#feels like its a practical joke when i see a positive review i just CANNOT believe!!!!

[sadhorsegirl]

bekindrewind retweeted a glowing review of wicked....................interesting............... ...... ..........

[kjack89]

An Agreement Between Gentlemen (Chapter 1/?)

Because nothing says ‘independence day’ like writing the participants in a French rebellion as members of the British upper class...

The Bridgerton AU that no one asked for. Will be at least 4 chapters, probably, to be published on a schedule only God herself can predict. Developing E/R, hijinks and shenanigans. All of the shenanigans.

One might recall when, not too long ago, the author of this paper hung up her pen and retired from reporting on the drama that each new season of fresh-faced debutantes and their endlessly anxious mothers brings. But alas, dear Reader, the excitement of this season has proven too much for this Author to suffer without company – which is why the pen has been passed to a new scribe.

But the fortuitous timing of the season has not been met with equally thrilling events for sharing here, as indeed, the most recent ball, hosted annually at the start of the season by the ever-insufferable Thénardiers, was positively under-attended. Not by the eager mothers that are the backbone of any season or their equally eager daughters, but by the young, eligible men who usually at least deign to make an appearance, dance a few dances, and exchange niceties as is expected for men of their station.

Instead, the only poor sap who wandered into the Thénardiers’ den of matchmaking was the Baron of Pontmercy, who was positively beset by hopeful ingénues, the most brazen of which was undoubtedly the Thénardiers’ eldest daughter, Éponine. While this Author notes that Miss Thénardier has had a patchy history with suitors and thus cannot be fully blamed for attempting to sink her claws into one as eligible as the baron, this Author must also sympathize with Baron Pontmercy, who seemed only to find himself with one moment to himself. 

Then again, rumor has it that his single moment was interrupted by an unknown young lady with an equally unknown chaperone who whisked her away posthaste. Her identity is one mystery both this Author and Baron Pontmercy are equally eager to discover, but the more pressing question is where the others of Baron Pontmercy’s gender were when they should have been equally beset by potential brides.

Never fear: Whatever answers I find, dear Reader, I shall certainly share with other enquiring minds. For a nominal fee, of course. While there are rumors of young men meeting in the backroom of a certain gentlemen’s club to discuss the overthrow of society, capitalism, and the King himself, this Author, being of the gentler sex, finds herself unable to obtain an invite, and as such, alas, cannot bring herself to comply with their lofty goals. LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 20 MARCH 1831

The air in the backroom at the Musain Gentlemen’s Club was hazy with smoke and thick with plentiful conversation as its guests, all young men dressed in their dinner best, traded stories and jokes in between sips of their drinks.

At least one among them was not drinking, though – Enjolras, who sat in an overlarge armchair towards the back of the room, his back to one of the large windows that spanned almost the entire height of the wall. He alone was also not joining his friends in their merriment, his brow instead creased as he read over something.

When he had finished, he glanced up. “Combeferre,” he called, barely raising his voice despite the cacophony of the room. 

Not that he needed to: the moment he spoke, the room fell quiet as all eyes glanced at him as if waiting for him to continue. In return, he just arched an eyebrow at them. “Well, don’t let me put an end to your fun.”

A dark haired man sitting at a table in the far corner playing cards with two others raised his glass in a mocking toast. “Worry not,” he called in return. “You won’t.”

Laughter broke out yet again at that, and most of their number returned to their previous conversations as Combeferre pulled up a chair next to Enjolras’s. Enjolras pursed his lips, looking unamused. “Why is Grantaire even here?” he asked Combeferre, who, quite to the contrary, looked like he was trying not to laugh.

“I imagine because you have not yet told him that you wish for him to leave and never return,” Combeferre said evenly before giving Enjolras a rather assessing look. “Assuming, of course, that is what you wish.”

Enjolras ground his teeth together. “That’s not the point—”

Combeferre cleared his throat. “No, the point is that you had a comment, I assume, about the pamphlet I gave you to review.”

Enjolras still looked disgruntled, but seemed more than willing to allow the change in subject. “The pamphlet is fine, but I imagine you already knew that.” He handed the pamphlet draft back to Combeferre before asking, “What do you imagine the distribution schedule to look like? With Parliament sitting this week—”

He was interrupted by a thin, rather-nervous looking man appearing at his elbow, the doorman to the establishment who was paid a decent sum by each man inside the room to not interrupt them and to report nothing of their comings and going to any who might enquire. When Enjolras had made that arrangement, he had been thinking of the police; when his friends had followed his lead, most were thinking of their mothers.

“M’Lord Enjolras, I do beg your pardon—” he started, sounding almost as nervous as he looked.

Enjolras’s brow furrowed again. “It’s fine, what is it?” he asked, a touch impatiently.

The doorman bobbed his head and cleared his throat. “There is a, ah, a woman seeking entry.”

Bahorel, seated nearby, let out a wolf whistle. “The young ladies of the season are getting restless!” he crowed, to much laughter. 

“Restless, and bold, if they are coming into the city to seek their groom, and without a chaperone to boot,” Bossuet said with a grin.

“Leave to Enjolras to be the one to cause all tradition to break,” Jehan sniggered.

Enjolras could feel his ears burning red but he studiously ignored the jeers and catcalls from his friends, instead frowning at the doorman. “May I ask why are you telling me this?” he asked, struggling to keep his voice even. “Last I checked, it was your policy to restrict admittance to men, despite my protestations to the contrary.”

“Of course, M’Lord, it’s just…” The doorman quailed slightly at the look Enjolras gave him. “The woman in question claims to be your mother.”

Immediately, all jokes ceased as identical, horror-stricken looks crossed the faces of each of his friends. Enjolras blanched, all the blood draining from his face. “Did you confirm that I was inside?” he asked, a little desperately.

The doorman shook his head, his eyes widening. “No, of course not, m’lord’s discretion being of utmost importance to this establishment.” He hesitated. “That said, she did not appear to believe our denial, and is threatening to come inside and verify for yourself that you are not here.”

Enjolras groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course she is,” he sighed. He glanced at Combeferre as if considering asking for his assistance, but seemed to think better of it, instead standing and drawing himself up to his full height. “Right,” he said. “Well, I think you’ve got everything handled here, so I suppose I’ll just go, er, handle this situation.”

Combeferre again looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh. “Of course,” he said. “And, if you do not return, I shall call upon you later this week, shall I?”

“Yes, but the question will be more whether you should call upon me at my house or at the hospital,” Enjolras muttered, and it was to Combeferre’s credit that he still somehow managed not to laugh.

The same could not be said for Grantaire, who started humming what Enjolras recognized vaguely as a funeral dirge as soon as he headed towards the door, and Enjolras gave him the nastiest glare he could muster. Of course, Grantaire was unaffected – if anything, it only caused his grin to widen, and he raised his cup in yet another mocking toast as Enjolras swept out of the room to go deal with his mother.

It was anyone’s guess whether his mother or Grantaire irritated him more.

He started to ask the doorman where his mother was, but found that he did not need to ask – her voice was echoing all the way from the entrance hall. “I am the Dowager Marchioness of Enjolras,” she was practically shrieking, and Enjolras winced, mentally calculating how much money it would take to smooth this particular incident over. Certainly less than when Courfeyrac almost burned the place down, but almost certainly more than when Bahorel and Grantaire had gotten into a fistfight and broken two statues and a chandelier.

He really needed better friends.

And a different mother.

“I demand to speak with my son!” his mother continued, her voice rising in both volume and pitch. “And do not give me this nonsense that he is not here, I know quite well where my son is!”

“M’lady, I apologize, but as I have said, we cannot confirm that your son—”

“I shall confirm it for myself,” Enjolras interrupted, saving the poor proprietor, who had never looked more relieved to see him. “Mother, kindly stop screeching at these gentlemen for doing their jobs.” His mother spluttered incoherently  but Enjolras knew better than to allow her the chance to regroup.

Instead, he grabbed her by the elbow and steered her to the door, glancing over his shoulder to nod his thanks at the proprietor. As soon as they were outside the building, Enjolras dropped any pretense at propriety. “What the hell were you thinking?” he snapped, not releasing his mother from his grip. “Coming all the way into the city to find me? Pray tell what could possibly have been so important to cause such a scene!”

His mother yanked her arm from his grasp and glared up at him. “A scene?” she repeated, her voice deathly quiet. “My dear son, if you consider that a scene, you are ill-prepared for what is soon to follow.”

Enjolras sighed and tried not to roll his eyes. “There is no need for theatrics—”

Without warning, his mother slapped him across the face. “Theatrics?” she hissed. “When I have spent every waking moment these past several years trying to ensure your future and the future of our house!”

She made as if to hit him again but Enjolras caught her wrist, staying her hand. “Madam, you may be the Dowager Marchioness but I am the Marquess of Enjolras, and I will not permit you to assault me in the streets, my mother or not.” He released her arm before adding sardonically, “Besides, think of the gossip.”

Again his mother gave him no warning to gird himself, but this time, she burst into tears, sobbing into his shirt. “Oh, for the love of—” Enjolras took her again by the elbow, gentler this time, and led her to where her carriage waited. “Get a hold of yourself,” he snapped. “You have already made enough of a scene this evening.”

“Perhaps a scene is what it will take!” she half-shouted in return. “For you to finally listen to me, to hear what I have been telling you!” Enjolras rolled his eyes, holding out his hand to help her into her carriage, but she stubbornly refused to move. “Since you clearly don’t listen to me when I make arrangements solely for your benefit.”

“I assure you, you have never once done anything solely for my benefit,” Enjolras said tiredly. “But if it will stop your screaming then please, tell me the latest way in which I have ruined your plans for my future.”

“The Thénardier ball!” his mother wailed, crying again. “All those eligible young ladies, and you could not even deign to show your face! How am I to get you married at this rate?”

Enjolras rolled his eyes so hard he half-feared he would pull a muscle. “Hang the bloody Thénardier ball,” he ground out, hesitating for only a moment before picking his mother up and placing her inside the carriage, swinging up after her before she could protest. 

“What are you doing?” she cried as the carriage moved off at double speed, and Enjolras thanked whatever higher power there was that his mother’s driver also clearly did not wish to linger.

Enjolras sighed. “You wanted me attention,” he said tiredly. “So you have it, albeit not in public where you clearly wanted it.”

For one long moment, his mother just glared at him, tears shining on her cheeks. Then she sighed and sat upright, her pose turning almost prim as she drew a linen handkerchief from her sleeve and delicately dabbed the tears from her cheeks. “Very well,” she said calmly, all traces of earlier hysteria gone in an instant, and Enjolras realized immediately that he had been duped, that he had played directly into her hands.

She had anticipated that making a scene would be the easiest way to get him to leave with her.

And now she had him as a captive audience for however long it took for her driver to reach her house. And while he was not a betting man, he would wager all his money and lands that she had directed her driver to take the long way.

His mother was smiling at him, a cold, unpleasant smile, and Enjolras groaned, tipping his head back against the pillowed cushions. “Please don’t tell me that you really pulled all of that because you wished to discuss the Thénardier ball.”

“Don’t be foolish,” she said before tapping his knee. “And sit upright, you will cause your clothes to wrinkle.” Enjolras groaned and reluctantly sat upright, glaring balefully at her as he waited for her to continue. “No, I merely wished to discuss something and this seemed the easiest way.”

“Then by all means, please tell me: what do you want to discuss?”

“Why, what else?” she asked, a small smirk lifting the corners of her mouth. “Your marriage.”

----------

There were few things that Enjolras loathed more than being hoodwinked by his own mother into a conversation he’d been spending the past several years avoiding, but as he stood staring up at the rather imposing façade of a house he had been to only perhaps a handful of times, he thought this just might rank.

Still, his options were decidedly limited, and he hesitated only a moment more before climbing the stairs to the front door, knocking briskly. In telling of a house less used to visits during the season, it took a moment for the butler to answer the door, and Enjolras shifted uncomfortably on the stoop as he waited. 

“May I help you?” the butler asked as he opened the door. 

“Yes,” Enjolras said. “I’m here to see Grantaire.”

The butler eyed him warily. “And who should I tell Mr. Grantaire is here to see him?”

It took everything in Enjolras not to roll his eyes. “Tell him that the Marquess of Enjolras requests his presence,” he said dryly, hating the way the butler’s eyes widened when he realized just who was standing in the doorway.

“Of– of course, m’lord,” the butler said, immediately opening the door wider to usher Enjolras indoors. “Beg your pardon, m’lord. I’ll just, ah, go fetch Mr, Grantaire.”

He retreated up the stairs and Enjolras finally did roll his eyes, sighing heavily as he wandered a little further indoors. He had spent half his life, it seemed, going from one grand house to another, so very little surprised him, but he was intrigued by what he might find in Grantaire’s house. While his own park-adjoining manor had been in his family for generations, and was decorated accordingly, Grantaire came from new money, and this house had belonged to a different family entirely not even a decade before. 

He paused to examine a small portrait of two young children, a boy and a girl, when he heard footsteps clattering on the stairs and he turned to look up as Grantaire joined him, a jacket rather hastily thrown on and buttoned incorrectly.

“My Lord.”

Grantaire’s voice was pitched just slightly higher than usual, in a way that indicated genuine surprise at finding Enjolras standing in his foyer, but somehow still retained the telltale lilt that Enjolras had long since realized meant Grantaire was making fun of him. 

He scowled automatically. “Enjolras,” he corrected with an exasperated half-sigh.

Grantaire inclined his head, a smirk twisting his lips. “My lord Enjolras,” he said, and Enjolras’s scowl deepened.

“Just Enjolras,” he said flatly, not waiting for Grantaire to escort him into the house, instead crossing the foyer to peer into the front sitting room. 

“By all means, make yourself at home,” Grantaire said, following him.

Enjolras twisted his head to give Grantaire a smirk of his own. “As you seem so keen to remind me, I outrank you,” he said. “And believe me when I say this is one time I will feel no guilt using the trappings of the nobility to my advantage.”

Grantaire just snorted, brushing past him into the sitting room, ignoring the tea that had been set on the table and instead making his way over to the drink cart against the far wall. “Forgive me, but I can think of many instances where you undoubtedly used your title and your family to your advantage without any guilt,” he said dryly, pouring himself half a glass full of amber liquid before pausing, considering it, and adding another finger. “But let’s save that particular fight for a different time.” He turned back to Enjolras and raised his glass in a mock toast. “For now, before I forget my manners any further, let me say welcome to my home, and please, allow me to pour you a cup of tea.”

“I am capable of pouring my own tea, thanks,” Enjolras said, a little stiffly, and he sat down on one armchair before leaning forward to rather stubbornly do just that.

Grantaire did not join him, as if he thought keeping physical distance between them might keep things civil. “Only you would think that hospitality was an insult.”

Enjolras arched an eyebrow. “The way you said it, it was.”

“You underestimate my capacity for being genuinely polite,” Grantaire said dryly, taking a large sip of his whiskey.

“Do I?”

“Tell me, my Lord—” Enjolras gritted his teeth but chose not to interrupt him. “—if not to insult me to my face in my own home, what brings you here, and at tea time no less?”

His voice was calm, pleasant even, but Enjolras felt himself flush in realization that he had done exactly that. And no matter how frequently he might wish to throttle Grantaire with his own hands, that was offensive even for him. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, looking down at his tea as he stirred it. “I have been rude.

Grantaire looked briefly surprised, as if he had not expected an apology. But then his smirk was back in full force. “All is forgiven...my lord.” Enjolras really might shatter his teacup at this rate. “But you still didn’t answer my question as to why you are here.”

Enjolras set his teacup down and straightened, looking Grantaire in the eye. “I came to ask for your help.”

Grantaire laughed. “So you come to my home, uninvited, you insult me to my face, and you still have the audacity to ask for my help?” He drained half of his whiskey in one long gulp. “You are lucky you have been granted the face of a Greek god, Apollo.”

“Don’t call me that,” Enjolras sighed, though he knew it was a losing battle. Grantaire had called him that on the first day they met, when Grantaire was finishing college and Enjolras just beginning, and he had continued to call him that for all the years since. “Look, I am sorry, and not just because I need your help. I am ill suited to polite society and the longer the season drags on, the more foul my temper becomes.”

Grantaire made a small noise of agreement. “You and I both,” he murmured, draining his glass and pouring himself another before finally joining Enjolras, settling into the armchair across from him. “Very well. You have my attention.”

Enjolras leaned forward, sudden urgency in every line of his body. “Word has it that you were instrumental in helping Lord Joly and Mr. Lesgle avoid scandal last season when both were in love with Lady Musichetta.”

“Well, we avoided a big scandal at least,” Grantaire said, eyeing Enjolras carefully. “There must always be a little bit of a scandal or none would believe it.”

Enjolras waved a dismissive hand. “Either way, all three are happy, and living at Lord Joly’s estate, and not a word about them has been wasted in Lady Whistledown’s papers this season.”

Grantaire arched an eyebrow. “I am astonished to learn you have read any of the newly-revived Lady Whistledown’s papers, let alone with enough frequency to speak with such authority on the subject.:

Enjolras flushed a mottled red and looked away. “It’s an easy conversation topic,” he muttered, “when I am forced to speak to those with whom I have nothing in common.”

“Such as the twittering nitwits your mother foists upon you at every turn?” Grantaire asked lightly.

Enjolras met his eyes evenly. “Exactly. And exactly why I am here.”

Grantaire’s eyes narrowed. “You’re here to better learn how to talk with women?” he asked, almost certainly purposefully obtuse. “I admit, I am an expert on the subject, but—”

“Of course not,” Enjolras snapped. “Not to mention if I did need help in that arena, you would be the last person I would turn to.”

Grantaire laughed. “Your loss, he said cheerfully. After all, to have bedded as many women as I with a face like mine requires quite the expert hand at wooing.” Enjolras rolled his eyes and Grantaire smirked before taking another sip of whiskey. “Very well. If you are not here for my help in speaking to young ladies to finally secure a marriage match, then why are you here?”

“Because I do need to marry someone,” Enjolras said, trying not to sound as desperate as he felt. “But I need it not to be real.” Again he met Grantaire’s eyes. “And you are the only person I can think of who can help me pull that off.”

[soveryanon]

Reviewing time for MAG168!

- Yay for Oliver! From the announced title I had suspected The End and/or him because of his veins/roots/tendrils/not-tentacles, so that one wasn’t misleading!

Most of the episode was an audio pun on “Roots”/“Routes”: both the veins, and the reference to a Corpse Road. I’m… not sure about the double-meaning, though (since usually, titles refer both the core of the “statement” and something happening in the metaplot) – obviously, the “roots” were The End’s, they were almost a character by themselves (we could hear them creaking in the background alongside the whispers, a reminder that… they could grow. They could invade other domains when they would need); and the system presented by Oliver could (as he explained) come out of his domain to invade others’ in the search for more victims, which is how this universe could potentially end… but is there an additional meaning that could apply in Jon&Martin’s discussion, or in Jon’s decision to not go after Oliver?

(Regarding Martin: jealousy associated to “roots” makes me think of Corruption, though I don’t subscribe to the idea that Martin is being supernaturally OOC right now (I see how he could potentially be led towards bad choices, but I don’t feel like he’s under an influence right now outside of his own feelings). But I wonder if one of the meanings of “roots” will make sense in retrospect…)

- I was a bit sad to not hear Oliver himself but:

* Jonny, once again, did an amazing job at nailing the intonations and inflections of Oliver’s VA for the character; so, yes, it wasn’t directly Oliver, but we could hear when it was him directly addressing Jon, when it was the “statement” form, and when it was back to Jon.

(* Though I have a tiny sliver of doubt regarding the final “Report ends” afterwards: was it Oliver’s, making fun of Jon’s “statement ends” in the same way that Simon did after he got compelled to blurt out his life story after Martin prompted him? Interestingly, Oliver hadn’t joked about the “statement ends” in MAG121, though he already knew a lot about Jon and his dreams back then, and made it obvious in MAG168 that he knew more than us about Jon’s current state and how he functions (calling him The Eye’s “archive”, and pointing out that Jon can “only take”, which… yeah, feel like that will be relevant later). Or was it Jon saying the “Report ends.” to gain back a semblance of normalcy and making light fun of Oliver’s way of organising his “report” and/or trying to distance himself from what Oliver was saying, reminding himself that it was a subjective statement and that whatever Oliver says is to take with caution since he’s above all an agent of his own patron, however convinced and convincing he may sound? I feel like it was Jon saying that “Report ends.”, given how his voice sobered up, but both could make sense in their own ways…)

* Funnily, it makes sense for Oliver to give his “statement” in this fashion! Because, so far, he had never directly communicated with an Archivist in a situation that would allow reciprocity: he gave his statement to the Institute, while watching Gertrude in the next room (MAG011); he gave his statement to Jon while Jon was in a coma, so unable to answer him (MAG121); and now, he gave his “report” about his domain through Jon, addressing it both to The Eye and to Jon (… but is there a difference at this point?). In all cases, he was unreachable. So now, it feels even more significant that the only person he has ever interacted with on tape was End-touched Georgie, and that she managed to exchange words with him…

- Given how Oliver gave this “report” to Jon, that the “I” was clearly Oliver… What does it say about the narrator of previous statements? Were the “I”s in those the domains or the Fears themselves, talking through Jon?

… If that’s the case, what is exactly happening with the tape recorders, who are gorging themselves with these new forms of statements and apparently freeing Jon from the weight of them…?

(And who was the narrator in MAG167 then? The Eye itself?)

- Laughing so hard because Oliver’s background (MAG011: “I’ve lived in London for almost a decade now. I came here to do my undergraduate degree at the London School of Economics. I ended up taking a position with Barclays shortly after graduating and did well enough there.”) showed so much in the way he organised his ~report~ (not a “statement”, not a “terror”, but a “report”, Oliver wanted to be SPECIAL, uh…):

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “Report to prevent future deaths. This report is being sent to: [STATIC FADES] The Great Eye, that watches all who linger in terror, and gorges itself on the sufferings of those under its unrelenting, stuporous gaze! And its Archive, which draws knowledge of this suffering unto itself. 1 – Coroner I am Oliver Banks, sometimes known as Antonio Blake, or doctor Thomas Pridchard. I serve The Coming End That Waits For All And Will Not Be Ignored. 2 – Coroner’s legal powers […] 3 – Investigation and inquest […] 4 – Circumstances of the death […] 5 – Coroner’s concerns […] The matters of concern are as follows. a) […] b) […] c) […] d) […] 6 – Actions that should be taken […] 7 – Your response”

Organised, classified, taking an example to illustrate… and even: doing something else than the subject of his report. It wasn’t a report “to prevent future deaths”. It was a report “about” future deaths and how they couldn’t be prevented. Oliver, please.

- Handsome Man Of Many Aliases:

(MAG011, “Antonio Blake”) “First off, I should admit that I lied to get in here.” […] ARCHIVIST: I had Tim look into it, as I don’t entirely trust the others not to have written it as a practical joke and slipped it into the archives. Unsurprisingly, he came up with nothing. Antonio Blake is a fake name and all of the contact details he provided were similarly fraudulent. It’s almost certainly a joke, a bit of hazing for the new boss, maybe? Best not to engage with it, I think.

(MAG121) OLIVER: So… My name is Oliver Banks. In my other statements, I used the name “Antonio Blake”, but I don’t really think either name has much meaning for me anymore. […] I’m Antonio. GEORGIE: Sure.

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “1 – Coroner. I am Oliver Banks, sometimes known as Antonio Blake, or doctor Thomas Pridchard. I serve The Coming End That Waits For All And Will Not Be Ignored.”

… jumped on the Apocalypse occasion to get himself a fancy title, “Coroner”. With the interesting point that a coroner goes back through time to investigate someone’s death, backwards, while Oliver reads the death forwards, as in how it will happen.

- I find the way Oliver referred to Jon really interesting:

(MAG121) OLIVER: Hum… Hello, Jon. Do you… m–mind if I call you Jon? I… I mean. You don’t actually know me, it’s just… well. “Archivist”, it’s so… formal, isn’t it? And I do kind of know you…?

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “This report is being sent to: [STATIC FADES] The Great Eye, that watches all who linger in terror, and gorges itself on the sufferings of those under its unrelenting, stuporous gaze! And its Archive, which draws knowledge of this suffering unto itself. […] Please, Jon, do not interpret this report as a ‘plea for mercy’ or a ‘call to action’.”

He used to go with “Archivist” (as a title) and Jon. The “Jon” was clearly a callback to the time he had visited Jon in the hospital (pushing towards casual sympathy? At the very least, reminding him of the last time Oliver had chosen to call him “Jon”, and why he had visited him in the first place), but calling him The Eye’s “Archive” is new on all levels: first time that Oliver calls him that way, and first time that anyone except Jonah called him that way.

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “Because the thing about the Archivist is that… well: it’s a bit of a misnomer. It might, perhaps, be better named “the Archive”. Because you do not administer and preserve the records of fear, Jon – you are a record of fear. Both in mind, as you walk the shuddering dread of each statement; and in body, as the Powers each leave their mark upon you. You are a living chronicle of terror.”

So, as much as I had a few reservations about the content of what Oliver was seeing/predicting… it’s true that he knows a lot, about Jon and about how he functions, what he is right now in the grand scheme of things.

* Also: once again, The Eye’s Archive. Not Jonah’s. Jonah is irrelevant. “The Magnus(’) Archive” is not applying to this season so far.

* … Interesting that, although Oliver had directly mentioned that the “Spider” had pushed him to come visit Jon in MAG121, there was no mention at all of any Web activity in this one, as if it was also irrelevant/wouldn’t be able to do anything noteworthy to change the planned course?

- I really love how Oliver tried to sound professional and respectable and kind of… objective about everything?, and at the same time, absolutely went into “My Patron Is Better Than Yours” territory:

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “Report to prevent future deaths. This report is being sent to: [STATIC FADES] The Great Eye, that watches all who linger in terror, and gorges itself on the sufferings of those under its unrelenting, stuporous gaze! […] I am Oliver Banks, sometimes known as Antonio Blake, or doctor Thomas Pridchard. I serve The Coming End That Waits For All And Will Not Be Ignored. […] I make this report under no “authority”, no “regulation” or act of law, save the hollow power and grim responsibility given me by the Termination Of All Life. […] a) When Danika Gelsthorpe reaches the end of her Corpse Root, she will die. This new world of Fear reviles death as a release, but the Coming End cannot exist without its reality. It is not a being of dangled promises and shifting torments; the certainty of death waits for all who travel the Corpse Roots, and that certainty… will be delivered on, without hesitation or consideration of any other factors. b) This place has a limit, on the fear that can be generated from them, as their pool is necessarily finite and ultimately, however slowly, it will be exhausted. To be offset, this consideration will require the acquisition of victims from other domains as replacements, potentially inciting… “bad feeling” between those domains. […] However slowly, the domains of Death will be removing sufferers from a closed system. However many thousands of years may be experienced in the meantime… eventually, this world will be left barren and empty. […] Even if such a fate could be avoided, as it comes closer and the other Entities grow in their awareness of their own end, the grotesque ripples of their own impossible panic shall glut and feed my master, gorging it to the point where, perhaps, it will even surpass The Watcher in prominence. […] The End does not fear its own cessation, for it is the certainty and promise of all life, however strange, that it will one day finish, and that includes its own stark existence. It shall be the last and, when the universe is silent and still forever, it shall perhaps, in that impossible moment before it vanishes, finally be satisfied.”

* That condescending tone towards the other Fears, and the fact that they do not truly deliver death (as it would mean losing their victims), but My-Patron-Is-Better-And-A-True-One so The End has to deliver what it promises. (Does that confirm that, for example, Richard-the-human-worm respawned or was still “living” in a way after Sam went through him?)

* … My-Patron-Is-Better-Than-Other-Fears so it will go after the others to get access to their pools of victims, to find new ones.

* My-Patron-Is-Better-Than-Other-Fears so it will feed from them since The End will come after their victims and dry them out of victims, and they can do nothing about it.

* My-Patron-Is-Better-Than-Beholding so it could grow even stronger than it even though Beholding is the current ruler and had reality reshaped to have it on top of everything.

* My-Patron-Is-Better-Than-Everything so it will celebrate its own death, since Ending Itself after having ended everything means that it will have accomplished its true purpose.

(* Bonus “I-Am-My-Patron”, so Jon killing him would just be fine in the order of things, too.)

Like. WOW, Oliver, wow. Really fond of your patron, aren’t you, down to making it like a “challenge” to The Eye.

- Confirmation that The End’s domain lies both in the fear of death (since Danika had served it her entire life), but Oliver insisted pretty much that it also requires actual death to function/to work with its nature.

… So, I’m torn about what degree of credence to give Oliver. On the one side: it goes very well with the message Jonny keeps repeating (including in his gaming streams or in The Mechanisms universe) that “all things end”, that nothing can last forever – it’s what Oliver directly told Jon, it works. It could be the programmed annihilation of this world, whether we (the audience) get to witness it or not: I’m still thinking that The Extinction could come into play and wipe out everything, but if no other Change/cataclysm happens, it could go this way, with this world gradually, slowly dying, because at the core of it, it contained its own doom (the Fears have free reign and can never be truly satiated, so they’ll dry out the whole world without caring about creating a long-lasting “ecosystem”. They don’t know how to preserve, only to consume).

On the other hand, Oliver was extremely adamant about the fact that it would happen, but… has no proof that it will?

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “In exactly thirteen stretches of the root on which Danika travels – a stretch being measured in the waves of nauseating terror that flow out of her with such rhythmic regularity – she will finally arrive at her destination. […] I watch, as with each motion, each laboured, reluctant movement along her path, Danika Gelsthorpe is painfully, and inescapably aware of what it is that lies at the end of it. She tries to move backwards, off to the side, any direction other than that unstoppable, inescapable forwards. But her limbs seize up with the attempt. She tries to stay still, but can do so only with the most incredible of efforts. To eke out another few seconds of stasis sets every nerve in her body aflame with agony and effort, begging her to scream, despite her jaw being set in a frozen rictus of sombre mourning. I see her relive the coming moment of her inevitable demise. […] When Danika Gelsthorpe reaches the end of her Corpse Root, she will die. This new world of Fear reviles death as a release, but the Coming End cannot exist without its reality. It is not a being of dangled promises and shifting torments; the certainty of death waits for all who travel the Corpse Roots, and that certainty… will be delivered on, without hesitation or consideration of any other factors.”

The “thirteen stretches” sound like a clear references to the 13 Fears used in Jonah’s incantation (the fourteenth, The Eye, being supposed to rule over the others) and/or the fact that it requires 14 “points” to work (thirteen stretches meaning that there are fourteen points between the beginning and The End), but what I’m more interested is that… there are still thirteen stretches for Danika to travel. What if there is actually no way to travel a whole stretch, because it keeps stretching and getting longer, just because death has to be a horizon that is, by nature, forever elusive, even though Oliver is convinced that it must be a reachable goal since he believes in his patron? (Plus: how come The End will be able to touch other domains when necessary? Wouldn’t it just collapse on itself and disappear on its own, without first putting a dent into others?)

I’m not sure! On the one hand, it works well as a programmed ending, makes sense, and Oliver and The End have displayed time and time again that The End deals in certainty (and Oliver kept repeating that word); on the other hand… as he said, he’s absolutely loyal to his patron, now. Of course he would feel like The End makes the most sense in this world, that the cycle it functions in will keep going, that the same rules apply, that The End will even surpass The Eye. It all feels very subjective. So… we’ll see.

(But given that uncertainty: it feels to me like precisely, we won’t get that scenario, we won’t know for sure that it would have worked this way, because something else will happen. Something that won’t prevent all things from “ending”, but in different circumstances than the current ones…)

- What about Georgie, in the order described by Oliver, though? Given that the rules have changed, and if people are only able to die in The End’s domain by fearing their death, what would happen if the last human standing doesn’t “fear”?

- That puts to mind Peter’s explanation to Martin about why, according to him, The End had not attempted to carry its ritual, and how it was distinct from The Extinction:

(MAG134) PETER: There are two Powers that, to my knowledge, have never attempted to fully manifest, never had followers set them up for a ritual: Mother-of-Puppets, and Terminus. The Web, and The End. The Web, I’ve never really been sure about: if I were to guess, I would say it actually prefers the world as is, playing everyone against each other, and so on. The End, on the other hand… The End doesn’t really need one: it knows that it gets everything eventually, so why bother. The End manifesting would not be a new world of terror; it would be a lifeless world. Devoid of everything. MARTIN: … Including fear. PETER: Exactly. It has no reason to truly attempt to enter our world, it’s… passive. But The Extinction… The Extinction is… different. It’s active. It will seek to create a lifeless world, in a way that none of the other Powers ever would. Some interpretations suggest it might replace us with something new, that can then fear annihilation in turn. But I and those like me would rather that did not happen.

Not that passive given that Oliver mentioned that his domain would go after others’ to get a new supply of victims, when necessary (and that it would the one to upset the current equilibrium), and that Oliver was actually participating in spreading in patron’s fear by warning about the end to come, but!

- Interesting bit is that The End and Oliver have a relationship with time that seems to tie present and future close together (“The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one.”), with The End being the only and absolute future possible, while Beholding… doesn’t. It has access to past information, to events currently happening, but Jon pointed out that his powers couldn’t access the future:

(MAG164) ARCHIVIST: She… thinks she’s going to kill Daisy. Like she promised. [STATIC DECREASES] But she’s conflicted. MARTIN: And will she? ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t know, th–the future, th–that’s… that’s not something I can see.

Nice contrast, which makes sense, but also: Jon is special, even for an agent of Beholding, something that Oliver seemed to imply (“But know that, even you, will all your power, cannot keep the world alive forever.”). What can Jon do, in this new reality, besides turning predators into preys and being untouchable for the monsters…?

(I’m also squinting at Oliver’s words, because it could imply… that Jon is currently the only thing keeping the world “alive”, right now?)

- … If Oliver is right, though, laughing forever that Jonah, who feared death the most, would have BROUGHT IT ON HIMSELF:

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I beg you, do not pursue this goal; if only a single lesson may be gleaned from my life of long study, and longer hardship, it is that the fear of Death is natural, and to flee from it will only bring greater misery. Repent of your sins, Jonah. Seek forgiveness. I am certain the Dread Powers cannot take a soul that keeps faith in the Resurrection.”

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “Why does a man seek to destroy the world? It’s a simple enough answer: for immortality, and power […]; to place yourself beyond pain, and death, and fear. It is an awful thing to know about yourself, but the freedom, Jon, the freedom of it all…! I have dedicated my life to handing the world to these Dread Powers, all for my own gain, and I feel… nothing but satisfaction, in that choice. I am to be a king of a ruined world, and I shall never die. I believe there are far more people in this world who’d take that bargain than you would ever guess. And I have beaten all of them.”

… since his invocation also invited “[all that] dies”. He could have gone with “all that fears to die” or something like that, allowing for a loophole, but he specifically called for all that “dies”.

Jonah.

Jonah, you’re so effing stupid.

(- Re: Jonah, it’s delightful that… he has not been mentioned at all by other monsters/avatars (Annabelle, Helen, the Not!Them) so far. Oliver didn’t either. When it comes to establishing who caused the apocalypse, they’re fully crediting Jon and/or pointing out his relation to The Eye:

(MAG164) HELEN: What would I have to gloat about? Much as I am delighted by this brave new world in which we find ourselves, I can take no credit for it. This was all… you!

(MAG165) NOT!SASHA: Well, of course you want to wallow in my shame like your voyeur master!

(MAG166) HELEN: And Jon, well… he is part of The Eye; a very important part. And he’s able to, shall we say… shift its focus.

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “This report is being sent to: [STATIC FADES] The Great Eye, that watches all who linger in terror, and gorges itself on the sufferings of those under its unrelenting, stuporous gaze! And its Archive, which draws knowledge of this suffering unto itself. […] Perhaps once it might have horrified me, or given me some sense of pursuing the ultimate release of the world that you have damned.”

And yes, obviously, Jon was manipulated into doing it, didn’t willingly and knowingly cause it! But it’s hilarious that they’re all “Who?” about Jonah’s whole existence; he… seems absolutely irrelevant to the whole apocalypse deal although he tried to take credit for it. I wonder in which state we’ll meet him and/or if he will be able to express himself in any way – so far, I’m banking on him either being the Panopticon (having merged with the building) or being wrapped in cobwebs.)

- Interestingly, Oliver seemed to credit some level of sentience to the Fears themselves?

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “To be offset, this consideration will require the acquisition of victims from other domains as replacements, potentially inciting… ‘bad feeling’ between those domains. […] Even if such a fate could be avoided, as it comes closer and the other Entities grow in their awareness of their own end, the grotesque ripples of their own impossible panic shall glut and feed my master, gorging it to the point where, perhaps, it will even surpass The Watcher in prominence. The others may take what actions they wish; they may plot and plan and tear themselves apart in an attempt to separate from the fate that they know they cannot escape; but they will fail.”

I could expect the avatars/monsters to panic and try to sustain themselves, but the Fears/domains themselves…? (And once again: that phenomenon is very reminiscent of the way Peter described his own fear of The Extinction, as something that could eradicate him and other Fears/avatars…)

- AHAHHA about the image that when Danika would have travelled through the “thirteen stretches”, she would reach the end/The End and die… because that suuuuuure seemed reminiscent of Jon&Martin’s current travels, having to travel through (13) domains in order to reach The Panopticon, without knowing what would happen then.

Not ominous at all.

- I am… really interested in Oliver’s mention that Jon now “may only take”, combined with the fact that Oliver directly called him The Eye’s “Archive”. Specifically since, in MAG121, Oliver had highlighted Jon’s ability to extract statement:

(MAG121) OLIVER: Sorry to go on…! I’m… I don’t talk to many people these days. Putting my thoughts outside myself, it gets a bit… mm… clumsy. Be easier if you could talk back, right? Ask me questions and just have it tumble all out. But no. It’s… it’s just me. Wish there was a better way, but… Touching someone’s mind, it’s not… as simple as that, is it? Doesn’t always make things clearer, y’know? Still. I gave the old woman a statement so, maybe I owe you one as well. That’s… how it works, right? Give you a terror, give you a dream. ’s not like I don’t have them to spare.

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “I make this report under no ‘authority’, no ‘regulation’ or act of law, save the hollow power and grim responsibility given me by the Termination Of All Life. With it, I may see and spread the hidden veins of destiny that wrap us close and draw us through the empty, yearning parody of meaning that we call life, knowing at all stages that the last and final point of this journey is a blank and futile end. […] Please, Jon, do not interpret this report as a ‘plea for mercy’ or a ‘call to action’. I would have offered it willingly, of course, but to do so is no longer an option. You cannot ask; you may only take.”

The circumstances in season 5 have changed, we’ve seen that in the way Jon is managing the new “statements”: he has to let them out, he gets liberated from their weight once they have “poured out of [him] down into the tape”. He can only delay the moment he does it for a very short while, he has to do it when they reach a domain. The only exception has been in MAG167, when he gave a statement about Gertrude and her assistants, which was (at least partially) prompted by Martin’s questions.

So we see a difference between “Archive” and “Archivist” as of now with the statements. We’ve also seen Jon using his powers to “know”, prompted (Martin asking him questions in MAG164) and not (Jon knowing about Annabelle’s phone call in MAG167).Witht the exception of channelling The Eye’s powers to turn a predator into a prey, his abilities now seem mostly passive, but I wonder if it will mean something more, regarding his status as an “Archive” (and if Annabelle is planning to use that)…

(… Concrete question too: is Jon still able to compel, nowadays?)

- There are some bits of Martin’s words that made me go “!” because it implies that he had discussed with Jon about these matters beforehand:

(MAG168) MARTIN: Okay… [FOOTSTEPS] I mean… Well, I don’t like this place. ARCHIVIST: Once again, Martin, that’s… [CHUCKLING] sort of the point…! MARTIN: Yeah, yeah, I know, alright, I get it, it’s just… it’s more than that. This place, what did you call it, the… th– … the “Rotten Core”? ARCHIVIST: The Corpse Roots. MARTIN: Yeah, yeah, that. Well, it… It feels… [SIGH] I don’t know, it feels like it’s– ARCHIVIST: Waiting. MARTIN: Yeah! [CREAKING SOUND] Waiting. [SILENCE PUNCTUATED BY THE WHISPERS] This is the one with the, em… the Death guy, isn’t it? ARCHIVIST: This is Oliver Banks’s domain, yes. MARTIN: … So it’s him who’s waiting. […] Alright, fine, yes, yes, I am jealous, alright? Yes, if you absolutely must know! ARCHIVIST: Because he woke me up. MARTIN: [SPLUTTERING] I was there weeks, and nothing. He talks to you for five minutes, and suddenly you’re back on your feet, and bouncing around like a, like a spring chicken! ARCHIVIST: [NERVOUS CHUCKLING] I mean, that’s really not– MARTIN: I mean, what’s so special about him, that you wake up for him and not me, hm? [CREAKING SOUND] Enlighten me.

* “Rotten Core” is MAG157’s title; it’s Adelard’s last message to Gertrude, that was put on Jon’s desk together with the tape of Martin&Peter’s conversation about going down in the tunnels, the association of the two prompting Jon to panic by realising that Martin was probably manipulated into something that didn’t actually have much to do with The Extinction. “Rotten Core” in itself never appeared in Adelard’s email (could have been the subject of it, though?) and, officially, we still don’t know who sent that statement to Jon (Jonah didn’t take credit for that one, neither did Martin or Peter, so… probably Annabelle). But Martin using the phrase seems to imply that he has been filled in about it – did Jon&Martin talk about The Extinction, since the end of MAG159?

* Martin already knew that the “Death Guy” had woken Jon up, so… Jon has explained what happened, too. Unless Martin heard the other tapes during season 4? (And Jon remembered about it and about the fact that it was specifically Oliver who woke him up: this is the first time he has acknowledged that.)

So! They have been exchanging information offscreen!

- I’m HOWLING at petty/jealous Martin.

I didn’t feel like it was toxic or dangerous or OOC at all – Martin [INORDINATELY PLEASED] Blackwood has… quite often been portrayed as incredibly petty and jealous when it came to Jon:

(MAG088) BASIRA: I just, I mean he was good company. Y’know, when he wasn’t being a paranoia machine. He was funny, you know? MARTIN: What, Jon? BASIRA: Yeah. MARTIN: I don’t think I’ve ever heard him tell a joke. BASIRA: Maybe you weren’t listening. MARTIN: Right. Well, I’m sure it’ll get sorted out when DAISY brings him in and you can probably talk to him then. Oh! Sorry, I forgot you’re not actually with the police any more, are you.

(MAG106) MELANIE: [CHUCKLE] Right, well… The jury’s still out on Elias. And anyway, Martin’s always been lovely to you. BASIRA: Hm. I dunno, I mean, you should have seen him when I turned up last year. I think he thought I was trying to steal his precious Archivist. MELANIE: Aaah…! I got the exact same, when Jon was hiding out and came to me with his “source on the inside” stuff. Martin was not impressed. BASIRA: Huff. That boy needs to relax. MELANIE: Or at least find someone else to fuss over.

When MAG121’s case number had been revealed (not in Early-Access, but on the public release), there had been many laughs about the fact that Jon had woken up on February 15th, and how much would it suck for Martin to think that his tearful begging from the trailer migt have happened the day before, on Valentine’s Day, only for handsome mlm Death Prophet Oliver Banks to waltz in and get Jon to wake up instantly? So I’m laughing very hard that yes, Martin is INCREDIBLY and irrationally jealous about it, about not having been able to be the one to wake Jon up like in cheesy romance movies.

… the part that does worry me, however, is how lightly Martin seems to be taking the whole “Kill Bill” thing, and how much of it was being jealous over someone Jon had “needed” help from (not so long after Annabelle made a dig at Martin for the fact that he wasn’t feeling useful to Jon right now). I feel like most of the exchange had Martin caricaturing himself a bit, or at least being aware of how silly he sounded, though? And it felt to me like his insistence towards Jon explaining his reluctance to murder was for Jon to, well, explain what is bothering him about it (outside of an ethical question, there is also the fact that Jon… might feel like if he were to do that to avatars, then other avatars/people would be entitled to do the same to him. Which, honestly? Fair. Jon attacked and wrecked innocent people for his own benefit in season 4. If they decided that, even though he has stopped now, he still has hurt people, still is a monster and still needs to die, the same logic could apply.)

There is indeed an absolute disconnect between Martin’s solution (“smiting”) and the tone/enthusiasm/casualness with which he offers it, and it could be rooted in his own feeling of uselessness, the fact he wants to take revenge over those who hurt him and Jon… So I don’t feel like he’s being supernaturally manipulated, but I’m definitely worried that he could take risks and/or make a veryyyy bad decision while trying to prove that no, he can be “useful”…

- ! Jon sounded SO FOND and so amused at Martin’s jealousy! His insidious “Martin~?” and audible smiles! “My husband is a bitch and I love him” feeling, overall.

I like that the exchange seemed well-handled for both of them: Jon naturally standing his ground and pointing out that Martin’s logic was absolutely childish (“Look, Martin: I am sorry you feel that way, but I’m not going to kill a man just because you’re jealous.”), without sounding accusing either; and Martin ultimately relenting (“Fine. I suppose that’s… reasonable.”). They were two idiots in love, Martin being a bigger idiot this time around, but! Idiots.

- Really curious about how Martin will react if they cross paths with Simon or Daisy. Would he encourage Jon to “smite” them too? Or would he be more ambivalent, a bit torn about it? Why has he reacted differently towards Helen – is it strategical, and he just wants to try to use her as long as he can? Is it because he identifies her as the woman he had seen in the corridors, and still feels guilty about not trying to help her then?

… I’m terrified of how he will react if they cross paths with Jared or Jude, however. Jared terrorised him and caused him to accept Peter’s offer, and Jude hurt Jon deeply, something Jon has a very obvious mark to show for. (Same with Jonah: I think that for Martin, it’s clear in his mind that they’ll “smite” Jonah once they reach the Panopticon. I’m not convinced that, after what happened with the Not!Them, Jon would want to do that anymore: if some monsters and avatars didn’t really have a “choice”, then what about Jonah? At which point did he go rotten, irredeemable? What’s the difference between him and Oliver, who’s currently diversifying the way he’s torturing his victims in his domain “for variety”? Is it only Jon’s personal feelings about whether someone helped him a little bit or ensured his personal misery?)

(- ;; Now that Martin has a connection to Oliver through his jealousy… What if Martin’s ending is to lose Jon and then join Oliver’s domain to at least get an exit and cease to be…?)

- I’m a bit more concerned about what is happening in Jon’s head. First off, the way he presented Oliver, as someone who had “helped” him… versus the way he used to describe his “choice” to wake up:

(MAG121) OLIVER: The thing is, Jon, right now, you have a choice. You’ve put it off a long time; but it’s trapping you here. You are not quite human enough to die, but – still too human to survive. You’re… balanced on an edge, where The End can’t touch you, but you can’t escape Him. I made a choice. We all made choices. Now, you have to– […] Make your choice, Jon.

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: My– [PAUSE] [INHALE] [SIGH] My memories of the coma are not clear. But I know I made a choice; I made a choice to become… something else. Because I was afraid to die. But ever since then, I… I don’t know if I made the right decision; I–I’m stronger now, tougher, I can… … If I do die, now, or get sealed away somewhere forever… I don’t know if that’s a bad thing.

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I don’t know, Martin. [FOOTSTEPS] I just, I don’t think he’s… [SIGH] I don’t know, I don’t think he’s evil. [CREAKING SOUND] MARTIN: Oh, yeah, sure, he’s probably a really kind, benevolent ruler of a hellish fear prison…! ARCHIVIST: It’s just… He helped me. Wh–when I was… He woke me up. MARTIN: Wow. What a hero.

Back in MAG136, Jon wasn’t sure he had made a good decision; it was put into perspective when we learned a few episodes later that, at this point, Jon had already attacked three people to feed, without letting the others know. Trolley problem: was it right, for Jon not to die, if it meant sacrificing three people (soon-to-be five) to sustain himself? Was it a “good” choice?

This episode, Jon unnaturally presented it as Oliver having “helped” him by waking him up, which, mMMM. Seems like he has made his peace with that choice – which, on the one hand, good because less self-deprecating (it’s normal to want to survive), but on the other hand, there would be reasons to still feel guilty for making it, given the consequences?

I’m not really surprised about Jon expressing a degree of sympathy towards Oliver, or at least pointing out that their degree of “choice” in their transformations bears similarities, given that Oliver’s story, his first dreams, the power inflicted on him, came with a gradual desensitisation and acceptance. Chronologically, Oliver’s story is that of someone who gradually stopped fighting fate and came to embrace his Fear-patron (a turning point being when he lost someone precious to him).

(MAG011, “Antonio Blake”) “It was there, sleeping on my friend Anahita’s sofa, in the depths of my misery, that I first started to have the dreams. […] These dreams have been a regular part of my sleeping for about eight years now. Even as life improved and I found a new job and place to live – believe it or not I now work selling crystals and tarot cards in a “magic” shop – they continued to crop up a few times each month.

(MAG032, Jane Prentiss) “How many months has it been like this? Was there a time before? There must have been. I remember a life that was not itching, not fear, not nectar-sweet song. I had a job. I sold crystals. They were clean, and sharp and bright and they did not sing to me, though I sometimes said they did. We would sell the stones to smiling young couples with colour in their hair. I remember, before I found the nest, someone new came. His name was Oliver, and he would look at me so strangely. Not with lust or affection or contempt, but with sadness. Such a deep sadness. And once with fear.”

(MAG121) OLIVER: And about two years before I came to your Institute, something happened – something I didn’t want to talk about. Didn’t even want to think about. I… [SIGH] I started to see them when I was awake.

(MAG042, Jennifer Ling) “The sign above didn’t have an obvious name, simply reading ‘Crystals. Books. Tarot’. He was tall, black and careworn, deep lines of worry etched into an otherwise handsome face. When he saw me looking at him, he began to walk up to me, still with that intense look. I took a couple of steps back, and asked if I could help him. He shook his head as if unsure what to say, then asked me what I was listening to. A chill ran over me as I realised he was staring at my ears. I said I wasn’t listening to anything, as I wasn’t wearing headphones, and asked him what he wanted. He shook his head again, and mumbled something about protecting my hearing. He turned away then, and started walking back into the shop.”

(MAG011, “Antonio Blake”) “This worked fine until I saw my father in the dream, walking down Oxford Street, the pulsing veins climbing up his leg and into his chest. I tried to warn him of course – asked leading questions on his health and how he was feeling, whether he’d been tired recently. I even went so far as to book him a doctor’s appointment, much to his annoyance. It did no good, though – ten days later the heart attack came for him and, despite the rapid response of the paramedics and how much of his medical history I had immediately to hand, there was nothing I could do to save him. He died on New Year’s Eve, and as 2014 ended, so did any hope I had of my dreams doing good in the world.”

(MAG121) OLIVER: Wish I… knew why I came here. I s’pose there’s only so long you can dream about someone, and not at least try to find them. That was it with the old woman too. That was different, though. Way I figure it? She stuck her nose in just about everywhere it wasn’t wanted and stirred up hornets. ‘Till all the precautions in the world couldn’t stop Death from finally catching her. If I’d’ve known more back then, I’m… not sure I would’ve bothered trying to warn her. Still. You live and learn, don’t you?

(MAG011, “Antonio Blake”) “I’m well aware that I don’t even know your name, and I have no responsibility to try and prevent whatever fate is coming for you. Based on my previous experience, such a thing is likely impossible anyway, but after what I saw I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try. I did as much research into your Institute as possible, and arranged an appointment to provide a statement about some spurious supernatural encounter. Even then I was told that the Archivist only reviews the written statements once they have been taken, so here I am, pouring out my lunatic story on paper in the hopes that you might eventually read it. If you do see this in time and read this far, then to be honest I don’t know what else to tell you. Be careful. There is something coming for you and I don’t know what it is, but it is so much worse than anything I can imagine. At the very least you should look into appointing a successor. Good luck.”

(MAG121) OLIVER: Mmm… Let me tell you about how I tried to escape. […] It’s been almost ten years since I first started dreaming about the deaths of others, seeing those… awful veins crawling into them. Into… wounds not yet open, or… skulls not yet split. People who were about to die. Every night, I’d watch as they’d… sneak up and into folks about to choke on blood, or urging into hearts about to convulse. I’ve… come to terms with it. [DRY LAUGHTER] I’ve learned to live with it! […] And the worst part was that somewhere in me, I… I liked it! Underneath all that awful fear, it felt… like… home. […] I wanted to escape. I… needed to. […] At that moment, a sudden calm came over me. I understood it all. I could follow the line of the huge veins that encased the ship down into the water, leading off to a point almost a mile from the South-East. There. That was it. That was our fate. Where we would always be. Because I was going to take us there. Running was pointless. To try and to escape from my task would only serve to fulfil another. I finally understood what I needed to do.

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “With it, I may see and spread the hidden veins of destiny that wrap us close and draw us through the empty, yearning parody of meaning that we call life, knowing at all stages that the last and final point of this journey is a blank and futile end. I have no power to stop it, and even if I did… I would not do so; for to rob a soul of death is as torturous as its inevitable coming. […] And I shall help, ushering on this final, blank emptiness. Perhaps once it might have horrified me, or given me some sense of pursuing the ultimate release of the world that you have damned. But I am too much of my patron now and my feelings cannot help but reflect the shadows of… anticipation that lurk within the grave. […] And so the scope of my domain is yours…! Enter it and destroy me if you wish. I fear the annihilation you would gift me as little as I desire it. I am now, as the thing I feed, a fixed point, that has neither the longing nor the ability to change its state of existence. […] All – things – end, and every step you take, whatever direction you may choose… only brings you closer to it.”

[Dates-wise: Jennifer Ling left her statement in November 2013 and events were about the previous month; given Oliver’s reaction, he was already seeing the veins when awake back then. Jane Prentiss left her statement in February 2014, so she had met Oliver before he lost his father. “Antonio” left his statement in March 2015; Oliver visited Jon on February 15th 2018.]

It has been around eleven years, by the date of the apocalypse, for Oliver to reach this current state in which he describes himself as “The End that laces through every fibre of my soul” and “too much of my patron”. It only took Jon three years.

Though, overall, I was back at the feeling of the MAG140s episodes with the words/thoughts Jon has for victims and avatars:

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: A lot to think about. I… I feel… [FOOTSTEPS] No. I don’t want to destroy Oliver Banks. It wouldn’t do any good. I know that, and he never asked for this any more than I did. I feel badly for those that exist in his domain, o–of course, I do, but… At least, their suffering will be over, eventually. I can’t destroy everyone I cross paths with, it… [SIGH] No. If Oliver will not seek me out, then… I will leave him be. [TINY CHUCKLES] The avatar of Death… shall live. Martin’s going to be thrilled…! [SIGH]

* Stfu about deciding what is “better” for victims, Jon. (As a personal choice, yes, I would probably prefer the prospect of dying over eternal torment; HOWEVER, it’s not Jon’s place to establish what’s better for others, so Jon trying to rationalise his decision to go after Oliver? Nop, I don’t care, own up to your feelings, don’t scramble for excuses by saying you think it might be more ~charitable~ :<)

* Oliver who “never asked for this any more than I did” also explained very casually that:

(MAG168) ARCHIVIST: “Sometimes, for some small variety, I will allow Danika to brush against another root: the final fate of someone she loves. […] And with each one, she knows her steps forward bring closer not only her own end, but all of theirs. Time walks forward with her, but she has not the strength to stop it. Her fate draws ever-nearer, filling me with the joy of watchful fear, but also my own concerns.”

He’s not a passive jailor. Oliver is actively enjoying tormenting his victims in different ways “for some small variety”.

I thiiiiink more and more that Jon might now be targeting the whole Fear-system, and not (anymore) the individual avatars/monsters who were pushed and twisted by the Fears to become their servants, as he had begun to think about in the second half of season 4 (“I was so sure I’d find something up there. But instead, it was just another broken person trying to come to terms with the wreckage of their life.” about Manuela, lamenting over Jane, etc.) But that brings us back to that awkward stage where it feels to me like Jon is almost more humanising avatars/monsters currently hurting their victims, than the victims themselves who are just… there, and not extremely relevant.

(I’m reaaaally really really curious about how Jon will behave towards Jonah.)

- … I’m also a bit concerned that Jon deciding that Oliver’s victims at least get to die implies something bigger: that Jon is… giving up on the idea to reverse/undo this apocalypse. If these people die, they die, it’s over. Which means that, right now, Jon doesn’t think he has a better alternative to offer them. He had hopes at the end of MAG162, he got a few hints in MAG164 about how to banish the Fears; he… might already be giving hope of fixing things, without officially voicing it?

  MAG169’s title screams Desolation to me (+ bonus Agnes, with the way she got anchored to Gertrude and/or her death), and that could mean Jude (… which would be extremely interesting right now, given Martin “Kill Bill” Blackwood’s willingness to harm monsters/avatars; what could go possibly wrong with making him meet someone who physically hurt Jon, leaving a mark to show for it on one of his hands? So much). There is also a potential connection to the Distortion, and in way that could mean bad stuff (and Jon and/or Martin having to go through the door). Potentially Jon’s lighter being put to use, or Jon&Martin getting a clue about why Jon was gifted it?

Alternatively, if the meaning is more oblique and meant to subvert expectations: Vast stuff?

[colorful-yarns-queer-stories]

Wayward Son: You’re Probably Going to Hate Me for This

A quick caveat: This post took me almost 8 months to write because Wayward Son wrecked me that thoroughly. It left me that much of a mess, reeling that hard over how very wrong it went after Carry On. This post reflects those kinds of feelings from a queer reader, so if you love the book and feel extremely positively toward it, this post is not for you. Just keep scrolling and go on to enjoy your day. Your opinion is valid. If Wayward Son left you feeling sick, betrayed, and worse than before you got it, maybe we can commiserate. If you’re teetering back and forth on whether to read it, this post offers you the worst to look at opposite the best. If you don’t want to hear it, don’t read it. It’s that easy. 

On September 24, 2019, I was practically shaking when I opened my eyes and began setting up my cozy reading nook. I requested the day off work, cleared my entire schedule, and settled in my comfiest sweater and blankets with a fully stocked tea cabinet to read what was, for me, one of the most highly anticipated book releases of the year. I pre-ordered a signed physical copy of the book, the audiobook, even got the collectible patch. I could not WAIT to sit down and read the healing story of Simon Snow’s cross-country queer road-trip with his boyfriend Baz and his best friend Penny. I was so excited to see how Simon was helped on his road to recovery from the trauma of the previous book. Rainbow had psyched us up so much to see how things would get better for our favorite Chosen One, despite how hard his journey to mental wellness might be.

Oh, reader. I was so naive.

Now, before I go into my complicated emotions about this book, I need to clarify something. This is not really a book review. This is a brief and personal  examination of how queer characters and audiences are advertised toward vs. what product/representation they receive. Because Wayward Son? As a book, it was solid. Great story, great conflict, great characters. A Very Good Book. But it wasn’t the book we were advertised.

If you are a member of the LGBT+ community, you know what it is to be queerbaited. Shows advertise as though there will be LGBT+ representation, market these stories as queer love stories or stories about queer people learning to love themselves, but in the end, those promises are never delivered upon, leaving LGBT+ audiences open to attacks from cishet fans mocking them for hoping for representation in the first place and reminding LGBT+ audiences that their stories will never be center-stage unless they are fetishes, jokes, or tragedies. (Teen Wolf, BBC Sherlock, and The Cursed Child are just a few immediate examples that spring to mind.)

Rainbow Rowell did not technically queerbait. She wrote two LGBT+ main characters! They got together at the end of the first book! She delivered, right? Mmmm, not quite. Yeah, Simon and Baz got together at the end of the first book, and it was wonderful and heartwarming and hopeful, even if it was still a little bittersweet. After all, that’s realistic right? And they are both still the main characters of the second book. They are still together. She kept her word, right? Wrong.

Rainbow Rowell marketed us a hopeful cross-country road-trip with the Chosen One’s boyfriend and best friend in pursuit of healing and recovery for Simon Snow after he was left traumatized and adrift in the wake of saving the magical world. Well, we got a road trip. He did have a boyfriend and best friend present, sort of. Healing? Hahaha no. None. Not even a little bit. We were promised recovery and hope. What we got instead was a whole lot of Queer Suffering. Literally hundreds of pages of it.

Look, part of writing solid representation is being aware of the cultural and political climate in which you are writing. After the 2016 U.S. election, the LGBT+ and POC communities came under massive fire from the U.S. President, the federal government, and all of the devoted bigots who have loudly and violently sworn themselves to the cause of rooting out and eliminating every minority present here in the States. Since 2016, minority communities have done nothing but suffer under attack after attack over and over and over again. If you look at the majority of books published for LGBT+ audiences since 2016, you will notice that most of them are geared toward messages of healing, of hope, of strength in the face of adversity, because that is what we need given the reality of our existence right now. We need strength, we need hope, we need healing. We exist under a constant barrage of hate and vitriol and violence, and the number of hate crimes being committed against minority communities have risen consistently through the entirety of this Presidential term. So when we are marketed a book about hope and healing, by god we are putting faith in you to deliver on that promise, that commitment you are making to us as a community. We are trusting you, giving you our money, our time, our emotional commitment.

Wayward Son did not deliver on those promises of healing and hope and recovery. Nothing positive happened to any of the characters in the book. Nothing. What hope? What healing? What love? You made Simon and Baz essentially strangers planning their breakup from chapter one, not to mention their individual suffering you attached to their own identities (Simon as ex-Chosen One, Baz as a vampire). You made Penelope Bunce lose her partner of several years. You forced Agatha Wellbelove into a traumatic kidnapping specifically imitating and amplifying her brand of trauma from the end of Carry On. Every single character in your book was a minority (LGBT+, POC, QPOC, women), and every single one was forced to suffer even greater trauma this time with no reprieve or recovery from their previous experiences. YOU MARKETED THE BOOK WITH A FU**ING PRIDE PATCH ONLY TO HAVE YOUR QUEER CHARACTERS PLANNING THEIR BREAK UP FROM CHAPTER ONE. WHAT ABOUT THAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BE PROUD OF? Did you even take the time to become aware of the big tropes aimed at queer characters by straight authors? Of either burying your gays or making them end up apart? Of why it’s wrong to use your female characters constantly as damsels in distress (I thought you wanted Agatha to be the opposite of that, but here she is being the damsel in distress AGAIN)? Rainbow, YOU were the one who wrote Agatha hating her part in the Chosen One BS. You wrote her hating danger and magic and you wrote her escape only to reel her right back in? Wayward Son felt like Rainbow Rowell hitting the “Undo” button on all of the positive rep she gave us in the last book and replacing it with loads of misery just because cynicism is “In.”

If someone asked me to recommend a YA fantasy for their teen with solid queer rep, a diverse cast, and healthy messages, I absolutely would have had no problem recommending Carry On. I have, in fact, put it into the hands of LGBTQIA+ teens on multiple occasions. I could not, however, recommend Wayward Son. This book was the antithesis to Carry On and destroyed everything I loved about the original. Was Wayward Son, from a literary standpoint, a good book? Absolutely. But I cannot in good conscience recommend it to any LGBT+ readers, especially given the current political and social climate in which we live. Maybe the third installment will be a fix-it. Maybe things will get better. As for me, though, my faith in this author’s representation of minority characters was broken with Wayward Son.

What kills me about it, though… the thing that really just tears me up inside… is that if she had marketed it to us as, “Lol you’re all going to suffer, this book is totally going to hurt,” I would have been okay with it. I love TJ Klune’s books, but they tear your beating heart out of your chest and then feed it back to you by hand. His books hurt. The difference between him and Rainbow Rowell, though, is that he advertises them that way. When he writes something painful, he markets it as painful. When he writes something soft, he markets it as soft. We know we can trust him because he makes realistic promises and then delivers on them. Rainbow did the exact opposite, promising us recovery and giving us nothing but several hundred pages of pain for literally every single character involved. How are we supposed to trust you now? Honestly, for my part, now I know I can’t.

I’m sorry if this is upsetting. I know lots of people (if they ever see this) are gonna be VERY, VERY angry with me for writing it and for feeling this way. But this is my honest take on Wayward Son: the entire book is one giant trigger, and I think that, until there is anything at all positive to offer in its place, that it’s better for LGBT+ and other minority readers to avoid this one. Maybe wait until the next book or stop after Carry On. If you are a member of a minority group and struggle hard with mental health issues, this might be one to avoid for now.

[dishonoredrpg]

Congratulations, MINNIE! You’ve been accepted for the role of THE CHARIOT with the faceclaim of LUMA GROTHE. There’s a sound, sometimes, that I think of often: the thundering of hooves against the racetrack, the repetitive thrum, the thrill of watching beasts run you by knowing that they could in theory mow someone down and do not. For me, you embodied this with Valeria. You had me hooked with by all means, Chariot was bred to rule; it runs in her blood, it rots in her veins, and the rest of your application was held up on the same pedestal. You showed me both the potential to do and the potential to do not. You hit the nail on the head with the balance between duty and the desire to see something through, and their active conflicts with each other in a world that would like to eliminate conflict altogether; I cannot wait to see how Valeria’s story plays out.

Please review the CHECKLIST and send your blog in within 24 hours.

THE CHARIOT

OOC

NAME: Minnie

PRONOUNS: She/Her

AGE: 24

TIMEZONE, ACTIVITY LEVEL: EST. As for activity, I aim to post one reply every day. That being said, there are certain weeks where my muse is severely lacking due to the demand of my full-time job. I do my best to prepare for that ahead of time, but I will do my very best to follow the pace of the dash.

ANYTHING ELSE?: 

IN CHARACTER

SKELETON: Chariot

NAME: Valeria INSERT SURNAME HERE. I imagine that Valeria took on the name of Septimus’ family, partially because I’ve headcanoned that they had to face some general distrust when they first arrived to Tyrholm. To cement their standing, they took on the royal surname — which I think would be acceptable, since their mother was the rightful ruler.

FACECLAIM: Luma Grothe, Hoyeon Jung, Paulina Singer, Ursula Corbero, Fernanda Ly. Faceclaims are listed in order of preference. I tried to include different ethnicities to match potential faceclaims of the others!

Pronouns would be she/them.

AGE: I’d like them to be a year or two younger than The Emperor, to support a headcanon that she wanted very badly to become The Emperor’s friend/chosen sibling. Also because I think it’s a deeper twist of the knife to know that your junior is more suited for the throne, hehe. The youngest faceclaim on the list is 25 and the oldest is 30, so I can range from 25-35. Sorry for keeping things somewhat vague! If you really need an exact age, I can go with 27.

DETAILS: Unbridled potential. That’s the one phrase that best sums up my attraction to Chariot. They have a talent for greatness, an uncanny knack for excelling beyond measure; it’s never meant that much to them. They do not hunger for power, and their ambition is a humble creature — a mouse, rather than a phoenix turning the night sky to an angry orange. Her power clings to her, it emits a glow from within; wherever she goes, people notice. How can they not? Self-possessed and poised, they stink of competence. Whether she wields it as a dagger to one’s throat or holds it leisurely in her hands, it always manages to catch the light.

Chariot’s power, to me, seems like a pendulum; it sways back and forth wildly. By all means, Chariot was bred to rule; it runs in her blood, it rots in her veins. But then there is the madness that tempts her to step from the light and follow it down a long and unending tunnel, into the labyrinth where everything is possible and those closest to you cannot be trusted.

I think, at the end of the day, I see a million different paths for Chariot and I’d absolutely love to follow the trail until I can unveil them in all their glory — whether it be for good or for evil.

BACKGROUND:

Your first memory is of a warm egg in your hands. Your mother curls your fingers over it as if you’ve stumbled upon some great treasure. You know now that it was only an egg, but it felt magical as a child. You grow up in the farmlands, and live a quiet life. You and your father work the fields, and you learn to love the way sweat trickles down from your brow to your chin and the simple camaraderie of coaxing life from the earth. Your father teaches you the beauty of a silent moment and a fully formed thought, told in between hours hard labor and the scorching sun. He is not an overly affectionate man, but he shows you his heart in the way he lets you fail, over and over again, until you finally get it right. When he smiles at you with that look of a shared secret, you swell with pride. Your mother is enigmatic and clever, and tells the best stories. Each one is coated with mystery and ancient legends that you soak up like a sponge. She tells you a hundred stories and each one vibrates deep in your bones, as if you’ve lived it before. But if you’ve lived a hundred lives, then your mother has a thousand inside her, and she is a conqueror in each one. When the two of you venture into town, you feel a thick blanket of secrets settle over you. When you’re a child, it feels like you’re being suffocated. As you age, you learn that it’s possible to breathe and move beneath it; it just takes precision and a finesse you learn by watching your mother interact with other merchants. Your mother disappears only one year after you learn the truth of who you are. You are becoming a grown-up now, she tells you, her eyes unblinking and unashamed. It’s the most unguarded you’ve ever seen your mother; it is a terrifying and glorious thing to see her in all her power and grace. You can picture her with a crown; it does not surprise you when you learn that she abdicated the throne. Of course she did; you cannot imagine her happier anywhere else other than right here in the farmlands where the wind is crisp and the soil is sweet. You are a princess, your mother says. No I’m not, you tell her, I’m a farmer, just like Father. That makes her laugh, but you notice a tear catch in the corner of her eye. First, your father dies. He falls ill, and you learn that no amount of power or royal blood can save a loved one from death. You sit behind your mother. You do not watch, but you listen; to this day, you swear that you heard his last breath. Your mother holds you and tells you that the farm is in your hands. You are the one who inhaled and exhaled the land as he did. Your mother helps, but you can see that you are better at this than she is. So you assume the position of leadership at the tender age of nine, and you learn to push your body and mind to its very limit. You learn that, when you push hard enough, what seems like a brick wall softens and becomes pliable clay. It stretches. You grow. You learn. You excel. When you are ten, your mother disappears. You make do on your own. There is no other option, so you continue working the land. You work twice as long and twice as hard, and you are at your breaking point when Septimus arrives. Your uncle. The king, you realize after you’re already well on your way to Tyrholm. At your heart, you are a farmer. You know what it means to cut your hands in order to grow calluses. You believe that the work will get easier the harder you work, and it comes naturally to you. After a few years living in Tyrlholm, they call you lucky, a natural-born princess. You know the truth: it is the spirit of your mother living on in you, and you find yourself talking to her throughout the day. When you realize it has become something like prayer, you lean into it. This is when you begin seeing your mother in the halls. Another shared secret that will bind you to her side and her heart, forevermore. You relish it. You embrace it. You harbor it like a warm egg in your hands, a sign of life and labor and creation. The people of Tyrholm show only contempt in the beginning, and it fuels you. You dig your heels deeper, grip the handle of your sword tighter, think faster. They only speak of your glory and your skill now, but you remember. You remember the disdain that dripped like venom from their teeth as they said your name. It takes years to undo that first impression: a child with matted hair that sticks up because of the way you sleep, dirt caked beneath your fingernails that took a whole week to scrub out, the smell of fertilizer and manure clinging to you like your home is not ready to let you go. But eventually, it does. You become one of them. More importantly, you become better than them. When they notice, you pretend not to care. Part of you, though, rather enjoys it. It could make your ego swell, if not for your cousin. THe Emperor takes every chance to trim your pride — you suppose that’s a rather kind way to describe the way they sneer at your every accomplishment. As a child, you saw them as the first playmate you could have ever had. Enamored by them, awed by them, you trailed after them hoping to find a sibling — a friend. Once you begin to surpass them in every lesson and every skill, you don’t notice the way their eyes darken as you walk by, or the way your name falls from their lips like blasphemy. It takes many bitter pranks and cruel jokes for you to understand: there is no such thing as family in Tyrholm. There is only you, your power and your secrets. You learn the lesson well — as you learn every lesson. And once you learn it, the door opens to learn more of Tyrholm’s hidden tunnels. There are a million rules no one will teach you, that you must teach yourself; these are the ones you like best. You begin a delicate dance with the integrity and honor you learned from your father, and the cunning you learned from your mother. At times, it is like being pulled in different directions. Eventually, it gets easier. You’re not sure when you stumbled onto this idea that Septimus did away with your mother. All you know is that the years of deception and clever dances and wordplay with nobility have become so ingrained in you that you no longer have to think upon it; and that’s when you consider that there are others who are as practiced with power as you are. The king is no mastermind; he is not a smart man, a clever man, not even a good man. But it’s exactly that talent for foolishness that makes a man bold and arrogant enough to murder his own sister, and take her child in as his own. Once the idea is planted, it is impossible to ignore it. You check on it obsessively, and the visions of your mother become plagued with suspicion. The foundation of who you are and your place in Tyrholm has been shaken, and you are unsettled wherever you go. You can try to hide it, but you have never been able to hide your greatness; you are unable to hide the new jagged edge it’s formed now.

PLOT IDEAS: LET’S GET THE OBVIOUS ONE OUT OF THE WAY, SHALL WE??? I of course would like to see Chariot follow the trail to uncover the truth of her mother’s death — and I’m very much open to it being exactly what she suspects or very not. Valeria has been at court for more than ten years; they have learned the games of both mind and sword, and they are not so arrogant to believe they are the true masters of either. Their mother’s inexplicable disappearance/death has always been a question mark for Valeria; who is to say that it was not another game orchestrated by Tyrholm, by the king? I’d like to explore a descent into madness, whether it’s legitimate or not. Their suspicions have taken a life of its own, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed. I’d like to explore the ramifications of people getting a whiff of Valeria’s unrest: Death, the Empress, etc. How will this knowledge live in the Emperor’s hands, or the World’s? I’d absolutely love, LOVE to see how public perception changes of Valeria, who is respected greatly for her competency and respected as the better option for the throne. As they spiral (and I truly hope to see them spiral), how will they contain it? This is just rambling off of the last plot (more of a sub-plot I guess), but Death is the only one who seems to have an explicit understanding of their goals, and THIS, TO ME, IS THE MOST INTERESTING PART OF THIS CONNECTION AND DEAL THEY’VE MADE??? It only serves them if Valeria has an actual change to take the throne. But what happens if she spirals so bad that there’s no WAY she’d be a fit to rule anymore? Would Death preserve their image in order to make them ruler, or would Death cast them out quickly to preserve their own skin? This is perhaps the first time in Valeria’s life that they’ve been helpless to act. It’s precisely because of their royal blood that they are unable to truly enact their quest, and I’d like to explore the implications of that for Valeria’s sense of self. Who are they, if not capable? At her heart, she is a farmer. They are measured by their output, by their productivity, by their crops and their yield. Right now, they are unable to yield anything. They can’t even truly plant seeds, relying only on Death and the Devil to work for them. How will this affect their sense of worth, and how will it influence their descent or ascent? The Empress may be one opportunity to have Valeria do something of her own accord, but it’s a risky confrontation. So what would it take for her to get there? BECAUSE I WANT TO GET HER THERE. I hint in her background this sense of not belonging — of having to fight her way in, versus being raised in Tyrholm. I’d love to explore that further, as well. I’d love to have nobility find Valeria a worthy heir but still not one of them. Or have Valeria be a more accessible figure to those who are of lower “ranking” (oh gosh is that okay to say) than them in a very different way than the World is accessible. Where the World is beloved for their kindness, Valeria is (in my head) more approachable because they don’t have the airs of someone who was born into royalty. It’d be an interesting dynamic to explore, especially to see how it relates to them being seen as a worthy heir.

CHARACTER DEATH: I’d like to see at least Valeria’s great suspicion become public before they die. I’m okay with them never getting answers because angst, but I’d like for their death to make an impact on Tyrholm — rather than just adding to the body count.

WRITING SAMPLE

The life leaks out of them like water from a faucet. With their expression resting like a stone, Valeria watches. There is no feeling to be expressed, no thought to be had but this: death looks the same wherever you go. In foreign lands and in her home country, the last moments of a single life are universal. There is some comfort in that.

“You have the face,” they rasp, “of a ruler.” A traitor to the throne, Septimus sent Valeria to put an end to their life. A strong member of the royal family, they hum like a fat cat who caught sight of a crippled mouse, that’s the last thing I want them to see. So she goes. She ignores the scorn that graces the Emperor's face, the flash of worry in the World’s eyes. She ignores even the look of smug arrogance on her uncle’s, so pleased that the pride and joy of Tyrholm beckons to his every call.

He sees what he wants to see. More importantly, he sees what she wants him to see.

Valeria says nothing. She waits for the eyes of a traitor to lose the last glimpse of light, wondering peculiarly if she is watching her own fate. A sword piercing her chest like a final embrace — perhaps Septimus will send his son to put an end to her life. They’ve been waiting for a long time to do it, she thinks, recalling every furious curl of their mouth and the unforgiving slant of their brow.

The traitor throws one final sentence out, with a great show of struggle: “But you have the hands of a servant.”

It’s then that Valeria affords them a smile. Every traitor they’ve ever killed at the king’s command has been insightful and clever, but never before has one seen Valeria for more than a noble figurehead. They see only the pride and joy of the throne, the deserving heir with no right to the crown.

To thank them, she grants them a secret. “And the heart of a traitor,” she whispers, taking some small delight in the way their eyes grow round with surprise even in their last moments. “Just like you.”

Before they have a chance to grasp the weight of her gift, Valeria pulls her blade from their chest. She waits for the life to bleed out of them. When it does, she wipes her blood clean of their blood and plucks a few weeds from the ground, resting it beside the wound she leaves behind.

“May your treason spread throughout Tyrholm.”

It’s both a prayer and a promise.

EXTRAS N/A

[darkmindsthinktwistedthoughts]

A Different Time pt2

note: I have found a new form of torture that is highly effective and results in my long suffering proofreader shouting various profanities at me whilst trying to get their head around a story I have written about a certain ninja.

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Warning:Scientific Nerdy Ninja

Masterlist

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Chapter 2 - Lacking Data

I guess I should have calculated the possibility that this had maybe happened before and factored that in somehow to my current situation. After successfully proving my theory of a wormhole achieving the ability to manifest itself, along with proving my theory of its possible application for use for time travel. I had evidently neglected to consider a few basic scenarios. The main one being the smiling woman in front of me. What if I am not the first to fall through the space time continuum?

She rose from her position on the log and walked over to the shack returning with a cast iron pan and she poured water into it from a bamboo canteen. “Tea? I have a feeling we might need some refreshment.”

“Thank you. Can I help with anything?” It may have been a slightly stupid question but I have failed to abandon my manners instilled in me by my parents.

“No …  it’s fine! You’re technically a guest so don’t worry.” She smiled as she placed the pan into the fire to boil and retrieved a couple of bamboo cups. I’m impressed she has enough equipment in her pack to cater for guests.

“Yes, I guess I am a time traveller” She shrugged as she poked at the newly lit fire with a stick. “Although it wasn’t planned that way!”

“Wait so how? When? I’m sorry I must apologize I seem to be experiencing heightened levels of adrenaline causing my speech to become erratic.” I was aware that I sounded less than coherent. If I was honest, my pulse rate had increased so much after this new discovery that I was struggling to regain control of it.

“Ha … it’s ok. I felt exactly the same back at the compound. I never thought I would meet anyone from my time here.” She cautiously looked at me. “I suppose you are from my time?”

“Your time?” Seriously Sasuke now is not the time to repeat back to her like a parrot. “Erm, that is to say what time... when did you get here?” This is starting to sound like the plot for an old sci fi movie. I had finally regained some control over my pulse even if my mind was still running faster than the Hadron Collider with bombarding thoughts.

“Mmm... where to start? I’ll just go from the top and if it fails to answer anything else you want to ask then…” Her fingers were tapping on the side of her cup as she thought about what to say.

“I’ll ask after.” My intention to encourage her caused me to interrupt. Luckily, she didn’t appear to mind.

“Precisely. Ok, well for a start I was on holiday, about eight years ago, and thought visiting Kyoto was a great idea. I always loved Japan and well I’ve never been much of a history buff or anything but I still like it. Kyoto just seemed like somewhere with lots of history all in one place, so I got a ticket and arranged my week around seeing old temples and buildings. I was on my way back from museum and thought I’d look in at a temple on the way to the hotel.” Her voice was a little distant as she recalled her past. The smile on her face did falter a little but it didn’t appear to be due to her feeling sad. Nostalgia. It was a weird idea to think of the modern day in a past tense but that was the reality of the situation we were both in and I could certainly empathise with her on that.

“The Honnoji Temple?” My need to answer the questions running rampant in my head was making it more than a bit difficult to keep quiet. She nodded in agreement.

“That’s the one. It was such a nice night and I was enjoying the walk then out of nowhere it started raining so hard I was soaked to the skin in minutes. I ran into the temple to look for some shelter and …” she paused in thought.

“And?” I hadn’t noticed it myself, but I had drawn my body forward from my seating position and was leaning towards her. Her eyes really are a deep caramel chocolate colour. The personal realisation that I have not only moved closer to her but I have also made such an observation that was not in the least bit professional caused me to shift a little uncomfortably back into place on the log.

“Well that’s just it, I can’t remember past that point. I mean there was a loud crack, I think it might have been lightening. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, I was laying on the ground near a road.” If she noticed how I felt, she was gracious enough to not mention it.

This was incredible! Not only was the location exactly the same as the day I predicted it to be for myself, but it seemed that it was a recurring site of manifestation. I wish I had my notebook on me to make notes on this, but I think I left it at the room I’m staying in. I patted my clothing absentmindedly searching for my non-existent writing materials. The woman watched me and suddenly smiled.

“Looking for something?” She had a sparkle in her eyes that reminded me of the look Lord Shingen would have when handed a plate of sweet buns.

“Sorry it’s habit.” I pushed my glasses back onto the bridge of my nose and took a sip of tea.

“Not the only habit I see.” The mischievous smile on her face did something to me I really couldn’t understand.

I paused in my own musings over the space time continuum and lack of appropriate materials to document newly discovered information. Long dark hair, deep brown eyes, pale skin. Her clothing wasn’t in fact tight so much as it was bound. Over the top of her dark blue kimono was lengths of fabric wrapping the layers closer to her limbs. Practical even if highly unusual. Her headscarf gathered around her neck from where she had unpinned it. As if feeling my inquisitive gaze, she shifted her position and looked directly at me.

“I would say take a picture it will last longer but the technology hasn’t arrived here yet.”

I choked a little on my tea at her comment. It had been a while since anyone around me had used a modern-day reference, never mind making a whimsical joke with one and it caught me off guard. Yes Sasuke, you cannot inhale tea. She smiled at my reaction but didn’t pursue it. Instead she opted to move on with the conversation.

“So? How did you get here then?”

“I had been studying unusual weather patterns and created a theoretical formula that I made from my collected data with the intention of predicting the occurrence of an active wormhole. Although technically there is nothing that suggest that a wormhole can…”

- Ha ha ha -

Her laughter cut through the clearing and went straight into my chest like a kunai. It wasn’t really a bad feeling and that surprised me nearly as much as the whole other time traveller thing. I really wish I had my notebook, maybe if I gathered more data I could work out what is happening.

“Oh, sorry … sorry. It’s just when you are talking you get so animated and ...” she paused as she wiped the corner of her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’ve never been brilliant with science and stuff.”

“I look animated?” I know my eyes widened at that. I could even feel my mouth go slightly agape.

“Yes? Has no one ever told you that before?” she inclined her head and her hair tumbled over her shoulder with the movement.

“Quite the opposite really, I’m usually getting told that I lack expression.” I was still a little flummoxed with her honest observation. Do I really become animated talking about my scientific research?

“What would they prefer you do? An interpretive dance in the middle of a mission? Oh, hang on a minute are you hungry?”

As if on cue my stomach rumbled. When did I last eat anything? Yesterday morning then, I was walking around town trying to figure out if there was a different side to the compound that I could get in at… ah. Ok no I completely forgot to eat anything past lunch yesterday. And now my stomach has reminded me and outed me all at the same time in front of the woman. Bug detected: embarrassment exe. Loading.

She pulled out a saddle bag from the shack and then reached in and pulled out two wrapped bundles bringing them both over.

“Got anything you don’t like to eat?” She enquired.

“No, not really I must admit I eat mostly plain food.” That was in fact completely honest. I don’t like lying and avoid it as much as safely possible even in my line of employment.

It’s difficult to cook anything fancy when on the road and I usually just eat in the teahouses wherever I happen to be for work. Yukimura did at one point say he was surprised at my lack of culinary skill as all I ever seemed to make was rice porridge but it had never bothered me even in the modern day.

“Good because I can only guarantee these will fill you up. I only had limited ingredients so flavour may be lacking.” There was a light flush to the pale skin on her face and I couldn’t help but find that very charming.

“Thank you for the meal.” I bowed my head lightly as I accepted the food bundle. Inside was some onigiri and what appeared to be inarizushi. I picked up a piece of the stuffed tofu and enjoyed the different taste of the fried food mixing with the rice. “This is good.”

“Well then you are easy to please.” She seemed to relax after my honest review and let out a little sigh and started eating hers. “After you finish eating you might want to slip back into town before it gets too busy.”

“You’re right.” I had lost track of the time since sunrise as I was engrossed in my search for information on the wormhole.

“You never did tell me why you were trying to get into the Daimyo’s manor.” There was no sign of her trying to pressure and pump me for information. Her tone was natural and in keeping with light meal conversation.

“My employer wanted some information on him.” I couldn’t really say anymore. Careless talk cost lives and I didn’t wish to be on the list of names of people that had forgotten that.

“I see.” She nodded as if she could read my thoughts knowing I wasn’t going to divulge anything further. “Well if that is all it is, then I might just let you enter tonight.”

“Really?” My eyes shot up to meet hers.

“Yes, I mean you’re not going to interfere with my plan so…” She shrugged.

“Your plan?”

So, did she have an employer? Was she some sort of mercenary? What was she doing? A list of possibilities mixed with a train of thoughts all seemingly unconnected like the stars in the sky and yet there had to be a pattern. There was always a pattern, somewhere.

“Ha, you really do love asking questions.” From the look on her face I knew she was not going to say anymore.

“Sorry, hazard of the job and also having a naturally high scientific curiosity.” I tried to laugh it off. Which I suppose might have worked for someone less expressively challenged.

“It’s of no matter. Eat up and I guess I’ll see you tonight.”

---

Her words were still rolling around in my head as I made my way back to town. What had she been talking about ‘her plan’? And why on earth was her wording of ‘I guess I’ll see you tonight’ making me feel light headed like I may be sick.

There was clearly nothing wrong with the food. I can only theorize that lacking in nourishment for so long whilst also engaging in strenuous activities had depleted my body’s ability to maintain a normal functionality.

When I got to the first building on the edge of town I could hear the people moving around starting their daily routines. The air was filled with happily chattering voices as the traders set up and sold their wares and there were the aromas of freshly prepared food wafting through it all tempting passers-by.

I was moving along the towns small but abundant main road when I caught the glimpse of a familiar red kimono and short brown hair.

“Yukimura!?”

---

[writingwitchly]

The problems of studying

Requests: Hello my lovely fellow Ravenclaw 💙 can I request for an imagine about Sirius with prompts no. 29 , 48 & 53 ? ( if that's possible , please make it a fluff :) love youuuuuuu ~ an Anon (that I already love)

Pairing: Sirius Black x reader Word count: 1,6k Warning: fluff? school stress A/N: To better describe Sirius’ smile I had to look up ‘Ben Barnes smiling’. DON’T DO THIS UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE. I literally dived into the depths of the internet cuz it felt like a drug and I wanted more. And after three hours of being glued to the pics, I couldn’t even describe a thousandth of his beauty, there are no words for it. We’re blessed to have such a man on Earth, I’m telling you.

You’ve always appreciated Hogwarts’ library, just for the fact that it’s so different from common Muggle libraries.

As you wander through the shelves, you point out to yourself how everything in here is wonderful, even more than in the Great Hall: the flying books, the permanent hot chocolate and old manuscript scent, the peace, the semi-darkness, the face of your boyfriend between the books…

Wait, what?

“Sirius,” you whisper, when comprehension makes its way to your brain, “What are you doing here?”

From the other side of the shelf, the silky-haired boy smiles, blowing you a kiss.

“I was missing you,” he whispers back.

If there is something that makes you melt, it’s Sirius whispering that he misses you. Add to this a blown kiss, and you’re bound to dissolve into thin air.

“Lunch is in half-an-hour!” you say without conviction, “We said we’d meet then.”

“I can’t live a whole morning without you, Y/N.”

You press your lips together, a bit annoyed by this program change, because, of course, with Sirius near you, it will be impossible to learn or review anything.

“Why is it so hard for you to believe me?” he asks, misunderstanding your expression.

“Oh, Sirius, I do believe you were missing me, and I missed you to, but we have loads to do for-” Before you can finish your sentence, he disappears behind the books.

This boy will drive you crazy one day. It’s incredible that you have already survived to two years of relationship without going insane. And right now, three months away from your N.E.W.T.s, is not the best time to get distracted. You need to strengthen your Charms bases, and your Transfiguration spells still have to be polished, and there’s work to do on-

A loud noise behind your back makes you jump. You turn around so fast that you smack whatever is there without thinking, a Muggle reflex that has saved you from a good list of pranks and attacks in the past years.

“Ouch,” is the reaction you get. “A simple ‘who’s there’ was enough.”

To the feeble light of the magical candles, you distinguish your boyfriend, his hands around his nose.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” you say regretfully, “I’m terribly sorry…”

“It’s fine,” he answers nasally, “I should remember that it’s not good to bother a future Auror absorbed in thoughts. Even if my nose results to be broken, I still love you.”

You smile widely, despite the sense of culpability that still slightly tightens your throat. Of all the people you know, your boyfriend is the one who believes the most in you and the career you’ve elected.

As to confirm his last words, he pulls you in a warm hug, that ends up being a passionate kiss.

Breathing his leather and peppermint scent around you -- Merlin’s socks, even the slightest detail of his personality is sexy --, you let your hands run through his hair, pulling him closer, which he happily does. You feel playful bites on your inferior lip, alternated with the free movement of his tongue against yours.

You don’t know what’s the matter with you, but after two years, hundreds of hours together, and thousands of kisses, you still feel the same, childish prickle of excitement running through your veins every time that his mouth connects with yours.

When you finally break the embrace, your eyes meet his smile, the one especially dedicated to you, with the breathtaking look and the sideways pull.

When Sirius grins that way, a vortex of sensations runs through you. You feel the warmness of the summer inside your chest and the chill of the winter around you. Your whole world is lightened, all your pains and deceptions are forgotten. No matter what was happening or will happen: you just live for it. Nothing as wonderful as this smile occurs to your mind. It’s all that your heart can ask for.

“Hello? Y/N, are you still alive?”

You blink a couple of times to come back to the reality. It’s almost hurtful to escape from the captivation.

“Hi,” he murmurs, as he notices that you’re out of your trance.

“Hi,” you answer, still feeling dizzy.

“Fancy a walk?”

“You better have a very good reason to pull me away from the huge pile of essays I still have to write, Black.”

As you reach the bottom of the stone steps, the cold air hits you hard in the face. You would bet your Potions essay that your lips just turned an improbable color, if they didn’t instantly froze.

“Because I care about your health, honey.” Sirius doesn’t seem affected at all by the change in temperature.

“Considering the weather, I don’t think that’s the truth. Unless catching a pneumonia is healthy according to your standards.”

Laughing, he grabs your hand in his. You will never be able to understand how men can still feel warm when everything around is about to turn into ice.

“Fine, it’s not the truth,” he admits.

“So?”

While waiting for him to talk again, you observe his face and its perfect, charming traits. Your gaze rests a bit on his jaw and chin, noticing the hint of a beard. He still hasn’t grown it, and you wonder how he will look when he will.

Probably as hot as ever.

“It’s because I couldn’t study,” he finally answers.

“Mmmm… So, as you couldn’t study, you decided that I couldn’t study either,” you say in a falsely annoyed tone. You still have tons of work to do, it’s true, but your heart feels lighter when you’re together with Sirius than with Miranda Goshawks and her ‘Standard Book Of Spells’.

“It’s your fault I couldn’t study!”

Is he joking? He must be. But his tone is serious, and he really looks at you in an accusatory way.

“My fault?” you raise your voice, a bit outraged. “I do every possible thing to improve you study conditions: I lend you my notes, I highlight you the key points of the lessons, I-”

“Y/N,” he says smiling, “Calm down.”

Too late. You’ve been wanting to tell him this for weeks.

“I am calm…” you answer, not feeling calm at all, “I mean, look at me! DON’T I LOOK  C  A  L  M?”

“Yeah,” he sarcastically agrees, “You do.”

But you are too occupied to list every way in which you help him to study to notice the irony in his words.

“... N.E.W.T.s are killing everybody in the inside, so I prepare you relaxing potions-”

“Which you would need now,” he says under his breath. “Can you listen to me?”

“... and I also study away from you, because we would constantly get distracted, and there is no way that we can practice an Arania Exumai between kisses-”

“Y/N!” he shouts, this time successfully attracting your attention, “Will you let me talk?”

You nod, a bit surprised by the interruption.

Without you realizing it, your feet have carried you to the shore of the Great Lake. Sirius stops walking, and so do you.

“It’s your fault if I cannot study because…”

Again, you wait for his answer, but as it doesn’t come, you have to encourage him. “Tell me what’s the problem, Sirius.”

“My problem is, Y/N, that when I look at something I see you, when I think about something, I think about you, and when I want to say something, I just talk about you. So studying in these conditions is not the simplest thing in the world, you know,” he adds, as to strengthen his position.

In honest honesty, you were expecting a joke; so his sweet confession startles you to the point of not finding the words to answer.

“I really, deeply, fondly missed you this morning, honey.” The words are barely audible, but his gaze is very obvious.

“Sirius-” you start, but he cuts across you.

“Please, Y/N, don’t tell me that you will keep things this way,” he sounds desperate, as if you were about to separate him from something vital.

Somehow, it surprises you to have this effect on him.

You were going to say that ‘yes, it’s better for the both of us to study separately’, when he makes the most irritating, yet adorable, thing ever. Leaning forward as if to kiss you, he stops his lips a fraction of inch away from yours, and decides to attack your neck instead. He softly bites a bit of your skin, and then leaves delicate kisses on the spot, while moaning. You feel your whole body going numb and have to grab his arms to avoid falling.

He is teasing you, you know it, but how could you resist to him?

“F- Fine,” you mumble, through shaky breaths, “but you- you’ll have to be focused.”

With a cry of victory, Sirius throws his fists in the air, and then lifts you off the ground in a tight, swirling hug.

When your feet finally land on the ground, you feel as if you had been hit by a bludger.

“You’re the best,” he keeps repeating in a childish voice, while kissing every available inch of your face.

“Yeah, I know it,” you sigh, “and you’re a bloody good manipulator, Black.”

A triumphant expression invades his face, but his smile is the one you like the most. Your personal smile.

“What about going back now,” he says, “I’m starting to feel hungry.”

“What I was saying: a bloody good manipulator,” you say in an exaggeratedly resigned tone.

And, between kisses and jokes, you start walking back to the castle, with the N.E.W.T.s now far away from your mind.

[headlesssamurai]

Your thoughts on the new Star Wars?

[Disclaimer: The following is sarcasm targeted at social trends and contrarians the world-over. If it offends you, buck it up and have a fucking sense of humor.]

A Completely Serious Breakdown OfStar Wars: The Last Jedi

by Anita Sarkeesian & Rachel Maddow

To begin, let’s just say the best format in which to write anything on the internets is by breaking it down into a comprehensive list for no goddamn reason, other than maybe the idea that lots of people like to read lists or something because it feels a lot less like reading, and lots of people dislike reading. Right? Right.Thus, the following is a list of reasons why Star Wars: The Last Jedi is an atrocity bordering on Nagasaki levels of horror.WARNING: The following will contain spoilers and angsty disappointment.

1. Not enough transgender charactersThis one is clearly a no-brainer. Every respectable sell-out of a Hollywood screenwriter ought to know by now that their movie should contain at least one transgender, one gender-fluid, one gender neutral, and one tri-sexual character, if not more. And this is especially true in bombastic, overblown blockbusters. It disgusts me to see them disregard such a large percentage of their viewership. I know they tried to placate us with the pink-haired drag queen admiral who takes command after Leia is incapacitated, and the Asian kid who is running around with Finn the entire movie, but these characters seemed more like afterthoughts than anything else. To see them be so cavalier and conservative with their dramatis personae is just shameless.

2. It supports animal murderRight off the bat, we’re treated to a horrific scene in which Luke Skywalker, previously a shining beautiful example of a peaceful pacifist Zen master, is shown violently murdering an innocent fish with a barbed spear, then casually carrying the poor slaughtered animal back to his hut like a caveman. If that’s not enough, we later see Chewbacca, previously the most non-violent and docile character in the entire franchise, roasting a poor decapitated penguin on a spit over an open fire like some uncivilized neanderthal. Did he skin the creature while it was still alive? Perhaps we’ll never know, but it was clearly murdered with an intent to eat, and the Wookie carelessly roasts the creature’s remains in full view of its mournful cousins who must be wondering which of them will be next for bloody execution. This blatant disregard for the lives of the magical, peaceful animals of nature is truly horrifying. I can’t imagine how the filmmakers could be this vulgar. For achieving such advanced levels of technology, the people of this galaxy sure behave like feral savages.

3. Not enough wacky comedyI know there was a scene in which a confused elderly woman plays the general of an army, a riff on Karate Kid, an awkward reference to deep throating, a robot doing its best Solid Snake impression, a little kid getting mercilessly whipped by a character from a Pixar movie, Yoda acting like a weirdo again, furry anime creatures making cute noises, a guy getting unexpectedly electrocuted, enough bad dialogue to fill a Star Destroyer’s cargo hold, a fucking prank phone call scene in a Star Wars movie, and Benicio Del Toro’s face; but still. This movie could’ve used more comedy. This is made by Disney, after all, the same studio who gave us Guardians of the Fallacy, I mean every gag in that movie is just such a fucking knee-slapper, you know? Goddamn.

4. Too much explicit sexualityI was very glad to see that in Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens Disney decided to completely sever all of the vulgar and explicit sexuality depicted in every previous Star Wars film, particularly making certain this new portrayal of the galaxy was as sterile and sexless as a Dominican cloister. However, they’ve decided to flush that newfound dignity down the fucking toilet with this film. You all know what I’m talking about. There is a single scene in this movie where one character kisses another character on the lips. I know it’s just a little peck, but that’s just too much. This movie is vulgar, kids should not see it. Don’t even get me started on Kylo Ren’s sexy shirtlessness, Snoke’s pervy sex offender vibes, and all of Rey’s wet t-shirt scenes.

5. Not enough Han SoloHan Solo isn’t in this movie. ‘Nuff said.

6. Female heroine needs a manRemember Rey? That amazing, strong feminist icon from Episode VII who could do anything, fix a ship, fly a ship, shoot a gun, wield a laser sword, speak any language, and conquer anyone who stood in her path? Yeah, that girl decided to take a nap in this movie. You guessed it, she’s all fire and energy, yet the moment she sees Kylo Ren’s sweaty shirtless abs this new Rey can’t resist and falls head-over-heels for a guy who tried to slice her in half the first time they met. I mean, nothing comes of it, thank god! But seriously Disney? This is just lazy writing, and feminists everywhere should boycott this movie and fire-bomb any theater still showing it, along with all the homes of those who buy tickets to support it.

7. Too much talkingAgain, this movie was made by Disney, right? So why the hell is all the talking filled with so much boring character-driven dialogue, and not a goofy joke or lyrics in a sing-a-long? I cannot imagine how they expected to tap their drooling Marvel MCU fanbase with this many narrative-relevant scenes of people talking which don’t include funny gags or nerdy references from a Tony Stark-esque character. What a disappointment.

8. Not enough racial diversityI know there’s a Spanish-Puerto Rican man, a black man, a Guatemalan man, two Vietnamese women, a few white people, another black guy, a Wookie, the previously mentioned drag queen, a Mon Calamari, some other aliens visible when they go to Monte Carlo, and whatever alien that one dude was; but still. That’s only representing a few out of, like, hundreds of thousands of other ethnic groups all over the planet, not to mention the millions if not billions of alien species throughout the galaxy whose children have no characters to look up to in this movie. The distinct lack of Jews was most jarring for me, and I wouldn’t hazard to call this film anti-Semitic exactly, but it does make you pause for contemplation.

9. Glorification of violenceDo I really need to say this out loud? Holy shit. There is so much violence in this movie it makes me nauseous. People blowing people up, decapitation and dismemberment, savagely beating each other to death with clubs, animals being whipped, children being whipped (even if it’s funny, it’s still violent), casino patrons being violently trampled to death by stampeding anime creatures, bodies being engulfed by fiery explosions, explosions engulfing explosions, and at least two cases of fanatically intentional suicide which result in the violent death of hundreds if not thousands of others. All told, it’s one of the most violent movies released this year, with a body count that likely surpasses Man of Steel and the first Avengers film combined. How can audiences be this bloodthirsty? It’s just, I don’t know, sickening. You fandom kids should renounce yourselves and practice self-flagellation, as far as I’m concerned.

10. It supports child slave soldiersIn the very first scene, the character Poe Dameron supports a group of Resistance bombers who are trying to destroy a First Order dreadnought. We see the flight leader protecting the bombers is a young girl who couldn’t be older than twelve piloting an A-wing fighter and mercilessly blasting TIE fighters out of the sky. Forgetting the fact that war is already traumatic for fully grown adults, how is the Resistance okay with putting a child in harm’s way like that? I’m astounded. This is so controversial, I can’t believe it isn’t being hotly debated by mouthbreathers all over the internets.

11. Not enough lightsabersLikely the film’s biggest transgression of all. It’s a well-known fact that the mindless drooling fans who attend the cult gatherings known as Star Wars Celebrations and sew their own costumes to wear to premieres (only to turn around and hatefully review the film later on YouTube) only really want to see one thing: lots and lots of lightsaber battles. That’s the only thing Star Wars has going for it these days, after all. And this time nobody bangs a lightsaber against another lightsaber even once. Not once in the entire movie! Jesus, Joseph, and doggy-style Mary! What pointless drivel. I’m considering petitioning the studio for a bid to get my money back after seeing this farce. Don’t they know anything about what makes Star Wars great?

Parthian shotsDespite all of these many, many flaws, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi is not entirely without merit. There are some cool CGI effects in almost every scene, for one thing. Throughout the film we also learn some very valuable life lessons, such as:- Anime creatures have invulnerable faces that can smash through anything without the slightest injury.- Shields work best when gunfire is coming from very far away.- Any man in a position of power is either irredeemably evil or an impulsive and weak-willed incompetent fool.- All roads lead to failure.- The best way to be good at something is by sucking at it.- It’s okay for bystanders to be violently trampled to death so long as they’re rich.- All law enforcement officers are evil corrupt bastards.- Freeing captive animals is more important than freeing the slave children who tend to them.- And the only way to win a war is through the magical power of love, even if the enemy is in the process of blowing up your friends while you’re deliriously saying so.

   Huzzah.

       侍   headless

[mediaeval-muse]

Video Game Review: Assassin’s Creed Liberation (Ubisoft, 2012; Remastered 2019)

Genres: action-adventure, third person, open world

Premise: Abstergo Entertainment (a divistion of Absergo Industries from the previous games) releases a video game called “Liberation,” in which players can experience the life of Assassin Aveline de Grandpré. In the story of the game, Aveline must track down Templar agents, including the mysterious “Company Man,” in Louisiana during the 18th century.

Platform Played On: PC (Windows)

Rating: 3/5 stars

***Full review under the cut.***

I am evaluating this game based on four key aspects: story, characters, gameplay, and visuals. I will be evaluating the remastered version of this game on its own terms, so I cannot speak to how it is different from the initial release.

Content Warnings: violence, blood, slavery, racism

Story: Assassin’s Creed Liberation follows Aveline de Grandpré, a mixed-race woman who is recruited to the Assassins and works to rid New Orleans of Templar influence during the end of the French and Indian War. Aveline is trying to uncover the identity of the “Company Man” - a mysterious figure who oversees the Templar takeover of Louisiana - while freeing slaves and racing against Spanish officials to secure parts of the “Prophecy Disk” (artifacts of the First Civilization). She must also contend with threats to her mentor’s life, while also seeking out what happened to her mother, who disappeared when Aveline was young.

Liberation’s plot suffers in part from the lack of a strong introduction to get players emotionally invested in the stakes. While players do play through a scene in which Aveline is separated from her mother, the game doesn’t quite set up the Templar-Assassin conflict as something that Aveline has personal stakes in. I also personally think the Company Man could have been introduced earlier - the main baddie isn’t mentioned until a few missions into the game, and I think mentioning them sooner could have helped me see the significance of each mission. Doing so might correct for the plot’s main flaw, which is the lack of suspense. Because players can easily pick up or put down the main narrative, there’s no real excitement to move on to the next objective, and I often felt like I was drifting aimlessly without motivation to see what would happen next in Aveline’s story.

I also would have liked to see more history woven into the story. Arguably, the French and Indian War/Spanish occupation of Louisiana is not as well-known to American players as the American Revolution, so I think this game could have taken the opportunity to really showcase some of the major events from the time period. Especially since the game features so many Black characters, I think their voices and stories could have been showcased more.

That being said, I don’t think the game handled elements of slavery and race very well. I was glad that there weren’t gratuitous scenes of torture, nor were there racial slurs or other hateful comments being thrown around. Those things were good, but I do think that slavery was treated as something of a background element. Aveline does several missions where she frees slaves, and she even goes to several sites where slaves are working, but freedom isn’t treated with as much urgency as I would have liked. Because Aveline is half-Black, I would have liked to see her get more involved with abolitionist actions. Moreover, there were references to voodoo which I don’t think were handled with care. I can’t speak for those who actually practice or study voodoo, but at times, it felt less like a living practice and more an element to make the story feel spooky.

The most interesting part of the plot for me was when the Prophecy Disks became a focus. I liked the way the race to uncover these disks created a goal and direct tension with the Templars, and Aveline’s mentor’s reaction to these disks created some suspense (as well as conflict). It was also the part of the plot that made the game feel connected to the others in the Assassin’s Creed franchise - it’s hard to have an Assassin’s Creed game without a reference to the First Civilization, I think.

Characters: Aveline is Assassin’s Creed’s first playable female character, and she’s a badass. I really liked that she wasn’t written as a “tragic mulatto” figure (a common trope in literature about mixed race people) and she could navigate her world with some ease. I also liked that she was treated with respect, not just as a competent assassin, but also as a businesswoman. It was somewhat refreshing to play as her without being bombarded by sexist or racist abuse in the name of “historical accuracy” (there were some comments about her not being able to inherit things because of her race, but these were made delicately, in my opinion). My only criticism is that I wish more had been done with the plot to show her emotional journey, from finding her mother to uncovering the identity of the Company Man.

Aveline is frequently assisted by her mentor (Agaté) and her friend (Gérald). Agaté is constantly criticizing Aveline, demanding loyalty while rebuking her for disobeying his orders. I would have preferred to see more tenderness between the two, especially since Aveline doesn’t have many deep, personal relationships with other Black characters in the game (save her mother). Gérald is a bit more likable; he’s soft-spoken and is concerned for Aveline without being possessive or protective, and I liked that he deferred to her judgment on everything from assassin-ing to business. I didn’t quite like that Ubisoft tried to manufacture a romance between the two; their friendship was much more compelling, and their awkward chemistry was less cute and more forced.

Other supporting characters ranged in terms of compelling characterization. Many of the villains were fairly flat with no interesting mannerisms or traits to set them apart from any other antagonist. The smugglers were a bit more likable, but that’s probably because they were somewhat entertaining to interact with, cracking jokes and sharing liquor in between missions. I did initially like Aveline’s stepmother and the positive relationship she seemed to have with her step-daughter (of course, the big plot twist complicates that), and I did appreciate Aveline’s father’s tenderness towards his daughter (though he’s portrayed sympathetically despite having impregnated a slave - yes, yes, he says he loved Aveline’s mother and freed her, but in the end, there was an imbalance of power there). Overall, though, very few of these characters were memorable.

Gameplay: Much of the gameplay from Liberation is similar to that of Assassin’s Creed III. Players can control Aveline’s notoriety, purchase tailor and weapons shops from rivals, and parkour/free run/stealth just like Connor. Aveline can also pickpocket, incite riots, and travel by canoe, which isn’t wholly different from the game’s predecessor. In that sense, not much was done to tailor gameplay to the new setting, but it was admittedly nice to have some familiar elements so that I could pick up the game quickly.

One of the major differences, however, was the concept of “personas.” In addition to tailor and weapons shops, Aveline can purchase “dressing chambers,” which allows her to adopt one of three disguises: assassin, lady, or slave. Each “persona” has its own advantages and disadvantages; the lady, for example, is slow to accumulate notoriety, but can’t free run or climb. Each persona also has a unique set of side quests that can only be completed if Aveline is in that persona, which presented some interesting challenges. I liked that the personas allowed for some flexibility in strategy when exploring the open world, though I’m not sure “slave persona” is entirely appropriate; that Aveline could put on/take off the status of “slave” points to a kind of privilege, and I’m not convinced that treating “slave” as a “costume” is appropriate.

In terms of weapons, I liked that Aveline had options that reflected her setting. Instead of daggers, she could purchase things like machetes or hatchets, and rather than a bow and arrow, her (non-firearm) ranged weapon is a blowgun. She also could use a whip to pull enemies towards her before striking them down, which was admittedly quite fun to do. Aveline could also use her weapons to “chain kill,” which is a separate move from combo kills, and the one time I managed to activate it was pretty cool, though I never figured out how to do it again.

In order to purchase these weapons, Aveline had to raise money through trade. Similar to Connor’s homesteading, Aveline can purchase goods and then put them on a ship to sell elsewhere for a profit. There is no crafting, so trading is simplified compared to Assassin’s Creed III, but there are enough elements (such as ship size and speed, market values, etc.) for players to be challenged by the trade system. The main drawback, in my opinion, is that many of the goods available for trade are those which have been historically produced by slave labor. Although Aveline doesn’t run a plantation, I couldn’t help but feel like I was vicariously participating in colonialism and oppression when I sent shiploads of cotton or tobacco from New Orleans to the West Indies.

Collectibles such as alligator eggs, brooches, foreign currency, pocket watches, and the like were scattered throughout the world, but in my opinion, they didn’t yield satisfying rewards. In order to gain some of them, you had to be in a specific “persona,” or else be in a location like the bayou where navigating difficult terrain is a pain. I didn’t have much incentive to go after them, especially since they weren’t always visible on a map, and you can’t purchase “treasure maps” to reveal their locations. As a result, when I found something, I was frequently in the wrong persona or I was busy doing a mission and couldn’t mark it on my map for later. Even more annoying was that there was no fast travel, so trying to find a dressing chamber to change and then running back to the collectible’s location was tedious.

Overall, Liberation had a lot less going on than Assassin’s Creed III, which is probably because it was originally intended for PlayStation Vita. Because I played on a PC, I can’t speak to how the feeling of the gameplay changes for a touchscreen system, but if you’re playing on something more traditional, you may find the open world a bit annoying and the rewards a bit disappointing.

Visuals: While I wasn’t as blown away by Liberation’s visuals as I was by Assassin’s Creed III, I did enjoy the scenes of the bayou and the architecture of New Orleans. I particularly enjoyed the fireflies and glowing moths/butterflies, as they created a peaceful atmosphere in the swamps of Louisiana. Most impressive, however, was the sheer range of skin tones of NPCs in the various environments. I loved seeing people of all races spread across all classes - Black people weren’t confined to being slaves, which was great to see.

I also liked Aveline’s assassin costume, though it didn’t have the characteristic white color like all the previous assassins’ (though you could dye them white at the tailor’s shop). I appreciated that players could see her hair in braids, and that there were small details that nodded towards her origins (like something that looks like either bone or alligator teeth). Her lady and slave persona outfits were also very visually appealing, despite my misgivings about the morality/ethics of treating “slave” as a “persona.”

The main drawback of this game was the lack of fluid animation. A lot of character animations would feel stiff, reminding me of my experience playing Revelations. While I liked how Aveline moved, she also didn’t have as many appealing finishing moves, and the cut scenes themselves felt somewhat robotic. There were some awkward camera angles, but because the game was much simpler compared to its predecessors, I didn’t find that they hindered my progress all that much.

Final Verdict: Although Assassin’s Creed Liberation features a Black female protagonist and renders some truly stunning environments, the lack of a strong story and the simplicity of its gameplay makes it an average-quality installment in the Assassin’s Creed franchise.

[sparda3g]

Tokyo Ghoul:re Chapter 143 Review

(Long Post Inbound)

A long time ago, Tokyo Ghoul Part 1 reached its conclusion and I wasn’t there to see the “fireworks.” From what I was told, it got fans incredibly uproar to the point of hate overload, burning volumes, and wishing for Ishida to be buried. I wish I was joking. Not everyone would experience the very moment; that is if someone is willing to retry. In the midst of chapter 143, the same number where the first part ended at, all pieces are in place and it’s only matter of the outcome.

Have I not matured enough nor self-behaving well, would I have fallen to the mass hysteria. This chapter is a nightmare.

The amount of feeling throughout the chapter is one that I haven’t felt in a long time. I dare to say that the last time I felt this way was the Golden Age Arc climax from Berserk. It can be lessened if the next chapter goes a different way as in taking the only “good” path. Regardless, the earth shattering moment is still striking hard. It’s that experience of falling to the plot twist that sucked out your air; it’s hard to say another word.

Let me get out of the con first. Honestly, it’s more of nitpick than anything, especially when you realized the real effect of its narrative approach. It was teased pretty badly with the thought of Suzuya versus Kaneki to happen in all of its glory. The beginning felt so promising with the conflict they both share to protect. It got intense when Suzuya and Hanbee use Arata Armor, and Kaneki goes Kakuja. Unfortunately, that was done off-paneled. I would like a flashback to show the battle, now that the chapter did its purpose. It’s unlikely, so that’s a shame. The rest is history.

The monologue from Kaneki about his life in a nutshell is pretty deep and tragic. Making a decision in life has always been a fearsome moment of anyone’s life. Many times, you can’t go back on it and you have to stick to it for the rest of your life. One choice can be your major downfall. Kaneki has always been miserable since chapter 1. If he hadn’t met Rize and became interested, he could have avoided the path we are witnessing today. Even if he accepts his path, there’s no way for him to deny the thought: “It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this.”

This hit me hard. I tend to avoid the leader position because the decision making for the team would always lead me to be the fault. I also have tons of experiences of not able to choose the “better” choice, and I believe everyone would one way or another feel the same way. Kaneki can’t seem to win because of his screw-up and heavily pressured moments. Now he wants to make it right and protect his people.

Naki being “asleep” is an ominous scene that would only become the start of the tragic downfall. Miza reporting to Kaneki about his condition left me hurt. I was hoping that he would make it out alive, but he did the best he can. Miza taking care of his body is saddening based on how much she already lost. If only he can surprisingly wake up like before, but I do think this is the end. You did well, Naki.

The amount of hype buildup with Kaneki stepping up to protect is staggering and a bit of hopeful. The sheer determination he has is fully realized; he will put an end to this massacre. As that part was being build, Suzuya and his motivation has finally come to light. According to Furuta, CCG Operations have taken a lot of toll on their finance, including the birth of GOAT. Because of it, Shinohara’s life support will be unplugged to cut the cost and Suzuya is obviously fazed by it. Whether Furuta is telling the truth or not, he pulled a convincing argument to reach Suzuya.

The amount of hype has grown tremendously from these two flashbacks. Kaneki and Suzuya have firing determination to win to protect the ones they loved; even if they have to fight each other. The single line from Suzuya to Kaneki is strikingly deep and sad. Gone with the best friend status, killing each other is the only solution to save. The Wills were mentioned, only increased the intensity. Someone is going to lose and someone will pay the price. As said before, Suzuya and Kaneki practically go to their final form; it’s a borderline deathmatch. The hype is extraordinary. But…

Ishida is a borderline asshole.

The quick shift to Kaneki’s sudden defeat is jaw dropping for better or worse. I was left feeling lost and couldn’t say anything but grasping for air. “What the hell just happened” kept on repeating through my head. The scenery has shifted drastically; almost the same caliber as the infamous Red Wedding scene. The mood is very haunting with Kaneki’s monologue; trying to understand what’s going on yet can’t compute anything. It’s clear as day: Suzuya won the battle; Furuta won the war.

What amazes me is the plot twist doesn’t rely on a trap like “I have a large cannon waiting for you to take,” or “behold, my true bio-weapon that is Dragon!” Instead, it relied on the mind game. Furuta may be a jokester, but he’s actually slick and dirty as shit to understand the environment. He knew how Kaneki would react based on his history. He knew what type of guy Kaneki has always been. If Kaneki were to change, he could have changed the course of everything, but in reality, he hasn’t. Even as a leader, he still has the same tendency to protect his loved one alone. The most important key is how he never intended to change the world, rather stick close to his friends for his needs. Furuta recalled him back to Anteiku and looking it over, he’s right.

People around him tried to tell him that he cannot react the same way he has always done in the past because he’s their leader. When your status changed, you have to change. Ayato did tell him to rely on people to help him, which took Kaneki long to respond back. Kaneki is trying his hardest to keep things his way, including not able to kill people and not eating human flesh. This series doesn’t hold back on reality check-up. It’s not Shounen; you must get in with the time. While it’s a downer for not seeing the fight, I would forgive Ishida for the strong effect of the transition. It’s a shocking and gut-stabbing revelation to his major downfall. It’s as if we are witnessing Saw movies twist; all it was missing was the theme song.

What if Kaneki did get his food? Would he have been strong enough to remain conscious of his action in Kakuja? Could he have lessened the army if he simply kills many of them? Should he have asked everyone to help him to protect the people? Should he have stick to his ideas to his grave? If one remains the same, it will become predictable, and in war, it’s never the option.

A truck load of salt is added on the wound with Hajime returning back with two heads: Shio and Rikai. The image of that playful banter back in the last arc is now haunting me like a plague. The imagery of little kids beheaded is disturbing enough, was it really necessary to show them off to Kaneki. It is worth noting that Hirako, Yusa, and even Ui remain missing from the scene. Their condition is unknown for now, so maybe it’s a key to say they will return for the next part. It all ends with the title that says it all: Game Over. Un…be…livable.

The worst part is the artwork is top notch here. The design of both Arata, especially 2 looks awesome; the most badass display I have seen yet. Kaneki in Kakuja looks vicious and badass as well. It’s like watching two tyrants about to collide. The next page with Kaneki downed is jarring. The effect is a perfect stab to the gut. How everything crumbles bit by bit is brutal to watch. I can’t believe that damn shot of Kaneki’s sign of lying with his hand on his chin happened again when telling Hinami that he will be behind her. People want tragic; well, you sure got a full course.

This whole chapter was downright brutal from start to finish. Part of me thought I was sleepwalking because I read this early in the morning and I got few hours of sleep. Re-reading it again, I still can’t compute on what’s going on. The reaction from the fans at this time is clear as day: shocked, confused, and angry. If this is what it was like with the first part, well, now I know.

I honestly don’t know if the next chapter is truly the final chapter of the series at this time, but it does signify part 3. If so, I called it but damn, this is pretty messed up. I am still bewildered on what just happened. There are plenty of key moments that just shot across my face. The only part left is the last clean-up with Touka. This is the chapter that is going to tear down the fanbase and all Ishida can do is laugh and bounce around with his massive kintama because of this antic. If the next chapter is the last, then that’s fine. End this nightmare.

[how2to18]

This piece will be appearing in the next issue of the Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly Journal: Comedy Issue, No. 17

To support the Los Angeles Review of Books and receive the next issue, donate to our fund drive today or become a member. 

¤

“Laughs exude from all our mouths.” — Hélène Cixous 

“Comedy, you broke my heart.” — Lindy West

¤

IN A BIT about sexual violence in his 2010 concert film Hilarious (recorded in 2009), the now-infamous Louis C.K. says: “I’m not condoning rape, obviously — you should never rape anyone. Unless you have a reason, like if you want to fuck somebody and they won’t let you.” I was delighted when I first encountered this joke on Jezebel in July 2012 in a post called “How to Make a Rape Joke.” Lindy West was responding to the social media controversy surrounding American comedian Daniel Tosh, who had recently taunted a female heckler with gang rape. West’s insightful essay later led to a 2013 TV debate with comedian Jim Norton as well as her best-selling memoir, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman, where she describes the fallout of becoming one of the United States’s best-known feminist comedy commentators, including her subsequent, painful decision to stop going to comedy shows.

In “How to Make a Rape Joke,” West wondered whether it is ever okay to approach sexual violence with humor. She wrote that she understood and respected those, like the woman who called out Tosh, for whom it wasn’t, categorically. The sexual assault of women poses a special problem for comedy, she reasoned, because it is an expression of structural discrimination against women. That is, unlike misfortunes such as cancer and dead babies known to befall people at random, if you’re a woman, not only do you face a one in three chance of becoming a target of sexual violence, but you will also likely be held at least partly responsible for it. To illustrate the inappropriateness of jokes about this kind of a situation, she drew a comic analogy between patriarchal society and a place where people are regularly mangled by defective threshing machines and then blamed for their own deaths: “If you care […] about humans not getting threshed to death, then wouldn’t you rather just stick with, I don’t know, your new material on barley chaff (hey, learn to drive, barley chaff!)?” Compassion about a culturally loaded form of suffering would seem, automatically and intuitively, to preclude humor about it. Yet West’s own humorous reframing demonstrated what she ultimately decided: that you could be funny about sexual violence if you “DO NOT MAKE RAPE VICTIMS THE BUTT OF THE JOKE.” In particular, Louis C.K.’s rape joke then earned West’s stamp of approval because, in her words:

[It] is making fun of rapists — specifically the absurd and horrific sense of entitlement that accompanies taking over someone else’s body like you’re hungry and it’s a delicious hoagie. The point is, only a fucking psychopath would think like that, and the simplicity of the joke lays that bare.

Though her recent New York Times piece “Why Men Aren’t Funny” makes it clear that West now regards her defense of Louis C.K. as a relic, her sharp distinction between acceptable and unacceptable jokes in “How to Make a Rape Joke” set the standard for mainstream feminist discussions of comedy for a good five years.

While I find West compelling, in my own efforts to navigate the contemporary feminist ethics of humor throughout this period, I’ve been resisting the impulse to draw limits. Instead, I’ve been looking back to the debates over sexuality that were central to North American feminism in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During the so-called sex wars, feminists agreed that sexuality had always been held in a patriarchal stranglehold but disagreed about what to do about it. The Women Against Pornography saw explicit sexual representations as the very basest mechanisms of female sexual oppression and so focused their energy on educating the public about their harms and prosecuting pornographers. By contrast, sex-positive feminists, as they came to be known, claimed that trying to shut down or cordon off unacceptable expressions of sexuality only exacerbated the problem. They argued that the history of criminalization and widespread fear of any sex but the reproductive, romantic, married kind had not only led to the marginalization of sex workers, lesbians, gay men, trans people, and many other so-called sexual deviants, but also cast sexuality as such into the shadows. Targeting pornography was therefore counterproductive. As Susie Bright, vocal defender of the sex-positivity movement and founder of the first women-run erotic magazine, put it:

porn [can be] sexist. So are all commercial media. [Singling out porn for criticism is] like tasting several glasses of salt water and insisting only one of them is salty. The difference with porn is that it is people fucking, and we live in a world that cannot tolerate that image in public.

Sex-positive feminists actively chose not to contribute to this climate of moral panic, focusing instead on unearthing the deeply embedded mainstream prejudices around sexual practices and fantasies. Instead of turning away, they faced sexuality head on, acknowledging debts to the small minority of people — sexologists, fetishists, queers, sex workers, erotic performers, and indeed pornographers — who had already begun exploring human sexuality in all its complexity, often with little socioeconomic support and at the risk of criminal charges. By many accounts, it was this unabashed approach to sex that led to the development and popularization of safe-sex protocols and consent education later in the 1980s.

There are of course, limits to the comparison of sex and humor, especially given that the impact of hetero-patriarchy on sex is much more immediately visible. Nevertheless, I would suggest that sexuality and humor are not merely analogous, but are in fact overlapping categories of feminist experience. Both are understood to be culturally coded but with powerful bases in the body. Like sex, laughter has historically been considered an unruly instinct, even by the very philosophers who have most rigorously examined it. As scholars like Anca Parvulescu, John Morreall, and Linda Mizejewski have variously shown, the stigma of humor, like that of sex, has been intricately interwoven with its designation as an irrational impulse and with gendered and racialized notions of embodiment. Moreover, there is a shared double standard regarding both laughter and sex: both have been imagined, paradoxically, as things that men have to cajole “respectable” (implicitly white, cisgendered, pretty, heterosexual) women to do and, at the same time, as things that transgressive women instinctively want to do, in excess. The dangers of both sex and humor have been encapsulated in the figure of a woman open-mouthed and out of control. In the early ’80s, the influential sexuality scholar Gayle Rubin observed that the most common symptom of our culture’s general fear of sex, or “sex negativity” as she called it, is the very impulse “to draw and maintain an imaginary line between good and bad sex.” That is, while various mainstream discourses of sex differ from one another in terms of the value systems they deploy and their level of overt misogyny, their views of sex are, ultimately, remarkably uniform: “Most of the discourses on sex, be they religious, psychiatric, popular, or political, delimit a very small portion of human sexual capacity as sanctifiable, safe, healthy, mature, legal, or politically correct” and, once the lines are drawn, “[o]nly sex acts on the good side […] are accorded moral complexity.” Wary of simply rerouting sexual shame, sex-positive feminists instead actively cultivated a nonjudgmental stance.

This might seem the worst possible moment to advocate for an equivalent form of humor positivity, let alone with reference to a joke about sexual violence by Louis C.K. In the wake of the public exposure of numerous celebrity serial sexual abusers such as Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, the viral #MeToo campaign has uncovered thousands of male harassers and abusers, and pointed to millions of others as yet unnamed. Since C.K. confirmed reports of his nonconsensual exhibitionism, some of the feminist anger and despair that was already rippling across popular and social media is being directed specifically at the industry that gave him his power. Many mainstream feminists, not least West herself, feel more prepared now than ever to throw the bathwater of comedy out along with the many baby-men who have been cavorting in it. Yet, as I see it, it is precisely in the context of our well-justified outrage that humor positivity is most needed. Humor is a vital, elusive, and continually evolving aspect of human experience. Like sex, it has repeatedly served oppressive ends, but it is no more essentially or necessarily discriminatory an impulse than sexuality is. It is undoubtedly important that we probe and resist the misogynist culture of mainstream comedy. At the same time I propose a change in the way we personally and collectively engage with the material this industry trades in — that is, the jokes themselves.

How might we ensure compatibility between the jokes we hear or make and the tools and concepts that shape our responses? How can we prevent our resistance to certain jokes from reproducing the (historically patriarchal) marginalization and stigmatization of the desire to laugh? If we get used to approaching jokes with trepidation, expecting offense, how might that wariness affect our political movements? In the current feminist conversation, these questions have begun to be raised in, for instance, Cynthia Willett, Julie Willett, and Yael D. Sherman’s “The Seriously Erotic Politics of Feminist Laughter,” Jack Halberstam’s “You Are Triggering me! The Neo-Liberal Rhetoric of Harm, Danger and Trauma,” Lauren Berlant and Sianne Ngai’s “Comedy Has Issues,” and Berlant’s “The Predator and the Jokester.” My sense is that what we especially need now are some clear and concrete principles and practices for humor-positive feminism. Here are three lines of inquiry that I hope may help us to develop a richer set of responses to comedy going forward.

  Can we develop a more complex and flexible view of humor’s power dynamics?

One of the major contributions of sex-positive feminism to our current understanding of sexuality was the recognition of seemingly counterintuitive forms of agency from below. Sex-positive feminists showed us the through line between the patriarchal suspicion of sexuality and certain feminist critiques of sexual exploitation. Though the fear of sex was originally and widely promulgated in medical, religious, and legal discourses, some of the alternative schemas of anti-porn feminists heightened the idea that most sex is inherently terrifying. For instance, Catharine MacKinnon’s view that “the social relation between the sexes is organized so that men may dominate and women must submit and this relation is sexual — in fact, is sex” — while it helpfully exposes sexual violence as a structural problem — also makes it impossible to distinguish consensual heterosexuality from rape. Sex-positive feminists turned to the less moralistic disciplinary frameworks of sexology, sociology, and anthropology. Inspired in part by the subversive theories of power of French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault, they insisted that saying yes or no to sexual contact, including sexual domination, was a fundamental form of sexual participation. Moreover, they saw that the patterns of giving, taking, and sharing power through sex are much more various and unpredictable than — and sometimes run counter to — the arrangements delimited by basic socioeconomic and patriarchal paradigms.

A first step for developing a similarly nuanced take on the power relations entailed in humor could be examining and loosening up our often-unconscious obsession with the cruelty of laughter. In the philosophy of humor there are at least three ways of characterizing laughter, which can help to parse the differences between various jokes, as well as modes of delivery and reception. Today humor philosophers are most convinced by the idea, first fully elaborated in the 18th century, that laughter is a response to incongruity: something familiar suddenly looks strange, and the resulting sense of surprise pleases us. Another branch of humor theory draws on psychoanalytic notions of the unconscious. Relief theorists, most famously Freud, have emphasized the way that jokes, like dreams, trick us into considering ideas that we normally repress: laughter specifically manifests the giddiness of released inhibitions. These two modern theories of humor are largely compatible. Amusement does not necessarily degrade its objects but may imaginatively reframe or transform them, circulating power between tellers, laughers, and their objects in any number of ways.

The oldest and still most popular notion of humor, however, is one that presupposes and depends on hierarchical and unidirectional power relations. Superiority theory perceives laughter as the expression of unexpected pleasure at discovering our own excellence relative to the things we laugh at. In Thomas Hobbes’s famous formulation, “Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others.” Superiority theory initially emerged alongside and is consistent with explicitly elitist political ideologies. It may be the only theory of humor children instinctively grasp: even at an early age, the phrase “That’s not funny!” is understood to mean not what it literally implies — “What you’ve said is not amusing to me and could never amuse anyone” — but rather “That hurts my feelings.” For kids, joking about the wrong thing is an ethical violation; it simply moots the possibility of laughing. These days, distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable jokes seem to put a modern, grown-up face on superiority theory. But jokes labeled as “offensive” or “inappropriate” are determined to be “not funny” in more or less the same way that kids mean it. The tropes that oppose “punching up” to “punching down,” coined in the early 1990s by the feminist satirist Molly Ivins, have been crucial in the popularization and liberalization of superiority theory. Those phrases also put a deceptively simple spatial spin on the relative socioeconomic power of laughers and objects. Reinforcing a David and Goliath moral code, the tropes imply that jokes are crucially aggressive in form, but that in some cases violence is justified. It’s okay — heroic even — to take on a bigger meaner guy, but undoubtedly a bad thing to pick on someone littler and weaker than you.

Of course, jokes can be hurtful, sometimes intentionally so. However, taking cues from sex-positive feminists, we might want to stop simply assuming that they are. Just as consensual sexual relations of domination and submission may look like abuse to those who don’t understand the rules, so might some apparently mean jokes. Think of insult comedy or a roast, where the target welcomes the jokes that really sting. But the larger and more important point is that, more than any other factor, our theories of humor will determine our perception of any joke and of the social and political arenas in which they are being made. Keeping our minds open to the possibility that surprise or relief rather than aggression may be the primary affect or intention will better equip us to see the various, potentially contradictory, facets of any comic provocation. Mainstream feminist critics have specific reasons for rejecting jokes about sexual violence: for some survivors suffering from post-traumatic stress, the power dynamics of humor and of assault can sometimes feel so painfully intertwined that certain jokes are experienced as violations akin to the initial trauma. Yet it is precisely because the very perception of aggression can recharge past suffering that it seems important to remember humor’s other impulses. Recently, artists like Emma Cooper, Heather Jordan Ross, Adrienne Truscott, and Vanessa Place are turning to humor expressly in an effort to destigmatize the experiences of sexual assault survivors and change the tone of our conversation. How might a more general focus on humor as incongruity or relief also help to reduce the frequency or intensity of fight-or-flight responses and open up new aesthetic, therapeutic, and political prospects?

  Can we develop a more thoroughgoing and flexible view of the rhetorical and performative aspects of humor?

In recent years, I’ve often been surprised to hear irony or ambiguity denounced in feminist humor criticism, as though it would be possible, if people would just say what they really mean, to be assured of a perfectly direct transmission of ideas or a fully inclusive joke. For example, in her study of the dangers of rape jokes, Lara Cox reiterates the superiority theory view that the pleasure of irony depends on “the idea that there is someone out there who won’t ‘get’ the nonliteral nature of the utterance” — and these dupes are “the joke’s ‘butts’ or ‘targets.’” In his study of race humor, Simon Weaver distinguishes between polysemous jokes, which inadvertently reinforce racism, and clear jokes, whose antiracist message cannot be mistaken. I worry that such arguments seem to disavow the fundamental slipperiness of language. Contributing in their own way to North American sex positivity, Frenchpoststructuralist feminists such as Julia Kristeva and Hélène Cixous underscored that words have never been equipped for transparent representation. While many jokes do depend on linguistic play, comedians are not responsible for the essential arbitrariness of their medium. Words will always interact and impinge on one another; signification will always be subjectively, historically, and politically inflected, by both speakers and listeners, in myriad ways. Reminding ourselves of the basic wildness of language — and the range of meanings and identities that this wildness makes imaginable, especially in jokes — can temper our anxiety about the inevitability of misinterpretation.

At the same time, let’s attend more carefully to the theatricality of humor, including the jokes and quips that bubble up spontaneously as part of ordinary conversation. In particular, stand-up comedians are in character even when they speak as themselves, and many comedians regularly adopt multiple personas, some of whom channel views that they find especially awful or absurd. Very often these views are already in the air, and the comedian, by giving voice to popular perceptions, hopes to draw fresh attention to them. Moreover, comedians tend not to put on and take off these various personas like so many hats, but rather to alternate and layer them, turning some up and others down, as if each one was a different translucent projection on a dimmer switch. These uneven amplifications of characterization actually generate the dialogic structure of comic performance, as stand-up scholar Ian Brodie explains: “The audience is expected to try to determine what is true [that is, closest to what the comedian generally thinks] and what is play. The comedian[’s] […] aim is […] to deliver whatever will pay off with laughter.” Staying conscious of these shifts will help us to recognize that the most challenging moments — those moments when we don’t know quite where to locate a comedian’s values and commitments — are not incidental but central to the interpersonal dynamics of stand-up comedy.

  How can we expand our theories of laughter’s social conditions and effects?

Our most definitive and intense experiences of laughter tend to be in groups of three or more. For most of us, sex and humor are different in this respect. And humor theorists have written very engagingly about the feelings of communion potentially generated through laughter. Ted Cohen writes, for example, that laughing together “is the satisfaction of a deep human longing, the realization of a desperate hope. It is the hope that we are enough like one another to sense one another, to be able to live together.” However, as Robert Provine and others argue, we have so much more to learn about humor’s social aspirations, from the vantage of evolutionary biology, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, and many other disciplines besides. Feminists will have a lot to contribute to this inquiry, not least because we know to be skeptical of any account of collective social experience that neglects to factor in the uneven distribution of socioeconomic resources and respect and because we are acutely aware of the likelihood of exclusion and humiliation within any diverse group, and the likelihood that these bad feelings will remain invisible to the most entitled people in the room.

As we help to flesh out our understanding of the social benefits and costs of humor, however, I hope we will get better at waiting for the initial wash of feeling to pass before assigning political positions and moral values to jokes, their tellers, and our own and others’ responses. Drawing on the insights of cultural studies, some pro-porn feminists have recently been exploring the consumers’ prerogative in shaping their reception of any sexual representation, regardless of its intended public. In an essay called “Queer Feminist Pigs: A Spectator’s Manifesta,” Jane Ward contemplates her taste for mainstream porn and proposes that,

We need […] a means of “queering” porn that doesn’t rely on filmmakers to deliver to us imagery already stamped with the queer seal of approval, and that doesn’t automatically equate queer viewers with queer viewing. […] Can we watch sexist porn and still have feminist orgasms?

Many of the most successful comedians purposely write material that can reach very different audiences. What if we were to recognize that as listeners or consumers of jokes we have a comparable level of freedom in determining a joke’s meaning, of finding a place from which the joke can be funny to us? Adapting Ward’s question, we might consider: “Can we have a feminist laugh at a discriminatory joke?” Especially given the current state of US and world politics, some humor researchers have been perturbed to discover that certain satires appeal to both progressive and conservative viewers alike. But if humor, like sex, can make strange bedfellows, that capacity to bring people together may be something not — or not only — to fear, but also something to maximize strategically and even celebrate. Even when we’re laughing for different reasons, couldn’t the fact that we’re doing so across too-familiar divides be invigorating in unpredictable ways?

To consider how humor-positive feminism might differ from the censuring approach that is dominant now, let’s return to C.K.’s 2009 joke. It starts with a basic prohibition — “I’m not condoning rape, obviously — you should never rape anyone” — then follows with a rationalization of nonconsensual sex that completely overrides that prohibition: “Unless you have a reason, like if you want to fuck somebody and they won’t let you.” The statements contradict one another and the speaker’s casual diction suggests that he has made a habit of justifying acts of criminal violence. In 2012, West’s superiority theory of humor dictated that her central critical task was to work out who was most hurt by this crazy illogic and determine whether or not that hurt was deserved. She implicitly centered the shift in C.K.’s delivery from one statement to the next, reading these lines as a joke that mocked the perpetrator-persona’s twisted thinking. Feminists had permission to laugh, and in fact wanted to laugh, she argued then, because we felt confident that all of us, including C.K. himself, were not just much nicer but also much smarter than the asshole he was briefly inhabiting on stage. However, C.K.’s recent confirmed sexual misconduct has thoroughly destroyed this version of the joke by eroding the distinction between C.K.’s own voice and that of his perpetrator-persona. As playful distance has given way to painful alignment, the liberal superiority theory must seek a new target. From this vantage, the 2009 joke — insofar as it can still be construed as an utterance capable of eliciting laughter — has to be recognized for what it actually always was: a trivialization of rape.

When West was writing “How to Make a Rape Joke” in 2012, C.K. was appreciated by feminists for regularly raising difficult questions about white heterosexual male privilege. This status provided an important touchstone for West’s feeling that his rape joke, unlike many others, was critical of rape culture: “Louis CK has spent 20 years making it very publicly clear that he is on the side of making things better.” Already by the time she was writing her memoir, however, West had stopped actively defending this joke — “I should have been harder on Louis CK, whom I basically let off on a technicality.” In recent weeks, C.K. has been made a symbol of one of the most insidiously misogynist formal features of confessional stand-up comedy: the way the whole audience is made to share in the comedian’s personal shame. According to this revised binary feminist view, everyone who ever laughed at this joke bears some responsibility for pain it may have caused to assault survivors and for contributing to rape culture.

  But is it necessary — or advisable — to turn against our desire to laugh, even as we shift our attention away from C.K. himself? A humor-positive feminist frame invites us to remember the other laughs that we have lost now that C.K. and his perpetrator-persona are not fully distinguishable. We can see that it was previously available as a relief joke that provocatively illustrated the kind of exceptionalism to which we are all capable of falling prey. And as an explicitly anti-sexist incongruity joke, about the tendency of oft-repeated prohibitions to become empty slogans, especially where endemic, shame-inducing patterns of sexual violence are concerned. Paradoxically, though C.K.’s long history of abuse has destroyed his credibility as a critic of the ineffectiveness of liberal platitudes, it also proves the urgent necessity of the kind of critique he was trying to offer.

In December 2017, as I write this, a humor-positive frame also allows us to turn C.K.’s lines into a dark feminist superiority joke that, instead of stressing our own pain and disappointment, capitalizes on the situational irony here. This once-celebrated self-exposer has been exposed as yet another man with a consent problem. That is, since his accusers bravely went public and Louis C.K. affirmed their reports, the coyness of the original lines may be unraveled through a revenge joke: like a deranged wooden puppet, the comedian punches up at himself much harder than he intends. Feminist humorist Jill Gutowitz effectively put this metajoke into circulation when she posted links to C.K. telling a variety of rape jokes over the years, including the one discussed here, below the Tweet: “Surprised about Louis CK? Here’s every time he told us, to our faces, that he was a creep.” Because righteousness isn’t my favorite flavor, I don’t find this new version of the joke as funny as the one I thought that C.K. was telling in 2009. But I do like knowing that it’s going around.

¤

Danielle Bobker is associate professor in the English Department at Concordia University in Montreal, where she is also co-organizer of a working group on Feminism and Controversial Humor.

The post Toward a Humor-Positive Feminism: Lessons from the Sex Wars appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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[titheguerrero]

"The Censorship That It is" - Now Threatens US Government Health Agencies (DHHS, CMS, CDC)

On Health Care Renewal we discus the dark side of health care, particularly of the leadership and governance of health care, that has enabled health care dysfunction.  Our discussions are based on publicly available information, often produced by dogged health care journalism. Uur work has become more difficult as journalism is challenged by economic circumstances.  Yet now there are worse threats.  Despite First Amendment protections of freedom of speech and the press, journalism is now under fire from the highest reaches of US government. Information Blockade at the Department of Health and Human Services Two recent articles in the Columbia Review of Journalism pointed to specific problems  The first, "Under Trump, Health Reporters Confront an Information Blockade," September 7, 2017, focused on decreasing transparency at the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), and its Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).  It provided numerous examples of officials failing to respond to apparently straightforward requests for legitimate health care information.  For example,

Washington Post healthcare reporter Paige Winfield Cunningham recently raised a few serious questions about how the Trump administration planned to manage Obamacare’s fall enrollment season. 'The six-week sign-up period will be the first handled exclusively by an administration that’s hostile to the Affordable Care Act,' Cunningham wrote, 'and one that hoped by now to see Congress pass legislation unraveling much of the law.' Any reporter might have asked the questions Cunningham put to the Department of Health and Human Services, some of which she published in her daily Health 202 column: Will the government contact current enrollees to alert them that sign-ups will last just 45 days, about half as long as in the past three years? Will HHS run call centers for consumers who need help as they look for plans? Will the HealthCare.gov computer system be adjusted to accommodate a possible crush of shoppers given the shorter sign-up period? And how will automatic enrollment be handled? HHS offered no answers, although a spokesperson for the department’s communications staff did provide Cunningham with a statement: 'As open enrollment approaches, we are evaluating how best to serve the American people who access coverage on HealthCare.gov.' Even that statement did not stand for long, reported Cunningham: An hour later, the spokeswoman, Jane Norris, requested that the statement be withdrawn, saying that she did not have permission to release it. When I asked her again for detailed answers, neither she nor anyone else at HHS responded further. 'Nobody at HHS ever reaches out to me,' Cunningham told CJR during an interview.

Also,

Matt Wynn, data reporter for MedPage Today, went public with his troubles prying loose the data underlying a series of maps CMS sent out this summer. One map published in early June identified counties without insurers selling policies on healthcare.gov this fall, and a news release announced at least 35,000 active Exchange participants live in counties projected to be without coverage in 2018.' Wynn asked CMS to see the numbers supporting those conclusions. I shot an email to the media relations office in the department, asking for the data behind the map. About an hour later I got a response. No further information would be shared at this time, wrote Shelby Venson-Smith, a public affairs specialist. Adding insult to injury, the non-response was not to be used as a direct quote, the email said.

However, while DHHS and CMS officials resisted responding to uncomplicated requests for information,

they seem to have plenty to say in their news releases and email blasts, which disparage the health law and sound more like campaign propaganda and GOP talking points than routine communications from a federal agency. The Obama administration was not shy about using the same PR tools to boost the ACA. But messages from HHS now feel substantively different, perhaps because they are aimed at denigrating a law they have a legal responsibility to administer.

Thus officials at DHHS seem to now be more interested in following the party line of the current administration than in providing basic information to the public. Many other health care journalists experienced similar problems, including Charles Ornstein from ProPublica, Dan Diamond of Politico, Harris Meyer of Modern Healthcare, and Noam Levy of the Los Angeles Times. Trudy Lieberman, the author of the CJR article, wrote,

HHS and CMS are powerful agencies that could decide the future of critical programs like Medicaid and Medicare, the Obamacare insurance marketplaces, and whether or not hospitals are considered safe. But when agency press officials avoid interviews and refuse to answer questions, it’s hard to present their positions fairly and understand whose side they are on. Government agencies are supposed to be objective about industry practices under their jurisdiction. But if reporters cannot get honest information about the industries they regulate, where can they go?

Kathryn Foxhall, who "works with the Society of Professional Journalists on freedom of information issues," put it this way,

I don't see the administration ever stopping what they are doing, unless we as journalists pull out all stops and call it the censorship that it is.

Public Health Without Public Information? Worse, one week later, CJR published another article  on the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC).  The CDC is the lead US public health agency.

Axios published text from a late August email by a CDC public affairs officer that directs staff to route any correspondence with journalists—'everything from formal interview requests to the most basic of data requests'—through the communication office at its Atlanta headquarters: 'The message—sent by public affairs officer Jeffrey Lancashire and dated Aug. 31—instructs all CDC employees not to speak to reporters, ‘even for a simple data-related question’… Lancashire did not respond to requests for comment about the policy. But I’d love to know what harm was being done by CDC employees answering ‘the most basic of data requests.’'

Thus CDC officials now seem to want to substitute public relations for straightforward information provision.  Given that the mission of CDC is public health, this seems to be an example of mission-hostile management, a concept we have used most often to refer to the management of private health care organizations, not US government agencies.  Charles Ornstein of ProPublica commented

This is genuinely disturbing. The idea that someone at CDC headquarters needs to sign off on responses to basic data requests shows a level of media control beyond which I have ever seen. What’s next?

Felice Freyer of the Boston Globe tweeted

CDC is employed by taxpayers. Why shouldn't its work be readily shared with them?

At Health Care Renewal, we have often discussed the anechoic effect, a taboo against public discussion of many aspects of health care dysfunction, particularly those that might discomfit people who are personally profiting from the current system.  In particular, the currently dysfunctional health care system has made the leaders of big health organizations, particularly for-profit corporations,  hugely wealthy.  Furthermore, big health care organizations have been eager to develop financial relationships with health care professionals, academics, leaders of non-profit organizations and NGOs, etc, leading to a web of conflicts of interest draped over health care.  Who wants to speak out when doing so may offend not only distant CEOs, but also one's colleagues, bosses, friends, relatives etc who may have financial ties to those CEOs' corporations?  Furthermore, who wants to speak out when large corporations command huge marketing and public relations operations that can be used to drown out unwanted ideas, and legal departments ready to threaten litigation? Now government health care officials seem to be enlarging their own public relations efforts while shutting off access of honest information.  This will only make open discussion of the true causes of health care dysfunction more difficult.  Even more chilling is the threat that health care officials now may be attempting actual censorship.  We have depended on health care journalists to root out bad behaviors that lead to health care dysfunction, and by doing break taboos about discussion such behaviors.  Up to now we have assumed at least that government would not make it harder for journalists to do their job, protected by the Bill of Rights protections of free speech and a free press.  But now the current administration seems to be taking the side of censorship. From Censoship to Incitement of Violence? Even worse, some worry that the regime's hostility to journalists  threatens their actual harm.  In early September, the New York Times reported on comments by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who

was reacting to Mr. Trump’s recent comments at a rally in Phoenix during which he spoke of 'crooked media deceptions' in reports of the violent clashes at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that resulted in the death of a counterprotester. In Phoenix, the president’s words also appeared to whip up audience hostility toward journalists. The failing @nytimes writes false story after false story about me. They don't even call to verify the facts of a story. A Fake News Joke! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2017 'It’s really quite amazing when you think that freedom of the press, not only a cornerstone of the Constitution but very much something the United States defended over the years, is now itself under attack from the president himself,' [UN official] Mr. al-Hussein said. 'It’s a stunning turnaround.'

Furthermore,

'To call these news organizations fake does tremendous damage,' Mr. al-Hussein added. 'I believe it could amount to incitement. At an enormous rally, referring to journalists as very, very bad people — you don’t have to stretch the imagination to see then what could happen to journalists.'

Ominously, the response from the White House included more unsubstantiated charges of "false narratives," and threatened media tha fails to be responsible as judged by the regime, never mind the First Amendment and its promise of free speech and a free press. 

the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in an emailed statement, 'We believe in free press and think it is an important part of our democracy, but the press also has a big responsibility to the American people to be truthful. Their job is to report the news, not create it. 'Is it not ‘dangerous’ for the media,' she continued, 'to create false narratives and overzealous attacks against the president that the American people chose to be their leader? The president is focused on growing our economy, creating jobs, securing our border and protecting Americans. Since those are also the priorities of most Americans, hopefully the media will make covering them theirs.'

Strong, even overzealous verbal and written attacks on politicians, the president included, have been essential parts of American democracy since the Bill of Rights was ratified.  The First Amendment shows that our political system values such boisterous discourse.  The White House press secretary thus threatened not only the press but the fundamental US system of government.   Strategic Hostility Finally, there is an argument that the regime's attacks on the media may not be just reckless, but  strategic and calculated.  The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right of freedom of opinion and expression, Prof David Kaye of University of California - Irvine School of Law, wrote,

The President’s attacks may be reckless – who knows whether someone in his audience will take the President’s word as license to take action against enemies of the American people? – but they are not without purpose. They have concrete aims: to intimidate reporters into certain kinds of coverage, or clarify for his favored outlets what coverage he desires, or plant the seeds of doubt about news stories (such as the Russia investigation led by Robert Mueller).

Also,

However, when we tie together the jeremiads and rhetoric with what the Trump administration is doing in other governing spaces, the practice of attacking the press becomes clearer as policy than solely reckless rant. First, the attack on the press is not merely rhetorical; it is increasingly reflected in policy.

And,

Second, Trump’s incendiary statements work in tandem with a pattern of lying and disinformation, both aiming to limit the accessibility of truthful information. 

And,

Third, the administration operates as if it has something to hide.

Who knows what they might be hiding.  But there certainly have been plenty of accusations of  severe conflicts of interest and corruption affecting the Trump presidency? Summary Up to last year, I was cautiously optimistic that the anechoic effect was starting to erode, enabling the health care discussion to begin to encompass the deeper causes of health care dysfunction.  Since November, however, we seem to be going backward.  What little openness and transparency that were developing are at risk of sinking under a new tide of propaganda and censorship.  My concerns have primarily been about health care and health care dysfunction, but the larger trends threaten our whole society and the ability of the US to maintain itself as a republic.  Ben Franklin's warning becomes more acute.  What we have is only 

A republic if you can keep it. 

That will now take some work.   Article source:Health Care Renewal

[melanisticjaguar-blog]

Master Journal - Jerry Lawson: The reason why PlayStation and Xbox exist

For week 2 I was supposed to research the path of someone in my area of Mastery. In this paper, I will be discussing the late great Jerry Lawson. Within this discussion I intend to give his background information including the three “Keys of Mastery” (Creative Task, the Creative Strategies, and the Creative Breakthrough). Reflections of “Emotional Pitfalls” he has faced, as well as give comparative analysis between one of the NINE PEOPLE profiled in the “Strategies for the Creative – Active – Phase” from the book “Mastery” that was written by Robert Green will be provided.

Running Head: JERRY LAWSON: THE REASON WHY PLAYSTATION AND  XBOX EXIST                                                                          

Jerry Lawson: The reason why PlayStation and Xbox exist

Tikina Alamudeen

Full Sail University

Mastery: Personal Development and Leadership

Professor Rogalle

9/10/17

Jerry Lawson

In this paper, I will be discussing the late great Jerry Lawson. Within this discussion I intend to give his background information including the three “Keys of Mastery” (Creative Task, the Creative Strategies, and the Creative Breakthrough). Reflections of “Emotional Pitfalls” he has faced, as well as give comparative analysis between one of the NINE PEOPLE profiled in the “Strategies for the Creative – Active – Phase” from the book “Mastery” that was written by Robert Green will be provided.

Around the 1970’s Jerry Lawson created the first video game console called the Channel F, as well as helped created cartridges for video game consoles. (Cassidy, 2011) He had his own personal computer in his garage where he created his first coin-up arcade game, Chicago Coin’s Demolition Derby, came out shortly after Pong.” (Kosiec, 2017) This was the footprint for all future consoles for years to come. (Kosiec, 2017) When I was younger I owned an Atari 2600, but I’ve always wondered if it was the first console built. Although he was young, “He was a self-taught electronics genius who, with incredible talents, audacity, and strong guidance from his parents, managed to end up at the top of his profession despite the cultural tides flowing against him.” (Edwards, Lawson, 2009) Fixing broking TV’s is what inspired Lawson to get into electronics at a young age. (Kosiec, 2017) When J. Lawson was about 12 he had a mini lab in his bedroom, from there he managed to build, from a manual, a ham radio transmitter. (Cassidy, 2011) “I built it and it worked,” he says. “I think the greatest joy I ever had in my life was when I put that thing together by myself with nobody helping me.” (Cassidy, 2011)

In the “Keys to Mastery” this is the first step in “The Creative Task”, “The task that you choose to work on must have an obsessive element.” (Greene, 2012, p. 179) “You will then feel personally committed to solving the problem and will not rest until you do so.” (Greene, 2012, p. 179) “My first love started out as chemistry, and then I ended up switching over to electronics, and I continued on and even got a first-class commercial license.” (Edwards, Lawson, 2009).

It was unheard of to think about making a cartridge, quite a few engineers feared of it exploding and just the thought of its microprocessor being produced within the console was farfetched. (Kosiec, 2017) “The Creative Strategies” from “Keys to Mastery” says “Our Conventional tendency is to look for a single cause or a simple explanation, which then reveals to us how to fix the problem.” (Greene, 2012, p. 191)

As we can see his idea was a success. Lawson reminds us all the whole reason he decided to get into games was because people said developing a console that embodied the microprocessor couldn’t be done. (Cassidy, 2011) The point of creating the Channel F console was to have a “mechanism that allowed you to put the cartridges in without destroying the semiconductor.” (Edwards, Lawson, 2009) “Within a few years he was launching and running the new gaming division, where he developed the Fairchild Channel F a console that allowed players to change out cartridges loaded with games like “Video Black Jack”, “Maze, Cat and Mouse”, “Spitfire” and “Space War.” (Cassidy, 2011) Even though Systems like Magnavox and the first Atari was already out, when the Channel F system was released it had lead way because it was the only system that you could switch out game titles. (Kosiec, 2017)

I can vividly remember my first Atari 2600 and playing my favorite game “Pitfall”, I so disliked falling in that pit.  Step Two “The Creative Strategies” from “Keys to Mastery” mentions, “To put Negative Capability into practice, you may develop the habit of suspending the need to judge everything that crosses your path.” (Greene, 2012, p. 182) Lawson stated that the Magnavox Odyssey had no comparison to his creation, let alone a joke because of its’ lack of intelligence. (Edwards, Lawson, 2009) If you think back to the added details on the cartridge, Lawson found a way to avoid people from inserting the game backwards as well as getting static shocked. (Cassidy, 2011) Step Three of “The Creative Breakthrough – Tension and Insight” from “Keys to Mastery” states that, “In the lives of almost all Masters, we hear of the following pattern: They begin a project with an initial intuition and an excitement about its potential success.” (Greene, 2012, p. 199)

While in an interview Lawson thinks back to owning his very first computer called the “Forest 65L”, It was giving to him while working at Federal Electronics – ITT. (Edwards, Lawson, 2009) There were two major “Emotional Pit Falls” J. Lawson faced in his life. The biggest part of getting the Channel F released was getting through the FCC was one major pitfall. That was a job in itself. (Edwards, Lawson, 2009) The Channel F was finally released in 1976. (Kosiec, 2017)

From my understanding, what kept a lot of people from jumping within the market was the FCC. It took thousands of dollars to pass the test not to mention certain Texas Instrument couldn’t make spec. “They lobbied and got them to change the law, I was so mad, I couldn’t see straight.” (Edwards, Lawson, 2009) This made me think back to a video I seen given by Professor Randy Pausch called “The Last Lecture” He spoke of how he used analogical thinking to get what he needed to get him closer to his goal of accompanying his students on a trip to astronaut training on the “Vomit Comet”. In my eyes Lawson thought of one last resort that could possibly get him by. After not being able to pass the FCC test that wouldn’t allow the Channel F to be released the last resort was to rewrap the whole motherboard in aluminum, which led FCC to review every single cartridge. (Edwards, Lawson, 2009) The other major pitfall was the difficulty in his career because of his race. Lawson talks about how he would walk into a room and everybody would know who he was by his work and word of mouth but the never met him face to face. When it came time for meetings and/or events and was met with certain people they would have a look on their face of shock. And would actually say out their mouth, “I knew you was Jerry Lawson but not the same video game guy Jerry Lawson - I didn’t know you was black!” (Edwards, Lawson, 2009) In my opinion I think it’s safe to say J. Lawson literally created his own space in Game Development. In “Mastery” Robert Greene talks about the 6 types of rollercoasters “Emotional Pitfalls” you could fall into while on your Mastery Journey.

If I had to compare Lawson pitfalls in life I would chose both Complacency and Inflexibility. As a child J. Lawson speaks of his love for chemistry, electronics and his creations and gadgets he put together. Everything started within his childhood. The drive the, started in his chemistry lab that led him to building his first radio, all was a platform that boost his curiosity to ingenious imaginative mind to create the first console with game cartridges. The first Emotional Pitfall is “Complacency” within this section it states, “In childhood, the world seemed like an enchanted place. Everything that we encountered had an intensity to it, and sparked feelings of wonder.” (Greene, 2012, p. 202) It also says; After we pass through a rigorous apprenticeship and begin to flex our creative muscles, we cannot help but feel satisfaction in what we have learned and how far we have progressed.” (Greene, 2012, p. 202) “During the 1980s he formed his own studio called Video Soft, which produced cartridges for Atari 2600.” (Kosiec, 2017)

The sixth step in “Emotional Pitfall” is “Inflexibility” and it states, “Flexibility is not an easy or natural quality to develop. Once you spend a period of time being excited and hopeful about an idea, you will find it hard to shift to a more critical position.” (Greene, 2012, p. 204) I think when Lawson formed his own studio this gave him a more creative stand on solely concentrating cartridges for consoles. Which made his business Video Soft a more lucrative market even today seen in other consoles such as Xbox or PlayStation. “As future Masters from their apprenticeships, they all face the same dilemma: no one has ever really instructed them about the creative process, and there are no real books or teachers to turn to.” (Greene, 2012, p. 205) In “Mastery” Robert Greene talks about “Strategies for the Creative – Active Phase” within this phase there are Nine unique people that use different types of creative phases to either launch, create, or divert their careers in different directions. Out of all “Strategies for the Creative – Active Phase”, phase number seven “The Evolutionary Hijack” is a great comparison to J. Lawson’s life and career struggles.

For start in phase seven both Lawson and Graham are both pioneer engineers working with computers. They overcame obstacle of either writing software or creating a new console with cartridges. Both created their own field that allowed them to either prove someone or a team wrong about their judgement on their creative thinking. Both went through a phase that made them compare their work to others and felt the computer or console before was not up to par. For Graham he states “The first entrepreneurs to attempt this were laughed at; the computer they had created looked hardly worthy of the name – they were so small and could do so little.” (Greene, 2012, p. 233) This reminds me of Lawson’s comment about the Magnavox Odyssey. Lawson stated that the Magnavox Odyssey had no comparison to his creation, let alone a joke because of its’ lack of intelligence. (Edwards, Lawson, 2009) “We generally have a misconception about the inventive and creative powers of the human mind.” (Greene, 2012, p. 235)

In this paper, I have discussed my “Jerry Lawson”. Within this discussion I have given background information including the three “Keys of Mastery” (Creative Task, the Creative Strategies, and the Creative Breakthrough). Reflections of “Emotional Pitfalls” he faced, as well as gave comparative analysis between one of the NINE PEOPLE profiled in the “Strategies for the Creative – Active – Phase” from the book “Mastery” that was written by Robert Green.

                                                  References

*Cassidy, M. (2011). Gaming industry finally recognizes the work of a pioneer.    California Contra

Costa Times. Retrieved September 8, 2017 from http://www.lexisnexis.com.oclc.fullsail.edu:81/hottopics/lnacademic/ Retrieved from LexisNexis.

*Edwards, B., & Lawson, J. (2009). Jerry Lawson, Black Video Game Pioneer. N.p.: VC&G.

Retrieved September 8, 2017 from http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/545/vcg-interview-jerry-lawson-black-video-game-pioneer Retrieved from Vintage Computing and Gaming.

*Greene, R. (20121113). Mastery. [Bookshelf Online]. Retrieved from

https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781101601020/

*Kosiec, T. (2017). Goodbye Jerry Lawson. Milwaukee, WI: UWM Post. Retrieved September 8,

2017,from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.oclc.fullsail.edu:81/eds/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=b575c8b575c8d92eb34b7bb23c75ea65e4de2d%40sessionmgr102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxdmJnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=6572051&db=bwh Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

[sparda3g]

One Piece Chapter 963 Review

It has been a while since I last cover this series. The past three chapters focused on the backstory of the manliest of men, Oden, and so far, it has been pretty amusing. The sorrow will struck soon. In the meantime, enjoy every bit of Oden as his bound of greatness had no limit.

The past couple of chapters showcased how much of a macho Oden truly was in all of its meanings. With awesomely cool swag and great friendly attitude, it’s no wonder everyone, including Gol D. Roger, loved the guy. One chapter ended with the introduction of young Orochi, and every time I see him, it made my blood boils. At the same time, I wondered how in the world that piece of garbage took out the most interesting man in the world. Only one way to find out and that is to continue the flashback.

The last chapter ended with two Minks landed on Wano Country. We can easily assume they’re Nekomamushi and Inuarashi; sure enough, we hit the bullseyes. Before the story continues, the chapter opens with the detail on how those two landed on it. The Minks and Wano Country exchanged solemn vows a long time ago; essentially, they became brothers. I believe it was told before, but a reminder doesn’t hurt. Not to mention, I still get a good feeling when remembering the chapter where the Minks revealed to be faithful to Samurai. I love that moment.

Nekomamushi and Inuarashi were children at the time where they were washed up on shore. I got to say, I chuckled at looking at Inuarashi; something about those beady little eyes on the design amuses me. Like many children, they saw Wano Country as a remarkable place to be in. They set sail, only to find themselves in the heavy wave. The good news is, they reached to their destination. The bad news is, they don’t like it anymore.

Poor guys had to be berated by thugs, tying up to the pole for their amusement. Even Kawamatsu was part of the victims because of his kappa appearance. They were treated horribly because of the “unusual” nature, such as talking animals and a kappa. It’s Oda’s way to exploit the outcast’s treatment from society, and that always upset me. Thank God for Oden to arrive and beat the crap out of those garbage. Hilariously, he walked off, yet left the boys tied up. Our hero, everyone.

Writing these characters as children is a right call. Oden was very attractive to ladies, upmost inspirational to men, and now, really friendly to kids, let alone from different race. The children were fed, though Nekmamushi has a sensitive tongue, so it’s too hot for him to handle. Get it, he’s a cat. Oh well, at least they bonded and inspired Oden to travel across the sea.

One thing that stands out is Kawamatsu’s origin. The other two were already explained in the opening, but not his. Unfortunately for him, he had it rough with people discriminating him and his mother. The outcast’s discrimination is some sort of a theme for Minks, Kappa, Fishmen, and practically everyone not human. It’s frustrating. He lives by his mother’s last words to always be proud of being a Kappa. He thanked Oden for everything and thus, the loyalty was formed. This was nice, simple, and charming moment.

I find it funny how Oden can’t seem to read the mood. Those children’s backstories clearly insinuated that they have no home, yet all he did was to wish them good luck. They weren’t having it and so, they stood with them. You can sense the faction is growing to the state we know today. Oden lost his money because he gave them to Orochi. He really has a punchable face. I know he’s a child there, but I’m sorry, like the baby Thanos joke, it’s Orochi; take him out. Oden’s kind nature might be his downfall.

Although Oden has been the manliest of men throughout the flashback, let’s not forget another man who is also just as awesome in his own rights, Yasuie. The first time I saw him in the flashback had me confused; the changes are night and day. However, his nature remained the same and that’s what counts the most. Knowing that he brought Orochi to his care, it really pisses me off. Yasuie’s death scene is even more frustrating to read it again. But let’s not jump to the present time, because there’s more scenes to be awed back in the past.

As noted earlier, Oden lost money, thanks to that garbage, so his men decided to rob Yasuie. What a code of honor. Of course, they got caught; stupid crime gets stupid outcome. Fortunately, Yasuie was a man of wisdom that they needed. Not only he let them keep the money they’ve stolen but also given extras. You definitely don’t see that every day. He did this to grant them an opportunity to become a proper position; not just for Oden, but for themselves. Become Samurai. This move made me miss him a lot more than his time of death. Not to mention, made me hate Orochi even more than ever; how is that even possible?

I adore the montage. The path to Samurai is intriguing to see them evolve step-by-step; from dressing properly to gaining knowledge. The development was so drastic, it had Oden creeped out by their evolution. It’s funny, but uplifting. If there’s a way to pay him back after everything, this was the best step to take. The narration made it better with Yasuie giving them points to develop on and why they must embark this path. Oden will be Shogun; he will need them as Guardians.

Three years later, the outsiders, the gang, or whatever the title that painted them as bad are no more. I have to admit, the double-page spread got me feeling good for them. I know it’s expected since it takes place in the past and all, but it’s due to how it warms up the slow burn development from their first state.

It’s nice to witness the way Oden won the people’s gratitude. Keep in mind, the backstory began with everyone despise of him; at least with men who were shouting to hide their kids and wives. His own father disowned him. Here we are now with everyone looking at him as a messiah figure. He and his father were like actual family as well. Sadly, the reason for the reunion was because of his father’s illness. As nice it was for them to chat again, it would be the last time. I don’t know if Orochi has something to do with it since he was on panel during their chat, but if he was, Oda, you got to stop making me wish for death note.

Although I was enjoying this chapter with the birth of Samurai and more goodness of Oden, I remember a small scene about Rocks Pirates and the gathering in process. I assumed it would be saved for the next time, like someone has stepped into the country to end the chapter. Instead, we receive a sneak peak for the next scene, and I cannot wait.

Whitebeard and his crew have landed or rather crashed, which would be the seed planted to unveil the reason for so many top-tier pirates gathering according to Sengoku. Marco was a rookie at the time; definitely a veteran by now. The shocking part isn’t the fact Whitebeard was there, but the moment Oden says his greetings. He charged right at Whitebeard with his two swords and shockingly, gave him a struggle. That’s mighty impressive and that’s an understatement. The funny part about it, Whitebeard looked intimidated while Oden was asking to tag along to the cruise. That speaks volume, let alone their clash. Now I really wanted to know how Gol D. Roger “snatched” him later.

Overall, this was a pretty enjoyable. It largely focused on the birth of Samurai, but not only was it necessary, it was entertaining. More origin stories were covered briefly and by the end, they became Guardians. It was all good feel development with small hints for the inevitable nightmare. The next moment looked very promising with Whitebeard and Oden came face-to-face. Seriously, how did Orochi kill Oden? By now, there’s no way to believe he killed him in combat. In any case, best to enjoy the swell sensation before hell rises.