#but I am not BLIND to the areas in which we do not excel

[revvethasmythh]

*laughs nervously* totally not worried about dueling orin. totally not

[on-the-clear-blue]

Dead Man's Diner pt 2

Danny had to admit, Lunch Lady was an excellent teacher.

Sure they were blitzing though a cook book thst was more tape and hope the paper, but Danny was for once actually understanding and enjoying being taught.

Cracking an egg into a bowl, Danny held it close while whisking quickly, not fully incorporating the flour in his pancake batter before dumping a good sized dollop on the flat top, smiling from the brief sizzle that he heard.

There was a sudden cacophony sounds from the front of house (which was the dining area? He never knew that before) putting the flat top on low, Danny looked over to where Lunch Lady was floating only to find nothing.

Blinking a bit, Danny wiped his hands off OK his apron as he poked his head out, frowning at the diner car, "What was that..." his words were cut off by one of the blinds slats bending as if pried open, and as he squinted, Danny saw two figures watching from a distance ontop another rail car.

Vigilantes

Danny felt his heart flutter with excitement, while not as cool as maybe Martian Manhunter or StarFire (since y'know...fucking aliens, Space) the Gotham caped community were interesting, if only since Batman and his Flock were Sam's low key obsession, she had even gone out as Robin for multiple Halloweens, and don't even get him started on the fan theories about them all.

Smirking he tapped the bar, allowing thr blinds to snap closed, "Sam is so going to flip that I saw the Birds before her." Letting out a little giggled, Danny quickly swore as he smelt a bit of burning and rushed to flip his pancakes.

---

Tim was, in Dicks opinion, the most concerning member of the family, sure most days he gives of "miserable wet cat" energy but even then Dick had seen his little brother easily take down guys that even Bruce had trouble with.

That wasnt even touching on his um...mental quirks

The less he speaks of the time period between Bruce's and Kons deaths till their eventual return, the better.

Putting down the binoculars, Dick stole a glance over at Red Robin, who was frowning deeply at his wrist computer, scooting a little closer Dick leaned over to see what was happening, "Whatcha do~oing?"

So entranced by what he was reading Tim jumped a little, an elbow flying out to where Dicks face had been a second ago as he turned and glared.

"Don't...! Do that Wing! Ugh..." shaking his head as he let out a huff Tim took his eyes off the small monitor and looked up at the diner car, pointing at it as he spoke scornfuly.

"That place does not exist."

"Like, legally? I am sure Batburger doesn't either-"

"No." Tim said, cutting the older vigilante off, "It doesn't exist physically."

"Timmy..." Dick said as he ran through the protocols for when RedRobin got a little too many insane things in his head.

"Get that look off your face Wing, it really doesn't exist, like..." letting out a sigh, the teen tried to put his words right "Don't look straight at it but a bit to the side so it's to the side of your eye." Pointing to a middle distance a bit away from the diner cart, Dick sent a small frown at his brother but did as he was asked.

"Holy leaping lizards..." Tim, somehow, was right, since when Dick just looked about a few feet away from the diner, it started to waver turning...transparent? And a little blue? But when he looked at it closer it was just a normal, abet run down looking diner.

"Exactly, no need to bench me till Agent A stuffs me full of anti-psychotics!"

"That was one time Tim, and you were having a mental break down."

"I am not lying when I say we killed Santa Claus Dick!"

"Sure Tim...sure"

---

Danny drummed his fingers on the breakfast bar, nursing a cup of coffee as he waited for something to happen.

He knew thst he was being watched, he had a vague idea who was doing the watching, but was starting to get a bit bored waiting for them to get closer.

Pausing mid sip, a grin spread across Danny's lips, "Hey cart? Can you do something that might draw those guys over here? Let's get some customers!"

Some how, Danny's grin only grew at the rumble of the cart, and he xould hav sworn he heard a sound that was a mix between a train horn and a chuckle.

---

Tim shot his brother a stinging glare, swatting at his arm as he blushed, he did every much indeed accidentally killed Santa Claus and took an impromptu trip to Apokolips to give DarkSeid coal.

His next rebuttal to Nightwing was cut off as the diner cart shuddered as if it was in an earthquake before it stilled, and the banner that was across it suddenly gained a new line.

[JUST NOW! VIGILANTES AND HEROS GET ONE FREE SIDE OF FRIES! COME ON IN BEFORE THE OFFER ENDS!]

Tim was silent for a moment, watching the cart to see if there was any more changes before turning to Dick, who had lost the joyful energy that he always seemed to have.

"RR, plans changed, we are going to investigate inside."

Tim gave a sharp nod, his bo staff elongating as he grappled down to the train tracks below, his boots crunching gravel underfoot as he slipped from shadow to shadow, getting closer to Big C's diner.

---

Danny was in the back, flipping through his cook book as he heard a bell ring, jolting up, Danny could see through the service window and see who came in.

He had never met a real hero before, not like the two that had just came in, feeling nervous, Danny fumbled with a small notebook as he came out from the kitchen, grinning at the two Birds.

"Heya! Thanks for coming to Big C's! Names Danny and I am kinda the only one in today, what can I get you both?"

His eyes flickered between the two vigilantes, noticing new things each time he looked at them, like how Red Robin's cape had buttons instead of being sown on, or how Nightwings suit wasn't slick but actually textured.

---

Dick looked at everything he could as he stood in the diners door, it looked like a typical 50s styled mom and pop kinda place, an old radio buzzed with songs of a bygone era while the seats were cracked pink leather vinyl.

He could hear someone moving in the back, resting a hand on his eskrima sticks, Dick stalked further in, it felt real enough...

He could feel Red Robin knock into his back as the person from the back came into view, it was a teen, and holy hell did he look like Bruce Wayne adoption bait, raven hair, blue eyes and a cheesy looking grin.

He couldn't be older than Damian, who had turned 16 a few months ago, the teen was just so...tiny.

Danny, that's the name given to them, and Dick can see it, he looked like a Danny.

Pausing to look to Tim, Dick smiled back at the teen, "Well...can we see a menu?"

[mapoeggplant]

thoughts and small review on tokyo babylon // spoilers

not even the kindest of hearts can survive the trick of destiny: clamp once again shows how they excel with the creation of magic and a huge universes.

one thing that i absolute adore abou clamp's writing is how they are able to create this whole new world from start to finish and make all the stories inside of it plausible and connected. the sensation of getting in contact with everything they ever created and recognizing characters and stories are one of the most beautiful things about reading their work, specially when you read one after another. it took me a while to read tokyo babylon after i read some of their other works from the same universe, but the feeling was there nonetheless.

TB was a surprise. i am very used to clamp's playful writing that adds very political themes to their magic, but i wasn't expecting to find so many in a story from 1990. it discusses from consequences of abuse, be it sexual or familiar; the growing housing crisis that affected (and still do) whole tokyo, leading people to their extreme; xenophobia, when they talk about how immigrants aren't seen as real people since they can't speak the language; and so many other political debates. this was the best surprise to me, for sure.

another thing i usually really like about clamp's work is how they value individuality and emphasize how each person's pain cannot be compared to or felt by another, since it belongs only to the person who feels it. of course, there is empathy and ways of associating, but never denying or belittling someone else's pain, since we are not in their shoes to feel it. the siblings dynamic was beautiful. it's heartwarming to see how much love and respect the twins have for each other and how they will do anything to save the sibling they love so dearly, even dying in their place. hokuto's final moments brought tears to my eyes, specially when i saw her body on seishirou's arms.

now, to the elephant in the room: i don't think the romantic feelings between subaru and seishiro is very clear to me yet. let me explain.

i know that the narrative shifts on X and the development of their relationship begins to change, but in my opinion, the plot surrounding both, up to now, was based on grooming and manipulation. seishirou was playing emotional games with subaru with the intention of fulfilling his wish and only that, just to challenge himself and his nature. he even manipulated and played with hokuto, making her an ally, which was one of the reason that lead her to her death, since bearing the thought that she was the one to bring seishiro and subaru closer was way too much for her to handle. she died carrying an immense guilt. i also don't think subaru understand exactly if he loves seishirou's romantically yet, and the moment when he stops to try to understand it and say "i do love him", he was under the influence of all his spell, as if he was lead to believe that

what he felt was romantic because of all the little games seishiro played with him, pushing his fake feelings into him. subaru's love is completely tied and mixed with his guilt, since he considers himself to be the reason why seishirou is blind in one eye. it's not that subaru didn't care about seishiro: no, he did. he considered him to be someone very important to him, i just don't think it was romantic. and this gets a little clear to me when he lets himself to be killed, not even reacting or fighting back, which i do believe one of the reasons why is because he so full of guilt and compassion for this man that he believe he loved romantically and was the reason why his whole life changed.

i also want to say that despite what it might have sound, i do like seishirou and i think he's an amazing character, very well constructed, bringing a lot of clamp's skills with writing complex characters that navigates through very grayish areas. the more he revealed to be hiding things, the more i wanted to know more about him.

i'm very excited to start X now, because i feel i'll have a lot more answers. not only about subaru and seishiro's relationship, but also more about hokuto's death, their whole family dynamic, sakurazuka's clam and so much more.

thank you for reading up to here!! it will be a pleasure to discuss it with you if you feel like it 💛 don't forget to support the authors!!!

EDIT: i want to make something clear since I did had this discussion with some people (which i'm not complaining, i looooove discussing). i'm not here to deny the canon confirmation that seishirou and subaru are in love with each other and are a canon couple. i know about it and I'm sure X will give me a way better clarity over the topic. it's just my interpretation on tokyo babylon, which doesn't mean I'm denying canon. don't worry!!

[tyto-and-tenebricosa]

Tenebra Hound - Monster Concept Sketch

“The Tenebra Hounds are former pure-blooded Tyto Tenebricosas who have taken on this new, grotesque form of a dog-like creature with bat-like wings. Often found in several god’s realms or in the reality we all know of, these beings are highly intelligent carnivores that act as guards, bloodhounds as well as searchers in areas that are unreachable for normal canines.”

“While appearing blind, they have excellent vision, being able to spot subtle movement even from kilometers away. Their nostrils, while mostly concealed, are bent backwards while additionally strongly resembling a wolf’s, allowing them to take scents without the need to stop breathing. Their immense lungs hidden within their large, bony-looking chests allow them to supply their bodies with enough air to give chase for hours, and their paw-like talons enable them to climb and run almost as fast as their wings allow them to fly. Their hind-legs are very muscular, which also gives them the ability to jump shocking heights without momentum, giving them an advantage in hilly grounds or difficultly structured caves.”

“They are often found with collars or other means of identification, and when in battle, specialized armor is draped over their body to protect their rather thin and long built. One of the more well-known Tenebra Hounds is Morvash, a personal guard hound of the Dzikaje of Slavery, Imprisonment and Torture - also known as the Slave King – and guard dog for the personal residence of the mansion Vatakah-Valhalla.”

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

That is what I have until now. It's still somewhat in development but it's sloooowly all coming together. Also in case you wonder why I have mentioned the pure-blood thing, it's important for the name giving. If it is a mix of a Tenebricosa and a Virginianus, it would be a Teneginia Hound.

Edit: Any found have been corrected. Pls remember that I am doing all of this alone and that I am not a native English speaker. Plus autocorrect is a bastard.

[admirableadmiranda]

Since they seem to be a hot topic, what is your opinion of Lan Xichen, Lan Qiren, and Jiang Yanli?

Like personally they rub me a wrong way to varying degrees. Not because they are bad people but mostly little things. I will admit that I have to reread the book, so fics and meta might be coloring my view. Anyway, what are your thoughts on them?

Hi! Thank you for waiting for me to answer this, since they are often such hot topics I had to wait for a day in which I was prepared for dissent in my notes to answer.

This got quite a bit longer than intended, so cutting for length.

In order of your listing of them:

Lan Xichen:

I think that he is a great character, I quite enjoy his personality type, his virtues and his flaws. He is a man who wants to do well in the world and does his best to treat those he knows with equal respect without being blinded by what others say about them. Unfortunately this creates a double edged sword as he will only accept his own opinion and that of those he trusts implicitly on matters, and he is not the best judge of character in the world, thus leaving him open to manipulation in a way that can cause a lot of harm given his position.

I do think he's a much better person than many of his generation and almost everyone of the previous generation. He has his flaws and blindspots, but he does not resist changing in the same way they do. Of every clan leader we see in the narrative, he is the only one who makes the effort to choose differently in the present over the past. His flaws do not doom him to death in the same way that it does so many others and in the end, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji do not give up on him, both of them considering him and worrying about him in their own way.

Lan Xichen makes a point of calling Wei Wuxian Wei-gongzi at all times, even when others around them refer to him with much worse and rude terms. He treats Jin Guangyao with genuine respect and tries to use his own attitude and treatment of Jin Guangyao to shame others into treating him better when they do shun him simply for being of lower rank and who his mother is, and he maintains this even when they aren't around. Considering the amount of people who cannot do this to their faces, that says something about how he wants to treat people in general. It is simply that his blind spot of wanting to trust those he knows to be good as well causes a lot of incidental harm, which he knows and will have to live with. I think he's an excellent character and does not deserve the treatment he sometimes gets from fandom. I can understand more passive trusting characters who want to care for those around them not always vibing well with someone, but it really irks me to see such traits praised in one character and bashed in another, such as those who bash Jiang Yanli for them while praising Lan Xichen and vice versa.

Lan Qiren

In all honestly, Lan Qiren is a character who how sympathetic I am to him really depends on the work and the timeline. In MDZS proper, he's kind of a toad, he very much is the negative side of conservatism, who holds grudges against the children of people that he disliked when he met them and allows his rigidity and stubbornness to color every interaction he has. He very much does cause unnecessary problems and he deserves whatever Wei Wuxian wants to throw his way in the end for refusing to let go of old bitterness and move forward.

However, there are a few areas in which even in MDZS proper I can feel sympathetic to him. His older brother was the pride and joy of the Lan Clan, their heir who would be the next leader after their father stepped down/passed away depending on which came first, but due to the snarled mess with Madam Lan and the decisions that they kept secret to just the two of them to the end of their days, he is pushed into a position that simultaneously never should have been his and is not truly his to have. He is saddled with the responsibility of leading and running their clan while his brother is in seclusion, yet he is only acting clan leader, lacking the true power of the title and ability to act as he needs while his brother remains in seclusion and as clan leader at the same time. That couldn't have been an easy bridge to walk and I do sympathize with him for that. He probably would have been a happier man in a world where he could have gone and lived the life he enjoyed without having to step up where others faltered for decades.

However, that is not an excuse to take it out on children, and my sympathies end there.

Jiang Yanli:

Jiang Yanli is a sweetie who has done the best she can in a world that leaves her little room to impact anything. She's a gentle soul, someone who prefers to lead a quiet life with the people she cares about, raised in an abusive household that she was born into. Such a thing always marks people's souls when they have to survive from the first things they can remember. She is in an engagement where her betrothed treats her terribly, where her mother transparently does not care about her outside of using her to hurt the people she loves and there is not much she can do about it beyond what she does, shielding Wei Wuxian, caring for Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng and speaking up in their defense to outsiders who would hurt them.

She isn't perfect, no one in this novel is, but she really does want to do well by the people she cares about and she goes so far to try and help Wei Wuxian when Jiang Cheng won't, even facing down Jin Zixun and everyone around him to demand apologies and respect when they insist on demeaning him, up to the point where she chooses to save Wei Wuxian's life even after he killed Jin Zixuan and she doesn't know why. She doesn't have to know why to know that she still wants him to live. There is a reason why her positive influence is so important and it's that which leads Wei Wuxian to start helping and caring for her son who has been raised so poorly, knowing that she would want better for Jin Ling and resolving to step up for him in her absence.

In a world which frequently demeans kindness, she chooses it over violence and hatred as her mother and brother would not. She deserves better than what she got, and in a good world, Wei Wuxian would get to keep the girl who chose him as her brother even when the rest of the world refused to respect that. I really like her.

In short, I guess I like all of them for being the characters they are and can see them as well rounded characters with their own weaknesses and flaws. Lan Qiren I care about far less than the other two, but I actually really like Jiang Yanli and Lan Xichen and would rate them up quite highly together (and ship them for a much happier pairing for Jiang Yanli). Jiang Yanli and Lan Xichen are very similar in character in many ways, and I think to demean one for traits the other has is to not respect either of them.

But that's just me, of course. I know that I can write as many words as I want and still people will disagree with me. As long as they give me the right to keep my opinions as well instead of trying to convince me out of them, we can still get along just fine.

Thanks for the ask! And thanks again for your patience too.

[archivus]

MAG[REDACTED] - Dark Down Below

This is episode dedicated to fans of Agnes Montague, the Cult of the Lightless Flame or the People's Church of the Divine Host

Statement of Lisa Yordanka regarding her experience with a strange mattress. Original statement given 22nd of August 1998, recording by Arcturus Walker, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, Budapest. Put to tape on April 2nd 2024. Statement begins:

I know about the entities. And I know that you must know about them as well. The ten lords in the sky beyond controlling our fears, but there's only one to which's power I consented to: the Desolation. I never thought a daughter of The Blackened Earth would be haunted by The Forever Blind. But I guess dark and destruction, flame and ash and coal go hand in hand. I never thought of their faction as the enemy. I thought we had some kind of contract binding us until we rid our area of The Mother of Puppets. Assuming they were the ones that brought it upon me.

I'm a coward. I have been devout to Asag ever since it enlightened me to it all: the human race deserves not what it has. The only one to bring destruction to it all is my God and no one else's. I would sacrifice myself in its name and yet, I haven't. I want to say I just haven't had the chance to, but that'd be a lie. I am afraid to die. Even in light of the powers at my fingertips I cannot bring death upon my shell. Because wouldn't that mean giving myself up to Terminus? Wouldn't that just feed The Coming End That Waits For All? Will I stop lying to myself one day? I can't bring myself to do it. It's that simple.

Until the inevitable end comes when I'll finally unite with the one to light my fire I will put this body to the most use that I can for both IT and the cult. So then, how come The Dark set it's blind gaze upon me? Why did I become their target? I don't even know what it counts, maybe as- as an artefact? A monster that came for me? Did something *posess* my mattress while I was busy fighting for Agnes?

It was a cold night, I remember. I got the chance to be around the chosen one, for a week I was blessed by her presence and I soaked it up, I could feel it in my powers. But the apartment she and Jude shared didn't have a guest bedroom nor a third bed, but luckily someone from the cult had a spare mattress we brought over to accommodate those that wish to see messiah and bathe in her immediate divinity. I was not the first to sleep on it. But I was there at the wrong time.

See, we had a bit of a commotion with our siblings over at the people's church, some started a protest that this joint of powers is a downright sacrilege towards their "Mr. Pitch", that whilst our flame is lightless, the heat it emanates is reminiscent of the thing they hate the most. They argued that our burning is parallel to that of the Sun which they're so desperately trying to blacken and thus we were harmful to their sanctity.

Though we tried to keep Agnes's identity a secret, their most sensitive to the world beyond ours could feel her presence and the gossip carried the word quick and far. So their target was set on our dear messiah's back and that was something I simply I could not let happen. The physical aspect of the fight was lacking to say the least, the darkness works by disorientation not by direct combat, which is what the flame excels at.

Thankfully my blessed abilities include striking a spark into all that's electric and once the churchmen's frosty void surrounded us all I was able to flick all the broken bulbs lying around, those that they ritualistically destroyed into a flashbang for those who still perceived with their eyes. The rest also felt their power dissipate. The destruction of their ego, their fear of eradication almost made me want to get up close and personal with those who were first to open fire but there was no need, for they all turned their backs and my family from the cult urged me to leave them behind. That mercy was undeserved and it hurt.

That evening I had a hard time ridding my system of the pent up adrenaline. I took to some meditation with the members who were still there by the nightfall, but I still struggled to fall asleep. The mattress seemed too wavy and for long long hours I thought it was just my shocked perception playing tricks on my brain. But then I felt something slam into the middle of my spine, a shocking pain piercing through my skin like a round knife. It was like a heavy wooden door shutting, again and again and again. I tried to scream. I see well in the dark, my heat perception is impeccable yet I couldn't find a thing in my vicinity. The room seemed empty and after half a second the darkness seemed to wrap around my neck, flowing down my throat, muffling any sound I made. Then another spring etched into the nape of my neck, with a power that should've sprung my head up but something weighed me down on the needle bed that kept on prying into my body, spring by spring until I lost consciousness.

I don't even have to mention. It was dark. The most pitch black one couldn't see. This one had to be lived by a soul, as I was sure that was all I had now. My, at least what I believe to be my projected- body was glowing. I wasn't floating though. All around me was all encompassing darkness, yes, but I was laying in a swamp of some sort of viscous liquid that barely felt like it was even there. At first at least. I could barely touch it, the texture escaped my fingertips. That was until I felt a bump forming under my back from what, I now felt as a tiny swarm of particles, a dark sentient confetti. Thinking they were about to transport me I relaxed my body. How naive of me. Expecting to meet face to face with one of the gods from beyond? In my right mind I definitely wouldn't have thought myself worthy and I still not am. But I let go to see where the darkness takes me. Nowhere.

All of a sudden I experienced an ache of a thousand suns burrowing under my skin, the wounds were still obviously there from where the springs burst into me, and now they were being pried open once again by the mysterious creatures, bleeding me dry in the dreamscape of their master(s). I was numb. The pain made my brain forget where my muscles were positioned. I wouldn't be surprised if it was because of a spinal cord injury. For a moment it all seemed to cease but right after the calm my whole being began to spasm. I was experiencing a shock, a fit that I can't describe. I wasn't conscious all throughout though, I can tell you that much. After all my muscles startes vibrating uncontrollably, I lost myself.

And then awoke. My head throbbing like a bad hangover, I climbed over to the bathroom. I spare you the details, I was in a rather sorry state. I do not know who cursed me in the church and I do not care to find out. I want them all to pay, to burn among the flames they'll wish so desperately to not see. But my fire will burn through their blackened eyeholes and etch a flash in the deepest corners of the minds of even those that could never see. And I'll leave this statement to you and the ages to come, to note the day those wretched monsters dare lay their closed eyes upon our Agnes.

Statement ends. There are certainly a few interesting details to this statement so I'll go over them in order. First, Lisa only seems to know about 10 of the 15 entities, which may translate to the Cult of The Lightless Flame having the same, limited knowledge. This can be seen by the fact that miss Lisa's powers described here more closely resemble The Extinction's, rather than The Desolation's. It definitely gets me wondering how someone devout could be snatched from their entity's grasp. Maybe the Future Without Us was already within her when she first joined the cult?

Still baffles me how such a new power would dare mess with the subordinates of the burning destruction. Miss Lisa's fear and inability to sacrifice herself may come from The Extinction preventing her from becoming an avatar to the *wrong* entity, or it could just be a manifestation of its powers, just like her wishing death upon the entirety of the human race. I was also unaware that the two most active cults at the time, at least of those serving the entities, held such close ties, even if we just witnessed them getting severed...

Two days after giving this statement the apartment under the name of Lisa Yordanka caught fire, which is assumed to be electrical in nature, her kitchen appliances being the most likely source, and whilst cameras don't show her leaving, no body was found. Per my deductions this means she had completed her transformation into an avatar, though maybe not the one she wished to become. I wonder if the metal from the springs could've helped her body transform, like a crystallization chain reaction. Those born of The Terrible Change seem to enjoy their robotic bodies more than their organic ones, which they often experience as flesh-prisons. *sigh* I hope this fellow avatar finds it freeing as well and not as another bound to something she doesn't even know about. Wonder if she's ever going to figure it out. Recording ends.

Thanks for reading! I love how this turned out and actually written most of it before The Stranger's episode was done 😅. This episode is dedicated to The Dark and you can find the other ones here: The Flesh The Vast The Stranger

[nacentart]

Vivian Maier Photographer Streets Ahead

Vivian Maier was a remarkable American street photographer whose 150,000 negatives that she took over a 50 year period were stored away and left unseen until after Maier’s death in 2009, at the age of 83. With the timely emergence of internet picture sites, Maier’s street photography was discovered, thanks to Chicago-based picture collectors such as John Maloof and Ron Slattery. Since then, Maier’s work has become the subject of worldwide interest with books, documentaries, and exhibitions being made about her life, in particular, the excellent 2014 documentary Finding Vivian Maier, which was also nominated for best documentary at the Oscars. Maier spent her youth between the United States and France before moving back to New York in 1951, primarily working as a nanny for most of her life. It is hard to know where to start with Maier’s work, it is so varied but ultimately would be an understatement to say Maier’s photographs do not feel like someone's old attic box brownie family photographs, although Maier did start her photography with a single shutter Brownie. Maier turns the everyday life that surrounded her in cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York into individual vignettes of films never made. Her best-known work represents the streets of New York and Chicago in the 1950s and 60s.

Maier often took self-portraits or photographs of her own shadow. In many of her self-portraits, Maier is reflected in the glass of a window or a blown-up shadow on a distant wall. I think Maier occasionally wants to be part of her own record but there is an unsureness that I can relate to; she is there but not there. Occasionally she is bold, and her reflection is captured in a window, sometimes revealed like a spectral presence, other times she is starkly represented in the reflection of a mirror that someone is carrying in the street. I love Maier’s self-portrait mirror shots; I feel I become her in that moment. I am transitorily there at the point where the shutter fleetingly opens to capture the light. One can see the scene Maier wants to capture and the capturer.  Maier had such a great eye for trapping split-second dramas, be it a nun getting wheeled out on a stretcher, a man’s feet emerging and poking underneath a shop window blind, surrounded by food tins, or a film premiere with Kirk Douglas. Maier would walk around on her days off from nannying, traversing the windy streets from the upmarket to the poor areas of town. Nothing was off-subject, and it is a remarkable body of work.

Great care has also been taken in printing Maier’s negatives. A lot of images including the images from the official website were not originally printed by Maier and much debate about how a photographer wants to portray in physical form their negatives was studied in Maier’s case. According to the official website for Maier, Maier’s own printed photographs were examined, and notes were given to labs on how to crop and print etc, were used. One thing is sure, I am grateful that this valuable and significant archive of twentieth-century life was saved, but it does not just represent twentieth-century life. It is far from just a documentation of how we used to live. There is great artistry in Maier’s ability to find deeply humane moments in people's lives and somehow also turn each moment into the most important scene of the play or film.  

Photographs of some of the poor areas and people are very powerful and Maier does not look away from their obvious suffering. It also shows Maier’s own humanity in documenting their struggles, I think that comes across in her work. She had a real kinship with those who were destitute. Maier was a socialist and feminist and, ironically, Maier would also find herself struggling in the last decades of her life and, at some point, did become homeless. Fortunately, some of Maier’s former children, whom she looked after, came together to help her find a small apartment to live in. Maier’s negatives were eventually sold off to pay off debts in 2007, two years before she died, and eventually were sold to collectors such as John Maloof who have taken great care in helping to get Maier’s work in the public domain. Maier was a very guarded and private person in her life. We do not know how she would view her newfound fame, but I for one am happy that I have had the opportunity to see some of Vivian Maier’s astounding work.

[transhawks]

Lmao, it always goes back to those Prohero Arc connections and clarity I swear. And people wonder why I’m so obsessed with that arc for this single reason. I think one of my favorite things is the character development you’ve been going through. Perhaps the real iconic narrative arc all along was Rani turning into a passionate AfoHawks spokesperson. *chefs kiss* the pOETRY 🎶

LISTEN. YOU DONT GET HOW FUCKING WEIRD THIS IS????? 2020-21 I was off roleplaying my dhampir!keigo, infiltrating AFO's coven and stupidly falling in love with his ward sacrifice Fae/Werewolf!Tomura and failing in killing him (Tomura cursed him to hell and back and Jin didn't help with his curse, fucking fae :/), but like WE NOTICED when we roleplayed Keigo FINALLY meeting AFO that like....the whole dynamic changed. There wasn't anything non-platonic (except keigo whining in the local monster support chat that the vampire lord of the area was boring af because real vampires throw massive masquerade balls that turn into orgies) but just....Hawks was at once at extremely high alert but also far more honest than he'd ever been. The pleasant and quirky local surfshop clerk/ditzy halfvamp schtick melted. This was a weapon. And not just a weapon; this was a vampire who could see the world just like All For One could, if he'd just flee the coop his human raisers had stuffed him into. Like the similarities in thinking jumped out. Of course Keigo wasn't exactly like AFO but I still remember that our tomura RPer had Tomura specifically mention (once they got all the files from Hawks's treachery/spy chats) how much Keigo sounds like sensei. It was fun! And it made it stick in my mind that surprisingly, Keigo and AFO could interact interestingly. This was bolstered by that chapter in 2021 where Keigo begins psychoanalyzing him, too. It was so interesting seeing him try to think like him. But you know, it's not like I expected canon to explore this. Even in the beginning of the war, I didn't. Something to note is that for the majority of the fight, All For One's own hubris and bias towards very flashy destructive quirks has blind-sided him to Hawks and his role in this war, by which I mean (and I can back up) is that most of the hero effort has indeed been carried on Keigo's back or orchestrated. It took until AFO got rewound to realize how much Horikoshi was setting them up. Endeavor barely mattered between them. And then...well, they started talking. Focusing on each other more. What am I supposed to do, ignore it????? It got heavier and heavier, the panels mirroring each other, converging at times, etc. Just Horikoshi doing excellently for a pair of people I never imagined would interact. And now we have Keigo laying on the ground, defeated, stripped of all that he believes he is, as All For One asks him if he's tired and then leaves with his wings, saying in the end he couldn't protect anyone. Too fast for his own good. Hubris.

LIKE??? HOW AM I NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THE SPOKESPERSON?????? i am a simple man, I like rich dynamics and cool framing and horikoshi feeds me regularly.

EDIT: was about to publish this but got a similar ask

Oh yes I absolutely loved the quietness of this. First he tells him to get out of his way and then, like, "Haven't you done your best?" It's a solemn moment, surprisingly, and I hope the anime does it justice in a year or two. And the god imagery! Ugh! i have SO MUCH to say on this but you have to wait because im doing a Big Meta again lol.

As for HPSC prez Keigo, part of me thinks that would be a Bad End. Or bittersweet at most. I remember misinterpreting one of the vol extras to mean that the HPSC was essentially grooming him to eventually replace her and there's something very fucked in that thought. I do however think he might do something with kids!

[therevelationofjohn]

"The Church in Odessa." From the Book of Revelation, 3: 14-22.

We continue to pile on toppings to our everything bagel, a new age of Jewish learning and nation building that includes everyone from every place, emerging from any kind of plight in search of their full humanity.

The Zohar says this means "to Odessa" AKA Laodicea, "to Odisha" is not a direct Hebrew phrase, but the closest translation based on the Hebrew root "Odisha" would likely be interpreted as "to the other side" or "beyond the Jordan River and beyond. "The regions beyond" or "the other side" typically referring to the area across the Jordan River. Odessa also means "the long wrathful journey" in Greek.

The primary connotation of this is figuring out how to get laid without regrets, something our global culture positively resents, but the Prophet says the goal of Odessa is all of the lamps of the Sefirot have to light up for all mankind, all at once. This he calls "the Throne Sepher."

The Church in Laodicea is 557, ךןז, "the technician."

The technician is the ideal of the Jewish faith. He is the one that does it all effortlessly, explains with his actions and does not delude his following as to his aims. He is not Abraham or Isaac, or Jacob or Moses or Jesus, but John. It is the God of Johnathan made famous in the Talmud by yours truly, the God of Transformation we want to give celebrity status to here in this final module of the Revelation that explains the Seven Churches in Asia, "the Churches in Ascent."

To the Church in Laodicea

14 “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 

16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 

18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

21 To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

John quotes God's famous warning, to be one thing and not the other. This is a Jewish planet. It was made out of a savage place into a comfortable interconnected metropolis rife with pleasure and comforts one hand off to the next by our Jewish ancestors and this practice continues today. According to the resolution named in this Revelation, our final handoff is to achieve Odessa, a place and time all mankind is ransomed from the fire by an excellent public education and the opportunities that follow. Educated societies are the most ethical and accomplished. They do not make war, they farm, the essntial unit of the sustenance of human life on this planet and they turn crops and domestic animals into the Shabbos.

This is an agnostic process. Everyone is able to perform it and share its benefits with the rest of the human race regardles of the Temple or Church in which they learn to do it. The Odessa Throne, global communal Shabbos "the work ethic" is the most important objective the modern world has ahead of it. The fruits of the harvest of Shabbos are called Shabbat, or the Sabbath, the Day of Rest.

Christians study the theoretical basis for this when they review the Old Testament, it is time they learned how to do it right. Even the Quran says this is an appropriate way to map out the future of this world.

The Quran discusses the Sabbath in a few places, including the story of the Sabbath-breakers in Al Araf, The Quran also states that Muslims replace the Sabbath with Friday prayer, or jumu'ah. 

Surah Al-A'raf: The Quran tells the story of a town by the sea that broke the Sabbath. The people of the town were punished by being turned into apes.

Al-Nisa 4:47: The Quran states that those who break the Sabbath will be cursed.

Al-Nahl 16:124: The Quran states that the Sabbath was only for those who differed concerning it, and that Allah will judge between them on the Day of Resurrection.

Friday prayer

The Quran states that Muslims should hasten to the remembrance of Allah on Friday, and leave off business. 

The word for Friday in Arabic comes from the name of the special prayer that is done on that day. 

Many Muslim countries consider Friday a nonwork day, a holiday, or a weekend. 

The Values in Gematria are

v. 14-15: These are the words of the Amen. The Number is 10392, קשצב‎, kashetzav‎, "the place one stands in order to spot the mountain He placed." Also "to desire a nation that is without shame."

v. 16-17: If you say you are rich, you are blind and naked. The Number is 12453, יבתןג‎, yavteng, "biting", "usury, paying too much interest."

Usury, borrowing against time is a sin profoundly denounced the Torah.

Exodus 22:24 reads: "If you lend money to my people, to the poor who are in your power, do not act toward them as a creditor. Take no interest from them." Second, Leviticus 25:35-37 states "If your brother is poor, and his means fail with you, then you shall uphold him."

v. 18: Cover your nakedness. The relief of poverty is a profession. It cannot be done by the general population. It takes decades and a good deal of expertise and dedication to reprieve a population from the dregs of poverty. For the most part, the relief of poverty is funded by the public it is not done via taxation.

The goal of the Church is to encourage the population to remain fixed on the objective so politicians will remain fixed on it. The relief of poverty is doable, it is the right thing to do, it is very good for the economy from day 1. If the burden of the relief of poverty falls on the public and enterprises, said efforts will fail. Fiscal policy for the relief of poverty has to be done gratis by the government in order to work and almost always is:

"Poverty alleviation not only plays a critical role in enhancing social equity and welfare but also serves as a catalyst for socioeconomic development (Kuijs & Wang, 2006; Luo, 2022; Montalvo & Ravallion, 2010; Wang et al., 2014; Yao, 2006; Zhang et al., 2003). Numerous studies have demonstrated the negative impact of poverty on economic growth (Deininger & Squire, 1998; Knowles, 2005; Ravallion, 1998; Voitchovsky, 2005) and the untapped opportunities for investment in physical and human capital (Azariadis, 2006; Bardhan et al., 2000; Thorbecke & Jung, 1996; World Bank, 2006). Consequently, there is a global consensus on the necessity of poverty alleviation (Besley, 1990; Yan, 2016; Liu, Guo and Zhou, 2017a, Liu, Guo and Zhou, 2017b).

During the process of targeted poverty alleviation, a significant characteristic is the substantial fiscal funds shouldered by governments at all levels. Data from the Ministry of Finance of the People's Republic of China (PRC) reveals that fiscal anti-poverty funds increased from RMB 84.1 billion in 2013 to RMB 562.163 billion in 2020. Existing literature highlights the importance of fiscal transfer payments for poverty alleviation (Gomo, 2015; Liu, 2001; Park et al., 2002; Zhang et al., 2019), with fiscal expenditure remaining the primary source of funds for poverty relief worldwide (Jha et al., 2009)."

The Number is 12692, יב‎םץב‎, yev metzav, "The state of affairs."

v. 19: Those I love, I rebuke and discipline. The Number is 9687, ץו‎ףז‎, zofaz, tshuephaz, "to be rehabilitated."

The Torah and the Gospels say we get two chances in life. Once one makes an error, one is expected to learn from it and that is the end of it. Jewish does not believe in the Buddhist Dharma Wheel or reincarnation a few times till we get it right. The Torah says while one is fucking around, time is wasting, and when one is ready, one will do what has to be done and then one's second chance at life begins, but not in increments, not before.

This moment is called Crossing the Jordan into Canaan, and it happens when one reaches the left bank and crosses over to the right.

v. 21-22: For the one who is victorious, I will give the right. The Number is 17381, יזשפא‎, yazeshepa‎, "He will heal."

‎The end of the road for the accumulated accomplishments is as I have said is a Simchat Torah which terminates in sepher, "beauty is a a heritage of stability."

"The Hebrew root שפר (shapar) means to be pleasing, predominantly to the eye. It appears to be related to an Arabic verb that denotes the removal of the veil of a woman, which also may mean to shine. As verb it's used only once, in Psalm 16:6, where David exclaims, "indeed my heritage 'is beautiful' to me".

Its derivatives are:

The masculine noun שפר (sheper), meaning beauty or loveliness. It occurs only in Genesis 49:21.

The feminine noun שפרה (shipra), meaning fairness. It's used only once, in Job 26:13, to describe a pretty (clear?) sky.

The masculine noun שופר (shopar) or שפר (shopar), denoting a ram's horn made into a trumpet. This noun is used over seventy times in the Bible and the connection to the root is not clear. But it should be noted that the regular word for horn is קרן (qeren), which comes from a verb that either means to have horns, or else to shine.

The masculine noun שפרור (shaprur) or שפריר (shaprir), which apparently denotes a kind of (brightly colored?) canopy. It occurs only once in the Bible, in Jeremiah 43:10.

The rarity of this root indicates we're not dealing with a general pleasantness but something more specific. In Psalm 16:6, David sings about his heritage being 'beautiful.' The derived masculine noun שפר (sheper) is used only once too. In Genesis 49:21 Jacob declares, "Naphtali is a doe let loose; he gives words of 'beauty'".

The derived feminine noun שפרה (shipra) is used only once as well. When Job responds to��Bildad he says, "By his breath the heavens are made 'beautiful'". This verse is usually translated with images of a clear sky (since Job just prior sketches a sky full of storm clouds) but since draught was a considerable enemy in Job's days, a cloudless sky would be just as threatening as one filled with thunder clouds. Job is probably talking about a stable and peaceful sky, to coincide with the peaceful sea of verse 12. Similarly, the words of Naphtali may have been calm and peaceful, and David's heritage was one of stability."

Persons who are poor, who do not have hope or are forced to flee ordinary lives because of corruption or the elements do not observe Shabbat. Persons who are able to observe Shabbat are obligated according to John to ensure they can and find stability once again.

If all mankind began its quest for stability and founded the Church of Odessa, the combination of all Seven Churches in Asia now, today, hardly any of us would live to see "a heritage of stability" come to pass. That would be realized the generation coming after us. But look at what we did, this generation that survived the survivors of World War II, we started World War III. We need to wind this one down and fast before the world overheats and then we need to surrender to this Gospel and do it right one more time.

[ayawinterromance]

Tonight, the pints were flowing, and the mood was light. Max, Salima, and I were on dinner duty while Susie, Emma, and Dan were in the living room, jamming and causing their usual brand of chaos. We’d decided on curry, which, in hindsight, might’ve been a mistake because Salima was relentless when it came to spice levels.

“Seriously, Liam, it needs more chili,” Salima said, grabbing the jar and adding another spoonful without even consulting me.

“Sal, you’re gonna burn our taste buds clean off,” I teased, trying to wrestle the jar from her hands.

“It’s not my fault you’re all lightweights,” she shot back with a smirk, stirring the pot with precision.

“I am not a lightweight,” Max chimed in, pointing at her with his spoon. “My grandma could make a jerk chicken that would blind you all.”

“How have we not met this woman yet?” Salima demanded, turning to him. “I want her recipe. Or better yet, you make it for us.”

“It’s lethal but so good,” I added, grinning. “You’d love it, Sal.”

“Fine, next dinner night, we’re doing jerk chicken,” Max declared, clearly pleased with the attention his gran’s cooking was getting.

Just then, Emma strolled into the kitchen, looking suspiciously like she was about to “help.”

“Do you guys need a hand? Or maybe a referee?” she asked, her voice full of mock concern as she leaned against the counter.

The three of us froze like deer in headlights.

“No!” we shouted in unison, practically jumping to block her from the stove.

Emma raised her hands in mock surrender, laughing. “Alright, alright. Calm down I haven’t even touched anything yet.”

Here’s the thing about Emma: she’s brilliant at almost everything she touches. Singing, songwriting, performing, charming the hell out of an audience. But cooking? Cooking was Emma Hartgrave’s kryptonite. She was, without exaggeration, the world’s worst cook.

I’d seen her burn soup—actual liquid. Once, she even managed to set a toaster on fire. Her attempts at helping weren’t much better. She’d drop things, misread recipes, or somehow turn a simple task like chopping onions into a scene from a disaster movie—knives flying, mascara running, onion bits scattered like confetti. It was almost impressive how someone so competent in every other area of life could be so utterly hopeless in the kitchen.

She always blamed it on her upbringing. “I was raised by nannies under 30 and worked in bars and restaurants,” she’d say with a shrug. “Why would I need to cook?” To her credit, she could throw together a decent salad, maybe a smoothie—but beyond that? Hopeless.

“You sure? I could stir something,” she offered, clearly enjoying our collective horror.

“Absolutely not,” Salima said, voice firm. “Last time you stirred something, Emma, half of it ended up on the floor.”

Max pointed his spoon at her like a weapon. “Yes! You’re banned from the kitchen, Hartgrave. Permanently.”

Emma just laughed, stealing a sip of my beer from the counter. “Liam tickled me.”

“Oh yeah, blame the chef,” I said. “It was self-defense. You started it.”

“Well, you said I was terrible in the kitchen. I could not let that kind of trash talk slide.”

“You are terrible in the kitchen, Emma,” Max said flatly.

“Not true. I can make cereal. And I make excellent toast.”

“Cereal and toast do not count,” I shot back, grinning.

“Fine,” she huffed, throwing up her hands. “I’ll leave it to the supposed experts. But are we really letting the British white guy make curry?”

“We are not,” Salima said, pushing me aside before adding enough spice to kill us all.

Emma walked back to the living room, and Salima shook her head, laughing. “Dodged that bullet. She’s so bad at cooking. How?”

“It’s a skill at this point,” I said, still smiling. But as I watched Emma settle in with the others, her laughter ringing out over the music, something tightened in my chest.

Then my phone buzzed.

[thewul]

Just one of those things, a million Dollar home by AGR Lab and Arch Lab, privacy rooftop with pool, orientable blinds on the sides, it turned out really nice

Maybe it's synthetic grass, it has a pergola and an underground parking

Also we have skipped on solar panels to keep a streamlined profile, solar paint seems to be the next big thing, so possibly the rooftop blinds and overall have a solar paint coating

Based on the Triangular House by Arch Lab from Lithuania, but different

Rainwater collection above the exterior walls which are quite important, can be a thing

it's probably one of the most exclusive homes worldwide from what I have seen online mostly but I am not sure AGR LAB takes orders for that line of work

3 levels plus the rooftop and an underground garage, or level, it might not be the largest but how large those things have to be

Thank you for following AGR

design notes: the garden pool looked extensive, while it had the hallmarks of what a billionaire would do to impress the name Robert Louis Stevenson came to mind, and with it Treasure Island, and so there is now a small island with palm trees, a place to rest or to have a drink

importantly where we have located palm trees in front are actual large Birch trees, Bouleau, a dozen of them, that are not so much being discarded as being transformed, into the wood furniture of the house

it's important because it taps into what the site holds, aside from it facing the botanical garden, within a sustainable approach, not just cutting down the trees in order to build something but using those very same trees to furnish the building

and we can better understand the use of synthetic grass, or low water consumption palm trees, and also solar paint or rainwater collection, the house is tending towards sustainability vs using a lot of resources, just to water all of that grass surface for example

likewise furniture made in Morocco by Moroccan carpenters makes more sense than buying imported furniture, the designer(s) might be Swedish, they do excellent work with birch trees it's their trademark even, but the wood is from the site

there's a cost in bringing Swedish designers to work on that furniture hands on, true and it is worthwhile, for both countries, it just might be the beginning of something new in Scandinavian furniture made in Morocco

It's not IKEA of course, which had a sad story in Morocco, but nothing that can't be fixed with benefits, but rather a smaller specialty handmade furniture maker

design notes continued: it's an interesting pergola in the sense that it has no vertical support beams, it is set within the surrounding walls and extends from them

green mirror tint for the rooftop glass rail, maybe overall, and valet parking on the outside

worth mentioning, to better understand the house, is that the ground terrace surface in front by continuing the lines of the walkway is almost part of the palm tree garden since it has sliding glass doors and hosts a lounge

it is very large but a lot of it is either terraces or indoor covered terraces, as we see the main inner structure is represented by the rooftop level, aside from its exterior walls

a lot of automated sliding glass doors, the house is either open on its surroundings or enclosed behind them

in order to have that rooftop pool it is represented on all of the levels below as sunken lounge areas, so the ceiling height can continue to be represented overall

now the way Arc Lab designed their Triangular House is very interesting, a lot of use of glass surfaces however, this house is different, more strongly built with more concrete walls, but still the same triangular shape and still the use of extensive glass surfaces facing the botanic garden on the second level where the main suites should be, because it is composed of 2 suites, with the ground level for main salon, kitchen so forth

it is very reception oriented, the suites have blinds, so the house has exterior and interior blinds, and lighting of course for its inner terraces, that can become exterior terraces, for receptions

built in UHPC, ultra high performance concrete, the house is there to stay, with its concrete look, no paint and sustainability vs the use of chemical paint, to age with its surroundings, and blend with them

last but not least, because it sits next to a portion of railroad tunnel it is anti seismic in its construction but also has shock dampeners underneath its concrete support beams, made of rubber I suppose

[theharpermovieblog]

#HARPERSMOVIECOLLECTION

2023

I re-watched The Passion Of The Christ (2004)

I wanted to watch this and examine it away from the hype that surrounded it when I saw it in theaters. I am the furthest thing from religious, but I do understand that Mel Gibson is a damn good director sometimes, despite his beliefs and other issues.

The story of the torture and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.

I'll start with this.

No one died for your sins, you're not a sinner and anyone who tells you different is in a cult. The story of Jesus is just a tall tale told by people a long time ago. There are things in this movie that are brutal, offensive and just downright ridiculous. None of this should be viewed as if it actually happened. It is not history, it is fiction.

Of course there are deeper things to be looked into as far as this film and it's religious views. Questions of anti-semitism are always abound when talking about the passion. I'm going to try not to dig into that, as I'm watching to strictly judge this on filmmaking terms. But, let me just say that there is probably just cause to discuss anti-Semitism and the ridiculousness of all hate which breeds heavily in mythical beliefs and when making art that concerns those beliefs.

That all being said, the film's director Mel Gibson certainly believes all of this happened and that Jesus was the son of some magical God. Jim Caviezel, the actor playing Jesus also believes all of this and may have believed he was actually Jesus'second coming from interviews I've seen.

This film was made with the utmost faith, and while that benefits it in many areas, it also wounds it in others. Gibson is using too much slow motion, for sure. He's desperate to emphasize moments. He no doubt believes everything he's put on screen, but his reverence for getting these moments across is a bit try-hard. It's almost as if someone with less belief should have made this movie, so it'd come off less "fanboy-ish".

Now, that's not to say this is a poorly made or poorly directed film. It's not. It's quite exceptionally directed and helmed. It looks absolutely gorgeous and the choice to not film in English, but instead use Aramaic, Latin and Hebrew with subtitles is a great one. The acting is excellent, the script is a very solid one. It does often feel like we're watching the middle sequel in a trilogy, but technically we are seeing a part of a story. It's assumed if we are watching we already know the story and the players.

So, if not a true story (though intended to be taken as such), what is the merit of The Passion of The Christ as a film. Personally, I see The Passion as well made fictional horror/drama film about the brutality and ignorance of man and the terrible actions caused by Blind Faith.

Though I believe in none of this myth, nor do I believe in the son of God or a god in general, it's true that human beings torture and murder and act out evil upon eachother for the most pointless of reasons. It happened back then and it still happens now. Brutality and pain and torture and murder and rape should all be depicted in film because they are, sadly, a part of the human experience we can not seem to shed.

Gibson's film is among some of the most realistically violent movies you're going to see. It is not a pleasurable experience, nor is it one I choose to rewatch again after this. But, I can't call it a bad film, just maybe a bit too long.

[featherquillpen]

"a world of indescribable beauty": an animorphs meta

In Book #19 The Departure, we finally hear a perspective from a Yeerk, Aftran 942, about why the Yeerks left their planet and began conquering other species as hosts. One of the reasons she gives is Andalite imperialism, which makes a lot of sense: the Andalites began occupying and building military bases on the Yeerk planet before the Yeerks posed any kind of threat to them. This obviously doesn't justify enslaving other species, but it is certainly a reason why the Yeerks won't just go home to their pools: they would be submitting themselves to utter Andalite domination.

But there's another reason Aftran gives that is given a lot more emphasis within the story. It goes like this:

“In our natural state, we have an excellent sense of smell. We have a good sense of touch. We can hear. We can communicate, using a language of ultrasonic squeaks. But we cannot see. We are blind, until we enter a host. Over the millennia we have moved up the evolutionary chain to more and more advanced hosts. Eventually, the Gedds became our basic host bodies.

“They are clumsy, slow creatures. But they have eyes. Oh, you can’t imagine! You can’t imagine the first time you enter a Gedd brain and seize control and suddenly, you are seeing! Seeing! Colors! Shapes! It’s a miracle. To be blind and then to see!”

Suddenly she stooped down and snatched up a caterpillar from a leaf. “Do you see this? This is what I am, without a host body. Helpless! Weak! Blind!” She spun and pointed at the meadow. “Do you see those flowers? Do you see the sunlight? Do you see the birds flying? You hate me for wanting that? You hate me because I won’t spend my life blind? You hate me because I won’t spend my life swimming endlessly in a sea of sludge, while humans like you live in a world of indescribable beauty?”

Aftran says that Yeerks want to infest host bodies because Yeerk pools are disgusting and vision is magical. She takes Cassie on a journey in this book of becoming a caterpillar, nearly blind, and coming to appreciate once more the glory of her vision.

For years I have known that this narrative is contemptibly ableist, positioning a blind life as a terrible life worth enslaving others in order to escape. But after reading the book An Immense World by Ed Yong, a book about how animals perceive the world through a dozen different senses, I think this narrative presented in book 19 and throughout the Animorphs series is not just ableist, but also betrays disdain, ignorance, and contempt for the astonishing and beautiful diversity of animal perception - a very poor move for a book series very much about the beauty of animal diversity.

The sensory world of a Yeerk

Aftran tells us about the senses Yeerks have, and we see them from Cassie's point of view in book 29 and Visser Three's point of view in The Hork Bajir Chronicles as well. They have an excellent sense of smell, a good sense of touch, they can hear, and they can echolocate. They may have other senses that Aftran didn't list, such as heat-sensing (to find Kandrona rays, perhaps) or electroception. But let's stick to the ones we know they have.

Smell, as shown in the books like book 1 and 21 where a point of view character morphs a dog, is a remarkable sense. While our eyes can only detect three colors in various combinations, a sense of smell could differentiate thousands upon thousands of unique scents. In aquatic environments, like where a Yeerk lives, a strong sense of smell can be used for navigation: different areas of water with different dissolved nutrients will smell different, creating a scent-scape. Smell also has a time dimension that vision does not. People and things leave trails of smell behind, which means a keen sense of smell can delve into the past. Approaching beings have a wave-front of smell in front of them, so you can also smell what's coming, sometimes from a very long way away, if the scent molecule is very small and volatile. More than any other sense, smell gives you access to the past, present, and future of a place.

In water especially, a sense of touch can create a fantastically nuanced sense of the world around you. Since Yeerks swim, they likely have touch receptors that give them a sense of flow, like the lateral lines of fish. In the ocean, everything is touching each other at a distance through the medium of water, via the currents created by swimming. The same would be true in a Yeerk pool: a Yeerk would likely be able to feel everything and everyone moving around it, each wriggle of a fellow Yeerk felt on the skin like a caress.

Our closest template for the Yeerks' underwater sonar shown in book 29 is the sonar of dolphins, which is even more remarkable than Applegrant showed in the various books where the Animorphs become dolphins. If Yeerk sonar is like dolphin sonar, then they are living medical scanners: their sonar can penetrate flesh to internal organs, as long as they are underwater. They would be able to perhaps hear the brain of a submerged host, or at least the skull. They would sense the contours of things buried in the sediment below the water. Sonar is very finely tuned because those who use it can adjust the frequency, length, pitch, and volume of their calls depending on what they want to detect. Imagine if you could "tune" your vision to different wavelengths: that's what sonar is like.

From all this, I think we can draw only one conclusion. That "world of indescribable beauty" where Aftran says that humans live? The Yeerks lived in one, too. It was just a different world with different indescribable beauty.

The problem with centering vision

First of all, let me be clear: the worst part about this narrative, in book 19 and throughout the Animorphs series, is that it's ableist. It's incredibly cruel to blind readers to suggest that they live in a world without beauty. This cruelty shows in the way book 49 treats a human blind character, Loren, who is also depicted as having an impoverished life-- not so much because she is literally dirt poor, but because she's longing for sight, which Tobias provides her via the morphing power.

But there is another big problem: this narrative undermines a lot of the key themes that Animorphs is trying to communicate.

Within book 19 itself, the passage I quoted above is trying to make Aftran more sympathetic. She's not just a monster who enjoys controlling and dominating others; she infests hosts for a supposedly good reason: because her sensory world is devoid of beauty and joy and hosts give her access to it. It's a turning point in the story for how we view this character. But if we reject the premise that a Yeerk's life in a pool is dreary and joyless because it is not sighted, Aftran here becomes very unsympathetic. Like a colonizer who already has a countryside manor but also wants a cottage on a tropical beach, Aftran already lives in a world of indescribable beauty, but she wants to exploit other people so she can experience the beauty of their worlds in addition to her own.

One of the core themes of Animorphs is the beauty and wonder of biodiversity. Aftran celebrates the beauty of the meadow in the passage above from book 19. When the Animorphs morph dogs (book 1), their sense of smell is a wonder; when they morph dolphin (book 4), their sonar is a miracle. But when Yeerks rely on those same senses, they’re inherently inferior to vision.

For a long, frozen moment of disbelief, I did not know what was happening. I didn’t understand what my brain was receiving.

How could I? How could any Yeerk who has not had a host?

Sight!

Objects - not felt, not smelled, not reflected on sonar - but seen. It was like a sonar image, but oh, so much more. So much!

(The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, Chapter 5)

Which one is it, Applegrant? Is the diversity of perception a good thing, or is vision the best sense and everything else a distant second? You can’t have it both ways.

The third problem is that this narrative undermines another core theme of Animorphs: anti-imperialism. This deserves its own section for a deep dive.

Anti-imperialism and the diversity of embodiment

Anti-imperialism is a core theme of Animorphs. K.A. Applegate’s father served in Vietnam. Parallels are drawn throughout the series between the Andalite-Yeerk war and proxy wars between the U.S. and the Soviet Union: the Vietnam War (in The Andalite Chronicles) and the first Gulf War (in Visser.) The Andalites and the Yeerks are like the Americans and the Soviets, causing immense suffering on other planets in their proxy wars over species that they consider either slaves or necessary sacrifices.

One of the ways that empire works is that the bodies of imperial subjects are designated inferior and in need of correction. For example, in the U.S., natural Black hair is considered to be inherently “unprofessional,” and in many professions it must be shaved down or chemically straightened to be “professional.” Now, the Yeerks are themselves imperialists, but before they became the Yeerk Empire, they were occupied by an Andalite military force that considered their bodies to be disgusting and inferior before any Yeerk had ever raised a weapon against them:

«Orders are to avoid incidents,» another Andalite said. «Don’t you know these parasites are our brothers?» This was said with a sneer.

The Gedds moved closer.

«Orders or not, these filthy slugs are not touching my ship.»

(The Hork-Bajir Chronicles, chapter 1)

This is exactly how empires work. It’s good writing. But then we run into a problem, which is that every Yeerk we meet in the series agrees with the Andalites that their bodies and their senses are inferior. Aftran speaks disparagingly of “swimming endlessly in a sea of sludge,” which is the Yeerks’ natural state, but humans and Andalites consider disgusting. Aftran, Visser Three, and other Yeerks think vision, an important sense for Andalites and humans, is superior to sonar, an important sense for Yeerks. In the entire series, we never meet a single Yeerk who enjoys being a slug, living in a pool, and perceiving with Yeerk senses. They are all eager to either enslave host bodies or use the morphing power to permanently change their bodies. The series justifies the Andalites’ imperialist beliefs: the Yeerks agree that their bodies are in need of correction.

Celebrating the diversity of embodiment, lifting up all bodies as different and equal, is an anti-imperialist message. What Animorphs gives us by depicting (abled) human and Andalite bodies as enviable and Yeerk and Taxxon bodies as hellish prisons to be escaped at any cost, is an imperialist message.

How to fix it

The series has been done for twenty years now, but we’re all fans here, and we like to transform our favorite works. I’ve done a lot of work in my series Dæmorphing to fix this narrative, and I think there are a lot of opportunities to do so in fic and fanart.

Be realistic about animal perception. Applegrant do a much better job than most authors on researching animals and trying to depict them realistically, but they still tend to overplay the role of vision in the various animals the Animorphs become. For example, when Ax and Marco morph wolf spider, vision is emphasized as an important sense for them, when in fact touch/vibration is much more important to them when they hunt.

Depict aliens (and humans!) who prefer other senses to vision. There’s an opportunity to do this with Loren, a blind human given an ableist narrative in canon, and Elena, a blind girl the Animorphs rescue in book 51. You could also depict a Yeerk who experiences vision via a host and decides they like their own senses better.

Show Yeerks as victims of empire, not victims of their own bodies. I think this interaction that Ax has with a Yeerk in book 52 is very revealing. He’s caught a Yeerk in falcon morph who wants to stay in that morph and become a nothlit.

«I will be free,» the falcon insisted. «I will fly. I will see. No more need for Kandrona. No more orders, no more of this horrible war. I’ll just fly away.»

I understood. This creature was like Tobias, my true shorm. What a human would call my “best friend.”

Tobias was once a human boy. A very unhappy human boy. He stayed in red-tailed hawk morph for longer than two hours. I suspect he did it on purpose. It was his way of escaping the complexities of human life.

Tobias was abused and neglected and lived in poverty and chose a hawk body to escape the miseries of his life. This is exactly what this Yeerk wants. And it’s not just about wanting to see: it’s about wanting to escape the horrors of the Yeerk Empire. This is fertile ground to reframe the Yeerk desperation to escape into a host body or a nothlit form.

The average Yeerk did not ask to become a foot-soldier of empire. Throughout the series we meet Yeerks who do not like the role they were given. If Aftran lives in a world without beauty, then it’s not because of her senses; it’s because she lives under empire. Think of the Yeerk pool on Earth compared to how a pool must be on their own planet. The Yeerk pool on Earth is a giant concrete tub. A pool on their planet may have teemed with other life. It may have had all kinds of differences in sediment, rocks, water composition, sunlight. The Yeerks on Earth are like rats in a barren cage. Their senses didn’t deprive them of “a world of indescribable beauty”: the Yeerk Empire did.

[blindbeta]

Hi! I saw your post on writing blind characters. I have yet to read all the links but I saw Toph was mentioned and was wondering if you had any thoughts on Garret form Quest For Camelot (1998)? I don't know if you know the film, it's not all that well-known. He lost his sight as a teenager when he was saving horses from a fire. Sir Lionel (the heroin's dad) took him under his wing and helped him figure some things out; but there are hints that his blindness really affected the way other people percieved him, and that it made a number on Garret's self confidence. After Sir Lionel was murdered Garret left Camelot and made himself home in a magical forest. He gets around with a walking stick and Merlin's falcon Silverwings. At the end of the movie his childhood dream of becomes reality and he is knighted to be a knight of the round table. His introduction is beating a bunch of bad guys and,

heroine: Oh shit sorry I didn't notice you were-

Garret: That I was what? Blonde? Tall? Handsome? :D

heroine: …blind

Garret: oh

Garret: *smiles*

Garret: Yeah I keep forgetting about that :)

Hope you're having a nice day!

Blind / Low Vision Person Reviews Garret in Quest For Camelot (1998)

Thanks for telling me about this movie. I decided to do a review. I had several problems with the film, although Garret was the best part of it. I’ll review only the portrayal of blindness in the film rather than the film itself.

You didn’t ask for a review, but here you go!

Garret is one of the main characters in Quest For Camelot and he is blind. He is a young adult who went blind when he was a teenager.

Also, I love him. He is an excellent blind character. A few changes, maybe, and he would be perfect.

His Introduction

The introduction to Garret was very cute, and it managed to show the character’s skill and personality while also letting the audience know he was blind. I thought it was done well. The audience and main character, Kayley, may not necessarily know what blindness looks like. Plus, one can’t always tell, particularly because Garret’s cane is a generic stick that goes with the time period. His cane cannot alert others to his blindness the way the white canes of today can.

Also, I loved the part included in the ask.

Kayley: Oh I didn’t notice you were-

Garret: That I was what? Tall? Rugged? Handsome?

Kayley: Blind

Garret: Oh. Yeah, I keep forgetting about that.

This was so cute! I enjoyed it. He also makes a blind joke that actually works and didn’t jar me at all. It seemed like a joke I or one of my friends would make.

Things I Liked

In this post, I go over things I want in blind characters and things I want less of. Garret actually covers many things I want!

Garret is a main character and love interest. I can’t remember the last time I came across a blind love interest. His moments with Kayley were pretty cute and while I wish they had more time to develop together, the relationship was still refreshing in this context.

Garret uses a long slender stick as a cane. I absolutely loved this and the way he walked with it. Using a cane is such a simple detail, but it really made the movie for me.

He’s also very active. He lives by himself in a magical forest and has knowledge of plants and animals in the area. He can handle himself in a fight and certainly has the skills to become a knight. His fighting was impressive and worked for me because his blindness was not erased at all and has maybe even given him new ways of fighting.

On Garret Using His Cane as a Weapon

He does use his cane as a weapon, which I have previously stated I dislike. I am not how I feel about it in the film. In a way, I can get let this go because the cane is something he uses in a pinch rather than than something that doubles as both a weapon and a cane. We also see the consequences of using your cane as a weapon when Garret’s cane is broken by a villain, leaving him unable to navigate. Luckily for him, his cane is wooden and is easier to replace. In fact, using it when needed in the forest means he could replace it rather quickly with a long branch while he carves a new cane. Only when he leaves the forest and is in a fight does this become an issue.

Frankly, there are also no people in this film who would arrest him for having a weapon even if he isn’t using it as such at the time. Showing a character beating someone with a white cane would paint a different picture. Here is a post by @mimzy-writing-online that explains why this would quickly become a bad idea for blind people. However, I assume since this movie isn’t well known and that since the cane wooden and not a white cane, it didn’t lead to any such consequences for blind people.

White canes also take at least a few days to replace and are less durable. Garret’s cane has also been called a staff, which means it is probably meant to be more durable. It can take smashing into attackers or hitting trees.

Normally when I say I dislike writers having characters using canes as weapons I mean both actually using a white cane to fight with and using swords as full-time canes. This could be problematic for many reasons. One of which is that the character won’t be able to move well if they are using their cane as a weapon. I have no idea how Garret manages.

Garret’s cane might work better for me because his cane is a cane first and a weapon only sometimes. He isn’t walking around using his sword as a cane. However, there is a flashback with Garret’s first training session where he is given the staff. There it is clearly supposed to be a weapon Garret is meant to train with.

Overall, I don’t mind this much even if I am a little confused about my opinion on it. In general, I’d like writers to avoid writing canes doubling as weapons, even if this one was not as much of an issue for me as it usually is.

Should His Blindness Have Been Cured? No.

Lastly, they avoided the cure trope completely. In the end, magic heals everything that was harmed by the villain and changes a few other things. It could have been possible for the writers to heal Garret’s blindness here, but they didn’t. I was very happy with this.

There is also a scene where magic flowers are used for healing. The writers could have used them to heal his blindness and they didn’t. I was impressed that they avoided the cure trope twice.

I have seen some reviews online questioning why Garret’s blindness wasn’t healed. Many people seem to believe he deserved to be healed. I disagree with this idea.

Healing Garret would not have been relatable to many blind kids who don’t have magic cures.

It would have taken away representation, even if he was healed at the end of the film.

It would have probably also left Garret confused and disoriented for a long while, if he could even make sense of what was going on.

So, no, I don’t think he should have been cured.

I did like this video review here, which made a case for Garret getting the option to have his vision healed and turning it down. I could have accepted this as well. It would have probably been powerful for the audience.

Things I Thought Could Have Been Better

Garret is the only blind person in the film.

Given the time period and his hermit lifestyle, I completely understand Garret being more isolated than a modern blind person. He could have easily grown into adulthood without ever meeting another blind person. This is realistic, especially given that blind people in this time period would have less opportunities and therefore less chances to travel. It wouldn’t have been impossible or unlikely, just more difficult compared to today.

However, I still would have liked to see him meet at least one other blind person, if not a few.

Because while, yes, it is important to avoid tokenism, my concern is that Garret has no access to his own community. He has never a met another blind person, much less an accomplished blind person. No wonder he has problems with confidence. No wonder he believes his chances to be a knight died with his mentor. Garret has never seen another blind person succeed.

That leads me into ableism. Ableism is only hinted at in the film. Garret has someone who believes in him in the form of his mentor and Kayley, but he tells her there was no place for him in Camelot. He refuses to go to the castle with her once they finally reach it. He says he doesn’t belong in that world, which confuses Kayley.

Garret has internalized the idea that because he is blind he doesn’t belong and cannot follow his dreams, despite being a competent fighter who easily dispatches his enemies. His mentor was the only person who encouraged him. Now that his mentor is dead, he has lost hope.

I actually like the way this was portrayed. According to some reviews, this confused many audience members, but I understood what was on his mind. At the last minute, it overwhelmed him. Garret fights and lives on his own and falls in love, but his experiences and his mind tell him he cannot be a knight.

I don’t imagine too many people would be supportive of him either.

So imagine how powerful it would have been for Garret to meet another blind person. To realize that he can succeed because he meets living proof of it. Giving Garret access to his community is about more than tokenism here. It is about the power of representation.

Perhaps if Kayley had also been blind herself. She could have a little vision, enough that she can still describe things to Garret. Meeting another blind person who wants to be a knight would have been potentially life-changing for them both, even if Kayley still faces structural barriers against women.

As for how they handled it, it was nice that we didn’t get an entire film of ableist insults and such. While a character internalizing ableism can be difficult to watch, the scene was short enough that it didn’t bother me as much. I wish there had been a little more dialogue to explain Garret’s headspace. With this type of story, I would prefer to have the ableism come from other people and be internalized, rather than internalized from the start because the character is sad about going blind.

Going Blind Through Trauma

Garret went blind as a teenager. He was a stable hand in Camelot. When the stables caught fire, he tried to save several frightened horses and one of them accidentally hit him in the head. As he describes, at first all he could see were shapes and colors until gradually he lost his sight completely.

This doesn’t seem so implausible to me and if this was an old story it probably would have been relatable to some blind people. I’m not sure how relatable it would be to blind kids watching now, however, as they aren’t likely to have gone blind through work accidents.

My issue with the use of this trope is that there was no reason for him to go blind in such a way. Perhaps he could have only seen in blurred shapes and colors initially before losing all his vision after the accident. Making characters blind before an accident helps with this trope. Or he could have simply gone blind over time without the accident causing it.

The accident could have served as a catalyst for a now-totally-blind Garret to want to become a knight. To save people. His mentor, inspired by his bravery, offers to teach him. In the film, Garret doesn’t necessarily lose confidence until after the death of his mentor and so it wouldn’t have changed any of the rest of the story. In my opinion, Garret didn’t need to go blind due to a traumatic accident. This trope could have been avoided easily.

The film is helped immensely by the fact that the character isn’t sad about being blind the entire time, which is a trap stories fall into often.

Lastly, Let’s Discuss the Relationship Between Kayley and Garret

The relationship was very cute. It is a bit rushed, but that’s a reoccurring problem with romances in many films due to the time constraints anyway.

There is an adorable scene where they go through a dark passage and Kayley says she can’t see. Garret takes her hand, saying, “Don’t worry. I’ll be your eyes.” Not only is this adorable, but practical. Blind people are better at navigating if they have their cane and can totally lead other people around. You can say it’s cheesy if you, you know, get no joy out of life lol!

The only part that bothered me was when they reach Camelot and Kayley says she wishes he could see it. I wish that she had described it to him instead so that he could be included in the moment instead of pitied.

Overall

I didn’t really like the film or the songs. The only part that was good, even great was Garret. I would like to see a re-make because the premise is pretty nice.

I just have one last question: was this ever released with audio descriptions so it would be accessible? I’m guessing it was described for cinemas and nowhere else. Research didn’t answer my questions, so I hope I’m wrong about that.

Blind characters should be accessible to blind people.

-BlindBeta

[wonlouvre]

pairing: doctor!wonwoo x lawyer!female oc genre: modern royalty, arranged marriage, fluff and future angst word count: 3.2k WARNINGS: ANGST, VIOLENCE, GUNS

a/n: we are nearing the end guys :( and i promise, it’s a HAPPY ENDING! but for now we have to face the angst, i’m so sorry. disclaimer!! as i have said from the previous parts, i am not well-versed with investigations and court procedures. PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I’M WRONG. thank you very much!! please enjoy this new part and hit my ask box with what you think of it <3

nine: grief | masterlist

Wonwoo has had difficult times in his life and he has managed to overcome them all. Growing up in the public eye, fulfilling duties decreed to him even before he became a teen, a break-up, excelling both academically and physically and most of all, loving himself for who he is. He knows his parents did everything in their power and love to make it a little easier for him. They are the reasons he kept going and going. 

But his heart can’t seem to carry this overwhelming heaviness. 

His parents wanted to end the engagement immediately. It was an argument, an angry one. His mother had her ears closed even before he could speak meanwhile his father’s closed lips already said it all. Of course, he was defensive. He understands his parents concern for their citizens, but nothing is final until a verdict is reached. He has to come back to Jung and Sam and he has to come back to you. Surely enough, when he stepped out of the doors of his home, he had chosen love over duty. 

It’s just that he didn’t know that you had different plans. 

“Where’s the pretty lady?” Sam asks out of the blue while he plays with the new toys Wonwoo brought for the kids at the welfare.

He has been visiting them frequently, at least four times a week in between his hospital schedule. Especially after you decided that he should distance himself from you, he has been in and out of here because the boys are one of the only reasons he’s here other than you. He’s hoping you only meant a break if that’s what you wanted. Because he’d give it to you with as much distance as you want just come back to him. Come back to him because he doesn’t and can’t let you go. 

“She’s a bit busy now,” he tries to make up an excuse and Sam raises his sparkling eyes at his face, probably searching for some truth in his lie. 

“You look different when she’s around,” the young boy says and goes back to his toys. 

Wonwoo’s ears perk and his brows knit in question. “What do you mean?”

“Jung thinks I don’t see it, but his face,” Sam explains and gestures to his tiny yet swelling cheeks. “It changes because of this girl here that I think he’s crushing.”

Wonwoo can’t help the growing smile on his face. “Jung has a crush?”

“Yes.” Sam bobs his head cutely. “You’re just like Jung with the pretty lady around.”

“How about now?” He asks the observant boy who purses his tiny lips before narrowing his eyes at him. 

“You look a little sad.”

Wonwoo didn’t need to ask who’s the pretty lady Sam was talking about because to him, you’re the only pretty lady in his life (second to his mother of course even though she’s angry at him at the moment). He tried to not make it obvious. He doesn’t want anyone to see him that the controversy and your father’s arrest is breaking the two of you apart. He can’t let them see him falling apart for that matter because he wants you to see him confident and strong. 

He doesn’t want to further fuel your doubts and fears. If he can’t support you closely, he’ll do his best to support you even from afar.

That’s why life for him continued. He goes to work, attends to his patients and co-workers needs, he eats, he exercises and he even entertains drinking with Soonyoung despite having to take care of him because of how fast he gets drunk. 

It’s an ineffective distraction because he misses you terribly. He misses going to your office just to take you away from your computer, he misses driving around town with you in the passenger seat and listening to your stories, he misses sleeping over at your apartment after a tiring day shift, he misses your warm and welcoming embrace, he misses your shy and soft kisses against his lips, cheeks, nose, forehead, neck and everywhere else.  

Did he tell you he misses you?

He sends you messages every day. He doesn’t call and he doesn’t wait for a reply. He just wants you to know that he’s here whenever you’re ready. Jeongyeon is kind enough to keep him in the loop, but the updates are very minimal because she’s still your subject and she doesn’t want to hurt you any further. 

For a moment, Wonwoo was afraid to take the leap. But when you asked him if he still wants to marry you which could be equivalent to you ending things, he had to. If you stay or not, he had to say it with all his heart. You had to know because he was sure that whatever it is his whole being is feeling, it’s only for you. 

“I love you.”

Your heart drops at his confession, making you sob to the palm of your hands. He can’t do this to you right now. It’s already hard and painful. You want to be selfish, but it would be wrong to let him suffer with you when he has been nothing but kind and honest. 

“You’re not your father, Y/N,” he promises and holds your hands down. “Please look at me.”

You shake your head, sniffling. You want to scream you love him too. But the words are nothing but a lump at the back of your throat. You continue shedding your tears and the sight breaks Wonwoo’s heart. 

“It’s okay.” He lifts your head up by your cheeks. He wipes your tears away even though it’s futile. He wishes to share with your anguish, but he also respects the desires of your heart. 

His smile was small when he leans down and briefly presses a kiss to your trembling lips. You accept it, fearing it might be the last. You also listen to his last words before he leaves with his bag and coat because it also might be the last time you’ll ever hear them.

“I love you.”

The rain patters on the roof of the car when Wonwoo’s words echoed inside your head. Just the thought of what had transpired the last few days brings tears to your eyes. You haven’t seen him since that night and the longing is unbearable. You wish to hear his voice, feel his touch against you or just see him. But you can’t and you have to persevere through it because you owe justice and accountability to your people.   

You haven’t spoken to your mother even if you tried. She’s just tired, so tired you can’t bring a word out of her. You try to be understanding and a little more patient. After all, getting over a betrayal doesn’t happen overnight. That’s why you continued working even though almost every client you have has backed down and declined your services. Nonetheless, you still go to your office every day as if everything is okay. You drink your coffee, you run over your files and even do a little organizing and disposing here and there. 

Your father’s first trial is today and you’re on your way to speak to him at his detention center. This is the first time you’ll see him aside from the television and newspapers. You’ve been crying ever since he got taken away. You can’t help it. You already know the truth and there’s no blinding away from it. But you want to hear from your father, whom you thought you have known all your life. You want his truth and maybe find some closure. 

When you arrive at the parking lot, the rain has ceased and little by little the temperature is rising again. You really wish things were different. Something in you wishes that this is a set-up. You wish that your father was innocent and only being framed. But there is a bigger something that’s telling you to throw away those wishful thoughts because it’s wrong. 

You ask yourself, am I angry at my father? while walking to the entrance leading to the visitor’s area. I should be, right? You argue because your family name and career is tarnished. Your upcoming marriage is no different which is most likely to be over. 

“Hi my darling,” The King, stripped from his expensive suit, greets you with his usual smile.

The glass between you and your father is clear enough to see that he doesn’t look good. Your father used to look every day ready with his suit on and slick back hair. But right now, he doesn’t. Tears well up in your eyes but you hold it in. It will take a long time to get used to seeing him like this. It will take a painfully long one.

Maybe you’re not angry. Maybe you’re just hurting.

“Hi dad,” you greet back. “How are you?”

The old man smiles and warms his thighs with his hands while looking around the small room. “I’m okay.”

You nod and the cold silence engulfs the room. 

“I’m sorry darling,” he finally says and hearing those words made you burst into tears. He sees you crying and this is the first time he can’t reach his hand out to wipe the tears away. “I’m really sorry that your father’s greed has left you and your mother a wound that might never heal.”

Greed. The news, the Royal Police, the prosecution and everyone else were talking about this. They’re still talking about this. It’s scandalous, it’s controversial. It’s unbelievable too. How could the head and protector of the kingdom do this? 

How could your father do this?

“Dad,” you sob. “Dad.”

“I know,” he tells you. “I know.”

“Please tell me they’re lying,” you begged, your voice shaking.

“I cannot betray you any further, my darling,” he sadly says. “I have to set you all free from my lies.”

You harshly rub your fingers against your eyes, trying to dry the tears that won’t stop from falling. “Who’s Kim Mingyu?”

The alarming buzz! blasts, indicating that your time’s up. You’re quick to your feet and hold your sweating palm against the glass. Your father mirrors your action but it didn’t last long because he was being handcuffed again. 

“Remember,” he says, struggling a little against the two uniformed men. “You are your own person, my darling.” 

Maybe you’re not hurting. Maybe you’re grieving because you just lost your father. 

You know who Kim Mingyu is. You already knew before you could even ask your father. You just wanted to know how your father met him and entangled himself with such a man. What led him to fall for his lies and money that he could trade every ounce of dignity and integrity in his being? Something of that sort. 

Kim Mingyu’s mining business was proposed to the Secretary of the Trade and Industry Department. A mining business that will have children go underground for long agonizing hours. At first, they were immediately rejected knowing that there’s an obvious and strict law disallowing foreigners to the kingdom’s mineral resources. Much more the exploitation of young children. But, Mingyu was ambitious and a sniper to every man's weakness. It didn’t take long for the Secretary of the Trade and Industry to bite. It was easily followed by the Secretary of the Justice Department and your father. They all, among many others, eventually fell for his trap. Everything worked out for Kim Mingyu. 

Your hip is against the hood of the car as you watched the prison guards surround the vehicle your father will ride to the court. Everyone is on high alert. Well, they should be. No one else is more high profile than a criminal king. It’s only the first trial but you’re already more than aware of how things will turn out in the end. 

You clutch the lifebuoy pendant of the necklace you’re wearing, nervous and trying to keep everything together.

You could leave now, but the time and opportunity to see your father is running out. This prison is the only place you could linger just to see him, even for a short while. You won’t be able to follow him at court because Seungkwan advised you not to. Which you understand. This whole case involving your father is already causing a media frenzy so staying away is the smart thing to do. 

As you wait, your phone suddenly rings with an unknown number flashed on the screen. You blink, wondering who could it be at this hour. After a beat of hesitation, you answered and held the phone against your ear. 

“Hello?”

“Ah, Princess Y/N. How’s the King doing?”

You’re not that forgetful to not recognize this voice. “Mr. Kim, how did you get my number?”

“That’s not important right now,” he dodges the question. “What’s important is what I am about to tell you.”

“What do you want from me?” You say with gritted teeth and from your peripheral you can see the guards scramble. Your father is about to come out.

You can hear him scoff. “I don’t want anything from you, Your Highness. But listen…”

Your heart starts to beat faster. It’s a hard visual but your father is nearing the exit. Your bottom lip is starting to hurt from how hard you’re biting it and the few seconds of pause and suspense that Mingyu’s giving you is not helping at all. 

“Listen you sick---” He cuts you off and your blood runs cold.

“I’m going to kill your father.”

What is the fondest memory that you have of your father? 

They’re too many to count and every memory with him, small and big, will always mean everything to you. But as an example, it would be the day you finally took oath as a lawyer. He didn’t tell you, but he, together with your mother, was secretly present at the venue. He told you beforehand that they shouldn’t go because he didn’t want the people to make you uncomfortable and steal the spotlight. You ignored his lame excuse of fame and told him that he can do whatever he wants. 

But he was really there. Tears brimming on his eyes together with pride beaming on his heart. Your mother had to calm him down because he got a little out of control, almost screaming with all his chest at the venue that you’re his daughter. 

You only found out when you hopped on the car and they’re inside with a small cake, flowers and party hats on, shouting loud congratulations and surprise simultaneously. 

Your father was always there. Your parents were. 

You remember those when you ran and pushed your way against the guards blocking your father’s view. You were frantic as you screamed at them to get your father back inside. You fought with all your strength and thrashed against their hold just to reach your father. When you slipped away from them, you ran again, fast. 

You did your best to not get caught. You just have to be close to your dad and push him back inside. You just have to be close to him. You just have to protect him.

You have to be there for him. 

“Please stop!” You shout when another guard takes hold of your waist, locking you to the ground. “You have to bring my father back inside!”

“You’re Highness, please calm down!” The guard shouts back and you fight against him. When he didn’t let you go, you stomped the heel of your shoe on his feet, making him fall in pain. 

“Dad!” You call when you’re finally nearing him. His head lifts up at the sound of your voice and searches for you among the sea of men. “Please! You have to take him back inside! I received a call from Kim Ming---”

BANG!

BANG! 

It was searingly fast. Your whole body collapses on the sweltering concrete before you could reach your father and when his eyes finally find you, you are already swimming in the pool of your blood.  

“It’s always good to see you Mrs. Wang,” Wonwoo compliments the old lady who’s starting to frequent the emergency room. “But not in this manner.”

The old lady gives him a cheeky grin and pinches one of his cheeks. If Wonwoo doesn’t know any better, she’s doing this to not get scolded any further. 

“Your blood sugar is high and I don’t think your granddaughter appreciates her grandma endangering her own life,” he lightly scolds her, if that’s how he can put it. He’s still a doctor after all. “She loves you and she wants you to be healthy when she walks down the aisle in the future.”

Mrs. Wang gives him a silent nod at the mention of her granddaughter, promising that she won’t disobey anymore. That relieves Wonwoo, his lips lifting in a smile. He signs her clearance and hands it back to the nurse. After a few more instructions, he takes his leave and walks back to the information desk. 

He takes one of the patients charts to read. The phone rings and the nurse in charge immediately picks it up and answers. At first, Wonwoo didn’t bother looking up from the paper because emergency calls happen every three seconds. But when there was an eerie silence amidst the loud and busy room, his curiosity made his head tilt up only to get surprised at the widened eyes the nurse was giving him. 

He was about to ask what’s wrong but when he heard the sound of the siren nearing, he ignores his suspicions and runs to the entrance. 

The ambulance parks at a safe distance and the paramedics get out. They move quickly to get the patient out and when they see him, their mouth falls open but no words come out.

Wonwoo didn’t notice so he proceeded to ask, “How’s the patient?”

“Wonwoo!”

Soonyoung almost tripped on his feet as he tried to get a hold of his friend. He takes his arms and tries to pull him away from the ambulance he’s about to open. Wonwoo is starting to get irritated at the bizarre and disconcerting feeling that’s starting to settle in the emergency room.

Wonwoo knocks him off with a glare. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Wonwoo, please,” Soonyoung begs with an unsteady voice, clinging to his friend. 

“Female, late twenties, two gunshot wounds,” one of the paramedics finally yet carefully reports while the other opens the doors of the ambulance. “It’s Her Highness, Princess Y/N.”

Wonwoo roughly removes his friends hand from his arm to step closer to the ambulance and when he sees your lifeless body, he didn’t waste any more time and helped the paramedics move the stretcher out. Soonyoung can see his friend’s hands shaking as he takes hold of the bloodied gurney. He knows he has to stop him right now. 

“Baby,” Wonwoo calls as he runs and wheels you inside. You can’t hear him, but he has to try. He observes proper protocol of transferring you to the bed of the emergency room before applying more pressure to your wounds. You have lost a lot of blood already and it’s not helping Wonwoo that he can’t see your eyes.

“Please, please, please,” Wonwoo whispers as he removes all the obstructions on your body and when his eyes catch the necklace he gave around your neck, his legs grow weak and removing it from you made his tears fall.

“Baby, please,” he pleads. “Open your eyes, hmm?”

Soonyoung steps in together with the doctor who will perform the surgery and take everything from here. He slowly pulls his friend away from your body. Wonwoo didn’t protest anymore, there’s nothing in him left to do so. Your blood is in his hands, in his white coat, it’s everywhere. 

This is not the distance Wonwoo wanted. 

He can’t be apart from you forever.

[wormstar]

i was going thru ur blog and u have good posts about ableist aus and i was wondering - what if in the aus the requirements for warriors were different? Like instead of having to fight jay only hunts? Would the muddling of roles still be ableist? In a Tree-like situation?If its not presented in a "work super hard to get what you want" and more in a "yeah they can decide what he wants to do". This is mostly for jay (and cinder) specifically because they had desires to be warriors yet were forced to be medicine cats because of ableism (ig this can apply to briar but i just truly cant remember oots that well and i havent read her death). I am asking because i am still trying to unlearn the ableist mindset that i grew up with. Feel free to ignore this ask and thnx!

hey yeah thank you for asking! took the opportunity to write up more general thoughts on rewrites as a whole and i went over why exactly theyre ableist hopefully that provides a better perspective

i think the major thing to keep in mind is that the structure of the clans is very abled centric and overly ignorant of inner community work (for example dens are only solidified or altered when either the area takes damage/the clans grows wrt population) theres a fixation on marking territory and starting fights and whatever with other clans which is whats expected of most warriors to partake in. to fix those implications in any fanwork youve really gotta knead into them and understand the nature of their ableism....its not just a problem with cats being barred from being warriors its the whole occupation and the standard its held to, so to speak (+ that fits into general clan society being flawed but eh thats another thing and also its easy to branch out into thought about)

going to stress other disabled people might have other solutions to how disabled cats are received this is just how i like to think of things

first i think its kind of interesting to examine discrepancies between disabled cats in canon as somewhat of an indicator of clan attitudes and leaders and whatnot. like i think you could get something interesting by regarding lets say deadfoot in windclan and cinderpelt in thunderclan who both have bad legs yet had different experiences with them in clan life. if you wanna go a step further comparing generations like lilywhisker and deadfoot or cinderpelt and jayfeather (+ the consideration of how congenital disabilities are regarded) can also make things interesting and just give you an idea of what to do. having the clan systems stray from a clear-cut common attitude both gives you more freedom for different approaches + adds to worldbuilding anyway. imo boiling down clan society to perfect utopia just gets boring but you can have imperfections in the system that depict the disabled experience just fine. just be careful with them and the way they come across yeah?

(real quick as an in between. god just dont refer to cats/their injuries as crippled. it still happens somehow)

im a little ambivalent on the idea of creating a ‘special role’ for disabled cats to be thrown into. cause then thats a repeat of canon medicine den really. its like ‘oh youre disabled youre instantly discarded into the x role pit’ i think just adding substantial in-universe changes to the warrior rank itself (vagueness is fun actually) or expanding on ‘warrior types’ rectifies the othering angle. ‘othering’ as a whole is just as bad as the ‘exception’ archetype people run for most warrior aus i want to state that clearly. effectively if youre gonna introduce roles that dont depend on fighting or hunting or both make sure theres abled cats who have them too. like say you want a camp-based role where a cats job is to fix dens or one where they help in the nursery, its far easier for a cat who cant run to manage those but also have some cats who are physically capable of doing other ‘tasks’ do the same thing for personal reasons

the tree comparison is interesting honestly cause i guess you could just give a cat a particular thing to do as a nonfixed position. and roles accordingly being made for a cat to fill until they cant and the positions done away with afterward. but youve gotta do it carefully so you dont fall into othering as ive said. id avoid something like that personally i just dont like the quality of ‘well theyre not a warrior (the most noble/useful concept in cat society) theyre actually some other thing’

in general giving disabled cats agency and choice is the best thing you can do. whether this means them deciding on tasks they can do themselves or picking a certain kind of warrior to be or asking for an assistant to help them out when they do stuff. the way you wanna pull it off again depends on my first question of “how does the relevant part of your warrior cat world treat disabled cats already”

very important point, the majority of the ableism also comes in the form of character narratives and not just the structure of the world itself. like think for a bit why the writers decided jayfeather shouldve been forced to be a medic or why briarlight got killed off early etc etc. characters ‘wanting’ to be like the abled ideal and still being bitter about not fulfilling that years down the line are just part of the ableist storylines. if youre abled id literally say just do away with those sadstuck ‘i wanted to be a warrior!’ moments. if you really want to id say pull a cinderpelt or a shadowsight where a cats time in the medicine den started their fascination with medicine and they switched to that path due to personal intrigue. id say a more interesting and realistic angle to it is having a disabled cat who found fulfilment in doing something else besides being a warrior becoming bitter about their entire clan ‘mourning’ how theyll never fight again or giving them the pretence of being a warrior being the best thing you can do.... it depends on the character really

this is just a very basic disability thing but stray from the whole ‘useless/dead weight’ way of regarding disabled characters. like dont place their worth on how well they service a clan or not theyre still deserving of shelter and whatnot. you dont need to justify a cats existence or usefulness by going ‘well they may be blind but their sense of smell is excellent so we keep them around’ or whatever its just no good

last thing i can think of is like. dont disregard how a cats disability affects them. like its fine that briarlight cant fight (or even hunt major types of prey) she doesnt need some convoluted method that lets her do that. there are like a dozen other warriors hunting and fighting and theres present value and enjoyment in the stuff she does around camp. she doesnt have to be brightheart 2 its ok