#can i technically get intellectual rights to this? it's

[soulsxng]

Archetypes quiz | Tarinx edition!

41% Rebel: The Rebel is comfortable throwing caution to the wind—and bucking the system—if that means getting their point across.

25% Athlete: The Athlete's focus and drive are unparalleled. Staying healthy and being fit are paramount to them (as for winning, that doesn't hurt, either).

24% Explorer: The Explorer is drawn to the unknown, whether that’s a Himalayan peak or the road not taken, and have a thirst for adventure. They take journeys, not vacations.

[cripplecharacters]

Hi! I’m working on an original character project that I want to include a lot of casual representation in (“casual” meaning that the characters don’t need a justification for being disabled/fat/POC/etc, they just are because people can and do exist that way in reality!)

I was wondering if you had any suggestions for finding resources for drawing facial differences(and maybe other visible disabilities), especially in a cartoony style. I’ve looked through the Facial Equality Week tag but would like to see more examples, and since my art is so… goofy, for lack of a better word, I would love any help I can get in integrating differences without being offensive or upsetting.

Sorry if this is a bother, and thank you for all that you do!

Hey!

I'm not aware of any guides for drawing facial differences specifically (or at least, good ones. There's 1 billion tutorials telling you that scars are just a Singular Line, always, but that's not... correct), but perhaps someone in the notes could help out?

For my own advice, you could check out this old post I made. Because you mentioned your art being cartoony, I would specifically urge you to not overexaggerate facial differences the way they often are. A prime example would be how a lot of cartoons portray strabismus;

It's just a funny gag to them rather than, IDK, how some of us look like. Not to mention that one of these is also a mockery of intellectually/developmentally disabled people with "Derp" in the name, but that's beside the point here.

It's the whole "the character is crazy/stupid/wild/whatever and that's why they have it" that's the problem with how it's often shown. You can also see it in how characters who don't even normally have it will be shown with it for a scene where they're saying something nonsensical, etc.

Another example that's nowhere near as rampant is the split-face thing with various facial differences being used. Mostly vitiligo but sometimes also facial palsy. I'm talking about this weirdly perfectly halved face that looks extremely different on each side, often used to imply that a character is two-faced but mostly just signals that the author doesn't know how vitiligo looks like.

[note: vitiligo also shows up on lighter skin. I wanted to make sure it's visible here for tutorial clarity purposes.]

This one is just weird because it straight up doesn't look like that. I have no idea where it came from, but it should go back there. Facial palsy doesn't make someone look like the antique comedy/tragedy theater mask.

Unless I'm forgetting some other annoying cartoon trope, these would be the big ones that you should stay away from.

Outside of that, it's really on a case by case basis on how a specific FD should be drawn because they're so different. A birthmark can just be a differently colored patch of skin, but a craniofacial difference would require some more changes to be included. Alopecia is well, lack of hair, and can be done very easily but ectrodactyly can be more complicated to show properly because of the limitations of a cartoony artstyle when it comes to hands. And while I do think it would be great to see more of those facial differences that tend to not be included in art at all, there's nothing wrong with deciding to go for the things you can represent more faithfully, especially if you're just starting.

I will say that if you're making an honest attempt at being respectful and trying to get it right, most of us will still be excited to see your work. Even if it's not perfect or has some inaccuracies. I will take a "'yeah more or less' correct with a happy, human character" over a "Very Technically correct but tagged as #tw burns and with blood splattered on them" any day.

Lastly, I wanted to share some art featuring characters with facial differences (and other visible disabilities) that are done in a cartoony, or at least somewhat simplistic artstyles (I'm using both terms very widely here) - maybe it will give you some ideas.

Man with Treacher Collins syndrome (also one of the first pieces online where I saw a character with an FD portrayed in such a lovely way. A fav of mine.) Girl with Pfeiffer syndrome Too many characters to count Woman with burns Woman with a limb difference Multiple characters again Animation featuring people with Down syndrome [youtube] Multiple characters, including a girl with neurofibromatosis, a burn survivor, a girl with a cleft lip and another with TCS [twitter]

If you have a more specific art question ("how do I draw a person with XYZ facial difference?") you can send me an ask on @saszor. I prefer to stick to the writing theme on this blog but would still like to help if you need it.

Hope this helps,

mod Sasza

Edit: apologies for the lack of alt text on one of the images, it has been fixed.

[cupidkenji]

Gnaw

Now Playing: Gnaw - Alex G everything I knew was looking just as it should Pairing: Nam gyu (player 124) x AFAB!reader CW: smut, oral (r receiving), choking but not in a freaky way he literally chokes reader to get them unconscious (no somno), kidnapping kind of (he takes them back to their house), knifeplay 💀, restraints being used (reader's wrists are tied), noncon technically but again mentally reader is into it, toxic ex bf, he's really whipped tho, minor bloodplay, undertones of sadism, lokey father figure vibes from Nam gyu (i'm so sorry), probably kind of OOC, university AU Summary: After that night, you ran. You should know by now you can never get far from him. Disclaimer: Reader is always thought of to be chubby/bigger when writing but I do my best to not physically describe reader at all with stuff like skin tone or body type. Anyone can read this as reader is not depicted but if there's a slip up please let me know. <3 WC: 3.7k (again) this is a part 2! read part 1 here.

the worms are eating away at my brain i am going crazy. please for this story just imagine you have one of those bed frames that are individual bars w space in between them instead of like one solid thing. also i really need to start writing these earlier in the day so i have the energy to proof read them. i'm sorry for my sins have mercy on me.

The sunlight seared through a pair of shitty motel curtains, attempting to penetrate your shut eyelids. It was the sixth day you were waking up in a scratchy bed on the run down side of your already dirty town. It was the sixth day you would spend missing him. 

You knew it was wrong, immoral to even think of returning to the man who had done such a thing. Who was clearly at a place in his life where he could do such a thing. Even through all the intellectualizing of his actions, the pleading you did with yourself to be disgusted, you weren’t. You knew it the second he cleaned you up and went to sleep, and it was terrifying, so you ran. As soon as you were sober, you ran to the only sanctuary you could afford as a college student who was also renting an apartment and a vehicle. You had already overstayed your welcome, knowing that the six days would cost you more than you wanted to shell out. You didn’t know how long you planned to be gone, originally fleeing the scene to be able to think. It was only proving more difficult as the days ticked on. You’d come all the way out here to talk yourself into hating him, only to carve out an even bigger space within yourself that he was to occupy. You missed him. The more you thought about it, the more apparent it became, and that just pushed you to stay longer. To wait out the bruising feeling eating at you the more you forced yourself away. 

You skipped class, not daring to step foot on campus lest he be waiting for her. The thought made your head fizz, a horrified and excited feeling mingling as they wrapped around the nerves in your stomach. Just the possibility of seeing him overwhelmed you, but you were simultaneously sick from the distance. You were sick of your surroundings, too. The walls were gray and stained, and you feared the hygiene status of the bed you were sleeping in. You hadn’t had much time to pack when you’d left, grabbing miscellaneous clothing that had yet to be put away and shoving it in a backpack. You hadn’t brought a blanket or a pillow, something you regretted. The suffocating nature of the beige room prompted the nightly walks you’d been taking. It was a bearable temperature, and the full perimeter of the building provided a decent amount of ground to cover. You hadn’t grabbed a charger, leaving your phone dead and you bored. Without any artificial stimulation to occupy your head, you took notice of the normally unnoticeable aspects of such a place. There were bits of a wired fence on the right side of the parking lot, the few lamps that lit the outside up had security cameras on them that didn’t work. You couldn't sleep one night, so you’d gone to look at them, finding that when the cords reached the end of the pole, they’d been haphazardly cut. It looked rushed and frayed, like a child had done it with safety scissors. It was deceiving, truly. There was no safety in an already dim parking lot. 

On tonight’s walk, you mulled over the date you’d return by. You still needed to graduate, and realistically, you couldn’t avoid your life forever. You were getting progressively more tired, sleeping less each night you stayed, missing the comfort of your own bed. The ground was uneven and cracked under your shoes, reminding you of the gray, crumbling building you were supposed to retrieve your roommate from. Reminding you of him, how stupid all of this was. There was a familiar smell in the air as you rounded a corner, nearly back to your room. It was distinct, heady and musky, as if you were back on that street and looking up at the flowing smoke again. You did your usual observation of the desolate asphalt full of empty parking spots.

And what the fuck were the odds?

He was already looking at you, the end of his cigarette glowing orange as he took a drag, like a sniper taking aim. He was a mere silhouette being poorly lit up by a streetlight that barely worked, but you knew. It was this feeling of magnetism, the same way he knew exactly who he was looking at, you felt the world around you melt, the air around you became irrelevant as your eyes locked on him. There was another man there, leaning against the hood of his car with Nam gyu right next to him, taking no notice of you as he spoke. You couldn’t make out his words with how far away you were. The man you’d been avoiding making little sounds of acknowledgement while being completely trained on you, posture relaxed and comfortable. He found you.

His friend nudged him, mumbling something and standing up. The both of them walked back into what was presumably the man’s room after snuffing out what they were smoking. You didn’t even register your legs beelining for your room. You threw whatever you had into the backpack you’d brought. You needed to get the fuck out of here. It was an unfathomably cruel move from whatever higher power was in charge of this situation. The two of you were being forced together like sand and water. He was everywhere, no matter where you were he would inevitably catch up. Maybe it took him three months the first time, but clearly he was done waiting. You rushed the check out process, not knowing how long his friend would keep him occupied now that he knew you were here. Maybe he wouldn’t even care. The thought made your stomach twist, but still, you needed to go. Your car seemed like an endless walk from the front doors, parked in the corner closest to your room, dark and unsuspecting. In such an empty place, you didn’t want your car to sit illuminated, as if advertised. This motel had a reputation, and you wanted to keep your means of travel safe. 

Your hands shook slightly as you hit the unlock button on your keys, yanking the handle to the backseat and throwing your bag somewhere in the back. It was just clothes, you didn’t care if it rolled around or hit the floor during the commute to wherever you were going, you just cared about getting out. The slam of the back door shutting seemed louder than what was appropriate for such a bone-deep silence for this time of night. Opening the driver’s side, you barely had enough room to squeeze through before it was being shoved closed from behind you. On impulse, you tried to turn around, startled and drowning in adrenaline; but before you could, the crook of his right arm encompassed your neck, tightening like a snake who was readying the prey for consumption. Your hands shot up, grasping his forearm with a futile grip, as if you could will his arm away from you. The pressure on your windpipe was bleeding black into the edges of your sight, static mingling with your hearing as your head got lighter. You could hear quiet shushes and reassurances coming from the man behind you, as though talking a child back into sleep after a nightmare. You dug your nails into the fabric of his sweatshirt as a weak sob barreled out of your mouth. He only pushed a little harder, pulling you into him. The proximity comforted you despite his actions, and you used the last little bit of energy you had to condemn yourself, body going limp against him after the last internal inquiry of what the fuck was wrong with you. He had also noticed the camera situation, knowing that his actions would go undocumented in the empty little place. He walked you over the passenger seat, hauling you in and buckling you up like a kid in a car seat. He started the route to your house, it was a Friday, your roommate would surely be out. He knew she was barely ever at the house, after staying there on and off for two years, he thinks he could probably count how many times he saw her sleep there on one hand. It wasn’t a long drive, twenty minutes or so, and you’d be home.

–

The normally disarming lamplight of your bedroom reeled in your consciousness from the void it had been thrown to. It didn’t feel particularly calming - not now. Your head was on your pillow, a focused Nam gyu diligently knotting a rope around your wrists, bundling them together and lacing the restraint through your headboard. Your neck felt bruised, sore and pulsing with a light pain as the blood rushed to your head. Your legs tensed on instinct, noticing the motion was not detained. He hadn’t tied your legs. You tugged once at the rope, testing the endurance just as much as you were testing your own strength. Your muscles felt nearly atrophied, the action making an ache ricochet through the oxygen-depleted muscles. Your whole body felt tired, heavy. Your exhale was shaky, slowly deflating from your lungs as if your body was made of stone. 

“Oh, good.” He double checked the knot, tugging once to solidify it’s hold on you before standing up to look down on you. “I didn’t know how long you’d be out.” He sounded so casual, as if instead of choking you unconscious and dragging you home, he’d simply carried you in from the car after you’d fallen asleep in it. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Your voice was quiet and gravelly, like your throat was coated in sand. Your lip trembled at the feeling of being so close to him. God, you were like a fucking puppy; can’t even be away from him for a week without turning into a weird sentimental puddle upon seeing him again. “Please untie me.” Your eyes watered as you spoke. You’d barely been awake five minutes and you were on the brink of tears. Pathetic. 

His eyes flicked over your face at the sight of your eyes welling up, a little glint of something familiar sparking in them for just a moment. “I can’t.” He shrugged, imitating disappointment at the notion. “You keep running from me. How are we supposed to resolve this if you can’t even keep still?”

Resolve this. Your eyes closed at the words, attempting to stop the tears from spilling at the thought. You’d left him for a reason. It was repeated over and over in your head like a mantra. You had to stick to it even if you couldn’t remember what the desire to be away from him felt like. Even as your chest heaved slightly with panic, you hoped he wouldn’t move. You hoped he would keep talking just so you could hear his voice, be near him. It wasn’t a rational wish by any means, but you could feel the intensity of it in your fucking bones with how consuming it was. 

“I’m not a patient man, honey. I waited for so fucking long.” He leaned over your dormant frame, putting one knee on the bed and moving his other to mirror the motion, effectively pinning your hips down under his weight. “You know, it wasn’t even your roommate who wanted you there. She just left her phone unlocked, and I knew you’d show up if she asked.”

“What-” Your words halted in your throat as he drew a pocket knife from the pocket of his sweatshirt. Jesus.  “Please - you don’t understand-” 

“Relax.” The word was chuckled slightly as he cut you off, like the panic that shot through your eyes at the sight of the blade in his hands was unjustified, like you were being irrational. “I think I was too selfish that night, hm?” The look he was giving you felt like it could kill you if he really wanted it to. Intense and suffocating, full of excitement and devotion. “You clearly hadn’t been touched in months and I got ahead of myself.” He shook his head slightly as his eyes looked over you, your chest was moving quick and shallow as you breathed, stomach tensing as he lifted your shirt up just an inch, caressing the skin above the waistband with his thumb. It barely even seemed intentional, as if his hands subconsciously drew themselves to you, needed to be touching you. 

Any urge you had to respond kept dying before it could be expelled. What do you even say to a situation like this? He was so at ease, explaining himself like a truly remorseful lover would. To anyone who didn’t know his inflection, that’s where it would end;  but you were so in tune with him, you could hear the edge of entertainment that his words carried. Maybe he was sorry, maybe he just liked seeing you unsure.

“I’m gonna make it up to you.” Your breath stumbled as he said it, your wrists grating unconsciously against the confines. “But it hurt my feelings when you ran like that.” He put a hand to his heart as he spoke, emphasizing his words. “So I’m gonna hurt you a little, too.” You felt the point of the blade make contact with the skin that his thumb had been smoothing over minutes before. It was enough to make the first tear fall from the corner of your eye. There was no pressure, just the threat of his words ringing true. Even in this scenario out of most peoples’ nightmares, you still didn’t think he’d truly hurt you, not irreparably. He’d always had sadistic tendencies, you even sometimes - shamefully - thought about the potential that was undoubtedly lurking beneath the surface of his presentability. He could get mean sometimes, especially when he was high, but never like this. He was sober, you could see it in his eyes and the way he moved. He just wanted to do this, wanted to be in control. 

He could practically feel the mesh of emotion seeping from your veins, taking longer than necessary to talk just to watch you soak in it. “Just enough to teach you some manners, honey.” His thumb trailed a line of pure heat along your jaw. “Don’t worry. You’ll probably even like it, knowing you.” 

A weird feeling jolted through the active nerves in your stomach. It was such a direct callout, based in certainty that he carried in his voice. You felt caught, recalling all the times he most likely knew exactly what you were thinking. Another tear streamed down the side of your face. 

The steel in his hand glistened in the low light of your bedroom, the sharpness of it being dragged down the fabric of your shirt, severing the only semblance of modesty you had left; the material draping open and bearing your skin to him. You’d been practically ready for bed by the time you took your walk, foregoing any additional coverage underneath the shirt, leaving all of you vulnerable to the exploration of his eyes. He pushed the sagging cloth to hang more off your shoulders, grazing his hands over the naked parts of you. It was gentle, restrained, like he couldn’t bear the time it would take to touch all of you because he needed it that badly. 

You felt the sting of an opening wound a second later, a whimper barely fleeing your throat. It wasn’t deep, he didn’t push hard. His lips parted as the blood rose to the surface of the small cut, pooling within it and releasing a single drop to pour down the side of your stomach. Before it could gain traction, he smeared the runny crimson, letting the liquid coat the print of his thumb. His pupils dilated at the sight, his breath coming out shakier than he’d like as his blood seemed to thrum in his veins. 

Your face twisted at the feeling, molten lava pooling in your stomach and burning you from the inside out. You felt hot, immune responses and arousal both running rampant in your body. You’d never felt more awake. He lowered his head to your exposed collarbone, brutally reminiscent of the night that predated this one. “See? Not so bad.” He led his hand up to your mouth, palm skimming your side as he hovered his thumb above your sealed lips, muttering out a request to open your mouth for me and you did because he was inexplicably intoxicating. Your tongue was coated in bitter metal combining with the discreet and slight flavor of his skin. You felt dizzy. 

He mouthed down the expanse of your upper body, leaving patches of your skin shiny with his saliva and stinging from the occasional love bite he would leave. He marked his places of affection with small cuts, each one sending a wave of warmth lower and lower, fanning the flames down to where he would ultimately end up. He would kiss over each future scar he left on you, a bloody comparison to your relationship as a whole, his actions making your heart ache and your back arch. You had been trying your hardest to stay quiet, trembling exhales being the only thing you couldn’t suppress; but he had a way of wearing you down in the most pleasurable ways imaginable, gradually building you up to the whimpers that were slipping past your crumbling resolve. 

With caring hands, he pulled at the waistband of your pants, folding them out from under your hips and bending each of your legs forward to get them fully off of your legs, laying them back down once he had. The room felt colder than it ever had. He stared with pride at the state of your perpetually clenched thighs, groping at the tense muscles. “What’d I tell you, huh?” He tucked the blade of the knife under the seam of your underwear, pulling up and slicing clean through them. “I don’t know why you want out when you like it so much.” Cutting the other seam, he let the fabric slide off of you, discarding the shreds of useless hindrance and taking in the full sight of you. 

You didn’t know why you ran either. You did like it. You liked it so fucking much that it scared you. Maybe it was a fear of feeling good, or a fear of what this kind of connection would inevitably do to you, what kind of a man he was. You’d tried to leave him and ended up panting, wet skin glistening and covered in gashes; and the worst part was you liked it. How the fuck could you like something like this?

He left various other claims of territory on your thighs. Teeth marks, nicks from the knife, worshipping kisses of a man in love. Everything action committed against your wanting flesh had so much emotion laced in it that you could barely take it. You were overwhelmed, your brain half shut down, only stopping itself from going dark because then you wouldn’t be able to feel him, to accept what he was giving you. 

He pushed your thighs out of their locked state, soothing over the irritation littered on them with his thumbs and his lips, dulling the sting with an even greater ache that was bleeding directly into the center of you. You felt like he’d lit you on fire. 

The tip of his index finger scorched a line up the place you’d been anticipating, shamelessly gliding in copious arousal that had been pooling since you saw him leaning on the hood of that car. It was a touch that seemed to pump life back into you, invigorating and familiar. Something you missed so much that you were sure you’d never be able to fathom the depth of it. He cursed, quiet and breathy; and you groaned at the feeling of friction, even if it was just a little. 

His mouth on you was sudden, but not rushed; the spontaneity of it forcing a gasp from you. His actions were calculated, arms wrapping around your thighs to keep you open, malleable and pinned. His hands were tense on your legs, fingers digging in tight as if he was struggling with his own internal grievances. You weren’t sure if it was restraint, or desperation, or something uncharted between the two of you. It was scary to think that something could be undefined right now, that maybe he was lost too. 

The warmth of his mouth on you after already having your body thoroughly overworked nearly knocked you unconscious for the second time that night. Your head was as thrown back as it could be given the state of your arms, chest reaching for the ceiling. Your poor wrists burned in the grit of the rope, but it only seemed to add to the peak you were being pushed to. He brought his index finger to sweep through the bountiful wetness in between your legs, this time pushing in and curling up, his second finger joining soon after. 

“Gyu - please -” The nickname was so domestic, something that hadn’t left your lips in months but seemed to feel as natural as breathing in this moment. The loving tone hit him like a wave, drawing a reflexive groan from his mouth. His eyes were practically black from how much his pupils encompassed the iris, his own eyes looking a little watery as a less extreme mimic of yours.

“Missed the way you taste.” The auditory affirmation paired with his fingers and his mouth sent you toppling. His fingers never let up, his mouth detaching to plant light kisses on the bone of your hip, looking up at your breathtaking form with an awestruck gaze that you couldn’t see through your closed eyes and tilted back head. 

You panted, thinking it was over. Maybe he’d fuck you, or maybe he would make you tea and the two of you would finally talk about things. He just moved his soaking fingers up to your clit, your body jumping slightly at the sensitivity. 

“Wait-” 

“Shh, just take it.” He spoke low and moved back to where he was, starting again when you had barely started coming down. His declaration of making it up to you rung in your ears. How long was long enough to be considered even? You writhed with overstimulation as you thought about it. Ten minutes? Thirty minutes? An hour? Your second orgasm hit you hard in the middle of your useless inquiries, and you realize it didn’t really matter.

You were in for a long fucking night regardless.

𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃❮𓁿❯𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃𓂃

tags: @mitsxuri @citarnosis @namgyunation (tagging you lovely folks because you all mentioned wanting more content. please let me know if you want your @ removed and i will do it ASAP <3)

[qqueenofhades]

I understand how important it is to be able to criticize the President, and am not at all of the belief he should be beyond critique, but the critiquing of Biden makes me so nervous. (That's not to say I agree with every decision he's made - I absolutely do not). But I feel like people see things he's done wrong and decide they won't vote for him because of it. I'm not sure if enough people have the ability to see that he's done things wrong but also is our only hope of staving off literal fascism.

So many people talk about how sick they are of it constantly being a lesser of two evils situation, constantly having to vote for a candidate they hate because the other side is worse (I heard it in 2020, 2022, etc), and I guess I just- I don't really get it? We're here because they didn't do that in 2016. All of this could've been avoided had the result been different then. I just feel like people don't comprehend how different of a place we'd be in if Hillary won and engage in all this cognitive dissonance to make themselves feel better about being part of the reason she didn't.

Like.... this has been a long-running topic of discussion on my blog, not least because it is so inexplicable and maddening. It also shows how terribly shallow most people's understanding of the American political process is, and how toxic the "I can only vote for a candidate if every single personal belief/position of theirs matches mine" belief is, as well as how much damage it has done to American democracy even (and indeed, especially) by people who technically don't identify as right-wing. Yell at Republicans all you like (God knows I do, because they're the worst people on earth) but they vote. Every time. Every election. Every candidate. Whereas the Democratic electorate still holds out for Mister Perfect, and it very definitely is Mister Perfect. The amount of "evil HRC!!!" Republican-poisoned Kool-Aid that so-called progressives drank in 2016, and then afterward when they insisted they could have voted for someone like Elizabeth Warren and then didn't do that in 2020, is... baffing.

Frankly, I don't care if Hillary Clinton's personal positions on XYZ issue were the most Neoliberal Corporate Centrist Shill to Ever Shill (and Online Leftists' intellectual skills being what they are, I seriously doubt that they were using any of those words correctly and/or accurately). American policy is not made by "personal dictate of the ruler," or at least it shouldn't be, because we are not an absolute monarchy. We rely on the operation of a system with input from many people. As such, if Hillary had been elected, we would have 2-3 new liberal justices on SCOTUS and have secured civil and environmental rights for the next generation. Roe would be intact, and all the other terrible rulings that SCOTUS has recently handed down wouldn't have happened. We wouldn't have had January 6th, the attempt to stage a coup, all the tawdry scandals, our national security being at risk because of Trump stealing classified documents and probably selling them to Russia and/or Saudi Arabia, etc etc. If you think that's in any way an equivalent amount of evil to what would have happened if Hillary was elected, or if she was "still evil!!!," then I honestly don't know what to tell you. She could fucking murder puppies in her spare time if she had preserved SCOTUS for us, WHICH SHE WOULD HAVE, BECAUSE SHE WARNED US EXACTLY WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.

(Hoo. Sorry. Still steamed. 2016 war flashbacks, again.)

In short, Hillary would have been a solid continuity Democrat and she would have signed whatever legislation a Democratic House and Senate passed, not to mention been hugely inspiring as the first female president. But because it's so important to the Online Leftists' moral sense of themselves that BOTH PARTIES ARE THE SAME!!!, they can't possibly acknowledge that ever being a factor, and/or admit that they have any culpability in not voting for her in 2016. It's like when you read the British press about any of the UK's equally numerous problems, and they BEND OVER BACKWARD to avoid mentioning that Brexit might be a factor. They just can't mention it, because then that means they might have made the wrong choice in pulling for it as hard as they did, and blah blah Sovereignty.

Basically, if HRC had been elected president, everything would be so much less terrible and terrifying all the time, we would be talking about her successor in 2024 as someone else who could be the "first," we could explore handing the reins over to Kamala as a Black/Asian woman, we could promote Buttigieg as the first gay president, etc etc. But because 2016 was so catastrophically fucked up, we are in damage control mode for the immediate future and every election is just as pivotal. And yet, because people think that the only thing that matters is a presidential candidate's personal views, we're stuck having the same old arguments and desperately begging people over and over to please vote against fascism, since that somehow isn't self-evident enough on its own. Yikes on Bikes.

[metamorphesque]

I don't know how unpopular this opinion is but I strongly hold the position that society today seems unable to differentiate "Art" from entertainment, and this blurring of lines harms both. _ what do you mean?

What I mean to say is that society nowadays fails to recognize the fundamental differences between art and entertainment. Thinking that they are the same or interchangeable does a disservice to both. To me, it's not an "art vs. entertainment" situation. Rather than opposing them, the distinction lies in recognizing their complementary roles because a healthy individual needs both art and entertainment, but for very different reasons.

Entertainment, of course, entertains us; it delights and validates us by affirming our existing beliefs and emotions. It's there to make us feel good — a safe space that doesn't challenge us, as it has been created specifically for our needs and is catering to our preferences. However, it leaves us unchanged and not transformed. Entertainment is produced because there is a public demand for it.

Art, on the other hand, is meant to change and transform us. It's not always delightful, entertaining or self-affirming. On the contrary, it can sometimes feel like an attack on our beliefs and the reality we think we’re living in. Art can be uncomfortable, even disruptive, and by being so, it forces us to engage with it on a deeper level, challenging our perspectives and encouraging us to evolve. Unlike entertainment, art is not made because there is public demand for it. To be more precise, the demand for art exists, but it doesn't come from us — the public; art meets the demands of the time. Real artists are those who can discern the lessons and demands of the time and make them digestible for the public. While entertainment caters to an audience’s desires, art challenges its audience, often presenting ideas or emotions they may not have asked for but need to confront. It’s not about pleasing or fulfilling expectations; instead, art serves as a catalyst for intellectual and emotional growth, pushing society to reflect, adapt and progress.

My beloved Armenian poet Paruyr Sevak has a very thought-provoking piece that, I think, is about real artists. I'll present a rough translation: "They come unoften, yet never too late. / They are born at exactly the right time. / And they get ahead of time itself, / Which is why they are not forgiven".

The role of a true artist goes far beyond technical skill or the ability to produce aesthetically pleasing works that will be liked by many and, thus, make a fortune. A true artist serves as a visionary, a truth-teller and a catalyst for change. They push us to reflect deeply and think critically about the world around us. This is why, in the absence of such people (and I strongly believe that we live in such times), individuals become more susceptible to propaganda, manipulation or conformity, as there are fewer voices prompting them to critically examine their environment. Additionally, without these voices, society loses touch with its emotional depth, becoming more disconnected, indifferent and apathetic to the suffering or experiences of others.

True artists are what we need today. There are many discussions held online about whether today’s celebrities should address "political" issues and the problems we face as humans.

My answer to this is no, at least not for everyone that society considers an "artist." Most of these individuals are mere entertainers who are there solely for entertainment purposes (I would be quick to add that some of them even fail at that). Dozens of them can't even form comprehensive sentences in their mother tongues; how can we expect them to express trustworthy opinions on grave issues? This is one of the reasons why it is highly dangerous to confuse entertainment with art.

[avelera]

To add onto your point about Viktor pushing people away I think this is shown a lot through his interactions with Sky. When they first meet as kids she clearly takes interest and wants to talk but he looks down to gesture to his boat when she is called away. He believes that it is his destiny to be lonely. Shortly after when meeting Singed, Singed asks “why aren’t you playing with the other kids,” and Viktor steps out from behind a rock to show him his leg. Singed’s response is a double edged sword because he says that “loneliness is often a byproduct of a gifted mind,” on one hand he is calling Viktor intelligent and implying that his disability isn’t what makes him lonely, however Singed still essentially reinforces the idea that Viktor is inherently going to be lonely because of his mind.

Later (in life, technically it’s earlier in the show) she flirts with him and he surprisingly refers to her by her last name only despite knowing each other for so long. This act pushes her away, especially at a time when he probably did need to ask for help as he had just coughed up blood earlier in the episode and passes out not long after she leaves. While I do not think he harbors any romantic feelings for Sky both the way she shows interest with him as a kid and as an adult proves Singed wrong. She doesn’t find his intelligence isolating, she admires him for it and wants to get closer but Viktor has put up a wall because he’s already internalized that loneliness is a byproduct of his existence.

She also does not even hesitate to try pull him off the hexcore when she has no idea what it is.

Viktor is often shown with themes of loneliness but it is contrasted with the fact that he is constantly around people that would move heaven and earth for him if he asked. This really shows that the internalized loneliness that makes him push people away and refuse to be selfish is also tragic because he and Singed are wrong. He does face a more difficult time being a disabled zaunite in Piltover for sure, but pushing out those who wish to be close is a fate he curated himself since he believes it’s how it has to be.

I think you said it very well!

One thing I love about having the full Arcane story with S2 is that we can really dig deep and analyze who these characters are now.

I'd argue Viktor came across as pretty... flaw-free in S1. He's still complex, but most of the problems he faces seem to come from issues outside his control, like his disability and his terminal illness.

I think S2 brought into focus what Viktor's flaws are, including his intellectual tunnel vision and, as you noted, his tendency to think himself lonely when he is the one constantly pushing people away, perhaps as a result of that awful line Singed fed him when he was a kid. (Silco and Singed are both great examples of damaged adults trying to help the children in their life, teaching them the lessons they learned, but in so doing scarring those children with their own issues and pain because their situations actually aren't parallels.)

So much of what Viktor does in S2 revolves around loneliness. Normally, I think such loneliness plots would be about someone finding love for the first time, or learning to love themselves despite it. But the strength and quality of Viktor's loneliness story, what I think brings it closer to a more realistic story, is that it takes two to tango. He's projecting rejection onto others like Jayce that isn't there. He's thinking he needs to isolate himself and even as a child to play alone, even though Sky was right there taking an interest. He was just too obsessed with his work (admittedly, work that would save him from a terminal illness so like, I feel him on this) to see that he was letting the life he had pass him by, or that there were people trying to help him, who were actively helping him if he just looked around.

He does it in 2.02 to Jayce too, by the way. Regardless of Hexcore influence, he chooses "the Mission" of securing a legacy over the friend who is right here beside him, offering help, who has come back to Viktor after Viktor chastised him for leaving his side. Jayce listened and he's back now, but Viktor is now so consumed by guilt of the other person he ignored that he's missing the loved one he's ignoring right now.

Viktor then builds this commune of people that sure as hell looks like a wall he's building against loneliness. He speaks with their voices, they are of one mind, they share their emotions, and yet Viktor still self-isolates there, spending his time with the hallucination of Sky, set apart from the other cultists in his giant bubble on the hill, making them look up to him like angels singing praises to God. And that too is lonely. It's not true connection. And by making everyone into One, it's still loneliness, it's still his old patterns. Combining everyone into one person with one will so they can never leave you (no one is ever shown leaving the commune, btw, all foot traffic flows inward) still ends up with him alone in the homogenous soup of everyone he turned into him.

Wizard Viktor is another example of this behavior, the ultimate conclusion of it, why he needs Jayce to get through to him. Only Jayce can show Viktor that his loneliness is in his own head, it's a product of his own behavior, he is pushing people away and ignoring them and then being upset when they're not there, and then when they come back he pushes them away again in favor of "the mission" in favor of "legacy", and even if it's in favor of finding a cure for himself, he pushes away people who are trying to help him with that. And he doesn't let Jayce in on the fact he's dying which is another example of not letting people who love him help him with his most important mission of saving his own life.

This is getting way too long lol but ok:

TL;DR One of Viktor's flaws is self-imposed loneliness that still makes him lash out at others and ultimately leads to some of his most heinous crimes like the assimilation of the cultists and attempt to make everyone into One Being, which is still the same behavior of self isolation, and that's why only Jayce can get through to him that he was loved the whole time and he's only lonely because he keeps ignoring his loved ones and pushing them away.

[suzukiblu]

Fic concept! AKA another soulmate AU. Working title: "kidnapping your soulmate for fun and profit".

Tim meets Superboy--Robin meets Superboy--and it goes, like . . . fine, he guesses. It's fine. They fight Metallo and Poison Ivy and don't die, though Superboy kinda looked like he wanted to when the kryptonite ring was happening to him.

Tim is a thorough little Bat-bastard, of course, so the day after all that goes down, he breaks into Cadmus. Well--breaks into their system, anyway. He figures knowing more about Superboy for the inevitable next time they meet up won't hurt, considering. Fully understanding potential allies' capabilities is--

There's photos in Superboy's file.

This would be completely irrelevant to everything, if those photos weren't specifically of Superboy's soulmark, which is so invasive and offensive that Tim feels kind of sick.

And also if that soulmark weren't the exact same one that showed up on him a few months back.

Well . . . okay, that's a . . . thing.

Tim has several sexuality crisises at once, then remembers platonic soulmates exist. But also he immediately had the sexuality crisises instead of ever thinking of platonic soulmates as being an option, which does not bode well for the "platonic"-ness of this particular soulmark.

Well, that's a whole thing now, he guesses.

Then he remembers that Poison Ivy kissed and mind-controlled Superboy. And also that Superboy, like, lives with his manager. His creepy, not very responsible, easily-blackmail-able manager. And also just . . . everything else he knows about the guy's life. Everything. All at once.

Tim has several more crisises and then calls Dick Grayson to freak out on him.

Tim: Is it ethical to kidnap your own soulmate and does that even matter if they're not legally a person and so you couldn't actually be charged for anything anyway? I mean, B can't get mad at me for doing it if the courts can't get me for doing it, right?

Dick: I'm sorry, Superboy's not legally a person?

Tim: Nope! Which neither Cadmus nor the sleazebag selling his likeness for a living has in any way tried to correct, for the record. Technically he's classified as intellectual property, but Cadmus forfeited legal possession when Superman turned up alive again, presumably to avoid Superman ever finding out that they'd had said legal possession, so technically if I went and kidnapped him it'd be more like . . . salvage, maybe? Like, in the eyes of the law, I mean.

Dick: Yeah, okay, in that case kidnapping your own soulmate might be less an ethics question and more a moral obligation.

Anyway, Nightwing-assured Tim immediately grabs his go-bag and goes to Hawaii to make his kidnapping plans. Like, he's just gonna start soft-planning something, nothing concrete yet. Obviously it's going to take a lot of work to get a cocky half-Kryptonian teenage clone with authority issues and an inflated ego kidnapped by a lone Robin, and--

Five minutes later "normal civilian" Tim Drake meets Superboy on the street after a supervillain attack and Superboy's soulmark is just on full display where his suit's ripped.

And a Bat knows when to take a perfectly-presented opportunity, obviously. He still can't actually kidnap Superboy yet, but he can tell him they're soulmates as a "civilian" and then--

Five minutes after that, Tim's on a plane back to Gotham with a perfectly agreeable and actually much more chill than he was when they were fighting supervillains together Superboy, and just does not understand his life at all.

Also maybe he should've, like . . . called Bruce about the apparently very ride-or-die Kryptonian that he's currently moving into his city? Just . . . at some point . . . ? Possibly?

Whoops.

[oneslimybastard]

Another underutilized aspect of N, Natural Harmonia Gropius himself, is that he's conceptualized as not just a Math Guy, but a Math Genius if we go by some interview trivia notated on Bulbapedia.

It clearly shows in the way he speaks since his (translated) dialogue (idk about the original japanese one) is full of hamfisted references to formulas and frustration expressed when the chaos of the world does not align with them — which to me is like, the core of his character, something that makes him both An Asshole to deal with but also a very intellectually curios and creative individual. It's just a brand of creativity not a lot of people can keep up with nor understand.

N likes math because a lot of math is about clearly defined variables and their relationship to one another. If you come across an inconsistency that doesn't fit any prior definitions, you iron out a new definition and suddenly the field has expanded upon itself tenfold. It aligns with how his Very Autistic Brain functions, x + y = z, if I do x to y then z will happen. If z doesn't happen, then that just means I have to identify the hidden variables within the exchange and rewrite the formula to be more accurate.

Black and White's quality of writing is. Like pokémon often is. Questionable at best. The foundations are there but the execution is dumbed down and corny because it's still aimed at kids, BW in specific really cutting the theme of pokémon trainer ethics short in favor of just "dang u beat me in the pogiebattle guess ur right!". How-ev-er. In my head, and the reason why I still find the plot of those games compelling (aside for my unhinged thirst for goth man-milf Ghetsis) is that to me they're about local cult-raised autist Normal Henry Gropus bashing his head against the world over and over to desperately try and make the formulas make sense, to distill it into variables he can understand and predict on a consistent basis, and failing miserably at it. Because even if the world is Technically made up of a bunch of chemistry that you could, in theory, predict, there's just a lot of random noise in there from microscopic complexities that fuck everything up.

Pokémon are simpler creatures (discounting the eerily intelligent ones) who will be nice enough to behave like math problems most of the time. Humans rarely extend that grace, the more N studies them like a science project the more contradictory variables pop up. They have a million thoughts in their head he doesn't have access to, that brew into feelings he doesn't understand, which leads to actions he can't do a proper traceback through. Which is frustrating, devastatingly frustrating. At least at first.

Due to how BW2 pans out and my own yearning for thematic mirroring, whereas Ghetsis gives in to the Autistic Bitterness over all these NTs he doesn't fuckign understand, I like to think N develops a sort of joy in studying people like the impossibly complex math problems we are. Because he likes math, he likes figuring shit out, he likes buying a nightmare rubik's cube and charting the squares out on a nightmare variable graph (listen i am not a math guy. i respect the hustle but my skill level is too low to accurately attempt to simulate the process in writing. im sorry math guys) so he has a home-made flexible cheat code on how to solve any possible mix-up of it. It's fun for him, it stimulates his brain and he is so stupid good at it that he can only share that joy with like a stray alakazam or metagross because he's a bit of a tarzan just hanging out in the wilderness, he doesn't know any high end mathematicians he can casually geek out about combinatorial game theory with, and the normies just do not get it .

I think this math enjoying is kind of a big part of his ~Innocence~ as well, since there's a lot of childlike glee to being a Math Guy. It's the love of problem solving as a process rather than a means to an end, it's playful, but severely misunderstood to the point where people kinda might assume things about you if you are a math guy.

N's love of math helps him love the world but it also isolates him. He's a genius, but since he can't communicate it in a palatable way it'll get overlooked in favor of him just being a loomy weirdo on the street chatting up the local patrats.

If introduced to DnD though he'd spend so much time on forging ridiculously optimized multiclass builds, then migrate to digging through old obscure sci-fi ttrpgs from the 80s with hellishly complex systems just for the funsies of learning how the presented variables behave within a variety of frameworks, but then if you actually invited him to play with your group he'd look at you like you'd just called his mom a llama.

He's a neat guy to me, STEM guy who's also one of those animal rights activists who's a little too PETA-coded, I like him :)

[grif-hawaiian-rolls]

Red VS Blue, but make it Guild Wars 2

ok so i'm going to try and make this au make sense if you look at it from either side without prior knowledge of the other but theyre both so entrenched in my brain im not sure how well it'll work if you get lost im sorry in advance- or you can just enjoy the group piece and ignore the insane rambles below the cut! fair warning: its a lot! my red team yapping showing up in full force!

Don't say I didn't warn you :3

Context:

GW2 is a fantasy setting MMORPG, set in the world of Tyria. There are 5 playable races with their own unique cultures and such. I'm using the wikis for the races bc im lazy- the names are links to the proper wiki, but i've VERY ROUGHLY summarized for ease-

ASURA: The smallest playable race, Asura are highly intelligent and have a cultural focus on Academia and Research- furthering the reach of their magi-tech, sometimes at the cost of morals. Asura tend to be characterized as cocky intellectuals, who know more than everyone else in the room at any given time and they know it- but they're going to have a solution to a problem before you've finished explaining it.

CHARR: Giant anthropomorphic cats, the Charr are a militaristic race with a culturally cynical look on the world and a stubborn streak to match, and a general distrust of magic due to some Prior Circumstances. Charr tend to be characterized as gruff, fuck-around-and-find-out types, due to the military culture, and have more focus on their squad (warband) over individual relations.

HUMAN: On the surface, pretty par for the course here, but humans aren't actually native to Tyria- not that this stops them from being a cultural and territorial powerhouse in the setting. There is a fair bit of tension between humans and charr, and humans and some of the non-playable races in the game. Humans tend to be characterized as stubborn, tenacious and resourceful in a Tyrian context.

NORN: visually speaking, Norn appear to be giant humans, native to Tyria. Culturally speaking, Norn value honor and nature in equal measure- you should make a Legend for yourself, but you need to respect the Spirits of the Wild. Typically, norn are characterized as loud and boisterous, but reliable in a fight and always down to celebrate an impressive victory and share a story.

SYLVARI: The youngest race in Tyria, having only existed for about 25 years or so at the start of the game, Sylvari are plantfolk who Awaken from their mutually shared Dream as grown adults. The Dream gives sylvari the knowledge they need to function right out the gate, although the actual extent of said knowledge varies slightly by individuals, and is tended to by The Pale Tree (or the Pale Mother/Mother Tree, as sylvari know her)- sylvari follow a set of tenants given to them in the Dream that encourage compassion, kindness, and a drive to do what must be done called a Wyld Hunt.

__--__

RvB is a Halo machinima set in an appropriately sci-fi setting that is, above all else, fucking ridiculous. The plot, when it manages to exists in a semi-coherent fashion, focuses almost entirely on a band of absolute asshole idiots who cheat death as a hobby, swear a lot, and generally just would be unpleasant people to know but it is incredibly entertaining to put them into situations so that sums up the general vibe of the show. RvB is slightly less relevant to this au as the characters are what I'm yoinking and theyre all getting explained in their gw2 contexts here, but the main point is: the show is silly, and everyone in it is some brand of annoying, rude, mean, stupid or any combination there of. Also? Probably traumatized by war, whether or not they realize it. __--__

BORING STUFF OUT OF THE WAY ITS CHARACTER TIME __--__

THE GULCH KREWE - An Asura research team focused on making self sustaining golems. Technically Vic is the krewe lead, but he never seems to show up at their lab situated in the middle of no where for.... safety reasons. The official, documented by the asuran governement Gulch krewe is really incredibly small, at four asura strong, counting Vic even though there is quite a bit of debate on whether he actually counts since he's never around, but they have a reputation for being the worst krewe to work with. Ever. Of all time. Between reports of "unsafe necromantic practices" and general "workplace threats and harrassment", the only people who stay in the Gulch krewe have no where else to go. The "rank" nickname theme started mostly as a joke, but once it was started it was basically impossible to stop.

"Captain" Bucch Flowers - Asuran Necromancer - Asura, typically, do not have last names. Bucch, is not known for being the typical sort of asura. Eccentric and regarded as "morally questionable" by previous krewes, Bucch is a friendly individual who finds other people fascinating, both in terms of their psychology and physiology. He always has a smile on his face and a warm, cheerful demeanor that some people have claimed to be "unsettling", but I mean, really, he's just being nice. Right?

"Sarge" REDACTED - Asuran Engineer - Sarge took to his nickname with a brand of enthusiasm that really was just a warning to the kind of person he is, going so far as to have his previous name removed or changed on all documents he could. Loud, brash and unapologetic in everything he does, Sarge is the main "threat" of the Gulch Krewe between his wild experimental inventions, with their tendency to either go rogue against their creator or just plain blow up, his complete and utter lack of patience, and his habit of gesturing with his loaded shotgun during a conversation. His volume never drops below LOUD, but he's a very.. unique brand of genius who excels at making things that really shouldn't be physically possible work.

"Doc" Dufresne - Asuran Mesmer - Doc is, by all counts, the odd one out of the official Gulch krewe. Meek and empathetic in nature, Doc tends to be the moral voice of the krewe- one that often gets ignored. He is still annoyed by his ridiculous nickname, even if it is nice to have the affirmation that he really is part of the krewe. He's not even really a doctor! He's not great with medical care or technology. Or fighting. Or much of anything, if he lets himself be a little too honest. But he's part of the krewe, for better or for worse, and if that just means he uses his magic to pull his krewmates away from whatever is trying to murder them this week, then so be it.

The UNOFFICIAL Gulch krewe is a bit more.. diverse. Technically, non-asura don't get listed as krewe on the paperwork. They're hired help, not technically part of the team that gets credited for the work done in the published papers. Generally, this is because most hired hands don't have that much to do with the actual invention or research process- they're just there to be damage control when things go wrong. However with the Gulch krewe... a lot of things tend to go wrong. Technically speaking, there is no reason for a krewe of four three to have separate research teams. There is barely a reason for bigger krewes to do it. However... Captain Flowers and Sarge rarely seem to work on the 'technical' level of anything, and all it took was one offhanded comment from Vic (over comm, no less! couldn't even cause problems in person) for the pair of them to escalate and devolve into a rivalry that would ruin Doc's life, and the lives of pretty much everyone else who inevitably get swept up into it as well.

RED TEAM: Sarge claimed RED as his team color well before the idea of having color-coordination even occurred to Captain Flowers. Sarge claims he hired only the best to staff Red Team, with one exception for canon fodder.

Richard "Dick" Simmons - Human Elementalist - Born and raised in the upper ranks of human nobility, Simmons is a bit of a fish out of water when he's not in the human capital of Divinity's Reach. Of course, being an anxious individual with poor social skills, he didn't really fit in there either. He's got enough of the "I'm rich, you know," attitude held over from his upbringing that combined with a desire for praise, awkward conversation skills and the urge to prove his worth through his own intelligence, makes for a really obnoxious, know-it-all kissass of a man. But he's really good with technology, given his magic tends to prefer the buzz of electricity so that counts for something. Usually. He's not that bad once you get past the defensive nature and whiny voice. Probably?

Dexter Grif - Norn Warrior - With a hard earned feeling of "fuck it, fuck that, fuck this, I'm going to bed" that he trained into himself, Dex would have been perfectly content to spend his entire life lazing around his home city, Lion's Arch, scamming tourists and generally just kind of doing his own lazy thing. Or, at least, that's what he tells himself, as he has to look for actual work on the docks. It sucks. So when some loud mouth asura rocks up, shouting something Dex didn't really listen to beyond being a job, and a supposedly low effort one? Sign him the fuck up. But when the job is evidently not all naps and bored asura-watching, Dexter Grif will make his complaints known. Just... maybe not in range of Sarge's shotgun.

Donut - Sylvari Mesmer - Freshly Awakened, bright eyed, curious and endlessly talkative, Donut (Grif swears that can't be his real name, right?) is the Red team's resident socialite, sharpshooter, grenadier, portal expert and color coordinator. If you need something done, Donut is your man, or he can find you your man. While some people find his chipper attitude and love of 'dressing up' his friends with illusions annoying, and his tendency to veer into innuendos a bit awkward, everyone agrees it's hard to genuinely dislike Donut as a person. Maybe it's a mesmer thing, maybe it's a sylvari thing, maybe it's just Donut being Donut, it's hard to say. Despite his impeccable aim and frankly impressive throwing arm, Donut tends to be a little oblivious to the things right in front of him, but he's trying his best so most people tend to let it slide.

BLUE TEAM: Captain Flowers accepted BLUE as his team's color in good humor, as he tends to accept most things. He was not nearly as intense on his "requirements" for his team as Sarge- truthfully, most of Blue team were picked because Captain Flowers thought they were interesting more than anything to do with their actual skills.

Kaikaina Grif - Norn Elementalist - Kai has been called a lot of things, and not all of them flattering. Her personal favorites include sexy, wild, bodacious and "absolutely insane". She's a diverse gal. When her brother left Lion's Arch to go work for some mysterious asura in the middle of no where, Kai swore she didn't care. That lasted for all of a week, before she decided Dex was clearly up to something else and the asura job was a cover. Upon hunting her brother down and discovering, no really, it's literally what he said it was, she was disappointed. At least, until Captain Flowers offered her a position on Blue team. Being paid to stand around, look pretty, and bother her brother? Fuck. Yes.

Lavernius Tucker - Human Guardian - Growing up an orphan in Divinity's Reach makes a guy either really cruel or really clever. Tucker's never been the cruel type, so he went for clever instead. Though that quickly turned around to bite him in the ass, because being clever, and maybe a little bit of a smartass, means people notice you, and being noticed does not go well for him. Between at least one cult insisting he was some kind of savior from a forgotten bloodline, a jerk or three who didn't like Tucker outsmarting them or standing up for the people they were bullying, and whatever the hell is going on with his kid (courtesy of aforementioned cult), Tucker has more than had his fill of being noticed for being clever thank you very much. He just wants to find a quiet place to lay low and figure out this whole being a dad to a dragon thing. He's done being a hero and honestly he's done being helpful. Tucker's here to get paid, maybe get laid, and not get attached to anyone else that might screw him (or his kid) over.

Junior - Saltspray Dragon - Sort of a package deal with his dad, Junior is still figuring out the quirks and details of being a dragon in a society where 'dragon' is usually associated with the end of times, even for a "lesser" dragon like him. Fortunately, they're pretty solidly hidden in the middle of nowhere, so the only people around are friends of his dad's. Sort of. Junior is shy, generally, and tries to be careful with his size and his magic, but he's still a hatchling and sometimes it's real easy to get carried away when he's excited. Good news though! The Gulch krewe are well versed in shit breaking every other day, so no one gets too mad if something gets knocked off the shelf by his wings.

Church - Sylvari Thief - Some sylvari chose to cut themselves off from the Dream, in an effort to obtain either a sense of freedom from expectations, spite, or just a general desire for peace, quiet and solitude. While Church can certainly guess at his own, personal, reasons for becoming one of the Soundless, he sure as hell doesn't remember making the decision. Or much of anything, really, before about a week before he got hired onto Blue team. Just the name Church, which he can only assume is his name. He tells himself, amongst his internal tirades about his woes and his miseries, that Flowers hired him because he's smart and clearly the asura could see that. Not pity or anything like that. Still, it would be nice to actually remember literally anything. But Church doesn't complain about that- he's got more than enough things to bitch about from being part of the Blue team to distract his ego, his temper and his generally whiny attitude towards life in general. Who needs a past when you're surrounded by idiots?

Michael J Caboose - Norn Ranger- Never without his trusty arctodus companion, Freckles, Caboose is a joyful wall of muscle and hugs that frequently forgets that most people cannot, in fact, support the weight of him and his wolf-bear. Young and with no legend to speak of, Caboose is on a journey of his own making, to find friends that are just... so cool, everyone is going to want to hear stories about them! He just has the very very tricky job of remembering those stories. But hey, what are friends for, if not to help him when he forget a detail or twelve? And honestly, he thinks he found a GREAT group of friends here on Blue team. Sure they can be a little bit mean, but, Caboose has the heart of a skald according to the nice old ladies back home in Hoelbrak, and his heart knows when there's neat things

THE GOLEMS: The Gulch Krewe, official and unofficial, developed two more-or-less completely self-sustaining golems after splitting into their respective teams. They're not perfect, by any means, but they're certainly impressive to behold. Especially given that they both seem to be... well, people. That.. wasn't intentional.

Lopez - "Human" Engineer - Inspired by the dolls made by Tixx in the Infinirarium, Sarge chose to build a golem that looks almost human. His official logic claims that the more flexible build and increased intelligence allows for Lopez (Officially: L-0-PEZ - Lab-OH-Personalized Engineering Zoner. Sarge swears it makes sense. Red team is pretty sure he just made it up because he liked the name Lopez) to handle his own maintenance and upkeep, with improved head to body communication and modular independencies. The side effect of Lopez's "self repairing" abilities (read: his ability to take himself apart to put himself back together) is the fact that his body have very distinct seams, and he's prone to falling apart at them. His head coming off his neck is the worst and most common offender of this problem. Like most of Sarge's intelligent creations, Lopez has a sour attitude and very little respect for his creator. If you asked him, the only reason he sticks around is because it's easier to get his hands on the tools he needs to fix himself. That and no one else speaks Orrian since the continent and kingdom sank over 250 years ago. Well, no one besides Sheila.

Sheila - "Charr" Necromancer - Captain Flowers took a slightly more.. macabre approach to his golem creation. Made from the ethically and responsibly sourced bones of an anonymous charr donor (Captain Flowers's words), Sheila is a feat of magi-tech engineering and necromancy. Due to her... organic internal base, Sheila is much sturdier than your average golem for her size, and the necrotic magic that keeps her together and functioning needs almost no supervision, as it naturally drains minute fractions of life force from things around her, like non-sentient plants and insects. Though there are some... quirks, to be certain, but that's to be expected with such experimental magic! The days where she almost seems like a different person are most likely just her getting used to a shift in the magic, that's all. Nothing to worry about. Usually though, on her good days, Sheila is calm and patient, with a friendly attitude she seemed to pick up from Flowers, although somehow she's a bit better at reading a room than he is. She tends to be the most responsible and level head in the lab, which is fortunate considering she's also the biggest one there, excluding Freckles.

__--__

THE LANCER WARBAND: A tight knit charr warband, working outside of the charr legions mostly for decent pay and interesting jobs, the Lancer warband are skilled fighters, excellent hunters and all around impressive soldiers. Their one weakness? Their inability to get anything done without either a fight or fair bit of chatter (and the occasional argument leading to the fights) first. But once they've settled on an objective, they're nigh unstoppable.

York - Charr Engineer - By far the most laid back and easy going of the Lancer warband, York is the resident gunsmith, philosopher, mechanic and lockpick. If it requires nimble fingers (or claws, rather), York's got it covered. While he tends to be the chattiest of the bunch and that makes him seem distractable, York is often laser focused on his task- he just doesn't feel the need to act like he's focused. He's curious and honest in nature, and is always quick to come up with a joke to lighten a heavy mood.

Maine - Charr Warrior - Silent and deadly are the words most commonly used to describe Maine- not that they would ever come from him. Massive even by charr standards, Maine is brutal and efficient in a fight. By the time an enemy has seen his white fur, they're already screwed. Outside of combat, when it's just the warband, Maine still isn't a talkative sort of guy. He prefers to stand back and let the rest of them talk for him, with a few exceptions.

Washington - Charr 'Thief' (unrealized revenant) - Originally the 'cub' and rookie of the Lancer warband, Wash has earned his stripes as it were for his cunning adaptability on the field and his almost ridiculous good luck when it comes to survival. While he tries to be kind and compassionate when he can, he's more on the pragmatic side than he used to be, and he can't always balance being nice with being realistic. Still, Wash has a sarcastic streak big enough to give York a run for his money, and enough sharp wit and sharper knives to keep just about anyone else on their toes.

Texas - Charr Warrior - A bit of a badass, Tex is the Lancer warband legionnaire and easily the best fighter of them all. She's harsh, even to her own warband, but she cares more than she likes to let on. However, her temper tends to get the best of her, and she frequently works alone to blow off steam. The last time she left... she didn't come back.

South - Charr Necromancer - One of the twins, South is aggressive, impatient and vicious just as much as she is efficient with her magic. She's a survivor and despite her bitchy attitude and general disregard for the rest of her warband, she gets shit done. Maybe a little meaner about it than she needs to be but hey, it's done right? Who cares if a little more blood was spilled or if a few more punches were thrown than were strictly necessary.

North - Charr Guardian - The other twin, North couldn’t be more different from his sister. He’s gentle, understanding and tries to be a shoulder to lean on for anyone who needs it, not just their bandmates. Granted, sometimes this does get him punched, but his kind nature doesn’t stop him from giving as good as he gets. He’s a skilled marksman with a longbow, and his calm nature helps him keep a level head in a fight- useful, when you specialize in placing traps.

'Honorary' warband: When their Legionnaire, Tex, mysteriously vanishes, the Lancer warband is left fumbling in the wake. Fortunately, they have friends they can trust to help them get their bearings.

Carolina - Human 'Warrior' (unrealized Revenant) - not the step dad but the dad who stepped up Carolina has been a fighter and a soldier her whole life, or very damn near it. While not raised to quite the same degree of military as the average charr, her mother ran a tight ship of their home and after her passing, her father ran it even tighter. Her friendship with the Lancer warband started with a night of mildly drunken chaos with York, after which she kept in close contact with the charr. Intense in every factor, loyal, and more than a little competitive, Carolina thrives in combat situations that demand the most of her, which makes her a fast friend for the rowdy warband. Without Tex, the Lancer warband needed a leader, and Carolina stepped into the role of unofficial legionnaire as easily as donning her helmet. While comparisons between herself and Texas make her uneasy, she does admit she likes the feeling of being 'Boss' with the charr.

Reggi "Wyoming" - Asuran Mesmer - Reggi is a bit of an odd ball and a loner before he begins spending time with the Lancer warband. He enjoys a good pun and a bad knock-knock joke, but his disinterest in most scientific endeavors left him with little opportunities within asura society. So he left, took his humor and not much else with him, and has been something of a drifter ever since, more interested in taking care of himself above all else. While the Lancer warband may groan and scoff at him from time to time, they do work well with him, and even a selfish bastard like him needs back up from time to time.

[olderthannetfic]

Knitting question!

Intellectually I know failure is fine. I'm a beginner! I'm learning! Mistakes are part of the process! But I find it really hard not to be demotivated by projects not turning out how I want

I spent all this time and materials on this and it's just kinda shit?

Did you experience that/have any advice?

--

I definitely experienced that when I first tried knitting. I don't remember, but I suspect it's why I drifted away from the craft for nearly two decades.

I have a couple of semi-failures from my current re-entry into knitting. I intend to frog or partially frog them and re-knit, but there are other projects I care more about that are taking priority so far.

Right now, I love watching youtube videos with little tricks to improve one's knitting or deep dives into technical matters. I find information on fiber fascinating. I think that has helped me avoid many of the problems I experienced the first time around. Even if I run into an issue now, I can probably redo the project to make it how I want.

I think the first thing to figure out is how it's kind of shit. Yes, yes, you're a n00b, but there are lots of reasons projects turn out shitty. Some issues require a lot of practice. Many issues require reading a blog post explaining some technical thing and instantly upgrading your knowledge.

--

For example:

When I first got back into knitting, I got some pretty green yarn and made a Medieval-looking hood. I had no clue how alpaca behaved or that it would be waaaay too flowy for the look the pattern was supposed to have. I was also knitting the pattern with the wrong size of yarn, needle, etc. It turned out way too big for me and a formless blob. It was also itchy.

A year or two later, I threw it in the dryer, and now it's an epic rainy day hood. It's mostly not itchy because the felting stuck down all those hairy ends. It has a lot more body now because it's felt instead of flowy hand-knit alpaca. (And, hey, it's even more Medieval since those hoods were often felt but not often knitted as far as I could tell.)

What went wrong here was mostly that I knew fuckall about fiber. I knew I was making it in some randomass size and didn't really care that it was too big, but I didn't know it would slither off of me due to alpaca's drape. I didn't need practice: I needed someone to tell me how alpaca behaves.

--

Example 2:

I knit that Owls sweater and didn't like how it had no shaping... so I winged it. I ended up with really bizarre shaping because 1. I had no idea what I was doing and 2. I didn't close the underarm holes until the very end, so the sweater appeared to fit when I tried it on.

I could open the underarms back up and knit a separate piece for them, but I realized that I dislike the fabric overall. I knit it on a too-big needle (in my opinion). I thought I liked that looseness in my swatch, but I have changed my mind. I was also worried about running out of yarn (since it's a used yarn that I won't find again), but I had tons left over. I also think I want it more cropped. The yarn has a sort of nasty texture but beautiful color, and I knit quite a tight (and thus scratchy) sweater. I don't think I wet blocked it though, so that might fix the texture.

What I should actually do here, assuming I don't just get rid of the thing in favor of better yarn, is frog it and reknit from the top down, reversing the pattern and not having a phase with the underarms open like that. I should also knit it at a tighter gauge but with a little more positive ease, and I should trust that the stretchiness of wool will make it conform to my body just fine without a lot of shaping. Before any of that, I should wet block it and see how the texture changes.

I don't really consider this a permanent failure. I like the Owls themselves. I can easily just knit this again and get a sweater I want to wear... possibly a cardigan, now that I think about it. The yarn is a relatively robust wool that will be fine being frogged and reused, and knitting it gave me more experience with finishing a whole sweater. My various fuckups taught me things about both knitting and my personal taste.

I guess it could be demotivating because it took a while, but on that bigass needle, it really didn't take that long. I would probably always have knit multiple sweaters from this pattern. I see more than one in my future anyway.

Experience was an issue here, but it wasn't experience with the literal act of knitting. My tension was fine. It was more that I fucked around and found out.

--

Example 3:

I made a self-drafted BTS sweater out of another batch of used yarn that I'll never get more of. I love the body. the sleeves are too tight in the upper arm, and my bizarre-ass design for the top of the body means that the sweater wants to be a boat neck but also fit differently in the sleeves and... gaaaaah. The tight sleeves don't feel bad, but what they do do is make the whole sleeve slide down my arm weirdly because of the fit issues around the boat neck.

Part of why the upper arm area is so tight is that I was worried I'd run out of yarn (which I did) and I wanted a balloon sleeve rather than a straight one. The yarn is so stiff that the balloon part is weird, and the two other purple yarns I added for the lower sleeve look weird. I should have reversed their order because one matches too well, and now it just looks like I ran out and had to add a last inch in a random other yarn. I have most of those two skeins left hanging around and a sweater that fits strangely.

Also... it needs hand washing but is shaped and sized to be worn against bare skin, so it gets stinky after a few hours of wear because I am a sweaty, sweaty person.

In this case, I wouldn't redo the body: this silk blend will look less nice after frogging, and I already roughed it up a lot knitting the damn thing the first time. I knit it starting at the top, so the weird fit across the shoulders is mostly here to stay.

However, I'm pretty sure the bad fit on the sleeves can be fixed by ripping back and adding a bunch of width up top. I can also start with the flowier other two yarns and maybe have bands of this stiffer one that I used in the body. I suspect the weird body fit is fixable by changing what the sleeves are supposed to be doing.

This is another case of fucking around and finding out, so I'm not too disappointed in it. I did wear it to Yoongi's concert too, and it was gorgeous, if too hot.

I do realize now that I hate boat necks, but I think I can put up with this one if the sleeves aren't constantly sliding out of place.

And if fixing the sleeves doesn't rescue this, I might attempt some surgery one of these days, but that's more of a pain in the ass, so that will definitely have to wait.

--

Now, my guess is that your "kind of shit" is not "I freehanded a sweater two seconds after getting back into knitting because I'm a crazy person, and I messed up the shaping".

The more common problems are things like:

Not realizing that you should block or not blocking aggressively enough, so your stitches look way more uneven than they need to, the shape is weird compared to the example pics in the pattern, etc.

Using assy bind-offs so the edge looks amateur instead of polished. (You can go back and fix this.)

Failing to swatch, and now you've knit the wrong size.

Picking a fiber that just cannot do what you want it to—usually seen in people trying to avoid wool and not getting that 99.999999% of trendy patterns are written specifically for wool. I have an ancient sweater from college that looks nothing like the example in the book because all I could afford was big box store acrylic. Never again the plastic horror!

Buying patterns from a size 0 lifestyle blogger aspirational knitwear designer with no boobs and a great photographer, then feeling dumpy when trying the thing on under crappy lighting. This one usually requires a little more self confidence and some bust darts.

Making things in plain stockinette in a light color and smooth yarn like cotton that shows EVERY SINGLE TIME your tension wasn't machinelike. This is unfixable. Don't do this.

--

If you're using mohair or alpaca, frogging may be more trouble than it's worth, but you often can reuse the materials. Granted, you've still sunk that time in, but the materials don't always have to be wasted. That might help it feel more like time you spent practicing and less like a complete disaster.

I'm a very product-focused knitter, so I don't really have practice pieces. I'm knitting to have a Thing and I want to wear that Thing, so I get the disappointment if you don't end up wanting to actually use what you've made.

But that also helps me not get totally demotivated. I still want that Thing and now I have a clearer idea how to make it.

So... what are these "kinda shit" projects anyway? What about them do you not like?

[firstfullmoon]

In 1981, Israeli Mossad agents assassinated Palestinian Liberation Organization member, writer, and intellectual Majed Abu Sharar in his hotel room in Rome. Abu Sharar was a close friend of the Palestinian poet and writer Mahmoud Darwish. In 1984, in his collection A Siege for the Eulogies of the Sea (Hissar li-Mada’h el-Bahr), Darwish included the final version of his long elegy to his friend, “The Final Meeting in Rome.” This poem in particular is largely untranslatable in English. The untranslatability is not so much due to the technical demands of the surreal lyric’s transformation of song into an act of liberation. Instead, the untranslatability relates primarily to the question of audience. There remains little room in English to receive openly, unequivocally, the freedom song of Palestinians in its myriad forms.

But I can simplify all this jargon in a single word, a name: Majed. Majed’s name permeates the text of “The Final Meeting in Rome.” In a moment of genius, in the penultimate section of the text, Darwish explodes language with his friend’s name through an unexpected refrain—as if Darwish had been writing the previous pages for the sole purpose of arriving at this stanza: “Good morning, Majed, / good morning, / get up to recite Surat al-‘Aaed.”

In the Quran, there is no chapter, or Surah, titled al-‘Aaed—a word that means the returnee. Some may argue that one solution for translating the stanza would reside in changing Majed’s name to Ali, for example, so that the impact of the rhyme is maintained: Ali/the Surah of the returnee. But that is self-deluding. English, much as it likes to argue otherwise, still struggles to accept at least two major points about this linguistic construct in Arabic. The first is the beautiful, divine presence of the Quran to elegize a Palestinian martyr (irrespective of their religious affiliation, if any). The second is the Palestinian right of return, dead and alive.

Darwish stuns his audience by blurring the boundaries of blasphemy. He is not echoing a specific Quranic text. He elevates the Palestinian question to touch the moral arc that bends toward justice in the universe. He delivers a mystical experience no one objects to in Arabic. He invents a Surah in the Quran and attributes its title to his “friend, brother, and last love.” The entire Palestinian body in one named Majed. The entire human history of return in a Surah.

Among the poem’s memorable lines, there is this couplet: “As if I could protect my heart / from hope. My heart is ill.” This ailing heart arrives near the end of the poem and disseminates into Palestinian flesh. What Darwish manages to describe, in topical yet visionary manner, is astounding, precisely because the poem does not claim to see the future. Yet here we are, more than forty years later, and every word of the closing salvo that I have translated is true.

I took liberties with this last, translatable section of “The Final Meeting in Rome.” Since one aspect of the original untranslatability is in the name—Majed—I clearly see that today, Gaza is the untranslatable name in the poem.

[sagan-starstuff]

What's the origin of your blog title? "We are made of starstuff" - Carl Sagan

OTP(s) + Shipname: Mulder and Scully, good old MSR. The one ship to rule them all, no one will ever do it like they did it.

Favourite colour: Basically all shades of blue

Favourite game: I don't really game much but I am playing Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild right now and it's pretty great.

Song stuck in your head: "Still Alive" by Jonathan Coulton thanks to my brother taking me a trip down memory lane

Weirdest habit/trait? I am pathological about keeping my nails short. It's not even a sex thing, I just haaate the feeling of having them more than like...2mm of overhang.

Hobbies: Reading, gardening, baking, slowly getting back into writing fic. I also have like....a dozen crafts/arts that I pick up for a month and then abandon

If you work, what's your profession? I'm a medical doctor. (IYKYK)

If you could have any job you wish, what would it be? Astrophysicist but somehow without all the math and computer science that seem to be required. I just wanna look at pretty pictures of space all day.

Something you're good at: I'm a pretty decent baker.

Something you're bad at: Talking coherently about my feelings.

Something you love: My husband and son. Chocolate. The feeling of the sun on my skin. The X-Files. Looking at the night sky. Walking around art museums.

Something you could talk about for hours off the cuff: The X-Files. Also microbes!

Something you hate: Anti-intellectualism. Unfairness or injustice. Hypocrisy. The current state of American politics. Raisins.

Something you collect: X-Files stuff! And Terry Pratchett books. And books in general.

Something you forget: Biostatistics. I re-learn how to do the calculations before exams, then immediately forget.

What's your love language? Quality time and touch.

Favourite movie/show: The X-Files, always forever. I also love Contact, The Princess Bride, and basically everything Studio Ghibli, 30 Rock, most Michael Schur shows (not The Office, though)

Favourite food: Seafood. I'll eat anything that swims/scuttles/clings to the side of a boat.

Favourite animal: Cats, owls, Highland coos. My specific dog.

What were you like as a child? Smart, shy, generally well-behaved, awkward around my peers, made furious by injustice or unfairness. Basically like now, just less well-behaved.

Favourite subject at school? SCIENCE!

Least favorite subject? None, really. I was decent at math, I just lost interest once I got past Calc I.

What's your best character trait? I like to think I have a sense of personal integrity. If I think something is unethical, unfair, or unwise, I refuse as much as I can to go along with it.

What's your worst character trait? Limited patience. The above traits also can make me a little rigid, and I've had to work a LOT on not just flat out telling people I think they're wrong, I've had to work on developing a sense of compromise and diplomacy.

If you could change any detail of your day right now what would it be? UGH my commute, there's so much construction and the roads in my city were laid out so poorly that it should NOT take a long to get to/from work as it does.

If you could travel in time who would you like to meet? Carl Sagan or Ida B. Wells.

Recommend one of your favourite fanfics (spread the love!): Shine On by @cecilysass, the whole time it was coming out I'd drop everything I was doing when a chapter dropped. One of the best Revival fics I've read. An AU, technically.

I stole most of this list from @randomfoggytiger because I'm laaaazy but participate if you like!

@baronessblixen, @dd-is-my-guiltypleasure, @welsharcher

@agent-troi, @amplifyme, @laurencem, @illaisland, @halfali3n,

@virtie333, @television-overload, @brenayla, @nachosncheezies,

@leiascully, @catharsisxf, @numinousmysteries, @frogsmulder,

@suitablyaggrieved, @loubetcha, @storybycorey, @rachg82,

@spooky-jordan, @borogirl, @jessahmewren, @skelavender,

@unremarkablehouse, @thefinalpaperheart, @redteekal,

@sigritandtheelves, @lesbianagentofnothing, @kiivitaja,

@unremarkablehouse, @freckleslikestars, @pianogirlxf,

@justice-for-queequeg, @scullysmywife, @xf-cases-solved,

@muldersfingers, @is-on-its-way, @sarie-fairy,

@lilydalexf, @thescullyphile, @teenie-xf, @touchstoneaf, @ellivia,

@trusttnno1, @settle-down-frohike, @thursdayinspace,

@sagan-starstuff, @b0oker18, @singeart, @bakedbakermom,

@slippinmickeys, @pookie-mulder, @thatfragilecapricorn30,

@deathsbestgirl, @calimanc, @goodshipsmulder, @vincentsleftear,

@aloysiavirgata, @pennyserenade, @dreamingofscully,

@xxsksxxx, @writingwell, @trans-spidey, @scullys-scalpel,@daynascullys, @precedex-files, @bakedbakermom, @msrafterdark @cecilysass

[dcdreamblog]

The All-Star Squadron included heroes who came from a wide array of professions, social/economic classes, regional cultures (which was a much bigger deal back then) and ethnic backgrounds. And while most of them were cishet white men, some of them weren't. Likewise, many of them held religious/philosophical beliefs other than "mainline" Protestantism. Now, they were all heroes, dedicated to the common goal of fighting for justice, and etc. so I have absolutely no doubt that all of them were able to get over any prejudices they may have had and do the job, but we are talking about people who were mostly white cishet American men who were born in the first half of the 20th Century; I cannot imagine that none of them had prejudices, and that these prejudices caused friction. Can we talk about that?

You're right and I wish I had better answers to give you. But a few factors keep me from offering up a lot of clear or worthwhile examples.

The Squadron's members were really opaque, and their actual thoughts came AFTER the war through Tarantula's book "Altered Egos". He's one of the few heroes where we have a distinct and purposefully kept war journal of his thoughts and the thoughts of some of his comrades during and after the war. Most of the other heroes were really concerned with their secret identities and didn't write these things down for posterity, especially not their own bigotries and stumbling blocks.

The War gave everybody an incentive to face front and close ranks. Public schisms in the Squadron's membership basically didn't happen and arguments that occurred behind closed doors stayed there.

The Squadron was, for its age, a deeply, RADICALLY liberal organization.

(A propaganda poster of Will Everett Sr, The Amazing Man, punching Hitler in the face. Circa 1943)

It accepted a black man into its ranks without a single public disagreement. From its FOUNDATION a large chunk of its membership were women. The Squadron even intervened in the Detroit Race Riots in 1943 where Amazing Man publically eviscerated an android supervillain calling himself "The Real American".

I could sit here until the sun came up rattling off all the times that Squadron teams or its individual members smashed pockets of the Klan or the American Nazi Party, or the German American Bund and then dragged their ass in front of the papers to call bigotry and intolerance UnAmerican and damaging to the war effort. The Young All Stars publically celebrated a Japanese American member during the era of internment.

Any bigotry in the organization was imposed upon it from the outside. The biggest example I can think of is that Wonder Woman spent the war years officially listed as the JSA's "secretary" because the Society's membership was more heavily scrutinized and it wasn't possible for her to take what was technically a military position in what was technically a combat role.

What stumbling we do have evidence for is very, VERY slight. The Sandman voices some homophobic opinions during a case that lead up to his confrontation with the Phantom of the Fair. But by the end of that case file we read about Dodds going through an active epiphany about homosexuality because of that case.

The widest spread "bigotry" that seemed to be present in the Squadron was patriarchal language directed at its female members who were always in a position to safely and openly give as good as they got. We have a collection here at the Perisphere that is JUST photos of Liberty Belle elbowing Johnny Quick in the ribs!

It sounds absurd. It sounds too good to be true. It SOUNDS like a lot of things. But there it is, in black and white.

If you want me to undercut your heroes from the past, I would for the sake of intellectual honesty. But I can't.

The JSA are the superhero community's North Star.

Not just because they were the first. But because they have always been like that.

The only time I have ever even heard a RUMOR of UNCLE SAM cursing is a couple years ago when the modern Ray came out as gay and people started talking bad about him online.

The modern Shining Knight started identifying as Bigender and Sir Justin has gotten into fist fights over it.

Please just. For your own sake. Believe in them, they are maybe the only figures I can't bring myself to mistrust these days.

[sphireath-wisp]

#just for me.

Sypnosis: Things that remind them of you that they keep for themselves (Blue lock version)

Warnings: Messy interchanging tenses, not proofread

Featuring: Nagi Seishiro, Meguru Bachira, Yoichi Isagi, Itoshi Rin x GN! reader

Nagi Seishiro

He had this picture of you in his wallet wearing a matching onesie with him. The both of you were wearing stitch onesies and Reo had just happened to come by. Taking hold of this opportunity, Reo snapped a picture of the both of you asleep on the couch - popcorn and snacks next to the both of you as the TV was still playing the movie you both were watching. Once Nagi sees the picture, he'll snatch it away from Reo and keep in it his phone case. His phone is always with him, so it's convenient to just take it out and get his daily reminder of who's been supporting him in his career for so long.

The matching necklaces you got for his birthday. He always keeps it on him and does not care if he's breaking any rules wearing it (he'll just hide it under his shirt, what's the big deal?) Nagi likes it because it's convenient to wear when playing football. It doesn't disturb him much like rings do when he eats or earrings when he jumps around during practice. Plus, he'll unconsciously fidget with it. The cold sensation it has whenever he touches it is weirdly comforting.

Meguru Bachira

He has a picture of you and him in an art class the both of you signed up for. Honestly, he wasn't focusing and neither were you - there were doodles everywhere on his canvas and you couldn't focus with him around. You remember him doodling you kissing him on the cheek, a cat, your initials in a heart, etc. In the picture, he was cupping your cheek and painting small hearts all over your face. Every time he stares at the photo, he can recall the sound of your uncontrollable laughter, how one of the hearts smudged on his cheeks when you kissed him, and the trouble you went through wiping off the red stains on your face and clothes.

His grades... aren't the best. Thus, being the dedicated and loving significant other you are, you copied your personal super helpful notes for him to refer though. However, you had encountered an obstacle - he could not focus. Complaints and whines would be the only thing rolling off of his tongue instead of anything intellectual. Thus, you've come up with a solution! Doodles and affirmations in the notebook keep him around long enough. Occasionally, you'll doodle a smaller version of you saying "good job!", hugging him, kissing him, etc. Similar to checkpoints, you'll remind him of how great he's doing or how he's going to ace his exams like this! Once he returns the notebook, you'll notice new doodles, and a thank you message on a card hidden between the pages.

Yoichi Isagi

The scarf you gave him during autumn. It still has that lingering smell of your perfume/cologne, and he just likes having it on during his walks. It calms him down to just having it around his neck. I just have this hunch that he feels so guilty the moment there's a hole or any sort of stain. (Don't worry, he's careful with such a precious item)

I just know you and Isagi would share a Spotify playlist! I JUST KNOW IT. You have this playlist with him with a mix of your taste in music and his (he requested you to add in calmer pieces specifically). Whenever he's listening to music on the bus or train and hears a song he doesn't recognize, he'll smile unconsciously because he just feels like this is the type of song you would like. Seriously, those cheesy, calming love songs always remind him of you. It makes him really appreciate being yours, being able to hold your hand, hug you, treat you to things, etc.

Itoshi Rin

The good luck notes you leave in his bag. Of course, you respect his privacy and won't unnecessarily rummage through his things. Though, that doesn't mean you can't just slide your little token of encouragement right into his bag! Technically, you aren't looking! At first, when he felt the touch of paper against his palm, he assumed it was trash. When he was able to fish it out and inspect it, he realized the heartfelt contents of the "trash" in his hands. You don't know this, but he actually collects your messages. It's no good to waste such endearment! In a small corner of his bag, he neatly tucks them in and keeps them for whenever he feels like he misses you has nothing to do.

Knowing Rin, he's in no way a romantic. I mean, this is Itoshi Rin, we're talking about here. Thus, you decided to be bold and be the first person to make a move! You gave him a bouquet of white jasmine to bring home and to be honest, he seemed uninterested... Keyword: seemed. This guy brought home the flowers and literally researched how to take care of them to ensure that they never wither. During that, he found out the symbolic meaning of white jasmine - love, beauty, and sensuality. (He'll make sure to bring a bouquet for you in the future)

[man-down-in-hatchet-town]

The Case of the Greater Gatsby Episode 24: "CLOSING TIME"

Well gang, we have laughed. We have gasped, we have cheered, we have sleuthed and made guesses both fabulously on-point and woefully ill-informed. We have spent way too much time thinking about Citizen Jasper Fox. And now we are here, at the end of all things.*

(*”All things,” in this case, simply being this podcast)

Full thoughts under the cut. Spoilers abound!

So Leery was our murderer after all! It turns out he was Sheilah’s troublesome stalker vaguely alluded to in the tapes, and he killed Fitzgerald in a fit of rage after poor ole’ Scott refused to leave his, erm, “lover.” But he was not our anonymous writer of threatening letters; that honor, as predicted, belongs to dear ole’ Mel. (Side note: Mel’s “oh, that was so smart of me” made me guffaw. Mel may be evil, but God I love a Lesli Margherita line delivery). I was also right about Mel intentionally sabotaging The Grapes of Wrath at every turn, but I hadn’t quite figured out her full connection to the murder—that she paid Mo Beats to cover up the crime in order to protect her number one star. So, shout out to Mel for being even more corrupt than I guessed! Though I must admit that I kinda’ feel her on the whole anti-adaption thing. While I have absolutely no issue with Hollywood’s lifelong addiction to adapting anything they can get their mitts on, sometimes it feels like we lean too far into one particular thing, such as Marvel comics. I am also tired of sequels that the original work simply didn’t ask for, and as an aspiring screenwriter I know all too well how depressingly hard it is to get anyone to listen to an idea that doesn’t boast the sacred letters “I.P.” (intellectual property. It’s an adaption term). Still, I don’t see myself writing death threats to Robert Downey Jr. anytime soon.

I do have a confession, though. I got so caught up in the joy of solving mysteries that I forgot that Greater Gatsby, despite Dash, the bunny suits, and general abiding silliness, is technically a noir. I did not for a second predict that Fig and Ford would be forced to let the murderer slip through their fingers with nary a helpless peep. But at least the epilogue offered some glimmer of hope as it nicely expanded on the fates of so many of the characters we’ve come to love, hate, or suspect. Mel may have escaped justice, but Bixby is back in his bar and former cop Mo Beats is now out in the LAPD cold. Though judging by his ominous goodbye, our favorite detective duo have yet to see the last of him…

But I suppose the real question is, have we seen the last of our favorite detective duo? While this certainly wouldn’t be the first time Shipwrecked has set up for a non-existent season two (Headless season 2, how I dream of you at night…), you cannot deny that there is, in fact, a good amount of set-up. Barnaby’s potential freedom is on the line. Mo Beats is perfectly placed to return as a dangerous rival PI or something worse. And Claudette’s life might be hanging in the balance…

Who do we think this mysterious voice is? First instinct suggests someone related to Mo Beats and his vows of revenge, but that’s a little too easy and straightforward, especially so soon after his threats. Judging by what the Fig and Ford cases are usually about, I’d say our intruder is more likely related to Ford’s and Claudette’s starry past. Could this be someone at the center of whatever final storm led them to quit Hollywood for good? Could he be related to Ford’s “big secret” (yeah, Shipwrecked, that’s right. I HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN)? A Hollywood connection could even lead Fig and Ford back to Mel and Leery, giving them a second chance to get things right (ssh, don’t tell me it’s a noir, thematically rooted in the unconquerable force of corruption and power. Let me live with my delusions). But whatever secrets lay behind Claudette’s attacker and his shadowy motivations, I very much hope we get to spend a whole season unravelling them one by one.

So let’s be optimistic and say not goodbye, but rather “see you later.” Until our next long December, Bixby’s Brigadeers. Remember to eat your cookies, and don’t let the smoke get in your eyes…

[centrally-unplanned]

I played some Victoria 2 today (a Japan campaign ofc, and admittedly with the Historical Flavor Mod), to sort of reflect on it in relation to Vicky 3. It is rough going back to the economy of Vicky 2 after playing 3, let me tell you - you knew intellectually it was "bad" system before, but you loved it anyway because of the full package. But now you can see the alternatives and remove the quotations, it is just bad! Building an ammunition factory that requires sulfur, having domestic RGO sources for sulfur but they are not producing enough to supply even one factory, and just not being able to do anything about it that isn't drastic or long-term because the world market is feeling fucky today is unacceptable once you have played a game where that isn't true. My industrialization strat should not waffle between "build a railroad for a 5% bump in output" and "invade Indonesia", give me a middle ground here guys! And it does not stop there - capitalists are useless, "build factory on RGO and expand forever" is optimal 99% of the time, key technologies will like double your output making them forced decisions, etc.

And, if you are can't build factories because you aren't civlizied yet...you have no econ game at all. You just do virtually nothing. Now that you see how that isn't required, the mechanics are ruthlessly bad in key ways.

But! But but but! I think Vicky 2 is a still a better game. The funny thing about that "I don't have enough sulfur" thing is that I didn't even care. I built the factory "for the future", subsidized it, it outputted zero bullets, and I barely notice because you make so much money anyway you can generally ignore it. I build the factories primarily so I can have clerks staffing them and generating research points! Is that insane game design? Yeah, it is! But it is insane game design that doesn't get in the way. Nothing stops me from building a factory, it just isn't very good. Wanna build a huge military? Encourage some soldiers with your national focuses and go to town. Want to declare war on someone? You can just do that! And then I take the army I built, click it on enemy, and it fights them - revolutionary new approaches to game design folks.

Even politics, where Vicky 2 definitely does get in the way a lot and is actively not-good, it is at least more permissive and more importantly simple. If you have elections you get events to shift voter ideology, and national focuses to boost party support that work exactly the way you would expect. If you are autocratic you can just swap who is in power! Liberals support political reforms, socialists support economic reforms, if you have a majority support for a law click a button and it passes. Done. Putting socialists in power in 1870 Japan might result in a revolution, sure, but it works, you can try it, and try to beat the militant tide.

Meanwhile in Vicky 3 if you are autocratic putting a "minority" faction in power literally breaks your government and prevents you from passing any laws. You can technically do it but you just die immediately. Wanna build a coalition then, where conservatives & agrarians ally together? You technically can again, but the penalty for "non-compatible" coalition partners is so high it 90% of the time crashes you into 0 anyway. So you have the "option" of switching parties, but...you can't. You just have to appoint the landowners every time or you die. So what is the point? Why have the option? Let me play the game!! Let me try reforming things and face a revolution I have 40% odds of losing to! That sounds fun, why are you rigging the game against that?

I tried an Iran run in Vicky 3 earlier, and I had a revolution against the landlords, who had ~50% of the "faction" points in government. I won, and so their points got knocked down to ~0%, how that works. So I made a new government, right? Well, no! Every faction left was "incompatible" with each other and none of them alone could even muster like 30%. I had literally no government capable of passing laws. So I fucking quit the game? Because this was the product of winning a revolution, why would I continue?

In Vicky 2 fascists win a revolution and they coup the government and it's fascist now. You get the fascist laws and can pass reforms they like. There ya go. Done. Is it interesting? No, not really. But it works! It doesn't literally stop you from playing the game.

My Japan game actually started as Satsuma, since in HPM Tokugawa Japan is split into substate Daimyo. I modernized via encouraging intellectuals, took military & railroad reforms, built a modern land army, and built up relations with the other domains. I launched the Meiji Restoration, got 60% of the Daimyo on my side, won the civil war. Began building factories everywhere, built up my industry, built up my research output. Used the new tech & money to build a larger army, fought the Qing in a tough war but got Korea & Taiwan, allied with the UK & built up a steamer industry to get a modern navy. Then Russia got into a crisis with Greece and so the UK and I backed Greece and broke Russia, with me claiming some territories around Manchuria in the process. Later I invaded China proper to annex Manchuria itself and get some treaty ports, easily now because my military was much more advanced. From all that my infamy was high so I coasted into the endgame and pivoted to culture techs to trigger "decisions" around modernizing Japan that gave me bonuses while having nice historical flavor to them.

And generally the game just didn't get in my way on doing all that. I could "tell the story", which for an easy game like Vicky is normally what you are here to do. Vicky 3 is a much better economy simulator, but telling the story beyond that is such a chore, and often impossible. On politics, diplomacy, and especially military, it is philosophically a step backwards such that its more "developed" mechanics cannot compensate for the mistake.

(I think it is funny how much better a gameplay experience the "narrative via decisions" of Vicky 2 w/ HPM is. They give flavor to the nations with a ton of bespoke, scripted events. Which...just works because they are straightforward. Vicky 3 wants to be "emergent" and so limited such events, but missed the forest for the trees there)

I find this sad because honestly there is a "blended" version of these two games that is amazing. Vicky 3's econ system (with tweaks ofc like making trade valuable) and philosophical commitment to minimal military micro (SO finicky in Vicky 2 to replenish armies where individual brigades die off, ugh), with a system that understood storytelling is first. Let players do things, and then give them consequences that are manageable in response. Get out of the way of the stories your sandbox game is built to tell.