#anyway i don't really think the empire is entirely the problem if it is part of it

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

soooo is this man implying it's the empire that was the problem with uwu fodlan's border problems?

'cause i mean. that's basically what he just said.

[gffa]

Hi Lumi! I’m the anon who asked about your thoughts on the sequel trilogy. Thanks for your answer! It made me kind of want to rewatch TROS with this new lens because I do get what you said about the bones of the movie being good. Another thing your post got me thinking about was the concept of “The Chosen One” because I know a lot of people were frustrated that the sequel trilogy seemed to throw Anakin’s last act of bringing balance to the Force out the window. And I got to thinking that nowhere in the originals or prequels does it state that once Anakin brings balance, there will always be balance. Unfortunately, evil rises again. Anakin brought balance and it’s not his fault things became unbalanced again. That doesn’t diminish the moment and impact of his sacrifice. And with Anakin dead and Luke not in a place to answer the Force’s call, the Force needed to find a new Chosen One. And years after the sequel trilogy takes place, there will probably be a new threat that needs a new hero to be called. I kind of like the idea of there being a sort of community of Chosen Ones rather than one person carrying all of that. Anyway, I’ve written a mini essay in your inbox so I’ll sign off now. Thank you for all you do!

Hi again! To be fair, I can't make the movie more polished than it is, it's always going to feel like so much wasted potential, but I do genuinely like the bones of what's there and will always defend that. As for the "Chosen One" thing, that's exactly my view of things, too! Rey being a Chosen One doesn't take away from Anakin being a Chosen One, because, like, what is balance of the Force? It's when there's stability and light in the galaxy. It doesn't mean that the actions of one single Jedi fix all the problems, it means they take the Sith Lord out and the galaxy has to help heal things. Anakin killing Palpatine doesn't mean the Empire suddenly implodes, it means that without the Emperor there, the Rebellion can get to work on establishing the New Republic, it means everyday people can start cleaning up the mess of the Empire. Anakin is the Chosen One meant to destroy the Sith and balance can be restored through that. But what happens when the galaxy gets lazy and the New Republic isn't proactive enough? What happens when people decide to rest on Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa's laurels? Evil rises again. And looking around the world today, that's an incredibly salient message, especially when this movie came out. "Oh, we beat the Nazis in the previous generation, we don't have to pay attention to that anymore!" Yeah, we fucking do. And Luke's not there to be called on to defeat the rise of the First Order, he's cut himself off from the Force. So, the Force chooses a new Chosen One, Rey, and puts her in the position this time, she destroys the Sith, but the galaxy still has to rise up and help her on the bigger stuff. One Jedi cannot defeat the entire oppressive regime, but everyone in the galaxy standing up to fight back against the First Order? That is what balance should be. Rey removes the Sith Lord, so that the rest of the galaxy can help each other again. Because I don't think one Sith Lord can be the sum total of what determines balance. The Force lives in everything, every living thing has the Force moving through it, every living thing contributes to the Force. If the quintillions of people in the galaxy are suffering, if they're angry at the state of what's happening, if they're hurting, then how can that not affect the Force? One Jedi can't fix all that, but if Rey gets rid of the Sith Lord and the rest of the galaxy says, yes, we are going to help this time, we're determined, we're going to hold on to hope, we're going to fight to help others, which they can do because the worst part of the catalyzing of those feelings is gone? Then I really love that as a message. Rey being a Chosen One doesn't take anything away from Anakin being the Chosen One of his time, because they're not the sole determiners of the Force. Everyone has to do their part, no matter how big or small, that fits the theme of "balance" so much better imo.

[buckybarnesss]

This is sort of an out of left field question- but what are your thoughts on Peter and Talia being half or step siblings?

Obviously, they don’t look alike very much. And clearly genes are funky things and this is not damning evidence. But I think it’s a very personal hc to me bc I myself have a half brother who I love very much, but it does influence our interactions.

One thing I constantly think about is Peter being an unreliable narrator. And what we see of Laura from his pov is different than Scott and Stiles finding her body. Is he imagining she’s blond and looks more like him? Yeah sure this could just be casting inaccuracies. But it feels very personal lol.

Has Peter always felt a degree of distance with his family? Where did the idea of him being Talia’s left hand come from? Wouldnt he have been there in the alpha pack flash back if that was the case? Was he younger than Laura? This also brings to mind Papa Hale (who I like to imagine was a human part of the pack/another pack before him and Talia were in a relationship). Was Talia always a Hale? Or married in?

Anyway, I have many thoughts and questions. But I really appreciate your analysis and insight. Joining a fandom past its prime (affectionate) is sort of like being in the apocalypse where 80% of the fandom is dead, and finding a ‘survivor’ is a miracle. Anyway, if you feel like it, I would love your thoughts on it all :3

if laura hale is my roman empire than talia and peter's relationship is my holy roman empire.

@dear-massacre and i talk about this quite frequently. it's a problem fam.

i do have a talia hale and peter hale and the hale family feels tags.

we don't really have any information other than some crumbs jeff has thrown us within canon.

in my opinion talia is the hale. there's no other option put forth. derek's father is such a non-entity that there's zero mention of him. the hales are clearly an old family of werewolves and were part of the very founding of beacon hills itself likely connected to the nemeton.

not to mention, season 3 has a lot to do with derek learning from and accepting talia's legacy and the legacy of the hale family. it also directly contrasts the argents. the argents pay lip service to being matriarchal but we know gerard has been calling the shots for decades whereas it seems as though the hales actually were.

so when you get down to it you can pretty much headcanon anything you want for how the exact specifics of how talia and peter are related but what we do know is talia was the older sibling and peter the younger.

peter doesn't actually talk about talia very much if at all. however, his monolog in monstrous is quite illuminating on peter's headspace while he was in a coma and pre-resurrection.

i predicted this. i told-i told talia this was going to happen... something like this was going to happen... i said that they were gonna come for us... " the argents, they're gonna come for us. they're gonna burn us to the ground-- burn us to the ground." did she listen? of course not! did anyone listen? they listened to her-- yes!-- say that everything was going to be fine. that we were all perfectly safe...perfectly safe... but she made us weak! she made us weak. and what happens to the weakest in the herd? they get picked off by the predators! we used to be the apex predators, until talia turned us into sheep.

with that said i do have my own ideas on their relationship given what we know. visionary is the episode that does the heavy lifting in the entire goddamn show in regards to this.

the age inconsistency comes from bringing back the younger actor from season 2 to play peter in visionary. it makes peter appear closer to derek's age than he actually is. i think it's almost part of peter's manipulations. it's his attempt to manipulate the audience as well just like he did lydia.

there's just simply no way talia hale didn't know about peter's everything. she was not only his older sister but she was his alpha. i think peter and talia may have been more similar than people want to believe.

peter is a lot of things. many of them contradictory. he loved his sister and clearly mourned her but that doesn't mean he didn't resent her just a little. he did still after all go with derek to retrieve her claws and i think there's something twisted up in him about how derek resembles her and begins to become more like her.

when you begin to sort of dig into what we know about the hale family the more one begins to question if talia was as benevolent as people assume she was. there's some seriously morally questionable things that occurred. talia did some shady things.

the real big one is that she coerced corrine into carrying her pregnancy with malia to term. the likely explanation is talia did this because she knew this would decrease corrine's power.

corrine is pretty explicit about this with what she says to malia:

you know, your real name isn't malia. you don't have a name. talia hale took you away from me before i could give you one.

and

corrine: i'm not going to stop, malia. i'm taking back what you stole from me. malia: i didn't steal anything. corrine: but you did. corrine: and I don't care if you're a willing participant or not. talia hale spent nine months trying to convince me of the miracle of childbirth. you know what it really felt like? a parasite. talia said it was a gift, that the coyote passes down part of her power to her daughter. she called it "beautiful." i call it "theft."

she also took peter's memories of malia's existence which considering peter's reaction doesn't seem like he had much say in. so in effect talia removed peter's agency.

she probably felt she had valid reason for doing these things. corrine was a threat and dangerous person but still it's really, really questionable. it still ended with malia's adoptive mother and sister being killed and malia going missing for years because corrine was vengeful over losing her power. talia was still alive when this happened.

of all people talia had to be aware of peter's -- you know -- everything and she probably held the leash. he wasn't a problem so long as she was the alpha and could control him.

talia also had to have been aware of and likely either approved of or encouraged him taking a mentor sort of role with derek. we see peter having a keen interest in derek in both visionary and the season 4 flashbacks.

like, who do we think ran off and told talia about what happened with derek and paige? who likely instructed peter on getting rid of paige's body and helping to cover up her death to protect derek and the family?

i actually fully believe she knew peter was skulking about the werewolf summit and may have even told him to do so.

talia is like the mona lisa smile of teen wolf. she's inscrutable but we get impressions about her and what she was like via the people that knew her. her children, her brother, her advisor and peers.

[myrmica]

[#was this base they built just never used after this] great news there is at least literally Once more 😆,29/11 "A New Empire" v=7HIQ6Lg9r1I summary: mostly just mapicc wrangling villagers at the other snowy mountain base "I'm still gonna be evil but people can live in my country if they'd like" ... Mapicc did. make a shrine. of Zam's 2 dropped items like they were talking about. "to our fallen comrade" chat asks if he was *banned*, which, legit! why are you phrasing it like this!

anon ask continued:

"guys I miss Prince Zam this is usually what Zam would be doing and I would just be like making jokes but now I have to actually contribute" 😂 // 33:28-34:15 the problems with playing on 20 hearts (✨i love counter-intuitive ~dynamics) // 47:40-48:16 "I miss Zam. [...] I don't think he does [miss us back]" // 1:02:28-38 Mapicc, having decided to go to spawn to see Zam "I'm not afraid of Zam. I'm afraid of the encounter ... Not afraid of Zam. Not in the slightest." ok (Zam is not visible at spawn. Dirt blocks that haven't grown grass yet are at spawn.) (goes to End, disapproves of the Space Adventure set dressing (netherrack and cobblestone)) // 1:13:27 mapicc being The Evil One is good marketing for his videos (@ brain see you should take the unconvincingness as deliberate) [the genuine belief that zam was being honest about his motives there deteriorated over time] this is why i gave in to Clipblog Urge instead of trying for only summarising to be more space-efficient, see 1:15:05->16:41, which hits: -- I wish we didn't do this [Zamfight] -- If he had restocked he would have been fine. I really don't think it was impossible for him to win, he had duped items—so much more than us. [chat: isn't restocking banned?] The guy was duping, like I don't expect him to - follow the rules -- I don't think we needed to fight. I think it was Ro's fault, I think Ro left him out way too much—that entire time he was being so dumb he was like yeah dude it's a Duality Duo I was supposed to convince Mapicc and that's my fault. Like, Zam is a part of the team too bro, you're being dumb. like... hm. sure, "Zam felt ~left out of Team Awesome" was part of it—though boy Mapicc sure was saying literally yesterday that Spoke made Zam feel left out, which I am reading as a) when talking to Other Lifestealers and not Team or chat he's not going to badmouth Roshambo but Spoke doesn't expect/need that; b) whatever name he puts in that slot - never Mapicc —but, man, is that his understanding of Zam's attitude to ~the rules? (when i listened i thought it absolutely was and now staring at the bare words i'm not sure. lol.) because. if you thought zam's entire or supermajority problem was not being valued/listened to/part of decisions, and not very much the exploits themselves... well. you might think that [not listening to zam about] the duping hurt zam, and also that he might have got rid of them the same way that roshambo 'got rid of them'. ...or you might have eclipse federation problems. ✨narrative coherence. (sorry for the ask spam, trying to send it all in one broke... so many times. 😅)

(no problem! i've consolidated them all for convenience anyway, as you can see :D)

WHAT AN INTERESTING ONE. i think mapicc makes a lot of sense here in relation to his later actions, and it's notable because this happens explicitly before the idea to get back at zam the way he ultimately will has fully occurred to him: “Spoke knows where Zam’s base is. I could pay him a visit. You know how eerie that would be? What if i did that.”

and in the meantime, before he does decide to pay that visit, he's poking around at other story ideas so to speak. like, "what if i built all this stuff and recruited a bunch of people?" which obviously goes nowhere. but it's crazy that, okay, zam betrays team awesome leaving just mapicc and ro, two players. supposedly (in zam's mind at least) doing this fixes an imbalance in the way things were before, where he was left out, where it was always Mapicc and Ro before it was him. but mapicc opens his very second stream after that betrayal with: "Team awesome is no longer a strictly two player team. Out here is going to be the biggest community of lifesteal members ever."

(side note, you're right: mapicc standing in front of a sign that reads "to our fallen comrade," answering the question "is zam banned???" with "WHAT? NO. WHERE DID YOU GET THAT FROM?" is killing me.)

like, everything in these two mapicc streams before the shoe drops point to a different kind of narrative than the one we wind up with, but hints are still there. it's sort of a perfect storm; showing up at zam's base would be interesting, and mapicc plays into being the evil one because it's entertaining and memorable, and then zam reacts Like That, which is definitely entertaining and memorable. it all builds on itself. you have mapicc alone out here bemoaning the fact that zam isn't there to do the things he's used to zam doing in his life, honoring him by hanging those items up, privately blaming ro for his not being there anymore, realizing that he knows how to get zam's base coords...

the thing about him blaming ro in private but not to other people's faces is a really good point; take the scene much later where he convinces zam to settle their conflict on mapicc-terms for example, he's rhetorically treating him and ro as a unit because that's what will get the result he wants. so he goes from buying into zam's argument about the duped items being wrong when it's useful to get ro to do what he wants, and then drops it again when he's alone with chat. i think it's like, regardless of what he does or doesn't understand about zam's driving values here, it's more beneficial to mapicc to assume that zam still has duped items/doesn't actually care; it places him in a more versatile position, it can justify his actions when he needs them justified ("he had a chance, more than you guys think." and here it seems relevant that being alone with chat is different from really being alone with himself, which then raises the question of whether a 'character' on ls can exist in the same way without the camera? i think the camera is part of the process through which the character happens in some cases. schrodinger's mapicc. that's besides the point.)

it's really funny the degree to which zam will constantly say he's wrong for things he doesn't actually think he's wrong for in s4, while mapicc will never admit he's wrong for anything even if privately he knows he might be.

[redpenship]

I was wondering from in your Buzzsaw Dilemma fanfic, if Sonic may have developed lasting insecurities specifically over steadily becoming more powerless to stop Eggman. Sure the Empire became a lot less bad, but it seemed from Sonics pov that just kinda happened. Meanwhile the consequences became too dangerous for him to destroy most of Eggmans structure and badniks. Even if he'd hide it I think that powerlessness could greatly bother him.

Though i've just realized that you'll probably have more to show about how Sonic handled everything in the sequel fic you're planning. So I'm not sure how much you'd wanna reveal about your ideas here.

This is definitely going to be part of Sonic's story in the sequel, but none of it will be surprising to the reader anyways so I don't mind talking about it. If anything, I would literally spoil the entire sequel if you asked me to, I don't actually care very much haha.

[long post ahead]

I've always kind of believed that Sonic has a somewhat worse time than Tails during the events of the fic, particularly in the sense that although Tails' situation sucks absolute ass, he's at least in the loop about what's really going on. Sonic's perspective is rather bleak: a kid he's growing fond of suddenly dies, and then a couple of weeks later he loses any ability to fight back against Eggman. He has a small victory on Angel Island, but this is ultimately short-lived.

Chapters 4-6 are important for his character, since he really just experiences loss after loss with no ability to stop it. His attempt to hide the Chaos Emeralds results in Amy losing her home, and any guilt he feels over this is only made worse by Eggman winning the fight for the emeralds in the end anyways. Sonic isn't stupid--at this point, he's well aware that he was tricked into collecting the emeralds for Eggman. However, he definitely feels kind of stupid, and especially frustrated with himself for basically ruining Amy's life (even if it wasn't really his fault).

Shortly after, he tags along with Amy and Knuckles on their base raids, but the exploding Badniks make him effectively useless and all he can really do it support the others during their fights. This makes Sonic feel really bad for a few reasons: 1) He can't do anything. 2) The way he sees it, Amy and Knuckles were both kind of dragged into this because of him and it isn't fair that they have to do all the heavy-hitting for him. 3) He is now aware that Eggman is a bit "smarter" so to speak, but doesn't know what he's planning and isn't confident enough in himself to start guessing. The base raids are a band-aid solution to what he knows will be a much bigger problem down the line.

These three points kind of compound into more guilt and frustration when Eggman traps Knuckles on Angel Island. Sonic is pretty certain that Eggman is lying about the bombs, but remains unable to convince Knuckles, who can very easily point to the exploding badniks as proof that Eggman isn't above making this kind of play. Sonic continues to largely blame himself here, as he believes that if he could still defeat badniks, Eggman never would have become successful enough to control someone as he did Knuckles.

Chapter six onwards is when the broader world dynamics come into play. Sonic is very aware of the planet's recent history--the flashback in chapter 2 isn't Sonic giving Tails a nickname, but rather a real "Mobian" name since Miles is English--and knows what it would mean to have Eggman take over the east pacific islands. It's worth noting that Vanilla's story about the fire only happened around seven years before Sonic was born, so you are free to consider the implications of what it means for Sonic to have grown up as parentless kid on South (or Christmas) Island.

After Eggman takes over the islands, and especially after the human states take over the other Mobian territories, is the point where I think he would feel the most powerless. His inability to stop Eggman caused a domino effect leading to the complete domination of his planet. Both Sonic and Tails feel responsible for letting this happen, as though they were both mutually enabling the empire and other states.

The reveal of Alhazen's identity, while a relief to Sonic, also only serves to reaffirm all his insecurity about being the cause of the empire's success. Not only was he powerless to stop everything going on, but he now knows that Tails had been caught in the chemical factory because Sonic hadn't been keeping a close enough eye on him. Tails might think "oh, I was the gasoline, I enabled Eggman and served as the key to the empire's success", but Sonic blames himself for Tails being in that position in the first place. The creation of Alhazen is a direct result of a single mistake: running ahead and forgetting to let the little kid behind him catch up.

Although Mobians in general kinda end up in a better place thanks to Tails' deterrence, the fact that he was incapable of doing anything to help during such a critical moment (well, "moment" meaning basically anything from chapter 4 onward) is going to stick with him probably for the rest of his life. Poor Sonic </3

(very long post haha. ty for your question!!!)

[dave2olkat]

Some plot ideas I have for Gold Pilot (The Davesolkat Time Loop Rebellion AU):

The MAGE ~ATH code, aka, the thing that causes the time loop, can send either someone's mind or a physical item to the next iteration. At the start of the fic, it's about the 21th Loop

Sollux on Loop #1 got helmed. That's the loop were Karkat was executed a la Sufferer.

It is unclear how long it took Sollux #1 to develop the code to do that, could be days, could be centuries, but he ends up sending his conscience back in time for Loops 2 and 3. It. Was not nice.

So now he just sends this grub database instead! It keeps all the information without the ugly memories, yay

Young Sollux gets it everytime at age 13 and he updates and works on it through his life until he inevitably fails, gets helmed, and has to send the file back to himself, cue: starting the loop again.

A huge part of each iteration is "how do ii keep my friiend2 from kiilliing eachother help" because he's discovered that he needs ALL of them to maybe successfully save Karkat and the rebellion.

How does Sollux achieve this? Simple, by Sim Date mechanics. Sollux basically has a walkthrough on what to do to become super good friends (or more? Lmao) with basically everyone

This accidentally turns Sollux into the conciliatory quadrant town two-wheel device every. Goddamn time.

It's mainly because while he's like that with everyone he doesn't really ACTUALLY have pale feelings for any of them, so yeah, he's developed a reputation as a heartbreaker (diamond breaker?) And a player. Which he isn't! But yeah, everyone thinks he is.

In Time Loop #21, when Dave starts working on his ship with Sollux, this information is told to him my multiple people like "yeah Sol is basically a huge slut, watch out and don't develop feelings"

Somehow the fact that that's only for CONCILIATORY quadrants doesn't click on his human head so yeah, he just assume his guy Captor has. Slept with everyone in his friend group, yeah

When Captor starts "flirting" with Dave (he's not, he's genuinely just like that chill lmao) Dave just goes "aight looks like he wants to sleep with me too"

It takes Dave about a couple of months of basically living with him on a ship to finally say "you know what? Screw it, I'll do it, let's sleep together"

And Sollux, who is NOT that kind of guy actually just says "okay? My hot human captain who'2 s/2ort of my best friiend riight now want2 to have 2ex wiith me? 2hould ii go for iit?"

A week later, Sollux decides to do it because why not? Yeah he's got the most embarrassing GENUINE pale crush on Dave, but he doesn't do quadrants because he's a Human so yeah, fuck it, let's do this instead

Captor is a bit of a freak. Mainly in the "ii kind of always have feeliing2 for people in TWO quadrant2 regardle22 of what ii do, 2o yeah, that'2 also why ii don't do quadrants, ii'm genuinely not wiired like the re2t of y'all, iim weiird"

Incidentally, that's why he worked sooo well with Karkat, but Sollux fucked that up so yeah, might as well derive some sort of happiness from being Dave's fwb

It's kind of a Time Loop Rule that Sollux set for himself that he has to stay away from Karkat. You know, so he can stay objective and SAVE him!

Karkat always inevitably ends up with Dave Strider in most iterations anyway, they're sort of soulmates

Sollux is meant to stay alone and doomed

When Dave learns about all of this he's all like "what the FUCK captor how did you hide all of this from me, also fuck you man, fate doesn't exist and plays no parts on the actions of this guy"

They kiss and make up, they're kind of dating now? They're both cowards and will not. Ever ask the other one out because that's cringe.

Dave STILL is in love with Karkat though, so yeah, he helps Sollux on his quest to save their favorite person alive literally (Karkat protection squad amirite)

It becomes a problem because Karkat is literally the most wanted guy in the entire fucking empire

"can you maybe not try to dismantle the empire for a moment and let us keep you safe?" "NO."

Dave says "you know what? Fuck it we're his new bodyguards, between my amazing ninja skills and your insane psionics nothing could get through to hurt him, right?"

Karkat is not happy about it because he still sort of hates Captor (Dave helped them make up but. It's still an issue that Sollux, you know, slept with him and fucked off to not be seen in like, an entire fucking sweep)

Karkat is trying to do his rebellion leader thing but he has to deal with this two idiots who won't just admit they're dating lmao

I'm not certain how the three of them finally get together but it's probably because Karkat. Had enough of these shenanigans.

[the-laridian]

9, 20 & 27 for the Fallout asks 💙

9- What was your favourite quest? Genuinely drew a blank on this one at first XD Fallout 76 - I enjoyed the daily Biv quests (mostly for collection / getting the recipe for Rad Ant Lager) because Biv the Lovable Drunk is such a throwback stock character and he's always happy to have visitors. Rad ant lager was a lot more critical before the carry weight boosters arrived. Willow still has a couple dozen in storage. The formic acid adds a real bite to it. I liked the Order of Mysteries quests, but the ending was a real letdown. There was a period of a few months where I farmed Monster Mash because it had 1-5 legendary enemies, lots of sellable loot, loads of xp.

Fallout New Vegas - the White Gloves arc is the closest thing to an actual mystery as opposed to "kill everything that moves" Poking around Vault 22 (the plant vault) is cool too.

20- Which is your favourite faction? Why? In 76, it's the Enclave, because I want to know more about what these knuckleknobs were up to, and they do have a very cool uniform. I wish 76 would do more with them (and maybe they will, with Orlando and the Whitespring). In FNV, it's the Legion. (Mandatory disclaimer: yes, they are awful, horrible factions that, if they were real, I would stay far the hell away from them and avoid them. But they are fictional, I do not subscribe to their fictional beliefs, etc) The Legion is because I look at the attempt (in-universe) to recreate a really warped version of the Roman Empire and say : how the heck does that actually work? They had to get buy-in on this from a whole lot of people. There is an entire culture that has to back the war machine (I wrote a whole essay about logistics for the Legion for Fannish50, ask if you want the link), and somehow that entire culture at least partly follows through on this. How? Not to mention that there have to be local influences, it can't be monolithic, so you likely have all kinds of local, non-Roman stuff going on, because Edward Sallow isn't going to bother trying to recreate everything. He's cherry-picking the parts of Roman history he likes and forcing it on everyone. OTOH he's had, what, thirty years to institute this, so, a whole generation of time in which it has become the way of life. Anyway, yeah, they're interesting to take apart and see "how does this work, really?" I also think the Followers of the Apocalypse have an interesting history and some good goals, with the added problems of "relying on donations and patronage from whoever's in charge to get the work done", because good intentions don't pay the bills and fill your stomach.

27- Weapon of choice? 76!Rowan would use the crossbow at all times if the game didn't basically outlevel it. It's kind of a shame that by game terms, you need to constantly escalate the weapons because the enemies are escalating, when a more realistic take is that you don't have "takes more bullets to kill" enemies as you get more experienced. Anyway, that's what he would use. Raider Max, in story, uses a shotgun. Willow in story specialized in, and uses, rifles. But for game purposes, all of them use whatever big gun is handy, and each of them has a set they rotate through: gatling laser, gatling plasma, minigun. Which one is used depends entirely on how much of each ammo I have. Since I save up the ammo in storage, sooner or later I end up with enough 5mm to make using the minigun viable, then by the time that's out, I've accumulated some plasma cores, etc. I've tried using the gauss shotgun and idk, everyone swears by it but I can't figure out what's so great about it. Oh! And they all have the Cold Shoulder because the cryo effect and it's fast (no warmup/spinup like the big guns) and can do 8 shots at a time. That's honestly a fave for me.

[blueberrytwoberry]

eddie diaz and parenting

So, the thing is, Eddie Diaz's Parenting Skills seem to be taken to one extreme or another so often. Either he's held up as the best parent or the worst, and I don't know, I think there's a lot of nuance there, which is part of what makes him interesting as a character; there's some good, there's some bad, it's complex!

First of all, we get characters telling us Eddie's a great parent, but mostly this is Buck, and Buck has a reactive view on "good" parenting that basically boils down to Eddie being very affectionate and open and, face it, lenient with Chris. Buck thinks Eddie's the greatest parent ever, but Buck isn't looking at things empirically (I could get into the Buckley parents here, but that's a different manifesto and no one would like what I had to say, so).

And in any case! A lot of those things are good parenting things. It's a positive that Eddie is affectionate and supportive, that he cares, and that he adjusts his behaviors when an issue gets pointed out to him (the entire skateboarding thing, for example).

At the same time, man, Eddie underreacts to some stuff Chris does. Like, you know, throwing a bowl on the floor to break it and getting an Uber to someone else's house without any notification. Or sneaking around. You get the idea.

So, boundaries aren't a big thing for Chris. Which is, I think, actually a pretty realistic problem considering that Eddie was not in his life for years. He didn't get entry-level experience in setting boundaries, and then things were probably easier when he just didn't set them, and now...

Anyway, really, boundaries seem to be the root cause of Eddie's Parenting Issues, I think, because it's not just that he doesn't set boundaries for Chris, he doesn't set them for what he shares with Chris, not really, at least in regards to, well, relationships.

Chris knew far too much far too early about both Ana and Marisol. There's a reason that the experts recommend waiting around a year to introduce a new romantic partner to your child. Introducing a new partner almost right away (and moving them in and then out again, in Marisol's case) isn't great for a kid, because it throws everything into confusion, undercuts the child's sense of security, and, when/if said partner leaves, well...

So, you know, all of that put together, it's not exactly a shocker that Chris operates under the belief that jetting in and out of someone's life is the norm. It's also not a shocker that Eddie made the decisions that brought them there; it all adds up pretty neatly, even if it makes me want to shake him sometimes. You can see the steps that led to this destination and, to be clear, I appreciate that he's not a perfect beacon of parenting decisions. He makes mistakes, just like all the other good parents on the show.

And I also appreciate that, right now, he seems to be making the right long-term choice, because, well, Chris is, what, 14? That's old enough that the court system would allow him to decide where he wanted to live, if their situation went to court. Old enough that he could very easily just leave again if Eddie tried to "drag him back," doing more damage to their relationship in the long-term.

So, Eddie's letting him pick. Even though it hurts him. He's respecting that decision and you know what, good for him. Because part of parenting means respecting your child's decisions even when those decisions hurt you and even when those decisions hurt them, because children aren't an extension of their parents, they're their own people who get to make decisions that aren't always in their best interests, and the scope of the decisions they can make expands as they get older. Chris, at 14, can make a lot of them, including deciding to go live with his grandparents.

As a parent, you're there to help when your child needs it after the results of that decision and you can try to explain why it might be a bad idea, but you can't take the decision away. Parents aren't gods.

Anyway, I deeply appreciate that it's a consistent thing for Eddie. He doesn't want to force his way in. He wants a relationship where both people want to be there, which, I mean, seems like it should be a bare minimum for everyone, but in many cases, it is not. So, good for him.

And, yeah, I suspect that some part of Chris wants Eddie to swoop in and try to make him come back, but you know, that's part of growing up, too. Part of making decisions and telling other people what you want is accepting that they're going to believe you. Expecting other people to read your mind and know what you actually want out of a situation is a good way to live a life of constant frustration and heartache (also, to break the people around you, because no one can live under that kind of strain of constantly second-guessing and worrying what someone actually means forever).

I do also suspect, after Eddie's garage convo in 8x4, that the show might have him go make a grand gesture in Texas, which, fine. It'll be another layer of complexity, and I've no complaints there.

Anyway, I don't know, I've got too many thoughts in my head about Eddie and how he's not the best or worst parent ever; he's just a man who is trying his best, and sometimes his best is amazing, and sometimes it's awful, actually, because he's a human and that's how it goes, and I appreciate him so much as a character.

[the-firebird69]

Gustavo's Revenge 🥶 Remake | Breaking Bad #Shorts

This is what they're like most of the time and they're fighting each other and they're gross the outnumbered and outpowered by the empire they refuse to see logic and you know it looks like it just keeps going on and on and on and we really do not want to deal with them and need them out they refuse to do anything and they're saying stuff is not right and screwing around with people supporting our son and we need them out today was another pretty much tragedy people can see them and he's getting the job done and it's important and that's not the tragedy part but we do see that he's right people see these idiots for what they're doing and they see the wrong and they are changing things they say and it's true all over the world there is going to be a noticeable change in leadership and in how people are treating our son and what he's going through will be very very different right now it's a very upsetting experience and we don't want it to continue and we do not want to perpetuate it we want to remove it it's in the process of changing these guys keep fighting and acting like assholes and have to be dominant and it is really disgusting there's a huge problem with what I see happening and our son has no solution and they're not offering any and the pseudo empire saw today you won't do this you're calling me to say you're going to arrest me or harass me what I'm seeing is you're the f****** criminal you're the one stalking me and that's messing with my pennies you're the one who is violating the rules in the laws of your realm not just man's law and a son turned it around the guy tried to appear like he's helping he said you're now a vegetable and you're trying to kidnap me like a whole bunch of s*** here and you're ruining your entire realm Transit I'm going to win but I might not make it because you're such pigs and he had he sent it to him in space the guy almost wept and he said we can't help what we're doing really that changes things and he said okay so he said we don't know how to do anything since I just sit back like you always do and do nothing are you going to get hurt and the guy said this he's right as rain you see it happening every day he can't see that but he did because it's real that's what we have to do and when we do it we get hurt anyways so he started to say this I don't want to see this guy beat us and I don't want to see him do anything else so we're going to come and kill you if you keep talking so the guy said I should probably shut up and he's quiet for a little it starts steaming again and the cops came in and arrested a bunch of them no but they waited and they went around town picking them up and it's because the infight and it is the empire and these people and they're all fighting over it so I'm requesting volunteers for service for this area how many times do I have to say it okay I need people to come in here I told you to go do it and I expect to get done I want people who have a conscience to report to duty here if you have a moment an hour or two to see what's going on and I want you to move it now

Thor Freya

Your friend and Winston always know that and remember it these people are getting very heinous he says they're getting pushed out of the state and it's expected it's normal but for some reason it doesn't seem like we're doing what we always do so if you're not doing what we always do my son my grandson he's still son and daughter-in-law say we have to do something different but we can't do nothing or less of something that works and I wholeheartedly agree so he's saying to do all sorts of stuff and it usually works if we hear about it we're going to know where trouble spot is we're going to have to do that now

Vital and got his wife

And it fixed the verbage otherwise we cannot shy away from a fight so we're getting ready

The first space shuttle crew that were space center crew went out yesterday and they're fighting and I think they're right and they're both wrong but they're both fighting each other. The second crew is getting ready and from Russia and he was here trying to get ready went back to court okay he's a weirdo. Now we have not much time before we're going into combat mode there's cheap no nothings will be out of the way a good riddance to that scene

The truth is you kept the Mac stuff going and your stuff going and that's all you did and you're gross we need you both out your catastrophically retarded when you can't remember one minute to the next we've had it with your method that doesn't do anything and just pisses us off it's ridiculous you're gross they will hear you Brian you'll be back you know you're going to ruin each other it's not very happy and stuff and Tommy F you're done every day now this is incident with you in it he wants you to get hit cuz he needs it so we're going to do it it works.

I am issuing the order right now

Thor Freya

Olympus

[finsterhund]

My first impressions on the Ahsoka series (first two episodes)

Okay while I was still high and teetering on the edge of using trigonometry or whatever to judge the location of my grandparents farm using the curvature or the Earth I had a friend say "AHSOKA IS OUT HAVE YOU WATCHED IT YET" presumably followed by spoiler memes. So I did not open Discord and instead I watched it. After all I had a good experience watching some of the latest episodes of The Mandalorian while dealing with my pain med gummy silly boy side effects but oh my god no. God please help me.

There are reactions to the first two episodes of the Ahsoka show here. I repeat there are reactions to Star Wars spoilers after the readmore. For fucks sake do not click the readmore unless you are prepared to experience secondhand spoilers through the disease riddled brain of a mentally ill problem child who watches Star Wars and is incapable of not thinking about dogs.

I did not really have anything coherent to put to paper until Sabine stood up the dumb public appearance thing. Because that was a very Red Spot thing to do. Did not even realize this was Lothal at first because I guess I was too zooted. And then the Red Spot things intensified and I had a bit of an autism about the whole thing. BRO NOT SABINE PULLING A RED SPOT AND THE ENTIRE TIME IM LIKE YOURE NOT GONNA MAKE IT YOU ARE LIMITED IN SPEED UNLIKE HIM but then it turns out through manner of character relations and akira bike slide she succeeds at what she was trying to do without needing to aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Sabine Wren Red Spot character parallels yay. Depressing though that not even the rebels/new republic are conscious enough of the sufferings of, let's be honest, a former child soldier, to understand that the type of trauma these sets of circumstances this type of character has gone through really fucking needs therapy. They're trying to parade her around like a show dog too for fucks sakes. No wonder Sequel Trilogy Luke regressed so bad and had spaniel rage moment on Kylo. Conspiracy theory hat time. The empire was based on the US, the Rebels the Vietcong. George said so in an interview. Disney sips that sweet American government nectar so maybe they're intentionally trying to make the rebels and New Republic look bad to try and make what black and white mortality almost, and in some ways literally into something more grey and more "it's good to uphold the status quo unless you have cool powers. But you DON'T get cool powers in real life so..." I'm exaggerating how I feel but I'm aware of how the US military funded the MCU. Also owned by Disney. So hmmm. Still. I never figured the New Republic was this out of touch. God now that I'm actually getting my creative energy back I finally may be able to sit down and read the Thrawn Trilogy like I've wanted to for six thousand years except Cazza died and I lost the ability to turn off my dyslexia(???????) but anyways I might actually be able to now to actually assert the most widely accepted extended universe canon for this era. See if Disney is wildly deviating or not. I intentionally made modern Power Island backwards in a way I always thought the Rebels and New Republic weren't but we saw a lot of fucked up new republic fumbles in the latest season of The Mandalorian too so I've just gotta accept the New Republic is more on par with Modern Power Island's infuriatingly dated approach and repeated incidents of shitting the bed which fucking hurts me thanks didney

Really mixed feelings about this show so far tbh. Still technically high as a kite and I keep fucking thinking about pikmin. It is really fucking hard to not think about Pikmin when I have having an autism about Pikmin and also I am watching Star Wars which is also an autism and I have had the weed gummy. Everybody make a wild guess what part of episode 1 the End of Day theme earwormed its way into my brain with the force of a semi truck and win a prize. Also the stakes just don't feel high? Like I'm not able to take it as seriously. I'm really kinda upset that nobody is taking Sabine's really blatant survivors guilt and PTSD seriously. I am now pissed off that I'm on the edge of "the lightsaber wound should be fatal" and "if they kill her off before her trauma recovery arc is ever resolved to show how strong little fucked up white dog with the eye crusties is I'm going to be so mad"

And on that note. I have no clue what the dark side apprentice character is named yet. Idk if they said her name or not. But she straight up looks like a little sopping wet shivering white dog with those big goopy tear stains and I am just FUCKING LOSING MY MIND. I burst into fits of giggles whenever there's a face shot and I'm so mad at how fucking stupid I am about it and how much my brain won't let me dispel it. I am physically incapable of not thinking about those little fucked up white dogs whenever she's on screen. There's all these thematic callbacks to Darth Maul in the Phantom Menace with her in the first episode and I'm a huge fucking Phantom Menace apologist but it's completely sidelined in my experience by how she's one of those little fucking white dogs. The lightsaber fight was awkward and janky but it is fully believable because Sabine wasn't force sensitive as far as I'm aware, and Ashoka only briefly trained her with the darksaber in Rebels? Unless this show is implying more. I guess it is because how she's able to have a saber fight at all in the first place not to be too spoilers but wtfff? Both these teenagers, Sabine is still meant to be a teen I think?, are just glowstick baton-ing all over the place and I'm thinking "bruh someone come separate these children before someone gets an eye poked out" and I really don't see how Sabine went down at all. Usually I'm like "Disney Star Wars has too much plot armour" but this time I'm like "bro Sabine is mando and did all that shit in Rebels who fucking nerfed her? Did she find some weird spice-based essential oil through a pyramid scheme and self prescribed it as a sedative for her undiagnosed PTSD???? At the very least she should be able to body the trembling little eye crusties dog. I'd like to stress that a force sensitive "little pathetic white dog with the eye crusties" being taken into an abusive master and apprentice relationship with a skilled dark side user could definitely work, but I really don't think that's the angle they're taking with this character with an extensive backlog of past accomplishments and growth.

Also one of Thrawn's allies just so happens to have the name Morgan and unfortunately my brain refuses to not associate that name with Bantam's Musical Morgan who coincidentally is a sad fucked up looking antique mohair stuffed dog that predominantly was solid white in color.

Oh shit I see what's happening. Sabine keeps getting the fucking shaft by everyone. Everyone except Hera who's been absent. Not allowed to take advantage of her own areas of expertise both in universe and in the writing. It's like they're trying to respond to the critical reception that Rey got without actually realizing that Sabine is an entirely different character with an extensive backlog of past accomplishments and growth.

Oh my god I just noticed eyecrusties has a padawan braid now. I'm assuming that's a new development otherwise I would have noticed by now.

Oh shit I thought Sabine based her lightsaber off of Ezra's but it's actually just his. Okay so I'm still going to assume she's not force sensitive and Ahsoka just tried to train her with the darksaber. Bro am I missing memories from watching Rebels or something(?)

Oh my god can Sabine and Ashoka just talk to each other!? Ashoka have you just shut off your force perceptions about Sabine ENTIRELY? Yeah I know I can tell you have unresolved trauma yourself in regards to Anakin but don't fucking let the cycle of abuse continue as emotional neglect use the force to fucking understand or some shit AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHGGGHHH Also apparently Sabine IS force sensitive????? because lightsaber building droid from the clone wars cartoon said so???? (I really like his live action translation from the cartoon design btw) which I mean???!!! Uhhhhhh!?! Was this hinted at at all? I can't remember. Like she struggled with the Darksaber because she wasn't force sensitive???? I literally did a full marathon of Rebels like a year ago???? Also I really think he should have been a bit more cautious with "the only time you're wasting is your own" thing because she very clearly needs some level of therapy or support structure that doesn't mean she should rush right back into training. Like yeah she's "wasting her time" not benefiting from having an adequate support structure but rushing right back into things to compensate??? Man.

Oh my god the protocol droid choosing the right exact time to bring up a grievance they had knowing full well it was relevant information right at that moment who basically said fuck my job malicious compliance was very relatable for some reason. It'll end my job but it will also destroy your whole career. Fuck your shit up fascist sympathizer scum.

Also just fucking shoot down the hyperdrive transport! I'm with Chopper on this one. Fuck the port. That one Corellian facility committed like treason or something. I understand putting a tracker on it instead I guess but I crave violence and bloodshed and explosions.

Me: please don't do the Mulan thing Sabine: does the Mulan thing Me: screams

Sabine over here hacking off her hair with a knife instead of more healthy coping mechanisms.

Me: sees the eye of sion for the first time Me: wow are they fucking making a stargate or something lmaooooo

And then episode 2 of this two part season premiere is at an end. I struggled to take it seriously but I'm still invested and don't want to wait. I guess that's a good thing but man. I guess I'm underwhelmed. Disney's mediocrity finally catching up to me I guess. Love these characters and don't feel the actors are bad at all but it feels like this is a product of the writing strike even though it was made before the strike. Maybe there's executive meddling at play here that's also reflective of the conditions that lead to the strike.

Also I fucking love the lothcat designs. BABIES AAAAAHYGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH

[cleverthylacine]

Yes! Do you know why this is?

Christianity was the first major religion in the "Western" world where belief was all-important.

Most other religions (aside from Islam and Buddhism) have an ethnic component. You can convert to them, but it's usually something people do as a process of joining the culture/society and assimilating to it.

This is why Constantine (and the later Roman Empire) found it to be an exceedingly powerful tool of colonialisation. Forced conversion of European and Asian pagans cut them off from the gods of their ancestors and their own religion and culture and assimilated them into Roman society. Forced conversion of Jews was meant to be genocidal, breaking down Jewish communities and assimilating the Jews; this didn't work, of course, because it largely didn't stick and cultural levels of anti-semitism meant that Christian converts were never really trusted anyway.

islam, Christianity and Buddhism are some of the world's most common and powerful religions because anyone can become a Muslim, Christian or Buddhist. And forced conversions to Christianity and Islam have both been used as a way of conquering other civilisations.

But because Christianity is especially insistent on belief--and will punish even professing Christians who are otherwise law-abiding for believing the wrong version of the story--atheism is its antithesis. This is why atheists and neo-pagans get so angry when they're called culturally Christian, because they have grown up with the idea that you cannot be a Christian unless you believe, and have actively spent their entire lives rebelling against it.

While Christianity does inform every culture that it dominates, people are not considered Christian if they don't believe.

(For this reason, in discussions with atheists and neo-pagans, I prefer to frame the issue as "Christian privilege" because usually that's what the issue is anyway. The only thing is that because anyone can become a Christian, in Christian societies, people are granted "passing privilege" unless they specifically opt out by declaring that they are something else.)

In all cultures, and in all religious ethnic groups, there are people who don't really believe in G-d or the rituals and may not conform to religious practises, but they're still part of the community as long as they abide by its laws and participate in it.

If you are born into a religion strongly tied to ethnicity or cultural group, like Judaism, Hinduism, most indigenous peoples' religions, Shinto, Voudoun...and you convert to Christianity, or Islam, you are now considered to be a Christian or a Muslim and no longer what you were before.

However, Christianity is a religion of colonisation. If you are raised in a Christian family you will still think things that mostly Christians tend to think (such as that no longer believing in a deity means you are no longer part of a religious culture). This presents a problem to people who actively wish to be dissassociated with that belief system.

If you were raised by Christians and don't go to the trouble of converting to another religion with a conversion process involving cultural retraining, and you don't become a Muslim or a Buddhist, how do you opt out and defy the stranglehold Christianity still has over science and medicine in most Christian parts of the world?

You have to be something else. That's why you find loud angry atheists and neo-pagans who are trying to reconstruct ancient European indigenous religions and/or invent their own nature religion primarily in Christian societies.

Former Christians or people raised in Christian families who reject Christianity have generally had to go to quite a bit of trouble to distinguish themselves from Christians, who beileve things that they emphatically do NOT believe. Either you decide that there are no gods/no G-d or you decide to try and come up with something else to be that will let you in without demanding you become part of their culture (Neopaganism does this).

Christianity is like Whiteness, except you get it by believing in it, rather than just being white enough. It has assmiliated its culture from all of the cultures that it has steamrolled over since it left the Roman Empire. We all know that there are some very brown people who are considered white, and that Jews can be whiter than notebook paper and white supremacists will still not accept the right of Jews to exist. And it's hard to identify what Christian culture really is given that it's different in different parts of the world, even within a single country (a Baptist in Alabama and a Quaker in Rhode Island have very different cultural experiences), just as it's hard to say what White culture is.

And Christian privilege, like White privilege, is actually the problem.

Only Christians and Muslims believe that if you are not a member of their religion (Muslims also accept Christians and Jews as people of "the book") you are broken because believing is the whole point.

And Christians more than Muslims--I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong) that Muslim conversion is called "reversion" because it's said that you've just accepted your natural state and are going to try to do the right thing from now on, whereas Christians believe that belief is necessary for salvation and without it we are all going to hell--that not only do you have to accept the divine, you must be changed by it, that we are all born in original sin and only their god's gift can undo that.

The thing is. Cultural Christianity is a real problem but 9 out of 10 times someone brings it up in this website it's to complain about gays who don't believe in astrology or some shit like that.

[troglobite]

re: my lrb abt autistic processing (copied & pasted from my rambling abt it in the tags of the reblogs, then i didn't wish to be Perceived so i bailed and am posting abt it here instead)

i'm also now thinking abt something v interesting

okay so part of the reason i pursued an english degree was bc i think this process make literature analysis intuitive to me? i'm guessing

in hs we were being taught how to write higher level analytical essays, and all of the steps and assignments to learning it and parsing out the different pieces of planning and writing the essay were actively detrimental to my ability to do so

i was like STOP MAKING ME GO THROUGH A BOOK AND PULL OUT QUOTES AT RANDOM STOP MAKING ME WRITE MULTIPLE DIFFERENT THESIS STATEMENTS STOP IT!!!

bc i could finish reading a thing, be given a direction for a prompt, and then go okay here's my thesis statement and entire essay concept

and to the traditional teaching and order of operations that was Wrong, bc How Do You Have a Thesis Without Evidence? but i DID have evidence, i just had to go back and find it now that i'd coalesced it into an argument

i did the processing of details and evidence WHILE READING. it made no sense to me that you would finish reading something and NOT have an observation or argument to make abt its mechanics and purpose.

luckily my teacher was really neurodivergent-friendly, even if neither of us knew that's what it was at the time, and he went yeah no problem you can skip these assignments or do them differently. you can already do this just keep practicing i don't wanna mess w your process.

so that was v nice, highlight of my young education. is this bragging? i'm not gonna put this in the tags i'm making a separate post.

okay copied & pasted section over

but the reason this feels like bottom-up autistic processing is--

none of the other kids would have a Clear Idea abt what the book was already abt. the way it was often taught was more open-ended in our classes that year bc the point was to encourage us to read critically ourselves and learn to develop this skill. and so to them, they go into a book and are lost in the forest bc they can't see/understand the trees. they get to the end and are like What Just Happened. then they have to go back and start looking at all the trees again, now that they have a rough idea of the size and shape of the forest, and maybe the type of forest it is (rain, temperate, conifer, etc.)

so i'm not a genius master at this, but i feel like the only "big" concept i need is Story, or Book, or whatever. and then i walk in and immediately start encountering and identifying trees.

by the time i walk out the other side, i've already collected all of that information as part of my journey. so as soon as i look back, i have all the information to make sense of the Larger Context of the forest, and i go "oh i see. so THAT'S why this thing/pattern happened."

that's what feels bottom-up to me

i was honestly worried and gaslighting myself like "no that's definitely top-down" but it's not. if it was, i would need to what kind of book or story beforehand, etc., and have that to guide me. but i think that's counterintuitive, personally. i think it can become obvious what someone thinks, really, when reading their writing (given that they are/were in a temporal and geographical context close enough to your own to have reference points). then getting extra information abt that later is further helpful.

anyway there's my little bit of reflection for the day.

which unfortunately isn't terribly helpful w my ongoing crisis of identity at the moment bc it doesn't answer many questions, but it does sort of offer empirical evidence that that is something i'm good at, that my brain likes to do.

and also i want to own up to the fact that sometimes i finish reading something and i go "idk wtf to make of that. goddamn."

and that could be bc it was poorly written or was trying to say a lot. it could be bc it didn't mesh w my brain. it could be bc i need the act of writing abt the piece of writing to understand it (the way i have to talk out loud to understand my feelings abt something). it could be many things. but point being: i'm not trying to brag that i'm some magnificent genius, and i'm not trying to say this particular thing should be Easy for all autistic ppl. the way my brain works w words and stories is such that the bottom-up processing applies here and works well, but it's not the case for everyone.

i wish i hadn't spent the last minute or two typing that up bc i guarantee no one reads this and less self-deprecatingly, i'm tired of feeling like i have to anticipate a negative reaction to something and i'm tired of being responsible for someone misreading this and taking it as an insult if they weren't good at this same thing or assuming this makes either me or them not autistic bc we're not the same on this point

i just need the baseline understanding to be that NOTHING IS UNIVERSAL and ppl talking abt their own experiences is JUST THAT AND NOTHING MORE. it is also an invitation for ppl to relate. but y'know. anyway.

how and why am i managing the feelings of hypothetical ppl who probably won't even read this? i'm v tired.

[vaguely-concerned]

...this is fully just a Vibe based observation, but sometimes NtN!John talks about M-- and A-- almost as if they were his parents fhdkjsahkjfas. it's mixed up with a lot of other stuff of course, but sometimes, especially when the two of them join forces, there's a sense of 'wow when mum and dad get along anything is suddenly possible' beneath it. I'm not sure it's an aspect John necessarily wants to admit to himself, but now that I've put it into words I think there's something to it, and it's an extension of something I was trying to get a handle on even back in HtN. the thing he says to augustine when asking him to come back to him at the end of HtN has always been really striking to me:

“Come, swear your loyalty, my son—my brother—beloved—Lyctor—saint.”

it speaks both to this insidious lack of boundaries and centering relationships entirely around himself -- 'you can only be something or someone in relationship to me: my child, my brother, beloved by me, my hand and my gesture in the world' -- and to how he's tried to make mercy and augustine* (freshly reduced to only augustine in that moment rip :'( ) his everything-in-one persons. they're his children, his siblings, his best friends, his spouses, his lovers, his generals, his disciples, his saints, his parents (less so after the resurrection, but there are still hints of it to my mind -- he really wants those two to get along and be a stable functioning unit again for the sake of his own emotional stability huh lmao, and to add spice he seems genuinely hurt at the thought that they've just been pretending to dislike each other while he was there and felt differently when they were alone together without him, at a point where that truly is the very least of his problems, it's weird and tangled stuff), his companions and caretakers, his dependents (they were so fucking scared), coworkers and subordinates, his enforcers -- all at once and all according to what he needs from them at any given moment.

*g1deon is different, because his use for him is more straightforwardly 1) as a weapon and attack dog and 2) when he needs someone, a buddy, to think he's fine. not necessarily right, but fine. the more things change ig haha

pretty much the only thing they aren't to him are cavaliers because, as augustine observes to mercy, he doesn't want nor need a replacement for alecto. he understands just enough about love and loneliness to not literally consume them completely into himself, and I don't think that's quite what he needs from them anyway, but god, he's done everything short of that in the name of tying them to him. (which i think is a theme mirrored in ianthe's relationship to corona, incidentally! for all of her 'real love is acquisitive' mindset, ianthe does realize that subsuming corona completely into herself is not going to be a satisfactory solution to their... whole deal. despite the way they're so deeply enmeshed, there needs to be a sliver of Other left in the mix to experience relationship instead of just uh. devouring yourself by your own tail, attachment wise, or the unending solitude of grief of the 'regular' flawed lyctorhood.) and part of how he did it is by setting everything up to make them complicit in the same sin he committed -- binding them all inseparably together politically/structurally, cosmically/metaphysically, spiritually, emotionally, morally, in common yet isolated eternal grief. you can't leave me, you're the same kind of bad as me. it's the same blood on all our hands now. a piece of me in you, a piece of you in me (but only to the extent it's convenient to me let's be sensible about this guys I am god after all I've got a lot on my plate right now). he made them kill and eat everything else they loved so only he was left, and they share in his guilt over the system of empire they created and perpetuated.

both mercy and augustine have, though the myriad, found ways to defend themselves against this obliterating kind of love john extends to them -- mercy by making herself unlovable, augustine by making himself untouchable. (Nothing could ever really touch Augustine vs. John's repeated statement of having to make his loved ones something he could touch -- many thoughts.) most importantly they had each other, as loathsome as I'm sure that fact was to both of them hahaha <3 this thing of 'when augustine and mercy agree on anything, you know shit's getting real' that turned out to be the one thing they could hold on to in this lifetime too.

and i think this whole glorious clusterfuck's role in the narrative ultimately is to shine a light on how harrow and gideon grew up together having to be everything to each other (under the cut because god this got long why am I like this):

Tiny Harrow had found [Gideon] an object of tormentable fascination—prey, rival, and audience all wrapped up in one. And though Gideon hated the cloisterites, and hated the Locked Tomb, and hated the ghastly great-aunts, and hated Crux most of all, she was hungry for the Reverend Daughter’s preoccupation. They were the only two children in a House that was otherwise busy getting gangrene.

and provide an example of the long-term toxicity of a similar interpersonal dynamic. Harrow and Gideon ended up like that through no fault of their own; they didn't choose it, it was a tragedy they were innocently born into and then they acted out love and connection as best they could with what they'd been given, as brutal as their best was. but john is the deliberate architect of his own situation! he meant for this to happen, he decided this was an acceptable outcome long ago! the first house also has gangrene, but it's because john deliberately and methodically has been chopping all its limbs off over the myriad to feed it to the ghosts of his sin and done nothing in particular to treat the wounds!!! even mercy is deemed unnecessary in the end, once she's become more emotionally uncomfortable to deal with than useful to him, emotionally and otherwise. (and augustine realizes that's exactly how john thinks and how he ultimately views them! imagine having that knowledge hanging over you for thousands of years without being able to get out!)

john has been alive for ten thousand years, and for those ten thousand years he has kept the same three people around as his core family. (even from john himself we hear very little about any of his biological family apart from a few mentions of his grandmother, which seems... telling.) he's still playing house with them in harrow the ninth, hugs and family dinner and yes, love, but an infinitely haunted love. (also oh my god were harrow and ianthe basically the saving the marriage babies of lyctorhood, 'here have some new sisters they're just as good as the old ones probably cheer up' dhfsjdfa I've never thought about it like that before but there might be something there.) all three of the people he loves the most were intimately involved (ahahaha oh I do amuse myself at least) in a plot to murder him -- not because they didn't still love him in some twisted hopeless way, I don't think, just to get the horror to finally end.

he asks Harrow, seemingly rhetorically at the time: Why would you let someone go -- away from you -- untouchable -- two people? I couldn't... I loved them too much. if he'd paid any attention at all, he'd already know her answer: to keep myself from consuming her completely. so I wouldn't destroy her. he took their memories so they wouldn't leave him or stop loving him, while harrow gave up her own memories of love and grace rather than destroy gideon's soul, rather than continue to exist escalatingly at gideon's expense, as she has always been set up to systemically. (which is not like. a great long-term solution to the central problem of personhood/individuation vs. connection and love here or anything -- obliterating yourself in the name of love is no more sustainable or moral than destroying the other -- but it IS a statement of priorities haha.) do you think john would ever have taken that deal? he's tried to keep his loved ones exactly the same, keep them his and with him, for ten thousand years, and hasn't realized they've been slowly drifting away from him all that time -- that even if they had wanted to stay with him despite it all, with the way he has set it all up there is no choice anymore, it has destroyed them. it's the saddest fucking thing because he loved them so much, they loved him so much, and yet... he made it into this horrific thing with his own hands because he has that insatiable hunger and he's still so afraid of change, as much when he's made himself God as he was as a child. nona the ninth being a story of found families that ultimately 'fail' and fall apart even though love was there, reflecting back on the themes of HtN and revealing new things there. thoughts. many thoughts. indeed, feelings. please bear with me, I'm still not sure I've managed to say exactly what I mean here especially in terms of john's motivations but this is the best I could do right now and my brain is fried so... here have the Psychosexual Clusterfuck Polycule Thoughts I managed to pin down for now

TL;DR: sometimes I wonder what the fuck john's primary attachment relationships as a child were like because frankly it sounds like something did Not go entirely right there lmao

[seeingteacupsindragons]

What are your thoughts on the Yuumori lighthouse/ship at sea imagery, considering that Sherlock and Liam met on a literal ship. Also, considering the fact that the Noatic was probably based of the Titanic, which was supposed to be unsinkable, how do you think the way the ship imagery is used now reflects character progression?

Well, this post wasn't just a joke. I do think it's really interesting how the authors warped the way people normally view a fire/water contrast and turned it into something reaching out to each other and two parts of the same story and the same whole instead of oppositional forces.

Of course, they've been doing that with their entire characters and the entire story the entire time, so it makes sense they'd do it with William and Sherlock's elemental motifs.

As for going all the way back to The Noahtic, let's actually take it back just a touch further: William's introductory chapter ended in fire and his rebirth in flames like a little phoenix, but also because fire is so strongly associated with all parts of him.

And so when Sherlock is introduced, it's surrounded by water so wholly Liam couldn't escape it if he tried--that's sort of how cruise ships work. And Sherlock's first arc On His Own shouldering the narrative himself was characterized by an awful lot of rain. I mean, it's London, but we don't actually see tons of rain most of the time. We see Sherlock get soaked in A Study in 'S', and that's about it for rain.

(There's also some fun things about how in A Scandal in the British Empire, Adler got soaked to the bone so badly that Sherlock had to loan her dry clothing, but later we see Bond singed with ash from a fire in The Final Problem. Good stuff)

Anyway, as most motifs, what they mean in a story really depends on how an author wants to portray it. And Fire and Water are both so well-worn ones that there's a millions ways those could be taken. Fire is heat and warmth and life and rage and anger and comfort and passion and love and light and uncontrollability and danger and purification and destruction and rebirth and incineration, and William is...all of those things. Water is tumult and chaos and danger and endless, unknowable depths and relentlessness and life and safety and peace and clarity and understanding and purity and cleansing and soothing and rebirth and baptism, and...Sherlock is all of those things.

And if you note those long lists, there's a lot of overlap between the two despite how oppositional they seem. Fire can evaporate water. Water can extinguish flame.

But this is fire and water, and you wanted lighthouse and ship.

I think what it really did with this new image is taking William's raging fire and putting it to a specific purpose. It has a calling and a use and a need. It's a signal of safety and shore. And a ship is something fighting through the tumult of water while using it to its own advantage, something which brings a fire what it needs to sustain itself all alone.

Ships and lighthouses need each other.

But it's also yet another twist--if Sherlock is the darkness of sea and ship, than William is the light of fire and shore. Sherlock is the one who presented that idea--William has always said the opposite, but it puts William as Sherlock's light, too.

The Titanic, ironically enough, was destroyed by ice (and carelessness and various other things). Water, without the warmth of fire to keep it liquid. Perhaps that could have been what Sherlock became without the fire in his life, who knows.

But I just like how their elemental motifs keep on giving and are being made full use of as the characters themselves reinterpret what they mean to themselves and to each other. Those ideas mean what they need them to mean. And those ideas change as they change as characters.

I don't know if I properly answered your question. I feel like I went off on several tangents here. Feel free to try again if I fucked up.

[fireworkreindeer]

@2-point-5 mentioned I should do so.... Here's MY version of Sheriff Jimmy x Bandit Tango!

Tango had to admit, this was crazy. He knew his plan was crazy, but he was doing it anyways because he's in love with a sheriff. His plan? Simple: Do whatever he can to get the sheriff's attention... by causing a whole load of problems. He couldn't help it! He was gonna try a more pacifist approach, walking up and talking, but he went with this because he's an awkward, blaze boy. "What to do today?" He muttered to himself as he began to think out a plan. He thought for a while, a few dumb ideas popped up. "Steal the terracotta? Nope, that would take ages trying to get rid of every piece. Plus, it'll ruin the landscape... Steal the gunpowder? No. He has a farm and there's probably a backup farm..... I got it! Steal from the bank! IT'S GENIUS!!!!" He began to plan out everything and waited until nightfall.

Once it was dark, Tango made his way over to the bank. He quietly opened the door and snuck in. He looked around and saw no security? This'll be easier than he thought. He broke down the iron door and pulled out a bundle and began to steal the gold and all the other precious materials. "What do you think you're doing?" He froze. He was caught. He slowly turned around to the the sheriff place a torch on the wall. "Uh....I uh-" he stuttered. "Why are you stealing from me?" He blushed, this wasn't going to go well. "Are you gonna talk or..." "W-Well you see- I... um..." "Are you alright? You look awfully red" "Umm-" Jimmy jumped back once the thief fainted. He panicked a little. "Hey.... you okay?" He asked once they opened their eyes after trying to get them awake.

He helped them sit up. "I'm sorry!" They shouted. "I know that I'm such a moron. I did this because... I'm in love with you" he whispers that last part. "Wait a minute. So your telling me that all of the bandit problems I've been having, is by you, because you love me?" Tango nodded, feeling so stupid. Jimmy lowered his head and began to chuckle before throwing his head back, laughing. Tango was so confused. Why was he laughing? He was kind of cute when he- No! Bad Tango. Don't simp for him even more!!! "That is by far, one of the most weirdest yet well thought out way to get someone's attention" smiled Jimmy once he had stopped laughing. Tango blushed again. "So it was you who put up the terracotta stall to building an entire base in my Tumble Town?" Tango nodded. "Well, you are smart I'll give you that" "But also incredibly stupid because now I know how easy it is to talk to you, and I should've done this from the start! But I didn't and-" he sighs.

"I lived here alone for a long time until you showed up and began to build Tumble Town. I was so amazed by the stuff you were making, to bring this place life and I really wanted to help! But instead I caused problems and I'm sorry. Please don't throw me in jail!" He begged. "No. I have a better plan" smirked Jimmy. "What's that?" "Help me make Tumble Town the best empire!" Grinned Jimmy. He was shocked. "Uh.... Sure?" "Great! Come with me" Jimmy grabbed a hold of his hand and lead him out of the bank. "W-Where are we going?" "To my place! Cause you're staying the night. And tomorrow, we'll work together to make this the best place ever!" Tango couldn't help but grin. But then realised, none of this would've happened if he bothered to see if the sheriff was even at his house before robbing the bank.

[writerbuddha]

Hey

Your blog is interesting. I do see where you're coming from in regards to Buddhism attachment and the Jedi and stuff. I do agree about them having no choice but to enter the war because of the implications. Although the Clones are legally slaves as they are considered possessions of the State. The Jedi might have respected them and not persoanlly enslaved them, but neither fact changes their status. However, I can see the other side as well. I understand why people have an issue with the whole "attachment" thing and how its applied. I mean the Jedi are in the right for joining the Clone Wars, despite the status of Clones, yet Anakin is bad and wicked and selfish and greedy for wanting to help his enslaved mom. The implication that leaving her to rot in slavery or die alone, scared and in agony at the hands of the Tuskens was the more "moral" or Jedi thing to do is very problematic for a lot of people. Or, the idea that he should have left his 14 year old Padawan to suffocate under rubble because rescuing her means he's "selfish and greedy" is similarly problematic. I think that both run contrary to the ethical code that many of us are raised with. The idea that you should help people, especially children, no matter what and never turn your back on a friend.

Sorry if this is a long ask and I don't mean to offend anyone.

Hey!

You said nothing offensive. I hear you.

That’s run contrary to my ethical code as well.

Anakin wasn’t bad, wicked or selfish or greedy for wanting to help his mom, leaving her in slavery wasn’t a moral or a Jedi thing to do at all. Nor that he should have left Ahsoka to die, wanting to rescue he wasn’t made him selfish. What you described is, at full extent, falls into the category of compassion, non-attached love. And that is genuine love, wanting others to be happy and free from suffering, covering what you described, helping people, especially children, no matter what and never turn your back on a friend.

I firmly believe the “attachment” thing is problematic because the majority of fans are not fully aware of the meaning of the concept. Attachment as George Lucas described it is inability to let go, possession, owning, having, getting, grasping, holding on. This is identical to the Buddhist use of the term. Because reality is temporary, things will come, things will go, everything is temporary. People, beauty, youth, money, everything will slide, at one time, they are in your life, and in the other time they move away from you. While they are in your life, love them. But you can’t attach to them in the other meaning of the word: “fastening” and an “external part attached to perform a particular function.” You must learn to let go, because if you can’t do it, you and your loved one both going to suffer. And the problem with attachment is that it’s always about you, it’s more the love of the self than the love of the beloved. You want to keep people around, because they make you happy. You won’t lose them because then you will suffer from you not having them. And this is why it is selfish and greedy. And because we all want everlasting joy, if you are attached, you will become afraid of losing your attachments, and it will lead you on a very dark path, ending in hate. And you will suffer, because you will spend your life being afraid, being angry, hateful. And that’s what Yoda was talking about, and that’s what they sensed in him about Shmi: “You afraid of losing her.” And that’s what Luminara said to him in that Clone Wars episode: “It’s not that I gave up, Skywalker, but unlike you, when the time comes, I am prepared to let my student go. Can you say the same?”

Listen to how Lars and Anakin say their final goodbye to Shmi: Lars last words to her: “Thank you.” Anakin’s last words to her: “I miss you so much.”

Whereas Shmi had non-attached love: her love for Anakin wasn’t how happy he makes her, but how happy Anakin is. And that’s why she was able to let him go. I’m always saying, Shmi is a “lay Jedi”.

Luminara is “at ease” when Barriss life is in danger, but I think it’s very important to notice that she always saying, she didn’t want Barriss to die, or she doesn’t care or she gave up. That’s why I don’t like Dave Filioni’s take on that episode, but he said it’s his personal reading, so I respect it. But I disagree. The problem is that many of us were almost encouraged to panic or fall to atoms in times like this, and the majority of movies and tv shows are outright glorifying hysteria as a measure of love. Ahsoka and Barriss wasn’t saved because Anakin started to run around in full panic mode, but because Ahsoka was able to come up with a plan. Luminara wasn’t giving up, nor she didn’t care that much about Barriss, but she accepted the fact that they might be too late, so she started to prepare herself for the worst. “If my Padawan has perished, I will mourn her, but I will celebrate her as well through her memory.”

The Jedi are trained to love people, but not to get attached to them, which is non-attachment – compassion. When you are compassionate, your love for your loved one, their happiness, their freedom from suffering gives you the feeling of being complete, gives you joy. And this is everlasting, because death can interrupt having, but not love. So it’s saying, I love you, so I want you to be free from suffering and I want you to be happy.” It’s genuine concern for others, manifesting itself in active engagement. But there is no fear of you losing, because you don’t have. When you love people, you won’t be afraid. You will be concerned for them, but that’s entirely focused on them, not on yourself. You can’t fear of the pain you will experience when you losing them. That’s a selfish desire for you keeping things and people who bring you joy. Attachment will make you afraid, what will make you hate and suffer.

And this kind of love can extend to all beings, even to their enemies. "don't lose a thousand lives just to save one" however, doesn't mean you must sacrifice your loved ones for the sake of others. The key is always that you should act out of compassion. Not out of fear of losing, the fear of not having.

Why the Jedi didn’t go to Tatooine to liberate slaves, that’s another question, but not because Anakin wasn’t allowed to care about his mother. A Jedi is a negotiator, ambassador, who is not going to war. They were not going to war until Attack of the Clones, as Lucas said, because they are not aggressive force. I always saw that their logic is that If they would go to Tatooine and liberate all slaves, they would have to fight a war against Jabba, pirates, the hutts, the crime empires etc. That’s not what they do. They did it once with Zygerria, but back then they weren’t alone, the Republic actually wanted to uphold its values, they made Zygerria to comply. But with the Republic corrupted, the Jedi wasn’t enough at all to uphold peace and justice. If the Republic would have function properly, they would enforce their laws on Tatooine, but the Republic didn’t care about them, so they didn’t have the support to function, too. They were overwhelmed, and they are not super people. Without the Republic, they go to Tatooine, defeat Jabba, then leave to help others. When they come back, there is a new Jabba, because free people on Tatooine didn’t really care and the Republic didn’t really care. All what happens is that they lose lives. But with the Clone Wars, all the galaxy caught fire, so they had to go to war anyway.

I am more than willing to accept that the Jedi wasn’t perfect, and I have to admit, I am glad to see that when people believe they advocated abandoning friends or family, they reject them so fiercely. But I can't help but think, their morals, choices and situations are often misunderstood. For example, I can't find any good reason why the Jedi wouldn't want to pursue the Senate to give the clones citizenship when the war was over. On the contrary. Their portrayal requires them to do so. Like Lucas said, they had good intentions, and they are going to war to save as many as they can. In the Clone Wars, you can see they care about clones as much as they care for non-clones.

Sorry for the even longer reply! XD I hope it's useful.