#despite the highly dubious state of one's own

[laundrybiscuits]

(soulmates AU: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3)

“You never told me your folks were soulmates," he says out of the blue. He'd meant to wait until it came up naturally or something, but they're just standing in awkward silence outside what the kids insist on calling the M&M house, waiting for the stupid dragon game to wrap up on the Munson side. He doesn't even know he's going to say it until it's already out there, sitting between them. 

Nancy says "Fuck," very quietly. Steve can't remember if she used to swear so much. He thinks not, but also, she was sixteen the last time he really felt like he knew her.

Steve’s tenth grade geometry teacher once told them: think about railroad tracks. That’s what parallel means, that there are two lines that never get closer together or farther away. No matter how long the railroad tracks get, there’s always exactly the same amount of space between them.

Now Steve thinks maybe that’s bullshit, that you can’t keep going separate from someone else and stay the same distance apart. If you’re not together, if you don’t cling as hard as you can, then the distance between you is going to grow faster and faster until you can’t even see the other person. 

He thinks maybe he doesn’t know Nancy at all anymore. 

Nancy smooths down her skirt in a nervous gesture he doesn’t recognize. “You’ve met my parents, Steve. Did you really think that’s what I want?”

It’s the kind of question where he knows the right answer from the way she’s saying it, but he doesn’t know why. Yeah, he’s met Ted and Karen. He always thought they seemed happy enough. They’ve got three kids, so they have to be happy, right? 

But he’s starting to think that Nancy—the new Nancy, how she is now—might not want to be happy. Or at least that it might not be the most important thing to her, compared to everything else she always talked about. Now that he’s thinking about it for real, he can’t really see her stepping into her mom’s shoes, never really doing anything but chasing after kids and power-walking around the mall. 

Shit, is he the Ted Wheeler in this scenario? Not that there’s anything wrong with Ted, but—wow, okay, he’s starting to understand Nancy’s reaction. 

He hasn’t said anything for a little while, and Nancy sighs. “Steve, I’m sorry, I can’t…”

“It’s fine, Nance,” he says. He even thinks he means it, this time. 

———

“Do you think she’s going to get a cover-up, like Eddie?”

Robin squints at him. “I think she’s the only one who can answer that.”

“Sure, okay, but I can’t ask her because I’ve decided I’m not gonna bring this shit up around her anymore. It’s called tact, Robin.”

“Fuck off, I’m a million times more tactful than you could ever be.” She chucks a roll of NEW RELEASE stickers at him, which he dodges with a little spin, just to show off.

“Are you kidding me? Who was it that got out of a parking ticket last week just by talking to the cop?”

“Uh, who was it that expertly finessed us both jobs at Family Video just by talking to Keith?”

“You gotta stop bringing that up,” Steve groans. “That was like a whole year ago. Get some new material, Buckley.”

“Get us a new job, Harrington! One that pays more than this shit!”

“Nah, I’m gonna be a trophy husband to some rich old lady. That’s my new plan, now that I’m totally unattached.” It comes out pretty steady, he thinks.

She sidles up to him, awkward in the way she gets sometimes, and bumps their shoulders together. “Hey, you know you could totally find someone else, right? It doesn’t have to be…” She trails off, gesturing helplessly.

He tips his head back and stares at the ceiling. The fluorescent lights leave blurry ghosts on his eyelids when he blinks. 

Robin Buckley is the best friend he’ll ever have and does sometimes actually know what tact is, so she just tips her head against his shoulder and stares at the ceiling with him in silence until the next customer comes in. 

———

“You can never, ever tell Steve this.” Nancy’s voice is just barely audible from the front step, and Steve freezes. He snatches his hand back from where he’d been reaching for the doorbell.

“Cross my heart, et cetera, Wheeler.” Eddie sounds lazy, like he doesn’t even care.

“It’s crazy, but I used to feel really—happy. About the soulmark. I mean, it’s every girl’s dream, right? The cutest guy in school with her name on his wrist.”

“Can’t say I relate.” 

Nancy lets out a strangled laugh and Steve silently shuffles as close as he dares, shutting his eyes like that’ll help him hear better or something.

“I know, Eddie, that’s why I’m…I don’t know what changed. I don’t know why that stopped being enough for me. I second-guess myself all the freaking time now, and I hate that! I remember the way it felt when it turned out Steve was actually really sweet, and sometimes I just want to—to crawl back inside that feeling, except it’s not real. I know it’s not real.”

“You sure about that? Doth the lady not protest too much?”

“I’m sure.”

She hadn’t even hesitated. Steve’s nails are cutting into his palms. He feels dizzy with how quick she’d answered; how calm she’d sounded. 

It hits him, then, that it’s actually over, like for real. Maybe he really is an idiot, because it’s been years, and he thought he’d already known that. Turns out there’d been a stupid little corner of hope in him after all.

He tunes back in to hear Eddie say, “Okay, okay, you don’t gotta convince me, Wheeler. If you end up deciding to, y’know, take the plunge…yeah, I can hook you up. But no rush, okay?”

Steve turns around and walks down the drive, all the way around the corner to where he’s parked. Dustin’s stretched all the way across the seats, head poking out of the driver’s side window, squinting in the afternoon sun.

“Is Eddie coming to the arcade with us?” Dustin yells.

“He’s busy, leave him alone,” says Steve.

[sharkgirldick]

Some butch repairwoman x fancy robot yuri I started writing to pass the time at work.

I'm probably never going to finish it.

Legally speaking, what I do isn't robot repair. I don't have a license to fix or maintain even simple robots, let alone sentients. I'm qualified as IT repair and maintenance only, meaning I could fix your home computer, hologram projector, or even your fridge if it's the right model. Thankfully, I get enough of things like that, so my robot repair flies under the radar.

The thing that sets me apart from others in my field, aside from my dubious legal status, is the fact that I do house calls. Most places have a repair bay, and they'll expect a robot to get there, one way or another. I got a lot of my early business through leg repairs because of that, but now I get a wide array of work thanks to my reputation. Today was an eye fix, which was surprisingly common. Robotic eyes require regular calibration, but the majority of the time a robot can get away with just running a diagnostic once or twice a year. It's an eye, after all, they're meant to last. Still, that leads to the robot version of lazy eye, and can cause minor damage that needs to be repaired. If you're not lucky, the neuro-circuits of the eye can be damaged, which is a more intensive repair.

My client today is one of the less lucky ones.

I won't bore you with the details of neuro-circuit replacement, but I'll say it's long, time consuming, and awkwardly intimate work. You're up in someone's face for hours, after all. I can't count the number of dates I've been asked on after doing eye repairs. It probably doesn't help that I neatly fit into the butch repairwoman stereotype pretty well.

The walk to this client's house wasn't too bad, only about four miles from my combination apartment and shop. Despite the doorbell, I knocked on the door. The door itself was wood, a beautifully dark-stained piece that fit the small brick abode pretty well. The whole place was an oddity all its own, as most things meant to be sturdy these days are made out of metal or meldplastic.

After a moment, my client answered the door. I had to admit, I was a little dazzled. She was a very new model of Empyrean-tier pureframe biomock. That is, she looked practically human. Or, she did at some point. Instead of a standard dermal coating, she had a thin, clear layer of what I assume was custom-made silicone cover. Beneath that, the mechanisms keeping her body moving and running whirred and clicked and turned and pumped. I could probably spend hours, or even days, just sitting and examining those parts. It was really rare that I got to work with high end robots, but I've never gotten this close to one this state of the art.

"Veronica?" The sound of her voice snapped me out of my long examination. It was rude to stare at someone's body, robot or not. My own eyes moved up to meet hers. The eye that needed repair was completely out of its socket, and would probably look incredibly creepy if it wasn't a sight I was used to.

"Yep, and you're uh…" I glanced down at my schedule sheet. She was the only name on there. She had offered me a lot of money for this repair, so I had cleared my schedule. Now I understood why. "Ace?"

"Correct. Please, come in." I followed behind her. The next surprise was the interior of her house. It was incredibly old school. The floors were, again, dark stained wood, and there were flowers painted all over the walls. The furniture was clearly not factory made. She didn't even have a hologram projector, just an old school flat screen TV. She wasn't just an expensive model, she was expensive all around.

"I get the feeling you could afford better repair work than mine."

"Perhaps." She sounded amused. "Though you were highly recommended, both for your work and your looks. You are quite the specimen." I glanced down at my outfit. I was wearing a black flannel shirt tucked into a pair of jeans and a set of black steel-toed boots. Guess I really wasn't beating the stereotype.

"Would it be vain to say I get that a lot?"

"Only if you were lying." She led me to the end of a main hallway, and entered a room, flicking on the light as she did. Even more old school wiring: She had a manual light switch. Inside, the floors gave way to more modern flat white meldplastic, with a simple metal table and repair desk set up. It wasn't a repair bay, but the fact that she had her own place for maintenance showed that she was able to get personal work done whenever she needed. I almost felt a little out of place.

She hopped up up onto the table and turned toward me. "You may begin when you are ready." With a nod, I set my toolbox and materials out on the desk, then turned towards Ace.

Without preamble, I found the seam where her outer sleeve joined at the neck, and carefully peeled it off, my skin brushing the frame of her skull. I heard a soft click as I did, but I ignored it. I assumed she would tell me if I did something wrong. I opened her face plate and got to work.

We didn't talk. At all. She could have easily spoken, since she didn't need to move her mouth or jaw to if she used a speaker. Still, if she wasn't going to talk, I wouldn't bother either. Eventually, I put a cap on the neuro-circuits I was using and haphazardly stuffed them into the empty socket. Nothing should get damaged that way. I closed her face plate and slipped her cover back over her head. When it was sealed, she spoke up again.

"You don't appear to be finished." Her working eye stared into me.

"I need a break. This is a lot of small, particular work, and I'm getting hungry. It's been two hours."

"And ninteen minutes. Please, have your meal in my kitchen. Do you need anything to eat?"

"You keep food?"

"I do when I am expecting human guests." She smiled at me indulgently.

"Ah, well, I can eat fast if you've got guests coming over." At that, she laughed.

"You are my guest, Veronica. So take all the time, and food, that you need."

I stepped over to my toolbox, setting down the things I was using, and pulling out the lunchbox I brought with me. "No need." I started to leave the room, and she slid off the table, following me. Her kitchen, which I had only gotten a glance of, was as gorgeous as the rest of the house. The floor was a polished stone, and all of the counters were a gleaming marble. The cabinets were more of the same dark wood. Sitting on the counter was a small plate of chocolate chip cookies.

There wasn't a table, but there were chairs around the central island, so I took a seat there and laid out my little lunch: A sandwich, a small bag of chips, and a sports drink.

"No instant-nutrition?" Ace inquired.

"That stuff tastes awful, plus having a full stomach after eating something so small just doesn't feel right."

"I have been told that it tastes like nothing."

"Well, bland is the same as bad to me. I like to taste my food." At that, she chuckles, and continues to watch me eat.

[usagirln12003]

Belos: Hogwarts AU

Philip Witterbane was a Muggleborn wizard that was born on the 4th of November 1550 and started attending Hogwarts on the 1st of September 1562, being sorted into Slytherin House.

He has a Yew wand with a Dragon Heartstring core.

His Patronus is Non-Corporeal.

His favorite subject was History of Magic and his least favorite subject is Charms.

Before becoming the minister, Philip was initially shown to be an inquisitive and meek individual with a strong intellectual drive. He had a strong desire to return to the muggle-world, although he was harried by unfamiliar environments, such as Hogwarts, and struggled to cope in them. Despite this, he was shown to be a natural explorer, being very observant and resourceful in order to adapt to Hogwarts. He also was a very bright student by careful analysis of his surroundings, and the notes he made contributed to his developing plans on abandoning the wizarding world after graduating from Hogwarts.

However, his soft-spoken personality belied a darker, ruthless character. In truth, Philip was deceptive and selfish man, who was willing to manipulate the wizarding world's inhabitants and let them die in his service, while justifying this as a necessary sacrifice for his removal of his magic. He would often praise his potential victims to fuel their egos, or pretend to be a helpless victim, in order to trick them into helping him. This deceptiveness was particularly apparent when Luz called him out for leading her and Lilith into a trap, as Philip showed no remorse and casually stated they were easy to trick. Philip even falsified reports about himself as a gentle and caring man who was unable to save his companions, something which was proven to be dubious after his betrayal of Luz and Lilith, suggesting that by this time in his life, he was or had come to the point where he instinctively exaggerated or lied about his own character. Due to his ambitions, Philip was apathetic to the lives of others but his own, which was most notable when he remarked that his only hope towards Luz and Lilith was that they would last long enough to distract a beast for him in order to further his goals.

Philip vehemently opposed witches and magic, something that was distilled in him from an early age, as he grew up by the beliefs and practices of witch-hunting. He therefore made it his purpose to protect humanity from the dangers of witchcraft in the name of justice. By the time he started at Hogwarts, his maladjustment to the school's magical atmosphere and residents only fueled his grudge and grew to despise them, considering them to be "barbarians", which would soon evolve from prejudice into wanting to commit genocide against them. Conversely, he developed a self-righteousness, almost savior complex, in which he argued that his actions were righteous and for the good of all humanity. Due due to this belief, he was extremely ruthless, and would not hesitate to eliminate anyone who opposed him. This savior complex of his seemed to spill into his plans to kill all magical folks, as he constructed a false narrative where he was fighting off a problem that would otherwise harm the inhabitants of the wizarding world, gaining their adoration as a result.

As minister Belos, he was described as an "omnipotent and megalomaniacal", strict and commanding figure. His authority was shown to be a powerful one that garners fear and respect, and was often impatient and intolerant of failure from his subordinates. Despite this, however, Belos could be quite lenient towards servants that he values highly enough, such as Lilith and her constant failures to capture her sister, Eda, but even that lenience had limits. If Belos had any weaknesses, it would be his arrogance, poor judgment, and inability to understand loyalty and compassion. He assumed Lilith would continue to serve him after his true plans for Eda were revealed, before simply shrugging off her betrayal and sending her to be given the Dementor's Kiss along with her sister.

Furthermore, although Belos was quick to learn new things, he was only ever interested in learning what he believed would benefit his plans, meaning he never fully understood the nature of the wizarding world. An example of this was when Belos dismissed King as a completely insignificant figure and only saw the Titan family as a method to spread his propaganda. When the Collector told him that King was actually a member of the Titan family, he was completely thrown off by the revelation that not only was "the brat" more powerful than he thought, but the Titan member he claimed to be representing had the means to carry out his genocide all along.

Another trait of Belos was his charisma and cunning, as he managed to easily trick witches into believing they were misusing their magic and believing his propaganda that he could speak to the remaining member of the Titan family, gaining their trust and allowing him to become the minister of magic. To maintain this facade, Belos took care to protect his image of strength and power to discourage others from questioning his authority or rebelling against his laws, as he was irritated when Luz managed to damage his mask and catch him off guard. He retained his treacherous nature as Philip and was not above lying, as he made many promises he had no intention of keeping and was able to twist whatever victory his enemies managed to claim in his favor, all in order to preserve his seemingly infallible image. An example of this was when he claimed Mr. Titan ordered him to spare Eda's life, stating that she would remain in her cursed state as an example to those who questioned Belos' laws and power.

After becoming Belos, his ambitions and apathy were more prominent, as he had no emotional care or attachments to anyone, regarding them as expendable once they no longer served a purpose to him. A minor exception to this was shown with his attachment to his "nephew", Hunter, whom he acted more gentle and calm towards. However, the genuineness of this attachment was primarily a one-sided ruse in order to keep Hunter from rising against him. Belos was also shown to be dismissive and physically abusive towards Hunter. This was particularly true whenever Hunter brought up the subject of magic. He was also not above emotionally manipulating Hunter's insecurities to instill faith and loyalty in him, going as far as to foster Hunter's false sense of purpose that painted Hunter as being important in Mr. Titan's plans. However, after Hunter learned of Belos' murders of his father, he immediately dropped his caring facade and remorselessly attempted to kill his "nephew", callously disregarding him as another "failure" and abandoning any genuineness their bond shared.

On rare occasions, Belos expressed wistfulness for his home and his old life. He was greatly driven by his wish to remove his own magic, return to the Muggle World and protect humanity from the self-perceived horrors he saw in witches. This was shown with his plan to retrieve the key to the Department of Mysteries as a means to return to the life he once had. Belos would also allude to his life as Philip, as he described his past in the Muggle World longingly to Hunter. He was seemingly willing to bargain with Luz, and somewhat sympathetic to her situation as a Muggleborn like he was, expecting her to understand his wish to go back to the Muggle World and get rid of his magic.

However, he was so obsessed with his beliefs and desire to have everything the way he saw fit that he came to fear things that were out of his control and became fixated on trying to eradicate them. As such, he viewed humans who did not share his vision as corrupt or irredeemable, making his sympathy quite limited. This applied with Luz, as when she argued against his ambitions for genocide, he deemed her crazy and attempted to kill her without hesitation or remorse. He later tried to convince her to come with him on the anniversary of Hogwarts, but when she refused yet again, he concluded that her sense of right and wrong had been warped from spending too much time with the witches and stated that he should just kill her to "put her out of her misery". He was even willing to kill his own family members, as when his brother, Caleb, made peace with the witches and even fell in love with one, he challenged his brother to a duel and murdered him for being led astray. When an apparition of Caleb confronted Belos for this, Belos denied any responsibility, deflecting the blame onto Caleb for refusing to let Belos "save his soul" from the demons.

Belos' desire to be humanity's savior blinded him to the possibility that he was in the wrong, using his self-proclaimed justice as a defense for his more atrocious actions. His delusion was so severe that Lilith punching him in the face reinforced his hatred towards witches, rather than acknowledging it was his own deception that had enraged her. As a consequence of his delusion, he was shown to be bigoted and hypocritical, claiming that witches were "conniving, evil, and unforgivable", qualities he himself exhibited. He also claimed that he was better than witches solely because he was human, even though his actions to prolong his life reduced him to something that was barely human anymore. Another example of his hypocrisy was, even though he despised the witches and wizards of the wizarding world, he himself excelled at magic, even pioneering various combos and his own form of magic, as well as utilizing various magical creatures to pursue his goal.

Belos was also not above pleading with his enemies to save his own skin, only to stab them in the back later. This was shown when the Collector was freed, as he tried to make it seem like he had released the Collector like he promised, even though he callously threw him off a bridge earlier. He later tried treacherously blasting the Collector when his back was turned, being unmoved by the child's innocent attempt to redeem and forgive Belos like Luz had taught him. Additionally, when he was on the verge of death, Belos desperately tried to trick Luz into thinking everything he had done had been under the influence of a curse. When Luz wasn't fooled by his lies, he became enraged and spitefully tried to sway her, stating that allowing him to die would make her "just as bad" as the witches, again blaming them instead of taking responsibility for his own misdeeds and accepting that everything that had happened to him was his own fault.

Despite claiming that everything he did was in order to save humanity from evil, Belos made it very clear that what he was really after was the glory that came with it, and that his self-proclaimed noble actions were motivated by egocentrism, whether he realized it or not. He even told Luz that, once he returned to the muggle world, he wanted to receive the title of "Witch Hunter General", demonstrating that he wanted fame and recognition for his actions and that just "saving" humanity wasn't enough to satisfy him. Even Mr. Titan proclaimed Belos had no excuse for his viciousness, citing that his want to protect to humanity didn't come from a genuine place, but from his desire to be the "hero in his own delusion".

[ourblogproject]

"The Vizconde Massacre: A Case that Shook the Philippines"

The Vizconde Massacre is one of the most notorious and controversial criminal cases in Philippine history. The brutal murder of a mother and her two daughters in their own home captivated the nation, and for years, the search for justice became a highly publicized and emotionally charged legal battle. Here’s a closer look at the case that still haunts the Philippines to this day.

The Crime: A Gruesome Murder

On June 30, 1991, Estrellita Vizconde, 47, and her daughters Carmela, 18, and Jennifer, 6, were brutally murdered in their home in BF Homes Subdivision, Parañaque City. Estrellita suffered 13 stab wounds, while 6-year-old Jennifer was stabbed 19 times. Carmela, the eldest daughter, was stabbed 17 times and also raped.

The patriarch of the family, Lauro Vizconde, was in the United States on business when the massacre occurred. The tragedy not only devastated him but also led him on a decades-long quest for justice.

The Investigation and Arrests

For several years, the investigation into the Vizconde Massacre seemed to be going nowhere. It wasn't until 1995 that the case took a dramatic turn when Jessica Alfaro, a self-confessed drug addict and former police asset, came forward claiming she witnessed the crime.

Alfaro's testimony implicated Hubert Webb, son of former Senator Freddie Webb, as the leader of the group responsible for the murders. Alongside Webb, several other men were named as accomplices, including Antonio Lejano, Michael Gatchalian, Hospicio Fernandez, and Peter Estrada. The involvement of a prominent political family added even more complexity and media attention to the case.

The Trial and Conviction

The trial of Hubert Webb and his co-accused became a media spectacle. Jessica Alfaro's testimony was central to the prosecution's case. Despite inconsistencies and questions surrounding her credibility, the court found Webb and the others guilty in January 2000. They were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Many believed that the guilty verdict was a major victory for justice. However, others were skeptical, questioning whether the case was truly solved or if the wrong people had been convicted due to Alfaro's dubious testimony.

The Appeals and Supreme Court Decision

Over the next several years, Webb and his co-accused mounted several appeals, claiming that they were innocent and that Alfaro’s testimony was fabricated. Webb also presented an alibi: he claimed that he was in the United States at the time of the murders. He provided various documents, including travel records and testimonies, to support his defense. However, these were initially dismissed by the lower courts.

The case eventually reached the Supreme Court, and in a stunning reversal of the trial court's decision, the high court acquitted Webb and his co-accused on December 14, 2010. The Supreme Court ruled that the evidence presented by the prosecution, particularly Alfaro’s testimony, was insufficient to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Public Reaction and Lingering Questions

The acquittal of Hubert Webb and his co-accused reignited public debate. Some saw it as a miscarriage of justice, a failure to convict the perpetrators of a horrific crime. Others believed that the Supreme Court made the right decision based on the weak evidence presented.

For Lauro Vizconde, the decision was a bitter pill to swallow. After spending nearly two decades fighting for justice for his slain family, the acquittal felt like a betrayal. He continued to assert that the real killers had walked free, leaving the massacre officially unsolved.

The Unsolved Mystery

To this day, the Vizconde Massacre remains one of the Philippines' most high-profile unsolved crimes. While the acquitted men have moved on with their lives, the case remains a source of national fascination and sorrow. The murders of Estrellita, Carmela, and Jennifer have yet to be conclusively solved, and the quest for justice remains unfinished.

Legacy and Impact

The Vizconde Massacre had a profound impact on the Philippine legal and judicial system. The case highlighted issues of witness credibility, the handling of evidence, and the media’s influence on high-profile cases. It also showed the deep-seated frustrations of the Filipino people with the justice system, particularly in cases involving influential families.

For many, the Vizconde Massacre serves as a reminder of the flaws in the country’s judicial system, where the pursuit of truth and justice can be overshadowed by politics, media influence, and public pressure.

Conclusion

The Vizconde Massacre continues to be one of the Philippines' most haunting criminal cases. Its tragic nature, the involvement of influential figures, and the eventual acquittal of the accused have kept the case alive in the national consciousness. Despite the passage of time, the cries for justice have not faded, and the mystery of who truly committed the heinous crime remains unsolved.

As Lauro Vizconde once said in his quest for justice, “The fight is not yet over.”

References

1. Ramos, M. (2010).Supreme Court Acquits Hubert Webb, 6 Others in Vizconde Massacre Case.Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved from [inquirer.net](https://www.inquirer.net).

2. Burgonio, T. (2010).Webb, Others Cleared in Vizconde Massacre. ABS-CBN News. Available at [abs-cbn.com](https://news.abs-cbn.com).

3. Jalandoni, P. (2011).The Unsolved Mystery of the Vizconde Massacre. Rappler. Retrieved from [rappler.com](https://www.rappler.com).

4. Teodoro, L. (1995).Media and the Vizconde Case: A Look at Coverage. Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility. Available at [cmfr-phil.org](https://www.cmfr-phil.org).

Group members:

Rose Ann D. Mondejar

Keir S. Paller

Lougee Collantes

Flowie Ojayas

[ask-the-virtual-council]

Henry was the better dad and better business partner: discuss

And discuss we shall!

I constantly have these people in my head, so I know how to open this case ;3

But also, I'd like to note that I do not fault Henry for the less serious parts of this, but i must add them for the sake of consistency and context.

Now to begin:

As a father?

I'd say yes, but that's on a slim margin.

Not only did he neglect his living son to build a robotic version of his dead daughter, but he also forgot that children need more than a glorified nanny camera to stay safe, leaving his daughter alone with children who were entirely unconcerned when they refused to open the door for another child.

He literally took the same route as William rather than hiring a sitter for the night. Maybe entrusting her to someone else?

I don't even think William would have been a bad choice for a babysitter, considering that he'd be expected to keep her safe or he'd be outright arrested for being the only one responsible for her at the moment, therefore keeping him from killing her.

Even if William hadn't killed her that night, Charlie would have likely died anyway due to the pouring rain and cold. Which Henry could have predicted and prevented better than how he actually handled it.

And if we're going to take Robo-Charlie into the conversation, is it any indication that he wasn't the best when he actually hit the replica of his daughter that he knows is sentient and who believes that she is the real Charlie?

I'm not going to assume that he's outright beating anyone, especially when I don't assume it for William despite his more dubious actions, but I will say that he does not have his emotions under countrol.

He's unstable, a burnout who cannot pry himself from his work even when trying to parent, and pushes past all the tragedies for at least another few years as he remains business partners with the post-arrest William.

And it takes him how long to go out and get revenge again? While he actually knows where his undead partner's corpse is?!

First he sends Mike, whom he likely knows has already been through the Scooping Room, but then further neglects to finish the job himself until he's had this elaborate sideshow and dramatic speech.

And then when he captures his daughter in a larger suit to later free her soul, he makes the suit shock her?!

I'm no animatronic expert here, but I highly doubt that this was fully necessary and was at best a risky and possibly even useless way of keeping her in there.

And he acts like he's some kind of hero after all that?!

He is on thin ice for me, and he is wearing stone boots.

But as a business partner?

Even less so.

It's outright stated that Henry was the reclusive and tortured artist of the partnership and that William was the one who made it a business.

Is that really being a good partner?

Maybe, since he's also providing the framework for many of the animatronics, but that's only one side of the business, and even if they have a system where they can specialise in their own thing, both must interact with all aspects of the business at least a little bit.

We know that William was already an avid animatronic designer and likely just as or even more talented than Henry, but there's little indication that Henry ever tried to be part of the other side of the business on a regular basis.

This man may be better than a manipulative and cold-hearted murderer, but is that really a hard line to cross?

[havesomewords]

It does suck. Ah, Teyvat - what an enigma it was. You do not speak highly of Mondstadt - I'm rather interested. If comfortable, do tell more, I'm curious to see how aligned our memories are. Despite being from vastly different areas, my interest prevails.

I suppose we do have something in common for certain though, family woes seem to follow us both.

- E.

That might take an entire library of books to explain Mondstadt and its history but to shortly summarise it: every nation was in a constant state of war and had a great many of internal civil armed conflicts. Each major one that ended with one faction winning over the other had a full history/evidence sweep just to make deciphering previous events harder.

Mondstadt of my time was a post-colonialist, libertarian hellhole with royalty transforming into oligarchy. The 'colonialist' part was the one swiped under the rug, because nobody heard of any colonies... largely because the knowledge of them was wiped out or they got all killed. It made maps really confusing and I am fairly certain that there was a country between Sumeru and Mondstadt that was axed around 100 years before I got born and merged into both. The bigger mystery was if there was anything outside of Teyvat (including underground) because the continent was completely gridlocked. I was a part of a network of informants and we had contacts that helped people escape but due to how dangerous it was - we never learnt what happened afterwards becuase none of us had enough data to make the full picture. It sounds like we were very organised but we were all just trying to hoard anything - art, music, photos, literature - and decipher them to learn about the past ... or the present.

In legal terms just pertaining to Mondstadt - being gay was decriminalised when I was 10 and you still risked being institutionalised or sent to a work camp (my Teyvat loved those and refugee camps which were still work camps but with more prison thrown into the mix). Liyue sort of stopped persecuting homosexuality but the laws were unclear and any queer club was technically illegal. The one me and my best friend loved to go to was raided each month. Slavery was made illegal around 50 years before I was born in phases but ... only when it pertained citizens of Mondstadt so if someone wanted to buy a whole person abroad - they could but transporting them into the borders was illegal. Once you managed that? Nobody persecuted those that wished to own human beings. Health care was ... dubious - we had clinics and hospitals but they were all paid - insurance as a concept never existed and there was no such thing as mental heath care. We started to get therapists but they were horrid at best and dangerous at worst - when I booked an appointment with one to get advice on being sober - he told me to stop being gay and that alcohol addiction was just media propaganda. Employee rights or employment overall was a wild west because there was no laws beyond working hours and the best one could do, if you had a business, was to make everyone business partners because then they could be a legal party in court cases if they got harmed during work.

The problem was that ... all of the nations were like this besides Natlan, which had a permament civil war and was pretty much a wasteland. Armies from other nations sent units there if they wanted to rake in funding, because the factions in the conflict kept changing every week so one could really hone on the populism.

Sometime before I died - we did get into something of a World War 2 if one would consider the Cataclysm the World War 1 (in my history - it was pretty much an armed conflict as our Archons were only present when they wished to cause gigantic natural disasters while those in the source's canon were something akin to our prophets so they served as body vessels but they were also their own people) and it went badly to the extent loads of people died or I died in a specific operation (of evacuating people) - hard to say. My memories are a bit weird and messy nowadays due to brain damage sponsored by a dead brain tumour and an older case of amnesia so the problem is that they get tangled with the history of areas that my current relatives live or are from. They all had similar events and backgrounds but over a longer period of time and a larger area. For example - one place had a whole language axed by nationalism and gentrification plus war propaganda and it led to nobody remembering the written form so history of the region is only present in the form of being passed down to younger generations.

I am trying to write everything down whenever I go down a rabbit hole of thinking about a subject but it will take years :') . Sorry for the waffle but I am a history nerd and I'd love to know which area are you from and how does it differ from mine or its depiction. I did run into people with many different interesting histories - none were as extremely differing as I think mine is (but I bet I am a grain of sand on the beach, because most folks probably don't write on the internet, so I am willing to guess that there is much more awful versions and hell - this planet has worse countries in contemporary history).

[darkshrimpemotions]

Okay so into this world of highly racialized supernatural creatures steps Bella Swan, Smeyer's self insert and the character we're all meant to relate to and root for. It's through Bella's eyes that we learn about this world. And in Bella's eyes, the Cullens can do no wrong.

From the very beginning, Bella is entranced by the Cullens. By their beauty, their obvious wealth, their self-imposed isolation from the rest of the student body. She focuses in on Edward almost immediately, and from then on the rest of the series is filled with her going into raptures over his perfect face, perfect smell, etc.

Meanwhile, Bella routinely handwaves or flat out ignores concerning or downright immoral behavior from Edward and the other Cullens due to her infatuation with their power and beauty. Edward sneaking into her room to watch her sleep without her knowledge or consent is a perfect example of this from the first book, but there are many others.

And by the end of the first book, she wants that power and beauty for herself, in order to be "worthy" of them.

See, as Bella is more and more enthralled by the Cullens, her indifference and even contempt for other humans and humanity steadily increases. And though this is often framed as simple insecurity on Bella's part, it quickly becomes clear that it goes beyond that.

For one thing, the insecurity is not intrinsic to Bella's mental state, as it never manifests with other kids at school or with Jacob and the wolves. It is rather a direct reaction to comparing herself with the Cullens. She hates her own humanity because she sees it as inferior in comparison to them. She hates even symbols of her humanity, anything alluding to it. She gets upset about the presence of a bed in Edward's room at one point, because it's ridiculous as "vampires don't sleep."

For another thing, the disdain extends beyond herself. Throughout the story, Bella treats other humans--Jessica and Angela, but also her own father and the wider community of Forks--with a shocking level of indifference. As the story goes on, they are barely people to her. If anything, they're tools and obstacles. Obstacles to spending more time with Edward, obstacles to convincing him she should be turned. Tools for Bella to convince the authority figures in her life she's fine.

Of the total five times Bella hangs out with someone other than the wolves or the Cullens outside of school, four include a premeditated ulterior motive related to the Cullens in some way. She never hangs out with Jessica or Angela at all, despite calling them friends, without some other goal in mind. Even her friendship and brief romance with Jacob, before he shifts, is primarily driven by trying to learn about--or forget about--Edward.

This disdain for humans starts small, with an unkind thought toward Jessica Stanley in favor of Edward--someone she doesn't even know versus someone who has gone out of her way to include Bella and be nice to her--and concludes with Bella's realization in the fourth book that she is willing to sacrifice the lives of random strangers in order to give her chosen family a dubious edge in an upcoming fight.

This is all in spite of the fact that her stated reason for loving Edward and his family is that they choose not to be monsters by not doing just that: sacrificing humans in the name of personal gain. In fact, Bella hurls that very thing in Jacob's face in New Moon, accusing him and the other wolves of being murderers and monsters, in contrast to her vampires who have never hurt anyone (except...they very much have and she fully knows this at the time).

But throughout the series, Bella handwaves or ignores the past murders committed by the Cullens and other vampires in order to continue her quest to become one of them with a clear conscience, while simultaneously condemning the wolves for everything they do despite most of that being entirely outside of their control.

Her reaction to learning Emmett drained his singer, Jasper was a general in a vampire war, Edward killed people whose thoughts he deemed wicked enough? A little bit of fear followed quickly by acceptance and, if anything, increased admiration that they try so hard not to kill.

Her reaction to Emily's scars, imprinting, assuming without any proof that the wolves had killed hikers? Instant judgment and consternation that she has to be talked down from.

Thus, through Bella's eyes the idea of the Cullens as aspirational, the wolves as dangerous, and regular humans as inconsequential is reinforced over and over again. And through Bella's journey this is pushed even further. Tune in next time to Racism in Twilight for more on that!

In light of this ridiculous Twilight TV series news, are we finally going to talk about the ways in which Twilight is a white supremacist wish fulfillment fantasy?

[stillness-in-green]

Thoughts on Chapter 314 (and surrounding events)

Being a loose summary of several things I thought about in relation to the leaks, what they say about the series as a whole, a bit of new operating headcanon on the Peerless Thief, and a dash of how fandom is responding to the revelations. Spoilers, obviously.

This chapter makes it quite clear that the HPSC absolutely would have gone in and eliminated the PLF quietly, lethally, and wholly unlawfully if Hawks hadn't reported back the numbers that he did. The only reason the raid involved non-Commission-affiliated heroes at all is because the PLF's manpower was simply too much for the Commission to deal with via their usual methods. I'm both appalled that the disregard for human rights in HeroAca Land is somehow even worse than I thought it was and smug that that tiny little piece I recently posted criticizing the PLF's treatment has turned out to be totally justified and supported by the canon.[1] (Note that this does not absolve Horikoshi of the responsibility to, himself, treat the PLF better than paper dolls tossed into the incinerator of Plot Irrelevance when they cease being convenient to his story.) The fact that the Commission was forced to involve heroes might mean Re-Destro, Mr. Compress and the others are somewhat safer than might otherwise be the case. Because of the involvement of the unsuspecting stooges law-abiding heroes, and because the botched raid became such a huge disaster, there’s far more public scrutiny on this than would otherwise be the case. Of course, "accidents" can still happen,[2] especially in a chaotic environment, but the factors above (combined with Clone!RD murdering the bejeezus out of the Lady Prez) do, I think, suggest that there probably isn't an organized push for quick solutions going on behind closed doors.

I don't think Nagant has been around for a terribly long time or that there was an uptick in vigilantism in recent years—I think the scene where she mentions vigilantes becoming accepted as heroes is just in reference to the early history of heroism. It's in keeping with what Tsukauchi Makoto described in Vigilantes, and forms the basis of the current system—the current system that Nagant was a single cog in a big machine grinding away to preserve.

Speaking of Nagant and the system, it's interesting to me that one of the groups Nagant apparently targeted at the HPSC's behest was corrupt heroes—those who colluded with villains or specifically goaded/incited civilians into using their quirks illegally, thus turning civilians into capital-V Villains in the eyes of the law. One might easily say that targeting corrupt heroes (albeit using a much broader definition of "corrupt") was Stain's whole shtick, but it actually puts me more in mind of the Peerless Thief, Harima Oji. Harima punished greedy or corrupt heroes with theft, and presumably with a measure of declaration and exposure,[3] then distributed their money back to the streets. Someone who ridicules those who abuse their power, and gets away with it for long enough to build a reputation: that right there is a recipe for a folk hero. The HPSC, in whatever form they existed at the time, obviously couldn't let that go on—such repeated humiliations would weaken peoples’ faith in (and obedience to) the system the HPSC was trying to build. At the same time, though, it would also weaken faith in the system to openly acknowledge that system's flaws, to acknowledge that some pretty awful people had found their way into the heroics business specifically for the power and ability to abuse it that the title of Hero afforded them. Public trials would make it a matter of record that some heroes—and, accordingly, heroes at large—did not deserve the public's unquestioning faith. Obviously in a system that was built from the ground up on faith, that was unacceptable. And so Harima was branded a supervillain for exposing the system's flaws, while the corrupt heroes who embodied those flaws to begin with were—and continue to be—quietly disposed of at the HPSC’s discretion.

There's a lot of talk around about how Lady Nagant is stupid, or hypocritical, or delusional, or whatever other dismissive adjective people want to use, because she expresses a preference for AFO's rule over the HPSC's. Firstly, I think it's dubious Lit Crit to fault a character for not being a Paragon of Rationality, especially when they're under the cascading stressors Nagant has been under since she was, what, 13? 14? Forced to live this dichotomy of smiling gallant hero and ruthless covert assassin, had her life threatened by the man who'd taken her in,[4] probably dumped in Tartarus until such time as her trial could be held,[5] and kept in those ghastly, dehumanizing conditions for who knows how long? How shocking, that her objectivity might be somewhat compromised! Secondly, it's not like she's saying that AFO's rule would be a sunny walk in the park. The kanji she uses doesn't even mean "better"; while it can mean serene or tranquil, her more likely meaning is clear/transparent. Her phrasing indicates that she's aware it would be pretty bad; she's simply of the opinion that at least his rule wouldn't be a sham, a pretty lie. It would be bad, but everyone would know it. No one would have these comforting illusions they could lose at any time; if you stepped out of line and got shot in the head by an assassin, well, at least you would probably know you that being defiant was running that risk, rather than never seeing it coming because you'd been told all your life that Heroes Didn't Do That To People. Again, this is a woman whose life was shattered no less than three times by the duplicity of the highest acting authority in this comic.[6] She doesn't have to be Objectively Correct By The Standards Of Ethical Utilitarianism—nor do you have to agree with her choice that because she doesn’t want to live in the Matrix, no one else should get to either—for her opinion to make sense from her own perspective! Thirdly, while I think it's fair to say that the HPSC and AFO actually use fairly similar methods to recruit followers and punish dissenters, we have no idea how much Nagant herself knows about AFO's recruitment tactics other than her own brief experience of it. And while AFO is a controlling and manipulative bastard, at least in his case it's coming from a man who openly styles himself as a Demon King, not an organization positioning itself as lawful regulators of the protectors of society at large while secretly training child soldiers to flagrantly violate every law protecting the human rights and due process of that society's people.

Overhaul's presence is delightful, and yes, he is a victim of Hero Society, if only because Hero Society could have put him in some kind of prison-based rehab facility after Shigaraki was through with him, but chose to dispose of him in Tartarus instead, for absolutely no justifiable cause. I suspect it's only due to Horikoshi not being very interested in the harsh realities of the trauma caused by enforced isolation[7] that Overhaul is the only Tartarus escapee that talks to himself and has dissociated from reality almost completely. Overhaul's maiming was not the fault of Hero Society, nor did Hero Society force him to torture Eri and repeatedly commit cold-blooded murder. But his madness? Yeah, I'm pretty comfortable laying that one at Hero Society's feet, actually. I can’t wait for Deku to have to face the victim that Chisaki Kai has become due to levels of systemic cruelty and negligence that really ought to be criminal—and which, if this were real life, would be.

--------Lately, footnotes are really popular with us!--------

[1] Lady Nagant: *talks about how the Hero Society everyone believes in is illusory, a thin fake over a brutal reality, and that returning to the false simplicity of that status quo will only cause history to repeat itself* Me, two weeks ago: Hero Society will never stop creating its own villains so long as, every time it fails people, it does nothing but shrug and write off the victims as unavoidable, inevitable sacrifices for the greater good.

[2] Yes, I'm still highly suspicious of the "Destro committed suicide in prison" claim.

[3] Compress tells us Harima “preached reformation,” but regardless, you don’t dress up in a modified kabuki costume and waltz midair through nighttime cityscapes raining cash out of the sky if you’re trying to keep your activities a secret.

[4] And her family situation couldn't have been much better than Hawks', if she was targeted by the HPSC to begin with. I would guess she was an orphan in the childcare system, easy to move from whatever alternative care arrangement she was in, be it an orphanage, a group home, or simply mature enough despite her relative youth that she lived alone on government support payments—that kind of thing isn't as unbelievable in Japan as it is in the U.S.—to the HPSC's care.

[5] And given what we learned between this chapter and 297, I doubt she was even allowed to be present for it. Japanese law states that everyone by default is supposed to be present for their own trial, but as in the U.S, that right can be waived if the defendant proves themselves to be a threat to the safety of the judge, court staff and other attendees. And of course, what a threat the HPSC could have painted her as being!

[6] At least until Hori deigns to show us a damn Diet session.

[7] To say nothing of the physical consequences of spending six months stuck in a tiny room with no natural light while frequently being strapped into a straitjacket, of which there should also be several.

[vivithefolle]

Not sure if you already talked about this. (I’m pretty sure you have) but someone seemed to notice that when the trio get into fights, Hermione’s always in the right. Even when she’s supposed to be wrong she always seems to be half right. That kind of bothers me. Especially since it’s evident in the whole Scabbers situation.

I have indeed, on Quora, so let’s move yet another answer of mine to Tumblr!

Hermione is seldom wrong in the Harry Potter books. Sometimes she makes mistakes but those mistakes are either completely swept under the rug or downright ignored.

It’s partly due to lazy writing and partly due to Rowling’s own growing bias in favour of her Author Avatar that was fuelled by Steve Kloves, the primary advocate of the Hermione Granger Is The Perfect Girl Ever line of thinking (an utterly ridiculous line of thinking mind you).

Lizo: Steve, Hermione is a character that you have said is one of your favorites. Has that made her easier to write?

Steve: Yeah, I mean, I like writing all three, but I've always loved writing Hermione. Because, I just, one, she's a tremendous character for a lot of reasons for a writer, which also is she can carry exposition in a wonderful way because you just assume she read it in a book. If I need to tell the audience something...

JKR: Absolutely right, I find that all the time in the book, if you need to tell your readers something just put it in her. There are only two characters that you can put it convincingly into their dialogue. One is Hermione, the other is Dumbledore. In both cases you accept, it's plausible that they have, well Dumbledore knows pretty much everything anyway, but that Hermione has read it somewhere. So, she's handy.

Now this, right here, is the exact core of the problem.

Rowling herself admits it: if she wants the readers to have information, she puts Hermione in the scene. Hermione is our primary means of exposition because, like *grits teeth* Sssssteve puts it, it’s easy to assume that she’s read about it somewhere and it makes sense.

That’s all well and good but at first, if you notice, Ron also gave us exposition about the wizarding world, mostly about its culture. He was able to recall the exact year of the Wizarding Confederation that outlawed dragon breeding in Philosopher’s Stone! He explained what were respectively a “Mudblood”, a “Squib”, and Parseltongue, Hermione doing a little exposition about the history of that last one! He was also able to identify Sirius, after being dragged into the Whomping Willow, as an Animagi!

But then Goblet of Fire happens and you can notice the first change that will exponentially grow through the books: instead of Ron, pureblood Ron, born-before-the-end-of-the-war Ron, lived-through-the-aftermath-of-the-war Ron, identifying the Dark Mark, it’s instead Hermione, muggleborn Hermione, lived-as-a-Muggle-for-most-of-her-life Hermione, has-no-idea-about-the-emotional-impact-of-the-Mark Hermione who looks terrified as the Dark Mark shoots into the sky!

And it only will get worse, by the end of the series, Hermione pretty much knows about everything the plot needs her to know, instead of having to work with things she knows but can’t always apply to the situation:

Suddenly has a deep knowledge of Magical Law (in the will of Dumbledore’s chapter, while we had Rufus Scrimgeour who could have provided it to us, or to a lesser extent, Ron could have explained how a wizarding will basically worked)

Is suddenly an expert at finding edible plants and mushrooms. Apparently books are always the goddamn answer in JKR’s world, you can literally learn anything from them

She can decipher all the Tales of Beedle the Bard (may I remind you that they were written in Runes, okay Hermione may have a few years of Ancient Runes education BUT I once tried to translate a 3k+ story I had written for fun, from French to English, which means I knew what the subtleties and intentions were, I knew which turns of phrase I had to preserve so it would make sense in the end, and it still took me two gruelling weeks to get a satisfying result!)

Has suddenly grown a sense of quick-thinking (escaping Xenophilius’ house, using the jinx to make Harry’s face weird-looking) despite it being the only remaining flaw she had at the time (remember when she turned her back on her enemy while he was still conscious just to compliment Harry, and almost died as a result, even though she had been training in the DA to learn how to fight Death Eaters?) Quick-thinking under pressure can be learned, but it takes time and a lot of work to force your brain to override its instinct - and it’s fine because we’re all human and different. But no suddenly Hermione is the Greatest Strategist Evah™ and those silly boys (who actually were the original quick-thinking ones, and one of them was established as the strategist early on) better be grateful for this literal goddess because she protects them from all harm with her superhuman brain.

Somehow knows about Quidditch stuff - she knows about a Snitch’s “memory-touch”. Why should she give all the answers? Why can’t Ron give us this particular tidbit of information?

And then when we come to something Ron actually knows, the damn narration itself goes “woah a book that Ron has read but Hermione hasn’t??? shocking!! incredible!! Ron is not dumb, somebody call the news channel”. But… is that really so surprising? We’ve never seen Hermione read wizarding fiction or even Muggle fiction. We’ve never seen Hermione with anything other than schoolbooks in her hands. Of course Ron has read books she hasn’t read since she doesn’t seem to read fiction at all!

Sorry, bit of a tangent over here.

There are only two characters that you can put it convincingly into their dialogue.

So, that’s one part of the problem: the fact that Rowling, after making Ron our insight into magical culture and Hermione our provider of knowledge, ended up saying “eh whatever I guess Hermione can tell us everything we gotta know because it’s more convenient for me”. Which is a decision that was not based on Hermione’s character, but simply lazy writing. Long story short, it probably went: “Could Ron explain this bit of trivia? Meh, better make Hermione say it cause she’ll have read it in a book. It’s convenient and I won’t need to bother myself with exploring Ron’s characterisation.”

(And thus completely forgetting that Ron could maybe ask his big brothers via owl and provide us with a good heap of extra advanced knowledge - Bill is supposed to have aced his NEWTs after all.)

The other part of the problem is quite simply that Hermione is more often than not, either painted as a victim by the narrative (which makes more people take her side, classic manipulation tactic), or made to be right anytime it’s about a plot point.

Hermione’s mistakes are never explicitly stated, corrected, or even pointed out as being unethical.

Hermione only gets one mistake expressedly pointed out as being a mistake: her misadventure in Polyjuice Potion. The rest of them? Even her crush on Lockhart can’t be counted as a mistake - people get crushes all the time, based solely on physical appearance, it’s not something awful or terrible (Except when it’s Ron who crushes on someone. Ron crushing on someone is absolutely forbidden, and he must be punished with much ridicule and humiliation if he thinks he can get away with not worshipping Hermione like the goddess she is. The nerve of him, really.).

Throughout the books Hermione eventually morphs into Rowling’s Powerful Angel of Vengeance, that punishes the people who dared to do something she disliked - Rita is silenced but at a very ethically dubious price; Marietta gets scarred for life because she was more loyal to her mother than to a bunch of people her friend insisted she hang out with; Umbridge is led to a very, very alarming fate that is never made clear but some people have ideas and they’re not all very kid-friendly; Ron first is “helped” without knowing it because Hermione can’t be bothered to have faith in his capabilities, then when he fails to dutifully reward her for “helping” him, she causes him bodily harm before actively bullying him for not mind-reading her interest in him; causes even more bodily harm to Ron because that’s how feminism works; etc.

Hermione’s mistakes are always justified through the plot itself (which is lazy writing).

Turning into a cat? Only affects her.

The Firebolt? Scabbers? Well, in the end, it was really sent by Sirius Black and Crookshanks really wasn’t the culprit. Therefore all the feelings that were hurt and all the trust lost are irrelevant because Hermione was right all along.

Trying to free the house-elves? Well, it’s the intent that counts, right? And we’re never told enough about house-elf lore to know whether they’re poor brainwashed victims or powerful Penate-like symbiotes who need to serve a wizard to survive?

Kidnapping Rita Skeeter, trapping her and blackmailing her? Rita may be one foul little beetle, but that’s going a bit far, isn’t it? Harry approves? Oh, well, I guess it’s okay then…? A main character can’t have a dubious morality, right?

Manipulating Harry into forming Dumbledore’s Army and forcing him to relive a traumatic event with the same woman she’s kidnapped and blackmail and that she knows he hates? In the end, it all works out for the best and Harry’s hurt feelings don’t matter since it’s all about the greater good.

Using the centaurs to get rid of Umbridge (which poses the highly distressing question of what did the centaurs do to her?), realizing that the centaurs aren’t nice little horsies that are going to gently obey her every orders like good Disney princess’ companions, my goodness could this be an opportunity for character growth - nevermind, here comes Grawp the Giant Ex Machina, saving her arse and protecting Hermione from all that scary possibility of introspection. Thanks, Grawp Ex Machina.

Trying to dissuade a highly stressed-out and irrational Harry from rescuing Sirius by telling him exactly what he needed not to hear, a.k.a. “you have a saving people-thing” which causes Harry to completely go bonkers and go save his godfather without thinking twice? Well she was right after all, it was a trap! Nevermind how mind-boggingly insenstive and inadept at dealing with someone else’s feelings she was being, she was right! That means it wasn’t Hermione’s mistake!… probably. (Geez, I’m sensing a pattern here…)

Endangering Cormac’s life (Confunding him WHILE HE’S ON HIS BROOM) to promote Ron’s success? Oh but that’s so romantic! (Yeaaaah, how romantic to display exactly how much faith you lack in your crush. Top it off with a broken neck and that’s a picture perfect first date!)

Assaulting Ron with magic and causing him even more scars than he already had? But he was being cold with her first, right? And he totally should have known she was asking him out! It’s not like her invitation was even worse than his attempt to ask her out two years earlier! Plus she’s just a teenage girl expressing her emotions, anyone who tries to find fault in this is a disgusting abusive misogynist pig! Ha!

Getting all jealous that Harry is better than her at Potions, then pretending she’s not jealous by claiming that TEH BOOK IS EVIL, HARRY, and giving him the cold shoulder too? But no, she’s right, look, Harry used Sectumsempra and he almost killed Draco, nevermind that he’s very horrified about it! Hermione was right, like she always is!

Hermione Obliviating her parents, which pulls her from the “ethically dubious” zone into the “wow okay I’m pretty sure that this counts as a violation of basic human rights” zone, makes her one of those quirky wizardfolk who have the privilege to control those simple-minded Muggles because it’s for the greater good? But nooo she’s crying about it so it’s obviously very sad and angsty and it shows her devotion to the cause!

Splinching Ron while fleeing from the Ministry? Eeeh, but he’s fine, they’ve got Dittany, he’s good as new!… blood loss? Anaemia? What’s that?

Hermione was wrong about the Deathly Hallows not existing? Um, um, that doesn’t matter, LOOK DOBBY IS DEAD AND HARRY IS BACK TO LOOKING FOR THE HORCRUXES!! Therefore Hermione was right, the Hallows weren’t important for their quest, therefore the Hallows might as well not exist, HERMIONE WAS RIGHT NO REALLY I’VE GOT RECEIPTS -

The books never forget to remind Harry and Ron of their own shortcomings and moments of weakness.

Harry’s wrath and recklessness cost Sirius his life. This is the lesson he has to learn from his entitled behaviour in OotP: actions have consequences, and the greater your responsibility, the greater the cost will be.

Ron’s envy and insecurity lead him astray; they’re used to humiliate, ridicule and torture him throughout the books. They’re supposed to teach him that he’s worth something - but how is he supposed to believe that, when nobody ever tells him he’s worth anything? When nobody ever apologizes to him? When his feelings are taken for granted over and over? When his two friends seem to discard him whenever he does one thing wrong?

Hermione is never punished. Hermione is never said to be wrong, never shown to be wrong, never called out on her behaviour. From Prisoner of Azkaban to mid-Deathly Hallows, she stays exactly the same character. She doesn’t grow up. She doesn’t learn. She doesn’t change. She has virtually no character arc.

The only time, THE ONLY TIME IN SEVEN BOOKS, the only time we have something remotely resembling a call-out of Hermione’s horrible behaviour is with this sole quote in HBP:

Harry was left to ponder in silence the depths to which girls would sink to get revenge.

Note how it’s about “girls” and not Hermione in particular, which implies that any girl would do what Hermione does to Ron. Thanks for the generalization, JKR, but I like to believe I’m actually a decent sort of person that doesn’t resort to petty cruelty and exploits my friends’ insecurities whenever I’m angry with them.

Hermione NEVER has to apologize. Hermione NEVER has to learn from her mistakes because she’s always presented as a victim when she really isn’t. Hermione NEVER develops into something more - she’s emotionally stuck at fourteen years old. Even less than that when you consider that her reaction to Ron’s return in Deathly Hallows is to trash him with her fists - and she was going to get her wand!! The utter psychopathic b- wanted TO THROW BIRDS AT HIM AGAIN!!! - and this reaction is an appropriate one for a four-years old girl, but certainly not for a supposedly “mature” seventeen-years old.

(Yes, because what separates a child from an adult is the ability to reign in your emotions and not succumb to your impulses. Exactly what Ron did when he left the tent (notice that he had drawn his wand, then he left before he could start hexing Harry), he left to calm himself down. Exactly what Hermione fails to do when Ron returns (she has the impulse to strike him and immediately succumbs to it, which proves to us that The Brightest Witch Of Her Age has all the maturity of a very small child).)

All of that, on top of the awful portrayal in the movies which removes all of Ron’s characteristics to stuff them into Hermione and turns her into some impossible epitome of perfection, eventually contributed to the portrayal of Hermione as the one who is always right and knows everything.

Add to it JKR’s own ridiculous bias (“Ron was quite emotionally immature compared to the other two”, yeah right I don’t see him trying to force freedom onto unwilling creatures or making Harry fly into an irrational rage with mere words but you do you, Jo) and the sexist misconception that “girls are innately more mature than boys”, and you get yourself this apparent behemoth of righteousness that was literally the sole reason why those two silly boys survived everything, and don’t you dare criticize this angel of perfection OR ELSE.

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression, radio version - Ep 24, March 2016 - 5th Anniversary of 3/11, Human canvass artwork, Kyo hayfever, Actress childless by choice, Celeb Instagram spat.

Kaoru starts this episode by commenting that that it was the 5th anniversary of the 2011 March 11th earthquake and tsunami. Joe says that as well as visiting the destroyed nuclear reactor, he also spent time in Fukushima. He says that 5 years is a turning point for residents, because this is the point at which government financial grants run out. After this, the residents must support themselves. Having spoken to the locals, Joe says that even if support were to continue, it may not be efficient. The more time passes, the more difficult it gets to know if the support is getting to where it is really required. Locals have compained about the number of volunteers, for example. They don't need that many now. Additionally, there are many people in the area, especially the elderly, who really do need help, but who tend to shoulder their load alone, rather than reach out. For example, people who require help with transportation to hospitals etc. These people are not asking for money, which makes it difficult to know how to help. Kaoru stresses that no matter how many years pass, this disaster must never be forgotten.

Kaoru's topic of interest this time is the British artist Eliza Bennett and her work 'A Woman's Work is Never Done'. In this work Bennett used her own palm as a canvass to stitch in coloured thread, and it has recieved a lot of attention, some quite harsh. Joe asks Kaoru what he thinks about this. Kaoru says he's not entirely sure, but it seems like it wouldn't be possible without some kind of painful trigger, and she may have let it go too far. It looks almost like a highly-evolved prank. But at the same time, he's pretty impressed by it. The thought of sewing thread into your own hand is pretty shocking to him. He says that because of what he's done to his own body (tattoos), he is in no place to tell others what to do with theirs, but still, this makes him uneasy.

Next they are joined by Dobashi for the Tokyo Sports corner. Dobashi asks them both how they are managing with hayfever. Joe says he is fine. Kaoru says he usually suffers a bit just at the start of hayfever season, but after that he is ok. Dobashi says he has been trying out pollen desensitization therapy, and is nervous to see if it will actually work during Spring. Kaoru says that Kyo has tried the same thing. Having hayfever during lives is pretty annoying for him. Dobashi asks whether Kyo ever sneezes during lives. Kaoru doesn't think he does, but then again, maybe he does when he turns his back to the audience.

Dobashi's first news story is that the actress Yamaguchi Tomoko had done an interview for the womans' magazine 'Frau' in which she stated very clearly that she never wants to become a mother. Many of the magazine's readers agreed with her, making this a big talking point in the media. Dobashi says from one perspective anyone is free do as they please, and there is nothing really wrong with this decision, but on the other hand, Japan is facing a population crisis. Who will support the elderly in years to come? Should it be a responsibility to have children? Kaoru states also very clearly that this should totally be up to the individual to decide freely. He asks if anything happened to Yamaguchi in her childhood to influence her outlook. Dobashi says, her parents divorced when she was 6, her little sister was raised by her mother, and she was raised by her father. So she probably does not put much faith in the idea of a conventional family. She probably doesn't feel the need to have children, and feels happy without them. Kaoru agrees with this. Joe says that people have a right to be happy without being classed as a statistic in the declining population. People should not face this issue with indifference - it does need serious thought, but at the same time lifestyle choices should be respected. Kaoru then brings up the problem of the aging population, specifically recent news of over-stressed care workers abusing residents in care homes. What are they doing there? They knew what the job would involve. He feels quite strongly about this, but stops himself before he gets carried away with it.

Dobashi's next story is that the singer Oshio Manabu (formally convicted and imprisioned for drugs offenses) had posted a photo on Instagram of himself with his arms round the shoulder of soccer player Kashiwagi Yosuke. Kashiwagi had subsequently spoken out to the effect that, 'He's not my friend, I barely know him'. Oshio had then tweeted 'You liar!', or words to that effect. Dobashi says Kashiwagi is probably under pressure from the soccer association to distance himself from such dubious individuals if he wants to gain a more prominent image in Japanese soccer. Kaoru thinks this is pretty interesting, and wonders whether these guys are actually friends. No one seems to really know, but they look pretty chummy on the photo. They probably weren't the closest of pals though. Kaoru thinks they should have been more straightforward with each other if that was the case. Dobashi says he once caught up with Oshio in Narita Airport, while Oshio was on his was to Hawaii. At the time, he was dating actress Yada Akiko, but his management didn't approve of the relationship, which meant he could be fired if he persisted with it. Dobashi interrogated him about whether he was going to choose 'love' or 'Liv' (the name of his band). Oshio apparently laughed loudly at this. Kaoru thinks Oshio seems like an interesting guy, although he has never met him. He thinks sponsers are probably behind the pressure being put on Kashiwagi to deny association with Oshio. He says it looks kinda cute, seeing Oshio trying to up his image by posing with a J-league player.

To finish, Kaoru reads out some messages from  listeners stating that despite many other fans saying they want some solo material from Kaoru, they do not want him to start a solo project, they think he is just fine in Dir en grey. Kaoru says he hasn't even announced any solo plans! But when he sees so many message with such strong feelings towards Dir en grey, he feels happy. Dir en grey is too busy, and song writing takes up enough of his time anyway.

[prue84]

Non-canon!AOS characters headcanons: Christine Chapel

Series of headcanons about characters from the classic timeline that were never introduced in the Kelvin Timeline movies, characters just mentioned that are a blank state, or created after the movies release. And one OC. Post-Into Darkness canon complaint.

1. Philippa Georgiou | 2. Number One | 3. Michael Burnham | 4. Crew members (Chapel, M’Benga, Mitchell, Rand) | 5. human!Enterprise

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Christine Chapel, the woman with the Kirk Disease immunity

Rank: Ensign Occupation: Head nurse Ship: USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

Christine Chapel studies medicine and biochemistry. One of the classes she follows is held by renowned professor Dr. Roger Korby, who picks her to be part of some of his scientific expeditions. It’s her travels in space with the professor that eventually make Chapel consider to give up her career as researcher to work in Starfleet instead. At the Academy she specializes in psychotherapy and finds her true call when she starts to work closely with traumatized patients. During her tenure as cadet she meets a fellow scientist, Carol Wallace. Despite their opposite study fields (Carol learns what it’s needed to invent new weapons to more efficiently maim and kill people that Chapel will try to heal) they become close friends.

By 2258 she’s waiting for the launch of the brand-new flagship, the Enterprise, where she’s been assigned as nurse. She’s part of the crew for the ship’s impromptu maiden voyage that follows Nero’s attack and, during the medical emergency, she’s one of the nurses who distinguishes herself by going above her duty to help the overwhelmed doctors holding together a chaotic sickbay.

Once back on Earth, she and Kirk have a brief fling that doesn’t end anywhere but leaves a sour taste in Christine’s mouth. Her opinion on Kirk further worsen when the details about Kirk’s illegal boarding and dubious course of action on the Enterprise start to circulate within the campus despite Starfleet’s attempts to keep everything under wraps. The choice of awarding Kirk the captainship of the Enterprise despite his conduct is the last straw for Chapel: she cannot see herself serving under a man she doesn’t feel personal nor professional respect for and puts in a request to transfer elsewhere. She moves to the outer frontier, where she keeps working as nurse.

An year later, in 2259, after the details of the battle of San Francisco reach her, Christine returns to Earth to help Carol work through the tragedy occurred in her life, putting her own career on a break just to stay close to a friend who hadn’t just lost a father but discovered that the father they loved was a traitor who conspired to provoke an intergalactic war. Christine gets accommodations at the compound but, on her invitation, she moves into Carol’s apartment.

Christine gets temporarily reassigned to the Starfleet Teaching Hospital, where she plans to stay until Carol is ready to move on - where, they both don’t know. Their friendship rekindled by living together, they reach an agreement that they will try to stay together in their next assignment. But Carol is somehow hoping to get another chance on the Enterprise, even if she’s mildly pessimistic about it, since she first joined the ship under a false premise, and she’s sure first officer Spock hates her guts.

Half a year later Carol’s request to be permanently assigned to the Enterprise is accepted by none other than Kirk, who has just been deemed fit for duty, and Christine finds herself in the awkward position of choosing between following her friend out in space and return on the flagship or steer away from serving under a man she feels no respect for. Despite working under him for few days, Carol speaks highly of Kirk and Christine can’t understand how an intelligent and independent woman like Carol can fall for the cheap charm of the same guy Christine resents. She’s unable to connect the cheating cadet she’s known to the brave captain that sacrificed himself for the well-being of others. Carol keeps insisting, every day she’s trying to talk Christine into applying for the Enterprise, claiming that she just wishes the best for her best friend and nothing is better than serving on the flagship, but Christine is adamant that she doesn’t want to serve under Kirk. Carol knows it’s mostly her selfishness speaking, but she really does want her friend at her side and, since she can’t convince Christine, she employs plan B. “If mountain will not go to Mohammed, Mohammed must come to the mountain” after all, and she just knows where to knock to move Mohammed, so to speak.

Carol, who had the chance to spend some time with the Enterprise’s senior crew since that awful day, calls in a favor with Uhura, who bullies Kirk into a blind date, while Carol does the same with her friend. And so Christine and Kirk find themselves together, sitting around a table, and it’s Kirk - undoubtedly under threat by Uhura - who breaks the metaphorical (and almost physical) ice. Carol told him that she doesn’t want to apply for the Enterprise and he’s sorry that she doesn’t only because of him: he won’t apologize, because he didn’t do something he should apologize for, but he’s sorry if what happened between them has caused her distress, and she doesn’t really have to miss a career chance just because of him. It turns out their fling had that disastrous outcome because of a big misunderstanding - Kirk not being clear enough about what he (not) wanted from them and Christine expecting too much. After a genuine promise that their past relationship will not interfere nor taint their professional relationship, Kirk - who doesn’t really hide that he’s been threatened into saying it - tells Christine that she’s free to send in an application if he wishes to, their past won’t be held against her and she’ll be evaluated like any other applicant. But the request won’t land on his desk, everything pertaining sickbay goes in the hands of his CMO: he’s a mean employer, he personally wouldn’t suggest anyone to serve under Bones but, meh... she’s welcome to try her luck with Leonard McCoy, if she really feels like applying for a job under Darth Vader.

Few days later Christine gets a call from McCoy, who wants to meet her. It’s uncommon - usually the service record is enough to get picked, or to earn a rejection. Christine had met the CMO, although briefly, during the emergency launch of the Enterprise in 2258, when she assisted the senior medical officer - and, ironically, Kirk - but knows little of him. Carols speaks positively of him, but Carol holds also Kirk in great esteem so she might just have dubious standards with male senior officers. Christine is also mostly puzzled by Kirk’s warning, and walks to the meeting with a sense of dread, almost expecting the man to appear with the Imperial March playing in the background and a hand already in position to choke her with a brutal use of the Force. The first thing McCoy does is complaining about the idiotic urge everyone feels to head out in space. Chapel can’t keep her mouth shut and really needs to point out he should consider another career if he hates space so much; she bites her lips after that, fearing she just ruined her chance with the Enterprise (or given the man a reason to choke her like a random Imperial officer), but McCoy just makes an annoyed hmpf, grumbles something about his personal bane and his need to make sure “that idiot doesn’t get himself killed”, and then moves on. McCoy is brusque but far from the evil figure Kirk painted: he’s firing question after question and he even has her shadow him for a couple of hours during his shift at Starfleet Hospital to see how she does in action. The next day the assignment request, countersigned by Captain Kirk, is waiting in her inbox and she’s officially part of the crew. Despite her initial reluctance, she has to admit that Carol was right, and reading on her profile “Current assignment: U.S.S. Enterprise” has a nice ring.

Her competence and matter-of-fact attitude earns her the respect from CMO McCoy and, barely a month into her new position, she's surprised with a promotion to head nurse. While gentle and friendly in nature, she’s capable of turning into a very strict officer if necessity requires it and more than often McCoy entrust her the sickbay, knowing that it’ll be in hands as good as his. Despite his manners and his complains, McCoy is clearly very fond of Kirk and, when Kirk’s health is concerned, he never delegates: Christine knows she’s got McCoy’s full trust when the doctor allows himself some rest and entrusts an injured Kirk to her cares instead of pulling an all-nighter to stay at his friend’s bedside.

As Carol starts to be drawn by Kirk’s gravitational pull - they have much in common and they click almost immediately - Christine, whose opinion of the man behind the tunic is still soured by her previous experience with him, finds herself hanging out with Uhura, the third part of the oddly-mixed friend triangle formed by Carol and Kirk. Uhura is clearly fond of the captain, Christine cannot mistake those sighs and jabs for else, but she also doesn’t hide the exasperation she feels every time Kirk says or does something dumb - which, unsurprisingly, happens often - and they start on the common ground of sharing a rare and precious immunity over Kirk’s charm. On a starship where most of the crew look up at Kirk as if he were a god walking among mortals, or as if it was just his sheer will that fueled the warp core that made everything run, they are the only two who don’t drool on his boots, worship the floors where he walks on or want to get into his pants. Yes, there’s McCoy and Spock, but the doctor is weak to Kirk’s puppy eyes, while everyone - including admirals at HQ - know Uhura’s man experiences the closest to a platonic crush that a straight, engaged Vulcan could ever feel, so they don’t count. Christine and Uhura bond on being the only two sane officers on the whole ship. Even though Christine has to grudgingly admit that some myths about Kirk’s sexual prowess are indeed true. That makes only Uhura completely immune, but Chapel can pride herself of having got his immunity after coming down with a disease anyone else can’t seem to beat.

As months turn into a year, Chapel develops a crush for Mr. Spock, an infatuation that - as days go by - she finds harder to quell down. It wouldn’t be an issue if she hadn’t stricken a friendship with Uhura, Spock’s fiancee. She feels guilty for having feelings toward the man of a friend and for keeping them a secret, but she fears she could loose Uhura if she revealed her the truth. When the Psi 2000 intoxication is brought on the ship and she falls under its effect, Christine reveals her feelings to a shocked Spock and then attempts to kiss him; after the intoxication is cured from the crew, Spock - for the sake of honesty (and against Kirk’s suggestion that female friendships are tricky and some things like kissing your friend’s boyfriend are better left untold, especially on light of having happened under an external influence) - speaks to Uhura about what happened. (He might also want reassurance that he hadn’t inadvertently done something to encourage those feelings - he’s still unsure about human courtship and its chaotic rules). All in all Uhura keeps her head cool and, instead of lashing out at someone she's learned to considered friend, she faces a mortified Christine. Uhura knows Christine had always acted as respectfully as she could toward both she and Spock, and she knows she cannot fault the nurse for acting out when she wasn’t in her full mind. Both of them know that Spock loves Uhura and Christine is just experiencing an unrequited crush; Uhura just hopes that it will soon fade - not because she’s bothered by it, but because she doesn’t want to think about poor Christine suffering for it.

———————————————————————————————

Notes Technically speaking, Chapel is a canon character, but we know so little about her that we can as well put her in a "non!canon" list. Anyway. I tried to give some sense to what we're told about her by Carol. It's unclear if Jim has been a dick to her or if the scene was just meant to show he doesn't remember the girls she has a relationship with - as the authors suggested. We don't even know if Chapel transferred to the outer frontier on her own choice or because of a fallout with Jim - Into Darkness is vague on that, and it's all up to the viewer. Soooo, I tried to be vagueish about what happened between him and Christine as well, but I did choose that it was because of Jim that she decided to leave the Enterprise while, at the same time, I made sure to not put the blame on Jim for this, making it instead one case of "they didn't communicate". It's my own interpretation of the canon, you're free to dismiss it.

Fancasting Rachael Taylor.

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Crossposted Livejournal: prue84.livejournal.com/83582.html Dreamwidth: prue84.dreamwidth.org/75784.html AO3: archiveofourown.org/works/36493045/chapters/91108396 Ad Astra: adastrafanfic.com/works/1148 SquidgeWorld: squidgeworld.org/works/46623

[philosophicalparadox]

Dark Headcannons for the Demon Bois, part 1: predatory and dietary habits that are horrifying

You know what, I'm in a hard place right now so I'm going to try to elevate my mood by writing horror HC's because I desperately need to unclutter my brain so here it goes:

Mephisto/Samael

Is a viper, and functions as one.

Is venomous, and has highly hematoxic and mildly neurotoxic venom that causes massive internal bleeding and a sense of drunkenness. Kills humans in about 15 minutes up to two hours, depending on metabolism and level of invenomation. He has limited control of the amount of venom produced since he has no hollow fangs and doesn't inject the venom directly. Kissing him can turn into a kiss of death very quickly if he wants it to or if you're careless.

He uses camoflauge. His entire wardrobe is a bizarre form of blending in by standing out. Predators usually try to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible. He takes advantage of this assumption by being very noticeable, giving his human onlookers a false sense of security. No predator would willingly draw that much attention to themselves, right? Again it's like a hyena - let all the prey know you're there and let them think they're prepared, and then wait for one to drop their guard and attack them from behind.

Alternately, bait them with a lure. Sex is a go-to and tried and true method for this. I suspect he takes a certain pride in eating succubi. They are after all usually the ones to be doing the eating.

Also viperish are his self defense mechanisms, but thats a post for another day

He is designed to be a Human predator, fundamentally. Humans are a prey species that requires a certain amount of specialization, so not many demons actually eat them except opportunistically. Samael is not one of them. His physiology and psyche are designed to prey on humans and human-like things. That being said, humans alone aren't terribly high a energy food source, and for a big demon, that is a big problem. That combined with the Vatican means most of what he eats prey wise are other demons. And half demons.

Samael in mythology was known for eating children. I suspect that the reason Samael has no or very few Nephilim is because he kills and devours them all, in effect re-absorbing any of his transferred power. It is too dangerous to have more than one of himself after all.

Many of his self defense mechanisms are also viperish but thats a post for another day.

Unlike Amaimon, Samael can not eat or digest carrion. He can manage to choke down something a human would get sick from but only because he has a few centuries of antibodies at least.

Amaimon

Kinda already did this but Amaimon is basically a hyena and a komodo dragon combined. He will gladly eat bones and rotten corpses. Including perhaps Naberius and other kin of Rot.

When hunting, Amaimon is a truly terrifying persistence predator. He isn't "fast" in long chases but he is strong and has a lot of stamina. He also has the sense of smell to track for a long long ways.

Being reptilian, Amaimon has an enormous appetite but a slow metabolism. He can go days between meals and then binge on whatever is there.

Amaimon is not venomous - he hardly needs to be, preferring to crush and maim prey to slow it down - but he DOES have intensely caustic stomach acid, which he can regurgitate to severely burn attackers or well armoured prey alike.

Due to his diet of dead things and life in the soil, Amaimon is a carrier of some pretty nasty bacteria in both his mouth and his innards. His saliva and fecal matter are biohazards to most humans.

Lucifer

Lucifer is a quintessential omnivore, akin to a bear or a skunk. Fruit, root vegetables, greens, and opportunistic protein.

Due to his body being in a constant disarray and the status of his intestines being dubious at any given time, Lucifer prefers simple protein sources - fish, legumes, rabbit, chicken - because they're easier to digest.

Also due to his bodily issues, he is one of few among his siblings that really couldn't survive without cooked food. Especially meat. Anything that makes digestion harder is something he can, and has to, live without.

Lucifer does not lack predatory instincts, but he has to be in a real state of desperation to act on them impulsively. That said, he functions perfectly well on his own in a solitary survival situation and has no reason to be remorseful about what he has to kill for his food. Or how he has to kill it.

Which brings me to an interesting point - tool use. Lucifer is fascinated by mechanical things and likes to create and build and do things with his hands. As a result, if he does hunt for prey, in a situation demanding it, he does so with traps and tricks and weapons of his own making.

Egyn

Egyn is very shark like and as such is mostly a carnivore, eating a lot of fish and bivalves - but he also LOVES fatty meats like beef and pork.

He thinks humans taste disgusting and they're too bony anyway, but he will bite if he is scared.

Egyn prefers soft foods that smell good. His sense of smell is his strongest sense, so if doesnt have an appealing odor he won't touch it.

Also has a slow metabolism but is not really as gluttonous as Amaimon.

Iblis

A firecracker that, like Lucifer, prefers food cooked.

Also an omnivore that likes carbs and proteins. High metabolism demands them.

Is not nearly as picky as Egyn or Lucifer but absolutely and passionately hates mushrooms or any other earthy tasting or bitter food.

Astaroth

Has the slowest metabolism of them all and rarely ever needs to eat. When he does, he greatly prefers to either leech (parasitic) or scavenge.

Leeching is done by way of mycellial contact. He is a very, very sneaky and silent predator that consumes the energy of his victims slowly and steadily, often knocking them unconscious with spores, or failing that, poisoning them with toxic mycelium themselves.

Despite the above, Astaroth rarely ever kills his victims. If he does so it's by accident (anaphylaxis) and he makes sure to "use" as much of their body as he can.

Whoo hoo that is a long post. Sorry for the Wall O Text but these ideas (most of which can be found in Savages as well) need to be freed unto the world.

[wearethekat]

I just saw a post claiming that Spanish colonial sources shouldn't be counted as proof for Aztec/Mexica human sacrifice. while this is a valid take, it needs more nuance. this sent me on a 40 minute rabbithole researching indigenous sources for Aztec human sacrifice. as I am a model of restraint and tolerance, I have made my own post to comment on this. So! Aztec human sacrifice.

Point 1: the Aztecs absolutely did practice human sacrifice, but it’s been exaggerated and sensationalized for centuries.

The Aztec practice of human sacrifice is one of the most sensationalized and bloody cases of mass killing in history, but perhaps one of the least under- stood. Although the Aztecs were highly sophisticated and expressive creators of great architecture, poetry and art, the most enduring image of their society is the brutal ritual of human sacrifice which was the focus of their religion. 

Point 2: The Spanish also practiced large-scale state-sponsored murder. The reason the Aztecs are the culture portrayed as the violent irrational ones is in a large part due to racism.

the Aztecs pursued a policy of human sacrifice which brought about the deaths of thousands of individuals, both natives of Tenochtitlan and strangers captured in war. The deaths of these sacrificial victims occurred in the same period that the Iberian church and state were executing heretics and opponents in bloody displays of ritualized violence, but it is the ceremonies of the Aztec people which have preoccupied the modern mind and created the perception of a brutal and heartless people, standing out- side of the norms of human behaviour. 

Point 3: The actual number of people human-sacrificed is less clear. Spanish sources have alleged numbers such as 20,000 per year, but this is a fairly dubious figure, due to the abovementioned racism and also because older sources often just make up large round numbers. this paper characterizes these numbers as “sometimes hysterical and largely unsubstantiated claims.” to be entirely fair, the people making up numbers were not all Spaniards, one of them was “indigenous writer Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl.” 

Point 4: and here some indigenous sources for said human sacrifices:

The Annals of  Cuautitlán (a work in Nahuatl, probably copied from earlier sources) claimed that 80,400 people were sacrificed in the dedication of Templo Mayor over the course of four days. This number has been questioned by later historians (at the very least, it’s logistically implausible. They had only four people conducting the sacrifices). But despite the exact figure, it’s clear that the Aztecs were performing sacrifice at a large scale.

but dedicating the temple was a special occasion. estimates made from analyzing accounts of the Aztec calendar estimate that about 500 people were sacrificed per year in the capital. (this is from the Florentine Codex, which was a study by a Franciscan friar. however, it was co-authored by Nahua writers, illustrated by them, and written in Nahuatl. so in my books it counts at least partially as an indigenous source.)

so the author of this paper concludes that the actual number of sacrifices was about 1,000 to 20,000 a year.

there’s more out there and I can look them up for people if they’d like to know more. but for now I shall stop because the rabbithole has already eaten 40 minutes of my time. 

source: I’m drawing most of this from Caroline Pennock’s paper, “Mass Murder or Religious Homicide? Rethinking Human Sacrifice and Interpersonal Violence in Aztec Society” from 2012 (you can read a free copy of it here: https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/handle/document/37888). This is a very interesting paper and it’s worth checking out.

[ruffboijuliaburnsides]

viper jaskier AU teaser

Did you want to read a bit of the setup for my Viper!Jaskier AU? well how about a lovely chunk of the first chapter to tide you over! That sounds like fun, right?

It is not out of edits yet technically, and it is not the entire chapter and I have cut out significant chunks of content so it remains new when I put it on AO3, but I am very proud of it. Please let me know what you think?

------------

Jaskier had, perhaps, been a bit too rash in storming down the mountain after the dragon hunt, effectively removing himself from Geralt’s life. Geralt from his life. Whichever way you cut it, they aren’t going to be travelling together anymore and… and good riddance, frankly.

Jaskier spent two decades as a stand-in for someone else, and he had borne it for the love of that fucking man, despite what little good sense he had. And in return he gets told off for having the audacity to try to cheer Geralt up after whatever happened with Yen that left him in such a foul and hateful temper? Oh yes, how dare he care about his friend – certainly that deserves sharp words about knowing when to shut up.

It was better than being alone, with the gaping ache in his chest as he tried to find his way to something that would fill the empty loneliness, that he'd felt every time he was without Geralt. But he’s done. He’s washed his hands of Geralt of fucking Rivia, and he’s glad of it.

Except that he’s not. Not really. Jaskier is in the next town down a random road, out of the town Roach had been stabled in at the bottom of the mountain, and his chest aches and aches and aches, the way it did before he met Geralt, the way it did every time they were apart. When he met Geralt it was a revelation how well he could fill that emptiness, and he stayed with the man for twenty years. Twenty. Years. Despite the harsh words. Despite the way he sometimes heard Jaskier and looked as if he’d just eaten a lemon. Despite the fact that Jaskier knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the witcher tolerated Jaskier because of someone he'd already fucking lost.. And then after Jaskier finally lost his patience with it and told Geralt as much, he had the audacity to try to claim that he’d let Jaskier stay for his own sake.

Which, frankly, was bullshit, and Jaskier knows it.

Which is why he is here, two weeks later, in this shit town, spending the last of his coin on another bottle of some sort of local liquor. It tastes like shit, but it gets you completely drunk, which is a good state to be in for the shit songs he’s writing and will never perform.

He says

It’s you and always you

I say

You never really saw me

Jaskier hums a bit, tucked into a table in the far corner of the tavern after having been booed into ending his attempted performance, trying to fit the scrawled (nearly illegible) lyrics to some kind of melody, and takes another swig of the bottle next to his journal. “Nah, that’s shit,” he mutters to himself, and scribbles it out loosely.

Maybe it should be a song that blames himself. He’s the one that turned it into a goddamn argument, after all. Geralt had snapped at him how many times, and he’d never taken it personally, but this time somehow was too much? Especially when Geralt was… already upset. He’s not sure what happened between Geralt and Yennefer, but he knows something happened, something not good, and yet he still pushed, and took it personally when Geralt didn’t respond well. Of course Geralt didn’t respond well.

Honestly, Jaskier only had himself to blame for being alone, after all that.

It’s been two weeks. Two weeks he’s been drunk off his ass and written a complete load of maudlin and frankly idiotic shite. He passes out at the table eventually, face planted into his journal and liquor bottle emptied down to the dregs.

The tavern owner apparently thought it best to let him sleep it off, because it's not until morning that Jaskier's roughly shaken awake and told in no uncertain terms to get out, and that his bardic services won't be needed again. Jaskier doesn't blame him; can’t keep a bard on hand if he largely sings depressing songs, he supposes. 

He starts walking out of town, hoping he actually has all his things, and decides to take stock, even if he's still a bit wobbly. He has his lute, his bedroll, a silver dagger Geralt gave him once "for emergencies", and his bag that mostly just has a change of clothes that probably needs washing pretty badly. A quick subtle smell test (which frankly, Jaskier realizes didn't need to be subtle, as there's no one on the road with him, but old habits and all) verifies that he does absolutely need a bath before he does anything else.

Right.

Geralt is gone. Jaskier has left Geralt. Geralt and Jaskier are no longer... whatever they were. Friends? It seems shallow to call them friends, but they weren't anything else. And maybe the leaving was his fault - Geralt was angry, and upset, and Jaskier knows probably better than anyone how much Geralt doesn't know how to handle strong emotions. Maybe Jaskier shouldn't have left. But he did leave.

They're done.

Geralt is gone.

Jaskier is alone.

It's an awful feeling, being alone, but Jaskier spent twenty years imperfectly filling a role someone else had filled before Geralt ever met him. Trying to fill a hole in Geralt's heart the way Geralt filled a hole in his. The problem is the shape of it: Jaskier's loneliness is broad and overwhelming and he's dealt with it as long as he can remember. Geralt's is shaped like a specific person.

And Jaskier is forty-two. He's too old to trail after a man with no interest in him like a lost puppy. He's too old to keep trying to wedge himself into a place he doesn't fit into, just so he won't feel lonely. He's too old to sit around for weeks crying over a broken heart he saw coming almost two decades ago; too old to be drinking himself to oblivion, and playing nothing but heartbreaking songs. He has the rest of his life to live.

So, metaphorically at any rate, he picks himself out of the dirt, dusts himself off, and keeps moving. He's still living, even if the life he'd built is in ruins, so now he rebuilds it.

[...]

It's been almost two years since leaving Geralt when he runs into the mage in Temeria.

He's played quiet inns and taverns before, and the key to those is generally to work at various familiar and relatively low-key songs until the audience responds, and work from there. But in this town, they seem to not want to engage, and he only plays for about an hour before he gives up, and asks for a meal and some ale.

"I wish you'd played longer," a man says, sitting down across from Jaskier. "You have a beautiful voice."

Jaskier glanced up at him, and considered what might be happening. The man was a bit older than him by all accounts, greying black hair and moderately attractive; his clothes weren't fancy silks or anything, but they looked finely-woven and well-fitted. And there was something about his eyes that set Jaskier on edge.

"Mmm," he said, something clenching nervously in his stomach. "No offence," he says lightly, with effort, "but I have a policy not to fuck mages. Professional courtesy and personal preference. You understand."

"I'm a bit disappointed on principle," the man says, with a hesitant smile. "But no, that's not why I wished to speak to you, Jaskier." 

Jaskier is almost more terrified by that than by the compliment. "I don't know where Geralt of Rivia is, either," he says, trying not to let any panic into his voice and failing miserably. "Haven't seen him in years, actually."

"My name is Doran," the man says gently. "I am a mage, though I'm mostly removed from the politics of the Brotherhood. And I'm not here to hurt you or ply you for information."

"Really?" Jaskier asks, dubious and still rather terrified, if he's being honest. "Not to be rude, but given my experience with magical personages, that seems highly unlikely."

Doran doesn't seem phased, though, and just leans forward. "You've a curse on you, bard. It seems rather nasty, and I... wanted to make sure you knew, I suppose."

Well. That certainly got Jaskier's attention quickly, and he freezes for a moment, his heart clenched. "A curse?"

"A curse," Doran verifies, nodding. "A strong one, too, as far as I can tell. Did you anger a wizard recently?"

Jaskier's pretty sure he hasn't, but he wracks his brain anyway, thinking back and trying to think of any magic users other than Yennefer that he might've pissed off enough to have a strong curse on him that he somehow doesn't know about.

"I... mildly irritated a sorceress nearly two years ago," he offers. "But I'm relatively certain she was much angrier at someone else. We have history, the irritation was mutual. Actually, I was off my game; I was probably more irritated than she was." He's starting to get jittery, turning moments over in his mind, turning himself over in his mind. 

"I doubt that would've been the source then, even for a touchy mage," Doran says thoughtfully. "Casting this curse would've taken a fair amount of effort." Jaskier's food and drink arrive, and he stares blankly down at his stew, his stomach souring. No, definitely not in the mood to eat anymore, and he pushes the bowl to the side.

[...]

"I should put this up in my room, if that's all right?" Doran nods his agreement, and Jaskier heads upstairs to stash his lute safely in his locked room. He pauses before going back downstairs, rests his forehead against the door, and takes a moment to breathe.

He's cursed, with a powerful and unknown curse, that could take effect at any moment, that he'd received at some unknown point in time, and if anything happens to him, Geralt will almost certainly never find out. Jaskier can't even be melodramatic and leave a letter for Geralt, because there isn't anywhere to send it. And it doesn't escape his notice that even now, with the spectre of something awful hanging over him, two years after he'd walked away, the only person he can think of is Geralt.

"Fuck," he whispers into the empty room. "Geralt, I swear to Melitele if this kills me, you'd better find out and grieve me like you were grieving your damn ghost for twenty years."

Then he takes a deep breath, straightens his back, and exits the room.

[...]

Jaskier sits on the cot and folds his hands in his lap to keep himself from fidgeting absently with any of the bottles or dried herbs within reach, like he would when he was six and fifteen and twenty-seven and now forty-four, and he waits.

"I'm making a tea that helps keep my magic focused," Doran says as he uses a small bit of magic to heat the water and herbal mixture he'd made. "Not something I need assistance with, generally speaking, but it will lessen the effort it takes to do, so I can focus my efforts on finding the shape of your curse and how to unwind it."

"That's fair," Jaskier says, jiggling his leg. Now that they were here and talking about magic and curses again, the calm he'd felt from the familiar movements and attitude has melted away entirely, like a chunk of snow on a burning log. "I can't imagine it's particularly easy. Seeing as how it's made of chaos and everything. Does that mean it's against its nature to be focused? I rather imagine it's a bit like my mind most days," he's trailed off into talking to himself, but Doran's standing in front of him holding an empty cup and smiling faintly. 

"I don't doubt it's similar, you seem to be rather chaotic yourself," Doran says, and puts the cup down, pulling a stool over so they're sitting facing each other. "Now, this shouldn't hurt, or feel like much of anything. I'm just looking for the magic of the curse, to try to see when it will activate and what it will do. All right?"

Jaskier lets out an anxious breath and squeezes his hands together tighter, then nods jerkily. It will be fine. And if it isn't, then he'll consider trying to find Yennefer. Doran reaches out and puts his fingers on either side of Jaskier's head. 

And nothing happens. Or, at least, nothing happens from Jaskier's point of view. He can feel this... flutter, almost, at the edge of his thoughts, that he's pretty sure must be Doran's magic, but other than that it's rather uneventful and anticlimactic. So he keeps still for a few excruciatingly long minutes before Doran opens his eyes and lowers his hands, looking solemn.

"Well, that can't be good," Jaskier says, trying weakly for levity and not managing it.

"It's some sort of transformation curse," Doran explains, sitting back on the stool for a moment. Jaskier's fingers flutter against the backs of his hands as he keeps them folded in his lap. "A very strong one. And it was set in place long enough ago that I can't see any part of you that isn't touched by it."

Jaskier's fidgeting stills, and his eyes narrow. "Wait. You mean it's a curse that's been waiting to take effect since I was a child?" 

"It's a curse that's already taken effect since you were a child, by all appearances," Doran corrects. "Whatever the transformation is, you've been living it since before you can remember."

Well. That was more upsetting and complicated than he'd expected.

[...]

He stumbles a few steps away from the door and bends over, hands on his knees, breathing deeply. Faintly he can hear the door close, and a small part of him is grateful that Doran is, if nothing else, polite enough to give him a moment of privacy to try to deal with this.

"Fuck!" he doesn't quite shout, and pushes himself upright, still trying to breathe evenly, so he can pace. "Fuck. Shitting tits, I..." Okay. He needs to not just curse. He needs to think this out, the best way he's ever known how.

"Right, Geralt," he says to no one, to the memory of his best friend for two decades who could barely stand him most of the time. "It seems that I've run into a bigger spot of bother than I thought, and I've been cursed since infancy. A transformation curse, no less, and no idea how it's changed me!"

Hmm, says the voice in the back of his mind, that he's so glad isn't here and wishes were here so badly he aches. It's thoughtful and concerned and definitely paying actual attention, rather than grunting assent while not hearing a word he says. Jaskier can— could tell the difference. Can imagine it.

"I suppose it could be something lovely," he says. "Secret heir to a throne somewhere. Or it could be worse, it's probably worse. Probably had some sort of horrible deformity and my parents were so mortified they cursed me to make me look normal enough for their perfectionistic standards." Maybe it's childish to let that much bitterness seep out in his tone, even if he's not talking to anyone but himself.

Could be, his imaginary Geralt says in this imaginary conversation he's having, and Melitele's tits, he can't even have an imaginary Geralt that is more conversational? But no, he can't, because he knows Geralt too damn well for a chattier Geralt to feel at all realistic. Damn the man.

"Whatever it is, it will change the way I exist," Jaskier continues, to the night air and a memory. "If it's from before I can remember, then it's..." his frantic pacing slows to a stop and his heart stutters. "What if I can't play anymore, Geralt?" he whispers. "What if I can't sing?"

His imaginary Geralt is silent.

But his own mind is not, it never ever is. If he can't play and he can't sing and he has more of his heart torn out of him... he will find a way to dust himself off and keep moving. He always has. He always will. If he stops, he'll drown himself, or find a dangerous lover, or try to help someone he has no business helping. And then he'll burn out the way part of him has been trying to do since he left Oxenfurt that first time at eighteen.

He's Julian Pankratz. He's Jaskier, the greatest bard the continent's ever known. He will survive and thrive after whatever this curse can throw at him.

"Right," he says, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "Okay."

[...]

:3 (I believe @brothebro, @wingedquill, and @storyinmypocket​ at the least will be interested in this!)

[lore-of-the-silvereyes-rwby]

Paranoia over reason

Now we move onto the source of Ironwood's problems his new dominent trait of  Fear. Now there could be an argument for pride or strength of will but in all honesty fear has been the core value of his entire personality. For It is human nature to fear death above all else.

Before I delve into why fear may be his most dominant emotion at present, let's take a look at several definitions and meanings of the word.

Fear;

an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.

a feeling of anxiety concerning the outcome of something or the safety and well-being of someone.

the likelihood of something unwelcome happening.

a mixed feeling of dread and reverence.

Now that we have the clear definition and example of what fear is let's proceed.

I think we can all agree that the first signs of Ironwood's fear were first seen in volume 3. Due to the events of the Fall of Beacon where he was completely and utterly out maneuvered by Salem and Cinder despite his best efforts to stop them, Ironwood now appears to suffer from a degree of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), an increased sense of paranoia, and an increased desperation to stop Salem by any means.

This, now coupled with his typical bullheadedness, arrogance and bluntness has made him make several decisions that have led to many of his own people from Atlas and the world in general to outright despise him due to the countermeasures he had implemented and the severe secrecy he has exhibited to the people, even his fellow Councilmen.

Even those in high positions or highly influential within the Kingdom have begun seeing him in a bad light, as seen with Jacques, Robyn Hill, Pietro Polendina and Councilmen Sleet and Camilla have begun doubting his state of mind and the honesty of his intentions.

Fundamentally, fear of death is the governing principle of human action. Fear is also one of the main motivator for most if not all of Ironwood's decisions that have affected the main plot of the current RWBY storyline.(For more details about this proceed to the hero section) His paranoia assuming he was already a paranoid individual before his debut has grown from worst to the extreme. So much so that it has warranted the concern of most of his allies.

Below are a few selected quotes and dialogue from some characters that evidence this reasoning and observation.

“James was no different. I couldn't tell you exactly what it was he saw there, but it changed him. He's…”

“He's scared.”

“Paranoid would be the more appropriate term.”

Pietro Polendina, & Qrow Branwen/ The Greatest Kingdom

“I'm not sure what happened to James in Vale, but it seems to have only worsened some of his more unfortunate tendencies. ”

Lionheart/ Welcome to Haven

“General Ironwood.... he looks.... tired.”

“James... what have you been doing?”

Yang, Ruby & Qrow/ The Greatest Kingdom

This more or less was a call for concern for the mental health and state of Ironwood’s mind. Fear is the main survival trait of all living things and it's okay to have it. But for Ironwood he had relied on fear too much to the point that it had consumed him and influenced every choice he had made. Not a very good trait to rely on.

Especially when you concern yourself more with uncertain and possible threats instead of the current and known threats that are in front of you. For Ironwood he ignored the current issues at hand in order to prepare for uncertain threats thus escalating the problem to the extreme.

Now we know how fear has motivated Ironwood and how it has led his situation from bad to worst. So we will now look at the possibility of how he might use his fear and the fear of others to his advantage.(Can’t be a General if you can’t motivate the people under your command to follow you without question)

“But ask yourself this: do you honestly believe your children can win a war?”

—Ironwood, before leaving Ozpin's office

“Discreet wasn't working. I'm here because this is what was necessary.”

—Ironwood, about the military presence in Vale

“The people of Vale needed someone to protect them, someone who would act. When they look to the sky and see my fleet, they feel safe, and our enemies will feel our strength.”

—Ironwood

Basically Ironwood is the class A example of Machiavelli in terms of philosophical ideals of security and control. Specifically relating to these 2 main ideas of Machiavelli’s philosophy;

Famously asserted that while it would be best to be both loved and feared, the two rarely coincide, and thus, greater security is found in the latter;

Viewed ambition, competition and war as inevitable parts of human nature, even seeming to embrace all of these tendencies.

But in the case of Ironwood he took these to the extreme. To the point that he became a fear monger; someone who spreads fear, or needlessly raises the alarm.  This is what he did in V2. Now why would I assume this. As stated before his actions have more or less influenced the current course of events that has shaped the current world of RWBY for the worst.

This might also explain why Winter the Ace-Opts and even the members of Ruby’s group(@ v7 beginning & specifically Ren & Qrow) were willing to follow Ironwood. Not because he has the plan or because they trust him but because Ironwood has prayed on their fear and insecurities. As such they surrendered control of themselves and consented to Ironwood's authority.

For Winter it can be assumed that Ironwood had used her fear and anger of her father to his advantage. Thus gaining a loyal obedient servant.  This might actually explain winter's line in the enemy of trust;

“What are you doing?! My life doesn’t matter!”

—Winter, to Penny after she saves her

Because she had consented to following Ironwood and accepted that her life has no value unless her assumed savior gives her a purpose. Basically Winter feared that she would end up like her father and so she rejected him in favor of Ironwood. To her Ironwood was the father she had always wanted. But her fear of Jaques had blinded her to the truth of Ironwood. Blinded her to the point that she had consented to a paranoid tyrant that will put his own agenda before everyone else.

Ironwood groomed and conditioned Winter from the start to be his right hand and be wholly loyal to him even against what’s right and against those Winter loves so she would carry out his orders even if they were morally dubious. He had brainwashed her to the point that she said, out loud, that her life doesn’t matter compared to Ironwood’s goals.

This same logic is also quite possible for the ace-opts as well as they all seem to have more fear dwelling within them more than the main heroes that they hide behind a false façade of confidence while relying and believing that Ironwood can ease their fear because he has made them believe that he can.

This is also shown in Ren where he seems to be the only one of the main heroes to actually join Ironwood’s side without hesitation in the worst case scenario.  Not because he thinks what Ironwood is doing is morally right or if it's the pragmatic choice. It's because he is afraid and has no idea what to do. Add in the fact that his usual leaders (Ruby/Jaune/Qrow/Oz) have no idea what to do as well. Hence this quote;

“We spent so much time worrying about how Ironwood will react to the truth about her, but have any of us considered how we're even going to beat her if we manage to work past that?”

—Ren, to Ruby and Nora

The fear of losing Ironwood’s trust is secondary to his main fear of Salem and how he and his allies have no idea or plan to combat her. But despite that he is consenting to Ironwood because of how hopeless he believes the situation to be and thinks Ironwood can relieve him of some of the despair. And chances are that this was shared with the rest of the main heroes but at varying levels.

This is also more evident with Qrow. Prior to this, Qrow has hated Atlas and what it stands for, and was never afraid to call it out. But Qrow was the character most devastated by the revelations in Volume 6, as it shatters his entire worldview and causes him to doubt his entire life’s work. A life’s work that has both fulfilled him and given him purpose, while also putting a strain on many of his relationships. So with his entire world thrown into chaos, he clings to the stability and security Ironwood offers and ignores the warning signs he would’ve caught at anyone other point in his life.

This is also true in real life: where groups that try to embed unthinking loyalty into their followers always try to recruit people at their most vulnerable. This even works on a macro-scale, where whole nations can fall under the sway of strongman leaders after massive social upheavals.

Okay we have covered how Fear has influenced his actions as well as how he may take advantage of the fears of others to achieve his desired goals. Now we will cover how Ironwood’s fears, and paranoia may be unfounded.

To start we will take a look at an overall summary of the final 3 episodes of Volume 7 that displayed the extreme limits of Ironwood’s fears and paranoia.

As of "Gravity", once he learns Cinder Fall is on Atlas, and taking into account the lies from Ruby's Group and that Salem was coming, Ironwood caves into his paranoia. Now more distrustful than ever before, he believes the entirety of Ruby's Group is betraying him, leading him to commit many unethical acts in order to prevent Salem from winning.

He was willing to abandon Mantle despite the people not being fully evacuated and use the Relic of Creation to raise Atlas into the sky instead of Amity Tower, deciding he'd abandon his original plan to solely save his city instead. He was even willing to have Fria killed in order to make Winter Schnee the next Winter Maiden.

His paranoia had reached a level where he now plans on using his immense influence as both General to the Atlas Military and Headmaster to the Academy to now put the entire kingdom of Atlas in a state of martial law without the kingdom's council's consent or approval due to now no longer knowing who to trust as seen where he ordered the arrest of Ruby's Group when they refused to go along with his extreme plan of self preservation. He was even willing to go so far as to shoot Oscar Pine without any hesitation or remorse afterwards so he could proceed with his plan.

This is pretty much a summary of the events that happened in the final episodes of the last season and where the controversy of his character begins in the rwby fandom. Basically arguing whether or not he's a hero or a villain.  Well as stated his actions were all motivated by fear and paranoia instead of actual reason or logic. Sure it can be argued that he made the rational choice but he wouldn’t have had he not been motivated by either his fear or ambition. Thus he had unnecessarily escalated the situation and did more harm than good.

And as stated by Ozpins speech at the end fear is just like alcohol the more you are consumed by it the more your real self is revealed.

The single quality that is common across every living creature on this planet... is fear. It’s funny then, that as common as fear is... we so easily underestimate its power.

But fear itself isn’t worthy of concern, it is who we become while in its clutches.

Will you be proud of that person? Will you forgive them? Will you understand why they felt the need to do the things they did? Will you even recognize them? Or will the person staring back at you be the very thing you should have feared from the start?

I suppose we all find out... sooner or later.

And as stated by Ozpin's speech at the end, fear is just like alcohol the more you are consumed by it the more your real self is revealed. And his true self has been revealed to be nothing more than a scared barley competent man that should have never been put in power in the first place

For it was his insistence that his way is what’s best for everyone has been the source if not all of the main cause of all the  conflicts in the story. Because of this he has done more harm than good to Remnant and its people.

You had me with your words but you lost me with your action

[consequencesofargentdawn]

The Great Downvote(ing) of 2016

As written in the aforementioned post yesterday, we have an important anniversary we are commemorating today. Now it may or may not be known to many that an important piece of Argent Dawn history occurred today.

 The infamous “anti-erp action” thread, posted by Bury of the Rotgarde. A whole 500 posts meticulously compiled by Louis (the editor of the CoAD tumblr) back in the day. Posted at the dizzying time of 5:17 AM (CEST) and finished just before 3:00 PM of the same day the contents of the thread are too extensive to post entirely, even in the attached album. We shall highlight some of the most prominent and important posts here however

Posted by loyal PCU higher up Bury, also known as Tootz/Bones#7692 at the behest of Dear Leader, you will immediately see that the main post received a tremendous backlash, the highest recorded downvotes ever on Argent Dawn. You could say that Bury was quite… buried.

 It did not take long for people to get wind of what was going on and begin rightfully disputing the Rotgarde and their supporters puritanical and fascistic attempt to control rp. Remember, it never has been about ERP, that is simply their dogwhistle for dictating control.

Famosium made one of the most pertinent points in the entire thread, and rightfully was highly rated for it. Perroy and his group were (and still are) highly invested in the Arathi Honor Guard, despite the latter’s indisputable ties to not only ERP but highly dubious activities involving horses, minors and shall we say “family matters”.

Naturally Perroy scrambles to respond in true hypocritical fashion, downplaying his ties while specifically only referring to the “player in question” rather than the entire guild as a whole contrary to the entire “anti-erp” movement he sought to make.

 Other prominent posts include Newstead posting evidence of Perroy attempting to sabotage his guild’s thread through rallying his downvote squadron to hit them. In turn Maarod rightfully stated that the rest of the community should reciprocate by doing the same to the Rotgarde’s own thread.

 In the end it should be noted that the PCU’s attempt to gain support ended with a massive 225 downvotes, and a mere 32 upvotes, roughly on par with their current active member base of around 30-40 players, very little change over the five years eh?