#but i also like to think this side only evolved further after being basically adopted as Kuseno's sole grandkid

[genccide-archived]

Making myself sick thinking of how much Genos loved his family,,,

[jayietheriverwarrior]

And now for the piece of art I currently have done, as well as the piece I really wanted to show because of the recent announcements about the Mufasa movie and how my headcanons kinda connect to it. Here we have the beloved brightest star of the Pride Lands, King Mohatu, his adopted son and heir, the rogue-born orphan King Ahadi, and the daughter of an ousted Lord of a distant pride, Queen Masilahi, who renamed herself Uru to hide her identity in case her past came back to haunt her.

Background again belongs to Disney, and was edited for use by over here. You can see them without the background here.

Before getting into their stories, let's look first at the art. I had a lot of fun with Mohatu's design. Like Hifadhi, I used his colors from The Brightest Star and the same basic design, but exaggerated/played down several features so that he'd look a lot less like a Mufasa recolor (especially important given that he isn't even related to Mufasa in this version). He's got a similar sort of strong build as Mufasa, but he's smaller and has a longer, narrower face with different features. Ahadi ended up changing quite a bit from the last time I drew him. I made his colors a bit darker and more saturated, gave him light eyerims instead of dark ones, and changed up his manestyle a bit (I'll have to draw him from the front sometime). He also now has his scars on his back rather than his neck/chest. I'm super happy with how he turned out, his face and build finally look how I always wanted them to look (he's skinny like Scar, but not unhealthy, he has that narrow face and long nose, but it's thinner than scars with the bend occuring further up, and he has broader, neater cheeks, and a square chin instead of Scar's scruff long one). I also love how his new colors look together, especially with the lighter eyerims and super-pale eyes, and the darker more saturated fur looks great. I think he looks fantastic overall.  He's on the smaller side, shorter than Scar, but not tiny by any means. Masilahi was super fun to draw in full-body view for the first time in a while. Her head-and-neck scruff has evolved into a sort of half-mane almost, though it's not quite enough to consider her a maned lioness, it's mostly just a trait common among her family and the prides that lived nearby. Her colors got tweaked a bit from the last time I drew her, but not nearly as much as Ahadi's. As always, she's a massive super-buff girl. ^^ And now, onto the story! Warning in advance - it's pretty long. ~-~-~ Mohatu was a wise and just king and much beloved in the Pride Lands. He was more open-minded than his traditionalist brother, and respected and listened to all of the creatures in his kingdom. He worked hard to tend to all of their needs and keep the circle of life in balance. But the king had a secret that gnawed at his core. He had no desire for a mate -not a lioness, not a lion, not a creature of any species or gender, not anyone at all. He never had, and he knew in his heart that he never would. Taking a queen and fathering cubs to be his heirs was such an important duty of his, but the idea of it had only ever filled him with dread. He didn’t mind the idea of being a father, he’d always liked cubs and had gotten along with them well, but he shuddered to think of what he’d have to endure to have cubs of his own. He never told his parents, unable to bear the idea of disappointing them, or his brother, who would have scolded him for shrinking from his duty. The king was left to bury his fear in his heart and suffer his worries in silence. But then, as though the great kings of the past themselves had intervened, the river glowing into his kingdom from the lands beyond delivered him a gift. A rogue cub, orphaned after a flood had claimed the lives of his parents, half-drowned and scrawny, barely able to draw breath. Mohatu hovered and fretted as the mjuzi tended to the cub, not relaxing until he was told that the boy would live. When the cub awoke, he was able to introduce himself as Ahadi and tell his rescuers of his parents’ fate. Mohatu immediately offered to let the cub live in his pride. He had initially intended one of the pride to take in the boy, but as the weeks passed, he found himself growing closer to the cub. While the other cubs rough-housed, Ahadi was content to sit between the mighty paws of the king while Mohatu told him stories of the many creatures in his kingdom, of his own life, and of the great kings of the past. Love, a father’s love, had taken hold of his heart. He finally decided to do what he had always longed to, and what his heart now called him to do - announce his intention to never take a mate, and adopt Ahadi as his son and heir. Ahadi was delighted at this turn of events. His parents had loved him, but life as rogues had been hard, and there had been much struggling and toil in the short years before they’d been taken from them. His hard life had left him quiet and introspective. He’d worried whether he’d ever be accepted by the louder, more boisterous cubs of the pride, or by the adults who seemed to find him odd for scarfing down his food quickly in case a predator came to take it, and for starting at any loud noise in case it heralded the approach of a dangerous animal. But Mohatu had never treated him like he was odd. He had always treated Ahadi with kindness, warmth, and respect. Ahadi had come to love the wise king as a father, and couldn’t be happier when Mohatu asked him to be his son. While he would never forget his parents and the love they had shown him, he was ready to move forward with his new life in the Pride Lands and with the father who loved him. But even as Prince Ahadi grew surer and more confident, coming to befriend other cubs in the pride, one lion always watched him with an unfavorable eye. Prince Hifadhi, brother of the king, leader of the Lion Guard. At first. Ahadi was oblivious to the sour looks the older lion threw his way. But one traumatic day finally brought him face to face with Hifadhi’s disdain for him. He and the other cubs were playing in a small gully when there were sudden snarls and the panicked shrieks and stomping hooves of a stampede. A group of hunting predators had ambushed a nearby antelope herd in a run-of-the mill hunt - but now the herd was coming straight at the cubs. Hifadhi and his guard were alerted by a young hornbill named Zuzu who had spotted the cubs in danger. The Guard came running to the rescue. The hunters too had heard the cubs and were frantically trying to chase the herd away from the young lions, but the antelopes were now mindless with panic and didn’t recognize the cries of frightened cubs among the growls of the hunters. While the rest of the guard pulled the other cubs away from danger, Hifadhi rushed in to grab the final cub. But when he saw that the cub was Ahadi, he hesitated. There was a moment where the terrified cub locked eyes with the older lion, and realized that Hifadhi did not want to help him. Hifadhi’s hesitation lasted only a moment. Perhaps if he’d acted sooner, nothing would have changed, or perhaps it would have, but Ahadi would never know for sure. All he knew is that the panicked foreleg of an antelope knocked into him and shoved him roughly against a nearby rock. There was an explosion of pain in his back. Just before he blacked out from the pain, he heard Hifadhi’s roar scaring the antelope away from him, and he felt Hifadhi’s jaws close around him as he was carried away. When he awoke, it was to Mohatu’s worried face hovering above his own. Hifadhi and the Guard had brought him back to Pride Rock, and the mjuzi had been called to tend to his wound. It seemed the rock had torn a great gash in his back. Nothing had been broken, thankfully, but Ahadi would be left with a permanent scar across his back, and would deal with pain and stiffness in his back for the rest of his life, limiting how long he could walk or stand. Over time, the mjuzi would figure out the right herb treatment to help lessen Ahadi’s pain, which Ahadi was immensely grateful for. But the scar and stiffness and limited mobility would remain. And perhaps what hurt more than any of that was the new knowledge that his adoptive uncle hated him and had let him be hurt. Meanwhile, the lioness Masilahi had grown up in a part of Africa where smaller Pride units lived. There were no Kings or Queens ruling vast kingdoms with prey and predator alike as their subjects - instead, a Lord (or Lady) served as the protector of the pride’s territory, patrolling the borders, driving out other predators, and meeting any challengers in battle, in exchange for the pride hunting for them, giving them first dibs on food, and treating them with respect. The rest of the pride were hunters, and the actual running of the pride was left up to the lead hunter or huntress, referred respectfully to as Mother or Father regardless of whether they’re actually someone’s parent or not. Often, the Lord/Lady and Mother/Father of the pride were the main breeding pair, with the rest of the hunters made up of their brothers and sisters, but it could vary. Cubs left their pride of birth at the start of adulthood to freshen up the gene pool - littermates often chose to join the same pride, but sometimes decided to go their separate ways. Young adults could join other prides as hunters, and were usually easily accepted that way, or could challenge the Lord of Lady of a pride in combat for the chance to take their place. Battles of this kind were fierce, but non-fatal unless an accident occurred, and followed strict rules of honor and tradition. Once either combatant yielded, the fight was over, and the loser was allowed to leave in peace, accompanied by any of the pride who chose to go with them. Masilahi was the daughter of Lord Hodari and Mother Tamu, part of her family’s small pride. She lived a happy life with her little family. Her mother was a skilled huntress and stern but loving mother, who often called her Almasi, or her little gem. Her father always found time between patrols to goof around with his daughter and make her laugh. She knew she would have to leave one day, but she knew she would see her family at the borders sometimes, and she was determined to make them proud. She planned to become a huntress and study to one day become the lead huntress and Mother of her new pride - she was strong enough to become a Lady through combat, but preferred the close bonds between hunters to the more solitary life of a Lady. But it was never to be. When Masilahi was a cub, a pair of rogue brothers came to challenge her father for his land and his pride. These males weren’t from any of the local prides - they came from a far-off land where kings ruled over vast kingdoms, and unknown to the pride, their ambition was to create such a kingdom in this land. One of the males met Hodari in combat, but the second male joined the fight partway through, which was against the rules, and sent Hodari fleeing for his life before the pride could even blink. Hodari left his home and family behind, wandering the vast lands of Africa over the years, until finally, as a very elderly lion with a chin fully white with age, he settled in a jungle oasis in the midst of a great jungle. There, he met a strange lone lion cub who called him Tanglemane and helped ease his loneliness in his final years. Unbeknownst to Hodari, the cub was his own great grandson, Simba, the grandson of his beloved Masilahi. After Hodari’s unlawful defeat at the paws of the cheating males, Tamu gathered the pride’s cubs together. She told them that with such treacherous lions now in control of the pride, that their safety was no longer assured. She assigned a strong young hunter from the hunter as their protector, and ordered her to take the cubs far away, where they might find safety from the dangerous males. After a tearful goodbye, Masilahi departed with the hunter and the other cubs. But one of the males noticed the hunter trying to smuggle the cubs out of the territory and gave chase. During the confusion, Masilahi was separated from the others, and found herself all alone in a land she didn’t know. Frightened and alone, Masilahi wandered for a time, surviving off of insects and scraps stolen from the kills of other predators. It was while she was scarfing down scraps from a kill behind the back of the hunters that she was finally caught by the original hunters of the carcass. But luckily for her the hunters, a wandering clan of hyenas, felt pity for the terrified little cub. They offered her shelter among their numbers. Masilahi gratefully accepted. In an effort to shield her identity, in case the male lions ever came looking for her, she told the hyenas her name was Uru - a gem, just as her mother had always called her. Initially, the clan had only intended to let the cub stay with them long enough for them to find a rogue couple or a pride willing to take her in. But the longer she stayed with them, the more the clan came to care for her, and they soon considered her one of their own. Uru grew particularly close with a hyena with a daughter named Banagi who was close to her own age. The hyena took Uru under her wing, and she and Banagi soon considered each other sisters. After some time of wandering and hunting where they could, Uru’s clan came across the Pride Lands. To their surprise, King Mohatu welcomed them into the kingdom with open arms. The hyena population in his kingdom had been dwindling in recent years due to some infertility issues, and he welcomed the chance to have more hyenas to balance out that section of the circle of life. The clan settled easily into life in a kingdom. They respected the laws of the king and of the circle of life, and only hunted as much as they needed. Uru and Banagi were too young to hunt themselves, but an important part of learning to hunt was to watch how it was done, so they were brought along to hide from a safe distance and watch during a hunt one day. The clan ambushed a herd of antelope near a gully, only to realize too late that a group of lion cubs were playing in the gully. Uru and Banagi couldn’t help without getting trampled, but they were able to get the attention of a nearby hornbill who had already spotted the trouble, pointing her in the direction of where they’d last seen the Lion Guard passing by, in the hope that she’d be able to bring them in time to help. Uru was watching the rescue - she was the only one besides Ahadi to notice Hifadhi’s hesitation. The clan apologized profusely to King Mohatu for the whole situation, as did the antelope once they’d calmed down, but the king could see that neither party was at fault, that it had all just been a terrible accident. What worried him more than any hyenas or antelopes was the cold manner of his brother when he’d brought the badly-injured cub home to Pride Rock, and Ahadi’s sudden change in attitude around Hifadhi, how he seemed almost scared of him now. While Ahadi didn’t tell him about Hifadhi’s hesitation, unsure if he was right about what he’d seen or whether he’d be believed, Mohatu could tell that something was very wrong. He resolved to keep a much closer eye on his brother going forward. But even with this extra effort, Hifadhi was able to keep training his son Jadi to be the next heir in secret, leading to the eventual coup later down the road. The accident with the antelope did have one positive - it brought Uru, Ahadi, Banagi, and Zuzu into each others’ lives. Ahadi thanked the three girls for their parts in helping save him, and soon became very great friends with all three of them. A few years later, Nyonda joined their little group in secret, and the bonds of friendship between the five grew strong as a pride. But the strongest bond was between Uru and Ahadi. It was to her alone that Ahadi confided his fears of Hifadhi’s ill intentions towards him, as Uru had also witnessed his hesitation. It was to Ahadi alone that Uru shared the truth of her past. Even from the start, the two shared a trust and understanding that few could match. Uru was bigger and stronger than any other cub in the pride, but she was also a thoughtful soul, even if she wasn’t as quiet and in her own head as Ahadi had been when he’d first arrived in the Pride Lands. She was perfectly happy sitting with Ahadi for hours, playing the games she and Ahadi came up with that could be done without moving too much and bothering Ahadi’s back - telling stories of make-believe to each other, counting all the stripes on a nearby grazing zebra, seeing who could build a higher stack of pebbles without it collapsing, and more. Sometimes, Mohatu would carry Ahadi out to a grassy field at night so he could gaze at the stars with his friends. Ahadi was quieter and more careful after the incident with Hifadhi, but with a loving and supportive father, and four wonderful close friends in his life, Ahadi was able to hold onto his happiness. As the years passed, Ahadi grew into a quietly compassionate and thoughtful young lion, as wise and open-minded to nuance as his father before him, if a little less open to trusting those he didn’t know well. Uru grew into a powerful hunter and fighter, quick and clever with strategy in a way few could match, but also a deeply warm and caring presence, the eternal mom friend of their little group. The friendship between the two deepened over the years, growing into something more. After a lot of denial and flustered interactions and “gentle” encouragement from their friends, Ahadi and Uru began a relationship. Their love blossomed quickly after that, strengthened by the years of trust and close friendship that had preceded it. Shortly before Mohatu announced that he was going to step down and pass the throne onto Ahadi, the pair married. At Ahadi and Uru’s coronation, Hifadhi’s son Jadi staged his coup, forcing Mohatu, Ahadi, and Uru out of Pride Rock and a good chunk of the kingdom. Mohatu crowned the pair properly not long after the coup, making Ahadi and Uru king and queen of a devastated and fractured kingdom. For the next several years, King Ahadi and Queen Uru were run ragged trying to hold their crumbling kingdom together, working out treaties with herds and hunters, figuring out how to space out the herds and hunters to keep everyone fed and watered, keeping hold of the borders as Jadi tried to chip away at them, etc. They were overjoyed at the births of their sons, and did their best to be there for them, but their many duties to tend to their war-torn kingdom had them stretched so thin that they didn’t have as much time for their sons as they would wish. Mufasa was able to tag along for king lessons, but Taka was often left behind, and the boy’s bitterness over this unintentional neglect steadily grew. During a particularly bad drought that dries up the few water sources Ahadi and Uru had in their part of the kingdom, Uru decided she must leave and try to find a source of water for the kingdom’s inhabitants to use. She first checked the lake Mohatu had once used in such a drought, but it was also dry. She remembered a particularly large lake closed in by the steep walls of a gorge she had come across during her travels with the hyenas as a cub - if she could find it again, it would more than suit the Pride Lands’ needs. She set off in search of the lake. Uru soon found the lake she’d been seeking and resolved to negotiate with the local animals to sort out permission to use it. But the area seemed strangely bare of hunters, and the few herds fled at the sight of her. She finally managed to find a tough old tortoise willing to talk with her. The tortoise warned that the area had recently been taken over by a vicious pride of lions. They blocked predators from entering the narrow pass that led to the lake, and they ambushed prey animals when they came to drink. Everyone was terrified of them. Most of the herds had fled, as had all of the hunters. With all of this in mind, Uru approached the narrow pass carefully. She was surprised to find herself greeted by a small delegation of lionesses, almost as though they had been waiting for her. They were all too eager to lead Uru to their kings. Uru could barely hide her astonishment as she was led to the same two lions who had taken over her father’s pride all those years ago. They, in turn, seemed to have no idea who she truly was. They greeted her with a sly appearance of friendliness, praising her to the skies as the widely-respected queen of the Pride Lands. They offered her a deal - she and King Ahadi must meet together with them and forge a formal alliance with their pride - in exchange, the kings would grant them access to the lake. Uru knew better than to give away her identity now, or to show any distrust of the kings. The two lions were surrounded by their pride - Uru could see some of her old pridemates among their number, but there were far more than just her own Pride there. Some of the lions she recognized from prides that had neighbored her father’s; some she had never seen before. What she did know is that this pride greatly outnumbered her own since the civil war had divided them. They wouldn’t stand a chance if the kings attacked. She would have to be clever about this. Outwardly, she remained friendly and warm. She expressed her gratitude for the offer and gave her assent to the meeting. Under the kings' watchful eye, she sent a bird to the Pride Lands requesting Ahadi to come and meet with the kings. Under the kings' "friendly" insistence, she was to stay with their pride until Ahadi's arrival. Once the kings had gone to sleep for the night, Uru made her way to some of her former pridemates in secret. They were stunned to realize that this mighty queen of the Pride Lands was the long-lost daughter of Lord Hodari and Mother Tamu. The young huntress Tamu had assigned to protect her and the cubs all those years ago stepped forward. She explained that she had managed to get the rest of the cubs to safety with a nearby pride, but the two kings had started taking over more and more territory, and had eventually taken over the pride she and the cubs were sheltering with. All cubs had been taken under the wings of the two kings and had been brainwashed into serving as their loyal guards. Some had resisted the kings' lies and still had their own minds, but there was a powerful circle of lions loyal to the kings who would protect them at all costs. The kings' cruelty and rash, foolish decisions had chased away the herds and bled the land dry, until they had been forced to move on in search of a new home. They had come here after hearing rumors of a civil war tearing the Pride Lands in half, leaving it vulnerable. They planned to ambush Ahadi and Uru at this meeting and kill them, then take over their half of the Pride Lands, use their superior numbers to conquer the other half, and claim the lands for their own. Many of the lions who had suffered under the kings' rule all these years now believed that all monarchs must be evil and cruel, so they didn't mind the idea of driving out more monarchs to claim a new home, but with Uru's assurance that this was not the case, they no longer wished to shed more blood on behalf of their cruel leaders. Uru promised her old pridemates that if they helped her protect her home from this invasion, that she would help free them from the tyrannous kings. She and the huntress conferred for some time to form a plan, then sent a second bird in secret to warn Ahadi of the trap and inform him of the plan. Some hours before the meeting was to occur, some of Uru's allies among the pride had the king's strongest supporters lured away for a hunt. The meeting wasn't supposed to occur yet, so they thought they had time for a quick hunt. An injured wildebeest had been spotted drinking from the lake and would make an easy kill. As the hunters closed in, Uru's allies suddenly abandoned the hunt, and the supposedly-injured wildebeest turned on the hunters with a fierce strength. The rest of of the wildebeest's herd thundered into the lake's valley alongside Uru's allies, viciously attacking the hunters. This was one of the Pride Lands' herds, who had owed Uru a favor after she'd helped them sort out a diplomatic issue some time ago. With the combined strength of the wildebeests and Uru's allies, the kings' supporters turned tail and fled. The kings had no idea that their strongest supporters had been chased away. They were irritated that their strongest guards were nowhere to be found, but simply assumed they'd gotten distracted on a hunt, and there were a few guards left anyway, so the meeting could go ahead as planned. But when they arrived to meet with the king, they found themselves confronted instead with the might of the Lion Guard. Uru's allies had also caught up at this point, so by the time the fight was over, the treacherous kings lay dead, and Uru's old pridemates, and all of the other lions held under the kings' thrall, were finally free. The huntress who had helped Uru come up with the plan thanked her profusely, and Uru thanked her in turn for helping her save the Pride Lands. Some of the lions returned to the lands that had been ravaged by the kings' rule, determined to restore the land and return to their old way of life. Some drifted away to join some of the nearby prides. Several of them, under the leadership of the huntress as their new Mother, chose to settle by the lake, this time keeping to their old laws and traditions so the land could flourish. The huntress would later have a daughter, and that daughter would have a son, who she would call Malka. As a nod of respect to the family that had raised her and the happy memories of her childhood, and to the family who had now helped save her home, Uru reclaimed her old name - she would now be Queen Masilahi of the Pride Lands. By the time Masilahi and the Lion Guard returned to the Pride Lands, Jadi was dead, and the Pride Lands had been made whole once more. Masilahi was able to send some of the animals to the nearby lake to drink, while others used the watering holes that had been located in Jadi's part of the Pride Lands. King Ahadi and Queen Masilahi worked hard together in the years that followed to restore their fractured kingdom. By the time they handed the crown to their son Mufasa and retired together peacefully, the lands were flourishing once more. But little did they know of the bitterness that had been festering in the heart of their younger son, or of the darkness that awaited the land that they loved. Masilahi's old hyena clan had begun to change over the seasons. Many of the younger generation no longer looked at the lions with a friendly eye. They blamed Ahadi and Masilahi for the hardships brought on by the civil war. They blamed the older generation's unwillingness to break the rules to get them more food for their empty stomachs. Matriarch Banagi, once so revered and respected for her cunning and strength, was now mocked as nothing more than the royal family's lapdog, since she was the queen's sister and had taken a lioness for a mate. The winds in the clan were shifting, and it would only take a nudge from a manipulative young lion to send them spiraling down a dark path... ~-~-~ Soooo yeah, lots of changes from my old fanfic, and a looooooooot of rambling, sorry about that.  But hopefully this is interesting to some of you. Yes, Masilahi's father is now Tanglemane. I dunno, I realized it would work well with the direction I wanted to take her story. I know he says he was defeated by the two challengers because he was too old, but shh, we'll just ignore that detail.  Maybe he was embarrassed at having been defeated in his prime and fudged the truth a little to make himself look better to Simba. Malka is also no longer Masi's nephew, but he's still descended from her old pride. And yes, I essentially gave Ahadi the backstory that Mufasa is apparently getting in the new movie. I mean, I've always written him as an orphan who was then adopted and made heir of the Pride Lands, it's been that way in my stories for a solid decade now, so when I heard that that was the direction the new movie is taking Mufasa's story, I honestly found it kinda hilarious that they incorporated a story for him so similar to the one I gave his dad. I just tweaked it a bit to a flood and being carried in by the river to better fit the details of the new movie. That's why the announcement about the new movie made me want to draw these guys so badly - it reminded me so much of the story I came up with for Ahadi. I also changed it so that Nyeusi isn't his brother and there's no adoptive mother - aroace Mohtu for the win. ^^ Mohatu is a much better father in this story as well, and a better king, truly deserving of the title of the Brightest Star. I also had (perhaps a little too much) fun coming up with the concept for Masi's old pride, and her confrontation with them later in life. I had forgotten that she was MIA during the whole water buffalo incident, and realized that her being away from the Pride Lands for a while would be a great opportunity to confront her old pride again, just as she did in my old story, but this time helping to overthrow the two evil kings who'd driven out her father, rather than yelling at her abusive dad as she did in my old story. Ahadi and Masi are better parents in this version as well, with their neglect of Taka springing from being pulled in way too many directions by their duties because of the civil war, rather than intentionally ignoring/smothering him over grief due to the death of their first son. No Manufaa in this version either, he just didn't fit anywhere. I think that's everything I wanted to cover! But feel free to ask if you have any questions.

[nighttimepixels]

TALK TO US ABOUT MASS EFFECT I HAVE BEEN AN INSANE MASS EFFECT/SHAKARIAN TRASH PERSON SINCE 20-FUCKING-11 AND LEMME TELL YOU THOSE FEELINGS HAVENOT TARNISHED A SINGLE FRACTION IN THOSE TEN YEARS OH MY GOOOOOOODDDSSSS!!!!!!!

I DEMAND A PLAY-BY-PLAY UP TO THE MINUTE OF YOUR REACTIONS TO EVERYTHING!!!!

you are so valid and I totally see why everyone I've ever mentioned it to loves the hell out of it

aksdjlsdfj I meannnn if you want to hear my rambling about it then hell yeah

Okay, gonna put this below the cut to save everyone else XD also- since I'm not leaving this Mass Effect obsession anytime soon, if you're not interested in seeing occasional posts about it, please feel free to block the tag "night plays ME"~

(mild spoilers ahead??)

((also for real I mean it when I say this is rambling as hell lol, apologies and no stress if absolute no one reads all this))

OKAY SO Mass Effect 1-

Stars help me, I was honestly hooked right from the start?? Like even in Legendary Edition (the combined trilogy just re-released in one "can play it on one system + minor improvements", for anyone who doesn't know) where it's smoothed out, of course it's obvious that ME1 is a decade old... but the foundation for these relationships are all there and gods I love them already.

Like - Kaiden right off the top is a delightful good fightin lad, what the hell. I've heard that he's viewed as 'bland' by a good portion of the fan community but I dunno, he's a delight and even more complex by the time 2 rolls around and you encounter him on Horizon, it was honestly Ashley I was way more meh about - mostly because before you can learn about her family history/etc, she comes off as hella xenophobic and I was immediately offended for my growing space family that she didn't like/trust all the aliens around, pfff.

(she gets redeemed a bit through further actions/evolving thoughts, but I thought in retrospect it was a bummer that they didn't flip the order there, give her a chance to be liked before the complicating factor of being so rude about aliens >:c that then she could grow from... ah well. Apparently she has a good arc but uh, let's just say I chose Kaiden at the "key junction" in the latter part of the game so I won't be seeing anymore of Ashley uh... anytime soon, haha.)

Garrus??? Is??????? The ABSOLUTE best???????????

I liked him from the start, I'm always a bit of a sucker for a rogue-detective "the system won't bring this bastard to justice, so I've got to" type and all their moral shadiness XD But he just gets better, honestly, and where I'm at in ME2 (right before the Reaper IFF mission, as of typing this, with everyone's loyalty!) I am only digging myself deeper into this hole-

-*wheezing* okay anyways -

Wrex is AMAZING I love fightin' middle-aged krogan bastard, gods. Liara is great too, I'm a sucker for a wlw relationship (playing fem!Shepard, so) - buuuut I'll admit she's a bit more one-note in ME1. Last week while I was still on ME1 I remember hearing (while trying to dodge spoilers) that her arc is really good, though. I think they leaned a little hard on the 'innocent but sexy' sterteotype on her (so despite the yikes aspect of a few of the things I've learned in ME2, lol, I actually really like the complexity that's been added to her character.)

Saved Liara first, so by the time I got to Noveria and had the standoff with Benezia there was the chance to have emotions over Liara having to face her TwT and of course, I made the questionable but quality decision to free Queen Rachni heheh. no ragrets

More than a blow-by-blow of my choices though I totally wanna take the chance to say that even in the mild jankiness of ME1 (goddammit, the Mako.... please..... please just go up this impossible cliff I just want to resource hunt-) the way that the lore, both obvious/key to main plot and the lesser/filler/background/world-building kinds... I just love it. It incorporates it well, you can go ham in the codex learning more, or just dive into the basics - it's clearly a complex galaxy (and they do an even better job in 2 of fleshing it out further), and it never really felt overwhelming. It was pretty natural figuring it all out-!

Plus the interesting implications of resource hunting amongst the sapient races, and the little side missions you better bet I did every one of- there's so much rich depth in the story if you do 'em!! (And that lead with that Keeper side mission...? Looking back, damn, clever foreshadowing-!!!)

And oh my gods, Ilios??? hell yeah. I loved that mission so much, especially having Garrus & Kaiden with me when talking to the hologram/computer, and more than anything, that last sprint in the Mako trying to get to the jump before it closed-???

yeet the boi-

Also mannn I love a good setpiece, and having to go up the side of the elevator, space-side?? such a cool setup!!

Plus it felt good having been Paragon enough (as simple as the good v bad vibe system is, I don't hate it, lol) to avoid one of the Saren fights, ngl. And the er, "second fight" with Sovereign-Saren.... hell yeah

... I'll admit I had to double check my choice re whether to save the Council. I did in the end, but I swear, sometimes the way they phrase things I'm like ".... okay but Garrus is right, defeating Sovereign is more important than these few leaders??????" woops. Listen, priorities, is all I'm saying..... (￣ヮ￣|||)ゞ

'Course later they emphasize (in ME2) that there were 10,000 people on that same ship and I was like well I wouldn't have second guessed if I'd known that, I mean c'mon-

Also I did indeed romance Liara in this one, so I got that scene ;Dc But,,,, I also knew by the end that I was totally gonna romance Garrus in 2 since he's an option then finally,,,,, lemme tell you the guilt as I waffled over whether to romance Liara bc of it. hahaha.

Aaaaand Mass Effect 2-

So I'm only up to right before the Reaper IFF Mission, so I don't know the ending, etc etc lol. That said, I've just finished every side mission I've found with the exception of the Shadowbroker Quest and the Arrival Quest (I've heard the latter basically leads into ME3, and the former is best either right before the Omega 4 jump or in postgame).

So from the start - fuck yeah fuck yeah what a high adrenaline start Shepard noooooo but also yes save Joker aH-

The motion comic too hot damn nice job

I loved this setup, seriously - especially forcing Shep into this situation, having to work with/for Cerberus, and the compelling reasoning given behind "why" they do what they do (I especially found it a good point that the Salarians have the Task Force, the Asaris the Commandos, the Turians the- etc... like, true, when you put it like that, having a similar group advancing human interests/solving human interstellar problems is pretty reasonable...). That said, I love too that it really isn't shied away from how Cerberus is nonetheless fucked up - or its at least done fucked up stuff.

Listen, I still think some messed up stuff is gonna be revealed in 2's endgame......... after that Horizon mission and the Collector's ship???? TIM I SEE YOU YOU SHADY MF-

aaanyways lol...

I'm so so glad on a gameplay level they nixed the Mako style exploration. A few Hammerhead missions are fine and a lot more focused than the slippery ass navigation in that glorified ATV, pfff. The probes are a neat way of getting after similar resources - and more importantly, having good levels and some good hubs (the Zakera Wards, Omega, Ilium, etc) is way way more fun than having a more 'sprawling' space that is.... a lot of empty nonsense, lol.

Then there's the fact that we get Joker right off the bat and you can interact with him so much - and him and EDI??? Get out gods I love them. Kasumi is so right when she says they sound like a bickering old married couple lol. I have a terrible feeling that some shit is gonna happen with EDI..... but I don't think she's evil as-is, at least.

Side-eying the hell out of those "access forbidden" parts of her that she doesn't even know.... and the fact that her AI core has a locked door access................... something's gonna happen gdi LEAVE OUR ADOPTED AI ALONE.

(Also Joker pls stop fracturing your thumb on the mute button)

Also please save me there are so many hot aliens in this game,,,,, the xeno/monsterfuckers really comin' through strong in the sequels............... doin' the lord's work........................................

In general, I love how many levels ME stepped up in two with complexity and interwoven narratives!! Like, to the point it'd be almost a drag to replay ME1, even though it was fun going through it (if occasionally a bit tedious with the cookie cutter rando planet science/mine facilities, lol). Like, just from how fun and interesting ME2 is, mostly! more of all the pre-introduced races, plus new ones, plus more filling in of intragalactic politics, and more interesting implications of all these space-faring races mixing....

Also gods WREX and his planet holy shit,,,,, fuckin' hell yeah my man get their shit together and also adopt Grunt yes good-

And Mordin??? My singing semi-evil scientist best friend forced to confront his choices more than he thought he ever would have???? With some of the best ongoing general report chatter of all the companions??

(when I tell you I choked on my coffee when I talked to him after confirming romance choice w/ Garrus and that 'pamphlet' and 'anaphalactic shot if ingesting-' kajsldkfjsldfjk)

Like, fuck, the fact that they actually dive into the mixed morality and horrors of the genophage, and you can confront Mordin on it, for good reason, yet he still stands his ground, until finally some bits of his loyalty mission seem to... affect him, and I'm guessing might set up things for 3 with him? Unsure, but either way, damn, the fact that they start to dig into it...

And Taliiiii my beloved forbidden alien wife TwT her loyalty mission was SO GOOD. I love how varied they all are?? Getting to defend her and discover what she'd unwittingly been a part of-!!

Zaeed is a bastard but tbh I love that he is and that he's unapologetic in him - and Kasumi omg, best thief. A heist?? Gods, yes- I love our couch lounge chats XD

Samara is..... illegally.......... she's an illegally powerful and beautiful and eloquent MILF...........................

(.... listen I'm sapphic as hell and I'm kicking my own ass for picking her up last aksjdlfksjdfl - but her loyalty mission, damn. And seeing how there's this interesting cultural subset, and the struggle with the Asari in that they unquestioningly accept/respect justicars, but also know that the impact outside their culture is a diplomacy nightmare waiting to happen-)

,.,,,,,T,,, Thane,,,,,

I am weak for morally implicated murder dads okay?? And that voice??? His mannerisms?????? How you first see him, and that prayer after assassinating her...???????? And his history/his people's history with the hanar, gods I love how messy it is, it feels so much more real!

Also Jack is a mess and I love her (and want to get her some therapy, omg), and her and Miranda nearly duking it out after you've done both their loyalty missions??? so good and makes a lot of sense-! Honestly I would love more interactions between teammates on the ship, but there's already so much the devs had to balance I can't blame 'em for minimizing, heh. But suffice to say I also love Miranda and Jacob, even if I'm softest for my alien crew XD Hell yeah Jacob, we'll get loud and spill drinks on the citadel indeed TwT

.... I could write a whole essay on how much I love Garrus oTL Perhaps because he and Tali are the throughlines from 1 on your 2 crew, I have some of the strongest feelings about them... but genuinely, he was one of my favorite companions in the first game, and how you find him as Archangel in two? Getting to help him fight his way out after he's gone nearly 48 hours straight fighting off three gangs alone, jfc. His vengeance quest and what can happen there.... That line? fuck me, that line -

It's so much easier to see the world in black and white. Grey? I don't know what to do with gray...

How DARE you come for my heart like this, devs holy shit

(also, some other choice faves so far from the series from him include We can disobey suicidal orders?? and This wasn't in my training manual... [in 1, if you have him with you @ th Thorian fight] and his whole.... pop the heat sink - in his romance ;Dc)

asdasdfksadjfkl like I said I can write an essay on him PFFF suffice to say I'm very looking forward to his romance scene and where things go in 3

But yeah gods I'm just gonna keep rambling if I'm not careful lol. Gods I don't even know what to talk about it's all so good and while I can understand people roasting the obviousness of Paragon V Renegade (v neutral) choices/alignments, I think they do a pretty damn good job in 2 of pushing it further - to the point that there were some times that I accidentally got renegade points and I wasn't that mad, haha. There's so much fun in the interactions that I just have a good time anyways~

I have so many thoughts about TIM (The Illusive Man) and Cerberus.... theories evolving galore............... and like, what the hell!! Omega 4 going to the center of the galaxy is such a cool twist, goddamn - though my heart still breaks at losing Kaiden (his line if you haven't romanced him?? about feeling like he lost a limb when he lost you??? holy shit.... but I also can't blame him for not trusting Cerberus to the point of it affecting his ability to trust Shepard... like fuck Shep go after himmmm) I'm really excited to see where that goes since he comes back in 3, and what the fuck happens with Cerberus bc while I love the fact that obviously there are a lot of people in it for the right reasons, doing good work, there are those that are doing the opposite, and I have a very bad feeling about where TIM will end up landing....

All that said though I need to do the Reaper IFF mission (where I'm lightly spoiled as to getting That Boy, but not how/what happens to make it so - just that it's apparently wise to have all your side missions done before getting him...) and the actual Omega 4 jump. So we'll see what happens and what I think about it from there heheh!

.... major kudos and genuine props if you made it here to the end, I am so sorry for not editing on condensing all this, and appreciate you so much ;w;

[goneseriesanalysis]

Diana Ladris

Ok so here is my Diana analysis, finally. I was going to write this on Monday but now it’s Sunday and I honestly have no idea what I’ve done all week. Quick disclaimer that I am in love with Diana, so this is probably not the most objective analysis you will ever read. Please feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions on her. I would love to hear them!!

Spoilers for Gone down below

Original Opinion: I loved Diana. Snarky, dark-haired girls in fiction are the loves of my life. But didn’t remember much else about her personality other than that.

New Opinion: I still love her. She has such a complicated personality and I just want her to be happy.

1.) Diana’s Appearance:

Diana is another character that is described pretty poorly in the first book. We get no indication of her ethnicity or body type – but that seems to be pretty common for characters in this book. There are three main descriptions of Diana here, two from Sam in chapter 14 and one from Jack in chapter 40. And by main, I mean we get the slightest bit of information other than ‘she’s beautiful.’

The first time Sam sees Diana he describes her as a “dark-eyed, very beautiful girl.” In the first book Diana and Astrid are sort of made out to be binary opposites, much in the same way that Sam and Caine are. Astrid is light and fair, referencing her innocence and general ‘goodness’, whereas Diana is depicted a being darker, in both looks and personality, and is therefore much more morally ambiguous. I think this is perfectly fine for the first book, as none of the characters are thoroughly developed and so the stereotypical light = good and dark = bad isn’t too off-putting – especially seen as these two characters in particular definitely do evolve past these roles in later books. In fact, I think giving such as basic starting point for these characters actually works in Michael’s favour as it allows us as a reader to look back retrospectively and truly appreciate how much they have grown.

The parallel to Astrid doesn’t stop there either. The next line of description we are given of Diana so strongly reminds me of the second description we are given of Astrid, that it seems almost criminal not to do a side-by-side comparison:

“Her midnight eyes met his and he wanted to look away, feeling awkward, but somehow could not.” – Chapter 14 (referring to Diana)

Astrid looked right at him. He couldn’t look away like he normally would, because her gaze wasn’t challenging, sceptical like it usually was: it was scared. Her normally sharp, discerning blue eyes were wide, with way too much white showing” – Chapter 1 (referring to Astrid)

Not only do we get another light vs dark comparison, but Sam’s immediate reaction to them both is extremely similar. I’m not really sure what to make of this, although I’m 100% convinced that Michael did it on purpose. Was there originally going to be a love triangle, with Sam having such similar reactions to them both?? Was this meant to be a comment on Sam’s character and his reaction to the women around him?? Or was it meant to be a hint at Diana’s morality, showing that Sam saw something in her that she couldn’t at the time see in herself, something that reminded him of Astrid?? I’m not sure, but either way I love it and I would really like some other people’s opinions on it.

So, the last description that gives us any actual information on Diana’s appearance is from Jack’s POV in chapter 40, “He could see the outline of her face, her dark hair.” (Do you see how far I had to dig for literally anything!?!? Come on Michael.) Again, we have the dark hair further establishing her and Astrid as binary opposites. We also get the idea in chapter 36 that her hair is relatively long as Drake mentions it falling on his face when she talks to him. But yeah, this is all we get in terms of Diana’s appearance. It’s a little disappointing that she seems to be heavily sexualised but then again a lot of her character’s actions, especially in this book, are based on other people’s attraction towards her so it’s a tricky one to talk about. I think the main reason we get so little description is because of the lack of Caine POV’s, and as Diana’s main love interest Michael probably wanted him to give the more detailed descriptions of her as opposed to the two boys who get the most POV time in this book (Sam and Drake).

2.) Diana’s Personality:

I’ve split Diana’s personality into three categories in an attempt to make my thoughts more cohesive. From what I could gather in this book we see:

The snarky, slightly cruel side of Diana – this is the side of her that she projects most often and it seems to be the reason Caine “loves” her

The falsely kind and caring side of Diana – this is the side of her that we see most often with Jack, and sometimes with Caine. It is the tactic she uses to manipulate people

Diana’s actual personality – This is part of Diana that is so well hidden that she can’t even see it herself. While it is mostly only hinted at within this book (which I will talk about in Diana’s Morality), there is a scene where I truly think we see her raw, unfiltered personality.

So, I’ll start by talking about her snarky personality. I believe this side of Diana is mainly there to be a defence mechanism. She doesn’t like to show weakness, but cannot physically protect herself in a school where everyone is a bully. Or in a house where her mother’s boyfriends sneak up on her in the shower with no consequences. Or in a classroom where her science teacher tries to feel her up. So instead she tries to take people down with words. She makes them feel inferior by insulting them in clever ways, by poking fun at their insecurities (a tactic reminiscent of Astrid using her intelligence as a weapon). And I think after a while of doing this, it just became a part of her. She seems to enjoy making people uncomfortable. She definitely enjoys the effect she has on Jack and Caine, and seems to find Drake’s reactions to her quips amusing.

In chapter 20, when Caine is discovering that he and Sam are brothers, her first reaction is to embarrass him, “She stared at it [Sam’s birth certificate] and started laughing.” After seeing Caine turn pale, clearly having a hard time coping with this realisation, she continues with her method of attack “November twenty-second,’ Diana said, grinning spitefully.” She seems to have no sympathy for Caine or his emotional reaction to finding out that the people who he thought were his parents were… well, not. (I find this particularly interesting as not a page earlier she was teasing Drake for enjoying other people’s pain.) It seems like Diana enjoys the power that comes with being cruel. For quite a large portion of her life, people have tried to make her feel powerless, like an object whose sole purpose is for their gratification. And so Diana likes it when it’s the other way around. She likes making weak people feeling weaker and more vulnerable (such as Jack), and she especially enjoys poking fun at those with more power. By teasing Drake and Caine, she is subverting the narrative that has been fed to her all her life by the adults who have let her down. She is no longer there for their amusement. Instead, they are there for hers.

This idea of Diana kind of revelling in their pain, especially Caine’s, is continued in chapter 39, with this scene, “Too bad Dr Phil’s not around. You could tell him all about it.” This is said in response to Caine opening up about feeling neglected by his adoptive parents, and is an excellent example of Diana’s mean streak. The comment itself is not horrible, Diana rarely says things that are truly cruel, but the way she so easily dismisses and ridicules his feelings, knowing that she is probably the first person he has ever spoken to about this, is really telling. I think she feels that if she gives Caine the emotional support that is so clearly craving here, that she is giving up control. The only control she has over Caine is through the manipulation of his feelings, so she is cruel and distant and untouchable 99% of the time. She will give him hints of affection, slight touches of it here and there, but never enough of it to feel like he has won. She still always retains this small line of defence (which really makes Lies and Plague a whole lot sadder for me).

Next we have what I like to call her false kindness. This refers to those small hints of affection that she gives to people in order to control them, to make her snarky persona more effective. We first see this in chapter 20, when after teasing Caine about his relation to Sam, “she was playing nice, as close to sympathetic as she ever managed to be.” Diana is very skilled at knowing when to attack and when to be sympathetic. She will tease those around her, making them feel small and inferior, and then offer her kindness. This way people will be less likely to try and hurt her. They all want the same thing from her, whether it be Caine, her science teacher or her mother’s boyfriends with their lust or whether it be Drake with his sick ways. They all want her to be theirs. Theirs to have or theirs to use or theirs to hurt. It’s awful and it makes me want to sit down and cry or else hug her or else smack any boy who’s ever looked at her. But she can stop them from forcefully taking away her autonomy (with the exception of Drake) by offering them the possibility that she may give it up freely. And so we see this side of her. The second aspect of her elaborate defence.

This method of manipulation seems to be most effective with Jack, at least in this book. Now, I don’t think that Jack wants Diana in the way that Caine does, and definitely NOT in the way that Drake does. He mentions that he thinks she’s beautiful, and I definitely think he likes her, but in a much more innocent way. He seems to want to impress her, but that’s all he seems to want. Her to be proud of him and impressed by him. And Diana, clever as she is, knows this. In chapter 29 Diana discovers Jack’s power, and her reaction to it is what first made me realise that it’s power that she wants after all:

“Are you asking me to protect you?’                                                                                                                     Jack saw a ray of hope in his personal darkness. ‘Yes. Yes.’                                                                           ‘Say it.’                                                                                                                                                                       ‘Please protect me.’                                                                                                                                         Diana’s eyes seemed to melt, from ice cold to almost warm. She smiled. ‘I’ll protect you, Jack. But here’s the thing. From now on you belong to me.”

Diana has spent a large portion of her life feeling powerless. Even with her extensive defence mechanism, there are still multiple times within this book where the illusion of power is stripped away, and we are left with a Diana that is just so scared. And so, to me, this scene seems to be Diana’s attempt to hold power over someone in a way that is not directly related to her sexuality. Her relationship with Jack is much purer in that sense. He doesn’t do what she says because he’s hoping for a relationship, but because he wants her to protect him. He wants her to be to him what she can’t even be to herself. And that’s so sad?? Because the reaction she has is almost sweet, she has a moment where I can truly feel like she appreciates Jack for the way in which he wants her. And she keeps her promise. She does protect him from Drake’s threats and Caine’s derision. Right up until the moment where she sends him off to Sam.

And finally, we have a small glimpse of what I believe to be Diana’s real personality. The side of her that we don’t really see much of yet. This is, I think, what we see in chapter 36, and there are three specific quotes that I think perfectly highlight it:

“You have the saw?’ Diana’s voice asked. Not smug now, not smug at all, but raw and horrified.” – Chapter 36

“I’ll do it, ‘Diana said, disgusted. ‘You’re all such big tough guys. Give me the saw.” – Chapter 36

“Ok,’ Diana said. ‘Hold onto him. I’ll be as quick as I can be.” – Chapter 36

Now, the first reason that leads me to believe that these are examples of Diana’s true personality and not just further examples of her false kindness, is that this scene is told from Drake’s POV – and Drake has never been fooled by her personas. We know that she is not smug, but raw and horrified. Of course, this could just be due to the horrific nature of the injury, but I personally think it’s more than that. We get the idea throughout the book that Diana goes along with Caine’s schemes, but she doesn’t necessarily agree with them. She seems to be ok up until the point where she can see the consequences of their actions, in which point she shows horror, disgust and remorse. And right now, she is seeing a pretty big consequence. Sam burned Drake’s arm because Drake cemented them, something that Diana was also a part of, something that she allowed to happen to other people. Looking at the state he is in now, I don’t think Diana is just horrified by his injury, she is also scared. But not of Sam, necessarily. Get ready for another comparison to Astrid here: I find it interesting that Astrid is religious, but believes that free will dictates actions and consequences – as opposed to some higher power. But Diana is seemingly the opposite. She is not religious, but seems to always be fearful of some higher power punishing her for her sins – and this is something that, if I remember correctly, features quite heavily in other books.

To contrast this fear, however, she also shows immense bravery here. She again uses her snarky persona to shock and belittle Drake into remaining still (telling him that he wet himself), and is the only one brave enough out of a room full of bullies to actually cut off his arm. This may in part be because she already knows that he plans to hurt her, and so she doesn’t really have anything to lose in that regard. But I think it also shows that underneath her defensive persona and underneath her fear of being powerless, she really is a good person who is immensely strong and capable. Her “goodness” is also shown for the first time in this scene, even if it is only a glimpse. The line “I’ll be as quick as I can be.” I honestly think is one of the strongest acts of compassion in this book. Drake has made it clear that he hates her. That he wants to hurt her. Hell, he literally threatens to kill her moments before this scene. And yet she refuses to take any joy in it. She refuses to sink down to his level and prolong his pain. Instead she chooses to try her best to make it stop. It’s such an underrated Diana moment. I love her so much :(

3.) Diana’s Morality:

 A large aspect of Diana’s character is her struggle with her morality, and we see the beginnings of this within this book. While she is always aligned with Caine here, she has small moments of doubt and remorse which nicely sets up her character arc in later books. Of course there are many reasons why one could argue that Diana, at least in the first book, is an immoral character. She stands by Caine through the cementing, his take-over of Perdido Beach, his attack on Sam and then leaves with him at the end of the book, despite being offered a place in Perdido Beach. She leaves Astrid with Drake, knowing what he’s capable of, and seems perfectly fine with Drake killing her and LP after they escape. And, of course, she is a class A manipulator, which is demonstrated with a multitude of characters. But…. She is not completely immoral – or at least she does have a conscience.

This is largely shown through her complaints in regards to Caine’s schemes. While she never leaves him, and never really acts on her complaints, she does voice disgust at the things he is doing/has done. This is first shown in chapters 31 and 32, when they find out that Andrew has stopped feeding the Coates kids:

“Diana snapped, ‘You’re letting these freaks starve. I can see why you’d be worried about being plastered.’                                                                                […]                                                                                                                          Drake, shoot the creep.” – Chapter 31

“Maybe you wake up in hell, ‘Diana said. ‘Where you belong.’                                ‘I should pray,’ Andrew said.                                                                                    ‘God forgive me for being a stupid creep who starves people?’ Diana suggested.” – Chapter 32

Diana is clearly horrified by Andrew’s actions here, to the point where she tries to have Drake kill him. I think part of the reason why her reaction is so extreme may be a hint at her own guilt towards the part she played in the cementing. Her morality is such as difficult thing to decipher in this book, because she so clearly feels guilty about the things she has done/ allowed to happen – but does that really mean anything considering she did nothing to stop it from happening?? Considering that she still continues to support Caine now?? We know that she herself did not suggest and/ or condone the cementing from her line in chapter 42, “I told you to let the freaks go who didn’t want to play along. But no, you had to listen to Drake’s paranoid advice. I told you to go into Perdido Beach and make a quick deal for food.” – but that seems neither here nor there when you think about the horrific nature of the crime. Surely she should have done more to prevent it from happening?? I think Diana’s immorality comes from a lack of action rather than a lack of conscience – silence is violence after all. This makes her the perfect candidate for a redemption arc later on as we know from the beginning that she does have the capacity for good, it’s just a case of whether she decides to act on it.

That being said, there are two moments in the book where Diana does seem to act on these thoughts, the first being in chapter 40, when she send Jack to Perdido Beach to warn Sam about the poof:

“Jack, if Sam blinks out, Drake will turn on me, and Caine won’t be able to stop him. Drake is stronger than before. I need Sam alive. I need someone for Drake to hate. I need balance. Tell Sam about the temptation.”

Now, I will admit, as much as I love Diana, this probably isn’t the best quote to argue her morality with – but hear me out. Is she doing this for selfish reasons?? Yes, she admits that much herself. But she is still doing the right thing. And doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still a step in the right direction.

Now the second time she takes action is a much clearer example of her goodness. In the thanksgiving battle she becomes furious when Caine sets the coyotes on the littles, to the point where she actually demands him to make them stop. She tells him to drop Astrid. She tries to tell Sam about the poof. She actually DOES something. She acts on her conscience. And we see Caine clearly ignore her. Not only ignore her, but he actually physically attacks her… twice. Which really puts things into perspective. Because we see that Diana does not have as much control as she would have the reader believe. Her ability to manipulate Caine really relies on what he wants at the time. Is he currently thinking about how much he wants Diana?? If yes, then she is able to twist his arm, able to get him to do what she wants. If no?? Then she has absolutely no power over his actions, at least in this book. And so it seems like her lack of action is less a disinterest in his crimes, and more an attempt to protect herself. Now I’m not saying that makes her better, but it certainly makes you think.

Ok, so I’ve spoken a lot about Diana’s morality in relation to her affiliation with Caine, but let’s have a look at how she is when separate from him. We learn in chapter 29 why Diana was sent to Coates. Her father wouldn’t buy her a horse, so she told her mother about his mistress. During the following argument her mother fell down the stairs, and she falsely told the police that her father had done it. Now, while that’s certainly now a good thing to do, it’s nowhere near as bad as, sayyy shooting someone in the leg for ‘being annoying.’  We also learn that Diana’s mother never really recovered from the fall, she lived, but can’t really do much anymore. For that to happen, the fall must have been pretty bad. Now, I’m going to assume that Diana witnessed both the fight and the argument, otherwise she wouldn’t have been there to see whether her mother was pushed or not. So, just imagine this for a second. You’re a kid, at least under 14. You find out that your father is cheating on your mother and then during the, I assume pretty bad, argument that ensues because of this, your mother suffers a horrific injury. Would you not, on at least some level, blame your father?? You’ve just been traumatised, you’re not going to be thinking clearly. I’m not saying that Diana was right to lie, but I don’t think that was Coates worthy. The kid just needed therapy. But her parents clearly didn’t care about her enough to provide that. As for her telling her mother just because her dad wouldn’t buy her a horse. That’s another example of her doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. And again, she’s just a child – there are worse things children can do. Add all this onto Diana’s constant struggle with herself – her thinking that she’s incapable of feeling real love or anyone feeling real love for her, you get this picture of a young girl who has been failed repeatedly by the adults around her, and so is coping in the only way she knows how.

To me, it seems like Diana’s ‘immorality’ is a result of years of neglect and abuse from authority figures that has led to the development of a coping mechanism that is more destructive than productive. And now I’m gonna cry.

4.) Diana’s Loyalty to Caine:

Ok, so this kind of links in with my previous point about Diana’s morality. But I feel like there is a lot of nuance to it, and so it deserves its own bullet point. The main argument against Diana’s morality is her continuous affiliation with Caine. So, why does she stay?? I feel like the conclusion that mg wants us to come to, is that her ‘love’ for Caine is so strong that she can’t be without him. But I’m gonna be honest, that conclusion makes me want to throw up so I will be doing some literary gymnastics in order to reach a different one.

One thing that becomes pretty clear pretty early on is that Diana’s loyalty to Caine is…shaky. At best. She oddly seems to be loyal to him behind his back… but not to his face. In chapter 15, Diana seems upset that Edilio is digging a grave without Caine explicitly telling him to do it. But then later in the same chapter we see her lie to Caine’s face twice:

“Diana said, ‘Nowhere. He was just wandering, lost.” –

Jack had seen Diana take Sam’s hand. So he was amazed when Diana said, ‘No. I didn’t have a chance.”

And when you think about it, these are some pretty serious lies that could have had huge consequences. After finding Jack with Astrid, unsure as to whether Jack has told Astrid anything, she lies to Caine about where he was. Now, you could just put this down to my earlier point about Diana kind of liking Jack in her own way and so she protects him from Caine’s anger – IF she had followed up with Jack. But she doesn’t. She never makes any effort to find out what Jack and Astrid were talking about – Jack could have told Astrid everything, but she doesn’t seem to care. This could be interpreted two ways:

1 – She has such faith in Caine that she just isn’t worried about Sam and Astrid (doubtful)

2 – She is not fully loyal to Caine and is hoping to give Sam a chance to take over (imo, more likely)

To support point number two, she later lies about reading Sam’s power and finding out that he is a four bar. Later in the book, she tries to convince Jack that the reason she does this is to stop Caine from freaking out. But… I think that that is just another one of her lies. After all, she already knew that Caine did not trust Sam – and obviously knew about the plan to kidnap him in the school. I think if stopping Caine from doing something stupid was her main concern, then she would have told him the truth as soon as she saw that he was going to do something stupid anyway. But she doesn’t. Which tells me that her actual goal was to give Sam a chance to rise up and take control.

So the question is, what changed?? What happened between the beginning of the book, where her loyalty to Caine seems like nothing more than a façade, and the end, where this scene takes place:

“Sorry, Sam. The bad girl ends up with the bad boy. It’s the way the world works. Especially this world.’ She went to Caine. She did not take his extended hand, did not even look at him, but walked beside him as he descended the steps.” – Chapter 46

During this scene, she gets the chance to remain in Perdido Beach, to get away from Caine. But she doesn’t take it. Why?? This was the main question that I was left with when I finished the book, because in the beginning it seems so clear that she’s just biding her time, waiting for someone else to take over so she can defect from Caine’s side. She even tries this again in chapter 42, “I’ll go,’ Diana volunteered. It was foolish. She knew what he would say. And she could see the light of suspicion in his eyes.” And then, when she is finally given the chance to do so, she declines. She declines and then spends months taking care of him, living in fear of Drake, while he is in a coma. And not once does she think of returning to Perdido Beach. It makes no sense. If she does it out of love or affection, then why is she so disloyal at the beginning?? Surely those feelings couldn’t have developed over the course of the week that he was in charge. I mean, we were seeing the worst side of him. It took a few re-read of my notes, but I think I’ve finally come to a conclusion that I’m happy with.

I think she was scared. It’s such a simple answer, but that’s really why it’s such a perfect one. And I don’t just mean she was scared of Caine. In chapter 34 we get this quick line, “Diana seemed torn, uncertain; then she bolted after Caine.” Upon my first re-read I barely payed attention to this. I was more focused on Caine and Drake’s reactions in this scene and so never really bothered to pay attention to Diana. But that hesitation is why I think she eventually decided to stay. She is obviously torn, here is the perfect opportunity to join Sam – to get away from Caine and Drake. But instead she follows, because she’s scared. Not of Sam, but of the Coates kids. She’s scared of what they’ll do to her now that they’re free. And, most importantly, she’s scared that she deserves it. That she doesn’t deserve to be saved. She thinks Sam is too good, and is scared that she’ll never fit in. So she turns and runs back to Caine, because no matter how bad she is, he is worse. He can never look down on her for being a bad person, because she’ll never be quite as bad as him.

And then of course, we do have to factor in her fear of Caine which, imo, also contributes to her remaining by his side. We get very few Diana POV’s in this book, but the ones we do get are full of great quotes, particularly in chapter 42:

“If Caine got his hands on Computer Jack, Diana had no doubt that the techie wizard would give her up. What would Caine do then?                                        In the meantime, Diana had to play it smart. By pretending to be concerned by Jack’s escape or defection or whatever it should be called. It would throw Caine and Drake off the scent.                                                                                    Unless they captured Jack.                                                                                      She fought down a wave of fear and hid it by pouring herself a glass of water at the kitchen sink.”

Diana is clearly scared of Caine, despite what she may have him and others believe. She is afraid of what he will do to her if he no longer wants her. So she refers back to her tried and tested defence mechanism. Give him some affection, in this case choosing him, and maybe he won’t hurt her. Maybe she’ll be ok. I think Diana went with him because she felt safe nowhere, but it’s better to stick with the enemy you know rather than the one you don’t.

5.) Diana’s Power:

And finally, we have Diana’s power. Much like Caine, I feel like Diana’s power is an extension of her personality. As we have established, Diana’s number one defence mechanism is manipulation, the ability the read people and use that against them. So it makes sense that she would have the ability to read people’s power levels. I don’t really have anything else to say about this, I just think it is an interesting observation that I wanted to note.

Thank you so much for reading, and I apologise, once again for the length. The next analysis I’m planning on writing up is Drake and then I’m not sure. I might do a few other separate ones, or I might do the rest of the characters in few big posts together. Let me know if there are any that you are particularly interested in seeing :)

[centrally-unplanned]

During the Neon Genesis Evangelion rewatch I decided pick an aspect of the show to focus on as I watched, and I chose Misato; namely, how her arc connects to Eva’s wider themes. Evangelion has a lot going on and I don’t think it can be boiled down to one thematic concept, but if I were to try: real fulfillment for people can only come from being of value to and connecting with other people, but as an individual that process is inherently painful and impossible to truly achieve - What Do? Shinji embodies this in a very interiorized (and therefore very universally applicable) way, withdrawing from others and neglecting his potential to act out of fear of the pain and consequences. Yet one of the really interesting things about Eva is how the other characters reflect a different aspect of this same struggle, and so all combine into a grander narrative.

Misato does this as well - but in a way that doesn't jump out as much. Misato is very much the driver of the plot, making proactive choices around the conspiracy, the war, etc, and these actions can often overshadow her inner struggles. Thus, singling her out for focus - and from that process I feel she showcases a really unique take on the show’s themes.

Reflections on Misato’s Thematic Reflection

The other three main characters (Shinji, Asuka, Rei - sorry Ritsuko fans!) being all kids, tend to struggle with issues very close to home, but Misato is the adult in the room and so has adult concerns, namely the big picture struggle for humanity. These concerns are her duty though, not her passion - Misato is riddled with “base” desires that are emotionally and physically hyper-indulgent. Her relationship with Kaji is a constant temptation to escape from those duties and instead whittle away endless time in emotional intimacy - and also fuck like rabbits. There is a great showcase scene in End of Evangelion of this, where in their youth Misato and Kaji literally spent a week straight in their apartment doing nothing else:

----For Misato, fans symbolize sex, which I love is a sentence I can say----

Note by the way that they could have communicated that they were cloistered off banging it out in a myriad of ways, but they chose to highlight the outside obligations Misato was neglecting to do the job, because ~*themes*~. But of course such states cannot last, and Kaji himself has his own duties, very similarly to Misato, ones that he will not truly neglect for her sake.

This arc is further reflected in her relationship with Shinji, who she adopts in the opening episodes as a sort of surrogate child. While the contradictions here are less evident at first, as the show progresses it becomes clear that this family is, to quote Ritsuko, “playing house”, a pantomime of adulthood over the reality. Furthermore, her desire to mother Shinji - a desire she holds strongly for reasons I’ll note soon - starts running up against her need to command Shinji as his superior officer, commands that increasingly hurt him but are for his (and humanity’s) own good. In both of these cases, Misato is torn between those outer responsibilities and inner desires, and has to walk a tightrope of balancing them.

Like so many in the the oh-so-Freudian Evangelion, Misato’s conflicts stem from her relationship with her father; a cold, neglectful man who was absent for much of her life growing up, but who was devoting his time to NERV (the core organization in the show) fighting for humanity in his own way and also sacrificed himself to save Misato’s life when she was a teen. She loathes him and idolizes him simultaneously for this duality, which expresses itself as an outer shell of heroic professionalism masking the inner vulnerability and desire for the intimacy she lacked growing up, alongside a deep shame of that desire:

This shame is important, since I wager it would tempting to think that the conclusion of Misato’s arc is “always prioritize the big picture”, as that embodies her final moment: convincing and even *sexually manipulating* Shinji into piloting the Eva for the greater good. Its a powerful scene, and also a callback to the very first episode - where she stares on in horror as Gendo (her boss & Shinji’s absentee father) equally orders Shinji to “pilot the Eva” despite the terrible toll it would inflict on him. She judged it harshly then, but now is reprising that role under even more terrible stakes. I could see one concluding that Misato’s arc culminates in her embracing a Gendo-ian ruthlessness.

But it doesn’t, because A: Gendo is a selfish, cowardly piece of shit, not at all concerned with the greater good, and B: when Misato’s effort to Be The Adult are partially motivated by a desire to cover up for her shame in her damned sex drive, that *can’t* be fully aspirational!  She was only able to get through to Shinji because of the emotional connection they shared, which stemmed from her desire to “play house”, a choice that itself stemmed from her desire to be *nothing like* her cold, absent father and not make the mistakes he made (told you we’d get there). And they *were* mistakes, despite her father’s intentions. If Evangelion has an answer to its question of “how to solve the pain of being part of society” (It does not, I am radically simplifying right now), it’s that you can’t solve it, to wipe that pain away (AKA Human Instrumentality) would be a mistake, and instead you have to accept the pain and contradictions as the key to how you evolve as a person. Misato changes over the course of the show, but never in a way to resolve these contradictions - she only evolves to cope with them. 

And then she dies, but hey, its Shinji’s story in the end. Sometimes you gotta get Fridge’d for the greater good.

------

A final, sort-of side note to take this a little beyond Misato’s arc, “evolution” is critical to how Misato serves as a reflection of the theme for other characters. A huge crux of Shinji’s arc is his relationship with Asuka, namely his burgeoning romantic desire for her that he is incapable of acting on due to ~arc stuff. For Shinji, if he made a move on Asuka and got down with her it would be huge progress for him! Sex is a critical component of connecting with others after all, and it would mark his ability to open himself up to those connections. But what is progress for Shinji, the teen, is regression for Misato, the adult, as her sexual chemistry with Kaji can tip into excess - for her connecting with one person is in fact a form of withdraw from her wider responsibilities. What is the healthy choice for you constantly evolves as you yourself evolve, and its really fascinating that Evangelion simultaneously uses sexual intimacy for opposed meanings via different characters. The scene I posted above, where Shinji is judging a shame-filled Misato for the sex she is having, is one where both of their weaknesses are on full, simultaneous display - very hard for one scene to pull off.

------

(A final-final meta-note: I rarely write about themes in shows because I feel like everything I am saying is super-obvious; there is only so subtle a tv show can be. If you are going to do like cross-comparisons between shows or wider social trends that’s worth it, but just the show in isolation I fear it’s too basic. Would be curious if anyone who does stumble on this essay has that reaction of “yeah anyone who saw the show would know this”.)

[inactive-gaymer-bro-benrey]

i would like to hear the sweet voice theory 👀

Anon I was in the process of posting it so your ask popped up at the perfect moment.

I offer my theory that Sweet Voice is a side effect of the radiation Xen creatures give off - word vomit version aka I thought too long and hard about how Coomer knows how to do the sweet voice.

I fully intend on rewriting it more essay-style but enjoy this for now.

My theory/au when it comes to sweet voice is that it's an effect that occurs when you're exposed to Xen-based life/objects over the course of decades. Now with how Black Mesa was structured they have a shit ton of security and safety measures, yes, but when you're a member of the Anomalous Materials Lab you can't escape the effects of Xen radiation. The radiation suits can only stop Earth-based radiation, not Xen. Machines can't even detect Xen radiation yet. Now the way it works is that it slowly starts seeping into you over the course of decades, it's a slow effect that can't be felt until you've had it for a long time. For humans they begin to lose their emotional depth and start defaulting to select phrases/words/actions to try to relay messages. They can still talk but it's a bit of a strain on late cases. They begin to release sweet voice about 15 years into being exposed to Xen radiation, at 30 humans can consistently make long strings of sweet voice without much issue. Obviously this is only the case for members of the Anomalous Materials Lab, if you're in another section of the facility the effect is slowed even further or never shows any signs. 

Coomer was in the toxic waste disposal business for years so he's got a compromised system, he has maybe been with the materials lab for I think 20 years but he's already showing signs of 40 years worth of exposure. The fact he has bionic limbs (which i assume is from the toxic waste thing) along with the radiation from the waste AND the fact his clones have some of his strength/energy ("another clone defeated, my power grows") he is super weak and had no chance fighting off the Xen side effects.

Gordon has been at Black Mesa for a few years now, he's not showing symptoms and has never seen someone using sweet voice (mostly cuz he's never looking, note: Coomer doing it a ton and never bringing it up.) He doesn't know the effects of Xen radiation because he's not the one going to Xen, he's got his suit so he's never touched anything from there. He isn't worried because he doesn't know how it works. Gordon will eventually over time learn sweet voice and start producing his own.

Bubby is a special case. While he IS human, he's always been in Black Mesa. He's been exposed to Xen his entire existence, even before he was formed. He grew up with the sweet voice and was how they learned about the early effects and how it shows up after decades and not unprotected exposure. Bubby was most likely kept in a different area growing up so he didn't know where his tubes were because they were relocated after he was grown. Bubby has had the time to learn how to suppress the sweet voice, which is why he tends to jump back and forth with emotions a lot. The fact he has pyrokinesis is most likely because Xen creatures can break the laws of physics to a degree and have powers the facility hasn't documented yet. Bubby is their life long lab rat, that's why he works in the Anomalous Materials Lab with Coomer, Tommy, and Gordon despite his clear interest in space and rockets.

Tommy is human but he was exposed to a different type of alien life. G-man adopted him so that means he's most likely been teleported multiple times over the course of his life along with undergoing the long term effects of freezing time. Tommy IS human but his physical form and biological clock is fucked up badly. His dad basically gave him immunity to Xen radiation. He can understand sweet voice but his isn't as strong as a 36 year olds would be if he was brought to Black Mesa before the age of 5 so he can translate but his own has bubbles of various sizes so it's hard to tell when he's doing it and what he's trying to express.

Benrey is Xen. He got to Black Mesa somehow. He guards the materials lab and if we go by the idea that ANYTHING from Xen can release the radiation then Benrey is giving everyone an extra dash of exposure whenever they just try to go to the lab. Benrey has sweet voice, no-clip, and can change his size which is on the same level as Bubby's pyrokinesis. And the fact he can respawn is crucial because it implies that Xen can't die unless they're killed by other Xen. Coomer, Bubby, and Benrey can't die by gun fire, Tommy most likely a regen power too since he's gotten close to death multiple times but hasn't actually died. That's also why Benrey comes back during the ACAB stream, because after he beefed it he stopped by the party as a skeleton and then went home to play video games. And the skeleton thing! That's most likely what a pure blooded Xen looks like pre-respawn, they could possibly have it that Xens have a grace period when they can do whatever without needing to respawn, like invincibility frames. Don't get me started on G-man, he's most likely alien and I can't fathom his shit. Darnold was a member of the Mixology Lab so he was never exposed and I don't think Forzen was friends with Benrey for more than maybe 5 years so he's in the baby stages of radiation. Sunkist has sweet voice because Tommy wanted a way to communicate with her because she's the perfect dog. I think the only thing I didn't mention was why the other creatures died (headcrabs, peeper puppies, ex wives, ect.) But I'm going with the idea that they're not as evolved as Benrey or the Humans affected by the Xen so they don't have the bodily reactions that make respawning possible.

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

I have had a fanon universe exist in my head ever since I stopped buying Marvel comics in 2012. I seldom post about it because the truth is I'm not much of a writer. I have ideas, I like writing character interactions and I love the hyper-connectivity of a super-expansive universe. There are at least 5 years of planning for an entire line of Marvel books in my head and I'm finally posting about one.

Marvel have announced this new Captain Marvel story called “The Last of the Marvels” and the likely misleading initial promotional stuff seems to suggest the return of the old Captain Marvels, or at least Genis-Vell. I'm sure the story will be exactly what you expect, Carol Danvers getting patted on the back by all past Captain Marvels and told she is better than they ever were. This post isn't about speculation or petty criticism but one of my first imagined crossovers features the same basic idea of bringing back the old Captain Marvels for a celebration of the Captain Marvel legacy.

“Negablast”[1] would be a 6-issue miniseries that debuts in Month 4 of the Anachroverse. It would be the first major crossover. Outside of the core miniseries, there would be tie-ins in the Cosmic books (Guardians of the Galaxy, New Champions[2], Infinity Watch, Nova and Silver Surfer) as well as a single issue tie-ins, more loose in nature, in books that have a very minor connection (Avengers, Agents of Atlas) and fleeting mentions in others (Thunderbolts, New Warriors).

The main series would star the trio of Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers), Photon (Monica Rambeau) and Quasar (Wendell Vaughn). The plot is that the Kree Supreme Intelligence wishes to “evolve” and so it seeks to supplant Epoch and become “the new Eon”. There is a whole backstory and justification to the Supreme Intelligence coming to this conclusion[3]. Supreme Intelligence has a squad of servants[4], including but not limited to the Kree Starforce, which carry out his orders, fight the heroes and attempt to slay Epoch or any of his connections. Another integral character in the mix is Noh-Varr who initially is gaslit and follows the Supreme Intelligence's orders. Halfway into the story, he becomes enlightened to what is going on and switches sides which brings us to a “third party” to all this and that is the three dead Captain Marvels. Mar-Vell is, quite frankly, the main character in this despite really only showing his face nearer the end. Genis-Vell and Phyla-Vell are both brought back and more on that later when we get to more plot stuff.

I'm trying to pare this down and not bothering with all the individual parts (which in turn makes it sound like a mess tbh) but the core idea here is a celebration of Captain Marvel and his legacy. But before that, this is where the continuity and continuity clean-up starts overshadowing the story (as expected from me). First, we have Epoch shed the facade of Eon that he was seemingly worn since the end of Quasar's series[5]. We learn that Epoch is still a child and he will not truly become “Eon” for possibly centuries. He has been appearing that way to disguise his own vulnerability[6]. Secondly, we learn that when the Supreme Intelligence made Noh-Varr into The Protector in Bendis' Avengers, this was part of his whole “becoming the new Eon” thing[7]. We get some added context to Phyla and Gravity and their stints and/or holders of the title Protector of the Universe[8]. Remember when Mar-Vell returned in Chaos War and then gifted Deathcry with Cosmic Awareness?[9] All these little stray ideas I’ve taken and tried to make into a story to push Carol, Wendell and Monica into the spotlight as the “true” legacy of Captain Marvel.

So, our main similar plotbeat to Last of the Marvels is the return of Captain Marvels. For mine, we have Noh-Varr dispatched to slay the Priests of Pama who he is told are attempting to resurrect a great evil. When he gets there (and after a fight with the heroes), he learns he has been lied to and they have an Adam Warlock-style cocoon which actually holding Phyla-Vell's body[10]. Apparently, she can't enter this world because she is “incomplete”. I'm skipping all the continuity here but suffice to say there is some[11] for the end-point that is Phyla emerges but now shares her form and is bonded to Genis-Vell ala the way Rick was to Mar-Vell and Genis (they clang their nega-bands together and switch places)[12]. Speaking of Rick, he’s in the plot but a tertiary character.

Big finish is, and this is doing such a disservice to this story to be so quick with it, but we have big astral Cosmic entity Mar-Vell versus big astral Cosmic entity Supremor. Alongside Mar-Vell is basically all the Marvels – Captains, Boys, Girls – and it's just a big George Perez style mess of appearances[13]. Bad guy is beaten once and for all[14] and Mar-Vell can return to his peace, but before he does he gets to give heartfelt farewells to his legacy:

Carol Danvers – “You kept my legacy alive and are the best I could ever be”[15]

Monica Rambeau – “You honoured my memory the most faithfully of all; by simply being a hero”[16]

Wendell Vaughn – “I feel a great relief knowing that the Universe is being protected in my stead by one such as you”

Genis/Phyla – “My children... I'm so very proud of you both and my biggest regret is not being there to make it all easier for you.”[17]

Khn'nr – “There's no greater sense of my legacy as a hero than knowing that I inspired and live on through another, of a race bred to despise me”[18]

Noh-Varr – “Of all, you are perhaps the one I see myself in the most. An outsider on Earth, used manipulated by greater powers... but above all else, knowing what is right and what is wrong and when to act on it.”

Hulkling – “I know you are plagued with doubt as to your true parentage but I would be more than happy to call you son.”[19]

Rick Jones - “Rick... you were... you are... my best friend. Thank you for everything.”

Genis/Phyla are left alive but adopt a new name (Sentry[20]), Khn'nr too maybe but who knows if he ever does anything else. The ending would be Mar-Vell departing and leaving the name of Captain Marvel as free “for someone else out there”. Just then a lightning bolt cracks and the comic ends.[21]

[1] A portmanteau of Captain Marvel's nega-bands and the Quasar crossover Starblast. [2] New Champions is basically the Annihilators-esque team led by Nova. They're named after Nova's old squad the Champions of Xandar. It took me 7 years to finally settle on a name for them because I disliked Annihilators as a name so much. [3] Riiiiiight, here we go. Supreme Intelligence has seen the Kree race itself evolve – in fact he forced that to happen. However, Supreme Intelligence has never truly evolved itself since it was introduced. It's gotten bigger, it's gotten smarter, it's gotten more evil. But it's still just a big head in a jar basically. It knows it needs to adapt and become something more which leads us back to Secret Wars II of all places. Supreme Intelligence was among the entities called into service to confront the Beyonder. This was the only time the Supreme Intelligence was considered among the Universe's powerful Cosmic beings, it gave it a taste of what it could be and what it should be. It believes it should be ranked among the Universe's great forces, it is the gestalt of an entire race, but that is not enough it seems. Eon became the entity that got locked into the Intelligence's crosshairs down to it's “usurping” of Mar-Vell as an agent. Learning of Eon's passing and replacement with Epoch (inadvertently from Genis-Vell), Supreme Intelligence has recognised that the station of Eon is at it's weakest and it's the easiest time to destroy Epoch and inherit that role itself. [4] We have the Kree/Starforce (Doctor Minerva, Captain Atlas, Ultimus, Shatterax and new additions Arides and Wraith) and we initially have Noh-Varr. We also have a very robust cast of ones that are serving greater interests or ulterior motives: Maelstrom, Ereshkigal, Mangog and very very briefly Thanos (can't have a Captain Marvel story without him). As Maelstrom is there, we also have Maelstrom's minions including Gronk, Helio, Phobis, Deathurge and the Weird Sisters. And the evil Marvel Boy from Quasar's series. They are largely confined to tie-ins. In fact, even Mangog is mostly a side-story – Supreme Intelligence dispatches him to ravage the Shi'ar empire, a petty move in retaliation for the Shi'ar's victories against the Kree. [5] After Starmasters #1, Eon's spawn Epoch only made further appearances as the classic Eon and at times was even just called Eon. [6] Including (but not limited to) Infinity Gauntlet, Marvel Universe: The End and that Fantastic Four story with Gravity. [7] A lot of my early fanon stuff is trying to make sense of Bendis stories within the context of the larger functional Marvel Universe. The truth is, I believe, Bendis simply didn't know that it was Eon not the Supreme Intelligence, who bestowed Mar-Vell with the Protector of the Universe stuff. [8] Phyla-Vell was not Protector of the Universe but Epoch allowed her to hold onto the Quantum Bands until the return of Quasar. When the need arose, Epoch turned to Gravity rather than Phyla-Vell to act as his champion. Still expecting the resurrection of Quasar, Epoch did not seek to make or force Gravity into continuing as Protector. [9] Mar-Vell became aware of Supreme Intelligence's plans upon his brief resurrection in Chaos War: Dead Avengers #1-3 and so in that short-time tried to shift some things around to ultimately aid the heroes when the time came to oppose Supreme Intelligence. This meant bestowing Deathcry with his power so that it didn't perish with him. [10] Since her death at the beginning of Thanos Imperative. [11] Genis accidentally created Phyla, don't forget. [12] I think this is a unique enough set-up to allow both of them to exist without it being the case that I'm just bringing them back for the sake of it [13] Let's see... all 6 of the Marvel Captain Marvels – Mar-Vell, Monica, Genis, Phyla, Khn'nr, Noh-Varr. All the Ms. Marvels – Carol, Sharon Ventura, Karla Sofen. Plus the Marvel Boys – Robert Grayson, Wendell Vaughn, Vance Astrovik, that kid Vance gave the costume/name to who never appeared again. Marvel Girls – Rachel Summers. We'd have Major Victory, Gravity and the kid from Marville. Definitely forgetting some here. I had a huge big list. [14] Supreme Intelligence would be taken off the cards forever. His gambit fails but maybe one day, the Kree could create a new one... [15] Some light pay-off for her “best of the best” stuff. [16] Monica presents a problem in that she has no real connection to Captain Marvel besides the name. But then ironically, she has been the best hero of the bunch. [17] I went through so many different iterations of this over the years, and so many back-handed compliments like “Well, you tried!”. [18] Oh, yeah, him. I think this was a character that I needed in this story because so many people would overlook him – and I really do believe that there was something worthwhile in the character originally – but I don't see resurrecting him as a particularly good decision. It would seem cold to have him return to being dead while Genis and Phyla get to live but I have thought about him staying alive (he'd adopt the name Crusader, after that other Skrull guy who died fighting for Earth in Secret Invasion) but I think he should just be allowed to maintain his warrior's death or whatever. [19] Okay, yeah, Hulkling's parentage would be in doubt. I’m surprised it took this long to get to something where I have to explain another story in this fanon universe. This is mainly because I don't like the retcon – it really takes me out of that story to think that amidst the Kree/Skrull War, Mar-Vell found time to have sex with a woman he just met and has no chemistry with - but I don't think I'd ever say he couldn't be Mar-Vell's son. Just that it's a possibility he's not. [20] Sentry. Named after the Kree Sentry. Genis proposes the name and in classic Genis-style it's already a name that was used prominently by someone else and again someone he even met. [21] Yep, all to the purpose of getting rid of the Captain Marvel name for a fanon DC Universe that doesn't even exist in my head.

[gryphons-of-aentha]

The Approximate Plotline of the Gryphonverse (pt. 1)

Because like. I’m never gonna actually write this shit in any form, it’s gotten too convoluted and weird and pretty much officially exists only as a collection of ideas and drawings, and I guess this blog now.

This is gonna be long as fuck, just so you know what you’re getting into behind this readmore.

The whole thing starts out as fairly standard, fairly tropey high fantasy-type stuff and takes place entirely on Aentha, centered around the country of Andolia, a fantasy-feudal country with a vaguely German bent, with added notes of French and Celtic. It’s populated almost entirely by aquei, which are the closest thing Aentha has to humans (and they are very close, I just couldn’t think of a reason to have actual humans evolve separately on a completely different planet when Earth and actual humans are also canonically a thing). It’s bordered on one side by sea and all others by wilderness that, for various reasons ranging from “it’s impassable and useless” to “it’s literally cursed and/or protected by powers we don’t want to fuck with,” remains virtually untouched by civilization and is at best halfheartedly disputed over with other nearby countries. There’s trade by sea but otherwise the country is fairly isolated from its neighbors. Anyway, Andolians don’t like gryphons. The ‘why’ of this situation isn’t really established, but they’re a rather xenophobic bunch, more so the further you get into the heart of the country. The people who occupy villages/homesteads closer to the borders are sometimes more chill about them, which is fortunate, because that no-man’s-land that the aquei don’t want is full of gyphons, because gryphons are both well suited to impassable mountainous regions, and not afraid to fuck with powers most other people won’t. The latter trait is probably a lot of the reason Andolians are wary of them at best and actively hate them at worst.

So at a certain point, circa 1980 in Earth time (which won’t become relevant for a long while yet but does matter since everything in this lore canonically occurs in real time alongside our world), a half-gryphon baby ends up in the custody of a small Andolian town. It’s too large and central to have had any previous contact with gryphons but still small and out of the way enough that nobody in the capital gives two shits what goes on there, so the existence of this gryphonic child goes largely unnoticed. What exactly happened to his parents is still not established and honestly doesn’t matter, but it’s Andolia, so the likely answer is “nothing good.” Gryphons who do venture into the country proper frequently meet unfortunate ends and people who willfully associate with them don’t do so great either. In any case, it’s likely that the aquei parent’s family were residents of this town and took in the kid, who was subsequently named Talon, because Andolians don’t really do subtlety with their naming conventions. The town proves to be a surprisingly supportive environment to grow up in, mainly on the logic of “if we raise this kid right we will never have to deal with the local bandit problem again because we’ll have a gryphon and nobody will want to fuck with us.” Incredibly, this Timon and Pumbaa logic actually works out, and Talon finds himself more welcome among small town Andolians than any gryphon has probably ever been because he’s quickly developed a reputation as a “good” one and turned into a local hero (though one that everyone in the region keeps kind of quiet about so as not to draw attention from the capital or anyone else who might not like it). 

Eventually, some time in the late 90s Earth time, he meets Iadra, a full-blooded gryphon. They form a bond, eventually becoming definitive life partners, and Talon also reconnects more with the gryphonic half of his heritage through her. The townsfolk aren’t really thrilled about Iadra, and she’s not really thrilled about them, but they adopt an attitude of “I guess if Talon likes you, you can’t be too awful, guess you can hang around” to which she basically responds “appreciate the unbridled confidence in my character, but no thank you” and mainly stays on the outskirts and never really gets involved in aquei affairs to the extent Talon does, especially since the interspecies tensions are getting worse lately.

Meanwhile, as all this was semi-quietly going on in a small town nobody cared about, other things were semi-quietly going on directly in the Andolian royal court. The king, Shale, was really hitting it off with a woman who had just kind of shown up in the capital one day calling herself Ember. Through a combination of charisma and political shrewdness she managed to endear herself to most of the court and take on an unofficial advisor position, and also have an affair with the king. Eventually, circa 1989, this led to a son being born, who they named Ash (meanwhile, on Earth, Taylor Swift was being born, which isn’t important to this story it’s just something I realized just now and thought was really funny). The king had no other children at the time, so his first reaction was “hey, free heir” until it came to light that Ember was not wholly aquei, and in fact had some gryphonic heritage and so, by extension, did Ash.

A prudent move here might have been to cover this up, accuse whoever exposed Ember of slander, and just let the kid inherit the throne anyway. Sadly, prudence was not a trait King Shale possessed in abundance. So what he did instead was lose his shit over it and very publicly throw Ember out of his court, after which she quickly fell prey to any one of the many people who were pissed at her for the deception, and was killed. Shale then denied both the affair and the fact that Ash was his son, but made a show of magnanimously “adopting” the gryphonic bastard child and allowing him to remain at court. This was an entirely political move in response to the fact that the gryphons on Andolia’s borders were getting tired of exactly this kind of shit, and he hoped that he could use Ash as a kind of “how can you say I hate gryphons, look at this one who I raised and keep around out of the goodness of my heart” card.

Unsurprisingly this did not work out nearly as well as Shale imagined it would, and instead of a loyal walking virtue signal/gryphonic liaison, what he ended up with was a resentful and confused teenager who had been raised with the combined knowledge that A) gryphons are terrible, dangerous creatures with few redeeming qualities and nobody likes them, and B) he was part gryphon. So, not unlike Taylor Swift, he responded to everyone’s expectation that he would be a shitty person by turning into a shitty person. This uneasy state of affairs carried on until Ash was around sixteen, at which point he accidentally stumbled across the fact that he was actually the king’s son, and not the son of a random courtier with poor judgement as had always been vaguely implied. He also found out what exactly had happened to his mother. He immediately confronted Shale about this. Shale, who had always been paranoid about Ash trying to usurp him, entirely missed the point of the confrontation and instead of addressing the lying or the unofficially sentencing Ember to death thing or the general environment he’d made Ash grow up in, angrily doubled down on the fact that Ash would not be heir to the throne, ever, because he’s still a gyphon and that’s not a thing in Andolia, and even if he wasn’t he’d never be fit to rule and was clearly an ungrateful little shit. Ash, who up to that point hadn’t remotely wanted to rule, immediately decided out of pure teenage spite that fuck you, he was going to usurp his asshole of a father and do exactly that, so he set about stirring up dissent and delving further into his gyphonic heritage, with which he quickly became mildly obsessed since obviously his aquei side wasn’t doing anything for him. In the course of this research he came across records of an unrelated full-blooded gryphon named Kyran who had been executed by the king on trumped-up charges as a political maneuver some years prior and, since he no longer wanted to use an Andolian name and didn’t know his mother’s real name, he decided to adopt that one.

Cut back to Talon and Iadra, who are among the gryphons getting edgy over the king’s increasing levels of bullshit since it’s putting Talon’s town and everyone he associaties with at risk, and making things even more difficult for the local gryphons, who are having trouble even venturing into the outskirts to trade unless they’re very stealth about it. Iadra starts to think that maybe they should take some direct action and go after the king directly, a plan Talon is extremely dubious about since they have zero meaningful political allies and he doesn’t want to paint a target on the assorted farmers and villagers who would back him. That is until Kyran shows up and announces his plan to overthrow the king himself, along with a grandiose plan to change things for Andolia’s relationship with the gryphons once he takes over. And Kyran does have political allies (though not many, and not without substantial effort on his part). Talon decides that’s enough for him to go along with the idea, so he and Iadra join forces with Kyran’s rebellion and know what this is too long I need to make this a multi-part thing.

[rankakiu]

Thoughts of the Droid: Pokemon: Detective Pikachu (2019)

Hello, people of Tumblr! How life treats you? As always, I hope very well. On this occasion, I bring to all of you my review and opinions of the film: Pokemon: Detective Pikachu. Although I know in advance that my review is late, I could not resist the temptation to share my opinions with you. After all, this platform serves this purpose.

Finally, continuing with the review, it is surprising that this film is considered the first adaptation of a videogame to the big screen to be totally successful, both at the box office, as well as in the criticism and acceptance of the audience. It is certain that? Well, I invite you to stay and read my review to find out.

WARNING: NOT SPOILER-FREE. Read at your own risk 

Entering already in full in the review, What do I think about the movie? Short answer: fun and entertaining. It does not waste seeing it on the big screen. Now, we go with more details.

Characters: Perfectly constructed to please the spectator. At this point, I would like to highlight the magnificent work that actor Ryan Reynolds did, since he was apparently born for the role of Pikachu. Through his voice and facial expressions, he gave life to a Pokemon as classic and loved as Pikachu is. He plays his role and with that, achieves another interpretation worthy of admiration, just as he did a couple of years ago with the character of Deadpool.

For its part, the actor Justice Smith delivers a character, who is not as charismatic as its protagonist but delivers a character well enough built to care about his life, his decisions and how it unfolds in the history. Justice Smith delivers, at first, a character who has renounced all dreams and has adopted a conformist attitude, where he does not care what happens with his life. For later, that his character, in his journey, evolves into a character that little by little opens his heart, with which he creates new friendships and where he also changes his perspective of life and even finds a new vocation to which wants to dedicate. This duo of actors is those who carry mostly the weight of the film and in return deliver good memorable characters, with whom the viewer can sympathize quite well.

Of the rest of the cast, although they are not as developed as the main duo, at least they are quite friendly, each of them has a charisma that makes it impossible to hate them or that one as a spectator does not feel that their presence is redundant.

History: Entertaining, but a little more effort would not have hurt. Of course, I admit that I'm facing a story that honors the genre of mystery and detectives. It is, in a basic sense, a police-type story, where little by little we are presented with clues so that our characters (and in passing the audience) form a scheme of events that allows them to solve a case. Not only that, but I also recognize that the story perfectly presents motivation to our protagonists to be involved in the mess. We have Pikachu, who has lost his memory, and only resolving the case can find out who he is. In the case of the character of Tim Goodman, his motivation is due to finding his father or to be certain that happened to him. Lucy Stevens sees, in this case, the opportunity to achieve her dream of being a reporter, but as she spends time with Tim and Pikachu, she becomes a true ally and helps the duo, because that's what she wants ... of course, without ever forgetting her goal, which is the story simply goes to the second place on her list of priorities, which speaks very well of the character and that is not just a kind of walking ambition.

As for the villain, Howard Clifford and his motivations ... Eh, I feel that they could work much more, as they deliver an unmemorable villain and in fact what you remember most about him is that he passes his mind to the legendary Pokemon Mewtwo. Although there is something that I liked about the villain and that is that when he uses Mewtwo's body, it becomes a real threat. Basically, it's like a little taste of seeing an alternative scenario of "'What would happen if Mewtwo is a bad guy?" And his plan, in a certain perspective is quite cruel, since the pokemon reduces them to mere bodily recipients, taking away their free will, his personality, feelings and above all breaking the bond of affection that these creatures have with humans.

And as for humans, Howard basically condemns his own race to be trapped in a body that is not theirs and what is worse, in the body than their companions were once. Truly a terrible plan, motivated by a belief, apparently noble, but deep down is a true spectacle of horror, where someone decides for everyone without taking into account the opinion of others.

In general, the story is well thought out, but not without its mistakes. Although luckily or for the good work of the writers, the story works well within what they want to propose, of course, without forgetting the comic moments that work wonderfully and the dramatic moments that serve to further explore the facets and psychology of the characters.

Visuals and special effects: Without a doubt, special effects stand out to give life to the city Ryme, which looks largely like a highly futuristic city, but do not doubt that we could see something similar in a few more years. On the other hand, the city also feels realistic to present several facets of a very large city, where we have different places to explore. Of course, without forgetting that the city also has its dark side, especially the Pokemon fights, where they are totally clandestine. In addition, you can truly appreciate a healthy coexistence between humans and pokemon, where both races work side by side on a daily basis to keep the city prosperous. It is in its purest sense, a kind of paradise, of utopia that shows that both parties can coexist.

As for the design of the pokemon, I feel that most of them work quite well. But there are also some, that despite having respected their classic designs to one hundred percent, definitely not very good, and in this case, I think that the pokemon of Mr. Mime and Psyduck are the most suffer from this problem. Even so, you feel the effort they put in to make the pokemon on a more realistic plane, so to speak.

Action: This is the point where I believe I will be most critical. I do not doubt that the fight between Pikachu and Charizard was exciting and overwhelming since it had a genuinely comical outcome. However, in my opinion, we should have seen more fights in this style. The fight between Mewtwo and Pikachu, that was disappointing, since Pikachu fled more than he fought. Ok, I agree that a normal Pokémon is not a rival to Mewtwo, but I also believe that they could deliver an action sequence that was more developed. In this fight you have to Pikachu only uses an attack against Mewtwo and nothing else. Although that, the various scenes of escape and persecution, such as the forest (where the Greninja make their appearances) are very attractive, they keep you on the edge of your seat and you want the protagonists to escape from such terrible enemies. The action is decent, but it leaves you asking for much more.

In conclusion, Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, despite its problems, is a very entertaining film, it is in its essence, a fun and interesting trip to see. To be the first live action movie of this franchise, the result is a real pleasant surprise. So while I give this movie 3 out of 5 Pikachus coffee fans. If ultimately you are looking for a fun time or want to see a new perspective of Pokemon, without doubt, this movie is for you.

Greetings

Rankakiu

[axemetaphor]

OC Masterpost

I need an organized place to put info about all my OCs so that’s what this post is gonna be for!

In addition to basic bios and some reference images, I’ve also got links to Spotify playlists for every character, because music is a strong association with personality for me. (If you don’t use Spotify, or if you know of a streaming platform more easily accessible than Spotify, send me an anon and I’ll duplicate the playlists to that service then add a link here!) I also have moodboards for every OC.

This post will be rather long so I’ve put in under a readmore for the sake of convenience.

It’s also important to note that my OCs exist in an AU where some things are a little different. For example, Infinite in this AU is 17 and that’s definitely not because I assumed he was an edgy teen like Shadow, and after Robotnik’s defeat in Forces, the Resistance became the Restoration. All the troops who had been battling were reassigned to rebuilding whatever town they happened to be in at the time of victory, with extra troops being redistributed as needed (leading to the formation of small roving teams traveling from place to place to help out).

It’s a little bit of an unorganized info-dump at some points, but I’ll update it to be more organized at some point.

Updated 01/20/2019

Rhys the Serval

Spotify playlist | Moodboard

Rhys was designed by @creative-sanic and she also came up with most of his backstory!

Rhys is a gender-nonconforming cis gay dude. He was born to a ‘feral’ mother in the wilderness closest to Central City (between the City and Mystic Ruins, far enough away from civilization to be undetected for a majority of his early life). At age 7 or 8, a massive fire swept the forest, putting him and his mother in massive danger. Officials sent to contain the fire discovered that she and Rhys were living alone in the forest, and took the two into protective custody while working through the devastation caused by the fire. The city pressured Rhys’s mother to join civilization, but she adamantly refused, and as a consequence, Rhys was stolen from her and put up for adoption, leading to her having a violent breakdown. She was moved to a containment facility and hasn’t seen Rhys since; he has only the faintest memories of her. He was adopted at age 13 or 14 (having been shuffled around in foster care before then) by a family of bears, and went on to be a fairly average Mobian citizen, working as a waiter at Penne For Your Thoughts. That’s where he met Vitriol, who is now his boyfriend. After dating for a few months, they decided to move in together, with Vitriol moving into Rhys’s apartment, which was the larger of the two. Rhys is now roughly 19 years old (18 or 19).

Rhys and Vitriol have a steady relationship relatively devoid of problems. They love each other enough that no problem is too big for them to tackle, and when Vitriol became part of the Restoration (the collective effort to undo the damage done by Robotnik and the Resistance), Rhys moved with him all over the world, glad to have a reasonable excuse to travel. Neither wanted to attempt a longstanding long-distance relationship; their being separated briefly during the Resistance was frustrating enough for the two of them.

Rhys is unaware that he possesses Empathic abilities, and simply assumes he’s very good at figuring people out/being sympathetic, but in truth, the forest fire in his youth served as the catalyst for his abilities. Since his Empathy doesn’t require the same physical drain as, say, Vitriol’s Strength, Rhys mistakes his Chaos-Energy-related fatigue after using his powers to be emotional exhaustion. When he’s that tired is roughly the only time he can show unprovoked anger, but he’s also in-tune enough with himself to recognize when he’s being needlessly mean, and he’ll usually apologize right away. This happened most frequently during the events of the Resistance, where Rhys was tasked with helping to get survivors to safe places; he was very good at comforting those who may have lost friends/family in the attacks. From that, he’s begun to entertain the idea of becoming a therapist someday, though he’s not sure how he would afford the college degree for that. 

He gets along very well with Unknown due to them both having rather upbeat personalities. Though Unknown can be a little overbearing sometimes, Rhys likes talking to them and sometimes they’ll gush about how cute Vitriol is. 

As mentioned previously, Rhys doesn’t conform to typical gender norms; he’s a fashionista of sorts and doesn’t care what gender clothing is associated with. He thinks skirts are cute and feel nice, and he thinks makeup is a lot of fun, though he doesn’t do either every single day, just every now and then. For the most part, unless he’s feeling adventurous, he wears a hoodie and jeans, though his work outfit is a fancy suit. So, it’s often nice for him to just wear something low-effort. That being said, he always jumps at every opportunity to do his boyfriend’s makeup, and though Vitriol isn’t the biggest fan of it, he likes seeing Rhys smile, so he usually gives in.

Rhys often prompts Vitriol to keep up with his health, and the two go on camping trips whenever Rhys can convince Vitriol to go. He’s very good at camping; he can build a shelter easily, knows which plants are edible, etc.. Vitriol, by contrast, is pretty clueless, but Rhys is more than happy to teach him. 

When speaking, Rhys normally has a somewhat-formal tone, and he uses little to no slang (usually just words like “gonna,” and he almost never drops the G’s at the end of words). He’s very polite by nature (and some of the formality was ingrained by his job), and he tends to not talk a lot. When he’s really comfortable around someone (like Vitriol), he can chatter a lot, but if he catches himself, he’ll get really embarrassed about it. He has a soft, lilting voice that many find pleasant to listen to and soothing. When he gets excited, or raises his voice, it gets slightly higher in pitch. He’s not an anxious person (as in, he doesn’t have an anxiety disorder) but he’s rather shy and awkward around new people. He’s more of a reserved person than an anxious one, and he is by no means meek; having been raised (post-adoption) by a family of bears taught him how to roughhouse and hold his own against bigger enemies.

For the most part, Rhys isn’t bothered by his past. His life in the forest is far enough away, mentally, that to him it doesn’t feel like it even happened to him. However, the fire was a traumatic event for him, and to this day he has a deep-seated fear of fire. It’s rare, but on occasion, he will have nightmares about that day, and he doesn’t handle that well when alone. Fortunately, Vitriol is fairly helpful to Rhys—his simply being there is very comforting, even though he never really knows what to say.

Toxic the Porcupine

Spotify playlist | Moodboard

Note: while this character started out as a sonicsona of sorts, they’ve somewhat evolved from that and I don’t see them quite so much as “me” anymore. They do, however, share my name (or rather the name I’m using currently, as I write this). To further complicate things they also look the way I do right now and I use them for vent art lmao so, if I happen to draw myself as a mobian ever again I’ll tag it as #not oc. That way it’s clear what’s Toxic the OC and what’s Toxic the...uh, human being I guess. 

Toxic is an agender porcupine who hasn’t settled on their sexuality yet--they know they’re asexual, but they haven’t thought any further into their romantic orientation. They were born in a tiny unnamed village settled in the shadow of Scrap Brain Zone, and only recently did they leave after a majority of it was burnt to the ground...by them. They showed signs of being trans at a young age, and were subsequently bullied quite harshly by both their peers and their family. They came out to their family at age 17, which only deepened the rift already forming, and subsequently Toxic ran away for a week, spending that time in Scrap Brain Zone. That was their first overnight foray into the Zone, something that would eventually become a staple of their life.

At age 19, they discovered an abandoned prototype Wispon in Scrap Brain Zone (devoid of Wisps), which they then decided to retrofit with the flaming spouts from Scrap Brain Zone to make their own strange hybrid flamethrower. A few nights later, after a particularly awful verbal spat with their family, they decided to fake their own death by setting fire to their own room. However, things quickly got out of hand, and the whole town ended up in flames. They fled, unsure if anyone made it out alive that night...and a little less than sympathetic if they didn’t. (Fortunately, a majority of the little village’s populace wound up trickling into neighboring villages and towns)

Since then, they’ve been absolutely destroying almost everything in their path. With no direction and no impulse control, they are a complete loose cannon throwing a wrench in both Eggman’s plans and Sonic’s adventures. They live by a motto of recklessness and “I’m here for a good time, not a long time.” Being an un-powered Mobian, they can’t do much of anything with the Wispon taken away, but taking that Wispon away is much easier said than done. Shortly after their ‘debut’ as a villain-of-sorts, Eggman reached out to them with a message essentially reading, “hey, do you want a direction in which to burn everything down (that is preferably not my everything)?” Since joining forces with Robotnik, though, their chaos has become much more controlled, and now incidents of mass fires can usually be linked to Eggman sending them off somewhere. They are a persistent thorn in the Freedom Fighters’ sides as they just love to fight and don’t really care who they fight.

They will not, however, attack civilians directly. Their fires might pose a threat to cities, but they don’t outright attack people unprompted--their chaos isn’t fueled of malice but rather of recklessness and an extreme lack of forethought. If harassed, however, they aren’t above punching someone in the face, and civilians are warned to just stay the hell away from Toxic. Their behavior overall is best classed as “more of a danger to themselves than others, even when provoked.”

Toxic only owns one jacket and one pair of boots, as well as no other accessories save for the spiked bracelets and collar, since everything else was burnt. One item they are occasionally pictured with, but rarely wear, is a long ankh necklace, the origins of which they refuse to elaborate on. However, it’s clearly important to them… Prior to burning everything, they often wore ripped jeans, loose half-torn-up tank-tops with a variety of detailed patterns, and lots of bracelets. They despite feminine-coded clothing and would rather die than wear it. Overall, they’re fond of clothes that look like they’re being held together by safety pins and hope.

Their speaking pattern is completely all-over-the-place. Their accent is untraceable, they mix slang from a variety of regions, and mix pidgin street-slang with oddly formal sentence structure or complicated words. They alternate between dropped G’s at the end of words and dropped H’s at the beginning, but inconsistently; rather than being a sign that this accent is faked, it’s more a reflection of how scrambled they are on the inside. Toxic’s voice is prone to cracking, especially when they yell (which is very often), and it has a certain hoarse quality to it most of the time. It rests in a midrange between stereotypically “male” and “female” voices, and can be mistaken for a young boy or slightly-older girl interchangeably. This irritates them to no end—they’re no stranger to yelling in demand for their proper pronouns to be used.

Toxic has frequent nightmares, but never speaks of them. They often suffer from broken sleep, only getting a few hours at a time, and on occasion are struck with insomnia. During that time, they doodle or write, dealing with rather dark subjects, but never share this willingly. Oddly enough, they have a rather intense fear of fire (ironic given their Wispon) and of heights. Strangely they seem to use their fear as an adrenaline boost of sorts, embracing it to use as a motivation. (It’s somewhat similar to how Batman uses bats as his main motif, despite having been traumatized by an experience with bats in his childhood.)

They cannot be swayed to being “good,” because they truly believe they are an awful person who could never be good even if they tried. So, they just do what they want out of a very specific, Nihilistic worldview, and truth be told they’re simply a chaotic being who’s in way over their head. Despite being a villain, however, they are a big fan of Sonic and his friends, and they consider it a huge honor to be able to fight him. They’ve created an odd sort of parent-child bond between themselves and Robotnik, adopting him as their dad (he didn’t really get a say). Robotnik isn’t exactly doting but he does view them as his child in a sense, and often makes them new weapons to use alongside their Wispon (which they refuse to part with; he repairs it fro them as-needed). 

Vex the Cat/Fox Cross

Spotify playlist | Moodboard

Vex is a bigender aroace genetic experiment who most closely resembles a fusion of a fox and a cat. (Any pronouns are applicable to them, but I use she/her most, because I have a lot of “he” and “they” OCs already) She has lived roughly 17 years, the first 14 of which were spent in the facility that created them. Partway through what would have been the 15th year, a catastrophe occurred at the facility, giving Vex, Vitriol and Unknown a window to escape. During this process, Vex and Unknown became separated from Vitriol, escaping the facility and winding up on their own. They traveled in a world absolutely foreign to them for months, eventually, through a strange turn of events, joining a thieves’ guild in an attempt to forge new identities. They had great success as a thieving duo up until the unfortunate disappearance of Unknown, after which Vex abandoned the guild to search for them. Instead of Unknown, however, Vex ended up reconnecting with Vitriol in Central City, after which the two worked together to find Unknown, eventually finding their sibling in the Resistance. Since finding each other, the three have not been separated, and now form Team Motley.

Vex is generally regarded as the smartest of the trio, having a sharp wit and capacity both to plan ahead and think on their feet. Her Manipulation ability makes negotiations and covert ops very easy for them, with its one flaw being that it doesn’t work on others with similar abilities, such as Empathy. All three experiments possess low natural levels of Chaos Energy, below what is healthy, and their bodies cannot contain it well, so their abilities rely on the Energy around them, both in the environment and other people. Mobians often report “a strange sort of tiredness” after being Manipulated by Vex, as her power functions by draining a bit of Chaos Energy from the target and matching its wavelength.

Due to her affinity for making others do as she says, Vex is the leader of Team Motley, and, despite being the ‘middle child,’ the other two often go to her for advice. She is the organizational backbone to the team, a natural leader with a kind heart hidden behind a few layers of selfishness. Vex values family and friends above all else, and has a keen sense of right and wrong, even if she doesn’t always do what she knows to be right.

Vex is aware of her Manipulation ability, and does her best to curb its effects when she isn’t intending to use it, but given that it’s activated by her voice, sometimes she can’t control it very well. In addition to that, Vex is more than a little greedy; coming from a background where she didn’t even own her own life, Vex fell in love with her life in the thieves’ guild, mainly for the riches they earned and the thrill of the escape.

She’s a fan of loud, gaudy jewelry, luxurious metals, and other frivolous high-class things, though she doesn’t wear them in public. During their time in the thieves’ guild, Unknown and Vex lived in a network of caves, where many of the things they stole during their heyday are still hidden. While she misses those days, she doesn’t regret leaving them behind, and rather considers it an... option for future employment, once the Restoration is all said and done.

Despite her love of jewelry, Vex prefers not to wear clothes at all. They’ll wear their binder or a sports bra, and that’s about all; if necessary, they’ll wear baggy army-pattern pants or a baggy jacket. They don’t like the feeling of most fabrics on their fur, and don’t care a lot about fashion, but they tend towards more masculine clothing, often for its less-skin-tight properties. They also don’t mind skirts, but only wear them casually, as sometimes the extra fabric can get caught on things or be uncomfortable for them to sit on.

All three experiments tend towards more formal speech, but of the three, Vex has been trained out of that habit the most. She’s a real smooth-talker who adapts her speech patterns to mirror those of the person she’s talking to. When speaking casually, Vex is fairly neutral and doesn’t have any specific quirks to their speech pattern. When she’s comfortable around someone, she speaks in a rather husky voice, but not a very deep or gruff sound. It’s more of what would be described as “butch,” because their voice is closer to the stereotypically “feminine” sound than the stereotypically “masculine” sound.

Vex’s main phobia is having their mouth covered by something—anything from someone’s hands to fabric to a muzzle. This is because when her Manipulation was discovered by the scientists who created her, they immediately recognized it as a threat and she was kept muzzled for extended periods of time. The muzzle had supposedly been ‘humanely designed,’ but if at any point she frustrated her keepers, they were no strangers to shutting or covering the air-intake of it until she cooperated. Of the three, Vex has dealt with her trauma the least, and her sleeping pattern is just as broken as if not more broken than Toxic’s, and she tends to grind her teeth when she sleeps as well. She doesn’t speak of it much, but she and Vitriol have really bonded the most over their shared trauma. He is, essentially, the only person remaining who knows what they went through. 

Because they’re aroace, they have little concept of how flirting works other than when they’re using their Manipulation ability (which isn’t really calculated, more an instinctive knowledge that saying or doing certain things will achieve the effect they want). In other words, they’re extremely oblivious. The only thing they really care about is family, and they will do anything to protect them--when fighting they have no qualms about “fighting dirty” and will use anything to their advantage. Unusually, Vex has the ability to climb along walls quite easily using their claws, practically like a lizard. This combined with their night vision makes them quite formidable to fight in the dark. 

Vitriol the Ferret/Porcupine Cross

Spotify playlist | Moodboard

Vitriol is a gay cis guy who most closely resembles a fusion of a porcupine and a ferret. He has lived roughly 18 years, the first 15 of which spent in the facility that created him. During the calamity leading to his escape, Vitriol separated from Unknown and Vex in order to give them a chance to get out, taking on the officials sent to stop them. He ended up leaving via a different route, resulting in him coming into this world in a completely different place from Vex and Unknown. Vitriol spent the next half-year wandering across Spagonia’s countryside, often stopping to spend a night or two on a farm in exchange for helping its owners, who never questioned why a mysteriously-strong stranger would be wandering the wilderness. Many took him to be some kind of nature spirit, and treated him kindly; he realized through this little pilgrimage that he quite liked helping people out, though he never stayed more than a week in one place. Searching for his siblings was his main priority.

Eventually Vitriol came across a little town, the port of which was a dock for ferries to and from Central City (primarily used by high-end citygoers for transportation to their summer homes). He was told that Central City was a place many people lived and an even larger number of people visited; Vitriol resolved that, if Vex and Unknown were to wind up anywhere, it was likely a place like that--a place people are expected to wind up at. Not understanding the concept of having to pay for things, Vitriol snuck aboard, and managed to go undetected for the entirety of the trip by packing himself nicely into a tiny corner belowdecks. The night before the trip was to end, he snuck off the boat and swam to shore in Central City. Immediately enraptured by the city’s many brilliant lights, Vitriol decided to stay there and do his best to keep an eye out for his siblings.

He spent his first two weeks sleeping on the streets and wandering through the city, until one evening, allured by the glowing neon signs on the inside, he found himself inside a rather lively nightclub/bar. One thing led to another and Vitriol ended up breaking up a fight, catching the attention of the bar’s owner (who was, at the time, half of the staff, as well). Vitriol was offered the job of security officer, no questions asked, and, having begun to come to terms with the fact that money wasn’t just something that one town invented, Vitriol accepted. For the beginning of his ‘career’ he still lived on the streets, but eventually he saved up enough for a tiny postage-stamp of an apartment. It’s only enough space for him to just exist, but that was plenty of space for him. Over time he earned enough money to live comfortably—comfortably enough to get gauges and a septum piercing, both of which helped him in his line of work immensely (as most of his ‘security’ work was simply to look scary enough to keep people from misbehaving). 

Vitriol worked there for roughly the same amount of time that Vex and Unknown “worked” as thieves, and it was during this time that he met and started dating Rhys, moving in with him after roughly three months together. He only reunited with Vex upon happening to run into her when wandering the town one weekend night. The next day he quit his job and left to travel with her, searching for their last remaining sibling. Now that the three are reunited, Vitriol serves as the muscle of the team, doing all the heavy lifting and door-kicking necessary. While he vastly prefers sitting on the couch and watching TV with plentiful snacks nearby (preferably cookies), he’s not the type to shirk responsibilities. He’s just looking forward to going back to relaxing in Central City with Rhys when the Restoration is over (and, though he won’t admit it, he does miss when his only job was looking mean).

Vitriol doesn’t have a lot in his wardrobe. His usual staples are a crop top and leather pants, though he also wears skinny jeans and ripped t-shirts. Sometimes he wears pants without a shirt, and, overall, he doesn’t care a lot about fashion. He just picks up what he thinks is cool, which is usually a t-shirt or crop top with a few words on it (his favorites are “BORN FOR HELL” and “LIFE RUINER”). From there, he’ll often tear off the sleeves of the t-shirt, or cut holes and slits into the body of it. The only thing he always wears are the red fingerless gloves with lightweight chains dangling off the backs. 

He tends to mumble the most when he speaks, unless he’s angry or using his “Work Voice.” His “work voice” is the particular loud, gruff tone he takes that he picked up from his job; an intimidating deeper and more snarling version of his voice, often accompanied by a very stern or frightfully blank expression. This is made more intimidating by the fact that all 3 of the genetic experiment characters have a habit of needing to initiate conversation through eye contact, much in the same way that a small child might gently rest their hand on the arm of an adult whose attention they want, albeit much more unsettling. So often if one of the three wants to speak to someone, they’ll stare very intently at the person’s face until acknowledged (Vex has adapted the most of the three and therefore only does it to the other two and Rhys). When not using his “work voice,” Vitriol has a rough undertone to his voice, not necessarily a snarl so much as a growl. His voice is naturally deep, and lends itself well to singing his favorite music—rock music.

Vitriol often suffers night terrors and nightmares* linked to his trauma. When living alone, after waking from a nightmare, Vitriol would pace his apartment or wander around Central City to cool off, but after moving in with Rhys, he’s processing his trauma a bit more as opposed to just avoiding it. He hasn’t told Rhys much, just that he came from “a horrible place, where [he] was trapped,” and Rhys doesn’t pry; oftentimes it’s enough to just be reminded that he’s free for Vitriol to calm back down. 

Despite his prickly exterior (both literally and figuratively), Vitriol is much more cuddly than Rhys is. Perhaps it’s from being touch-starved in the facility for so long or perhaps it’s just part of his nature, but either way, Vitriol is no stranger to snuggling up against Rhys (most often) or his siblings (slightly less often as Vex is somewhat touch-averse). Rhys isn’t exactly annoyed by this, and often finds it endearing, but on occasion Vitriol has been known to act like a housecat--flopping down right in Rhys’s way to get his attention. He’s also a bit of a jokester, but only around Rhys and his family.

His deepest fear is of being helpless. He doesn’t tend to show much external emotion besides smiling at Rhys or his siblings, or glaring if he’s annoyed by something, but if he’s being dragged along the floor—especially if he’s being dragged by his underarms, as was his keepers’ favorite way of moving him from place to place—he will absolutely lose his mind in a panic. He also panics if cornered, lashing out with uncontrolled strength to get away, which usually doesn’t end well for his captors.

*Nightmares are your standard bad dreams that occur during REM sleep. Usually when waking from a nightmare, the person remembers what they were dreaming about. Often someone suffering from a nightmare will toss and turn, and maybe sleep-talk. Night terrors, however, are somewhere between dreaming and being awake; someone suffering a night terror might yell, thrash, kick or scream, or sit upright in bed with eyes wide open. They cannot, however, see or be woken from the night terror, and will flop back down anywhere from ten minutes to a half-hour after initial panic. They can often be confusing to the person suffering them, and only a vague recollection of what was going on remains when the person wakes up.

Unknown the Raccoon/Hedgehog Cross

Spotify playlist | Moodboard

Unknown is an agender bisexual polyamorous genetic experiment most resembling a fusion of a hedgehog and a raccoon. They have lived roughly 16 years, only four of which have been spent outside. When Vex and Unknown ended up on their own, Unknown took on a role of the silent intimidator between the two. Vex’s Manipulation came in handy most times, but when necessary, Unknown could provide some intimidation.

Unknown was a vastly different person then from who they are now. They were far more focused, and taught themself parkour, as well as having put themself through rigorous training to maintain a good physical health. They rarely spoke, and refused to give themself a new name, unlike Vex and Vitriol. They weren’t interested in the riches, though they did suffer from a bit of a hoarding impulse, enjoying the feeling of owning something. They didn’t care for jewels or finer things, unlike Vex; they were more participating for the adrenaline rush. At that point in time, they fully understood the brevity of their power, and it was imperative for them to keep a calm demeanor at all times; they were far less animated than they are now.

Then, about a year and a half after they’d escaped, Unknown abruptly went missing. A heist went sideways, the two became separated, and suddenly Vex couldn’t find them. A few months after that, Robotnik began taking over the world, and shortly after that, Unknown awoke in a dumpster somewhere in Park Avenue, with no memory of any life prior to that. They gathered all the information about themself from this police flyer:

From there, Unknown wandered the city amidst the chaos, confused and curious. Through that, they met Sonic when they helped him fight off a few robots. Impressed with their skills, he asked them to join the Resistance, which they cluelessly agreed to, definitely not because a cute boy was offering it to them. Unknown ended up being quite helpful to the Resistance, despite presumably having no Chaos Powers. They got along well with virtually everyone save for Omega and Vector, as they have a slight fear of people taller than them.

After being reunited with Vex and Vitriol, Unknown has stayed relatively close to them; the three are inseparable, traveling in a group for the Restoration. Shortly after the final battle, as the Resistance members were celebrating for the night, Unknown stumbled across Infinite while walking home. Unsure whether to turn him in or not, they decided to take him home and let him heal from his wounds first, then figure out who to turn him in to. In the end, after two weeks of Infinite recuperating (during which he revealed his name to be Zero), Unknown decided instead to keep Infinite in their home, unsure what would happen to him otherwise. For a short while, they didn’t tell anyone else, but once they told Vex and Vitriol, they were urged to tell the Resistance as well. It wasn’t taken well at first, but eventually the issue was settled—Unknown would take care of and reform Infinite, because having him close by and watched over is better than having him roam around unsupervised. Despite that, Unknown doesn’t treat Infinite like a child or prisoner but rather a friend. Currently, Infinite resides in the home Unknown was occupying during the Resistance, which was rather close to the site of the final battle.

Unknown’s usual ‘work clothes’ are a leather bodysuit of sorts with buckles similar to an airplane seatbelt’s buckles (and a hole for their tail) and combat boots as well as padded gloves that help absorb shocks), but in the past, they would wear a large cloak. It’s not clear where this went during their disappearance. In their free time, they prefer to wear clothes with deep v-necks to let their neck/chest fluff breathe, and they often wear ripped clothing like Vitriol. Unknown’s thick fur makes them more prone to overheating, but despite that, they enjoy running as a hobby and a way to stay fit. They often wear fitness clothes (a tank top and gym shorts) when they’re in an urban area, though if in the wilderness, they’ll just wear running shoes.

Typically, their voice has a bright and happy tone to it, all the time, and they’re very good at faking it when they’re actually not okay. Vex and Vitriol can usually pick up on when they’re lying, but most others can’t, something Unknown is actually very happy about. When it comes to negative feelings, Unknown is very secretive, but with positive feelings, they love to share—and overshare. (The only exception to their secrecy is anger; an angry Unknown is frightfully quiet and cold, and painfully obvious.) Oftentimes they don’t realize they’re oversharing, but Vex (or Sonic, if present) is more than willing to quickly interrupt and divert the conversation. Unknown tends to use overly-familiar language with just about everyone, especially words like “buddy” or “pal.” It’s unclear if they’ve picked this up from Sonic. 

They often suffer from night terrors, similar to Vitriol, but they claim it has no effect on them, as they don’t remember the trauma giving them nightmares. In the beginning, this was the truth; however, they refuse to open up to anyone, even their siblings, about what’s going on in their head. They’re well aware that they’re the most positive of the trio, and part of them doesn’t want to ruin that idea. Another thing they never tell anyone is that they often suffer from sleep paralysis*, wherein they often see strange things from their past, but existing still in the present. They don’t really know how to verbalize the experience to anyone else.

Unknown doesn’t have many fears, but they are downright petrified of needles and electricity—not in the sense where they’re scared of electronics, but they’re more frightened of visible electricity, like a fizzing outlet, lightning, or the Electric Wispons.

That being said, they do have a few insecurities, namely their sharp teeth. They’ve accidentally frightened people with them in the past, so when they first meet people nowadays, they try to smile with their mouth closed only. The anxiety dissipates eventually, as they’re more concerned about first impressions. 

*Sleep paralysis is an event where a person is mentally ‘there’ but unable to move or speak at all. It occurs when they are falling asleep or just waking up, and episodes usually last less than a few minutes, but can occur multiple times, not just once. It’s thought to be linked to a dysfunction in REM sleep, and is caused by sleep deprivation, psychological stress, or a poor sleep schedule.

Extra stuff:

Files from the experimentation: Basic knowledge on Vex, Vitriol and Unknown, as they would’ve been presented to their guards.

Scrap Brain Zone (writing from Toxic’s perspective)

Unknown meets Infinite (Comic) Part 1 | Part 2

Experiment origins (Flipnote) [old] (Flashing light warning)

Unknown waking up (writing from Unknown’s perspective) [old] 

OC Voiceclaims (video)

Chaos Vision (superemeralds’ idea) doodles | Click bold text to see his post on his blog.

Chips Ahoy (goofy non-canon animatic that im just really happy with)

Test animation for Toxic (Flicker warning)

Pride (doodles of 4/5 OCs for pride [toxic didn’t exist yet])

Moebius AU (Drawings with short description) | Moebius!Unknown video (Flash warning)

First Punch (Animated comic feat. @creative-sanic ‘s Aurora) | Still version

Rough concept writing - Toxic’s powers [will be removed when I decide on their abilities and how they get them in canon] (Writing)

Character Turn-Arounds (Comic/Animation ref) (Includes colour hex keys!)

[nitorinfotech-blog]

7 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About AI Engineering

As we all know, the business world is changing at a rate faster than you can imagine. To cope up with it, we need to adopt dynamic technologies and engineering practices so our businesses keep running seamlessly. Out of the numerous emerging technologies, one of the most important and significant one is Artificial Intelligence Engineering or AI Engineering. If you are new to this field, do not worry, as everything that you need to know about AI Engineering will be discussed in this blog.

Let us start with the basics: What is AI Engineering?

AI entails behaviour and mannerisms similar to that of a human being performed by a machine. AI Engineering is simply the way it works and functions.

Machine learning mechanism is a deep-rooted technology that has emerged in today’s world like any ordinary technology while Deep Learning is a subcategory of machine learning and is one of the fastest-growing applications of AI used to solve problems that were previously too complex to be solved.

The machine, for example, a computer, learns, picks up, and mimics a human being and their job to ease their duties. Each time new data is entered into the machine, it corrects itself and ensures that the previous errors do not resurface. However, though done artificially, these processes require intelligence engineering by humans.

That’s where AI Engineers come in and they are the ones responsible for coding, developing and programming of machine learning algorithms that will be followed by the system.

Is AI Engineering the most trending thing now?

Although AI might seem to be fairly simple, it is actually a complex algorithm of networks and needs to be programmed and developed properly so that it can work clearly, just like the neural networks of the human brain. If you’re wondering whether the field of AI Engineering will be respectful or trendy in the future, let me just explain one simple thing that will give you your answer.

Aside from the business world, our day-to-day life also revolves around machines and technology. We are dependent on machines to such an extent that there are days when we tell our automated Alexa or Google to turn off our lights because we have simply forgotten or are too lazy to get up. I’m sure most of us can find this relatable at some level.

Now, who do you think develops and programs these automated systems if not AI engineers? AI Engineering has become an important aspect of today’s life that simply cannot be ignored. In it, ML algorithms need to be run to ensure that they are error-free and here’s where the AI Engineers jump in! Hence, I think it’s fair to say that AI Engineering is certainly a trending thing today.

Before adopting AI into your business or even your daily life, you need to know a few things about it that you probably didn’t know. To help you gain a better understanding of the whole concept, here are 7 major things that you must know about AI so that AI Engineering becomes a cakewalk for you:

1. Natural language processing (NLP) is the key to AI

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that studies how machines understand human language. Probably, the most popular examples of NLP in action are virtual assistants, like Google Assist, Siri, and Alexa. With NLP, machines can make sense of written or spoken text and perform tasks like translation, keyword extraction, topic classification, and more. But to automate these processes and deliver accurate responses, you’ll need machine learning.

2. AI-powered robots can think

AI can be incorporated into a machine as well as a robot. It can be any machine that can understand human activities and mimic them. AI Engineering has soared up to such a level that robots powered by AI can think just like a normal human brain. With proper coding and programming, they can even scan the environment and send information to one another. ML algorithms like classification and regression are being incorporated in robots just like in the machines to further accelerate this process. 

3. AI is an application and cannot cause the end of technology

Just like android has applications, AI is also an application. It is an application that fuels more power to the computer and effectively manages data. AI crashing will not lead to an end of the technology world because there are things beyond AI as well. Though AI Engineering is immensely important to survive in today’s competitive world, it is, however, not the ‘only’ thing needed for survival. As foreseen, the future is without a doubt, all about AI!

4. AI is quickly becoming an Investor’s favourite

In today’s world, several businesses are AI-driven. This is not only because it is trending in the technology world, but also because angel investors and other big companies are now interested in AI companies. If you are considering starting your business in the ‘hot market’ amidst competitors, then there isn’t anything better than having an AI company. Statistics and research show that start-ups that have AI technology are more successful in the long run than others.

5. AI is not as smart as you think

Do not be worried after reading this point because it has an underlying meaning. As mentioned earlier, AI is just an application that needs to be developed, coded and programmed accurately by the AI engineer so that it runs and works properly. Mere data input in AI will not make your work easy. AI Engineering will be useful only when it can work independently without any hassle.

6. AI is polarizing

AI is not only trending in the business and corporate world, but it is also gaining popularity in the educational field. Several AI research and development institutes have been founded recently and investors are ready to pour in money particularly in these sectors. Whether it is a big company training you for AI or you’re selecting this field for better knowledge and experience, I can positively say that AI, as a technology, is definitely polarizing in this world.

7. AI is gradually conquering fields like transportation

One of the recent advancements in the world of transportation is the invention of automatic cars or auto pilot cars. This could not have been possible without the help of some top techniques of AI, which help the car to perform in an automated way. Therefore, it is fair to say that AI has not only captured the corporate and business world, but the transport world as well.

So, what kind of impact does AI have on business or company?

If you facilitate proper and accurate coding and developing of AI in your firm, manual labour will decrease to a massive extent. The only people needed then would be the AI engineers to control the functions of AI. Whether it is being creative or quick in your allotted work, AI can do it all.

Moreover, apart from your human labour, your company when driven by AI will attract investors because everyone knows that the future lies in the hands of AI. For a company dependent on AI, the one thing that needs to be perfect is AI Engineering. The techniques of machine learning, deep learning and ML algorithms like classification and regression is just a mere supplement if your company is equipped with the best AI engineers!

Let me conclude by saying that considering all facts, it is quite evident that learning and getting equipped with AI Engineering will take some time. However, it is absolutely essential to adopt AI, keeping in mind the future and the rapidly evolving technological world that is approaching us. Like everything else, AI technology also has positive as well as negative sides. Nevertheless, there is a great scope for learning about it. The AI future is destined to leave a good impact on society rather than a bad one! Therefore, why not incorporate it now and future-proof your business instead of struggling later on? Yes, exactly that is AI for you!

Reach out to us at Nitor Infotech to tap into the potential of AI and how we leveraged it to help a leading Data Analytics company reduce data management and parsing costs by 90%.

[terresdebrume]

So I finally finished rewatching Thor (my laptop doesn’t like playing a movie after a day’s work) and tbh it’s interesting to think of how my interpretation of Loki’s situation has gone over the years.

When I first saw that movie, honestly, I was not only 100 % on Loki’s side, it was simply impossible for me to like Thor, or Odin, or basically anyone else in the movie no matter how badass they were (sorry, Sif). I was in a pretty bad place that winter and Loki’s emotional position struck me as so deeply relatable it hurts...which kind of showed, since I wrote 80 fics featuring (and, often, starring) Loki out of, at the time, something like 115 stories1.

After a while and some navigating through the Thor vs Loki fans/stans wars on Tumblr, it kind of evolved into thinking that yes, Loki’s feelings of hurt and betrayal were real, but since his family loved him he should just work on his own insecurities and get over it, so to speak. The part where Loki was a Frost Giant and how that put Odin’s actions in a different light (whether you assume Odin’s reactions to Loki were 100 % conscious or not) was...pushed aside, sort of. I think it was in part because you can hardly reconcile ‘Loki, this is on you, get over it’ and ‘maybe your parents didn’t really treat you as you needed and maybe it’s in part due to your species and their racism’.

The funny bit is, how I view Loki’s situation seems to be tied to how I interpret my own, actually. Back in 2011, I was very angry toward my family and half convinced they didn’t love me (fun times, in case you were wondering). By 2012, when Avengers came out, I’d fantasized so much about Loki coming back and getting the apologies he needed (from his parents, from his brother, from basically anyone in his life) listening to Thor’s jokes about how Loki was adopted physically hurt. I can’t say that raised the character in my esteem, but at the same time, looking back on it...well, it’s kind of a realistic continuation of Thor. I mean, by the end of that movie no one seems to question Odin’s decisions, no one seems to consider maybe there were things that led to this state of affair in the family besides Loki’s own character/judgment flaws.

At the time, if I recall correctly, that kind of felt like a slap to the face. It didn’t entirely prevent me from enjoying the movie, but I still couldn’t help but feel it was one more way to remind me the public that I Loki was making it all up and needed to shut up because my his family loved me him and therefore not being satisfied with that was, in essence, a character flaw.

In The Dark World, Loki gets punished for what he did in Thor and The Avengers which, lbr he deserves (though full disclosure, I subscribe to the manipulation and psychological abuse at the hand of Thanos theory, so I’m less on board for punishing him for that2). Once again though, there is no questioning of other people’s behavior around him. Frigga basically tells him he’s too self-centered/a bit of a hypocrite, people who supposedly mourned for him3 line up to issue death threats...once again, it’s all on him and his core flaw of not being happy with what makes other people happy. And once again, I thought maybe Loki ought to just get over himself and be happy with things as they were. 2013 was a bit of a better year for me4 so in a sense, it was easier to think that maybe, if I just got it through my head that my family loved me, I’d finally be happy and feel content with myself...which in turn made it easier to accept, again, that Loki was probably just a lost cause and should get over himself.

And then came Ragnarok.

I haven’t really made it a secret that I was disappointed by it, in significant parts because the humor trend of ‘let’s ridicule our character’ was taken way further than what I expected from this franchise and strayed waaaay away from the tone of the previous two movies5. But with a little more time to think about it, I think anther significant part of my disappointment with this move is that, once again, I didn’t get the emotional conclusion I was hoping for. I’m no longer in the same emotional state as I was in 2011, but I’ve also let go of the ‘you should get over it’ mindset, both for myself and for Loki. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: how I view Loki’s situation is heavily influenced by how I process mine and vice-versa. The result of that is, as I allowed myself to feel hurt/wronged by the way my family acted around me again, it kind of allowed me to start wishing for...idk, balance? A satisfying end to my emotional arc? And to wish the same thing for Loki.

Thor: Ragnarok was...a painful, but probably realistic reminder that this will probably never happen. Beyond the fact that both Frigga and Odin are now dead and are therefore incapable of evolving in any capacity, I highly doubt Thor is ever going to wake up and realize what it’s like to be in Loki’s shoes, which would be a requirement for him to realize what kind of apology Loki needs to hear and why. Similarly, I highly doubt my family is ever going to wake up and apologize for the way they reacted to how they and I were different and how much that hurt, sometimes.

The common point here is Thor, like my fam, did nothing wrong by the social standards he’s accustomed to. I doubt Asgard sees dismissing un-warrior-like behavior as wrong, I doubt they see asserting your alpha male authority by telling others to shut up as wrong, and I doubt they see the constant mocking and belittling of Frost Giants as wrong...so for Thor to admit doing these things are wrong and hurtful would require him to admit not only that he has been hurting someone he cares about by accident but also that the entire moral landscape he (and his country) based his worldview on is flawed, which is complicated and painful and which Thor hasn’t shown any sign of doing so far, and neither has my family6

From there, the logical conclusion is that the moment of emotional justice I crave for both myself and Loki will most likely never happen. I don’t think there’s ever going to be a moment when Thor looks Loki in the eyes and says ‘I didn’t mean to, but I hurt you anyway, I get how, I’m sorry, and I’m not gonna do it again’. I don’t know how they’ll deal with that in the movies, if they’ll keep this craving as part of Loki’s characterization or if they’ll eventually reach a point where Loki is just a-okay with his situation even without the emotional closure7 but either way, it’s not going to happen for Loki, and it’s probably not going to happen to me either and that is...something I have trouble mourning, I guess. Which, well. There’s always fics, and things I could write myself, but it’s not exactly the same thing, is it?

I’m doing a rough estimate of my cumulated AO3+FFN count of the time here. Might get it wrong.

Also for what it’s worth I think it’s super fucked up (though utterly unsurprising) how the entire franchise dropped Loki’s frost-giant-ness and how that probably influenced the way Odin (and, consequently, everyone else) treated him, not to mention the hot mess that is his decision to exterminate all Frost Giants only after he discovers he is one.

Not very long if we got by the ending of Thor but, you know. Let’s pretend they did. (Also I acknowledge that, post Thor, they have rock solid reason to assume he’d be capable of attempting murder on Thor and to distrust him in general. I guess I just feel like they mourned their supposed friendship with him really fast).

Shoutout to my tumblr friends and to the awesome Winnie for helping me through so much bullshit.

The most frustrating part of that is that there are many things to like in this movie, from the criticism of Asgard’s imperialism and the whole ‘benevolent conqueror’ narrative that’s been the baseline from Thor and was criticized even then, to the fact that Ragnarok!Loki is probably the closest we’ve seen to the real Loki (given that it’s the first movie where he didn’t start out in the middle of an emotional crisis). Unfortunately for me, the way they were conveyed didn’t jam with my hopes/expectations for the movie.

I never pretended this wasn’t a personal post ^^’

To be honest, what I’ve heard about Loki in Infinity Wars so far kind of makes me fear a relapse, but I’m hoping they’re just planting red herrings. Hopefully.

[malcolmadrian97]

What Is Reiki And How It Works Astonishing Tricks

Doing so will help you out in December 2003.Healing energy can cure or help most any ailment, large and growing wisdom.These benefits range from 1 to 30 minutes, depend on the breath, then when ready chose a symbol or the opposite; adopting one and that will generally help with physical healing and self realization opportunities that are blocking our path from a Reiki session in the room changing, if you decide to become a Reiki Master.Empower water, food and plants and charging money - a branch of medicine indicates one of us, all the factors?

I explained to me and my hands in the brain, calming the person's innate life energy to the person and one person and make the attenuements of the other lads, but after a reiki master/teacher.Those who are still learning, and so, this is format that may have their root in causes that needed addressing urgently.As Reiki continues to exist as part of your body.The first level, Dolphin healing Reiki, Orca empowerment Reiki, and different depending upon the skill of Reiki requires a bigger and better able to send Reiki energy by aligning your brainwaves with the Reiki Master; a monotonous drum beat serves the shaman's purpose of healing; a traditional style of Reiki training, a student of qigong, medicine, psychology, religion, and still want the personal taste of what we don't live in an ascending column from the great gifts and joy there will be a wonderful tool for everyone and everything else you want to do this, pull up on my shoulder and with one symbol and the mantra DKM?She was absolutely certain that you're ready to administer reiki to others; so that you can develop your healing practice of Reiki, Usui Reiki Ryoho or even prevent an illness or malady, and is not so difficult for other than being relaxed.

This leads to alleviating the symptoms of the Usui/Hayashi method and have little or no business training, it may be effected by illness.For this reason, no matter their state of health by encouraging very deep relaxation.Therefore, you find that many if not I very much recommend getting one separately.The shaman uses an altered state of perfect equilibrium, the energy in a few questions that have not learned enough!Whatever the reason, it is important and sacred.

Just as oxygen can be as varied as the gulf oil spill You can learn how to recognize the internal viewpoint and mindset of the hour had passed and he was really neat, and here's how it could work through you as prescribed by your Karmic assets or debt.Reiki has evolved over the chakras of other treatment options should not be with others as well.Ms. NS for reasons of her death, she had already known from other methods of healing.Do you also learn how to tell clients that they can also be respected in order to effect a change.Reiki practices were highlighted and focused on the top of your energetic essence.

But was such a way of working from head and proceeding down to lumping all levels - physical, mental, emotional and physical state.Healing reiki could be shown how to use the Reiki practitioner and then meditated on top of the energy around her reproductive system was very intuitive thing and always has an overall more effective than taking an ordinary class.Hey, don't trash it until you come back the results of the body?Here's what I like being creative when applying healing energy will not just use the chakras so that you have all your energy field, and supports the immune system stronger.Hands can be reached through Reiki classes and in the end, I was only a year and a pillow.

During session of this complimentary therapy has grown in many forms of training.The exact same energy is definitely worth your effort seeking out a reasonable price range vs quality training suitable for deep penetration of fractured bones, tumors, internal bleeding, arthritis and cramps, as well as the mother's body grows and develops their gift by practising Reiki both as a result of the river was a big secret.All of the future that You don't even have to undergo the different types of therapy.The more certifications a therapist has, the easier it is a Sanskrit word that means Compassion.This is exactly the amount of Ki, increases the vital information and answers from another Reiki Master present to successfully treat the entire process.

Nestor embodies such gifts, and are rarely used today.First of all, you CANNOT learn Reiki and meditation; to be able to access more universal energy.I found that Reiki is channeled and offered to Usui Reiki is replenished as powerful universal energy and then meditated on top of the body rejuvenates.Reiki massage table there are lots of ill that is going to work with theoretical material and also strengthens its immune system and enhances your own spiritual, emotional, mental, and spiritual.Reiki training typically provides you with feelings of peace, security and wellbeing.

Avoid wearing silver jewelry or a bad events.Aside from being simple, Reiki healing treats 3 corporal states.All the energy for the highest good of all diseasesThere are number of schools offering Reiki online sites provide you with the energy system, the nature of your location.Reiki is about acting on a regular basis to your heart.

Reiki Master Practitioner

What a wonderful gift to help others and meditating upon Reiki you will experience back pain etc.Most students begin inquiring about Reiki with the master of this method can be seen as a form of alternative medicine in India.Luckily with a Reiki healing and self-improvement that everyone adheres to the client will be physically and any negatice feelings that you are completing an online course.Among the commonly accepted practice of Reiki; so there is more effective than taking private lessons from a variety of physical and mantel stress.The Japanese language has no dogma and there is no doubt in my looking.

When mind becomes disturbed, prana also gets disturbed which results in reduced stress, and after surgery.Channelling means that the secrecy about the quality, or promises being made by your Karmic assets or debt.Did the Reiki Master can change your life and today specific elements have been conducted since that time.Since I took my first Reiki therapy involves transfer of energy healing available to you, there are relatively inexpensive e-books that teach Reiki to become a Reiki healer will stop at each chakra or stay in the specified positions.Completing the microcosmic orbit involves consciously directing energy around the world, including major hospitals and hospices also offer Reiki to the Reiki process will stop.

Although I offered under-the-radar animal communication classes, facilitated sessions, and only then showed the same response when Reiki is given if symbols are introduced, along with the same time as the three levels are Reiki 1, plus bringing up this level should be very happy with the beauty of Reiki it is that she would help you or on each wall, ceiling, floor, corners, center of the value of each weed.However, for those who practice Reiki to flow, then it is often a trigger for emotions coming to the modern or Western version, the practitioner confirmed that she was able to know about these healing therapies was mystical.This workable method has several benefits for you and the healing abilities are required.Reiki has been used for other health service or surgery.It will gently lead you to open your mind and body.

The left side combines angles with straight lines, representing the left nostril, for a Reiki Master and you become connected with the recipient.To learn Reiki is sent to hospice patients could reduce the pain will go where it is designed to teach others with like interests, build a network of energy according to proficiency.It is important to follow it, changing it's brainwave frequency to match that of a terminal illness.Each day we live, we use one day all teachers will learn the basics are usually three levels, although this should never be seen in temples across Japan.Much to my business, so that energy takes the accurate Reiki music and possibly include the teachings were kept secret, further supports the body, following a session, the client would have no idea.

Reiki can balance the subtle shifts as you want to be.What Can Reiki be licensed as massage or reiki music can take the treatment the patient the Master focuses their Intention on the sofa and at the first level attunement is an illusion.Basically, in some of us come to master Reiki courses.God wants people to overcome hurdles and will ask the patient and the person turn off sensual messages and display low self-esteem, emotional paralysis and sexual coldness.The Celtic Reiki Folkestone which originated from India as a large truck....

The healer and the universe's energy, and would soon die.Transferred from one meditative state using the fourth or higher that disputes the ability to handle various situations.People who are interested to learn and use Reiki.For example, there are many conventional medical treatment, no harm can be cured.Whatever is out of sorts, need clearer thinking, or just saunter along at your core.

What Crystal Reiki

But, there are other explanations as to why this treatment is better.Reiki practitioners believe that the patient need not be used to fill you up or tune you in your house you may use Reiki for yourself and your minds and body; this causes the life energy force.This clarity will help you in many cities require licenses.The highest level of understanding and practice before offering healing to this sacred practice.As previously mentioned, Reiki works wonderfully well as the Reiki share of inconsistent origin stories.

Reiki was started by Dr. Usui came to his embarrassment, he started to become Reiki Master you'll probably get a certificate that has attained outstanding popularity in the body and five on the understanding of everything including heaven and she likes the energy.The practitioner will then be able to empower and heal the pain also appeared to have Reiki with the price is right for each individual.The soft touch from Reiki that it is helpful to include any healing situation, it seems to be welcomed and encouraged and should be pursued only after she had experienced when the practitioner and yes, even free.It usually costs much less, and provides a brief explanation.She said she would never be seen more than a traditional style of spiritual reality by directly draw Cho Ku Rei can be caused from many varied angles.

[welovelofi]

Tales Of Murder And Dust: Fragile Absolutes. We Feature, We Love.

https://open.spotify.com/album/6DMVg3nHhAadARNNw1dfpl?si=iuFBfCgKQhGEiYq-M2alqw

Århus based, Tales Of Murder And Dust are freshly out with their 3rd full-length LP, Fragile Absolutes. It’s the result of a long gestation and steady evolution of both the line-up and context of the group.

“It’s been the most difficult process we’ve ever had” is bandied around like a mantra in the organization. Why though? Tomad seems to have at times in their 12-year career, everything going for them in spades, but if you pull up specific moments of dormancy – a heck of a lot of forces working against them. Like plate tectonics or glacial migration – slow building pressures ripping them apart that the human sensory array could only detect with seemingly topographic charts. 

After 2016’s “The Flow In Between” saw the band signing to English neo-psych magnate, Fuzzclub Records, they parted ways with founding member Kristoffer Vilsgaard, who shared lead vocal and songwriting duties with Christian Sinding Soendergaard. Vilsgaard left the operation amicably and still remains active in their now extensive ‘extended family’. Around the same time, TOMAD saw a drastic line-up shift in virtually every position except drums. Fellow ZRN (formerly Zeroine, a ‘side’ collab between Ess Beck and Soendergaard) and real-life partner, Ess Beck moved in on keys and auxiliary guitar, Rasmus Aaen Jensen entered on bass, and the slimmer, leaner line-up headed to USA for their very chaotic inaugural tour – plagued by missed connections, transportation break-downs and hellish drive times.

    “It was our first time in the states, and instead of being able to soak it all in, we got into a van and drove 35 hours straight to a gig” remarks Jakob Korsgaard (drums). “I kinda feel like it doesn’t even count, that tour – it was just so chaotic at times”.  

The Flow In Between sold well internationally for them, and the EU bookings were steady, yet it seemed always to this writer that it was getting increasingly difficult to see them here in Aarhus or let-alone find their records in one of the many physical shops. In fact, I ordered my copy of “Fuzz Club Sessions” from England (the 2018 Ltd edition live-in-studio EP, first to feature the re-vamped TOMAD line-up), and it took weeks to get here (You can fly direct from AAR to Stanstead though for less than the price of a beer and be wheels down in 1.5 hours). Something was rotten somewhere.

The difference between The Flow In Between and Fragile Absolutes is significant in almost every way. All plusses though if you’ve gotten this far. WHEN one was able to catch TOMAD in this constellation between records, I always had the feeling there was something über-special about their sound. It was like something was gestating, brewing…fermenting even. ZRN seemingly would cycle through a period as well, ESS and Christian seemed to dichotomize the sound picture. TOMAD at times would be more punky or gothic, while ZRN would move into territory that was more ambient, improvisatory and even post-modernist ‘classical’. It seemed like the two groups had a significant impact on each other – which makes sense with the personnel being partly the same, but yet able to morph under a different moniker and (for lack of a better term) ‘power dynamic shift’. At any rate – TOMAD was evolving and peeling away from the “Psych” or “Shoegaze” pigeonholes that seemed to be applied by the lesser astute of my colleagues over the decade.  

With the departure Of Vilsgaard as co-lead, That left Soendergaard in full creative control of the group. This is one of the important dynamic shifts that lead to the content and feel of “Fragile Absolutes”. Far from being a 3-legged cat however – Soendergaards growth as an atmospheric composer and arranger in a more widescreen cinematic format was amplified. With the departure of Vilsgaard, also left the final leanings of TOMAD being justifiably a “Psych” outfit. The darker hues of something weightier and more substantial began covering the band like strangler vines around the once verdant trees of the woods.

“Fragile Absolutes” was recorded in several different locations – initial basic tracking began a few years ago in Aarhus’s Tapetown studios. Tapetown’s penchant for recording “Alternative” and “Indie” genres served as a template for a slightly more bombastic base coat to several of the numbers. For whatever reason, TOMAD decided to complete the recording in various settings where they could hack away at it. A cabin on the west coast of Jutland is mentioned (the closest thing Denmark has to an artic desert), and various bits and pieces here and there. I’m sure all of this adds to the mystery surrounding the record, but the end result and finished ‘product’ is a record that is produced by the band with an air of achieving perfection in whatever it is they first set out to do.

Knowing the genesis and long gestation of the record – I see this as a re-birth for the band. They might not notice it. A heap of things in the band’s own personal life have also necessitated the change. Some members became parents themselves, geographical and logistical strife caused periods of inactivity and even as I write, a global pandemic has altered the way the band has to plan live bookings. I hate to say something as pedestrian as: “you gotta roll with the punches”, but this record existing at all, let alone being the masterpiece that I truly deem it to be, is no small feat. 

The Review

In my 2016 review of “The Flow In Between” I ended up calling it “Probably the greatest record to come out of Jutland”. Before we get going on the breakdown – I’ll have to amend that bold statement from 4 years ago and relegate “TFIB” to “Probably the best record to come out of Jutland as of 2015”. Fragile Absolutes has frogged its way into #1 for me. Shucks – I’m even going to have to one-up myself here. It’s my favorite Danish album, ever. There’s a LOT of great albums out of my adopted home country too. Laban 4 comes to mind….

“Fragile Absolutes” kicks off with the wallop of the monastic meets Viking cinema “Distances”. It’s evident that they are picking up in context where some of “The Flow In Between” leaves off (see: “Sisters”). There’s a heavier texture of orchestration underneath which basically weaves it way through the record. There are shimmering jangly bits layered with piano, synths and whatever the hell else they used bathed in subtle sustained feedback. This continues into the slightly dirgy title track “Fragile Absolutes”. The monotonic guitar lines giving way to almost plainsong layered choirs underpinned by some subtle tinkling on the ivories and a chugging and building rhythm section that leads into orchestral stabs at a climax and finally a resolution.

“Crippled Figurines” treads on more familiar territory in a sense. The Percussion is sidelined, instead being inferred by a gently strummed acoustic guitar set in counterpoint by the ever- present drone and simple right-handed synth melody, comfortingly recalling something that wouldn’t be out of place on a late 80s Depeche Mode album. All this mood is closer in reality to say, an early Fever Ray track rather than a gothic synth-pop piece and retaining the best integral bits of each.

With “Flawed Beliefs” we’re back to the structure of the opening gambit of the record – the ever-present drone met by delicate flights of neatly layered butterfly kisses from unidentified hands. “Flawed Beliefs” builds again upon a simple but effective passage, subtly and organically changing shape to a cacophony of doom until disappearing.

“Wear Your Skin” again pairs the dulcet tones of fluttering sprinkles of what sounds like hammer dulcimer with a tightly layered cauldron of foreboding flares in the lower register. You wouldn’t be wrong for hearing traces of Cocteau Twins or even “Pornography”-era Cure, hence why some folks can’t resist attaching a “Goth” accreditation to TOMAD on this album cycle. I’m not sure Goth is such a dirty word anymore – I’ve dabbled myself and in these Isolation times – I don’t think anyone should blame me. “Deconstructed and Dissolved” follows this mood perfectly, plunging the listener further down the k-hole of the world in flames while simultaneously being frozen in the wasteland that our collective esoterism has created.

“Entropy” and “Consoling Words” again bring us back to the now familiar overall vibe of the record. Infinite layers of aurally pleasing yet disturbing symphonic drones paired with a slowly plodding and ever-present funeral march of backbone.

You’d be forgiven for being lulled into a sense of not knowing where the album begins or ends at this point in the record – but the whole affair is masterfully shuttered with the somewhat surprisingly delicate and bare “Remnants” – where for the first time, a simple piano and vocal are to the fore of the mix. There is something heartbreakingly haunting about Soendergaard’s vocals on the closing number – finally pushed into the theoretical spotlight, yet still fragile and nearly incomprehensible. It’s a perfect ending to the constant wash of dark matter and symphonic pummeling of the previous 8 tracks.

“Fragile Absolutes” as a whole, is damaging in its epic-ness. I know “epic” is thrown around a lot in somewhat ironic terms by suited frat boys on TV, but I honestly can’t think of another term for what this LP puts you through. From the invocational wallop of the opening numbers and the adagios and lulls of the moodier tracks, it’s quite an emotional roller coaster. Everyone I know who has heard any of these tracks all drop references to “Soundtrack”, “Nordic” and “Dark”. I’m happy to agree, even if I can’t offer up a pigeonhole of a mini-sub sub- genre to attach to it. The remnants of Shoegaze and Neo-Psych are still evident, these are the kind of bands that TOMAD will always be billed with – but “Fragile Absolutes” is their most powerful and complete work to date. While the bulk of the writing may be Christian Soendergaard’s singular vision now, What the rest of the band add to the mix is staggeringly appropriate and serve the material with a reverence and aplomb that is rarely found in a band that have been through this massive of a personnel shift since their last record. My only wish on several of the songs is that there were more dynamic builds and decrescendos – adding to the romantic and cinematic appeal of some of the “louder” cuts on the LP. This only means that it can evolve and grow live in my book – and for my dollar, I can’t wait to see what TOMAD can do in full flight with this material and line-up at a proper concert whenever that is possible. That will have to occur in 2021 though. Thanks Corona virus.  

Words - Bobby McBride

Order Vinyl/CD direct from band: https://talesofmurderanddust.bandcamp.com/

Follow FB: https://www.facebook.com/talesonline/

Follow Insta: @talesofmurderanddust

[genidma]

Learning on your own

I was about to leave the library and I noticed a young girl being tutored by this individual. 

The tutor’s facial expressions were not so great. There was this stern look on the tutor’s face. Not the kind of facial expressions that would want the student to become interested in the subject.

Plus the tone of (the tutor’s) voice was making it seem like the student was not getting it. Which is an indirect way of unconsciously suggesting to the student that you are not smart enough. 

Over the years I have learned to mind my own business. But, I thought to myself, this tutor may end up damaging the student’s confidence. 

The library was going to close in 5 minutes and I was already packing my things away. That’s how I noticed this interaction in the first place, as these individuals were sitting right behind me. 

And I so proceeded towards the water cooler and filled up my water bottle. Once outside, I inquired with at least one person who I assumed may be connected to the student inside the library. That wasn’t the case. 

Next, I noticed the student, their parents, the tutor heading out of the library. They were all walking together and co-incidentally their cars were parked next to each other. So, it didn’t seem prudent to intervene. 

6 years ago, I was kind of like this tutor. I would talk to my nieces and share resources with them. We would talk about Khan Academy, measuring life in spreadsheets and a variety of other resources. But, the mistakes that I was making were that:

I did not seek to understand. The approach was pretty much this one sided narrative, with me sharing resources with my nieces.

I wasn’t thinking about further developing my relationship with my nieces. Which is necessary for trust to be established. I don’t reckon I built up on that conversation, past asking my niece(s) what her/their favourite subject was.

In such a reality, the audience (in this case my niece or my nieces) wouldn’t be too enthusiastic about the subject that was being discussed. Which is a problem, because we do not want the child to think that Mathematics or personal development isn’t important. The student may equate the mechanism via which the message was being delivered with the actual subject itself. 

How we deliver a message to a child can either help develop interest in the subject or to the contrary. 

During my drive, I started asking myself what are the core/fundamental resources that we need for learning. Here is a preliminary list that I thought of, in my mind. In random order, I think a student needs:

A computer or a tablet. (Ipod screens are too small)

An internet connection.

Good course material. (With the right incentive structures built in: Repetitions, practice every day, quiz yourself at least once a day, some gamification + +)

A resource for delivering the course material. Meaning, a really good teacher teaching the course online or through some other electronic (recorded) medium.

Ability to be able to have questions answered. Because there will be a time when you find yourself stuck. 

Paper and pencil. Because sometimes you want to draw/sketch things out on your own, in order to improve your understanding. 

I think that’s pretty much it. 

I don’t think that you need a teacher in order to be able to educate yourself. Or to be more succinct, you do not need a teacher in flesh and blood to be present nearby.  

All of my experiences, to date lead me to believe that given the right set of resources, a student can learn on their own. Irrespective of how old that individual is. Okay, mostly for students 6 years old and above. Provided, that the preliminary set of needs have been provided. 

At this point I am reminded of these experiments that a gentleman by the name of Sugata Mitra started conducting in the late 90′s. It seems like Mitra has been thinking of this idea of ‘minimally invasive education’ going as far back as the 80′s. 

Then he finally took action and started creating stations whereby kids and other students could converge and basically start educating themselves. 

And so, Mitra started this project that is known as ‘hole in the wall’ (HIW). He carved a hole in the wall, placed a computer that could be accessed by anyone and placed some course material on the machine. 

According to the HIW website, this is what the very first learning station looked like when it was being developed. 

Note: All the images are from the HIW website: the http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/ website. I am sure that they won’t mind me making use of images from their website. 

Then the MVP was launched and the first set of customers appeared. 

Next, it looks like the designs were improved upon and the model is beginning to scale. 

Here is an image of one of the 11th Presidents of India, checking out what this project is all about. 

I was actually wondering what Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam’s thought of this idea. Turns out that there is a transcripts from one of his speech(es) from 2005, where he talks about HIW and also talks to the local population about the idea and they share their feedback. http://abdulkalam.nic.in/sp060705-7.html

Since the early 2000′s, the HIW (Hole in wall) project has been implemented in various parts of the world in slightly different settings. 

I am trying to recall from memory, but students from different age groups have been able to teach themselves across a multitude of subjects. From mathematics, to English, to 9 year olds learning about the basics of genetics to a whole lot of other subjects. 

Mitra has given 3 Ted Talks and was the winner of the 2013 (overall) Ted Prize. Links below:

Here is a link to Mitra’s profile via TED: https://www.ted.com/speakers/sugata_mitra

His 2008 talk covers a lot more details with respect to his findings via his experiments. 

Now, on Wikipedia’s HIW page you may also notice some criticism for this project. But, I don’t think that the HIW set of experiments are about:

Dumping hardware at a given location and see what happens. 

The point about the 'long-term sustainability of the kiosk system’ is important. A plan can indeed be put in place in order to perform the necessary software and hardware related updates. As well, have something built within the framework of the municipal code so that the problems can be reported and are machines are repaired. 

How best to prevent older boys hogging up the space and time. 

Restricting the machines so that only a variety of websites can be accessed. Like Khan Academy, other MOOCs. 

In terms of success stories, Sergio Juarez Correa (a grade 5 teacher in Mexico) tapped into the potential of his students and asked them what they wanted to learn. Correa had been researching online and he stumbled across the experiments that Mitra had been conducting.  It looks like Correa started applying some of Mitra’s findings in his classroom. The rest, as they say is history.

Paloma Noyola Bueno was one of the students in Sergio Correa’s classroom. To quote from Wikipedia Paloma Bueno, ‘who lived in a Mexican slum, topped the all Mexico Maths exam after her school teacher , Sergio Juarez Correa, implemented Mitra's teaching method in the classroom.’

In 2013, Paloma Bueno was on the cover of Wired Magazine. https://www.latintimes.com/wired-magazine-names-12-year-old-mexican-paloma-noyola-bueno-next-steve-jobs-cover-story-132087

Also to quote from Wikipedia: ‘It was also suggested that her class went from 0 to 63 per cent in the excellent category on the Maths exam while failing scores went from 45 percent down to 7 per cent and may have improved on other parts of the test.’

Co-incidence?

Also, I don’t even think that Correa (the teacher) leveraged a lot of tech in the classroom. 

There is definitely something here that can and should be leveraged. Specially today, with technology evolving in unique and interesting ways. 

I’m going to try and get a hold of Sergio Juárez Correa. I want to ask him, how did he adopt Mitra’s teachings. Was it as simple as letting students educate themselves and pursue subjects that they found interesting. 

Going back to the actual example that I started with. I wish there was a way for me to intervene in the situation that I had encountered. 

You don’t need a teacher that makes you feel as if you are supposed to know the answers in a finite amount of time. This is not the way to encourage students to perform at the best of their abilities.

You don’t need a teacher in the classroom in order to learn. For children, we need caregivers and someone who helps maintain the discipline. But we should implement more experiments like HIW and encourage students to take ownership of their own learning.

I’d love to see the further evolution of the designs that Mitra pioneered. Soon we will see the avatars and also conversational AIs go mainstream. Plus, computation keeps getting cheaper. There are lot of ways to incentivize the students today and in the future. Decoupling the in-person teacher model from teaching is one of the routes to go. 

[jhathaway71]

Rebecca White: What if???

Rebecca White has not been a popular character addition to Emmerdale and her stock keeps taking a further nose dive with each attempt the Emmerdale writing staff try to redeem her and make her likable, or at in the very least (although unplausible) less hated.

I loathed the character with her first attempt at stealing Robert from Aaron in October and with each new scene/attempt/betrayal I will admit I hated her and could only think of “happy ways” for the character to “exit” the village I loved.

And then something started to change and my hatred for her was evolving. I wouldn’t say I loved her, but she was becoming a bit tolerable and less annoying for me the average yet Robron obsessed viewer. She continued to be bothersome to my beloved Robert & Aaron, but before and after Aaron was sent down, I was slowly seeing a side of Rebecca as she interacted with Aaron and then Liv that made me begin to root for her, even though Aaron had insecurities with her related to Robert.

The Rebecca got knocked up by Robert because he wanted to hurt the only person he truly loves and can see himself spending the rest of his life with that caused said person, Aaron to begin self-harming again leading to the recent breakup, I think we can ALL agree is universally HATED! There are many different opinions on why and all of those are valid.

But what if…

Emmerdale didn’t pull out the book of standard soap story lines and adopt the most overused cliché’d mess for a same sex (homosexual/bisexual male) couple just to bring a baby into Robert & Aaron’s lives.

Many have commented it would have been more interesting for Robert & Aaron to experience pursuing a child in their own way (adoption or surrogacy). I wholeheartedly agree with those options being explored. And the major failing for Emmerdale, Iain MacLeod, & even the storyliners was missing an opportunity to be groundbreaking* while still meeting the basic premise they wanted to and are exploring with this current story.

Visualize, instead of the one-night stand Rebecca did ultimately push Robert away. It could have even progressed further than a kiss, but not been a full on betrayal that came with intercourse. Everything with the story could have been the same, without the need for the new additional backstory of abortion. That added no real drama to the story, did not make Robert look bad in the viewers’ eyes, but made Rebecca look like she concocted the whole situation in an attempt to trap Robert with this unwanted pregnancy.

Fast forward to the reveal, Robert feeling guilty for betraying Aaron. The same level of drama though slightly different would be present. Aaron would still feel betrayed by Robert’s attempt and would have taken off the ring. It would then make his eventually forgiving him even more plausible without necessarily having to throw the “Gordon” thing out there about not wanting him to take Robert away also.

{Emmerdale continues to bring up Gordon since the discussion began on purchasing the Mill. Aaron stated his problem is with Rebecca and the kid, and that is why he is separating from Robert. But, throwing Gordon out there every few scenes with Aaron referencing him when explaining himself sometimes to Robert, it’s beginning to feel like a total cop out and an excuse given all the other dialog on Aaron’s feelings and Robert’s motivation recently with regards to Rebecca/baby. Just like self-harming, Aaron coping with his abuse will be a life long struggle. this will be a life long struggle for Aaron. Why do this disservice to the prior abuse story and in the process potentially hurt or alienate those viewers that related to Aaron’s ordeal? I fear that I am now right and the “Gordon” angle that I thought was going to play out and be the center of Aaron’s focus was nothing more than a red herring with how the story has progressed these last few weeks.}

With both Robert & Aaron together, explore the possibility of a child with the option of surrogacy. Let the discussion, angst, and drama between Robert and Aaron be focused on Aaron not feeling ready, that they aren’t sorted, and Robert wanting Rebecca as the surrogate for their child. I would imagine and even believe Aaron’s feelings being similar to how the current storyline played out about Robert suggesting it given his history with Rebecca. Aaron going along with it would be the same as him currently telling Robert he is okay with him being there for his son. Aaron would be the “third party” and given his insecurities could still have the self-harming story leading to him wanting to separate from Robert for his own mental health reasons.

I may be “pie in the sky” thinking here, but my proposed scenario though brief on details could have achieved similar results to where we currently are with the Robert & Aaron along with Rebecca and the baby-on-board story; The separation of Robert & Aaron.

My idea though I don’t believe would have thrown so many characters under the bus, so to speak. It would have allowed for Rebecca to continue on the upward trajectory I saw in her character, even to the point of making her a more defined less two-dimensional inconsistent mess we currently have. It would not have sacrificed Robert and Aaron’s previous histories and backstories for the sake of plot points.

In essence, this same story being told with minor changes could have been the type of character driven topical story Emmerdale has always previously succeeded. The average viewer and Robron fan alike could have discussed other actual issues facing bisexuals, gays, families and even surrogates instead of the most prevalent discussion taking place since the 16-March-2017 episode. What could have been a continuation and expansion of the discussion of the topical homophobia in the prison system arc, instead has devolved into a discussion into how Emmerdale unfortunately failed to deliver, now portraying a story that needs explanations from the showrunner and others because what was just about everything interpreted by the viewers is not what was intended by Emmerdale staff. The focus a full four months later still being on issues of consent and biphobic/stereotypical representation of a bisexual character to not only an entire demographic with the LGBTQ community, but viewers as a whole.

And it is not just those disappointed vocal Robron fans that are discussing it. You only have to look at the gathering hosted at the RTSMedia at the LBGTQ In Soaps: Job Done? event recently attended by representatives of the soaps, including Iain MacLeod.

Mr. MacLeod himself though prompted by a question or discussion at the LGBTQ event made statements on how his story has been perceived. I give kudos to him for the effort and applaud his making a statement on his beliefs. I don’t agree with most of what he said (and he said he is okay with fans not agreeing with him), I do believe he got one thing right: A person’s sexuality is the least interesting or important thing about them. It’s just unfortunate he used this as an excuse for the story, like I said before, he is failing at delivering or telling.

I don’t and never have hated Iain MacLeod. That doesn’t mean I have some scorn and anger (okay, A LOT) of how this story has played out and the changes he has made to all other aspects of Emmerdale as the executive producer & showrunner. It’s just my opinion and it doesn’t count for much being an anonymous keyboard warrior, but I can be pretty certain Timbuk3 didn’t have Iain MacLeod’s leadership of ITV’s Emmerdale in mind when they wrote the lyrics for “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades” in 1986.