the narrative to make herself look better/more reliable, especially to her subordinates. Her lying about Bolin and Varrick still being with her, her portraying herself as a peaceful negotiator at Zaofu, despite threatening the Beifongs with an attack (her ignoring Wei's question of "you call bringing an army to threaten our city peaceful?" also feels very poignat because there really is no good way to answer that question lmao)

Her speech to her men before her fight with Korra is also a good example.

Kuvira: Fine. I want you all to know that I would never ask any of you to do something that I'm not willing to do myself. So, rather than risk your lives, I will fight the Avatar one-on-one.

Yes, perhaps to some extent she wanted to keep her soldiers safe, but this was also calculated. I'm quite sure Kuvira was able to tell Korra was weakened, she comments on it a few times. Kuvira has hostages, Zaofu's forces are diminished by her taking a lot of them with her. She clearly has no care for civilian lives, she attacked Republic City, a place full of civilians earlier than expected, it was guaranteed the place wouldn't be evacuated in time.

Kuvir holds all the cards here, but she still puts on this spectacle, because what better way to convince your followers about your power than kicking the Avatar's ass?

Kuvira's rule is built upon by the cult of personality surrounding her. She is, to some extent the figurehead that brought the army together.

There's fucking merch of her, she signs autographs, like she's a celebrity. This is deliberate. This is what keeps people blind and excusing her shortcomings and cruelty as a leader.

This may also be why Kuvira's right hand man, Baatar Jr seemed to have gotten scott free off for the crimes he also partook in. He may have helped Kuvira commit them, but he wasn't "the face of the empire" , so to speak.

Also no one gives a fuck about him for some reason despite him being a really interating character. I also want to make a longer post about Baatar, Kuvira and the consequences they faced for their actions.

In the end, I think that Kuvira is a very troubled young woman, who gained a good deal of power very quickly. And used that power the only way she knew how. To control and protect by pushing away any percieved threats.

You can see the Earth Empire as an extension of Kuvira herself, in a way. Kuvira has been through pain, and built up very prickly painful walls, while also maintaining a tight grip on her vulnerability.

The cult of personality thing would also be a more self indulgent aspect of Kuvira's trauma bleeding into her rule. Kuvira wants to build relationships, but doesn't want the vulnerability that comes from true relationships (most likely one of the main reasons she distanced herself from the Beifongs). This makes sense, as she did experience the cruelest rejection one can go through, being rejected by one's own parents.

However, facilitating connections where she has all the power would allow her to reap the benefits of relationships, without having the vulnerability she fears so much. (The exception to this rule is Baatar Jr. And I do wanna talk more about him and his relationship to Kuvira one day).

Kuvira is a really complex person, who really shouldn't have been placed in any position of power. But Raiko and Tenzin really needed someone to do the dirty work so they could place Wu on the throne (and probably puppet him) so uh. Yay.

Also I'm really not sure what this rant even is at this point. It was gonna be me complaining about Kuvira running the Earth Empire. Then it became me vomiting the contents of my history textbooks onto you.

Tbh I feel like I've been stating the obvious so uh. Yay. But enjoy my rambles lol

[silassinclair]

Michael's Girl PT. 4 \\ PolyLostBoys + Michael x Reader

Summary: The final test. CW: Murder, Blood, Traumatic Events, Gore Mention

AN// I'M SORRY IT'S BEEN MONTHS SINCE I UPDATED, LOWKEY FORGOT I WAS A FIC AUTHOR. BUT I'VE BEEN SO BUSY WITH ENLISTMENT PROCESSES AND STUFF SO HERE IT IS!! PART 4.

Previous Part <- 🖤 -> Next Part

It's been a few days since Y/n was forced to witness a bloody massacre right before her very eyes. But it was all apart of David's test, so she had no choice but to endure the newfound trauma that will forever be staining her brain. Luckily Michael was always there by her side, every nightmare she had she would be awoken with small kisses to her face or warm arms around her waist. So after a few days Y/n stopped having nightmares about the event with the surf nazis.

Of course she'll never fully recover but she can stand it now. But no longer does imagery of blood and gore cloud her mind constantly. It’s almost as if it never happened.

"Y/n it's almost 8. We should head out soon." Michael says while tying his shoes. His girlfriend sighs and sits down at the kitchen table as Michael finishes tying his shoe.

A look of confliction is on her face. On one hand she loves Michael so much that she'd sacrifice her humanity to be with him forever, but on the other she knows she'll eventually have to kill her own prey.

Kill other human beings with her bare hands.

"Y/n!"

She snaps up and looks at Michael with wide eyes. "Y-Yeah? What is it?"

The brunette lets out a sigh and he sits next to Y/n at the table. He gently grabs her head and presses it to his shoulder to lean on.

"I’ve called your name like, 7 times… Something is on your mind. You have that look on your face." He says, reading her like an open book.

Y/n hides her slight shock and just nods lightly. "Yeah... There's been a lot on my mind lately."

"Well you can tell me anything okay? I'm here for you. After all we're going to be together forever right?"

Y/n smiles at the thought of being with Michael forever. And if this is the case then she should be more open with him. She lets out a small sigh and looks up at Michael who he looks at her curiously.

"I know when I turn I'll have to hunt and kill my own prey eventually." She says, avoiding using the word "people" or "humans".

Michael's expression is unreadable as he stares off straight ahead into nothing. But he does nod.

"You're right. I won't be able to hunt for you forever. But you'll get used to it. Just hunt bad prey okay? Bad people who deserve to die. That's what I do. I don't kill innocents, not like the other guys." Michael says with a small smile as he nudges his girlfriend's shoulder.

Y/n smiles up at him and kisses his cheek. "You always give the best advice Michael. What would I do without you?"

.

.

.

The clock struck ten and Michael and Y/n arrived at the cave. Everyone was already there with the turning preparations. David, Dwayne, Paul, Marko, the wine bottle, and a tied up human girl.

"Huh?!" Y/n says in shock. Low and behold there's a tan blonde young woman tied to David's wheelchair with ropes. Y/n's reaction to the victim causes David to smirk.

"Surprise! This is your final test Y/n." The head vampire says. "This woman here is going to be your first kill." He snickers and gestures to the frightened woman who thrashes in the restraints.

"YOU MOTHERFUCKER!"

Michael charges at David furiously and throws a mean punch to his chiseled face, causing him to stumble backwards. Dwayne, Paul, and Marko immediately move to help their eldest brother but he shoves them all away.

"Get off me! I'm fine." David says with a growl. He glares at Y/n who is seen standing behind her boyfriend, clinging to his arm.

"This wasn't apart of my initiation! What the fuck is this?!" Michael glares at David with his piercing yellow vampiric eyes.

David shrugs and wipes the blood from his lip. "I decided I needed to up the difficulty. Make things more interesting for her, and for all of us. You're not gonna back down now are you Y/n? Think about Michael, think about how lonely he'll be without you being an immortal by his side."

His voice was like a taunting echo bouncing along the walls of Y/n's skull. It was ringing constantly like a bell, every chime, every word was painful to hear.

"N-No.. This isn't right. That lady is innocent!" She says with a wavering voice. Her confidence flew out the door along with part of her sanity. No way could she kill this woman. This isn’t what she signed up for. All she wanted was to be with Michael!

"You're going too fucking far David! Just let her turn and let the woman go." Michael snarls and gets in David's face. The platinum blonde stays standing straight and tall, even with a rabid looking Michael looking ready to rip him apart.

"You know I can't make this easy for her, or you. This is a test of trust, loyalty, and bravery. Whether you kill her Y/n or I kill you because you know who me and my brothers are."

Y/n stands frozen and afraid. Her thoughts were drowning away in a pool of fear and doubt. But Michael was there to keep her afloat. He is her rock as she is his.

"Like I'd even let you lay a fucking finger on her." Michael gets ready to pounce on David but he's suddenly held back by Dwayne and Paul, who both have him by both his arms.

"Now Y/n." David turns to said girl with an intimidating glare. "Make your choice. Kill or be killed. This is life darling. Not everything goes your way."

Y/n swallows and takes slow steps towards the woman in the wheel chair. When the bound woman sees this she starts thrashing around in her bindings, trying to break free. Her screams are muffled by a rag tied tightly around her mouth.

"I'm sorry. I-I have to do this… Please forgive me!"

Y/n grabs a decorated knife adorned in authentic gems that lay on a small table next to her. She holds the knife and stands before the woman. The girl raises the knife and shuts her eyes and makes a slash straight ahead, not knowing whether she hit the woman or not. The blade was so sharp that it felt as cutting through air. Y/n feels the blade contact something but she doesn't know what because the touch felt so light. All she hears is muffled screaming that slowly dies down.

"Open your eyes." The husky voice of David says in her mind.

Y/n hesitates and opens her eyes slowly, the first thing she sees is red. A blur of red. Then everything becomes clear. The woman in the wheelchair is dead, her throat slit open with blood oozing out. And in Y/n’s hand is the bloody weapon that was used to end the poor woman’s life.

Y/n screams and drops the knife. When she accidentally looks into the dead woman’s eyes she feels her heart drop to her stomach. The woman has a permanent look of betrayal. Her green eyes no longer shine, rather they are dull and lifeless. Her throat is drowned in a sea of red and so are her clothes. The sight is gruesome.

"Y/n!" Michael shouts and breaks free of Dwayne and Paul's grip. He rushes over to his girlfriend who sinks into despair. As she slowly drops to the ground Michael kneels beside her and holds her to his chest. Her broken sobs are muffled in his chest.

"You're fucking disgusting for doing this to her. I'll never fucking forgive you David." Michael says with a primal growl.

The other three vampiric brothers have seemingly unreadable expressions. The usually chipper Paul and Marko seem awkward and Dwayne looks like he'd rather be anywhere else. The cries of the young woman make their undead hearts break. But why did they feel this way? Perhaps it was because they knew Y/n was going to be their future vampiric sister bound by blood. And seeing her in such disarray pulls their heart strings in all the wrong directions.

"It had to be done Michael. She needed this." David kneels in front of Michael and Y/n. He places his cold gloved hand on Y/n's hair making her flinch into Michael's hold. Instantly, Michael smacks David's hand away. His glare is sinister and out of character. Michael was the most humble and sweet out of the vampires but now he looked like a real beast. His arms clung possessively around his whimpering mate.

"Give me the fucking wine so she can turn. Once she turns into a full vampire then Y/n and I are leaving." Michael utters hauntingly, striking fear into David. David is frozen when he hears Michael. "You can't leave. We're all bound by the same blood, we're a pack." He says as he tries to hide the desperation in his voice. Having anyone leave his pack would break David. He may seem like a lone wolf but in reality he loves and cherishes his pack. And losing a member and a potential member would kill him inside.

"I don't care. Y/n is mine and I am hers. We only need each other."

The other three vampires look to David, wanting to know what he'll do.

"Y/n will drink the blood tonight then... But she's still apart of our pack. If she wishes to stay with us she will, and if she stays you will stay. However if she wishes by the end of her half cycle to go with you then you and her may leave. But you cannot return." David announces with authority.

Michael looks down at Y/n who seems to have fallen asleep from severe mental strain and exhaustion. He caresses her cheek softly and looks up at David. "Alright. Deal." Michael reaches his hand to David, which David takes firmly in his own and gives a stiff shake.

GUESS WHO'S BACK BITCHES 👹💅 I've had months and months of writers block but I'm finally back! Plus it being October really put me in the mood to update this series. In the future I may not upload for this series as often as I like to because I plan on making oc x reader content. But don't worry, I'll still write for the Lost Boys!!

[scaly-freaks]

“Milk Carton” — Self-explanatory, it was the only song I could think of that has the perspective of someone who survived a kidnapping. I also believe that establishing what is going to happen in the beginning helps build up a sense of dread. We know that a kidnapping is going to happen, we just don't know when.

“In the Pines” — A truly haunting song. The song was originally written by Lead Belly, but the first time I heard it was this Kurt Cobain documentary called Montage of Heck, where the final scene is Kurt performing the song at MTV Unplugged. There’s this moment in the song where Kurt makes this face that is absolutely chilling, almost like he’s Colonel Kurtz staring into the heart of darkness. The lines, “you caused me to weep, you caused me to moan, you caused me to leave my home / I wish to my Lord that I’d never seen your face / I’m sorry you were ever born,” also felt pertinent. All in all, I felt it sets the Southern setting, especially the North Carolina region, where you say Aegon takes Amara.

“Rampage” — I felt that this accurately captured Aegon’s demeanour. I don’t know whether they might have known each other prior to her abduction, but most kidnappings occur with someone who knows you. There will be a lot of songs where you just feel looming dread, and this is the first of them. “Milk Carton” is disturbing, but there’s no dread, because there’s no anticipation. Whereas “Rampage,” I’m going to assume, seems to be spoken from the perspective of a lover of a boy whom, it’s heavily implied from the references to the Columbine Shooters and Tate Langdon in American Horror Story, is ultimately going to shoot up a school. When I was a kid, my parents would play this song called, “Six O’Clock News,” about a woman whose lover goes on a shooting rampage, who has just learned she’s pregnant with his child. I always was very shaken by that song, and I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have loved someone who committed such atrocities; just the sheer guilt, the discomfort regarding how to mourn them, the thoughts of I should have known, I should have seen the signs…was unthinkable for me as a child, and is unthinkable now. In “Creek Blues,” another song from the same album as “Rampage,” you sort of get this mosaic of such “signs.” He shows the speaker his daddy’s guns, he kills dogs and leaves them to die by the nearby creek. I think, for me, I wanted to build up a sense of dread over the songs, until it reaches its pinnacle, sort of this mounting pile of evidence that something terrible is going to happen. I discuss the notion of warning signs in relation to violence and abuse in the explanation for “Sometime After Midnight.”

“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” — Chosen mostly because it inspired this creepy, creepy short story that we read in high school, about the immediate moments preceding the abduction of a teenage girl from her home. Incredibly unsettling story, and absolutely heartbreaking. The story, called “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” was adapted into a movie in the 80’s. Honestly considering removing it, given that I’m trying to build up dread, and it’s not really a dreadful song. Let me know if you think it should stay.

“Sometime After Midnight”— I wanted to convey a sense of looming doom; there’s this moment in W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants, where there’s this extensive idyllic depiction of Bavaria, and then this war plane crosses the sky. This section starts out with the understanding that it’s the account of a character’s mother, and that she wrote it while awaiting deportation to a Nazi death camp. And this endows the image of the war plane cutting across this clear blue sky above this bucolic Bavarian landscape with a feeling of absolute dread; they have no idea what is going to happen. It’s the equivalent to the tomb in Arcadia, or the ending of Irréversible: it’s a portent of doom. “Sometime After Midnight” is one such prelude; the speaker remarks to herself that she knows that she spent all day getting ready for the date, but that she has this feeling in her stomach that makes her feel uneasy. She remarks that she’s been told that bad things happen after dark, and then looks at the setting sun. It’s the equivalent to a puzzle piece falling into place. I do truly believe that there is an intuition that people have that something’s off, and that many, especially women, choose to ignore this feeling, tell themselves that they’re being silly or paranoid, only to realize that their gut was right. It’s meant to convey dread, and banality. While the speaker may have considered her day preparing for the date innocuous, just a bit of fun, in retrospect, the day will become far more significant.

            I was too young to remember 9/11, but when I’ve asked my parents and my friends’ parents their stories of that day (I grew up very close to New York), they all reacted differently—my boyfriend's dad saw the second tower get hit from the train window, and stayed on the train, my friend's dad was in the South Tower and ran to the Hudson to get on one of the many boats that were trying to take people off Manhattan—but one thing detail was the same in all of their stories: there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky that day. The reason why this detail has crystallized in their head is because they should have known. It was only in retrospect that the day that began like any other became that day. We trace the final day of murder victims, what they wore, their last words to their parents and loved ones, because we want to prepare ourselves for the possibility that our banal, commonplace lives could be torn apart at a moment’s notice, that one day we might walk out of a door and never be seen again. I believe that we have an intuition about people, but not about events. The speaker of “Sometime After Midnight” does not know that this is the last day; she may not have spoken to any of her parents or friends or loved ones but instead spent all of it getting ready for a date that will end in either her abduction or her demise. She may have a gut feeling, but by the time she feels it, it's already too late. This is her last day, and all that she can do is watch "the sky turn black by the window-side."

“Bad Things”— Another song that I felt exuded dread, although in this case, the fear actually becomes realized. The opening riff almost hits like a stuttering heart, with this insistent clapping noise; it immediately evokes both despair and anxiety. The song's chorus reads like a nursery rhyme you tell children: bad things happen, and you are powerless to stop them. The chorus is also apt for a kidnapping: you leave home, and you never come back. I had never been able to decipher the spoken part, but in looking at the lyrics, they’re really chilling, given that they’re spoken by Jim fucking Jones. The lyrics read as such: "You’d have wanted to run, you’d have had to run with them, because anybody could’ve run today, they would have wanted to. I know you’re not a runner and your life is precious to me.” It’s essentially Jim Jones gaslighting his followers in the leadup to their mass suicide, telling them that they actually have agency over their fates. They chose to stay and kill themselves alongside him, he argues, because they didn’t run when they could have. They freely chose to stay with him and die with him. But this isn’t true; the inner circle would punish those who attempted to escape, and the event that precipitated the Jonestown massacre was a group of Jones loyalists gunning down the Congressman Leo Ryan and defecting members of the People’s Temple on an air strip as they tried to leave. Jones manipulated his followers into believing they had a choice, that, if they wanted to leave, they could have, when they never did. I think I recall Aegon using this rationalization in Chapter 10 of YSMMC: it was Amara's choice to go to the cabin, so he bears no responsibility for any of the acts he felt licensed to subject her to as a result of this choice. And, as in Jonestown, Amara’s “choice” in YSMMC wasn’t much of a choice, because it was either that or a confrontation with Jace, and Aegon knew this, and exploited it to his advantage. He helped create the conditions that would cause her to choose. It all reminds me of when I was reading Chapter 17 of YSMMC, and I was reminded of this passage from Lolita:

“Get in,” I said. “You can’t call that number.”

“Why?”

“Get in and slam the door.”

She got in and slammed the door. The old garage man beamed at her. I swung on to the highway.

“Why can’t I call my mother if I want to?”

“Because,” I answered, “your mother is dead.”

In the gay town of Lepingville I bought her four books of comics, a box of candy, a box of sanitary pads… at the hotel we had separate rooms, but in the middle of the night she came sobbing into mine, and we made it up very gently. You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go. (140)

That is to say, Jim Jones, Humbert in Lolita, and Aegon in YSMMC all act as if the decision by their victims to have sex with them was their victims’ choice, when they were the ones who set up the conditions that forced their victims to do what the men say. And, even if Amara freely chose to go to the cabin, she didn't choose any of the acts Aegon subjected her to there. I figured that this would be the approach of Aegon in this AU; tell Amara that it was actually her choice. This song sort of represents the pinnacle of the lead-up: the kidnapping that we've been expecting has finally occurred.

Anyways, as always, thank you for the opportunity for me to sharpen my character analysis approach to get ready for school; the methodology that guides my interpretation of characters is essentially the New Critical close reading method, and requires that I reconcile all aspects of their character and actions with each other, to explain their motivations, etc. It's a great challenge to have to analyze characters when their writer is right there to correct you; you're a lot less likely to cast generalizing statements about characters; it's harder to pontificate falsehoods when God is right there, if that makes sense lol. It forces me to be much more discerning, and therefore hones my analytical process, so I thank you again for that!!! X Caroline

Absolutely insane descriptor behind each song in this playlist, and the thought put into them? Girl, you are going to ace your impending studies. I consider myself lucky that this silly little hobby I picked up attracted people who treat it as something real and genuine which then pushes me to improve.

I only really fix someone's analysis if I think it's interpreting a sensitive topic in a way that I don't think is conducive to open-minded discussion; that responsibility kind of feels like it falls on me to fix since it's my work they're reading.

But your analysis, as well as others who have had their interpretations, I love to ingest, because as a writer, it's so easy to feel like these characters are just mine. But in reality, I read an amazing book and I hold those characters in me in a way that the writer might not recognise or identify with. Someone might extract the gentleness of Aegon and Amara and want to hold that close, whereas I might have written that particular chapter/passage from a place of extreme violence and trauma. Both are correct because both are tangled up with human beings. And when someone gives me their approach, I get to experience this familiarity of my characters from a whole other vantage which is so, so fun.

I'm a fan of every song you've chosen, and even though I know I can't write this AU right now, the lyrics to each are painting scenes into existence. For instance, as I was reading (and listening), a scene came to me where Amara tries to escape from the moving truck, and when Aegon gets her back, he choke-slams her into the horizontal part of the seat, her neck bent at a crooked angle as her head hits the car door. He's kneeling on the gears and the brake, one arm angled up against the roof of the truck, crouched over her like a malignant beast in a painting. The physicality of him filling up the space while she curls up and tries to push at his chest with her feet...yeah.

The Lolita comparison and the instances in YSMMC where Aegon created an inescapable situation and then handed her the illusion of choice...YES. Exactly it. If we're speaking in terms Helaena would use, Amara is an insect missing several legs, and Aegon is the spider slowly spinning the web in circles around her. Or a ladybird around which he's drawing a shape and she keeps trying to avoid the new lines he's putting on the page, without realising she can just step over them. She regularly suffers from what I like to call a fuck fog but there's so much more happening when Aegon decides to actively manipulate her. The Targaryen trauma train is so real, and it's just inconceivable every single one of the siblings hasn't developed their own methods of "playing God" when things don't go their way.

Anyway, urgh, fucking juicy ask. Delicious. Nibbling on it like a chicken leg.

P.S. Before I forget, I didn't envision Aegon knowing her before he kidnapped her at first, but I sort of like that now. There's a scene in Room where she screams at her mother for telling her to "be nice to everyone" and that's why she helped her eventual kidnapper look for his dog that didn't even exist. Maybe Amara gave Aegon a smile in passing a few times at the place she worked, and it was never anything more complicated than that. A scrap of kindness he decided to poison and taint.

[toyhousedramas]

I can't believe there's a whole list of people who support Trump on a character storage site. People are scary af, really. Idgaf about who you vote for but honestly? The people making lists are the ones that you should be the most careful about.

You should ‘gaf’ about who people vote for. Facism is real and alive.

To be clear, the only reason I didn’t block you immediately is because I wanted to post the following;

I have no sympathy, empathy, or care for trump supporters, garbage people, scum of the earth nazis, and centrists are just rightwingers in the making most of the time.

It is my earnest wish that trump, his supporters, and anyone who line straddles or doesn’t ‘gaf’ about a nazi being in power dies soon and preferably in copious amounts of pain.

Making lists of trump supporters to block is based as fuck, I hope they all get banned, and, I cannot stress this enough, I hope they die.

You’re either a child, stupid as fuck, or a nazi, either way; You’re not welcome here.

[shutupineedtothink]

X files mini review/analysis 3x02 "Paper clip"

Coming as the final part of what is basically a trilogy of episodes starting with the s2 finale, this was easily the craziest ep and probably the best I've seen in the show so far. I actually watched it twice!

First of all this ep covers hella ground. The amount of stuff they packed in here from mulder showing back up and the Spiderman face off with Skinner to secret files on anyone and everyone apparently including our scully and Samantha mulder to wait there were aliens in there?? To Melissa Scullys death at the end and MS final convo + hug was crazy. With cameos from the lone gunmen, scullys mom, Albert, CSM, etc etc. Lots going on and it still felt coherent and well paced to me.

Some highlights:

- how did you know? I just knew. -> biggest "we are about to kiss" energy I've seen so far. Also i more or less predicted this scene before we saw it from previous episodes, but it was no less excellent.

- scully verbally gunning for nazis was not something I knew i needed until now, please do more

- secret rich guy organization is kinda meh overall but I like the British guy

- Albert is the real hero of this ep for flying to DC just to pray over Missy

- love an old spooky mine, very scooby doo of them

- also the music? Went off this ep

- scully is really sweet for her concern over what they will find about mulders dad, but sweetie this is not the time also this man is out for answers

- sassy Skinner is my favorite skinner

- the file room/mine area gives ark of the covenant vibes slightly

- i love that mulder is immediately looking for her file and then his sisters

- fox mulder do not leave your partner behind in the creepy mine to chase aliens

- omggg the aliens running past scully got me

- looove the spaceship rising through the windows

- so that was a fuckin ufo and we're just gonna move on cool cool cool

- this shootout was fun ngl, v 80s action movie energy

- hm they kinda just get away, I think it'd be fun if there were some leftover aliens that took out the swat guys

- they really just hitchhiked to this diner huh

- they both have food but neither are eating, that feels deliberate

- what are you hoping to find agent Mulder? Why they killed my father. And what happened to my sister. And what they did to agent scully. She's his Family!! My heart.

- this convo is sooo good. Gillian acting the shit out of it as always

- interesting that mulder can't quite bring himself to make the deal, but he leaves it to scully basically already knowing what she'll do

- Actually, it is like he's giving up his family for hers in that moment, Jesus. And then Missy dies anyway. Fuck.

- so im not getting the white buffalo logic. If the mother died and the baby lived, wouldn't that mean Missy should live? Wait are they saying because mulder lived Missy had to die? I'm confused.

- krycekkkk!!!! Sucks!! Get blown to hell mf see if I care

- mulder finally getting "the truth" and maybe it wasn't what he wanted hmm

- so krycek has the tape now. You know what that is kind of interesting. And csm is lying about it. OK yes this is good setup.

- so mulders dad AND mom knew that Samantha would be taken??? Jesus.

- again, sassy Skinner is my favorite skinner.

- I like Albert being the living file but what is stopping them from killing all those guys really. I guess unless Skinner really is bluffing?

- i LOVE LOVE LOVE this ending hospital scene, specifically the lighting and the framing of the shot. Her sitting in the chair, him kneeling next to her, the light between them but they're both in darkness from the back, ugh it's so good.

- I think its about fate... idk if you should say that to someone after their sister just died.

- I've heard the truth mulder, now what i want are the answers. Banger line!

- I wonder if they planned that hug or he just went for it but I appreciate it either way.

- I hope scully gets to shoot krycek. Let her have revenge i would love to see it.

Overall great ep. A little all over the place but in a good way. Rip Missy I didn't think they would actually kill you.

[lamialamia]

MOTA ep 8 rewatch thought

Trying to fight off jet lag by catching up to my fandom duty.

Anyway here are my thoughts on this episode:

I'm going to say sth controversial here. But... this episode is kinda boring

Besides the small action sequence of the B51, I find the rest of it quite forgettable.

It's the same ol' problem of MOTA: building up to some trouble and then do not follow up on it. Macon points out how the aircraft doesn't have enough gas for the mission. We sees one of the planes struggle to take off its tanks, presumably conserving the fuel, but that's it. The problem is solve. And then the planes goes down so the problem of fuel doesn't matter anyway.

The first half of the episode is the building up to D-Day from Crosby's perspective. Upon rewatch, this part becomes so tedious because I already know he's gonna miss out on it. And then I realize that Sandra's part (where she is spying around on the tram and then on the street and then delivers some intel etc) is exactly the same. That part never get an adequate climatic turning point at all either! So it's a dual story lines of things that don't pay off!

Well at least the Buckys were scissoring for the whole damn stalag to see.

Bucky is doing so badly. I do love his "genuine" smile when he's say he's fine tho. Man is doing so well everyone beside the Germans with the guns and barking dogs stay the hell away from him, sending out his boy best friend to handle him, and even then. Like at this point Bucky is outright saying he would rather die in so many words.

I feel like, in a way, MOTA is afraid of conflicts. Of confrontations and tackling the difficult topics that arise. They want to have the Tuskegee Airmen but afraid to talk about the racial tension between the american white pilots and the black pilots when that should be the real source of conflict. They just have the nazis interrogator conveniently bear the brunt of the tension because obviously, we have the perfect antagonists to shoulder this problem.

When Crosby is like: "What if it not the same?" 😩😒

My brother. You did some questionable stuff and what the show give you is a scene or two of asking some sort of hard questions and then immediately instead of having to face it yourself, you get a verbal hug from your best friend who tells you: war sucks, you gotta to do what you gotta to do. And boom, brother, things are absolved and finished hoo ray! we never have to go into the "why" to your question, why do you think it wouldn't be the same anymore. Just use the war in general to be an umbrella answer to everything.

So yeah :|

[dykes]

spoilers for episode 7 of season 6 the handmaid’s tale

June realizing that her loverboy really is a Nazi is so fucking funny. Yeah girl it's almost like he's part of a Nazi-style regime and always has been.

But her finding that out will its overlaid with the deaths of all the girls in Jezebels (except Janine)……. fuck off man

"I never said the girls had anything to do with it" "Are they dead?" "I didn't think he'd do that" bro you are LITERALLY part of a regime that constantly does this to women be for real right now be for fucking real lmfaoooo

The nick blaine girlies must be throwing up. Lmfaooooo. They're going to call this a character assassination but his pretty face never not made him a nazi. You too would not be immune from falling in love with a pretty faced nazi.

"You're just like them" "And you love me, so what does that make you". Breaking News: idiot nazi man digs a deeper nazi hole (unsurprising)

Luke going for June's throat over her telling Nick, which directly got all those women killed.. GOOD LMFAOOOO. She's so stupid its unreal. "Don't be in love with a fucking Nazi". LMFAOOOOOOO.

God the dialogue in this fucking show/season is sooooo cringe.

The "bridal shower" Serena is getting being basically an inquisition of wives (dressed in green) vs her (dressed in pink) is so fucking funny. HER REALIZING SHE'S BEEN (SLIGHTLY) RADICALIZED COMPARED TO THE OTHER WIVES LMFAOOOOO

Oh Serena's going to die at her wedding isn't she. Cringe shit.

D'ARCY CARDEN???

Sorry hang on. I'm meant to believe that they sent Janine to Jezebels and didn't steralize her before that? So she can just… become a handmaid again??? Make it make sense lmfao. What is the writing this season…

Moira and June's stupid conversation while she tries to cheer her up and stop ruminating over the mistakes she made with Nick is so fucking funny. They love each other so much. June.. girlie…… please decide to love women instead.

The resistance snubbing June is so funny actually. Get fucked girl.

Her and Luke finally have the separation talk and then immediately "I should want to leave you, but I can't" "I can't either". So tiring. But also the Nick fangirlies are definitely found dead huh

Aunt Lydia realizing that even if Janine got out, she's just been put into a worse situation (again). Lmfao. She's so fucking blind again and again and again. And she's meant to be one of the main characters in Testaments. Bye.

It wouldn't be a THT episode without a closeup of June crying/having a breakdown overlaid with sad music.

He's suuuch a cunt but Lawrence really is one the funniest cunts in this show. Sorry to people who think otherwise. Him trying to get June to help mayday again (self-serving, yes) but using Serena as bait to do so is SO funny. "Well Serena never quit" LMFAOOOO "What makes you think I give a damn what Serena does"… girl…. he can see how much you love her but also desperately want her to lose.

Oh yeah Serena is DEFINITELY going to die at the wedding. I can hope she doesn't but lol.

OHHHH SERENA PUT RITA IN THE BAKERY AND IS USING RITA'S BAKERY FOR HER WEDDING CAKE. SHES GOING TO GET POISONED.

D'ARCY CARDEN PART OF THE RESISTANCE LETS GOOOOO

D'Arcy Carden not good at being subtle and twigging Aunt Lydia to Something going on (Ben Affleck smoking dot jpg)

God this episode sucked except for the small funny bitch parts. Next episode is called Exodus and then Execution. So Serena is definitely going to die in Episode 9 (Execution). And then Episode 10 (finale) nothing will have changed, their resistance will have meant fuck all, and the whole show (thank you Margaret Atwood for once again writing the completely unnecessary sequel book) will have meant nothing at all. Peace and love on planet earth etc.

Seeing "Directed by Elisabeth Moss" for the final two episodes like. Little Miss Scientologist is going to fumble this so bad.

[ferainart]

I don’t want to write this. I don’t want to rant about politics. But I feel right now I have to. If people like Musk think they gotta weigh in it really feels like we need every opposing voice possible. So screw it. Personal, biased opinion incoming:

Tomorrow Germany has federal elections.

And we’re voting while facing the same deeply weird hateful rhetoric that’s given rise to Trump, Brexit and all the rest.

In Germany that’s been the AfD and now the BSW.

Reactionary parties born out of frustration with the status quo. That’s the only understandable part tbh.

The AfD are the far-right ones Musk endorsed right before throwing a Nazi salute some days later. That should tell you everything.

Their immigration policy is basically accepting people drowning in the Mediterranean. When a guy with proven right-wing islamophobic views crashed a car into a Christmas market in Magdeburg their immediate reaction was to focus on him being from Saudi-Arabia instead of his actual motivation. Their party program declares climate change as not a thing. Oh and no subsidies for electric cars. Wonder if Elon read that part. And they want to remove sanctions against Russia and end the war in Ukraine with negotiations asap - probably the kind Trump just had. With no chance of Ukraine joining the EU. The meetings party officials had in Moscow some years back definitely had nothing to do with that I’m sure.

The same goes for the BSW. They splintered from the left wing ‚die Linke‘ some years ago but their immigration policy is the same far right stuff as the AfD and they want to ‘normalize’ relations with Russia again as well. They admit Russia is the aggressor but only because Nato/the USA caused them to act that way. Only real standout differences to the AfD is that they want to tax the rich and that they do wanna do something about the climate.

In nearly all other points they just blame the previous government, immigrants and the EU.

It’s all easy answers to complex problems, which don’t actually solve anything.

Please do not vote for these parties.

If you’re still undecided, you can find all the party programs here: https://www.bundestagswahl-bw.de/bundestagswahl-wahlprogramme

If you want to get a quicker check on which parties align with your views, the Wahl-O-Mat is another option: https://www.wahl-o-mat.de/bundestagswahl2025/app/main_app.html

And for checking your views against what the parties actually voted for in the recent past there’s the Real-O-Mat: https://real-o-mat.de

And finally if you have an hour, this video checks the scientific claims the parties make in their programs for factuality: https://youtu.be/JS3QTljfoJM?si=vaKSjOMpiTNGV77U

[raviniastar]

Interesting to realize that in every Final Destination there's people who think they've avoided death, only to die as soon as they realize they didn't actually. Headcanon rambles incoming:

My theory? It's nothing to do with avoiding death, it's the knowledge that you may not have avoided death that kills you. The first victim in all the movies is someone who you could argue already had a belief that they were doomed to die or was already doing risky things:

- 1st movie: guy was definitely depressed, and thought he should have died instead of his brother

- 2nd movie: a live fast lotto guy (with an apartment that was gonna burn down eventually, look at it--Death could've been asleep)

- 3rd movie: the tanning bed girls (going to the sketchiest, cheapest tanning salon in the world and ignoring every safety protocol)

- 4th movie: it happened literally outside the predicted disaster while said disaster was happening (or if you don't count that it was the literal Nazi preparing to burn a cross)

- 5th movie: the gymnast (who was visibly stressed, overheated bc of the broken AC, and also gymnastics is dangerous)

- And 6th movie: the guy whose mom was constantly saying all the ways he could die for literally his entire life (or the mom who was constantly aware of ways that she could die and willingly stepped out of her shelter into the area where she believed she was going to die)

Y'know why I think 2 is the only one where the main characters seem to have survived? Those two genuinely do not think they're gonna die. There's not a single doubt.

Dwelling on death is what pulls it toward them. That's why Bludworth lived so long, he didn't wallow in nearly dying or actively focus on it other than to advise other people on what they could do. And I think he had it right in this final one when he was like "you can't evade death forever, better to enjoy however much time you've got instead".

Like, let's look at the potential survivors of each:

- 1: the three go to Paris, but then immediately become anxious about dying and that's when they start dying again (one guy then, one off screen, and I'll get to Clear in a sec)

- 2: Besides the couple that survives and is clearly not dwelling on death, there's the kid that got saved from being run over. He's clearly still dwelling on his mortality, since he prompts his dad to tell them about him being saved. And that prompt is immediately before he explodes, weeks after the incidents at the hospital. Clear was like the grandma in 6--she believed she was in a safe space and not going to die, and was safe until she left that space, at which point she was put back into the order because she abandoned that line of logic.

- 3: The time length isn't specified, but they've clearly graduated high school and are working/in college. But it's not until they are all on the same train that they consider they might still be in danger, at which point they all start the order again.

- 4: One of them suggests that the plan for their deaths was always going to end with them being in the cafe, moments before they are all three killed. Again, the death events don't start until they start getting worried about dying.

- 5: It's only when they hear about the other premonition of dying that they are again worried about dying. This actually raises the added question of if the explosion on 180 was brought about from movie 1's mortality concerns or movie 5's. Adding to that, the other survivor of 5 not only dies at the same time, but immediately after learning that the guy he killed was terminally ill, which cancelled out his belief in killing to gain someone else's time (also he didn't really kill that guy, he repeatedly told him to move out of the way and then was pressured into saying he killed him after)

- 6: Another unspecified time jump (probably not as long bc they mention a promposal near the beginning and it's prom), and the events only start when they're told "erm, actually you didn't technically die and get revived". It would've been way easier for death to kill them in the spiky anti-death cottage surroundings but it waited for them to think they were safe and then realize they weren't.

I could do this with a lot of the deaths, tbh. The piercings guy, for example, wasn't in the supposed cursed bloodline, but he died anyways because his near-death experience and the death of his dad and sister made him very focused on how easily he could die. The elevator mom in 2 only got her hair caught and got stuck in the door because she was told the guy randomly holding a box of prosthetic hooks was going to kill her. The one guy in 4 fails at committing suicide, because not only is he not next in line but he has made peace with his mortality and is looking forward to seeing his dead family; the protagonists make him dwell on death again, and he even mentions getting a sense of deja vu outside the hospital before getting run down (scriptwise, they could have also just considered that a fun line to jump back to). The people in 5 had all just seen 90% of their coworkers die and were spending their time drinking in an empty office. Filler dialogue in 1 says they lost 40 students on Flight 180 (even though that group tbh looks way smaller than that).

It's this idea of looking at death and suddenly being aware that it's looking back at you. You see that for too long, and you gain it's attention. It follows you because you expect it to be following you. The only actual survivors were the ones that fully didn't expect death to come after them, and instead focused on living their best lives. I could say more about the ironic music choices supporting this (the tan girls in particular, listening to a song about rollercoasters after seeing a rollercoaster crash and nearly dying), but I'm typing this out on my phone and it's already gotten really long.

Maybe I should write a video essay about it.