#all while doing absolutely nothing themselves outside of starting hate campaign after hate campaign

[nightswithkookmin]

BIGHIT vs BTS SHIPS The Difference Between Jikook and Taekook

I think I have explained the commercial value of ships when it comes to content marketing in one of my previous posts. But allow me to use this opportunity to address it in depth.

Bighit did not invent shipping. Shipping predates Kpop and plays a vital role in spiking interest, relevancy and longevity of that interest in a piece of marketed content. It sustains Audience Retention rates and improves engagement rates significantly. It is a powerful marketing tool when used right but I'm not going to get into all that in this post.

Fact is BigHit does benefit from shipping culture because it is one way they keep the audience engaged with BTS content even when they aren't putting out new content for the market to consume. BTS ships serve the same purpose as all the Run, Soop, Bon voyage and myriads of sub content they put out. You may not watch Run every day, but if you are a shipper you will like a ship post at least once a day.

Shipping is organic and costs nothing unlike most other marketing strategies available to the marketer. TV programs such as Harry Potter (Dont lie. I know you shipped Hermoine and Harry. I did too. *tears) Star wars, Friends, Supernatural, Vampire Diaries, Shadow Hunter to name a few have all benefited from shipping culture significantly.

Can BigHit do without ships? Absolutely. They would be a fool to though. Shipping is just one of the many resource options available to a marketer. It bridges the gap in between formal contents and keep interest in a brand going.

I smirk when some people dismiss shipping, look down on shippers or make ignorant and ill informed comments about shipping culture in general. Audience retention and engagement is king in today's economy and BigHit taps into this resource very well.

All BTS ships are thus relevant and valid. All of them. Unfortunately, this is a numbers games. Numbers play a key role in the commercial value of a ship. And it is a fact universally acknowledged that Taekook and Jikook are ships with the most number of fans and as such provides higher engagement rates within a marketing context.

Taekook is the biggest ship not just in BTS but in Kpop. It is followed closely by Jikook. Does that mean all the ships are nothing but shallow interactions engineered to keep us tethered to BTS for as and when they are ready to sell a product to us? NO.

I don't see BigHit actively curating these ships and masterminding them.

What I mean is, I don't think BigHit is asking the members to interact or even forcing them to interact- except in recent moments but that is another topic for another day.

BTS interact with eachother from their own free will. Of course no two interactions are going to be the same as no two relationships are the same. We cannot compare Taegi to Jikook or Taekook to Jikook or even to VMin because the friendship between Jimin and V is not the same as between V and Jin etc.

No one is forcing Jungkook to interact with Jimin. No one is forcing Tae not to interact with JK. It's absurd to think in such a way.

They all interact with eachother and provide that content for BigHit's use. All BigHit does is decide when to show us that content as and if they want to show it to us at all. They are a business and all these ships are just marketing resources and so they will show us a ship's content in a way that advances their business marketing strategy.

However, if two people within a ship barely interact or do not interact at all with eachother then there wouldn't be any content on them for BigHit to promote or use in their marketing campaigns to begin with.

What I'm saying is, if Taekook sells- as in if there are a lot of people interested in seeing their content(which there are) and those two individuals actually have moments together on or off camera, then in their estimation BigHit will market that content to us. If Jikook sells they will sell it to us; as long as none of these ships are damaging to the reputation and business of BigHit.

[CONTROVERSIAL TOPIC BELOW- Proceed with caution.]

A ships value to BigHit, in my opinion, is contingent on its commercial value as discussed above but if that ship causes BigHit to lose money rather than gain, if a ship negatively affects the business or reputation of BigHit then that ship is as good as dead. They will kick that ship off the spotlight real fast.

Taekook and Jikook have both had moments like this where they are temporarily taken off the spotlight or even asked to tone things down. We've all seen it don't argue with me.

Not everything BigHit does is about these ships. BigHit is a brand in of its own. They have several other brands under their brand and they can't afford to ruin their brand image or any of their artists.

They will not hesitate to shut down a ship if it is doing more harm than good. They did it to Taekook when that ship was in it's hay days. As soon as they started recieving a ton of negative press that is when they started getting 'seperated' -on stage anyway. I don't think they were seperated or asked not to interact off camera. Clearly they do. They are friends after all.

BigHit does the same thing to Jikook whenever they start recieving negative attention. But we see them interacting backstage nevertheless and usually this happens at the same event they get 'separated at.'

It's nothing personal, just business.

[Controversial content ahead. Proceed with caution]

At this point, I know you would be asking why Taekook seemed to have dimmed as a ship where BigHit is concerned but Jikook recieve the same negative press and yet they still market Jikook and shine more light on it....

A Taekooker friend whom I had this discussion with pointed out to me that it seems whenever Jikook receives a ton of negative press BigHit claps back with more Jikook content and in an aggressive way yet has it being Taekook we wouldn't get any content outside official content for a whole year.

To be fair, BigHit treats all ships equally in my opinion. Jikook gets penalized for certain moments just as much as Taekook or any ship gets punished. Example, after the New Jersey VLive Jikook were banned(allegedly) from doing a Vlive on their own for a whole year and after the ban was lifted their VLive was monitored the same way Taekook's Vlive was monitored.

Secondly, perhaps they keep pushing Jikook content because that is all they have? Perhaps, they have more Jikook content than Taekook?

Jikook spend so much time around each other and they don't mind their interactions being filmed as content. Not because they are doing fan service but more so because they are lowkey exhibitionists or exhibit exhibitionist tendencies. Lol. More on that later.

When it comes to Taekook; Tae have said once that JK avoids him off camera which I assume by that he meant Jk doesn't interact with him much off camera. Now it could also be that Jk was not on good terms with him during that particular period which is normal because friends fight.

Jk have also said him and Tae's relationship is not for the cameras and I assume by that he meant they are both are not comfortable providing content for Bighit to use as marketing because as I said all these ship interactions are by their own free will. Bighit can't force Taekook to interact and if Taekook hasn't given them permission to air certain moments they just can't.

Or... or....

The reason BigHit pushes back with more Jikook content even after negative press is because Jikook is real. DEADASS.

Hear me out. Calling Taekook out for promoting Homosexuality in S.K will be deemed negative press if Taekook are not gay or in an actual romantic relationship. Calling Jikook out for promoting homosexuality will not be deemed as negative press but an abuse if Jikook are in fact gay and in a gay relationship with eachother.

BigHit is not homophobic. Bang PD is known for his openly support for members of the LGBTQ plus community. If people hate on Jikook because of their moment he will sympathize with them and shove that in your face.

While Taekook negative press will be a nuance, Jikook negative press will be revolution and BigHit will make a statement: a statement that says they stand with LGBTQ plus community PERIOD.

They will do this not for money but for the boys so they feel loved and supported. So Jikook knows they are not in this fight alone especially coming from a highly homophobic society as S.K.

The thing about Jikook is, Jikook is real. That alone gives BigHit a competitive advantage in the Industry. It means Jikook produce more content for BigHit over any other pair and that content is juicy. It's similar to how companies want exclusive access to certain power couples in the industry. If Jikook are real and BigHit have access to them, exclusive access mind you, then that places BigHit above the competition business wise.

Think of Jikook and BigHit as the Kardashians and Entertainment company behind them. Jikook has given BigHit partial access to their private lives extending beyond the access they have over BTS.

If Taekook or any ship give similar access to them we will see more of them. If they give BigHit content we will see more of them. It's as simple as that.

Jikook is a brand and BigHit is their brand manager. This means BigHit gets more content from Jikook and is at liberty to use that content any how they want and milk the shit out of it. In return, BigHit has a duty to protect Jikook and so no. When Jikook gets negative press due to homophobia BigHit is not going to cancel them.

May be chill on them for a while, because that exposure they give Jikook can be traumatizing for Jikook especially if the feedback is negative.

What I'm saying is, where Taekook would be asked to chill and lay low from public scrutiny it will be because BigHit wants to protect their business interest whereas in Jikook's case it would be to protect Jikook themselves. If Taekook are both gay and in a relationship with each other BigHit would do same for them.

I don't think BigHits marketing tactics however affects the status of Jikook, Taekook or any other ship's relationship in any way. Jikook is real whether it is made the center of attention or not. Taekook could be real regardless of whether they are marketed or not. Just because a certain ship is put under the spotlight doesn't mean that ship is 'real' neither does that negate the genuine friendship that exists between members of other ships.

It is weird to me when people associate BigHits business tactics to the validity of their ship. There is no correlation. BigHit is a business, BTS are their artists that make them money- all BTS not just two members from a ship. BTS is one of the most powerful brands in the world right now.

BigHit will explore and exploit all the relationships within the group, platonic or otherwise, if that will help them sell more albums or even Icecream.

Jikook gives BigHit a competitive advantage more so than any other ship in BTS not just because they are the second largest ship in South Korea but because Jikook are shaping out to be a power couple and Icons for the LGBTQ community. There is a reason why companies rush to support Pride month parades. I'll leave it there.

So no, I don't see it as BigHit highlighting the ship of the era as you put it or alternating between Jikook and Taekook as and when. BigHit has a business to run, shipping plays a vital role in its business marketing strategy but not everything is about these ships.

The members have a role to play in creating content for these ships and Bighit won't hesitate to market it if the content is quality entertainment, consensual and plays to their overall marketing scheme.

This means if Jikook ship content are boring they will choose to show a much entertaining ship content over them. Nothing personal.

I just think they treat Jikook differently because as much as they want to pander to our delusional shipping interests, they owe Jikook a duty to protect them from homophobic people. When you hate on any ship in BTS, BigHit assumes you are nuts but when you hate on Jikook BigHit will immediately assume you are both nuts and homophobic.

Promoting Jikook is business but it is also validation and acceptance and support. Bighit has a proclivity for sensitizing us to Jikook and normalizing their relationship.

If Taekook are also in a gay relationship they will be treated the same and I will support them the same. But to me, I believe Jikook are real and therefore Taekook and Jikook are mutually exclusive. Both cannot be real at the same time.

Ship whatever you want but support Jikook and stan all seven.

Signed,

GOLDY

[smarti-at-smogwarts]

Theo Abbott Profile

Identity

Name: Theodosia -Theo- Jane Abott

Gender: ....-throws peruvian powder bomb-  gender neutral tho she doesn't have the label for it.

*She goes by she/her pronouns though

Age: varies depending on when I’m writing her. 

Birth Date: January 11th XXXX

Species: Human

Blood Status: Half-Blood.

Sexuality: Queer af. Bisexual. Arospec. 

Alignment: Chaotic Good. 

Ethnicity: Mixed. 

Nationality: English

Residence: Godrics Hollow. Abbott home. 

Myer Briggs Personality Type: ENFP-T [ Turbulent Campaigner ] 

The Mage

Wand: Ebony. Dragon heartstring. 13 inches. Quite Flexible.

This jet-black wand wood has an impressive appearance and reputation, being highly suited to all manner of combative magic, and to Transfiguration. Ebony is happiest in the hand of those with the courage to be themselves. Frequently non-conformist, highly individual or comfortable with the status of outsider, ebony wand owners have been found both among the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix and among the Death Eaters. In my experience the ebony wand’s perfect match is one who will hold fast to his or her beliefs, no matter what the external pressure, and will not be swayed lightly from their purpose.

As a rule, dragon heartstrings produce wands with the most power, and which are capable of the most flamboyant spells. Dragon wands tend to learn more quickly than other types. While they can change allegiance if won from their original master, they always bond strongly with the current owner.The dragon wand tends to be easiest to turn to the Dark Arts, though it will not incline that way of its own accord. It is also the most prone of the three cores to accidents, being somewhat temperamental.

Animagus: Pine Marten

Misc Magical Abilities: Unknown undecided magical ability. ( will be edited when I figure what i want her hphl ability to be) Animagus. 

Boggart Form: Theo is terrified of being forced to be something she’s not or being trapped. This shows itself by a square room with no windows popping up in front of her. The walls the start closing in on her. 

Riddikulus Form: The walls collapse like the sides of a carboard box. 

Amortentia ( what she smells like) :  Parchment and ink. Crisp night air. Cinnamon cloves Pine trees.

Amortentia ( what she smells) : Misc smells that represent different people from the Taghd Lynch Defense Squad/her closest friends. Firewood burning. Lemon cakes. Fresh cut grass ( from the quidtich pitch) 

Patronus Memory: She’s at the Hogwarts common room goofing around with her housemates and friends. Basically her realizing she’s found a place to be herself and accepted as she is.

Mirror of Erised: Her happy and content and herself in her own home with her writing and her cat and her friends and the fuck away from Godric’s Hollow. 

Specialized/Favourite Spells: 

At Hogwarts_ Anything you can use on a prank. Some defensive spells as while Hogwarts was fairly accepting of her she did get a bit hassled ( there’s always that one occasional asshole) about both being a girl in the quidditch team and how she chooses to dress out of uniform. Some offensive spells from when she got into fights/duels in the halls along Taghd and Teddy. Her best spells are the ones used to sneak around her mother and grandmother. 

Out Of Hogwarts_ While not a spell, apparition becomes her most used magical feat as she likes to visit her friends as they all settle into her adult lives. She also learns a bit of healing spells from either Adelia or Teddy ( and at both their insistence that if she’s going to be getting into trouble out there she should be able to patch herself up a bit. ) 

*In the Taghd Dies Verse where she becomes an auror she adds a lot of offensive spells to her arsenal “best defense is a good offense right?” Theo no.

Appearance

Faceclaim: Saoirce Ronan 

Game Appearance: N/A 

Height: 5′6′’ by year 7.

Weight: Average weight for her height. 

Physique: On the thin side. Somewhere between rectangle and hourglass boy shape wise. Has muscle on her due to Quiditch. Strong facial features.

Eye Colour: Light blue 

Hair Colour: Dirty Blonde as a child. Darkens with age.  Often untidy from running or flying and held up/back.

Skin Tone: Fair

Body Modifications: None

Scarring:  Has a set of diagonal scars on her leg from when she tried to play with a splintered bat during a quidditch match. A few random scars from scrapes from school that got a little too rough before being broken up. 

Inventory: parchment. Quill. Ink. A Claddagh ring from Taghd. Random and assorted books. Notes from her friends. Her wand. Hair pins. ( she keep forgetting she has them there so she just stuffs more in her bag. No one knows how many she has in there by now, not even her)

Fashion: https://www.pinterest.com/xhowling/theo-jane-abbott/#fashion

*Theo tends to prefer Hogwarts robes and wizard fashion in general more as they’re more gender neutral. ( as in both genders wear robes though they differ in style and in Hogwarts case they do not differ at all from one gender to the other) so she wears them more.

 When it comes to muggle clothing she’s most comfortable on cable knit sweaters and plaid ( though she favors the former a lot more)  because she used to steal Taghd’s though if she has to “dress up” she’ll wear more  masc fashion. She’s influenced by Teddy’s fashion sense a bit for that. She also wears her Gryffindor tie even after leaving Hogwarts but with dress robes/a shirt and vest instead.

She tends to prefer more muted colors with like accents of one color or one point of color (i know nothing about fashion please bear with me. Hopefully the pinterest helps)

Allegiances

Hogwarts House: Gryffindor. 

Ilvermorny House: N/A 

Affiliations/Organizations: Gryffindor Quidditch Team. Taghd Lynch Protection Squad. Gryffindor house. 

Professions: Student. Writer/Anthologist. Becomes an auror in the Taghd Dies Verse.

Hogwarts Information

Class Proficiencies:

Astronomy:   ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆☆☆☆

Charms:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆☆☆☆

DADA:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆☆

Flying:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Herbology:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆☆☆☆☆

History of Magic:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆☆☆

Potions:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★☆☆☆☆☆☆

Transfiguration:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆☆☆☆

Electives:

Apparition

Muggle Studies 

Study of Ancient Runes

Quidditch: Plays as Chaser and Beater reserve. 

Extra Curricular: Does writing count?

Favourite Professors: I think she’d like both  Atticus Irwin Grimsley ( @cursebreakerfarrier ) and Toby Moore ( @unfortunate-arrow ) 

*Will probably add teachers as more details of the games are release

Least Favourite Professors: Pretty much any teachers that have issues with how she dresses or are of the snobby pureblood category are a safe bet. 

*Will probably add teachers as more details of the games are release

Relationships

Misc Siblings: None. Theo is an only child. 

Father: Unknown atm. All Theo knows is he was a muggleborn wizard.

Mother: Emily Abbott 

Love Interest: N/A  

*arospec but might have fwb/flings as she figures things out and possibly a platonic life partner/partners in the future. Most likely will end up living with friends as family either way. ( the friends she lives with may even have spouses of their own just...a bunch of friends living in a house as family) 

Best Friends:  Taghd Lynch ( @unfortunate-arrow ) Lu Morrison ( @rosievixen )  Arthur -Teddy- Elllsion ( @cursebreakerfarrier ) Adelia Selwyn ( @that-ravenpuff-witch)

Rival: She hates Cillian Lynch ( @unfortunate-arrow) and Ernest Ellson ( @cursebreakerfarrier​) bc they are unkind to her boys/two of her closest friends. I can imagine they do not like her that much ( seeing as Theo’s about as secretive and sublte about not liking people as a wrecking ball through the wall) 

Enemy: tbd 

Dormmates: Lu Morrison ( @rosievixen) 3rd and 4rth room mates unknown atm. 

Pets: Theo adopts a niffler in the future once she’s out of Hogwarts. Her family has very strict rules about owning pets though at some point in Hogwarts she adopts a stray cat and somehow manages to keep it a secret even when/if she has to go back home for Holidays. 

Closest Canon Friends: tbd

Closest MC Friends:  Taghd Lynch ( @unfortunate-arrow ) Lu Morrison ( @rosievixen )  Arthur -Teddy- Elllsion ( @cursebreakerfarrier ) Adelia Selwyn ( @that-ravenpuff-witch ) Fred Morrigan ( @ljthebard1​) Gabriel Sapieha ( @lizzieparkerhphm ​) Danny Gibbson ( @catohphm ​ )

Background/History

Pre Hogwarts: Theo was an “indiscretion” born to Emily Abott and an unknown ( to most) muggleborn wizard. The family  kept her, fed her, made sure she knew the proper way for an Abott to act, but there was no affection to this and Theo sometimes wondered if it wasn’t only out of duty that her family did all this. After it becomes obvious that Theo who dresses in boy’s clothes, never keeps a comment inside her mind, and buckles against the propriety forced upon her more and more as the years pass is not going to be changing to fit what her family thinks she should be; it’s decided to send her to Hogwarts where she’ll at least be kept out of sight.

4th Year: Was sent to Hogwarts by her family to be kept out of sight and hopefully shape up ( with the added sentiment that if she does not, at the very least she’ll be out of sight) Met Taghd Lynch, Lu Morrison, Teddy Ellison and Adelia Selwyn. 

5th Year: tba

6th Year: tba

7th Year: tba. Graduates with her friends. Though she undoubtedly has to leave some behind as I can see her befriending underclassmen.

Out of school: At some point she moves back closer to Teddy either because she received the news that Taghd died or that Taghd almost died. ( depending on the “canon” or “Taghd Lives AU”)

At some point she might adopt a daughter who is as chaotic as she was and then some ( though much more open and less angry/defensive because Theo’s a better parent than her mother ) 

In the Universe where Tagdh dies she becomes an Auror alongside Teddy.

At some point she cuts her parents off Completely ( no letters, no firecalls, nothing absolutely nothing) whether this happens because they did something that just got to her too much or it was more a case of her getting away and going “wooow they’re actually horrible to me” remains to be seen but she’ll come to rely on her friends for moral support and also to figure out how to live on her own without their monetary support.  

Spoils her friends’ kids so so much ohmygosh she loves them.

Old Age & Death: tbd

Personality

 Temperamental and impulsive ‘’jump now, think later’’/’’it looked like a good idea at the time’’ sort of person. Disaster Bisexual. Gets angry quick but it fades just as quickly. Frank, warm, empathetic. Honest-sometimes too honest- The one in a friend group to try to make people laugh. Will encourage you to hex someone who hurts you ‘’hell I’ll help you/cover for you’’ (That Friend) the opposite of the common sense friend. ( ‘’sounds illegal, I’m in.’’ )

Theo’s general status is defensive which to her can often be loud and assertive ( and a bit abrasive though she’s usually sorry about that last one when it happens) due to insecurities that took root during her time with her mother and her family To wit, she believes she needs to defend the way she is subconsciously since it was often the case at home and this leaks into her personality. When she met all her friends her first setting was “im like this and Deal with it” expecting resistance but when she met none ( as her friends all accepted her for who she is) she became a lot less so. ( shes still loud and chaotic as that's also part of who she is but she’s a lot less defensive afterwards.)

Has a really loud laugh. When she’s goofing with her friends or talking to them and laughing with them you can hear it echo through the halls.

Is sort of...a loud person in general.

Theo’s a passionate individual and incredibly stubborn when she sets her mind to something.

Skips the sad/crying phase and goes straight to angry. Might or might not have “/don’t cry/show weakness” complex. Her other emotions however are expressed be they annoyance, happiness ( her laughter Echoes through the corridors when she’s happy about something) excitement ect ect ad infinitum.

Her poker face is  shit though. She couldn’t keep her opinions through herself if she tried. Her face will say them for her.

She’s fiercely fiercely protective of her friends and found family. ( see: “would happily hit Teddy’s dad with a blugger if she finds out about him being abusive  ‘’curses out ppl who say mean things to Adelia or Lu and half the time will wind up throwing down for it” and of course “I’m actually going to Kill Cillian” circa Taghd’s duel in the Taghd lives AU as examples)

Misc:

Theo’s animagus form is a Pine Marten. She learned it specifically so she could get out of the house which she often found overbearing due to her mother, grandmother, and aunts attitudes towards her.

While her family kept her, fed her and clothed her it was done out of combination of duty and not wanting to waste magical blood. They might have love for her but it’s very clearly overridden by ( if not outright contingent on) their need forTheo being the kind of child they think she ought to be which she is very much not and only grows to stray more and more from it as she grows up) 

Theo sometimes does suspect they did it more out of duty than any love but tries not to think about it deeply or think about them at all if she can help it ( and with an entire castle to explore with friends and mischief to manage with those same friends it becomes quite easy) 

She has a fascination for the muggle world because it was her father’s world and the part of her her family shuns and kept her from knowing about.

She’s often in trouble with either Taghd or Teddy ( or both) or Lu ( or all three) and the teachers might or might not have a running tally of which combination causes the most chaos. 

Theo learns Gaelic from Taghd-they start with the swear words and then she just really wants to learn the language. 

Whereas Taghd tends to complain about getting dragged into fights by Teddy and her but does it Theo’s more like you feel the air shift next to you and...yup. Yup she’s there.

If her friends are in a fight nine out ten times she’s there too. That one of ten times she’s not there, she’s going to be soon.

Theo’s a night owl and can often be found the last in the common room reading or writing or talking to Taghd or Teddy or Lu. Sometimes she’ll sneak out to fly. ( specially on really clear nights)

She’s perfected the art of wolfing down breakfast in the last minutes before going to class or even just grabbing a piece of bread and running off to class because of this. As it'll lead to her oversleeping.

Adelia’s her mom friend and possibly one of the few people that can tell her what to do without her going ‘how bout i do anyways.png’

She writes a lot and can be seen talking animatedly about it mostly to fellow writer friend Teddy Ellison. 

She’s bit Taghd’s brother Cillian in her animagus form at least once. It was the subject of laughter in the Gryffindor table for a good week after. Theo, ( who keeps her animagus form a secret aside from her closest friends because its a way she has to get away from people or hide or cause trouble when she wants to) becomes very interested in whatever’s in front of her  and trying not to laugh when it gets brought up. 

She gets really attached to Teddy’s mom ( and is a bit jealous of how nice a mother her friend has)  as she both from her experience and what she gathers from Tagdh and other friends of hers she didn’t...think parents could be nice? Like empirical evidence just overall does not seem to be in their favor tbh (specially mothers) and she’s mystified by her and overall thinks she’s wonderful.

This also means she dislikes Teddy’s dad that much more ( though she keeps it to herself around Teddy’s mother ) because as far as she’s concerned he doesn’t deserve her or Teddy with what some of  his actions are. 

Tends to be physical with her close friends ( bumping shoulders, linking arms as they walk hand on shoulder) though on different levels depending on the different dynamics and how comfortable they themselves are with it.

She hates all the propriety she was brought up with ( one of the bonding things she Taghd had was their shared lack of decorum) but one of the things she enjoyed to learn back in Godric Hollow was calligraphy. She stills practices it as a hobby, keeping multiple colors of ink in her room at Hogwarts and later in life. She likes making calligraphy for her friends and also when they’re adults makes calligraphy for each of their children with their favorite stories. 

Finally did a proper profile for Theo.

I’m hoping to get back to doing more content ( including other profiles for mcs I’ve mentioned and going back to my hphm kiddo Marti and writing out gameplay now that I have more spoons. Figured this was a good place to start.

Profile skeleton by @hogwartsmysterystory​

[itsbenedict]

Two-Faced Jewel: Session 12

Foolish Heroes of Barley

A half-elf conwoman (and the moth tasked with keeping her out of trouble) travel the Jewel in search of, uh, whatever a fashionable accessory is pointing them at. [Campaign log]

Last time, the party had returned to Barley to deal with a few loose ends. They've been staying in town for a while, waiting for their hired Deathseekers to deal with the dragon in the tower. This session, their stay comes to an end, and as you can see from the image here, they don't get into any trouble whatsoever.

A few other things happen before their fateful final night in town:

Kevin Softbreeze, the herbalist from the Deathseekers, visits town and sells Looseleaf some magic flowers that repel demons- though they're not very potent, and she'll need to stop by his garden in Cauterdale if she wants some seeds to try growing. Saelhen buys some potent knockout drops.

The villagers appear to still be arming themselves and preparing for battle with Wheat- since they didn't mention Arnie as the culprit at all, and tried to pin it on the dragon directly, Malath is still skeptical that they're totally safe from invasion, and defensive preparations continue.

Rumors spread that Chitch has gone missing, but no one can find the body. The party spreads rumors of their own- true ones- that Chitch went to go find his daughter after learning that the pain-wizard is dead.

On their fifth night in the village- somewhat earlier than expected- they notice something outside the window of their rooms in the inn. Lumiere's tower, previously unnoticeable, is suddenly aglow with some sort of yellow cylindrical magic barrier, made up of hexagonal panels.

Looseleaf rouses the rest of the party- the plan is to watch from a distance, and not interfere. A very loud roar is heard in the distance, which is suddenly cut off in the middle- it seems the Deathseekers have sprung their trap.

It's not too much longer after that when they begin to hear screams from around them in the village.

Saelhen's elf eyes spot... something rustling in the fields around the village. All of them. Quite a lot of somethings. Except despite the rustling, she can't make out anything but barley stalks. And the nothing- the hordes of nothing- is moving towards the tower.

The party leaps into action, heading downstairs with weapons drawn. On the ground floor, they see... something sort of familiar. Those Greed Echoes, the mud-and-grass monsters they fought on the road- one of them is forming itself out of broken bottles, dust, and wooden planks uprooted from the floor of the Harvester Inn. Cassie, the innkeeper, is watching in terror, knuckles white gripping a frying pan.

Congratulations! You're both right! The dragon is summoning an army of hateful Justice Echoes powered by the roused hatred of Wheat that's been stirred up in town!

Oyobi thinks fast, and oneshots the echo in the kitchen with an arrow, shattering a bottle that'd become its core. The screams outside continue, though, and the party exits the inn to find panicked villagers fleeing their homes. Justice Echoes made primarily from twisted stalks of barley have formed in their fields and homes, taking the weapons amassed for self-defense from their owners. They attack only those who resist, and make their way towards the tower.

Looseleaf: Let's just attack some hate-plague spirits and see if they decide to attack us instead. If they don't attack us at all, then we can just ignore them and run leisurely next to them and pick them off as we go. If they attack us, then it's a regular fight. "We're up to do some heroism this fine night, right, team?" Oyobi Yamatake: "Obviously!" Orluthe Chokorov: "Uh, I don't have that one prepared, do I? Uh..." Vayen: Saelhen du Fishercrown: "I am up to rub Mother K's face in the super obvious consequences of her actions while incidentally preventing pointless suffering." "Go team! Woo!"

Looseleaf starts us off by rending the spirit of the closest barley-monster, using her new Painspike ability to make the target Frightened of her.

However... these monsters have no purpose except to attack that which they fear, so rather than the normal effect of being Frightened, Looseleaf has now drawn aggro from this monster. Which is kind of what she wanted! So, that's a win! She now has a way to goad the enemy!

The party takes some swings at the monsters, knocking a couple out, but most of them seem to just be ignoring them, continuing to run through the fields towards the tower. They could become a problem for the Deathseekers if they're not dealt with- or for Wheat, for that matter.

Backup arrives in the form of Malath Kanthalga, who perceives these events as- what else?- an attack by Wheat. She's screaming, demanding to know who's responsible, and smashing echoes apart with her mace. Still, the echoes are mostly ignoring the village- they're grabbing anything they can find to use as a weapon, sort of ransacking the place, but most of them are just fleeing.

So Saelhen comes up with an extremely well-timed plan. It's a really good plan, I love it, and I'm excited to hit them with the consequences of her plan- until Looseleaf issues a timely bit of advice:

Saelhen du Fishercrown: Saelhen dashes (Cunning Action), steps forward, inhales a great gulp of breath... "FOOLISH HEROES OF BARLEY!" she bellows. "WHILE YOU FUTILELY WASTE YOURSELVES AGAINST WHEAT'S DEFENSES, I, THE SECRET SHADOW MAYOR OF WHEAT, WILL BE HERE BURNING YOUR HOMES!" "AND ALSO MENACING YOUR CITIZENS WITH MY PERMISSIVE IDEOLOGY!" She waves her hooded lantern, unlit, above her head, to drive the point home. "WHO AMONG YOU CAN STOP ME AND DELIVER JUSTICE? NO ONE, PROBABLY, I ASSUME!"

Vayen, in a surprising show of, let's call it camaraderie, is very much in support of this plan for some reason! He takes a break from his busy schedule of doing absolutely nothing every turn in combat to cast a helpful illusion, to ensure as many monsters aggro Saelhen as possible!

A few more rounds of combat ensue, with a good chunk of the monsters- including a few very large building-sized hulks- immediately turning to kill Saelhen. The party gets some good hits in, and Saelhen gets a little roughed up. She... would like maybe fewer things to be attacking her, actually.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Their attention is on me, Mother Kanthalga, the secret mayor of Wheat this entire time, but you might be able to calm their anger! These creatures were born from this town's... collective mind, or something, they may listen to you if you order them to stand down!" Benedict I. (GM): Not with advantage, but a 22... "Wh... what? What are you saying? That's..." She hesitates, then speaks, in a booming voice she- well, you spent a few days here, you know she reserves it for sermons. "STAND DOWN! The time to strike against our foe has not yet come!" "We must be prudent! We must defend ourselves, not attack!" [DEFEND OURSELVES,] the echoes agree, continuing to bear down on Saelhen. Saelhen du Fishercrown: Worth a shot!

It doesn't seem like these things are hugely receptive to emotional appeals or logical argument- they have the one emotion, which they're made of, and they don't super do other ones.

In the following combat rounds, Saelhen... takes a few more hits, which she is not designed to do on account of being a rogue.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: WHY DID I NOT DECLARE ORLUTHE THE SECRET SHADOW MAYOR

More echoes emerge from the fields and attack, and Saelhen is starting to look really rough- and Vayen just keeps the illusion on her, not actually helping in any way. Until... one of them goes for Looseleaf, instead. When it starts looking like she might be in danger, he fires off a bolt of blue electricity, which begins to singe one of the monsters attacking her for damage every turn. He's... a higher-level spellcaster than anyone else in the party, apparently!

Looseleaf, with a little room to maneuver, unfolds her wings and takes to the air- up and out of reach of the smaller monsters, drawing their aggro and forcing them to waste turns. Meanwhile, Orluthe and Oyobi, backed up by Malath and a couple of villagers who've reclaimed their weapons, cut down a few more echoes as more surge forth from the fields to replace them.

Saelhen... keeps trying to persuade Malath to persuade the echoes to stop. She does very well at persuading Malath to try that! Malath tries that, wholeheartedly, once again to no effect! Eventually, Malath stops trying.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Would you consider coming to them as a trusted comrade, who trained them to protect them, rather than the one leading them off to war? Maybe?" Malath Kanthalga: "I am going to come to them as a very angry warrior with a mace," she growls. Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Okay! Okay, fair enough. Spiritual remedies off the table, understood."

Orluthe is getting really tired, and keeps whiffing his swings- it's touch-and-go for a while. But Saelhen and Looseleaf's frantic attempts to kite enemies out of range have been paying off, and they manage to down the remaining super-hulks juuuuust before anyone dies.

Benedict I. (GM): Y'know, it's possible that making the two squishiest members of the party draw aggro was not the number one best strategic move Saelhen du Fishercrown: IT MAYBE WASN'T, NO Looseleaf: eh, it's worked out so far!

The combat wraps up, and we transition to a bunch of Athletics rolls to chase down and terminate as many of the smaller echoes as possible. They build a firepit in the center of town, to dispose of defeated echoes in- just in case that's necessary, because who knows what kind of magic is animating these guys.

So after a wild night of chasing, taunting, fleeing, and burning justice echoes- well, it's not so much a wild night as a wild twenty minutes or so- there's a point at which the fields just suddenly fall silent. A pair of echoes chasing Saelhen fall to the ground, inert.

With a good roll...

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...of course, you're free to dismiss this as the ramblings of a crazed outsider. But keep in mind, Mother Kanthalga, that the ones who fell upon your town, tore it apart in a frenzy of violence, and stabbed you repeatedly for your pains, endangering your people, your daughter and your livelihoods, were repeating the words you taught them." Benedict I. (GM): Malath winces. "That... I don't know why they..." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...think on it. You're reasonable people, around here. You can come to your own conclusions." Benedict I. (GM): "I tell you, I did not make these things! If not for..." She's kind of lost for words. "...Apologies. I have much work to do," she says, and leaves.

After some work mending the village and cleaning up the aftermath, Looseleaf heads back into the inn to check on Vayen, who hasn't been helping at all and is instead drunk at the bar. He asks "Did she make it?"- and Looseleaf gets a nat 20 on Insight.

She's pretty sure that he was talking about Saelhen- and that he sounded almost hopeful. He was unusually jazzed about a plan that involved her being attacked by a horde of angry monsters- and he chose to shoot the echo that was attacking her, not the one bearing down on Saelhen with a bunch of its friends. When she informs him Saelhen survived, she's able to tell he's disappointed.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: so he doesn't hate us, as a group he hates saelhen specifically Looseleaf: But also weirdly- okay, what if: what if he actually has an ancestral quest involving that bracer and he's mad that saelhen beat him to the punch and furthermore used it as a shitty cover story Saelhen du Fishercrown: saelhen going THE DE LA SURPLUS ANCESTRAL QUEST IS REAL???

Looseleaf switches to talking to Vayen via her spirit-magic imitation of the Message spell.

Looseleaf: (Like, Vayen, everything you're doing is about Saelhen in some way or other. And I can't figure out why. You seem pretty much ambivalent towards all of us except for her. I don't get it. If you want Saelhen dead, why haven't you just killed her? I saw that lightning bolt- if you wanted, I bet you could take all of us, in a straight fight.) (You're sending real mixed signals. If you want her dead, why isn't she dead? Why do you want her to be dead via a hand other than your own?) Vayen: He locks up. And then sighs. Looseleaf: (And now you're sitting here sounding all tired and sad and I feel bad about that.) (I dunno, do you want to, uh, talk about it, with someone.) Vayen: "I don't... want her... to be dead," he says, clearly choosing his words carefully. "I have nothing against her." Looseleaf: (Then it's the- bracer??) Vayen: I'm letting that one Insight roll do a lot of work here, but he definitely reacts to that. "I- um, no," he says, lying. Looseleaf: (There is literally nothing significant about Saelhen other than her bracer, unless you plan on telling me that your deepest desire is to defeat the dance emperor of Kanzentokai in a danceoff and reclaim your ancestral throne of dancing glory.) (Which, granted, if that's the case, that'd be amazing.) Vayen: "I don't know what you're- that's not..." "It's all coincidence. Whatever you're thinking. I don't have- I don't have anything against- Saelhen? Noeru?" Looseleaf: (Look, I- okay, here's how I see things. I don't know how the bracer works, it's weird magic stuff, but the way I see it, there's two major ways the bracer could work.) (That is, you either want the bracer for yourself, because whatever it does or whatever you need it for, you need to be the one wearing it- OR, you just need anybody willing to use the bracer to do whatever it is the bracer's supposed to do.) Vayen: "...Can you not?" "I- I have a job." "I have an important job." "It's from the School of Restricted Arts." Looseleaf: "Well, tell us about the dang important job then! Maybe we can help you with it." "I don't get why you're preassuming that we'd never do anything you might want us to do." Vayen: "It's from the School of- are you listening?" "It's secret." "Look, it's- you don't need to worry about it, okay?" Looseleaf: "Hhhhhrlgkrkshxzshktkrrrzzzzktttttkzzz," Looseleaf says, reverting to her natural dialect in a brief moment of frustration. Vayen: "Sure, it's easier if- I mean, she- that was her idea, she wanted to..." "I just- I can just..." "As long as I can keep an eye on..." He groans. "I shouldn't be talking to you." "You're not in the School." Looseleaf: "Okay, just- hhhjkkkkkrkxxxxxtk." Vayen:"Are... you okay?" He's never asked a question like that before. Looseleaf: (I'm fine, that's just how we express frustration, our throats don't naturally conform to making sounds like 'hrrrrrgh', whenever I do that it's a performative thing that I do to adhere to human expectations- look, the big reason why I'm trying to, pound my way through your portcullis of secrecy with a twenty-foot battering ram of blunt communication,) (is because right now Saelhen is like, probably 80% convinced you're trying to poison her in your sleep.) (Seriously, this amount of in-party distrust is, like, way too Ccorde-damned much.) Vayen: "I wouldn't do that," he says. "If I were going to do that, I'd have done it already. Looseleaf: (If you'd express, in a credible way, that you're actually just trying to get Saelhen to do whatever it is she'd do anyways, she'd feel a lot better about it!) (And then she might even work with you to further your goals directly!) Vayen: He doesn't say anything for a little while. "...This is stupid." "This isn't even- it's wrong, even." "Maybe that's why." Man, that bottle he's holding is emptier than you thought it'd be. He's only been here less than half an hour. "Don't try to- guh, friends. He'll never- stupid. What's the point." He sort of collapses on the bar.

Vayen, it seems, can't hold his liquor. Looseleaf... carries him back up to his room.

Next time: the party finally leaves Barley, for good this time! And also a minor medical emergency happens, and also they kidnap a twelve-year-old, but like, it's fine. It'll be fine. Don't worry about it.

[bondsmagii]

I mean to ask this genuinely, no hostility, but can you explain how you correlate scp to being in a cult? I dont disagree, I just cant articulate the reasoning as to why I dont disagree, and would like to see where youre coming from with this. Also, could you tag it with cults or cult discussion or something similar, please? Thanks! Have a good day.

OK [cracks knuckles] I will try and keep this as short as possible, but you have to understand I’ve been observing the wiki in the wild literally since its inception, so there is a lot of stuff to consider. anyway let’s buckle up.

[EDIT: after finishing, this is obnoxiously long. sorry. I encourage people to read it though, because yikes.]

I base this theory on a set of guidelines set out for spotting if an organisation might be a cult. generally cults are religiously based; obviously this does not apply here. as far as I’m aware, nobody sees the SCP wiki as a religion (yet). because of this a couple of the points regarding spotting a cult are irrelevant (they concern things like separation from the Church which obviously doesn’t apply) but nearly all of the others (even some religious ones) can apply if we provide context. so without further ado:

Signs You’re In A Cult and How the SCP Wiki Literally Fits Into All of Them

let’s start with the most obvious:

opposing critical thinking

something that has long pissed me off about the SCP wiki has been its complete inability to think critically. staff will literally ban people for criticising them, and the parameters of “criticism” have only grown wider and wider over the years. anything that is the “party line” is sacred; nothing can be improved upon because it’s already perfect, and Staff Knows Best. any policy changes are law, and any dissenting voices are silenced – even among younger staff members (length of service wise, not age wise). I have seen staff put on probation or demoted for arguing against pointless or pedantic policy changes; I have seen people of all levels banned for arguing with staff. if this doesn’t happen right away, arguing with staff over their decisions will absolutely get a target on your back, and they will find a way to ban or demote you as soon as they can.

any criticism on the wiki is frowned upon unless it comes from the Major Staff Members – these are people at the top of the hierarchy who can do no wrong, and as you can imagine, they’ve done some shit. staff has always had a problem with elitism, bullying, and even abusive behaviour (blah blah blah #NotAllStaff, but the ratio is quite concerning) and any criticism of their behaviour or even pointing this fact out is dangerous if you want to remain on the wiki. hell, I know many people who are aware of this who don’t speak up because they’re genuinely scared of retaliation. a lot of staff are really nasty people, and because of this attitude they are beyond criticism.

isolating members and penalising them for leaving

the penalising them for leaving part isn’t strictly accurate, because as far as I know, nobody has ever been bullied or threatened into staying on the wiki. however, I do remember a while back (2011/2012-ish) when the Foundation RP community began to show up on Tumblr, and the wiki began to get a fanbase that wasn’t contained on the site itself. staff were not happy about this and to this day they still constantly try and get a monopoly on all off-site locations. they have an official Offsite Outreach Team (yes, that’s its real name) who “reach out” to communities on other platforms (YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr, etc) and set up an Official Presence there, and then they encourage everyone to use the Official Presence rather than the fan-made ones (which are often more established and better/more consistently run). there have been several off-site spats between staff and the fandom, because they arrive demanding the authority and respect they have on the wiki and get Big Mad when they don’t get it. just recently one (now ex) staff member, djkaktus, went absolutely primal on Reddit and banned a whole bunch of the community for daring to say that they didn’t like the new LGBT logo for pride month (many of these people were LGBT themselves and felt as though it was pandering/putting targets on their backs); several more years ago (2014, I believe?) I myself had a run in with the Outreach Team and it was one fucking hell of a headache that ended in a malicious smear campaign against me, so like. yeah.

as for isolating members, they do this via elitism. the above is an example of it (making everyone feel a sense of obligation or loyalty to the Official Presence), but a huge part of it has always been the elitist attitude prevalent on the wiki. the SCP wiki has high standards for writing (allegedly… I’ve seen some garbage on there tbh, same as any other website) and it uses this to bully and demean its users. criticism of writing is overly harsh but highly encouraged; anyone complaining that it was too cruel (which it often is) is ridiculed for being too sensitive. (staff have been working on this for years, but really nothing has changed; people have just gotten more between-the-lines about it.) this encourages a kind of desperation among new users to “rise up the ranks” and earn respect so they can be the ones dishing out the criticism instead; they will do so and then immediately act in accordance to their status, bullying others how they were bullied and sticking to their own “rank”. brief interruption: staff and bootlickers if you’re reading this and thinking of reblogging to defend yourself, the code word is yeet. if I do not see the word yeet in your reply I will know you have not read this thoroughly and tell me why I should then bother reading anything you have to say.staff themselves is incredibly removed and closed off from the rest of the community; they have a bunch of private chat rooms they hang out in, and inter-dating is common. they don’t tend to interact much outside the flock, and are the definition of cliquey. joining this rank is supposed to be an achievement, but really it’s probably the most dangerous place to be. I have seen so many staff members have literal, clinical mental breakdowns over the strain and treatment they suffer.

(there’s nowhere to neatly slot this in, so: I don’t know how many people have noticed this, but SCP fans, when you spot them on other platforms, are snooty. not casual fans, but those involved with the wiki? I can spot them from a mile away, because whenever the Foundation is mentioned, there they are, acting like they’re part of some cool club. some of these people are innocent (they’re just mimicking the behaviour of other members) but some of them really do seem to think that their site is somehow better than whatever site they’re on, and it’s really creepy to see.)

emphasising special doctrines outside of scripture

obviously this is religion-specific, but with context it can fit. if we take scripture to mean SCP lore, and special doctrines to mean differing headcanons, ideas, writing styles, etc… oh boy.

there’s something that’s often said on the wiki: there is no canon. buddy, there is. yes, you can write whatever you want technically, and you can disregard headcanons you don’t like and you can build on different things and theoretically people can just ignore your shit if they don’t like it, but that is not what happens. there is absolutely a canon, and deviating from it will get you downvoted into oblivion and even personally attacked. people will accuse you of the most ridiculous shit, like desecrating the wiki or betraying the universe or whatever. so where does the emphasising part of this come in?

why, it’s simple! if one of these special doctrines (headcanons or whatever) comes from staff or an Approved Member, it’s fine. go nuts. even if it’s something that anybody else would be absolutely slaughtered for, it’s fine if staff approves. there is no creative freedom on that wiki, and anyone attempting to carve a piece out for themselves will suffer for it. one of my close friends still gets hate for an SCP he wrote featuring heavy headcanons and building on existing lore about a well-known character, and some of this hate is because he didn’t set the fucking article out “how it should be”. 

seeking inappropriate loyalty to their leaders

oh boy. staff are god on that website. they’ll deny it, but they know it’s true. many of them are arrogant and, in my opinion, some of them are pathologically narcissistic. they think they are hot shit, and they encourage people on the site to believe the same. a huge majority of users on the wiki are high school students, so 15-18 years old. the next huge group are college-aged, so 19-22 or so. several staff members are in their mid-20s up to 30s, maybe even coming 40s or early 40s now. when you’re in your mid-20s, it’s very easy to look cool to a 15-year-old. it’s very easy to look at a young userbase and convince them that you’re hot shit, and that’s what staff do. they act like it; most users respond to it, and if anyone dissents? see point one.

staff have always had double standards. from the very beginning of staff, they have gotten away with a lot more than the average user. staff have been allowed to bully, ridicule, harass, dismiss, shit upon, and target people with reckless abandon, usually only meeting punishment when other staff members feel too inconvenienced by them. a lot of the time when they’re punished, it’s a lot lighter than it would have been for an average user (a month ban rather than a permaban, for example). this is seen as almost a point of hilarity for a lot of people, who think it’s cool and just a right you get when you’re staff. you know best, you’ve seen some shit – who can blame you for slamdunking a 15-year-old’s first SCP?

the amount of respect and adoration these people demand is ridiculous, and anybody daring to criticise them ends up on a shitlist. staff show up in other areas (Tumblr or Reddit) and expect that same amount of respect, even among people outside of the wiki who might just be casual fans. they act a lot more important than they are, and demand that everyone treats them appropriately. I’ve seen staff members throw shitfits because they didn’t get enough upvotes for their articles, and many staff members’ quality of work declines when they make staff, simply because they know that they’ll get easy upvotes as soon as people realise it’s a staff member who wrote it. downvotes are enough to get you put on a shitlist. 

publicly, their word is law. you are not allowed to debate with them in the forums if they put a “stop” on the topic; the same applies in the IRC chat. if staff says “stop”, you will be punished if you mention it again. you are allowed to discuss it with them privately, but I think that’s rather insidious, as staff have been known to twist facts and withhold information before. this gives them a public persona of always being right – and something else that cults do is silence dissenting voices so nobody who might agree can see other people saying the same things and feel encouraged/emboldened. 

crossing Biblical boundaries of behaviour

again, we’ll need to contextualise this. if Biblical boundaries are things like sins and all the stuff the Bible says Do Not Do, then in this context these are the wiki rules. staff (and their friends) will constantly cross the rules, as previously mentioned, and they will get away with it.

the wiki rules say “don’t be a dick”. I have caught staff bullying people countless times, and no doubt there’s more I haven’t caught. even out in the open, staff are argumentative, dismissive, rude, intimidating, and oftentimes plain nasty. the wiki rules say “don’t coldpost articles; get feedback”. staff is just out there throwing their shit onto the wiki and expecting an avalanche of upvotes in five minutes Or Else. policies are made that set parameters and staff changes them whenever convenient – for example, the long-standing rule that things that occur off-site are not the responsibility of the Disciplinary Committee (yes, its name.). unless, of course, it’s someone they don’t like. a major staff member bullies somebody on Tumblr? “sorry, it was offsite, not our problem”. someone staff doesn’t like gets into a brief spat on Reddit? banned for harassment. 

there are countless examples of this, from small things to major things like bullying, harassment, and even abuse (or enabling of abuse). staff will punish people for transgressions and then turn a blind eye to a fellow staff member committing a transgression that was ten times worse. they have even protected rapists and sexual predators in the past – another kind of behaviour common in cults, because that’s what happens when you combine narcissism and entitlement with total authority.

that’s the main bulk of it

but now the context has been established, here are a few more concerning things I’ve noticed (quickfire now):

cults shit on former members

and the wiki does the same. any staff member that’s grown fed up of the groupthink and the cliquey attitude and how nasty people are or who has been mistreated by staff themselves; any regular user who feels the same and vocally quits? shat upon. lauded as a bastion of whatever is wrong with the wiki. declared an Enemy and rallied against. it is so creepy.

cults use Us vs Them mentality, especially in language

broad declarations establishing a community and a community spirit in the face of adversity are common in cults. appeals to emotion and loyalty are used in a very manipulative way. catastrophising and fearmongering is common, too. I’m seeing this in how the recent drama with the legal issues is being handled. broad appeals to “defend the wiki”, hashtags being encouraged, emotional speeches from staff about how it’s a make or break situation… 

…and this is being reflected in the absolutely insane comments people are responding with.

this is a fucking writing website. the above is not a normal reaction at all.

the attitudes of regular users quickly grow concerning

people very quickly get obsessed with the wiki and it defines their lives. they seem to feel as though they owe something to it or they need to serve some kind of a purpose; many people try and “get the word out” and become voluntary spokespeople. they go around practically preaching, and I do not see the users of any other website doing this.

cults want full control over how they’re seen by outsiders

and the scp wiki does the same. as mentioned previously, when the fandom grew and spiralled off the wiki to other sites, staff debated for weeks over what to do. brief interruption the second code is shrek is life.they were not comfortable with the idea of the wiki having an independent fandom, and for years now they have been in constant struggle with offsite communities, trying to gain the same amount of control they have over the wiki. it’s impossible to do so thoroughly, and it’s clearly an annoyance for them.

cult leaders will let “lesser” members do their dirty work for them

and guess what staff does? rather than wade in there and get their hands dirty with internet arguments, they’ll sit back and let regular users dogpile on dissenters and say all the things staff shouldn’t be seen to say in public. note how even if this would violate the bullying policies, they’ll just get a warning so long as staff agrees. 

in conclusion

@ everyone on the scp wiki: yall know you’re in a cult, right?

[justxjericho]

BASIC INFORMATION 

Full Name: Jericho Aleksandr Novak

Nickname(s): Jer, J

Age: 29

Date of Birth: March 23, 1991

Hometown: Red Ridge, NV

Current Location: Red Ridge, NV

Gender: cis male

Pronouns: he/him

Sexuality: homosexual, homoromantic

Religion: agnostic

Occupation: security at the Phoenix

Language(s) Spoken: English

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Face Claim: Noel Fisher

Hair Colour: black

Eye Colour: blue

Height: 5’8”

Tattoos: a lot. “F U C K U - U P” across his knuckles, ‘V’ for Valencia on the side of his neck. See pinterest at bottom for more.

Piercings: none

Clothing Style: grungy, cut off shirts, layered flannels over t-shirts, ripped jeans, old sweatpants, torn hoodies, converse, worn boots, etc. 

Distinguishing Characteristics: tattoos on arms, hands, and neck. He also has a lot of scars from past fights and abuse all over his body including self harm burn marks on his legs. the scars are the worst on his back, which he tries to keep covered for the most part. piercing blue eyes and his face is very expressive. 

HEALTH

Physical Ailments: he has screws in one of his legs and a small metal plate in his head.

Neurological Conditions: C-PTSD, Depression, Anxiety, ADD, Migraines, Insomnia

Allergies: none 

Sleeping Habits: rarely, he gets extreme nightmares so he rarely gets a good amount of sleep. There’s only been one person that he’s been able to sleep decently with and it’s complicated. 

Eating Habits: he loves food, he knows what it’s like to go hungry so he eats whenever he feels like it so he doesn’t have to feel that way again

Exercise Habits: nothing regular, he is always on the move though and does a lot of push-ups and pull-ups 

Sociability: he’s a volatile person, but he’ll talk to anyone and hates being alone

Body Temperature: warm

Addictions: nicotine, caffeine, alcohol

Drug Use: weed, occasional cocaine, has tried other things but nothing stuck

Alcohol Use: daily

PERSONALITY

Positive Traits: dependable, energetic, independent, passionate, brave

Negative Traits: stubborn, moody, quick-tempered, aggressive, callous

FAVOURITES

Weather: cloudy or raining, cold

Colour: black

Music: metal and punk

Movies: horror

Sport: boxing or football

Beverage: whiskey

Food: steak

Animal: honey badger

FAMILY

Father: Henryk Novak

Mother: Livia Novak

Sibling(s): Michelle ‘Mitch’ Novak (half-sister), Tommy Novak (deceased half-brother), TBD younger sister

Children: none

Other family: TBD

Pet(s): none, he can barely take care of himself

EXTRA

Zodiac Sign: aries

MBTI: ENFJ

Enneagram: 8 - the challenger

Temperament: choleric

Moral Alignment: chaotic neutral

Pinterest

BACKGROUND

Born to a lower middle class family. His mother had two children from a previous relationship. He was right in the middle, but as a young child he never felt left out. He looked up to his older siblings and protected his younger one.

He was around seven years old when Tommy, his older half-brother, went missing. He didn’t really understand what was going on or the suspicions behind the situation. All he knew was his brother was gone and no one knew where he was. 

About a year later Tommy's body was found. There had already been a shift in the house, his mother was consumed with the media constantly bouncing from television show to public speaking appearances in search of her son. After they found his body and the police did little to nothing, she started her campaign to warn other parents and get real results. His father turned meaner and meaner as time went on. Once Tommy passed he seemed to take that anger and pain out on his remaining children. 

At first, Mitch was there to protect Jericho and Liz. While she couldn't always hide them away she was able to divert his attention away from him and his younger sister for the time she was there. He saw her as his safety and spent many nights asleep on her floor to avoid his father's drunken wrath. An anger he'd never fully understand. But then, all at once, Mitch was gone and Jericho was the main target of his father's rage and mother's neglect.

For years, he endured his household. For a long time, he waited to hear from Mitch. Hoping she would come back and take him and Liz somewhere or at the very least tell him where she went. In the meantime, he focused on protecting Liz and keeping her out of the line of fire. After a few years with not so much of a word and the constant beatings his father delivered to him on a regular basis, he lost hope. 

Around the age of sixteen, he couldn’t stand it anymore. He grabbed what he could and threw it in a backpack. Jer told Liz to do the same and they took off. It was hard, finding food and money and ways to clean themselves and their clothes. They managed, but barely. After a few months of sleeping outside, he ended up bringing Liz to the Redridge women’s center and asked them to help her find a safe place. He explained their home life and left her with a refillable cell phone to contact him if she needed anything at all. It was daunting for him to have to do. The man didn’t have a lot of feelings on the regular, but he hated having to leave her with strangers. She needed the option to go to school, have a bed to sleep in, know when she would get her next meal, and have clean clothes on her back. Some sort of normalcy that he couldn’t offer her surviving out on the streets. At the very least, though, he got her away from the house and to people who could help. He hoped they could and she knew how to get a hold of him if they didn’t. 

After awhile back on the streets, before he had the chance to turn seventeen, he was caught by a member of Valencia when he was trying to get shelter from a storm in one of their warehouses. Instead of tossing him out or killing him on sight, they decided to take him in. From there he became a street rat and eventually a soldier for the organization. Finally he'd found the family and solace he'd always needed. A place to channel all the anger he'd been harboring for years. 

The only thing that changed over the years was his relationships. An on again off again boyfriend he'd known since he was a teenager that knows everything about him. Though he struggles to come out to his fellow soldiers in fear he'd be rejected by them and back on the street. A source of turmoil between him and the other. 

He kept in contact with Liz, though tried to keep her away from Valencia in hopes she'd have a somewhat normal life. Recently, he's heard rumors of a journalist in town with a strong resemblance to Mitch but he'd yet to cross paths with her. He didn't know what he would say if he did or if he'd just turn and walk away like she did to him and Liz. 

WANTED CONNECTIONS

The Savior: this person was affiliated with Valencia and took Jer in when he was just a teenager out on the streets. He sees them as an older sibling or parent like figure. Out of everyone in Valencia they are the person he's most loyal to.

The Complicated Soulmate: See wanted connection for more info

Close/Best Friend: someone who has been with him since his street rat days. They just understood each other and are often seen together creating chaos in town.

Enemy: absolutely hates Jericho and wants to see him dead. The feeling is mutual but somehow, something is preventing them from going through with the job.

Frenemy: their banter is something to go down in the history books, both witty and while they don't hate each other they don't exactly love each other either. They talk a lot of shit to each other but at the end of the day they're there for each other if the other person needs help.

[crossdressingdeath]

Okay I’ve had a very long day and people are being super defensive of JC on my dash so uh. I’m gonna talk shit about him for a bit. Because it’ll make me feel better. And I don’t want anyone arguing with me about this so I’ll put it behind a cut and if you don’t want to read someone talking shit about JC in a super unstructured manner then... don’t click read more, I guess? 

So here’s one thing, to start. In The Untamed specifically, I can argue with near-absolute certainty that JC killed WWX. LWJ had him, and that guy is insanely strong; I don’t doubt for a second he could’ve pulled WWX up if he’d been given the chance. Maybe JC didn’t put a blade through WWX’s heart himself, but if he had stayed out of it WWX probably would’ve lived. I don’t know how long he would’ve lived, and I doubt he would’ve thanked LWJ for saving him, but he probably wouldn’t have died on that cliff. Hell, killing him quickly might have been a kindness; I’m not an expert on how far you have to fall to die instantly on impact and I don’t know how high that cliff was, but depending on how he landed and if he bounced off anything on the way down it’s possible (though maybe not likely) that WWX wouldn’t have died right away. If I had to choose between a quick death via a blade through a vital part or a more lasting death via serious internal damage from a very long fall... Yeah, I’d take the stabbing. Obviously I’m not saying that not being able to go through with killing his brother makes JC a bad person; I’m just saying that when his choices were doing nothing (which, reminder, here means letting LWJ pull WWX up (or at least try to)), helping LWJ save his brother, finishing WWX off quickly (JC is trained in combat, I’m sure he knows where to stab for the most merciful death possible under those circumstances), or letting WWX fall to his death... I just find it interesting that JC chose the latter.

Hell, even before that, if JC had done something sooner a whole lot of pain could’ve been avoided. (We’re out of the Untamed-exclusive stuff, by the way.) Now, I get that as a very new sect leader of a sect that was almost obliterated JC’s position is... precarious, to say the least. However! An awkward position doesn’t automatically mean he can pretty much abandon his brother! That is not how familial ties work! Especially when he never takes WWX’s position (which was equally precarious if not more so) into account while talking about how WWX abandoned him.

Put yourself in JC’s shoes for a moment, here. Most of your family is dead. Your brother, you know, was thrown into a hell pit and hasn’t been seen for three months. Then, joy of joys, you find him again! Except now your ever-cheerful, ever-kindhearted brother can raise the dead and, oh yeah, has spent all his time since escaping the hell pit that no one survives torturing people to death with demonic cultivation. What do you do in this situation? I’m fairly sure your answer was not “Throw him on the front lines as your most valuable weapon without giving him so much as a chance to come to terms with all the horrible things that have clearly happened to him”. Yes, yes, they were in the middle of war, but you don’t get to throw your very obviously messed up brother onto the front lines and then be shocked when there are serious consequences for doing that.

Also, going back to positions: People talk a lot about how JC’s position was so difficult, and I’m not saying it wasn’t, but... here’s the thing. WWX’s position was so much worse. JC is the sect leader of an old and powerful sect. The Jiangs might have lost a great deal, but there are still alliances he could call on, favours he could probably cash in, treasures reclaimed from the Wens he could use... He’s not exactly helpless. He has to be careful, but he’s not entirely defenseless. Meanwhile, WWX is the incredibly powerful demonic cultivator with a dangerous weapon everyone wants to get their hands on and a brother he’s known to have a somewhat strained relationship with. We see in canon that the sects are actively hunting for a chance to get their teeth into him after the Sunshot Campaign wraps up. All WWX has is his own power and JC’s support. I keep coming back to what JGY says at the temple, about how JC made WWX an easy target by making it obvious their relationship was rocky, and... he’s right. I doubt JC intended to do it, but he made it very easy for the sects to split WWX off from him. And while JC was still a sect leader and largely untouchable, WWX was infinitely more vulnerable. Again, I doubt he meant to paint a target on his brother’s back, but the fact that he missed it in favour of getting pissy about WWX being better than him yet again says something about him.

The fact that he says there’s nothing he can do after WWX absconds with the Wen remnants says... something else. Now, I’m terrible with politics; while he definitely should have supported his brother in a perfect world, with a sect to look after and JGS hunting for weak points I genuinely don’t know if he could have at that point. (Again, I really do think he should’ve tried to step in before things got to this point, but... well, he didn’t. No use crying over spilled milk and all that.) So okay, he couldn’t do anything. I’ll take him at his word; if nothing else, I can believe he was too bad with both politics and people and too inexperienced to find a way to step in. But he then takes his brother’s request to remove him from the Jiang sect to avoid any trouble coming to their doorstep and goes off and tells the sects that his brother is a traitor. Let me put that another way. He tells the people who are looking for an excuse to murder his brother and take his writings and inventions for themselves that his brother has betrayed them. I think we have reached the point where malice and stupidity become impossible to tell apart. Honestly, I can only see two possible thought processes for this: Either he actually wants to bring the sects down on WWX’s heads (unlikely) or he’s so terrible at politics that he genuinely didn’t realize what the logical result of his words would be (more likely, but means his parents did a terrible job of teaching him how to be a sect leader). Although, given he apparently spent enough of the 13 years between WWX’s death and resurrection spending so much time torturing demonic cultivators to death because either he thought they might be WWX or they just reminded him of him that most of the citizens in his territory are too scared to go to Lotus Pier for help unless they’re in imminent life-threatening danger I don’t think you can argue he was a good sect leader by any stretch...

Oh! Speaking of parents and teaching: Jin Ling. Now, part of this might be a cultural thing that I’m not familiar with, but JC is an absolutely god-awful guardian. Pretty much all he does is insult JL, belittle him, or threaten him. Yeah, he cares in his own way, but take it from me: When your parents (or uncle, in this case) spend most of their time insulting you but also keep you safe from any external danger and do their best to help you grow, you don’t end up a happy, well-adjusted adult; you end up miserable and confused because you can’t hate or like the person raising you and get stuck between love and resentment. JL is clearly desperate for affection, but he can’t admit that to anyone. It’s no surprise he mourns for JGY so deeply even after everything; the guy was pretty much the only one in the poor kid’s life to treat him with open, honest affection before he met WWX! The comparison between him and Sizhui (as the only other child raised by the main cast) is striking; even though LWJ seems like he should be just as bad a parent, he raises Sizhui with love and kindness, and so did WWX before him. And the result is... so very different. Sizhui is the very goodest of boys and I love him with all my heart. Anyway, it’s no wonder JL gravitates towards WWX and defends him once he’s gotten past his initial reaction of stabbing the guy; WWX is so open and explicit with his affection! Is he a perfect parent? No, probably not. But he focuses more on making it clear to his army of juniors that he loves them and respects them as people and wants them to be happy with where they end up in life than he does on making them fit his image of what they should be. Of course someone who’d be raised with JC copying his mother and constantly getting on their case about not being good enough would gravitate towards someone like that.

Okay, this is getting long. Last point: WWX has to put in so much emotional labour in their relationship even before everything goes tits up? The best example for me is the scene where WWX promises they’ll be together forever, Twin Heroes of Yunmeng, the huge promise that both JC and an annoyingly large portion of the audience think he should’ve kept no matter what. Yeah, out of context it’s very sweet, but in context? WWX has just barely recovered from the fight with the Xuanwu. He’s been conscious for... maybe an hour, at most? He nearly died. And yet he has to drag himself out of bed to chase JC through Lotus Pier to comfort him because JFM was paying more attention to WWX. Who, again, almost died. JC is so busy being pissy about this that he forces his brother, still recovering, to chase him through Lotus Pier to comfort him for something their parents did. Most of the time, JC has a right to be upset that JFM so obviously prefers WWX. Looking in from the outside the situation is clearly more complicated than he paints it, but I don’t blame him for not seeing how bad things are for the rest of the family. ...I know that sounds sarcastic, but I do mean it. His siblings are very good at hiding how badly their family situation has hurt them. Anyway, though, on this one occasion I am entirely on JFM’s side here. WWX threw himself into danger so JC wouldn’t have to go to the indoctrination camp alone even though he didn’t have to, then some time later JC returns alone and informs him that WWX is trapped in a cave with the Xuanwu of Slaughter, then when JFM finally manages to reach him the Xuanwu is dead and WWX is all but dead. I 100% do not blame him for focusing on WWX in this situation! He did something fully-grown cultivators with far more experience failed at and almost died in the process! Given JC must be... what, 16 at the youngest, probably older by this point? I would expect him to grasp that. He’s old enough to have developed empathy. Hell, he should be right there with his father and sister, proud of WWX’s accomplishments and relieved to see him awake and recovering. Instead, WWX has to drag himself through Lotus Pier and swear to stay by JC’s side for the rest of their lives just to get him to stop sulking because WWX was better than him yet again.

...Yeah, as you might have grasped, I don’t think WWX had any obligation to uphold that promise. He shouldn’t have been expected to be tied to Lotus Pier by a vow he made as a teenager to get his brother to cheer up. In fact, a very large part of me wishes he’d broken it sooner. Comparing the way JC treats him to the way the Wens and LWJ treat him (setting aside that those are of course very different kinds of love) I can’t help but think things might have gone infinitely better for him if he’d found a different family a lot earlier.

[jewpacabruhs]

bruv im still jus. wow. theres so much to say but. do u kno how good it feels... to be jewish, to accidentally fixate on one eric cartman & love him more than any other fictional character for almost seven years now, and then to see him in a little yarmulke, standing at kyle's side while he recites from the torah? do you know how validating that is?

i gotta get personal for a second here. idk how, but in the last few yrs my relationship with my own jewishness has been deeply influenced and intertwined with south park, as ironic and ridiculous as that sounds. i grew up secular, completely nonpracticing; as a child, i was only ethnically jewish, and saw jews as strictly an ethnicity, and a popularly hated one to boot. and it scared me. ive talked about it before, but as a child hearing about the shoah and about antisemitism, i couldn't understand. i thought it was looks for a while, which confused me, because ive got blonde hair and blue eyes and all my family that got caught up in nazi europe did/do too. i remember thinking as a second grader that i would've been spared for that reason; why didn't a good chunk of my family? but i grew up in a mormon neighborhood, with plenty of other blonde kids, and they stayed away from me like i had a disease. this was before puberty, before my hair got a little frizzier and my nose got a little bigger, when i looked just like any of them. but already, at age 8, i was an outsider. i wasn't one of them and i never would be, and they wanted me to know that.

and then i started to get it. it clicked even more once i got to high school and got called a kike every other day - but prior to high school, you know what i found, and you know what really pushed me towards understanding what being a secular jew in america meant? south park. and as a dumb little sixth grader with no critical thinking skills, you know what shaped my opinions on my own people? south park.

and that's good and bad. good because i do sincerely think kyle broflovski is excellent fictional representation for jewish people, maybe one of the top few ever shown on television. he gets on my nerves at times, but he's good through and through, he's well written and multi-dimensional, he's not a walking stereotype but he still has prominent jewish features that jewish viewers can look at and see in themselves, his morals and viewpoints and beliefs are obviously deeply influenced by judaism, hes deeply proud of his heritage and culture... and that all means a lot to me. and by the amount of jewish sp fans that adore kyle, it means a lot to them too.

the bad thing is, yeah, i can't deny it, during older seasons, cartman's treatment of kyle probably taught a lot of young and dumb viewers how to view jews in real life. have i, as a kyman shipper and cartman stan, justified that within a fictional and narrative context? yes. but it doesn't change the real-world effect; south park, but specifically cartman, since he's the mouthpiece, likely did cause some easily-influenced people to pick up antisemitic beliefs. did this contribute to the rise of the alt-right? debatable, but to some extent, possibly. was that m&t's intention and should south park be canceled and denounced? fuck no, i'll always love it lol, and fuck censorship. but it is something that should be taken into account.

matt and trey clearly regret that, and understand that it's no longer acceptable or fitting or needed in today's sociopolitical climate - or, okay, maybe they don't even regret it; they just understand that when fiction becomes reality, the fictional jackass isn't necessary when there's one right there in real life, sitting in the oval office, yeah? old cartman doesn't deserve or need a voice, not when real, awful people actually have one right now. and m&t are actively trying to change cartman for the better and really, really backpedal on his bigotry, while still doing it in a way that makes sense from a story-telling perspective. it's not a complete uncharacteristic change of character; it's shifting with the times and writing it into the character's arc so that it's a logical and plausible development in cartman's story.

cartman's behavior in the last few seasons is consistent character development. m&t themselves are pushing it, and clearly it's sincere; cartman's not faking. unless they're building up a surprise twist over the last, what, three to four seasons, that he was faking the whole time! woah! if so it better be a damn good pay off, because that's a lot of time invested. though that seems more forward-thinking than sp tends to be. they're intentionally stuck in the short-term, aren't they? plot-wise. but their character development is pretty long-term, and right now, cartman is consistently decent, and if it comes across as faking, it's because cartman's over-dramatic in how he speaks, and trey does that intentionally.

that's a tonal thing, and it's hard to say in a fictional character, but as someone who struggles with empathy myself, empathy and sincerity don't go hand in hand. you can lack empathy while still caring enough to sincerely and wholeheartedly apologize for something and mean that apology. not feeling remorse doesn't mean you can't apologize genuinely; the two don't go hand in hand. you can be mentally ill in any capacity, even a psychopath, and still deeply care about things or people, just not in the way someone else might. so you can headcanon that cartman's still a psycho/sociopath, though right now that's actually kinda going against canon, but don't rain on other's parades if they're happy he's exhibiting healthy growth. besides, and i repeat: what could cartman exploit out of faking sincerity for several seasons? nothing, so why bother? he wouldn't, unless it's literal in-show subconscious growth.

does that mean he's magically developed empathy? no. is it becoming less probable he's a legitimate sociopath/psychopath (while still possibly having better-disguised antisocial tendencies)? yes. does he seem to have better coping or anger management skills? somehow, yes! he seems to be legitimately healthier. does this mean he's no longer accountable for his past misdeeds, and even his present, less-severe ones? of course not! and you can still hate him all you want, but modern cartman is not the same as older cartman, and shouldn't be treated as such. because is this growth? absolutely.

he's clearly healthier, even happier. he's less angry, he's still a little shit but he no longer relies on bigotry or cruelty or anger to get the negative attention he thrives off, rather he gravitates towards being simply annoying. you know why he called ice? pettiness, immaturity, a little bit of spite, and a need for silly revenge. he's being intentionally petty, but going about it in a sly but no longer psychopathic way. less hannibal lector and more, idk, regina george, lol. extremely different on the antagonist scale. and cartman's been both.

and maybe it's personal bias on what type of human is worse within fiction, someone unstable and bizarre with violent tendencies (which is how he's come to be viewed in pop culture & some of the fandom, as a result of eps like scott tenorman must die), versus someone inclined towards pettiness and more silent and, i dunno, social-status-and-pride-driven types of revenge (cartman in general when he's not being particularly awful, tbh)... but i think it'd be pretty universally agreed that the latter is at the very least more tolerable, manageable, and even likeable - and certainly more redeemable. let's put it this way; if cartman continued on the path he was on, he'd be one of those tiki holding fucks, wearing a confederate flag hat, and he'd treat kyle soooo much worse. instead, m&t have turned him into a hypocritical false-woke ignorant dumbass - but that's strongly less problematique than it's counterpart, and it works.

because cartman simply serves a different narrative purpose now. and that's not sloppy writing; it's well-timed evolution of a character that stepped into a pre-9/11, pre-trump, pre-social media world! so much has changed, and south park is reflecting that in its characters, most notably in a character who was stuck in the, what, 1960s with his beliefs? that was fine way back when, but matt&trey are smart dudes - they understand that sometimes things have to change. besides, they love cartman, too. he's their favorite. but they understand that when real people act like him, it's not so comedic or satirical or funny, & they don't want to look at cartman, at their creation who they've invested twenty-two years in, and see the all-too-real hate of modern radical white america.

i think we know enough about matt&trey's social stances these days, and the empathy they've seemed to develop after having kids, to understand that they're no longer in their "apathy is best, everyone is stupid" phase. current south park is left-leaning and admittedly preachy at times, but i wouldn't want it any other way. g-d knows it's better this way than if they'd embraced and decided to appeal to their right-libertarian following instead. cartman's evolved in a progressive and positive way, and it's fucking dope, especially to us cartman stans who so badly want him to be good. and he is good right! he's doing so good!

and i know im up my own ass rn but yall know how much i myself have campaigned for jewish kyman/cartman and how much i just deeply and truly adore it, and to see it actualized in a canon episode to some extent? that meant the world to me. i couldn't believe my eyes. i was tellin lai - that's the most genuine, pure, almost violent happiness ive felt in my soul in years. that was like a straight shot of serotonin to the heart. that simple little scene made me so fucken happy yall dont even know. & theres a lot to be said about the political commentary and plenty of other people are analyzing that, but im a simple jewish kyman & cartman stan and boy ive been fed good fjskfkdkdkfk!!!

[lobselvith8]

Angst Character Asks: Fallout 4 Edition

I was tagged by @suplexranger. About four days ago. =P I will be addressing my Brotherhood protagonist, Javier, who I have been playing on Fallout 4 with Freefall mod installed (which serves as an unofficial patch that also adds cut content), along with some others that enhance the Brotherhood experience and allows other areas of the Nuka-World region to be settled (I also intend to re-create my Railroad main character, Mako, in case anyone wants to make saving Emmett the cat an option for the PS4).

1.   What would your OC’s last words be/what are they?

At the beginning of his story (and up to a certain point afterwards, before arriving at the Institute), Javier’s last words most likely be “Shaun”.

2.   What would break your OC beyond repair? Has it happened?

The destruction of the world nearly broke Javier, but Codsworth was able to pull him back from the brink before he succumbed to a complete break with reality.

3.   What is your OC’s worst memory?

The death of Javier’s spouse. His memories of Anchorage would rank up there, however. Coming back home and seeing power armored soldiers shoot civilians on television, to public approval, would be up there as well. Javier is cognizant about the horrors of the world before the Great War; he doesn’t romanticize the past at all.

4.   Does your OC have nightmares? What do they contain?

Yes, he deals with nightmares. Being a soldier at Anchorage. His time trying to adjust to living back in the real world after living in a battlefield. The murder of his spouse and the kidnapping of his son.

5.   Your OC is facing their worst enemy. Who/what is it?

The Institute.

6.   What would get your OC to make themselves disappear?

After Javier leaves Vault 111, I don’t think he would disappear; he isn’t as nomadic as my Courier was (and that ended for him when he elected to forge an autonomous Mojave). I don’t believe there is anything that could make him permanently depart the Commonwealth.

7.   Does your OC have any weaknesses? Have these ever been exploited?

Javier’s need for revenge, and his desire to reunite with Shaun, are certainly exploited at the start of the story - although Javier doesn’t realize it yet. He has seen the Vault 111 terminal entry that a manual override was initiated, and he’s aware there are things he doesn’t quite understand - including the chair and the strange symbol overlooking the entrance to Vault 111, which tells him there is another player on the board.

8.   What is the closest your OC has come to death?

Facing Kellog because synths surrounded him, and ultimately landed a hit on him when he turned Kellog into a pile of ash.

9.   What is the greatest sacrifice your OC could ever make? Under what circumstance would they make it?

Javier’s greatest sacrifice would be coming up ahead - concerning his decision regarding his son. And the circumstance would be choosing between his son and the fate of the Commonwealth.

10.   What is the worst loss your OC has suffered?

Losing his spouse and his son.

11.   Your OC is forced to kill a member of their family or a friend. Who do they choose, and why?

Another decision that will be coming up ahead - when Javier has to choose between the Nuka-World raider gangs and the Commonwealth, after he has gotten to know Porter Gage.

12.   To what extent would your OC go to survive?

Javier’s motivation is less about survival for his own sake and almost entirely about Shaun.

13.   Has your OC suffered trauma?

Yes, both in his pre-war life and in his current life in the Commonwealth. A part of the reason Codsworth is around is due to his programming having protocols to help Javier with trauma.

14.   Would your OC let themselves be forced into a loveless marriage?

Javier would prefer to marry for love, but if the circumstances were dire enough, he would.

15.   How far would you OC go to protect their loved ones?

Assuming the person wasn’t evil? Javier would go pretty far for someone he loved, whether the person was a friend or a significant other. Javier does have a code - while he aligns with the Brotherhood, he doesn’t kill innocent synths (but he has no problem killing malevolent and Institute aligned synths), but he does view their campaign against Super Mutants, raiders, Gunners, ferals, and the Institute as the best chance for the Commonwealth.

16.   Your OC has exactly 15 minutes to live. What is their last act?

Depends at what part of Javier’s story this would transpire. Before finding Shaun, Javier would most likely try to leave a message with Codsworth for Shaun, spending as long as possible trying to tell his son everything that he couldn’t in person.

17.   What is your OC’s greatest failure?

Javier’s inability to save Shaun.

18.   What is the worst possible ending for your OC and why?

The Institute being victorious because he finds them to be the fulcrum of true evil.

19.   What is your OC’s preferred method of death?

Javier prefers energy weapons; he initially uses a modified laser musket after encountering Preston and his moiety crew from Concord, and (later on in the story) after arriving at the Prydwen he uses a modified plasma rifle.

20.   How does your OC sleep at night?

He has difficulty sleeping at night given his nightmares, and he would try to find a safe place where he couldn’t easily be ambushed in order to sleep while he travels the Commonwealth (sleeping out in the open isn’t an option for him given the dangers all around him).

21.   What is the worst thing your OC has done?

At my current point in the story, it would be persuading farmers to allocate a portion of their crops for Proctor Teagan’s unofficial op - Javier has absolutely no idea where Virgil could be in the Glowing Sea, he needs currency and supplies, and he is bereft of the resources to last weeks, if not months, scourging through the inhospitable terrain of the Glowing Sea to find Virgil (since Kellog didn’t know exactly where he was).

Interestingly enough, I found that, after a period of time had passed, these settlers offered my protagonist the quest that allows my character to help and control their settlement, even without having joined the Minutemen - although that could be because of the Freefall mod.

As far as Javier’s story is concerned, however, this didn’t happen (I restarted from a prior save point), since I’m not ready to invest that kind of time and energy into settlement building (and I think it would make more sense to do it after Javier arrives at the Institute, when he could expend that kind of energy into such matters without having to worry about finding Shaun).

22.   What is your OC the most guilty about?

Failing to save his spouse.

23.   Would your OC be considered good or bad by an outsider?

I suppose it depends on the outsider. I think most of the residents of Vault 81 would view him favorably. I’m sure the raiders and Gunners would consider him to be a pretty horrible person.

24.   Who does your OC hate most?

In terms of an individual person? Kellog. In terms of an organization or society? The Institute.

25.   What does your OC love most, and what would they do to keep it?

He enjoys a nice cup of coffee, but it’s been some time since he had any pre-war coffee (so there isn’t much he could do to keep it). 

With respect to an item, he does keep the wedding ring of his spouse safely tucked away, at first in Sanctuary (so that nothing happens to it even if something were to happen to him), and later on (after the arrival of the Prydwen) in a container at the Boston Airport.

26.   Has your OC ever had unrequited feelings of any kind for someone?

Magnolia. He thought that perhaps he could try to move on from his wife and start something new, but she wasn’t looking to get attached to anyone after their date, and he closed himself off for a bit after that.

27.   How does your OC deal with rejection?

Depends on the kind of rejection. If you mean romantically, as with the case with Magnolia, he accepted what she decided on, although he did privately deal with the pain of rejection.

28.   Would your OC ever reject someone?

If someone asked Javier to do something that would violate his moral code, he would ultimately oppose it.

29.   Why does your OC have the flaws that they have?

Mental trauma, anxiety, and depression.

30.   Would your OC kill?

Yes, he has killed, and he would kill.

31.   Would your OC torture?

Torture isn’t a tactic that Javier would use or condone, as the denizens of Covenant will find out.

32.   Does your OC hate? To what extent?

Javier hates Kellog, and he hates the Institute.

33.   How does your OC let out anger?

He verbally expresses it, and as with people who try to rob him, that can turn lethal.

[neuxue]

Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 28

I’m back! With front row seats to the zombie apocalypse, some musings on the writing of Mat’s character, and an appreciation for not-so-subtle symbolism

Chapter 28: Night in Hinderstap

Apparently it’s a surprise murder party. Where’s my invite?

I’m just not even going to comment on “I can’t rightly be blamed for their unsociable behaviour!”The less said about that, the better. It never happened. Quote? What quote?

A group of raving men soon descended on the two villagers Mat had hamstrung, beating their heads against the ground over and over until they stopped moving. Then the pack looked up at Mat and his men, bloodlust clouding their eyes. It was an incongruous expression on the clean faces of men in neat vests and combed hair.

Everyone’s trying to kill everyone else and is anyone else here reminded of that church scene in Kingsman? Or really any kind of zombie-apocalypse-esque scene from anything ever? Maybe Shai’tan’s a fan of pulp fiction?

The real question here, of course, is this: how did the villagers know this was going to happen? They clearly knew – or at least, they knew somethingwas going to happen at sundown; they were too vehement about the curfew for it to not be something sinister – but if this had happened before, how are any of them alive? And if it hasn’t happened before, how did they know? Also if it’s a one-off thing, the patches on clothing and lack of trade wouldn’t make sense…

Or maybe it’s a ten plagues sort of deal: something happens every sundown, or frequently at sundown, but it’s something different every time. So they know to set a curfew and they want people out, but…

Oh, maybe bad things only happen at sundown when outsiders are in the town? Or have I just read too many far-right campaign speeches?

And the zombie apocalypse continues. This is definitely weirder than ghosts. Pattern? Hey, Pattern, you feeling okay?

“The gold!” Talmanes said. “Burn the gold!” Mat said.

No, Mat, it’s pillage beforeyou burn. Come on, that’s practically the first rule of piracy!

So they start trying to get the hell out of dodge. Zombie apocalypses: keeping our borders secure.

Sorry, I’ll stop.

“This isn’t just about our wager,” Mat said, listening to the screams and shouts.

No shit, Sherlock. The Pope is Catholic, bears shit in the woods, the Dragon Reborn needs therapy, and this is definitely not just about your fucking wager.

Down a side road, a couple of struggling bodies burst through the upper window of a house.

Everything’s better with defenestration!

I’m absolutely picturing this happening with a lively scherzo playing in the background, by the way.

Indeed, it seemed to him that the darkness had come tooquickly here.Unnaturally swift. The road’s length squirmed with shadows, figures battling, screeching, struggling in the deepening gloom. In that darkness, the fights looked at times to be solid, single creatures – horrific monstrosities with a dozen waving limbs and a hundred mouths to scream from the blackness.

Subtle.

But certainly effective; it’s a well-painted picture of horror with very clear undertones of greater chaos and darkness. Jordan was good at these occasional short forays into horror, and this measures up reasonably well.

“Light,” Talmanes yelled as they galloped toward the inn. “Light!”

I see what you did there. The image of unnatural, roiling, violent darkness, and the ensuing cry of “Light!” from the one charging into it.

Because that’s what we’re coming to, now. The end – the Last Battle – is no longer some distant looming threat on the horizon; it’s imminent and immediate and everything else is fraying at its approach, the veneer of order cracking and the pieces so desperately held together falling apart, the places that once may have thought to be passed over unscathed are feeling the touch of apocalypse, and the underlying battle lines: Light and Shadow, are becoming more and more apparent. There isn’t room for anything else, try though they all might.

The night itself seemed to be trying to smother them, to strangle them, and to spawn beasts of blackness and murder.

So in other surprising news, I am still and always a sucker for not-really-hidden secondary layers of meaning. What can I say? I’m a simple girl of simple tastes.

They screamed and hissed, like legions of the drowned trying to pull him down into a deep, unearthly sea.

I was on a plane earlier today, flying over a city that clearly has precisely no chance whatsoever at surviving a sea level rise of even a metre or so and I’m reminded of it here, of clear impending disaster and how humanity responds. Which seems to be, in life as in fiction (in fiction as in life?), to ignore it in favour of other petty conflicts.

He hated fighting in darkness, he bloody hated it. […] It reminded him, briefly, of another night, killing Shadowspawn in the dark.

Hate to break it to you, Mat, but there are going to be more of those nights to come – and I don’t think even you would take the long side of that bet.

Except now of course these aren’t Shadowspawn, but in the growing darkness it becomes harder to tell the difference.

For a moment, it seemed Mat fought the shadows themselves – shadows made by sputtering firelight, random and uncoordinated, yet all the more deadly for his inability to anticipate them.

An interesting line, read through the lens of potential foreshadowing, regarding the Light’s likely general...

Ha, foreshadowing. See what I did there?

Okay, sorry.

Shadows bled where he struck

None of this is remotely subtle but it’s more fun than most of Sanderson’s Mat has been so far, so I’m going to enjoy it and YOU CAN’T STOP ME. So there.

(I haven’t slept in about 36 hours because overnight flights are hell; give me some slack here).

Thom throwing some of his last knives to save Mat as they flee on horseback from a town that becomes deadly with the fall of night…now where have we seen this before…

He didn’t know horseback battle commands himself, but those blasted memories did

This seems off, though perhaps more in the phrasing than the sentiment. Mat usually couches that sort of feeling in terms of being the one to remember, even if the memory belonged to someone else originally. Then again, he’s not exactly at a point of feeling particularly charitable towards the Eelfinn and their gifts, so okay.

“Thank you. For coming back for me.” “I wasn’t going to leave a man to that,” Mat said, shivering. “Dying on the battlefield is one thing, but to die out there, in that darkness…Well, I wasn’t going to let it happen.”

This, too, feels a little bit off – as if Mat should be thinking it rather than saying it. In these sorts of circumstances he has a tendency to almost awkwardly brush off thanks and praise, as if he’s uncomfortable taking it, saying something about ‘anyone would have done it’ or ‘I don’t have enough men to replace you if you died’ or something else that sounds slightly more callous than his actual motives. But again, it’s not completelyout of character, just…a little unusual, it seems. Which could mean it’s actually off, or could mean I’m overly aware of anything that doesn’t fit my own mental picture of Mat, and because his last few chapters have been…interesting…confirmation bias is working against Sanderson here.

I give up; I can’t quote all the light/shadow imagery with secondary meanings here. But there’s a lot of it and I do actually enjoy it. It’s the sort of thing that, at least at this point in the story, I don’t think needs to be subtle. It’s the entire focus, after all – so the idea is that it’s permeating everything, that even the little things have been pulled into this all-consuming war of Light against Shadow, that nothing is free of it this late in the game, especially when the ta’verenstand at the centre.

Mat argues with Aes Sedai; what else is new.

The robe was parted slightly at the top, giving a hint of what hid inside. Talmanes whistled softly.

I miss the actual character of Talmanes. I never liked Nalesean as much and I’m not thrilled to see him here, having done an Arya and stolen Talmanes’s face somehow.

“She’s not a woman, Talmanes,” Mat whispered warningly. “She’s an Aes Sedai. Don’t think of her as a woman.”

Yes, because with the true battle lines drawn before you, between Light and Shadow for the future of humanity and future itself, what you really want to be focusing on is dehumanising your own allies.

“It’s as if the darkness itself intoxicates them,” Thom said while Mat helped Delarn into his saddle. “As if Light itself has forsaken them, leaving them only to the Shadow…”

Ah, Thom, we can always count on you to point out the symbolism inherent in the situation, just in case we’ve missed it. This is why you bring the bard along.

“Not my fault, Talmanes. How was I to know that staying would cause them all to start tearing each other’s throats out?” “What?” Talmanes asked, glancing at him. “Isn’t this usuallyhow people react when you tell them you’re going to spend the night?”

STOP. RUINING. TALMANES’S CHARACTER. FOR THE SAKE. OF A PUNCHLINE.

Part of the problem is that Jordan’s characters just aren’t constructed to carry this style of banter, whereas it’s something of a staple of Sanderson’s. Both styles are fine – mileage will vary depending on individual readers’ tastes, of course, but both are at least internally consistent – but this is definitely one of those places where they very much are two distinct styles, and they don’t merge very well on this particular field.

It’s part of why Mat seems to be the character Sanderson struggles most with, at least thus far; more than any other major character, Mat is at the mercy of the author’s sense of humour.

Well, more than any other major character with the very possible exception of Nynaeve, but I have a theory about this one. I’ll save that one for another time, though.

Actually no, you know what? Let’s just do it here because this is stream of consciousness and it’s on my mind now. Also I’ve already gone political in this post so let’s go ahead and throw a gender discussion in as well, for shits and giggles.

Nynaeve and Mat, as I know I’ve talked about before and as I’m sure plenty of other people have talked about, have quite a lot in common in terms of their characterisation and the role they fill in the story. Both have the self-awareness of a particularly unintrospective goldfish, both love to dress up in dramatic irony for a night on the town, both are incredibly loyal and will stop at nothing to protect those they love, and both are often used for comic relief, when one (or both) of them is in a scene where comic relief is called for.  

So why does Sanderson seem to get Nynaeve mostly right, while wildly missing the mark with Mat? (check out that alliteration).

I don’t think this is the only reason, but I think part of it is to do with the gender of the characters, and the resulting filters Sanderson, like many readers, would subconsciously be perceiving them through, and thus also writing them through.  

In Nynaeve and Mat we have two very similar characters, but the emphasis – in the narrative and also, it seems based on my (admittedly limited) interactions with other readers, in the way they are perceived – with each of them is on versions of those shared traits that are coded more masculine or more feminine. Loyalty tilts towards chivalry and honour (‘masculine’) in Mat, and towards the nurturing, caretaking, and healing side (‘feminine’) in Nynaeve. Mat’s blindness to his own character reads as funny, where Nynaeve’s tends to read as more annoying and hypocritical to many. Mat’s irreverence reads and is treated as roguishness; Nynaeve’s as rudeness.

Not all of this is criticism, exactly; it’s more just observation of a pattern. There are things I wouldn’t mind seeing done differently, but I think for the most part both characters are well-handled, and serve as good parallels to each other in different situations.

But let’s bring it back to humour, and Sanderson’s ability to write one of these characters better than the other.

I think, perhaps without consciously framing it to himself this way, Sanderson sees Nynaeve not as ‘funny’ but as a character around whom funny can happen. She can be used for comic relief, but her character doesn’t read immediately as ‘the funny one’ because her irreverence and lack of self-awareness are treated as character flaws – and as flaws and aspects of her growth, they’re done well – because we as a society tend to see those things as flaws in women, more so than in men.  

This, then, is how Sanderson seems to write Nynaeve (at least based on the little I’ve seen so far). It’s also how Jordan wrote Nynaeve, and it thus is consistent with her character and with the way she has grown and changed over the course of the story. And when it’s time to throw comic relief at her, she doesn’t make jokes, but instead gets herself into situations that are funny because of who she is and how she reacts.

This, incidentally, is also largely how Jordan wrote humour involving Mat. However, we’re more primed to see Mat as an inherently funny person, because in a male character that’s how those traits combine. To our unconscious filters, Nynaeve should be the butt of the joke; Mat the one making the joke. Except…most of the time, Jordan’s Mat isn’t. He’s irreverent, yes, but the humour around him is actually written much like the humour around Nynaeve; it’s the result of dramatic irony: the character not seeing what is immediately obvious to the audience. We’re all in on the joke, at Nynaeve’s or Mat’s expense.

Sanderson gets Nynaeve’s character right because in a female character this combination of traits doesn’t immediately scream ‘funny’.

But Sanderson gets Mat’s character wrong because in a male character this combination of traits, to the set of filters and biases a reader in our society is likely to possess without realising, doesscream ‘funny’. In Nynaeve it’s easier to see a set of individual traits; in Mat there’s more likely to be that immediate association that gets in the way of seeing how the character is actually used, and how those traits come into play.

Again, I don’t mean this as a harsh criticism of Sanderson; unconscious bias is a pretty strong thing, and it’s an easy trap to fall into without even realising – hence the ‘unconscious’. Also, to his credit, he has made a fair bit of progress in this general area across his writing career.

But that’s my theory, such as it is.

And now back to the zombie apocalypse and your not-so-regularly scheduled nonsense.

There was an odd wrongness about the entire experience. Was the curfew intended to keep this from happening, somehow? Had Mat, by staying, causedall of these deaths?

Rand isn’t the only one who can leave destruction in his wake – though he does probably have the most impressive track record so far. Still, Mat can claim the harbour at Ebou Dar and, you know, gunpowder. It ain’t easy, being a ta’verenwith a conscience.

“It’s not going to leave me alone, Thom. […] That bloody gholam is out there, I know it is, but that’s just a part of it. Myrddraal and Darkfriends, monsters and ghosts. Chasing me and hunting me. I’ve stumbled from one disaster to another, barely keeping my neck above water, ever since this began. I keep saying I just need to find a hole somewhere to dice and drink, but that won’t stop it. Nothing will.”

Wow, Mat, that sounds almost like self-awareness, and acceptance of your role in all of this. And he has shown that more and more; he knows now that he can’t just run; it’s gone from being an actual plan circa TSR/TFoH to a wistful fantasy he occasionally indulges in. He knows the Last Battle is coming, knows he’s ta’veren, knows he can’t run from this. And more and more, he’s having to actually admit that, and face it straight on. You can’t strategise when you’re constantly half-trying to run away.

“Burn me, I wish they’d all just go bother Rand. He likes it.”

Ow.

“You really think that?” Thom asked. Mat hesitated. “I wish I did,” he admitted. “It would make things easier.”

This is one where maybe it’s out of character writing but I’m actually going to take it at face value, as Mat having to face some harder truths rather than dodging them as he has in the past. He knows this all already, and knew it before, but it’s different to actually have to admit it out loud. To deny yourself the refuge of denial and glib evasions.

It would make things easier – just like telling himself he’ll leave as soon as this battle is won, and then this battle, and then that errand, and then and then and then would make it easier – but he can’t afford that anymore.

It’s not the first time he’s realised this, exactly, but it feels less…forced, now. He accepted that he was ta’veren, accepted that he would have to fight in the Last Battle and that he couldn’t just leave, accepted a degree of responsibility for those he leads, but at every stage there’s resistance. First he resisted the whole thing, trying time and time again to leave. Then it was a case of resisting every step along the way, grudgingly accepting one thing after another. Just as Rand has crossed lines in the sand, trying and failing to set boundaries that he can stick to, and always in the end violating them down to ‘the last that could be done’, Mat has followed a path of crossing one line and then the next, taking one step and then the next, fighting it all the way but still ending up there. The difference, of course, being that Rand’s crossing of lines has largely been down a moral slope towards the point where he believes himself irredeemable, whereas Mat’s path has been one of gradual acceptance of his role. But the concept is the same, of resistance but then movement.

Now, he’s more freely admitting all of this. He’s not fighting it so much, anymore. He has almost reached the end of that path, the point where he can step into his place for the ending, as the person he needs to be, accepting it fully.

It’s what they’re all heading towards, now, one way or another. Moving into their final positions, completing their final arcs, taking on their roles for the ending. Accepting who they are and who they must be, and what that means.

(I mean, Rand is still very obviously struggling on that one, but in a way he’s also drawing closer – there’s a breaking point coming. He’s hit what seems like an absolute low; he’s broken and dark and tearing himself apart in an effort to hold himself together, under the pressure of everything that has been building and building and building towards the point where he has to finally…either accept his role in truth, or not).

“Lies never make things easier in the long run. […] When you tell them to yourself, you just bring more trouble.”

Wise words, Thom. And Mat’s finally at a point where he’s maybe ready to hear them; to accept that he has been lying to himself at each step along the way. Denial and self-deception layered on top of itself, peeling some away at every step. And now he’s having to face the last of those lies, and to leave himself without the comfort of those denials to shield himself.

That’s one he absolutely shares with Nynaeve. She, too, has had to peel away the denials and lies she tells herself in order to protect herself, to bring down those walls step by step.

“It strikes me that the people were expecting this. Or something like it.” “How could they have been?” Mat said. “If this had happened before, they’d all be dead.”

GOOD FUCKING QUESTION.

Aw, Mat’s got his very own wanted poster. Our little rogue’s all grown up and worth a bounty.

“Handsome fellow. Good nose, straight teeth, dashing hat.”

Um.

The prisoners are just…gone?

Is there some kind of groundhog day shit going on here?

There is some kind of groundhog day shit going on here.

“You!” he said, pointing. “I killed you!”

I have to say, it had more impact when it was Rand saying that to Moridin. Still, it’s always a good line when you get a chance to pull it out.

So it’s groundhog day meets zombie apocalypse. How…delightful. Murder spree every night with no consequences!

“The oddities were small, you see. A broken door here, a rip in someone’s clothing they didn’t remember. And the nightmares. We all shared them, nightmares of death and killing.”

No consequences, that is, except extreme trauma for the entire population. That is creepy as fuck.

Though they seem to be dealing with it as well as they can, all things considered. I’ve got to hand it to the mayor; the guy does his best to maintain rationality in all circumstances. He’s sort of the classic badass NPC – he’s probably not all that important to the overall story and we only see him for a brief moment, but he’s just making do as well as he can in a story that’s well above his paygrade: standing up to a protagonist, calmly discussing the fact that his entire village murder each other every night, and standing firm by the rules that you don’t talk about fight club.

But now I’m wondering what purpose this serves, in the grand scheme of things. Narratively, I mean. We’ve seen ghosts, we’ve seen So Habor ruined by them, we’ve seen a town appear and vanish, we’ve seen bubbles of evil…why two chapters on this? Why this weird recurring zombie apocalypse? It seems like an odd thing to include just to highlight how completely fucked the world has become; we have plenty on that already that isn’t quite so…involved. Or is this just Sanderson having fun for a chapter or two? It’s the sort of concept I can imagine he’d enjoy playing with – what happens when the fabric of reality and time begins to unravel…

“So just leave,” Mat said. “Leave this bloody place and go somewhere else!” “We’ve tried,” the mayor said. “We always wake up back here, no matter how far we go. Some have tried ending their lives. We buried the bodies. They woke up the next morning in their beds. […] We were curious to see where you’d wake up. Most of the rooms in the inns are permanently taken by travellers who are now, for better or worse, part of our village.”

That’s interesting…so people can be dragged into this and trapped there. Huh. Okay. Hmm.

The mayor continues to be his badass NPC self, by declaring that he’s not going to sell Mat out to whoever put up the wanted posters. The man has his principles and he sticks to them, come hell, high water, or a larger storyline.

Who was looking for him and Perrin, and what did they want?

Do you really have to ask?

But I suppose we’re off to find out.

Next (TGS ch 29) Previous (TGS ch 27)

[fromtheringapron]

Reviewing Google Audience Reviews of WWE Raw

One day, I searched Monday Night Raw on Google for reasons even unbeknownst to me. What is it out of boredom? A sliver of hope that I’d discover Raw had been canceled and replaced with a rebooted Prime Time Wrestling? I don’t know, but I did stumble upon some treasure in my aimless journey: Google Audience Reviews of Raw! This is apparently a new feature to Google. It allows people like you and I to give our baseless, uninformed opinions on any TV show at any time. Isn’t the Internet great?

But, man, if that wasn’t good enough, the real treasure are the reviews themselves. Such an intriguing look into the jaded, ignorant, infuriating, hilarious, and naive group of folks who make up WWE’s fanbase. The thing about the Internet, for better or worse, is that it gives a platform for all sorts of people to voice their opinion, even on a silly wrestling show. However, I’d like to think that also means it gives me the platform to give my opinion on their opinion. There are countless Raw reviews in this new section of Google, but here are a few that have really caught my eye:

Review #27: The AEW Truther

Okay, I’ll start out by sussing out some bullshit: All Elite Wrestling has a lot of promise, but we need to stop with the narrative that they’re going to be breathing down the WWE’s neck right out of the gate. They haven’t even put on their first show and don’t have a TV deal. In addition, outside of the diehard Internet fans and wrestling journalists, the casual fan who tunes into Raw isn’t going to give a fuck about AEW, mainly because they haven’t heard of it. So, no, “us Pro Wrestling fans” aren’t just going to turn to that. Again, it’s got potential and the excitement over it is valid, but I can’t help but feel the ones hyping it up the most will be the first to voice their disappointment when it doesn’t match even a fraction of what they expected.

With all of that said, I absolutely agree with this fan on the egregiousness of WWE putting an actual fascist dickhead and a convicted rapist into their Hall of Fame, especially when there’s inexplicably more rage geared toward the likes of Koko B. Ware and Torrie Wilson getting inducted, two people who were company employees for several years. I’m usually never the one to be up in arms over who gets inducted in the Hall of Fame because it’s a fake hall for a fake sport at the end of the day, but I do earnestly believe the focus should be on the workers who clocked in the hours.

Review #352: The Benoit Truther

Look, even though many will disagree, it’s okay for you to think Daniel Bryan sucks. Everyone has their own unique set of faves and least faves, and yours is no less valid than anyone else’s. Consensus in the fan community is boring, anyway.

Well, within reason anyway, because I’d like to think that the probability of Chris Benoit rotting in Hell right now is something we can all agree on. And, honestly, still listing Benoit as the greatest of all time feels wrong on a deep, moral level. The dude did some great things in his career, yes, but that’s besides the point. That doesn’t cancel out that he murdered his wife and son. Is defending the name of someone who will always be associated with a slaughtered family a hill you really want to fight on?

I don’t want to make it seem a comment like this is totally uncommon. It’s not much different from the various Youtube comments that linger on to this day about how Benoit should be inducted into the Hall of Fame. It still infuriates me though, largely because it feeds into the cesspool of Benoit apologia that’s only swelled since that fateful weekend in 2007. It’s the kind of language that words Benoit as ultimately a tragic figure whose poor brain was so damaged that his crimes were practically unavoidable, an explanation that wouldn’t be afforded to him if he weren’t so widely regarded by smarky wrestling bros. And that’s a bunch of shit.

The first half of the review isn’t so bad, which is why I didn’t include it. Maybe this fan just isn’t aware of what they’re saying, and I get that, but intentions can only go so far with me. The scariest part though? 78 people found the review helpful. The most of any review I’ve seen so far.  Fuckin’ balls.

Review #658: The Anti-Bullying Crusader

Okay, so I kinda love this. It’s such a nice reminder in a time where kayfabe is long dead and the WWE roster, regardless of heel/face alignment, will post pics with each other out in the town on social media that there are still fans who eat all of this shit up. I obviously know nothing about this person, but the review conjures up the image of an ornery senior citizen sitting ringside ready to whack those dastardly heels with a cane.

The bullying argument is hilarious. We all know WWE’s anti-bullying campaign Be A Star is hypocritical, disingenuous bullshit, largely birthed out of Linda McMahon’s failed run in politics. Like, how many of their storylines involve and normalize bullying? How many times have guys like The Rock and John Cena engaged in homophobic and misogynistic taunting on-screen over the years? There’s nothing wrong with informing your younger viewers on why bullying in real life is wrong, but you can’t deny the WWE has certainly trivialized the message. 

And it’s even more ridiculous when someone stops watching because of all the fake, scripted bullying on the show. Honestly, my friend, what are you expecting out of a wrestling product then? Bobby Roode vs. Heath Slater in a Handshake Contest? Also, this fan has been watching since they were five years old, no doubt remembering a more innocent time where Steve Austin would give the Stunner to someone who completely didn’t deserve that. 

I also love the last line. After bashing Raw for its bully-enabling platform, they at least concede that the ladies are killing it right now. Such an encouraging feminist stance!

Review #229: Everyone Had Fun and Nobody Got Hurt

Um, what? I do get what this fan is saying in the sense that, yes, wrestling is just play fighting, but “their policy of no violence”? Do I need to bring up that Roode/Slater handshake battle for the ages? And the wrestlers may sell fake injuries on TV all the time, but they can sustain injuries that are real as hell and carry some severe long-term repercussions. I feel like I’m being way too harsh, but come on now. If you’ve been watching since 1999, you’ve probably seen plenty of guys take unnecessary, dangerous bumps that shorten their careers. Watching even a small bit of Mick Foley’s work can probably tell you that.

With that said, I do love the refreshing stance in loving wrestling because it’s scripted. People usually hate on wrestling for that reason alone, largely because the business has historically gone to great lengths to make it seem real. It’s great to have someone who basically says, “You know, this is scripted bullshit and I’m okay with it.” And honestly, girl, I feel the same way. We need more people like us.

Review #44: Garden Variety Lapsed Fan #15,712

This certainly is a take. I can’t comment on what it’s like in other fandoms, but so many wrestling fans love to engage in the narrative that WWE stopped being good a long while ago and the current product is the worst it’s ever been but because they’re such a diehard fans they’ll stick around until it gets good again and willingly suffer through all of it due to the innate goodness in their hearts or some shit. The only difference in each of these arguments is that the date of the tipping point always changes. There are fans right now who’ll tell you WWE circa 2019 is the worst it’s ever been, but this was also true back when I first started traversing the Internet back in 2004 or 2005 and fans then were talking how that period was the worst it had ever been.

With that in mind, I find this review a bit refreshing in the face of Attitude Era truthers, who’ll repeatedly tell you wrestling, and seemingly all of pop culture, stopped being good sometime in the early 2000s. But as we near closer and closer to 20 years since that era ended, the more likely we are to see younger fans who have no real nostalgia for it. It won’t be long until we hear more and more talk about the salad days of Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, and others. This fan says WWE stopped being good in late 2016/early 2017, which obviously wasn’t that long ago. I’m sure some fan daydreaming about the days of the Monday Night Wars would find this completely baffling.

It begs the question: when exactly was the WWE good? Has it ever been good? I don’t think any one answer is the sole correct one. None of these perspectives are invalid by any means. Every era of wrestling has had its pros and cons, and everyone has their own set of standards on what they consider a quality wrestling product. And, to be real, I don’t want to excuse the WWE of their shitty, at times irredeemable, booking and creative decisions. Fans have been driven away for numerous, valid reasons over the years.

But there’s that whole notion that nothing can ever bring back those early feelings of puppy love, and that’s just as true with the way wrestling first captivates you. Perhaps the constant frustration with present day WWE is partly the inability to rekindle what first hooked you in and never being able to recapture that feeling because, well, it’s simply not possible.

Review #788: Our Savior

We are not worthy of this review. A true diamond in the rough. So many good bits here. The prediction that Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose will compete in a “no holes barred” match, which sounds like something out of a Sean Cody wrestling parody. The invention of the “Tang Tang Championship” featuring the likes of “Pop Scott Dulson and his tag team partner." The referring of Baron Corbin as not only “Barry Korgan,” but also as “Brian Corbin.” The passage that merely says “All winding.” The passage that merely says “Bobby Lashley.” That it’s not even a review of Raw, the TV show, but more a comment on the existential nihilism we feel in the Trump era.

I’ve never seen a review that makes no sense but also says so much. I love the complete refusal of punctuation marks. Who needs those archaic things, anyway? It just makes it all one, continuous thought, a stream of consciousness that could make even James Joyce blush. I also dig the experimentation with spacing. After all, why do we need to just one space? Why not several? It’s important to give our thoughts the space they need and this fan understands that. Plus, it makes for poetic reading.

The review ends on an ominous note, with the fan’s last message being “My name Matthewhisee.” Is this meant to be a threat? A coded message of some sort? Matthewhisee, if that is your name, please let us know more. The world needs your insight. Oh, and to the 7 people who found this review helpful, you are the vanguards of the resistance. Bless you all.

[the-desolated-quill]

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Quill’s Quickies (No Spoilers)

This year, Star Wars has been almost mired in controversy. From the loot box controversy in EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II to the noticeable lack of non-white characters in The Last Jedi’s marketing. Rian Johnson making a total prat of himself by claiming that Kylo Ren is a dual protagonist with Rey, and now the reviews are in it turns out Episode 8 is the most divisive movie in the whole franchise, with critics clambering over themselves to praise the movie for its ‘bold new direction’ while the fans decry it as the arse-raping of their collective childhood. On the whole, I’d say this has been a complete and total cock-up.

I had no idea what to expect going in. I’m sure you all know how lukewarm I was about The Force Awakens. It didn’t surprise me in the slightest that the critics were praising the hell out of The Last Jedi considering they were doing the same thing with the previous film, which in my opinion was mediocre at best. The fan reaction surprised me. After all the blind (and arguably undeserved) praise The Force Awakens got, if even the fans are struggling to find good things to say about this movie, something must have gone spectacularly wrong.

So what did I, diehard Star Wars fan and professional arsehole, think of The Last Jedi? Well honestly I’m disappointed I didn’t hate it more. Truthfully I liked this movie about as much as I liked The Force Awakens, which is to say not very much. Like The Force Awakens, it’s a competently made movie and it’s possible to derive some enjoyment from it if you switch your brain off for two and half hours, but otherwise it’s just yet another tired retread of the original Star Wars movies that brings absolutely nothing new to the table. Not for the first time, I feel a real disconnect from the rest of the Star Wars community here. I have no idea why the critics are praising this movie for being a game changer because there’s genuinely nothing very revolutionary or groundbreaking going on here, and I’m confused as to why the fans have chosen to fling their bile and venom at a movie that, in my opinion, is the very definition of average. I mean sure, The Last Jedi isn’t very good and there were some bits that did kind of annoy me, but there’s nothing about it that’s outrageously offensive as far as I can see.

Let’s start with the things I liked. The biggest, shiniest gold star has to go to Finn. He was quite possibly the only new character I was in any way invested in last time around, and he’s just as brilliant here. We see him slowly embrace his new role as a hero of the Resistance and we also see him get the chance to stick it to his First Order oppressors, which I thought was quite emotionally satisfying. He’s joined by Rose, played by Kelly Marie Tran, who I thought was a nice addition to the cast and who undergoes the traditional everyman turned hero journey. I really liked her relationship with Finn and their scenes together are by far the highlight of the film, which makes their subtle erasure from the Star Wars marketing campaign all the more offensive to me because, as far as I’m concerned, they’re the main characters. They were the most developed, the ones I was most invested in, the only ones that actually grow and develop over the course of the film and who pretty much drive the plot.

The other thing I liked (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) is Kylo Ren. I really wasn’t impressed with him in The Force Awakens because he was pretty much just a shitty rehash of Darth Vader, and I mentioned in my review at the time how it might have been better to embrace the more weaselly and slightly pathetic nature of the character to help better distinguish him and give him his own identity. So I’m extremely pleased to see that’s exactly what this film does and it’s great. There’s no pretence anymore. Kylo Ren is this spoilt, impotent man-child that desperately craves power and attention, but doesn’t really know what he wants to do with it, and that’s glorious. That’s just the burst of inspiration the character sorely needed and Adam Driver does a great job with this new material. I’m actually looking forward to seeing where he goes in the next film and if they handle it well, he should make for a very unique antagonist (that’s antagonist Rian Johnson. AN-TAG-GON-NIST).

It’s just a pity that in order to prop up Kylo Ren, Rian Johnson felt the need to completely warp Luke Skywalker’s character into something wholly unrecognisable.

Yes now we come to the bad stuff, and there’s quite a bit. My main gripe is with Luke’s characterisation. In order to justify a lot of the plot, they have to make Luke this cynical halfwit and there are loads of moments where he says or does something that just simply doesn’t ring true with what we already know about him. His reasons for his exile are utterly out of character for one thing and his reasons behind his provocative statement that ‘it’s time for the Jedi to end’ are even more ludicrous. What’s worse is that the majority of the movie is dedicated to Rey trying to persuade Luke to come out of exile and rejoin the fight. Remember the scene in The Empire Strikes Back when Luke tries to persuade Yoda to train him? Well imagine that dragged out for an hour and a half. That’s pretty much the movie in the nutshell. I think that’s part of the reason why I loved Finn and Rose so much. Because it was a blessed relief to get off that fucking island for a while. There were several moments where I came close to dozing off.

I’m sure it’s no secret to anyone by this point that Rian Johnson has played pretty fast and loose with the Star Wars canon. Luke’s odd characterisation is one example. There are a few others. None of them truly insulting in my opinion. But the most notorious is a scene involving Leia, which I will hereby refer to as ‘The Scene.’ This got a lot of Star Wars fans riled up, but I personally thought it was absolutely hysterical just because of how random and idiotically daft it was. I’m not going to tell you what happened in ‘The Scene’ because this is a non-spoiler review. All I can say is you’ll know it when you see it.

Of course this was Carrie Fisher’s last film before her untimely death and that’s incredibly sad. Does The Last Jedi offer a fitting tribute to Princess/General/Queen (she’s a a Queen in my eyes) Leia Organa? Not really. In fact, outside of ‘The Scene’, Leia doesn’t really do anything worthy of comment. Some say she was mischaracterised too, but I don’t think so. At a push, I could see Leia doing some of the things she does. I just wish Fisher could have been given something with actual substance.

My views on Poe and Rey remain virtually unchanged. Poe Dameron is still a one dimensional cardboard cutout and I’m still continuously baffled as to why people like him so much. He doesn’t have a character. We’re two movies in and we still haven’t learnt a single sodding thing about him. Frankly I’ve seen fossils with more life in them. Rey meanwhile is still quite possibly one of the blandest protagonists I’ve ever seen. I’m struggling to find any reason to actually give a shit about her. Why should I be invested in her Jedi training? Why does she even need Jedi training when she seems capable of pulling any random superpower out of her arse at the convenience of the plot? At no point have these films ever given me a reason to care about her. Maybe if they focused more on her looking for her missing parents, I might be slightly more invested. And that’s another thing. In The Force Awakens, her missing parents are basically used as sequel bait. Here (without giving too much away) they’re pretty much just swept under the carpet entirely, which begs the question why was JJ Abrams wasting our time with them in the first fucking place (yes I am blaming JJ Abrams instead of Rian Johnson because Abrams was the one that actually came up with this shit and it’s very much reminiscent of his bullshit ‘mystery box’. The principle where an audience are naturally drawn to some big unknown or mystery and that he frequently utilises in his projects, most notably the TV series Lost. What he often forgets however is that good mysteries tend to have a satisfying fucking answer at the end).

And that’s pretty much all I have to say really. No doubt some of you are disappointed I haven’t quite given The Last Jedi the vengeful pummelling you’ve come to expect from me, but honestly I can’t work up the energy to get properly angry at it, and that’s largely because I’m past caring about this sequel trilogy. I think I’ve made my views on the sequel trilogy quite clear by now (that they’re a soulless cash grab concocted by studio execs who wouldn’t recognise a decent script if one jumped up and bit them on the arse) and I think it’s my total lack of interest that kind of shields me from some of Rian Johnson’s ‘creative’ decisions. These movies don’t count as far as I’m concerned. I’m not especially bothered by Johnson’s ‘reimagining’ and there’s nothing truly terrible going on here. The only crime The Last Jedi is really guilty of in my opinion is that there’s large swathes of it that are just really, really boring. And the main reason for this (apart from the obscenely long running time and a plot that drags its feet) is because, like with The Force Awakens, a lot of this stuff has been done before and done better in the original trilogy. While The Force Awakens ripped off A New Hope and a few elements from The Empire Strikes Back, The Last Jedi rips off The Empire Strikes Back and a few elements from Return Of The Jedi. What makes it slightly more egregious here is that The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi are both very emotionally charged stories that rely on three films’ worth of character development and buildup to make an impact, whereas The Last Jedi just blunders in, trying to replicate these emotional moments, but fails to recognise what made them so powerful to begin with and hasn’t done any of the legwork to make us feel truly invested in what’s going on, and thus it has all the impact of a feather duster.

So that’s The Last Jedi. A pointless and mediocre middle chapter to what has so far been a pointless and mediocre trilogy. The one bright side is that now it appears they’ve finally rehashed all they can from the original trilogy, there’s a chance we might finally get to see some original ideas in Episode 9. Unless they’re planning to ripoff the prequels next. In which case Disney must be more creatively bankrupt than I thought.

[stayreal69-blog1]

I had 3 hours to type this, do you have 10 mins to read it?

Ok so this started as a text message to my mom, about something completely unrelated and with a totally different end point in mind. About half way through the first section I said fuck it, I've been meaning to start a blog, I've been writing shit that gets ignored on FB by "people I may know," because they see my posts and think, "Nope, fuck that. Too many words." So why not get ignored by the world? For the same reason? At least maybe if I make it accessible 7 billion people, 7 of them may read it? Or not. I don't really give a shit anymore, if I'm being honest. Ok this into has gotta outta hand so imma just paste this shit I wrote about emotions, right under this shit, about my shit, about emotions. Ready? 3...2..fuck it. Just read.

My theory is...love and happiness are the only two true human nature feelings. The only true feelings like, close your eyes say "hello" without moving moving your mouth, completely in your head. That voice you heard say "hello", like those feelings, that everyone one has when there born. I think of that "voice" as the voice of the literal driving force of our pysiscal forms. Some call it the soul, some call it the spirit; I call it the mind. I could dive deeper into that at some point but for the sake of this is probably going to be long as fuck already, and its a bit of a touchy subject for some, I'll just continue with what I started on. Those two emotions are some how...hell I don't know exactly, I'm a thinker, not a doctor (yet🤔😷) are hard wired to the Heart, I refer to them as "Heart Emotions." Other emotions are absorbed through observation and hard wired into the brain as things we observe are. These emotions include, but not limited to, anger, sadness, and maybe even fear, that one is debatable...I'll save that one for part 2 though(?)🤔I refer to these as "brain emotions."

Love and happiness are the only two emotions a fully functioning human mind is born with, period. But all the rest of the emotions (mind emotions) are picked up through observation for everyone, that's why the majority of people (I'll use the word "guppy" for sakes of labeling without and adjective because fuck adjective labels, for this group of people) basically keep to themselves, mind their business, and do their thing. Sure guppies still get mad at things, they still get upset, and they still can have "hate" rooted in emotion, but they express their emotional responses in private where the least amount of people possible are effected, for the most part, because after all is said and done their natural emotions will overpower the observational based mind emotions. Their human nature is to love but they have been taught to get angry, or whatever the case my be, so they naturally, can not bring themselves to harming anyone on purpose, whether that is psysical or emotional or whatever. When a guppy has a connection to something through both mind and heart emotions, they respond irrationally. All emotional responses are natural, its the specific emotion that it's attached to the determines the level of irrationality of said response. After all is said and done, a purely natural emotion will overpower one that's absorbed from the outside. There's a small percentage of people (I'll use tangs for these folks non-adjective label because remember 🖕adjective label) that seem to have something a little off in their mind, do crazy shit, right? I think that "thing" may be, they were born, mind emotion in their brain. (That's not redundant) That's why when those emotions are triggered they have radically irrational reactions, due to the irrational emotional response. What I mean by is purposely bringing pysiscal harm to someone that isn't trying to bring pysiscal harm to you. Both guppies and tangs vary in how much influence any emotion has on them, some people get worse colds🤒 than others, but at the end of the day natural-born emotions will overpower absorbed emotions. That's just how it is for humans in this universe (or dimension, or maybe just this planet) there's not much we can do about it. It's been the case since the beginning of time. When I look into REAL world history, it seems to me like as the access to information increased, the senseless violence and cruel shit people do to others, increases as well. It only makes sense, eventually a tang would come into some position of notarity that alot of people would listen to and believe(king, politician, mom; are all, but not all of, the examples of positions of notarity) because why wouldn't they? Its natural to take what the people we love to heart right? That's one of the irrational responses to the heart emotion love. 💥 Boom! (another topics for a different time) The result? More and more guppies absorb those mind emotions, natural only to tangs, through the expression of the irrational responses caused by them. Mostly during the adolescent years, but usually hold influence their entire lives. So if your still with me here maybe you're willing to hang with me for the summary in form of a fictional example of the spread of a mind emotion from the beginning of humanity until today, short form.

Ok so, right after the caveman days, every person alive were guppies. One day the first tang is born with the mind emotion anger. The tang is like all the guppies except his response to negative stimuli is irrational and much different than how the other guppies would respond to the same stimuli. But he doesn't bring harm to anyone because he hasn't encountered something impactful enough on the anger to cause a radical reaction. He grows up and becomes the head of the village, all the children look up to the leader, they love him, they absorb his angry responses and mimic them. They mimic them so much it becomes 2nd natural. Kinda like muscle memory. Anger in expressed in the original tang fashion would be passed on and on, for a while, mostly parent guppy to baby guppy for a while, humanity advances to a point where there are now tons of guppies in the world and a few tangs. But almost all the guppies have absorbed tang natural emotions. The start of all tang influences could all be traced back to a few individual tangs at some point but for the most part the emotion is absorbed by a guppy through observation of a guppy. Of course through time the mimiced responses may change but they're nothing serious. Then newspapers start becoming popular, a tang gets a job as a reporter. He's a great reporter and lots of people read his work, maybe even have a love for his writings. One day he's out on a farm, you know reporting on some shit. He's irritable from the time he got there. Things happen that make him more and more angry but for the sake of keeping his job he holds it in, until he gets bitten by a horse and absolutely loses it. I mean goes ape shit. Looses his fucking mind!! He makes a negative emotional connection to that horse. He hates that fucking horse. As a matter of fact he hates all fucking horses. He's going to go write in the news paper about how horses suck...all the time. He starts to even talk about how all horses should be killed. Total horse extinction. He may loose some his followers here, because who doesn't love horses? But a few guppies stick with him because they've had negative experience with horses so they're also on the "fuck horses" agenda, but maybe not all horses, just the horse that pissed them off. The "fuck (this) horse" agenda gets pretty popular and grows through over time. Then one day another tang comes along, catches wind of the "fuck horses" campaign and remembers when he was 8 years old his horse kick him in the face, fucking his shit all up. He's had this seething hatred for horses the whole time since then but now he see other people feel the same way. So what does he do? He goes on a horse head chopping spree with a machete because that's radical irrational emotional reaction, caused by his irrational emotional response to stepping in horse shit a few days after hearing about the "fuck horses" campaign. 🤔

But that's just my theory. Its probably all just bullshit. 😂✋🐴