#he’s also TOTALLY willing to exploit the consumers

[cipheramnesia]

The Menu, to me, is such a fascinating movie. I'm going to come back to it and watch the way it's filmed more carefully. but the first time through is such a tantalizing and layered discussion about work, wealth, and inevitably life under capitalism.

What I particularly love about it is that at a very surface level reading it offers a sort of "introduction to systemic inequality," an easy to swallow metaphor of humanity literally consumed by exploitation to the point of annihilation, wrapped around a peppy little survivor girl finale. For me, stripping away all the tasty deeper subtext, it still fulfills the most basic component of a popular film, which is "having a good time." You do not need to try and "get it," you can simply enjoy it by itself if you like.

However, as soon as we get into the finicky details of the movie, especially our "final girl," it starts to get really interesting because the initial surface metaphor starts to fall apart and demand a more complex level of thought. (This will feature some spoilers.)

What I find fascinating is that our protagonist is a sex worker. The entire grand metaphor proposed by our chief antagonist, the chef, is you can divide the world into the served and servers. He has arranged what he thinks is a perfect and flawless illustration of this grand truth, and one unforeseen change fully undermines his entire thesis. She's a worker who provides a service, she's someone getting served by workers in the process of that service. Her job and her life weaves between both worlds and although it's possible to make some larger sweeping generalization, to do so would take the nuance away from the lived reality of most people who are at once point or another both things. This undermining of the chef's thesis is very much the point of the movie, not to suggest there is no class or wealth inequality, but rather as an entry into moving past the surface level binary view of "haves and have nots" into a more complex idea of how wealth and power affects people in different places of the hierarchy.

The movie itself presents each new act as a new item on the menu, which is a well-considered choice, as each step forward reveals more information that builds the complexity of the ideas in the movie and whets your appetite to consider it further. The plot, the characters, and the action in the film progress in a way that mirrors the kind of experience the menus title cards before each segment are describing. The restaurant itself being totally isolated, with every employee committed to their jobs with a cultish intensity lays a groundwork for the production of the idea that individual lives are disposable not just in the literal sense, but metaphorically, a quick sketch of the modern expectations of a workforce by capitalist society to consider their personal lives as disposable in comparison to their jobs. Ralph Fiennes' casting as the chef adds a kind of metatextual level to the proceedings, as he himself is an aspirational actor for many other working actors in the film industry. The way he is worshiped by his devout employees while viewed as someone meant to perform on demand by his employers is the kind of deeper exchange that our modern hierarchy expects from us. You can find a higher place in the world so long as you are always willing to trade yourself to anyone who can afford to purchase you.

This level of exchange, where we as individuals are the actual consumable goods in some way is more at the heart of the Menu than a simple binary division of class. It is also the reason to have a protagonist who is, in a literally sense, her own medium of exchange. The surface metaphor of everything as transactional and finite is deliberately broken time and again, because the antagonist, a chef, is unable to see a world more complex than his own route of understanding it, through food and cooking. He sees everything as abstracted, consumable without any possibility of restoration, resources as something which can only be exchanged but never increased or distributed. He is not the villain in the movie, that role remains with characters like the stockbrokers, the old wealthy gentleman, and our protagonist's date for the evening. But he is the antagonist because of his fundamental idea of the world aligning with the villains (even while ostensibly there to kill them) and in conflict with the fundamentally reasonable position of our protagonist, that she ought to live.

I would enjoy dissecting The Menu scene by scene because there's simply so much going on in it, for me personally. I think there's something excruciatingly interesting to be said about the protagonist being a sex worker, in particular because the movie itself does not chose to view this in an exploitative way, but rather uses it to serve the larger idea that humanity cannot, in fact, be broken down into a consumable resource alone - that giving of yourself does not mean a loss to yourself. I also believe there is a distinct turning point in the movie where Ralph Fiennes sits down at a table, which is to me a huge change. It is the movie making an effort to draw a line under the real thesis, that even the antagonist who insists throughout the movie that he exclusively exists as one who serves, who gives himself up one bite at a time until he is exhausted, even he is someone who cannot exist in his own idea of a false binary.

The chef here is not wrong in recognizing the existence of exploitation, or even necessarily incorrect in his ideas of addressing it through violently usurping those in power. I would argue that overall the conclusion of The Menu doesn't disagree with the notion of hierarchical exploitation innate to modern society. If anything, it serves to illustrate even more how much this trend is ultimate a downward spiral of inevitable and total destruction.

However, it is a movie that is meant to be optimistic, a movie about hanging on to our human connections even when we have some exchange between each other. It's about caring for other people, caring about what they do for us, or caring about what we do for others. The conclusion, and our survivor girl, are a recognition of that hope and that potential which still exists.

(edited from bad casting memory)

[casimania]

I have two version of Finas and Casimiro’s Sires but then their versions branch off again because I never settled on one thing.

Casimiro’s fucked in both. Either accidentally turned by a vampire on the run or feral and abandoned to fend for himself. Or batshit bastard who turned specific people and kept them under his thrall. Casimiro despised him and he still didn’t teach him anything, just mistreated him and the other fledglings (he had a lot. Normally vampires have a few and is seen as a big deal).

Both tie in with my different Casimiro’s backstories: either abandoned at birth, growing up among orphans only to be left to to fend off for himself pretty young. Cue being sired and left on his own again by the Sire who got murked after the fact (it would be hilarious if someone pointed out the similarities between Conrad and him).

Or middle child of a wealthy family born from a cheating escapade from his other which ended up with her lover running away with the news of a child, he was resented by both of his parents, home situation was a total nightmare and he took off on his own after something traumatic happened, only to have a nightmare Sire. Extremely, old, paranoid, territorial and unhinged, decided he was gonna make a coven of entirely vampires he turned himself but there didn’t seem to be any rhime or reason to who he chose. Like, Casimiro did nothing but give him hell but his Sire exploited their bond and kept him under his thumb. Was a mighty good enforcer tho cause he had so much pent up anger. Meeting Finas was his downfall because he was just passing by and Casimiro’s Sire decided he had some nefarious plan and wanted him obliterated. Finas wasn’t as old but definitely more stable and quick on his feet, and Casimiro had spent the last few decades training himself to defy his Sire’s compulsions in little ways which culminated in him being able to do straight up refuse him long enough he got distracted and Finas and him obliterated him.

Here Casimiro isn’t a fresh vampire, he’s just either almost as old or as old as Finas, he was just kept in the dark about most vampire things and Finas is slightly horrified, he has the nice Sire in this version. Like, Casimiro was able to straight up go against his Sire’s bond which is very hard to do but doesn’t know how to consistently turn into a bat or fly, which is like fledgling 101. Also I hc the bond is very strong at first and can be used to track each other down (not quite telepathy but you feel a pull and sort of feel pit each others moods) and the Sire can give their fledgling compulsions, it’s supposed to fade away with time and as the fledgling grows stronger but it can be kept strong by consuming one Sire’s blood. Some vampires do it as a sign of respect or trust, Finas and his Sire did it willingly (I’d go out on a limb and say they consumed each others blood, it’s not necessary for the Sire to do so but it’s an extra step to show mutual respect).

Finas got the better end of the stick once, where he was willingly turned into a vampire by someone who he considered a friend. Bleak Still better than Casimiro but not ideal where he’s unwillingly turned by who he saw as a friend.

First instance he live a bleak life in a bleak place as a serf and his turning was willing after some years of getting older while his Sire kept visiting him. Fear on of the Unkown held him back for a while but after years the sheer shittiness of his life won over. Their relationship varies between mentor/mentee and surrogate father/son. Is Sire died in a traumatic way protecting him and Finas never really got over the guilt.

Second version Finas is of a little higher social standing but not enough to experience any true agency in his life. Like still old as fuck but a freeman at the very least. OR I make him way younger, not horrific life that’s not at all what he’d want though and oppressive controlling father who puts enormous amount of responsibility on his shoulders to better their situation, also repressed homosexual this one specifically. Here he still looked up to his vampire friend and disliked his life but in a resigned way, like things are this way because they’re supposed to and there’s nothing I can do about it. For his Sire he was a bit of a pet project, like the moment he got to know Finas he was sure he was going to make a perfect vampire, he just needed some persuasion and they could go on their merry way.

He asked Finas once and he refused, citing not wanting to abandon his wife to fend off for herself or some sort of misplaced duty to his family name in case of a little higher up Finas, or just plain old religious fear, this Finas kinda wants to say yes but feels like he can’t or shouldn’t. Got asked a second time and he still refused albeit more weakly, third Sire time didn’t even ask he just forced it on Finas, straight up “I know you want this, it’s for your own good trust me *nom*” (he didn’t really see Finas as a full person until becoming a vampire, but he saw him as having the potential). Finas went down kicking, screaming and begging. He resented the whole situation because he could have agreed with time, maybe not on his Sire’s terms and time, but he could have at some point. About this his Sire had been right, he enjoyed his new life way better… not how he was introduced to it though, or how it ruined his perception of his friend.

They had a strict mentor/mentee deal after that because Finas felt pretty lost and clung to the part of him that felt grateful, like he was right in the end wasn’t he? He went off on his own at first but didn’t know up from down and his Sire tracked him down and offered his help again, Finas just got resigned to that too like everything else in his life. His human life was marked by a lack of agency in important parts of it and then the beginning of his vampire one was just another loss of agency. Just put more walls and got used to that too. It took Casimiro centuries later to shake some life back into him. Lost his marbles for the first time, talking about screaming crying and losing his humanity and cursing his Sire. He hadn’t done this since right after being turned. Casimiro found it entertaining, Finas less so.

My usual is older Finas and younger Cas but I also kinda vibe the idea of older Casimiro who pieces things together over the years because he had no guidance and doesn’t know the full extent of being a vampire, while Finas had been a vampire for way less but went through the whole crash course with his Sire before he died. Like Casimiro is baffled at something Finas does and Finas talks to him about it and says his Sire taught him that Casimiro’s like “Your what now?” and Finas is baffled cause Casimiro doesn’t know shit about being a vampire not even the basics yet he was thriving.

(also firstbump @trion-revolutionary for old ass serf Finas with a nice Sire and Casimiro being accidentally turned and left to fend for himself. A classic)

[romilly-jay]

Comparing Apples and ?? Crab-Apples??

The Guard (2011) // I Care A Lot (2021) // Wuthering Heights (1847)...

***spoilers***

CW: Oh my goodness so much bad behaviour across all of these, but specifically - The Guard: murder, cancer, death, suicide, drugs, drug-smuggling, discussion of torture, prostitution, and strong language // I Care A Lot: murder, exploitation of vulnerable people, violence, threats, violence against women, violence generally, mafia // Wuthering Heights: terrible, terrible people, coercive control, unhealthy relationships, various kinds of cruelty, and more death.

TLDR: I guess people have different tolerances for different kinds of poor behaviour in the fiction/art we consume and, um, should feel the freedom to choose what we do/don't consume accordingly.

Well, I *have* heard of fiction and - YET - my personal experience with WH was that I hate-read Wuthering Heights as a mid-teenager in one immense, skim-reading session because my mother had bought it for me as a present and told me that I would love it and I kept stubbornly hanging on for the part where that would be true.

(I have subsequently accepted that M and I have wildly divergent tastes and the best indication that either one of us will violently dislike a thing is when the other one turns out to really like it.)

Fair point that perhaps we're in a context where many of us are Not Great and Getting Less Great at being able to differentiate between character and actor or character and author. Quite possible that someone would enjoy WH and still have the common sense to cut ties with anyone IRL who behaved in the same register as Heathcliff.

I can see the value of art forms that include or even focus on unlikeable characters. Totally willing to believe there are people who love these forms of creative expression and seek them out.

BUT

For me - it's not that I *can't* spend time with the character Heathcliff, it's that I don't WANT to. My time is precious. I don't feel like torturing myself. There's more to read than I'll ever get to and I just DON'T feel bad about letting myself off suffering through particular pieces of cultural capital that don't appeal to me.

Which brings me to The Guard vs I Care A Lot.

I Care A Lot was facing a bit of an uphill battle because I'd been manoeuvred into watching it and in these circumstances, I'm both cowardly (so, will fold) and vindictive (so will resent the movie and the movie-chooser and will probably sulk and be Not All That Much Fun).

BUT

I super very much disliked the opening sequence of ICAL yes yes sets up her character - cold, dislikeable, competent, ruthless, motivated yes yes we are supposed to take against her (and perhaps also admire her at least a little?) yes yes cool twist on the gender wars

EXCEPT

Really? The hyper-competent boss-girl lawyer is also - sharp intake of breath - EVIL. And - Lesbian. Hot competent lesbians are evil.

**sigh**

Conversely, I found the opening sequence of The Guard intriguing and funny, whilst also at and beyond the edge of taste and decency. Okay - drink driving. Okay - youth death. Okay - tampering with evidence. (But did you know notice that at least the stated motive was to spare the feelings of the bereaved mother? Admittedly delivered in a way that makes it v hard to know whether it's sincere.)

Do I repeatedly forgive The Guard because the MC is cis-het middle aged white male or because this buffoonish, never-by-the-book cop takes care of his mother, seems to have a moral compass (buried or skewed by all the other stuff), and ultimately rises to the occasion?

I found him likeable. I enjoyed being an observer of his world. I even found that he did terribly dislikeable things is mostly a likeable way.

In ICAL, I finally started rooting for the female lead around the time she was facing down the mafia boss and expressing calm unconcern at the threat of execution. Here, she also rose to the occasion IMO.

BUT she was terribly dislikeable (not in itself a reason to avoid the movie though probably a reason *I* should have avoided it) and I was overall pleased that her deeds eventually caught up with her.

Read a couple of lowish quality reviews while I was "working through my feelings" about this movie. One of them said interesting things but in a style that suggested AI involvement (maybe, maybe not... I don't think any use of AI was declared - oof, this just makes me sentimental for the good old bad old days of the early internet).The other one was a scarcely veiled excuse for pushing hair products.

In the hair article, I thought there might be something small and specific about the decision to give RP a ramrod straight 'do' when she's in court and a more relaxed version of the bob otherwise. Nope. There was, however, a comment that the design team was trying to use hair design mirroring to reinforce the idea that RP and PD were essentially the same (something about a tiny pigtail?). This I found intriguing and credible. I *do* think the mirrored characterisation is an important idea in the movie - and makes sense of the decision to use an ordinary guy to bring her story to a close, not the gangster.

Feels like a "wrong answers only" response but we walked through the Inns of Court area of London this am and I wondered briefly if there was a "look like a wig" vibe going on with RP's hair in the courtroom scenes but honestly, nope. Don't think that's why. I think it's just about making her look especially extra: controlled, cold, in control, sleek, shark-like, on her game, court-credible, etc.

PS Himself and I had a chat about why wigs were incorporated into the UK judicial costume and I'm smugly delighted to note that my guess (that when the dress was codified it was just Normal Everyday Wear for Gentlemen) was there or thereabouts as the reason.

PS2 final thought, from sport not from art -

At the Paris Olympics, I was moved by this moment in the Decathlon, where one Norwegian competitor, having just crashed out of the medals on the pole vault, competed in the final event anyway to act as a pacer for his teammate who then successfully won the gold.

As the caption says, under certain formulations of the rules - perhaps under certain ethical framings also - it's possible to argue that Rooth shouldn't have had access to this kind of help, that it was an artificial enhancement of his chances. And yet - I found it noble and moving. Sheesh, the way we don't all perceive things the same way, eh?

[Tweet by Gabby Pieraccini, 4th Aug - the rule being discussed was the "Gundersen" approach - no, I don't otherwise know what that is.]

[winterpower98]

Okay, so sadly no art this time, but I have started a google document for the Double Training AU (or Double Trouble haha) Then I realised that Macaque might be ooc since I've never actually written for this fandom before, but I also realised this is an AU so that probably doesn't matter. My verse, my tune.

So what I have down so far!

The twins actually died in the calabash/vase respectively, the gods were going to give them back their immortal bodies to go work for Laozi again but they realised that because they were children when sent on this wack mission to challenge a party of three demons one of which can most likely total heaven (seriously Guanyin, why the furnace children??) they might be a tad attached to their dead demon mother who actually seemed to like them. So into the reincarnation cycle you go <3 (I mean Sandy was thrown down to the mortal coil just for breaking a plate so I judge the gods' morals very harshly :/)

Macaque on the otherhand didn't die! He sure was left to die but no one came for his soul considering I believe his name was one of the one's wiped from the record, basically no receipt no refund sorry.

This part I haven't fully fleshed out yet but I want Mac to meet the boys around the time DBK got imprisoned. I need to add this to the document after this but I'm thinking Red Son't ritual was actually performed around this time after his powers fully consumed him (so basically during the actual JTTW he only just manifested his powers for a while) and there was just a big accident where a lot of nearby demons and mortals alike perished. The Twin's mother being one of them, so the twins freshly out of the reincarnation pot is motherless once again. Macaque finds them in aftermath or smt, I'll get there.

Now how I want to characterize Macaque is probably ooc for the fandom's general consensus, so bear with me? I want him to take in the twins on sight, maybe not fully out of pity but I want his kryptonite to be a deep desire to be needed. And what craves attention more than two toddlers? So it's not entirely selfless for him, it's also not to say he doesn't have trust issues but like, it's two toddlers what are they going to do? Stab him?

His relationship with Wukong is basically, he doesn't necessarily hate the king, he hates how uncommitted to his home and family he was, he hates how he was so ready to kill him for the monk he was, but he doesn't hate him. Basically I made Macaque a self-deprecating bastard who outwardly antagonizes Monkey King because 1. If he's expected to play a villain he will and 2. Hating Monkey King is a safer option for him in a world where the reckless son of a gun has made a lot of enemies who are willing to exploit everything

Most of these thoughts need further ironing out but that's what I got for now.

-💙

(Heaven's work ethics are questionable at best)

Ah so it's a new flavor of trauma for Macaque, got it.

How funny would it be if one of the twins stab him by accident the first week? XD

[phroyd]

I’m not going to pretend that I know how to interpret the jobs and inflation data of the past few months. My view is that this is still an economy warped by the pandemic, and that the dynamics are so strange and so unstable that it will be some time before we know its true state. But the reaction to the early numbers and anecdotes has revealed something deeper and more constant in our politics.

The American economy runs on poverty, or at least the constant threat of it. Americans like their goods cheap and their services plentiful and the two of them, together, require a sprawling labor force willing to work tough jobs at crummy wages. On the right, the barest glimmer of worker power is treated as a policy emergency, and the whip of poverty, not the lure of higher wages, is the appropriate response.Reports that low-wage employers were having trouble filling open jobs sent Republican policymakers into a tizzy and led at least 25 Republican governors — and one Democratic governor — to announce plans to cut off expanded unemployment benefits early. Chipotle said that it would increase prices by about 4 percent to cover the cost of higher wages, prompting the National Republican Congressional Committee to issue a blistering response: “Democrats’ socialist stimulus bill caused a labor shortage, and now burrito lovers everywhere are footing the bill.” The Trumpist outlet The Federalist complained, “Restaurants have had to bribe current and prospective workers with fatter paychecks to lure them off their backsides and back to work.”But it’s not just the right. The financial press, the cable news squawkers and even many on the center-left greet news of labor shortages and price increases with an alarm they rarely bring to the ongoing agonies of poverty or low-wage toil.

As it happened, just as I was watching Republican governors try to immiserate low-wage workers who weren’t yet jumping at the chance to return to poorly ventilated kitchens for $9 an hour, I was sent “A Guaranteed Income for the 21st Century,” a plan that seeks to make poverty a thing of the past. The proposal, developed by Naomi Zewde, Kyle Strickland, Kelly Capatosto, Ari Glogower and Darrick Hamilton for the New School’s Institute on Race and Political Economy, would guarantee a $12,500 annual income for every adult and a $4,500 allowance for every child. It’s what wonks call a “negative income tax” plan — unlike a universal basic income, it phases out as households rise into the middle class.

“With poverty, to address it, you just eliminate it,” Hamilton told me. “You give people enough resources so they’re not poor.” Simple, but not cheap. The team estimates that its proposal would cost $876 billion annually. To give a sense of scale, total federal spending in 2019 was about $4.4 trillion, with $1 trillion of that financing Social Security payments and another $1.1 trillion support Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Beyond writing that the plan “would require new sources of revenue, additional borrowing or trade-offs with other government funding priorities,” Hamilton and his co-authors don’t say how they’d pay for it, and in our conversation, Hamilton was cagey. “There are many ways in which it can be paid for and deficit spending itself is not bad unless there are certain conditions,” he said. I’m less blasé about financing a program that would increase federal spending by almost 20 percent, but at the same time, it’s clearly possible. Even if the entire thing was funded by taxes, it would only bring America’s tax burden to roughly the average of our peer nations.

I suspect the real political problem for a guaranteed income isn’t the costs, but the benefits. A policy like this would give workers the power to make real choices. They could say no to a job they didn’t want, or quit one that exploited them. They could, and would, demand better wages, or take time off to attend school or simply to rest. When we spoke, Hamilton tried to sell it to me as a truer form of capitalism. “People can’t reap the returns of their effort without some baseline level of resources,” he said. “If you lack basic necessities with regards to economic well-being, you have no agency. You’re dictated to by others or live in a miserable state.”

But those in the economy with the power to do the dictating profit from the desperation of low-wage workers. One man’s misery is another man’s quick and affordable at-home lunch delivery. “It is a fact that when we pay workers less and don’t have social insurance programs that, say, cover Uber and Lyft drivers, we are able to consume goods and services at lower prices,” Hilary Hoynes, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, where she also co-directs the Opportunity Lab, told me.

This is the conversation about poverty that we don’t like to have: We discuss the poor as a pity or a blight, but we rarely admit that America’s high rate of poverty is a policy choice, and there are reasons we choose it over and over again. We typically frame those reasons as questions of fairness (“Why should I have to pay for someone else’s laziness?”) or tough-minded paternalism (“Work is good for people, and if they can live on the dole, they would”). But there’s more to it than that.

It is true, of course, that some might use a guaranteed income to play video games or melt into Netflix. But why are they the center of this conversation? We know full well that America is full of hardworking people who are kept poor by very low wages and harsh circumstance. We know many who want a job can’t find one, and many of the jobs people can find are cruel in ways that would appall anyone sitting comfortably behind a desk. We know the absence of child care and affordable housing and decent public transit makes work, to say nothing of advancement, impossible for many. We know people lose jobs they value because of mental illness or physical disability or other factors beyond their control. We are not so naïve as to believe near-poverty and joblessness to be a comfortable condition or an attractive choice.

Most Americans don’t think of themselves as benefiting from the poverty of others, and I don’t think objections to a guaranteed income would manifest as arguments in favor of impoverishment. Instead, we would see much of what we’re seeing now, only magnified: Fears of inflation, lectures about how the government is subsidizing indolence, paeans to the character-building qualities of low-wage labor, worries that the economy will be strangled by taxes or deficits, anger that Uber and Lyft rides have gotten more expensive, sympathy for the struggling employers who can’t fill open roles rather than for the workers who had good reason not to take those jobs. These would reflect not America’s love of poverty but opposition to the inconveniences that would accompany its elimination.

Nor would these costs be merely imagined. Inflation would be a real risk, as prices often rise when wages rise, and some small businesses would shutter if they had to pay their workers more. There are services many of us enjoy now that would become rarer or costlier if workers had more bargaining power. We’d see more investments in automation and possibly in outsourcing. The truth of our politics lies in the risks we refuse to accept, and it is rising worker power, not continued poverty, that we treat as intolerable. You can see it happening right now, driven by policies far smaller and with effects far more modest than a guaranteed income.

Hamilton, to his credit, was honest about these trade-offs. “Progressives don’t like to talk about this,” he told me. “They want this kumbaya moment. They want to say equity is great for everyone when it’s not. We need to shift our values. The capitalist class stands to lose from this policy, that’s unambiguous. They will have better resourced workers they can’t exploit through wages. Their consumer products and services would be more expensive.”

For the most part, America finds the money to pay for the things it values. In recent decades, and despite deep gridlock in Washington, we have spent trillions of dollars on wars in the Middle East and tax cuts for the wealthy. We have also spent trillions of dollars on health insurance subsidies and coronavirus relief. It is in our power to wipe out poverty. It simply isn’t among our priorities.

“Ultimately, it’s about us as a society saying these privileges and luxuries and comforts that folks in the middle class — or however we describe these economic classes — have, how much are they worth to us?” Jamila Michener, co-director of the Cornell Center for Health Equity, told me. “And are they worth certain levels of deprivation or suffering or even just inequality among people who are living often very different lives from us? That’s a question we often don’t even ask ourselves.”

But we should.

Phroyd

[disneytva]

Matt Olsen Uploads The Douglas Furs Series Bible Of The Rejected Disney XD Series From 2015 All Art Belongs To Jesse Ledoux

Matt Olsen from Sly Cooper fame & co-creator of Douglas Furs uploaded in his website the series bible of the Douglas Furs a rejected Disney show for Disney XD who sadly was rejected.

The Douglas Furs is an original cartoon series about a community of animals living together in Douglas, an otherwise unpopulated corner of the deep forest Pacific NW. Though they hold down jobs, use complex machinery, and return their library books late, they still remain animals. It’s like William Shakespeare said, “A bear will always be a bear, even if he’s wearing overalls.”

Characters Names

Barry The Bear: Optimistic Bear with a big heart and that fixes all the problems,supports Douglas to the absolute max, innocence and naivete are components of Barry’s character, he’s no wide-eyed child, speechless and dreamy in the presence of wonder. Quite the contrary! Barry is a loud, active celebrator of every new experience. He loves life! Even the most normal, everyday things can get Barry excited and revved up to a surprising extreme. Though it’s also true that his rabid interest may change in an instant with the discovery of some new stimuli

Mary Margaret: Mary-Margaret attends Rutherberry Elementary, She is the Bullhorn’s star investigative journalist, a role which she takes very, very seriously. The position feeds her all-consuming curiosity, or as her peers simply call it, “being a nosy-pants”. Her efforts have single-handedly made the Bullhorn the most-read paper in Douglas, all but putting the “professional” paper, the Douglas Herald-Gazeteer, out of business. Mary-Margaret is the elementary-school age daughter of Douglas’ leading intellectuals. Her father, Myron, is a critical studies professor at the local university, while her mother, Dagmar, is Douglas’ most esteemed (and only) deep-Jungian psychiatrist.

Beverly:  Beverly is the single force that keeps Douglas functioning as a city. As Deputy Lieutenant Mayor, she performs all the responsibilities of not only her own position, but also the Mayor’s and several other government officials. She’s vastly overworked but somehow manages to hold it together, fulfill all her duties and put out the fires. Sometimes, literally. (She’s also a volunteer firefighter.)

Her hectic home life does not provide much of a relief from her career. She’s happily married to Garland, who in addition to being father and primary care-giver to their children, is a semitalented landscape painter. Her six kids, three sets of twins, are all very energetic and clamor for her attention.

Viktor:  Viktor was a celebrated Cosmonaut of what we would call vaguely Eastern European descent. On his final lift-off – a mission that would have sent him hurtling past Mars and Jupiter to be locked in orbit around Saturn – the rocket he was piloting failed, veered way off course and crash-landed in Douglas. (He suspects the rocket was tampered with by a jealous rival.).  Since that time, his main pursuit has been to repair the rocket and resume his mission. However, due to Douglas’s non-advanced state of technological development that goal remains far outside his reach. So, he remains an unwilling resident, but he’s gradually warming up to living in the township. Maybe.

Viktor is skeptical and even paranoid of almost anything outside his world. As such, he rarely leaves his home for fear of saboteurs. He’s not against helping others, but he wants all the information first and would really prefer it if there was something in it for him, too. This is probably a holdover from his Cold War-esque training.

Rainier Somersett-Psymthe:   Rainier is not only the wealthiest citizen of Douglas, he is also the town’s single-largest employer. He is the current scion of the storied Somersett-Psymthe lineage and, through no effort of his own, inherited the family business: the Silky Beast line of personal shampoos for Him and Her. Due to the hirsute nature of the population of Douglas and surrounding woodland areas, Silky Beast is in extremely high demand. Since the day-to-day running of the plant is handled by underlings, Rainier lives immune from responsibility and has plenty of free time on his hands. The main focus of Rainier’s efforts is feeding his fame. He has a continual hunger for attention and thrills to read his own exploits chronicled and discussed in the local paper. He is a strict adherent to the no such thing as bad press ideal and will perform any manner of ridiculous acts solely to guarantee his presence on the front page. 

 Barry and Rainier are roughly the same age and share many of the same memories of growing up in Douglas, albeit from completely different perspectives. Where Rainier lives in a gilded mansion built by his great-grandfather and passed down from Somersett-Psmythe to Somersett-Psmythe, Barry lives in a one-room yurt that he constructed himself. There’s still a bit of work to be done around the back. No one would ever consider them rivals. No one except Rainier, that is, who considers everyone his rival. It’s possible that Rainier could be envious of the simplicity of Barry’s existence and attempt to out-simplify him, but that hasn’t happened... yet.

Carl:  Carl is Mary-Margaret’s classmate at Rutherberry Elementary and the staff photographer for the school’s newspaper, The Rutherberry Bullhorn. His ability to fly means that he excels at aerial photography and can get shots from many different angles. Carl is drastically near-sighted and requires a large pair of corrective lenses to approach “eagle-eyed”. With the glasses on, he can see slightly better than most of the other animals in Douglas, but without them the world is a predominately blue and green blur. In a lot of ways, Carl fits squarely into the classic “nerd” stereotype, e.g., he’s quiet, bookish, shy, a little physically awkward, etc., but he has other qualities which don’t fall so easily under that sad rubric. His parents have imbued him with a strict sense of personal responsibility, justice and honor. It’s a code of ethics that has been handed down his proud family line for ages upon ages.  What Carl doesn’t realize is that he is also the subject of interest by many of the other girls at Rutherberry. Unfortunately he is too singleminded to notice their adoration, even when it is at its most blatant. He lives every single day on the verge of either making his feelings known to Mary-Margaret or giving up on her entirely

Mayor Trewfuss:  Quincy Trewfuss is the oldest citizen of Douglas and has served as the town’s extremely popular mayor for an astonishing forty-two terms. With one brief exception at the beginning of his career, each of those forty-two terms have been consecutive. At the close of his first two-year term, he declined to run for re-election and happily handed the mayoralty off to someone else.  Trewfuss is entirely unsuited for a life in politics. He is skittish, fearful, apprehensive, easily bewildered and opposed to any and all conflict. He lives in an eternal state of being overwhelmed. His frequent response to any crisis is to follow his natural tendencies and play possum. He literally pretends to be dead. It may have stopped fooling most folks a very long time ago but they understand that whatever calamity has come up has pushed him to the edge. So, in response, he is given time alone to regather his senses. As it turns out, it’s become a very effective tool for him. Those on the inside know that he is only a figurehead at this point. His deputy lieutenant mayor, Beverly, actually handles all the significant mayoral duties. Trewfuss reluctantly appears at ribbon cutting ceremonies, poses for photographs with civic leaders, sleeps his way through city council meetings and that’s about it. Still, he remains perpetually on the verge of a total nervous breakdown.

Link And Louie:  These two live in a homemade tin roof shanty just outside Douglas, beyond the treeline. Though they attempt intimidation, the town generally regards them as more of a nuisance than a threat. Link and Louie, of course, are oblivious to this and sincerely believe they are genuinely terrifying to the regular squares. Though they’ve never revealed how they ended up around Douglas, popular opinion holds that the last town they harassed, finally had enough and chased them out in a most embarrassing fashion. This accounts for the chips on their shoulders and their “somethin’ to prove” attitudes. Link is the instigator, with Louie always willing to go along blindly with any of Link’s plans. Though he’s never been tested, it’s a safe bet that Louie is not very smart. He lets himself be talked into a lot of Link’s fairly stupid ideas, most of which involve putting himself in danger of imprisonment or bodily harm, while Link remains safely at a distance. Link consoles Louie by claiming this as an occupational hazard, their biggest fear is Gordon The Sasquatch.

Gordon:  Gordon is supremely boring. His company invariably brings a slight level of discomfort to everyone he encounters. His stories are long-winded, circuitous and off-topic. He speaks in an exhausted, physically draining monotone. Still, it’s hard to say a bad word against him since he’s never done any harm to anyone. So, those he encounters will often endure the conversation out of kindness and for fear of hurting his feelings. He’s staggeringly sensitive. Now, this is not to say that he’s not without value. Gordon possesses great strength and is very tall. So tall, in fact, that his head is always out of frame or behind a tree branch or perhaps hidden by a low-hanging cloud. (The home viewer will never see his face.) Just on physical presence alone, he’s an intimidating force and may be called upon to act as anything from security to heavy lifting. In those situations, his size and strength becomes a large enough asset to overcome his crippling dullness. Even though he’s not a “true” citizen of Douglas – he camps nomadically in the woods outside town – he’s generally happy to be of service and always enjoys being around others. Gordon is also a budding folksinger and can often be found with an oversize acoustic guitar, singing his terrible songs to the ears of nature, since no one else – given fair warning – is likely to listen. Overall, he’d really like to meet some other sasquatches

Douglas is a township surrounded on all sides by dense Evergreen forest. Within this clearing is a fully-functioning community of various animals indigenous to the Pacific Northwest. The town is constructed of available materials with homes and buildings suited to each animal’s own preferences. For example, as a beaver, Beverly lives in a log cabin-esque dam on the river. Wood and stone dominate the local architecture, while brightly colored mosses, ferns, wildflowers and lichen provide the embellishments. Greens, browns, grays and blues dazzled up by pinks, yellows, oranges and purples provide the palette. Technology exists only to the level it is needed. 

Since the town itself is rather small, cars were never necessary and therefore, not invented. A refrigerator, on the other hand, is an absolute necessity. I mean, how else is one expected to keep one’s salmon puffs fresh? No specific number has ever been ascribed to the population of this small town – they’re not sticklers for data gathering – but as a sort of reference to its size, here’s some semi-useful factoids: 

• 1 TV channel. All of the programming is made in Douglas by Douglas for Douglas. Not surprisingly, a majority of the shows take place in Douglas. “Hot Douglas Nights” is appointment television.

 • 1 fire department and 1 hospital. Accidents do happen. Of course, when they happen to cartoon characters they’re hilarious.

 • 2 school districts, each with its own elementary, middle and high school. This is really only done so that the grammar teams have someone to compete with... er, I mean, with whom to compete. 

• 36 square miles in area. That’s the legal US definition of a Survey Township and, by pure coincidence, a remarkably close measurement of our own township. Go figure

 • 200 years old. Douglas was founded in the year 1812*. Of course, that’s by our calendar. Here, they use a completely different system to measure time. It’s like dog years, but then you have to modulate the formula for each species. It’s very complex. 

[abyssal-hoonter]

Evie walked to the table and examined the papers laying on the wooden surface. She had spent years working on the research of the Pieces of Eden but this was the first time she had seen so much about the topic that she put all her mind and heart to care for. Her fingers glid slowly on the documents as she narrowed her eyes to focus on reading with the assistance of the Eagle vision.

There was nothing hidden here, on the lines, yet it could be the other person who was carrying something unclear and mysterious within her rib-cage. Evie turned and saw the woman got up on her feet by gripping the cane in her hand. The assassin felt pity, somehow, though she didn't know why she got that feelings for her enemy.

"Is it true that you want me to help?" Evie raised a question, and was responded by a simple nod. Of course, she hadn't found it enough to believe in, as she continued, "How could I know this is not a set up?"

The woman started to pace toward Evie and came a halt just at a dozen centimeters between them. She lifted her face to look at the young girl by an eye of pain and also, a small piece of disdain. She smiled. A smile that made Evie shiver.

"Were I wanted you dead, you wouldn't be standing here, staring at me like a hungry bullet awaiting to pierce through my body once again, Miss Frye." Lucy stated coldly and confidently with her voice lowered since tired and bored. Evie felt that. A voice that contained a fire of angry and disgust not toward Frye, but to the man that had used her for a very long time and now he was waiting to take over what was rightfully hers and keep those as his own possession. Crawford Starrick, a hypocrite who seemed to be promising and sophisticated upon his outlook, was really a too ambitious, power-hungry and ungrateful son of a bitch.

"You read the letter he sent me, didn't you? Didn't know how long he took to think of a way to comfort me for what he would do, but, I think that was quite enough." Lucy added, waving her hand into the air and walked to the table, "All these years working, bleeding myself dry to uphold the principles of our Order and all that for which we stand, without a thinking of betraying. Wow, Miss Frye, it had led me to this. What a miracle, isn't it?"

"You should have known it would come someday, sooner or later. Society and politics sometimes run by that way as well as people could live by cheating and robbing. You're in a higher place, I wonder why you didn't come to realize that, Miss Thorne." Evie shook her head in frustration.

Lucy took a manuscript on the table, showing it in the middle of the documents so that both women could observe it clearly under the light in Thorne's chamber.

"I thought about what you said. But still, there are hope and faith, victory and achievements we have. So I kept trying and fighting... At least it took him 10 years to cut down this partnership. This manuscript, it's mine, I got it in the auction where I met him for the first time. That was quite a long time, I suppose."

Lucy paused for a few seconds, thinking, and finally let out a chuckle, "Hm, I've been through a lot of things in my life, Miss Frye. Vengeance, well, vengeance is kind of a bad game that we shouldn't play it... But, it's fun, in my way." She narrowed her eyes and glared at the younger one as a mean of both evilness and pleasure. "Care to join me?"

"I'd rather not, Miss Thorne. I'm..."

"A coward, who stabs from behind and runs when face-to-face." Thorne laughed, for the first time in front of Evie and the assassin saw that redhead was pretty attractive and beautiful even when that was her archenemy who was supposed to be eliminated.

"I mean... I'm not sure about your method and your honesty. Even you can see how a Templar brings you disgust and hatred. We have observed for a very long time and see the way The Order treats the lives of people under their control. You say good but that's not what you bring. From oppression, corruption, exploitation and death they suffer." Evie shrugged, "I can't trust you, Miss Thorne... For now, at least... I still can't trust you immediately."

"I understand. I understand." Lucy blinked and nodded. "Everything and everyone has their own reasons. I'm sorry, Miss Frye. I took your time." The redhdead moved to sit down on a dark brown chair while Evie went to the opened window to flee from the manor. All of sudden, she turned back to look at Thorne. She didn't know why she did that but she had already done what she found hard to understand. Why does that older woman seem poor and lonely like that? Perhaps it is because she was still weak and pale after getting a big ass attack that had nearly taken her life? Or maybe it is something else the young girl hadn't figure out?

And she saw Lucy smoking at the table, coughing and breathing hard but still, the woman didn't stop. She smoked fast at a speed of completely consume a cigarette in half of a minute and continued to the point she coughed out her saliva. Evie couldn't stand that as she felt like each time Lucy made sound was a time her heart got punch. Eventually, she jumped back into the room, rushed to the table side and snatched the cigarette out of Lucy's hand in her surprise.

"You've honestly lost your mind!" The brunette's eyes wide opened and glared at Thorne angrily. "I didn't kill you but this one might." She threw the cigarette to the floor and stubbed it out by her heel.

Lucy watched the younger woman did that as she leaned backward and inhaled.

"I know you wouldn't trust me. Since our paths are crossed, we meet and fight, die and survive, not to share our stories nor listen to what the other say. For the first time, Miss Frye, may I ask what drove you to be an assassin?"

Evie looked at Lucy, face-to-face, and none of them blinked or a second until the Frye twin broke the silence.

"I was raised to be what I am now."

"You didn't choose to start it?" Lucy asked, and there was no answer.

.

Miss Thorne sighed, "Have you ever lost someone you really love, Miss Frye?"

Evie didn't know whether she should answer or not but finally, she swallowed hard, "Yes, I did. Why did you ask?"

"Because losing my daughter put an entrance for me to find the Shroud."

"Really? I'm sorry for your lost." Evie replied.

"Not your fault, Frye. To be honest, that's a long story if you're willing to spend time listening." Lucy released a soft smile.

"Alright then." Evie pulled the chair and sat down opposite to the woman, "This is strange. I could never believe I'll spend such a good time chatting with you, Miss Thorne. Especially..." She wasn't able to fill the sentence when she saw Lucy was staring at the floor, motionless like a statue showing its non-verbal sorrow.

"When I was 18, I saw a family in which the wife had a bad illness. The husband took a loan from some people and put the money into curing for his wife. Once she recovered, he worked his ass off to pay the debt, well, funds and profit, until he passed away for overexertion, leaving half of the debt to his poor family. His wife became a courtesan to earn living for both her and the daughter as well as paying the money. It wasn't long after that, the mother got killed by a robber, only for a few pounds, leaving the child totally alone then without any care or protection." Lucy paused as she poured the tea to the cups and gave one to Evie.

"What then?" Evie asked.

"I raised her on my own. And finally, ha, she left me 5 years ago. Tuberculosis. I watched the kid breathed her last."

Lucy stood up, looking outside the town, "I collected all of those memories and events only to have a question: Is there anyway I could do to make things less bitter? And I think... The Shroud's going to be one of the solutions."

Evie kept listening without saying a word. Perhaps she was opening her mind to digest something new and big.

"I see, that was quite a story."

"Uhm hum, so next time if you think all Templar are the same, then remember me. I might be fool enough to be stabbed on my back, but I have my sense to pursue what is necessary for the betterment of humanity. And... There's no good way for the future that contains no weakness, no pain, no sacrifice, no any negative points. Remember that... At least, we'll try and I'll prove what you want me to."

Evie crossed her arms across her chest and frowned, "Are you serious? Can't we just move on and focus on finding The Shroud instead of revenge?"

Lucy chuckled at that, "Maybe, we can do stuff as you pleased. That's a way to prove I'm not playing an upper-hand." Then she walked closer to Frye, whispering into her left ear, "But save that Crawford for me."

"And no more cigar, okay?" Evie raised her eyebrows as her eyes followed Lucy's steps.

"If that's what you like... Sugar."

[auroraluciferi]

a white supremacist apparently had an issue with this random post I made.

my post was about the shocked reactions people all over the world were apparently having to American ads for prescription drugs played on the break during the Meghan Markle interview.

the point I was trying to make is that the avalanche of consumer ads for prescription medicine is yet another insane hallmark of the profit-driven US healthcare system which most people fortunately do not experience and no one seems to fully understand.

I feel this one detail helps to breach the facade shielding the dystopian reality which divides us, and it helps to explain for many why the United States has been especially crippled by the effects of the global pandemic. the suffering, deprivation and cruelty of our health infrastructure is an essential feature of capitalism, not a glitch. For many people it has been a time of reckoning.

so this worthless asshole clearly decided now was the time to plant his racist flag - he messaged several times over two days, then I guess he got upset with what I was saying and blocked me.

what follows is unpleasant and contains racist and deeply offensive language, copied verbatim from my inbox and chat.

it has been formatted to fit your television screen.

dee6000 submitted:                                    

Can your socialist BS. The ads/big pharma are separate from or profit medicine. What harmed US medicine was result of democrat politicians copying Europe’s socialists that treated citizens rights with contempt. In the past US medicine was the envy of the world, British, Europeans, Canadians many others would travel here to receive care. Dems blocked enforcement of immigration laws hospitals went bankrupt and taxpayer funded medicaid was overburdened. Just as the influx of tens of millions of illegal aliens and migrants caused rents to skyrocket and wages to be dragged down. Hospital based infection skyrocketed as well hospitals started hiring illegal aliens who did not follow cleaning rules. These infections weren’t new, they are the norm in Latin America and other third world countries. Years later these hospital infections started showing up. Obamacare requires doctors under threat of fines to refuse to perform some diagnostic testing on some patients. Socialist and communist countries have even worse outcomes. And Britain and Europe are experiencing the results of 3rd world imported substandard doctors and nurses.

@auroraluciferi:

lmao. "ads/big pharma" are somehow "separate" from for profit medicine and everything else is the fault of these filthy immigrants from the third world

good luck with whatever ax you're trying to grind

dee6000:

Lmao, people controlling their own labor, by charging for their work, unlike in your communist, socialist sewers where the government elites enslaves people and profit off those slaves like parasites.Big pharma came about under globalism, globalism is Trotskyite international communism. Prior to Clinton’s pushing manufacturing out of the US, US pharmaceutical companies manufactured product here, under fda law, the drugs were tested. Now drugs made in communist China and socialist India are not manufactured safely, there is no oversight, illnesses have resulted as a result and while workers in those countries are abused hypocrite Chinese and Indian elites profit. You might resent truth but that is your problem. Superbugs took hold in western countries as they started allowing displacement of their citizens in health care jobs, from cleaning, nursing, etc with third world people, who yes do not respect hygiene and health and safety rules. That is a fact. When US citizens cleaned hospitals and nursing homes there were no superbug outbreaks, before illegal aliens were illegally working in US food manufacturing, children weren’t  being sickened and killed from eating ecoli, salmonella, and mold contaminated peanut butter and peanut products as dozens of children and adults were in 2008-2009 when Peanut Corporation of America machinery then operated and “maintained” by illegal alien Mexicans, had developed toxic black mold because the illegals didn’t bother cleaning the machinery despite knowing that was the jobs they were paid to do. Hearings in congress were held and parents spoke about it. I don’t care what you think, I know you are a fascist

@auroraluciferi​:

Okay then, I'll humor you - honestly I feel sorry because it clearly took a lot of effort and mental gymnastics to type up that word salad you sent me. Let's look at each of the "points" you just tried to make.

"People controlling their own labor by charging for their work" - that is a laugh. How exactly do you control your own labor if you are forced to sell it to the lowest bidder, competing against millions of others? If a business lays you off or goes bankrupt due to mismanagement, market fluctuations, accidents or a natural disaster, your labor then becomes worthless. The choice you are given as an employee or contractor unsupported by social welfare programs is "accept whatever pathetic wage we decide your labor and time is worth" or "lose your home and starve to death".

Your idea of "control" is an illusion in an economic system where human survival is based on abritrary market conditions and greed rather than the quality of life itself.

"Big pharma came about under globalism, globalism is Trotskyite international communism." - are you suggesting that some of the largest and most profitable companies on earth are the result of a global, communist conspiracy? Johnson & Johnson, Bayer AG, GSK and others follow the corporate conglomeration and consolidation model pioneered and perfected by 19th and 20th century capitalists and industrialists like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, William Hearst, and Cornelius Vanderbilts. Hardly a group of jaded communist revolutionaries.

The multinational companies they founded and combined have systematically destroyed competition within their respective industries, forced both their consumers and employees to accept substandard, dangerous products and poverty wages, then used their wealth to influence both conservative and liberal politicians to deregulate industries and labor laws for their own benefit. All done by willing and eager students of Adam Smith, not Karl Marx.

"Prior to Clinton’s pushing manufacturing out of the US, US pharmaceutical companies manufactured product here, under fda law, the drugs were tested." - I assume here you're talking about NAFTA and Clinton-era regulations, both of which were enormous gifts to those same companies I just described.

These manufacturers left America to gild their pockets by voluntarily exploiting the workers of countries that do not have labor laws, have substandard or nonexistent environmental protections, and would accept even lower wages than Americans. They could have easily remained in the US, paid higher wages to American workers, followed the most basic regulations, and still would have made obscene levels of profit - the demand of shareholders for more profit motivated the outsourcing of US jobs, not because a spineless corporate lackey like Bill Clinton forced them to.

At the same time, NAFTA enabled US agribusiness to flood the Mexican and Central American economy with cheap, government-subsidized corn - instantly destroying the ability of Mexican farms to collectively set fair prices, driving millions facing starvation and poverty into cities and ultimately North into the United States. It's pretty ironic that your illegal immigration crisis was created by massive corporations supported by the US government, but I guess that's inconvenient history for you.

Again, this is another pretty obvious feature of capitalism, not communism or socialism. Businesses have a natural tendency to cut expenses and maximize profit any way they can. In an actual socialist system, there would be no incentive to do that - healthcare and medicine would be provided as a right, rather than a paid-for privilege as exists in our current system. Workers would not have to compete with each other to survive if their basic needs were provided for.

Also just thought you should know, the FDA regulations apply both to drugs that are imported just as they are to drugs that are manufactured in the US. Furthermore, there would be no FDA at all without American socialists, reformers and consumer advocates pressuring Congress into creating it - not sure how you can pretend otherwise. It was made specifically to address how the 19th-20th century market failed to "self-regulate", resulting in toxic food and drugs manufactured here, in the US.

"Superbugs took hold in western countries as they started allowing displacement of their citizens in health care jobs, from cleaning, nursing, etc with third world people, who yes do not respect hygiene and health and safety rules." - This is pretty racist, and also the opposite of reality. "Superbugs" are the natural result of bacteria and viruses adapting and evolving to ever increasing levels of antibiotics, antivirals, and hyper sanitation in our food supply and cleaning products, as well as natural mutation. Diseases like the coronavirus are inevitable - the US has failed to respond effectively because our for-profit healthcare system does not have a market incentive to create stockpiles or public infrastructure to combat an outbreak, whether it's from China or Cleveland, Ohio.

People from other countries know how to wash their hands. They know how to clean. You have absolutely no evidence which would dispute that, just your own feelings and the idea that filthy brown people caused this totally avoidable disaster rather than a lack of basic planning.

Finally, when people are sickened by improperly cleaned equipment or tainted food and medicine, it is the result of a failure by the manufacturer or producer to properly train and supply their facilities out of negligence, to save on operating expenses, or because they ignore existing regulations and are not penalized for doing so - not because there is an army of dirty, ignorant Mexicans at the controls. Untrained, underpaid, and unsupervised workers will have a greater tendency to make mistakes regardless of if they are White Americans or immigrants.

"Facts" and "truth"? I don't see anything besides your own personal bias, poor logic and uncited bullshit that you have no proof of. The American healthcare system and things like advertising for drugs on TV are mocked and reviled across the rest of the world because people can clearly see how vulnerable it is to inevitable pandemics like this.

But I guess there will always be people like you who are happy to ignore reality and instead demonize normal working people for fleeing their capitalist-raped economies and come here in an attempt to provide for their families - exactly the same thing you would do in their situation.

dee6000:

Lmao! Then explain why for decades and they, the WHO, Doctors Without Borders and other wastes of resources still bemoan the fact that in Latin America, take Mexico for example the majority of the people not only don’t wash their hands before eating a meal, they don’t wash their hands after going to the bathroom. They send nurses into schools to make a game of washing one’s hands but it doesn’t take. Next you’ll tell me that it isn’t true that child rape is part of Latin American culture. Mexico is so substandard health and hygiene wise that it’s water supply is contaminated with feces. Which is why foreigners are warned not to drink it or anything with ice in it. Because intestinal diseases, parasites are the norm. Go into any hospital in the US that employs illegals and they do not smell like antiseptic but dirty. I do not care what you think, the data shows superbugs started showing up in the US a decade after hospitals and nursing homes felt entitled to ignore employment laws and hire illegals. And yes, US corporations that off shores and were indulged by  communist China and the rest that have no environmental regulations, no labor laws (because under communism and socialism the people are slaves of the state) are only paid what the government thinks they deserve which is very little) they could profit more, or so they think. They became addicted to it and allowed their patents etc to be stolen. Under capitalism a worker has the right and power to reject a low wage. Under capitalism in the US a middle class grew and flourished, and poverty shrank. Under democrats and RINOs, who serve the same interests as democrats, the Clinton, Bush’s and Obozo the middle class was decimated, and poverty skyrocketed. Under Obozo more people became homeless, more so than during the Great Depression. You can spin and spin all you like. Your lies fall apart easily. Under illegal alien invaded democrat run California, the streets are tent cities, cholera, typhus and the plague have been found in Los Angeles, as well as other diseases.

At this point, he apparently blocked me. I didn’t realize this until after I was done writing my response, but here it is anyways

@auroraluciferi​:

It's pretty clear you feel all of your grievances can be blamed on those black and brown people and "Communist" China that you hate so much. I feel sorry for you, but I don't actually believe that anything I say is going to change that.

Your illusions are so wrapped up this weird ethnocentric pride and your comforting blanket of privilege that you're basically helpless against what's coming. You're burning all this energy being angry at people of color for "wasting" resources you apparently feel you are especially entitled to, when you can't even see that the scarcity of those resources is a dominant feature of capitalism.

The wealthy and powerful who benefit from that scarcity - both here in the US and in China - look down at sad little racists like you and they clink their champagne glasses together and smile. By blaming their crimes on Mexicans or whoever it is you clutch your pearls about, you're just making it easier for them to divide and conquer the working class globally.

So go ahead, do their work for them - whatever makes you happy.

Waste all your time and energy hating someone you do not know, whose experience and culture you do not know. Blame all the diseases and scarcity and crime on them, instead of on the cruelty and pointless waste of capitalism

Squabble over the pathetic little crumbs they kick down to you from above or whatever you can compete with against your neighbors for, then proudly claim your little dirt heap for an imaginary concept of white culture.

Like I said before, good luck with that.

[maruzzewrites]

Bella Stronza for Melone please? It would be great if you made it super horrific or violent. Also, good luck with Valentine’s Day Maruzze! 💛

Content warnings: yandere content, obsessive behavior, possessive behavior, violence, death, abuse, manipulation.

With figures,numbers and simulations, Melone could understand people and their potential.This didn’t work only with possible vessels to use with his Stand, but withmost parts of his life, with how much he was used at typing away on hiskeyboard to get the results he needed at any given moment. Couple this with hisabnormal ability to understand information, even the most intimate variety,from a simple taste of someone’s skin, and you could obtain a prodigious matchto predict any type of situation.

Yet, you insistedwith going against the carefully planned and calculated outputs he someticulously crafted in order to understand your compatibility with him. It wasall perfect: you were a strong-willed person, someone who could keep their headup and look people in the eyes, fierce and smart enough to match him in the wayhe could see your usefulness without needing to exploit your body and consumeyour life. Just perfect; he knew that, it was all in writing, down on paper –or screen, rather. However, at times setbacks appeared, and Melone wasn’t new atwaiting it out until the situation straightened itself up into a more linear,logical path.

Along the way,you decided enough was enough, cut ties with him and turned your back to therelationship you built with him; all because you discovered something youdidn’t have the right to know, his involvement with gangs and criminals, hiscrooked job. He assumed you would, eventually, so he just sat back with amused,cheerful confidence that you would return to him soon enough. After all, youwere a match made in heaven, even if not picture perfect, even if you wouldshiver at the words he said to you from time to time. But differences are thespice in relationships, romantic ones above all, and you fitted perfectly.

So, what was thereason? What did make you think you could simply walk out and leave him behindin such a final way? Even after he called you, contacted you with any mean of communicationhe could think of, you were obstinate, stubborn and ever determined in keeping upthis act of wanting to ditch him for the next best thing you could find. And heknew, he was aware of your movements in the last few weeks; as you walkedaround with your hands around some other man’s arm, strutting around in shinyclothes and with a content smile. He let you be for a good amount of time,almost humming delightfully at your demonstration of vitality, your personalityshining through that break he decided to allow.

But days turnedinto weeks, weeks eventually became months, and you were still showing off thatsame serenity around an anonymous man Melone didn’t bother to identify, sure hewould be a fleeting moment into your life before you would come back into hisarms, under his thumb. You were your usual self, he could tell, stillheadstrong and inflexible, unable to rethink your choices once you made them,yet there was an air around you that he couldn’t understand, that he never feltbefore. Your steps were lighter, your laughter louder, your eyes brighter, asthis man talked to you and cooed pathetic, sappy nonsense into your ears whileyou were alone together somewhere.

It was a fungame until it turned into a feud, silent and unknown, against this unnamedobstacle Melone found himself facing. Every moment you were happy was a tauntat your previous life, the one you left just to parade around the city with toomuch glee in your pace and your voice. You were stomping on every logic he foundto build your relationship, to choose you among a sea of faceless people whodidn’t match him the same way. He remembered the way he morbidly searchedaround for any piece of data on you after he got the first glance at yourcompatibility, so perfect, so total. He had to fight his team too, to variousdegrees, as they berated, insulted or teased him as he analyzed the best way toapproach you in a way that could lull you into his arms willingly.

Because, afterall, Melone wanted your companionship. And he couldn’t simply pry it from you,he couldn’t force you into anything with him, because that would mean you wouldallow him to do that. And if you allowed him to do that, it meant you weren’tstrong enough, compelling enough; and he wanted nothing than perfection in hisown, twisted, way. So when he presented himself with your favorite food, yourfavorite items, your favorite words and topics, anything to win you over, youcould do nothing than lower your walls and let him in as his grip gotsuffocating and bruising, but slowly enough that you didn’t notice the changein the pressure against your skin or your mind.

You were good toeach other. At times, you would lose your temper and he’d just dismiss it withclinical, cold joviality as you walked away for a period of time, enough tocool off. You would rarely change your mind when you denied him something, andMelone was never the type to violently take what he wanted if he could help it,but he admired your tenacious perseverance in your quest for independence. Atsome point, you found yourself pushing him away more than you thought youneeded to do in a relationship of any kind, but you overlooked it for a bitwith the nagging notion that you had to be prepared to run away at any otherred flag waving from the man you called your lover.

In the end, you discoveredhis occupation, and you couldn’t stand the idea of being in the same room witha mobster. A dangerous one, too, if you had to consider the fact you could seehis figure around you every time you walked out of your own home after thebreak up. You hadn’t been nice or graceful, screaming all kind of profanities inhis face as he tried to drag you back into his apartment to discuss the matterfurther. But it didn’t matter ultimately, because you were still stubborn,obstinate, pigheaded.

Trying with allyour might to claw away from him, from everything he gave you and he could giveyou. Didn’t you see that man wasn’t the right one for you? Was Melone being toopassive, too nice? Maybe you were the same, perhaps you wanted someone whocould show their affection with passion, ardor, fervor, burning down the worlduntil there was nothing left but the two of you. And Melone could offer youthat, he knew he could shape your vision until you could only see the parts youloved about him. Because the two of you were perfect together.

And he wantedyou to understand that. That was why he decided to come forward, after so muchtime, and relish in the look on your face as your eyes went wide, when yourvoice shakily urged the idiotic toy you used to occupy your time to escape,with no time to waste or to explain. The bravery that man showed wasn’tadmirable at all, not when he was lying on the ground with a halo of bloodsoiling his hair, his clothes, kissing the sole of Melone’s shoes. You werepetrified, he could tell, but he didn’t mind the fear mixed with sorrow extinguishingthe light behind your eyes.

��My dear,” herested his slender hands on both sides of your face, without caging youphysically. Yet, you didn’t feel the strength to move at all. Melone wantednothing more than to rip apart your clothes, any trace of his presence on you.Maybe in that exact moment you couldn’t see what he was doing, that he wassaving you from a path you were walking with someone who didn’t deserve anythingfrom you besides indifference. His words came out with a hushed breath, as ifhe was trying not to sigh while talking, “We can go back now.”

As if a wake-upcall you were waiting for, his voice made you flinch and come alive. You slappedhis hands away, backing down until you could feel the door of the buildingagainst your back. Melone, in all his tranquil serenity, was slowly stalkingtowards you as if he had all the time in the world to simply take you with him,drown you into a relationship you didn’t want anymore. Your hand searched forthe knob, ready to throw the door open and flee, helped by the darkness of thenight to go undetected by the degenerate in front of you.

“Don’t try toresist, there is no reason to!” His voice was too cheerful, too grating to yourears, and it only made you grit your teeth until your jaw hurt. In the exactmoment you took hold of the doorknob, Melone was in front of you with extendedarms, his hands resembling claws of a beast ready to rip you apart withferocity. He was too close for you to have much moving space, and you decidedto do something about the complication; he was too preoccupied with his coos tosee your leg raising, a kick right in his stomach enough to make him hunch overand fall to his knees as you moved to open the door and run for your life.

Just when youwere savoring the taste of freedom and relief, you heard quick steps behind youand then the world just crashed, turned upside down, as you tumbled down on thecold, raw asphalt of the parking lot of your home.

Despite hisweight on you, you attempted to wriggle and crawl forward to sneak out fromunder him, but he pressed down with anger tensing his muscles. You had neverexperienced this level of fury from Melone, his growls, his teeth barred, histight grip on your arms as he pinned you facedown against the floor. You feltthe pain in your legs, where you hit the pavement first, burning and wet withblood. His hand shot up to your head and held it in place, pressing down untilyou could feel nothing but the strain on your skull from the force.

When youwhimpered, letting a glimpse of weakness shine through, Melone tugged at yourhair and made you arch your back with a flexibility you didn’t possess. Youcouldn’t really see him, not with the blur in your vision as he appeared infront of you, his long hair cascading on your cheeks with mocking delicacy. Youtried again to wriggled, raising on of your arms to try and attack him somehow,but the lack of support made you slump in a painful way that made you see stars.A groan escaped your throat, and the tension against your back worsened as hewanked you again.

“Why do youinsist on tainting this?” His words held the same calm he was used to employwhen he was simply arguing with you, impersonal and distant, like if ice wasclinging to each word. You didn’t answer, both because of the stress your bodywas subject to in that precise moment and because you didn’t want to give himthe benefit of your voice. At your silence, he sighed like he was dealing witha rowdy child, accompanying the soft huff with a violent slam of your headagainst the floor. He stood up right after, walking towards the door left openand searching for something there.

You assumed hethought you were knocked out or dead, because leaving you alone like that was arisky action in such a situation. With shaking fingers, you reached into yourpocket to fish for your phone and try to dial the police. You couldn’t seeproperly, and you cringed at the loud ring of each key pressed, but youcontinued with your attempt even when you saw a shadow walking towards you inthe dim light coming from the hall and the moon. A hand came down to snatch thedevice from you, the voice of someone coming from the speaker like a derisivetaunt – “This is the police, what is your emergency?”.

“Darling, loveof my life,” from him, from his voice, distorted by the pain and the contempt, thosewords sounded like icy lava. In a way, you hoped he would get angry enough tosimply kill you and leave you on that floor, abandoning any pretense ofcivility or care. But you could hear the sick fondness buried under the cold ofthat detached words. You felt like puking from the sheer loathing you felt inthat moment – or maybe it was the pain. His voice now felt far away, as youwilled yourself to fall into the pit of a restless slumber, “You betrayed anyhope I had for us. But it’s okay, we can repair it with time.”

The last thingyou saw before passing out was your phone shattered against the hard asphaltnear your head, the splinters of plastic and components landing on your face.The last thing you felt was his arms wrapping around you, staying still for a quicksecond as if he was cherishing the sensation of your body against his, before pickedyou up with a sharp tinge of pain all over your body.

After that, youlet yourself go unconscious. You didn’t want to be there for what was next,whatever it was.

[shadowofthelamp]

A list of Zim’s Schemes

This is mostly for my own use to figure out a ‘pattern’ of sorts so I can come up with ideas for Zim to be planning to feel authentic my own fics. Some were more implied as they’re mentioned offhandedly. I cut the ones that aren’t really ‘plottish’ relating to invading like Germs. I threw a couple of personal observations at the end. (Sorry to mobile people if the readmore doesn’t work)

SEASON 1

-Infiltrating a human school

-Using a human as a ‘friend’ to blend in

-Something to do with laser weasels

-Entering Dib’s body via mini-ship to mess with it and force Dib to get rid of evidence of him being an alien 

-Using the robo-parents as his ‘real parents’ to blend in

-Consuming human organs to be ‘more human’ and blend in

-Attempting to retrieve his ship from humans who had captured it- notable for having complete control of a crowd of humans that he didn’t brainwash and being uncomfortable with it

-Dropping a giant water balloon on Dib in retaliation for being basically tortured by water earlier in the episode

-Trying to figure out how to control the world’s population via fast food. (Considering his species seems really attached to junk food, not an unreasonable assumption)

-Saving the planet from Planet Jackers because it’s his to conquer/destroy.

-Something to do with shooting chickens into space after spinning them around

-Hypnotizing his schoolmates and using said hypnosis to force Dib to give him information about a weak spot in his security.

-Using time travel to erase Dib from existence

-Using a wormhole and moose to get rid of his bullying classmates, especially Dib

-Mutating a hamster to massive sizes, with the intent to make humans bow to him because they can’t resist its cuteness

-Tries to interrogate a baby, then dispatches with the Na’gok via stupidity ray

-Captures Dib who snuck into the base with the intent of performing horrible experiments on him

-Sell candy for a fundraiser to get the ‘mystery prize’

-Return movie to avoid suspicion by the FBI

-Turn Dib into bologna for setting off his allergies

-Find use for Mars, and then, use it to squish out all life on Earth

-Try to make Dib look bad on TV

-Sabotage the PEG to blow up the planet, after using a Dib robot to walk past security. (Probably one of his more elaborate plans. Why did he have a Dib robot, though? I can’t imagine he made it in the span of like... two hours.)

-Not Earth-related but go through extra training to get weapons

-While doing time field experiments on Dib, has to deal with the slow explosion

-Gets a giant stealth mech, immediately attempts to kill Dib with it

-Pumping cows full of sewage to taint the food supply

-Attempts to put GIR into defensive mode to make him more useful, changes a guy’s brain who sees him with a squid’s

-Puts Dib in some kind of virtual life simulator to make him admit he threw a muffin at him

-Stop Tak

_______

SEASON 2

-Controlling the Massive to get the Tallests to watch his plan about unleashing a brain-eating parasite on the humans

-Infecting the city with genetically enhanced vermin

-We never found out in Zim Eats Waffles, but he’s got a happiness-inducing brain probe (possibly for human slaves to make them more docile?) and a demon mutant cyborg squid, so that’s something

-Messes with Dibship and tries to get it to get rid of Dib

-Wants weapons from the ‘Plakoosians’, gets them. Also something to do with a globe stuffed in a fishbowl- maybe making the fish giant like Peepi, or shrinking the planet?

-Uses the skool election to try and gain power

-Packed Gir full of monkey explosives

-Pretends to be Santa to make humans obey him and build a teleporter to be beamed to the Tallests as slaves.

_______

MOVIE:

-Sit in a toilet for like a year to get Dib out of shape and even more obsessive than usual, then bring Earth to where the Tallests can’t ignore it.

_______

THOUGHTS

-Of these, three/four (depending on if you count Mysterious Mysteries where he tries to discredit Dib) were pretty much for the sole purpose of ‘blending in/appearing more human’. 

-Nine involve animals (ten if you count rubber piggies, I guess, eleven if you count the brain-eating parasite)

-Megadoomer, Bolognius, Dib’s WLOD, and objectively Mysterious Mysteries are all super petty.

-I was originally going to say The Wettening was petty too, but nah, he earned that. I still hold to my theory that that episode was a reworking of the pilot (the plot to both is ‘Zim discovers an allergy to an earth thing and Dib immediately tries to exploit it, leading to them both building machines to trying and get back at each other using the allergy thing) and it’s Dib at his most sadistic.

-One thing from the show bible that sticks with me is that a lot of plots could be derived from him taking what he hears other students/humans saying seriously, like someone mentioning cooties and him demanding more information on this strange disease. This is where Door to Door/Career Day/sort of FBI Warning especially come in.

-Utilizing gaps in his knowledge about humans (like babies being not a threat) can be used in tandem with that ^^^

-Zim is pretty competent when it comes to actually building things, he just doesn’t really think beyond whatever the next step of his plan is. IE: With Peepi, the idea of increasing the size of an Earth animal that seems to immobilize humans isn’t a bad one, but he didn’t think to brainwash said animal to listen to him. Or making an energy-absorbing blob, again without some kind of failsafe built in. 

-He also seems to enjoy experimenting on Earth animals, although that’s probably because it’s fun to play with alien stereotypes.

-He’s somewhat protective of Earth, in a possessive ‘only I get to destroy it’ way. He wants to impress the Tallest with this planet, and that means it needs to be in one piece long enough to get them here. He’s still totally willing to demolish parts of it if need be, though, see the Wettening or Hampstergeddon or Battle of the Planets.

-Oftentimes, his plans are prompted by something Dib did to either annoy or try to expose him.

[gwenc4]

Informational Blog

1. The Innovative Theory - Joseph A. Schumpeter argues in "Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy" that capitalism isn't stationary and always evolving, with new markets and new products entering the sphere. He is perhaps most known for coining the phrase “creative destruction," which describes the method that sees new innovations replacing existing ones that are rendered obsolete over time. Schumpeter proclaims that economics may be a natural self-regulating mechanism when undisturbed by “social and other meddlers.”

He said that theories are based on logic and provide structure for understanding fact. He proceeds to illustrate that there are fundamental principles in the phenomena of money, credit, and entrepreneurial profit that complement his earlier theories of interest and the business cycle. His theory of development assigns the uppermost role to the entrepreneur and innovations introduced by him in the process of economic development. This video shows you how the Innovative Theory really works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hv-sMeNKGQ&t=120s

2. Keynesian Theory - Keynesian theory is a macroeconomic economic theory of total spending in the economy and its effects on output, employment, and inflation. Keynesian economics was developed by the British economist John Maynard Keynes in an attempt to understand the Great Depression. Keynesian economics is considered a "demand-side" theory or shall we say inflation, that focuses on changes in the economy over the short run.

His theory was the first to differentiate the study of economic behavior and markets based on individual incentives from the study of broad national economic aggregate variables and constructs. Based on his theory, Keynes advocated for increased government expenditures and lower taxes to stimulate demand and pull the worldwide economy out of Depression . Subsequently, Keynesian economics was wont to ask the concept that optimal economic performance might be achieved—and economic slumps prevented—by influencing aggregate demand through activist stabilization and economic intervention policies by the government. This video allows you to understand the Keynesian Theory without confusion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kukKpqd_B2c

3. Alfred Marshall Theory -  Alfred Marshall’s specialty was microeconomics—the study of individual markets and industries, as opposed to the study of the whole economy. In his most vital book, Principles of Economics, Marshall emphasized that the worth and output of an honest are determined by both supply and demand: the 2 curves are like scissor blades that intersect at equilibrium. Modern economists trying to know why the worth of an honest changes still start by trying to find factors which will have shifted demand or supply, an approach they owe to Marshall.

The concept of consumer surplus is another of Marshall’s contributions. He noted that the worth is usually an equivalent for every unit of a commodity that a consumer buys, but the worth to the buyer of every additional unit declines. A consumer will buy units up to the point where the marginal value equals the price. Therefore, on all units previous to the last one, the buyer reaps a benefit by paying but the worth of the great to himself. The size of the benefit equals the difference between the consumer’s value of all these units and the amount paid for the units. This difference is called the consumer surplus, for the surplus value or utility enjoyed by consumers. Marshall also introduced the concept of producer surplus, the quantity the producer is really paid minus the quantity that he would willingly accept. Marshall used these concepts to live the changes in well-being from government policies like taxation. Although economists have refined the measures since Marshall’s time, his basic approach to what is now called welfare economics still stands. The video below explains how the theory works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTd0nQeW05U

4. Risk and Uncertainty - bearing Theory -  Frank Hyneman Knight distinguished between risk that can be modeled probabilistically, from uncertainty, for which the probabilities are unknowable. For instance, uncertainty surrounds the implementation of latest strategies, the event of latest products or entry into new markets. Similarly, the positive consequences of acquiring a competitor may have unknowable probabilities. According to the idea , bearing business uncertainty creates profit and therefore the more uncertainty taken on, the more profit are often gained. The relationship between uncertainty and gain could also be linear, or maybe exponential, where there are bigger payoffs on the proper hand side of the chart.

The uncertainty-bearing theory obviously views entrepreneurs as bearers of uncertainty making it a very individualistic theory to start out with. The theory places great emphasis on the entrepreneur’s ability to form decisions under uncertainty. The uncertainty perspective suggests a normative dimension: that entrepreneurs who are willing to require on great uncertainty may deserve windfall profits the rare times they are doing succeed. Entrepreneurs combat uncertainty consistent with their inclinations and abilities—the greater their self-confidence, the more they will combat . Thus, uncertainty bearing may be a capability that's innate or developed and using it in touch uncertainty in an entrepreneurial context may be a normal cost of doing business or "cost of production", where the payoffs are indefinite, future, and supported hope and theories. In this video, it explains the how the theory works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAzj_CBgSPk

5. Kirzner’s Learning-Alertness Theory - According to Kirzner, the profits entrepreneurs receive from entrepreneurship are their reward for their tolerance of uncertainty as they eliminate arbitrage opportunities (the opportunity to sell the same product at a higher price than he or she bought it) created by the ignorance or incompetence of incumbent firms. Entrepreneurs need to be alert in order to be able to perceive economic opportunities that others cannot yet see, such as the need for new goods or services. Opportunities are seen to exist only because of the ignorance of incumbents otherwise they would already be exploited. When incumbents don't know key information or don't even realize what they are doing not know, then opportunities for entrepreneurship are born.

Ignorance begets errors that can be corrected by the actions of entrepreneurs. The entrepreneur acts under uncertainty and can't know if his or her action will yield a profit until after the action has been taken. Thus, entrepreneurs must accept they'll lose money (or that of their investors) from their actions if they end up to be incorrect. Kirzner believes that entrepreneurial alertness cannot be taught. However, this belief has been critiqued because marketing research and customer discovery can clearly help to acknowledge certain sorts of opportunities. But a rebuttal could be that knowing that marketing research was needed within the first place is entrepreneurial. Kirzner doesn't view the economic actions like buying resources or creating new products as entrepreneurial. Rather it's only the act of alertness that's entrepreneurial. The video below explains the theory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu-i1q8LVvA

[inkprintedfox]

OC Study

Tagged by @advena87 to fill out -THIS- OC question prompt.

I tag @starsandskies @1orweth @kanawolf

This is time consuming so I can understand if you guys don't want to do it, so no pressure. I spent roughly a week and a half, almost two weeks on this? No regrets, mostly took so long for me because I work full time and I tend to space out a lot and ramble. Lol

It is quite a bit of fun and a good exercise to help develop your characters so I do recommend It! Don't recommend doing more than three OCs at a time though, three was hard for me and usually I'm an over-achiever. Go easy and dont burn yourself out! Also would be a good exercise if you're writing with a canon character and want to get a handle on working with them.

I wanted to answer this in character originally but it would have been twice as long and probably taken me a month or more. 😅 Perhaps I'll do something like that one day....

Dragon Age OCs per usual for me.

Warden-Commander and Hero of Fereldan (DAO & DAOA)

Growing up in the Denerim Alienage has made Feiell a very bitter, angry, and agressive person. Biting and scrabbling to survive she also had to fight to keep her family and neighbors safe from the rich humans that liked to exploit the destitute elves. She gained a reputation as a protector but also a very hard woman.

She redibly accepted her conscription into the Grey Wardens, not only to escape the persecution of the law, but also to escape the narrow world of the Alianage. Collecting the people that would later be affectionately called "The Blight Brigade" exposed her to many new adventures as well as lifelong friendships, love, and personal growth that could not have happened otherwise.

The Champion of Kirkwall (DA2)

Laid-back, vain, and honestly somewhat lazy, Aiden has never wanted to be anyone's savior let alone a whole city's. Family has been the only thing that mattered in his life and after his father's death, he naturally took on the role of protector and main provider for his mother and siblings. This also made it very natural to take in the stray band of misfits that became almost like family and also why it is so natural for Aiden to constantly help people, even at times he would rather not.

His bleeding heart drags Aiden into the center of conflict far more often than he likes and he constantly berates himself for it. This automatic altruism has jaded him which fuels his sarcastic and sometimes bitter, self-deprecating humor. A tad over dramatic at times means that while he rarely, it ever, says no to aiding someone in need, it certainly doesn't mean he has to be quiet about it either.

The Inqusitor (DAI)

Max has been fortunate for most of his life, from growing up in the wealthy Trevelyan family, to his good looks and, quiet frankly, fantastic smile it's easy to assume he'd be another spoiled rich brat. You'd be giving in to a stereotype that doesn't, quiet, fit him though. From a young age Max has always been outgoing and adventurous which made him a handful to raise. His father frequently grappled with finding things to keep his youngest son occupied in ways that he hadn't had to do with his previous three children.

Born with a naturally sharp mind and quick wit, Max picks up new concepts quickly and with ease. Which means he often grew board with tutors, burned through the family library in a handful of years, quickly became very competent on horseback as well as the breeding and rearing of them (part of the family business), and often terrorized his siblings as well as the hired staff. Once he exhausted most of the interesting things at home he started running off to search for new adventures. Boredom and frequent arguments with his father often lead to habitual bouts of running away from home. Hence where Max got to truly learn about the world and open his eyes to the kind of privilege he's been so lucky to be born with. Unfortunately this also has ingrained his habit of running away from problems he doesn't see a forward solution to. (*cough*theinqusiton*cough*)

OC Study

Featuring:

Warden-Commander Feiell “Fe" Tabris

Champion of Kirkwall Aiden Hawke

Inquisitor Maxwell “Max" Trevelyan

1. Is your OC easily bothered by things?

Feiell – Small things don’t really bother her but she is a tad hot-headed so if you give her a hard time you might not be in for the best experience. She also has zero tolerance for idiots or assholes.

Aiden – He’s a petty bitch that mostly whines and complains to annoy his friends. Also whining about petty things is a good cover for the bigger worries and anxieties he hides underneath.

Max – Mostly an easygoing, carefree type. It takes the numerous responsibilities of the Inquisition weighing down on him all at once before he starts cracking.

2. How easily does your OC make friends?

Feiell – Most defiantly not a people person. Her natural stoic demure and biting sarcasm keeps people at bay. You have to spend quite a bit of time around her before she warms up to you.

Aiden – For reasons he doesn’t really understand people like Aiden. It’s probably his easy smile and sense of humor which he uses to get what he wants or needs out of them. Not really manipulative just doesn’t feel like he deserves the attention. The humor mostly hides his pain and keeps people at arms length, mostly unintentionally. He hates to burden those he loves.

Max – Max loves people, mostly entertaining, or teasing them. His signature charming smile and good looks usually put people at ease which makes him very likable. It also lets him get away with the mischief he often gets into.

3. Does your OC go beyond what they have to do or do they usually do just enough work to get by?

Feiell – Has almost literally killed herself to get where she is. Her work ethic is legendary and she’ll do almost anything to support her family and friends.

Aiden – Will do the barest minimum to get by. Her lazy as hell, even though he is incapable of saying no when someone needs help.

Max – Believes in doing things right the first time and if not the first time then defiantly the second time. Whatever the job needs to get done he willing to do and if it’s a favorite project he can lose himself in it indefinitely.

4. Is your OC respectful of others?

Feiell – She will be as respectful to you as you are to her, but will out match you if you’re a dick to her or her friends.

Aiden – Respectful enough to not cause trouble and get people to leave him alone.

Max – Perfect manners, and ridiculously charming. He believes everyone deserves respect unless they prove otherwise.

5. Is your OC imaginative or more down-to-earth?

Feiell – Defiantly no-nonsense and down-to-earth. She believes in hard work to active your goals.

Aiden – More of a day-dreamer but pulls a practical side together to care for and help family and friends. Dreams are nice but plans put food on the table.

Max – Total idealist, truly believes even the most impossible is attainable if you work at it long enough. Most of that idealistic optimism is broken after Trespasser, but that’s a long story.

6. Is your OC comfortable with themselves?

Feiell – She’s always been comfortable with who she is and has never felt any shame for it. She owes that to her parents and cousin.

Aiden – Feels like a constant failure and a burden despite how hard he tries not to. Doesn’t feel comfortable with opening up about his feelings and weighing others down with them. Is also terrible with expressing more painful emotions.

Max – Is mostly comfortable with himself. Always felt like a disappointment to his family because he never had the kind of goals for his life he thought they would want from him. Also never really saw himself as reliable but the Inquisition changed all that.

7. Does your OC plan things and stick to it or do they make it up as their go?

Feiell – Always has a plan and is a master of adjusting things on the fly if needed. Prefers to stick to the plan but has accepted how rarely that can happen.

Aiden – He’s been winging his whole life and it somehow hasn’t killed him yet.

Max – Usually has more of an outline than a hard plan. Trial & error are his best friends and somehow he’s still alive, that’s probably because he uses educated guesses more that throwing things to the wind.

8. Was their life eventful before the start of the story, or was it more dull?

Feiell – Depends if living in poverty and oppression is dull to you. I guess since it was normal for her it was boring.

Aiden – The stress of hiding a mage father and sister was more than Aiden ever wanted. He would have preferred boring.

Max – While the constant mischief Max got himself into means things were never dull they certainly seem boring when compared to life in the Inquisition. Josephine certainly had her hands full going through all of Max’s past exploits.

9. Do they have the habit to insult other people?

Feiell – Is a salty, little bitch so defiantly yes. She has a sharp tongue.

Aiden – Bit of a smart-ass and occasionally he can’t help it so it gets him in trouble.

Max – Mostly no, it takes quite a bit to get on his nerves enough to make him snap at you. Usually very polite.

10. Would your OC be described as “the life of the party”?

Feiell – She can be described as the death of the party.

Aiden – Likes to think he is.

Max – Is the actual life of the party if he wants to be. Usually he is.

11. Are they critical of others?

Feiell – To a degree, yes

Aiden - Mostly critical of himself

Max – Not really, he’s pretty non-judgmental

12. Do they like art? what is their favorite type (paintings, songs, fashion, etc)?

Feiell – The art of war perhaps, but music is good too.

Aiden – He considers Fenris a work of art if that counts.

Max – Paintings, music, nature, pretty clothes (mostly on Dorian), Max loves it all. He was especially fond of watching Solar paint his murals.

13. Are they more accepting or more controlling of the people in their life?

Feiell – As long as you’re not bothering her and no one gets hurt she doesn’t really care what people do.

Aiden – He has no control over his own life let alone any one else.

Max – Very accepting of people but not above a subtle nudge to do things he feels might benefit them.

14. Is your OC a good listener?

Feiell – She listens more than she talks, so yes.

Aiden – The one who’s always there to listen when you need him.

Max - Yes, he also has a great memory so he's very good at keeping track of all the drama in life. Lol

15. Are they opinionated or more willing to change their minds?

Feiell – Pretty opinionated but not impossible to change her mind, not that it is easy to do so mind you.

Aiden – Too changeable at times and mostly keeps his opinions to himself.

Max – A few solid moral opinions that he won’t move on but open-minded on nearly everything else.

16. Are they the kind of person who’s always on the defensive?

Feiell – Much less than she use to be but definitely yes.

Aiden – Only when he feels blamed for everything, which he is often.

Max – No, he dose his best to own up to his mistakes and rarely takes things personally.

17. Do people like hanging around them? do they have a positive, friendly energy?

Feiell – I will file this under HELL NO. She scares the crap out of most people if she doesn’t piss them off. It can take quite awhile for friends to warm up to her, if at all.

Aiden – People love Aiden, but the older he gets the less Aiden likes people. They demand too much from him but he’ll never be able to say no, or miss a chance at a passive-aggressive joke. Or a regular bad joke for that matter.

Max – People love Max almost from the moment they meet him. There is just something about him that puts everyone at ease and makes it easier to trust and smile. Must be the charming smile, yeah, has to be. He’s not bad looking either.

18. Is your OC a procrastinator? if they are, what’s an example of how much?

Feiell – People die if she puts things off, so no. Some days she wishes she could put many things off though. Like dying anytime soon, there’s too much to accomplish.

Aiden – What is productivity? If nobody is dying or it’s not dragging him, kicking and screaming, by the hair then its probably not getting done. At least no time soon. Guilt trip him hard to speed things up.

Max – Important things get done but if it’s not a pressing issue then it often can be temporarily abandoned for more enjoyable activities. Even if it’s set aside, the thing will still be done in a reasonable amount of time. Unless he forgets, which can happen frequently.

19. Do they tend to panic in certain situations or are they more calm?

Feiell – Always calm, if something bothers her you’ll never know.

Aiden – Panics constantly. Somewhat hides it well…somewhat…

Max – Takes most things in stride, the sudden dump of responsibility and people’s lives was really stressful but he adjusted to it.

20. Are they vengeful?

Feiell – I literally made a post of her being a deity of vengeance lol.

Aiden – Petty or bitter, perhaps, but not full on vengeful.

Max – Yes, touch the people he loves and see a whole different side of him.

21. What are some skills your OC has a talent for and what are some that they worked for?

Feiell – She’s has a natural flair for swordsmanship, her mother started training her and Fe kept up the practice even after her mother’s passing. Her leadership skills were…a little more rough. She had to learn how to organize and lead people on the fly because of the Blight but luckily she learns quickly.

Aiden – He’s scary good at lying, not even Varric can catch him in one. (Honestly most of his book is just Varric's best guess on Aiden's thoughts) Knife throwing took quite a bit of practice though. He can now nail someone at 100 pages and is unmatched at darts.

Max – Politics and navigating the Great Game are weirdly natural for Max even though he kinda hates it. His archery skill is something he is extremely proud of because he’s practiced relentlessly to be as good as he is. And he really is good, until a natural like Sera comes and shatters his ego. Lol

22. Are they more socially awkward or socially confident?

Feiell – Awkward, but in the way that she doesn’t care what people do or say. She dose her own thing and ignores everyone else.

Aiden – Smooth on the outside, tired wreak on the inside. Not that anyone will ever know.

Max – Social chameleon, and life of the party. Until he slips away unnoticed somehow.

23. What is something really dumb that irritates your OC a lot?

Feiell – Dumb questions about her hair: “How long is it?”, “Why do you keep it that long?”, “Is it really that red?”. Usually answered with “Why do you care so much, it’s not your hair.” Also people touching her constantly, she doesn’t see the need to constantly clap people on the shoulder or grab their arms when somethings funny.

Aiden – Orlesians, if you don’t know anything about DA then I’m sorry, this probably doesn’t make sense to you.

Max – Assuming he's stupid or that because of his wealth that he doesn't do any work. He's a natural busy-body so assuming he sits on his are all day is really irritating.

24. Do they tend to see the good in people?

Feiell – No, she’s had too many bad experiences before so distrust is her default until proven otherwise.

Aiden – Sometimes, mostly sees people in shades of grey. No one is 100% good or bad.

Max – He sees the good in people as often as he can and tries to pull some good out of those who are sometimes a little lost.

25. What does it take for your OC to trust someone?

Feiell – Doing what you say you will, not hiding things, sticking up for others when it clearly has no benefit for you, and give it a few weeks….or months and she may trust you.

Aiden – Help him out in a hard spot, or help family/friends.

Max – If you’re not openly malicious or he doesn’t feel like you’re lying/hiding anything his default if to trust until proven otherwise.

26. Do they have a lot of mood swings?

Feiell – Not really, she’s not a very emotional person. Unless you count her temper which can light like a matchstick.

Aiden - Known to be moody, to the point of it being a well known joke among friends. On bad days he can even out do Anders.

Max – Only if the stress is overwhelming him or he’s pretty sick. Otherwise he’s pretty even tempered.

27. Do they like to be the center of attention or do they prefer to be in the background?

Feiell – Hates being the center of attention and would rather be left alone. Unfortunately she’s had to get use to the attention after becoming Warden-Commander.

Aiden – If people could forget who he is it would be really nice. Likes being the center of attention among friends and family, doesn’t like it with crowds of strangers.

Max – Loves entertaining people and making them laugh which makes him great for parties. He grew up attending big gatherings and is an expert at navigating them, which means he's also very good at slipping away from them when he tires of the crowds.

28. Do people think they’re pretentious?

Feiell – Sometimes, her natural expression can give that impression but most of those people that make this mistake are racist shems that don’t like the power she has. Or the fact that she could kill them without breaking a sweat.

Aiden – No, his face is too friendly and if that doesn’t do it the self-deprecating jokes do.

Max – Yes, it’s easy for people to assume that since he comes from money. He’s never thought himself better than anyone though and tries to dispel that impression, but you can’t control what people want to think of you.

29. Is your OC detail oriented or do they focus more on the big picture?

Feiell – Details, details, you add them all up and that’s how you get a bigger picture. Other words, very detail oriented.

Aiden – Big picture. How you get there is a mystery though.

Max – Big picture first then an outline of the main details to get there.

30. Which high school movie stereotype would they fit best?

Feiell – The ice queen/The strict, scary teacher.

Aiden – Class clown/Troublemaker/Weird but laid back teacher

Max – The jock that befriends the weird kid/Hot science teacher

31. Are they good giving advice?

Feiell – Defiantly not, she’s better at giving orders.

Aiden – Only ask if you want to get in trouble. Ok, that’s not completely true, occasionally he can give good advice. Particularly to help cheer someone up.

Max – I would say yes, he’s gotten quite a bit of good advice over the years and likes to pass it on.

32. Which one of the 7 deadly sins fit your OC more? do they see it as a flaw?

Feiell – Wrath: Only a flaw if you think beating your enemies is a bad thing.

Aiden - Sloth: Regrets this flaw. If he had acted sooner on many things they might not have escalated the way they did.

Max – Pride: A flaw he has worked hard to temper over the years. Was more of a problem when he was younger than now.

33. Is your OC more likely to keep their feelings to themselves or to share them?

Feiell – Keeps them mostly to herself. A couple close friends may get a glimpse but only Zevran knows her well. He’s learned when to prod to get her to open up.

Aiden – Doesn’t like to burden others so keeps his feelings to himself even when he shouldn’t.

Max – His oldest sister is his best friend and confidant, she gets to hear everything. Max has started to lean on Dorian in this way too. Basically immediate family and good friends will know what’s up.

[mariaantonnietta]

My bleach musings.

Bleach is a series I love and somentimes the mood strikes for me to talk about it, so here I will post some theories, thoughts, headcannons and even plot bunnies I've gathered. Of course spoilers ahead.

First, I really like how the whole business with zangetsu ended up for Ichigo, how all inner guiding was rendered fullfilled once he realised the simple truth that both zangetsu's were him. It really gave the impression that he found himself and was finally aware of all his power and how it worked. At the same time, it pains me he never actually explained it or used it fully, I felt dissconected from him, he knew now better than ever what his real power was, and I didn't do at all.

Unpopular opinion, I like the fullbrighter arc, I agree that it was a pain watching it be written at snail pace, and that the total change of setting felt bad then, but reading it again all in one go it's a fantastic piece of mentally torturing your protagonist, so well made how it explores ichigo fears and weak points, with tsukishima exploiting them one by one in a downrall spiral. I found myself wondering how far kubo could break him down...the conclusion here is that it would have been interesting if it went more like this, alas kubo heart is too soft(my is soft too I was relieved he was alright, I just felt the escape from the situation a little cheap. It made sense that people now helped him back, so it's alright) the real conclusion here is that kubo can write psicological pieces if he puts his mind into it.

I want to talk about hollows now, so bear with me. I heard some thing orctwo from the nocels, but I dod not read them and also they're kinda-like canon, so I will try to not mention them or to explain if at any point I get something from them what that is. And if something was explained another way in a novel, then anyways I like my headcanon too.

So, now, my personal hollow theory lesson:

First, hollows are plus that stayed too long in the world of living (generally souls go automatically to siul society, you stay in the living world if you have regrets 'chaining you' there) and whose chain broke with time as these regrets acumulatted, becoming a hollow.

Hollows renounced their hearts to calm the pain, and their remants now form a mask that protects them. Also, they have a hollow left behind that marks their empiness they now feel, they lack humanity and hunger from it. That's why they seek to eat souls, to fill that hole, but they will always remain hungry.

Now we all know some hollows start seeing other's hollows as prey. This has not to do with power level but with a personal thing, I believe. A hollow might always remain a hollow or migth want to eat others and eventually become gillian, and that's intristic on the hollow( think the horse and king discourse here).

Now what happens when someone is eaten by a hollow? Not with their power, with their souls? My headcannon goes as follows:

First do you remember how gillians are said to be hundreds our wills silenced and going numb and adchucas are born from the ones where a voice is stronger than the rest and wants to keep eating? Well, it's always like that. A soul eaten by a hollow becomes part of the hollow, totally suprimed by the primary conscience. They become part of him/her. It's a bit weird, but hear me out. Let's say a shinigami purifies a hollow that has eaten 99 souls. Then all 100 souls are retourned to soul society when they are purified. They return to the balance (quincy wiping out hollows from existance is dramatic) as different souls.

But at the same time, I think these souls do influence the primary mind (the king). Their accumulation does change a little bit the person, even if it's always fundamentally the first soul.

Also, I'm pretty sure there exist two types of eating. The total kind and the partial kind. The total kind gives more power and total control of the soul, the partial is when full can't be done. Partial eating stops the evolution on hollows and twists plusses into hollows of their own.

About shinigamis, I've heard somewhere that they soul reborns in the human world and only their body can be consumed, and at the end it makes a lot of sense. How else will shinigami die?(I think this also goes for anyone living in soul society, they're especially delicious to hollows because they give power but don't add up to the cacophony of voices they are constantly suppressing.(this is probably an instrictual thing they can't turn off)). Aaroniero is an special case like methalasia.

Another thing is that their memories should become murkier the more souls they eat. Hollows all have at least their loved ones on intrinsic memory when they're born (the ones that made you warm the ones you should it) so they all have some memory of their past lives at the start, but it surely gets murkier with more souls eaten. That being said, as hollows are lost souls at their bare, something always lingers with them. About plus souls in soul society, it said the probability is really small, but I think it also depends on who you encounter. If you met your mom when you arrive, you will remember her. (The boy and sado, the boy remembered sado and their promise, because they were connected). The probabilty of such encounter in tour entire lives on soul society is the improbable one, and if you didnt have a strong will to find them as you die I doubt you will even remember they existed. But strong impression might remain, when you don't expect them.

Now going back to hollows, another thing is their masks. It's tabú not only for shinigamis but between hollows themselves to destroy another's mask. (See nelliel reaction to nnoitra destroying her fraccions masks)Also, becoming an arrancar its more inner that destroting a mask, hollow masks grow back when destroyed (nel fraccion, also orihime's brother.)I think is implied by the later that they remember when they were human without it . But he was a new holloow so...what's clear is that they're at their most vulnerable without them, and that it will grow back to protect them. But it may not completely(grim fraccion, nel broken one)...it may cause a trauma that prevents it's vomplete regrow, but is not an advance but a wound, they cover it up. To break your mask to become an arrancar (naturally) must be an inner determination.

About hell, pretty sure hollows always go to soul society, and only can go to hell if they were evil in their human lives too. Soul reapers can go to hell. Also, it can happen that a hollow changes and becomes better and ends up not going to hell. Like, let's say nelliel was an horrible human, now as she changed in hueco mundo she won't end up in hell when she dies, you need to remain a bad person to go to hell.

I have more theories regarding resurrection, the other resurrection, and a lot more things, but this is long enough. Let me give a last thought for now.

Both Aaroniero and Szayel cases interest me, but let's focus a bit on szayel and his brother. I know about what the novel said(the cero espada stuff I find hilarious, it's another number pun: two ceros conjoined made an eight, when they are surperpossed they make again a cero), and what their backstory was in it, but let's ignore it now, even better, let's pretend it's false.

I really find interesting the reality where these two souls encountering is actually accidental.

Tell me, what are the odds, of two souls not only both becoming hollows and managing to miss each other(so the did not eat the other)...but both reaching adjuchas rank(or a adjuchas and a vasto lorde, same thing), and both reuniting, under the same, ambitious man? How infinitessimal the probabilities are? To not be killed by soul reapers or other hollows, to both becoming attracted to eat hollows, to both becoming and active voice in a gillian, to both becoming adjuchas and surviving (and one to vasto lorde if you want)...it's too low to be posible, that's why the novel explamation while not perfect does make more sense, but even so!

I really want to see that scientific face, being so throghtfully confronted by this imposible fate staring right back at him.

[thegooddoctorsthoughts]

Hatred, Fear and Stagnancy

“Do you know fear?”

Her voice echoed across down creaking hallways, the rusted machinery gave a slight ring to each gear as the melodic nature of her voice rolled across each of them.

Her footsteps were light, making no sound that would betray that she was in fact present, only the slow shift of loose boards bending beneath the pressure of each step, causing each on to bend upwards, and in turn I could feel the pressure in the soles of my feet.

I didn’t turn to face her I was in no mood to even begin to parse who stood questioning me.

“Fear? Of all things, Fear?”

She stopped maybe two feet to my right, gazing out into the cavernous expanse in which that cancerous doubt had once called it’s home.

“Regret your helplessness and know fear before me. You burned those words into your very soul. Do you know fear? Do you know what it is you wish to instill in those who oppose you?”

I considered throwing her off the ledge for her inane line of questioning, I had little in the way of time or energy to even begin to have this conversation again.

“Fear is something that drives me forward, not in an all-consuming way, but in a way, I cannot quite describe. I lack the word to explain my own fear of my mortality. It is a very nebulous thing. It is fear, yet also anger, hatred, and disgust. I know fear, I stare into the void, beyond all of this, and it feels me with such a visceral fear, an incommunicable horror, paralyzing, and primal. It is the purest form of fear, of oblivion, of the void, not cold or dead or anything of the sort, simply a total existential vacuum. So yes I know fear.”

She sighed at that, knowing she would get nowhere for today. A crack ran through her and like lightning striking a mirror she shattered and vanished

I was left alone, staring out over the crater which once housed a sinister, malignant, malevolence.

I, however, was not alone for long, I heard him coming down the corridor behind me, having climbed out from deep within the clockwork.

“Magnus”

“Monolith”

The two of us stood there, he passed me a cigarette and I waited for him to pick at whatever wound had interested him enough to come all the way up here.

The layer of rust on the gears slowly flaked off, the machinery groaning to life as his mind warped and willed this place into order.

“Failure then?”

I was taken aback by the simplicity and brashness of his question.

He was blunt and legendarily so, however, this was different, there was no leading question or direction in which to direct the conversation, he wanted something raw and unfiltered, for once he approached only for data.

“I am in a way back to square one, temporarily, the battle against stagnancy is an uphill one and change while inevitable will is slow now. As I had finally built up enough momentum to get true change in effect the world ground to a halt, then once I managed to stabilize after that setback we are suddenly back in a geography in which those around us actively fight against change. Our longterm plan oddly enough has been accelerated by recent events, our direction and purpose made even clearer than initially predicted due to the world grinding to a halt. Our understanding and frame of reference have reached a point where we know largely what to do simply not how to get the ball rolling, simply wait. It brings frustration, a feeling of failure to determine our life.”

“Your shift in pronoun from I to us betrays your emotionality.” “What do you expect of us? Logic rules first and foremost and while the world spins into a chaotic maelstrom we intend to simply ignore or twist to our advantage. We are left with our wheels spinning, we’ve made our mind up already on so many things in the time allotted to us by this pandemic. How to return to being single, finally. What to do after the end of our degree. How to approach our need for centrality and accommodation. We have answered so many questions, we have used our knowledge our nature, rendered down the very nature of so many things and constructed systems to ensure success if not initially then eventually. We use the knowledge we possess and yet without applying it we are useless, we feel useless. We have failed and returned to this stagnant pit of complacency and immobility. There is no forward movement here, only a slow dragging rot that permeates into the bedrock of this edifice of mundanity. Here lies only rot and a creeping, sapping horror. We have only a will to escape it by any means. That untold and unimaginable slow decay creeps itself across every inch of us, slowly worming its way into every fiber of our being, rotting skin, rusting metal, and tainting our every thought, slowly but surely.”

He took a moment to drink it in, the rage and disgust I had for this place, we all had for this place.

“From the moment you understood the weakness of your flesh, it disgusted you. You didn’t really care how it was that you escaped it only that you did. You wrapped yourself in metal and starlight, bending gods and poetry to you will. This place reeks of mortality, sinews of it hanging loosely from every surface. This is where you were born and where you refuse to die. This place is a constant reminder of your own mortality and with it an irritation you cannot ignore. While here you are unable to operate as you would wish to, no matter how hard you try this place will rust the machinery you build, rot at the flesh and slowly, but sure, tug on the very fabric of your mortality. You can feel your mortality slipping away from you, like so much sand between your fingers. The longer you spend here, the more it feels like you will die here.”

“So long as we move, so long as we can continue with our exploits, even if it is just a distraction from our own mortality then it is no different to us if we die or not. So long as we are elsewhere the chance of us living FEELS greater. While we are here, death is certain, but so long as we are anywhere else, there is a non-zero chance we live forever, or until death suits us. It is stupid, human, and irrational, however, we refuse to lie down and die here, to allow the stagnancy to rule us. We will enforce change, we will ensure that the work we do goes to good use, we will be a net good in the world. We will be selfish and hated, we will bend others to our will, destroy and devour. We will wear the tattered remnants of our humanity with pride and disgust until we finally cast the final vestiges of our mortality aside or make peace with the universe and relish in the beauty which we bore witness to in our tiny fraction of reality.”

He flicked the end of his cigarette out over the edge and caught me by both shoulders.

“For there is rage and hatred, love and happiness, humanity, and disparity. Hold tight to your rage, your happiness, and your acceptance of contrast. You are helpless against the tides of time only now, for a short time, and this will not be the last time you will be in such as state either. However, you need only hold out until you are free, if not in Galway, then maybe Dublin, Cork, Belfast, London, Brussels or Berlin. Regret your helplessness and know fear.”

Bravery is not the absence of fear, but our ability to act in spite of it.

[breakingarrows]

Bioshock (2007)

[This was originally published on VerticalSliceMedia.com in 2018 and is republished from the latest draft I have]

Bioshock is a game that succeeds on the shoulders of one character: Andrew Ryan. His charisma and speech are enthralling, even if you disagree with the beliefs he puts forward. Ryan founded Rapture, a city under the sea hidden from the rest of the world and the setting for Bioshock. While Ryan is not the only person to live in Rapture and engage with the player, his presence is felt throughout the city through audio diaries and propaganda. The city would not exist were it not for Ryan, and the city would be nothing were it not for those special few who occupied it.

Rapture is both a location that allows compromised characters to either redeem or damn themselves on the moral scales, and a condemnation of the ideology of an unregulated, free market, unrestricted by meddling governments whether it be democratic, communistic, or religious. Andrew Ryan declares he does not believe in any god, but rather as the founder of Rapture he occupies in his own mind the position of omnipotence. It is this stubborn denial that any could usurp his position that leads to his downfall at the hands of Fontaine, who desires Ryan’s power but knows it is not something that will be willingly shared. Ryan is recorded in an audio log dismissing Adam, the chemical that gives the character’s of Bioshock their abilities, and its powers as trite and not worth his time, until it begins to take hold and dominate the population’s time and money. It is then that he seeks to be rid of Fontaine via the police, despite the supposed freedom Rapture affords. Ryan desired a utopia free from regulation, but only if he was at the top. When confronted with the flaws of his system, Ryan retreats ever inward and seals himself in from the rest of Rapture. Having already founded a city under the ocean, separated from the rest of the world, Ryan chooses to further separate himself from the own world he built, delving even further into his own inability to change. An audiolog even captures the moment Ryan rejects introspection as he ponders whether he has made mistakes building Rapture. Instead he throws any reflection away as a distraction from destroying Atlas, Fontaine’s alias for a majority of the game.

Could I have made mistakes? One does not build cities if one is guided by doubt. But can one govern in absolute certainty? I know that my beliefs have elevated me, just as I know that the things I have rejected would have destroyed me. But the city... it is collapsing before my... have I become so convinced by my own beliefs that I have stopped seeing the truth? Perhaps. But Atlas is out there, and he aims to destroy me, and destroy my city. To question is to surrender. I will not question.

Another example of Ryan’s true intentions and the failings of Rapture is with the splicers, your common enemy throughout Bioshock. Killing splicers is never given a second thought throughout the game despite being regular citizens of Rapture. Due to the lack of regulation, plasmids were allowed to flood the market with little regard to inform citizens of its side effects. Plasmids required constant Adam injections and continued usage deteriorated their body and mind. Thus splicers were born, disfigured citizens whose desire for abilities such as telekinesis led to their dehumanization to the point that they become nothing more than hideous monsters for the player to shoot, beat, and kill in the variety of ways Bioshock affords.

Doctor Suchong, frankly, I'm shocked by your proposal. If we were to modify the structure of our commercial Plasmid line as you propose, to have them make the user vulnerable to mental suggestion through pheromones, would we not be able to effectively control the actions of the citizens of Rapture? Free will is the cornerstone of this city. The thought of sacrificing it is abhorrent. However… we are indeed in a time of war. If Atlas and his bandits have their way, will they not turn us into slaves? And what will become of free will then? Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Ryan and his ideology are responsible for the splicers and he continues to exploit the citizens of Rapture even further via pheromones. The same audio log that explains how Ryan can control splicers shows his true nature: one who is willing to compromise his ideology so long as it serves him. Ryan doesn’t actually care about allowing the people of Rapture to benefit from the freedom given when government and religion is removed, he just wants a place where he can benefit freely without having to give anything to help those below him. Ryan wants complete and total freedom, but if Atlas is going to turn the lower class against him, then Ryan is okay with taking away that freedom he used to lure people to Rapture in the first place.

Ryan’s adversary, Fontaine, is a con man who saw in Rapture the opportunity of a lifetime. Realizing that Ryan cared little for those who could not pull themselves up by their bootstraps and ascend the socio-economic ladder stacked against them, Fontaine gathered and empowered this collection of people to fight for him against Ryan. While Ryan surrounded himself with artists such as Sander Cohen and scientists like Yi Suchong and Brigid Tenenbaum, Fontaine created housing for the poor and orphaned. Fontaine did not do this out of the goodness of his heart in order to free these people from their oppressors. Instead he converted them into Adam addicts, turning them into the splicers who you, the player character, kill throughout your time in Rapture. Fontaine turned them over to death and tortured living by feeding them Adam, all so that he could kill Ryan and take full control of Rapture.

These sad saps. They come to Rapture thinking they're gonna be captains of industry, but they all forget that somebody's gotta scrub the toilets. What an angle they gave me... I hand these mugs a cot and a bowl of soup, and they give me their lives. Who needs an army when I got Fontaine's Home for the Poor?

While the poor had ample reason to turn against Ryan, even some in the upper class found themselves dissatisfied with Ryan’s utopia. Sander Cohen was an artist who was very sensitive to criticisms of his work and who grew to despise Ryan for damning him to a city full of doubters who couldn’t see the brilliance in his work. As Rapture fell, and Cohen descended into Adam fueled madness, he began to regard people as disposable as paint brushes and their bodies as merely canvases for him to use. Cohen isn’t actually a very good artist, as his masterpiece is simply a collection of photographs of dead bodies of former disciples. Most of his work is never seen or heard; the player merely comes across various corpses encased in plaster and placed in poses around Fort Frolic, whether that’s sitting at a dinner table or casting shadows in a spotlighted bathroom.

I know why you've come, little moth. You've your own canvas. One you'll paint with the blood of a man I once loved.

Despite being a hack artist, he does reveal some insight into the production behind Bioshock as a game: that the location of Rapture is the player’s canvas upon which the choices made during gameplay begin to create an image determined by your style. The lasting impression left by Bioshock is one the player created, as well as the one the developers presented in its characters. Bioshock is a stage play, yes, but one in which the player is able to arrange and execute their own scripts in between monologues.

The creator of Adam, the catalyst for Raptures downfall, was Brigid Tenenbaum. She survived the Nazi concentration camps of World War 2 due to her betrayal of her own kind by aiding the Nazi’s in their “science” expirements on prisoners. In Rapture she discovers the foundation for what would become Adam and despite knowing its addictive and deteriorating effects on humans continued to develop it for Fontaine in return for funding. She initially detested the Little Sisters but realized her hatred for them was really for herself. Although her Adam creation process was already standardized she began seeking a way to reverse what she had done.

One of the children came and sat in my lap. I push her off, I shout, "Get away from me!" I can see the ADAM oozing out of the corner of her mouth, thick and green. Her filthy hair hanging in her face, dirty clothes, and that dead glow in her eye... I feel... hatred, like I never felt before, in my chest. Bitter, burning fury. I can barely breathe. And suddenly, I know, it is not this child I hate.

Early on in Bioshock you are required to obtain a key from Dr. Steinman in order to progress. Steinman is a former surgeon who began to pursue creating the perfect body via Adam and his own sculpting which frequently led to “failure” and the death of the subject. He rejected the Hippocratic Oath, which Rapture’s ideology allowed for, and instead was more interested in serving his own interests than that of his patients. It is hinted at that this venture of his began prior to New Year’s Eve 1958, the fall of Rapture. You come across his many creations throughout the medical ward, usually bloodied bodies seemingly stapled to the walls. This pursuit for beauty consumed him just as much as the Adam consumed his mind and showed him visions of Aphrodite, the goddess he sought to please and gain advice from. As the first major character the player kills in Bioshock, he also serves as the template for the effects Adam had on the populace, and how it drove people deeper into their own obsessions.

I am beautiful, yes. Look at me, what could I do to make my features finer? With ADAM and my scalpel, I have been transformed. But is there not something better? What if now it is not my skill that fails me... but my imagination?

Rapture, as a place without regulation, is one where people are free to kill those who stand in their way, where people freely go missing, to experiment on people with your scalpel in the pursuit of beauty, where everything is privately owned and has a price. Ryan frequently denounced the “parasite” the altruistic leanings of liberals to utilize the power of the many to help the poor. Parasites are those who would seek to undermine free enterprise through the hacking of vending machines or by gaining something without putting in the work to earn it. Rapture is free from social programs and regulations that would bog the market down. And in return, Rapture destroyed itself through the lack of structured law and common goodwill.

Ryan’s philosophy is one of selfishness, of providing for you and only you and if someone was unable to provide it was their own fault. This Ayn Rand philosophy fails as the exploitation of those below the elites can only be tolerated for so long before rebellion. Even without Fontaine, the lower classes’ anger would have run over into violent revolution. Adam merely sped up this process by giving regular people the power to create fire literally at their fingertips.

Despite any abhorrence for this type of thinking, Ryan’s charisma and frequent postulating can momentarily keep you enthralled. I despised his unwillingness to help the poor, but I couldn’t help but wish that he had prevailed over Atlas prior to his unfortunate meeting with a golf club. Ryan is the greatest asset of Bioshock, and his death serves as the climax of the game, even if it continues on towards a stock revenge plot afterwards. Rapture dies with Ryan.

You can kill me, but you will never have my city. My strength is not in steel and fire, that is what the parasites will never understand.