#i originally wasnt going to but what the heck may as well

[hezuart]

Trixx Pink Lemonade CMSN for Anthrobrownwolf! 

CMSNs... 

[chrospw-doodles]

When the Ink doesn’t flow

So... for starters this is a rant I wrote somewhere between september and november of 2020, it was intended to be posted in my main blog @chrispriceway back then, but I decided to put this here to avoid being too too personal there, I mean it is supposed to be a happy place to goof around and show you cool stuff, that’s why I made this side blog, to be more personal and less awkard so, yeh.

Chris-Jan.2021

What's up everybody, I know I haven't posted anything in a while and I wanted to adress my abcense and some other stuff that I wanted to talk about but never knew how to bring it up.

So, to those who follow me and dont really know who am I as a content creator:

hi, the name is Christian, you can call me Chris, I'm somewhat of an artist and like to post my stuff here.

Now, even if you have been following me for a while you may have noticed that I really don't post very often and that I haven't been around for a while even if I claim that I'm trying to be more active, well I think it's about time to talk about the issue and make some big changes around here.

But first of all, why does it even matter?

Well, to be honest the past three to four years I haven't really seen my online connection as serious business since I am primarly a student, and school does suck all of my time, the problem with that is that I really feel like I havent been respectful to you, the audience, not that I owe you anything but since I am now trying to make a living from my art, it is necessary to take this connection between the audience seriously and with a bit more respect.

In those three years all I've ever did was too much talk and too little deliver, so I apologize to those people who were really invested into the stuff I do, I really appreciate you guys.

So with that aside...

I wanted to talk about mental health.

well MY mental health

I know what you may be thinking, "what the heck Chris? What does this have to do with you being a lazy ass biss?"

Well, it's kinda simple as it is complicated so I will be putting here some bullets to make it easier to you to navigate through and to let you know how long it is going to be to those who really really just want to skip this post already

Introduction

Danplan Drama

College is a biss

When job becomes priority over school

How did all of this affect my mental state

And how I feel about it

Final thoughts

I'm not okay

Well, was, not anymore (mostly), or at least not as serious as I was some monts ago. Listen, shit went down, it's 2020 and that was inevitable, but I really want to go trough some points to give you context.

This year has been specially rough to me because of some circumstances that a few may know, but for context I'll be telling you about it.

The danplan shit did a lotta damage my bros

Ah, yes, long story short, I was an animator in that channel before the figgin drama

But it wasnt really that bad, you see, I really think that it was inevitable that it was going to end like that because of how are those two, but at the time I had to shut a lot of stuff because I didn't wanted to make it worse as the other animators did... but in retrospective, If we had talked about how we felt about the issue in that moment maybe it could have been better, or maybe not, I don't know and maybe I'll post a rant about it some other time (or maybe I wont), the point. is.

It was emotionally taxing, and to be honest it screwed me very bad. You see, I know I am not that good of an artist in comparisson to the others, nor have the best management of my social media, or another project to keep me on the public eye for a while, and since I went back to school I couldnt possible be hired by another channel because of my lack of time; so loosing my job at danplan was a HUGE deal to me because I knew that none of the jobs available in my country could pay off as good nor be as flexible as being an animator was, so that whole ordeal was really, really frustrating.

Then school became a living hell

Since I escentially lost that job I did try desperately to find anything as good to fill the void (it sounds dramatic but believe me, it felt really bad fam.) So the opportunity presented itself and I took a bone in stephen's channel.

In all honesty it was a good job and it was quite fun, but I didn't really stayed as a full time animator, I believe it was due lack of time or maybe my style wasn't really what they were going for, and tbh fair game... but it was still bad news for me because I was that desperate to find a new job, and I was so inmersed on doing that so I wasn't taking good care of my grades.

So now I had two problems, no job, and I was doing terrible on school because of my obsession with the job hunting.

And at the time I was still part of the community...

I was very active in the dp community and in Pau's server, I found great people and did some art because I really felt happy about it...

But honestly, that didn't last long.

School started to be a real problem and I did fail two of my school subjects, at the end of the semester I was burned out, and sleep deprived, so there was that.

One of my finals was a video talking about the drama and stuff and I've never finished it because I ran out of time and eventually I didn't felt it right abaut it, because it was like opening a grave again, like it was something too disrespectful even if it was originally intended for the sake of the animators, to give them, us, some justice at the end of the day... but I couldn't do it. It wasn't fair to everyone else because they moved on.

And that was the beginning of this crappy thing I've been carrying around.

I just. Can't. Finish. Anything.

I just overthink everything and fail before I begin any of the pieces, or Im about to finish but change my mind because Its. Not. Good. Enough.

I have a TON of pieces that never saw the light of the day BECAUSE I'm not in the right state of mind, and it is painful, because I love doing art as much as I love engaging with you guys, even if you are a few to maybe 10 people, I enjoy it. And It sucks to not be able to do stuff because I feel crappy.

And I know for fact that feeling crappy it's a crappy excuse to not do anything

But I don't mean that to anyone else but myself, because I feel like I could be better and do better, but... it isn't working, the global situation did some damage too, and I've been manageing, still, I haven't been able to finish a lot of stuff and honestly, I just want to come back before I become a ghost account.

So what's up? What's poppin'?

The plan is to try to force myself to finish at least one piece per week to keep this alive until I find the will to work normally again.

Maybe it's not the best solution, but I think this will motivate me a little since I really want to materialize some projects that I have had on the back of my head for a long time now, and I really want to start em' and share it with you along the way... so yeah, that's basically it.

Well, that was a long one, and if you happened read this far, thank you, I really appreciate it.

I hope I will be seeing you soon...

Stay creative, my dudes.

[guyinlovewitheremika]

Oooh could you expand on why you liked the op?? I honestly don't know what to make of it yet, especially since it felt so different from other ops, but I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Absolutely will do!! This took longer than I wanted cause everytime I sat down to write I started getting distracted from the OP and just listening to it on repeat lmao

To start this off, I should add that throughout the week leading up to release date, I was following a couple of leakers on twitter who did drop some info on the OP; mainly that Shinsei Kamattechan were returning, the title, that it wasnt gonna feature any characters and instead be a metaphor for the “cruelty of war”. Knowing all of that had me pretty excited but also gave me the right expectations, so it wasnt too jarring to see at first. 

But, to jump into this, first of all, I just loooove the visual style in general. It mostly just being static shades of white and light grey, with these very washed out colors exploding and flowing onto the image...it’s absolutely gorgeous! Like I just really dig this color scheme. And it’s highlighted even further by the gorgeous, fluid animation...these explosions look so good! I’m also just a big sucker for familiar characters/entities being represented in a sort of timeless way...be it a portrait, a statue, a monument, whatever (think smth like this), so seeing Eren and the other titans at the end there was just an absolute treat. Whatever that thing is, I want some kind of print/purchasable piece of merch of it because that heap of titans looks amazing. 

The song also just bangs tbh. It’s such a weird agglomeration of instruments and vocals but I find it comes together really well. The childrens choir, the piano at the beginning, the distorted vocals and most importantly that E-violin!!! so fucking good! Honestly I just love the way this song sounds and Im more hyped for the full version than the ost release atm (even tho I love what we heard so far from that too). The combination of the visuals with the music too is great here...I’ve never seen a flamethrower used in combination with the beat of a song before (outside of mad max fury road I guess lol?) but goddamn its just such a cool fucking combination I cant get over it. 

I have some thoughts on the imagery and the symbolism and my interpretations of it all, and I wanna get into those too, but really, the main thing I absolutely love about this OP is how different it is. Just as the marley arc is probably the most different of all in the manga, just as the new studio has made a show that, in many ways, looks feels and sounds vastly different from the old Attack on Titan, the OP encapsulates all of that by just being this new thing and succeeding at it

I love WIT’s OP’s, I love Linked Horizon’s work on the show. But honestly, the “Linked Horizon hype OP” genre pretty much peaked with Guren no Yumiya for me. I still like all the others, but overall, OP 1, 2, 3 and 5 just feel a bit too same-y for me, especially given that I honestly don’t think any of the follow ups surpass the original. Heck all these other songs even reference GnY in some capacity--I cant help but feel like they could never let go of Guren’s success and never tried something else. Except for Red Swan of course, which is also my 2nd favorite WIT OP. It’s slower, it’s sadder, it’s melancholic, and vastly different from all the others, and I really appreciate that. It tries to be its own thing and it succeeded for me. And “My War” even more so feels like it has a very distinct, unique vision, goes all out in that way, and it just works beautifully.   

And it’s that distinct, unique vision that I wanna dig into lastly here, because, just as the marley arc does for this manga, I find that out of all the OP’s, My War most explicitely depicts and visualizes many of the core thematic ideas of Attack on Titan and brings them directly into the forefront. I’ve seen a bunch of cool interpretations of the song at this point, and someone may have somewhere already said all this, but I wanna throw it in here regardless

After countless battles, sacrifices, victories and losses, Eren and the survey corps were able to win the war against the titans that their walled world was stuck in for a hundred years. Their gigantic enemies were defeated, and freedom ought to lie ahead. But no, beyond the shores is just more...more oppression, more war, more death and more sacrifice. The history their king to from them is one of war and oppression, a never ending cycle of violence, spanning back 2000 years, continuing forward. One oppressive regime falls, only for the next to take its place. This has been the history of mankind since the dawn of man, and it continues on and on and on. 

This is what this episode shows us, another military battle around another walled encampment, and this is what this opening shows us...a world perpetually at war. Man’s hatred for one another leads to conflict, to war: it’s continued existence in history and continued technological advancements are the perfect visual representation of this. Man’s capacity for war breeds more war, and it takes lives and it takes freedom and it doesnt stop, it just keeps consuming. 

The Opening starts off with battleships, artillery fire, mortars, flamethrowers, nuclear explosions and a titan spine forming among them all, until the birds of freedom fall dead out of the sky. Neverending armies of soldiers march the streets, airships rule the sky, but all the soldiers, all the military craft, the marleyan military and the paradisian soldiers all fall to pieces and get destroyed. War and conflict rage on and all the pieces fall to the ground, littering the earth in nothing but death and destruction. And at the end, atop this mountain of corpses and mayhem, the titans arise, reaching forward, attacking. They are born from mankinds neverending cycle of destruction, the physical manifestation of our inner demons that lead us to kill each other. 

I thoroughly believe that this sequence of events most perfectly encapsulates all of attack on titan. Look at the marley arc: the years of their attempts to wipe out Paradis island lead the island and the attack titan straight to them, delivering a terrible blow to them during their declaration of war. 2000 years ago it was the warmongering, slave hording king fritz who had a girl hunted for sport who brought about the era of the eldian empire, creating a system to eternally maintain the titan’s ability to wage war and rule the lands that would wind up ripping humanity apart. Look at the final arc: all of humanities hatred towards the island devils birthed the final attack titan and his horde of demons who have come to trample the world underfoot. The titans have always arisen as the consequence of man’s tendency towards conflict and death. Eren’s titan first formed from inside a titan who just killed him, his last titan was born out of his own death yet again. Titans are man’s desire to kill given shape, and the more man kills and fights, the more titans arise. 

It’s a bleak and terrible look at the cruelty of the world, that I think the OP highlights immensly well. It’s a gorgeous looking and sounding 90 seconds, and despite its contents being essentially horrifying, its fun to look at and listen to. Isayama once said about Eren’s attack in marley that “what eren does here is the worst thing. but if you were able to feel just a little bit of excitement from it, then it was worth drawing manga all this time”. Somehow, one way or another, we’re drawn to conflict, despite how terrible it is. And I think this opening manifests this beautifully 

[donnieluvsthings]

anyway i’m still thinkin about roceit newsies au...this got SO LONG its basically a bullet fic of the whole plot at this point but uh enjoy!!! its has all the sides and remy and emile bc i rly wanted to shove them all in here aldkaldka

this is based on the musical mostly bc i have never watched the original movie all the way thru oops

roman is jack and remus is crutchie (thanks boop). remus does crazy stunts even with his crutch and roman is Constantly Worried TM and overprotective of remus even tho remus can DEF take care of himself

on the other hand remus knows roman hates working as a newsboy and just wants to escape to some small town where he can become a local artist of some sort. remus wants roman to go CHASE his DREAMS even tho he’s afraid roman might leave him behind

roman may be the actor but remus is great at coming up with gruesome yet intriguing headlines that get people to buy papers and would totally be a great author of some sort

ON THAT NOTE roman dreams of santa fe and can picture it perfectly but whenever he tries to explain it, it comes out as senseless rambling and longing. it’s remus who can really put into words what roman feels (bc theyre bros and they just GET each other)

virgil as davey, patton as les, logan as sarah (its the musical but they have an extra sibling okay. let me have older brother logan)

virgil and patton show up and virgil is super untrusting and hates that theyre basically lying to get people to buy papers but patton is just EXCITED to meet New People!!! and looks up to roman (and remus), like, instantly

it helps that roman promises to take them to a real actual theater after they sell all their papers owned by the one the only emile picani !!!

also roman is the one who first calls him “virge” which is like jack saying “davey” instead of david. yes this is necessary information

so they sell their papers (and roman briefly meets an ESPECIALLY handsome guy wink wink) and go see emile who performs some variant of That’s Rich like the star he is. u cant take singer emile away from me

roman also performs bc i said so. he spies someone watching him during his act up above the stage and climbs up there when he’s done

janus. its janus, if that wasnt clear or u dont know the plot of the newsies musical aldkaldlal

so yeah janus as katherine!! he may be pulitzer’s son but that doesn’t mean his father wants him to be a journalist. pulitzer thinks he should prepare to inherit the publishing company or be a banker or smth, not be a journalist

i just think janus’ “society is a LIE” vibe fits with katherine. i mean, just look at Watch What Happens. “give life’s little guys some ink,” “they’ll storm the gates,” “rich greedy sourpusses” .... idk it just SCREAMS janus to me

ALSO, katherine technically lies about her identity for like 3/4 of the musical, so

anyway! roman meets janus and janus is all suave and lowkey flirty at first but then roman starts flirting BACK and jan is like “uh oh how to talk to cute boys????”

so then he gets all “i have more important things to do” *hair flip* and goes back to the article he’s supposed to be writing about emile’s theater (a lot of his notes are about roman’s performance but nobody needs to know that shhh)

roman draws a portrait of jan and leaves it there and janus gently & dramatically picks it up, stares at it, and tucks it into his suit with a soft smile

uh oh prices for papers went up! virgil steps up and helps roman lead a strike. turns out his caution works GREAT with roman’s determination and they keep each other from going towards extreme overthinking (virgil) or extreme stupidity (roman). they are a TEAM and they are BESTIES.

remus: lets SET THE PAPERS ON FIRE

roman, starry eyed: HECK YEAH LETS DO IT

virgil: how about we dont do that and instead form a union

and then the twins are like GOOD IDEA and tell everyone else. virgil may be a cautious and untrusting and afraid of public speaking but he has good ideas dangit

the intro to seize the day yknow? virgil says a Good Idea (which can probably be traced back to him always listening to logan rant about his studies) and roman spreads the message in a Firm Rebellion-y way to the other newsies

and patton is there doing his absolute best. he may be small but he knows that this isn’t right or fair to the newsboys and he’s ready to physically fight someone

enter logan who is lowkey really proud of virgil for stepping outside of his comfort zone to do whats right. logan may be scared out of his mind for his little bros but he’s gonna help them as much as he can between college and trying to work side jobs to help their fam

basically logan knows janus and tells him that he should report on the strike bc logan wants to help his bros AND his friend however he can

cue janus seeing his opportunity and TAKING it. he’s gonna write about this strike even if no one else will!!! take THAT, father

he also maybe possibly wanted to see roman again. but roman never needs to know that okay what he doesnt know cant hurt him

seize the day happens!!!! they strike!!!! they r powerful!!! but then no one else from any other sections of new york strike with them and they lowkey get rekt

remus mocks the delanceys but that was a BAD decision cuz now theyre targeting him and he gets taken to the REFUGE

roman is SAD bc his brother’s been taken away, no one showed up to help them strike, his brother’s been taken away and he just wants to get OUT of there. run away to santa fe, his ideal world, but he can’t even articulate that because his brother is gone

how is that just act one. how have i written so much yet left out so much???

remus is at the refuge and he’s a little more scared, now, that roman really will just leave him behind even though he knows deep down that roman would never.

still. he writes roman a letter and maybe he goes into a little too much detail about his injuries and the refuge but hey, that’s remus. he writes about how maybe they can run away to santa fe together. he signs it “your brother” and i CRY because they are the best bros

roman reads it and ALSO cries. especially because there it is, the description of santa fe he can never come up with by himself. remus rly does know him, huh

total scene change: janus finds the other newsies (and logan) in a restaurant? bar? and is like “!!! ur on the FRONT PAGE on my newspaper” which i just decided is called the snake instead of the sun

virgil didn’t totally trust janus would follow thru at first but now he’s convinced. they did it!!!! theyre on the front page!!!! the world WILL know!!!!

cue tapdancing!!!!!! king of new york is an absolute bop. i need logan tapdancing daintily and then janus LAUNCHING into some complex tap routine bc the newsies think he too will dance daintily

i know they wouldnt,,, actually dance but just let me have this self-indulgence in this entirely self-indulgent au

the Bro Trio + janus go hunt down roman to show him the paper and find him painting stuff at emile’s all sad and upset bc, well, they lost and remus was taken

but virgil is trying to show him that they made progress!!! sure pulitzer won but he won the BATTLE and actually the poor guy’s head is spinning bc theyre gonna win.

“cmon, ro, if i’m is telling you to be optimistic there must be hope”

see virgil calls him RO and its cute bc roman gave him the nickname ‘virge’ and now virgil’s giving him the nickname ‘ro’ theyre just besties okay

roman is unconvinced but then logan, who roman has actually never met before, steps in with Facts and Statistics, and patton adds some adorable words of encouragement, and janus sassily waves their Front Page Story at him, and roman starts realizing they DO have a chance

but then uh oh pulitzer threatens remus and the Bro Trio and roman is forced to speak out against the strike or risk ruining the lives of everyone he loves. and also he finds out that janus is pulitzer’s son and is Betrayed TM

theres some “he’s just trying to build up a false confidence in u so u can plummet to even greater depths” parallels in there somewhere....u can’t trust many people as a newsie and when roman DOES trust someone turns out he’s the son of the guy ur trying to fight

so roman says overnight in pulitzer’s basement, sleeping on an uncomfortable old printing press, and makes his decision

now for the RALLY

remy is spot conlon bc he DESERVES to be the leader of the brooklyn newsies. brooklyn, flushing, richmond, etc all show up to a newsies rally and are like YEAH!!! STRIKE!!!!

virgil is trying to tame the crowd nervously and keeps waiting for roman to show up bc they work best when theyre working together!!!! finally roman’s there and virgil introduces him (the attention isnt solely on him now thank gosh)

but then roman starts talking about how they dont stand a chance and how they shouldnt go on strike and virgil is just. confused and upset and angry

especially when he sees one of pulitzer’s employees slipping roman wads of money

virgil corners roman afterwards and is absolutely RIPPING into him. roman could fix this if he would just tell virgil the truth, tell him he doesn’t care about the money, he just wanted to keep him and patton and logan safe—

but roman knows if he tells virgil, then virgil will turn all his anger towards pulitzer, will be able to convince roman to keep going, and roman won’t. he can’t put virgil, put his family, at risk.

so he lies.

he doesn’t mean any of it. but he says it.

and maybe he kind of understands why janus lied, too.

he says he’s never had anyone to take care of him or remus, not like virgil does with his parents and his older brother. he says virgil will never know what it’s like.

virgil scoffs and glares and beneath all his fury looks crushed. but there’s still fire in his eyes, a spark roman saw that first day that only grew and engulfed any doubts virgil ever had.

roman says he’ll take the money and go, leave new york behind.

virgil says fine. we don’t need you. because you know what? all those words you said were mine. i didn’t have the courage to say them back then but now i do. we don’t need you.

(because i watched that scene in the movie and like YES go OFF davey i mean virgil)

roman flees to his “bedroom” which is really just a fire escape and just longs for remus’ reassurance. he has the letter but it doesn’t seem as encouraging now, not when he’s lost everything else important to him.

then janus shows up and roman’s mad at him but not mad enough to kick him out. and janus watched roman just give up on everything they’ve been fighting for and just wants to know WHY. why did he turn his back on the newsies when they were so close?

and roman, tired and upset and defeated, just says they wouldn’t succeed. even if all the newsies went on strike no one would report on it, anyway, because pultizer has all the printing presses on lockdown, even the one janus published from. and they already lost once! what more could they possibly do?

roman looks out over the railing, chest heaving from his rant, longing for his imaginary santa fe where he doesn’t have to face his failures. janus stands next to him and puts his hand over roman’s.

“i don’t have a simple answer to that question....but here’s a start.”

and janus pulls out a paper with roman’s words (well, and virgil’s, because virgil said it first but roman rephrased it powerfully, and that’s why they worked as a team) typed out, words that make the strike not about newsies but about ALL working children in the city who are being exploited for their youth and naivety.

it’s an entire article, expertly written. if published it would get the word out to the other newsies that they haven’t given up and show other working children and adults alike that this is IMPORTANT and they aren’t going away.

and then roman remembers his drawings of the refuge and remus’ graphic descriptions and shows them to janus and hey!!! they have a plan!!! they just need to print it....

roman’s like yo there’s an old press in ur dad’s basement he’d never suspect anything

and theyre both so excited and theyre gonna DO this, FINALLY, and janus sees hope on roman’s face again, maybe permanently this time, and janus just leans in and kisses him.

its very sweet and cute and theyre in LOVE

they pull back and kinda stand there awkwardly for a few seconds before both of them start grinning

and they both know its fragile, that they’ve hurt each other and trust was cracked, but it wasn’t broken completely, and they can fix this. they believe in each other and that’s enough for now.

and then they go find virgil at his house

roman knocks on the door and virgil opens it and just. glares at roman. and roman starts rambling apologies and explanations and tries to tell virgil about their plan and did he mention he’s sorry

virgil kinda just stares at him as he goes on and on and the only thing that stops him is patton running out and launching himself at roman

then logan appears behind virgil, and virgil kinda just smiles

“glad to have u back. again.”

and then they go sneak into pulitzer’s basement and print the article with jan’s writing and ro’s drawings and remus’ descriptions and the other newsies go spread the papers ALL around the city

the next morning EVERYONE is out on strike!!! u cant get ANYWHERE without seeing ppl, newsies or otherwise, filling the streets with chants of “seize the day”

roman, with the Bro Trio and Janus trailing close behind, waltzs on in to pulitzer’s office and flings the money pulitzer gave him back on the desk and is like whatcha gonna do NOW, joe??

pulitzer angrily tells them he’s a fool for going back on their deal and logan steps in sayin pulitzer is a fool for letting this get so out of hand over a 10 cent price increase. his sales are down 70%!! objectively the price increase was like the worst business decision ever

virgil’s like plus it’s making u look bad that ur business is the reason most of these kids are suffering. people really love kids, mr pulitzer and patton smiles brightly but in like a menacing way

then emile walks in with a ~dazzling smile~ and is like ur son told me about this whole situation, it’d be a shame if i contacted my good friend governor roosevelt who won’t be as kind as these brave newsies since u tried so hard to stop him from being elected :)

((in the show roosevelt is actually there but i want emile to have a moment to SHINE))

so pulitzer’s like FINE and talks to roman alone and roman wears him down, throwing words from janus, virgil, and pulitzer himself right in pulitzer’s face until FINALLY they have a deal. he’ll lower the prices by half AND pulitzer will buy back whatever they don’t sell full price

roman bursts out of the office into the streets where all the newsies are waiting and is like WE WONNN

and since they published all that stuff about the refuge in the paper, the guy who runs it is being arrested and REMUS IS FREE

the twins hug for like a full two minutes

then pulitzer offers roman a job as a political cartoonist and roman’s like. well idk now that this is over i should probably...head out

bc lowkey he’s thinking virgil still doesn’t wanna see roman ever again and he did say he would leave, so

but then virgil’s like come on, ro, you don’t really think we want u to leave, do u? what’s santa fe got that new york aint? tarantulas? sandstorms? stampedes? you can’t go to santa fe what if you DIE—

and logan says new york’s got us!

patton: and we’re family, right?

then janus is like you got a union to lead! and...you got me.

and remus is like bro, anyone can dream, all you do is close ur eyes! but some made up world is all you’ll ever see. (bc he’s the wordsy one, u see. he helps roman have the poetic realization that his santa fe isn’t real, but this IS)

so roman says well if u guys INSIST.....and then he takes jan’s hand and kinda asks w his eyes and then kisses jan in front of all the newsies who proceed to cheer obnoxiously

when they break apart roman leads janus by the hand over to the paper-buying-cart and slaps some couns down on the table and BUYS SOME PAPERS BC THEYRE NEWSIES BABEY

and everyone lived happily ever after🥰

[ruffiorocks]

Relationship Parallels on Supergirl and why Jonn and Mgann were in my opinion the WORST one!

(Long post)

Sooo this is my last post before I take a break from here and Supergirl as I'm just not enjoying it at all anymore. The plot makes no sense, the characters aren't themsleves, guest stars get more of a story arc than the main characters, Lena suddenly trusts Lex after all we have ever seen her do is talk about how manipulative her family is and we even saw her reading about his manipulation of her last season! Kara is still getting to hold all the cards and information and instead of oh I don't know SHARING that info with Lena SHE decides to just wash her hands of her and sit this one out? The 'heroes' can still do anything they want, even join Lex without any repercussions because erm... reasons I guess? But Lena still has to prove herself CONSTANTLY. Oh and finally Kara and William? It's following the exact same trope as the Mon El and Kara story did, but at least they had a connection 😤.

But anyway, I've seen mentions that one of the only 'healthy' straight relationships on the show was Jonn and Mgann......erm......am I the only one who remembers how that went down? Am I the only one who doesn't think that Jonn can be excused of all the HORRIBLE things he's done because he's been called "papa bear" and "space dad"? Don't remember what I'm referring to? Let me elaborate.

First off I'm not Jonns biggest fan due to his murderous tendencies when he sees a white Martian, his blantent MURDER of an unarmed and deeply troubled Manchester Black who in no way deserved to die and Jonn had no right to kill. Oh and his relaxed use of Kryptonite on Kara. You know, all those things people like to put Lena down for, but forget that Jonn did them all to.

But his relationship with Mgann was not the epic romance you all seem to falsely remember it was. This was Romeo and Juliet where Romeo BEAT Juliet almost to death!!

Mgann was quietly working at the Alien dive bar when Maggie brought Alex there and suddenly the place wasn't quite the safe haven it had been. Maggie brought a DEO agent who's job it was in season one to simply hunt and lock up aliens to their safe spot?? Alex then of course told Jonn who decided to make his presence known there! The director of the Alien hunting, no trial, we just lock you up forever DEO went to the Alien safe space!

Mgann who had been quietly and peacefully living her life (and helped Alex out with info) recognised Jonn as a green Martian. Instead of staying in her safe spot she decided to avoid any confrontation and move on, probably because she was scared of what would happen. Jonn chases after her and confronts her where she feels like she has to pretend to be a green Martian. Who wouldn't?

Jonn pesters her over making the Martian Bond to preseve their history, and she says no because obviously she can't. But he keeps on about it to her. (Not unlike a certain William being told to back off but still persistent 🤔).

Now remember that Mgann told Jonn a version of the story of how she got away from the Martian Camps. She said she was released/saved by a kind white martian refused to kill. The only untrue part was she WAS the white Martian.

Jonn finds out she's fighting in Roulettes alien fights and gets mad at her. She's doing it to punish herself. They are forced to fight, he won't hurt her, later she turns on Roulette, he tells her not to punish herself for survivors guilt and nawwww we have the beginning of what COULD have been a lovely romance since they decided to change these characters from Uncle and Niece.

But.... then we get this!

Jonn is dying! He needs a blood transfusion. Alex goes to the only other "Green Martian" for help! But Mgann says no, because she knows her blood will poison Jonn and turn him into a White Martian, something he would see as a fate worse that death. But Alex pressures Mgann into it, and she doesn't want him to die. So she saves his life. She's even there when he wakes up and she has made a special Martain drink for him. He is grateful and asks her to stay until he falls back to sleep.

Later we have Jonn turning into a white martian and he clicks why! He goes to the Alien bar, Mganns safe place to find her once again trying to leave to avoid fighting him and being discovered. Why? Because she KNOWS no matter what she will be punished for the crime of simply BEING a white martian.

Jonn, in all his papa bear and space dad wisdom believes she's out to get him and asks about more coming to attack him. Yes Jonn, because it's always all about you. It's not like YOU went to Mganns safe place, it's not like YOU pursued her. It's not like YOU banged on about the Martian Bond she quite frankly didn't want to do. It's not like YOU got to know her. It's not like YOU have now chased after her TWICE when she has wanted to peacefully leave.

No, Jonn calls her a liar and makes it ALL about him and decides the best course of action towards the woman who has just saved his life and he knows on a personal level and who has explained to him that SHE was the White Martian who couldn't kill Green ones, is to...wait for it.... BEAT HER TO DEATH!!!

Yes folk, that's the part everyone who says this was a beautiful and healthy relationship forget about.

Jonn is about to kill Mgann when she shifts into her human form and begs him to kill her like that because she doesn't want to die a white martian because her very existence disgusts her.

Jonn, oh that wise and loving papa bear who can do no wrong decides on a whim not to kill her! Hurrah for space dad! No, he decides to simply LOCK HER UP IN THE DEO FOREVER!!! No trial, no actual crime was committed but she is a white martian and grumpy space dad doesn't like them and they all deserve death, even the one that was his friend and everyone elses friend and just saved his ungrateful ass from death!! He even knows her back story, he knows she hates the fact she's a White Martian, but because Jonn is the judge, jury and executioner of the DEO this is all erm... ok??

Later we have Mgann under a psychic attack and she falls unconcious. At first Jonn thinks it's a ploy, because erm... reasons again? But no, she is going to die! Alex pleads with Jonn to help Mgann, you know, the woman who only recently saved him from death? But he doesn't care, she can die and that is that. It actually takes persuading from Alex and a guilt trip for him to see Mgann as worth saving. Bare in mind, she hasn't actually commited any kind of crime. Jonn is illegally holding her in a cell forever because he has a grudge against her species.

Jonn eventually makes the bond with her, he sees her trauma and what she went through on Mars and suddenly they have a connection and erm... all is well?? Are you f**king kidding me?!!

Then we have her husband arrive, and all that jazz and then Mgann leaves to go to Mars. We see them meet up again and oh it's sweet. It's so nice that the writers want you to forget the horrific things that Jonn did to her and guess what? You did! You forgot!

Let's compare this with a few other ships and relationships on the show.

Karamel had its major problems, Kara addressed them and heck even Chris Wood did. It's very similar.

Kara had prejudice against Daxamites. She only sees Mon El as a threat when she realises he isn't Kryptonian, before that it's all concern.

Jonn has a prejudice against White Martians, before he realises what Mgann is its all friendship and concern.

Kara locks up Mon El and basically tells him has going to stay in that cell. She locks him up because she believes he attacked the President, even though she has absolutely no proof of that. She even mocks his species because erm.... reasons I guess?

Now yes Mon El attacked Kara, but the difference is he wasnt friends with Kara. He hasn't formed a bond with her. Mon El woke up on a foreign planet and panicked. He wanted to get home safely and he went with fight or flight. The only other time these two physically fought is when Mon El had no control over his body. Oh and that time later on when Myrnn did that whole psychic attack thing.

Now Mon El lied about being the Prince, which to me was OK to begin with. He has just met Kara, who hates Daxamites and even outright voiced her disgust of the royal family. He just got her to see him differently and not lock him up so yeah i don't think I'd have told her i was the Prince either.

It's not unlike Mgann not telling Jonn she was a white Martian. She knew what he would think and she decided to go with the safe option to avoid confrontation, imprisonment and being almost beaten to death due to prejudice. Even though this is what eventually happened.

Kara of course finds out Mon El is the Prince, but her reaction is VERY different to Jonn's. Kara is pissed off for all of 5 minutes through dinner with Mon Els parents and then she just doesnt mention it again. She lets it go, she's far more concerned about having to let him go. His status isn't important to her because it's not the major issue at the time. It's only when he returns that she confronts his lies but even then she doesn't focus on the Prince lie. It's all the other douche bag things he did that bother her, not who he was on Daxam.

Now, my issue with Mon El being the Prince was that he should have come clean when be decided to enter into a relationship with Kara. He knew what she thought of the Prince and he decided to withhold that information to suit himself so he could have Kara.

Now if Mgann had entered into a sexual relationship with Jonn and withheld who she was then I would condemn her for this to.

The difference is Mon El actively pursued Kara, withholding crucial info that may change her mind about sleeping with him. Whereas Mgann actively avoided bonding with Jonn out side of friendship.

Kara and Jonn weren't fans of being lied to, or rather having information withheld from them by friends and partners. Information that neither one was originally entitled to know. Kara only gained that entitlement when she started a relationship with Mon El.

Jonn I would argue was never entitled to Mganns identity, it only came up once he realised who she was. But before then it made no difference at all.

Is this sounding familiar to you? Let me elaborate. Kara and Lena!

Lena reacted badly when she found out that Kara was Supergirl because she had been lied to! Yes lied to, Kara lied to Lena. When you pretend to be two separate people with one person you are lying.

Lena wasn't entitled to know who Kara was in the beginning. Just like Kara wasn't entitled to know who Mon El was to begin with. Just like how Jonn wasn't entitled to know who Mgann was.

The entitlement comes when you start to build a relationship with someone.

Kara become entitled to know who Mon El was when she started a relationship with him. She was NOT happy when she found out she had been lied to. Her boyfriend had withheld who he really was from her. She didn't have time to be miffed for long because she had to yeet him into space.

Mgann tried to avoid a friendship with Jonn, not unlike Lena avoiding a friendship with Kara. But both persisted and pushed themselves on them. Had Mgann started to sleep with Jonn he would need to know she she was.

Now the difference is whereas Mgann and Mon El stuck to one Persona, Kara with Lena didn't! Kara chose to be those two people, later she continued to pretend to be two people, even when Lena made it clear she didn't trust Supergirl and basically didn't want Supergirl anywhere near her! Kara actively ignored Lena's right to not want Supergirl in her life, that's when she should have come clean or broken off the friendship. Continuing with this relationship/friendship whilst lying and ignoring the wishes of the other part is simply wrong.

Jonn finds out Mgann is a White Martian- beats her almost to death, locks her up illegally for the crime of being someone he doesn't like and tells her she will rot. He then leaves it until the last minute to bother saving her life and was going to be happy to her die. -- instantly forgiven by Mgann and the fans even though he absolutely doesn't deserve it and it's never spoken of again.

Kara finds out Mon El is actually a Prince she doesn't like. Is mad for all of 5 minutes because she doesn't have time to be mad any longer. After that he's instantly forgiven, his Prince status I don't think is ever mentioned again. He's forgiven by those fans who love him and it is forgotten about.

Lena finds out Kara lied to her. She isn't happy about it, she feels betrayed and doesn't want to to forgive her simply because she said she was sorry. Sorry doesn't erase the lies and the removal of her choice to know she was letting Supergirl into her private life. Or the that she was lied to by everyone else to. This is the ONLY thing ever remembered.

Mon El only really had a relationship with Kara and Winn. What does Winn care that Mon El was a Prince? Winn isn't effected by it. He had no prior opinions of Daxamites, he also isn't sleeping with Mon El who knows his identity would effect that.

The similarities are huge! The writers have been using the same storyline over and over again but the fans don't notice it because they are either "Team Karamel" "Team Supercorp" "Team Space dad can do no worng" or "Team I hate Lena no matter what even when other characters do the EXACT same things ".

The major difference between them is that with Kara WAS actively being the second identity with Lena. Mon El didn't dress up as a Prince and use this persona to interact with Kara or to be a douche to her. Mgann didn't turn into a white Martian and fight or be a douche to Jonn. Mgann did her best to stay away from Jonn and not become to involved with him.

Kara went to Lena as both personas. She was her best friend as Kara but went to her as someone different with a totally different personality. She turned on her and whether deserved or not was awful to the woman who was her best friend and Lena didn't know it as her best friend doing this.

Mon El and Mgann didnt use Kara and Jonns relationships with other people against them like Kara did.

Then when Lena was done with Supergirl Kara didn't respect her and went back to her as Kara. We're supposed to forgive all this because Kara is the "hero" and " didn't want to lost Lena",oh and she cried a bit.

Lena's reaction has been written to be different to the other two, even though the story Line is basically the same premise. What Lena is doing at the moment clearly isn't good, but her not wanting to be around Kara and not forgiving her is actually completely understandable and she doesnt have to forgive her.

Heck if the writing made any sense Mgann should NEVER of forgiven Jonn after the senseless beating almost to death.

Lena for all her faults never intentionally physically hurt Kara. She punched a VR version of her, Jonn beat the real Mgann! But Lena is bad and Jonn is good! Lena didn't fire the canons at Kara that was Hope, Lena even tried to stop her. Lena trapped Kara in the Fortress in a kryptonite forcefield but Kara showed no signs of pain when in it or even when she was released from it. What did Jonn do? Jonn beat Mgann almost to death! I will never stop repeating that! In addition he has deliberately used kryptonite on Kara more than once and stood by while she expressed now much pain she was in so she couldn't stop him murdering a white Martian.

But sure, Jonn is a wonderful person and Lena is the devil!

So in conclusion as this went on way longer than I intended. Mgann and Jonn are NOT in any way, shape or form the most well written or healthiest relationship on Supergirl! I would take James and Lena over Mgann and Jonn! James was an arsehole and a liar and couldn't stand women above him in any way but at least he and Lena didn't beat eachother almost to death!!

I'm beginning to realise more and more why I'm taking a break from this show.

Peace ✌

[garecc]

You know, with everything that it turned out that Apollo was pushing down, all of his fears, his anxieties, everything he didn't want to think about or acknowledge as true - with how much he pretended, even though he actually has one of the best support systems among the Olympians, it makes me wonder: what are the other gods keeping concealed? Both from others, and from themselves? What do you think?

kdhfkladhflkashfhasl okay so this is one way to get me to spew my headcanons all over my blog 

well in canon?

Hermes. Hermes. Hermes is stressed and hurting and he feels like shit over may and luke and while he isnt really hiding it hiding it he;s still kinda ignoring it.

And fuckog Hell ares ares has terrible ptsd and claustrophobia and like people know but like He Would Die Before Talking About It

Dionysus. Dio is. Well, he’s stuck in camp for 50 years. And i think he said he cant see his wife, Ariadne. He misses her so much and that impacts why he’s such a bitch to the campers.

Gosh im already leaning into headcanons arnt I 

Okay

okay

Hermes. This is. Pure headcanon now godsh. So like. This dude is terrified of being hated. He’s terrified of fading. He never fucking tells Apollo shit anymore. He’s grossly overworked and is incapable of forcing himself to take a day off. He never sleeps, and hardly ever paused to eat a full meal. Rather just drinking nectar as he works. He uses caffeine to speed up his ability to process energy. Its gotten to a point where if even one thing goes wrong it Freaks Him Out because it ruins the next months and months of things he has set p and its more work and time he doesn't have to reschedule things. He’s exhausted and tired and he hardly had any time to do anything. Random godly meetings Ruin Things and he has crises over things taking mere seconds longer than they are supposed to. His internal clock goes down to milliseconds. Dudes a mess. He also has a fear nobody actually loves him and he cant like Ask For Reassurance because He Doesn't Have Time For That

and hecking ARTEMIS MANshe’s a MESS half the time??? Gosh the trust issues from Orion and the very real terror of her companions dying without her there to help leads her to loving and caring about all her hunters from a distance. Once of the reasons she but Thalia as her lieutenant, was because its a Dangerous Position and she would rather have someone she isn’t as attached to in it than someone she is. Like Zoe. God Zoe. Her death hit Artemis like a truck. So did Phoebe’s death. Phoebe was there after Orion and dhklasfdhlkfsdh and she and Artemis were close dude. and like what happened with Atlas h a u n t s her. She doubts others and herself c o n s t a n t l y. The only people she trust trusts anymore are Apollo and Leto even then she doesn’t was to burden her mother with her Big Issues and Apollo has enough issues himself he doesnt need to worry about her too. Orion crushed her ability to really trust men (excluding Apollo and Hermes). But she trusted Hippolytus after and THAT came crashing down because he died and Asclepius brought him back and that helped lead to Asclepius’s death and WOw is she TERRIFIED of something like that mess happening again and gosh being trapped holding the sky waiting for Apollo to come for her and he didnt and he didnt r e a l l y shook her faith in him and while thats over and she still trusts him there is always that voice in the back of her head like “He didnt come for you are you sure you can trust him?” and she does she d o e s because everything else he’s done for her stacked against that makes that one thing almost meaningless but he didnt come and that messes with herShe has so many regrets and so many fears and she never really talks to anyone anymore.Its. Real hard to earn her trust. She trusted Orion. She trusted him. And he wanted her sexually. The one thing she swore to never do. The one thing she was certain she never never never never never never never never wanted. And then he got frustrated and she killed him because he was going to rape her.And SO MUCH and she finds it really hard not to fear that others would be like that. Hippolytus wasnt, he was aroace like her and she didnt fear him at all but then he died and it spiraled into Asclepius’s deathAnd she was never sure if Apollo was ever even mad that she had a hand, however small in his death and While Apollo never ever blamed her she’s TERRIFIED that he migh have

who else who else

uhhh hmmm Well all of the original gods spare Zeus all are quite traumatized from being eaten as infants. And while they didnt really hide it thats a thING

sjkadklfskldhfklash

[thelifetimechannel]

In this week’s bonus content, Dave places prank orders on the local carapacian message boards.

JAKE: Ms roxys mom!! JAKE: Is it true your girlfriends a vampire? ROSE: Last time I checked. ROSE: To be technical, the Alternian term is "rainbow drinker". ROSE: There are some differences, but if you're going for "attractive young woman who drinks blood", you're on the money. ROSE: Similar to the way "Ms Roxys mom" is on the money, but the term I'm used to is "Rose". JAKE: Its polite for one to wait until such a time as one had been introduced. JAKE: As such im jake. Dont believe weve yet spoken! ROSE: No, not directly, unless we've exchanged witticisms in a memo somewhere. ROSE: I've lost track of those. ROSE: I think they've become independent sentient creatures. ROSE: As such, they must be allowed to flourish on their own, making their own decisions. ROSE: They're grown up now. They can make their own choices. JAKE: Just walkin off all on their lonesome huh? JAKE: Godspeed to you memos. What happens in you stays in you. ROSE: With a tear in my eye, I waved them off to memo university, where they'll learn hard truths about themselves while obtaining an education. JAKE: I hear theyre going into the communications field. Good for them! ROSE: I expect great things of them. ROSE: And plenty of tawdry hijinks. ROSE: But if you've been reading them, you'll notice we already have those. ROSE: Dave tried to order a pizza from a carapace agent. JAKE: He what. JAKE: Can you do that? ROSE: Dersites have their own message boards. Mostly focused on fashion, apparently, but you can post whatever you like. ROSE: I doubt he received his delivery. JAKE: Do carapaces have pizzerias and if so what the heck have i been doing with reheated alchemized food for the past five months? JAKE: I am alas a deprived man. I never knew what i was missing until jane started bussing us the captchas for her home cooking. ROSE: Honestly? I have no idea. ROSE: I did roam Derse for a few months in another timeline, but I didn't have culinary experiences on the mind. ROSE: I can relate, though. ROSE: Most of my background was in microwave dinners. ROSE: Which I look back on with fondness now, after what we've been subsisting on for the last few years. ROSE: Which brings us back to the original topic, more or less. ROSE: Yes, this outfit has vampires now. That's a thing that we have. JAKE: Man. You guys were off having all the fun on the magical hijinks. JAKE: Not that tomb raiding wasnt a blast but you know there were no vampires. ROSE: As many of the more romantic novels would suggest, it's a bit of a burden. ROSE: But an asset if you want to keep your plans after being shot through the abdomen, or so she tells me. JAKE: So does it come with the unholy cravings and aversion to the daylight or is this weird alien vampiracy? ROSE: Actually, she's one of the few of her kind that enjoys the sun. ROSE: As for unholy cravings... ROSE: That depends on your definition. ROSE: *eyebrow waggle* JAKE: Er. JAKE: The blood drinking i meant the blood drinking!! JAKE: Gosh what you two do together is your own private matter. *tugs collar of god tier cape.* ROSE: She's working on that. ROSE: She won't go for your jugular without permission, if that's what you're worried about. JAKE: Good to know. Im not presently in a state of mind where id be interested. ROSE: Not that many people enjoy the subtle pleasures of being lunch. JAKE: I am an open-minded man. JAKE: But i dont think im into vore. ROSE: Based on what I've heard of the clutter in Jade's home, you may have been into just about everything else. ROSE: But then, fetishes don't always cross universes. JAKE: ! JAKE: Hey now no fair going through a mans dirty laundry! JAKE: What if i dragged out your alt-selves smut rags? ROSE: Relax. I've never seen any of it first hand. ROSE: The three who traveled with access to the house, on the other hand... ROSE: Also, I have smut rags? ROSE: Where are they? ROSE: I must see these immediately. ROSE: I wonder if I had the same usernames. JAKE: Funnily enough i hear you were specialized in vampire penny dreadfuls with real gals of the shadows. JAKE: Roxy did some digging and uncovered one of your many many psuedonyms. ROSE: I'll give you a king's ransom to get me copies and make sure my brother never finds out about this. ROSE: It's bad enough he uncovered my fanfiction.net account. JAKE: I will exchange it for your silence on whatever youve heard on alt-mes personal life. JAKE: Especially to dirk! JAKE: Well dirk... dirks one matter but definitely not hal. JAKE: Ill find some way to bribe jade and the rest. ROSE: I'll keep what I know hush hush. ROSE: Jade was evasive, though. ROSE: Mostly because she didn't want anyone to know you were dead. ROSE: I do know you had a passion for washed out blue pictures of women, though. I'll keep mum on that. ROSE: And the potential of illegitimate children scattered around the tri-state area. ROSE: You should always be careful about giving your full name to people over the Internet. Sometimes they do some digging. JAKE: Wait what. JAKE: What?? JAKE: Never mind i dont want to know! JAKE: Dirk wasnt exactly pleased about his alt self but as both men are apparently very very dead their checkered pasts shall lie with them. ROSE: As befits them. ROSE: Jade did use your past behavior to shame me, I'm afraid to say. ROSE: But it was yours, not his, and it was mostly to dissuade me from my familial path of jumping out the relationship plane without a parachute. ROSE: Apparently my genes don't have the monopoly on that kind of extreme evasive technique. JAKE: Oh... JAKE: Oh great. JAKE: Im an example. JAKE: A "cautionary tale" even!! JAKE: Madam let me just briefly say that by our deep emotional conversations that it does in fact take two to tango! JAKE: I wasnt the one who burned that particular bridge anyway. ROSE: Don't worry, we're all cautionary tales at this point. ROSE: That's what mythology is all about. ROSE: Respect your elders. Stay away from taboos. Don't have sex with cows. ROSE: The lessons from Greek mythology alone are practically endless. JAKE: The ol boys sound like they knew how to party. ROSE: That and not much else. JAKE: Did they do anything but go on adventures and cheese off the gods? JAKE: And hoe down like there was no tomorrow? ROSE: There were a lot of curses. ROSE: Our family tree may be just as convoluted, but hopefully we can avoid some of the drama. JAKE: I hope we got that out of our system now without having to see a man about a horse. ROSE: I think we've done a decent job of it. ROSE: I heard all of you had a blowout. ROSE: Two blowouts actually. ROSE: An emotional one and then a physical one. ROSE: We felt the aftershocks of the latter. JAKE: Yeah... JAKE: But we worked it out. JAKE: The physical blowout was the result of teamwork and friendship! JAKE: The emotional one not so much but its ok now! ROSE: That's been the story of our lives so far. JAKE: Just give dirk a hug if you get the chance ok? JAKE: He needs it. ROSE: Would he appreciate it? ROSE: I know my brother is worse than a bad kudzu infestation, but my ectofather seems standoffish. JAKE: No no trust me on this one hes on you he doesnt want to let go. JAKE: He just has a hard time initiating is all. JAKE: But hes down for some awesome platonic embraces almost all the time. ROSE: I see... ROSE: I'm spotting the problem. ROSE: We may be too alike. Someone else may have to lift our arms and gently wrap us around each other. ROSE: Then, once the hug is properly secured, it can become self-sustaining. ROSE: Maybe. JAKE: I will have to be the middle man then. ROSE: You'll broker our accord. ROSE: Anyway, unlike our illustrious Greek forebears, we're not myths written down. We can break our patterns. ROSE: I think we've already begun. ROSE: If I have to learn to initiate physical contact while not three sheets to the wind, maybe that's another step in the right direction. JAKE: I will be the one delicately managing the lamprey tendrils of strider-lalonde limbs. ROSE: Will you now? JAKE: I mean. Why not? ROSE: Far be it from me to impede on awkward sibling hugs. ROSE: I'll look forward to it.

[samuellbronko]

Socialist propaganda in Melbourne for a Sydney event

Here's some classic #socialist #propaganda in full effect. This was a #socialism event in Sydney, plastered all overs street poles in Melbourne... That's right Melbourne!

With slogans like "radical ideas for the Trump era" and "I'm voting for marriage equality", discussing #marxism #gender #fascism #imperialism to hook them all in. When in reality look at #Venezuela, people dying from starvation, sounds fair and equal...

Well the people spoke and ripped down majority of the posters, one that was still standing was taken down by the time i grabbed my coffee...

Some Sydney protesters responded with a revised poster featuring special guest socialist!

People are mainly too conditioned by the echo chamber of mainstream news they gobble up rather than having an open mind to explore what other views are out there, or simply refute anything that goes against their moral ideology, to the point of oppressing anyone that opposes them, in packs by bullying anyone verbally, labeling them accordingly (nazi, fascist, bigot, etc), scream in their face, threaten or act on violence to someone that may simply be a free speech advocate and want to discuss things openly.

We are moving closer and closer to a fascist regime globally due to the rise of the social justice warrior movement, antifa, black lives matter, where political correctness and identity politics dominate and nothing else matters. this is why so many people are in a constant moral outrage for what Trump said on twitter daily, the fatality of the Charlottesville protest rather than accept that it was the antagonists on the left that prompted the initial violence and escalation, or whatever else that triggered them reading their latest fear mongering news feed.

Socialism falls into the category as a supposed sanctuary from nasty money hungry capitalist corporations, equality and shared wealth which benefits everyone. sounds like a utopia right? well why isnt it working in Venezuela while people starve on the streets and failed systems in so many other countries? you maybe right with those figures re how many deaths, but why did 40 people die in Venezuelan protest recently, with over 2000 police deployed to combat those who opposed Socialism? sounds a bit totalitarian than a free and equal society to me.

Also note that in the original Socialism Sydney poster wasnt just about Socialism, they tie in other important moral issues like gender equality, promoting cultural Marxism, anti racism / anti fascism... when look at the result of these people who may have good intentions going into these groups, protesting for what they believe in and standing up for minorities etc - it's resulted in the violent outbreaks and mass oppression by antifa, black lives matter, socialists and communists groups. thought police against people speaking their minds freely... On the right those who are capitalists / entrepreneurs, libertarians, conservatives, free speech promoters are more than open to discuss things in an open intellectual debate... but that's not happening anywhere, cause there's too much emotion from the conditioned fear and hatred, that those opposing lash out verbally or physically. look at Berkeley, even Charlottesville couldve been peaceful... 

After Charlotteville we had another terrorist attack in Barcelona where a bunch of radicalized morons thought it would be a good idea to plough down Las Ramblas in a van, killing as many people as possible... yet no one is talking about it as they're too distracted by over what Trump said or didnt say, or the one person who died at Charlottesville, or Pauline Hanson's burka protest... the crazy thing is a day or so later, 1000s took to the streets in Barcelona to protest how little number of immigrants Spain has taken in from Syria and other countries in recent times... this seems absurd to me, when all of these terrorist attacks have come from Islamic states, those who have no respect for local culture or want to assimilate and want to flood the western world to slowly take it over, spreading more fear and hatred...

Heck even the free speech rally at Boston this past week was overthrown by 1000s of antifa / blm etc when the speaks of the organised event come from various political & religious backgrounds, races and ideologies... it was meant to simply be a platform to discuss the issues that people arent allowed to speak freely today, and look what happens - they get shut down, pushed around and screamed at! this maybe the perfect ironic story of what is the core issue today, without them even speaking, the message was clear as day that free speech doesnt exist...

So even tho Socialism maybe good for reasons such as Medicare, welfare, contracted working hours / conditions, the base ideology gets blown out by those who jump on the moral bandwagon of equality, standing up for minorities/immigrants, to the point where so many dont even know what the term means or what they are fighting for so violently and blindly, ignoring all the pain and suffering they are creating along the way...

[thewalkingdead-imagines]

TWD - Negan Imagine ~ "First Day of the Rest of Your Life"

An imagine about the season finale of season 7

I’m following the storyline of the TV show, so I wrote parts to the other episodes as well that are connected.
 BUT they are all written the way that you can read them separate without having read any other part! 
You can find every other part of the series here

The warm morning light shined into the room as you slowly opened your eyes. You looked around the room, Negan’s room, but didn’t find him. You rolled around in the bed thinking about the journey that had brought you here, to this day. And damn, the journey you had made till this day had been a huge one. From the line up a whole lot of weeks ago, where he hadn’t just taken your brother Daryl with him but also you, the visits in Alexandria he had taken you with him like almost everywhere else, the day your brother fled and instead Eugene was the other familiar person here, Negan getting you from your own room to his, cause he thought it was safer for you and the other day where with Sasha the next person came here. And not only the journey of events shaped the last time, also the change of your relationship to Negan. Hell, you still despised him deeply for his deeds and you would never even get the idea to justify them, but you couldn’t see him only as a complete asshole anymore. The mood between you and him was mostly eased and you could even laugh with him and feel comfortable around him, which kept a fight inside you going on between your conscience that hated him for his deeds and the other side you got to see from him. Negan hadnt have an easy game with you, hell no, you had made it pretty hard for him you still did, but he had kept going. Opening up and letting someone even give you those feelings was for sure nothing easy for you, especially since the outbreak had changed everything and you had not a bit of an idea why out of all people Negan was the one you began to build up a bond to. You looked over to the coffee table between the leather couch and the arm chairs that was already covered in stuff for breakfast. You slowly sat up as you heard the door opening and saw Negan walking smirking inside. “Good fucking morning, Sweetheart”, you heard Negan chuckling say as you saw him carrying a few more things in his arms. “Come over, we gotta start strong into the day”, he said waving you over to the table, before you slipped out of the bed and walked over to the leather couch you let yourself fall on. You watched him pour coffee into his cup while you had to think about something probably not more than an hour ago. You had woken up, still whirred somewhere between sleep and being awake while you had felt him pulling you even deeper into his embrace. You had to overcome your stubbornness to get into his arms for the night and in the end you had done it just through the fact that the nightmares that haunted you stayed away when you were that close to him in your sleep, as much as you disliked that he owned and knew about that ability. Your conscience got challenged in these moments an hour ago again as you felt his touch sending chills through your body. His fingers that were tracing up and down your arm. His lips that were that close to your temple that you could feel them lighty brushing against it while you could feel the warm breath and the beard stubble tickling your skin. And while you laid there you wondered once again how surprisingly gentle he could be once he thought no one was around and you werent awake, even though you had already seen him softer when you were alone with him, And to your annoyance this fondness had an effect on you, you had to grumply recognize.  You began drinking a bit out of your cup as your glance went over to the silver tray standing on the edge of the table. “Curious?”, you heard Negan chuckling ask before you looked over to him. “Yeah”, you just said taking another sip while you saw Negan bowing grinning over to the tray but before he lifted it, he looked once more over to you. “As much as I hate to say it, I gotta disappoint you, that’s unfortunately not for you”, he said grinning. “I think I can live with that”, you said before Negan shook chuckling his head and lifted the upper part of the tray. “This, my dear Sweetheart, is for your friend from the cell”, Negan said while you could see what was hidden under the tray. A pancake decorated with some fruit around it and a smiley created with blueberries on it. A fucking smiley. “What the heck, Negan”, you said staring at the smiling pancake. “Oh, is someone being jealous? You don’t have to be, I can offer a whole lot more to you than just a smiley pancake ”, Negan said smirking while you rolled your eyes looking over to the pancake once again. “What Sweetheart? I’m just being a fucking good host to her!”, Negan said chuckling. “You’re buttering her up”, you said leaning back into the soft leather of the couch while you looked at Negan. “Oh come on, Don’t be that fucking grumpy”, Negan said chuckling before leaning back again. “Im not grumpy, I’m just seeing what you’re doing there”, you said glancing over to the tray. “And that would be?”, asked Negan chuckling interested while you huffed slightly. “You’re trying to get her on your side and you exactly know that if you’d begin to threaten and scare her, that it would just push her away from the idea of allying with you. And that’s not what you want cause she’s a good weapon to you. Nothing more. So you’re trying to butter her up with some fucking pancake and some charming words to get her more drawn to your plans, so you can utilize her”, you said still looking over to him while he chuckled. You knew he didn’t care further about her. When she’d die the only thing he’d pity would be the weapon he lost. ”Oh shit Sweetheart, after all you think like that?”, he said chuckling leaning back into the armchair. “No Negan. after all I can see when you actually mean what you do and say or when you’re just saying something to manipulate and use someone”, you said looking over to him while he scoffed. Of course he wouldnt admit that now. You felt your eyes narrowing into a glare by the thought of the things he would want Sasha to do for him as you heard his voice. “Don’t give me that fucking glare again. You seriously wanna go back in time to the point where all you did was looking that fucking hateful at me?”, Negan said leaning scoffing back into the armchair. “No, but you don’t want that as well….and that’s why you’re not telling me anything for weeks now about your plans with my people, right?”, you asked still looking sternly at him while you could see in his glance that you were right. It wasnt usual that Negan stayed quiet in conversations but this time he did and it became clearer and clearer in your mind why. “You’re planning to kill some of them don’t you”, you asked looking at him while he leaned forwards. “Listen in the end it’s up to Sasha and the stuff your peps do how many die, and I gotta check up what shit they’re about to do”, he said, still hedging from your original question, why exactly he didn’t tell you something. You heard his walkie cracking before Simon’s voice sounded through it. “We’re about in an hour and a half ready, in case you wanna check things we’re at the gate, Boss”, you heard through the walkie. “Alright Im coming”, Negan said back into the walkie in his hands before he laid it back onto the table. “Wait, you’re not going to Alexandria without me”, blustered out of you. You wouldnt let him go alone there, you just needed to know what would happen. “Suddenly you’re so into accompanying me?”, Negan asked slightly chuckling. “I’ll not stay here doing nothing while you’re in Alexandria killing some of my people. You can’t keep everything away from me. And especially not that”, you said with a tensed undertone. “I’ll not let you do that and I’ll not just let you kill them”, you added after he stayed quiet for moment. “Shit Sweetheart, you fucking know that I’d cut off anybody else than you right at that point right?, Negan asked serious while looking at you. “Yeah”, you said looking up to him before he sat down for a short moment. “Alright, I’ll say it again it’s up to my deal with your friend and your damn peps  how many people gotta die. But why I’m not talking to you ‘bout that? That my Sweetheart may have a whole lot of shitty reasons but here’s the main one and I’m being fucking honest with this:  I don’t know how that shits gonna end up but I’m not gonna be the one who’s pulling you into it. I won’t get you into any plan that could be against your people and make you suffer for shit they fuck up, I won’t do that for the fucking sake of you, I’m just being kind here not the asshole you think I am. Cause I fucking know how hard that shit is anyways for you even though you try to not show it”, he said while seriously looking at you, that much that you were sure that he meant it that way. Of course there were other reasons you could imagine, like you would make his life harder when you’d know about his plans against them and that he would risk the relationship you had build up to him. ”Alright, so I’m gonna go to Sasha now. Don’t worry, I’m gonna be pleasant with her”, Negan said chuckling before winking at you and walking over to the wardrobe, getting his red scarf and leather jacket on before he grabbed the tray.  ”Be ready in an hour”, Negan said smirking before he left. An hour later you stood on a truck’s platform together with Sasha, Eugene, Negan and Arat while you looked at the coffin placed on it. One of Negan’s great ideas to make the visit in Alexandria even a bit more dramatical. “Am I gonna come with you in it?”, asked Sasha while she nodded over to the casket. “Jesus no, you don’t have to take the trip in the thing”, you heard Negan say. “Well, I could use the rest”, Sasha said while you looked irritated at her “No shit?”, asked Negan looking as irritated as you at her.  “Yeah. I just want to go to sleep. I just need a little bottle of water, and I’m fine”, she said while you still couldnt really believe that she would stay voluntary for hours in this thing. “Arat?”, he demanded before the woman jumped down the truck to get a bottle and you saw Negan walking over to Sasha.  “Listen I know how tough this is and I appreciate it”, he said while you werent completely sure how much he still used these words to make her softer. You saw Sasha nodding slightly before she climbed into the casket and looked at you one last time before she laid down. Moments later you found yourself sitting on the bench in the back of the black truck, Negan’s arm laying around you that had somehow found its way again around your waist while you drove already over the roads. It was still early and a little yawn escaped your mouth as you saw Negan looking smirking at you. ”You still sleepy? In case you are, my shoulder is always a welcome pillow for a sweet little nap-nap of yours”, he said pulling you slightly closer. “I’m okay”, you just responded while you felt another yawn come up. “Sure thing”, you just heard Negan chuckle while he slightly shook his head by the sight of your obviously tired self. The next minutes didn’t help you getting more awake, more the opposite, you got even more tired. And with every new second you felt your eyelids getting heavier while you felt Negan pulling you closer to let your head sink slowly onto his shoulder. One more time you tried to fight back against your tiredness and rose your head up from his shoulder hearing Negan chuckle about you before you couldnt fight back anymore and finally dozed off. You got waken up by the sudden stopping of the truck, that would have catapulted you on the ground of the machine if it would have been just a little more abrupt, ”Simon? Why the fuck did we stop?”, you heard Negan growling before you saw Simon who sat at the wheel turning  around. ”You better look at that yourself, Boss”, he said before Negan let slowly go of you and finally stood up. “Gonna take a look, I’ll be right back”, Negan said before winking at you and walking out of the truck. You tried to get to see through the windscreen what was happening outside and saw how men began cutting pieces off of fallen over trees that laid on the road while you saw Negan talking first to Simon, then to Eugene before he headed back to you into the truck accompanied by Dwight and Simon. “Sorry Sweetheart, our alone-time in the back of this damn thing is over, we gotta keep up with Dwighty boy”, Negan said while he climbed back next to you before Dwight sat down towards you as the motor started again. It wasnt far anymore, that was the only thing you could figure out from what Simon told Dwight while he drove over the streets. And then you saw it again before you. Alexandria. The place you still called after all this time your home. As you drove closer you could see people standing at the gates, obviously holding guns as if they were ready to fight and with that you knew that this wouldnt end up the nice way. The motors of the trucks stopped right before the gates while your glance looked at the people standing on top of the gates until you suddenly heard Eugene’s voice. “H-Hello. I come salved with the hope that it is my dropped knowledge that you heed. Options are zero to none…”, you suddenly heard Eugenes voice talking. ”You let him do that?”, you asked as you look bewildered over to Negan. ”Sure, Sweetheart. He asked for it outside and I also think they’ll listen at first more to him than to me and you were no option, just like I said, I’m not pulling you into this crap”, he said before you began to listen to Eugene again. ”Bottom-lining it..You may thrive, or you may die. I sincerely wish for the former for everyone’s sake. The jig is up and in full effect. Will you comply, Rick?”, you heard Eugene say. “Where’s Negan?”, you heard Ricks familiar voice say before your breath stopped for a second.  “I’m Negan.” You had heard him say this the first time Negan had asked him and you had already hated it back then, but hearing him say it now, right in front of your friends, that was something completely different. You looked through the window seeing Rick shaking his head slightly while you could even see from that far how hard that hit him. A few moments you watched Rick silence behavior that switched between looking to Eugene to someone behind the gates before you saw him and everyone else suddenly duck. Nothing. ”He really tried to fucking do it. That prick actually tried to fucking blow us up”, Negan growled shaking his head while you realized that was something he also knew about and in that one moment you saw how a strange woman raised her gun up to Rick’s head, you knew who had been the little bird. “Out”, Negan said to Simon and Dwight, before he stood up himself and held his hand before you. You took his hand and let him lift you on your feet but as soon as you came to the door you let go of it. “Don’t like them to see us together?”, Negan asked chuckling as he felt your hand leaving his while you only responded with a slight scoff. You slowly walked outside, your glance locking with Rick’s before the gate got opened and you saw someone that made this walk even harder for you. Daryl. Sasha had told you that he was alive and safe but seeing him there in front of you, watching your every step while Negan had his hand laying on your lower back, was cruel. You couldnt go to him, couldnt hug him after all this time and couldnt tell him that you still stood by his side even though you were the one standing next to his enemy in these moments. Negan stopped walking, Eugene standing on his left as he looked up to Rick while all you did was looking at your friends and your brother that had their guns up.  “You ever heard the story about the stupid little prick named Rick who thought he knew shit but didn’t know shit and got everyone he gave a shit about killed?”, you heard Negan ask rhetorically. “It’s about you”, he said while you saw him pointing up to Rick from the corner of your eye “You’re all gonna wanna put your guns down now”, you heard Negan say before you heard Ricks voice “No one drops anything”, was all you heard before you saw him talking to the strange woman. “You push me, and you push me. And you push me, Rick. You just tried to blow us up, right? I mean, I get me, my people. But Eugene? He’s one of yours. And after what he did - He stepped up. Would you have still pushed it when you would have known that she was with me in that truck? Huh? Would you have blown her up? The one thats still trying to protect you crapheads?…Shit, you people are animals”, Negan growled before he continued. “Universe gives you a sign, and you just shove your finger right up its ass”, he yells while striking up his middle finger up in the air. “Dwight, Simon, chop-chop”, he said before he walked over to the other side of the platform with you while you watched Dwight and Simon climb up and beginning to remove the casket from its attachment to stand it up. Negan climbed up to them while you walked to the side to see your friends as you heard Negan’s voice again. “So, you don’t like Eugene anymore. You guys gotta like Sasha. I do, too. Got her right here packaged for your convenience, alive and well”, he said while you saw the shock in your friend’s faces. “Now, I brought her so I wouldn’t have to kill all of you, and not killing all of you could get complicated”, Negan said chuckling while you felt your jaw clenching by the sound of the words he was saying.  “See, I know there’s a lot of firepower left in there, Rick. So I’m gonna make this simple”, he said before raising his voice again. “I want all the guns you’ve managed to scrape up. Yep, I know about those, too. I want every last grain of lemonade you got left. I want a person of your own choosing for Lucille”, you heard him say and with that, your head snapped over to him.  You had known that in case something like that would wait for you here that someone would die even though you had tried to suppress the thought of it, but what he wanted now, them choosing one of their own made everything even more barbaric. “Daryl. Ooh, I gotta get me my Daryl back. I see you”, Negan’s voice ripped you out of your thoughts while you saw him pointing with two fingers from Daryl to his eyes, before continuing. “And after what you almost did a few minutes ago to my girl aka. your sis, you should really honor that, Daryl”, he said chuckling to your brother before raising his voice once again. “Oh and I want the pool table and all the pool cues and chalk. And I want it now or Sasha dies, and then all of you”, he yelled before you heard him add something. “Probably”, Negan said with a grin on his lips while you swallowed only thinking about one dead person. “C'mon, Rick. Just because I brought her in a casket doesn’t mean she has to leave in it”, you heard him add while you looked over to Rick who remained silent as you heard Negan sigh. “You know what? You suck ass, Rick. You really do. I don’t want to have to kill her, but that’s exactly what you’re gonna make me do”, he said scoffing. “Let me see her”, Rick said clenching his jaw. “Oh. Alright. Just give me a second. I might have to get her up to speed. You can’t hear shit inside this thing”, Negan said chuckling before you saw him drumming against the casket with his bat as you looked up to him. “Sash? You will not believe this crap!”, Negan said chuckling before he drummed his bat against the coffin once again. You still looked up to him seeing how he opened the casket and heard a groan that let the blood in your body freeze. You gasped, your eyes widened as you saw Sasha’s reanimated corpse storming towards him. Your eyes were wide open as you heard him scream while falling down the platform. Your heart pumped against your chest as you heard guns beginning to rattle around you while you stormed over to Negan and gasped as you saw Walker Sasha bowing over him trying to bite him while he struggled getting her off his body. You couldnt let her kill him. You felt even more panic crawling up in you as you run panting closer before you were right above her. “I’m sorry Sasha”, you mumbled with trembling voice as you buried your knife into the skull of the walker that had once been your friend. You saw her rolling down from Negan, who looked directly startled into your eyes while you shocked realized that you were still trembling by the thought of losing him. “Fucking shit”, he muttered before standing up and pulling you with him behind the truck. “Plan B”, Negan screamed towards Simon before he turned heavily breathing to you. “Fuck thanks, you fucking saved me. Have you noticed that shit alrea-”, he said before he got cut off by another gunshot way too close to you. ”You’re gonna stay close to me”, he said, pulling you close to him before he jumped up, running through the shooting people while shielded by a group of his men. You couldnt notice a lot around you, you only had a hard grip on your knife as your legs kept running before you suddenly stopped. “Sir, I have someone here you might like to see”, you heard Simon’s voice say before the shield of man opened up and revealed Simon standing before you, his hand with his gun up to Carls head. “No”, you muttered to yourself, seeing Carl in front of you right before you heard Negan’s voice. ”Kid, I need you to get on your knees”, you heard Negan say before Carl kneeled down, surrounded by Saviors as Negan already began to slightly swing his bat as you realized what he was going to do. You grabbed the sleeve of Negan’s jacket and made him turn around to you. ”Don’t do that”, you growled looking at him while you heard him sigh. ”They need punishment, I won’t kill the kid, but they need punishment”, he said quietly but tensed while you tightened your grab around his arm. “Then who are you gonna hurt? What are you gonna do to them?, you asked urging while looking at him as he sighed before you saw Rick coming towards you, the woman again behind him, leading him with her gun. You looked swallowing at Rick, who got brought to his knees next to Carl before you heard Negan talking again, while you looked bewildered at the two so important people kneeling before you. “Well, shit, Rick. You just couldn’t stick with us, huh? You had to go with these filthy garbage people?”, Negan asked slightly chuckling before he looked up to the woman. “No offense”, he added before you heard the woman talking. “Deal is for 12. Yes?″, she said before Negan looked struggling at her. “Ten. People are resource”, you heard him say and continue talking to her, while you looked down to Rick who now first looked up to you and let a cold shiver run down your back. ”I tried to stop him”, you said quietly muttering while you felt a lump creating in your throat seeing Rick and Carl that way. “Get her in that house”, you suddenly heard Negan say as you looked up and saw him pointing over to one of the inchoate houses close to the scene that was playing before you “No, Negan, no”, you growled before you felt a man grabbing you by your arm and beginning to pull you with him. “Hey! Be fucking careful or I’ll fuck your ass up”, Negan yelled at the man while you began to realize more and more what was about to happen. You felt the man pulling you with him before you felt the anger rising up in you seeing Carl kneeling on the ground, his Dad next to him, while you had no idea what Negan was gonna do now or if he was gonna hold onto what he had told you. And with that thought you felt the anger boiling up in you. You were like a volcano that seethed for a long long time until it broke out, but you knew, that when it broke out, then heavily. And you felt it coming up more and more again You couldn’t get Negan get away with that, getting you away from this place to not be haunted by his conscience. “Don’t make it that fucking easy for you”, you growled loudly feeling the man keep on pulling while you saw Negan still looking at you and not doing anything else. Your body was seething while you saw from the corner of your eye the house coming closer and closer and your anger heating up to the edge again as you saw Negan still standing there shortly before hurting one more of your friends. The lump in your throat got bigger and bigger, mixing up with the anger you had about the feelings you already had for that man that stood there with his soon in your friend’s blood covered in damn barbed wire wrapped bat as you felt the volcano in you broke out. “I should have let her kill you”, you screamed in rage, shortly before you got pulled into the house you saw Negan swallowing hard, his glance for a second filled with pain.  The man pulled you inside the house.  The walls werent completely done yet, the windows cracked. You looked around as you saw that one window pointing to the scene outside. And you wanted to go there. It wasnt your intention to hurt yourself on purpose, to make yourself go through that cruelty again, you had often tried to suppress feelings that would hurt you if you thought too much about them in order to protect yourself to not get torn up more, but this time it wasnt about you. You felt like youd leave them alone if you would just wait inside here and the other thing was, you wouldnt let Negan get what he wanted in that moment. You were way too angry about him in these moments to just let it happen without offering resistance on the only way possible for you right now. ”Sit down”, you heard the man growl. “No, you let me go to that window”, you growled looking directly into his eyes, knowing that you werent the one having to fear consequences. Even when it didn’t look like that in these moments, your position was way higher than his and that gave you the push to be especially determined. ”Shit are you a sadist or what?”, the man asked chuckling while you felt the anger heating up. ”Let me go to that window”, you growled once again not caring about anything but your friends and what Negan was about to do to him. “Listen,  I’ll do everything to keep your ass here doesn’t matter if I’ll I have to drag you to the ground or anything else, I don’t care”, he growled back. “Oh really? Then I’d like to know what Negan does when he finds out you hurt me”, you growled while the man narrowed his eyes sighing realizing that you were right. “Alright, but no more than the window”, he responded hissing while you just nodded walking over to the window while the man stayed directly behind you. You looked out of it, hearing clearly through the huge broken out pieces what Negan was saying to Rick. “This is just gonna make you sad. Broken. You’re gonna wish you were dead. I like having fun. I do. But maybe you think that the guy that did what he did to your fucking friends wasn’t me, like that was some sort of a put-on, like I’m not the guy with the bat – I’m just the guy that makes your kid spaghetti”, Negan said while stopping as more gun shots sounded through the air. “Oh. Oh, shit. Maybe this is on me. Maybe this is all on me. I gotta make it right. I guess I gotta start aaall over again”, Negan said while walking around the both of them. Had he just lied to you? Had he lied t you when he said he wouldn’t kill Carl? And fuck, In these moments you felt disgusted by yourself that you had enjoyed laying in this mans arms this morning. But the thing that disgusted you even more was probably that the real reason for telling him that you wished you had let Sasha kill him was the rage you had been in and that you would still feel panic seeing him laying shortly before death on the ground even if you were despising him in these moments. “I gotta tell you, Rick, if I had a kid, I’d want him to be just like your kid, which makes this so much harder”, you heard him say before you saw Carl looking up muttering something you couldnt understand but you could imagine a few things. “Carl. It is over. Why don’t you point your one ball up the street there and take it all in?”, Negan asked pointing up the street before you suddenly heard a bloodcurdling scream that made your breath stop for a second. It could only belong to Michonne. You felt your heart pounding against your chest as you realized that you could have lost another friend in this moment, if she wasn’t still fighting. Outside you saw Negan kneeling down before Rick. “Ohh. Oh. Wow. You just lost somebody important to you right now – like, just now. Jesus. That is timing. Well, Rick you chose this. I truly don’t know what more I could’ve done to warn you. And this isn’t a warning. This is punishment”, he said still kneeling before him before he continued saying something that let your stomach turn upside down and made you realize that if he wasn’t just putting a show on and bluffed, he had lied right into your face. “I’m gonna kill Carl now. I’m gonna make it one nice, hard swing, try to do it in one because I like him. I just want you to put that in your brain and roll it around for a minute. I’m gonna kill Carl, and then Lucille here, she’s gonna take your hands”, Negan said while you felt cold shivers running down your back before you saw how Rick rose up a bit, leaning towards Negan. “You can do it right in front of me. You can take my hands. I told you already, I’m gonna kill you. All of you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but nothing is gonna change that. Nothing. You’re all already dead”,you heard Rick growl while Negan looked at him clenching his jaw before he began to laugh. “Damn Rick. Okay”, you just heard him say before Negan jumped up. “You said I could do it!”, you heard Negan scream as you gasped seeing him swing his bat up before your breath stopped for a second. A giant tiger jumping out of nowhere onto the Savior behind Negan and a group of people run behind it, screaming and shooting. You witnessed the next seconds as if you were in a trance, you saw the tiger mauling the man while you saw Negan jolting away, getting up again and looking over to the window where you stood before you pulled yourself out of the trance. Your fist hit the face of the man that was trying to stop you from running outside before you saw him backing down, cursing in pain as you run. You stormed out of the house, guns rattling and firing all around you while all you did was trying to get an overview as you saw your brother running through the streets into a side street, a man right behind him aiming for him You felt your heart pumping against your chest, your breath increasing as you stormed into the side street, over to the man, tackled him before he could realize what happened to the ground and buried your knife into his head. Panting you looked up, seeing your brother looking from just a few meters towards you over to you before you tried to catch your breath and raised your voice loudly “I’m with you, Daryl. I’ll have your back, go”, you yelled seeing your brother nodding before you reached out to the gun of the dead savior. Yes you were still part of that family, doesn’t matter what happened with Negan and you. Your bullets hit Savior after Savior as you run through the streets, your glance trying to check for everything and you kept running through the streets killing every Savior that just attempted to aim for your friends. You didn’t know how many saviors you killed before you heard the rattling of your gun stopping. You let it fall down and kept running and running while you saw from face to face, Maggie, Carol somewhere between all these people, others of the Alexandrian laying dead on the ground. And you kept running even though your breath began to feel like it was cutting lines into your throat, before you felt someone grabbing you by your wrist and turning you around. Negan. You ducked hearing another gunshots too close before Negan pulled you closer towards him as you noticed the truck driving upon you. ”C’mon Sweetheart, we gotta go”, Negan yelled to drown out the sound of endless shots. You were about to protest, rip out of his grab, but before another shot could hit the truck he pulled you with him inside. You stumbled into the back of the truck seeing Negan looking at your hands that were covered in the blood from the Savior that had attacked Daryl. ”Not mine”, you only growled while you saw him nodding. ”Good”, he said swallowing but in a sternly undertone before he walked up to the front and let himself fall onto the seat and immediately rising his middle finger out of the window as shots hit the truck. The rattling of the guns got quieter as you left Alexandria while you still looked at your with small cuts and blood covered hands as you heard Negan standing up, walking over and sitting down on the bench towards you. You saw him grabbing a small towel from the back of the truck before he reached out for your hands right before you retracted them from him while you heard him sigh. “Come on, I’m just trying to get that shit off”, he said before taking your hands again and beginning to get the blood from them.  “Listen, I bluffed there, I meant what I said, I wasn’t gonna kill him. I was putting on a damn show. I’m wouldn’t kill a damn kid”, he said while keep on removing the blood. “Seemed pretty convincing to me what happened there...”, you mumbled feeling his glance on you while you didn’t deign to look at him. “I know, but please believe me, alright? I wouldn’t have killed Carl, I wouldn’t”, he said, almost plead before he sighed while he slowly but surely got the blood from your hands and you were sure, that he knew that it was his men’s blood. As he was done, he sat for a few moments just there, holding your hands while you still didn’t look up to him and just sternly looked down before he let sighing go of you and walked back to the passenger seat in the front. For the next hours of driving you just sat quietly on the bench, seeing from the corner of your eye how Negan looked over to you once in a while checking on you, while you had thousands of thoughts whirring around in your head. Sasha was dead, however the hell that happened, she was gone forever. And you had killed her living corpse in order to protect the man who was now on war with the rest of your friends. The time rushed past you just like the trees the truck passed. You came back to the Sanctuary, walked again through the cold hallways before you found yourself back in Negan’s room. And hell you didn’t plan to stay here after what had happened on Alexandria. “Get me back to my old room”, you said as you turned around to Negan as you crossed your arms and he looked sighing at you. “I can’t. That room is already taken again and there’s no other free apartment left”, he said while you scoffed looking at him. “You said I could go back there someday”, you growled glaring at him. “I know what I fucking said. Things have changed”, he said while scoffing and sighing. ”Yeah, now you’re not bashing two people’s heads in front of their friends, no, now you’re bashing only one son’s head in front of his father”, you said with an angry and sarcastic undertone. ”I said I wouldn’t have done it, I would never kill a damn kid! It was just to scare them off! They needed punishment! They pushed it, they fucking pushed it through acting up like the most fucking dumbasses again!” he called out while you felt the anger boiling up again in you. ”Of course they begin to defend themselves, Negan! Of course they do, what do you fucking expect?! That you can do everything with everyone without ever coming to people that don’t want you to terrorize them anymore?!”, you called out. ”I get that you hate that cause they’re your people, but If Rick would be fucking smart and would seriously fucking care he would swallow all that shit to not get more people killed”, he yelled while he looked heavily breathing at you. ”So you know that?! What it means to care?! You, who doesn’t give a single fuck about anyon-”, you called out being cut of by a furious Negan. “I care a goddamn assload about you-”, he shouted before stopping realizing what he had just said. “God fucking damn it”, he growled to himself before turning around and walking out of the room while you stood there startled and your eyes slightly widened.. For a few more moments you stayed like that before you closed the door and let yourself fall onto the couch while you still heard his words in your mind. Of course you had noticed that he had been protective over you and cared about your wellbeing, but he had never said that, especially not that clearly. You sat there for the next hours alone, not moving from your place on the couch while the whole day rushed through your head again and again and even though you calmed slowly down, you hated to admit it but that what Negan had said came up again and again in your head, playing on repeat. Hours after sunset you heard the sound of the door hitting open, you knew exactly who that was but you didn’t look in his direction. Instead you kept looking out of the window into the darkness like you had done almost the whole time you had been alone while you heard his steps coming closer. “Would you mind?”, you heard him ask as he stood next to the couch. You were still mad at him and your stubborn head kept telling you to not give in but in this case your curiosity about what he was gonna say was stronger. You waited a few more moments before you looked up and nodded slowly as approval. He sat down next to you, sighing while rolling Lucille’s end over the carpet seeming like he struggled with himself. “See, I can understand you for being mad about me. I get it, in your position I’d be that as well...but just please believe me, I’m not lying to you”, he said and stopped for a few moments while he sighed quietly. You were sure that he knew that the fragile bond between you had gotten crannies on that day, that big that they could end up letting it break if he wouldn’t do something. “I would even understand If you don’t wanna listen now but..shit..well I think you should know that I meant what I said…you can be damn sure that I haven’t said that to anyone in a fucking longass time and I’m sure as shit not saying that easily, but I care a whole fucking lot about you. More than about anyone in a goddamn long time”, he said before you slowly turned your head and saw directly into his eyes while you nodded slowly, before you looked away again as you heard Negan sigh. “Shit”, you just heard him curse to himself probably about being so dumb to open a bit up to you only to be rejected even though he knew that you had every right to. You saw him standing up and about to walk before you tried for once to just let your emotions do the work. You stood up, saw him looking at you before you did for the very first time the first step and slung your arms around him just to shortly after that feeling him pulling you deeply into his embrace, his arms as tight around you as yours were around him. “I’m still mad at you”, you mumbled into the leather of his jacket. “I know, but believe it or not, I can live with that right now.”

part 16

tagging: @agespenst @imaginesforthepeople @reylo101 @squidgy84 @toxic-ink @nobodylastname @nice-shoes-nerd @thegirlwiththelyrics99 @tolieboy @writteninthestars288 @magical-spit @straightestgay-voice @xsnak-3x @myrabbitholetoneverland @dasani-saraai @negan–is–god @harry-titss @traumbruch

[gololblr]

"Did god have a say in the creation of the world" is a phrase that doesnt seem that odd when first looking at it, but can really mess someone up.

Like, was he limited to making our world with the constants we currently have? Could god have just said, yea lets round the G to 7*10^-11 and everything would still work out?

This also goes into my personal gripe with lines. Draw a line on a piece of paper, yea? Look closer. It aint a line. Its a gradent. There is no point that it suddenly becomes black from white. There's always white in the black, and vice-versa. There's always gray area.

Science knows this fact. They know that there are always more decimals n stuff, but they just choose to ignore it. Pass it off because its too small to matter in the long run? And yet, decimals can still fuck up am equasion a lot. Using 10m/s compared to 9.8m/s compared to (G*M1*M2)/(d^2) doesnt seem like a lot, but it really is a lot. Highschool physics? Literally throw air resistance out the window for the entire class. The only mention is that its not to be taken into account.

Seconds are the same way. If someone asks you to do something at a particular second, its really hard. Even then, theyres still gray area. Even with the implimentation of frames and button presses in video games, theres still a kind of window where its gray. Where its in between two frames. That area still exists.

Im honestly no "big brained" individual, but honestly humans are literally like if you hit the "randomize all" option on like the mii creator, but with like infinite possibilities. And honestly, to me thats much more beautiful and poetic than being told im made to fit the mold of some perfect being and its standards.

This goes into my own personal "dice roll" think. Tbh, theres probably some big brain theologian or old dude with a beard thinking about this right now, but in a different context, but my idea is as follows.

You can roll a dice yea? Its got like 6 sides on it. Now you'd think that that means when you roll it, there are only 6 possibilities right? And roll it enough times itll land back the same as when you started? Well in my mind, it can technically land on the same number, but it cant land in the same position. Think about it. Just from the directions of the corners, you can tell its wont. But if you look closer, you can tell it will never be the exact same positioning. If you roll a dice, it may land on that number again, but itll never land in the same spot.

This can also be seen in identical twins. Even though they look the same, they still have differnces. Whether it be a nose .00004 mm to the left, or a scar over their eye, or a hatred of spinach, there will be a difference. Even 2,000,000 years down the road, when someone is born with the same name, and the same face, they wont be the same as you. They wont have the same inteactions, or likes n dislikes. Even if they did somehow do not only gene manipulation and simulations on someone to replicate you, they couldnt possibly have the exact cell mutations or gene replication errors that make the little things in you, you.

You are just as unrepeatable as the roll of a dice, or the exact moment a leaf breaks off and falls. Which brings me to my next point.

I have never witnessed a leaf leave its branch. I have literally sat and watched trees and leaves every fall since i realized how mind boggling it is, and i still have yet to see it.

Dont get me wrong, ive seen falling leaves, seeds, and pinecones. I know gravity works and why fall is so great. Bit i have never seen a leaf cross the threshold of letting go of its branch. I know it exists. I know that wind probably effects it, but leaves will fall even without wind. I cant help but wonder at what causes that windless leaf to fall. Is it a cornerstone cell that just finally gives out? Is it some other kind of thing? What could possibly result in a falling leaf?

What is the exact chemical process that results in decay? Suprisingly, thats a question i can anwser. That is simply the improper copying of dna and stuff.

And yet, we still dont know how our brains work. We can look at cells, we can look at atoms, but we cannot possibly understand why laughter is a thing. We dont know anything about sleep, and even less about anaesthetics. Yet we do them regularly, even rely on them.

Humans survive mostly from two things. Sweating, and speaking. And honestly, those are probably the most horrifying things imaginable for prey. Sweating means we have cazy endurance. We can and will hunt anything down until it physically cannot move, and then kill it. And screaming to eachother at the same time. To be hunted by humans is much more scary then literally anything else. That is why horror mostly stars human-esk creatures that hunt humans.

One of humanity's greatest assests is also one of my biggest gripes. That is our obsession with observation and ourselves. We observe the world, and from that are given measurments and tools. We then use that to help ourselves. But we also have to see things. A famous phrase is "seeing is believing". Perfect example of this. We have to touch things. Even if its just with our eyes. But we also for some reason dont want to process things that arent ourselves.

Think about the non-humans that humans create. All those elderic abominations amd the like. Even the green martian men. They all are humaniods in shape. Even demonic, and cursed things have limbs. They have a head, and they have a brain. Anythign that is supposed to be equal to us or greater to us in power is humaniod. God? Humanoid. Satan? Humaniod. Kuthulu? Generally depicted as humaniod. Honestly the only exception to this idea is the angels in the bibel, like the cherubim and seraphim. Which at least one of them is a munch of rings with eyes and also wings.

Anywho, where was i? Oh yea, lines.

Nobody's perfect. Even in a computer world. Pixels are made of lights, which blend together and create gradents which are imperfect. Imputs are rounded. Time is rounded into frames. Fundamentally we are out of sinc with the universe. We round the numbers to the place we care about, putting a blind eye to those things.

Yet dont they add up? I mean in some cases yea, they do. Clocks become slow or fast. Heck even the official weight of a gram has changed. The object that was used to measure a gram actually ended up decaying enough that it messed up the official weight.

Dont even get me started on pi and natural e. Apparently (and i dont know for sure on this) but engineers round those numbers to 3. Like that is just messed up. That will actually, and legitimately fuck up a building or anything else.

Humans are truly odd creatures. Did you know that the current understanding of why we want to closely touch and even harm/kill cute and adorable things and even have the epression "i could eat you up... etc." Is beause we cannot process that emotion and so to relieve ourselves we want to rid the world of its existence? Its freakin wild honestly. We cant process something so we kill it. Itsnt that something just so specifically human?

Humans have such a thirst for knowledge, and yet also a fear of it. Consider comparing people like stalin and hitler and even the church, who burned and banned knoledge, to librarians who kept that knowledge.

Consider the eletric universe theory. Something that goes contrary to the current model of physics, but also works better in some areas. According to that, the sun wasnt always our sun, and also we were originally orbiting a red sun. Something totally wild to think about, but also makes sense. Like why ancient peoples kept talking about a red sun, and venus as a comet. It also states the idea that we didnt always have seasons, and that has something to do with why plants bloom when under red lights. I honestly dont know as much as i would like about this part to explain it better, but oh well.

We have this need to put everything in order, to have perfection. We just want to be the best we can. Specifically better than everyone else. And even if that means killing, harming, or demeaning others. Only if we are on the top, we will be alright.

--- Intermission---

... i just want to mention that i have no degree in this shit and also no sources bc im too lazy and tired to look up that shit. Also, when i say "human" really i can only speak generally. I know for a fact that some peopld break the mold to certain extents n stuff, i just wanted to streamline it a little bit.

---Intermission over---

Our obsession with being the best has led us to ome conclusion. However, that conclusion is contradictory to the question asked. To become the best, we have to work with others. Because "if i cant be the best, then nobody can.". And boom, we got society n shit. We start working together to hunt amd gather, and generally be nice people. Because loosing someone means lossing another source of food.

But im getting off the point. This isnt supposed to be a history of humanity. Everyone already knows that story. Humans started planting things, created towns, created cities, fought eachother and died a lot. Eventually enslaved eachother and finally decided that was a bad thing, even thoug not everyone in the world agrees. Now there's god, and politics, and school, and problems.

But what caused all of this? What was the catylist? What was the starting factor? Can the reason people fight today be traced back to the first accidental killing of a brother like cain and able? Or is it somethig totally recent. Is the reason we have society because two ancient homo sapien families merged? Or was it something else? Why do we wear clothes? Theyrs little to no reason except in the winter. Especially if we started in africa or Australia. I have no anwsers for these questions.

But dont let the past decide who you are. Theres a reason we have memories. Its to improve yourself. We are constantly at a crossroads. Even if you dont realize it.

You can physically do anything. Humans are scary crazy. If you just put enough minds to it, literally anything is possible. Sending someone to space? Yep. Being able to kill all life on the planet? Yep. Be able to eat uncooked broccoli? Definitely. There are of course some holes in that last statement. Like you cant physically eat the planet in 30 seconds, or (at least right now) cant change the way you think about cheeze puffs. Doesnt mean that cant change in the future. But at the moment.

The future is scary too. Genetic engeneering, designer babies, and pollution is all on the horizon. The only thing stopping is it ouselves and maybe god.

If you could ask an animal what god it believes in, what would it say? Is such an easy question for theologians to brush aside. (Not that ive asked one) i can just imagine them quickly responding "animals cant think dumbass" or "animals dont have souls" or "animals arent made in the image and likeness of god". Those are nice anwsers and all, but they dont anwser the question. I asked what god does your pet dog believe in, not why doesnt my dog tell be about every time zeus boned some village girl and how that gives them the right to bone me too.

Thank you for listening to my insane ramblings about the human condition, lines, and other weird stuff i have no sources for. I want to mention that most of this stuff is probably fallacies, but this was never meant to be taken seriously or coherent anyways.

[comicteaparty]

May 25th, 2017 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party chat that occurred on May 25th, 2017, from 5PM - 7PM PST.  The chat focused on There’s No Such Thing as Jason - I.T. by Phenylketonurics.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

Good day everyone~! This week’s Comic Tea Party is now officially beginning. This week we are discussing There’s No Such Thing as Jason - I.T. by Phenylketonurics ~! (https://tapas.io/series/Theres-No-Such-Thing-as-Jason----IT) As CTP is brand-new, please allow me a brief moment to elaborate how the chats are formatted a bit in more detail than I will do for other chats (i.e. prepare for wall of text). The discussions are mostly meant to be freeform, so you can bring up whatever topic you would like about the comic. That being said, in order to help foster discussion, every 30 minutes I’m going to drop in a question. These questions are TOTALLY OPTIONAL, so if you have no interest in answering them, that is perfectly fine; you are welcome to ignore the questions completely. It’s simply going to be there to help those who need a bit of prompting to get into the discussion. As I’ve mentioned in other places, constructive criticism is allowed, please just be sure to be respectful towards the work. Keep in mind you’re also not obligated to give criticism. The goal of these chats is to have fun, talk about comics, and grow as a community. So please discuss what you wish. Since this is the first chat, I also want to mention this chat is free to drop-in and drop-out. If you can’t stay the full two hours, then that’s perfectly fine. Stay as long as you would like~! Tl;dr: Freeform discussions, but OPTIONAL questions will be dropped in every 30 mins. Ignore if it pleases you and have fun.

With that said, let us begin with this first question~!

QUESTION 1. What is your favorite scene in the comic so far and why?

DracoPlato

1. The scene where the antenna was coming out of Dim really stuck with me visually as well as from a shock value so that's probably my favorite atm.

RebelVampire

ah yeah that was a really standout scene. with a lot of wtf value.

AngelicEmpyress

Oh my gosh favorite scene

that's a tough one

i think the scene where we first see view and jason as two different people

that was a big what wut? to me

loads of wth value XD

DracoPlato

definitely!

RebelVampire

haha for me i sadly dont remember that scene as well. not cause it wasnt powerful but because my mind was already blown and swirling with what exactly is going on with jason's identiy stuff

AngelicEmpyress

lol i STILL don't know what's going on and i read it twice XD

DracoPlato

hmmm like did sten create a game and is somehow merging it with the "real" world

AngelicEmpyress

oh and i loved the scene when jason is outside and suddenly puts his hood on and his eyes go red and hes like "im not jason"

RebelVampire

ah yeah that was a really great image

i really liked the color contrasts in it

DracoPlato

oh Pheny's art is gorgeous, so many scenes stick with me because of the lighting and colors and panel layouts they use

AngelicEmpyress

yes!

the hair

all the hair

RebelVampire

picking a favorite scene is hard. i think im going to go with the flashback scene of where jason and dim meet. mostly cause i think jason is adorable and i think it gives better insight into what his original personality is.

DracoPlato

haha young jason is adorable

AngelicEmpyress

lol lil jason doesn't seem too different from now jason in so many ways

DracoPlato

i like his iced tip hair reminiscent of the 90s

AngelicEmpyress

Lol

DracoPlato

Pheeeeeny~!!

Phenylketonurics

YO! Oh, it's so exciting to see what some of the favourite scenes are, rock on! ICED TIP HAIR YES!!

AngelicEmpyress

hey there!

DracoPlato

My bro totally had that look going on when he was a teen, lol

AngelicEmpyress

Hahaha

Phenylketonurics

Hello hello~!! THANK YOU so much for being here, aa~

RebelVampire

glad you could make it~!

AngelicEmpyress

oh mah goodness your art is so awesome

Phenylketonurics

And yeah, the whole split in seeing Jason versus View, establishing that these are indeed two different "people" is one of my favourite scenes in the comic as well (I'm so happy for the kind words, wow, mega gobs of gratitude!)

THANK YOU EMPYRESS!!

AngelicEmpyress

and the story is a real page turner especially since thrillers are a genre i normally dont touch with a 10 ft pole

Phenylketonurics

Oh wow, that is a huge compliment then, dang! I'll admit, thrillers are also something I'm weary of -- they're tricky to follow!

DracoPlato

true! It's not usually my genre of choice either, but I just love how thought provoking Jason is

AngelicEmpyress

but i like the 'try to put the pieces together youself'

DracoPlato

yeah!

It's more thought provoking than any other comic i've read

AngelicEmpyress

though i will say this...in your descriptions, when you say "this connects to such and such page" it would be better if you say the episode... since you can't track the actual pages easy in tapas

Phenylketonurics

YES!! Oh man, I hoped so hardcore that it could be approached with the reader's perspective, the reader's ideas in highlight -- THAT is the key to figuring things out.

AngelicEmpyress

so i had a tough time maneuvering back and forth

DracoPlato

oh that's a good point AE!

cosmographia

hey hey hi sorry here I am!! :D/

AngelicEmpyress

hi there!

DracoPlato

Hiiii Cosmo~!!

Phenylketonurics

!!! AE YES! That would be way better, thank you so much. YO COSMO!!

cosmographia

EY!!

Phenylketonurics

Stoked to see you here, aa~!!

cosmographia

Stoked to BE here, so glad people have received it so well!! (cuz I agree with all of this, the comic is phenomenal!)

AngelicEmpyress

also...i feel jason's pain with that noise... i have mesophonia so it would probably drive me completely insane XD

Phenylketonurics

SO MUCH KINDNESS from killer rad creators, wow, I'm on high for the rest of the year, man. Mesophonia is something I am fascinated with, wow, no one talks about that!! RAD.

AngelicEmpyress

really?

no one i met had ever heard of it XD

RebelVampire

ah yeah i empathize with jason's pain noise as well. mostly because my ears are sensitive to cpu hums because ever since i got sick one time, ive been able to pick up the frequency of when its switching to different activity states and it took me like weeks at first to block out the annoyance of it and it drove me quite bananas. could barely even sleep.

AngelicEmpyress

i can hear that too Rebel

DracoPlato

oh wow

cosmographia

oh wow

AngelicEmpyress

least jason handles it better than me XD

Phenylketonurics

The effects of one's sensitivity to the frequencies of such auditory signals is definitely something Jason's dealing with, oh man, this is MAJORLY awesome you know about it firsthand.

cosmographia

yea I've had experiences like that too there's this weird white noise that comes from this one supermarket here and I've asked my family if they hear it and they've said they haven't. And it HURTS. I HATE going to that store hahah <"D

AngelicEmpyress

the ones that are key to me send me into ultimate rage and I cant concentrate on ANYTHING

cosmographia

oh! 80

AngelicEmpyress

i have to wear headphones all day at work because of it

RebelVampire

jason is handling it better than me too. for a week i wore my mom's insulated headphone things that ppl wear when theyre doing loud hardware stuff.

Phenylketonurics

Right, exactly! It's a very physical experience even if it's invisible -- Jason's just starting to re-experience the auditory assault. In one flashback, we see it causes him pretty severe headaches. ;o;

(it in conjunction with the whole video game programme test, aah(

cosmographia

-nod nod-

ngl for like...a LONG time I kept denying that all of this was actually happening (in the comic I mean hahaha)

Phenylketonurics

BUT YES, the whole idea behind Jason as it started was that I wanted people to bring their personal experiences with anomalies and troubled memories forward, inject them side-by-side with Jason's experience.

cosmographia

it wasn't till the recent updates I started taking the experiences more seriously, or more like...ACTUALLY happening, I thought they were psychological projections

now i'm like "WHAT" (with the most recent updates from last month to now)

Phenylketonurics

SEE!! yeah, I really hoped it would migrate from being psychological as in "not happening" to psychological and "VERY MUCH HAPPENING"

AngelicEmpyress

oh i like how Dim and Day look visually different in the past vs the present...i love that detail

RebelVampire

ah its a few mins early but this is a good time to drop in the next question XDXD

QUESTION 2. The comic deals with a lot of themes of perception, perspective, psychology and more. In other words, things aren’t quite what they seem. What in the story are you sure is “real” and what are you sure isn’t “real?” Is there anyone you trust in the story for an objective viewpoint into the events?

Phenylketonurics

oh cool cool, AE, I'm so happy to hear that, thank you!!!

cosmographia

YEP it was a punch to the face (metaphorical and in this case welcoming )

Itrustnoone.

AngelicEmpyress

omg...

i have no idea what is real or not yet XD

i still dont know what the heck is going on XDDDD

cosmographia

Phen keeps pulling the rug from the reader's feet

Phenylketonurics

Hahah! There's A LOT in the air right now, too, haha^^

That rug just tosses everything around!

cosmographia

in a GOOD way mind you!

it's like "-snap fingers- Ya got me again hahahahawhatishappening"

OH YEA def!

AngelicEmpyress

im sure that jason has feelings for Day... i think >.> then again even that is questionable at times

RebelVampire

i feel like the comic could have the assassins creed slogan underneath. about how nothing is true, everything is permitted.

AngelicEmpyress

Lol

cosmographia

seems to me like a co-dependency relationship as in any feelings are just a need for validation turned into romantic attraction

AngelicEmpyress

ah i can see that

Phenylketonurics

AE -- YOU ZOOMED RIGHT IN on a really big part of interplay that feeds on Jason -- View is mixed in definitely but like Cosmo said, co-dependency is an element to how this thing manifests.

Superjustinbros

WHOAH THE MAN HIMSELF APPEARED!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

cosmographia

:U!

AngelicEmpyress

lol super

Superjustinbros

HEY PHENY!!!

:DDDD

AngelicEmpyress

i know...we are in the presence of The MAN! XD

Superjustinbros

Sorry if I'm a bit late ^^;;

cosmographia

that being said, even if the situation is so out there, the characters are SO belivable and their reasoning/actions to how this is happening is relatable and understandable

RebelVampire

i feel like the entire comics begs the question of our definition of reality. like, even if these things are happening in Jason's head, are they any less real than things other ppl experience subjectively

Superjustinbros

I agree with that so hard

The characters of this story are written so well

cosmographia

yep!

DracoPlato

yeah i feel that too

Superjustinbros

Plus with the timeskips and flashbacks changing how they look as mentioned before(edited)

And I really feel like I can connect with Jason on a spiritual level of sorts

since me and him actually have quite a bit it common, especially with how lifelike the story gets

Like, without some of the heavier sci-fi elements like the antennas, I'd say this could all very well happen IRL

but if it did happen I wouldn't want an antenna on my head zapping me while I'm trying to do stuff

AngelicEmpyress

lol

zaps super =p

Superjustinbros

is zapped

cosmographia

yea I can definitely see how it's relatable in such a way

this one scene of Jason desperately trying to get an answer out of Dim (sorry forgot the page number) hit way too close to home haha

Superjustinbros

And it's super rare for me to treat a fictional character as someone like myself

So that alone is quite an accomplishment

AngelicEmpyress

wow yeah

cosmographia

damn! Yea

Phenylketonurics

(sorry sorry, wifi I'm using is a nightmare since I'm in a weird area, aaa! VIEW GO AWAY)

Superjustinbros

GET OUT VIEW

AngelicEmpyress

lol!

Superjustinbros

DON'T VIEW THE VIEW

DracoPlato

gdi View

SirDelta God King of Mecha

oh crap i missed the beginig, sorry whats going on

AngelicEmpyress

lol

gah i love that hair

and so much emotion in the eyes

even for just circles

DracoPlato

pheny's art is amaaaaazing~!

so much love

AngelicEmpyress

yus!

SirDelta God King of Mecha

i admit, not too big a fan of the red hair

Superjustinbros

He looks like such a goof too when he's not trying to plot something sinister

AngelicEmpyress

LOL

DracoPlato

don't trust him, he's evil

Superjustinbros

I even got sharp fangs like him

SirDelta God King of Mecha

but isn't he always sinister

Phenylketonurics

EXCELLENTE!! I'm extremely excited to hear that the characters are believable, too! Even if red hair is not a good thing, hahah^^

Superjustinbros

lol

brb never trusting my characters with red hair ever

RebelVampire

delta why you gotta hate the red?

AngelicEmpyress

red is my favorite color

SirDelta God King of Mecha

its not thats its a bad thing, i just don't like the style and color combo gonig on there(edited)

Phenylketonurics

The play on reality of being like... this question in and of itself is another slant that I DEEPLY enjoy seeing people's take on. Yeah, View's hair is something of Jason's past -- he doesn't like it either!

Superjustinbros

lol

So many possible ideas for what would happen

Phenylketonurics

Exactly!

Superjustinbros

if Jason and View started having a serious conversation between each other

RebelVampire

i think i like young jason's hair the best. so spunky yet so cute. i think compared to his older self theres something that capture youthful naivete

DracoPlato

I like the black hair best but I like all the varities

Phenylketonurics

Rebel has it right on, aa!!! I'm just over the moon that you can read that characters' milestone ages so well, thank you!!

Phenylketonurics

Hair itself has a history of being a strong definition of one's identity (culturally speaking)... so I definitely take that into consideration with Jason! He's constantly messing with his hair!

Superjustinbros

XD

cosmographia

nice!

SirDelta God King of Mecha

i see i see

Superjustinbros

That sounded more funny to me than it should've been

DracoPlato

to represent his ever changing self

Phenylketonurics

Yes! Either in denial of events or possibly even as an affirmation, to distance oneself from things that have happened.

Superjustinbros

That's cool~

Phenylketonurics

A LOT of physical cues like... eyes, hands and adornments thereof have roots in the "magic" of the body. It's all a little superstitious, hah^^

Superjustinbros

I like that! It's a great attention to detail~

Phenylketonurics

Thank you, aa!! I'm really glad to hear that you've been able to pick up on these things yourself, though, THAT is like... half my work done, haha^^

Superjustinbros

You're welcome! Don't think I've ever seen a story that has ever done that to such a great extend personally.

AngelicEmpyress

oh....hand....that little whatcha macallit

ffff

keychain?

Phenylketonurics

YES!

The keyring Dim has!

WELL... rings in general (abstracted in Jason's perspective as a goal in the game programme but it goes back to a literal silver ring, one that is held in hands~)

Phenylketonurics

eheheh^^

Superjustinbros

Realy this is all such a deep lore you got going on!

I love it.

And lots of attentions to keep an eye out on

SirDelta God King of Mecha

this is going eva levels of deep

Phenylketonurics

It's been 10+ years in writing, I really gotta make sure not to get excessive with it, yeah? X]

cosmographia

DAMN

Superjustinbros

XP

Phenylketonurics

I started it when I was 19!! I AM 31 NOW WHAT THE HECK

cosmographia

how much has the story changed since the initial idea? :0

AngelicEmpyress

lol i thought you were younger than that lol

Superjustinbros

LOL

DracoPlato

oh hey we're around the same age

AngelicEmpyress

Yup

Superjustinbros

I'm only 22

turning 23 pretty soon tho

AngelicEmpyress

Hehe

SirDelta God King of Mecha

you seems a lot more lively for someone that old than i expeted

Phenylketonurics

Not much, surprisingly! I started with There's No Such Thing as Jason, it's completely written, done. And... I wanted to take the story and expand upon what Jason meant (since the first focused pretty exclusively on View)

Superjustinbros

Aah, cool!

And I've been working on my stuff since I was,... 14? (at least my current stuff)(edited)

AngelicEmpyress

oh wow

cosmographia

cool tho!

I think my comic has gotten a few minor tweaks throughout the years but damn, keeping it like that for a DECADE -applause-

DracoPlato

that is impressive!

Superjustinbros

I've made so many tweaks to my concepts (and really I've bene conceptualising stuff for so long)

SirDelta God King of Mecha

where did the title of the comic from

cosmographia

good you're getting what you want, tho!

Phenylketonurics

MINOR TWEAKS ARE GOOD! It helps keep the narrative organic and fresh. TNSTAJ was a telling of something already very vague so... it was just a matter of style, haha^^

RebelVampire

ah ty delta. you are segwaying into the next question

Phenylketonurics

Oh! The title came from a line in the story!

Superjustinbros

And I have one other series that I retired that was a self-fic that lasted from 2001 (when I was only seven) to 2009(edited)

Phenylketonurics

WELL DANG! WAIT, there's a big change then.

There's No Such Thing as Jason was originally titled "What is Wrong"

Superjustinbros

XD "What's wrong, Jason?"

Phenylketonurics

Then in 2006, I finished writing and loved the line one of the characters says near the beginning, haha^

SirDelta God King of Mecha

i'm confused with the i.t. part at the end

AngelicEmpyress

information technology i would presume

DracoPlato

lol!

Phenylketonurics

The I.T. part gets added on as a sort of "volume 2"

DracoPlato

Jason are you okay

Superjustinbros

What would volume 3 be, then?

SirDelta God King of Mecha

volume 2?

Phenylketonurics

It's the I.T. side, the technical nitty gritty of what Jason is.

SirDelta God King of Mecha

ah ok

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. What do you think is the significance of the title as it relates to the story? Who is View? Who is Jason? Are they the same person, differing identities, or something else entirely?

Superjustinbros

Aye

AngelicEmpyress

i was right lol

Phenylketonurics

OH THIS QUESTION! W

cosmographia

I was JUST gonna ask about the IT thing I love the reasoning behind it <3

DracoPlato

There's no such thing as Jason

RebelVampire

draco no. youre grounded

AngelicEmpyress

i think view and jason are two parts to the same person and one is trying to overcome the other

DracoPlato

yeah i think that as well

or jason may be a computer program and view is a virus

AngelicEmpyress

oh i like that pov

Superjustinbros

If that wound up being the truth

the part of being "like a compute rprogram"

SirDelta God King of Mecha

from my understanding, i think at some point veiw and jason were the same person, than after some event jason was able to remain the domanit person and go on with his life leaving view in the back of his head just wating to get out and fuck up jasons life

AngelicEmpyress

i feel that view is something that was created for some purpose and is now out of hand

and Dim is kinda the 'ground' persay

DracoPlato

I think Sten created View in his experiments on Jason

AngelicEmpyress

Yes

SirDelta God King of Mecha

i forgot about those

Phenylketonurics

(I am sitting here grinning over every single bit of input, YOU GUYS ARE SO BLOODY SMART WHAT THE HECK MAN!!)

Superjustinbros

LOL

Superjustinbros

YO WE LEVELED UP TOGETHER

SirDelta God King of Mecha

oh cousre your smiling, were all here for your comic

Superjustinbros

Yup~

AngelicEmpyress

i was thinking about the lollipops being what kept view detained, and it kinda showed Dims whole purpose in it all

RebelVampire

maybe view is like the replication of an avatar in real life of some sort. it reminds me of a video i watched the other day about the movie perfect blue and how the movie is about how someone's avatar is something scripted and not the real person. so maybe sten tried to create an avatar that is reflected by the real person.

Superjustinbros

So Jason would be like

Phenylketonurics

Delta has a crazy good point about how people can be buried in the back of our minds and REALLY mess us up when thrust back into our lives -- which ties directly into what AE says about Dim -- his presence is absolutely crucial for Jason (and integral for View)

AngelicEmpyress

and i think Day is just using jason to study more about view

Superjustinbros

God dang I dunno how long I can keep up with thsi chat XD

AngelicEmpyress

Lol

Superjustinbros

It's just all over the palce rn XP

AngelicEmpyress

that's the fun part though super

Superjustinbros

(Also in part cause I have the AC set to low)

AngelicEmpyress

you know how every electrical thing has to be ground or else itd go haywire...there you go view and dim

Superjustinbros

Yeah

SirDelta God King of Mecha

i feel like the jason necklace that he gave day was ment to be some kind of restrictor on view

AngelicEmpyress

but i think Dim is slowly growing tired of his 'job' and fromt hat View is slowly slipping out of grasp

Phenylketonurics

Oh man, YES, electricity!! The electrostatic involved with radio frequencies, a physical output of what happens at a mico-level, yes! The necklace is a definite "controller" of sorts, being something that View is quite focused on whenever he talks with the other characters.

Superjustinbros

HOW COULD I HAVE FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE NECKLACE XO

AngelicEmpyress

Lol

DracoPlato

I didn't forget

cosmographia

ooh

Phenylketonurics

Oh man, noticing Dim's exhaustion~ He's in a job position that... seems to contradict his history with "fiddly little technical things"

SirDelta God King of Mecha

and now its on day and its fucking up her life so it makes me thing it was specily made for Jason

AngelicEmpyress

i dont know...the line "this metal was never meant for you" i'm not too sure

DracoPlato

my wonder is if any of it is real or if there's another reality outside of the one they exist in

SirDelta God King of Mecha

i coud be wrong, i did binge read it last week

RebelVampire

idk i think day has some issues and doesnt need the necklace to bring havoc in her life. cause i mean dont think the necklace has anything to do with the toxic work environment she clearly has.

Phenylketonurics

Ohoho, Day versus Dim with the necklace and the grades of metal that Jason/View have physiological responses to is massive.

DracoPlato

day definitely has some issues i think, haha

AngelicEmpyress

Lol

SirDelta God King of Mecha

everyone in this comic has issues

Phenylketonurics

Draco!! YES, in conversation with Day, Qress (Dim's sister) mentions reality as being a fun little game to play with, yeah!!

AngelicEmpyress

though we havent touched on what jason's older brother has in all this

DracoPlato

yeeees~ she did

Superjustinbros

Lol

AngelicEmpyress

i think out of all of them, he's the only one on the ground of reality

i think anyway

Superjustinbros

(Apologies if I'm not active much atm, there's other stuff I want to get to)(edited)

DracoPlato

I think sten and jason's brother are most aware of what reality is

AngelicEmpyress

Yes

SirDelta God King of Mecha

well what is reality really, its just how we percive it who knows maybe the others see the "real" reality(edited)

Phenylketonurics

Bringing Sten in (Dim's brother) was so difficult, I hoped so much that it would be interesting and not simply break that reality (since yes, reality is dependent on perspective which is often very much skewed!)

RebelVampire

i think bringing in sten actually vastly added a new hand to the table so to speak about what reality. cause things i assumed werent real suddenly were.

SirDelta God King of Mecha

oh yay, existentialism

AngelicEmpyress

i think the only time it was broken for me was with Qress... her scenes just seemed to happen outside of everything else and almost felt it didn't belong

Phenylketonurics

Existentialists, just hold your finger up to any argument and say, "but what's the point" X] BUT NO, no, hopefully I can steer clear of that kinda thing. Qress is heavy, oh my gosh, I'm so glad you said that AE!

AngelicEmpyress

and its almost like after her scene, i forgot about her

cosmographia

I agree with what Rebel said about Sten

DracoPlato

yeah i do too

sten is a huge piece i think

SirDelta God King of Mecha

but whats the point (i had too)

RebelVampire

if i absolutely had to pick someone to trust in this story it would be Qress actually. i think Qress seems the most innocent party so far in what happened in the past. cause even jason's brother mentioned having an idea of what was going on.

DracoPlato

same

i want to see more of her

AngelicEmpyress

i think i trust the brother...i dont know why (cuz im weird)

DracoPlato

I trust no one until it's over

AngelicEmpyress

Lol

Phenylketonurics

IT IS SO GOOD to hear that Sten cemented the reality of the main three in place, heck yes, thank you!! The Qress and Day conversation was a tiny little fragment of establishing their relationship, REALLY hope to expand upon that!

SirDelta God King of Mecha

i don't trust anyone is this comic, too many fucked up people

its just layers of counter manipulation

cosmographia

yea like...without him dropping answers, he GAVE a lot of answers or rather some leads to grasp on till more clues emerge

AngelicEmpyress

its all Stens fault x3

DracoPlato

#BlameSten

SirDelta God King of Mecha

i'm just gonna blame view

that seems like a safe bet

RebelVampire

AH! i trusted jason's brother some until this scene

https://tapas.io/episode/551271

DracoPlato

i feel like sten is responsible for view tho

RebelVampire

and then i went trust no one

AngelicEmpyress

i think view is only trying to create a reality for himself unmanipulated...even if he goes aobut it the wrong way lol

Phenylketonurics

It is such a power play, the manipulation of information -- something of a hornet's nest gone mad at times.

THAT IS A GOOD POINT YO!! AH! I am so excited that you brought that up, dang!

SirDelta God King of Mecha

Brb

DracoPlato

ah yeah i remember that with jason's brother

Tyle

Phenylketonurics

Tyle's weak point is his very short temper.

SirDelta God King of Mecha

i thought that was the wierdist nickname

DracoPlato

haha i had to double check cause i thought his name was Ty

AngelicEmpyress

im kinda reminded of Johnny 5 when i think of View

DracoPlato

omg, me too

SirDelta God King of Mecha

it just seems so odd to call him tyle

Phenylketonurics

(Tyle for Tyler, heh, nicknames can be a fun mask to wear, yeah?)

DracoPlato

Ooooooooooooooooooh

that makes more sense

I am super bad with names btw

Phenylketonurics

haha, no me too!!!

RebelVampire

his name is actually tyler!? my life is a lie

DracoPlato

actually i love that pheny mentions the names so often in artist's comments

that's super helpful

Phenylketonurics

thank you draco, aaa!! I always make sure to list people, I am awful at names everywhere. It's humiliating.

RebelVampire

yeah that is. i say this from doing reviews and always double checking name spellings. sometimes its a pain when i have to search a billion pages to find a single name drop :"D

DracoPlato

yeah I started trying to do it more cause of pheny and mappy doing it i think

Phenylketonurics

Right?! You go back like 40 pages and still get the name wrong because it's vague who's referencing who??

Need a hover-over option, put your mouse over the character in question and the name pops up, hah!

DracoPlato

omg that'd be awesome

character pages are great too

RebelVampire

yeah i really like when ppl have websites with cast pages

it makes life 1000 times easier

Phenylketonurics

khyatix HAS AN INCREDIBLE character profile page set oh my gooossh

AngelicEmpyress

hehe yus

DracoPlato

oooooh no no no it's terrible

the one for zenchav

the one for OoO is decent

Phenylketonurics

IT IS NOT! The one for zenchav is my favourite waaaitt!!

DracoPlato

omg it's so bad, i need to redo it

RebelVampire

QUESTION 4. The story, in so far, has hinted that Jason was subjected to some sort of “experiment” in the past. What do you think the goal of the experiment was, and what was it doing to Jason exactly? Or, alternatively, do you think it’s all in everyone’s heads?

DracoPlato

Do you mean this one http://khyatix.com/zenchav/profiles.shtml Or this one? http://khyatix.com/zenchavooo/profiles.shtml

cosmographia

whether or not the experiment is real, it's clear that Jason was manipulated and kinda emotionally abused by the older gang so ū-ū

DracoPlato

The idea of perspective was brought up in relation to reality, so a lot of it may depend on who's perspective the story is really being seen from

SirDelta God King of Mecha

Back

DracoPlato

wb~!

Phenylketonurics

The first one! I LOVE THAT ONE, it's clean and has so much cool information included (everything necessary for referencing while making fanart, heh)! And whoa cosmo, you picked right up on the age play there -- seniority rules, yo.

DracoPlato

Ooooh, maybe i'll do more like that then, i thought they were kind of lame. But I couldn't do time specific ones for zenchav cause of the nature of the story

AngelicEmpyress

i actually have no idea

i sometimes think it really didn't have a goal...but it was just some fun experiment to see how far it could go

DracoPlato

okay so I think the experiment was tyle and sten dicking around creating a game and sten got power hungry and wanted to take it further

SirDelta God King of Mecha

sadly i don't remember those parts too well

DracoPlato

but initially maybe it was just as a to see if it can be done kind of thing

RebelVampire

my running theory is that it was specifically a psychological experiment on personality manipulation. in otherwords, the goal was to see if they could use a game to give someone an entirely different identity. thus view was born.

Phenylketonurics

Tying recounts of past events into present based on who's where (esp in relation to another character/their relationship status) has made the progress for the experimental game's purpose slow-going. but I love that there's so much potential/guessing-room for it.

AngelicEmpyress

oh wow i like that Rebel

DracoPlato

i do too, hahah

Phenylketonurics

Rebel, h'oh man, that is something HUGE to chew on and it's killing me! I love it!!

AngelicEmpyress

i hadn't made the connection with the game until tonight...had forgotten about that part

guess i focused more on the metal

DracoPlato

altho

dim was experimented on too it seems like

and it wasn't personality effecting so much

AngelicEmpyress

i think Dim was more the bracer...

like ok you two want to do this crazy thing ill make sure it doesn't get out of hand

SirDelta God King of Mecha

having two people experiment on someone is a bad idea

AngelicEmpyress

so he agreed to be experimented on

Superjustinbros

Very

SirDelta God King of Mecha

i mean two different experiments on one guy

RebelVampire

im unclear whether dim was experimented on or if they forged dim's name on the consent document so sten and them wouldnt get busted

in the sense that it shows dim as the experiment head instead of sten

Phenylketonurics

The ethical side of this experiment is clear, though, yeah? X]

DracoPlato

that it's unethical?

AngelicEmpyress

btw Rebel, I love these questions! i thought they'd be some generic each week questions but i love that these are tailored ot the story

Phenylketonurics

HAHA! IT IS CLEAR!

AngelicEmpyress

lol Draco

RebelVampire

oh good draco replied what i was thinking XD

and ty~! that was my intention is to have questions more tailored to the story. minus the first question which will probably repeat each week for sake of it being the first question and it letting ppl get their feet wet so to speak

Phenylketonurics

No for real, Rebel, these are such brilliant questions, humbled to the very core, yo. It is making me wanna answer with my all, hah!

AngelicEmpyress

hehe

that means phenny will be at other CTPs?

Phenylketonurics

YOU KNOW IT!!

SirDelta God King of Mecha

kinda makes so i can't wait for my comics day

cosmographia

yea man, the questions are A+ :D

AngelicEmpyress

YAY

Phenylketonurics

Delta, yes~!! I will so be there for your comic's day!

SirDelta God King of Mecha

Woo

AngelicEmpyress

ill be there too delta

SirDelta God King of Mecha

i think its in two weeks

any way we're getting stracked(edited)

AngelicEmpyress

i think the only scene that confused me...not as in what is going on in general...but more i never followed what happened was the game night scene

the description was like "day knows what happened and we do too" and im like i have no idea what happened

Phenylketonurics

THE GAME NIGHT SCENE, AA. That was one I had a lot of people tell me they were too confused over.

RebelVampire

if i understood the game scene correctly

AngelicEmpyress

i think i read it like 4 times before i gave up lol

SirDelta God King of Mecha

i don't even remember this scene

RebelVampire

jason hallucinated sten and they were actually talking to a different person?

SirDelta God King of Mecha

oh that one

AngelicEmpyress

but i thought view set it up but then he didn’t

SirDelta God King of Mecha

it seemed like view did it

Phenylketonurics

Yes! So... Jason was supposedly invited to a floor mate's game night party.

SirDelta God King of Mecha

i remember now

DracoPlato

oh yeah that did confuse me too

SirDelta God King of Mecha

its fine

i just thought of that as view fucking with jasons life

AngelicEmpyress

but then they got there and no one knew what was going on?

i thought the game night was at jason's

yeah total confusion

RebelVampire

it was at a differnt jason's

DracoPlato

Sten already playing a game with Jason

SirDelta God King of Mecha

other Jason

RebelVampire

someone who lived in the building whose name also be jason

or something like that

AngelicEmpyress

Lol

RebelVampire

the point being is i think jason was never invited but view lied to day and said they were invited

which is why when they got there the person said "i didnt invite you."

DracoPlato

jason, you have no friends

because there's no such thing as Jason

SirDelta God King of Mecha

name drop bomb

BOOOOOOM

RebelVampire

jason is a figment of everyone's imagination including ours

AngelicEmpyress

lol draco

RebelVampire

i took that thought too far in my head. now have headache

SirDelta God King of Mecha

I MIUST FIGURE OUT THE TRUTH THEN(edited)

DracoPlato

too many reflections in the mirror

Phenylketonurics

Yes! Earlier in the week, when Day and Jason were going to his dorm, do you remember the elevator scene? And them rushing to his room as someone called to talk to him? Right here>> https://tapas.io/episode/301105

AngelicEmpyress

Yeah

SirDelta God King of Mecha

yeah, other Jason

Phenylketonurics

There's a few little things that have yet to happen that will loop as a recurring moment from this scene. BUT YO, yeah, somatic experience ended up giving Jason a pretty harsh memory of Sten that he tried to resolve in present time.

It could be noted that Jason being aware of JASON and his memory super-imposing Sten over that name as a bit trippy.

ALL WHILE HAPPENING ON GAME NIGHT.

video games, ouch, hah^^

SirDelta God King of Mecha

jesus these people need to see a therapist

DracoPlato

lolol

that is intense though

i should reread that part

AngelicEmpyress

we shouldn't play video games XDDD

SirDelta God King of Mecha

but there so much fun

DracoPlato

it's okay, I don't

SirDelta God King of Mecha

you play the sims

cosmographia

hahahah

Phenylketonurics

THE SIMS IS CRUCIAL.

SirDelta God King of Mecha

...i know it(edited)

DracoPlato

I know right

sims is the best

SirDelta God King of Mecha

Ehh

DracoPlato

gotta make all my characters

damon gotta impregnate everyone

SirDelta God King of Mecha

were getting side tracked again

Phenylketonurics

I still put Sims music on while I'm working on background art.

AngelicEmpyress

sometimes it just makes you want to give jason a hug x3

DracoPlato

omg XD listening to sims music

RebelVampire

the plot twist of theres no such thing as jason is that its just a game of sims that jason is playing

AngelicEmpyress

lol

yus

DracoPlato

Ommmmmg

SirDelta God King of Mecha

view is just jason actully intervining in the game

Phenylketonurics

Jason has had not a very good experience with adults in his life -- crossing the threshold into adulthood might be wearing on his nerves, though! Sims adulthood is so much easier, ahha^^

DracoPlato

does jason have peter pan syndrome

SirDelta God King of Mecha

the fuck is that

DracoPlato

where you don't want to grow up and want to stay a kid forever

SirDelta God King of Mecha

Oh

AngelicEmpyress

Lol

SirDelta God King of Mecha

shoulda guessed

DracoPlato

i mean it's either that or the other thing

RebelVampire

to be fair, with the amount of emotional trauma jason suffered, he perhaps missed some key development points while growing up

DracoPlato

yeah i do feel like jason is off developmentally

AngelicEmpyress

True

SirDelta God King of Mecha

yeah...

that boy is fucked

Phenylketonurics

HOHO, Jason 's perspective on age not yet addressed, I am looking forward to this. His anxiety stems from just what you've been noticing though, yes. Fear of the unknown!

DracoPlato

you and me both Jason

SirDelta God King of Mecha

so...human nature

cosmographia

ay Jason...

Phenylketonurics

Haha, HUBRIS!

cosmographia

but yea that's a good point, he may have missed key developments due to trauma

DracoPlato

but is jason even human

cause he could just be AI

SirDelta God King of Mecha

and view could be a glitch then

SirDelta God King of Mecha

a terrible glitch

AngelicEmpyress

so many possibilities

Phenylketonurics

The problem though is that memory being shifty and undependable makes advancing beyond that fear even worse (view glitch is a freaking killer concept dang)

AngelicEmpyress

lol would be funny is view as he is trying to make the reality accidentally glitched himself

cosmographia

-nod- and confidence issues can effectively make someone far easier to manipulate

so you can just tell Jason "remember when you __" and with enough convincing, he'd most likely believe it?

SirDelta God King of Mecha

buts a little manipulator too

everyone is

cosmographia

oh yea def

but Jason could be a reactive manipulator as in, it's just what seems to work for everyone else toward him so he's projecting what works

SirDelta God King of Mecha

its just layers and layers of manipulation and counter manipulation

cosmographia

yea

RebelVampire

Unfortunately, the scheduled Comic Tea Party is now complete~! Thank you everyone so much for joining this first chat~! We are happy to have had you all here~! That being said, if you would like to continue discussing the comic, we encourage you to do so~! We want to give a big thank you to Phenylketonurics, as well, for volunteering There’s No Such Thing as Jason - I.T. for our reading queue. If you liked the comic, please be sure to support Phenylketonurics’ efforts. If you have questions, concerns, or suggestions about CTP, please feel free to PM me, or e-mail me at rebelvampire@startfaire.com. As CTP is new, we are going to tweak things here or there, but we’ll be sure to let you know of any changes.

With that said, next week’s Comic Tea Party will focus on Psychteria by CalimonGraal. Please use this week to read as much of the comic as you would like. Hope to see you next Thursday (June 1st) from 5PM to 7PM PST~! Until then~! Comic: https://tapas.io/series/Psychteria

[spellyjane]

Splash, Hammer, Meh, Yay! Chatty 70.3 RR

I was heading into Chattanooga 70.3 with no taper and a month after IM Texas. My coach and I fit in a bit of speed work but it has been a bit of an adjustment. They are such different races. I have been in Ironman mode since last September. Sounds like a good excuse for a wussy day right!? It isn’t, I had a cracking day, it just did not play out the way I planned it.

My team mate / mate Alex and I hit the road loaded with bikes, coffee and enthusiasm for the long drive from Chicago to Tennessee. Even with a delicious lunch stop in funky Nashville we made good time and arrived in time for race check in.

I am probably never going to be in charge of booking race accommodation again. The Days Inn was truly hideous, truly. But it was walking distance to the race start, it had a bed and a lamp, so some may say it was perfect.

We met up with my race mate Jeff for dinner at a pub on the main street. He had flown in earlier from Denver and was there on a mission to claim a 70.3 WC slot. We had an early dinner so that Alex could go and pick up his wife Theresa from the airport.

So our weekend gang of Alex, Theresa, Jeff and I assembled for breakfast at the Frothy Monkey next door to the Chattanooga ChooChoo hotel. There was a lot of good eating that went on this weekend. We planned our day and got moving.

A little recon ride showed the worst part of the course, the suburban streets were cracked and potholed but brightly marked with orange tape. It hardly seemed possible while we were sweating buckets at the unsheltered 3pm athlete briefing, but the weather forecast for race day was for thunder storms and a 100% chance of rain. After hearing the few key bits we needed to know, we staggered back to our rooms for a pre dinner rest and heat stroke recovery. I must say, those athlete briefings are important BUT sitting us out in the sun for an hour is counter-intuitive. What a crock of shit that weather forecast turned out to be, but at that stage it was a significant concern for all of us.

As we wandered up the street to meet Jeff at the restaurant he reserved for our pre race dinner, we saw formally attired people coming and going from what was obviously our destination. I was lucky to have had the sense of occasion to add a pair of loafers to my shorts and shirt combo but really that is as fancy as my race travel wardrobe goes. We arrived quite under-dressed but clearly oozing enough confidence and our blue athlete wrist bands to carry it off. No spaghetti and red sauce to be found anywhere on the menu we endured with soup with lobster, sorghum buttered bread and some sort of tree fern sprouts. I have eaten pre race fish tacos in mexico, schnitzel in Austria and quinoa in Calgary and know that this pre race dinner in Chatty will be just as memorable!

As we dined the heavens descended and the forecast epic weather arrived violently. We stared out the window of the restaurant all dreading our trip back to our hotel let alone the race the next day. I don’t mind swimming and running in rain but riding my bike in heavy rain is just plain scary. I was thinking about the numerous man hole covers and the road conditions I had seen earlier that day. All I wanted at that stage was a safe race, to not crash my bike or be struck by lightning. I was committed to racing, after all I had to burn off all the calories I had just consumed!

Before bed I pottered around got all my transition gear into plastic bags and just got myself into rain racing mode. I pictured my whole day wet and soggy but killing it anyway. My husband sent me some words of encouragement and I was in bed by 10, I managed an ok sleep. I was up at 4am to see a dry parking lot and low cloud cover. Whoa, I was immediately elated!

I met Jeff on a dark corner near my hotel and we walked up to the race together. He was his usual quiet pre race self, perhaps a little more so because I know he was really wanting a good race and a slot.

I got myself ready, went and found Alex near his bike, he is a special breed of chilled out, after letting some of his vibe rub off on me, I told him I would see him near the swim start, and I went off to collect Jeff for the shuttle bus to the swim start. He was not as chilled. He was staring at me with scary evil possessed eyes. I was horrified until I figured out it was not actually directed at me but the member of his nemesis tri team who had racked his bike next to Jeff’s.

We caught the bus to the swim start, and wandered down to the sub 30 min swim time area. (I was anticipating a sub 30 min swim given the river current.) Alex found us and we chatted away nervously while we waited. Actually I chatted away… Still no sign of rain but the deluge the night before had an impact on the current in the river. They had sent the pros off on the original course, swimming 300m up stream, turning, swimming 100m across then the remaining 1600m downstream. But it was evident that the current was too strong for us mortal age groupers so to the cheers and hurrahs of the crowd around me, they cut the up stream portion. I wasnt saying boo, but I certainly was not thrilled to be doing the short swim. So without the upstream portion we just had a mad 1300m sprint downstream. I got that into my head straight away. Don’t hold back I thought, just get in and go hard.

The rolling start works well when people self seed properly. But oh man of course they don’t. I started with Jeff, Alex putting himself a few mins back waved us off as we stepped over the timing mats and took off. I lost Jeff within a minute. I was pushing. I was breathing every other stroke for most of the way. I was swimming over the top of a lot of people.

I found the step and hauled myself up and headed off to the wet suit strippers. I made the climb up the steep ramp into T1 to Theresa’s cheers. I donned my gear and headed out. Jeff teased me about not wearing bike shoes in transition as he caught me just before the bike mount line, dammit, he may just have a point. Anyway we took off within seconds of each other but he was out of my sight very quickly.

I was feeling super. My plan was to hit watts that would give me an IF of about .82-.83 (Intensity factor, a fraction of normalised power over my functional threshold power, I am talking about dosing my effort based on my known maximum average watts for a 1hr effort, or something like that) The problem was that the rolling hills on the course were causing a lot of bunching. In order to keep clear of other riders and avoid drafting I was pushing up the hills and when ever I found myself caught up in any bunches. I was finding that as I was coming into the back of a slower rider’s draft zone and beginning to over take that another rider would come up into my draft zone to overtake me, but then we would hit a hill and everyone would slow down, I could tell who the hell was overtaking who, it was a nightmare, in the end I just felt the best thing to do was to get well away of it all. I channeled my Team INTENT Tuesday afternoon hammer-time mojo and went nuts. I vaguely recall passing some poor guy on the side of the road having a mechanical as I headed up the steepest climb, turned out that was Jeff fixing his dropped chain. I finally got some clear road as I hit the easiest part of the course. I rode past a flock of big black birds sitting in the grass on the side of the road, apparently they were vultures, they were scary looking ugly things. A bad sign? Not for me, they were there for the female pro I was gaining on.

Jeff came up and passed me with about 5k to go, shortly after that Alex was there. It was amazing that of all the almost 2500 people racing, that I would be lined up behind those 2 right at the finish. Neither was pulling away from me too fast so I caught up, I giggled as I passed Jeff and finished ahead of him. My IF ended up being .85, not ridiculous but not particularly smart given the hilly run course to come.

We all took off into T2. I was on my way out when I realised I still had a top on that I did not want, the awesome volunteer helped me get it off and dropped it back at my bike while Jeff ran past me laughing. Jeff, Alex and I all hit the run course within 30s of each other. They were gone and I was already feeling that my effort on the bike was going to make this a bit of an ugly run. Spectathlete Theresa was ready with a super smile and cheer as I ran by her at least 3 times out on the run course. I could see Alex and Jeff running together for a bit, they both looked great and I was super jealous that I did not have the legs to keep up. It was hilly and there were lots of U turns but it was a great run course. The aid stations were fantastic. I was not holding a pace I needed to hit 1:40, but I sure as heck was not going to let 1:45 slide by. I watched as a girl with a strong run and a “45” inked on her calf cruised by me with about 8k to go. Oh darn, had no hope of matching her pace, but still in decent shape and not completely falling apart I kicked on and managed a not so terrible run after a killer bike and a hilly run course.

I high fived Jeff and Alex and gave Theresa a sweaty kiss at the finish. All of us were happy. Alex finished 20th in the insanely stacked men’s 30-34 AG, Jeff came 8th in his 50-54 AG both very happy with their performances.

I was 3rd in my 45-49 AG with a 4:31. I can’t call this a 70.3 PR because the swim was cut short by 700m, but it was my fastest bike run combo ever. It was not executed the way I planned but when I look at the data and past performances, it really was one of my best days out. I had a smoking fast bike split of 2:24 which was 5th female overall, including the pros, my run was mediocre at 1:43, but over all a very fast day.

After the world’s most refreshing beer we headed down to the insanely hot river front to attend the award ceremony and slot allocation. Alex and Theresa escaped after awards but Jeff and I stayed. He was fairly certain, that he had a slot but it really was not till they called his name that he breathed again. I was holding my breath too. There was a lot of joy!

I passed on my slot because I already picked it up in Racine last year but was thrilled to see it roll down to a girl sitting right by me, again more joy!

Post race dinner at fab Chattanooga find, Urban Stack, was followed by ice cream thick shakes. We happily all fare welled Jeff before wobbling back to our skank hotel.

Alex, Theresa and I drove home via awesome food in Nashville, we sung a little John Denver, read and chatted, they were such great company all weekend.

I send my huge love and thanks to Simon for his support.

I send more huge love and thanks to my coach Rick Schopp, yeah, I am respectable on the bike these days, thanks for getting me there.

Next stop, cheering on my boys this weekend at their 1st triathlon. Lookout Brownlees.

[incube8malawi-blog]

10 REASONS WHY I DONT #BUYMALAWIAN

1. QUALITY: Lets face it, we’re simply just not there yet when it comes to quality but dont get me wrong, i have seen a lot of quality products from Malawi but honestly speaking, the majority of our products would not cut it across the border. Let me put this into perspective for you. In 1999, when i was 5 years old, the blue and red packaged Universal tomato flavoured crisps were my life, i mean i would have gladly had them for breakfast, brunch, mid-lunch, pre-supper, after supper and in bed. If i wasnt thinking about food i was eating it and in the process adding to my then 26Kgs (an average 5 year old weighs about 19Kgs). Fast foward, 15 years later in 2014, now 20 years old and Universal are struggling to compete with, and I’m assuming here, wrinkly old ladies from Njolomole village in Ntcheu for the mantle of best crisps manufacturer in the land. Its simply a shame that the standards in Malawi seem to be in a never ending freefall. Don’t get me started with SOBO and their diluted pineapple flavoured squash antics. #BringBackOurCocopina !

2. PRICES: For some strange reason, we are expected to pay more money for less quality. Am i really the only one who sees that this math does not add up. So because raw materials are expensive, taxes are absurdly high, cheap transport in non existent, and there is no noteworthy infrastructure at all, the producer is forced to share the cost of production with the consumer, i understand the economics but doesn’t mean i have to personally pay for it especially if the alternative is offering more quality for less money.

3. PROMOTION: or may i saw lack of it. Malawians have a phobia, its called Marketing. Either the seller wont appeal to the buyer well enough (lack of creativity or just not enough money allocated to promoting the brand) or the buyer wont respond to the seller (typical Malawian mindsets are hard to change) either way we have a difficult time promoting our brands. Take this for example, lets call it the curious case of Kazuza. The name? All i can say is it sounds like torture to me! I have seen more billboards of this drink than i have actual bottles in retail shops. Compare that to Frozy, no adsmor promotion was even needed just pure quality in a bottle. Kazuza Vs Frozy wasnt even a bout, Kazuza was Maywether in his prime and Frozy was Tyson on a bad day, with a blind fold on and both hands tied behind his back, with a bias SOBO employed referee (the Malawi Bureau of Starndards) and the Tyson like Frozy still managed to knock out their opponent and continues to take on all challengers. #FrozysBack

4. PACKAGING: One of the biggest problem we have as an economy is that we don’t manufacture enough, instead we opt to export raw materials at cheaper prices. Value addition is not rocket science and if it we’re we would need another name for the things thats enable objects such as planes and spaceships to fly. Two very simple local examples of how value addition is being made possible in Malawi. I’m bias so i left out the billion dollar funded mega companies in favour of the real entrepreneurial stories that have taken our hearts and minds. Malambe Juice in 2008 for me was found in those then K10 packets i used to get with my friend Hannock at a corner house in Area 47 Sector 4, keep in mind i lived in Area 36 then. Then i discovered Khati Khati and wow, its testament to how good this drink really is when multitudes have tried and failed to replicate it with cheap knockoffs. When i thought it couldn’t get better, it just got rebranded and is looking like something we can actually export, the plus being that there were no cocopina related incidents here. The second is Mulanje Peak Tomato Sauce, gosh i loved this stuff. I remember complaining about having to take Heinz to school (before they banned sauce smh #IWentToAPrisonCamp #KalibuAcademy) just because we couldnt find any in stores, and trust me we looked. It was just about the thickness and the raw taste that made it seem like they never put in any additives that i couldn’t get enough of. While Khati Khati Malambe Juice continues to break barriers, Mulanje Peak seems to have peaked way too quick.

5. ME 2 PRODUCTS: What is it abot “innovation” that we dont seem to understand. Making an already existing product such as Whatsapp for Malawians does not make it an innovation and if the case of Me2 Khati Khatis, imagine my disappointment when i walked into a shop and we not only managed to bootleg Southern Bottlers Orange Squash but Kamba too, seriously people, bootleg Kamba for goodness sake have some pride.

6. INTEGRITY: If cashgate has taught me anything it is this, we are not to be trusted, with anything. Did you hear of the rumours that some Chinese butchers are serving up dog meat as beef. Imagine that and see if you will ever trust another butcher again. Add that to the numerous testimonies of ex employees who have told stories of their employees cutting corners of procedures with potentially deadly consequences.

7. PRESTIGE: Kips Pizza (probably not the most Malawian thing i could think of but hey) Vs Debonneirs Pizza. Forget about the quality or price for a minute and tell me which is more prestigious to you. Foreign products, no matter how dull they are or low profile they are jn their country of origin become instantly more prestigous than their local counterparts when they enter the country. Think of Bata as an established Malawian company then think of all those foreign competitors, mostly bootleg copycats from China being sold in Limbe, Devil Street and Blantyre Market that still manage to persuade you the consumer that your money is better off spent on them than a local brand. Why? I bet most of it is down to prestige. Something Bata simply doesn’t have as much of.

8. MINDSET: The matter of prestige aside. No matter how well exposed of Malawi and its numerous products i get, i still get that nagging feeling convincing me that Malawian products are no good. Given the choice between an equally priced, branded and heck possibly even the same quality Product A (foreign) and Product B (local), logic would detect that my safest bet would be to choose A. I know you agree. If you don’t what would you do and be honest?

9. THE GOVERNMENT: It’s no secret that the Malawi Government sold its soul to the __________ (insert country here) devil. The most damming of which is the Chinese devil, that not only controls all our noteworthy infrastructure but also seems to deem our country as their personal dump site for their unwanted products. It has been said countless times that in order to boost our industries we must protect our producers from foreign competition, you know, the guys that are offering you usually more for less money. What industry have the Chinese not taken over, they own it all and with it our country.

10. THE CAMPAIGN: This isn’t even about the horrible branding and promotion but simply the outright propaganda. I simply don’t appreciate patriotism being shoved down my throat especially if its wrapped in so much s#!+. The logo is s#!+, the promotion is s#!+, the radio ads are a special type of s#!+ and we have already talked about the majority of the products they are promoting being extra s#!+. Instead of forcing me to buy a Malawian product seemingly out of the goodness of my heart and not because it is the logical thing to do, why doesnt the Government through the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Malawi Bureau of Standards talk less and do more about supporting producers to produce superior value added products that can be readily exported. If that were the case i wouldnt need to consume a foreign product again, which gets me thinking, is it possible to go even a single day without consuming a single foreign product. Think about it and get back to me with exactly what these Malawian products you would be consuming could be. Only rule being that you shouldnt be starving yourself because you cant find a local substitute good for quality mayonnaise, simply put go through the day as you would any other, simply replacing what i assume is the majority of foreign goods with local substitutes.

Those were my 10 reasons why I DON’T #BuyMalawian, comment below and let us know what yours are.