#comprehensive business logic

[convoloutedinjoke]

Currently writing swap AU where Kim is just himself on hard mode. Like he wakes up in a clean, normal room, puts on the same outfit as always and doesn't tell anyone he's forgotten everything until Harry wheedles it out of him by badgering him for One Singe Secret (he cant remember any).

He then goes outside and points a gun at a civilian over a perceived threat.

[sgiandubh]

Considering it wasn't a Covid bubble where people come and go and her blossoming relationship with Tony pre-airing of the show was not soiled by intrusive fans. Considering she already knew Tony and he and his family are Scottish live in the area. Thank you for making another connection between Caitriona and Tony early on, which led them living together in Scotland by 2015.

Dear Considering Anon,

I, too, am considering your very serious problems in reading comprehension and logic, darling. A COVID bubble is, actually, the opposite of people 'coming and going' and I think, in this regard, you lived that period of our lives under a rock, or you are just lamely trying to lie to yourself (and nobody else). I would, therefore, kindly ask you to stop insulting our shipper collective intelligence, or use a better online translator to English than good, old Google.

In the same vein, you just know who the most prominent intrusive fan was, very early on OL's timeline, as you also know perfectly well that she was not a shipper. Again, you must take me for an amnesic fool, who somehow forgot who was frantically phoning the resorts where S was supposedly spending time with non existent paramours? Or who somehow forgot the trolls on your side who systematically go ask anyone (loosely) connected to SC (and even innocent casuals who happened to spot S or C), all sorts of frankly embarrassing questions? But hey, you people have no shame, never did.

You might want to put a brake on waxing lyrically about that 'blossoming romance', considering C denied in the Irish press even by 2015 or 2016 being involved with anyone, which totally excludes McGill from the equation (why hide it, since you just wrote with great confidence there were 'no intrusive fans', at that moment?). And also considering you are perfectly unable to substantiate McGill being remotely present near her, anytime before the EIFF opening night gala in 2015 (you know, the one with that penguin pic that gives you the shingles...). [Later edit: that is right, I forgot about that flute pic and the other guy who called her 'McGill's girl' on Twitter - is that formal proof of a relationship ?].

By the way - evidence of EIFF staff unnecessarily adding a pic of both C and S (and unnecessarily mentioning her, in the process) years after the event, here:

Considering you cannot prove she already knew McGill before landing in Scotland, in September 2013, and you only rely on meager speculation about her contradictory press statements over time on the topic, I would be more prudent, if I were you. I know they are Scottish and I also know where his family lived and still does, in Glasgow - none of your business and I couldn't care less.

Thank you for understanding that if you want to be treated with basic politeness on this page, you should perhaps think twice before sending this #silly garbage, and also stop calling people you do not know things like 'Dearly Demented', 'stupid' or 'mental ward', as you like to do across the street. In many tones, from the brutal and cheap to the condescending ('giving lessons to someone', when you fail to make the very basic distinction between a budget project and its final implementation - just a not so random example).

Until then, kindly fuck off!

[wolfes]

NEW EDITOR 101: A GUIDE FOR GIFMAKERS by v @shangs

Hi friends! I know I said I would do this way back in April/May when this change was announced but I've been massively busy lately so thank you all for being patient with me :)

Based on the results of this poll, I will be trying my level best to help make a guide for gifmakers to best deal with any problems that have been present with the new editor. However, it's worth noting that I have personally not experienced any of these problems myself and I have no record of any problems from other people that I could send to staff and get guidance on, so for some of these issues I will unfortunately be a broken record.

That being said, I have been using the new editor for a few months now and it hasn't been too bad. So don't be discouraged by the new editor if you still love to make gifs and share them. You may need to adapt a bit, but it's doable!

This is meant to be comprehensive and will be explanation and image heavy. Full guide under the cut.

CONTENTS:

What is the new editor?

Steps to take before posting

Making a post

Troubleshooting

01. WHAT IS THE NEW EDITOR?

Some of you may be asking yourselves what the point of the new editor even is and why it's being implemented in the first place when we already had a (mostly) functional editor. My very limited understanding of it as a CS student is app compatibility and flexibility. I'm not totally clear on the details nor am I 100% certain this is the case, but NPF posts (basically, posts made with the "new editor") first started with the mobile app. I'm unsure if the different post types were simply too unwieldy to transfer to the app - having to make a whole bunch of post types when with the new editor you can now have posts with any elements you want without the rigidity of a set post type - or if it was simply not able to be implemented, but the apps have always used NPF. The majority of Tumblr users are coming from the mobile apps. Then it became a case of having the legacy editor for the web users (which were fewer in number) and the new NPF editor for everyone else. That takes resources to keep around and it's pretty inefficient. Naturally the older editor that was used by less people was going to get the axe, especially since you couldn't tell on mobile that there was even a difference between NPF or legacy posts.

So now here we are and the posts are NPF. This means they're in "Neue Post Format." Basically, every post you make is by default a text post, containing "blocks" of other media - as gifmakers we will primarily be dealing with photos.

I understand that it's frustrating to many to see "our gifs are now rendered as text posts" and ask WHY it's happening when photos should logically be rendered as photo posts - but the fact is, there's now no real delineation between a "text post" and a "photo post." The reason NPF posts are now "text posts" is because that's how they are rendered for desktop themes, not because everyone is going to see your post as text and your gifs are going to be compressed into the quality of a potato (though I know some have seen this issue - more on that later.)

02. STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE POSTING

The long and short of it is that you may have to update your theme. More detail here for those who are interested, but check that your theme supports "new editor posts" or "NPF posts" AND that this is true for original posts (you can read more about why in this ask and, although this may be a bit time-consuming, test it out on your blog). I can say with certainty that my second theme Cygnus supports original NPF posts. This is NOT true of my first theme, though.

You can try to add the NPF Fix by @glenthemes to your own theme (beware if you don't know HTML/CSS) or try this tip by @burningblake for original posts.

Feel free to add theme makers with fully NPF-compatible themes in the notes! I have been happily using my own theme so I can't say to what degree others' themes are NPF-friendly.

03. MAKING A POST

If you're sticking around to post on the new editor and you have trouble ordering your gifs around, here's a little guide on how to post.

If I click on "Photo" from web and open up the editor, here's how it looks:

I went ahead and added three full-width gifs and the editor put them in like so:

You'll most likely also have to order your gifs around in the way you want them. You can go ahead and hover over your gifs to see the button to orient them (the four dots in the top left corner) and the button for an image description (the three dots in the bottom right corner). I've attached images of all three below:

If you hold the orientation button, move your gif around until you see the blue line that shows where your gif will end up in the spot that you want it. For example, I wanted to move the second gif below the first one, so I oriented it so that the blue line would show the marker between the two gifs:

Now my gifs are oriented nicely! Of course, this is a simpler layout, but the principles still hold.

If you save your gifs as a draft and reopen them or you just notice a large gap like this in between your gifs when you're in the editor, don't worry.

This will not show up in dash view or on a desktop theme that supports original NPF posts. For example, this is how the gifs' gap (without modification) looked in my desktop theme:

With your gifs ordered, the final step is to add alt text. You can read more about alt text and why you should use it here. (Feel free to ignore the sections about the captions on the legacy editor since it is no longer relevant. It's also unnecessary to clearly mark descriptions if they're not in the caption of your post because they will clearly show up under "ALT" on Tumblr.)

If you click the three dots in the bottom right corner as seen above, and click "update image description:"

You can add the description you like and click "update." Your photos' alt text will show up under the "ALT" bubble on Tumblr. This is generally a good practice to get into to make your content more accessible, so I hope you guys will consider using alt text regularly :)

Also, I've noticed that in the editor, if you go back and edit something it will take some time to show up. You may have to refresh the page or load it again after some time, but your edits should be there. I would not go back and edit posts again if you see your posts haven't shown up. I also advise against editing your posts on mobile because it's easier to make a mistake.

And there you go, you've successfully made a post with the new editor!

04. TROUBLESHOOTING

I'm sure you've all been waiting for this. Unfortunately I am probably going to be extremely unhelpful if the editor hasn't been refined in the last few months for those experiencing issues. I'm going to go in the categories that I listed out in my original poll, but keep in mind that I haven't personally seen any of these issues on my end so I haven't been able to contact staff with any evidence that this happened other than my poll.

Dashboard view quality issues: I haven't noticed this issue. I'm not sure if this has been fixed since the original poll was posted. If you're experiencing this issue, this is not something I know how to fix so I would contact staff with screenshots of the issue.

Desktop theme side padding: As noted before, this is a theme issue. If you change themes to something that is NPF-compatible with original posts, there shouldn't be any more issues here.

Small gifs on mobile: In my experience this was happening regardless of what editor was used; it's a bug that seems to have been fixed since this poll was created. If you're still experiencing it, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I would advise contacting staff.

New editor doesn't accept gifs of size 9.8MB < x < 10MB: I haven't experienced this issue so I would say the only workaround would be to either trim the size of your gif so that it is under 9.8MB or whatever threshold seems to be the cutoff or contact staff (I am so sorry for constantly having to suggest this 😭 unfortunately there's no trick I can offer because the new editor has been taking all my gifs just fine)

Logistical issues ordering gifsets: I hope this guide has been able to answer the majority of questions and shed some light on some of the more buggy behaviors of the new editor, but if you have any more specific questions you can feel free to shoot me an ask!

HTML issues / colored text: Unfortunately it seems colored text may be deprecated entirely? This could be for accessibility purposes because I believe screen readers would read out every single letter of gradient text in captions which I imagine can get quite frustrating for users of this technology. I recommend just using the normal rich text editor. If you want small text, you can highlight and click the <s> button!

Other: If it seems like something I may be able to answer, please feel free to ask me. Otherwise... hound staff 😭

Here's where you can hound staff, btw. If you're having major issues I would advise you guys to submit support tickets. That way if there are any widespread bugs, staff will hopefully be able to fix them.

I hope this guide was helpful to you guys in dealing with the new editor, and happy giffing <3

[communist-manifesto-daily]

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific - Part 1

[ Table of Contents | Next ]

1892 English Edition Introduction - 1

General Introduction and the History of Materialism

The present little book is, originally, part of a larger whole. About 1875, Dr. E. Dühring, privatdocent [university lecturer who formerly received fees from his students rather than a wage] at Berlin University, suddenly and rather clamorously announced his conversion to Socialism, and presented the German public not only with an elaborate Socialist theory, but also with a complete practical plan for the reorganization of society. As a matter of course, he fell foul of his predecessors; above all, he honored Marx by pouring out upon him the full vials of his wrath.

This took place about the same time when the two sections of the Socialist party in Germany — Eisenachers and Lasselleans — had just effected their fusion [at the Gotha Unification Congress], and thus obtained not only an immense increase of strength, but, was what more, the faculty of employing the whole of this strength against the common enemy. The Socialist party in Germany was fast becoming a power. But, to make it a power, the first condition was that the newly-conquered unity should not be imperilled. And Dr. Dühring openly proceeded to form around himself a sect, the nucleus of a future separate party. It, thus, became necessary to take up the gauntlet thrown down to us, and to fight out the struggle, whether we liked it or not.

This, however, though it might not be an over-difficult, was evidently a long-winded business. As is well-known, we Germans are of a terribly ponderous Gründlichkeit, radical profundity or profound radicality, whatever you may like to call it. Whenever anyone of us expounds what he considers a new doctrine, he has first to elaborate it into an all-comprising system. He has to prove that both the first principles of logic and the fundamental laws of the universe had existed from all eternity for no other purpose than to ultimately lead to this newly-discovered, crowning theory. And Dr. Dühring, in this respect, was quite up to the national mark. Nothing less than a complete "System of Philosophy", mental, moral, natural, and historical; a complete "System of Political Economy and Socialism"; and, finally, a "Critical History of Political Economy" — three big volumes in octavo, heavy extrinsically and intrinsically, three army-corps of arguments mobilized against all previous philosophers and economists in general, and against Marx in particular — in fact, an attempt at a complete "revolution in science" — these were what I should have to tackle. I had to treat of all and every possible subject, from concepts of time and space to Bimetallism; from the eternity of matter and motion, to the perishable nature of moral ideas; from Darwin's natural selection to the education of youth in a future society. Anyhow, the systematic comprehensiveness of my opponent gave me the opportunity of developing, in opposition to him, and in a more connected form than had previously been done, the views held by Marx and myself on this great variety of subjects. And that was the principal reason which made me undertake this otherwise ungrateful task.

My reply was first published in a series of articles in the Leipzig “Vorwärts”, the chief organ of the Socialist party [1], and later on as a book: "Herr Eugen Dührings Umwalzung der Wissenchaft" (Mr. E. Dühring's "Revolution in Science"), a second edition of which appeared in Zurich, 1886.

[1] Vorwärts existed in Leipzig from 1876-78, after the Gotha Unification Congress.

[ Table of Contents | Next ]

[leggerefiore]

haii!! for spooky reqs, how about giratina!volo chasing his s/o in distortion world,, yandere type beat,, s/o tryna escape but volo is so much more powerful and always aware where s/o is at any given time so he just sees this as a "game"

cw: yandere, giratina Volo, unhealthy relationships, dark content

pairing: Volo/Reader

The eeriness of the Distortion World was something that simply could not be misunderstood.

From the moment one stepped foot into the world parallel to the normal, sane one, it felt like passing through a thin layer of membrane like that just beneath the shell of an egg. Then, after pressing through, one goes breathless. There is nothing yet followed by everything.

The endless pulsating of violet void and the harsh, rocky terrain that floated around the space at all manner of angles, how the plants grew upward no matter said angle, and the waterfalls and pools beneath them… Everything was not as comprehensive and logical as the world one knew previous. The air was stagnant and stale, yet odourless somehow. Sound felt as if echoed forever, on and on, until nothing but a heavy silence weighed upon the impossible lands.

And… it swam around this world as its horrid core.

The ominous glow of crimson eyes and bathed in shadow…

Its humanoid form was arguably pleasant, however. Yet, still eerie with the black wings that spread like tendrils from his back and the golden metal-like protrusions guarded his neck and face. His hair, just as golden as the potrusions and a beautiful face, were more distracting. Something dark burned his eyes, however.

You foolishly pitied him. A being cursed to an existence of loneliness and exile in such a labyrinthine world. His story was sad. Desperate for his creator's attention but rejected and then acting out like a child would for it. You only stroked his hair as he laid his head in your lap and recounted it all.

It should have been a clue to his true nature.

He was possessive.

Horribly so.

Whenever you left his dimension, he was visibly unhappy about it. Volo tried to tell you that the normal world was not safe and that he worried about you too much when you were away, but you somehow always managed to shrug off his concerns and leave the Distortion World for a while. No matter the length of the period you spent away, he always seemed irritated and desperate when you returned.

The short while after was spent in a nearly suffocating embrace while floating through the seemingly endless space of the Distortion World.

Another warning of what was to come.

Your chances to leave the odd dimension grew less and less as Volo seemed to shift into something more needy and demanding. He refused to acknowledge your questions and demands for the portal, simply saying that he was too exhausted or busy to make one. You would be fine, he would reassure you. Time did not pass in this world as it did your own, much like how space functioned so strangely as well.

You foolishly accepted it.

After all, you had become his “mate” at that point.

He was just worried about losing his lover and only companion… You convinced yourself that. Volo would get over his strange feelings and let you go free. He just needed to adjust. His tender moments of just holding you to him or speaking with you endlessly about his interests made you feel conflicted. You wanted to believe everything would normalise eventually.

Until, you could not.

It was difficult, fleeing through the non-euclidean architecture of the Distortion World. Your breaths felt more difficult to take in thanks to the oddity of the world. Running was strange, as the force felt all the more consuming to move, but you did not dare stop. An exit had to be somewhere. There had to be one. You refused to accept that there was not.

Volo was lurking somewhere around, you knew.

He had snapped when you demanded an exit and claimed that time apart would be helpful. The pleasant, amicable smile with soft, crimson eyes were gone. Shrunken pupils and a sinister grin replaced them. He towered over you, a height greater than that of normal humans. “... No, I won't let you go,” the Renegade pokemon had said, “You are lucky, you know? To be around a being such as myself. Most humans don't leave my realm with their life.”

Those words finally spurred you into fleeing from him.

What you were unaware of was the fact that this entire world was almost nearly an extension of Giratina's form. No matter where you went, Volo simply would know. He had known the second you stepped foot in here, and he would know every single step you took.

Volo thought it was a nice change up, however. There had been little time to spy upon humans and their realm while still planning his revenge on Arceus with you there. Were you not just so lucky to obtain the affection of him? The blond truly loved you. So desperate to make him happy and be his company during his forced isolation… Too sweet, too foolish. The human world was filled with cruel people. They would destroy you and take you from him.

He floated along casually, fully aware of the plants you were trying to hide within. Did you know how dragons became about their mates, he wondered. Did you even know that he was a dragon, alongside being something akin to a ghost? Ah, probably not. If only you had listened more carefully to his ramblings about mythology, then you would have been fully aware.

You held your breath when he stepped near the plants. How cute. A snicker came from him as he pulled you out. A cry left you as the legendary pressed you to his body. Adrenaline coursed through your veins desperately as you struggled against the grip of Volo. “My, I gave you plenty of warnings and chances to never return,” his head shook with mock pity on his face, “Did you listen? No. You must truly care for me, then.”

His cold hand came to hold your chin. The shiny golden horns on his head broke apart from the colour of his hair. “I love you, too, of course,” he reassured you, “Truthfully, I can't even say I would not have hunted you down had you not returned.” His tendril-like wings came to curl around you, locking you further in his grip. “Give up,” he hissed unexpectedly, “Just stay here. You cannot ever hope to escape without my help, and I will not ever let you go.”

His lips pressed against yours before you had a moment to argue back with him.

Your stomach twisted as you felt the sincerity in his final words.

Giratina was the god of this realm.

This entire dimension was its own to do as it pleased.

You were an unfortunate denizen of this world now.

Your eyes were bleary as Volo pulled away from the kiss. His gaze back to its normal state. “Worship me,” he ordered.

This request was what would completely seal your fate to be with the Renegade pokemon for the rest of time.

[actuallyfalin]

I dont interpret ruan mei as evil because she’s autistic, not because autistic ppl cant be evil and terrible but because she has a very aeon-like complex that is intrinsically tied to her autism and special interest in life and aeonhood.

MORE UNDER THE CUT

Aeons are neutral about their Paths, like how Lan doesnt give a fuck about if you feel blessed by their genocide or not or how Sunday almost reached aeonhood but couldnt because he wasnt completely neutral about his stance etc.

Ruan Mei's pursuit of aeonhood is, in a way, very selfish, in the sense that she’s willing to sacrifice a lot for it but it’s also neutral in a very scientific and detached way. She’s a very detached person in general, and doesnt really allow herself attachments, so she’s okay with sacrificing things because hey, it doesnt concern her.

It’s very much tied to her autism because she has very Specific things that she cares about, and even when she cares its not in a way that’s easily understood by others.

Her actions dont come with malicious intent but because she’s so tunnel visioned on her pursuit of aeonhood, she fails to recognise that her understanding of life is very much lacking and very much, hurtful in ways that are not computed through logic and science.

Like. She knows that her creations yearn for her affection but she is unable to give it back to them because 1) shes detached shes not particularly attached to them, whatever affection she forces herself to give would be fake 2) shes also super busy. So she entrusts them to the Trailblazer because she knows that TB would have the capacity and capability to care for them the way she couldn't. However, she fails to realise that her creations wants affection from HER, as their mother and creator. She knows she's hurting them but she doesn't entirely understand the root of the issue, so her solution, though a way of her showing her care, doesn't really solve the problem.

Another example is her cloning the emanator of propagation. Her attempt at bringing back the bug wasn't because she wanted to destroy the world but to test the limits of her understanding of life, destroying the world was simply a consequence that she didnt care about. That sounds bad, but it doesn't mean that she wanted to destroy the world, she just didn't care if getting results meant sacrificing everything else. However, she also knew it would have been a disaster, so she set a self destruct function AND assigned TB to take care of it. She doesn't realise that her attempt at cloning alone was extremely reckless and putting TB through it by deceiving them, even though she ultimately had "good" intentions, was hurtful at a personal level. In the process of trying to make her experiment more safe for the sake of others on the space station, she deceives TB and inevitably hurts their feelings and trust.

Ruan Mei wants to go further and further, but the part of her that has learned socialisation and does truly care about the welbeing of others, actually stops her from doing so, even if she may not necessarily realise it.

Ruan mei is someone who is not able to fully, properly CARE because she doesnt allow herself any forms of attachment, hence her apathy but she does SHOW care through her actions. However, because such care is not seen as natural, or even understandable by the vast majority, it goes under the radar. Most people don't understand her way of caring, and they don't try to. This is evident both in game and in real life by people who couldn't properly grasp her character in the quest.

Sorry that I digressed quite a bit but it ties in a lot with apathetic autistic people, and even just apathetic people in general who DO show care but it goes unnoticed and is scrutinised because it doesnt immediately come off as comprehensible and overtly caring to neurotypical people. It's common for people to think autistic behaviour is uncaring or dismissive, because they don't see us playing by their rules and don't make the effort to understand at all. Ruan Mei is a character who is extremely autistic coded, and her devotion to her research reads very much as an autistic person with a special interest. Special interests can cause the tunnel vision that Ruan Mei exhibits, and autistic people can and have neglected ourselves and others in the pursuit of our special interests. It doesn't mean that we don't care about other people anymore, we just prioritise our special interest above all else.

Ruan Mei isn't evil, shes just neutral and just doesnt have the same capacity to be emotional and attached as everyone else. The things that are important to her, aren't as important to others. The things that are natural to her, just aren't natural to others.

[chaotic-multi-fandom]

I was having a lotr discussion with my friend about how much we'd last carrying the one ring, until I suddenly came up with a question. Does the ring's power increase with each bearer because it hold the darkness and corruption of each of them?

This not only would change the perspective of the story but actually give sense to a LOT of things. First of all:

The ring is sentient, it has a will of its own, and clearly willingly links itself to people and exerts its power, literally molding and manipulating their very minds, to the point were even once destroyed Frodo and Bilbo are still linked to it in some ways, with an old delirious Bilbo still asking about the ring. If the rings power lasts withing it's bearers after it's gone, why shouldn't the ring also keep the darkness and corruption those people suffered when carrying the ring, storing and fueling its power, making it stronger.

This would entail that Frodo isn't only carrying his burden, but that of Sauron, Isildur, Smeagle and Bilbo, making it and even more indescribable burden and ultimately impossible task. It also explains why he must be the sole ring-bearer something which Elrond and Galadriel stress, eventhough sharing the burden of the ring would've been a logical choice for most people (at least between the hobbit and elves who have a greater resistance). Since this would mean that the ring would be contaminated by each ones darkness making it even stronger and harder to carry.

It would also better explain how even Sam, after only carrying it for a few hours while he thought Frodo was dead, had trouble giving it back to Frodo. As a character Sam would at least resist as much as Frodo, and yet, in only a few hours he was already heavily influenced, because the ring would already be carrying Frodo's burden and darkness. When given back to Frodo it then became an even heavier burden for him, to the point were he couldn't stand. While this would be the expected after carrying the ring for a year, it could have also been influenced by Frodo now also carrying Sam's burden and darkness from thinking Frodo was dead and taking responsibility of the ring. Of course this just makes the "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you" moment even MORE impactful, they literally carry each other.

Anyway this convo ended up lasting from 10pm to 1am and led to thesis worth material that I need 7 business days to digest, but will soon put into actual comprehensible writing.

[incesthemes]

as i've rewatched seasons 1 and 2 of supernatural i've been pondering and hypothesizing reasons why john was so adamant on not letting sam know about his destiny. why he was so intent on keeping this secret, why he didn't want sam knowing about monsters, why his role in their hunts appeared to be research-oriented and thus away from the action. my perspective on ignorance and censorship is that it enables further harm, so if john were going to effectively protect sam, it would stand to reason that sam should have a comprehensive understanding of his destiny and what he's up against: give him the tools to fight.

this is obviously not the route john went, so then i have to question why that is—what about censorship was so appealing to him that he thought it not only the best way to keep sam safe, but perhaps even the only way to keep him safe, based on how he begged even dean to keep sam's fate a secret from him in his final words?

so i got to thinking. namely, about the fact that azazel wants sam to be hunting: he killed jessica with the intent to drag him back into the life, which implies that if sam is hunting, he is going down the path azazel wants him to go—he's following his destiny. this aligns with the everpresent theme throughout season 1 that hunting is a monstrous lifestyle, that hunting turns people into monsters. if sam is destined to become a monster, then hunting is the most sure-fire way to get him there.

if azazel wants sam to hunt, then john would need to take the logical opposition and keep sam out of hunting—so, he wouldn't tell sam about monsters until he has to, he'd give sam more passive roles once sam is participating in hunts, he'd train sam in self-defense but not explain why. and importantly, he wouldn't talk about mary, who is the root cause of this lifestyle, the impetus for their revenge quest, more than he has to. if the goal is to keep sam as far away from hunting as possible, and if john is someone who thinks ignorance keeps someone safe, then this more or less explains most of how sam was raised: on the fringes of the family, excluded and sheltered.

but weirdly enough, it wasn't until i was reading east of eden the other night that i finally understood the perspective being presented: late in the novel, the character lee says "when the first innocence is gone, you can't stop."

it made me remember that sam picks. he is a character who wants to understand the world around him and his place in it. if something is bothering him, he turns it over in his head until it consumes him. dean places doubt in sam's head in 2x10 and it obliterates him by 2x11. he's convinced he's going to become some horrible monster because he never stops thinking and trying to figure things out. when his memory is wiped in 4x17 and normal guy sam wesson finds out his coworker is the guy from his weird dreams, he pursues him relentlessly until they're back hunting. when he discovers the wall death put in his mind to keep his hell trauma out in season 6, he pushes and can't stop until it starts crumbling around him. he's intelligent and clever and he wants to know everything. and when he doesn't know, he picks.

and the only way to stop a person like that from picking is to not let them know that there's something to pick at in the first place. that's what the quote from east of eden means: once you catch wind of something, you want to pursue it until you're satisfied. curiosity kills the cat.

and what john is up against is fate itself. something that isn't supposed to be messed with, something that's supposed to be unavoidable. so trying to thwart it is tricky business. he has to be careful.

i think working under that logic his response makes sense, even if it wound up being a self-fulfilling prophecy anyway—sam was always going to find out, and sam was always going to pick. there was nothing john could do in the end to stop it, and trying to keep sam ignorant only made him that much more desperate to know. but that's the great tragedy of it all: john was given an impossible choice, and he's a deeply flawed character. he did what he thought was best, and it only made things worse.

i like this interpretation because it ties all of john's choices together really well; it explains a lot about his character and gives a nuanced and rather reasonable explanation for why he did what he did: a dad who wants the best for his kid does what he believes will set him up on the path to success. when the first innocence is gone, you can't stop—so john does his damnedest to keep sam innocent, even to his dying breath.

the problem comes down to that someone's damnedest isn't always good enough, and that sometimes someone's damnedest ends up benefiting the enemy instead.

[tobiasdrake]

Okay I word saladed over myself for like five minutes and "Frieren is good" was all that made it to print so we're trying this again.

Media is in love with the Everyman protagonist because many writers see universal relatability, the ability to project yourself onto the main character, as the gold standard. This is why a lot of the action fantasy genre revolves around children.

There's a thread floating around Tumblr that explains it better than I can but the thesis is that children are universally relatable to children but adults get specific as they get older; Their experiences become less common and more uniquely them.

There is a logic to the idea that the teenage everyman is the most relatable possible character. But this assumes that relatability is the be-all end-all of character writing.

Fun fact: If the main character of a thing is unbelievably boring, it's probably because they're so busy trying to be relatable that they fail to develop much of a unique identity. They started from a blank slate and then slowly started to add details as the character's experiences began to specify them... While surrounding them with characters who were already interesting, unique, emotional, and highly opinionated right from the get-go.

Characters who are specific, characters who have lived a life and become a person and have strong opinions and beliefs, those characters are the ones who captivate the fandom. If you give a person a pile of Jolly Ranchers in one hand and then a bunch of sugar and flavors and chemicals with comprehensive instructions on how to mix the batch and make one more candy... They're probably just gonna eat the Jolly Ranchers.

Frieren is unapologetically a specific character. Her story is about the life she has led and the person it has molded her into becoming. She is not an Everyman. She may not be relatable to everyone. But she is a unique individual with ideas, beliefs, and experiences that shape her goals and behavior right out of the starting gate.

As a writer, you should always stop and ask yourself: Is my main character the most interesting character to explore in this story? And if they are not, then why isn't that character the main character instead?

Frieren is, without question, the most interesting character to explore in this show.

Frieren starts her show where shallower protagonists end theirs, as a fully-formed individual with a strong sense of identity who nonetheless still has room to grow and evolve even further, because even as you become specific you never truly stop evolving.

Frieren is a mold-breaker. A counter-argument against the Everyman.

[vanessafaron]

Hi honey, how are you, I hope everything is going great. I have a question, do robotic affirmations work for anything, even impossible? My best friend and I, a few months ago joined the community. And we thought we would do a 30 day challenge that our whole class and college would fall in love with us. We had resistance because we thought how was it possible that thousands of people are attracted to us, many of them have partners, others have not noticed us and others we are not their type and addmas are too many. We tried to see the 3d and failed a couple of times, so we thought about giving up because it seemed extremely complicated to make thousands of people see us as the perfect girls from one moment to the next. Thanks for your input

Robotic affirmations work if you believe they do. Just like with any other manifestation technique.

Also, nothing is impossible.

I think the problem is that you’re trying to apply logic to manifestation. There is no logic, it is something outwith human comprehension. See it as magic if you want, or not, but it’s not logical. You’re looking for reasons for it to not be possible, which is your logical brain kicking in. You’ll have to find a way to ignore “logic” all together and just trust that anything is possible. Because it is.

All you need to know is that it’s done. How is it done? Not your business. It’s done. You will shift to a reality where it’s done and it almost certainly won’t be logical.

[mildlybizarrecorvid]

Remember how I said I'd talk about the guy who looted the UFO in my Dialtone lore post?

Let's talk about Nathaniel Robot.

Born in the early 19th century to middle classed immigrants, Nathaniel initially led a fairly standard life. Then at the age of 8, they left him behind on a family trip and were so caught up in frontier shit they failed to notice and get him back for two years.

A born entrepreneur, Nathaniel made his first break into business running a way station and general store. He quickly changed his surname to Robot, a set of random letters he got by asking strangers for their favorite letter, from his birth name of Murderface, fearing the effects it may have on business.

Nathaniel made his initial fortune, however, with a different business. He made his journey west, as was fashionable at the time, and he noticed a few things rather obvious nowadays.

1: People are happy to work for you if you treat them well, especially if other places won't.

2: There were a lot of women and minorities who wanted to get into various fields, but were unable to because this was the 19th century.

With this knowledge, he set about founding a variety of businesses with the fundamental principle of hiring and treating people solely off of the quality of their work. As you can guess, he was also staunchly pro-union. Because this is my fun lil oc world and I'm god, this worked great for him.

After some years of success and significantly moving the cultural norms leftward, he moved to Alaska in hopes of high yield snow farming. While there, he discovered an alien space ship which had crashed some years prior. Like any right thinking American, he investigated alone without telling anyone. Some time later, he ran into the nearest town raving of devices 'beyond comprehension' and scheduled a demonstration. Once the day came, he showed off a computer he's fixed up, powered by a solar panel he'd pried off the ship.

After he threw money at someone smart to reverse engineer the technology, he'd essentially thrown technology ahead over a century, furthering his business. Despite this, he made many of the patents public with the logic that if someone added a brilliant extra, he could hire them, or give a grant. He was less a brilliant businessman than lucky, and the type who's willing to throw money at anything vaguely interesting.

While technology was able to extend Robot's life significantly, he eventually passed away in the mid 20th century. However, he went out with a bang, mere weeks after announcements of his company creating the first autonomous computer, dubbed a robot in his honor.

Robot's was also a life-long supporter of civil rights movements, known for bragging about his 'anonymous' donations to whichever groups looked most likely to make an effective difference. These actions by someone with an enormous influence (just look at Edison [fuck Edison], or Carnegie for people who could approximate his status) resulted in much of that world achieving the closest to full equality and equity you're going to get in the late 20th century. A known bisexual, Robot's suspected relationship with gay activist Steven Mandater would likely have resulted in scandal if not for the public perception of him being batshit insane anyway.

Examples of what caused that view were his claim that seagulls only don't talk for fear of paying taxes, his claim to have invented calculus before Newton, and the fact that before anyone told him of motion picture technology he withdrew into his rooms for a week before returning with a full script for what would to a person from our world be recognizable as the original Star Wars trilogy.

[nero-vanderwolf]

July 14th, 2011 

The Arisato Household 

Makoto is woken up to the sounds of banging on his front door. 

Groggily, he sits up, craning his neck to peer at the clock on his nightstand. Through bleary eyes, he can just barely make out the time. 7:41 AM. 

Great. 

With a groan, he rolls over. Frankly, it’s none of his business who was at the door- Kotone usually takes care of that. 

However, the banging persists, and is now accompanied by the sounds of voices as well. 

Muffled though they are, Makoto is surprised to find he can still somewhat hear what they were saying. 

“Okay, okay! Jeez, they’re gonna think you’re trying to rob them or something,” one voice says. Another makes a sound of dissent. 

“Come on, like you wouldn’t do the same,” they say. Something about the voice’s tone strikes Makoto as oddly familiar. 

Another voice pipes up, their tone soft and eager. “Should we try the doorbell?” 

“Nah, they probably already know from the way this idiot was pounding on the door,” one says. How many people are outside...? 

Makoto sighs, rolling out of bed. Logically, he knows he needs to take his medicine before anything else, but a larger part of him wants to confront whoever is at his door and get it the hell over with. He has better things to do, after all. Like homework. 

When he steps into the living room, he sees Kotone already approaching the door. She glances at him, and he shrugs. Twin telepathy strikes again. 

Kotone seizes the door handle, and tugs the door open. 

There, on their doorstep, stands the old members of S.E.E.S. 

Junpei and Yukari fling themselves at the two of them as soon as they make eye contact, yelling “Surprise!” and causing general chaos among everyone. 

Makoto has enough comprehension left in his body to wrap his arms around Yukari tightly, spinning so her momentum won’t knock them both on their asses. His vision is blurry and he feels a familiar sting in his eyes and a wetness on his cheeks, and he buries his face in Yukari’s shoulder. 

The next five minutes are filled with hugs, tears, and joyous exchanges of words. Kotone pulls Akihiko and Shinjiro in for a double hug, Makoto allows Mitsuru to pull him in for a brief embrace. 

He’s in the middle of a (admittedly pleasant) chat with Fuuka when another person steps in through the door. 

Makoto freezes. He can’t help it, really- he wasn’t expecting to see her here of all places. 

Kotone screams and flings herself into Aigis’s arms, and Makoto is quick to follow. 

Aigis is quick to tears, holding the both of them as best she can. Kotone clings to her like a lifeline, and Makoto leans against her, listening to the sounds of a beating heart and faint whirring. 

When the twins finally step away from her, Makoto hurries to wipe his tears away. He really is happy that everyone is here, but it’s still a bit embarassing to cry in front of everyone. 

“How...? And why?” Kotone asks after a moment of silence. Junpei scoffs, but the sound holds no malice. 

“We could ask you the same thing, Kota-tan! I mean, one day you two just fell asleep, didn’t wake up for months, and now you’re both up and kickin’ again?” 

Makoto shifts his weight where he stands. Where to begin with that story? Should they tell the others about their strange dream, about their vision of fog and a new Wild Card, about the Velvet Room and them waking up at the same time, the moment a transfer student stepped foot in Inaba? 

Where do they begin? 

“It’s a long story,” Kotone says with ease, “one that shouldn’t be told standing up on empty stomachs. Let’s get some food, and when we come back, Makoto and I will tell you everything we can.” 

No one responds for a moment, but Ken’s stomach breaks the silence. 

He glances away, his cheeks pink. Shinjiro nudges him with an elbow. 

“Told ya you should’ve eaten before we left,” he said, and Ken graces him with a crude gesture in response. 

Makoto doesn’t bother tamping down the laughter that bubbles up, and nods to the door. For the briefest moment, he recalls their victory on the Moonlight Bridge years ago, back when they thought they had defeated the Twelve Shadows and eradicated the Dark Hour. Back then, he and Kotone had laughed, and made their victory cheer something no one could argue with even now, years later. 

“Let’s eat.” 

YAYYY THE GANG IS BACK TOGETHER!!!! SEES IS BACK BABY!!!! cant wait for them to meet the new wildcard... it would be interesting to see the different reactions to Souji and everything going on in Inaba. also love makoto just relying on kotone to answer the door while he sleeps. hes just like me fr....

[doostyaudi]

My employer headcanons? Real?

So, what do i make of the employers in general? Well i think i should start at their purpose! Id like to think of them as being likened to angels in way, granted they aren't, but i think that's the closest words i can use for them. Their general purpose is to make sure the world is in check, as well as the "plot", they're assistants of The Higher Powers in this way as the Higher Powers r busy doing their own things.

Employers do not care for humanity, they honestly quite dislike humanity, finding them "barbaric", "emotional", and any other word u can find to describe humanity, i guess.

Employers are siblings, they are one hell of a messy family

They follow a "code", it doesn't have an official name, but most refer to it simply as the "Employer Code". I wish i had a full list of what these are, all i really have a vague idea what they would be. I have a few that are solid codes: don't hurt/kill another employer, don't go against the higher powers (questioning them n such), and attempting to "run away" (not doing your job in an act of defiance, faking ur death, ect). If an employer breaks any of the codes, they will be given massive restrictions, if its bad enough they will be straight up exiled/killed.

The employers have their own realm they hang out in, it's really just a chill zone for them. They all have their own sections for their respective employers, basically their own house in a way lol. Usually retired employers live here

Yes, employers can be retired, it depends on what their purpose was

Employers are considered souls in a way since they aren't physical and can only interact with people/objects cuz of weird dimensional logic n stuff.

Okay! Individual employers! Right!

Auditor - the employer ever, honestly, we love auditor, dni if u don't /j. Auditor is probably gonna have the biggest write-up out of any of the other employers, not only because we know the most abt her, but also because she's my fave AHSHSHDHD. Oh. Yea. I hc Auditor as genderfluid and npd haver, i am a genderfluid auditor truther, so if u see me using fluctuating pronouns for her, that's why! Ill try and make it as comprehensive as possible tho lol. Uhm. Anyways! Auditor is the second youngest employer, her purpose is to "keep things in check" in short terms. Ironically enough, she has had a hand in not doing this, fucking up Nevada cuz she felt like it. This is NOT her job and the other employers are MAD at her for it, they do not like auditor and try to distance themselves from her. Fortunately for auditor, she doesn't like them either! She's Nevada's biggest hater and hates anyone who hates her, ur either with her or against her. She's impulsive, quick to anger, rash, unprofessional, and does everything in her power to make sure everyone knows she's cool and awsome and amazing and not to be messed with!!!! Then she trips over herself. Despite this, she's good at making plans, is very organized, best on the battlefield than any other employer, and is extremely protective of the ones she cares abt (it's. Very few but it's obvious who her favorites are). She has some control over hell, being able to have little minions of the sorts that keep an eye on things in there for her. People do not fear her, but they rather not deal with her. Oh also she loves sugar-filled food/drinks, she has a sweet-tooth lol.

Deliberator - the youngest employer. Despite his age, he is the smartest out of the employer, constantly doing research into different topics, making sure he's 10 steps ahead of everyone. He's the complete opposite of auditor in a way as he thinks more on logic than emotion. Ironically, hes very empathetic and tends to care for others he logically knows he shouldn't. He most definitely cares for humanity more than the others because of this, also he can't ever get himself to truly hate Auditor like the others do. He was most likely made to keep auditor "in check", being able to predict what auditor can and will do and using that against her, making sure she doesn't do more damage than she already has. Id like to think he has an interest in birds tho, nothing makes me think that, he just seems like a bird lover to me!

Conductor - the 3rd eldest employer. Her job is quite straightforward, she makes sure everything is perfect and in tip-top shape, cleaning up any mess others make. Because of this she is quite bossy and a complete perfectionist, freaking out whenever something goes against her perfectly made plans, even if it's completely insignificant. She can sometimes get in over her head about plans and how everyone is going to manage it, obsessing over small details. She tends to be more backhanded than the other employees, very passive-aggressive if u will, rarely letting others know how she truly feels about something. Also id like to think she likes to gossip with Stygian and Deliberator alot.

Stygian - the eldest employer. His job is to maintain the spirit realm and help lost souls to the others side. He maintains purgatory and the parts of hell Auditor doesn't have control over. Its a quite simple job compared to the others as it doesn't need as much thought and 4D chess playing to do, though who says guiding lost souls and making sure they don't get fucked up is an easy job? Knowing how Nevada is today, Stygian must be one hell of a busy guy. He's quite emotionally distant and tends to just do what he needs to do. Like. If you tell him a joke he'll just. *look* at you, he may have found it humorous but he doesn't laugh. People find him quite cold and distant because of this, though he's just am old man who wants to be left alone, but doesn't mind the company of his siblings every once in a while.

Uhhh yea i think that's everything.... It was nice to let that out of my system... I might have missed a few things/misinterpreted something... Sorry if i have! It's been a while since I've re-watched anything.. I honestly tried playing mpn2 again but i remembered why i stopped playing it! It set my computer on fire! O.o (not literally!! It was just so incredibly hot after only 20 minutes!! Sigh...)

U may not agree with everything ive said, and that's okay! Just don't be a jerk abt it, ok?

[erismourn]

watching the james somerton apology video so you don't have to. this isn't entirely comprehensive, just a summary, if you want the nuance of his exact wording please just go watch the video

opens by saying he's monetizing the video to donate the money to hbomb's team so they can distribute it to the harmed individuals, and if hbomb's team don't accept he'll be making monthly donos to wikipedia and trans lifeline going forward

talkign about how he's a bad representative of "the queer community" as a cis white gay man

he's reached out to as many people he harmed as he can, some haven't responded but others have been incredibly kind

he's extending a specific apology to Jessie Gender - he wants to be clear that he didn't report Jessie to the police, as is the common understanding, but a fan of Jessie's who sent him a death threat

wanted his channel to be "welcoming to every queer person" which is impossible - he says he should have made voices that aren't his more accessible, but he didn't

blaming the algorithm for his popularity over queer creators of colour, disabled queers, etc

he thought that crediting people in the opening credits of videos was enough, but he admits he was wrong - people should have been properly cited (personal note: come on man you went to business school. you know how citations work.)

he has obtained permission for use of sources in the past, but "most of the sources" he didn't get permission for

brought Nick on with the idea that Nick would write most of the scripts and James would voice them

james had to put out more videos to make more money because he was let go from work during covid and was also dealing with other stuff so he had to take on more of the writing (and we all know how that went)

[sic] "my intention was to use [giant blocks of text i pasted into the script] as a jumping off point that we would elaborate on when we did table reads but *I have memory issues as a result of a head injury I got as a child*"

the head injury is real, he has epilepsy as a result. I want to be clear here that we need to respect James' disabilities, regardless of how much of a plagiarist he is. however as someone with memory problems I don't buy that it caused him to entirely forget to cite sources over many, many hours of work that he did to churn out these videos.

"when it came to editing the scripts, I couldn't remember what I had written and what I had copy-pasted"

blames his unwillingness to take account of those issues by for example writing notes in the script so future james would know he copypasted them on recently diagnosed ADHD

he had to take on a bunch of additional responsibilities when his mom passed away because his father is illiterate and can't do the legal stuff you have to do when someone dies

Telos grew out of his need to crowdfund after his mom died because RBC's insurance policy was weird (and dunks on RBC which i agree with. fuck all canadian banks)

Telos was supposed to start small but the success of the campaign gave them bigger dreams for their films

he describes the plot of hsi final girl movie and then says "to those who say I plagiarized final girl by grady hendrix, read the book. it's nothing like the plot of the movie." talks about how "final girl" is a trope and if using a trope was plagiarism, then every slasher movie since texas chainsaw would be plagiarism. fair, but i'm suspicious.

talks about the details of having to move to ontario for better opportunities

realized that making movies is a lot more expensive than he originally thought and thus had to make more movie ideas (?? not sure about the logic here but ok)

James and Nick were both involved in writing scripts n stuff

"the intention was never, EVER, to take the [telos] money and run"

James regrets moving to Ontario

James is working with a producer now and is actually making something from Telos - he will make no money from this project

"I am not nor did I ever intend to be paid money from Telos"

stresses again that he and Nick needed to crunch to make videos to make more money and get more sponsors

describes his apology in december as "horrendous"

begins detailing his suicidality

people found James' address, he claims people showed up at his house while he was hospitalized for suicidality (I want to be clear: this is fucked, the people who did this should be shamed)

he's reactivated some videos on his channel that "dont' have plagiarized content" and has done some heavy editing on other videos so they only contain original content and revenue will be going to either Hbomb's team or the charities mentioned above

he's going to be releasing a new video written by him with cited sources

he has no sponsors now

"we didn't intend to have misinformation in past videos" - it was never malicious

he won't be relaunching his patreon but starting a new patreon account if people want to support him

hes going to "work his ass off" to earn people's trust again

"there is no excuse for what I did"

reiterates that he thought putting names in opening credits was fine

"I thought it was ok to [plagiarize vito russo] because the book was out of print and he had passed away"

he wants to make a documentary video about vito russo

"I want to do the work. I want to prove not just to you, but to myself, that I can do the work"

"I can't get across how sorry I am"

[likeadog]

GODHEAD DEATH SENTENCE

any followers of this blog for a bit know about ghds (or at least, characters from it, like Lacramioara) and probably about another project of mine, ESCHATON ACADEMY. I've decided to merge the two, so Sister Virtue is here to stay!

What I'm dumping here right now is a variety of assorted thoughts and a basic plot outline for the beginning,. It's by no means all-comprehensive, but I hope it'll help lay things out and make it a little less confusing now that I'm not jugging both.

note: this project is very much intended to be 18+ in subject matter and tone. topics like violence, suicide, and abuse are going to be present.

open with the remaining six archangels reacting to the Archangel Gabriel's untimely demise at the business end of God's Revolver by his own doing. this is quite the pickle they're in. someone has to be the annunciator and furthermore, as god's unspoken-but-well-known favorite, he gets the biggest payout of love out of all of them.

michael and raphael have been responsible for making "born-again's" to pad out michael's legion, because sacrificing born angels especially in the era of humanity pushing back against angel infestations has become a contentious issue.

born-again's are when michael and raphael reshape an existing human soul and grant them angelhood. all so far have been exousiai (soldiers), but theoretically making an archangel should be possible, especially because they still have gabriel's essence.

welcome to the world the new angel gabriel, formerly Rubén Erendirani Cuini Dominguez. [existing character brought over from ea]. it is gradually made clear that he is here out of necessity, and the others aren't too keen on their new "youngest brother", especially because of the privileges offered by status of Annunciator. Michael, as the eldest, is especially bothered™️ about this, but michael's demeanor remains placid and unperturbed.

Gabriel is partnered with an elder cherub (Theophania), because they carry all the necessary knowledge and understanding of the mechanisms of the job. advisor-esque position. previously, Theophania had been on the panel of cherubim that ruled appellate judgements on contested verdicts.

Gabriel slowly begins to endear both himself and humanity to Theophania. aha no aha dont go against your god-designed plan ahahaaa

God's been . quiet. since the gabriel incident. they're still receiving their Love in exchange for Passion, but the other archangels are none too happy about this, especially because, again, their newest baby brother is getting the most favorable payout. a decision is proposed to "downsize" gabriel's domain by reducing the amount of passion he's able to reap with a …mini-rapture. of sorts.

gabriel is like HEY WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT. he confides in Theophania, distraught that an existence he never asked to have may be responsible for so much death.

Theophania, a being of ultimate Reason and Logic, decides to do the only reasonable and logical thing. They steal the cherubim's relic, the Eye of God (not literal, may change name to avoid confusion), which contains the summation of all knowledge. They slam dunk that shit into their skull. Angels are like little computers that run on Love and Passion for the Father. this one just hooked itself up to the energy equivalent of a nuclear power plant. needless to say, things get messy. michael loses quite a few of his soldiers in the resulting kerfuffle, as well as a handful of angels from other choirs. fearing the compromising of their brood and Viable Spawning Population, the archangels call a truce. but there's going to be some changes for starters, they're withdrawing all unnecessary human assistance. sinners will still be punished, passion will be reaped, but if gabriel and theophania like them so much, they can handle their issues.

theophania will be Felled and trapped within a mortal body, but the condition is added that they cannot die. Dying offers too many loopholes to get out of the main point of the contract, which is: the moment theophania and gabriel decide to give up on humanity, the archangels will proceed with the initial plan.

theophania is to act as gabriel's agent on earth, and gabriel as their patron: aka, his ass is on the platter if they fuck up. theophania is armed with god's revolver and the eye of god, before being unceremoniously tossed down to earth in a new, achier form. welcome to the world, Sister Virtue

from here i think there should be some brief exploration more into the state of the world as it is. im going for a more soul eater/devils candy/etc esque situation where mythological creatures and beings mingle among humans and are more broadly recognized as like, organisms.

then a scene plays out where virtue gets caught up in the high-energy antics of Lacramioara, Leopold, Johnny, and Cross. Johnny Strings is the human contractor of Cross DeVille, a crossroads demon. she has a golden flame-spewing guitar that she rides like a witches broom. I haven't quite worked out cross' abilities yet, but something having to do with lines and intersections for sure.

Lacramioara Strigoi and Leopold Lupei are two of Michael's exousiai. they are also the oldest still-living ones. Lacramioara's weapon of choice is a shepherd's staff, with support from the shadowy tendrils tattooed over his body. Leopold wields a scythe, but his mass and beastly body plan serve as weapons just as well.

While they are not allies of Virtue by any means, they are also not enemies, and she regards them largely as annoying, out of control youngsters, since physically they're about half her age, and spiritually even more so. they think she's pretty cool, but lacramioara can't help herself when it comes to provoking auntie virtue regardless.

virtue gets the situation under control as far as collateral damage, but the two thieves (johnny and cross) get away, frustrating the two mercenaries. thats all i got as far as story/plot is concerned naturally im sure youre curious about the mentions of angel broods. and "born angels" . this is still being tinkered with naturally but brother we are about to get buggy with it. pulls out my whiteboard

by and large with the exception of those directly born of God (the archangels, christ also i guess(?) whatever this isnt about him rn) , angels are a species parasitic to humankind. they feed on Passion, and some of it is always saved and regurgitated back up for heaven-bound angels like the higher choirs and of course, God. in exchange, God gives them Love, which is directly necessary for stimulating things like joy, maintains the cooperative nature of the "hive", and a variety of other functions. they can live without it, but it sucks ass. severely. some efforts are being made on the dl to synthesize it, but these are only successful to varying degrees.

anyways, a large amount of the mythos around angels stems from their rather unusual reproductive cycle. two (or sometimes more) angels will inoculate a human host with their genetic material, forming the putto, a juvenile angel. these angels feed off of the passion for goodness of a virtuous person, and so will encourage their host towards these things when they're old enough to do so, something that has historically been understood as the classic "shoulder angel" or "conscience" or "holy spirit".

furthermore, in areas where angelic choirs are less secure in their territory, adult angels may occasionally keep watch over the new young and protect it, which has been interpreted as "guardian angels" across time. when the host dies, the putto then gorges itself on the lingering Passion and completes itself with dna material copies from the host, allowing them to emerge as a fully formed Angel. for those of the lower choirs, they often resemble the prior host, which is what has historically led to the misconception that human souls become angels when they die. they do not. that is simply an angel that has copied your loved one's face. it is entirely different from the Born Again's for higher choirs, they will continue to collect and harvest Passion before they cocoon themselves and metamorphize into their new form, which is standardized according to their function. this change is induced seemingly by the needs of their current community, and not decided by the choir of the angels that contributed to their initial genetic code continuing with the insect metaphor, you could say heaven serves as the "mother hive", but angels will form smaller outposts in various areas, usually with a seraph or two to serve as an intermediary with heaven. this position is the Bishop

naturally, upon the revelation that angels are just weird parasites, the christian world has been thrown into turmoil. the entire nature of the process isn't known still, and there's been a range of responses from some seeing being chosen for inoculation as the highest honor a believer can receive, to others looking for ways to potentially protect themselves from it. this opportunity has been capitalized upon by demons, since the best way to ensure you won't be a heavenly host is to be lacking in virtue.

angels view this as a betrayal of what they saw as a symbiotic relationship with mankind and the communities that worshipped them and their God, hence the general bitterness towards humanity expressed above. some angels even blame this change for why God went quiet, but no one knows for sure Michael plays a pretty big role, so as for what I have on him and the exousiai: Michael is the eldest archangel, as well as the head of its "army". He is responsible for protecting Eden, and handling the unpleasant jobs involving violence and viscera that angels frequently condemn in mankind, but are necessary for maintaining the grip on believers that allows them to harvest passion so efficiently.

Despite this, he doesn't really come across on a first glance as the military type; he's clean-cut, dresses fairly simply, and has a placid, almost demure manner. even when you're aware he may have less-than-upstanding intentions, it's hard to confront him on anything, because he maintains an air of plausible deniability and respectability that dissuades argument.

The nature of his work is inherently difficult. Driving out the initial dissenters, protecting the most vital parts of the "hive", and overseeing the culling of sinners or otherwise diabolical beings is one that is contradictory to the concept of all-encompassing love and mercy and forgiveness. for this reason, Michael suspects that God has been intentionally withholding Love, and that he, the eldest, is being robbed of what he's owed, but no matter how many times he asks, he never gets a response.

The Born-Again's is Michael's solution to the violent nature of the job and loss of angel life that resulted from it. Angels, by function of only emerging once their human host dies, but needing the host to be alive long enough to feed them enough Passion to properly develop, are very much a "slow-burn". Their lifespans are much longer, but when a legion can be picked off by a rampaging cherub, that sorta becomes irrelevant. And by nature of the job, constantly moving around and constantly in conflict, born exousiai themselves aren't particularly able to reproduce in a way that would help replenish those numbers. It wastes valuable time and energy and leaves them with an obvious point of weakness.

Remaking human souls, while it does take some time and effort, has been much more efficient, and allows him to experiment with different ways of improving that efficiency. The process is done in conjunction with Raphael, the archangel who rules over healing and doctors, because he is better at weaving the physical form.

What he's also found is that the human component also bypasses an issue angels face with such a job: Angels, by nature, are not particularly violent. God's Love induces ecstacy and fuels their passion, but it encourages a placid, communal temperment. While born exousiai would naturally have a stronger impulse towards such activities, they're more reactive to threats or large-scale sins than they are proactive in seeking it out. And all born angels have a natural tether to God that allows them to receive His Love.

Born - Again's, however, are entirely dependent on Michael distributing it to them, and human souls are much easier to train into efficient hunters, especially when they view him as a holy figure. Instead of a traditional army, they work more in function as bounty hunters, with each reaping earning a certain amount of Love, proportional to the worth of the sin. they're typically put into pairs, and those pairs are all incentivized to compete with one another.

And with further testing, Michael has found ways to encourage the lifestyle required for the job by remaking them in certain ways, hence the monstrous appearances of exousiai like leopold and lacramioara. they need to feed on flesh or blood, and ergo, are more likely to choose to go after sinful beings since the idea of eating innocents is inherently upsetting to such pious individuals Sin, by the way, is simply a different form of Passion; focused inward, instead of outward. It needs to be processed before it can be useful to angels, and so Sinful Souls are sent to Hell, where demons will eventually produce Passion as a byproduct. While they often butt heads, the two do come from the same initial place, and they are ultimately integral to the other's existence.

The way Michael selects viable souls to be Born Again often is similar to how Saints are beatified; they must show enough fervor towards God to be more easily persuaded into agreeing to it. Much like the Conception, Michael cannot act on a soul without explicit consent because of the extreme nature of the action. An unconsenting soul will reject the process too violently to produce anything.

In Lacramioara's case, it was the intensity of her love; in Leopold's, it was his devotion to justice. Once agreed upon, the soul is tethered to Michael so they can receive their payout (he will often offer them a symbolic representation of this covenant, such as a collar, or marking, or ring), and then violently reshaped in the image of his design.

Their original, human bodies become Incorruptible (and thus often become pilgrimage sites). After that, they're sorta thrown into the deep end with Michael's oversight, since he finds a good scare followed by positive feedback is the best way to handle the human mind. They'll need less and less oversight as they become more experienced.

Born - Again's are still very human in nature, even if their forms have changed. Vices, obsessions, fears, conditions both mental and physical; all of those remain, because all of those things are what push humans to seek God's Love in the first place. While they'll never technically be declared "sinners" by the functional immunity of their job, the dissatisfaction brought on by the human condition is what Michael relies on to keep them coming back for the next payday. It could be considered cruel, but he sees it as "If they never felt pain, they'd never know what joy feels like".

A lack of God's Love wont kill them, it's just an unbearable misery on top of the small miseries they accumulate every day of every year of every century. That's why he needs to include conditions like the need to eat human flesh: because otherwise, an ascetic like Leopold may just choose to put down his weapon and live a life of miserable peace. Monks love doing that shit.

He needs to make sure walking away isn't an option, and then reward them with something they could never get otherwise. Violence is an art, and he has it down to a science. Especially in a world like the one they live in now, where believers and forces both diabolic and celestial mingle, where the nature of belief is constantly changing, and where the idea of "blasphemy" is no longer enough to provide the passion needed to feed the hive.

It's for reasons like this he does nothing to curb the curse Lacramioara unwittingly left behind after her death: it really bumped those church attendance numbers up

[elephantbitterhead]

It turns out that the BBC style guide is actually readily available and explains absolutely nothing about their love of random quotation marks around things that are not quotations in headlines and text (see under Q here). The closest thing to an insight emerges in the discussion of when to use single and double quotation marks:

[quotation marks] should be double:

outside the categories listed above - on the ticker, in regular text, summaries and picture captions. Also, at first use of phrases such as “mad cow disease” or “road rage”. (But quotation marks will be single if the phrase comes inside a direct quotation (eg: The minister said: “The spread of ‘mad cow disease’ has ruined thousands of lives.”) Either way, no punctuation is required after the first reference.

So I guess in the Burryman article, 'age old' is being treated as the first use of a phrase. But WHICH phrases get this treatment? 'Mad cow disease' and 'road rage' appear to have little in common apart from being sort of rough colloquialisms, but I guess you could say that about 'age old' . . . maybe? If we're going to put all colloquialisms in quotation marks this will get unwieldly very quickly, so that can't be the plan. Does it have to be a phrase (ie, at least two words)? Is there a limit to the length of phrase that is styled this way? A style guide should surely give more specific & comprehensive guidance about the type of phrases being singled out for this treatment, and it would ideally explain WHY. It also seems strange to A) introduce a phrase treated this way in a headline/subhead instead of in the actual text, and B) for the writer (vs. a person interviewed in the article) to introduce a phrase that requires this treatment instead of using something that can be presented in unmodified running text. The BBC is regularly slapping (generally single) quotation marks on individual words that are surely not this kind of colloquialism and are usually not quotations. Take three examples from today (and I'm sure there are more if you care to look) -- one that's something in the vicinity of a quotation, one in which the whiff of a quotation drifts faintly in from the side, and one that has no business using quotation marks:

Here, I suppose it's possible the king actually used the word 'aggression' (although that quote does not appear in the article). But if that's the point of these quotation marks, then they're at odds w/the BBC style guide, which says: In headlines where the attribution is clear, do not include unnecessary quote marks (eg Britain won’t hold referendum, says PM rather than Britain 'won’t hold referendum', says PM).

This example is more typical of what I consider their wanton use of quotation marks. Britton is definitely a horrible person, but no one in this article calls him a monster in direct or indirect speech. There's a passing reference to the unattributed phrase 'Monster of McGinnis Lagoon' (which I assume is something trawled from the depths of the Australian press -- and also a proper noun phrase that can't logically be chopped into parts, at least keep the capital M). So what's going on here? Does this somehow let the BBC off the hook in some obscure way in case someone claims they're being libeled? The style guide mentions nothing about legal responsibility in the context of quotation marks. As a reader, I don't even know how to interpret this presentation: do they think he's a monster? do they disagree with those who do? do they think the term is an overreaction & are presenting it in scare quotes? These quotation marks introduce an element of uncertainty that seems very unhelpful.

This is truly a WTF BBC example, from an article about finding a single representative from a bunch of Lego sharks that fell off a cargo ship in 1997. Why is 'lost' in quotation marks? The sharks fell off the ship in a storm. They were indisputably lost & I suspect there was an insurance payout that proves it. This isn't a colloquialism (unless maybe everyone else is a lot more familiar with these missing sharks than I am?) and surely no one is going to deny or debate that the sharks were lost. Neither Lego nor the sharks themselves are likely to sue for libel in this situation. While I can make some vague guesses about the treatment of 'monster' in the example above, I ultimately have NO idea what is being communicated by the quotation marks here.

Let's end this on a positive note! We can surely understand & embrace at least one aspect of the style guide's stance on quotation -- this considerate, sensible guidance: Ensure the quotation is comprehensible and makes sense. Do not expose a speaker to ridicule by bringing his/her grammatical/linguistic incompetence to a wider audience. Again, a combination of indirect speech and omission should solve the problem. I hate when something that's clearly an innocent mistake is enclosed in quotation marks solely to make the speaker look stupid or malicious (eg 'alternative facts').