#god it took me so long to write a half decent meta

[ignitification]

What the Future Holds

“It is the temptation of war to punish; it is the task of policy to construct.” (Henry Kissinger). 

There has been a lot of debate around what is going to happen after (the heroes win? AfO is defeated? The Villains are saved? - are all valid hypothesis), right at the end of BNHA. Long ago, though, someone asked - what would be the reaction of the civilians at large when this all goes down? We know for a fact that while, more or less, our protagonists are in the loop of what exactly went down with the villains (or at least that they have not had a lot of positive experiences and possibilities to grow up as good as them), the civilians know close to nothing (apart from Touya’s broadcast, which in hindsight should be at least enough to make space way for the possibility of civilians understanding the woes of the villains and trying to accept the change which this ending will brings, and yet) when it comes to this matter. Will they be able to accept ‘a hero’ saving ‘a villain’? Will the change in society, the abolishment of a Quirk Society in general and the aftermath of the war (likely the cancellation of the hero rankings, and just the demotion of the title hero as profession) be accepted eventually?

While these are question to which I would like to answer ‘It depends’, I’d say that it might be the case, but the change will be slow, gradual and likely painful. Let’s take the example of Heteromorph Quirks, which, so many years after the discovery and establishment of quirks, are still looked down upon. This highlights the struggle with which this society adapts, and that it adapts to only certain parts of the society (which are usually the pretty parts, while the ugly ones are or ignored or just thoroughly refused to look at). It is the same principle we see in not only the narrative of Lady Nagant (and the rose-colored glasses with which civilians see society and pro-heroes), and the villains themselves (as their Quirks made them unfit for the general public to be displayed or used) but also in the same narrative which Izuku carries - he struggles to accept himself as someone who is Quirkless, and takes his chances to inherit All Might’s power, a little because of his dreams and more because that way he can also be part of that same society who treated him like shoe’s dirt before he gained ‘power’ and a standing as a UA student with a Quirk fit to be a hero.

We can see and take a little bit from what is probably going to be the reaction to the ending, both by seeing the reaction we have to Dabi’s broadcast, the press conference of the Top 3 and Izuku going rogue and looking villainy, as well as the public’s reaction to him coming back to UA.

Being likely familiar with these scenario, it definitely does not hit as a positive-filled situation, but rather the outage of the small mindedness and the expectancy of a perfect world division in villains and heroes by the civilians. Yes, it is the famous panel of the dichotomy of heroes and villains and look who already did foresee this so long ago: a villain, which is hilarious in itself but also pretty logical if you think about it.

The thing is, that as told millions times before the core problem of this society is that it does not understand nuance (and so doesn’t this fandom, for that matter): everything should be white or black, good or bad, hero or villain. But in reality, this dichotomy falls short of understanding what is hidden behind the curtain: the ugly truth of the fact that sometimes there is no good or bad, and that maybe sometimes the good is not as good and bad is not as bad. And as said million times before again, this stems from the fact that a. society has been kept in the dark from the deeds that the HPSC has done all these years, therefore conditioning and manipulating society into believing that a distinction exists; and b. it is rather easier to separate the good and the bad guys by a simple principles like a working label and to stick to it, even in front of rather compelling evidence. In the end, it is clear that the public has trust issues at their finest, but it then shows what a shaky base these society has been built on: a rather fine balance, which has been topped over once the castle of cards has been knocked down. 

It is in the hands of the new generation then, to attempt and change how thing have been so far. Retributive justice, just like in the quote above, is always tempting - and it is no brainer that it will be likely very hard for the civilian to accept whatever is thrown at them in the end, which does not involve the imprisonment and therefore the punishment of the villains. But at the same time, it is also true, that slowly but steadily things are staring to look up: we have Shouto who wants to save his brother, and Izuku who instead is trying to understand the villains and why they become such, stemming from his will to understand and help Shigaraki. After all, their main power is to change things up: a change which, hilariously, can be seen concretely by Bakugou’s words in chapter 323. Bakugou, who is a byproduct of that same society, is admitting his faults and the fact that it happens at this moment is likely a foreshadow for a major scale change: after all, the entire society owes an apology to the villains, big time. It is not a case then, that the narrative is putting everything to its places and showing us the before, and the tough process of change and the consequences of it. In this scenario, Izuku, Shouto, Bakugou, Ochako and generally the UA kids play the role of policymakers: they are looking in the future, trying to get an overview of the situation which they know as true and the one the villains consider as true and then trying to do ‘the right thing’: unfortunately, there is never a right thing when it comes to these matters, and no shoe-fits-all solution. It will therefore be interesting how exactly things will play out and whether society (in a not so distant future) might accept the fact that the villains can be victims, and in search for the satisfaction of that same retributive justice they are trying to enforce on them. In my opinion, the effort made by the young generation in this matter will be crucial: some people will refuse to accept such a thing (blaming the villains for everything that went wrong since day 1), other will struggle with accepting it and likely will remain neutral (which, in hindsight, is even worse as it is somehow similar to the civilians that thoroughly ignored Tenko when we was clocharding of the streets) and the who begrudgingly might accept the fact that exactly like Dabi said, pro-heroes are not always heroes in private too and they have as much harm potential as villains, it just does not get publicly displayed. And maybe, slowly, society will come to the consensus that while not always the case, offering a hand to those who struggle, might save a life - and why not, maybe at one point they will stop classifying people as ‘heroes and villains’, and instead accept themselves as humans altogether. But such is the human struggle: lost in the will to put a label on things, and forgetting that unlike labels, humans have the infinite capacity to grow, expand and change.

[dotthings]

So here’s my thoughts on an alternate ending plan for S15. While the remade heaven was something that fit, very little else did, and if they were aiming for self-actualizations being fulfilled the ending didn’t convey that. It feels incomplete to me (I have posted enough analyzing why and that’s all I’ll say here). This is a more earth-bound take. An ending where all of TFW 2.0 defeat Chuck and are together and figuring out life free of Chuck’s maze. This also incorporates some of my previous meta spec that didn’t get addressed at all in the finale but things are left so ambiguous, I have no reason to think my spec can’t be canon now. Also I think if canon can screw things up this royally, then I’m allowed to state that my version is not only kinder, but makes more sense. I’m sure there is some loose end I’ve missed, and I’d want to have all the Wayward Sisters appear too. Gosh, endings are hard!

Envisioning this as one extra long episode. To be extra subversive I’m still using the start of ep 19, but mostly this diverges after the end of ep 18.

-the phone call from Cas in ep 19 isn’t a troll from Lucifer (Lucifer can stay trapped in The Empty for all eternity). It’s actually Cas.

Here’s what happened: The Empty took him, fulfilling Cas Jungian arc about confronting his shadow and instead of fighting it, accepting it as part of himself. Inside Cas, a soul has been growing for many seasons now. Spontaneous soul combustion. It started small and kept growing. The act of confessing his love to Dean was the final spark to complete the growth. As The Empty drags Cas away, Cas’s grace merges with his soul and the grace is the power jolt it needs to make his soul blaze to full life. His grace is effectively gone, burned out in the act of bring his soul into being. The Empty cannot hold him, his soul is pure, and he’s not filled with self-loathing. The Empty spits Cas out in Lawrence, KS because that’s where Cas’s soul home beaconed to. Effectively human, this process was fairly traumatizing to his body, so he’s weakened. He staggers across town to outside the bunker, calls Dean, and collapses. Dean (as we saw in ep 19) races up the stairs and reaches Cas first, but Sam isn’t far behind, and both boys help Cas down into the bunker. Dean, being Dean, can’t stop touching Cas. There’s some awkwardness after Cas’s confession but they aren’t going to talk about it yet. Dean’s just relieved to have Cas back

-Jack’s also overjoyed Cas is back. Cas explains to the fam what happened and that he has a soul now. This will change the dynamics of TFW interact, changes Cas’s demeanor slightly, and how Dean and Cas interact, but Cas’s personality is basically the same

-Michael sides with TFW. His decision to stand up to his father is sincere. There are Cas and Michael scenes where they start reaching some kind of understanding of each other’s pov

-There is a further scene showing Sam mourning the snapped Eileen, as he finds something that belongs to her in his room

-They hatch a plan to confront Chuck. Cas assumes he’ll be joining them but Dean balks because Cas is freshly human and not battle-ready. “You and Sam are human, and you’re going into battle” Cas argues. Dean’s not really being logical about this, so Dean and Cas bicker while Sam, Jack and Michael have to go guys? Guys? Evil god to stop? World to save? “Get a room,” Sam snaps.

-Dean wins the argument, mostly because Cas has to give in just so they don’t stay derailed. They proceed with Cas holding down the fort at the bunker in case they need a further spell or information from the MoL archives

-They confront Chuck at the beach. Following some parts of ep 19, Chuck starts pettily beating up Sam and Dean, who refuse to give up. Sam and Dean shoulder to shoulder, laughing at their enemy through their bloodied faces. (That was a good moment, I’ll keep that) Michael intervenes, Chuck tries to destroy him but Jack steps in. Chuck is fending both of them off for the moment. Kind of looks like Chuck might overpower all of them. He raises his fingers to snap them all away

and a familiar voice yells HEY ASSBUT. Cas hurls a magical molotov cocktail at Chuck. Because Cas he found a spell, and while the thing certainly won’t kill God, it certainly makes for a great distraction. Chuck’s body burns for a moment, and then the flames go out with Chuck unharmed. The distraction allows Michael to get the upper hand enough for Jack to grab Chuck and absorb his powers and render Chuck powerless. They all leave Chuck on the beach.

-Michael looks deeply amused by the cocktail. “At least you didn’t hurl it at me this time”

-unsnapped Adam switches in.

-Sam and Dean look beat to hell. Cas says something sad about how at one point he could have healed them with a touch but he can’t now and Sam and Dean reassure him it’s fine. Cas asks Jack to heal them and Jack says he’s going non-intervention God and yeets. Sam, Dean, and Cas seem taken aback by this move and their son vanishing into thin air

-Michael switches back in and offers to heal them but Sam and Dean refuse again. Cas rolls his eyes. Typical Winchesters.

-Sam calls Eileen. “Eileen, are you okay?” All is well. Dean checks on Jody and the girls. They’re fine. Everyone unsnapped.

-Adam switches in again to say goodbye but maybe see you soon, shakes hands with Sam and Dean. A promise of maybe someday they could figure out how to be family. “Where you headed to now?” Dean asks. “Around, I guess,” says Adam, and then Michael switches back in and says “the french fries on earth are worth hanging around for a bit” and Michael yeets out.

-They won. They’re free. Chuck’s defeated, Jack is going to be a new, uncorrupted God. But wait, there’s still half an hour left, what’s left to resolve? What else could there be?

-We get a montage. Sam and Dean continue to hunt, the bruises and cuts on their faces from the battle with Chuck fading. A scene of Dean giving Cas shooting pointers and Cas is a pretty decent shot but maybe he should hold the shotgun a bit higher. Dean sure does keep touching Cas a lot when it’s not necessary. They still haven’t talked. Sam doing laundry. Dean studying a job application at the desk in his room. The bruises and cuts from their fight with Chuck are almost gone. Eileen hanging out in the bunker, she and Sam doing research at the library table, laughing as Sam makes a joke.

-Sam, Dean, and Cas get wind of ghoul activity and set out on a hunt together. Dean and Cas are waiting together, leaning against the Impala, while Sam is inside a gas station getting them all snacks.

Dean: Are you okay with this? Human...forever?

Cas: I’m adjusting. Rather enjoy being able to taste the pb&j again.

*Awkward silence*

Dean: Cas—what you said—I—

Cas: It’s all right Dean. You don’t have to say anything. I told you, it’s not about the having, it’s—

Cas doesn’t get to finish the sentence because suddenly Dean’s holding his face in his hands and then leans in and kisses him.

Dean pulls back, staring right at Cas’s stunned pikachu face.

Dean: What makes you think you didn’t already have me?

They hold each other. Sometimes it’s not in the saying it’s in the actions.

Sam, who just emerged from the gas’n sip station, stands there holding packets of junk food and yells “FINALLY!” and Dean and Cas jump apart. Dean is beet-red but both Dean and Cas look happier, more peaceful than we’ve seen them look in a very long while.

-Standard hunt. They kill some ghouls, badass Team Free Will action scene. Cas gets taken off guard, but Sam has his back.

-Back at the bunker. Sam answers a text from Eileen—they’re meeting up next week.

-Sam, Dean, Cas are in the bunker having dinner when Jack randomly appears. Raises his hand. “Hello!” They’re all startled, but tell Jack they miss him. “You don’t write, you don’t call,” Dean complains. “Well,” Jack says. “I figured just because I’m non-interventionist doesn’t mean I can’t stop by for dinner once in a while.” “Darn right,” says Dean.

-TFW 2.0 have dinner together. Jack mentions he remade heaven, no more barriers. Released trapped souls like Kevin’s to heaven. New set of rules. Mentions he met with Rowena. They’re working out a better system. Reform.

“I would have gotten rid of the monsters,” Jack explains, “but can’t do it without upsetting the natural order of things—what’s done is done. The alternative is to reset everything. I won’t do that. Too much would be undone, too much good lost.” The implication is also: while he won’t intervene and be the God perching on Team Free Will’s shoulder, he also can’t bring himself to do anything that will undo them. “Sometimes it’s all worth putting up with a few monsters,” Sam says.

Jack vanishes again. “Guess we’ll get used to that eventually” says Dean.

-very last shot. It’s dusk, outside the bunker. Sam and Dean leaning on the Impala, watching fireflies, drinking beers. Not talking, just being.

Dean: We did it.

Sam: We did it.

Dean: Well, here’s to freedom.

They toast their beer bottles. Both look more peaceful than we have seem them look in a very long time.

Overhead shot of Sam and Dean, the Impala, the bunker.

*Kansas version of Carry On, Wayward Son plays*

[leaderintitleonly]

Thoughts on Frozen?

Anna gets screwed. Promotional and just...yeah. These days, Disney is allergic to giving women complex emotions because otherwise it'd make them seem less perfect and that would anger Twitter. I mean they already lose their shit if a Disney princess cries! /Tom Hanks voice There's no crying in Disney Princessing! Elsa and Anna needed to hash things out, which really strikes me funny when I remember the making of this movie and they had this whole sister meeting. I'm estranged from my half-sister now. We don't talk. I had to accept I needed to let go and stop letting her blame me. There's a time when you stop fighting... It's when you need to fight for yourself. Sad side note, sure, but I needed to really see Anna and Elsa willing to fight for each other and hash out their problems. Show frustration. Show getting mad. Show getting upset. Emotion is healthy! So long as we process it and we learn to listen to each other, that's important. Frozen needed to work harder than that instead of "BIG HUG OKAY LET'S FORGET THIS!" Yeah that cut song probably shouldn't have been cut but Disney can't stop doing the "lol musical" meta either. And this could get longer but then that gets into Elsa's half as well. To be honest... Once Upon a Time, much maligned as it is? It does a pretty decent job expressing Elsa and Anna's post Frozen feelings and I somewhat love how on edge they are. I really believe these are sisters who would die for each other despite their ups and downs and have fought for each other. They have differences but that does not stop them. It's something I know Frozen can (and eventually does) achieve but it struggles to get a footing. Also just Anna really deserves more than to have Do You Wanna Build a Snowman, much as I love that song and whisper "Do you wanna hide a body" to my boyfriend like the sadist I am. I could mention surprise villains but that's been done to death. People have covered why Disney needed to be more firm with Elsa having anxiety if that's what they wanted to do. Generally I'm beating a dead horse here. Any problems I've had, so many other people have had them. Hey Elsa, you know what queens did? Arranged their sisters marriages so don't give me that "marrying in a day" shit. Frozen 2 does address some of my irritations which is great! But... that is not the point of a sequel. A sequel should be building on the story and not fixing the holes. Sure we can clarify some things but I should see some new story and a lot of it! I should have been enjoying Kristoff and Anna getting closer! And I have...no idea what we do with Elsa because those problems needed to be addressed then so we start a new story for her. I've lost how count how many times I watched Frozen. My nieces were enamored with the movie and then we had a little trip to Disney World. Weren't huge fans after that. I tried to watch it without them because it was only fair to do so. ...Did this turn into a pseudo Anna defense post? Oh my god. Oh my god it's a secret Anna defense post. You know I'd argue that Elsa doesn't get a good way to process her feelings, either and I'm equally angry about that. Generally every problem with any new "Disney Princess" movie is "why didn't you let the heroine have feelings and get to have healthy choices" and Elsa gets to share in that with Anna so... it's a defense post for her as well. It took me all day to write this. I hope I did right by you, anon. So many revisions. <3

[thewingedwolf]

Not Telling: A Study in How Much We are Actually Told About The Characters, Part One of Two

AKA that meta I started writing/promised to post fully a year ago and then never finished or posted bc I’m a mess. It’s being posted in two parts because it got a bit long.

So we all have our own idea of what the characters look like although many people believe the characters look roughly the same, with some minor differences from headcanon to headcanon. But what does the text itself tell us? The answer is...both more than I expected but also in keeping with Not Telling, not a whole lot at all.

I want to start this with a caveat that I kept very good notes on TT, ACoK, and TaT, mediocre notes on KoA and passable ones for QoA lol. however, it does give us a decent picture of what everyone looks likes. This is like 70% quotes and 30% extrapolation, but I try to explain my thought process on some of my conclusions.

Eugenides:

There’s a few instances that I remember reading (mostly in The Thief) that I forgot to mark but I know all of those dealt with his height and hair - that his hair is long, that it’s dark, and that he’s smaller than Pol and the Magus. So here we go:

“..the man wearing it was tall. Taller than I was, of course, but taller than the magus as well.” - Note that he’s talking about the one of the gods here, which indicates that

eugenides is very short at this point

the magus when compared to other people is probably pretty tall

“Scabs that were black against my prison-fair skin.” - Indicates that his skin has lightened noticeably since he was in prison although that’s the only indicator we get about what he looks like until literally the very ending with...

“He mentioned an Eddisian mother to explain his dark coloring.” - Which is exactly what I mean in Not Telling - we are told enough to have a clear blue print of him, but we are left to fill in the details of how he looks.

About his wound: “it’s taken a divot out of your face...it might heal clean.” and “I was quite certain I’d have a feather-shaped white scar.” - Note that Eugenides thinks this is a sign of approval from the Eugenides the god.

We get just as little in The Queen of Attolia, although note that this is the first time we are getting Gen from someone else’s point of view, instead of him describing himself:

“...his dark hair covering his face...He’d grown...he was not quite her height, but with his hair cropped short under his helmet, she hadn’t looked twice at him when she had seen him.” - that’s the only real description we get of him in the beginning of QoA before It Happens, and it’s from Irene’s point of view. There’s also several references to him looking “young” “naive” and “guilless” - young pops up about half a dozen times, and she remarks often on him being “a boy” and “half-grown.” Obviously part of that is guilt, but I did want to note that when we’re in Gen’s mind, he doesn’t focus on how short or young he looks, but when we’re in someone else’s mind, they immediately zero in on how young and small Gen is.

There’s a lot of descriptions of him after The Thing but it’s all involved in how sick he looks ie bruises showing against his yellowed skin, being so pale that his scar looked dark against his skin, that he’s lost a lot weight, stuff like that. It gives us the sense that he is very sick but no real indication of how he looks when he’s not suffering from fever and blood loss.

“His dark hair blended into the darkness behind him…” - first physical description in KoA

“The Queen was several inches taller than Eugenides…” in KoA during the dance scene

“His usually dark skin was so pale the scar on his cheek showed against the lighter skin around it.” - during the assassination attempt

“Costis was sufficiently taller than the king…” - I think this is our first reference to Costis being very tall, but of course nowhere near our first reference to Gen being short.

“His face was pale, his normally dark skin yellowed.” - My note has nothing to do with his look, but the fact that his skin is usually dark but is now both pale AND visibly yellow makes me think his liver was damaged by the assassin and that’s why it took so long to heal.

“He chose Mede coats with the long bell sleeves because no fighting man who’d seen the muscles in the king’s wrist would have underestimated him the way the Attolians had. His other wrist with no hand at the end of it appeared oddly narrow and delicate. Costis tried not to stare and found himself looking instead at the king’s scars. The long line across his belly was an angry red, but there were other marks: ragged tears around his knees and elbows, and lighter shining bands around his ankles that could only be the mark of fetters, as well as the various lines left by edged blows on his chest and arms, and one long one on his thigh. There were also a number of bruises, some newly purple and black and some fading almost to nothing. Costis wondered where they could have come from.” - WHEW long description for the first time and its all about Gen’s scars.

“...skinny and prison pale, incongruous with the clean clothes the Magus had picked out for him.” - Sophos’ PoV from AcoK. This seems to imply that Gen is usually darker than he is in the Thief - which we’ve been told before, that he’s darker skinned but stints in prison and a number of serious injuries seem to frequently make him look sickly and pale - but also that he’s usually heavier - whether that means, like Sophos believes, that Gen is normally not as skinny or that he’s gained weight since becoming Attolis is anyone’s guess.

“I kept going until I could see his face, see every detail—the quirk of his eyebrow, the twist at the corner of his mouth, the mark on his cheek, where he’d said the Attolian guards had once shot him when he was running away…” - Kamet’s description of him.

“I remembered him as a boy, small for his age. I found him taller, broader in the shoulder, much older than the intervening years would explain, with a hook where his hand had been—wholly changed, in fact, but for the scar on his face and that smile.” - Gen is finally like a normal height lmao, but also he’s gotten bigger in general, which seems to imply IMO that re: Sophos’ assessment earlier, most of the weight (and likely muscle as Costis points outback in KoA) is the result of his time in Attolia and not weight he lost in jail. But whether THAT is due to him like, eating more potentially or having a different fighting style/routine that is bulking him up, or just a natural consequence of getting older or a combination of the two is again, your guess.

Helen:

“By far the least attractive of the women stood up.”

“She had black hair, like Attolia, and her gown was red velvet...tended to stand like a soldier. The ruffles on her shoulders made her arms seem long enough to reach to her knees. Her nose had been broken and reknitted crooked, her hair was cut short like a man’s and curled so much over her simple silver crown that crown itself was nearly invisible.” - all Gen’s point of view.

“She was short and too broad to be called petite. Her father had been broad shouldered, Attolia remembered, and not over-tall. Eddis had a serious expression.” - From QoA, in Irene’s pov. It seems the shortness of Gen is something that runs in the family.

“She’s ugly...she’s short, she’s broad-shouldered, and hawk-faced with a broken nose. I would say no, she is not ideal...I’ve seen men fall on their knees and get to walk across hot coals for her after one of those smiles.” - Gen talking about her with the Magus. I feel like it’s relevant that Gen calls her “the least attractive” when he’s with her, but only “ugly” when talking about her with other people.

“You look a little vulpine yourself.” - probably more a personality quirk than anything, but I still wanted to include it.

“Eddis reached to touch her own crooked nose. ‘If I laughed,’ she said, ‘it is only at the idea that we make a matched pair now, you and I.’” - for both her and Sophos here. Love flirting in the form of pointing out your irregularities, girl’s got game.

“The queen of Eddis is as beautiful as the day and as brilliant as the sun in the sky..he chuckled and quoted Praximeles about beauty being in the heart and not the eye..” - obviously Sophos’ opinion is colored by his love for her, but STILL, he does offer a description that she’s beautiful, is immediately contradicted by Akretenesh, and then basically thinks “it’s not my fault you’re stupid as fuck.”

Irene:

“Her hair was black and held away from her face by an imitation of the woven gold band of Hephestia. Her robe was draped like a peplos, made from embroidered red velvet. She was as tall as the magus, and she was more beautiful than any woman I had ever seen.” - Gen’s PoV in the Thief. We have a hint of his feelings for her in the way he describes her, and also there’s her Hephestia cosplay as well.

“Her hair was held away from her face by the ruby and gold headband that crossed her forehead just above her dark brows. Her skin was flawless and so fair as to be translucent. She dressed as always in an imitation of Hephestia.” - Gen calling out her Hephestia cosplay lmao. I also notice that she’s specifically not just “fair skinned” like Sophos or other Attolians, she’s described as almost weirdly pale.

Sophos:

I KNOW I forgot to mark a scene where Eugenides describes Sophos in TT as like...fair or pink-cheeked or something like that but I’ll be damned if I can find it.

“They were both obviously well bred...I wondered if they were brothers...the older one had darker hair and was better looking.” - obviously the older is Ambiades.

“One member of the crowd, a young man with a broken nose, a lip twisted by scar tissue, and dirty clothes that combined to suggest a person of violent and criminal habits…” - good description that also tells us that Useless the Younger looks significantly different since we saw him four books (and several years) ago. It’s not just that he’s older, or scarred, it’s that he *looks* dangerous now.

“I was taller than Malatesta by inches.” and “I wasn’t heavier than [Hyacinth] but I was taller and bore him to the ground.” - both give us an approximation of his height, weight, and strength.

“I felt my upper lip and rubbed my thumb against the scar tissue. I could feel it distorting my mouth. My nose had a new bump in the middle of it as well.” - scar healing badly

“Measuring myself against [The Magus], I realized we now saw eye to eye.” - considering several references to how tall The Magus is (which we’ll get to), this means Sophos is incredibly tall.

“...my hair all cut away and ragged.” and then they mention they dyed it. Once they get to Attolia however, “A barber came in to trim and shave us, taking off the last of my darker hair and leaving it tidy, if short.” So it’s gone back to his natural color, but this implies he usually wears his hair long.

There’s also a mention of him eating a lot, which isn’t a physical description, but does, IMO, imply something to his size - like how many sheer calories a lot of Olympic athletes have to eat a day.

“I smiled until I felt the scar tissue tighten...I had never let him see what I looked like when I smiled: my uncle.” - ICONIC.

ALSO - Sophos is frequently compared to animals. These animals include a lamb, lion, rabbit, bunny, puppy, and then back to lion.

Costis Ormentiedes:

I couldn’t find any description of him beyond a few references to him being tall in KoA which either means that I just missed it bc I got to emotional over KoA (which is likely) OR we don’t get a real description of Costis until TaT which is an interesting choice. ONWARDS:

“He was a very large Attolian…” - Kamet’s first impression of Costis, yet again reminding us how big Costis is

“He was a typical Attolian: sandy-brown hair, a broad face, light-colored eyes. Altogether he had a simple, straightforward look to him, and he seemed perfectly serious.” - gives us a general idea of what Attolians as a people look like.

“He was large, as I already knew, and a soldier. He had the scars on his hands and forearms and the unmistakable muscles from swinging a sword day in and day out. I had no doubt he was good at what he did - he rather reminded me of an ox, very strong, not terribly quick - but I thought killing was his work, not his pleasure….he moved easily, so he was no veteran crippled’s in his country’s service, but he was too young to have done his twenty years - my own age, or perhaps younger.” - Lots of information here from Kamet. The ones that stick out to me are: moves easily, which means Costis has likely not even been minorly injured before, but he has scars, which of course means he’s had a lot of flesh wounds. The other thing is that Kamet instinctively knows that Costis doesn’t like killing - I don’t know if that means Kamet is a good judge of character or if there’s something about Costis, whether it be the way he carries himself, or something physically like his expressions, his youth, his eyes, that tells Kamet this, but it *could* be something physical.

Kamet makes several references to Costis being hot lmao. He uses the word “attractive” several times in several different chapters and others agree with this assessment.

“She sent him to the potter to see if he could use a young man with a strong back.” - more comments about how ripped Costis is.

Kamet

Couldn’t find any description of Kamet in QoA, and he doesn’t really describe himself in TaT. I’m worried I missed something, but this is what I found:

“Normally as warm-toned as myself…” - Kamet comparing his own skin tone (undertone?) to Laela’s.

He also describes himself as small and skinny compared to Costis several times - once saying his face is roughly at level with Costis’ chest - and mentions flogging scars on his back.

EDIT: THANK YOU FOR COMMENTS, we get this like in QoA about Kamet: “The slave’s almond shaped eyes and red-brown complexion set him apart from the Attolians.”

—————

Not sure how to end this but anyway that’s what we’re given for the main PoVs. Surprisingly, we get more description for Helen than we do for Irene, and barely any for Kamet. There were some things that I had misremembered - I thought Gen was described as “brown skinned” but instead it’s “dark skinned” or “dark coloring” and I thought he described Helen as ugly more than once, but it’s just to the Magus, when they’re discussing Sounis’ potential marriage, which is....interesting to me, and sounds a lot more like Gen trying to downplay his cousin so the Magus will fuck off, especially when he offers Agape as an alternative that is, notably, prettier and also holds significantly less power. I also thought Costis was described as “blonde” or “fair haired” like Sophos but instead he’s “sandy brown” and I think the idea of him being Blonde was a fandom thing that I just misremembered.

[oldmanatom]

wrote a whole long post about how i “did” “NaNo,” thought i saved it to my drafts, came to post it tonight and it’s not there. that’s genuinely a bummer since i had other Thoughts™ baked into it, but i’ll take it as an opportunity to write a second draft version instead, now that i have my thoughts more together:

my version of NaNo, much like my version last year, was just to hit a word count goal with whatever writing i could scrape together. this year i set the goal lower than last year, and actually more or less hit it, which was cool and tbh surprising.

i’ve been resistant to writing to hit a word count in the past—seemed like an easy way to psych myself out, plus how i write (jumping all around the story/page/doc) makes keeping track of word counts annoying at best, challenging at worst—but succeeding last month made it far more appealing. i’m going to try and hit it again this month, to see if it might be a good way to keep myself on the writing...treadmill? hike? grind? [insert relevant metaphor here].

for the first time in literally (literally!) years, i’ve completed a first draft of something. it’s objectively not very good, and will need a lot of work—i didn’t know what the hell i was doing for 50% of it, and once i figured out what i was trying to do i didn’t know how to do it for the other 50%, and it took me basically the entire month to put it together brick by brick, so what i have now is about as scattered as you’d expect from that process—but it’s done, which means i can actually do that work and make those edits with a holistic view on what i’m working with, instead of, like, trying to fix the foundation as i’m also trying to build the frame and hang the drywall, so to speak.

thinking also about this post, and about that Terry Pratchett quote about how the first draft is just you telling yourself the story, and about how impossible it is to know and see everything there is to know and see about my story on the very first pass. this idea—that something being done is better than it being good when it comes to first drafts—is something that’s both obvious and easy to understand, and yet has taken me years to realize and more years to actually implement.

why? lots of reasons. one of them: i get stuck in write-edit cycles—write something, go back and edit it, write more, edit that and edit the other part to fit in with the new part, write more, etc etc. it’s a momentum killer. if i do that, i finish nothing, as i’ve proven over and over again over the years as i’ve started a million things and followed through on exactly none of them. trying to break myself of this habit has been a struggle, and mostly i lose, but i’m losing less often and less extensively than i was at the beginning, which i’ll take.

why care about this? lots of reasons. one of them: i am extraordinarily tired of looking at my folders full of bits and pieces stuck in Google docs that get forgotten about and left to collect virtual dust. they might be “good,” but i’m not satisfied with just writing them and letting them sit and do nothing, like some sort of dragon’s hoard of words. i am, regardless of how i feel moment to moment, a decent writer; if nothing else, i’m writing things that i like to read, and that i’d like others to read; i should find a way to bridge the gap and finish these off into something i can share.

(feeling like nothing’s ever done enough to share is its own point which i’m still trying to figure out, and which might be the next meta “thing” i tackle on the first edit/second draft of this piece. how much can one oneshot teach me? is it wise to make this into The Little Story That Could? i guess we’ll find out.)

one thing i’ve been learning as i’ve been trying to put this idea into practice, which will absolutely sound sappy but keeps proving itself true: my story’s going to teach me as i go. it’s going to tell me what needs to happen with the plot and characters and everything else, and it’s going to do that regardless of whether or not i have a 19 page scene-by-scene outline or a conversation i like, an image in my head of the scene, and a vague idea of what i want to happen next. and, whatever i miss on the first round i can pick up and work on in the next rounds. but it only teaches me if i keep writing it, unfortunately.

basically: it doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be done. that’s it. that’s the only requirement of a first draft: that it be complete. just keep writing until the damn thing’s finished. polish comes second. i keep repeating this like a fucking mantra, like something you’d chant to yourself to get through a root canal or the last hour of a truly terrible shift, and honestly that’s what it feels like half the time, but it worked once, so who’s to say it won’t work again.

i think there was a third point in my original post, but i can’t remember it so i guess it can’t be that important. i’ll end with a few quotes from this past month of NaNo, entirely from that draft, which is partly because that was 80-90% of my writing this past month and partly because the other 10-20% is stuff that i’m likely going to be posting soon (yes, i do have plans to post something soon, sorry @ my poor neglected writing sideblog). without context, because i think that’s funnier—

1.

To your eternal shame, you can't actually manage to look up at the woman you know is standing in the doorway, one sandaled foot through the threshold and leaning heavily on the Death First to Solicitors and Thieves doormat. Instead, you glance partway over and see weak, yellowish light spill out from inside, cascade over the porch steps, and reach with dim and blunted fingers out towards her soaked half yard. You trace the watery edges of it with your eyes instead of looking at her, and it's a coward's move but that relief is back again, so.

"Harrow?" she says, barely audible over the pounding water around you.

You remember, then, when you told her ages ago that her vintage standing lamp needed its bulb replaced and the two of you had gotten into a nice little row over well, it's not dead yet, now is it, and where the hell am I supposed to find another weird filament bulb like that, and who exactly decided to get the damn antique showpiece thing anyways. It's entirely unsurprising that after all these years it's still the same almost-flickering bulb stuck in it, that it's somehow still alive and managing to bleed light out onto this miserable scene.

2.

Being shorn down to your shirts and jeans and socks makes you wrap your arms around yourself again. No longer having five pounds of wet denim on your shoulders lets your body remember what warmth is, and more importantly reminds you that you have none, and so what had been a vague shaking for the last hour turns into full-on shivering, teeth clacking and everything. You ask, not for the first time, for some reasonable God to show you mercy and cut you down.

Instead, Ianthe covers her smile half with her hand and says, "Oh, look at you, Harry, you poor thing. Soaking wet and I didn't even have a hand in it."

"Shut up," you try to say, but your chattering teeth and jaw make it come out more like "s-s-s-hhhht 'p," and Ianthe doesn't react regardless, just shakes her head and throws you another towel.

3.

"Harrow, please. It's late and I've never been fond of your insistence on bullshitting when I have your back against a wall. Besides, ending up huddled on my porch in the worst storm of the year is a little much, even for—"

"Even for me," you interrupt, "as though I was the one who slept in front of our front door for three nights so that I wouldn't 'run out on you with the rent' after you lost an argument."

The corner of Ianthe's mouth twitches, but it's the only slip of her otherwise curious, focused expression. "To be fair, it was an argument about the rent."

[arcaneranger]

Final Thoughts - Summer 2019

Hey, look who finished the season perfectly on time, even if he did so by dropping a bunch of stuff last minute! (Technically, as of writing, I haven’t finished Re:Stage Dream Days, but you can rest assured that it’s bad.)

I thought I was going to do a first impressions rundown video for the entire season at once, since my impression posts don’t tend to get a lot of engagement anyway, but since I didn’t end up going through with it, I’ll summarize my point - summer started strong, and even here at the end, I can easily say it’s the best season thus far in what’s largely been a letdown year for seasonal anime (and a god damn renaissance for long shows, thanks to My Hero Academia, so if I seem down on a season that had Dororo, or Vinland Saga, or Fruits Basket, remember that I exclude those shows from my considerations until the end of the year).

This season saw several high-profile continuations like A Certain Scientific Accelerator, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls In a Dungeon II, and Symphogear XV, but also new works by creators like Mari Okada, and anticipated adaptations of Astra: Lost in Space and Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest, and in the end, well...a lot of those were mixed bags at best, but the biggest drawback I will remember Summer 2019 for is that it was drowning in bad isekai shows. The aforementioned Arifureta, the basically-counts Danmachi, and also Isekai Cheat Magician, Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks, The Lost Ones, Demon Lord Retry!...it just never ended, and that’s not even counting If It’s For My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord. 

Speaking of all that stuff, let’s get right into it, yeah?

28 shows were simulcast this season, and of those, I…

Skipped 4:

Yami Shibai 7, Starmyu Season 3, A Certain Scientific Accelerator, and Lord El-Melloi II Case Files: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note were all skipped because I have not watched the previous series.

Dropped 15:

Worst of the Season: If It’s For My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord!

I dropped this after one episode because I found the aesthetic and tone to be aggressively boring and I found even the cute daugheroo character to be utterly generic in execution...and then later found out oh boy was I right to drop it, based on how many people compared it to the Bunny Drop manga that we don’t talk about. *shudders*

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest

Wins the “biggest tryhard” award for being just the most straightforward an SAO award gets, right up to being grimdark for dumb reasons. The first episode alone had inconsistent animation, and that just did not bode well for the future...and the plot instantly reminded me of Slime, which soured on me over time. I let this one go sour after one shot.

Demon Lord, Retry!

The blandest of beige this season, Demon Lord had neither the story nor the production values to reel me in or convince me it was anything but the Overlord wannabe it so clearly was.

Isekai Cheat Magician

This show was a pretty transparent attempt to have an isekai story with a childhood friend romance plot, and while I’m fine with one and a half of those things, it couldn’t execute them in any decent way by the end of the first episode, and just wound up being largely boring.

Wasteful Days of High School Girls

Speaking of boring, what if Nichijou wasn’t funny? You’d get something like this.

Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?

So the tone this one ultimately ended up having was pretty much exactly what I expected after the premiere - it leaned too hard on jokes that weren’t as funny as it thought they were, and too hard on the dumb hentai mom trope, and neither of those things interested me in the slightest. Pretty okay with having left this off the watchlist.

The Ones Within

I have stated multiple times in the last few weeks that Symphogear is great because it can convince you that it’s a work of genius. The Ones Within has, unfortunately, convinced itself that it’s deep social commentary of some kind, rather than a bargain-bin Danganronpa with no real thought put into it.

Are You Lost?

I’m amazed that we got another Eromanga Sensei this season and it flew entirely under the radar. For God’s sake, the first episode featured a young teenage girl eating a bug and drinking her own urine. I just didn’t see myself being particularly entertained by the shock value longer than the premiere.

Ensemble Stars (4/10)

I can’t tell if this one is actually over, but Funimation’s site doesn’t list any new episode premieres coming up, so I’m gonna assume it is? I gave this one a shot and hung onto it because it took UtaPri’s premise and gave it the slightly more serious tone I was looking for, but dropped it after the second episode started to drown us in side characters with no hint that the floodgates were closing, rather than giving ample screentime to a select cast so they could actually become at least two-dimensional before throwing in more people we’re supposed to care about.

BEM

BEM suffered from an unfortunate lack of distinct personality, which sucks when it seems to have had a decent story to tell. Nothing else about the show wound up sticking out to me, though, which has me fully convinced that Production I.G.’s name is only on this to boost recognition, and the second-billed LandQ studios did the majority of the work. And their best-known other show is Swordgai. So...

To The Abandoned Sacred Beasts (5/10)

I have gotten absolutely no pushback so far for my decision to tear into this show because it should have been a different show, so I’m gonna take that as a general agreement of my earlier statement. What a waste of a concept.

Cop Craft (5/10)

This one I still think I was not crazy to pick up after the first episode, because it wasn’t until the third that the animation tanked hard and the pacing went absolutely nuts, and apparently stayed that way. Did they write a thirty-nine-episode story that had to be condensed into twelve or something?

Magical Sempai

This one I probably would have kept watching if the majority of its humor wasn’t just the title character embarrassing herself in lewd ways. It was funny, but I didn’t see myself enjoying anything more than one episode of it.

GRANBELM (6/10)

This one I got halfway through before realizing that, during my end-of-season catchup, I had absolutely no desire to return to. The plot didn’t really start moving until the fifth episode, and in that time I had not gotten particularly invested in the characters, especially since the show makes fun of the viewer for thinking that the big mecha dream battles actually had stakes beyond “you don’t get to be The Thing”. At least it looked nice and the mecha designs were very original.

Are you willing to fall in love with a pervert, as long as she’s a cutie?

There were four shows this season with questions for titles. Just saying! This one actually had me hooked right up until the end, revealing that not only is it a fanservice show, but a fetish pandering one. That being said, if I were attracted to women, I could have seen myself getting something out of it, what with the decently moody tone and good production values.

I put 2 On Hold:

Is It Wrong to Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon? II

I’ll probably come back to this when the third series comes around, just to give it one more chance to pull me back in, but ditching my favorite character for harem antics and character shilling just did not endear me to this long-awaited sequel.

Re:Stage Dream Days!!

This one’s not actually on hold, but I don’t have any other good place to mention it. This one I’m gonna make it through just on willpower, not because it’s good, but because it starts out as the most shameless rip-off I’ve ever seen in anime, specifically of Love Live!.

And I Finished 7:

Kochoki (5/10)

I thought I was gonna give this one a 7 at least, for nearly the whole season, for being a decently-told and somewhat new telling of Nobunaga’s early life with great production values for Studio Deen...right up until the structure fell completely apart at the end, almost completely out of nowhere. I’m still in awe of the gall this show had to literally skip over the final battle.

How Heavy Are The Dumbbells You Lift? (8/10)

This one came right the fuck out of nowhere and totally blew my expectations out of the way from the very first episode. Looking at the summary, I was convinced I was gonna drop this after the premiere...and found myself totally hooked by its cheery visual presentation and excellent sense of meta-comedy, not to mention its genuine educational value.

Astra: Lost In Space (8/10)

One of two adaptations I was really looking forward to this season (along with Fire Force), Astra was pretty much what I expected - a very good translation of a very good manga that ran for the perfect amount of time to be divided into twelve-ish episodes. A fantastic and memorable cast of characters enhanced a surprisingly twisty story, and Lerche made it all look just as good as I’d hoped.

The Demon Girl Next Door (8/10)

Speaking of defying my expectations, another show I was expecting pretty much nothing from, maybe one I could compare to Gabriel Dropout or something, that was instead an incredibly charming story of a girl trying to save her family by defeating a magical girl...with a very, very loose definition of the word “defeat” in play. I couldn’t have asked for much more from this one, aside from maybe a sequel?

Given (9/10)

Speaking of “Lerche” and “gorgeous”, this profoundly gripping story of a spacecase and a loner hesitantly making music together blossomed further and further as it went on, and became my new go-to reference point for explicit gay relationships in anime. It went where even Yuri On Ice!!! couldn’t, and left me desperate for a Part Two.

O Maidens In Your Savage Season (9/10)

My write up for this show was one of my longest in recent memory, and I stand by it - even if Okada had to write a few plot contrivances in to get where she’s going, at least she presented her cast in an incredibly thoughtful way and gave them a satisfying payoff, with the knowledge that they’re teenagers and all of their problems can’t be solved in one semester. The high water mark for discussions of sexuality in this medium.

BEST OF THE SEASON: Symphogear XV (9/10)

Anime is wonderful, and so am I.

So that wraps up summer! We’ve got a lot to look forward to in fall, even if My Hero Academia and Food Wars’ fourth series will both ultimately end up on a list in the distant future next year. Will Psycho-Pass 3 redeem the series? Will Azur Lane be better than Kantai Collection? Will Beastars beat Aggretsuko as the biggest furry panderer of the year? Only time will tell. And then I’ll tell you all what I think it said.

[kingwallywest-blog]

Guys like us don’t get the girl.

But sometimes they do.

P.S. Cannot send enough thank yous to the anon who told me about the wayback archive. I was able to find this fic! It was one of my first WA fics. I forgot how much I loved writing it.

Maybe it’s the reality check he needs. Maybe he should let Iris live her life and he can quietly step to the side, as both Barry and the Flash (Caitlin’s advice also lingering in his mind too often). Maybe Iris doesn’t need him around as much anymore.

So he avoids her for a few days, just to see if she notices.

Of course Iris notices. She’s not happy about it, either.

And like that, she draws him back into her life after only a four day separation. There’s a sense of relief that he feels when he concludes they’re two peas in a pod, yin and yang, two sides of the same coin. Practically joined at the hip, and she doesn’t need him around - she wants him around, which is all the more satisfying.

Even if they only remain friends, he’ll love her. Even if she stays with Eddie, he’ll be in love with her. Even if she decides to continue down the dangerous path of being an investigative journalist, he’ll support her. Protect her, though Iris has shown him one too many times during their lives that her left hook is finely tuned (“Don’t let my small arms fool you, Barry. I’ll knock him out cold if he picks on you again!”).

Barry finds himself unable to stay away; he doesn’t want to stay away but Caitlin keeps giving him these knowing yet disapproving looks when he returns to the lab with what she describes as a “dumb, love-struck smile.” He pointedly ignores the rest of her rant about how he’s sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong, that, in the end, he’s making it harder for both himself and Iris.

(He also pointedly ignores how right she is, and that sinking feeling he gets every time he’s reminded.)

* It’s Christmas night when Eddie proposes to Iris, with both Joe and Barry in company.

And between the three of them, Barry can’t tell who is more surprised.

Iris, a hand covering her mouth and her eyes unwavering from Eddie’s.

Joe, speechless and frozen, and maybe even a little confused.

Barry, with the breath knocked out of him and heart breaking loud enough for Joe to hear.

Joe’s hand reaches for his shoulder and gives him a hard squeeze, a gesture that Barry would usually take great comfort in, but now feels like heavy bricks weighing down. Then Joe turns and plays the role of excited father.

"Barry, there’s champagne in the cooler. Do you might grabbing it?" Eddie asks him, a blinding smile on his face that is noticeably missing from Iris’s - maybe still in shock - and Barry does what any best friend would do.

He congratulates her and her fiancé.

* Barry’s sort of glad Caitlin is refraining from saying “I told you so,” but she’s also been too busy with her own problems to really rub the salt in his wounds.

Like the fact that the man she had been mourning for a year is back from the dead. As some torched resemblance of a human being no less.

All of Central City is shaping up to be a cliché comic book, featuring meta-humans, time traveling, and all-too-complicated love stories.

Figures he’d be the star of it.

But all of what’s happening with Ronnie and his mother’s murderer gives him a decent distraction from Iris. Barry isn’t sure if he’s disappointed or relieved that she hasn’t talked to him about the proposal yet. It seems that they’ve both been keeping their distances from each other.

It’s probably best that way, he tells himself. Because soon she’ll be Mrs. West-Thawne.

* “I can’t marry him.”

Iris barely steps into his apartment before she’s rambling off.

"I can’t do it! I should have told him the night he gave me the ring. But he looked so happy! What right do I have to take his happiness away like that? And my dad, God, my dad! Barry, did you see his face? He was going to cry from joy! What kind of terrible daughter would I be if I took that from him? He’s probably already named all of the grandchildren he thinks Eddie and I are going to have, but we’re not - “

"Woah, what are - "

" - because I don’t love him." Iris takes a deep breath, and Barry can see the tears brimming in her eyes. He marvels at her ability to have kept everything bottled up for that long.

Then he begins to worry.

"Iris," Barry begins carefully. He’s unsure of where to begin, as his brain is still trying to process her confession, so he says the first thing that comes to mind. "Do you want me to make coffee?"

There’s a stillness, and then Iris laughs, a hiccup getting caught in her throat that makes Barry laugh too, until she’s nodding through her tears and he’s pulling her in his arms.

"My coffee isn’t that bad," he mutters into her hair when she’s quieted down after a few minutes, and he’s fully prepared for the punch she gives his chest.

Iris is smiling at least, so he finds himself smiling back. He cups her cheek and traces the wet trails on her face with his thumb, drying what he can.

"If you don’t want to marry him, then don’t. No one has ever told Iris Ann West what to do," he says, which pleases her plenty if by the way she sighs and leans into his touch is any indication.

"This is why you’re the best man in my life," she tells him. Barry tries not blush or stutter, but he knows he’s failing.

"Because I give good advice or because I’m not even mildly annoyed that you were banging on my door at 5:30 on a Saturday morning?" he teases.

"Oh my god, is it really that early? I am so sorry - "

"It’s okay." He means it. "I’m glad you’re here." So very much means it.

He thinks that when she looks up at him this time, it’s different. He can’t quite place why, but there’s a gleam in her eyes that he’s never seen before.

At least not directed towards him. And he can get lost in that look for days, he knows by the way it fires heat through his body, one nerve at a time.

Barry clears his throat and takes a step back. “Let me get that coffee started.”

"Yeah," Iris blinks up at him, seemingly as unsure about the last few moments as he is. "Good idea."

In the kitchen, during the couple of minutes he had to himself, he wonders if these are the kind of changes Felicity was talking about.

*

Barry decides that these are definitely the changes Felicity was talking about.

They’re subtle changes, but still…changes. Like how Iris looks at him; that same one from the other morning in his hallway, as though with renewed interest. How she acts around him; she’s touching him more, and while Iris has always been one for physical contact, there’s something almost - sensual about it now. Fingers grazing, close personal space shoulder-bumping, her hand lingering in areas he knows defined muscle has formed.

Barry thinks, and he could potentially and disastrously be overthinking it, that Iris is even flirting with him. And to be honest, he’s not sure how to respond to it.

"This is the moment you’ve been waiting for, dude. Super hot girl that you’ve been in love with is acting on mutual attraction! What’s your problem?" Cisco gapes at him during one of their ping pong games.

"My problem," Barry hits the ball back to the other side, "is that I’m not good at these kinds of things. Flirting and being charming and - I’m just not the guy who gets the girl."

Cisco rolls his eyes. “You’ve flirted with her before. Do I need to remind you of your guys’ rooftop days? Please don’t make me remind you of your rooftop days.”

"You’re forgetting that I went to her as the Flash. The Flash is much cooler than I am, trust me."

"The fact that you’re referring to yourself as an alter ego is slightly alarming," Caitlin comments from the corner where she’s piecing together the map of Ronnie’s possible whereabouts. "I’ve told you before, you are incredible and amazing with or without the speed, Barry. And Iris knows that."

Barry puts his paddle down, smirking at Caitlin’s back. “Someone’s changed her tune.”

Caitlin glares over her shoulder and it promptly shuts him up.

*

Any doubts Barry may have had about Iris’s intentions is cleared when Joe approaches him with a smile too giddy and curious for any cop or father to have.

"What’s going on with you two?"

Barry doesn’t know how to best phrase that Iris is seemingly reciprocating the emotional, romantic, and sexual feelings he’s ever had for her so he grins and says, “Progressing one day at a time.”

Joe pats him on the back. “You two were made for each other, Barry.”

Barry is starting to believe it.

* The words sort of tumble from his mouth by accident.

Iris had tried to surprise him with a homemade birthday dinner, and he was alarmed to find his front door unlocked that he completely startled her when she was lighting the candles on the table.

The table caught on fire…

…and then dinner burned while they were putting the fire out.

That’s when he tells her, in his moment of slight panic. “I love you. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember.”

Barry’s half-expecting Iris to get mad at him or get away as soon as possible, but she smiles and closes the space between them.

"I know. I’m sorry it took me this long to figure it out."

He’s about to tell her that she shouldn’t be sorry for anything, but she presses up on her toes and pulls him down for a kiss.

All else melts from his thoughts when she glides her tongue against his lips.

Barry can’t remember what happens after that, oddly enough, but then Iris tells him the next morning it’s because he passed out and hit his head pretty hard.

Totally worth it.

* “This came in the mail today,” Thea says, handing Oliver the envelope. “Looks like a wedding invite.”

Oliver pulls the gold trimmed letter open and feels the corners of his mouth spreading into one of his rare smiles.

We are delighted to invite you to the wedding ceremony of Bartholomew Henry Allen and Iris Ann West.

…

…

…

P. S. I got the girl.

[sophisticatedloserchick]

Fanfic - Kissing Green Arrow Under The Mistletoe - 1/1

Prompt: Iris goes to a party in Star City where she meets two very interesting men in the course of one night.

Rating: PG

Word Count: 1605

A/N: Requested by Anon

Iris had it with superheroes.

She decided they weren't worth the pain and trouble they put you through. Iris had enough of their self aggrandizing and the fact they thought only those wearing super suits were capable of taking care of themselves.

In particular Iris wanted nothing to do with a certain Scarlet Speedster in Central City. She'd been helping him for months. She researched criminal meta backgrounds and chased down leads for him. She wrote article after article calling him the city's hero. And for all that she doesn't get so much as a 'thank you' even worse he tells her that she's putting herself in danger by helping him.

That was the final straw for Iris.

Which is why she took the two hour train ride to attend Star City for the annual Allen Foundation Christmas party. It spoke volumes of how pissed she was that she'd rather get glammed up and spend her evening with boring snobby millionaires then deal with The Flash.

Despite the men in her life letting her down at least the party itself wasn't a let down. The finest hotel in Star City had transformed their ballroom into a sophisticated winter wonderland. White Christmas trees were decorated with silver and gold ornaments. Ice carvings of reindeer graced the tables. An array of glittering silver snowflakes hung from the ceiling over them. The live jazz band was a nice touch playing the Christmas classics in the background. But for Iris the biggest draw was the plentiful supply of food and drinks.

After getting enough quotes from the top 1% elite of Star City for her to cobble together a decent article Iris made her way to the buffet table where she planned to stay for the rest of the night.

Iris had been piling a plate up with cream puffs when someone walked up next to her.

“Enjoying yourself?”

Iris glanced over to see the man of the hour himself Barry Allen standing beside her.

Inelegantly Iris half choked on a cream puff in surprise. Its not every day the country's most eligible bachelor decided to come chat you up.

Iris gave him a quick look over and understood why so many woman dreamed of one day becoming Mrs Allen. He looked amazing in a tux that fitted perfectly over his broad shoulders and lithe form. He towered over her which Iris normally didn't find attractive but with him she found herself liking the height difference. He was handsome in a boyish way. And she hated to admit it but her stomach did flips when she looked into his green eyes.

Hard to believe this man had been thought dead for years while he survived on his own on a island alone. He looked more suited for the glamorous background of the gala and not the dangerous jungles hunting down his food with his bare hands. She had so many question she wanted to ask him but found her brain short circuited when he smiled at her.

“The food is good,” Iris answered lamely.

“Glad to know you approve,” He gave her a bemused look.

It was probably her imagination but Iris swore that his eyes were appraising her too. Suddenly she became very aware of her bare arms and how plunging her neckline was. But at the same time she enjoyed how he couldn't take his eyes off her.  

“So what will you be writing in your article,” Barry looked at her amused. “Will the food be the focus?”

“I think the hypocrisy of it.” Iris said setting her plate aside. “I do wonder the sense in spending all this money on a party for those who already have more money then they need in the attempt to help those who don't.”

As the words came out of her mouth Iris regretted them. Most wouldn't insult the person throwing the party you're attending. Not to mention Barry Allen was one of the richest and powerful men who probably could end her career if he felt like it. But if Iris had something to say then she would say it.

Instead of being offended he laughed which made him that more attractive.

“I get your point but there's one thing you're missing,” Barry leaned in closer towards her.

“And whats that?” Iris found herself moving closer to him too.

“Rich people are more willing to open their pockets when they're drunk.”

“I bet you know that from experience.”

He laughed again and Iris could tell she was in serious trouble when it came to this guy.

“Want to dance?” Barry held his hand out to her. “You can tell me more about how the upper classes are heartless bent on trampling the lower classes.”

Iris rolled her eyes but deep down she was charmed by him. All thoughts of The Flash back in Central City were completely gone from her mind. Iris reached her hand out to take his but before they could connect a loud explosion shook the building.

Screams and chaos soon erupted as the guests started to run for cover as a group of men dressed in black interrupted the party.

“Go find cover!” Barry grabbed her upper arm as he shouted over the noise.

“What about you?” Iris countered but Barry had already taken off in a run.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In a stroke of good luck Green Arrow arrived to fight off the men in black. Most of the guests had fled the gala taking cover with the police outside the building. Her reporter instincts told Iris to stay and catch all the action. She hid behind one of the stone pillars in the ballroom which gave her a front row seat to watch Green Arrow easily handle the intruders.

He entered the room before anyone had realized. Then in a flash of green he started taking on the intruders in hand to hand combat. She found it mesmerizing watching him move. A tall imposing figure covered in green leather moving expertly in hand to hand combat. He seemed completely in-tune with his body, knowing exactly how to use it to his advantage.

And God did he look good in that green leather.

One by one he knocked each of the intruders down. He brought out his bow and arrow to take out those too far away, his aim deadly and never missing. The Green Arrow might not have super powers but that still didn't stop him from wanting to make a difference. Something that Iris could relate too.

Maybe she should start writing articles about him.

At last all the men had been knocked out on the floor. Green Arrow put his bow away and started talking to someone over an ear piece. While trying to hear what he was saying Iris noticed one of the men in black get up again and aimed a gun right at Green Arrows head.

“Look out!” Iris shouted from her hiding place, “Right behind you!”

In the quickest reflexes Iris had ever seen Green Arrow spun around, got his bow out again, and shot an arrow before the other man could pull the trigger.

Iris stepped out from her hiding place behind the pillar and the two of them locked eyes.

“Thank you for that,” Green Arrow approached her. “But you shouldn't still be here.”

His voice was deep but for some reason sounded very familiar.

“I can take care of myself,” Iris squared off her shoulders.

Iris swore she saw his lips twitch in an almost smile.

“I guess you can,” Green Arrow admitted.

Iris narrowed her eyes at him trying to figure out his identity. But the mask that covered half his face and the hood over his head made it very difficult.

He stopped a foot away from but didn't say a word. The feeling of his eyes on her was not as unsettling as it should be. Iris found herself drawn to him despite the fact he was a notorious vigilante whose track record was long and dangerous.

“You're not afraid are you,” Green Arrow spoke more to himself then Iris.

“Should I be?” Iris challenged.

Iris didn't know what his next move would be but the last one she anticipated was him bending down to press his lips against hers. Shock was her initial response until Iris warmed to the feeling of his lips moving against hers. He was an amazing kisser. Firm and knowing exactly what he wanted from her without forcing. His gloved hand reached out to curl around her neck tilting her head in order to kiss her deeper. Her hands went to grip the hard material of his shoulders, going on her tip toes to get closer to him.

Then suddenly as the kiss started he pulled away leaving Iris flushed with heat and a little dazed.

“What was that for?” Iris breathed out, as electricity continued to course through her body.

“Mistletoe,” Green Arrow nodded upwards with a smirk on his lips.

Iris briefly glanced up at the sprig of green leaves and white berries and wondered how she missed it.

Iris opened her mouth to respond but in that moment the police came crashing into the room. Iris turned her head to look at the commotion and when she looked back Green Arrow was gone. Pressing her fingers to her lips, still tingling from his kisses, Iris thought that she had met two very interesting men tonight.

And she couldn't wait to see them again.

[popliar]

BTS in Sydney 170526

Hey look it’s the only half-decent photo I took all night, during Jin’s Awake stage. Once again using tumblr like an actual blog, how shocking, bc if I don’t write it down I’ll forget.

ETA: @proteinscollide has a write-up here!

I had psyched myself into thinking I was gonna be late and miss the start of this show, haha, but all went well. Shouts to @proteinscollide and @blindmouse for the fun night!

I usually try to have more coherent thoughts and reflections on what a show means or what it represents, on its own or within the genre, but I don't think I have much of that this time. I think maybe I'm just too close to it? Like when you're standing so close that you can't pull back and see the forest for the trees. I haven't actually been to a show where I was Actively Stanning Hardcore for the band in question for a relatively long time. Stanning distorts everything. I can leave meta at the door if I'm just that into it.

Overall I was just - really, really into the songs and the dances and the visuals and everything. They're so talented and charming and hardworking! They dance really good! Their English is darling! If they had done multiple Sydney shows, or at least one other show like in Melbourne, I would DEFINITELY and gladly seen them again! As is I hope they are gonna have a couple of solid days off between now and Japan. And I hope some of those long breaks in the Japan tour are solid rest days...

I liked that the VCRs once again continued the theme of building on the MVs and other visual pieces they've released. It ties into the idea that if you stay on the journey with them (lol and aw at Dylan's "how many roads must a man walk down?" used in some of the onscreen quotes) then the more rewarding the journey will be.

Since this is the end of the trilogy, is this also the end of this round of #The Unified Vision Theory of BTS? Maybe the next phase won't be about the Boy, but about the Man (shades of Britney's Not A Girl Not Yet a Woman haha) and will start again with new imagery. Will be interesting to see.

Some notes and things:

Organisation for this show was somewhat haphazard. Tickets went on sale just 1 month before.* Then the day before the show, it was announced by the promotor IME that there would be no merch on sale, WHAT. Then glowsticks (though not lightsticks, thankfully) were banned. It's possible security issues (given the recency of the Manchester tragedy) and Customs were the causes of this, but also possibly IME is just not very good at organising tours. Just saying.

[* ETA:  it has BELATEDLY occurred to me - maybe the reason they waited so long to sell Australian tour tix was bc they were waiting on an invite from the Billboards. If they had scheduled say a Melbourne date a couple days before - that would have nixed the Vegas trip.]

The ban on glowsticks unfortunately nixed one of the Army fanprojects, but BTS-Trans and AusArmy got banners printed for every seat which was great (the same ones they're holding in the official photo) and there were sections of the crowd wearing light-up headbands to form hearts. There was also a big standee outside the venue, which people were signing and leaving messages on. And there were a ton of fanartists at the venue hours beforehand, giving out stickers and fanart and showbags - which is not something I ever encountered in any other pop fandom before kpop. Kpop fans are organised as FUCK, and I respect that. [ETA 2: Oh ok. So it wasn’t as neat as all that. Gosh!]

So we got inside. Even before it started, the crowd was INTO it, as you'd expect, screaming for the MVs from the start and going wild for Blood Sweat & Tears.  They kicked off with Not Today and it was lit! I am not gonna go through every song but I do remember the first one at least!

Then some intro ments. Seokjin introduced himself as "worldwide handsome" WHAT A MEME oh my god. Hoseok's intro has indeed changed to "I'm your hope, you're my hope." Sobsob! Jimin saying "make some noise!" and then looking surprised/delighted whenever we did, indeed, make noise, was so cute.

At one point some fans threw some little paper thingies on stage? I was waaaayyyy too far away to see what they were but the band did pick them up and I think Hoseok and Jimin were showering Namjoon with them for a bit while singing the "mani mani mani!" line from BST, and I saw Taehyung pick up a whole handful and very carefully leaf through them. Would love to know what they had printed on them.

Some super quick thoughts on the solos:

Jungkook's Begin was a lot better than I expected? He can dance! He can dance really, really good! Gosh what breaking news haha. But yeah. The song isn't my fave but he was so charismatic and watchable.

Jimin's Lie was amazing. Blindfolds and being lifted up in the air and Jimin just doing his thing. He has such stage presence.

Yoongi's First Love, with a string quartet, and a piano he didn't play - this also isn't my favourite song but I found this visually really striking with the fire effects, and I could listen to Yoongi rap a phone book.

Namjoon's Reflection had such an interesting backdrop - the WHALE? And then the walk up the stairs into the phone booth - relatively little dancing made it seem quite unaffected and somehow, hmm, direct?

V's Stigma - I love that he emerged from the same phone booth. FASCINATING. Not my favourite song on record but like Begin, I was into seeing it live.

Hoseok's Mama - the intriguing VCR with the colours and the butterfly, and then sliding into the familiar opening of Mama, with the backdrop of Hoseok photos from childhood onwards - gosh, my heart. I know I'm a J-Hope stan through and through but REALLY it was so good.

Seokjin's Awake - the string quartet was back and this was just really simple and beautifully staged. I love Awake a lot, Idky because it's not my usual style. But I really like it and I love him.

Hoseok's Boy Meets Evil - I LOVE HIM SO MUCH OMG.

Also really loved Fire, Blood Sweat & Tears, the medley of older songs, CYPHER PART 4 YESSSSSS, Save Me, uhhhhh, I guess I liked everything.

At the ending ment, Jin referenced "worldwide handsome" AGAIN! How dare he! He also DRAMATICALLY REVEALED two heart wristbands and blew so many handkisses and smouldering looks to camera, good lord. Jin is a delight and KNOWS it.

Namjoon and Yoongi saying the crowd was "LEGIT" and repeating it a few times, very darling.

Namjoon saying it was a special show because it was their first after winning the Billboard - SO MANY SCREAMS AND EMOTIONS.

Namjoon doing the old classic "if I didn't live in Korea I'd love to live in Sydney" bless him. Though he says he has some friends and family here which is interesting.

All the ments were super cheesy and amazing. I remember particularly Jungkook saying Australia was far away but we'd always be together in his heart, awww. Namjoon introduced Taehyung as "Mr Alien".

Taehyung and Seokjin blowing kisses and smouldering looks to the camera as they left, bc of they did.

Hoseok seemed really tired or teary towards the end? Idk.

I don’t THINK the crowd was biased towards any one member? I couldn’t tell.

Someone threw an Aussie flag on stage and Jungkook caught it, put it down for a moment, and a security guard whisked it off stage and dropped it on the ground. LOL. (I have seen this characterised on tumblr as "Jungkook showed respect to the Australian flag which is not permitted to be worn as a garment" but ok lol I've seen plenty of Australians including athletes and ordinary people using the flag as a cloak.)

Lots of Asians in the crowd - mostly Asian I would say, similar to the other kpop shows I’ve been to - what a change from my usual shows where I'm part of the 5% non-white people lol. "Ah, so here is where we all are..." (For the nth time I wonder what it would've been like if I'd been into Asian pop when I was a teenager or early 20s when I was deep into my pop phase? Instead of all the really Western stuff I was into, both pop and indie. One reason why I think the Billboard award win, while meaning not a lot in one sense, could mean a lot in another. I never ever saw Asian celebs being covered in the press or treated as legit heartthrobs like that. If I were a kid today... yeah. Little things can matter a lot. It might've meant a lot to me as a teenager, seeing something like that.)

[fallenandthefaithless]

“I Wrote Myself Into It”: Authorial Intent and Writers in Supernatural

So I've seen a few posts floating around discussing how Mr Ketch's talk with Mary resembles Metatron in 9x18 and it was while trying to put my own thoughts about this together that I was struck by another thought. Throughout the series we've had several characters be storytellers and author stand-ins for the showrunners. It was while listing all of these characters that a theme became clear to me. All of these characters are telling us stories but as an audience we are either ignored or quietened. Until now.

This got rather long (oops)

We meet our first writer stand-in at the start of 4x18 'The Monster at the End of This Book' in the form of Chuck Shurley. It's  been discussed to death how Chuck is a stand-in for Kripke so I'm not going to go into it here.

Chuck is introduced to us reading aloud his work as he makes corrections, altering details to better suit his vision as he reads. Whilst we're being told the story we are never acknowledged – Chuck doesn't ever look into the camera the way others will in future episodes.

Chuck directly referencing/writing a story is seen again briefly in 4x22 and 5x22 when Chuck is or has already finished typing his stories "Lucifer Rising" and "Swan Song". While he never reads "Lucifer Rising" aloud to us, we do witness the characters take control of their story – a possible aside on how much the original plot outline has been changed in the series. In 5x22 we have Chuck's voice over at the start and end of the episode though, once again, we are ignored as he focuses on writing his story.

The next time we have a character talk to us is in 6x20 'The Man Who Would Be King' with Castiel looking directly at us as he says "Let me tell you my story. Let me tell you everything". This time around the audience is acknowledged by being directly looked at though we still don't have a chance to respond. We are being told a story and can only listen. God, who Cas was textually speaking to, isn't even present and doesn't respond.

We don’t have another writer stand-in until Metatron in 9x18 'Meta Fiction'. The episode opens with Metatron typing away on his typewriter in a mockery of Chuck before he looks up into the camera to address us.

What makes a story work? Is it the plot, the characters, the text? The subtext? And who gives a story meaning? Is it the author? Or you?

Not only are we acknowledged but we are even asked questions. However, this illusion of being involved doesn't last long and illusion it is as the camera reveals Cas to be tied to a chair and gagged, forced to listen to Metatron's story without being allowed to address any of the questions being raised.

Metatron typing away acts a callback to Chuck and highlights how, despite the questions being asked of Cas/the audience, the story has already been written and Metatron is currently rewriting it to suit his version better. He even burns a copy of the Winchester Gospels because though it may be his inspiration, it doesn't fit with the story he wants to tell.

In season 11 we have Chuck return after Amara has broken free of her restraints at the conclusion of season 10 and is running rampant, demanding retribution for the crimes committed against her.

Subtextually, what crimes could possibly have been committed at the end of season 10? If there was one thing that caused chaos and forced the writers to pay attention, going so far as to bring about the return of God, the original showrunners stand-in, it was the outcry at the death of Charlie Bradbury.

Throughout season 11 Amara desperately searches for God, wanting him to apologize for the wrongdoings he has committed, the wrongdoings he has been committing since the very beginning of the story – the unfair treatment of the minor characters. Going back as far as the pilot episode with the fridging of Mary Winchester, there has been a lack of justice for these characters and Charlie was the final straw. One only has to see the 2015 Supernatural Comic Con panel to see how badly it was received and how the writers coped with that fallout. But throughout season 11 we saw small changes being made; more explicitly queer characters (Jenna, Jesse, Cesar and Kat's mums), more female characters as big characters, new and returning (Jody, Donna, Alex, Claire, Amara, Billie, Rowena, Clea, Eileen, Mildred) and more characters of colour (Billie, Rufus, Clea) with decent roles. But it wasn't until the season 11 finale that they made the biggest apology. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In arguably the best episode of the season both Chuck and Metatron return, locking themselves up in a bar to work on Chuck's latest piece of work, safe from the chaos of the outside world which is only present through the televisions in the bar. Only on screens do they see anything happening whilst the audience witnesses everything as it happens to Sam and Dean.

Metatron proceeds to call Chuck out in one of his best speeches on the show:

You know, I was a crappy, terrible god. My work was pretty much a lame, half-assed rewrite of your greatest hits. But at least I was never a coward!

Metatron acknowledges that what he wrote was copied from Chuck's work, that the stories were all running in circles.

Chuck goes on to say that he is "done watching [his] experiments failures" to which Metatron rebuts "you mean your failures". He holds Chuck responsible for the failures of his stories – Metatron, after all, does admit he himself was a "terrible writer". The least Chuck can do is admit the same.

It is after this that Chuck turns the televisions on and tells Metatron to watch.

If you ask me, they're all reruns.

The chaos of the world is a "rerun". It's all happened before. And Chuck, our original creator, walks away. Metatron, however, who has been knocked down a peg or two by "his characters", looks on in horror at what has happened to the story.

In the next episode we face the first removal of a writer. Metatron's death.

Metatron has accepted his failures and now he seeks to help fix the problems he was implicit in and ends up paying with hi life. He faces the issue head on, and while he dies, he does so after his best attempt at redeeming himself. And Chuck is now left to face his own problems in the face of Lucifer and, subtextually, Cas.

Castiel, the easiest to unpack of the two, represents himself, the underappreciated main character who has been pushed to the side too many times.

Lucifer, as a left over of Kripke's era, represents all the loose ends left over from the earlier seasons – this is clear from Lucifer's lingering presence throughout the series despite the fact he was supposed to have been dealt with in season 5. While his main storyline – the apocalypse – is over, Lucifer hasn't ever really left the show. Just like many niggling plot holes.

So Dean's "We're gonna save Cas, we're gonna ice the devil and we're gonna shank the darkness and anyone gets in our way, well God help them" highlights the three main issues of the season – Cas' underappreciated presence on the show, the loose ends from seasons past and the fandoms displeasure with how things are being done. And they're all being thrown in Chuck's face at the end of the season.

So Chuck makes up with Lucifer, promises Cas will be safe and then turns to face the big "bad". Amara. But he just wants to lock her back up. He keeps repeating his previous mistakes but this time he doesn't get away with it. This time he's almost killed. It's interesting to note too, in light of this reading, that it was Amara who banished Lucifer and saved Cas.

In the end it is Dean who convinces Amara and Chuck to talk which results in Chuck apologizing for the injustices Amara has faced at his hands and the two peacefully leave the characters to be together. After, of course, Amara resurrects Mary – the personification of the injustices in the show and how they are being visited and fixed. We're on the B-Side now.

Which brings us to season 12.

After 12x09 many people wondered if Mick was going to be Dabb's stand-in but in 12x12 it is Mr Ketch who talks to the camera. Combining these two would suggest that it is the British Men of Letters who are Dabb's stand-in, which raised another interesting point I'll get to a little bit later.

First off, Mick.

12x09 opens with Mick typing away at his typewriter which instantly brings Metatron to mind. He then looks up and gives his "Let me paint you a picture" speech, trying to sell his vision to an unimpressed Wally. A lot of people have commented on how Wally appeared to be a John stand-in in 12x12 which would paint him as a more old-fashioned hunter. Wally proceeds to mock Mick and his "soft hands" before leaving. In other words, a hunter who resembles John Winchester, aka an old fashioned hunter better suited to the earlier seasons, mocks the story being described to him by our current showrunners stand-in. The "soft hands" comment threw me for a bit until I just took it at face value – Mick's not a fighter and that shows in his unblemished hands. The show isn't about throwing yourself into the middle of a world-ending battle anymore. It's about the smaller, emotional storylines.

At the end of the episode Mick tries again and this time Mary, the character who is the opposite to John and literally symbolizes the new story, was willing to listen to what Mick (Dabb) is offering.

In 12x12 it's Mr Ketch who talks to the camera but something interested me before he even looks at us. We get a lengthy shot showing Mr Ketch organizing his cup of tea before taking a sip and then he turns his attention to the camera. Why so much time dedicated to something so insignificant? It wasn't just to bring attention to his mug which is straight out of Reservoir Dogs. Making his cup of tea and sitting back show how Mr Ketch is willing to listen before he even says "Tell me a story". He's getting comfortable before giving the camera his undivided attention. He wants to hear this story.

"Tell me a story" he says to the camera and, for the first time, we the audience, as well as the character being addressed textually, are able to respond. Unlike Cas in 9x18, Mary is free to tell her story (ironically while dressed like Cas). Ketch listens without interrupting and at the end, shows how impressed he is. Mary, however, is not appeased.

I lost a friend. I almost lost one of my boys.

Mary almost lost of her boys. We almost lost one our boys. Mary and the audience are given the chance to vent to Ketch (Dabb) about how hurt we were by their actions and Ketch, as repentant as any writer, apologizes most insincerely.

One last thing, at first I was confused as to why Dabb would choose the BMoL as his stand-in – they aren't exactly likable. As I thought this over I remembered @argumentsagainstbideansuck post on authorial intent. It highlights how Supernatural is a postmodern text and how authorial intent means zilch:

"the entirety of seasons 4 and 5 (widely considered the show's best) are ALL ABOUT THE VIRTUE OF DEFYING 'THE AUTHOR' and "throwing out the script."

(Seriously, go read all of it – you will not regret it)

With this in mind, let's turn to the BMoL.

The BMoL came crashing onto the scene in 11x23 and tried to force their views onto the American hunters insisting that their way is the best way. They didn't stop there though – they tortured Sam and attacked/threatened out other main characters. (Pretty fitting for writers)

So why would Dabb use them as his stand-in?

Because authorial intent has no place in Supernatural because it is a postmodern text. The writers can't tell us how we are supposed to read the show. Our readings are valid and the characters revolting against the BMoL support this. They certainly don't want their way to be restricted by the BMoL. And while certain characters may be listening to them for now, that certainly won't last.

So after years of being ignored or gagged, we are finally not only being given a voice but are being listened to. Instead of the writers telling us to listen to their stories, we are being invited to tell our own. And Dabb is listening.

[kashuan]

In which I finally write a long ass post about all my grievances with the never ending shenanigans I see in the Iliad tag because I can’t take it anymore and needed to get it out tbh

Things y’all really need to stop doing, in no particular order: • Treating Clytemnestra like a Bad Bitch Feminist Icon #goals because she killed a character you don’t like. Know what she also was? Pretty hypocritical. Half her motive for killing Agamemnon is the mistreatment of their daughter, but guess what, Clytemnestra then goes on to treat 2/3 of her remaining children pretty much like shit. I suppose you could consider Electra to be an unreliable narrator in terms of her relating how coldly she was treated at home, but the facts don’t lie in that Cly let her new hubby Aegisthus pass Electra off to be married to some peasant so that she and her children would die without any power and wouldn’t be able to take revenge. It’s pretty indisputable though that her treatment of her son Orestes was flat out terrible. As a child, Orestes has to go into exile, as it’s implied Aegisthus would have had him killed otherwise. Cly just Lets This Happen. When Orestes returns to murder both her and Aegisthus as instructed by Apollo, Clytemnestra entreats him with a set of pretty flimsy excuses. Here’s a part from The Libation Bearers:

CLYTAEMESTRA Have you no regard for a parent's curse, my son?

ORESTES You brought me to birth and yet you cast me out to misery.

CLYTAEMESTRA No, surely I did not cast you out in sending you to the house of an ally.

ORESTES I was sold in disgrace, though I was born of a free father. CLYTAEMESTRA Then where is the price I got for you? ORESTES I am ashamed to reproach you with that outright.

Furthermore, she attempts to manipulate Orestes by entreating him to spare her because she is his mother, the one who nursed him, yet we know that this wasn’t actually done by her, and since a young age she has been completely absent in his life otherwise. When Orestes finally does kill her, this girl cannot even let it go at that but essentially makes sure he’s haunted by demons for the rest of his life. Talk about #petty, not even Agamemnon took it that far. So this character who's set up as like Badass Mama Bear is actually….not. Post Iphigenia at Aulis Clytemnestra is actually pretty self-serving, but not in the sort of way that should be admired. I think Clytemnestra is a great flawed character. Please no more ‘my perfect queen deserved better’ posts. I’m beggin’ ya. Read more than a summary of like 1/4th of her history and then let’s talk. • So I’m gonna follow this up with my long stewing Agamemnon Apologist rant (you: yikes me: Buckle Up). I’d like to begin this by saying we can all definitely agree that this man is a garbageboy stinkman. No arguing that. I love a good ‘Agamemnon is an asshole’ joke as much as the next guy. HOWEVER, when, when will I be free from posts that act like this character is honestly so completely one dimensional, that jokes about it comprise literally 98% of the tag. Where are the actually interesting meta posts that consider things about him beyond JUST being a dumpster of a man. For example, we know he was at least a half-decent bro. In book 4 of the Iliad, Menelaus basically scrapes his knee and Agamemnon essentially calls a T.O. on the entire war because HIS BROTHER, OK!!! Like yeah, he also includes a hilariously selfish line in that part that Menelaus can’t bite it because then he will be disgraced when he goes home, but the point stands. Further evidence of these having a tight relationship can be found in the Iphigenia at Aulis play. After the two of them have had a savage as hell argument about whether or not to sacrifice Iphigenia, taking some serious pot shots at each other, they have this exchange

MENELAUS I’ve changed, and I’ve changed because I love you, brother. I’ve changed because of my love for my mother’s son.  It’s a natural thing for men with decent hearts to do the decent thing. AGAMEMNON I praise you, Menelaus for these unexpected words, proper words, words truly worthy of you.  Brothers fight because of lust and because of greed in their inheritance. I hate such relationships; they bring bitter pain to all.

 I think Agamemnon’s relationship with Menelaus is actually one of the more interesting ones among the cast because he is both in a way protective yet also very controlling of his brother. Here and Here are a couple of fantastic essays on their dynamic and the way it differs from source to source. While on the subject of the play Iphigenia at Aulis and my favorite problematic fav getting the short end of the stick from fandom, can I just say that the majority of retellings, posts, and so on about this particular event ARE TERRIBLE? I’m so tired of seeing it depicted as though Agamemnon just killed his daughter like some afterthought, possibly while twirling his mustache like a cartoon villain. There is so, SO much more nuance to that scene and it kills the man when I see how no one ever discusses it in favor of just saying lol Agamemnon’s a dick, so anyway. Iphigenia herself is actually one of the best sources we have for the fact Agamemnon probably had more than a grand total of zero good traits. The relationship between the two is obviously a very close one and on the whole we get the sense that, aside from the whole killing his daughter thing (ya) he was actually a good dad. Like an inverse Clytemnestra :,). The scene where Iphigenia first speaks with Agamemnon is particularly telling of what was probably their normal relationship. IPHIGENIA What’s wrong, daddy?  You say you’re happy to see me but your face looks worried! AGAMEMNON A king, darling, a General is always worried. IPHIGENIA Make your worries go away, daddy. From now on, think only of me. AGAMEMNON Yes, my darling. I shall think of nothing else but you from now on IPHIGENIA Well then, get rid of this ugly frown from the face that I love so much! AGAMEMNON There! Oh, what a joy it is to see you, Iphigeneia! IPHIGENIA But… but look at you, father! Full of joy and yet tears flow from your eyes…AGAMEMNON Yes, dear… because our separation will be a long one.

Is he still a completly awful man for having sacrificed her? Yes. Completely. But here’s a few factors that play into this decision that I never see anyone, ever, mention: -It is Agamemnon’s intention to send Iphigenia away, to save herself, at the last minute, but Menelaus intercepts the letter meant to warn her of her fate. -Charismatic Odysseus has a good deal of control over the soldiers at this point and was probably looking to further increase his popularity among them (a consistent theme-- see: when he’s ready to shank his bff Diomedes just to be the only one to bring home a trophy from Troy instead of both of them). One can imply that if Agamemnon didn’t go through it, he would have done it himself -- and Agamemnon knew that (he mentions as much). -Gods are terrifying, my dudes. Treating it as though he could have just said ‘naw’ to Artemis’ order for Iphigenia’s death and gone home expresses a pretty fundamental lack of understanding how the Greeks feared the gods and just what the stakes likely already were by that point. Artemis was already pissed that he killed one of her sacred deer so it wasn’t as though she was just like ‘you can either sacrifice your daughter or go home unscathed’. I’ve only seen one other retelling accurately capture what very likely would have happened if Agamemnon didn’t go through with it: Artemis likely would have retaliated at the disrespect against the men and probably his family. Furthermore, the soldiers had already been stranded at Aulis for months on end-- a mutiny was exceedingly likely if they found out what was going on, one in which where they probably would have harmed not only him but also Clytemnestra and baby Orestes who came with Iphigenia. These two facts are more conjecture, but it’s a pretty plausible estimate and I’ve seen several scholarly essays arrive at the same conclusion.  If you’d actually like to see a depiction of Agamemnon that is both incredibly sympathetic yet does not shy away either from showing how terrible what he did was, please watch the 1977 Iphigenia movie. One of my favorite movies in general. Honestly I feel I could make a giant essay out of My Feelings on this particular subject alone so I’ll wrap it now because I have a lot of other stuff I want to get to, though I’ll include one final pet peeve: the amount of people who call Agamemnon trash because he was Sexist. You know who else was a Meninist? Every single goddamn man in ancient Greece. Okay, I’ll give a pass to characters like Patroclus and Hector when it comes to the women front because all we see is them being pretty decent. But like. Otherwise??? Sure, just because everyone is that way doesn’t make it any less shitty-- I’m not arguing that. But it’s also like reading a novel focused on an entire group of mobsters, but calling out only one of them as Problematic for being a criminal. Like, my dudes...  TL;DR: Agamemnon is a dick jokes are funny and completely deserved but throw in a few posts here and there that actually suggest you might have read more than just Book 1 of the Iliad and nothing else. Character depth is your friend. • That said, for the love of god, stop writing Menelaus like he’s just Agamemnon 2.0. A lot of adaptions do this because they don’t seem to know what to do with his character (I’m lookin’ @ u most of all Troy though he suffers some form of this in almost all film adaptions...) Which is a shame because Menelaus as a character is a lot more (and better) than that. From what we do know, Menelaus was actually (relatively speaking) a pretty chill guy and one of the least problematic out of these assholes (y’know, minus that scene I mentioned above with Iphigenia, but hey...at least he admits he fucked up?). We know that Helen voluntarily chose him to be her husband. We know that Helen wanted to return home to him by the time the Iliad takes place. We know they got back together after the war and more or less lived happily ever after. So why do I keep seein’ all these posts about Helen hating him or about him being another warmonger like Agamemnon. Menelaus was a Decent Dude. Leave him alone :,| • Speaking of Helen, how many times am I going to read “feminist” retellings where she either is totally indifferent to or even wanted the war to happen, where she enjoys watching men die, where she ~reclaims~ her demigoddess power and is A Figure To Be Feared. What Helen is this??? Because in the Iliad, Helen is remorseful af about all the people she’s indirectly responsible for the deaths of. There are more ways to build up and strengthen female characters than to make them just like the men they despise. Just. Saying. I get that people want to free her from the damsel in distress role she’s essentially relegated to, me too, but that is NOT the way to do it. Girl can be strong willed but still have a great amount of empathy. As with essentially every other bullet point above, please just give these characters more than one dimension. • Also, how many times am I gonna have to read about The One Fellow Female (Helen or Clytemnestra usually) who believes Cassandra’s prophecies in order to emphasize like, girl power, or that the author feels sorry for Cass and want to project that onto some other character or something. Dude, she was cursed not to be believed. PERIOD. BY ANYONE. There was no clause in the curse for like “except someone who really thinks you’re swell”. It’s tragic because there are no exceptions. No one believes her. NO ONE. THE END. • Achilles was bi. Bi af (by modern standards, of course). See: Iphigenia, Deidamia, Briseis, Polyxena, Penthesilea… I totally get this movement of wanting to call Achilles gay because for so long he and Patroclus have gotten the ‘just guys bein’ dudes’ treatment from scholars. I think it’s absolutely fantastic that potential element of his character is more widely recognized and accepted now. However, I can’t help but get these really uncomfy biphobia feels when I read all the posts about how gay he is, as if liking women makes his relationship with Patroclus less legitimate. That was one thing about TSOA which also really disappointed me-- it had to pull that yaoi fanfic trope of ‘girls are so icky and gross’ in order to further sell how convinced you should be of the same sex relationship. It’s just, Bad And Not Good. Finally, I feel like y’all are so busy hating Agamemnon and shoving off every single bad character trait into existence onto him, that Achilles is always ultimately depicted as this #relatable teen who did nothing wrong except get a little too upset when his bf died. May I remind you of just a few things Achilles also did: -Indirectly got a lot of men killed by refusing to fight during his quarrel with Agamemnon -Had 12 innocent children killed when Patroclus died -Basically everything involving Troilus. From wikipedia: [Achilles] is struck by the beauty of both [Polyxena and Troilus] and is filled with lust. It is the fleeing Troilus whom swift-footed Achilles catches, dragging him by the hair from his horse. The young prince refuses to yield to Achilles' sexual attentions and somehow escapes, taking refuge in the nearby temple. But the warrior follows him in, and beheads him at the altar before help can arrive. The murderer then mutilates the boy's body. Some pottery shows Achilles, already having killed Troilus, using his victim's severed head as a weapon as Hector and his companions arrive too late to save him. The mourning of the Trojans at Troilus' death is great. -Just straight up fucking murders a guy for making fun of him after he just murdered someone else. "Achilles, who fell in love with the Amazon [Penthesilea] after her death, slew Thersites for jeering at him" I’m sure there’s more receipts like this. So like. Can we throw in a couple posts now and then among the Agamemnon ones about Achilles, who was Problematic for far more reasons than just sulking in his tent :,) ...Okay. I think that’s it. FOR NOW. I guess I’ll end this by saying half of this is just my own opinion and I recognize that people can interpret and retell these stories and characters however they want to. It’s when it becomes so consistent however that people treat it like it is The One True Canon when it’s actually not that my jimmies get a bit rustled. [/END RANT]

[dwestfieldblog]

SU SUNG’S COSMICS ENGINE!

More guerilla ontology (or as much as I can manage in a few pages)...Utopiate! Meanwhile, right here...the snakes of Orion continue their battle with the wolves of Sirius...Indeed do a multiple of conspiracies contend in the night. And in broad bare faced daylight too. Am I kidding? How seriously should you take a comedian? In Arabic, the words poet, prophet and madman are all interchangeable. I am none of these things. Hello. Being, distracted by 'reality'...Anyway...'Shepherdess no temptation that Poussin Teniers hold the key peace 681 by the cross and this horse of God I complete this daemon guardian at noon blue apples.' Ok?

'....Or was the final secret simply and bluntly, that there really is an interstellar ESP channel, to which you can tune in by meta programming your nervous system?'  (RAW) Anyone heard any new transmissions from UMMO recently? 

Been listening to several long lectures from the Psychedelic Salon podcasts  with Lorenzo, only found it two weeks ago on Archive.org. Endless fascination via Dr Terrance ('I'm somewhat immune to paranoia, so those of you who aren't...gaze in wonder') McKenna, the Beats, Leary, Hakim Bey and of course Robert Anton Wilson, jewels of human/cosmic wisdom/humour. A nice idea recommending more scientists, doctors and architects etc take mushrooms. (micro dosing in Silicon Valley had significantly positive results in problem solving.) Of course research into this was closed down as soon as drug companies got wind of it and ran to the various governments they help fund in return for brutal legislation against this.  

How many of us are 'criminals' simply because the donors to those who lead us do not want their programmes interrupted by anything they cannot control and pay for laws to be passed? Millions. Oil barons, weapons manufacturers, drug companies, fundamentalist religions all hindering our evolving in the name of greed for money and power. Obvious to say. Give 'em all mushrooms, deepen their perception, widen their truth, change their minds and open their hearts? (Pause for sardonic grin.) Those who feel powerless get used to being treated like cattle. And those used to getting their own way at the expense of others enjoy it and will continue.

And speaking of stasis and decay...America stepping heavily on its own dick again in Alabama with their abortion law, don't matter none if the foetus is caused by rape and/or incest...for it is surely against the will of God even though HE (arf) gave us free will. Bullburgers to that. The one who carries it, gives birth to it and is (in the majority of cases from the year dot) feeds and raises it, has The Right. Not God, man or the 'law'. Equal rights? Some men have never been equal to women. Some of us may have bigger muscles and better logic fnord but that is only enough for a certain type of survival. Life, liberty and the glorious pursuit of our penis...'Man is a fool, and woman, for tolerating him, is a damn fool'.Mark Twain wrote that. Bill Hicks had it right years ago...put all the unwanted babies on the steps of the courthouse and let the judges who pass such foul laws raise them. As one of the placards of the women outside the State House in (Sweet Home) Alabama read: 'Senators' mistresses and daughters will always have their abortion choice rights'.

Reminds me of an old song by Consolidated...'If you don't want a Nazi in your house, don't let one, don't know a fundamentalist till you've met one, if you memorized your civil rights, don't forget one, if you don't want an abortion, DON'T GET ONE! ...Do you think women want to kill their own babies...if you've got your own twisted baggage then maybe...'

The USA is 9.6 Million km squared with 328 million people, China has 17 million km squared and 1.4 billion people. Soon to be implanted with chips from Huawei, hi hi hi... 'A tyrant does not make his tyranny possible. It is made possible by the people and not otherwise'. Jack Parsons. On the desolate anniversary of Tienanmen Square today, it doesn't look as if the tyranny there is going to vanish for another few decades...and in America either/or maybe...

More religious news...The recent (ish) new law in Brunei where homosexuality was to be punishable by stoning to death has now been rescinded in the face of a small worldwide outcry. Ordained in the Koran, another holy book dictated by god to a chosen human, so no need at all to worry about being misinterpreted and getting lost in translation eh? A clear and perfect relay of information where an Infinite Being commands that no man may cuddle another man on pain of execution. Murder being acceptable when Big Daddy says so. The eternal and (non corporeal) Punishing Father figure. Ufff and a charming photo of a priest with a couple of young boys beside him burning Harry Potter books in Poland because apparently JK Rowling is working for Satan. No matter that the morals in her books are based on good triumphing over evil thanks to self sacrifice, friendships and the desire to save the world from badness. It has WITCHES and WIZARDS in it and magic and alchemy. No matter that Christ learned much of his healing and wisdom from John the Essene who also practised such things. Burning books...how quaint. Only fundamentalists, nazis and the scientific community (when faced with Wilhelm Reich's life work) do this. Well I only liked Snape anyway. And...fairy tales are now banned from many schools in Spain. More Roman Catholic common sense in action.  

Sudan and Libya raging again, encouraged by the Kremlin (but to be fair to them, they had plenty of useful lessons from watching the CIA at work in the seventies and eighties) Destabilisation is always a good way of creating power vacuums and making sure your chosen puppet ascends to the throne made of the skulls and gold of enemies. Kim Wrong Un took the slow train to meet Baldhead...the Pilsbury cheese dough boy now fat enough to feed an entire North Korean family living on donkeys and grass. Almost funny but mostly truly Disgusting. 43 percent of the populace (according to this years UN report) are suffering from malnutrition...600 escapees have given gave evidence. Tie him down to a feasting table...

Still amuses me (although with gathering darkness) that in seeking to regain 'control' of their own countries, so many are following the populists with their bigoted and fascist ideas, oblivious that the leaders of such parties are mostly being funded via the Kremlin. Speaking of which, nice to see the always decent and rational libertarian Steve Bannon assisting Le Pen in France. How many in Britain think that the Russian government is doing a good job? Are they thinking at all, or just looking forward to the chlorine washed chicken, hormone injected beef and genetically modified maize soon to pollute our green and pleasant fracked land from America? Yum yum yum, yab yab yab...

To be born British, is to win first prize in the lottery of life'. Cecil Rhodes. If blonde Boris wins, I will be VERY tempted not to get a new UK passport, I pray heartily that the the British people are truly not so mindwreckingly stupid to choose such a proven liar and self serving bullshit merchant. Inexcusable if they do as the USA.

The president speaks with a reptile tongue, trump behaving exactly as a chimpanzee alpha as shown on anthropological tv and in Reicheian psychology...loudest voice blaming other skin types for disease and crime etc. You are a foul stain sir, a smear on on the windows of perception. However, a Hansard Society survey was published by The Times...it seems that more than half of Britons now want to be led by a political 'strongman' who is 'willing to break the rules'. I have been writing and saying for the last thirty years that the political situation in the UK has been piece by piece, organised to influence the people to vote into office what I always called a British Stalin. Because everyone (most) are now SO deeply enraged with useless 'public servants', it would be a highly logical step and a simple way to democratically elect such a person. I expect either the next or next next prime minister to be the One. And then we can only hope that a V for Vendetta type scenario plays out before too many are rounded up and vanished. 

Worth inserting a longish salient quote from Robert Anton Wilson’s book Everything is Under Control; ‘...Dr (Willheim) Reich vastly offended many people by his sociological theory, which holds that fascism is just an exaggerated form of of the basic structure of sex-negative socities and has existed under other names in every civilization based on sexual repression. In this theory, the character and muscular armor of the average citizen -  a submissive and frightened attitude anchored in body reflexes- causes the average person to want a strong authority figure above them. Tyranny, in this model, is not created by tyrants alone but by neurotic masses who want tyrants. This quite possibly maybe explains much about the mentality of various countries and who they have (and continue to chose) chosen as their leaders.

Extinction Rebellion...sun shields in space? Forests of artificial trees to vacuum the Co2? hmmm...Biodiversity, a million species dying and unlikely to be saved, links in the chain being removed one by one thousand. Hard to be an optimist in the face of humanity knowingly getting to this point, having been told and shown over and over again. Dammed liberal atheist scientists spreading facts and proof just to get funding for their pet global warming projects eh? Take a look at all those who are against cutting carbon emissions, reducing arms and speak in favour of fracking, drilling for oil, deeper landfills (out of sight out of mind) genetically modified food etc and see whether there is common theme in their linguistics and behaviour patterns. Short term gain at the expense of the future and an almost evil approach to humanity. As if they have read The Power of Now and taken all the wrong inferences from it. Optimism takes will power, use it or lose it says the hyper manic 'realist', constantly looking for the next possible negative, reductio ad absurdum...

Loving diversity and collages (and goulash) I firmly believe in mixing the races and religions, (wherever and whenever and if ever they choose to intermarry... blend them all. Humanity will not become one homogeneous lump but a mass group of those evolved beyond the manipulations based on such, recognising the old hippy truth of one world and multi dimensions. The new wave or particle, depending what instrument of sense you use to perceive the phase transition. 'A society grows great when old men plant trees, whose shade they know they shall never sit in'..... 'If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?' Rumi

False users/sock puppets on facebook and twitter, ranting robots turned lose with a tap of a finger and blackmail swindles...One recent email to me in Chinese had two words in English, one of which was 'Bitcoin'. Translated, it read that the writer had my passwords and would release my browser history to all in my address book unless several thousand bitcoins were sent to an account. A month later a further email in bad English from a presumed female told me she had filmed our last sexual encounter years ago and all the depraved things we did...this too would be made public unless...Well good luck to you darling, porn comedies are always worth watching. Just as research of course. Ho was the Chinese god of laughter...

The Instagram suicide of the unhappy Malaysian teenage girl who asked in an on-line poll whether she should kill herself or not. 70percent of her followers said 'Do it' and are now facing arrest. Since day one of me first looking at the internet and the comments on twitter, youtube et al, it was immediately apparent just how many web users are dumb/souldead and have nothing to offer of any goodness. On all the online places where I exist in a twilight world, the comments are disabled. I make no money from my music or writing, I do it because I wish to and enjoy it...and already know I am an idiot without being told. (I I I...yuck, have to get back to E Prime and remove I and Is, life seems to deepen with freedom and happiness when this method is   (damn) applied.) I wish a safe journey with love to the girl for next time, never listen to those who are heartless. Vampires all.

Meanwhile...inside the epic of Gilgamesh and still swinging like an ape from the Golden Bough, the mind observing the mind, the heart feeling the heart, walking the May time streets dizzy with waves of empathy, going home to re-balance...from philosophy in the bedroom, to the universe next door, my flat with traces of lavender, cinnamon and patchooli with a hint of vanilla, coffee and yesterday night's marijuana smoke. A day of preparing and next morning early up the hill alone to the sunlit portal, half and half crossover, transmit and receive. Time dissolved the time dissolved, all in a dilation of an hour arf. Dionysus, Aphrodite and Apollo, walking hand in hand through the apocalypse...laughing with intent...'The uncanny...is just the right hemisphere's way of violently capturing our attention'. RAW.

I was given Oak, Holly and Hornbeam in a rescue remedy by a wise woman in a wooden room. A month after this cure for creeping horror, she gave me a bottle of good Irish Whiskey for my birthday, which (in spite of my liver and pancreas) was too beautiful to resist. Steadily drank it over the next three days of resurrection along with some high grade weed. In spite of how a lot of my writing may come across,  I hadn't smoked grass/dope since late 1994, yes really. Now I find I can multi task with total focus on all, listening to two hour lectures while listening to instrumental music, reading from a Kindle and writing at the same time. This works for about 150 minutes and then I need to go and lie down to dream,:-)

Information gathering speed until it becomes energy. Lost among the octaves.... inverted comas, images flash and then dissolve, they melt to universal. Nothing exists until it is perceived. The 'universe' didn't explode as such, but came through. Black holes inverted until gravity/pressure built up waves of energy and gave birth through the hole. All 'Illumination' ideas come from genetic/subatomic memory and the babys' memory of being born into the light. The process is repeated endlessly in infinite multidimensional loops. A chain of eternal creation and evolution. Easy eh?:-) And don't forget, a journey of a million aeons begins with but a single trip...

'Opinions result from perceptions and perceptions reinforce opinions which then further control perceptions, in a repeating loop that logic can never penetrate.' Stasis and decay result unless a little shock of the new is introduced one way or the other to 'startle the brain enough to reframe its experiences. Be aware of the God. If you are timid enough to stop with what is natural, Nature will elude your grasp forever' de sade. Who defines what is natural? Any old perverted psychopath with a quill pen? Take it easy or give it hard...

Our universe consists of 'non simultaneously apprehended events', which we process, interactively. This means we need to update our data often, in order to survive and evolve. The problem comes with those who just close down, especially dogmatic fundamentalists, when they believe they have found 'the truth'... The conspiracy of counter evolution stems from them. Keep updating your data...all the way back to the cosmic giggle )+(