#even if the goals are noble? even if like fucking everyone is out here mass murdering on somebody's command?

[yellowocaballero]

It was cool seeing a bit more of Dedue this chapter, cause like his dynamic with Dimitri is just so interesting yk? Like alongside the loyalty and devotion, Dedue also genuinely cares about Dimitri and Dimitri very much so cares about him in turn, but there's also the added layer of Dimitri being basically his only hope for the justice and restoration of his people and that adds even more of a power imbalance (outside of just the general future king and his vassel imbalance lol). And the way that in their supports they both had said that the other had saved them and Dedue calling Faergheus abhorrent with Dimitri as the exception. There's just a lot of depth there, and I really like the way you're showing that so far in the fic.

YEAH BABY. I know I went on for WAY too long about Dedue in a comment, did I do it here??? I don't think I did? I'll more or less repeat what i said.

You're so right. Dimitri and Dedue's relationship is so complicated, and Dedue is so complicated, and I think the nature of Dedue's character is that he is very, very quiet about how complicated it is.

Dedue and Dimitri genuinely love each other very, very much. They're so devoted to each other, they would do anything for each other. I think they 'killed off' Dedue because Dimitri would not have lost all hope if Dedue was alive. Blaming himself for Dedue's death fucked Dima up bad. Dima genuinely, actually cares a ton about saving Duscur and helping the people his country hurt, about helping Dedue with his life goal of giving the country freedom. I also think Dedue is...um, bad for Dimitri.

You can't forget that Dedue is a single issue voter. He is a genocide survivor. The goal of his life is to save Duscur. Dimitri is his only method of saving Duscur. Dimitri is the only person who cares. Dedue has to make Dimitri king. He's thrown his hat into Dimitri's ring and he has to keep it there. Dedue knows every secret Dimitri has - his hatred, his mass murdering tendencies, his sickness - and he doesn't tell anybody, because that would get in the way of making Dimitri king, and that would put him at odds with Dimitri and what Dimitri wants. He enables continuously when what Dimitri needs is an intervention. He actually openly tells Felix that, should Dimitri start burning down a village and murdering women and children, that Dedue would help him. Dimitri would do that because he's nuts, but Dedue would do it fully aware of what he's doing and completely willing to do it, because Dimitri told him to, and Dedue needs to make Dimitri king, because Dimitri is going to save Duscur.

The power imbalance is a big thing, yes. It's huge, and it's understandable but silly of Dimitri to want them to be friends. But I think Dimitri is extremely reliant on Dedue. When somebody depends on you completely, when they share everything with you, you have power over them. Dedue had the power to help Dimitri, and he chose not to.

I don't blame him. Dedue had his own ways of coping too, and this was how. I think he put the salvation of his people over Dimitri's happiness, and...that's fine. The sad white boy is not the most important person in the world. In the fic, I draw an explicit comparison between Dedue and Byleth: that they needed Dimitri to be a king and a leader and alive, and they didn't need him sane for that. But it was the actions of two people who loved Dimitri so much that they were willing to do anything to keep him alive.

I always kind of wondered if Dedue had THAT MUCH internalized racism, or if he just knew that he had to be careful with his words and show the world the right face. He talks a lot about how ashamed he is of Duscur's So Awful Bad Actions We Killed Your King :(, but...he also privately shares that he finds finds Faerghus abhorrent. SO MUCH of Dedue's lines in his supports are just severely internalized racism, and I just kind of wonder how honest it is...same way that you have to wonder how honest Petra is. I think they're both doing what they have to in order to survive, and that they have to protect themselves and this is the way they have to do it, but...it's not...good...

He's a fascinating character in a way I don't think is immediately obvious, and I think he's kind of slept on in that way! Dedue portrays his own actions as very simple and straightforward, but I really don't think they are. Unfortunately, due to the story, this is the last time we see Dedue play a very active role in the narrative. I was sad about it (I also dislike writing out POC, but such was the story). Thanks for the ask, though - I think if you drain out all of this complexity about Dedue, then you're really missing the point. And the Dedue you'd be creating is somebody who has no internal life or motivations or faults or strengths outside of Dimitri, and who also just has so much internalized racism. Which is lame.

TL;DR

FELIX, AS USUAL, YOU'RE RIGHT BUT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY IT LIKE THAT.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

i was sitting next to this guy while hanging out with some friends, and he was always a little flirty, and i never responded to it but i've stayed friendly ya know? this time he put his hand on my thigh, and i just kind of brushed him off and moved away and everything was fine. Now tho, everyone around me is acting like this is a huge deal and he shouldn't have done it and like,,, i get it, but also he wasn't aggressive and he backed off right away so i don't think it was a big deal at all 1/3

now tho my friends want me or themselves to confront him about it and i'm just so ??? because genuinely it was such a small thing to me and it feels like people around me want me to make it into a big deal for themselves more than to stand up for me since i don't think this needs to become A Thing at all, especially for a dude i've met twice and will probably rarely ever see in my life. idk how to get them to back off because it feels like they're not listening to me or don't believe me 2/3 but to put it in perspective i've been more uncomfortable in the past with men putting their hands on my shoulder/arm when trying to pass by in a crowded space than this guy trying to flirt and backing off the second i moved away. any advice on getting my friends to chill? 3/3

hi anon,

this is an interesting one. do you think your friends would recognize the irony if you pointed out that it sounds like they're being far more pushy and dismissive of your boundaries than the man who they want you to stage a confrontation with?

it's noble of your friends to want to look out for you, of course, but supporting people who we perceive as the recipients of inappropriate behavior means listening to them when they express what they actually need to feel supported. in your case, it's letting the entire thing go because this barely even registers as an issue.

I have to say that I'm incredibly inclined to agree with you here; while this lad may have been a bit forward in putting his hand on you, it sounds like his reaction - dropping it and backing off - was exactly what you were hoping for. human interactions are always going to have messy little edges where we bump up against each other and the signals don't quite line up; that's not a crime. what matters is how people react when they're given a No. by your account, this lad took it like a champ, understanding your no and backing off accordingly.

if that's good enough for you then I think it's really overbearing and, as you alluded to, a little self-serving of your friends to keep trying to pursue this and lambast a guy for a completely reasonable interaction. what exactly are they hoping to accomplish? do they want him to make an elaborate written apology to you, a thing that you've made very clear you don't want? do they want him to promise never to touch someone without explicit verbal permission again, a fairly ludicrous amount of control to demand over someone else's behavior? like. what is the end goal, gamers? what are we actually trying to accomplish? are some of your friends perhaps reacting to this based on their own past experiences? that's understandable, of course, but inappropriate when they're ignoring your own expressed desires in favor of their ideas about what they think you should want.

listen: you can't control your friends' thoughts, but you can ask them to shut the fuck up. if you haven't already, I would recommend sending out some kind of mass statement (there's a groupchat, right? this feels like a groupchat situation, which I say as a terminal group chatter) telling everyone that you, personally, are done talking about this and don't want to hear any more about it, and if anyone wants to confront thigh guy about it then they're at liberty to do that but they'd better make very clear that they're not doing so at your request or with your permission.

if you're feeling extra cunty you can top that off with a little "please respect that, since you all say you're so worried about my boundaries" but that may be a little much.

[a-cutebird]

i feel like as a fandom we do not spend enough time dissecting how fucked up the scene described here is.

"Young Master Wei, that night, you took the two halves of the Stygian Tiger Seal and pieced them together. After you were satisfied with the killing, you were a spent arrow as well. WangJi was injured on your rampage. He was in no better shape than you, barely supporting himself by leaning on Bichen. In spite of this, as he saw you stumble away, he immediately followed.

“Right then, not many people were still conscious. I, too, was almost unable to move, and I could only watch as WangJi, whose spiritual powers were clearly about to be drained, staggered towards you. He brought you onto Bichen as soon as he grabbed you, and you two left."

just. the mental image of lxc being so injured and so drained of spiritual energy that he can only watch helplessly as his brother continues to aid the man who did this to him - to all of them - is fucking breaking me.

lxc just spent an entire night fighting wave after wave of fierce corpses, saw them tear his sect members apart, watched as wwx's demonic cultivation reanimated those same members and forced them to turn on their own brothers and sisters, who could only watch in horror as the men and women they know and love, maybe their own wives, their own husbands, came lurching towards them.

and lxc, he wasn’t spared this; he had to face those familiar looking corpses, too.

they were his family.

but he had to swallow his grief and shout orders at everyone to focus, we will collect and properly bury the dead afterwards, but for now, you must think of them as the enemy --

hours. and hours, of this.

... and then, it ended. all the fierce corpses slumped over. that's the moment when, he assumes (probably correctly??) that wwx became "satisfied with the killing". lxc doesn't even have the energy to do a once-over of the battlefield to check how many of his sect members are left; he stays standing just long enough to make certain that he doesn't have to keep fighting, then his body gives out all at once, and he's on the blood-soaked ground, surrounded by dead bodies and injured cultivators.

but then!!!

he sees white robes pass by him! and it's wangji! and at first he thinks, oh thank god wangji is okay. and then wangji walks past him. and he goes, wait. hold on. wangji where are you --

and lxc has just enough energy to prop his body up enough to see wangji stagger towards wwx, grab him, put him on bichen, and... leave.

first of all, the fucking betrayal of lwj helping a mass murderer - a mass murderer who, i will remind you, used the bodies of the people he killed against their own family/sect members.

second of all, the betrayal of the fact that lwj has enough spiritual energy to do all that in the first place??? when lxc - and everyone else on the battlefield - is basically paralyzed, may as well be at the brink of death himself, because he spent everything he had trying to keep as many people alive in a battle where the enemy's only goal was to kill as many of them as possible?? like? wwx did not have any sort of noble goal here; he was literally just trying to kill.

look, i get that lwj is strong and he was being powered by love or whatever but you cannot tell me that lwj has more spiritual energy than lxc - so much more that he's able to, in this scene, 1. move, 2. haul wwx - an entire human adult male who weighs at least 150 lbs - onto his sword, 3. be able to use his sword (since we know that spiritual swords drain spiritual energy), 4. be able to FLY ON HIS SWORD, 5. be able to fly on his sword long enough to whisk wwx (whom he is carrying) (who, again, is a FULLY GROWN ADULT MALE) away to a location quite far away (the distance between nightless city & burial mounds is pretty substantial, i think?)

the ONLY way lwj could have done all this is if he hadn't fought as hard as lxc did and THAT knowledge. that, i think, would have hurt the most.

because again, lxc spent an entire fucking evening desperately trying to save lives

if lwj hadn't been doing that, then what the fuck was he doing??

... the fact that even after all of this, AND!!!!!! even after lwj severely injured 33 elders!!! which is, a goddamn HIGH CRIME - even after all! of! that! lxc loved lwj so much that he diligently, patiently, dutifully visited him while he was recovering from the discipline whip punishment - which, i cannot stress enough and i will never change my mind, lwj 100% deserved.

imagine how much lxc must have struggled to forgive lwj.

imagine all the sleepless nights lxc must have had after that bloody night, all the nightmares that plagued him over and over again - horrible visions of reanimated corpses of his family ripping other members of his family apart. of having to chop them into pieces because a fierce corpse won’t stop if you simply pierce its body; you have to completely disable it - decapitate it, cut off its limbs so it can no longer move.

imagine all the funerals he must have attended, doing his best to comfort the loved ones of the fallen, especially those who did not get even a single remain of their relatives because their corpses had been so torn apart during the carnage.

imagine how, even after all that, lxc loved lwj. still sought to understand why he did it all - and, even after being given such an unsatisfactory answer (”no matter what, i am willing to be responsible for everything wwx did” - that’s not a reason; that’s just... blindly following someone), still found it in himself to forgive him. because they’re brothers. because he grew up with lwj; he knows him; he knows him better than anyone else in the world knows him, better than wwx knew him in his first life, and better than wwx knows him in his second. 

in the end, lxc knows that lwj’s biggest crime was loving someone else too much, and lxc can’t find it in himself to hate his little brother for that, so he forgives him.

but he’ll never forget, that image of lwj flying away.

[barbariccia]

Shepard: I can’t believe it’s you, Joker.

Joker: Look who’s talking. I saw you get spaced.

joker’s walking by himself, if a little slowly, a testament to however he’s grown and changed in the last couple years, where before he had to be real careful just to get up to take a piss. and he seems to know his way around - hell, he’s wearing the same colours as miranda and jacob, replete with the cerberus logo on either shoulder, and a brand new hat. so what gives?

the normandy sr-2 was, like shepard herself, rebuilt from the ground-up by cerberus and TIM, and was based heavily on the original design, though it’s been increased in mass and size, as well as the interior layout having been spruced up some. not only have we been outfitted with a new ship, but we’ve been given the crew to go along with it. men and women in cerberus fatigues stroll about, having taken the place of the original normandy crew, and miranda and jacob, who are also along for the ride, welcome us home.

Miranda: I’ve been looking over the dossiers. I’d strongly recommend starting by acquiring Mordin Solus, the salarian professor on Omega. We’ll need him to develop a countermeasure to the Collectors’ immobilzing their victims to protect us.

Shepard: Without a countermeasure, we’ll be helpless if we ever run into them.

EDI: Acquiring Professor Solus seems like the most logical place to start.

a voice we don’t recognise, robotic in origin, pipes up, along with an avatar of sorts.

I am the Normandy’s artificial intelligence. The crew like to refer to me as EDI.

we;ve heard mention of AI in the past; it utterly fails to surprise me that something considered illegal galaxy-wide is being developed and utilised by cerberus.

Shepard: Shut that thing down. I don’t want it on my ship.

EDI: Have I offended?

Miranda: Shepard spent a great deal of time fighting rogue AI. Geth, mostly. Plus that incident with the Alliance’s Hannibal system on Luna.

EDI: Your distrust is logical. Unlike the irrational mistrust of most humans. However, I am no threat to you or anyone else.

sounds like something a threat would say. [squints]

from here, we have the full run of the ship and can meet the crew or take off to our heart’s desire. there’s some additional things that the original normany didn’t have... or just didn’t display, like the addition of toilets.

you get told off by your new robot mom if you walk into the wrong ones. :( there’s also a personal room on the top floor, with a private desk and fish tank, as well as a hi-fi system that plays some tunes you might remember from running around on the citadel’s wards.

well, no time like the present to get to know the newbies.

Kelly: I’ll manage your messages, and help you monitor the crew. And I must say, it’s such an honor to work under you, Commander Shepard.

oh yeah, we have a terminal from hereon where we can get emails and other correspondance throughout the game.

Kelly: Being your yeoman is just my official role. Unofficially, I observe the crew. Everyone knows how risky our mission is. Many of us may not be coming back. That’s a lot of pressure.

Kelly: I have a degree in psychology. I’m good at sensing when people are overly taxed.

Shepard: You make sure the crew’s mental health is sound?

Kelly: I look for warning signs. I listen. It’s not a full-time job and it’s most effective when done informally.

shep here thinking she wished kelly was around for like, all of me1, where people wouldn’t stop fucking bringing up akuze with every other breath. can’t help myself hoping that kelly’s being paid for her time however informal her role, though.

we get, for the first time, to talk to people who aren’t of the opinion that cerberus is the be-all of great evil, too, which is the first time we’re hearing opinions like this. and personally i’ve always loved this addition. a lot of these people are just... people getting by, and not exactly privy to the Worst Parts of the org, despite what they might have heard in the press.

Kelly: I was handpicked by the Illusive Man to help fight the greatest threat known to humanity. How do I feel? Honored, exhilarated. Terrified. But mostly I feel encouraged. Under your leadership, we can’t fail.

Shepard: Cerberus has a dark reputation. Do you have any concerns working for them?

Kelly: Not at all. Our methods can be harsh, but Cerberus has noble objectives. We look out for human interests. Advance human technologies. Save human lives. They’re good goals.

Shepard: Sounds like they want to dominate all aliens and put humankind on top?

Kelly: Cerberus looks out for humanity, but that doesn’t mean we hate aliens. My sister started a dog shelter, but she loved cats too. I love humanity. I also love asari, quarian, turian, salarian, hanar -- that isn’t in conflict with Cerberus ideals.

Shepard: That’s a very positive attitude.

Kelly: What can I say? I’m a people person.

in the mess hall, there’s a couple of crewmen chowing down, not exactly impressed by the fare.

gardner’s a Real American Dude in that he’s incredibly sure of himself and his place in the world.

Gardner: Commander Shepard, the hero of the Citadel! You did humanity proud that day.

Shepard: How do you feel about working for Cerberus?

Gardner: Damn proud! Cerberus gets the job done. The Alliance and Council have got their heads buried so deep up their butt-puckers they can’t see squat. It’ll take good ol’ human ingenuity to crush these Collector vermin. Only Cerberus knows that.

Shepard: How’d you find your way here?

Gardner: Can you believe I was once a family man, working the eezo rigs along the frontier? I was happy enough. But losing everything to batarian raiders can change your outlook. I needed to make a difference. I’m no soldier, but I’ve got skills, and Cerberus keeps an eye out for talent.

can’t help but be reminded of all the recruiters the world over that keep an eye out for the worn-down, young or gullible to introduce to their ranks. sure, you can make an argument that gardner isn’t representative of cerberus’ personnel as a whole, but... with the very pro-humanity stance we’ve got going on...

well.

there’s a crewman’s private quarters by the elevator and toilets, with bunks for the crew to sleep in, and a table and a couple of chairs. there’s always a couple sat in these chairs discussing something-or-other, and you can follow their story after every mission you undertake, unable to interact with them otherwise.

these guys paint a much different picture to kelly and gardner; we get the sense that they might not be as pro-human so much as they know something is happening to humans and just want to help in some form or another. it’s complicated! everyone’s got different reasons for being here.

down in engineering-

ken and gabby are the epitomy of a married couple, and adorable for it. they’ve been friends a long time; after shep’s death, ken took offense to the alliance ripping apart everything that we’d said and done for them, and nearly got himself a court-martialin’. he was contacted by TIM, and gabby insisted that the offer included her, since they’ve known each other since tech academy. they’ve got some tech woes, and we offer to pick them something up for their work if we find it - the same way that we tell gardner we’ll get him some quality food to work with to increase morale - and as we walk off...

it’s starting to feel less like a crew and more a team of people who... actually believe in us, even though we don’t know them at all. when TIM said we were an icon, i... guess he wasn’t exactly wrong.

[centrifuge-politics]

Brick Club 4.1.1

I. The Bourbons and Rational Choice Theory What Hugo is arguing here is that France had been in a constant state of rapid and dramatic transition and change from 1789 up until Napoleon’s overthrow in 1815. The Bourbon Restoration supposedly represented a break, a return to the status quo while everyone regathered themselves and figured their shit out. Or so we would think, he says. Hugo sums up the core issue pretty neatly here: “[The Bourbons] had the fatal simplicity to believe that it was it that gave, and that what it had given it could take back.” They’ve been reading Machiavelli and not getting that they’re the joke!

They don’t understand that the rules of the game have changed—there is no more status quo in France. The people expect certain things now that weren’t in the public consciousness when the Bourbons last held power. “These guarantees are a necessity of the times. The princes ‘grant’ them, but in reality it is the force of circumstances which gives them.” The Bourbons, if they wanted to stay in power, now have to meet the expectations of the public which include not being treated like shit anymore. This is a pared down, monarchical version of something called ‘electoral incentive,’ based on a rational choice model. Basically, what this means is politicians’ top priority is always to stay in office and every action they take while in office is to achieve this single end. It is a bit cynical; you’re saying any good a politician does for their constituents will always be incidental to their main, selfish goal of maintaining power. This isn’t automatically bad—social contract theory mediates this a little bit—because it’s also the prerogative of the masses to continue to grant a politician power. If a politician takes actions that harm his constituents, they can simply revoke that power (note that the modern rise of lobbying and PACs complicates this relationship). It will generally be in the politician’s best interest to please (the majority of) their constituents so, theoretically, while the core motivation for political actions might vary, the end result is ultimately the same.

And damned if the ex-kings can’t manage even that. “Their misfortune was greater than they.” Yeah, it was generations of exploitation and oppression followed up by befuddled confusion when it turns out people want off the ride. Hugo really softballs them on this failure because, I think, he mistakenly disregards the influence of centuries of unbroken power the Bourbons held over France. They still see themselves as the default and correct option because they’re too blinded by a history of total power to recognize any change that happens outside their influence. Their final descent isn’t a dignified, regal withdrawal in response to changing times, it’s the pathetic, childish death throes of a group of people unable to conceptualize a public good that exists beyond their own “Divine Right” to power.

Parts II and III under the cut...yeah I did that. There’s also another illustration, so tempting!

II. Violence, Fact, and Revolution Hugo makes a poor appeal to civility: “Under the Restoration the nation became accustomed to discussion with calmness, which was wanting in the republic.” I’m not saying this is complacency but…the July Revolution still ended with a king on the throne again. It’s the same mistake he makes with the treatment of the final Bourbons. Royalty isn’t inherently noble and calmness isn’t inherently peaceful. There simply is no intrinsic value in these things. People who speak calmly can still be doing the same amount of harm as those yelling from pulpits. In calling the July Revolution “mild” and by painting the Bourbons as "worthy” despite their descent, Hugo cheapens the centuries of suffering of the common people and the validity of their anger. 

I wouldn’t pick on these particular comments of his so closely, except Hugo himself is about to abruptly complicate his stance in the very next chapter without displaying any real understanding of why it was shaky to begin with. “The Revolution of July is the triumph of the Right prostrating the fact...Thence the glory of the Revolution of 1830, thence its mildness also. The right, when it triumphs, has no need to be violent.” The right is the ideal, the fact is reality. Hugo’s observations on how violence affects the triumph of right...don’t really work, do they? The July Revolution, in all its mild splendor, didn’t restore right, it resulted in a return to the very same fact it sought to prostrate. Why? The problem is Hugo characterizes fact as neutral, passive, nonviolent even and it isn’t. He seems to want to refuse to acknowledge the explicit and active opposition to right and why it exists. But if there are those who fight on the side of right, it has to follow that there are those fighting for fact. This constitutes the very definition of class conflict: the many workers fight against the few owners. And the owners fight back.

I’ll go ahead and spoil my answer, if you haven’t already extrapolated from my dive into rational choice theory: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a bourgeoisie in possession of power, must be in want of more power. Just as the politician in office wants to stay in office. Rational choice dictates they will make every action with the single-minded intention of maintaining and even amassing power, whether that be political, economical, etc. The bourgeoisie aren’t mindlessly resurrecting a dynasty, they are active agents in undermining the work of the revolutionaries. Not necessarily because they hate the lower class but because they want power for themselves. As in our election incentive example, this motivation doesn’t really matter because, ultimately, the outcome is the same.

I’ll repeat part of a quote above: “The right, when it triumphs, has no need to be violent.” But what about before it triumphs? *Or when it fails, like in the acclaimed novel Les Miserables? What’s the protocol then? The ideal and pure state of nonviolence after the Revolution will always be built on the violence it took to break free, Enjolras specifically acknowledges his violent role in bringing about a new day. For all Hugo sanitizes it, the July Revolution was violent, it was just usurped by neo-royalists directly afterward. Peaceful solutions might be preferable, but when violence is already being done to you, there isn’t always a real choice. This is why I don’t care much for Hugo’s appreciation of calm discussion with the Bourbons. It would be like me calmly exchanging points of view with a neo-Nazi.

III. Machiavelli I just thought Hugo was wrong about Machiavelli, that’s it. The Prince is at the very least hyperaware of the system it describes and at the most hard hitting satire. The Bourbons are funny because they think they’re still the same princes and that ‘Machiavelli said we were doing everything right by oppressing the people! Why do they hate us?’ when, as I see it, that’s exactly the response The Prince is designed to garner. It exposes the cruel tactics of a strong-handed government and also explains why they are effective. When the lie of natural power is peeled away and the cogs of exploitation based in greed are revealed, it fuels outrage and pushback. Machiavelli may not be a font of revolutionary sentiment, but he’s hardly the slave to fact that Hugo describes. He basically leaked the playbook that the ‘princes’ were using to fuck everyone over, revealing their dirty tricks. When the Bourbons attempt to come back to power, they use these same tricks, except now the public is wise to it and neatly (yet violently) excise them.

[emperorren]

(6) I guess I'm also not a fan of "Perfect Jedi Goddess Rey for whom Kylo has to crawl on his knees to be worthy of" (I can totally see why ppl like it tho), mainly because at this point, Kylo needs an equal, and not someone he'll always feel inferior too. I think the Throne Room proves that both of them still have some growing up to do in order to not only be together, but also understand each other better, bring out the best in each other, and being able to mature together in a healthy way.

Sorry, forgot to add this last part to the earlier post.

I think nobody wants Kylo to crawl. It was a popular concept like, 2-3 years ago, when Reylo shippers used to self flagellate (and flagellate Kylo) much more than we do now, half to deflect anti discourse and half because we really believed the best we could hope for was Rey not *completely* hating his guts by the end. Those days are gone. We know Kylo has his own reasons, because the narrative is showing them—it’s no longer a stretch or “reading too much into it” on our part. But the fact remains that Kylo is a villain and that, in order for this relationship to work, they’ll need to start being on the same page on something other than their mutual desire to be with each other. And I think it’s clear that, while Rey does have some growing up to do, her ethics are in the right place, while Kylo’s aren’t. It’s kind of unrealistic to expect Rey to move away from her heroic morals in the same way Kylo will have to move away from his villainous morals, so I don’t think it’s worth debating whether she should or not. 

The whole “meeting halfway” thing is still possible, especially if you consider that, so far, they’ve essentially tried to abduct each other into their world, and failed. They both need to acknowledge and accept the fact that they might never “have” the other—not in the terms they currently think would be ideal. But Kylo has objectively more things to make up for. Many of those things have nothing to do with Rey per se, but became Rey’s business the moment she started to care for him.

re: your new round of asks:

(Rey discourse anon here) The problem is that for me, it’s really hard to tell whether Rey pulling the lightsaber away from Ben was her being cornered and knowing that what she’ll do will hurt Ben deeply – and for that, all I’m going to say is that, well, no, she literally did not have to do that. Again, it makes sense that she’d react this way, but the issue is that by reacting on impulse, like Luke did so many years ago, just like he played a part in making Kylo Ren,she played a part in making the Supreme Leader. Yelling at him and making her intentions clear was entirely possible, would have resulted in a similar outcome, and she decided not to. Because reasons. (Seriously, what is Ben going to do if she replies “no” out loud, kill her? *eyeroll*) 

I’m not sure why you think yelling at him would have looked better in Kylo’s eyes, or what else Rey could have done to make her intentions clear, other than beg Kylo to stop firing on the Resistance, which she already had, loud and clear. Kylo perfectly understood what she was asking. He chose not to comply. Had his reasons. But chose to discard her plea.

Also, yes, she *literally* had to pull the saber. It’s her only weapon, and the girl needed one if she wanted to get the fuck out of the Supremacy alive. I think y’all forget she was in enemy territory, alone, unarmed, and in desperate need to get to Crait where there would probably be a huge battle within minutes. Yeah, she has the Force… but a lightsaber could help. 

And frankly, no, I don’t think being morally right gives you a right or even merely an excuse to strike right into someone’s trauma.

Rey really did not do that—not on purpose (unlike Kylo, who totally used the parents card i.e. Rey’s own trauma and repressed painful memories to convince her to accept his offer). Note that Rey never actually got to wield the saber against Kylo—all she did was try to snatch it away from him. They could have gone for a clear cut Luke/Rey parallel by having Kylo regain consciousness to see an armed Rey looming over him, conflicted on whether to kill him or not. But they didn’t. This is absolutely important—Rey could have killed Kylo as he was unconscious, but chose not to. And Kylo never got to see her seriously considering to kill him.

Her face could frankly also be interpreted as “you’re not doing as I say, so screw you!”, and since the next scene we see her in is her woo-hoo-ing on the Falcon and then getting reunited with her buddies, there’s no indication she’s really all that heart-broken. Her closing the door on Ben could be seen that way as well (although I obviously think their story isn’t over, of course). Like… I dunno, it’s hard for me to feel sorry for her.

Her face when she’s slowly lifting her hand in the throne room scene doesn’t scream of “screw you!” to me. Neither does the little gasp in the last force bond. But YMMV.

The story could have been set up as “Rey did nothing wrong and Ben better beg on his knees in IX”, but it wasn’t. Because in the end, both Rey and Ben made their own bed, which leads me to be more “GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER YOU IDIOTS”. But this said, I do believe Rey’s heart was at the right place. She was indeed the catalyst that pushed Ben to finally get rid of his abuser. But realistically speaking, what she pulled off could have gone horribly wrong as well.My point is not that following your heart is always bad – but doing that all the time isn’t exactly a good idea either. Heck, Luke’s heart was at the right place when he went to save his friends in ESB, and he got beat up and lost his hand.

It might be not “exactly a good idea” but it’s still better than the alternative. (in Luke’s case, that would have been leaving his friends to die; in Rey’s case, not attempting to do anything for Kylo at all). These heroes tend to have their heroism challenged at the end of the second movie: they learn that sometimes having the best intentions isn’t enough. It’s an important lesson in humility. But not one that teaches them to follow their hearts a little less. See: Luke in RotJ, doubling down on compassion and being ready to risk his life not only to save his friends, but to redeem his father too.

And for Rey, it’s more than being an outsider: she’s the only person who had, like, an actual human reaction to Ben’s situation and actually did something to help.(Well, so did Han, but it was indeed a case of “too little, too late”, even if it definitely had a huge effect on Ben and made him start to realize Snoke was a PoS) But where she also failed is that just like everyone else, she came to Ben with a clear agenda in mind (or you know, an agenda to convince herself she’s totally doing this for the great cause, not because she wants The Beefcake), and with wanting to be the hero so bad she lost sight of what Ben really needs – a friend.I guess one thing that kind of annoys me at this point is that, honestly, who the heck knows what Ben’s motivations are, at this point, because his speech in the Throne Room could be interpreted in many ways. But I won’t lie by saying about it that if it just boils up to “Ra-Ra-First-Order”, I’ll be bored to tears. It’s not even a matter of saying “Ben was right all along” (because he obviously isn’t), you know, just something like“Ben is right when it comes to the endgame, or the intentions, or whatever, but his methods of getting to that are terrible”. What Rey has in mind is “we’ll help the Resistance together and build a new Jedi Order”, while having no clue whether Ben really wants that or not. I mean, he’s probably already not big on the idea because Rey might think the Resistance is great and all, but he knows they won’t be so nice to him, for obvious reasons.And it’s not even a matter of ideological differences or not – heck, maybe even in the old days with Luke, he flat out didn’t want to be a Jedi. Both of them need to find an outcome that they both want – and they’re obviously not at that point yet. 

I don’t disagree with you on this last part, especially on the bolded. (See what I said earlier about meeting halfway.)  But I do have a couple objections:

I don’t think Rey was at all trying to play the hero by coming to the Supremacy. If anything, she hoped Ben could be, so she could be relieved from the burden of being the galaxy’s last hope. And yeah, Ben might be in desperate need of a friend… but so is she, and it’s not exactly easy to be the perfect friend when a war is raging and you’re on opposite sides of the conflict, ykwim? This isn’t a normal situation.

I wouldn’t really count on Kylo’s endgame being shown in a sympathetic or redeeming light. Politically, his ideas (judging from the little we know of them) are a mess. But most importantly, in politics, the “means” count just as much as the “end” does. If your plan to reduce poverty includes, say, mass incarceration and operates on a racist logic, then your plan is bad, no matter how noble your goal is. If Kylo thought the best way to create his “new order” was using a militaristic, despotic war machine whose goal is forcing the galaxy to yield to their dictatorship and raze to the ground any dissenter, then either his idea of a new order isn’t ESPECIALLY democratic in the first place, or he just doesn’t understand politics at all. He can’t simply give up on his means. He needs to give up on his intended endgame as well.

[the-b00k-wyrm]

The Drunk

Depending on who you talk to, I was either cursed or blessed from birth. I was born to a family of nobles whose land was on the border of the kingdom. I am was the third son born to the house, so the chances of me inheriting my father's title where slim to start with, and they got slimmer when my father noticed my red eyes shortly after I was born. He thought them a sign I was cursed to bring ruin to our family and wanted to abandon me somewhere in the world, luckily for me, my mother was as stubborn as she was a fool for believing my eyes where a blessing, she thought my eyes meant the gods had blessed me with a great future. In the end she won and I grew up in a house where only one person wanted me, with a desire to prove that I was worth keeping around. I aimed for the highest honor I could achieve, a member of the King and Queens Royal Knights. I trained day in and day out to achieve my goal, I earned any and all achievements I could, and at the age of twenty I became the youngest member of the Royal Knights in history. For the first time in my life, my father was proud of me, and I was happy my mother didn't let him have me killed. I thought that the Royal Knights was an honorable organization, one that upheld the justice of the kingdom and protected the royal family. I was wrong. What I entered was a nest of corruption and deceit, not a single member of the eleven other Knights was honorable. They openly received bribes, plotted against one another, and openly abused their power. As members of the Royal Knights we where given a personal army, and the royal family took our advice to heart, so a with a single whisper the royals could be persuaded into any action a Knight wanted. I was determined to be better then them, to restore the honor of the organization. The other Knights where not a fan of that notion and began having the royals send me on suicide missions, things like leading my army against hordes of orcs, colonies of bandits, and any rare and powerful beast they could find. When me and my army proved to well trained and strong for that to work, they chose to destroy my reputation. The Royal family was known for having an iron fist, crushing any hint of rebellion with overwhelming force, a group of men in a village are plotting rebellion, send and army and brutally execute them, a merchant is intentionally doing trade with enemies of the state, send an army and perform a brutal execution. What my fellow Royal Knights had the royals start ordering me to do showed how twisted the knights truly were. They tried dispatching me to wipe out entire villages, simply because one voice of descent arose from the masses. I would arrive at the village, execute the accused and force the villagers to abandon their homes, then burn the village to the ground. I persisted in the Knights, begging the royals to see what the other Knights were doing, but they wouldn't listen, wouldn't believe that their trusted advisers would lead them astray, believed that I was trying to sow discourse. One fateful day I arrived at a village where someone was voicing issue with the royals, more specifically with what I was doing. I always did this alone, I would not allow my men to have their names tarnished by these acts because I was unwilling to give up my morals. I dragged the accused into the center of town, and prepared the execution. As I was reading his "crimes", a rock bounced off of my armor, I looked out and saw a child standing near the front, face covered in tears, screaming at me how his father did not do what I said he did, he was probably right, but I kept reading out my orders. My options were either kill the father, or someone else would come and kill everyone. As I was finishing up, another rock bounced off my armor, then another this time a little harder, then more and more, soon the entire village was pelting my with anything they could. This was a first for me, but still I endured. I drew my scimitar, and brought it down on the man's neck, quickly severing his head from his body. I went to cut off his limbs when something knocked my helmet off of my head. I looked up startled and the man who had struck me leapt back in fear, "His eyes... They're red. He's been cursed by the innocent blood he has spilled!" Up until this point, no one but my parents and their house had known about my eyes. I had kept my helmet on as much as I could, and my head down when I couldn't, perceptively to avoid people jumping to the conclusion this man had. I picked up my helmet as all of the men in the village armed themselves. "Let me finish my task, and nothing that happened here today will be reported." I spoke out loudly as I kept a wary eye on the small mass of men in front of me. "Die demon!" One of the men shouted as they charged towards me. I dropped my helmet and pulled out my war-hammer as I met their charge. My scimitar flashed out and slashed holes in necks and bellies, severing limbs and deflecting crude weapons. My war-hammer crushed into skulls, broke through hoes and pitchforks, and demolished limbs and chests. As good as I was, I was greatly outnumbered and began taking wounds. Even after a blade of some sort swept across my face, taking my left eye from me, I fought on. After what felt like hours of combat, I stood alone among a pile of bleeding corpse, my armor dented, and broken. My body was bleeding and exhausted. I limped my way away from the carnage, insults and curses chasing after me. I collapsed about a short way from my army, and woke up in the capital. As soon as I was able to walk I stormed into the throne room. "I'm done!" I screamed at the crowd of shocked nobles and royals, my own father and brother sitting among them. "I am done risking my life, risking the life of my men, and killing innocent people just because you blind idiots can't accept that the assholes who whisper in your ears don’t give a fuck about the kingdom or the people. You are spineless, you are weak, and you do not deserve my men guarding you!" I threw the badge symbolizing my status at the feet of the royals and left. As I was leaving I could hear the nobles murmuring, a few in relief that I was leaving, but most about the color of my one remaining eye. I caught a glimpse of my father and brother as I stormed out, my brother was mortified at what I had done, but my father... My father almost looked proud. I later blamed my blood loss for that hallucination. I left the capital, informed my men what had happened ( later found out they all resigned ), and migrated from village to village, constantly in pain, not from my wounds but from my dreams. Every night I would be clawed at by the people I had slain. Every night they would try to pull me down into Hell. I discovered that they couldn't attack me if I wasn't asleep, and so I started drinking, at first to keep me awake, and then after the first time I passed out drunk... To keep the dreams away. So there, that’s why the great Ivar Bersk drinks, now fuck off and let me drink in peace.

[ofalsehoods-archive]

lotor can have a certain (though limited) measure of benevolence as an emperor even while doing shitty things. the two are not mutually exclusive.

this may seem surprising especially given how anti-corruption some of you may know me to be but. i was talking about this with @ardentsoldier​ the other day and basically, what i pictured as i talked with them was this.

lotor knows what’s right for the masses. he knows what is right for an abstract concept of people, even though he constantly does what is wrong for concrete people. he knows that racism is bad, slavery is bad, censorship is bad, cannibalism (discussed here) is bad, religious indoctrination is bad, etc. he can ban these things and work toward a future without them. he can fire people who endorse certain things, create public trials à la nuremberg for the worst offenders. he can update the curriculum in galran public education to teach that zarkon is not infallible, that the empire started out as a bad thing and that it has to remake itself in order to march into a brighter future.

however.

even though he has a moral compass that ultimately points in the right direction, that doesn’t mean he still isn’t a flaming bag of dicks in many other ways. shall i count them? let’s see.

he still loves him some public executions. okay, it’s not his favorite part of the day, but this (and other violent measures) he still thinks are necessary to stability in the empire. all those “other” measures are bad, but some he just “needs” to keep around. like damn son, i can smell your indoctrination all the way from over here.

he has a sadistic streak when it comes to individuals wronging him or doing things he considers wrong. whereas he would never take out his frustrations on an entire race like his father did, he still takes immense pleasure in manipulating and humiliating individual people who oppose him and what he thinks is right. and then he goes and justifies it by saying that they were the shitty person and he was just responding to that. and i sit here like look i get it, they were a racist who ate their conquered altean slaves as punishment, but keeping someone out of jail so you can psychologically torture them into killing themselves through day-to-day interactions is…really not the best way to go about things.

adding onto the above: he has a new law that states that royals and nobles must face the same punishments as everyone else, but he’s always bending the law himself. technically it would be illegal for him to perform the aforementioned psychological torture act, even on a criminal, since he’s banned excessive torture. but will that stop him from doing it? hell no.

his anger is horrifying. whether it’s self-righteous anger or triggered anger, you just don’t want to be around this man when he snaps. alternately, if he doesn’t lose control, you may think you’ve dodged a bullet when he pretends to forgive you, but you will feel his wrath when he slowly tears your life down brick by brick and gloats about it to your face when you’re too crushed to retaliate.

he is one arrogant son of a bitch. he might pretend to listen to your advice on how best to accomplish his goals, but hell, he’s going to lie and scheme and manipulate things into doing his way--or it’s the high way. and then if he does end up listening to your advice, he’ll take all the credit for your bright idea that benefitted the masses--especially after you’ve been transferred out to the ulippa system to rot with throk and the ice worms.

let’s not forget the fact that he’s about to repeat his mother’s mistake with the rift and he’s using the paladins to do it.

when you combine lotor’s fucked-up mindset with the overall direction of what he genuinely thinks is right, you get…a very mixed bag. 

civilizations he will never meet in person will know the taste of peace. they will know the truth of his father’s deeds. they will thank him for punishing war criminals who once saw fit to devour them at will. for calling out zarkon’s crimes as crimes. for turning his back on the days of arbitrary searches and detentions. for making certain benefits mandatory and smiting the employers who refused them. for letting them practice whatever religion they please. for liberating them from slavery--and in the case of provinces that the empire has been structurally unable to rule, from galra rule altogether. 

but behind the joyous people’s backs, political individuals will experience firsthand how terrible he truly is. they will suffer his pride, his anger, his voracious appetite for sick and twisted retribution. the great emperor loves his people and loves them deeply--but his capacity for hate far exceeds the depths of his love. the universe is lucky that he does not cast his hate on it, but for the unlucky few whom he directs it to instead, he gives them his ten thousand years of pain within the span of mere months or minutes.

it is just as otto von bismarck once said: laws are like sausages--you do not want to see them being made. and so with lotor’s great empire of peace: you don’t want to know what he’s done to make it possible.

[vacationcalendar]

8/13/21

Today’s creative project, an private letter (it could have been an open letter, but who the hell is reading this besides myself and maybe the person receiving it) to Voyboy. He’s been in a rough place mentally/emotionally. He’s had some deaths in his family which is never easy, and his attempt to de-platform a twitch streamer with a known history of sexual abuse has earned him undue (and as is sadly routine, SEVERE) ire from fans of said streamer. 

It’s so weird, there’s obviously people who are like, “I’m not getting involved. I don’t care enough to inform myself well enough to have an opinion.” And those people are also split into camps that either approve or disapprove of “rocking the boat” as it were. Some people think this level of calling-out is too incendiary for the offense. Some people find the subject uncomfortable and wish it would go away, with the unfortunate default to that view being an acquiescence of justice for the accused.

And some people are also hung up on the justice part in particular. This entire affair is being conducted in the infamous “Court of Public Opinion.” A forum that has been dragged out MUCH more frequently in this modern age than in history. That fact alone upsets people. Hell, it’s bothered me in the past. I see the Court of Public Opinion make a ruling, and I think, “I didn’t elect this Judge, I did not approve this jury, there is no precedent here!”

It does feel like things are moving fast. They are. Dan Harmon said in an interview earlier this month, “Progress isn’t a scalpel, it’s an avalanche.” And he welcomed it. We should be welcoming progress. Even if it’s messy. Some might say “especially if it’s messy!” I don’t know who is saying that, but I feel in my gut someone on twitter would say that and get 80.3k likes. I know my Twitter.

I digress. Some people are of the view that they can’t be the judge. Leave it up to the real judges and let me just do whatever it was that I was going to do, please. So when Voyboy does all this work to put a spotlight on this problem, people see him handing them a pitchfork and come help him kill The Beast. And some people balk at that. Some people shy away, and just stay inside (this is mostly me, I’ll admit. The inside people go, “I didn’t watch that guy anyway, this is all fine with me! Now please leave me alone”). And some say, “Hey man, I’m opposed to violence, and by the way, the Beast is a really chill guy if you ever got to know him. In fact, people like you who are so quick to hand out pitchforks to make yourself look like some noble saint are actually pieces of shit!” And then a bunch of that guy’s friend go “Yeah, he is a piece of shit!” because that’s how bullying works. And then the bullies spend all day trapped in their miserable bodies, stuck in their miserable lives. And they go on Twitch and watch their friend stream to them, and their friend makes them feel wanted for once in their shit existence. And then later they’re on twitter and see Voyboy say something about how your friend’s an abusive monster and needs to see justice, and you KNOW that it’s all bullshit, and Voyboy just trying to get points with his girlfriend or something, he doesn’t care at all. What an asshole. Fuck him. Fuck this loser. I should reply to him, since it’s the easiest thing in the world for anyone to do. And generally people don’t follow people they hate like this, so that would limit this extremely toxic interaction, but Voyboy is followed by all the LoL streamers, so people that follow league generally hear from all the content creator’s in the community. And maybe they’re streamer friend mentioned that Voyboy was a fake ass cuck or whatever on stream and told his followers to go check out the shit he was spewing. 

So Voyboy says grooming is unacceptable and disgusting, sexting teens is deplorable. And we as a modern community don’t need to hear him beat a rap sheet like that in court to act, because we as a community have the power to shape it how we see fit. And under that tweet is 100 replies saying that he’s a piece of shit and should die.

And then the uninformed masses see that and go, “why is Voyboy a piece of shit?? What am I missing?” And then they see Voyboy tweet something like “this is really hard, these guys are out to get me but I won’t back down.” And if you’re like me you think, “Oh I’ve never supported this kind of drama in my life. This is boring at best and uncomfortable at worst. Let’s all stop (aka bail)!” And then Voyboy goes “I won’t!” And then everyone level-headed and sane goes “boo, I’m bored, knock this off!” And everyone that is now LIVING for this bullying. I mean, what a payout. You bully this dude every day and he feeds you attention every time? This rules! So the detractors get WORSE and the supporters settle down. And Voyboy has now learned the harsh truth of social justice. It just beats you down. Everyone’s in this game for themselves; the moment you set aside your own interest to help someone else out, you are instantly and forever outnumbered. And the whole time you’re just like, “what the fuck is so hard about this? I am proposing an objectively good idea that would make everyone happier! I only even started trying to say something because I knew I was right! This is like getting fired for hitting a home run!”

I’m learning, and I should say digesting maybe, more about power this year than I have in a long time. It’s the answer to a lot of equations that don’t add up under my current philosophies. Like if everything I think is true, then was does X Y and Z still happen? Why do I feel like ____? The answer is something to do with power. And I’m starting to figure out what that is. Ha, I think part of me is a little ashamed it’s taking this long, I guess. Like, I’M learning it, but it’s been learnt. I’m catching up. But that’s ok. That’s literally all I’m doing. Catching up. Keeping up. I’m not even trying to do something once I’m caught up. I just don’t think there’s any other place to be. Well, I mean, I would truly hate to write something that got read that was just plain not-caught-up. Something that would make a reader go, “hey, doesn’t he know better?” I SHOULD. That’s literally the goal.

Anyways, I’ve lost my train of thought, and need a bathroom break. Here’s the letter I sent to Voyboy, to try and help him through all this. Talk to you tomorrow love ;) : Hey Voy I hope you are doing better, and I hope you get a chance to read this. I started League of Legends back in Season 1 when I was in college. I remember the first time I heard of you, you were one the few people ahead of HotshotGG in the rankings, and I remember thinking, "what the hell, how did this kid get so lucky?!" lol. Then I got to see you play with RS, and mostly thought you were lucky again to be getting carried by Scarra 🤣 I'm sorry! By the time you joined CLG I finally caught wise. You became one of my all-time favorite players on the scene. Your Olaf looked like a cheat code, I swear to god. I love League of Legends so much, and back in college I spent almost every waking minute thinking about it. It was one of my great passions. And at that time I was struggling to find anything else I was truly passionate about. I got depressed in college, and by that point I had realized my goal of being an engineer wasn't something I actually cared about. So I dropped out. I was in a truly dark place. I felt like life had left me behind and that I was worthless. I still had League, but League couldn't give me what I needed. I have this distinct memory from one of my last games in Season 4 where some Ranked Soloqueue bs was making my blood boil out of my body. I literally had to stand up and walk around outside after the game. I was pissed, but I knew the real reason was because I just wasn't good enough. That was the moment I realized I was never going to get to walk the path of Voyboy or Doublelift, I was not going to be one of the great ones that League would pick up and give them an opportunity to do something great. I would need to find something of my own.

After that League stopped being as fun for me. I knew I had to do something else with my life and League was only holding me back. All my friends I knew through League started to feel less like my friends. So I quit. After almost 4 years nonstop. And the years after that only looked worse. I was still depressed, still struggling desperately to find my way, and now the thing that brought me the most joy in the world was long gone from my life.

Five years went by and over that time I moved, got a real job, and somehow became a real adult. Life was still hard work, but I was now ready for it. I bought myself a real gaming computer after using crummy laptops my entire life. And once I realized I could finally see LoL at something other than the lowest graphics setting, I decided to download it again. I don't need to tell you that coming back 5 years away made League feel like a completely new game. I might as well have been playing Dota for all I knew. And I felt terrible. I felt like the person that used to play this game was dead; I had no memory left in my fingers. "Well, it was worth a shot," I said.

And then I found your videos on youtube. "Hey I know him!" After just two games, it all came rushing back to me. Your games, your stream reignited my love for League of Legends. And now I'm healthier. Now I can play for a bit and return to a life I that I care equally about. I learned how to love League AND love myself; and the entire time, you were there. The Kid, with his million-watt smile, raising the bar.

I can't say I see the exact same circumstances with what you've been going through lately. I just know what that cloud can feel like. And maybe it's similar, feeling like League and the other parts of your life are at odds with each other right now. And the further away the game gets, the more you see the cracks appear. Hateful kids and useless trolls come to this game not for the experience, but to talk crap and feed their ego. It's so sad that our society still needs to work so hard to treat sexual abuse with the weight that it deserves. But I think because of that, it only highlights that you're doing work that's worth doing.

I don't know what you're planning on doing next, but no matter what it is, I'll support you. I don't know what it's worth, but you're genuinely one of my favorite people. You're worthy of love, you're worthy of happiness. You've worked hard, you've put your heart into making League of Legends a community something to be proud of. I've seen it time and time again. And it won't be for nothing, I swear.

Cya nerd, be well. Thanks

[arlingtonpark]

SNK Chapter 100 Review (warning: vitriolic)

Eren Jaeger is a war criminal.

That much cannot be denied. He took hostages; he showed a clear disregard for the lives of civilians, including children; and that’s not getting in to whether or not this is an act of preemptive war or preventive war. What he has done is nothing short of abhorrent.

Preemptive war is when a country attacks another because they have learned that the target country was already planning to attack them. Preventive war is when a country attacks another not in self-defense, but because the target country could pose an imminent threat in the future, but doesn’t currently. Usually what happens is that tensions mount between two countries, and one of them decides to “skip to the end,” so to speak. Preemptive war is noncontroversial. Not just people, but whole countries have a right to self-defense. Preventive war is illegal under the international law of our world. The fact that tensions are escalating does not matter; if a country engages in preventive war, then they are the aggressor.

Note, though, that I’ve been saying “country” here. This gets to the first key distinction: whether Eren is acting independently of Paradis or not.

If he is independent, then what he’s doing is mass murder. Hell, what he’s doing now might even qualify as terrorism, depending on his goals.

If he’s acting as an agent of Paradis, then we arrive at the second key distinction: what he knew and when he knew it.

If he knew about Marley’s plans to invade Paradis Island before he decided to attack, then it’s preemptive war.

If he only found out about the plans after he decided to attack, then it’s preventive war.

It’s not about the facts per se, it’s about the facts as they are perceived by the attacking country.

And another thing: Eren is always talking about freedom. In the very first chapter he goes on about how the titans are impinging upon his freedom. When he’s on the beach he asks if killing all the people who threaten him and his people will give them the freedom they’ve sought. Clearly he’s doing this for his freedom.

What about the freedom of the people in that apartment building he destroyed? Freedom is the ability to exercise your rights unimpeded. That includes the right to life. It’s pretty hard to be free when you’re dead. The truth is revealed in this fact. Eren doesn’t care about freedom as a general principle. He only cares about it as it relates to him and (the specific subset of) his people.

And if any other Paradisians are involved in this? Then they are just as guilty.

Speaking of which, let’s address Rope Guy and Heros. They’re Connie and Jean respectively. I have no proof of this, but direct proof isn’t actually necessary.

You see, for all the talk of SNK being a story that’s always throwing you for a loop, the story has actually been surprisingly straightforward, at least recently. We were told up front that at this festival Willy was going to paint Paradis as a threat needing to be dealt with by the world. That is exactly what happened. We were also told there would be a declaration of war at this festival. That also happened. When Amputee Guy was first seen, everyone assumed he was Eren. They were right.

So: we’ve got a guy who looks kinda like Connie? Well that’s probably because it is Connie. We’ve got a guy who looks like Jean? It probably is Jean. How and why are they there? I dunno. All I do know is that we have no reason to doubt the sincerity of the narrative. If it looks like them, then it probably is them.

Which means…they’re probably war criminals too.

Now as for Willy…well he’s garbage too. He wishes to cast off the false honor that his family has enjoyed for so long, and he wants to protect the Eldians that exist in this world, even in spite of his hatred of them, simply because they exist. A noble sentiment, albeit one tainted by bigotry.

So even though he doesn’t actually know for sure that Paradis is a threat to the world, he goes on stage and says so because he believes that if he can scapegoat Paradis, then the world will show mercy to the other Eldians. I suppose the logic here is that the lives of the many outweigh the lives of the few, but it would’ve been better if he just worked towards encouraging tolerance of Eldians rather than this drastic step.

In fact, this plan itself is rather drastic. He knows the play will be targeted, but he’s willing to go ahead with it anyway even though he knows he’ll die. That’s brave. He’s also willing to throw away the lives of the innocent civilians who’ll be attending it, all in the name of galvanizing world support to face the enemy. 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB1!! BUSH KNEW, BUT HE LET IT HAPPEN!!! That’s disgusting.

That’s not to say that Paradis isn’t exactly clean here either. They seem to have taken a hawkish foreign policy. Marley sent over 30 scout ships and they were all lost. Those ships were encroaching on Paradis’ territorial waters, but the right thing to do would have been to return the crews of those ships to Marley unharmed. Instead the crew members have either been killed or are being held captive. Marley and Paradis are not at war with each other. This behavior by Paradis is completely unjustified.

Not only that, but if Willy is to be believed, it seems there are Paradis agents other than Eren on the mainland. Even before he knew of Eren’s activites, Willy spoke of “disquieting” movements from Paradis and here he speaks of Paradis possibly even working with sympathizers in the military!

This is very aggressive if true. The only question is why? Don’t they realize they’re “on notice” due to the world’s fear of them? The world hates them, but there’s no way they had confirmation, much less evidence, that another country was planning to attack them. The rosiest possible explanation I can come up with is that whatever “disquieting” maneuvers Paradis has done is in service of learning what Marley is up too.

If that’s not it then…well we may have to consider the possibility that fucking Zackley is in control. He strikes me as a hawk, having immediately proposed mobilizing the wall titans when it was learned that the whole world was the enemy.

There are various other things worth addressing, like why Willy decided to make his announcement via this over the top play when he could have just held a press conference, or why exactly King Fritz decided to make a deal with the Tyburs at all instead of just straight up leaving, but I won’t. Apophasis!

The only thing left to talk about is Eren’s conversation with Reiner. This is where the problems start.

Eren talks of “the history” and “the environment” as though they absolve Reiner of blame. They don’t. Reiner’s history doesn’t absolve him, the fact he was a child is what does. He was a child that couldn’t think for himself, so of course he can’t be held responsible for what he did.

I’ve already written about the problems with Isayama’s apparent moral beliefs. Now my biggest fears are coming true: Isayama’s bullshit is starting to leak in to the story. Great.

And the fact that Reiner’s motivation was selfish in nature? Yeah, he did force the mission to go ahead because he wanted the glory of being a hero, but that calculation, the calculation that the lives of the walled people were worth it to gain that glory, was informed by his indoctrinated belief that the Paradis eldians were devils. Would he have made the same decision if he knew that the people he would be killing were actual people? Most likely not.

Isayama said SNK won’t judge the wrongfulness or rightness of the characters. He then points to another story to illustrate this and says that that story made him ask “who is to blame.” WHO IS TO BLAME!!! Understand what this means: Isayama doesn’t understand that the blameworthiness of someone’s actions being in question doesn’t mean that the morality of their actions are also in question. Being to blame and acting wrongfully are not the same thing, but Isayama seems to think they are! He’s conflating the two.

Himeanole made him ask who is to blame. That is a stupid thing to ask, but at least there is a modicum of arguability in that. However, the fact that Isayama uses “blame” and “wrong” synonymously strongly implies that he thinks that not being to blame for something negates the wrongfulness of the act itself.

To put it all succinctly: someone kills another and someone else asks, “Was he to blame?” Yams thinks this is the same thing as asking “Was it wrong?” It is (discounting self-defense).

I can be a bit obtuse when it comes to a story’s message, but reading this chapter, and taking in to account Isayama’s interviews, I can’t help but fear feel that Isayama plans to affirm a message of something along the lines of: “yeah, people do crazy, sometimes even horrible things, but this a cruel world and they’re just trying to survive, so what can you do?”

THAT WOULD BE A FUCKING BULLSHIT MESSAGE.

It’s okay to apply this message when the characters are doing something legitimately morally ambiguous like using torture to extract key information, as we saw in the Uprising Arc.

But now that war crimes have been committed? Forget about it! That message does not belong in a story where one character (the main character!) violates the rights of others so wantonly. The only way my fears can be assuaged is if Isayama condemns Eren’s actions in the strongest of terms, in the most unambiguous way possible.

This cannot become a case where the author leaves it up to the reader to decide. There is no debate. Killing civilians (killing children!) is wrong. To not condemn this in-story is to legitimize it.

Unfortunately, Isayama has said his series won’t judge right and wrong.

This is bad.

-sigh-

Sorry about that rather out-of-left-field rant. 

I’m spent. Let’s just post this thing.

[feathersandblue]

Hi!I love your meta about black sails characters and I've read your last one about flint's real motivations and how much more human silver is.One of the biggest critic moved to silver is about madi, and the fact that he betrayed her stopping the war without her consent. That he has taken away from her a possibility to free the world from slavery. A cause for which she was ready to die for and to see him dying too. And for this betrayal he doesn't deserve and won't obtain her forgiveness...

Everyone is entitled to their own interpretation, and canon does not really answer the question what their future relationship will look like - or rather, it indicates that while reconciliation is possible and Madi might be willing to forgive him, their relationship will never be the same.

I don’t think canon really backs the idea that she won’t be able to forgive him. The fact that Madi comes to him in their last scene is pretty telling - it’s meant to indicate that Madi is changing her stance, rather than Silver. If the creators hadn’t meant to imply that they would still be together in some form, they could easily have their last scene be a shot of Silver looking at her longingly from a distance, and she turning her back on him and walking away. 

Of course, we also have a very concise statement from the show’s creators: 

“The way you see them at the end, they’re in the same frame but they’re yards away from each other. Emotionally, that’s as close as they’ll ever get again.”(x)

So I think it’s made pretty clear that Madi does forgive him, but that it’s not really the same after. And how could it be? Silver has betrayed her. There are fundamental differences between them that have now become obvious, which at least Madi hasn’t really been aware of before. He’s not the person she thought he was.

Concerning the fact that Silver stops the war without her consent, and that this makes him a bad person … well, I have a couple of problems with that. 

1. One of them is a distinct one-sidedness in the way people look at their relationship, where Madi is treated basically as a saint, and Silver as an illoyal boyfriend who doesn’t support her and her cause as is his duty. But in a romantic relationship, both parties have obligations toward each other, it can’t be just a one-sided thing, no matter how much we relate to one partner and their goals and ambitions.

It’s also important to point out that if Silver had acted the way she wanted him to, Madi would be dead. Madi only survived the entire ordeal because Silver chose a wife over a war. If he hadn’t brought the cache, even though Flint and the maroon queen opted against it, the governor would have shot her. 

It’s also only fair to  mention that the choice between a noble cause and the life of a partner is not one that you can dictate to anyone. It’s a deeply personal decision. The fact that Madi’s life was more important to Silver than vice versa is not something you can really blame Silver for. 

“You may think what you want of me. I will draw comfort in the knowledge that you’re alive to think it.”

I imagine it’s pretty difficult to remain perpetually pissed at a person for saving your life, going forward. 

When Madi was imprisoned by Rogers, she wasn’t willing to bargain for Silver’s life. It was her choice. I don’t see anyone pointing out that it would have been her moral duty as a romantic partner to think of Silver and what they had together, that she is a horrible girldfriend for putting her beliefs first. 

And yet I see people say that Silver’s failure to act in a way that reflects her beliefs rather than his makes him a bad person. 

In a relationship between two equals, there is no such thing as an obligation to defer to your partner in such a profound way. There is no way to justify why Silver should have to defer to Madi. And yet parts of fandom consider him a horrible human being for failing to do just that.

So really, that one-sidedness, where people look at things only from Madi’s point of view - one that emphasizes her marginalization as a black woman and comes with the premise that Madi’s wants and needs clearly exceed Silver’s - that he’s a horrible boyfriend for disregarding her priorities, which are so much nobler and more important - is something I can’t share or support. People often judge their relationship from a position of real life activism, where the fact that Madi is fighting slavery is a killer argument. In my personal opinion, regarding their personal relationship as well as their historical situation solely from that perspective is somewhat reductive and simplistic.

2. The second problem that I have is the assumption that Madi was entitled to that war, as if war was some sort of possession or property. It was “her war”, and then Silver “took it away from her”. You might recall what I said about Flint personifying that war in my previous meta post. So according to Flint, Silver is a ruthless murderer; according to fandom, he is a thief. 

But no matter how you twist it, war is not something that people have a right to, because war always requires the partcipation of other people. It requires soldiers to do your dirty work. If you are a war leader, you have to have the support of your troups, you have to lead them into battle, you have to order them to fight and kill on your behalf.

I’ve already written extensively about how Flint acts as a leader, but there’s one thing that can’t be denied, and that’s that he’s willing to put his own life on he line, fighting side by side with his men. He’s doing more than his own share of dirty work, he’s usually part of the boarding crew or the vanguard. It’s rare that we see him stand back while others do the killing. 

When it comes to Madi, on the other hand, we have an entirely different situation. Madi is the heir of what is framed as a hereditary monarchy, she wasn’t elected into a position of power, she’s awarded that position - stepping into the footsteps of a leader who is “priestess, governess, warlord.” Her authority is absolute, she even takes pride in making it obvious to Silver in 3.08. that her men obey her without question. But Madi doesn’t do the dirty work. She doesn’t spill blood. In an era where war still means a lof of close combat, Madi steps back and lets other peope fight her battles. 

What right does she have to this war, morally speaking, when that war demands the obedience and the sacrifice of other people? A position of authority where you can order people to die is not something that any human being, no mater how much we like them, should be entitled to.

Imagine there’s a war, and no one shows up. (*)

Basically, what Silver and Julius do in the finale, is to make that war so singularly unattractive to people that they are no longer inclined to show up. They are no longer willing to kill and die on Madi’s behalf because, guess what, they, too, value their own lives and those of their loved ones more than they value the prospect of a long, bloody war that puts their own freedom at risk and has very little chances at success.

Tough shit. It almost looks like it’s been Madi’s war rather than “their war”, as she so succinctly phrases it in her conversation with Rogers. Madi felt so confident speaking on behalf of her people, but then it turns out that she never actually had their vote. It should be mentioned that Madi herself has not experienced slavery first hand - not the way that Julius, Max, Ruth, or her mother and her father have experienced it, who are all far less enthusisastic at the prospect of a war because they know how much they stand to lose when England retaliates. 

I am going to copy & paste a couple of praragraphs from one of my earlier posts here. 

Fandom often treats Silver as if he were taking away Madi’s agency, but that’s not really what he’s doing.

By removing Flint and the treasure from the picture, Silver basically dissembles the nukes and cuts the finances of a war that he considers a fucking nightmare, which, and I don’t think anyone can deny it, is a valid concern. Flint, as a war leader and a brilliant tactiction, second to none, is more of a force of nature than a man. His reputation, his tactical genius, his ability to overcome the greatest odds, and his ability to get people to follow him are nothing short of amazing. So really, the analogy of Flint being the nuke - the devastating weapon of mass destruction - is not far off. And of course, the treasure is both a media-effective means of propaganda and a valuable resource. 

Both Flint and the treasure, however, are also not something Madi had a right to, or at least, her right to them did not surpass Silver’s.

Silver has bled, and spilled blood, for each of these things.

Silver was a key player in securing the Urca gold in the first place. He bled for the cause (lost his leg in Charles Town), he was part of the Walrus crew which made Flint’s name what it became in the aftermath of Charles Town. He was the one who served as Flint’s quartermaster, he was the one who sailed with him into that storm, he is the one who went with him through the doldrums. When Flint made the bargain with the maroons, he made it under coercion - because the maroon queen threatened the lives of him and his crew. But it was Silver whose intervention forged that alliance. Without Silver, Flint would have given up in that cages, and all of our pretty pirates would have ended up dead either from torture or slave labor, or slain during their escape. 

Madi, on the other hand, got that war handed on a silver plate (pun intended). She was living on that island, and, like most young people, struggling to forge her own identity by establishing herself in opposition to the more protectionsist rule of her mother. Along came a bunch of pirates who offered her a shiny war, as well as the war leader to fight it for her, a man with the persuasive power to convince her mother to support it.

Madi’s war relied on Flint - his tactical skills, his willingness to sacrifice anything and everything for the cause. It also relied on Silver, who put his life on the line again and again, torturing, killing, and descending into darkness. Silver was reluctant to step into that role, and we can see, during season three and four, how he struggles not to let that darkness consume him. Long John Silver is also not something that Madi has a right to. Nor, and that is where we get back to 1, is his unwavering support and loyalty even when it goes against his beliefs, especially since she doesn’t seem willing to offer the same.

When I say that Madi’s war relied on Flint, there is also another aspect to it, wich ties back to the previous meta about Flint and his reasons for fighting. Madi’s war relies on Flint being fucking miserable. 

The thing that Madi seems most upset about in 4.10 is the fact that Silver sent Morgan to Savannah to look for Thomas Hamilton. 

But why would Madi be upset about the fact that Silver sent someone to find out whether his best friend’s lover might still be alive? I mean, let’s assume that the Spanish invasion hadn’t happened, that Morgan had returned with the good news that Thomas was alive, imagine Silver had told Flint, there would have raided the plantation to free Thomas, and there would be a tearful reuion of two lovers. How on earth could Madi possibly see this as a form of betrayal? 

Maybe because Silver, and Madi herself, knew that Thomas being alive would be a game changer for Flint. Looking for Thomas - which is all Silver did in that moment, it’s not as if he’d really been planning to imprison Flint there at that point - can only be considered a form of betrayal if they both knew exactly that Flint was only willing to fight that war because he was so lost to his grief and rage that it drove him to such extremes, if they both knew that Flint was born “out of great tragedy”. But it’s Flint that Madi’s war relies on. Not James McGraw. 

All these things - the treasure, Flint, Long John Silver - they do not belong to Madi. There is a certain irony in the fact that Madi used Silver’s considerable skillset - his cunning, his inventiveness, his power of persuasion, the legend of Long John Silver - to fight her war, but that is is this exact skillset that is then used against her to end it. 

Of course, Madi is free to do as she pleases. If she wants that war so desperately, she can go and try to find some likeminded people who help her fight it. She can find the outsiders, the rebels, the other “scattered objections” and form her own army, wage her own war, if that’s what she thinks is right. Build her own resistance. Do it the hard way. She can send someone to Savannah to find Flint and free him. She can do a lot of things to make that war happen.

But she won’t do that, because she isn’t stupid, and she’s not like Flint, who was so consumed by his war that he simply could not let go of it. Madi has other things to live for, thankfully. For sane people, a war immdiately gets a lot less attractive the moment their chances of winning decline. Madi is a good leader to her people, and she’s a good person. She would not waste lives and resources in a war that no one wants.Silver did betray her, and I’m not saying she has to forgive him. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that Silver’s motives and reasons are no less valid than hers, and that taking out Flint and the cache did not mean denying her agency, because if her agency relied on these two things, then it was never real to begin with.

3. Third, what bothers me is to look at Silver’s betrayal of Flint and make it about Madi when it was never about her in the first place. I know we all look at the show from different pespectives, but I think it’s fair to say that Silver and Flint, their individual arcs and their complex and fraught relationship, are central to Black Sails. In Silver’s story, Flint is the antagonist, and the conflict between Flint and Silver and its resolution has very little to do with Madi - if anything, she’s a catalyst that contributes to brings things to a head. Accordingly, the idea that Madi’s wants and needs should be the determining factor in Silver’s decision-making seems quite absurd. Flint may be Madi’s nuke, but first and foremost, he’s Silver’s … friend, alter ego, antagonist, partner, captain, whatever you want to call it - this overwhelming influence in Silver’s life.

The relationship between Silver and Flint is complex, fraught, full of landmines. There’s a co-depenency that’s not quite healthy, a power imbalance that only changes in Silver’s favor in season four - and there’s a tentative, hard-won friendship between them. And in that situation - with their shared history and everything they’ve been through together - should Madi’s wants and needs really be the deteminigg factor in Silver’s decision-making? Or should it be his own moral compass? 

Of course, the situation in Black Sails is more complex than that, there are other factors to keep in mind - first and foremost, the issue of slavery, which, as I’ve said before, is a killer argument all on its own. How can Silver possibly turn aganst Flint and Silver when they fight for a better world without slavery, for a revolution? If he doesn’t want to fight, he can just walk away, can he not? 

But the thing is, people who tend to say that rarely look at the whole thing from Silver’s point of view. There is a distinct lack of willingness to put themselves in his shoes. 

Silver is in a position of an individual having to make a choice. Jack has arrived with a clear agenda, one that gives Nassau a chance at peace. From Silver’s point of view, Flint is entirely driven by rage, the intent “to see the world burn” - as someone who is decidedly not an idealist, Silver simply cannot focus on these far-away visions of a better future the same way. And in that situation, confined by his own experiences and worldview, Silver is left with two options: side with Jack, secure the peace and the freedom of Madi’s people, stop Flint, and keep Madi safe. Or turn against Jack, enable the war and let Flint set the New World on fire, then lose both him and Madi either trough a violent death or by leaving them behind. War or peace? The decision, in this moment, is not an easy one, but I think it displays a lack of understanding to suggest that with Silver’s and Flint’s relationship right at the core of it, with everything that stands between them - the things Silver has seen Flint do, the murder and the insanity and the gambling with lives, and the things Silver himself has done on behalf of the war - that Silver acting according to his personal beliefs makes him a villain, or that it is his moral duty to support his girfriend’s ambitions - the very girlfriend who, at this point, is only still alive because he’s already “betrayed” her once by prioritizing her life over the cause.

So, after all of that, we are still left with a couple of things that cannot be denied.

1. Silver acted behind Madi’s back, and he betrayed both her and Flint on a personal level. They had no reason to suscpect he would turn against them (though I would argue that there were signs, they just didn’t pick up on them), which further contributes to the sense of betrayal.  

2. Silver put a stop to a war that was meant to abolish slavery. We cannot conclusively say that it was the right choice (but neither can we say it wasn’t, as we have no means to determine what the outcome would have been).

It’s of course perfectly okay to have personal opinions about all of these things, or to think that Madi should not forgive Silver. But I can’t help but think that a lot of the criticism levelled at Silver is a consequence of a very limited viewpoint that is rooted in activism, not in empathy - to an extent where the entire thing becomes a black and white thing, where Madi gets awarded all the oppression points that forever put her on a pedestal of moral high ground, because SLAVERY! 

Perdonally, I don’t think that this viewpoint acknowledges the complexity of the issue at hand, something that the show itself is actually very good at. 

—————————————-

* The original phrasing, of course, is “Sometime they’ll give a war and no one will come.”  The variant used here is a re-translation of the German version, “Stell dir vor, es ist Krieg, und keiner geht hin.”

[kingcocoabutter]

Pride And Prejudice

One of the most iconic scenes in #VinlandSaga is this one:

 Halfdan tells Thorfinn that he will give him the funding he needs for his venture as long as the latter licks his boot. To a wealthy man, having someone else *struggle* to put aside their pride and do something so debased and shameful is a greater reward and provides a greater thrill than gold or produce. He’s shocked, however, when Thorfinn bends down to do so without a moment of hesitation, even asking which boot to lick. Halfdan is repulsed because he can’t believe someone would sacrifice their dignity in such a manner but to Thorfinn it’s such a small price to pay for the sake of his dream. But I digress because I’m not really here to talk about Thorfinn, I’m here to talk about Sanji and false pride. Now maybe this is premature but I HATE the idea that Sanji did not even hesitate before deciding that he was going to use the Raid Suit as a disguise when taking on Page One (especially after the events of WCI and even post arc) which were meant to be about how he was escaping his family’s legacy. And fans have offered up innumerable justifications for his willingness to do so, ranging from how it’s “acceptable” because he will *only* use it as a disguise or how he’s putting aside his “pride” for the sake of the crew. And it really fits in with this mythological perception we have of Sanji as being the Strawhat’s “shield” or their white knight and how willing he is to throw himself into harm’s way to protect his crew. Some of which is true. But I’d argue that out of all the SH’s not only is Sanji the most deeply flawed but he is also the one SH of which the fandom has the most flawed misconceptions.

Sanji is SUPREMELY prideful. And that in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s problematic in the way that Oda has framed it with regards to the story and his attitudes towards certain demographics. Sanji is SUPREMELY proud of his status as a man and a chef and he VIOLENTLY rejects anything that would lead others to perceive him as less than in those regards. Hence his virulent homophobic/transphobic attitudes to the point where he has created an attack that is the literal embodiment of his gay panic. As he told the LGBTQ+ denizens of Peachy Kingdom. 

This attitude also manifests with regards to his treatment/perceptions of women, whom he showers whom he deifies and showers with adoration/love/affection while simultaneously objectifying and sexually assaulting them not realizing how contradictory those attitudes are. I’ve written about the latter extensively and so I’ll refrain from espousing anything further but I will most definitely be addressing one of his more controversial attitudes (i.e. his refusal) to hit women later in this thread but first I must digress.

I’ve been vocal in my disdain of how lackadaisical the SH’s attitudes/approach to declaring war with one of the Emperors has been and personal dislike aside I don’t think any of their approaches has irked me as much as Sangoro the Soba chef. Tasked with collecting information/intel on Kaido’s forces, “Sangoro” instead does this: 

Now again I admit that maybe he had some plan we are not privy to but it’s the events that follow that tempt my ire. Kyoshiro sends some goons to wreck Sangoro’s Soba stall and in the process they wreck some food thus earning Sanji’s ire. So of course the reasonable way to respond is for him to beat the crap out of all of them for daring to disrespect food.

The way the events play out is very much #OnePiece and very much what we know of Sanji. Not debating that. But it again goes to show how little this series has progressed and it’s characters have developed or changed over the course of 900 chapters. I get mad when fans suggest that Sanji is going to don the raid suit to protect his crew when his actions re the Soba shop are what led to the crew being endangered in the first place. The SH’s are in the heart of enemy territory and yet none of them are acting as such. How are we supposed to believe that the Emperor’s are one of this world’s most powerful forces of nature, and that Law/Luffy working together have only a 30% chance of victory if their plan is *flawlessly* executed and everything goes according to plan when the SH’s lack any kind of awareness that they cannot act as they like?

A more powerful narrative arc would have seen Sanji putting on a façade and allowing the goons to destroy his stall and ruin the food, and him apologizing for having set up an unlicensed stall. Would it go against everything that Sanji stands for? Of course! But as he stupidly points out later, when Page One is chasing them, Robin and Nami would be in trouble if they get caught and were tortured for information. So if he realized that why would he do something that would very obviously draw attention to himself when their goal is to be discrete?

And I’m not saying that Sanji wouldn’t or shouldn’t retaliate. He could have donned a disguise (not the fucking raid suit) at night and paid the goons a visit at night to exact vengeance for what they did and that way there would be no attention drawn to him or the SH’s. Hell Oda could have even turned “Sangoro” into a mythological figure by taking a page from Food Wars book and having Sanji operate a food stall that shows up in different districts of Wano at night serving food to the hungry masses and then disappearing. And similar to Food Wars this mythical stall would serve different varieties of food every night creating an air of mystery and excitement that would make the people of Wano seek it out. This would have been a great way to collect information, inspire the masses, and frustrate Kaido’s forces by keeping them preoccupied with this so the others could operate in secret.

But Oda can’t or won’t do that because he can’t do anything that would make Sanji look less noble or do anything akin to asking him to sacrifice his pride for the sake of the greater good. I mean we’ve seen this all the way back in W7/EL when he was willing to let a crewmate die for the sake of his pride. And let me make it very clear that Sanji’s refusal to hit women isn’t noble or moral or even acceptable when it’s so blindingly hypocritical when he turns around and assaults and objectifies them. And again for a man that claims to love women he doesn’t even put on the pretense of caring about them in any non-superficial way. What good is his adoration of them when he outright ignores how they’re treated and abused by others? It’s the equivalent of claiming to value/love freedom and yet remain silent when minorities are being assaulted and discriminated against. 

And what frustrates me even more than all of that is that Sanji’s only able to do what he does and hold the moral high ground and never question his values because Oda will never let him be wrong. He can never face a consequence for making the wrong choice. One of my favorite moments and lines from The Dresden Files *SPOILER* is one where Harry is going through a crisis of faith and when talking to his father he gets this advice:

H: “I crossed a line”

F: “I know. It only means what you decide it means.”

H: “What?”

F: “Harry, life isn’t simple. There is such a thing as black and white. Right and wrong. But when you’re in the thick of things, sometimes it’s hard for us to tell. You didn’t do what you did for your own benefit. You did it so you could protect others. That doesn’t make it right – but it doesn’t make you a monster, either. You still have free will. You still get to choose what you will do and what you will become. As long as you believe you are responsible for your choices, you still are.”

And another:

“Take the high road if you want to. Choose to walk away from this strength in the name of principle. But after your noble death, everyone who might one day have come to you for help, everyone who is killed in the aftermath of the Darkhallow – every life you might have protected in the future will be on your head. That is the act of a coward. It is beneath contempt.”

The only reason the SH’s and hell even Sanji are able to play off his sexism as “chivalry” or “nobility” on W7/EL (or hell even with Pudding) is with the acceptance of the idea that no one was harmed by his actions. On W7/EL this meant acknowledging that Robin would not die and that she would be rescued no matter what. And you can spin that any way you like (he had faith in the crew etc.) but what the crux of it comes down to is this: what would Sanji have done if Robin had been killed because of his failure to act? How would the crew react? Would they blame him or would they split the blame equally amongst themselves. Would this make Sanji reconsider his position? What if Kalifa had been like Lucci personality wise? Would he have behaved the same way if after she immobilized him she went after the other SH’s? After Nami?

The reason those quotes above spoke to me is how they relate to the idea of choice. I’ve been told that if Sanji were to hit a woman that it would somehow “ruin his character” or that it would mean that he somehow after that would justify hitting all enemy female combatants without regard for his “chivalry”. That’s all bullshit. There is a difference between *choosing* to fight a woman and hitting one in a blatant abuse of power. It’s about time that he starts taking responsibility for his actions and choices into his own hands and owns them rather than ascribing them to something external. Given the choice between taking an enemy combatant out of commission to save the life of a friend or holding on to your principles and placing the burden on your teammates, it’s obvious which action is worthy of praise and which is one is worthy of contempt. Too bad we seem to have got them flipped.

[newt-grundy]

some rabble

Holy shit. I am being swarmed with thoughts and emotion right now, so I’m just gonna write it all out. First off, fuck, that flew by. It seems so unreal that I’m already leaving, and in a huge way I feel shame and regret for wasting my time. I can’t help but think I should have played with Holland more, or I should have drew with him, or read him books, or just did a lot more than just hang around, play video games and such. I mean, that’s not all we did, but still. That little bugger gave me a big long hug and it’ll be the last “big hug” I get from him for a long time coming. I have to remind myself how unconditionally he loves me and he probably doesn’t even feel a fraction of disappointment in me. Regardless I still feel like a shitty older brother and I want to cry, I’m literally holding back tears right now. That little bastard is the one person who makes me cry I fucking swear.

It seems so out of nowhere, like I basically just got back home and now fuck, I’m leaving. I wish I would have gotten more time with my friends and said so much more to them and made them feel loved. It’s so hard not to let Babylon just, instantly changed me and especially putting me back into my default Babylon mode. I can’t believe how much fucking time I wasted watching TV, playing video games, just scrolling that goddamn facebook wall. I fucking screens, I abhor them, it’s pretty much the main reason I left last time and a big reason right now. It’s a shame I don’t have better self control where I can just use my computer for only productive means. Instead it’s like, hours of youtube videos, hours of facebook, hours of pornography, then some writing. The entire time I was gone last I didn’t watch any porn at all and it was fucking awesome. It was great, I never had that shame or struggle or anything. I barely even masturbated and since I didn’t have porn or really the chance to even masturbate (or will) then I would just fucking, get laid, like how humans are supposed to do it.

Technologies goal, with social networking and such is to just replace all human needs of other humans with a more artificial stand in. We use porn for girls, facebook for friends. We watch groups of people hanging out (it’s most tv shows, just people hangin out) instead of spending time with others. A lot of young men now just forsake dating entirely. When you have so much porn whenever you want, you simpy nip sexual desire in the bud all the fucking time. God I hate it, I have to leave. I have to go so I wont even have the tempations of bablyon and in a way I’m just switching those temptations for others. Sure I’ll meet people, be more sociable, write and read, and barely look at screens but last time I left I ended up smoking meth so, it’s simply a matter of pick your poison.

But I feel this is right. I have no desire to get a job, or really any need if I’m home and my parents take care of everything. I have no future in Iowa and that’s pretty much darn guaranteed at this point with the mountain of slander that now surrounds my name. If I’m homeless and struggling for the basics than I’m forced to work hard and I’ll get the satisfaction that working hard entails. Ah fuck it I don’t want to explain all of it. I know what’s best and it’s not even about what’s “best”. I’m done with always trying to be healthy and stable. I’ve never been fucking stable, never really had much of a stable life, why try and force it? Why trim off the lows and tops and sort of dull myself out. Numb myself with tech, and get caught up in some job I don’t believe in and all that fucking bullshit , fuck it! I snap everytime and that surely isn’t healthy. Better to die with some tweaker smashing my head in, or the bull shootin me, or falling off a train than to die by my own hand, alone in an apartment for one with only friends around that I saw once a week if that. Don’t misinterpret I love my friends here it’s just, people don’t really need people when are those needs are met by money, and the strangers time that money buys. I crave intimacy, and it’s so goddamn hard to ever be intimate when there’s always a fucking screen on, of some stupid comical whatever. I feel it’s really hindered my relationship with my family and friends and I grew so close to people on the streets because we never had that. You spend days with someone, struggling to survive, hours just waiting around entertaining each other, you grow fucking close, and you grow quick.

I’m still just self-rationalizing. What’s really bothering me is missing my brothers and my friends and feeling like I don’t make anyone happy. That I don’t give enough love or enrich anyones life and If I don’t do that then surely it’s not a noble or fulfilling life to live. I’m always so fucking caught up in myself. The artist type with a million projects and always just strategizing and thinking how to make a song better, or a magic deck better, how to write this story, paint this ect. I turn real people into fictional subjects of them all, all their feelings and being simply relative to mine. Savannah once said I saw others as mere extensions of myself and I fear she’s right. I’m afraid I’m a legitimate narcissist that doesn’t really care or empathize with others. I habitually deny those who request my intimacy and then go give my love to some stranger who just dumps it out. I really haven’t learned. Still Chasing girls, getting high, writing songs. Same shit I’ve been doing for five years. Life is still horrifying and intense and wonderful and just fucking insane all the time.

I mean, I’ve gotten better I think. Despite the whole abbie/jesse fiasco I think most people that actually know me think I’m an alright guy. They would probably say I’m nice and kind and helpful, I’m so fucking anxious about it and I do take action to try and be all those things. Give my time to others. I’m always thinking when I’m talking to someone “now don’t just respond with how that relates to you, ask a question, get to know them, let them talk about themselves, it’s not about you” ya know? Like someone says

“hey I have a pet rock”

And I want to say “oh yeah I had a pet rock my rocks name was yaddie yadda and I got it on whever and shit”

But instead I say, “oh that’s cool, what’s your pet rocks name? where did you get him?”

Ya know? But the problem with this is I want people to be fucking interested in me. I want to show everyone all my songs and artworks and have them see me as I see me. Because if I’m being honest I feel like I’m a fucking special person. Here comes the fucking ego, sorry, but like, how could you be good at something but be unaware of it? How can you make good art without understanding what good art is, and thus making the intention of making “good” art? Because I feel like I’m one of the best goddamn artist, on any account, that I’ve even met, and I strive to be so. I put in effort fucking all the time, every day, for hours, I obsess over the stories I write, rack my head over painting, plan, illustrate, strategize.

I mean, its like magic the gathering. The best magic players are who gives the game the most thought, who thinks the most about how they make their deck, essentially. I’m pretty good at magic, because I spend embarrassing amounts of time thinking about it. I’ll be up at five am just pacing and chain smoking and thinking about what cards to switch with what. I watch several series on magic, I watch judges explain rules, I research cards all the fucking time. And because I put all this work in, I’m good at magic.

And so, I do the same fucking thing with any art that I’m working on. I research heavily on what music to download then lay there on my back in the dark, giving the entire album my full attention in one setting, carefully studying what the music is, how they made it, all the parts and how they interact, ect. I put in this effort with any of my artworks and I put in mass amounts of time into constructing my own songs, and I have no shortage of inspiration because I have fucking insane feelings all the time, like I fall in love with everyone and hate people and hate systems, and love stupid little things and am always tying ot figure out how everything and everyone works, and I understand style and how to obscure and contort ideas into a voice and blah blah blah. Point is, I’m good, ok, arts subjective yeah whatever, with anything, the more effort you put in, the better the result, but like, the thing is,

No one gives a fuck. Because everyone is doing the same exact thing, the world is over saturated with twenty three year olds makes sad songs about their past girlfriend, and writing poems about being confused and painting girls and making magic decks, and essentially just complaining all the time, and they all want everyone else to see and acknowledge but everyones so focused on themselves that they can’t really take it in. When I listen to any music it always just comes back to me, how it makes me feel, what aspects of the music can I glean to then use in my own. A big reason I even enjoy art is because it motivates me to do my own. I’ve stopped listening to albums half way through multiple times just so I can go practice because I’m like ‘fuck this shit is good, I need to do better!”

I’m certainly rambling, god this is a ramble, one I wont even bear through to read but this is one of my last chances to use this computer to type out some shit so that’s what I’m doing. It’s five am, my brothers are getting up, reading up to leave with my grandparents on vacation, I’m glad I get to say goodbye again. I can hear Holland getting up he’s so cute in the morning. He rubs his eyes in that cliché way where he uses his entire fist like what?

It’s gonna be ok. I’m going to have fun, and feel great feelings and the road will be scary and terrible, I’ll be uncomfortable and in pain, maybe contract some more diseases, get some more holes in my teeth, fuck up my spine. But I’ll also witness miracles, meet incredible people and show love to them. I’ll help feed them when they are really hungry, I’ll take drugs with them, play games, talk laugh, open up. I’ll play my songs, and they will play theirs, we’ll settle drama and rabble, some of us will fuck, some of us will fight. I’ll never know what’s going to happen and I’ll become spiritual, put my trust in the road, manifest. I’ll have to psyche myself up to do illegal dangerous things. I’ll show off infront of girls I find attractive, compete with fellow men, I’ll be humbled when I’m defeated and uplifted by others who praise me. I’ll be alone and bored, hiking along the road, or waiting for a ride, or just staring up into space as I’m laying in my bag, too cold and anxious to sleep and my mind will just be turning over and over again and maybe something will come of it. But I always sleep, days are too exhausting to not, and I’ll wake up and do it all again, with no real end or goal other than what I’m wanting that day, I’ll change my mind constantly too, always excited and always disappointed, happy and sad and at least I’ll be fucking alive and feel like I’m living alive. If I die young I die happy and if I’m 80 and still homeless with nothing I won’t regret because my life was full adventure and excitement. I had brothers I fought along side with and I fell in love with women and confided in them and held them and tried to make them feel safe. I was nice to dogs and talked to them, didn’t hurt bugs for the fuck of it, not even spiders. I tried to learn and listen and grow. I stuck to my guns, didn’t give up guitar, didin’t stop trying to force my artistic perspective everywhere. I was an entertainer, I was open, made people laugh, usually a good person to go to if you were bothered and wanted to talk about it. It’s everything I’ve already done, just gonna keep doing it over and over, try and reach as many people, be a part of as much as the world I can. Then die, and soon after be forgotten, but hey that’s how it works. Could be a lot worse, and anything in retrospect really wasn’t all that bad.

[politics-always-matters]

I’m so sick of this rising reactionary tide in American culture. 

Well, it’s far more than just my country that’s suffering from it, but man. I’m so sick and tired of the kind of people who scream about the SJWs, at anybody or anything to the left of Ghengis Khan. It is tiresome to an amazing degree. It’s not a new revelation, I didn’t just realize this, it’s like when you’re in pain for years and suddenly stop and realize, oh, this hurts.

They’re nothing new. People abusing labels to smear people is nothing new. People painting with the broadest of brushes is nothing new, I do that a lot. Everyone does. But man, it’s just different here. It’s just a new level. And ultimately, the hardcore conservatives in our midst are nothing new. They’ll never go away, they’ve never gone away, we’ve had them with us right at the start, and we will have them with us until the end of the world.

But there’s no reason at all why our national cluster of racist morons has to control half our politics. There’s no reason why major candidates and major parties have to surrender to fucking John Birch people, to Teabaggers, to these fucking conservatives. To liars.

I’m not even talking about the leadership or elected officials. I mean some of the people who voted for Trump and swept him into office. I mean the fuckers who screamed about being the Tea Party when it became inconvenient to present themselves as [fans of George Bush]. I mean the fucks who were with Bush until the very moment it was untenable, because the giant flaming disasters were too high, and too hot, and too obvious, to deny or cover up or defend one moment longer, and people had finally realized ‘oh, I voted Republican, and they skullfucked my country’. In other words, I’m talking about the people who never had that revelation, and who never will.

The same people who we can trace right back to the Confederacy in a single unbroken line.

Slavery as God’s will? Wrong. Fire hoses at black protesters and bus riders? Wrong. Witchhunt Bill Clinton for having an affair, ignore George Bush lying us into a war and then botching that lie-war, then witchhunt Obama despite him not even having a trace of any real scandal while smugly bleating that bush isn’t president anymore, you know, then ignore the fact that Donald Trump lies on a nearly daily basis while blaming Obama for everything? Wrong.

Supply side fucking economics? Proven wrong now for decades.

Tax cuts for the most ultra-rich while fucking everyone else? Proven wrong for centuries.

Immigrants are dangerous criminal scum en masse who want to destroy our way of life? Proven wrong for centuries.

Labor unions are useless, feminism isn’t needed, racism and sexism and discrimination are over? Wrong.

Liberals are just as bad, and do equally bad and mean stuff equivalently at all times, so it’s okay? Wrong.

Just. Screaming that liberals are the real racists, that women are the real sexists, that progress and justice are dirty words. Screaming at the top of their lungs at all time, and ignoring that their conservative shit has been tried, and failed, and tried, and failed, over and over.

Screaming nonsense and gibberish, smearing the names of good and honest citizens who are liberal, smearing people for being black or Mexican or Muslim or whatever it is today. Claiming good and noble words like freedom, and concepts like religion, and perverting them for their hateful right-wing bullshit.

They won’t even let us get a dent in their last fucking brilliantly-conceived Republican presidency, and were in the process of breaking all the shovels and killing all the diggers, and jamming up our very ability to function as a society, on purpose, when they sent us another Republican president, worse than even the last in every respect, to just make it worse and worse and worse and worse.

I’m so tired of it. 

I’m tired of their screaming like uncovered demons reacting to the sunlight every time we change society even a little bit for the better. Every time gay people can get married, or women can serve more in the military, or any advance, big or small, for human dignity and human rights, they react like you’re dipping them in lava.

Like the idea of caring about another human being is an intolerable insult to them.

You know the types. The types for whom it is a far, far worse crime to accuse somebody of being a racist, then to actually fucking be a racist. If you have trouble identifying them, they tend to come out loud and clear, especially now. Look for anybody who says SJW or cuck or political correctness unironically, and I guarantee you’ve found the disease in our society.

A disease we will never cure, but we can force it, and them, into remission. 

Note that, like a disease, you also can’t negotiate with it, or them. They’ll tell you, to your face, they’re not interested in a thing you could ever say, or even what’s true. They reject the notion of truth and objective reality.

If you aren’t a hundred percent on the side of a person screaming at the SJWs, guess what? They’re your enemy. You don’t get a choice in that, they’ll bury you like you were the most liberal of liberals anyhow, so welcome to the fight. If you believe reality matters, if you follow facts and truth, they’re declaring war on you whether you want it or not.

This isn’t a debate anymore, it’s not a political squabble, it’s a struggle to wrestle a crazy person to the floor before he burns the building down around him.

We can bury them politically, drive out the people they support, make it uncomfortable for the Center to pretend they don’t exist. Trump is already making it really, really uncomfortable for people to just insist ‘both sides are the same’, I say we work together with him on that noble goal of making it impossible to do the false equivalence anymore.

Pick. There’s two sides, until we have a major reform. Side A wants to get rid of the EPA, and is absolutely fine with polluted water and skies. Side B is not fine with polluted water and skies.

Pick.

[badly-drawn-piplup]

Happiness Overload Chapter Eight

The doors opened. It took the combined might of Ecstasy and I, but the double doors slammed themselves into their respective walls and we were left standing in the doorway.

Hey, didn't that door say ″authorized personnel only″? Ecstasy asked.

Guess they weren't counting on the power of a supernatural fuckbuddy.

In front of us was a large square room with many square tiles. On the other end were computers and monitors each of varying size and at the moment, all of them had me, who just entered, on display.

″The fuck...″ I whispered. I looked around, but there wasn't much to see aside from what I already saw. That is, besides the chair in front of the monitors.

It was plain as day. It should have been the first thing I laid my eyes on, but instead it was those stupid monitors.

Just as I took my first step forward, the chair turned around and someone in a lab coat with long, silver hair. She looked familiar, but I wasn't sure where to place it. Her hands were behind the chair, but I didn't recall noticing a pair of hands before the chair turned. From where I was standing and from where she was sitting, I couldn't make out what kind of look was on her face. My mind interpreted one of two things: a face of distress or a face of pleasure. My mind went toward distress.

″Hey miss, have these people captured you? Are you being held hostage?″

She said nothing. The only noises to be heard were the beeping and whirring of computers and monitors.

″Never fear, I'll save you and we'll get out of here!″ I announced, wanting to put my hands on my hips and wishing that I was wearing a cape.

″Oh? Are you here to reveal the truth to the masses and defeat the evil organization?″ She spoke, her voice monotone. However, yet again, it was a voice that was somehow familiar to me. She got up and laughed a single, hollow laugh. It sounded more like a cough.

Right after she spoke, the doors slammed themselves shut and an electric barrier guarded the doors.

″Wait. What's going on?″ I looked around. ″Now how am I going to save you?″

″Is that really what you're so concerned with?″ She asked. There was no hint of humor in her voice, but there was some of curiosity.

″Well, I was going to get you out of here, then come back in here and find some way to bring this corporation's actions to light. Maybe I'd use the monitors or something and make a broadcast.″

″Interesting.″ She paced from side to side, never moving toward me. ″So you never considered that you won't be getting out of here?″

″I...I just haven't tried anything yet!″ I reassured. ″I'm sure there's some way.″

″Don't worry. There isn't.″

″How could you say that?″ I was aghast. This helpless person in a lab coat just gave up hope right before my eyes without knowing what I was capable of.

″Have you considered who it is that you're rescuing?″ She responded with a question of her own.

I pondered for a bit. ″Lemme guess...you're a scientist forced to work for them? Are they threatening you with something? Do they have your family? Is that it?″

She laughed. It was the same cold laugh. She looked right at me, her eyes piercing into me as if they were analyzing me rather than just looking at me.

″Yes. I am a scientist,″ she replied.

″I knew it!″

″But I haven't been forced to do anything.″

″Then what is it? Did they offer you money?″

″I already have that. Which is how I was able to create all that you see.″

My eyes widened.

″The company isn't holding me captive, for I am the head of the company.”

″Just...just who are you?″ I uttered.

″I am Professor Etna.″

I was standing in front of a monster. Whatever blood I had left in my body boiled. All these horrors and I was standing in front of the conductor.

She took but two paces toward me before stopping. Etna leaned forward and smiled.

″Some people call me a doctor, but I like the way professor rings off the tongue more.″

She leaned back and placed her palm on her chin.

″Now, I wonder...will you make an attempt on my life?″

″I'm not a killer,″ I growled.

″You aren't? What about all those guards you decapitated on your way to the mayor's office? Or the security guard for our elevator? Not to mention the countless guards you slaughtered on your way here.″

″That was different. That was for revenge.″

″Are you telling me that you didn't enjoy it?″

Blanc, she's trying to psych you out. Don't give in.

″Tell me about this revenge. If it's so important to you, then why not kill me? After all, I am the reason behind your plight.″

″Death would be too good for you. I'll destroy this company and everything you hold dear, mark my words!″ I sounded so cliché. So silly. But I guess my reaction was the only one at the time that made sense to me.

″Everything we hold dear? But what we hold dear is the same thing everyone holds dear.″

She walked around the room, gliding her hands against the walls. Lights flashed, mechanical shackles rose from the floor, wrapping themselves around my feet, tightening.

I huffed and puffed, I surrounded myself with an adrenaline rush. I didn't believe myself to be in danger; Ecstasy was on my side. If need be, I could detach my legs and regrow shadow legs or something.

From the ceiling came metal arms with claws at the end. Each one clamped onto my hands, crushing them and holding them in place. Even the shadow hand, which by all means shouldn't have been felt.

I spat on the floor. ″Any quips like 'who's in distress now?'″

She pushed her glasses up with her palm and smiled. ″Who do you take me for?″ She asked in response.

″You're a villain! You're pure evil and something that must be stopped!″

″Ah, morality. However you take our actions, you misunderstand. We are making this world a better place.″

″I've heard that before,″ I scoffed.

″Yes. We know.″

I grunted. I had the feeling that I could break out at any moment if I needed to, but exhaustion from the battle with Big Al (or whatever his name was) was taking its toll on me.

″Why don't we chat for a bit?″ Etna suggested. Maybe she figured that there was no way I could escape, and maybe I could pass the time while I regain enough energy to get Ecstasy to break me out. Before she would just take control of my body when I was tiring out, but this time I couldn't feel her at all, almost as if she was just as low as I was right now. The battle must have taken just as much of a toll on her as well.

″Fine,″ I sighed.

″Very good,″ she remarked, then turned to the side and held an apple in the palm of one of her hands. I didn't recall there being an apple before, but no doubt this corporation had technology I couldn't even comprehend. Advanced apple technology. My mind started drifting toward thoughts of apples listening to music with cordless headphones.

″You were a college student for a time. What do you know of the Roman Empire?″ She asked. I was confused, but in my weary state, I answered.

″Just that it fell.″

She gave a brief, hollow laugh. ″True, although remnants of it can still be found throughout all of western civilization.″

″Where are you going with this?″ I squinted my eyes.

″Bloodsport quelled the fear and anger of the masses amidst corruption and a crumbling empire. It functioned both as a distraction and a morale boost for the population.″

″Are you comparing your little elevator project to the coliseums?″

″Not quite. We've advanced through the ages. We're a lot more...civil. We don't have to take a single life. Our influence can be seen across all forms of media, both past and present.″

″Then why do you do it?″

″Do what?″

″Take lives.″

″You're mistaken once again. We recycle lives. The ones who come back on the other side are the same people, just with a new body and altered memories.″

″Even still, no one consented to this. This is complete control of a population.″

″Nobody consented to being teleported to their intended destination? If that was the case, they wouldn't have taken our elevator.″

″Not that,″ I turned my head. Well, it was that, but there was something else, too. ″Nobody asked for a clone to take their place. Nobody asked for their new self to be more subservient. If everyone knew what was in the fine print, they wouldn't sign!″

″At this point, that may not even be true. Ah, but I digress. What we are doing is creating a happier society. Wouldn't you call that a noble goal?″

I shook my head. ″No. You're forcing them by injecting their clones with serotonin or altered memories or some shit. If what you're getting at is true, you're hoping the entire city will keep revisiting that elevator until they're eventually so full of bliss that they can't even tell what's going on around them.″

″Ah, how smart you are. Though it may be a little more complex than that.″

″How so?″

″Entertainment of all forms serve a purpose of distracting the masses. Sometimes a piece of media will cause a reaction, like anger. That would seem counterproductive to our goal, wouldn't it?″

I gave no response. Just let her keep talking. Eventually she'll lower her guard, I told myself.

″Not exactly. It gives them something to do. It gives them motivation. Such passionate feelings are a form of happiness, even if it feels so bitter to them. Protests do nothing except entertain both the common folk and those in power. For something to change, it depends on the whim of the ones in power, not how loud the peasants yell.″

″So you're saying it's all hopeless?″

″Oh, no. Hopelessness is such a terrible thing. That would lower the morale dramatically. That's why we have media calling for revolutions. The idea is quite nice, even if it does nothing.″

″You control the media, the politicians. What are you, some kind of illuminati?″

She laughed her dreadful laugh. The one I was getting quite tired of.

″Some people love a good conspiracy. We made such a rumor, once again, as a distraction. If they're too focused on some big scandal, they won't think to look at what's really going on.″

″So what? You just made up the illuminati?″

″And just about any other conspiracy.″

″Unfortunately, I also know about the real ones. The Flashbulb, right?″

″Ah. Conrad told you that, did he? In his little hideout?″

My eyes widened. ″You had better not hurt him!″

″He and his little group can live out the rest of their lives in peace for all we care.″

When I reached the surface, I found the nearest cop and in my panic, tugged at his sleeve. He didn't react well and punched me in the face. I might have deserved that. But even so, I had more pressing matters.

I covered my nose with both hands and the cop, surrounded by the crowd of the city streets, tried diffusing the situation.

″I'm so sorry!″ He waved his hands around. ″What seems to be the problem?″

″My friends! They're in trouble!″ I sobbed, blood running down my nose.

″Where are they?″ He asked.

″Underground, a series of tunnels.″

He pulled out his pager and whispered into it. I tried listening in but couldn't make out a thing.

″We're sending a few officers to search for them. I'm going to—″ before I could hear the rest, I bolted. Panic set in. ″–Need you to come with me″, my mind filled in the blanks. I pushed past those in the crowd, heard a gunshot hit a mailbox, I yelped and kept running. I didn't stop. In my panicked state, I thought I saw a tree in the middle of the road and several cars crashed, but it may have just been my eyes playing tricks on me.

I didn't even know what I was doing. I didn't know what to do next. I just hoped that I wouldn't die. I hoped the others wouldn't die...

We continued to crawl through the vents. I knew Kelly Roger brought this upon us. The fool was scared, but then again, so was I. Now Kelly Roger, Conrad, and I were all likely to die, no matter what the intentions were.

I remember leaving the note on the floor after I left the room.

There's a path to the surface from here. Take it if you no longer wish to be involved. Look for a loose panel on the ceiling. It will become clear from there.

Kelly Roger must have followed the note's advice. Funny enough, the whole calling these mercenaries on us may have been a blessing in disguise. We were actually moving forward.

″Just a little further and we'll be at the hanger,″ Conrad mentioned.

I didn't hear any sound from above. No sign of any of those armored goons. That didn't put me at ease.

″What if they found it?″ I asked. I shuddered at the thought of my aircraft being destroyed or those soldiers surrounding it, waiting for us with their guns.

″Then we're screwed,″ he replied.

I started thrashing. I could feel some energy returning. Even if it was in short bursts, I'd use what I could.

Come on, Ecstasy, do something! Some shadow tentacles, some extra strength, something!

No answer.

Why am I not getting a reply? I can't even phase out.

″Getting restless?″ Etna asked.

I grunted, but refused to answer. I was going to do everything in my power to break out if it was the last thing I did.

″Let me ask you something: have you ever felt 'off' about your surroundings? As if some things don't match but you can't tell how?″

I didn't dignify her with an answer. I kept struggling.

″You should stop straining yourself.″

″I'll break out of here! I already escaped your elevator! You guys didn't account for that, did you?″ I spat out.

She put her hand on her mouth and chuckled, if it could be called a chuckle. All of her laughs sounded alike in that there seemed to be no hint of pleasure nor displeasure.

″Indeed. You were an anomaly. We had to perform damage control.″

″I remember. Accusing me of being a mass murderer?″

″That was necessary, but not what is being referred to.″

She gestured to the monitors. ″Have you taken a look at yourself lately?″

″Yeah, I know, I'm ugly.″

″That's not it. You haven't been you lately.″

I tried to say something. She must not have known. Maybe it was the whole ″you've changed.″ Like, yeah, I'm not the same college bum I was about a week ago.

″You never did survive your escape from the station,″ she explained, and from there, I had to correct her.

″No, I wouldn't have survived if not for –″

″Ecstasy,″ she finished.

″Wh-Huh? How?″

″Because, dear, we created her,″ she cooed with the same voice Ecstasy had.

″That doesn't make any sense! She's a supernatural being! A succubus! Only those near death can see her!″ I kept arguing, but she only shook her head.

″Those were all details we made up. When you consented for her to possess you, 'Blanc' ceased to be. What remained were altered memories of what 'Blanc' was along with the new thoughts of sharing a body with an otherworldly being.″

″She's the thing keeping me alive!″

″Keeping the body alive,″ she corrected. ″And not very well, as it seems.″

″But the powers!″

″We invented them. Which is not to say they are fake. Just that we were able to create such magnificent things.″

I felt like she was just trying to touch a nerve. Several nerves. But I didn't even know how many of my nerves even worked anymore. It just felt so...true. Which made it all the more painful.

″Just what did you make up? As memories?″

″You can figure that one out,″ she said with a smile, brushing her silver hair with the tips of her fingers.

″My...ex?″

″She never existed. It was all in my image.″

″That's kinda...gross...″ Then again, I have to admit, Professor Etna was hot. In a sorta Bond villain way.

″The true ETNA project isn't the elevator. It stands for Ecstasy Transformation New Age,″ she explained in a way that it felt out of place. Like she should have stated it earlier or not at all.

″You were the first attempt. If others happen to leave the elevator before they are transported to their destination, we are prepared.″

I started to feel tears well up. I didn't want this at all.

″So everything I experienced, it amounted to nothing?″

″Nonsense. It was valuable research. You should feel honored.″

I was sobbing now. Stop this! Stop sobbing and actually figure out something! I pleaded with myself, but nothing came to mind.

″Your so-called campaign of happiness should have made me happy. Why, then, did those memories make me so god damn depressed?″

″It helped give you motivation. A reason to live. What you see as depression was really quite the opposite.″

″I...I wanted to exist. I wanted to be someone,″ I realized.

″And is that so wrong? Many people your age feel the need to belong, to be someone or something great.″

″So much experienced, but they were never real.″

″Does that matter? If it felt real, isn't that what counts?″

″I just thought that when all this was said and done that I could be someone.″

″Oh, and you have become someone. We are so proud of you,″ she assured me in her monotone.

I must have been bawling. There wasn't much left for me. ″Now what?″

″Alas, it would be a waste to keep you. The public can neither know of us nor you. In a few seconds, your body will be doused with water and what you knew as 'Ecstasy' will separate from your body. The restraints will release and said body will fall to the floor. Rest assured, it will dissolve, leaving no trace of it ever stepping foot in here.″

There was nothing I could do. I knew that now. There never was anything I could do.

″Just one question, first: did you have fun?″

I hope it was as good for you as it was for me, I heard the seductive voice of Ecstasy return one last time.

I thought back to the adventures I had with Ecstasy on the rooftops and sneaking into the mayor's office. Learning of these new abilities and thinking I could use them to make a difference. Meeting back up with Conrad at his base. Fighting that punk guard (that I never learned his name). All of the things that led to this moment.

″Yes,″ I replied, tears running down my cheek. ″Very much so.″ I managed to smile in spite of it all.

″Good,″ was all Etna had to say.

With a flash of light, I knew I would disappear. I also knew, however brief, that I was happy.

[ghoultyrant]

FoZ Notes 7

Aaand we’re back.

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

Louise says a bunch of stuff about glorious honorable deaths. Saito thinks she doesn't mean it. She claims that no, she doesn't really mean it, but "it has to be this way" because they're at war and anyway she's more bothered by Saito being depressed. So she's still more comfortable with death than a lot of people. The narrator goes on to confirm that okay yes she feels bad for the dead but not THAT bad because yes they did at least die with honor.

"Hugging a familiar isn't done due to status difference". Horseshit.

Oh wait those guys aren't dead. Pretty blatant that Cromwell revived them. Magic checks are done just in case Albion is laying a trap, but apparently Void Andvari zombies don't register to such checks? [Future note: We never ever get a proper explanation of what happened here. I think the intent is that Tiffania found them, nursed them back to health somehow, and then neuralized them, which makes no sense as Tiffania could not possibly have addressed the injuries these jackasses suffered, but FoZ is not exactly the height of consistency or logic so I suspect this nonsensical explanation really is the intent]

Oh my god the zombies think Saito is strange for mourning them I love these guys.

Aaaaand now we're contradicting the idea that dragon riders are people with dragon familiars. And asserting that they're all Wind affinity and flying familiars are normal for that.

Introduced to Julio Cesar, a Romalian priest with eyes of two colors who makes moves on Louise. Unprecedentedly good dragon rider, supposedly no magic. [Future note: My vibe from the word go was “way too Mary Sue”. Initially I thought he would be a temporary character and thus was tolerant of his presence. Nope. And he gets far, far worse]

Tristain intends to give Germania some of Albion's territory once they win, and intends to find someone of royal blood to reinstate the Albionese monarchy. The former seems... impractical. [Future note: Once this war is over, Albion’s situation drops off the face of the planet. The fact that Albion ought to resent being split down the middle like this, the tendency for real countries to resent leadership installed by outsiders, and all the other problems with this situation? Irrelevant! Ugh]

Romalia is helping against Albion because Reconquistador's agenda basically threatens the legitimacy of the Pope's authority.

The illusion spell can be used for scouting utility. [Reader note: In the sense that Louise can reconstruct what she remembers looking at to provide a high level of detailed information to people more quickly than words would provide]

Albion is defending at least Saxe-Gothe with orcs, trolls, "demi-humans". One line in Baka-Tsuki's translation calls orcs demons, so possibly the demons to the east are just monsters. [Future note: No]

Cromwell is perfectly happy to take food from Saxe-Gotha's citizens to deny the invaders food, on the expectation they will end up feeding the citizens instead. He intends to blame the non-human forces, is fine with losing the city to revolt, and also intends to poison the water supply with Void magic somehow.

Cromwell can mass-revive the dead with his ring. He stole the ring from the Water Spirits with the help of Sheffield and Gallian "mage knights". Also, Cromwell has no magic himself. [See?]

We get introduced to Wind Stones properly, at last. [Reader note: We heard about them in regard to airships before, but “they exist” and “they are relevant to flight” was the extent of our information] The Ring of Andvari is a Water magic artifact, not a Void magic one. Something about concentrated magic like this being Void's enemy. [Future note: Wait, what? Ugh, another thing that never gets properly explained or brought up again] Ominous foreshadowing that the Ring of Andvari does more than just raise the dead. Also, it's used up a little bit with each casting.

Still not clear what non-Wind dragons have over Wind Dragons. I thought it was fire breath, but nope. [Reader note: That is, Wind Dragons can breathe fire, too]

Implication that Gandalfr power comes from feelings aimed at the master.

"Medal of White Hair Soul". What the fuck? [Reader note: A medal being awarded to people for valor in combat et al. I really hope Baka-Tsuki is badly botching the translation here]

Louise being jealous of Guiche because he's getting praised for his accomplishments by family.

Detailed images of Brimir are considered disrespectful... oh, and nobody really knows what he looked like anyway.

Founder's Festival AKA Not Christmas, in which even war gets put on hold. It's a new year festival. 10 days long. [Future note: We never hear about this ever again, even though it’s a major event and the story goes on for years]

No wine in Albion. Just beer and tea. Where do they get the tea from?...

Siesta is related to Scarron. Goddammit. Jessica -Scarron's daughter- is also of Japanese descent, apparently from her mother. (So a daughter of Siesta's grandfather)Straight black hair is rare in Halkeginia.

Claim from Louise, backed by the narrator, that Henrietta's goal is revenge for Wales' death.

Louise being about Honor And Duty again. Don't insult honor around her. "No honor->not a noble->not me" Says she would gladly die for her country if it was called for.

The rings are clear for Wind, blue for Water, brown for Earth. Supposedly made from Brimir's blood. All called rubies. Gallia has Earth. Supposedly Romalia had Fire, but they lost it, purportedly because of Tristain. [Future note: We eventually discover Colbert has the Fire one. We also eventually discover that Romalia has another one because, yes, there’s actually 4]

Julio Cesar isn't jerkface's real name. He calls himself it after a great Romalian leader, Totally Not Julius Caesar. [Future note: The author seems to forget this, as we never find out what his real name is or anything] Julio is an orphan.

Gallia has the highest population in Halkeginia. Capitol is named Lutece. Palace is called Versailles. Has a big garden. Royal family's blue hair is super-unusual, making everyone at the Academy a Moron. [Reader note: Well, actually, it makes the author a moron, but in-universe you have to assume the Academy students are all idiots, as they genuinely had no idea, even while guessing she must be a bastard because she wouldn’t talk about her history!] Current Gallian king is shit at magic, named Joseph. [Future note: This is a semi-decent foreshadowing that he’s a Void user] Chess lover. Lover of miniatures in general. Is either out of touch with reality or pretending very effectively. [Future note: This out-of-touch aspect of his character goes away fairly soon, replaced by Some Men Just Want To See The World Burn. No, it’s not character development, nor is he throwing off pretensions of craziness. He just changes for no reason]

ANOTHER goddamn Ring of Andvari in the mountains of Saxe-Gotha. [Reader note: No explanation of how Sheffield knew it was there. No, we never get one. No, it doesn’t make sense in context of later information. This is literally the plot happening because fuck you the author said so] And hints Sheffield is a Void user. [Future note: Close, past me! She’s a familiar to a Void user] She does some kind of mass mind control by melting this Ring into the water supply. [Future note: This is never properly explained, on any level]

An idiot covering his retreat by sacrificing Louise. Ugh. The retreat is caused by the bullshit mass mind control.

Julio knows Saito is Gandalfr somehow. [Future note: This actually does make sense, kind of, eventually]

Gandalfr is a load of anime horseshit. [Reader note: In the ‘I swing so fast nobody saw the sword move’ and ‘I can jump superhigh and run superfast and so on’ school of anime horseshit. Saito is operating well beyond plausible peak human potential]

Derflinger has some vague upper limit on his ability to absorb magic. With absorbed magical power he can take control of his master because shut up. [Future note: Say it with me, children. This never crops up again]

Haha Gallia fucks over Albion instead, unceremoniously killing Cromwell.

Infodump:

"The left hand of God is Gandálfr, the ferocious shield of the lord. His left hand wields a large sword and his right hand wields a long spear, protecting me with endless vigilance. The right hand of God is Vindalfr, the kind-hearted flute of the lord. He dominates all beasts of life, leading me through earth, sky, and water. The mind of God is Myoznitnirn, the book that carries the crystallization of thought. It carries all knowledge and provides advice whenever I am in need. There is one more person, but remembering its name gives me trouble… Taking the four disciples, I came to this land"

[Reader note: The above is something Tiffania sings. It’s foreshadowing, I guess. I quoted it mostly because it gives of three out of four familiar personal names. And now that I think about it -writing this having completed volume 18- the story still hasn’t gotten to that fourth one]

Tiffania is introduced. Some kind of half-elf who takes care of orphans and Deus Ex Machinas Saito because shut up. [Reader note: Again, she has no extranormal capacity for medical care. Saito is good as new in fairly short order in the following volume, having gotten pretty badly injured here. The author just employs The Power Of Ambiguity And Off-Screen Happenings to let you think this makes sense even though it most certainly does not]

End volume 7.

---------- 

In which the author seems to grow bored of this Albion plotline and summarily end it. Oh and Saito ends up separated from Louise, with her led to believe he’s dead.

[Future note: This is not the first time Saito and Louise end up separated. It keeps happening, artificially and nonsensically, and is very much repeating a plot of having Saito and/or Louise conclude that, for some reason, they should be separated, and then concluding that no! They will be together Forever because Love! You know, until the next time the author wants to have relationship drama between the two of them, because quite clearly he has no idea how actual relationships actually work

I’m not exaggerating for comedic effect here. The author does not understand human relationships. This would be a niggling annoyance if the story remained focused on its ‘epic’ plotline, but increasingly Saito and Louise’s relationship is made central to the plot, among other relationships increasingly brought to the fore, so this utter failure is something you can’t just ignore while you enjoy the meat of the story. It’s already been causing problems, and it’s going to get truly awful from hereon]