#also. her brother did not survive the evolution!

[mincersift]

Finfin the totem kid!! Made a silly design for her. She combined with a blue axolotl.

I like to think she’s in abroad schooling while foosh is at quesadilla island.

[insanescriptist]

Another Day, in the park, I think I just saw-

Tim's had years of experience at being a vigilante but sometimes the human brain has a little fritz and misses something obvious. Especially while stressed and sleep-deprived. Very unkind of evolution to have not fixed that in human brains.

Which is why on little lunch date before Tim drags himself back to the office, he's walking in the park with Benard. Bleary-eyed and focused more on his drink than food. It's great weather for Gotham, surprisingly sunny and warm enough that being outside is enjoyable. Everyone that's not chained to work is enjoying the rarity. Something is bound to go wrong but for now, time to enjoy it.

So that's what Tim was doing. Enjoying the good weather and good company as they walked along in the park.

And that's how Benard spots Jason Todd, laying out on a picnic blanket, holding a book to shield his face first, as he read. Or so Tim has to conclude. This had to be what was going wrong for Tim. Jason. Please, he'd rather take Scarecrow. Or Firefly. (He was not desperate enough for Condiment Man.)

"That's a dead-ringer for Willis Todd," Benard breathes his excitement as he chatters on. "I wonder if he's related?"

"Willis Todd?" Tim asks Benard, as if he hadn't seen the files himself. Petty criminal. Jason's biological father. If Jason parts his hair down the center, brushes it and through some magic Tim has never understood, he's basically his father once again, but with prettier eyes.

"Hmm, yeah, could still be a doppleganger instead of related but.. he looks like Willis Todd, the biological father of Jason Todd, your adopted older brother, who died under mysterious circumstance overseas."

"So you think he's like a cousin?" Tim asked. Because, now he could see how Benard would pull them over so he could ask. If he didn't manage to derail this.

"No, I did a little research a while back to scratch the itch and with the rise of social media, you can get enough information about a family to hire one of those ancestry sites."

Oh great goddess no. Benard did not.

Actually Benard would.

That's why Tim liked him.

He had terrible taste.

"Anyway, so all of Willis' living siblings only had girls, so it's probably a doppleganger."

"You mean officially. Kids out of wedlock happen all the time." Tim's mouth ran before his brain caught it. Do not feed the Conspiracy! "And-" Think Timmy, damn it Jason-voice, out of his head! "And, he could also be a cousin from further out. Like Jason's grandfather had a brother who had kids."

"You'd think so but the neat thing about the Todds is that they've only had one male offspring to survive to adulthood for each generation for the past seven generations. Willis did have a younger brother."

Oh shit. Now Tim might be jumping to conclusions, but that sounded like magic. He, like every other self-respecting Bat, hated magic.

"So your plan is to just go up and ask if he's related to Bruce Wayne's dead adopted son?"

"Well, it sounds really rude when you put it that way, but look at him!"

So Tim did. Reluctantly.

And then fascinated, as he watched Jason perk up into a sitting position as a lady approached him. Tim immediately profiled her. White hair, light skin, about Tim's own height, no eye patch! Okay, not Rose Wilson, that's one hazard avoided.

"I think he's on a date Benard." Because then Tim and Benard could return to theirs.

Yeah, she wasn't really Jason's type -not that Jason really had a type as far as Tim knew- since he didn't advertise anything personal about himself and was utterly miserly about what he did share. The women he worked with though, those were usually tough as nails. Which was a stupid phrase from a stupid brain. Rose Wilson was a railroad spike in the eye kind of a nail if she had to be a nail.

She had a style kinda fashions sense to Rose Wilson though, if more punk and less Deathstroke's iconic colors. Cropped dark hoody, leggings, boots that might be steel toe. A pleated black skirt, too many belts.

But yeah, they definitely knew each other, since she was leaning over and teasing him. Maybe about the book?

Oh! Jason put the book down!

He never put the book he was reading down unless the book was in danger or he was done with it!

He must be in love!

And now Tim knew about it!

And Benard knew about it! Without knowing! So, how to get Benard to never mention it at all to Tim's family and also to not stalk them as soon as Tim's lunch break was over?

She reached down as if to help pull Jason up, Jason making a comment as he was lifted-

-overbalancing them-

-stronger than she looked-

-Jason was not light-

-they were falling backwards-

-green light flashed.

"What." Tim said as he put what he had just seen into something like logical sense.

Bruce would want to know everything. Everyone would. Tim had no answers. No evidence.

"Tim. What if Jason Todd was still alive and just got abducted by magic in front of us?"

"Benard, I love you but if Jason's been alive all these years, why hasn't he gone home to Bruce?" Tim pointed out logically. Except Tim knew the reason.

"Well," Benard said as he bought time to come up with something outlandish. "With Superman and Green Arrow and that one Green Lantern coming back from the dead, along with a number of other civilians through various incidents it's possible that Jason Todd was revived through some cosmic quirk. But however it happened, he's now bound to Gotham, because he's buried in town. And the undead in lore, usually can't cross running water because it's a natural boundary, but the Finger and Sprang rivers are part of Gotham City itself. But Bristol is separated from Gotham by the Gotham River. So he can't!"

Benard looked so proud of himself, so Tim kissed him as he went to the consider how to actually report in and not tip his boyfriend off about the vigilantism.

"Anyway, we just saw someone get abducting in the park, possibly through magic. I'm going to call into the bat-tip line and hopefully they'll investigate."

"Oh, Tim. Imagine if one of the Bat's show! Best lunch ever!"

Tim was having the worst lunch ever.

Stupid Jason.

[tobiasdrake]

Digimon Adventure 01x03 - The Blue Wolf! Garurumon! / Garurumon

Previously on Digimon Adventure: Prank phone calls sure do hit different when the emergency line operator is the one doing them.

Good news is, we have like a day's worth of food. Bad news is, we're still in this awful place File Island and don't know how to go home. Or even where we can physically be that won't piss off territorial wildlife. Man, when I signed up for an Isekai, I was promised elf waifus and unearned combat supremacy; I want to speak with this place's manager!

We open on Taichi standing on the edge of a cliff, staring into emo distance. He's trying to make sense of the rules of this death world. Why did only Agumon evolve? Why did he lose his evolution and revert to Agumon again?

Agumon has no answers for him. As noted last episode, the Partner Digimon don't understand how this works either. We're all figuring this shit out together.

Dub Tai makes the wild-ass claim that they've already searched the whole island, which is a bald-faced lie given that exploring File Island will take up much of this arc. Then he just brags about how Greymon is super badass, rather than contemplating how evolution works.

Tai does also ask Agumon why he can't remain as Greymon, but he's more macho about it and kind of mean. "I like you better as Greymon," he says with actual words from his mouth. Agumon apologetically explains that "Even superheroes need a rest."

No time to keep thinking about this, nature has discovered us once again. Monochromon, an Adult-stage Digimon, smashes through some nearby rocks. Tentomon assures us that Monochromon are docile. The narrator agrees, but adds that they have a foul temper.

As a second Monochromon emerges from the other side of the group, the kids quickly decide to skedaddle out of the way. The Monochromon aren't here for us, we're just in the crossfire. Nature can be like that sometimes.

Tentomon speculates that this is a territorial dispute. Makes sense, and also not our problem so we book. Fleeing from this violence, Takeru trips and falls, but Yamato stops to help him, giving the brothers a nice moment.

Once we've run as far as we can from the territory duel, Mimi gets tired. She offhandedly complains that all this walking is going to thicken her calves, prompting Agumon to chime in that thick calves are good 'cause you can kick dirt with them. Palmon argues that leafy feat are better. Mimi is unswayed by both of these arguments.

Dub Mimi adds a bit about shopping malls; "I don't walk this much unless I'm at a mall, and as you can see, we're nowhere near one!" However, the thrust of her complaint remains that she's tired and sore from all this walking. Agumon inexplicably suggests she'd feel better if she took off her shoes and walked in bare feet. Palmon doubles down, saying she loves the feel of dirt between her toes. Mimi is not impressed.

Meanwhile, Koushiro and Sora discuss the strangely colored sunset of File Island. Even the sky in this place is weird. In any case, the sunset brings a more pressing concern: It's going to get dark soon. We're about to spend our first night on File Island.

Tentomon notices the smell of water in the air, so he takes to the sky to scout out and discovers a lake nearby. A freshwater drinking source is a huge discovery in a survival situation, so we should head that way!

It takes very little time to reach a survival consensus. Everyone is tired and hungry. We'll make camp at the lake and figure things out in the morning.

Well, consensus except for Dub Matt. Yamato likes the idea of stopping to rest for reasons that are clearly visible onscreen with him and require no elaboration. Matt, however, decides to be contrarian and barks that "We should keep walking and stop all the complaining!" Harsh, Matt.

Lake's full of telephone poles and shit but honestly we are past caring that File Island is weird. As we approach the lake, the group takes a moment to agree that this is a great spot to camp out for the night.

Mimi's nervous, though. She asks Taichi to clarify that camping means they have to sleep outdoors, which he confirms.

However, a new option suddenly presents itself courtesy of File Island being so weird. As if directly responding to their presence, a trolley sitting on a little island connected to the mainland by a manmade stone bridge suddenly turns on and calls their attention to it.

As they race for the trolley, Dub Tai inexplicably calls out, "Mimi, wait up!" as he leaps through the doors, despite being the first kid to set foot on it.

Having thoroughly failed their Don't Get In A Stranger's Car check, they take a moment investigating the trolley. Taichi and Koushiro confirm that nobody's here. Taichi's extremely bothered by this whole thing. Jou agrees, wondering aloud if the trolley's going to start moving by itself, but Taichi waves him off; There aren't any tracks for the trolley to go down.

Dub Tai agrees with Joe, but thinks it might actually be good if the trolley suddenly kidnaps them all. It might take them home. Dub Tai somehow manages to be worse at Stranger Danger than any of the Japanese crew. To be fair, he's not alone; Dub Mimi said that too.

Well, it's decided. We'll sleep in the trolley tonight. Just like that, the group sets to work on foraging for food and supplies. Last episode, the Digimon said they're good at foraging; Now they get to show off their skills, gathering various fruits and berries. Mimi tries to help, but Palmon stops her from accidentally picking poisonous mushrooms.

Jou and Sora gather firewood while Koushiro and Takeru catch fish to cook. Taichi and Yamato prepare the fire and just like that, we're camping.

When he sees Takeru struggling with figuring out how to eat a whole fish like this, Yamato offers to de-bone it for him. Taichi interrupts and tells Takeru to just start at the head and bite; Takeru accepts that advice and gives it a try.

In the dub, T.K. complains that his mom wouldn't like this. He's only supposed to eat fish sticks, and he's not supposed to eat with his fingers. Matt assures T.K. that he won't tattle, and Tai chimes in to tell him he's "hanging with the big boys now" which seems to settle his nerves.

From there, Taichi approaches Sora, who's filling up a bamboo shaft with water from the lake. He's noticed that Takeru refers to Yamato as "Onii-chan" and he's curious about it. Sora's as lost as he is about it.

Dub Tai already gets that Matt and T.K. are brothers, and instead complains that Matt "doesn't treat T.K. like a brother, only like he's a bother." Rude. Sora agrees, but suggests he's still learning how to be a big brother.

Jou returns from having a short walk around, stargazing. He's been trying to use the night sky to figure out where the hell File Island is, but the sky is wrong. Not just wrong for Japan; It's just wrong. Neither the North Star nor the Southern Cross can be found. So we are neither in the Northern Hemisphere nor the Southern. What does that leave?

Sora quickly corroborates, observing that she can't find any familiar constellations either.

Dub Joe is less thorough than Jou. He doesn't look for the Southern Cross, instead settling on the idea that we must be in the Southern Hemisphere if he can't find the North Star. Mystery solved.

Before long, it's officially time for bed. Time to spend our first night on File Island. Koushiro wants to establish a night watch rotation, which Taichi and Jou quickly agree to.

Taichi suggests that the girls shouldn't have to keep watch. Upon hearing this, Yamato jumps to his feet to demand that Takeru be excluded too. Takeru volunteers to take a turn anyway, but Yamato tells him no; Takeru should just sleep.

The dub cuts Tai's line about wanting Sora and Mimi excluded from the rotation, which leaves Matt issuing demands on T.K.'s behalf out of nowhere. This still works for the scene's intent.

Mimi points out that they have no bedding to sleep with. Getting an idea, Taichi goes straight for Gabumon, trying to steal his pelt away from him. He's only playing around, and he lets go as soon as Gabumon freaks out and runs.

Dub Tai somehow makes this about Mimi, playing her up like a predator in the night who's going to come for Gabumon in the night and cut off his tail.

Yamato angrily shoves Taichi away from Gabumon and the two nearly come to blows before the others tell them to quit it. Jou interrupts, calling the group's attention together so they can set up the shifts. With Sora, Mimi, and Takeru all excluded, the rotation he comes up with is:

Taichi

Yamato

Koushiro

Jou

Sora and Mimi remain excluded from the list even in the dub, so I guess Joe's the sexist one in this version. :P

As the kids prepare for bed in the trolley, they proceed to make unbelievably poor use of all that seating area. Everyone has to sleep in a sitting position but like there is so much space y'all.

Mimi's upset because she's used to sleeping in a bed. Dub Mimi instead is mad that she has to share sleeping space with other people. Rude.

Going to bed, we're made privy to each of their last thoughts as they drift off. Sora hopes they aren't attacked in the night. Mimi wants to take a bath. Koushiro expects it will be a long day for the group tomorrow. Jou wants this all to have been a dream.

In the dub, T.K. bids everyone good night with, "Don't let the Monochromon bite," giving Sora a specific monster anxiety to worry about. Mimi's feet are still sore. Izzy speculates that the aliens he's still on about put the trolley here to help them. Joe worries about getting "monster cooties", actual quote.

Yamato's staked out his own bench to rest on. He orders Gabumon to go keep Takeru warm. Gabumon teases him about loving his brother and Yamato storms off in a fit of embarrassment.

As the group drifts off to sleep, things start to go to shit almost immediately. The other shoe finally begins to drop during Taichi's shift, as he steps on a strange red leaf on his way to wash his face. Nothing comes of it, however. Not yet.

While Taichi's washing his face to stay awake during his shift, Yamato exits the trolley to get away from everyone. He apologizes to Taichi for their earlier fight, and confides that Takeru's closer to Taichi than to him because of his overprotective behavior; Calling back to the earlier incident with the cooked fish.

Dub Matt, meanwhile, continues being a total jerk. He still apologizes but, rather than opening up about his feelings, Matt aggressively blames "having to watch T.K." for his behavior. Nice, bro.

Taichi asks Yamato to explain the nature of their relationship for him. Yamato explains that they're brothers from a broken home; Their parents divorced and the brothers were split between them, which is why they have different last names.

The dub hasn't been playing coy about this the way the original did, so Tai instead has to ask, "Do you two even live in the same house!?" out of nowhere to provoke Matt's explanation. Matt answers that they're half-brothers so that's why they see each other so rarely.

Having had his fill of emotional honesty, Yamato splits with Taichi and goes to play his harmonica by the lake shore. He's shortly joined by Gabumon, doing a startlingly poor job of being Takeru's blanket.

That's when it happens.

Okay, fucko, I can handle being stepped on but that is a bridge too far. Local wildlife mad now.

I blame Taichi for this. 100%. That fin wasn't exactly hard to spot.

This is the Adult-stage Seadramon, the first of a particular kind of Digimon. The "dramon" lineage is a pun on the word "dragon". Any time you meet a -dramon, that's a dragon Digimon. Seadramon is, of course, the Sea Dragon Digimon.

Seadramon honestly wants nothing to do with this. His first reaction to his rude awakening is to try and peace out. Unfortunately, his tail is embedded in the island, so he ends up dragging it around with him.

Tentomon explains that Seadramon is normally pretty docile. He only attacks if he feels threatened. As long as we haven't threatened him, we should be fine. As Tentomon says this, he hops directly onto Seadramon's tail like an idiot.

Really playing up how much this impending fight is absolutely, 100% our fault. We screwed up. Seadramon is trying to defend himself against us.

This context doesn't make it into the dub. Instead, Tentomon assures the others that they'll be fine as long as Seadramon doesn't realize they're here; However, by stepping on Seadramon's tail like that, he reveals their presence to the dangerous predator.

Wrenching his tail free of the island, Seadramon retaliates by submerging himself and pushing the island further out into the lake until it collides with those telephone poles we saw earlier and can't budge any further.

Seeing Takeru in trouble, Yamato doesn't even hesitate to throw himself in the water and swim halfway across the dragon-occupied lake to reach his brother. Gabumon hesitates for a moment, not wanting to get his fur wet, but pursues Yamato anyway.

As Seadraman renews his assault on the island, the Child-stage Digimon try to fend him off, but their attacks are useless against an Adult-stage Digimon as usual. Taichi tries to get Agumon to evolve, but he can't; Agumon doesn't know why. As previously established, the Digimon don't understand this whole thing any better than the kids do.

Dub Agumon is lost too, but at least offers speculation. He thinks his body might still be tired from his fight with Shellmon. Valid theory.

Takeru falls in the water trying to get to Yamato, but Gomamon gives him a ride. Trusting Gomamon to take care of Takeru, Yamato and Gabumon throw themselves into the Seadramon fight.

Gabumon's signature move is Petit Fire. Like Baby Flame, this conveys the idea that it's a junior attack fitting of a Child-stage Digimon. The dub calls it Blue Blaster. Like the other Child attacks, Petit Fire is useless against Seadramon, who flicks Gabumon away with little difficulty.

Wrapping his tail around Yamato, Seadramon goes in for the kill.

The dub uses careful language to avoid explicitly saying that Seadramon is going to kill Matt, but nonetheless conveys the same idea. Tentomon calls Seadramon a "bubble brain" but explains that "once he finds his prey, he won't let go".

Takeru, Patamon, and Gabumon briefly discuss what they can do. Takeru wants Patamon to help, but Patamon is powerless so he turns to Gabumon. Gabumon's hesitation strikes again; He wants to help Yamato but he isn't strong enough to intervene.

However, as he watches Seadramon choke the life out of Yamato, Gabumon thinks about his harmonica music and how much he wants to hear it again. He dwells on that music and how badly he wants to hear Yamato play, then lets out a bloodcurdling scream and begins his Adult-stage evolution.

None of this emotional conflict makes it into the dub. English Gabumon agrees to go save Matt immediately, calling out that he's on his way and assertively saying, "What's a little stinky fur compared to a friend like him?"

Either way, Gabumon SHINKAAAAAA!!!

Gabumon's Adult-stage is Garurumon, another onomatopoeia name. He's named for the sound of a wolf growling. "Garururururu...."

While Garurumon and Seadramon fight, Tentomon explains that Garurumon's fur is as strong as the legendary metal mythril. The kids don't know what that is, so Koushiro asks for clarification. This puts Tentomon on the spot, who has to admit that he doesn't know what mythril is either. Taichi wonders aloud if they should really be trusting Tentomon's word when he's explaining the Digimon lore.

Dub Tentomon only equates Garurumon's fur to steel, and adds that he's a "growling torpedo". Izzy understands what that means and declares Garurumon to be invincible, forcing Tentomon to backpedal and say it's only local heresay, nothing concrete. Tai then accuses him of "exaggerating with another one of your wild fish tales again". Uh, another?

For once, we get some focus on the antagonist's special moves too. Seadramon is a wild animal so he doesn't talk, but Tentomon explains this to be his signature move Ice Arrow. Fitting for a sea dragon, he has frost breath.

Garurumon matches it with his Fox Fire. The dub calls this Howling Blaster.

Y'all, he just wanted to sleep.

Gomamon's Marching Fishes bring us back to land, but the sun comes up and nobody's rested. Exhausted, conversation turns to Gabumon's evolution.

Sora suggests that Gabumon was able to evolve this time because it was Yamato in danger. Taichi remembers Agumon evolving to protect him and corroborates that theory. The kids are beginning to develop an understanding of how evolution functions.

Once that's settled, the kids find spaces in the grass to snooze; Everyone's too tired to even care anymore where they rest their heads.

We close this episode on Yamato playing Takeru and Gabumon to sleep.

...I guess technically it is his turn to take watch.

[summerstrash]

one thing I'm mad about vis a vis the krakoan era is the fact that it only remains implicit that moira's deadly genesis team were, in hindsight, a sort of proto-Five focused around the creation of a mutant state prior to having Krakoa itself on the board.

Like,

proteus was always going to be in her back pocket, trapped as he was. he's the only one to make it to the actual Five, in part because he was never a part of the initial team-building with the others. he's a reality warper and energy vampire, and if I'm not mistaken, omega-level as well.

petra is a geomorph who can generate diamonds with her powers; prior to the entry of krakoa and its flowers into the plan, she could've been absolutely pivotal to the physical and economic stability of a mutant state.

sway is a time manipulator who can replay things she has witnessed. she would be in the role of eva bell, if resurrection was on the table, and/or she could serve as an "objective" observer in a justice or surveillance system.

darwin is evolution itself; his powers appear to have no upper bound, though he is not "officially" classified as an omega-level mutant. I believe he would be a primarily political agent, as a symbol of the nation, given that he is a visible mutant who cannot be killed, but I also believe that his survival powers could perhaps be pushed, maybe with proteus or gabriel in a circuit with him, to create life.

vulcan is an omega level energy blaster with a deep wellspring of rage directed at the shi'ar empire, AND he's the lost summers brother. aware as Moira would likely have been of this, she would have seen the purpose of that blood tie between her team and charles' — the X-Men would have been less likely to cross her team if it holds a member of the summers family.

I also believe that Moira was planning from the beginning to hedge her bets — and this team is perfect for that, too, given that four of them would always be primarily loyal to her, the mother figure who pulled them from the gutters of grief, oppression, poverty, and self-loathing and gave them a new family.

a circuit between these five mutants might be just as potent at terraforming as the Twelve were — Gabriel providing the raw energetic reactions you'd find at the dawn of spacetime, the star at the center of the circuit, Petra giving it physical form and stability and blessing it with untold physical wealth and elemental resources, Suzanne giving it the time it needs to grow, and Proteus and/or Darwin giving it life.

imagine the devotion a populace might give the beings that created their home out of nothing. Imagine, in turn, the loyalty they'd pay to their dear mother.

and Moira, even, familiar as she is with the narrative of the history of mutantkind, would likely have been planning for that, too — by withholding her son from the others at first, she creates a divide that will make it psychologically easier for the rest of the team to sacrifice him for the cause, if he cannot be brought to heel, or if he threatens her all-important life. the tragedy of mutant x is a narrative you can build sainthood or demonization around, and countries and communities need their foundational myths, don't they?

I think it's a devilishly elegant plan, on her part, to find mutants who need her, mutants who can't clean up as well for the cameras or the judgment of a bigoted america as charles' beautiful lily-white teenagers do, and turn them into her own personal nation-building engine.

I also wonder deeply about the Destiny of it all — is sway on the team because, as a time-manipulator, she could move directly against the prophecies of Irene Adler in a way the others can't?

At what point does Moira choose to fully betray the cause? Is it maybe at the moment that her carefully-laid plans and carefully-chosen teenagers are torn out from under her? Did she, in her way, truly love them, like Charles, for all his foibles, loved his original five X-Men?

I don't think I'll ever know for sure, and it deeply rankles at me that it's so.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

is there anything in particular that inspired you to write sea glass gardens?

(I love it so dearly btw its a masterpiece)

It was the Frankensteined result of a few different things actually.

Megumi’s storyline with the Zenin actually wasn’t originally created for sea glass gardens. I had a fic where Junpei and Megumi ended up at the same middle school that Megumi’s current conflict with the Zenin featured prominently in (only instead of approaching it from the back end and dealing with the aftermath, it approached it from the front end because Junpei was at the middle school when Naoya came to take him away). That story ended up going through so many evolutions that it became the fic where Fushiguro is unleashed in Junpei’s high school by gojo like an invasive super predator (that I discussed here for an ask game not too long ago), which I liked much better, but that meant that Megumi’s storyline with the Zenin was now orphaned because it only worked if it happened pre-Season 1. But I liked it too much to give up on it, so I put it in a box like an abandoned kitten and set it aside for when I could find another story it worked with it better.

After that, it came down to my thoughts about Yuuta and Maki colliding with my thoughts about the Fushiguro siblings.

Maki and the Tsumiki (the one that lives in my head at least) act as each other’s foil in any story I write them both in. I had another story I was obsessing about over at the time sea glass gardens started to percolate, wherein the Zenin took Megumi and left Tsumiki behind, and the fushiguro siblings spend every day after trying to get back to each other. It included a confrontation between Tsumiki and Maki, because I really did think that Tsumiki and Maki acted as inverses of one another.

Both of their characters are defined in large part by their relationship with their sibling. However, Maki had to leave Mai behind to become who she was meant to be, and the Tsumiki that lives in my head refuses to leave Megumi behind to the denial of her own self. So Maki ends up growing and forging her own place in the world, but it’s not one that her sister can be with her in. In the span of that story, however, Tsumiki completely rejects every opportunity to build a life without her brother (to the detriment of her own fulfilment) and struggles to instead make her own space in whatever world lets them be together. I find Maki’s character endlessly fascinating and I really wanted to make her interaction with tsumiki happen in a fic, so it also went in the box.

Then I watched JJK 0 like seven times because I simply love Okkotsu Yuuta that much.

The thing is that while Maki and Tsumiki are foils in my mind, Yuuta and Megumi are parallels who are marginally out of sync with each other. It would take wayyyy too long for me to break down all my thoughts on Megumi as a character, but I think he exists in Season 1 in a mental place that parallels where Yuuta was in JJK 0.

Namely the fact that they’re both legitimately suicidal.

From a philosophical standpoint, Yuuta and Megumi are actually opposites. Yuuta spends all of JJK 0 trying to justify his own continued survival. Megumi, meanwhile, spends all of Season 1 having accepted the forfeiture of his own life and extremely angry about it. He is a character who was sold into a career with an enormously high mortality rate at an extremely young age who is marked by the fact that he does not understand his own ability to survive in this world. Like, fucking Sukuna was the one who had to tell him he easily had the potential to beat special grade curses following an aggressive and oddly horny murder attempt. The man was like “megumi you enchant me why are you wasting your talents” and fushiguro was profoundly confused and bleeding from the head like “wat.” He spent all of Season 1 approaching every inconvenience with “I’m calling time of death on this entire situation and summoning Mahoraga.” He did it in almost every fight. Yuuta spends his entire movie trying to make it okay that he’s still alive and meanwhile Megumi will not stop trying to die.

So, from a mentality approach, they’re very different characters. But if you approach them from positions in their own narratives, they’re very similar.

Both Yuuta and Megumi start their respective stories as very powerful people whose youth and lack of understanding of their own ability is taken advantage of. Yuuta is one of the most powerful shamans of the modern age. However, he was also a child who had no idea he even had power, and the higher ups took advantage of that and made him complicit in his own execution. Megumi, meanwhile, possesses one of the most powerful techniques in the entire JJK universe, though he’s stymied by his own self-defeating mindset. He’s taken advantage of as a child and is effectively sold into indentured servitude to the jujutsu world, which honestly may as well be a death sentence in itself. Like, this job’s mortality rate is brutal, and Megumi is sitting there in episode 6 or something talking about how he’s had people die on missions with him before. He’s probably known for a while that this job would kill him one day, and he’s never had the option to quit. So you have these two characters at the inception of their narrative with the potential to be really powerful, but their inexperience and misunderstanding of their own potential leads them to be cooperate in their own death sentence.

Both of their narratives also follow one of personal growth through friendship (Yuuta’s just much less grumpy about it than Megumi). Yuuta unlocks his potential at the end of the movie due to the ways his friends teach him and out of a desire to defend them. Megumi, meanwhile, was initially inspired by Yuuji’s growth to ultimately unlock his own potential while exorcising the bridge curse to defend his sister. So they’re both spurred along very similar arcs even if they carry through it with different attitudes.

And also they’re both completely suicidal.

Self-sacrifice is huge in both Yuuta and Megumi’s narratives. Yuuta opens his movie trying to kill himself to protect other people. He spends his entire movie trying to make it okay that he’s not dead, only for him to walk into his climactic battle like “IM SACRIFICING MY LIFE LETS DIE TOGETHER RIKA” despite Rika showing literally within the first five minutes of the movie that she did not want Yuuta to die and go with her. However, by the time the main series is underway, he has reached that point of self-actualization where he does want to be alive, and his potential explodes into making him one of the most powerful characters in canon.

Megumi opens his interaction with the jujutsu kaisen world through an act of self sacrifice. He’s told that he’s been sold to the Zenin clan and he can either go with them or stay with Gojo and be indebted to the school, and his only concern is which life his sister will be happy in. He cooperates in being a jujutsu sorcerer, but his entire outlook on how the world is fundamentally unfair and full of people who will take advantage of others suggests he’s deeply resentful of what happened to him.

But he thinks he’s already fucked and will not. Stop. Trying. To sacrifice himself. Literally anything happens and he’s like “EVERYONE GET OUT OF THE WAY IM SUMMONING MAHORAGA.” It’s like watching someone personally hurl the same grenade that they then throw themselves on. However, by the end of season 1, he’s started to be greedier and recognize himself as someone who can survive, in no small part through the influence of his friends. And then his potential starts exploding and he’s suddenly unlocking a domain expansion and finding all these new uses for his abilities.

As a result, I kind of view Megumi starting in season 1 in the same place that Yuuta just left in the span of his movie. Megumi’s just a few steps behind him on the path to personal growth, and I really, really wanted to have a fic that featured Yuuta recognizing his own past self in Megumi and striving to help pull him out of that mindset and grow. Sort of like Yuuta being to Megumi the person he needed to have not too long ago. And then I remembered that I had that one old Zenin plot line sitting in a box and dusted it off for sea glass gardens. It fit so well with the events of JJK 0 that it just clicked from there.

The last thing that I patchworked onto sea glass gardens was how mentally not okay I am over the fushiguro siblings.

I’m just a sucker for siblings doomed by the narrative and I am so obsessed with them. I just keep rotating their relationship and shoving it into different stories. I basically have one "master" backstory for them that I keep using for different stories and I will take literally any excuse to cram it in somewhere.

Like, the bit where Tsumiki talks about how Megumi used to sleep outside her door to keep a monster (which turned out to be a curse) away? It's a scene from the story mentioned above where the Zenin take Megumi and leave tsumiki behind. It also present in a time travel story I have where the season 1 trio end up getting booted back in time to 2006 during the star plasma vessel disaster and proceed to be the worst fucking time travelers imaginable (I desperately hope I get the time to write this one because I actually love it even more than sea glass gardens, and I really love sea glass gardens).

The bit about where Megumi had to go no contact with the Zenin following some undisclosed incident in childhood is also a reference to the time travel fic, and I honestly don't know if I'll ever reveal what made him go no contact in sea glass gardens. I'm a firm believer in keeping some plot details unrevealed because of the natural limitations of a narrator, and I'm not sure yet if Yuuta would ever find out about what happened with that.

Sea glass gardens ended up giving me a chance to have another take on the fushiguro siblings where Tsumiki wasn't cursed yet (since the trio comes from the canon timeline, she's cursed in the present day in the time travel fic) but still with Megumi alongside all of the tensions of his deal with jujutsu tech (which wasn't possible in the fic where they were separated as children). It let me play with new tensions on their dynamic that I won't get into because we haven't got into that part of the plot yet.

Which is a very long way of say that I stapled a bunch of things I wanted to talk about together until sea glass gardens resulted.

[parisian-nicole]

What is going on!?!?!

I don't even know if these are spoilers because I am confused!

Here, showrunner Erica Messer breaks down what that mystery means for Season 17, whether Tyler (Ryan-James Hatanaka) will return and the future of Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness) and Alvez (Adam Rodriguez).

Voit shot Tyler, but he survived. Will we see him again?

ERICA: Yes, there’s a very great chance that we will be seeing Tyler. We loved Tyler. We love RJ. We thought that relationship would do exactly what it did this season, but we really liked giving Garcia that messy relationship. We just completely bought that she would break up with him after that betrayal, but that maybe it isn’t over. Maybe this is her person. We want to keep exploring that, so it’s gonna get a little more complicated next year because he’s going to be around still, sort of consulting, and where it gets messy now is Alvez knows about it. So there can be a little bit more of a triangle than we’ve ever really done on the show, in terms of the members being in relationships. It felt like now’s the time to do it. We also didn’t want to deny Garcia and Tyler this bond because it does feel special and real.

Is there jealously there with Alvez?

ERICA: Yeah, I think there is. We got to see the date that was promised. And that did not go well, and they both could exhale at the end of the day, and say, “Yeah, what are we thinking?” I think what was unsaid in that is, we love each other, but we’re not going to be a couple. Then in Episode 9, when he finds out she’s been sleeping with Tyler Green… it’s not a big brother saying like, “What are you doing? You’re messing up.” It’s different. It’s like, “Why him? Why him?” And so that kind of tells you it isn’t over. Alvez having any feelings for her isn’t over, because he wouldn’t have reacted that way. So now we get to play a little bit more of the triangle because Alvez knows now. He didn’t love Tyler to begin with.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Should we hunt animals in a peaceful world?

Ishkah: Okay yeah, so I’ve gone through all my questions, but I can give you one more hypothetical if you like. There was a podcast you did for Oak Journal on lots of topics like humanism and one thing that came up was veganism and then there was an interesting response by Ria who runs the website VeganPrimitivist.wordpress.com. They did a long response to some of the points that were brought up. [9]

And anyway their ideal future is people foraging plants and mushrooms only, and I think using fire, but just conscientiously choosing not to hunt animals. And I don’t personally think that you could plan that diet very well, with like B12, without fortified foods and stuff, I think duckweed we’ve found out now has a lot of B12, so if you lived somewhere there was duckweed, you could maybe do that, but another hypothetical that might reflect the modern world is…

If you knew that you could meet all your nutritional needs living this life, and you knew there wasn’t going to be warfare, and you knew you could maintain the skills of hunting if you needed to go back to that, would you hypothetically choose not to hunt animals? Just living a life where you’re communicating with them through seeing otters in the wild, but just choosing not to hunt, do you think that would be an ethical responsibility? What do you think if you knew that you could survive perfectly fine with low labor hours?

Zerzan: That sounds rather nice, yeah I wouldn’t argue against it, I mean if it’s conceivable and I think you know hunter-gatherer life was more gathering than hunting, but still, maybe that would be more ideal. If you’re trying to learn anything from the record, it’s a bit hard to imagine that in terms of our evolution, but it sounds nice, yeah.

Ishkah: Yeah it’s a nice dream. I just often come up against people who are really invested in like eating meat because it’s their culture and eating these horrible factory farmed animals, so I think it’s interesting, like I use the argument of we have all these glass greenhouses now, we have thousands of vegetables we can grow all year round to eat a varied diet, but even if we went back to primitivist life and we could still meet all our nutritional needs, I think there would be some ethical responsibility there too, just to embody this more compassionate lifestyle.

Zerzan: Right, I salute your values, I think that’s very worthwhile to think about.

Ishkah: Okay cool, that’s good, I think people will be interested in that.

[1] Some examples of anarchist or far-left campaign groups & news platforms adopting an ‘aims & principles’ charter: www.bamn.com www.a-radio-network.org greenanticapitalist.org

[2] An Open Letter To John Zerzan by myself

[3] This reflects Kaczynski’s own grizzly diary notes in that after reading in a newspaper that his first murder victim, computer salesman Scrutton, had been “blown to bits,” Kaczynski wrote in his journal; “excellent. Humane way to eliminate somebody. He probably never felt a thing.” It was a method of lethal killing which he had developed after killing a romantic interest had proven too much for him. Kaczynski had “given his brother a letter he intended to send to the woman, explaining himself. It was an apology of sorts, but it also contained the disturbing claim that Kaczynski was so enraged that he had waited in the woman’s car with a knife, planning to mutilate her. In the end, Ted wrote, he couldn’t do it. Attacking someone face to face proved too much for him.”

[4] Sexual Violence Against Women and a Woman’s Right to Self-Defense; The Case of Aileen Carol Wuornos by Phyllis Chesler

[5] AFed statement on kneecapping of nuclear executive by Informal Anarchist Federation

[6] The Technological Society by Jaques Ellul

[7] Minimum Viable Technology by David Charles

[8] Newtown shooter may have called ‘AnarchyRadio’ show before attack

[9] Response to Bellamy, JZ & Steve Kirk condemning vegan primitivism

[krispyweiss]

Book Review: “Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon” by Joel Selvin

Tortured by his own brain and barely functioning, Jim Gordon still found comfort in music and by 1983 was playing in dingy clubs with a band called the Blue Monkeys.

The gigs were Gordon’s only normalcy in his world of deepening mental illness.

This moment before things fell apart serves as author Joel Selvin’s introduction to the drummer, who had once been the go-to session man in Los Angeles and was a former member of Derek & the Dominos and Traffic.

“Everybody knows how this story ends,” Selvin writes in the first chapter of “Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon.” It ends, of course, with the drummer murdering his mother, Osa Gordon, in 1983 after a career that established Jim Gordon as one of the most revered drummers in rock ‘n’ roll history.

Gordon’s tale is that of a gut-wrenching struggle with mental illness and stuff-of-dreams musical triumphs that veteran music journalist Selvin tells from an omniscient point of view, in the way Bob Woodward writes his political tomes, with citation saved for the notes and bibliography of the 302-page book.

With cooperation from surviving family members and former colleagues like Jim Keltner, Eric Clapton, Mike Post and others, Selvin paints a sympathetic picture of the Wrecking Crew drummer who struggled against the voices in his head as he recorded and toured with the Everly Brothers, the Beach Boys, Gordon Lightfoot, Joan Baez, George Harrison, Frank Zappa and others between stints in the aforementioned bands with Clapton and Steve Winwood. But while Gordon tamped down his emerging schizophrenia enough to engage in musical success, he also decked his then-girlfriend Rita Coolidge while the pair were on the Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour, committed other troubling acts of violence against women and engaged in behavior, such as speaking to people who were not present during recording sessions, that concerned his friends and family even as it left them at a loss of what to do.

Gordon’s career slowly dissolved as the 1970s turned to the 1980s and his grasp of reality grew more and more tenuous. Hospital stays and stints in rehab were unsuccessful at muting the voices that ultimately directed Gordon to kill his mother.

When they did, he listened. Gordon went to Osa Gordon’s house and murdered her with a hammer and butcher knife before heading out for a night of drinking. Police arrested a distraught Gordon, who confessed, the next morning.

He was sentenced to life in prison. Selvin ends the story in 1993 when Gordon and his fellow inmates are watching Clapton pick up a Grammy for his unplugged version of “Layla,” which Gordon was credited with co-writing.

“I’ll be darned,” Gordon said.

A more-complete book would’ve at least touched on the intervening 30 years, Gordon’s life behind bars and his 2023 death at 77. That said, “Demons & Drums” is the most-complete book on Gordon the world is likely to get and is worth the read. For despite its mildly sycophantic tone, and Gordon’s oft-horrendous behavior, Selvin has served up not only Gordon’s story but a fascinating history of the evolution of drumming and the 1970s music scene.

Grade card: “Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon” by Joel Selvin - B+

4/3/24

[kob131]

I dunno why I’m doing this at 2 AM but fuck it. You guys get to deal with it on main.

To the people saying that RWBY handled suicide poorly, I better see you decrying Gurren Lagann’s depiction of depression/suicide yesterday.

So, from what I can gather, people’s issues with how the Ruby-Tree plotline is-

1. It ‘trivializes’ suicide by having Ruby come back from it.

2. Made the rest of RWBY look uncaring

and 3. Resolved Ruby’s depression too quickly.

However, I find that when holding these examples up as universial signs of a bad depression/suicide arc, people should be bashing Gurren Lagann., specifically episodes 9-11 (the aftermath of Kamina’s death).

1. While it is true that Simon doesn’t commit suicide in this arc...that is very much the undertone of what is happening. Simon is throwing himself into combat constantly, talking about living up to Kamina all while Lagann is shown to be losing power as Simon fights. The thing is- Spiral Power is basically the will to live and thrive. It’s the energy of evolution made manifest. If Simon is throwing himself into combat while losing the will to live and thrive-

You can basically see it as Simon attempting suicide out of guilt.

Yet Simon recovers from this just like Ruby does. In basically the same fashion with the same themes and the same arc. Yet no one complains.

2. This is were the arguments starts looking REALLY bad for Gurren Lagann.

Weiss and Blake both tried to cheer up Ruby when it was evident that she wasn’t feeling well, with Blake trying to cheer Ruby up after her outburst in the Paper Pleaser’s village. And Yang tries no less than twice to help her sister, once after Ruby regains consciousness and once after her outburst after meeting up with Jaune again.

This is three more attempts to help Ruby than Team Dai Gurren tried helping Simon after Kamina died.

I’m not joking. If you go through Episodes 9, 10 and 11- You will not find a single moment where a member of Team Dai Gurren tries to comfort or talk with Simon. The most you will get is Kiyoh scolding Kittan for saying Simon caused Kamina’s death and throwing that in Simon’s face. You will find them showing more concern for Nia, someone who they’ve all just met, than the brother of their beloved leader who watched as the closest thing he had to family die.

Oh, remember when people got onto Jaune’s case for throwing Ruby’s failures back at her? Yeah, Kittan did the exact same thing but worse...and unlike Jaune, never admits he was wrong for doing so. He even tries bossing Simon around to interrogate Nia, who has done more for him in like...a day than Kittan has done since Kamina died.

I mean, Rossiu tries to help. But both times he shows concern for Simon, someone from Team Dai Gurren stop him from helping. One is Yoko, who above everyone else should know Simon needs help but does nothing for him until arguable the end. And the other is Leeron, who outright says that Lagann is right for not helping Simon if he lost the will to survive (more suicide parallels...) with the implication that they’re also right in doing so.

And they both end the same way- with the parties showing gratitude and happiness at the hero’s return. ... Except in Gurren Lagann’s case, Yoko takes this moment to take a jab at Simon’s emotional speech. Which should be seen as massively insensitive and also very fucked up of Yoko given the circumstances of Simon’s recovery.

There is no way to escape this. If what WBY and Jaune did was some horrible crime that makes the show disgusting then Team Dai Gurren’s actions are beyond horrible and Gurren Lagann is beyond disgusting.

Yet no one complains.

3. The argument is that you can’t get over depression that quickly and resolve it therefore Ruby’s big return is a spit in the face.

... The framing, plot beats, execution, musical choices and even themes are all almost exactly the same in Gurren Lagann. It’s the same trope, using the same methods, following the same themes- It’s the same. Damn. Story.

Hell, even the argument that it makes no sense for Ruby to just get over inadequacies because of a story about Summer applies to Simon because it’s implied HE recovered from Yoko’s story about Kamina. It’s actually worse in Gurren Lagann because unlike with the Blacksmith in RWBY, Yoko knows what the problem is, is around for the whole arc and personally knows Simon. And yet she never brings this story up beforehand? Even as Simon gives his side of the same fucking story and just sits there looking sad?

By this logic, the ENTIRETY of Gurren Lagann should just be one massive failure because the anime is DEPENDANT on this scene working (as everything before it was just working up to this point and everything after is built on it).

And yet.

No one.

Complains.

And I know what some of you are thinking.

‘Well, it works in Gurren Lagann because that anime’s good and RWBY bad!’

Well, quality doesn’t work that way. Writing doesn’t become good because it’s in a show labeled ‘good’- a show is good because the writing is good. 

You also can’t apply different standards and arguments for different pieces of media. If X depicts suicide and depression badly then ALL depictions of suicide and depression like X’s is bad.

And as someone who loves Gurren Lagann more than RWBY- it should be considered worse than RWBY. The differences between them are either semantics (giving up on life is basically suicide) or make Gurren Lagann worse (Team Dai Gurren’s, especially Yoko and Kittan’s actions).

I know that this isn’t the case since I know what Gurren Lagann is going for: that Simon had to stand back up by himself to get that catharsis. That Team Dai Gurren were meant to be wrong but still human in their actions and that Simon’s instant recovery is meant to be glorious return by the true hero of the story as he asserts his development and his lessons.

But the same analytical skills tell me that RWBY’s depiction is also not offensive or even bad. So if I’m wrong on RWBY, I have to be wrong on Gurren Lagann.

So you better either start bashing Gurren Lagann and it’s depiction Simon. (Which is basically paint a giant target on your back) or shut it about RWBY.

[writingformeandyou]

An Amic Recap

The smile that came to my sleepy ass face when Mod Vic posted, tho. I was extremely happy to see Vic pop in for a moment and decided that I should probably provide a recap of life as well. It’s got its highs and lows, but I just want people to know that they cannot gloss over things like abuse and mental health.

Quick TL;DR: College student that does not know what sleep is somehow is doing decent. Also, mental health is a thing and abuse from parents should not be excused. 

Quick P.S: I  am realizing that the stuff I have written for the abuse might be triggering so the paragraphs following 2022 before going into 2022-2023 is the worst of it as that’s what goes over me being disowned. 

So, let’s start from 2020. The year of chaotic madness and me graduating and going to college. This year was rough, I had really bad point of views that I should not have had provided my my Trump cultist parents. I honestly did think that Covid was the “Chinese flu” and that span of thought didn’t undo itself until I got into college. I was just generally a really upset kid stuck around the wrong people 24/7 that was sad that I’d miss out on my senior experiences. 

Heading into college I felt sick as hell. I had doubts and the whole way I was teased about how I legit seemed on the brink of throwing up. I didn’t think I could do it. My whole high school experience was being compared to my younger sibling and being a C and D student. I was terrified... but then again I knew I had to do it. This was probably the only way I could get away from my parents and their year long groundings, physical punishments, thievery, etc. that final semester of high school was my best with me having my first AB streak since my elementary experience. 

Finally came college, I was very reclusive that first year; a habit formed by living with my parents during covid. I did occasionally go out but as soon as my roommate went to move in with her roommate of choice it was just me and finally I could hide. Finally, I could breathe. I was developing such terrible insomnia at this time and had to start taking melatonin supplements to keep my crap together. Also, I finally brought my PS4 with me, and FFXV became a very grounding game as can be expected. And, seemingly terribly my academic advisor starts a discussion about how I might have ADHD. I felt such terrible shame thinking that I could be one of those kids and avoided it. 

Somehow, I survived the 2020-2021 school year and continued on from there.

2021-2022 my parents start getting weird. I stopped going to church years ago after seeing the harm that Christians do to people and start acknowledging my religious status as Agnostic. They start telling me to go to church, that the rough church going experiences I had in the past isn’t an everywhere thing but I simply respond that there’s some things in the bible that I just am not in agreement with and it’s for the best that I don’t go to a religious group setting. Also, I added that evolution would have to be pried from my cold, dead hands because that has been a topic of interest ever since elementary and I basically got jumped at church as a young teen for saying that I thought god triggered evolution. 

Throughout the year I am questioned when I will get married though at the oldest I am 21. I’ve officially come to the conclusion that I will not marry until I am out of college and other things are coming to mind. For example, I have finally accepted that I am bi. It was a relief when that clicked completely and when I finally accepted that I couldn’t just be that good Christian girl anymore. I came out to my parents simply as they were teasing me about a woman from a movie and how I must think that she is hot. It is likely that the teasing came because my adult younger brother ran away shortly after my graduation so they missed being able to tease in this way. They laughed at me but I was really happy, I thought that this was a win and honestly I didn’t want any assurances that I was ok. I thought that they loved me after all. 

This summer, I started a job at a place I grew up going to. Things start getting really weird. My parents try to hook me up with their friends (the youngest of which being 25) and I start getting chewed out for my dad having to see me in “lewd” ways by me wearing the occasional tank top or leggings because I started to occasionally work out. I muted my stepmother because, more often than not I’d be harassed by cussing text messages that I’d rather not revisit. At this point, I have broken down at work multiple times, and my coworkers start becoming extremely concerned for me. My boss pulls me to the side one day and tells me that while I have room to grow she has seen that I am a capable woman and that I need to do whatever I can to survive the summer. She also brings up a discussion about parentification because I was always on standby with my phone for my kid sisters. Also, since I felt safe with her I brought up a discussion about me potentially having ADHD and she pointed out that girls and women present differently and that from what she has seen she thinks I could fit the mold as well.

2022, the school year is on the brink of coming along and I have an ominous feeling. Two days before move in I had a nightmare with zombies and a lot of loss. It seems like it’s something so little but having dreams like that back in high school for me usually meant a hell of a time was to come and that I need to prepare for some literal emotional damage. This time though, I ignored it cause it had been so long since the last one that I had to just be dreaming.

One day before move in, I make a life changing choice. I got in contact with my younger brother that ran away and offered to give him our Xbox 360 that was gifted to us specifically by a relative. I didn’t have the space and recently got the most recent Xbox. I then take it to a friend of his and head home to see my parents. A lot of this I’ve blocked out but they accused me of stealing from them, started saying nasty things about me being bi, and even equated me to a pedophile. They sent me out, telling me to not come back until I had the damn console back and threatened to call the police.

This was the most scared that I ever was. My father was never that aggressive to me and my kid sisters were horrified. I knew that I had to contact someone to save my ass quick and called a guy friend from college (specifically my college roomie’s bf) so he started rushing to pick me up asap. I got the console and then threatening messages came. I called my previous academic advisor, terrified and confused about what to do cause my friend would have been another 30 minutes. She talked me through the whole thing as I spoke terrified and sob broken words. What she said next was get a friend from town to save me so I wracked my mind and immediately messaged a friend that I now consider to be a dear sister. At the time she wasn’t 100% a friend but we could talk cause she was the sister of a friend but that friend was out of state for college. She told me to head home because of the threats and that she’d be there soon. So I did, I went to that hellscape.

I was numb as all of the yelling happened. As he threw stuff and accused me of stealing more from him. I didn’t even get everything of mine, but at least I got the most important stuff. I didn’t cry, all I really did was say “uh huh” or “ok.” Now I know from my counselor that this was a trauma response. I remember hearing him yell something about my friend being there, he was probably pissed that I took steps to make sure I wouldn’t just be kicked out or on the brink of being murdered without a witness.

I remember they yelled at each other. He accused her of making me a gay degenerate, etc. but I couldn’t help but to internally laugh because she’s a Catholic that goes to church every week. She’s one of the few religious people that I’ve met that does not immediately hate or ostracize those who are different. He threw my boxes of stuff, damaging one and making all of my books spill onto the lawn in the process. I wonder if the neighbors that already disliked him disliked him more after that day because I was the one member of the family that talked to the “enemies.”

Things zoom by from there. I was terribly sick and couldn’t stomach the ice cream I was given, I got a hug from my now adoptive parents, hugged my now sister, and hugged my college friend before he took me home to my dorm. That night was too damn quiet. I couldn’t stay in my room alone and went to the basement lounge with my Xbox and played Stardew Valley. I remember being terribly annoyed when some drunks came around and watched while making loud and bothersome comments, but with time their presence brought me repose. Eventually they left, and one of my best friends from home, a guy that my parents desperately hoped I would get with, messaged me and we talked for hours as he assured me that I had a place with him and his family if need be.

Before anyone asks, no I did not date him. We dated back in junior high and HS for a time but stopped both times. We both have agreed that we are siblings by heart so dating just feels odd. I think that is one thing that angered them, that I could feel so safe with a man who was not going to become a significant other or something. 

Finally, 2022-2023. Things were hit or miss for a while and I remember people watching me closely and asking if I felt any urge to self harm. No, I did not. I’d come too damn far to let those feckers ruin it all for me so I wouldn’t. I just immersed myself in college more. One day though, I remember seeing a car that looked like my stepmom’s driving in front of the dorm as I was walking with my girls to the car. My knees fell out from under me and I became a blubbering and crying mess with the thought of “I am in danger. They’ve finally come for me.” I remember my two friends clinging onto me, telling me that I was ok and that it wasn’t them. Good news is we had preexisting plans to go out to get me comfort food so perfect timing I guess.

Every week I met with my current academic advisor, making game plans and figuring things out. Eventually, I even found myself kinda enjoying the poetry class that I thought I’d hate because I could use it to vent my frustrations. With time it was almost time to leave for winter break and I was praised by my advisor and told by him that he didn’t think that he would know anyone ever again who could face such adversity and still take on a double major, a minor, and other college related things with a job. Around this point I was also asked by a friend about what I would do about my surname since it is my father’s and I don’t plan to marry anytime soon so I responded honestly, “I am stealing it and making something out of it.” 

Cue winter and I visit the UK for study abroad. By this time I have 100% concluded that I will never extend the olive branch to my father or stepmother. To hell with them! Whenever my brother would do so they would complain about him and joke at his expense, I know my position in things. I am not playing their games. Also, at this point I am reembracing liking fandoms and other stuff like that because I had a mental block to all of those things for a while due to my parents belittling me and telling me that as an adult I shouldn’t like them. 

Now I am 22 years old. I am nearing the end of my junior year of college and am amazed that I have made it this far. Back in junior high I swore that I would drop out of high school and yet here I am even when my parents tried their damnedest to get me to drop out. I have family and I am loved by many and have learned that a long time ago I lost my family member status. I am now learning what it is like to be a true family member and am honestly finally happy though there are hard days. 

I have been praised for the start to my history senior project and have been told that there is a chance that I could possibly publish my findings. I have my fingers crossed because imagine the family disappointment publishing something. Damn, I’d leave a copy at those feckers’ house! 

So yeah, chaos over the years. I have hope for the future no matter how scary it seems. I have not gotten the ADHD diagnosis yet cause I am terrible about going to the doctor and in general have found a way to make this weird spaghetti coding in my brain work with being a student, finally. A small part of me wishes I could brag about my successes to those problematic people, but I just know they’ll take the credit for making me finally grow up by kicking me out and disowning me. Nope, they aren’t getting that credit because I am the one who learned how to function while they tried to steal my ability to do so. They should have noticed that year long groundings in high school weren’t really that efficient in anything but giving me the chance to learn how to be sneaky.

Anyways, that’s about it. Now that I am healing from them and the things that they have told me I might have to consider writing again. I cannot and will not make promises though because I’ve done that many times and it’s just mean to offer something and not provide. Also, I’ve been playing FFXV: War for Eos on my phone so if you’d like to play join me and my guild (Bros) Choco Bros. I am not the leader but we’d be happy to have more people who love FFXV. 

Also, a final thing since I am amused by this. I started watching Trigun and um... I think I have a type. 

[strykingback]

BLCK: The Story So Far Part 1

Volume Minus One-

In the beginning there was nothing except for a lone being called Soliphet, they would create the universe with a single snap of their fingers. Yet, while doing so they would create their own world for themselves naming it Remnant. Thus upon completing their world the fused being split itself into two new beings. Solis the God of Light and Baphomet the God of Darkness. Solis would create life while Baphomet would create the destruction through the Grimm. Thus out of jealousy towards his brother he created Imperius the first Grimm Titan of Malevolence and declared war against his brother, while Solis in retaliation created Exaltia the Grimm Titan of Benevolence. Thus the War of Light And Darkness begun and ended with Imperius being sealed away, but his influence would be well known. As an ultimatum both Baphomet and Solis would create mankind.

Mankind would call this era of birth The Age of Antiquity, due to them receiving blessings from the Gods one of these blessings being magic. However, over the course of time some magicks had been outlawed and those who broke those laws and disturbed the Balance received severe punishments. Still a major threat was the Grimm and with many wars breaking out this created a problem for mankind. To which the Gods would crown a Champion every few hundred or thousands of years to face off against the Grimm Champion or The aggressor of a war. The first being Shaka Ishvalda... and many more following after.

The Age of Antiquity would come to an end when Salem became immortal by diving into the Pool of Life in order to become immortal and to become a Champion of Remnant after Ozma Ozymandius would be chosen as a de-facto champion. Which she manipulated all kingdoms to commit a war against the Gods of Light and Darkness to which out of fury at mans betrayal, Baphomet would unleash his Ultimate Technique: Ashes to Ashes. To wipe out all life around Remnant.... leaving the God of Light disappointed his brother had to choose this route and leaving Remnant out of shame along with Baphomet leaving out of grief as well and in the process accidentally destroying the moon shattering it. Out of shame for what she did and as a means tor attempt to join her fallen as well.. she attempted suicide into a Grimm pit but it failed as out came the first Grimm Human Hybrid.

However.. this led to the Clash of Titans as Imperius was freed from the meteor shower and Exaltia and him fighting which both wounding each other. However, before the two could continue their clash they noticed one thing.

Humanity was returning..... and like their forefathers... they too agree that their war would not grant a rebirth for humanity. Thus they ended the war as Humanity returned from dust....

Volume Zero-

With the return of mankind, they were immediately thrusted into a war of bloody evolution as they had to learn how to survive on their own without the help of Gods or magic. Instead they had to fight in order to survive but with the Grimm torturing them constantly it seemed that humanity would be rendered to extinction were it not for the discovery of dust crystals. These elemental crystals would later be key for creating the Hunters. Warriors born and bred by pure skill and training which led to the creation of the Five Kingdoms.

Vale, Vacuo, Mistral, Mantle (Later to be Atlas), and Brumel.

Through these four kingdoms came their ideals and what they stood for. However, what they were unaware of was that danger also lurked. As Salem was recruiting many hunters to her cause originally calling it the Cult of Salem. To which the Gods would revive Ozma giving him the objective of seeking out four relics of Remnant and using it to put an end to Salems wrath. However despite this, Ozma would use this time to start a family and ignore his tasks.

Yet, Salem used this as an opportunity to attack his family while he was away on business, only to return to see Salem standing over the corpses of his wife and four children. Which he cursed her and now remembered what he was revived for as he was "killed" only to take place of another body. Over time Ozma now going by Ozpin entered a deep depression until he encountered four sisters, which he used the last vestiges of what remained of the original magic within Ozma to bless them based around the lessons he was taught by them. For Salem she now learned of a great fear of her possible death by a Silver Eyed Warrior which was nearly ordained by Masamune Shinba a faunus.

Which the legacy of the Maidens of the Seasons were created, thus they along with the Hunters would bring upon the Age of Rebirth. However, over time these legacies would change as time marched forth with Ozpin taking his responsibility seriously and leading many Hunters with the creation of the Hunters Guild after the Great War and the forging of the Hunters Academy as he would meet Team STRQ, Hideyoshi Phalanx, and Jack Stryker. He then gave them the mission to eliminate the Scions of Salem as Summer Rose through her fame of being a Silver Eyed Warrior and a Hunter..... and led a force of hunters and a military force against the Scions of Salem.. only for her to sacrifice her life in order to save millions of lives against Salem, sending the Champion of Darkness into a fifteen year hibernation at the cost of Summers life as she fades away into nothingness....

Thus ending the Age of Rebirth and starting the Age Of Peace

Volume One-

Enter Team BLCK which consists of Blade Stryker, Louvel Shinba, Corona Borealis, and Kazura Rojas Verde. A Team as described by their classmates as a Ragtag crew of Mercenaries with ideals, but with incredible teamwork.

Their story begins with how they were chosen by Ozpin and sent to Beacon Academy.

Blade Stryker is a Vacuan native who was also part of the Desertwalkers operating underneath the codename of the Burning Thunder Demon Lord or Burning Thunder. However, after a mission gone wrong which resulted in the loss of his brother in arms Flare. he would go full vigilante and even to the point where he would do this after school hours at Signal Academy, despite being scolded by police whenever he got caught doing so. However, after graduating he would date Tessa Clyde and using her to get close to Desperado Joe which he would think he would get fame, instead he became infamous and for his safety Blade was requested to leave Vacuo and go to Beacon Academy upon request by Hideyoshi and Theodore Saladin....as bandit tribes affiliated with Desperado Joe would aim for his head.

Louvel Shinba a Menagerie Native hails from the mountains where the Shinbaori is located, a once mistralian clan of Faunus that believed in building bridges between man and faunus, only for it to be torn down by humanity and exiled by them, leading to their new home. Despite their affiliation with the White Fang during its peaceful years it would change after Sienna Khan believed it was now time to use violence instead of peace. To which the Shinbaori would no longer affiliate themselves with the White Fang. Yet, they would unleash missions targeting the White Fang and other anti-faunus or . For Louvel he sought the secrets of the Shinbaori and the legacy they left behind in Mistral as he planned to enroll in Haven Academy only to be stopped by business by his brother in arms Orochi as the two along with Yang Xiao Long would intercept a White Fang commander and bringing them to justice.

Louvel would then receive a letter stating that he was approved to go to Beacon Academy and to report to Vale to further his application process along with Yang as the two talked together.

Corona Borealis a Mistralian native who was once underneath the gang led by Lil Miss Malachite named the Spiders. she would betray the spiders and mostly going on an assassination spree, leaving behind the mark of the Dark Eagle who would mostly target gang members seeking out information on others especially those who were innocent. After an assasination gone wrong she was arrested by the Mistralian police as Ozpin would interfere giving Corona a choice. To either rot in a cell for the rest of her life or to join Beacon Academy and become a Huntress and then return to Mistral to finish what she started with Lil Miss Malachite as she begrudgingly agreed.

Kazura is of the fifth kingdom, Brumel. As he came from a long line of kings. Yet, he wondered about the world outside of his kingdom as he was a Prince and wanted to be as kind and understanding as his father Rodrigues, who killed his father after he was preparing to declare war on Atlas and make Brumel into an empire. As he traveled to Atlas Academy studied there and passed before moving onto Beacon Academy and meeting his comrades there.

As how they all met, Blade and Louvel would meet after assisting Ruby Rose in defeating both Roman Torchwicks lackeys and Deadshot Gunnars gang as well. While they were arrested but Ozpin would ask of them why they wanted to join Beacon thus they would explain their reasons why and thus gain access to Beacon Academy, as they would train and meet the rest of their teammates.

BLCK would have a rocky start with Corona and Blade as the two were at wits with eachother and their teamwork with Corona telling him that his laidback "Vacuan Style" will one day get him killed and with him telling her that just hiding in the shadows wont do any good. Thankfully Professor Oobleck and Professor Goodwitch would grant the duo some words of advice as they looked at eachother with understanding.

Louvel would have to deal with Weiss in a combat class as she was excited to let her know his place as he was nothing more but a low-class faunus. Despite his teammates helping him Louvel feels as if he will always be a third-rate hunter due to his semblance Wolf Arts and how he has only unlocked four so far. Which thanks to Professor Peach and Sun Wukong, he unlocks his fifth art: Crushing Jaws of the Wolf and defeats Weiss. This loss alone would make Weiss enraged as she would later on curse him for being better....

Deadshot Gunnar would then escape jail and rejoin with Torchwick as the two would capture Kazuras friend as he feels as if its his responsibility to face off against this threat himself, as he was the only one to fight this opponent himself. However with his friends trying to help he angrily refuses stating how this was his responsibility and his alone as Weiss on the other hand calls Blake a dirty faunus and calling them out for being thieves and murderers as both walk out angrily and joining Sun as the trio go to face Torchwick, Deadshot Gunnar, and the White Fang by themselves. Only when their back is against the wall to be rejoined by Louvel, Corona, Blade, and Penny who assist them.

In which it is revealed that Kazuras friend was none other than Professor Merlinda Morgana who states that she is grateful and will keep them in mind as she goes with Ozpin and Penny and when in private she states. She has a key mission for Team BLCK and stating that its urgent.

Volume Two -

At the start of Volume Two, Team BLCK is excited for their huntsman shadowing mission, albeit despite some new "friends" such as Cinder Fall in which Blade and Cinder having a sparring match as it ended with a draw, Louvel and Mercury having a conversation about their birthplaces, and Emerald and Corona bonding over their love of jewelry. When the dance happens Blade and Ruby intercept Cinder as he calls her out saying. "I KNOW THOSE SKILLS ANYWHERE!!!!!" while Cinder is taken aback that he has such a good memory with Mercury saying that he's Vacuan equating them to idiots. As before he could explain to Ozpin, Goodwitch, and Ironwood his team are sent on their "huntsman shadowing mission" only to find out it is a literal mission as they all play out every phase correctly and as possibly as it was against a PMC that is planning on violating the PMC act.

Which Team BLCK would intercept only to find out that they were led into a trap by an unknown source claiming himself to be a Scion for a higher power. In which Icarus PMC and bribed Atlesian soldiers would attempt to intercept the team however, they escaped from the target building but the consequence of it was that the fighting was spilling out into the streets. With Ace Ops moving to intercept them as they all split up to meet up at the rendevouz while fighting Winter, Clover, Elm, and Vine of the Ace Ops. Team BLCK would then escape as soon as they defeated their opponents leaving Atlas behind but even when Atlas was counting the injured or dead innocents caught up in the fighting...

Many of them praised Team BLCK as they went out of their way to save as many as they could while others in Atlas sought their arrest. Despite it now being public information as a team of young hunters Stopping a horrible event. Was unheard of thus when whispers about was going around they became. Remnants Most Infamous Team. As a further surprise they receieved Outsider the Grimm Velociraptor a rare-type Grimm as a new member of the team.

Volume Three-

The Vytal Festival has arrived and Brumel is now hereby a fifth kingdom to now participate in the tournament. As Team BLCK deals with CRDL in the team matches, then Louvel and Corona handles a duo from Mistral. However, before they can enter the finals Eros Ahab an Atelier Paladin hands them a mission coming from the top.

Which the team is conflicted about as they wanted to participate in it, but they agree that if it is another threat that will end Remnant. as a whole then they cannot ignore it. Accepting they ask team RWBY to take over for them as Weiss and Yang were eliminated by a draw against Neon and Flynt to take over for the finals in their stead. Which Team BLCKOUT would discover Professor Merlots hideout as they discuss about how Ruby and her friends dealt with Merlot before.

Only for the bastard to escape and start over again. But this time they discover that they Grimm there are captured rare-types and became cybernetically enhanced creating Cyber-Grimm, and of these cyber Grimm came Outsiders father Alpha, who the young raptor thought was dead was alive. Thus, Team BLCK would make more terrifying discoveries about an old world before this time and about Salem. More or less Cinder Fall being part of this "Cult" as Blade calls it. Yet, one key thing catches their eye...

The Destruction Of Beacon Academy.....

Immediately, Team BLCKOUT is about head out to stop Cinder only to be stopped by Professor Merlot as he calls them out for being threats from earlier. Which Team BLCKOUT deals with him and frees the Cyber Grimm and heads back to Beacon Academy which was under attack as everyone splits up to deal with a certain area....

Louvel would watch with horror as he sees Yangs arm getting sliced off by a powerful Grimm that the White Fang had captured. In which out of rage for his first friend outside of the SHinbaori he would slaughter it, and take Yang to safety.

Corona would come across Blake as the two face off against Adam and Melenia and Miltia of the Spiders as both are pressed to their very limit to the point Blake rolls the dice with a gamble on her semblance helping her and Corona escape as they go to assist in other areas and soon.. out of fear break off with their friends.

Kazura would witness the death of Jaune (Because I hate his ass SO MUCH.) along with Pyrra and Sun who notices how he fought against multiple amounts of Grimm defending the entrance to the chamber of the Fall Maiden who was wounded at the time and died standing up. This enrages Kazura, as he promised to not let anyone else die as he fights so hard he ends up getting a brutal wound from a Grimm that destroys both his shield and armor sending him into a coma.

While Cinder below fights and defeats Ozpin while also claiming the rest of the Fall Maidens power as Blade and Ruby move to intercept her along with Penny as the trio fights her only for the Grimm Titan locked within Mt. Glenn to awaken and escape causing more trouble as it forces our heroes to fight differently as Penny is "killed" by Cinder with Ruby unleashing her Silver Eyes ability for the first time ever.....

Thankfully the two would awaken in Patch after two weeks, which Louvel and Tai Yang filled them in on the situation as Yang is in a deep depression, Blake and Corona are traveling together, and Weiss and Kazura were sent back to their respective kingdoms. As Ruby, Blade, Outsider, Sun, and Pyrra all gather together to travel to Mistral to Haven Academy to continue their training as hunters while Louvel hangs back with Yang to help her.

Yet those this event along with the last one REVIVES SALEM Thus beginning the Age Of Darkness

Volume Four-

Thanks to the two events both being the Founding Crisis and the Fall of Beacon it was enough to awaken Salem from her hibernation, as she plans out the next steps and that was to find the other Maidens of the Seasons and find the relics. As Tyrian is sent out on his mission while Cinder who had recently lost and arm and an eye, because of both the combined efforts of Ruby and Blade. Which team SPNL, Ruby, Blade and Outsider travel along Anima meeting new friends and new enemies along the way.

In Brumel, Kazura awakens after a four month coma as he regains his strength and decides to go back to Atlas and Mantle only to see things have grown worse across Remnant over time as he has to make a massive decision along with Weiss as the two are both heirs to a family... with Weiss losing her heiress status after arguing with her father, and Kazura realizing that he may not be welcome in the Solitas Region if he reactivates the Atelier Agent Program which he does stating that Remnant needs heroes now more than ever.

as he goes to Mistral to rejoin his friends at Mistral believing that they are heading to Haven or Sanctuary Academy.

Louvel and Yang would start training together after Yang finds the courage to fight again after realizing that even with a disability she can still rise above. As the two would grow closer throughout their training as she learns a little more about Louvel. Only for a screecher to tell Louvel that his brother Orochi was killed in action, leaving Louvel depressed and saddened that he lost another close friend of his...... as Yang would do the same thing he did for her, to help him rise above...as in Menagerie Corona and Blake discover a controversy about the White Fang now joining forces with the remnants of Icarus PMC to destroy Haven Academy but furthermore discovering that someone else is playing a puppeteer towards the White Fang.

Back with SPNL, Ruby and Blade and Outsider. They would encounter the Scion of Poison, Tyrian as they all fight him but with struggle as he calls himself the second ranked Scion amongst the Scions of Salem. Despite this... Qrow would come to assist and in turn getting poisoned as Hermes an Atelier Agent also comes to assist as well which shocks Tyrian noticing how Hermes continously heals even after "killing" him.

Afterwards, Rubys gang would encounter the Grimm Terror the Banshee Nucklavee as they struggle to destroy the beast. Only for Lie Ren and Nora being the ones to finish it off as they too had encountered it years ago. Thankfully they were rescued by the Mistralian Defense Force as they were taken to Mistral.

Louvel would receive an urgent request from the Shinbaori to return to Menagerie as White Fang activity there has increased with Louvel saying his farewells to Yang with one final training session and a botched confession.

Volume 5-

Blade and the gang arrive at Haven Academy meeting with Professor Leonardo Lionheart and his assistant Frankurter Van Gogh. Which Qrow and everyone believes that the Scions of Salem are planning on targeting the Spring Maiden and that it is key to find them and claim victory over the Scions of Salem. In which they attempt a search party both in and out of Mistral, but with Ruby and Blade, Qrow talks about how Professor Lionheart was more rambunctious and extroverted back when he was younger. Which Ruby and Blade asks questions about him and one about Summer and him. Which Qrow says that he and Summer were firm friends as she gave him courage and in return he gave her bravery.

Meanwhile, Yang and Kazura arrives in the Anima Region running into eachother when they notice bandits are attacking a village which they fight as hard as they could until getting overwhelmed until they counter the Spring Maiden, Vernal who is part of the bandits and later on reveals that it is Ravens bandits. As Yang is shocked to see her mother after all this time at first she is ready to become lethal with her but Kazura stops her as the trio talks about Ozpin and what he is not what they think he is and how Summer was a great individual despite her shortcomings. In which as a promise Raven would open a portal up as Yang would agree to ask Raven about where she was all this time only when the time came.

Thus reuniting with Blade and Outsider along with Ruby.

Next, back in Menagerie, Louvel would reunite with Corona and Blake, as the trio go up to the mountains to consult with his father and to recieve instructions. Which he would be surprised as Louvel would discover more about his grandfathers illness worsening as he was unaware of it. Which he feels he is about to lose someone else as they start to recruit people to make a stand against the White Fang and to intercept the strike force planning on attacking Haven Academy.

Yet while this is going on Adam "kills" Sienna to warn the Shinbaori about the attack as they were paid off by Icarus PMC and being manipulated by the Scions of Salem in order to awaken ANOTHER Grimm Terror in Mistral. This leads into the joint-force of the White Fang and Icarus PMC remnants attacking Menagerie and destroying homes along the way... but this enrages Louvel as he slaughters them without mercy entering the Violent Wolf State

Thankfullly he would be forcefully exited out of thanks to his grandfathers semblance, in which Louvel would embrace his grandfather apologizing to him tearfully as he holds him in his arms. Stating about how he has worsened things, but his grandfather reminds Louvel that mistakes are a plenty and that they are lessons to be learned. In which Louvel understands as he is granted permission to utilize his rage against the White Fang and the Scions of Salem.

In which Blake and Ilia would finally talk and end things between them and finally join forces to go face off against the White Fang and the Scions together. Back in Menagerie the Scions of Salem had already found the Spring Maiden, but Raven returns from Menagerie after a chat with Lionheart reminding him of his pride and how he once was a proud warrior and that there is nothing to fear when he is surrounded by allies.

In which Lionheart understands and when the day of the attack comes he joins forces with the Guardians of the Light (Ozpins faction) and explains he sent the Hunters away from Mistral in order to save their lives in which he not only collaborated with Salem but went against her as well. Shocking Cinder and her crew as the battle of Haven Academy begins.

Thankfully with both forces being intercepted this leads to a final showdown between Raven, Louvel and Yang versus Cinder who killed Vernal but discovered that she transferred the power of the Spring Maiden to Raven. As Raven reveals that after the death of the former Spring Maiden Twelve Years ago.. and with one of the Scions stating that Yang was only but a child, Raven had no choice but to leave and kill any Scion of Salem who had plans to abduct or kill Yang until she learned how to defender herself. which is what Taiyang feared about talking with Yang as he did not know how she would react. To which Yang understood Ravens fears hugging her mother and thanking her for protecting her even if she didnt know it was her.

As the two make up with Raven, Louvel, and Yang taking the Relic of Knowledge and successfully claiming a key victory for the Guardians of the Light as, Louvel passes out from being pushed to his limit combined with using the Violent Wolf State.

[bluekat12345]

Pokemon Scarlet DLC: Indigo Disk review

(This will contain spoilers for Indigo Disk DLC for Pokemon Scarlet. Do Not Read if you don't want to be spoiled.)

This was epic! This was worth the wait, and it was amazing!

First off, Blueberry Academy looked great, I loved the uniforms we get, winter being my favorite, and all the Pokémon that was there, totally nostalgia! I really liked the way the school was designed, though I'm not sure if having a dorm room was really necessary, but i do appreciate having. While it looks like the one in Paldea, I do like the blue colors, since blue is my favorite color.

Though the battles were crazy tough, even my team of level 100 pokemon struggled and fainted. I don't understand why all the battles needed to be double battles. I know the school is really focused on battling, but surely more single battles wouldn't hurt.

Speaking of pokemon, the Pokémon you can get were amazing. I saw so many of my favorite pokemon from previous games here. While I didn't use the Pokémon much during the storyline, I did catch some, and even managed to train some to win in the Academy Ace Tournament. I was super happy to see the Alolan pokemon here! Haven't gotten any starters, but I'm not really focusing too much on those. While I'm still not sure about Archaludon, I found myself impressed with Hydrapple, I'm glad Dripplin got another evolution, makes me want to get one myself.

I also liked the characters. The BB Elite Four were great, but Drayton, I have mixed feelings about him, since I get what he was trying to do, but I felt like he didn't need to rub in Kieran's loss when the guy was already down. I was happy to see Carmine, certainly a better attitude than when we first met her and she seems like she's genuinely trying to help her brother and be a better sister to him. And of course Kieran, he is completely different than he was in the Teal Mask, but I still liked him. And like Carmine, I was actually worried about him and that grew as the story progressed. I actually felt bad beating him as BB League Champion. And when we went to Area Zero, I felt bad when Terapagos was about to go to me. I was actually a bit disappointed when even after he caught it, we still had to be the ones to keep it, but I'm glad he didn't mind that time. I hope to see the two siblings again soon. And Briar, I knew she was too obsessed with confirming Heath's findings in Area Zero, but I'm genuinely surprised she wasn't a surprised villain, especially how she was encouraging Kieran to catch and use Terapagos. Bit disappointed to be wrong about that, but I'll survive.

And of course, the storyline was amazing. I love how it picks up from where Teal Mask left off, with Kieran obsessed with getting stronger and Carmine wanting us to help us. I felt that was really well handled, especially with how things between us and Kieran would seem to get worse before finally getting better. The DLC handled our relationships quite well. However, I felt the actually Indigo Disk wasn't as focused on as the actually Teal mask was in its DLC. Like, the Teal Mask was more connected to Ogrepon while I felt the Indigo Disk had very little to do with Terapagos, aside from giving us access to the deeper levels of Area Zero to find it. Plus, the way we get the Disk was a bit anticlimactic to me, since Geeta just gives it to us, I was hoping the Inidigo Disk would be more a part of Terapagos or its backstop, but nope. Still, seeing more of Area Zero was beautiful and I want to explore more of it.

I honestly don't really have much to say about the club room or those BBQs. I'll do them if I'm bored, but I'm not too invested. It's cool to be able to change our throwing style, though.

Overall, this was amazing and worth the wait. Can't wait to explore more of Blueberry Academy.

[marztheincredible]

So building off that, is the underdeveloped bile sac and lack of a second stomach normal among former humans on the isles, or does it vary by the individual transformation? Have there been other former humans who gained the ability to cast spell circles?

Also, this is more of a “what if” kind of question, but if Luz had ended up with a phenotype/more demon-y traits, what do you think she would have gained? I’ve always pictured her as having at least horns and a tail, personally (even before canon did the horns with her Titan form haha)

Ya first answer, Caleb ended up the same as Luz, one stomach and undeveloped bile sac. Its standard. Outwardly, other Witches and Demons wouldn’t be able to tell a changed human from Witch. Only the insides would give away something is up! Now say if you had human who survived lung cancer, and entered the isles and was Blessed. They would have a fully developed Bile Sac, because from their pneumonectomy or lung resection, they would now have enough space for the Bile sac to grow more thus a more effective pump!

If Luz was lucky (or unlucky depending how you see it) to gain a phenotype for her evolution, we’d be on the same wave length! Shed take after her little brother! Short horns and maybe some retractable claws. If we leaned REALLY heavy on being the last bit of will the Titan pushed onto her, id probably have patches of Luz’s skin thicken into bone on her shoulders and upper arms for a partial skeleton armor vibe hmm.

[letteredlettered]

Fic Rec

Lament, by @kianspo

The premise of this fic is that WWX never comes back. LWJ as well as LXC and LSH feature. I thought that LXC’s and LSH’s parts would focus on LWJ’s grief, but this fic does something different with them.

I generally don’t want to read about the fragile beauty of making peace with grief. To me, reading about that feels more upsetting than whatever caused the grief in the first place, even though acceptance is healthy and necessary. In fact, perhaps it’s because it’s healthy and necessary that I find it so upsetting. If I’m going to read a sad fic, I want to wallow in agony, not be healthy! That said, this fic handled that differently than I was expecting, and made me feel good about everything in the end, which is pretty nice for a sad!fic.

Here are the things this fic made me think about. Slight spoilers for the story are contained herein:

LWJ. I’ve talked before about how one of my favorite things about LWJ is that he moves on. I always think of that as part of his resilience and strength, but in this fic, his decision to move on isn’t about strength, really. It isn’t a decision at all. It’s because he’s an animal.

The fact that LWJ is an animal isn’t explicitly mentioned in the fic and isn’t really what the fic is about. But the fact remains that humans are all animals, and animals are biological, and biology is a product of evolution, and life that survives happens to survive because it has mechanisms to survive. Humans like to think that we are stories, and we tell ourselves stories of who we are, and when our story is destroyed, we think that we should be destroyed too.

We forget that we have bodies, and our bodies want things for us—not just food and water and sleep. Our bodies want us to love our brothers and teach our children. Our hearts and minds want that for us, even when sometimes our conscious understanding can’t. That’s what LWJ in this story is.

LXC. Because I thought this story would focus on LWJ’s grief, I didn’t consider the range of time it might cover, which extends past the events of canon. One of LXC’s lovers murdered his other lover, among other things. LXC has his own grief, and he handles it in a completely different way than LWJ, because grief takes many forms and many shapes. The story doesn't directly discuss all the different ways we handle grief but instead shows it beautifully.

LSH. I might’ve told this story before, but once when I was maybe eight, my mom was telling me about something she and her best friend did in high school. I’d never heard of this best friend or ever even thought about my mom in high school. I asked her if she still talked to her friend, and she said probably not. I asked why, and my mom said she’d moved away and had a different life now.

Later that night I thought about it, and I cried and cried. I was heartbroken that there were things about my mom I didn’t know. I was also heartbroken that she had a different life now, that because she had her life here with me and my dad and my brothers in the place where we lived, she couldn’t also have a life with her best friend where she used to live. I was also heartbroken about the fact that I couldn’t witness or be there for the life that she had had. Basically, I was heartbroken over the fact that time exists and mind melds don't.

I think the shattering revelation that people have their own internal lives is something that’s kind of hard to hold in your brain at all times. I think it’s particularly hard for children, which makes it almost impossible to do when it comes to your parents. They’re just . . . there. They’ve always been there. A fact of existence. They do the things they do, and sometimes it’s very hard to understand that they do them for their own internal specific reasons, rather than that’s how the universe itself was built.

This is LSH in this fic. He continually is faced with the fact that his father is his own person who is built on his own history. LSH wonders about it, and yet his mind also slips off of it, because that’s just the way his father is.

But as we grow older, we often begin to understand our parents more and more. In so doing, we often begin to understand more and more about ourselves, and that’s also what this fic is about.

[wiedzmacienia]

HEADCANON: SCARS

Katarzyna, having been trained as a warrior with the Knights and fought in various conflicts, wars, and altercations largely involving melee combat with both supernatural creatures and humans and having lived for over 600 years by the present time, has various scars which litter her body. And not every wound left a lasting mark. Typically most of these scars are not visible on a daily basis as she keeps them largely covered though various states of undress or clothing choices would reveal them.

Despite being very old, she has not been intimate with many people and as such, she has proved to have various emotions and self-consciousness about the scars which color her body. This was more prominent in the past given period typical ideals of woman and that most women outside of the order (depending on location and culture) did not engage in battles and were not expected to have scarring in the manner she has. That said, she has come to see the marks on her skin in a prideful way in the sense of them telling her story and being the marks of a survivor not a victim. Each wound is something she survived, something she overcame and used as a lesson.

The ones most often noticed are the discoloration on her wrists, the ones near her collarbones, and ones on her arms as those are harder to conceal and often peek out of her clothes.

Those marked below in the darker color all transpired pre-1893 and many of them are the result of dealing with various supernatural beings who crossed the lines of rules that governed the shadow world though some are from human conflicts. Also featured in her lifespan previous to this time are the brown color scars which are more faint and less visible from far away. They are scars healed better than the others or began to fade where as the other ones were often not treated quickly, were treated in the field or poorly and left more lasting marks; they are much lighter in color against her skin and mostly seen up close. Namely, the claw-like marks on her left arm came from a battle during the Ame.rican Rev.olutionary W.ar on the day her forces solidified the alliance with Washington. Her body, with the exception of her torture a century later, received less scars due to the evolution in the nature of type of fighting she engaged in and advances in treating wounds. The scars marked by red below all transpired post-1893 and most were the product of her capture and torture for information by witch hunters in 1893, the majority of them having been done to her by James who had deceptively become involved with her and had captured her before her brother was able to aid in her escape. All of these scars are of a burn nature, the worst of which are the cross brand on her back and the permanent discoloration around her wrists and ankles where she was bound by binds laced with a substance which harms witches, the length of time she was bound with it causing scar like discoloration to the pigment of her skin in those areas enough to be noticeable if one looked as since she has rather pale skin, this appears in a faint purple-ish marking.

[docpiplup]

Toledo La Ciudad de los Muertos

Part 3- Chapter I. Funerary practices in ancient times (Click here for the second part)

Chapter I. Funerary practices in ancient times

Funeral practices begin at the moment when humans believe in survival after death, adopting an attitude of fear, love and respect for those who leave life. With homo sapiens a metaphysical beginning appears when applying the ritual of burial. However, in this stage of the advanced Paleolithic, cannibalism and incineration are not banished. In the Mesolithic, only the skulls of those buried are found, proof of the importance given to this part of the human body with respect to the others. In this same period we also find groups of burials, which makes us think about the existence of organized primitive cemeteries, that is, necropolises, which tells us about the existence of cities of the dead before they died. the living were organized in them, having to wait for the arrival of the Neolithic. Some authors affirm that "for nearly five thousand years, the living have dedicated themselves to thinking about the dead before themselves" (Grilletto).

Humans, from the first stages of their intelligent presence on Earth, have thought about death and the afterlife.

In their cultural evolution they have been weaving, through religious beliefs, superstitions and myths, a system to maintain at least some hope in the existence of a supraterrestrial life where they would inhabit immaterially.

Some civilizations thought that by preserving the body from destruction they would enjoy a spiritual life conditioned on the material maintenance of the remains. Embalming techniques were then developed in those places where special climatic conditions did not allow natural mummification.

This belief spread throughout all continental civilizations, where different ethnicities and cultures applied very diver-

ses to maintain mummified bodies: from systems such as drying using the sun and smoke to more sophisticated techniques that we all know in the Egyptian, Babylonian and Western world. All of them have tried to imitate Nature when it has surprised them with the natural conservation of corpses.

Mummies, for example, are typical of all civilizations, since their artificial preparation would respond to universally accepted religious beliefs or the will of the deceased.

Mummification process in ancient Egypt

Sometimes spontaneous mummification gave rise to the development of new concepts that ended up in doctrines linked to the supernatural and the closeness of the deceased to divinity.

In Toledo we also found phenomena of spontaneous mummification, as we will see later, although these were never associated with any ritual.

The Holy Scriptures also collect very ancient testimonies about funerary practices. Family tombs and embalmings appear in Genesis itself.

Sarah, the wife of the patriarch Abraham was buried in a field that her husband bought from Ephron the Hittite in Makpelah, near Hebron, and was deposited in a cave where Abraham also found rest. Likewise, his son Isaac and his wife Rebeca were buried in the same place, creating what we could call a family burial. The son of the above was Jacob, father of twelve children who died in Egypt at the age of 147, asking to be buried with his parents and grandparents in the cave of Makpelá, more than 600 km away, so his body was embalmed, "then he commissioned the doctors who were under his command to embalm his father; and the doctors embalmed Jacob. They spent forty days on it, because this is the time it takes to embalm, and the Egyptians wept for sixty days" (Genesis, 50, 1-3). All of Joseph's brothers took Jacob to the family vault, near Hebron. Also upon the death of Joseph, and after the Israelites left Egypt, they took his embalmed body to the field purchased by Abraham.

Passages about burials are frequent in the Old Testament. In the Book of Kings or in the Book of Tobias, stories related to Jewish burials in Babylon are told: "...when you prayed with tears and buried the dead and you got up from the table half-eaten and hid day by day the corpses in your house and you buried them at night, I presented your prayers to the Lord" (Tobias, 12, 12-13).

These practices of uniting the family after death, which remained deeply rooted in the Jewish people, passed on to Christianity, reaching our culture after a journey of centuries, often conditioning the social and cultural manifestations themselves regarding Christian burials.