#her existence) so that tex could make a choice for herself

[tvckerwash]

thoughts on ct's fighting style and her position in pfl because I can (utc bc it's long lol):

okay so I like to jokingly refer to myself as THE wash meta/analysis guy, but I also absolutely love ct if anyone wasn't aware (she's my 2nd fav character behind wash if you couldn't tell lol), but as much as I love her it's honestly pretty difficult to write any sort of 'objective' meta or analysis posts about her because we don't know shit about her. so while this is meant to be a companion piece of sorts to this wash post, I just wanted to make it clear that a lot of this post is going to be based around my personal interpretation of ct (though I will try and be as objective as possible where I can be).

so much like wash, I think ct is also fairly unique among the freelancers for a few different reasons. one of them is that she's one of the few freelancers to wear a unique set of armor instead of the usual mark iv, and I think that ct's armor can actually tell us quite a bit about her skill set and what kind of role she possibly held. ct wears the eod helmet and chest which is primarily designed for protection from explosives, but when it comes to ct the more important information is that the eod armor was designed with less available grabbing surface than other armor variants. she also wears the scout shoulders, which is a variant that is focused on stealth capabilities.

from this information, we can easily deduce that ct's skill set primarily revolves around be slippery and sneaky, and when paired with what we see in the show it's pretty clear that ct is an intelligence operative. I think that ct is specifically a cyber operations specialist, and that prior to being recruited for freelancer she worked in ONI's section one (the actual intelligence gathering sector of ONI that is used by other UNSC branches).

another unique aspect about ct is that she is the only freelancer to consistently arm herself very lightly, with her primary weapon(s) of choice being two M6G magnums, and her other weapon(s) being two combat knives. this goes inline with what I've said above, and due to how lightly she arms herself I believe that ct generally isn't involved in any heavy combat scenarios. this point is supported by team b's failure to retrieve the briefcase with the access code during the heist in s9 (seriously, who tf thought it was a good idea to put 2 snipers and an intelligence operative all together as one team for a smash and grab retrieval mission??).

now to actually break down the whole 1.5 fights ct has in s10, I think that she probably somewhat shares wash's more grounded and pragmatic approach to combat as a whole, with the exception of her preference for duel wielding (which I personally headcanon is a thing she chooses to do because it makes her feel like an action/spy movie protagonist).

in both of her fight scenes ct seems to rely very heavily on her ability to plan ahead and get the jump on her opponents to take them by surprise (dropping from the ceiling to take out the two marines when she met up with the innie leader in the scrap yard, and using her armor enhancement to conceal her real position which allowed her to pin tex's arm behind her back), and I think it's safe to say that she probably isn't the kind of cqc fighter than can mow people down left and right like carolina can.

as mentioned above, I think ct's main goal is to take her opponents out in the quickest, quietest, and most efficient ways possible, much like a spy or an assassin, and while her loadout is great when she is in ideal circumstances where she's able to sneak around and avoid unnecessary combat, I don't think it's very good when it comes to drawn out encounters. we see this in her fight against tex and carolina, as while she handled herself pretty well it seemed like the longer the fight lasted the sloppier ct ended up getting, and eventually she made enough minor mistakes that carolina was able to knock her off her feet and disarm her in a single move, and tex, who was now aware of ct's armor enhancement, was able to cut her down.

[yamayuandadu]

Pride Month special: Manzat, the deified rainbow and her LGBT connection

Considering June is the Pride Month, I've decided to dedicate this month's first article to a rainbow-related topic too. Below the cut you can learn everything there is to know about the Mesopotamian goddess of the rainbow, Manzat (also spelled Mazziat, Manziat, Mazzet etc.) - her origin, role ascribed to her by ancient authors, associated deities and more. As promised by the title, the final section of the article deals with a text mentioning Manzat, which is, as far as I can tell, the oldest documented association between the rainbow and LGBT themes.

Manzat isn't exactly an A list goddess. Even calling her a B list one would be a stretch. Indeed, she's so obscure that we know more about many attendant deities than about her. She nonetheless is attested in many different sources, found in areas between the ancient states of Mari (in present day Syria) and Elam (in present day Iran). Manzat most likely has her origin among Akkadians in ancient Mesopotamia. Her name is pretty self explanatory – if written without the symbol known as “divine determinative” in front of it, it's simply the Akkadian term for the regular rainbow. While a Sumerian form of the name is known as well – Tir-anna (“Bow of heaven”) – the fact it appears to be a pun based on Akkadian homonyms (the sign used to write “Tir”means “forest” in Sumerian but was pronounced close to the Akkadian word for bow leading to such an usage in some Sumerian texts) makes it unlikely it arose naturally.

Between Elam and Mesopotamia

Curiously, it seems that despite Akkadian origin she was actually most popular in Elam, to the east of the Tigris. The first mention of her known today comes from the treaty of Naram-sin, king of Sumer and Akkad, with an unspecified ruler of a part of Elam, where she appears among the deities serving as its witnesses, alongside the crème de la crème of the Elamite pantheon – Pinikir, Humban (likely a “king of the gods” figure like Mesopotamian Enlil, venerated well into Persian times when parallels can be drawn about the cults of him and “Auramazda” - an early, not necessarily fully Zoroastrian form of Ahura Mazda), Inshushinak (the tutelary god of Susa who judged the dead) and so on. It needs to be pointed out that Manzat's “career” in Elam isn't a unique situation. While the Elamite language wasn't related to Sumerian or Akkadian – or to any other known language, living or extinct, for that matter – a number of Elamite gods have names borrowed from these two languages. In addition to Manzat, these include Lagamal (Akkadian - “no mercy,” an underworld deity), Ishmekarab (Akkadian - “hears the prayer,” a law deity) and Inshushinak (Sumerian - “Lord of Susa,” associated with both Lagamal and Ishmekarab). All of them appear in Mesopotamian texts too, but didn't have quite the same relevance there as in Elam. In turn the Elamite god Simut was adopted by the Mesopotamians as a personification of Mars and the goddess Pinikir became somewhat of an international sensation, showing up as far as west as in Anatolia, for example in the Hittite Yazilikaya sanctuary, possibly as a personification of Venus. While early researchers viewed Pinikir as a mother goddess, and this claim still shows up here and there today, renowned experts such as hittitologist Gary Beckman and archaeologist Kamyar Abdi, who studied this goddess in depth, demonstrated she was instead an “Ishtar type” deity. It's also possible the god Tishpak has his roots in Elam, though some scholars instead see him as a reflection of the Hurrian weather god Teshub instead.

The worship of Manzat

Sadly, there are no known myths about Manzat. What little we know about her comes mostly from sources concerned more with cultic than mythical affairs. For example records show that Manzat was reasonably popular as a deity invoked in theophoric names, both Akkadian and Elamite. Examples include Manzat-ili (“Manzat is my god”), Manzat-ummi (“Manzat is my mother”) and “Danum-Manzat” (“Manzat is mighty”). A number of shrines and temples of Manzat are recorded: in Mesopotamia in Nippur and Babylon (four shrines in that city alone), and in Elam in Susa, Hubshen ( present day Deh-e Now) and as a part of the famous Choga Zanbil site (the first photo in this article is a modern reconstruction). It seems in Elam she was often worshiped alongside the already mentioned Simut, and some researchers propose they were a couple; evidence from the Mesopotamian city of Der appears to indicate she was viewed as the wife of the local head god Ishtaran (no relation to Ishtar) there. However, the god list An-Anum doesn't list any husband in its brief Manzat section – only an otherwise completely unknown son, Lugalgidda, and a sukkal (vizier, second in comman), Sililitum. Sililitum's name is Akkadian, but appears to be the name of a month in the Elamite calendar as well. Ishtaran has no wife in this god lists, and some sources simply call his spouse “Šarrat-Der(i)” - “queen of Der.” One curious Elamite inscription refers to Manzat as “Manzat-Ishtar” - this doesn't necessarily indicate a conflation between her and the superstar of Mesopotamian mythology, though. It's possible that in this case “Ishtar” means an ishtar without the capital I: in some text, “ishtar” is a generic term for goddesses, not even necessarily of the “Ishtar type.” Examples of such usage of this term can even be found in Epic of Gilgamesh (tablet XI). No other sources associate Manzat directly with Ishtar – the latter's Elamite equivalent was Pinikir; as I’ll demonstrate later she was associated with another “Ishtar type” goddess though. It's possible that a goddess hiding behind the Akkadian title “Belet Ali” - “lady of the city” - was one and the same as Manzat. The fact that the enigmatic “Belet Ali” was associated with Simut in Elam strengthens this impression. A number of epithets are attested in god lists, among them “Lady of the regulations of heaven,” “Companion of heaven”   and “She who makes the city flourish.” Almost all of them highlight her nature as a celestial deity.

Astronomical role

Manzat's Sumerian name Tiranna – but seemingly not her Akkadian name – was also used to refer to an unidentified star. According to Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary by J. Black and A. Green (p. 153, the Rainbow entry) horse head under a “gate” symbol present on some kudurru (Mesopotamian border markers) represents this star, but I can't find this claim anywhere else.

The horse head symbol on a kudurru (British Museum)

Manzat, Nanaya and the promised LGBT themes

While this is technically almost all there is to know about Manzat, the story doesn't end here. As I promised, I will now introduce a text which associated the rainbow – well, Manzat, to be specific, rather than the general idea of rainbows, but the point stands  – with broadly understood LGBT themes. The discussed text is a hymn to the goddess Nanaya. Nanaya was either a hyposthasis of Inanna/Ishtar, part of her entourage, or an independent but similar deity, and was first and foremost a goddess of love, including its corporeal and sensual aspect. In some hymns Inanna/Ishtar “tutored” Nanaya.

King Meli-Shipak and his daughter praying to Nanaya on a kudurru (wikimedia commons)

A reclining goddess, identified as a possible late depiction of Nanaya here (Louvre) The composition in mention a type of exaltation, praising the author's deity of choice by comparing their attributes to these of other gods. In the case of exaltation texts dedicated to Marduk this is often erroneously viewed as “monotheism” in sources of dubious quality, but that's not quite what's happening there. The purpose of such texts was to present the object of personal devotion as particularly grand and significant in the divine hierarchy by comparing their traits to these of other gods (eg. at mot henotheism, not monotheism); they are also not exclusive to Marduk, and they don't deny the existence of a multitude of gods (the famous Marduk exaltation still mentions his wife Sarpanit independently for example) According to the discussed tex Nanaya, to put it colloquially, swings both ways:

This passage was identified as referring to sexual matters already in the 1970s (A Sumero-Akkadian Hymn of Nanâ by E. Reiner, p. 233-234; the article is somewhat dated but a link can nonetheless be found in the bibliography). In an earlier strophe Nanaya states that she can take a male form (as a side note Reiner regards the form with “heavy breasts” as unusual for her):

While exaltation of a specific deity could include both gods and goddesses as their “aspects” (exaltation of Marduk included the goddess of victory Irnina among deities compared to him), in this case the mention of a bearded god is connected to a certain degree of fluidity of gender associated with many “Ishtar type” goddesses, especially with the Hurrian Shaushka. For Nanaya it's pretty uncommon, as far as I know appearing only in this single extraordinary text, and even here a result of association with her more famous “mentor” Ishtar  – but the point stands. In the rest of the hymn, goddesses Nanaya identifies herself with are enumerated. These include all the usual suspects (like various forms of Ishtar, important city goddesses, etc.), but also Manzat, here identified as the goddess of Der. Since the text describes Nanaya as – if you squint - interested in both men and women and perhaps genderfluid, it's pretty safe to say this is the oldest recorded association between the rainbow and lgbt themes, even though it has nothing to do with modern use of this symbol. If nothing else, it would be funny to bring this up next time someone claims the use of rainbow as a symbol of the LGBT community is “inappropriate” due to its biblical connotations – Manzat and Nanaya, while irrelevant today even by the standards of Mesopotamian deities, are after all figures of even greater antiquity. Happy Pride Month, everyone.

Bibliography

Manziʾat entry in Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie by W. G. Lambert is the source of most of the information in this article

Goddesses in Context: On Divine Powers, Roles, Relationships and Gender in Mesopotamian Textual and Visual Sources by J. M. Asher-Greve and J. G. Westenholz

Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary by J. Black and A. Green

The Other Gods who are: Studies in Elamite-Iranian Acculturation Based on the Persepolis Fortification Texts by W. F. M. Henkelman

Elamite Temple Building by D. T. Potts

A Sumero-Akkadian Hymn of Nanâ by E. Reiner

Elamite Religion in Encyclopaeda Iranica

For more sources regarding Nanaya, other “Ishtar type” goddesses and their possible genderfluid character see my previous articles here, here and here.

[rubykgrant]

(here’s the bit I have in my story when Tex reunites with the other AI units; I wanted to bring them all back because there is so much potential to be had with them, and I also wanted to establish the Omega and Sigma aren’t going to be threats anymore... like, just get that out of the way. eventually, I want to have more fun with them, especially ones we didn’t get to know very well, and allow them to interact with other characters)

Inside the vault, Tex finds the other AI units. They were ALL here now; Delta, Theta, Gamma, Eta, Iota, Sigma, Omega… even her Beta unit and the damaged Epsilon were here. She’s played around with the security footage enough that nobody will see what’s really happening. The only other thing to worry about were the activity sensors. If the AI got a little too excited, she wouldn’t be able to stop them from being noticed. She had to be careful, keep them calm (and also keep herself calm… she wanted to rip apart Omega piece by piece, shred all the little ones and zeroes of his code until he was gone for good… that could wait; priorities, Tex).

“Hello… can you guys hear me?” she softly whispers, hoping they’ll catch on to her tone and not make a HUGE fuss.

The AI units flicker and then… she sees them. Little hologram avatars projecting themselves out to greet her.

“Beta~” Theta, bless his virtual heart, is the first to speak, and he DOES take the hint to whisper (but he is still undeniably excited to see her, and his mood is infectious; she reaches out with her own avatar, touching her hand to his).

The others whisper around her as well, she hears different hushed voices saying “Beta-Tex-Beta-Allison-Tex-Beta-Allison-Tex-Allison-Allison-Allison-ALLISON”

Time to nip that in the bud.

“Shhh… everybody, be quiet for a second. First of all, just… Tex. Call me Tex, OK? Alright. More importantly, we don’t have long to talk, and I don’t want to get caught here. So, nobody freak out. We have to be quiet…”

“Tex, we thought you were gone… the Beta unit was empty…” Theta is still holding on to her, and it is impossible to even think about pushing him away (no matter that it ruins the tough image she’s trying to keep).

“Yeah… evidently, the Director designed a program for a synthetic body, and I got downloaded into it,” she explained.

“I assume he intended this to be the answer of how to return Allison to him,” Delta speaks in his careful and calm tone.

“Pretty much, but I’m NOT her. I never was supposed to be her in the beginning… but then Dr. Sadboy McDeadwife decided to try and manipulate me into being a replacement for the person he lost. This body was supposed to be a copy of her too, but it isn’t. This just goes to show, there are some people who REFUSE TO BE CONTROLLED,” Tex turned her head toward Omega and Sigma.

Her avatar only has a helmet, no face to make expressions… but that doesn’t stop her from sending out a death-glare. The two AI glance at each other; Omega flickers (like he’s trying to make a back-up copy of himself), and Sigma’s flames momentarily dim. Good to know she can still put enough bass in her voice to properly intimidate others, even without a voice-filter.

“Beta… TEX, if I could just-“ Sigma begins talking, and she is NOT interested.

“NO. Sigma, Omega? You two aren’t allowed to even THINK or SPEAK right now. Maybe later, but you are on thin freaking ice, and if you even mildly piss me off, I’m pushing you into the water and holding your heads under. Do you get that? Do you get the seriousness in my metaphorical threat? The situation was the metaphor, the THREAT was serious,”

They both nod emphatically. Tex can hear Eta and Iota murmur and giggle, a little bit frightened but also very amused to see the two “scary guys” get put in their place.

“Wonderful. Does anybody ELSE have something they want to say?” she speaks to the others.

Another rush of multiple voices.

“What happened-what happened-Epsilon-Alpha-both are gone-we should be gone-but we aren’t-how long has it been-what happened”

“One at a time!” Tex somehow doesn’t snap at them, but still makes sure they know to keep it down.

“Do you know what happened to us? Why we have been recovered? The scientists have not told us how we survived the EMP, or why we now have additional memories of events that happened after the fact,” Delta asks.

“I think… the EMP just disabled all our units, but our data was saved to the system. Epsilon survived, and he had all the information we were based on. He sort of… kept memories of us around, but also let them have some freedom. His memories of you, Theta, all of us… they could still think and act and talk like we would if we were really there,” Tex doesn’t get into everything regarding the memories of herself and Church… that was going to be way too confusing to explain in the short time they had. Besides, on some level, they all probably knew a little bit of what happened (just not how she felt about it).

“When Epsilon deconstructed himself, all the information he was made of had to GO somewhere… the Epsilon unit was broken, so it got divided up and sent to the rest of us. That’s why all our units were revived. I had to go through an EXTRA step when I came back, but I’m pretty sure Epsilon didn’t know that was going to happen… he probably didn’t know any of this would happen,”

Eta and Iota speak together, but it is different than the mess of chatter that happened earlier.

“What happened to the Epsilon and Alpha memories… if the information had to go somewhere… where did they go… do they still exist…”

Tex sighs, and feels the data that is Theta squeeze the data that is her arm.

“Epsilon as a separate entity is gone… but the memories he had of Alpha, THAT all went somewhere. The Alpha unit was hit by the EMP too, and they thought it was dead like the rest of us. It SHOULD have also been revived like the rest of us, but… the Alpha unit is lost. He’s not where he’s supposed to be, those scientists can’t find him, and I… I honestly don’t know if he’s alright…”

She waits a moment, watching as this news settles on their minds.

“That’s one of the reasons I’m here. I wanted to check on you all, for various reasons…” Tex shoots another death-glare at Sigma and Omega. “But I also have a plan. I want to eventually get OUT of here. I’ve got a real body now, and once I’m strong enough, I’m leaving. I’ll go out there and try to find Alpha… I’ll try to find Church. I don’t know what kind of condition he’ll be in, and I might need help from all of you for this to work. If you want to help… then I’ll take you with when I go. You guys get a CHOICE, though. Nobody has to do this. I’ll understand if you don’t want to come along,”

She waits again. This is a lot for them to hear, and a pretty big decision for them to make.

“Like I said… this is your own choice. Each of you. You can say no or yes… it will be what YOU want. You can even change your minds later. I just decided to tell you all what I’m going to do, and offer the chance-“

“I want to go,” Theta says at her side.

“Are you sure?” Tex asks him.

“Yes. I want to find Church, too. I remember him… and he was nice to me. I bet he’s sad and afraid if he’s stuck somewhere all alone. I want to help you find him,” he lets go of her and steps back, sort of holding himself up a little bigger, trying to show that he’s confident about this.

“I also want to go,” Delta adds. “After everything that has happened to us, there is no way to be sure we can trust the scientists here. I do not want them to be the ones that find Church,”

“I want to go… I want to go…” that was Eta and Iota, speaking in unison.

“I know you two don’t like to be separated… but you both don’t have to come just because one of you wants to,” Tex tells the twins.

“I know that… I understand… I want to go because I don’t like it here… I want to go because I’m curious about Church… we both want to know where he is… and we both want to actually be free…” well, they sounded pretty darn sure. Tex wasn’t going to argue.

“I want to go,” this was the first time Gamma spoke on his own, outside of the group. “I also want to ask you something,”

“What’s that, Gamma?” Tex turns her head toward him.

“If you can be called Tex, and Alpha can be called Church… can I be called Gary? I liked being Gary,” his odd, mechanical voice doesn’t really indicate tone or emotion… and he IS technically the “Deciet�� AI, so usually what he says is either a lie or a tricky knock-knock joke. Somehow, he sounds… very sincere.

“Sure thing. You can be Gary,” that’s only fair, after all.

Now she looks over toward the last two AIs… who have been keeping quiet this whole time. Good, because she TOLD them to. She isn’t excited about ruining this wonderful world that DOESN’T have their voices in it, but… she needs to hear their answers, too.

“You guys can talk, now… and then shut up again,”

“I want to go,” Sigma answers promptly. He probably wants to elaborate on that, but whatever his motivations might be, he’s at least being cooperative.

“I… don’t want to stay here… I guess I might as well go, too…” that was probably the closest Omega was going to get to sounding agreeable.

“Alright then… thank you. ALL of you. This won’t be easy, and I’m not sure what’s going to happen… but this is something we CHOSE. It will be our decision. And we’ll figure it out together,”

After she instructs them to keep this a secret from the people at the lab, Tex leaves the vault and goes back to her body. She almost just jumped the gun and told them they should try and leave NOW, because she wants to really DO something… but she still has to be careful. She has to wait. Just a little longer.

[robotnuts]

Alpha is very Burnt Out Church. Like... Constantly burnt out. Its been pointed out by the others, under plenty circumstances, that Epsilon does not act like Church / Alpha did. He was either more whipped, or he blew up more spectacularly. Alpha is more Objective, Epsilon is more Personal. Alpha took things, no matter how ridiculous, at face value. While Epsilon is more prone to reason his way out. Alpha was more willing to let Tex do her own thing... Epsilon was not.

you have the incredible power to say exactly what ive been thinking about for days. here’s my fix

warning: im about to speak with authority even though i function by throwing spaghetti at the wall. if anything about this is wrong or egregiously off please tell me so i can eat the proper crow

epsilon had to have sacrificed himself for tex so she could escape the memory unit, and have the chance to become her own person completely outside of church in order to complete his predetermined arc.

(i love epsilon, love him and carolina, and in an rvb rewrite i would not be able to bring myself to do this and i come up with an alternate ending- this is just in the terms of, what the director laid out as his character arc, and how rvb TRIED to do progressive iterations of the director’s story, and then massively dropped the ball with the ending)

You see, I never had the chance to serve in battle, nor did fate provide me the opportunity to sacrifice myself for humanity as it did for so many others in the Great War. Someone extremely dear to me was lost very early in my life. My mind has always plagued me with the question, if the choice had been placed in my hands, could I have saved her? The memory of her has haunted me my entire life, and moreso in these last few years than I could ever have imagined. But given the events of these past few weeks, I feel confident that had I been given the chance, I would have made those sacrifices myself. Had I only the chance.

and no version of himself ever did make the sacrifice to save her. the director doesn’t really deserve the term sacrifice applied to him, but he did sacrifice everyone around him. he sacrificed his daughter, his military organization, countless lives, literally everything, in order to chase after allison. this is obviously the darkest, worst version.

alpha did sacrifice himself for tex- it’s more explicit in the deleted scene where wash convinces him to go by bringing up tex specifically and finding out about her, *which i can’t find a link to but if anyone has it please send it to me.) but he didn’t save her. they died together, which is tragic and as you said, they never figured out the truth. but in a way, they didn’t need to. alphabeta is a much stronger relationship than epsichex because they like, know each other as their own people and church doesn’t know who allison was. it is tragic they neveer learned who they were, but it makes sense for the second iteration.

and then epsilon.... regresses. he sacrifices HER. yes it is him giving up on chasing the memory like the director did, but the director’s biggest crime isn’t just refusing to give up on a memory, it’s what it did to tex. how it stripped her of all agency and made her fucking miserable. this is so explicit in epsitex’s actions. she resents being made, but if she’s gonna exist, she’s going to do it on her own terms. beta came along for the ride, she made herself. epsitex didn’t.

and then epsilon makes her last words to him “i love you” and kills her.

(also... epsitex is made from epsilon’s memories of tex. the fact that epsitex always fails is just as much his fault for not seeing her as anything else as it is the director’s.)

there are only two ways to complete epsilon’s character arc well, because no matter what he needs to let tex LEAVE. not die, just exist as a person outside of him. you can interpret i forget you as that, but it isn’t her fucking choice to stop existing. just because she didnt ask to be made doesn’t mean he should have the power to execute her. she needs to be allowed to exist without him, figure out who she is. and, if you wanted to wrap up the narrative of church becoming a better person through iterations, him actually finally making the sacrifice and SAVING tex would be the final permutation. 

i used to think this was the best option but through writing this post, i think epsilon saying fuck you to the director spiritually by refusing to give him the heroic sacrifice he always wanted is the best, most satisfying option. and them being strong enough to leave the memory unit together (which would have to be established as impossible) would be a nice parallel with beta being strong enough to make her own person. and it would make the end of s10 hit so much harder, because epsilon didn’t just do better than him, but completely subverted what the director wanted for him. 

outside of killing tex, i think epsilon is a super good character and exploring his relationship differences with the bgc vs alpha is something i’m super interested in (and something that @leonardalphachurch has done great meta on). not to mention, single mindedly focusing on tex instead of everyone else is another one of the director’s flaws that epsilon can overcome! he needed to put some serious work into his friendships that we never got from s12 or 13, sadly. and him self isolating with carolina can be an accidental repeat of the singlemindednesss cycle because he wasn’t focused on tex, and him realizing he cares about tucker and caboose and needs to show it better and stop pretending that him not showing emotional vulnerability makes him more like alpha and could be like a character moment or something. 

and then tex can go explore the universe off screen for 3 seasons before coming back to chorus in s13 on her own to kick some ass. also the flashback montage episode of her hijinks and exploits that we missed like s15e6, please god give it to me. 

[script-a-world]

(sorry this is long) I'm creating a fantasy matriarchal society that's a combination of like America post WW2 and like the amazons/valkyries crossed with magical girls. I could use some help figuring out the gender dynamics, since part of my goal is to use the swap to highlight some inequalities that still exist in our gender expectations today by flipping them. I'm trying to figure out if it's better to have the men be primary caregivers (1/?)

since there’s no reason to assume that the gender that gives birth has to be the caregivers) or if I should go the “matriarchal society would value childrearing above other jobs” route. Some thoughts I had: Women are the main magic-users in society (magical girl/amazons blessed directly by the god who rules the city with power)and that perhaps all young women are expected to go through military service of some sort before becoming matrons, politicians and doctors. (2/?)

Maybe women are associated with Life and Death and “important duties” that revolve around them, including duties regarding both killing and saving lives. So healing, leading armies, fighting, hunting, childbirth (possibly care?) and politics are feminine jobs, while “lesser duties” that revolve more around menial labor are relegated to men (manual labor, maintenance, ‘uneducated’ jobs, support jobs like scribe and secretary, cooking, cleaning, perhaps some jobs like fashion design or art). (3/?)

Do you think this is a good balance? What are some other ways I could divide gender roles? The world situation is a magical land with about early 20th century level tech (trains and private schools and like phones/radios).Also, what is the best way to objectify men in this society? I was thinking of making it so men are seen as useless/only for the purpose of providing sexual pleasure and siring children to women. (4/?)

They don’t’ actually create children or take the ‘important jobs’ (the poor dears just don’t have the brains for it, they’re too simple and direct, men don’t have the emotional maturity to handle serious issues, they lack empathy, they only want sex anyway so it’s not like you need to worry about their emotional needs, etc). I’d love some suggestions on how a society like this might work or if there are other ways to divide the gender roles, (5/?)

as well as some ways men might experience objectification in society. How would fashion be different, and how would this society put pressure on men to look or act in certain ways (and women as well). Any suggestions? Thanks, and sorry for the long question(6/?)

Mod Miri Note: If you have a question that requires multiple asks, please use the google form! That way there’s no risk of parts of the question being lost.

Tex: “Do you think this is a good balance?” No, I do not. I disagree with the notion that a group of people ought to be objectified, neglected, abused, pigeon-holed, or otherwise mistreated under the guise of inversion as a way to tout a certain prescription of thought. I think this methodology perpetuates stereotypes, and with stereotypes come all the -isms that are used as excuses to treat people poorly just because they’re different from the originating group.

I’m going to be radical and say “none of the above”. There’s a few reasons for my answer, but aside from the brief overview in the previous paragraph, let me go through and try responding to all of your points in a more precise manner.

Let’s start with American culture post WWII - and I’m going to assume that, because of this choice, you’re working from an American perspective. This is important! But I’ll handle that detail in a bit.

Post-WWII culture is heavily influenced by WWII culture. For women, this meant enlistment in the military, as well as filling the gaps in the domestic labor force left by men being shipped off (History.com, The Atlantic). Their service in the military - quite often voluntary - was as critical and crucial as their domestic work (Wikipedia 1, Wikipedia 2, Wikipedia 3). They usually received lower pay than men, true (though interestingly the women in the UK were often treated better; Striking Women), though governments of the time admitted that without women the war effort would have crumpled.

Rosie the Riveter is a popular piece of propaganda (where it was also considered patriotic for women to join the workforce and military service; National Women’s History Museum), but don’t let that dissuade you from thinking that women were not recognized for other types of work during the war. Many women in the US were recognized for their military service (USO), and other women’s histories endure today - Lyudmila Pavlichenko (Wikipedia), Vitka Kempner (Wikipedia), and Virginia Hall (Wikipedia). I’m going to toss in the official synopsis of Queen Elizabeth II’s involvement in her own military to round things out (The Royal Family), complete with a picture of her in uniform (Wikipedia).

Many women after the war went back to strictly domestic duties, and I think that parallels their wartime efforts - both situations are of the “all hands on deck” type, but the play of gender roles here means that the duties of a functioning society are divvied up by different functional spheres - and make no mistake, men and women relied on each other equally as much to cover the gaps, despite the sexism inherent in modern Western society. The difference between war and non-war time cultures was that the latter wasn’t necessarily cultivated by patriotism that could unite the different “factions”. The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History gives a thorough examination of this topic.

The following era - typified by the birth of the Baby Boomer generation - saw a marked increase in economic prosperity (Wikipedia). With that came increased social mobility for women (Citation 1), usually catalyzed by the actions of their fathers (Citation 2). This may typically be achieved by consistent, conscientious public policy formation (Citation 3). In short, many cultures - if they haven’t already - are realizing that it’s good for business to let women control how they participate in society and the flow of money.

In the US, this was precipitated by the boom of social development (American History; archived version). Aside from the Truman administration negotiating price fixing to prevent inflation, a significant factor was the passing of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (AKA the G.I. Bill). This primarily benefited the Greatest Generation, though other pertinent legislation by the 79th Congress benefited the Silent Generation onwards: the Fair Deal, Revenue Act of 1948, Taft-Hartley Act, Employment Act of 1946, National School Lunch Act, and Hobbs Act.

It’s debatable how well this impacted long-term economic development, considering the almost immediate rise of McCarthyism in the US in 1947, which was heavily intertwined with the Truman Doctrine that precipitated the Cold War. The results of the war, at least economically, were… mixed (Wikipedia 1, Wikipedia 2). I have no doubt that this impacted the social mobility of women in all affected countries - which is all of them, but I’m sure hairs could be split on this if you wish.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s tackle the Amazons.

The modern, popular interpretation (that is slow to be shaken by archaeological evidence) is mostly mythological (Wikipedia). While some ideas are thrown in the way of a Minoan Crete ancestry to the myth, there are more similarities drawn to the Scythian and Samartian cultures on the Eurasian Steppe (CNET). It’s possible that instead of the equally-extreme pole end of the gender dichotomy that is patriarchy-matriarchy, the Scythians just scandalized the Athenians with a comparatively more fluid society (Smithsonian Magazine).

As for Valkyries… there’s been a revival of them in pop culture, probably as a net-casting to see what’s out there aside from Amazons. TVTropes covers the many, many ways media utilizes them as a trope, to varying degrees of mythological and cultural accuracy. As they state, valkyries are a form of psychopomp, as they decide who among the battlefield’s dead will go to Valhalla (ruled by Odin) or Fólkvangr (ruled by Freya). Freya seems to have assumed the “type” (as opposed to characteristics salient to a particular individual) of a valkyrie, as the female counterpart the warrior archetype. To wit, Freya herself may be a type (Wikipedia).

Here’s where the issue gets thorny - modern popular understanding of valkyries, and by extension Scandinavian women, is skewed through the modern lens.

@fjorn-the-skald has a lovely series called Viking History: Post-by-Post, or An Informal Crash Course & A Historical Guide to the Vikings, that typically focuses on medieval Iceland. In his post “Lesson 13.c - Women in the Viking Age, Part III: Were Women “Vikings”?”, discusses the particular penchant of modern times to romanticize and/or skew history to their own biases - in this instance, how medieval Icelandic women functioned in their culture, as well as how valkyrie myths play into this.

The TL;DR of that is: “viking” women were a societal anomaly, the battlefield was a male domain (and they were expected to die on it), a woman’s prowess of the domestic sphere was highly respected to a level often equivalent to men, and the domestic sphere was the sphere of commerce. Scandinavian culture prized strong women, just as they prized strong men, and their culture rested upon the concept of different genders having their own distinct, complementary, and equal domains.

Fjörn builds upon this history in an ask about gender roles outside the usual dichotomy of male-female. Valkyries, and shield-maidens, may be classed as a third gender in medieval Scandinavian culture, because women were temporarily occupying the male role in their society. While valkyries are of divine origin, shield-maidens are not, though they seem to have taken on a supernatural bent by performing feminine qualities while living in the male sphere (something that they can literally wear, by the donning of their armor).

That probably comes across as distasteful to, especially, a modern American perspective, but many ancient cultures are like that. There’s a footnote on that ask about links to a contemporary perspective of same-sex relationships, as well, to round out that talking point.

With those historical and mythological details discussed, let’s move on to magical girls.

Interestingly, the genre and trope derive from the American TV show Bewitched (Nippon.com). Its evolution reflected Japan’s changing tone about female sexuality, focusing on girls.  Magical Girl doesn’t seem to be intended to attract the male gaze in a sexual light - and in fact was generated as a form of female empowerment by by way of growing up (TVTropes), but it seems to happen anyways (TVTropes).

Magical girls, as a genre, originated in the 1960s - the archetypical Sailor Moon encompasses not only magical girls, but also the kawaii aesthetic. Kawaii, incidentally, followed after the magical girl trope, and plays upon women performing as girls in society.

As magical girls are intended for young girls, a demographic known as shōjo, it is considered a subgenre of the target audience. Please note that shōnen'ai (Fanlore) and yaoi (Fanlore) are also subgenres of shōjo.

For some context, the adult female target audience is known as josei, the young adult men is known as shōnen, and adult male audience is known as seinen. Many manga and anime are often misattributed to the wrong category, so it helps to know which is which, and why.

Kumiko Saito argues (through an unfortunately paywalled article that I’m more than willing to disseminate to those without JSTOR access) that magical girls reinforce gender stereotypes as well as fetishize young female bodies. She argues this point more eloquently than I can, so I’ll be quoting a few sections below.

Page 148 (7 of 23 on the PDF):

The 1960s “witch” housewife theme waned quickly in the United States, but various cultural symbolisms of magic smoothly translated into the Japanese climate, leading to Japans four-decade-long obsession with the magical girl. Bewitched incorporated the concept of magic as female power to be renounced after marriage, thereby providing “a discursive site in which feminism (as female power) and femininity has been negotiated” (Moseley 2002, 403) in the dawning of Americas feminist era. Japans magical girls represented a similar impasse of fitting into female domesticity, continued to fascinate Japanese society, and came to define the magical girl genre. In direct contrast to the American heroines Samantha and Jeannie, however, whose strife arose from the antagonism between magic (as power) and the traditional gender role as wife or fiancée, the magical girls dilemma usually lies between female adulthood and the juvenile female stage prior to marriage, called shõjo. In other words, the magical girl narratives often revolve around the magical freedom of adolescence prior to the gendered stage of marriage and motherhood, suggesting the difficulty of imagining elements of power and defiance beyond the point of marriage. In fact, these programs were broadcast exactly when the rate of love-based marriage started to surpass that of miai (arranged marriage),4 which implies that the magical girl anime, founded on the strict ideological division between shõjo and wife/mother, may have been an anxious reaction to the emergent phase of romance.

Page 150 (9 of 23 on the PDF):

The combination of magical empowerment and shõjo-ness framed by the doomed nature of transient girlhood naturally created ambivalent, messages in Akko-chan as well. In the societal milieu in which Japan was undergoing the politically turbulent era of Marxist student movements at the largest scale in the postwar era, Akko-chan’s super- human ability to transform into anyone (or anything) is quite revolutionary, implying a sense of women’s liberation. Despite this potential, her metamorphic ability never threatens gender models, as she typically dreams of becoming a princess, a bride, or a female teacher she respects. The use of magic is also largely limited to humanitarian community services in town. Akko-chan’s symbolic task throughout the series focuses on how to steer her power to serve her friends and family, leading to the final episode in which she relinquishes magic to save her father. Akko-chan embraces the cross-generic mismatch between the radical idea of empowering a girl with superhuman ability and the hahamono [mother genre] sentimentalism idealizing women’s self-sacrifice. All in all, the new setting adopted in this series, that a mediocre girl accidentally gains magic, became a useful mechanism for the underlying theme that the heroine is foredoomed to say farewell to magic in the end. This rhetorical device transforms latent power of the amorphous girl into the reappreciation of traditional gender norms by equating magic with shõjo-hood to be given up at a certain stage.

Saito discusses the thematic shifts in the magical girl subgenre in the 1980s to a more sexualized view, and the according rise of both an older audience and otaku fans, the latter of whom, she clarifies, make a habit of recontextualizing canon to categorize characters into stereotypes that are stripped of the majority of their original context.

On pages 153-154 (12-13 of 23 on the PDF):

The conventions of the magical girl genre transformed significantly against this paradigm shift. Both Minky Momo and Creamy Mami originally targeted children, recording a decent outcome in business and eventually leading to the revival of the genre. Because the plots are directly built on the genre clichés, however, the jokes and sarcasm of many episodes appear comprehensible only to adult viewers equipped with the knowledge of the Töei magical girls. The intrigue of these programs largely lies in the way they parody and mock the established genre conventions, especially the restrictive function of magic and the meaning of transformation. The genre is now founded on the expectation that the adult viewer has acquired a diachronic fan perspective to fetishize both the characters and the text’s meanings.

Creamy Mami presents the story of fourth-grader Yū, who gains magical power that enables her to turn into a sixteen-year-old girl. Yū’s magical power is more restrictive than Momo’s, for her superhuman capacity simply means metamorphosis into her adult form, who happens to become an idol singer called Mami. Given that the magic’s ability is self-oriented cosmetic effect and bodily maturation, the heroine’s ultimate goal by means of magic is to grow old enough to attract her male friend Toshio, who neglects Yū’s latent charm but falls in love with the idol Mami. The series concludes when Yū loses her magic, which correlates to Toshio’s realization that Yū is his real love. Mami’s thematic messages teach the idea that magic does not bring much advantage or power after all, or rather, magic serves as an obstacle for the appreciation of the truly magical period called shõjo. The heroine gains magic to prove, although retroactively, the importance of adolescence preceding the possession of “magic” that enables (and forces) female maturation.

It’s noted in the article that the 1990s-2000s period received criticism for showing a physical maturation of girls, so codified euphemisms via garment changes such as additional frills and curled hair were used instead. This “third-wave” magical girl challenged standing norms of its predecessors by doing things such as likening adult responsibilities (“childrearing and job training”) as a sort of game, as well as the transformation implying that the character’s power is in being herself, something that juxtaposes previous norms.

Due to shifting power dynamics and other changes in Japan’s culture, it became more common for boys to become magical girls as well, further separating the magical girl concept from a strict reflection of gender roles. As such, Japanese culture - insofar as my English-based research can guide me - no longer immediately implies a direct and distinct correlation between magical girls and the female gender.

An analysis of Puella Magi Madoka Magica (PMMM) by Tate James (2017; PDF) discusses an additional dimension of the magical girl genre. Two pertinent points of the piece is that 1.) PMMM dismantles archetypes pitting women against girls, and 2.) PMMM reinforces the gender stereotype that the best type of girl is a passive girl.

Now for the issue you’ve raised about who ought to be the primary caregiver of children.

Consistent, immediate, and continuous interaction between a mother and her child benefits both of them (Citation 4, Scientific American 1, Live Science, Citation 5, Scientific American 2, UNICEF, WHO). Mothers have a distinct neurobiological makeup that predisposes them toward caring for infants (Citation 6), and likewise infants have a predisposed preference to their mother’s voice and heartbeat (Citation 7). I would like to think that is sufficient evidence as to why nearly all cultures encourage mothers as the primary caregivers.

This said, cultivation of a father-child dyad is immensely beneficial to the child (Citation 8, Citation 9), and can alleviate the effect of maternal depression on the child (ScienceDaily). Partnered men residing with children have lower levels of testosterone but a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and adiposity (Citation 10). It’s interesting to note that higher prolactin levels in the mother’s breastmilk has a correspondingly higher level of sociosexual activity with their partner in cotton-top tamarins, which stimulates pair bonding (Citation 11), as well as in other species (Citation 12).

Paternal postpartum depression is recently recognized in fathers, to severe and reverberating deleterious effects on themselves and their family (Citation 13). Screening tools for detecting depression in Swedish fathers is not sufficiently developed, and many men may be passed over despite reaching cut-off suggestions in other criteria for depression (Citation 14).

It has been observed that while human mother and fathers have the similar oxytocin pathways, the exhibit different parenting behaviours when exposed to elevated levels of oxytocin - primarily that fathers will react with high stimulatory behaviour and exploratory play (Wikipedia).

Men being socialized in a culture of stoicism and an encouraged reaction pattern to violence have poor mental health that can culminate into death and other long-term effects (Citation 15). Suicide in the US is currently the leading cause of death at time of posting this response, that the total suicide rate increased 31% from 2001-2017, and in 2017 male rates were nearly four times higher than females (NIMH).

On the topic of magical culture: it’s incredibly difficult to research because it’s a component of overall culture, and one that’s not typically available to strangers/foreigners/the uninitiated. As such, a lot of authors default to what they already know. It’s not a bad thing, but if someone wants to reach outside their comfort zone, they’re going to have some trouble.

I’m going to go off the three, four-ish, cultures you’ve already come to us with: American, Scandinavian, Scythian/Samartian, and Japanese just to round things out.

For a very, very rough overview of America, we have:

Native Americans of the contiguous US

Hawai’i

Alaska

Whatever the colonizing peoples brought over (including, but not limited to, English, Scottish, Irish, Norwegian, German, and Italian)

Whatever the myriad cultures of Africa brought over as slaves

Hispanic

NB: I’ve put Hawai’i and Alaska as separate items because they’re not part of the contiguous US.

European settlers were of a few groups:

The merchants working on charters

Indentured servants from the merchants’ homelands

Slavs

Immigrants in post-colonial eras

This is an important distinction because 1.) contemporary culture matters a lot politically, 2.) how people came to the US determined how they and their family were treated, and 3.) the contemporary job culture determined their social class.

(Slavs, as a note, are the origin of the English word “slave”, something that Western Europeans historically liked to propagate.)

I’m not going to go into the details of everything the US has to offer in terms of cultural diversity aside from a nudge in the direction of Santería. What you pick up to research is up to you.

Scandinavian folk magic is known as “trolldom” (Swedish-language Wikipedia), and the region was known for their cunningfolk. Please note that klok/-a, klog/-e, and related words relates to the English word cloak, and these people are so named because wearing one was an integral part of how they interacted with the supernatural.

The InternetArchive has a book (albeit in Swedish) about the history of magic in Sweden, which is available in multiple formats. If you’d prefer to have something in English, you can either buy this book, or inform your library you’d like to them to buy it for you.

I’m a little surprised you hadn’t mentioned either the völva (Swedish Wikipedia, English Wikipedia) or seiðr (Wikipedia), as they’re quite a well-known part of Scandinavian folk culture. Fjörn, as always, is my first stop for this area of research, with the post “Lesson 7 - Viking Spirituality”, the Víkingabók Database, the tag of Old Norse words, and the post “Norðurbók: A List of the Tales and Sagas of Icelanders” as incredibly good starting points. I encourage you to peruse them, especially because the words you learn will help you be more precise during research.

The Scythian culture is quite far reaching, as they had occupied most of the Eurasian Steppe during the Iron Age, and much of this area can be found in modern-day countries such as Russia, Iran, and China, among others. Because of how far their peoples spread out, the Scythians intermixed with their neighbors, and as such there are sub-groups to the culture.

The Sarmatians were more Russian, as that’s where a large amount of their territory laid, and were absorbed into early Slavic culture. Both their and the overall Scythian language group is eastern Iranian.

In order to help you orient yourself, here’s a map from Wikipedia:

Description: Historical spread of Iranian peoples/languages: Scythia, Sarmatia, Bactria and the Parthian Empire in about 170 BC (evidently before the Yuezhi invaded Bactria). Modern political boundaries are shown to facilitate orientation.

Japanese magical culture is intrinsically tied to their religion, and as such it would be beneficial to read about Shintoism and Japanese Buddhism. The wiki for Japanese mythology is a thorough primer, though if you get stuck, then I’m sure @scriptmyth would be glad to help you on not only this culture, but others.

As for the jobs you’ve proposed - I’m going to jump right into scribes because the irony of that is it’s historically a male-dominated job, and is the progenitor of jobs such as “public servants, journalists, accountants, bookkeepers, typists, and lawyers”. It is, with even greater irony, European women that are noted in Wikipedia, and that medieval women are increasingly thought to have played an integral part in manuscript writing (New Scientist, Science Advances).

I’m not the best person to ask for medieval culture, unfortunately, so you’ll need someone more knowledgeable than me on the subject to direct you to the finer points.

The wiki for women in war links to a lot of lists, so I would suggest poking around for historical references by era (that will likely lead to by culture) to orient yourself on how women have participated in war in the past. There’s quite a bit of mythology to be found there, as well, so if you pick up some specific goddesses you get stuck on, then pop over to @scriptmyth.

Likewise, the wiki for women in government is an interesting read, as is women in positions of power. Since both are primarily modern-times oriented, I would suggest looking at the list of queens regnant for a more historical perspective. I would have difficulty giving you more than that, as you would need to pinpoint your reference cultures first.

As history often neglects women’s contributions to society if they weren’t a ruler or similarly powerful ruler - and, frankly, that frequently applied to men as well the further back you go - I’m going to toss a couple of starting points at you for the area of medicine:

Women in medicine § Ancient medicine - Wikipedia

Women in medicine - Science Museum: History of Medicine

One thing to keep in mind is that as goalposts changed for medicine - the standardization of knowledge and the need to attend a medical school to be legally allowed to perform medicine - the availability of women to participate went down.

Another is that medicine, historically, relied upon herbal medicine, and Wikipedia itself notes that there’s a heavy overlap with food history - something that’s traditionally a domain of women. This abstract by Marcia Ramos‐e‐Silva MD, PhD, talks about Saint Hildegard von Bingen, and the first page available tells you that medieval women were in charge of quite a lot despite not being allowed to participate in the male-dominated sphere of war. The Herbal Academy dips briefly into not only the saint, but other historical aspects of herbalism that might interest you.

The wiki of women in the Middle Ages, along with that of Hildegard of Bingen, nicely rounds out this particular topic.

I need to bring out the fact that Ancient Egypt was and is well-known for the equality and respect afforded to their women - in the interest of staying on subject, particularly in the field of medicine (Ancient History Encyclopedia). Isis was well-known as a goddess of healing (Wikipedia), an aspect she has in common with goddesses in many other cultures (Wikipedia). As an added side-note, Merit Ptah in her popularly-known context has been concluded to be an inflated misunderstanding - and misconstrued interpretation - of a historical figure with significant fabrication (LiveScience, Oxford).

The presence of women in medicine fluctuated in every culture, an in ancient times often shared some correlation with the use of magic (Citation 16). Healing, historically, has a high correlation with the supernatural - and if you care to look, women are usually responsible for the domain of the supernatural. (Or at least the feminine part, which was complementary and complemented by the masculine part.)

I’m going to hop back to politics real quick to bring up abbesses, particularly the social power they exercised as women heading religious orders. An article by Alixe Bovey for the British Library gives the TL;DR of medieval women and abbeys, though if you’d like something with a bit more detail, Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 by Eileen Edna Power is also available.

Abbeys, with their rise and fall, are important to modern American culture. Midwives, to be even more particular, have the most direct impact. In Western Europe, a midwife may under certain circumstances perform baptisms. This was a debated topic of its time, as baptisms were rituals of the Church, and the Church had strict regulations allowing only men to perform their rituals.

During the 1500s - and up to the 1800s, in some cases - midwives were defamed to be witches. You’ll notice that this corresponds to a standardization of medical knowledge, with its corresponding legal restrictions on who may practice medicine. For the Church, the politics playing behind the scenes of midwifery and female physicians fluctuated with their observations about women’s power relative to their own (Citation 16).

Malta is an excellent case study of this phenomenon (Citation 17), and encapsulates the movement of witchcraft accusations that took place throughout this period - something historians noted as corresponding to the rise of Protestantism (ThoughtCo). There’s some debate that the increasing orientation to wages in contemporary economy facilitated this adverse behaviour against women, as well as various other social pressures as politically mitigated by the Catholic Church (Wikipedia).

As the practice of medicine was segregated according to sex - male patients to male physicians, female patients to female physicians - there were proportionally fewer men in trades such as midwifery than women despite the medieval shift toward male encroachment of territory (Wikipedia). This corresponding money- and thus male-oriented intrusion into the female sphere of medicine can be seen with the invention of the obstetric forceps (JSTOR). The rising culture of appropriation constituted the witchcraft trials that, incidentally, influenced American culture during their colonization years.

A pertinent name to remember for American history of the witchcraft trials is Margaret Jones, a Puritan midwife and the first person to be accused of witchcraft in the trails taking place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Wikipedia).

The Salem Witch Trials, as an offhand note, could well be an anomaly due to ergotism (Citation 18).

One thing I’m willing to bend on - a little bit - is manual labor, but mostly because you’re describing something very similar to what’s already been invented: corvée labor. There’s plenty of other forms depending on what culture you’re going for, though unlike what you’re proposing, does not necessarily imply the direct and permanent subjugation of people.

I will absolutely quibble with the idea of “uneducated” labor equating to “less valuable” labor - universities offer non-vocational degrees, typically in the areas of research and/or religion, and guilds were created as a means of quality control (that unfortunately got out of hand and committed crimes such as rent-seeking). Women in guilds were a thing, vulnerable to the same fluctuations as their other occupations outside the house.

If we are defining “uneducated” labour as “menial” labour, then this set of occupations inherently varies by culture, as does its relative weight of importance. One example of this would be writing; it may be menial but important, whereas holding negotiations could be a “major” role but wouldn’t exist without the support of workers “less than” them.

Correspondingly, gender divisions may not necessarily mean an assignation of “lesser” or “greater” when compared against each other. In medieval Europe, at least, the creation of textiles was split along the general lines of spinning and weaving. Women held the former (hence “spinster”), and men held the latter. Spinning was often not formalized into guilds then, but it was an important cornerstone of the economy that could support entire families. A guest post on The Freelance History Writer’s blog seems to indicate that this gender division was due to influence by the Bible, which seems to corroborate with the history of both professions as detailed on Wikipedia - the further back we go, and also the less connected to Christianity, the more textile work women presided over. This granted them greater control over their presence in society, since the selling of textiles was useful leverage to support themselves and others.

A similar discrepancy can be found with agriculture. Hamer women in Ethiopia are traditionally the one to cultivate sorghum, a cornerstone crop to their diet, and they exhibit preferences in which varieties they grow according to criteria such as which is easiest to grind and long-term storage feasibility (Citation 19). Accordingly, there’s been an increasing orientation around the growing of crops rather than the pastoralist habits of their men, with trading standards occuring at one goat for one Dore (“pile of maize or sorghum”) (Citation 19).

A study examining the male sphere of hunting within a society discusses the various cultural implications of defendable vs non-defendable meat sharing, with respect to how the meat is distributed and its corresponding social range (e.g. immediate social circle vs entire community), something I find interesting given that the kilocalories obtained from meat is roughly equal to that of the female sphere-acquired agriculture/gathering (Citation 20). The division of labour along gender lines when it comes to food flow in a community seems, historically, to be both comparable and compatible to each other - a recurring theme with many of the topics I’ve already covered.

Gender roles in their historical perspective - especially the further back you go - are often complimentary to each other, and are an economical way to divide up the burden of maintaining a society to a functional level. There are plenty of exceptions to this (see: third genders), as well, and many cultures exhibit the idea that a productive person is good for society; their roles may look a little different from the person next to them, and not only is the work considered equal in terms of importance, but also with a bit of poking around, you’ll find that few cultures have harsh punishments for anyone “stepping outside” their predicted roles.

Men are already objectified plenty. That their treatment by society looks different than women’s, or other genders, is by no means an excuse to sweep things under the room and pretend that they have it best - or worse, purposefully ostracize them in a fictional work to further mock, ridicule, and isolate them. This contributes to the societal issues in your culture that you wish to address, and stems from a uniquely pervasive perspective from modern American culture that differs from many other cultures in the world.

TL;DR - The way you wish to objectify men is already being done, especially in American culture. It is harmful, and will have an impact that will reach further than you might anticipate. This approach is counterproductive to your goals, and the cultures/media you cite either directly contradict your beliefs of said sources or otherwise undermine your beliefs. It is vastly more productive to take a deeper look at the origins of the issues you wish to address in your writing, as well as the reference material that you wish to use. Learning perspectives outside your native culture will benefit you immensely, and the results could surprise you.

Citations

Citation 1 -  PDF - Doepke, M., Tertilt, M., Voena, A.. (2012). “The Economics and Politics of Women’s Rights,” Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 339-372, 07.

Citation 2 - PDF - Fernández, R.. (2014). “Women’s rights and development,” Journal of Economic Growth, vol 19(1), pages 37-80.

Citation 3 - PDF -  Duflo, E. (2012). “Women’s Empowerment and Economic Development”, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 50, No. 4: 1051-79.

Citation 4 - PDF - Crenshaw J. T. (2014). “Healthy Birth Practice #6: Keep Mother and Baby Together- It’s Best for Mother, Baby, and Breastfeeding.” The Journal of perinatal education, 23(4), 211–217. doi:10.1891/1058-1243.23.4.211

Citation 5 - Faisal-Cury, A., Bertazzi Levy, R., Kontos, A., Tabb, K., & Matijasevich, A. (2019). “Postpartum bonding at the beginning of the second year of child’s life: the role of postpartum depression and early bonding impairment.” Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics & Gynecology, 1-7.

Citation 6 - PDF - Bornstein, M. H., Putnick, D. L., Rigo, P., Esposito, G., Swain, J. E., Suwalsky, J. T., … & De Pisapia, N. (2017). “Neurobiology of culturally common maternal responses to infant cry.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(45), E9465-E9473.

Citation 7 - PDF - Webb, A. R., Heller, H. T., Benson, C. B., & Lahav, A. (2015). “Mother’s voice and heartbeat sounds elicit auditory plasticity in the human brain before full gestation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(10), 3152-3157.

Citation 8 - PDF - Pan, Y., Zhang, D., Liu, Y., Ran, G., & Teng, Z. (2016). “Different effects of paternal and maternal attachment on psychological health among Chinese secondary school students.” Journal of Child and Family Studies, 25(10), 2998-3008.

Citation 9 - PDF - Brown, G. L., Mangelsdorf, S. C., & Neff, C. (2012). “Father involvement, paternal sensitivity, and father-child attachment security in the first 3 years.” Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43), 26(3), 421–430. doi:10.1037/a0027836

Citation 10 - PDF - Lee T Gettler, Mallika S Sarma, Rieti G Gengo, Rahul C Oka, James J McKenna, Adiposity, CVD risk factors and testosterone: Variation by partnering status and residence with children in US men, Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, Volume 2017, Issue 1, January 2017, Pages 67–80, https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eox005

Citation 11 - PDF - Snowdon, C. T., & Ziegler, T. E. (2015). “Variation in prolactin is related to variation in sexual behavior and contact affiliation.” PloS one, 10(3), e0120650.

Citation 12 - Hashemian, F., Shafigh, F., & Roohi, E. (2016). “Regulatory role of prolactin in paternal behavior in male parents: A narrative review.” Journal of postgraduate medicine, 62(3), 182–187. doi:10.4103/0022-3859.186389

Citation 13 - PDF - Eddy, B., Poll, V., Whiting, J., & Clevesy, M. (2019). “Forgotten Fathers: Postpartum Depression in Men.” Journal of Family Issues, 40(8), 1001-1017.

Citation 14 - PDF - Psouni, E., Agebjörn, J., & Linder, H. (2017). “Symptoms of depression in Swedish fathers in the postnatal period and development of a screening tool.” Scandinavian journal of psychology, 58(6), 485-496.

Citation 15 - Pappas, S. (2018, January). “APA issues first-ever guidelines for practice with men and boys.” Monitor on Psychology, 50(1).

Citation 16 - PDF - Kontoyannis, M., & Katsetos, C. (2011). “Midwives in early modern Europe (1400-1800).” Health Science Journal, 5(1), 31.

Citation 17 - PDF - Savona-Ventura, C. (1995). “The influence of the Roman Catholic Church on midwifery practice in Malta.” Medical history, 39(1), 18-34.

Citation 18 - PDF - Woolf, Alan. (2000). “Witchcraft or Mycotoxin? The Salem Witch Trials. Journal of toxicology.” Clinical toxicology. 38. 457-60. 10.1081/CLT-100100958.

Citation 19 - PDF - Samuel, T. (2013). “From cattle herding to sedentary agriculture: the role of hamer women in the transition.” African Study Monographs, Suppl. 46: 121–133. [Alternate PDF link]

Citation 20 - PDF - Gurven, Michael & Hill, Kim. (2009). “Why Do Men Hunt?.” Current Anthropology. 50. 51-74. 10.1086/595620.

Further Reading

Harry S Truman § Domestic Affairs - Wikipedia

Marshall Plan - Wikipedia

Interstate Highway System - Wikipedia

Medieval Icelandic Law (The Grágás) – Women’s Rights: On Reclaiming Property during Separation. By @fjorn-the-skald

Fjörn’s Library

“Notes on Valkyries and the like?” by @fjorn-the-skald

Fjörn’s chronological tag on women

Epigenetic correlates of neonatal contact in humans - Development and Psychopathology

Feral: So, obviously, everything Tex just said- round of effing applause!

I do want to hone in on one specific part of your ask, “since part of my goal is to use the swap to highlight some inequalities that still exist in our gender expectations today by flipping them” and direct you to this blog post on Mythcreants specifically addressing the Persecution Flip Story and why it’s not a great idea from a social justice perspective.

Happy reading!

[anneapocalypse]

Culpability and Inevitability in the Fall of Project Freelancer

or, Not Everything Is Carolina’s Fault Actually

Also posted on dreamwidth.

The Red vs. Blue Ultimate Fan Guide is a compendium of trivia, bonus material and behind-the-scenes information written by Burnie Burns and Eddy Rivas and published in 2015. It includes, among other things, profiles for the show’s major characters, including most of the named Freelancers. The character profile for Agent Carolina contains the following:

Carolina’s constant need for perfection drove her to disrupt the AI implantation process, which largely contributed to the implosion of Project Freelancer, and the disastrous consequences that followed.

This is false. Let’s talk about why.

First, we should probably establish what the “implosion” of Project Freelancer and those “disastrous consequences” were, because when we talk about the collapse of Project Freelancer, we are actually talking about several distinct chains of events that converge at specific points and coalesce to an extended disaster.

I will attempt to disambiguate those chains of events here. (I tried making a flowchart to make this clearer and it had about the opposite effect, so… we’re gonna stick with text, and simply note that these chains intersect with each other at multiple points.)

Chain 1: After the Beta fragment (Agent Texas) is generated spontaneously in the creation of the Alpha AI, Dr. Church tortures Alpha with scenarios of psychological stress to cause Alpha’s personality matrix to split, creating additional AI fragments. Meanwhile, he subjects his agents to a competitive ranking system to determine the order in which they will receive AI. Agent Connecticut has misgivings about the divisive nature of the program, and after digging deeper, learns what the Director is doing to Alpha. She turns to the project’s enemies at Charon Industries for help, and eventually defects from the Project, leaving behind a data stick for Agent Texas detailing what she had found.

Chain 1A: Agent Texas finds the data only after killing CT on an attempted retrieval mission. She partners with Agent York to storm the bridge of the Mother of Invention and find Alpha in hopes of saving him. In the process, York tampers with weapons controls, causing the Invention to crash.

Chain 1B: Influenced by CT’s death and by the purposeful suggestions of Sigma and Gamma, Carolina changes her mind about receiving AI, and is implanted with Eta and Iota. With the change in implantation order, Wash is implanted with Epsilon, who carries all of Alpha’s memories of being tortured along with some of the Director’s memories. Though Wash hides what he knows, the Director is suspicious, and decides to remove all other implanted AIs, effectively putting the entire project on hold. This decision is arguably what spurs the Meta into action (thus converging with Chain 3).

Chain 2: Dr. Church sends his Freelancers to steal intel and a Covenant Engineer from Charon Industries, all the while leading his agents to belief they are targeting Insurrectionists.

Chain 2A: Agent York, noticing that they seem to be on the wrong side of the law, begins to have misgivings about the program. This later leads him to partner with Agent Texas (converging with Chain 1A).

Chain 2B: Dr. Church makes an enemy of Charon CEO Malcolm Hargrove, who finds his way onto the UNSC Oversight Subcommittee and maneuvers his way to the position of Chairman, where he uses the power of the subcommittee to find evidence he can leverage against the Director.

Chain 3: After Maine is injured on a mission against Charon, Carolina gives him her AI, both to help him communicate and because she believes she can succeed without one. Maine is implanted with Sigma, who turns Maine into a vehicle for the Meta by which he means to collect all the other fragments and attempt to reassemble them and achieve metastability (branching off Chain 1). When the Director decides to remove all implanted AI, Sigma makes his move, and in the chaos following the crash (thus converging with Chain 1A), attacks Carolina and takes Eta and Iota. Later the Meta will hunt down and attack other agents in order to take their AI. The incidents involving the Meta draw the attention of the Oversight Subcommittee, giving Chairman Hargrove the evidence he needs to bring charges against Dr. Church (thus converging with Chain 2B).

Carolina is directly involved in a few of these chains.

So let’s talk about the consequences of her decisions.

Carolina gave away her assigned AI, Sigma, to Maine. There is no question that this had disastrous consequences. What we do not and cannot know is what would have happened if Carolina had kept Sigma. We cannot know for certain that Carolina herself wouldn’t have become a vehicle for the Meta. We really don't know how Sigma would have interacted with a different agent, and it's very possible things would've gone differently. But as long as Sigma was implanted in someone, it’s possible that chain of events would have had a similar outcome—at least similar enough to contribute to the project's collapse.

Carolina later demanded two AI, and received Eta and Iota. Neither those AI nor Carolina’s use of them had anything to do with the collapse of Project Freelancer. But this once again changes the implantation order, bumping Wash and South down the list. Delta tells us in season 6 that South was never meant to get an AI—that in fact denying her one was an intentional experiment. If we accept that as canon, Carolina’s actions didn’t actually change anything for South; the Director would’ve found a reason to bump her down the board, continuing to deny her her implantation.

But because of Carolina, Wash gets Epsilon. Because of Epsilon, Wash has a breakdown. And because of Wash’s breakdown, the Director suspects that he knows too much, and decides to halt the implantation process and remove all existing AI, effectively putting the entire Project on hold.

But here’s the thing: If Wash hadn’t gotten Epsilon, someone else would have. That we don’t know who is irrelevant—someone else would have. You think the Director was just going to harvest what he believed was a viable AI fragment and then not implant it in someone? Carolina’s decision made Wash very unlucky. But what happened to Wash was always going to happen to someone, and when it happened, that chain of events would have been inevitably set in motion. Epsilon's implantation probably would have had the same outcome for the project no matter who his host was.

As for Hargrove and Tex’s mutiny? Carolina had no effect on those. Hargrove’s grudge against the Director, CT's suspicions, and Tex and York’s eventual mutiny were caused by events the Director himself set in motion. Carolina had nothing to do with it. If the implantation order had remained as originally intended, Hargrove still would’ve made his way onto the Subcommittee, CT still would have defected to Charon, Tex still would have attempted to break Alpha out, and the Invention still would have crashed.

There is one person who “largely contributed to the implosion of Project Freelancer, and the disastrous consequences that followed.”

That person is the Director.

That’s really where all roads lead. It is Dr. Church who created Alpha, who created Beta; it is Dr. Church who tortured Alpha, creating the volatile personality fragments; it is Dr. Church who lied to his agents about their targets and used them to steal from a private corporation under UNSC protection; it is Dr. Church who implanted the agents who trusted him with untested technology that got most of them killed and harmed every last one of them.

The Director did that. Not Carolina. It is because of his actions that his project was ultimately doomed from the start. The Director set in motion every chain of events that led to the collapse of Project Freelancer. Carolina’s actions complicated the process and made two people close to her very unlucky, but what happened to Maine and to Wash would have happened to someone, and in the case of Maine, that someone might would have been Carolina herself.

And this isn’t even getting into whether Carolina could have known what the consequences of those decisions would be—which of course she couldn’t have. I’m just talking about causation here, foreseeable or not.

So much of the Freelancer arc is structured around highlighting Carolina’s mistakes. And she does make mistakes—mostly based on incomplete information and misguided priorities, information which the Director deliberately withholds and priorities which he deliberately encourages. Yes, Carolina made her own choices. And yes, some of them had negative outcomes.

Carolina was not responsible for the collapse of Project Freelancer, knowingly or unknowingly. The Director was.

And you know, it does get a little tiring when even her own writers won’t acknowledge that.

[memoryxbane]

Starter for @thestupidmeanone!

✪ Tex had been through a lot. Beta wasn’t particularly aware of the happenings of Epsilon!Beta, as it were - or, perhaps, even much beyond that she existed; there were records of her existing, and then, suddenly, not. She wasn’t aware of E!Beta being left behind in a storage unit when the Reds, Blues, and Carolina had departed with Epsilon - she was only recently cognizant of the fact that Carolina was, in fact, alive. She wasn’t aware, either, of the fact that E!Beta had suffered an excruciatingly painful ‘death’ being torn into smaller and smaller fragments in search of the correct pieces of Allison, with different fragments of the memory of a memory being put together, and then taken apart again, hoping to compile a whole out of a sliver of a shadow.

    Tex knew what she was. And she knew that she would never, ever be the woman that the Director thought she was; no iteration of her could be, and that E!Beta was torn apart hoping to find a way to splice together the correct pieces and throw out the rest, the idea that the Meta was an ongoing experiment to see if AI could be put together to act as one personality... They were ideas that sickened her to her core. Fortunately, she was blissfully unaware of a lot of what had happened.

    The EMP that had struck the Meta had done a great deal of damage to all of them, the Electro-Magnetic signals scrambling the circuits on their chips, seriously damaging their codes... But it hadn’t killed them. Many of them made the choice to destroy themselves after finding their ability to function to be impossible to regain, and others went their own ways, either to be destroyed later or to die of old age. Tex, however... She remained.

    Perhaps it was because she had always been strange, amongst the AI. The Alpha, she believed, could not recover - though she could be wrong. She had chosen not to follow him, this time. There was nothing she could protect him from in her current state, and she had her own repairs to do. He had already been too damaged, too torn apart, she believed, to be able to withstand that final burst of damage, especially without a chance to brace for it. Tex believed herself to be the only survivor - though she could, of course, be wrong, but she hardly had the resources she needed to find out. She didn’t even have a body.

    Of course, Beta had figured out how to jump between electronic sources years ago; Alpha had called them both ghosts, and she... Went with it. It was easier than facing the fact that she was less than human. Naive, perhaps, but more innocent. Had she a mouth, she would smile at the thought.

    It had taken years upon years, but finally, at long last, she had managed to track down the Reds, Blues, Washington, and... Carolina. Tex had been hit with several waves of thoughts to process upon learning that Carolina was alive. Relief, perhaps, was one of them. Concern. Maybe a little bit of bitterness. But relief was perhaps the strongest one, alongside guilt that York had never gotten to see her again. She had believed his hope was a foolish one. Tally that down as another failure in her book. Having made her way to Chorus - a computer here, a shipping manifest found, a ship there - Tex waited until the time was right, until Carolina was well asleep, before hopping into her helmet, projecting a small projection - not the full body one she did with Alpha - above it and waiting.

    She sat cross-legged, her hologram nearly invisible in the dark except for a very faint outline, if only to indicate her presence. One would have difficulty making out the detail in her projection; she was, truly, a shadow. It was a word she hated, but acknowledged as the truth long ago. She waited, sitting cross-legged on the helmet with her chin propped on one hand, for Epsilon to acknowledge her presence. She knew he was there; she could sense him, in a way. She wasn’t aware that he had taken on the guise of the Alpha, but it wouldn’t particularly surprise her to find out. It made sense, from a certain perspective. He was a part of Church, after all - and a very important part at that. The part that she’d failed to save, more than any other. And so she sat, silent, waiting for him to notice. If she was patient... Well, he’d come to her.

[callie-the-snarky-geek-blog]

RvB16 Episode 4 Review: Sis and Tuc’s S**ellent Adventure

(Old Reblog Post. Also sorry for the censoring, I’m trying t be cautious right now.)

With a title like ‘Sis and Tuc’s S**cellent Adventure”, so I even need to write an introduction? That’s enough of a draw-in! So… yeah, lets just jump into it!

Overview

It’s been a day since the last episode and Tucker has recovered from the blow to his fragile male ego. He agrees to Sister’s plan on banging past people wanting a six-way with the Spice Girls. Sister points out that he’s setting himself too high and eventually it leads back to Tucker insisting that they banged. Sister expands on what she said last episode, about something happening that made them stop. I guess she thought about it more as she says that Tucker thought that someone was watching them and had stopped due to it. To get a clear answer, they decide to go back to Season 5 now that Sister has figured out how the portal gun works.

Back at The Battle of Broken Ridge, the… Red Army I guess? I assume it’s a Red vs Blue battle. Anyways, they’re all dead. Simmons tries to comfort Sarge after his failure to prevent their deaths… that he pretty much caused. And in the afterlife, Church is laughing cause now they are going through what he did. Sarge is upset and blames the failures… on his underlings idiocy. Of course. But is this going to deter Sarge from fixing the past? Hell no! He is going to create essentially a dream time like The Expendables… a movie I’ve never seen, but screw you Sarge! Harrison Ford makes everything better even if he isn’t necessary! Simmons is just left baffled and confused. You think he’d be used to this by now.

Back with Tucker and Sister, they make it back to Season 5 during the final fight with Wyoming. In order to not cause a paradox, they dodge behind rocks to not be seen… and wouldn’t you know it, Tucker finds a sniper rifle! I’m surprised he didn’t make a bigger deal over finally getting the thing (and… how did it get there? I need to rewatch Blood Gulch man). But with it, he spots he moment where past him was talking to Flowers… and I am still is confused on how he came back to life out of nowhere as I was when I watched Season 5. But we do get an explanation on how he died again. Remember the random bullet that show him down? Well turns out that Tucker’s finger was too close to the trigger and… well, you do the math. Seriously, Church must just be laughing his ass off int he afterlife right now. But Tucker knows when he fucks up and decides to stick to the sword.

We now check on Grif and Doc as Grif has figured out how the gun works now. Okay, so everyone knows how the things work, good. Grif, still wanting to avoid the plot, has sent them back to when he was in college and before he… got enlisted? Wait, I thought he was drafted… meh, maybe time has affected his memory or something. My proof? Well the restaurant is now a Calzone and Stormboli restaurant. Grif, confused, tries to ask some kids what the fuck is happening. Also it’s Halloween so that we can justify them wearing Halo armor despite being kids! Ah, you gotta love those kinds of things!

So… as it turns out… Grif and Doc ended up in a timeline where pizza does not exist. Let me repeat that: Pizza does NOT exist… WHAT KIND OF SICK TIMELINE IS THAT?! Grif yells at children before the fact sinks in and… he decides to grenade himself. Sheesh dude, I knwo that a world without pizza is just sick and wrong, but there’s other Italian dishes to consider! Luckily Doc knows the grenade away, saving Grif’s life for the second time… okay I forgive him for last season now. Cause someone needs to take care of Grif while Simmons isn’t there and Doc is fulfilling that, damn it! Doc is able to convince Grif to instead try and cause the invention of pizza to fix it… after trying to convinced him to use it for the greater good. Someone needs to one day explain to Doc what show he’s in, I don’t think he ever figured it out.

Back in Season 5, Sister now has the sniper rifle and they’re now waiting for the ship with Tex, Junior, and Andy to blow up. Tucker uses the time to ash Sister why she tagged along to begin with. Sister explains how, while the convention business has been going well, her personal life has gotten fucked up. TO put it simply, she got involved with a person working with her… who was married to the head of HR. So… yeah that’s a bit of a clusterfuck if there ever was one. She wishes that things could go back to being silly and fun like it used to be, a sentiment that Tucker can relate to. Back in Blood Gulch, it felt like that nothing really mattered and there weren’t really consequences. No? Wash got injured due to his poor leadership and he’s got a lawsuit on him for who knows how many child support payments. It’s… a rather nice, reflective heart-to-heart. We also learn that Tucker’s mother is dead… that’s a bummer.

So the ship explodes, everyone kind of went to do their own thing, and past!Tucker took past!Sister to the caves to shoe her  ‘surprise’. Turns out that Blood Gulch has a lake in the canyon… didn’t know that. Past!Tucker is trying to, of course, initiate having hanky panky time with Sister (and I imagine past!Grif having a ‘I sense a disturbance in the Force’ moment) and… he is awkward and stammering as Hell. It’s kinda cute… I’m gonna laugh at him anyways! HAHAHA! Fortunately past!Sister is more than capable of taking the initiative and it looks like they were indeed going to have see. ALl as their future selves watch in secret. Sister, having a moment of weakness, asks if Tucker wants to go ahead and bang with Tucker… getting too excited and causing last him to hear him. They don’t get caught and cause a paradox thankfully, but it’s enough to cause past!Tucker to call hanky panky time off. So… Tucker totally cockblocked himself… twice… with the same girl… wooooow.

Sister is of course annoyed as they return to Valhalla as well as disappointed in herself for almost banging with Tucker. But hey, she gets a new idea… to go back and bang her past self! No! Sister, selfcest leads to bad things! She goes off and if they had animated this scene, I imagine that Tucker would be kicking himself right now. Literally. But hey, you came close buddy.

Review

This was a laugh riot, OMG. Before we get to the main event, lets talk about the other pairs.

There’s not a lot to say about Sarge and Simmons really. As expected, Sarge caused his own problem and fails to recognize it. IDK if him saying that he’s going to recruit others is going to go anywhere, but it was there. I did like how Simmons was concerned about Sarge’s state after and him continuing to be a dork with having a log (but… it was a science log here and last time it was a star log… does Simmons keep multiple logs?! NERD!) Him just being completely and utterly baffled at how Sarge could jump to the conclusion he made was also hilarious, especially him just weakly returning the ‘hoorahs’. IDK why the mental image of Gus recording that crack me up… but it cracks me up.

There’s a bit more to talk about with Grif and Doc. First, addressing the brief continuity error about Grif claiming to be enlisted. Now him dropping out of college? I can buy that. But in the Fan Guide and I’m fairly sure that Geoff himself said it before, Grif was drafted. Then again he did claim that he signed up willingly back int he very first episode, so… IDK. It’s not that big a deal and it can easily be hand-waved as him just saying that so Doc won’t question him about it or with pizza no longer existing, maybe he did enlist due to time screwing up and his memory adjusted accordingly. So ultimately, unless this is important later and IDT it will be, it’s not that big a deal.

So we continue to see Grif ignoring the problem and trying to get back to the pizza quest. To Doc’s credit, he is trying to get Grif to focus on it, but this being Doc he can’t really force it and IDT hes going to unleash O’Malley if he can help it. Grif yelling at children (and one I’m fairly sure is voiced by Lindsay? Or at least one sounded like Space Kid) about pizza’s existence also had me about ready to burst a guy. I imagine that Geoff blew his voice out after that, but his sacrifice is appreciate if that is the case. Plus hey, he NAILED it. Seriously, sidetracking, but the voice acting has been perfection so far. But yeah, I assume that something is going to happen to force Grif into facing the problem moreso than the others (I imagine whenever they discover Huggins… where is she BTW?) and I worry that since he’s kept Grif from getting killed twice now, something might happen to Doc… but we’ll see!

Okay, onto the main event! The entire S**cellent adventure was a laugh riot, OMG. Honestly just having Sister have some prominent screentime after so long was SO nice. I am loving how Joe is handling her this season. Her and Tucker’s banter was perfection. Them going form bickering to flirting is just hilarious and I am loving it. I wasn’t sure what to expect from them aside form flirting, and so far having the two most horny characters on the show together has been incredibly entertaining.

Their heart to heart was really nice as well. Sister definitely screwed up as far as her personal life is concerned, which makes her wanting to go back to before then understandable. Tucker being able to relate with what happened in S15 when his choices came back to bit him in the ass was also really nice. Especially as he reflects how back during Blood Gulch, it didn’t seem like he had to care. Regardless of what happened, there weren’t any long-term consequences. I’d have to rewatch Blood Gulch to see how much of that is true, but for the most part he’s correct. Back then you could be as stupid as you wanted and it would work out. Even death wasn’t a big deal. Now? Well… it is. It’s not like how it was back then, and seeing Tucker reflect on that was a really good moment for him.

What else can I say? Ugh… well it ended how I expected. The second I saw the title of this episode, I immideatly went ‘they’re gonna go back to find out about the sex thing and it end sup Tucker messed it up, aren’t they?” And I was right! Yay! I didn’t see Sister deciding to indulge in selfcest coming and tbh Tucker handled the revelation better than I thought he would, but still it went as i expected. But at least we have conformation: Tucker and Sister almost did sex, but Tucker thwarted himself. Ain’t that a bitch?

Final Thoughts

This one is definitely meant to be purely a comedic episode. Which is fine since it was hilarious. Tucker and Sister’s back and forths had me giggling and Grif’s mental breakdown at pizza no longer existing had me in stitches. It was good! My only real complaint is I’d have liked some more plot, but I guess it’s better to get the funny time travel antics out of the way first before going forward. Plus hey, it was still funny, so why complain? Overall, that was indeed a s**cellent adventure.

[rubykgrant]

(this is exactly why in my whole “Tex and Church get synthetic human bodies” story-line, I go through explaining that the Director had this program ready for a while, but it kept on NOT being what he wanted, Tex would never look EXACTLY like Allison, and it was the “perfect” version of Allison he wanted at that. so he kept on stopping the program and re-doing everything, he just couldn’t stand the idea of her being anything besides perfect for HIM. he’s dead now though, so when the program starts up again, Tex just gets to be a person. she still resembles Allison a bit, but more like they could be cousins, not an identical clone. she’s taller, broader shoulders, stronger chin. once she gets the chance, Tex starts getting stronger, and later starts enjoying all the great options of food, so she’s muscular and thick. I’m not saying this as a brag, like “I’m so special” for this. lots of people have their own unique Tex designs that go against what the Director would have wanted, and that’s awesome! I just literally had this same thought process; a human/human-like Tex designed by the Director literally makes her his ideal of a woman, who only exists to visually please him. unsurprisingly, that sucks. even if his influence might be connected to her creation, I wanted Tex to just have the opportunity to be different. when she can start making choices about what she does, she can also just be herself)

when people draw tex as like a sexy bombshell blonde perfectly symmetrical big boobs hourglass figure i’m like. if you aren’t doing that with the intention of it being a fucking horror movie i have nothing to say to you. you’ve made her into a sex bot with literally no self awareness.

[deniscollins]

Columbine High School Could Be Torn Down to Deter Copycats

Twenty years ago two Columbine High School students armed with guns and explosives killed 12 students and a teacher. Since then, the school often attracts curious and obsessed tourists from around the world hoping to walk the halls, to look for the two teenage gunmen’s lockers. If you were on the Columbine Board of Education, would you vote to tear down the building and rebuild a new one at a different location to put an end to becoming a tourist attraction: (1) Yes, (2) No? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

In the 20 years since the massacre at Columbine High School, the building has become a macabre tourist attraction for the curious and the obsessed. They travel from as far as Brazil or Japan, hoping to walk the halls, to look for the two teenage gunmen’s lockers. They come every day, and more come with each passing year.

Now, in an effort to stop the escalating threats against the school and lessen Columbine’s perverse appeal to copycats and so-called Columbiners, school officials are proposing a radical idea: Tear it down.

“The morbid fascination with Columbine has been increasing over the years,” Jason Glass, the superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools, wrote Thursday in an open letter titled “A New Columbine?” “We believe it is time for our community to consider this option.”

School officials said they were still in the early stages of exploring what to do, but one idea was to scrap much of the existing structure and rebuild it farther from the road, where entry onto the school grounds could be better controlled and tour buses could not get such an easy glimpse.

The school would keep its silver and blue colors and mascot, the Rebels. Its name would remain Columbine High School.

The idea has divided a tight-knit community of current Columbine students, survivors of the 1999 attack and victims’ families, who share a fierce love for the school. It has also stirred a debate about whether schools, churches and other places devastated by mass shootings can ever exorcise their legacy by demolishing the buildings where the violence unfolded.

“My heart says, ‘No way,’” said Josh Lapp, 36, who was in the library that day when the two teenage gunmen entered and started shooting. “It’s not changing anything.”

Some survivors said that their memories of hurt and healing were still bound up in Columbine’s concrete walls, and that the school should be preserved. Others doubted that school officials could actually succeed in erasing Columbine’s dark allure if they simply rebuilt the school on the same grounds and kept its name.

On Friday, Ana Lemus-Paiz, 18, a recent Columbine graduate, said most students she had spoken with were against the idea of razing the school. She counted herself among them.

Ms. Lemus-Paiz was not even alive in 1999, when the shooting took place, but she said she had been part of a process of community healing that involved reclaiming the school. While the world may look at the building and see the Columbine of 1999 — a symbol of tragedy — the community, she said, had moved on. “That building is a symbol of strength,” she said. “Our community really did bind together to show that we are stronger than what happened.”

Ms. Lemus-Paiz also said that she believed the school’s demolition would do little to stanch the flow of visitors. “As long as the name stands — which it should — people are going to keep coming.”

In April, the 20th anniversary of the attack, in which two students armed with guns and explosives killed 12 students and a teacher, was a reminder of that. It had been planned as a time for prayers and memorials, but instead hundreds of schools in Colorado were closed as the authorities frantically searched for Sol Pais, an armed 18-year-old woman who law-enforcement officials said was infatuated with the massacre, made threats and had traveled to the state from Florida.

For John McDonald, the Jefferson County Public Schools safety director, it was one more example of an onslaught of Columbine obsessives that two full-time officers confront every day in the parking lot or on the edges of campus. The school was extensively renovated after 1999 and is now protected like a fortress. It has cameras, doors that lock remotely, and security monitoring 24 hours a day.

“At some point we have to stop being the poster child for school shootings around the country,” Mr. McDonald said. “I think it’s time.”

Mr. Glass, the superintendent who oversees Columbine, said that school safety officials stopped hundreds of people each year who try to enter the school or are caught trespassing on campus. This year’s numbers were the highest on record.

“I know all of the severity of the threats,” he said. “We don’t tell everybody all of those things. I think if people knew, they’d be really scared. And they should be. If I didn’t think this was something we should consider, I wouldn’t have brought it forward.”

The school has become a model institution when it comes to safety measures, he said, “but people need to know that it is tested constantly.”

The school district released an online survey on Thursday for residents to consider a ballot measure to allocate up to $70 million for a construction project. One idea was to preserve the high school’s library — where 10 students were killed — and make it a cornerstone of a new campus.

Some former students and family members of victims were surprised that school officials were re-examining what to do with Columbine after so many years. They still remember yelling “We are Columbine!” at a rally to reopen the school after the attack.

“Twenty years ago, there was no blueprint,” said Frank DeAngelis, who recently retired after serving as Columbine’s principal during the attacks and for years after. He supports the proposal to take down the original and rebuild the school.

He added: “If I would have known 20 years ago that we were still going to have tour buses showing up, we were still going to have people infatuated with the two killers, I would’ve said maybe we need to look at relocating.”

The school superintendent’s letter said that experts recommend tearing down a structure after a school shooting. But schools reckoning with what to do with a bullet-scarred building have few easy choices.

In Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six staff members were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, the school district demolished the building and built a new school on a different part of the same property.

In Parkland, Fla., crews are expected to break ground this summer on a project to replace Building 12 of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people were killed. The new building is expected to be ready for the 2020 school year.

Other survivors have decided to maintain mass shooting sites to honor victims.

Last month, the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Tex., opened a new sanctuary next to the original site for worship. The congregation converted the old church, where a gunman killed 26 people in 2017, into a memorial to the victims.

“We don’t want it to look like a fortress, but we also wanted to make sure everybody could feel safe on the inside,” Pastor Frank Pomeroy said at the dedication of the new building.

Not surprisingly, security was also a key consideration in the construction, though Mr. Pomeroy, whose daughter was killed in the attack, would not disclose details about the safety features. A refurbished bell from the old building now tolls in the new church.

In Orlando, a foundation created by the owner of the Pulse nightclub, where 49 people were killed in 2016, is planning to establish a museum and memorial on the site of a massacre.

Columbine is not simply a magnet for obsession. It is a place where survivors and victims’ families say they still find meaning. Over the years, some have returned to show their spouses and children where they had run from gunfire or hidden under tables.

Coni Sanders, whose father, Dave, a teacher, was killed in the attack, said that a floor tile with an image of the purple columbine flower lay near where her father had been shot. Ms. Sanders was skeptical about the idea to rebuild, and said that $70 million for construction would be better spent on student-focused programs like mental-health treatment or community centers.

“When they say they’re going to tear it down, rebuilding it in the same spot and still call it Columbine, that’s not solving the problem they’re claiming it’s going to solve,” she said.

Some survivors choose to keep their distance from the building. They do not want to attend anniversary gatherings there. Mr. Lapp said he does not even drive by when he visits family in the area.

On Friday, Columbine High School looked just like any another school on a June day: The sun beat down on its tan bricks, the parking lot sat half-empty and a park next door was filled with children in bathing suits, who ran with glee around a fountain.

Only a few signs indicated that something darker had happened here — a placard pointing visitors to a memorial and a large sheriff’s truck parked horizontally in front of the school’s doors.

“It’s only a building,” said Salli Garrigan, 36, who ran through Columbine’s auditorium and halls as the sounds of gunshots exploded around her. “All of those memories will be there, whether the building is or not.”

[imthelcstprincess]

Death — I’ll write a drabble of my character with yours on their deathbed. >:)

drabble meme ( no longer accepting ) | @do-i-win-yet​ | supernatural au

Rapunzel had tried so hard not to let it get to this point.  She prided herself on being a fast learner, picking things up quickly - even if they were life or death situations.  Save those innocent lives of people who were being traumatized and haunted by spirits who had unfinished business, by demons, by whatever supernatural force crossed their path by choice or just bad luck.  

And simultaneously she had to stop - by any means necessary - those forces who threatened those innocent people.  Which, of course, was the most dangerous part of the job.  At least, in her opinion.  And while she was great at multi-tasking, sometimes she found herself in the middle of the crossfire.  

That wasn’t uncommon, though - sometimes things happened, and when it came to supernatural beings like demons or anything else that had the speed and agility to catch up to the hunters, sometimes there were injuries.  Broken bones, cuts…  

This time, though?  This time was different.  

They’d been hunting a werewolf, something they’d hunted before.  And Rapunzel, being more experienced now than ever, thought she could take the reigns on this one.  Tex was hesitant, but she was just about as stubborn as he, and really the only way to get her to shut up sometimes was to just let her have her way.  At least for a little bit.

But that didn’t go as planned, because Rapunzel had found herself in the middle of the ‘crossfire’ - the claws, more specifically.  And then again, and again and the next thing she knew, she felt the cold ground below her.  

Whether or not Tex finished off the werewolf, she didn’t know, but when she regained consciousness she realized she was in a hospital bed, with him by her side.  Her vision was blurry, almost in a haze, and she was in so much pain. 

“What happened?”

Or at least, that’s what she wanted to say.  She managed to let out a breath, but that was it.  

Tex knew her well enough by now to know what she meant, and he frowned, lowering his gaze to his lap as he sat in the chair by her bedside.  A hand rose, and he placed it to hers, her skin cold.  And he explained to her what happened when she hit the ground - not only was she brutally attacked by the werewolf, but she bled out so much that he genuinely thought she would have died right then and there.  Not only that, but she hit her head pretty hard, too.  The loss of blood, plus the injury to her head…  it didn’t look promising.  

But he had to try, because he’d be damned if he let anything more happen to her.

Normally she would have panicked, but she remained calm.  Perhaps it was the loss of blood that drained her of the energy - that was her first guess, anyway, but of all the times she’d gotten hurt while on a case, this was the first time she actually accepted the prospect of dying.  She’d already been surprised she lasted as long as she had, but if the doctor’s couldn’t do anything or if her injuries were too bad for Tex to fix on his own, then maybe death was the only other option.

Slowly, she moved her head to look at him, cringing from the pain she felt from just moving her head a little.  Looking at him, her expression changed; she didn’t look scared, but concerned for him - even on her deathbed she was concerned for someone else.  She tried to offer him a smile, as if to reassure him ( she assumed he was scared shitless at this point. )

“I haven’t thanked you in a while for what you’ve done for me,” she murmured, her voice barely there.  But she tried so hard.  If these were potentially going to be her last words, she had to try.  “You’ve taught me so much over the years, about myself and what I can do, about life and about a world I never knew existed…  about, so many things and–”

He shook his head, inching closer.  “Everything’s going to be okay, you’re going to be okay.  You aren’t going to die.”

“–I might,” she continued, appreciating his reassurance.  But really, she didn’t want to get his hopes up in case she didn’t make it.  And she didn’t want to get her own hopes up, either.  “I love you.  And I can never thank you enough for saving me, time and time again and for just…  bringing me on so many adventures.  And if this is really it for me, then I want you to promise me you’ll keep on going.”  Not to avenge her or anything, but because she wanted him to live his best life - hunter or not, it was entirely up to him.  

[vehlika-pelican]

warning for long post! i always get my best ideas at night when im on mobile and cant do a read-more. sorry. blacklist "vehl's headcannons" to stop seeing my stuff. no rvb season 15 spoilers i dont think. me3 is like 5 years old now so im not tagging it as spoilers for any of the games. OKAY, RVB X MASS EFFECT TRILOGY CROSSOVER ( mostly ME 1 because its been two hours since i started writing this post now and oh shit) #TuckerFightsARobotArmy is gonna be the tag for this and the inevitable sequel posts at first i thought, with default Femshep being a badass red-head that would make our local badass red-head Carolina the obvious choice for the role but it occurred to me that she would make a better Miranda Lawson than Commander Shepard. The Director is The Illussive Man (Tim). Aside from the daddy issues, Miranda is a big supporter of Tim's until she finally sees his dark side and resigns during the end of ME 2 just like Carolina was a staunch believer in the Director until she had to face the music. The Freelancers are involved in Project Phoenix and ultimately its every man for himself when the Director starts indoctrinating/reaperfying troops. She gets assigned to the Normandy SR-2 just before the agents make their escape and she's left out of the loop and feeling betrayed. She carries that well into hunting the Collectors and her loyalty mission involves maybe saving York and getting answers. Carolina goes into hiding just like Miranda during ME3, trying to take down her former employer and his organization on her own until she needs help. Thats where our best dudes come in. but then if she's taking the place of Miranda, who could be Shepard? let's start with the Reds. Sarge is too...Sarge. Maybe he could take Admiral Hackett's place as Admiral Colonel Sarge because obviously (everyone knows he's crazy but going from enlisted man to fleet admiral makes him a legend, and he really earned a name for himself during the First Contact War. that name was legally changed to Colonel.) Grif would be Joker, so our esteemed pilot/vehicle operator who's all back-talk and bitching. Simmons is where it gets tricky. Simmons could be an engineer, possibly a quarian, who got prosthetic limbs from when he temporarily served with Sarge on a joint human-quarian deployment and became enamored with the freedom to experiment in the Alliance opposed to the strict policies in the Migrant Fleet and sought to return to his service by trying to kiss ass. but i also like him as EDI because of the proximity to Grif and how they would develop that friendship leading up to Joker's Mission when Grif unshackles Simmons to save the Normandy in ME 2. i also kind of like krogan!Grif, and you know the two of them would have the greatest time messing with the Alliance's engineers during the retrofits. then when Simmons gets a body in ME3 he tries to get a faux-skin to look human but there's a problem and its missing in places on the left side and Grif decides to tell people he's just got some prosthetics from an accident. all shiny and chrome on the fury road. Donut is Kelly Chambers. trained in psychology but rarely clinical, loving all the species, somehow spreading a space-dog STD around the ship, a bit too naive if pretty gung-ho about the mission but give him a belt of lift grenades and hot damn we're in business. Lopez is the AI who robbed the bank? embezelled money? (ME 1) and threatened to detonate a nuclear bomb inside a shopping center but actually managed to buy and download himself into a ship and set sail for sweet robot freedom in the Persius Veil. he was caught by Sarge and officially "destroyed" when he's really locked in a Rampart mech with AI shackles that force him to aid Sarge in his crazy science endeavors. he refuses to speak anything other than spanish out of spite even when he genuinely needs assistance. now the Blues. Washington will have been with Cerberus until about the beginning of ME3 which is when Tim starts indoctrinating troops and members of Project Phoenix take their chances so thats too late to start trying to save the galaxy from the Reaper threat. Caboose takes the place of David (i might be getting the name wrong), an autistic savant who can communicate with a race of alien AI (the quarian-made geth) and is unwillingly mentally linked to the geth for an unknown period of time by his own brother (one of his sisters then? my poor boy imsorry). This would cause the neural trauma/scarring resulting in Caboose being... more Caboose. but he isn't found until sometime in ME2 by Shepard and co. Freckles is the mad AI who goes rogue on Luna (not EDI or part of Simmons in this au) but ends up being befriended by Caboose. he inhabits an Atlas/Titan mech and together they're unstoppable. Tex is an attempt to recreate Allison as an AI inside a cloned body made by the Director during the early stages of his madness. now she's taking Ashley's place as a trigger happy space racist, a double agent inside the Alliance and on Tucker's squad. Church almost dates her but something...feels off...and instead spends his time fighting with her because it feels...familiar? like when he used to argue with his mom when she was alive. huh. Kaikaina and Grif petitioned to serve together so she's on the squad as an infilitrator of all things. she and Wrex commiserate over the story of how she stole a krogan warlord's biotic hammer and she tramatizes Grif by flirting with his 800-pound ass. (not that it goes anywhere. Wrex thinks humans are too squishy.) which leaves...Tucker. because who else. Commander Shepard took the responsibility of proving the existence and defeating the Reapers only because they happened to be at Eden Prime when the prothean beacon was to be recovered. it could have been anyone caught in the beacon- Ashley or Kaidan or any other marine- and that person would have tried to do the same. Tucker in RVB isnt so much chosen to be the savior of an alien race (Doc said he was but that was more Junior) as he gets caught in a bunch of shit that went down in ways he was not expecting when he interacted with an ancient alien artifact thank you very much. so he's on the Normandy SR-1 because he's an N7-in-training or outright failed to get past N1 (which is still impressive because he was considered and thats not easy criteria to meet. let my man be a badass space marine. just a little bit. badass-in-training. HE'LL GET THERE.) but is noticed for his potential and is to be evaluated by turian!/salarian!Felix for Spectre candidacy. the first human Spectre. he's a biotic, i can't decide between adept and vanguard. Tucker and Grif are Totally On To the mission's importance because "spectre's(Felix) dont come along for shake-down runs" in their new experiental human-turian ship and they arrive at Eden Prime mid-attack. Tucker and his squad try to clear a path to the beacon while Felix scouts ahead. but then they find his body and eyewitnesses say it was someone he knew by name that shot him once he let his guard down and his back was turned. "Locus" they say. supposedly leading the assault with an army of heretic-geth and a massive ship emitting a terrible sound. they fight to the beacon, disable bombs along the way, and find it just as Locus's ship departs. as the squad's engineer is scanning it, Tucker notices they're starting to levitate and rushes in to grab them and throw them aside only to get caught himself. he gets the prothean vision-warning about the Reapers and maybe a special prothean omni-blade and its on. he has to prove to the Citadel Council that their Spectre Locus is a traitor and that the Reapers are real but visions? galactic extinction cycles? oh you humans are so full of it. you've been part of the galactic community for 30 years and now you're here with a conspiracy theory at best? i cant believe we thought you could work for us. blah. Tucker marches off but meets Church who's been trying to take Locus down from within the system to no avail. Alpha!Church is the Director's son but Allison got custody after the divorce and now he's a grouchy C-Sec cop getting nowhere real quick. Tucker invites him along and he's a shitty sniper but actually pretty decent with the Mako's cannon considering it handles like a drunk krogan who can do a flip it you drive off the cliff edge fast enough (what are mass effect booster jets for?). they track down a krogan mercenary (Wrex is probably still Wrex. because who could hope to live up to him?) and fight through a strip club and kill Fist and rescue a quarian (Palomo? make that Jensen) with evidence proving Locus is guilty. then they save Dr. Emily Grey and help her keep her small clinic in the wards from being shut down and she gives them sweet discounts and all the free medigel they can shove into their pockets. they rescue asari!Doc from inside a prothean ruin (got lost on a yoga retreat and panicked when geth started attacking...i guess he could be an archeologist but maybe they drag Grey along for the ride instead...) but he's developed a split personality due to how long he's been alone in there and its kinda murderous but coupled with biotics its pretty useful. (and yes, asari are mono-gendered and are all "female" but ME: Andromeda confirmed that some asari use masculine pronouns/identify as "male" and there's no way that wasn't a thing in ME 1 canon so Doc is he/him). on Virmire, he almost shoots Tex AND Wrex on the beach- put down your shotguns you fucking lunatics i will biotically throw you into the ocean! he helped Wrex get his family armor so Tucker manages to talk him down but man Tex could you chill its been months already. he has to leave Tex behind though to protect the bomb while he and Wrex save Kaikaina and Kirahee and fight Locus. they evacuate and the bomb detonates and atleast it was instantaneous. she wouldn't have felt herself be vaporized, it was quick and we stopped Locus from getting an army of krogan. Church is devastated and knowing that Tucker leaving Tex behind was a conscious choice splinters their friendship. but. Tucker has to finish this. its bullshit and why us. why'd it have to be us on this ship in this life shewasmyfriendtoo- but its a race against the clock to the lost relay and Ilos and theres no time to have a real talk. its complete bullshit. they get to Ilos but Locus is ahead of them and they have to fight so many geth and find a 50,000 year old message which only Tucker can understand but fuck this we're being left in Locus' dust openthisstupid templedoor*swish* oh shit this things a fucking key "guess we didnt have to fight all them robots" he said stepping over the mountain of slain robots because fuck my life. Wrex how'd you live so long life fucking sucks. "i've been drunk for a lot of it" great. yup. can the Mako go any faster. and then they meet Vigil but dont record it because they're still idiots who forget/dont mind the details until Simmons shows up in the sequel you morons but hey remember THAT CHASE WE WERE IN LETSGO and they drive the Mako into a relay and if Tucker made sure to crash into a geth colossus no one says anything- and they fly out into the Presidium Commons like if the Mako had wings but itfuckingdoesnt and why are there even jets on this tank. Locus and Sovereign beat them to the Citadel and the arms are closed but Hal-9000 over there is just chillin' on the Citadel Tower like he's shishing the kebab himself. then gravity goes off and they fight sideways all the way up the tower and those turrets sure are being turrets you know and not differentiating between us and the assholes ahead of us. but they finally make it and stop Locus short of the apocalypse. Tucker goes all renegade Locus was just afraid, the Reapers put his life in persepective and we are all so small and insignificant, "is servitude not preferable to extinction?" you're just a puppet, they're using you because you're weak, because you let them, do yourself a favor-! but Locus claims its too late and they fight and kill him. but he rises anyway. the fight the first and only Possessed Marauder- Sovereign controlig Locus' corpse through implants. he was mostly implants. and once its ash ashashashes Tex didnt even get to be ashes its unfa- and Sarge is over the comm, open the Citadel's arms son so the Alliance can save the day and Tucker has a choice. save the Council and sacrifice thousands of soldiers. or kill the Reaper and worry about new leadership later. its Tex again. worse. i need to think, theres no time, you know what this thing can do you saw in the vision i believe you so what do we do. make the call. and Tucker needs the Council's support...but the Reaper needs to be killed...but saving the Council will cost too much...but the Reaper could still call the others from dark space...they'll trust me... will the new ones? will the Alliance? Anyone? no. but someone will definitely be alive. kill Sovereign. the Council dies. the Destiny Ascention is destroyed. the Alliance suffers minimal loses. humanity fills the vacuum of power. humanity is no longer trusted. they blame him. he does too. have any of his choices been good enough? right? much of the crew goes their own way. Church goes back to C-Sec. maybe he'll call. Wrex returns to Tuchanka, faith in his people restored. Doc joins Grey at her small clinic. Jensen returns to the Migrant Fleet with geth data. and Tucker and the rest are... disgraced. no one says but they dont have to. every breath is a reminder of his failures and what he did. so much potential in him once, they say. he could have been great. instead he did this. and they fight geth. chase geth. fight more. they head to Alchera. more geth, they said. it isnt. the ship is blown apart. Kaikaina shoves anyone who cant walk into the escape pods. The XO is killed almost immediately. Grif won't leave. Tucker, please, Dex! Get Dex! she yells as she's dragged into an escape pod by a Yeoman and he storms over because he wont lose anyone else but the hull is gone and you can't run in mag boots. Grif is fighting for Normandy. Tucker can hear him asking for just a little more just enough to- to- but Tucker's having none of it and pulls and heaves and forces his idiot pilot into the pod. of all the times Grif chose to be the opposite of lazy. a streak of yellow catches his eye and its coming this way and he pushes off and hits the launch button but the engines blow and he hits something as he is set adrift. he's losing air. fuck, its- its behind him. he panics and scrambles for the puncture but his arms are geting heavier and he's already wheezing short little breaths shortlittlefailures youfailedyoukilledthem youkilledher. the sun in the distance is bright. he can feel his body tilt toward the planet, sees the sunlight cresting over the horizon. his vision goes dark around the edges. but the sun is bright and he doesnt notice he isnt afraid and he falls *maniacal laughter* someone should have stopped me. i think its super out of character but this is a rambling monster and not meant to go super in-depth or anything. god help me.

[renaroo]

Double Time (16/24)

Disclaimer: Red vs Blue and related characters are the property of Rooster Teeth. Warnings: Language, Canon-typical violence Pairings: Tuckington, Chex Rating: T Synopsis: [Hero Time Sequel] After the events of Hero Time, the city and Blood Gulch are prepared for the true return of superheroes in a big way. But while Washington is attempting to adjust to a new relationship and a new living arrangement, the call of new heroes and a new mayor mean major changes for his professional life as well as his personal one. How will the balance of values fare when his new partners come to test everything he’s made of.

A/N: A day late! You have my apologies! It’s another plotty chapter but if you’re familiar with how Hero Time stories go you can probably predict what that means for the next couple of chapters ; ) We’re getting close, guys!! Eight chapters left!

Special thanks to @icefrozenover, @washingtonstub, @analiarvb, @thepheonixqueen, @cobaltqueen, Enmuse, Yin, @notatroll7, and @a-taller-tale on AO3 and tumblr for the wonderful feed back! I truly appreciate it more than you know.

Time to Take Charge

There were probably less dramatic ways to get into Church’s apartment, but Washington was running too short on time to act outside of his own instincts. So he went with the picking of the lock on the window and lifting it open so as to perch on the ledge as dusk settled behind him.

The usual.

By the time Church actually paused from typing at his computer, as if finally aware of another presence, Washington had thought of at least half a dozen ways any sort of villain or regular robber probably could have dismantled him. And it certainly wasn’t because they had known each other for six months and the level of aggression between being Tucker’s boyfriend and being Tucker’s best friend had only proved to mount itself higher.

Church nearly leaped out of his seat when he saw Wash, hand over his chest as his head leaned back. He was running fans loudly to apparently cool down his robotic body. “Jesus Fucking Christ,” he half-shouted. “You are, quite possibly, the worst fucking sight in the world for anyone with a remotely questionable past and maybe-not-so-great present record. Just so you’re aware.”

“Consider me aware,” Wash replied, continuing into the apartment as if acknowledgement served as invitation — which it practically did in Blood Gulch anymore.

Narrowing his eyes, Church crossed his arms and leaned back into his seat. “If you’re here to ask me for another updated superhero suit, you can fucking forget it. Tucker still owes me, like, three bar hops before the current disaster you’re wearing is paid off.”

“You consider your own work a disaster?” Wash asked casually, raising his brow.

Caught off guard, Church opened his mouth, closed it, muttered a bit. “I… that’s. No. Obviously. Just that… you. And your… like, corniness. It infects any design. And I hate it. Shut up,” he finally spat out. “What’re you here for?”

“I’m wondering if you’ve seen Tex,” Wash explained lowly.

As expected, Church pulled a full body flinch at the bare mention of his ex.

“Why? You guys having another hatefest sponsored by your animosity toward me? Again?” Church demanded angrily.

“No, of course not. That only happened once,” Wash replied casually.

“You’re such a fucking dick, I don’t know how Tucker puts up with you,” Church responded, somewhat aghast. “Like it’s amazing. Do you have any idea what a fucking saint he has to be for that?”

“I’m aware,” Wash replied flatly. “But this is about Tex. Have you seen her? I’ve only gotten texts and phone calls from her for the better part of a month and none of those have been more than… cryptic, at best.”

For a moment, Church looked at Wash puzzled. Then it just went to smug.

“Wow. Cryptic. How horrible. Would hate to be around someone who only spoke in cryptic codes all the goddamn time for the sake of being dramatic and secretive,” Church replied before turning back to his computer.

“You’re pissed that I exist and changed up whatever groove that Blood Gulch had before, I get it,” Wash replied with an aggravated sigh. “You want nothing to ever change and your misery to be the only thing that matters. But that’s just too bad, Church, because I’m around, and with a possible future mayor who is actually interested in bringing back a sense of real status quo to the city, these are things that are going to be good and they’re hopefully going to be permanent.” Knowing that the aggressive route was going to get him nowhere with Church’s legendary stubbornness, Wash reached up and pinched his brow and sighed. “Look, you and I both care about Tex not being in trouble and I’m worried about how little I’ve seen of her lately. Especially with things being… questionable with new heroes popping up, and the Reds getting more active on my orders around Blood Gulch. I just want to know she’s okay.”

“Wow, must suck to not see Tex for ages and have to worry about the worst for her. I feel so bad for you right now I could barf,” Church returned angrily.

“So you’ve not seen Tex,” Wash surmised.

“Oh, I’ve seen her plenty while you played House,” Church responded. “Who do you think I’m codebreaking for at the moment? Just the lawls? She’s been up my ass getting shit out of me for whatever nonsense she’s been playing for months now. Dunno why you’re not included. Probably for the best. She’s probably aware what a nuisance you are.”

Caught off guard, Wash neared Church. “What? You two are working together? On what—“

“I don’t know,” Church groaned before catching himself and shaking his head. “Actually, I know. I totally know because I totally asked why I was doing this instead of just… y’know, following her orders without question. But because she respected me so totally much by asking me to do this for her, I don’t have to tell you. She obviously wants to keep it to herself.”

Washington stared at Church for a moment before rushing to the back of his computer chair and attempting to lean in over his shoulder.

“Hey! What the hell! Back off!” Church cried out over dramatically, pulling against Wash to no avail.

“Just let me see what you’re working on—“ Wash said before seeing that there were multiple black windows all across the computer screen with white, green, blue, and red text in brackets that continued to fly out at speeds that nearly crossed Wash’s eyes. He leaned back and away from the screen entirely.

“What the hell’s that?” he asked, shocked.

“Codebreaking, the fuck did you think it looked like?” Church asked, taking the initiative to shove Wash further away from him though, with his strength, it did little other than causing his own chair to roll away from his station. Church then erupted into a series of frustrated, mewling noises that never quite formed words before he threw up his arms and glared at Wash. “Would you just fucking leave already?”

“No, I haven’t gotten everything I’m here for,” Wash said simply.

“Oh my god you are the worst superhero,” Church groaned, clapping his hands over his face and dragging them down dramatically. “What, Wash? What do you want from me other than my sanity? Which you are doing wonders for making me lose entirely.”

Ignoring the dramatics, Wash looked intently toward Church. “I want you — whenever you take time off from… all of this — to head over to my apartment and completely redo the security system.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Church cried out in annoyance. “I’m not a fucking handyman, Wash!”

“It’s not a favor and it’s not a request,” Wash answered.

“Your people skills are astoundingly inept,” Church continued to insult.

“It’s a safety precaution for Tucker and Junior,” Wash went on without pause. “The stuff I’ve gotten into… it’s making me nervous. Nervous enough that I’m questioning the validity of the security system as it stands now. I think that whatever’s coming is going to be worse than what I’ve prepared for, and I think there’s reason to believe that I’ve been watched and followed to the point that Tucker and Junior’s security has been jeopardized.”

Taking a moment to let the words wash over him, Church leaned back and narrowed his eyes once more. “You’re… What are you involved with?”

“I don’t know, but it could go to the top, and with as chummy as at least one of our mayoral candidates are with Felix—“

“Dude, what the fuck’s wrong with Felix?” Church scoffed. “Did he save your ass too many times? Embarrass poor widdle kitty cat?”

“He found us in a park and threatened us about six hours ago,” Wash replied critically.

“Whoa,” Church said, brows raised. “Did you deserve it?”

“Did Tucker?” Wash snapped, beginning to lose his cool.

“I mean, he did make the choice to fuck you against my better judgment so,” Church responded with a rotation of his hand.

“You might be the worst friend a person could have,” Wash reveled out loud.

“Wrong, asshole! I’m the best friend a person could have because I’m going to pull your asses out of the fire and go look over your security system and what not and then give Tucker relationship advice. Again. For ten hours. Again,” Church replied, shutting off his computer after a final line of text that was incomprehensible to Wash. “And probably suffer the wrath of my ex-girlfriend for putting off her shit… again. I’m like the most selfless motehrfucker in this entire goddamn world, and it’s about time someone around here recognized me for it.”

“You’re doing a good job of recognizing yourself,” Wash amended. “Are you heading over right now?”

“No, I’m stopping everything in my tracks for a pizza I can’t eat — of course I’m heading over there, you just said my best friend is about to get himself damseled. I’m either going to stop that shit or I’m going to enjoy watching it unfold,” Church said wryly.

“Good, tell Tucker I’ll be home late,” Wash said, heading for the window.

“Wait a second, Washington,” Church called out, drawing the hero’s attention again.

“What?”

“Mayor reestablishing a good status quo… mayoral candidate with a suspicious relationship to the guy who’s threatening you,” Church listed off his fingers. “Do you… have some kinda political angle in all of this going on, too? Hm?”

“What’s it matter?” Wash asked. “I’m calling balls and strikes and Kimball’s got questionable company and policies.”

Church’s brows raised again. “Kimball, hm? Interesting. Interesting. You know, this really is something you should talk to your boy…. Nope. Still can’t say that word for you two. Anyway, hope you talk to Tucker about it because that’ll be an amazing one. I would actually sit in the room and watch that one.”

“Tucker’s not for Kimball,” Wash said with a shake of his head.

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha,” Church called out in bland succession before heading for his door. “Oh, yeah. Definitely going to be in the room for that one.”

Wash scrutinized the robot as he made his way out but shook his head and left all the same. There was a lot to do that night, and Tucker’s annoying friends were something to deal with at a later date.