#i say about literal ecoterrorists

[soni-dragon]

i’ve been playing a lot of animal crossing lately

[ronanlynchdefender]

The political stances of The Raven Cycle characters are so fascinating to me. You got Blue over here who is very much a progressive activist in the making. She recognizes things like misogyny and is not afraid to call those things out even when it concerns her closest friends. Because of that, I definitely see her as the type of activist who would be in the front lines at protests whether that be at the Capitol, college campuses, at the border, or as is the case in the dreamer trilogy, tied to a tree. She is the type of person who demands change in our current system and would demand it loudly and through acts of protest or civil disobedience.

Then you have Adam who displays no strong desire to change the system and whose only desire is to rise up in that system. He wants to climb the social ladder and assimilate to those of higher social status which is partially why he envies Gansey so much in the beginning because Gansey was born into it. Adam still tries to do this in the dreamer trilogy by essentially pretending to be a Gansey-like figure while at Harvard despite hating it. Eventually, Adam gives up on trying to belong within this higher social class and "climbing the ladder" but then strangely enough becomes a fed, which means just integrating into another form of hierarchy and power structure. And I feel like a more interesting arc would've been rejecting being a part of these societal systems altogether.

Which I suppose now leads us to Ronan who is a literal anarchist. He actually rejects all societal systems and rules and it permeates every aspect of his life. But actually, I shouldn't say all because there is one societal institution which he does enjoy partaking in: religion. With the exception of his catholicism, he does not engage in any other societal institution: education, law, politics. He hates it, in fact, It is antithetical to his being which is what makes his characterization so perfect because of course a gay farmer god would hate oppressive rules and structures (except for religion). That's not even mentioning that he is a canonical ecoterrorist that cost the US government a billion dollars. But what is really interesting about his character (and where his and Blue's political stances differ) is that because he rejects these systems he has no interest or stake in changing them. He'd sooner tear down the system than try to reform it.

And then there’s Gansey who doesn't seem to engage in politics and would rather spend his days reading his little Welsh books and going on his fun adventures. Of course, he is able to do this largely because he has the privilege to not worry about politics or social class. It seems that Blue's influence changes this as they are both chaining themselves to trees in protest during the dreamer trilogy. Other than that, I don't really have a lot to say about Gansey and his politics. But I find it very interesting that Maggie has created this close-knit group of characters with such varying relationships to how they view politics and social structures. I tried to draw out a 2-axis grid to show their differences, but I don't know if it really works because I feel like Gansey kinda screws it up but nevertheless I like how they each represent different ends of a spectrum sort of.

[daemonmage]

I keep thinking about this AU where Bruce just stays in college and becomes a doctor but still gets dragged into the superhero world.

Ok so Bruce is a doctor and is known for never turning down a patient because he’s still Bruce and he just doesn’t want anyone to die. He still lives in Gotham which is still a horrible place. He still tries to help Gotham by donating and creating his Wayne foundation but it’s hard because the inherent corruption in Gotham hinders anything he does this way.

The mob is still super active in Gotham and a lot of Batman’s rogues still happen because a lot of his rogues just happen with or without Batman. Poison Ivy still becomes an ecoterrorist. Penguin still becomes a powerful mob boss. Mad Hatter is still just the worst. Tommy probably still tries to kill Bruce. Just so many of Gotham’s rogues still exist, except there is no hero to stop them in Gotham. People try, but Gotham is never kind to any hero. Bruce is immensely frustrated by all this but he can’t really do anything. Hell sometimes Lesly’s clinic (cause I feel like he would work there) gets harassed and extorted to help heal mob members and crime wars. He hates this a lot but he’s trapped. He doesn’t have Batman training or gear, the best he can do is help where he can.

However there are still other heroes in this world and Superman is literally just a quick flight away. The JL forms without a Batman and they see Gotham as a powder keg. So they try to help when they can and sometimes they get injured. It comes to a head when a Metropolis (Lex Luthor specifically) and some Gotham rogues team up to get rid of the main hero pain in their necks. Lex creates kryptonite bullets and disperses them to the Gotham rogues to use. Lex sees this as a win because he can get Superman killed without doing much and the Gotham rogues see this as a win cause they have a big weapon against Superman.

So Superman gets shot at with kryptonite bullets. They aren’t the best so they hurt him but only one really makes it through and hits his skin. He has to call in back up and the JL comes to help. I can image Wonder Woman or Flash getting there first. They have no idea what to do because holy shit Superman was shot. That shouldn’t happen! But they’ve heard of this doctor in Gotham that’s supposed to be really good. Maybe Oliver or Dinah suggest Bruce idk. So they take Superman to Dr. Bruce Wayne.

Dr. Bruce Wayne is at his manor with Alfred and a young Dick Grayson (because I firmly believe Bruce would still adopt the kids) and then there is a knock on the door. Alfred goes to answer and in barges the Justice League with a bleeding Superman. Bruce is immediately on his feet barking orders to the JL to get equipment he can use and telling Dick and Alfred to stay back. He doesn’t know what’s going on or how freaking Superman is bleeding out in front of him but he doesn’t care. Bruce realizes quickly that the bullet is cause Clark more pain so it can’t be a leave the bullet in there scenario. He gets the bullet out and asks the JL how to help Clark heal. They say sunlight helps but this is Gotham! It’s polluted and over cast all the time, he won’t be able to get enough sunlight. Bruce remembers a sunlamp they have from a science experiment for Dick. He tells Dick to go get it and they pray that it works. It does by some miracle, though it’s no substitute for actual sunlight.

The League is grateful for Bruce and Clark is also immensely grateful cause holy shit he got shot. The Justice League has to now figure out how these bullets got out in the first place and well Bruce can’t help but be nosy so he mentions that a few of his patients, the mob ones, let it slip that the higher ups got into contact with someone in metropolis and Bruce knows Lex hates Superman. So he helps them out a bit too.

And after that any time they need help with some medical issue they go to super doctor Bruce. He’s also still Bruce and can’t ignore his detective brain so he helps them with mysteries too from time to time. Idk I feel like this still needs more fleshing out but I think it could be funny. Or sad. Or both.

[stupidjewishwhiteboy]

Random anime, summarized badly (stolen from my Facebook Memories):

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas: a movie that contains absolutely no cannibals, zombies, etc.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: teen angst, with giant robots

FLCL: tween angst, with robots of various sizes that burst out of the main character's head in ways that might remind the viewer of other things going on in a tween's body

Gurren Lagann: We don't have time for teen angst in our increasingly growing robot anime, it's about to get MANLY

Promare: like Gurren Lagann, with gay firefighters

Kill La Kill: Wearing clothing is fascist, join the nudist anarchist rebellion!

Fire Force: Takes the term "fire fighter" rather more literally than usual

Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl: Well, I suppose there are *weirder* ways of getting free gender reassignment surgery

Ouran High School Host Club: It's about teenage prostitution! Sorta. Not really.

Cowboy Bebop: episode antagonists include Kareem Abdul-Jabbar from "Game of Death," Cruella DeVille as an ecoterrorist, a senile old guy who likes to play chess, The Unabomber with a teddy bear theme, a bored computer with an interest in pre-Columbian South American art, Marshall Applewhite as an online avatar and Baron Harkonnen if he was also the Joker.

Outlaw Star: one episode revolves around an alien cactus who uses its mental powers to force people to eat inferior ice cream.

Trigun: why don't more shows involve insurance agents trying to deal with the fallout of your typical shonen action nonsense?

Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Just because a critter is cute and says he can turn you into Sailor Moon doesn't mean you should trust him

Welcome to the NHK: even if both you and all of your friends are genuinely messed up toxic people, hanging out together is still probably better than not

Genshiken: If you have ever self-identified as a nerd, geek, or similar term, you either know multiple people who will remind you of characters in the show, or you ARE one of the characters in this show

Shirobako: boy, making anime sure is stressful and hard!

[autistichalsin]

So here's a hot take.

I see a lot of people saying that it would be fun to have a way to make Halsin worse. And I agree that it would totally be cool to be able to corrupt Halsin!

However, I don't think his canon arc would make the most sense leading to the Shadow Druids. Those are the tiny hints Larian dropped, yeah- the Shadow Druids being sent by Ketheric to corrupt the Grove to make them less of a threat against him, the Shadow Druids noting they are going to Baldur's Gate next, Halsin's brief moment of doubt that they were right. And a lot of other media love playing the ecoterrorist angle. So I can see why it's where a lot of people's minds go.

But from a characterization standpoint, I can't see it. Halsin dealt with the Shadow Curse for over 100 years. It cursed his home, and his childhood best friend who was the physical embodiment of nature. If he survived literally 100 years of darkness without being particularly moved to join the Shadow Druids, I just don't see how the sufferings of Baldur's Gate would push him into it. Those are much less personal stakes.

So, if we were to get a darker Halsin route, I would propose one of two things;

1. Introduce a failure state for act 2 that doesn't result in Halsin staying behind in the Shadowlands.

The easiest thought is that maybe doing part of the quest but not finishing it would result in him staying behind, seeing that there is hope to break it now, while doing nothing makes him think he's no closer to solving it than he was before, so things are unlikely to deteriorate while he goes with the player to solve the Absolute crisis.

Or if we wanted to make it REALLY awful, make it possible for Thaniel and/or Oliver to actually die, breaking Halsin's heart completely in the process. With his friend gone for good, his last hope gone, and with the Dead Three to blame directly, Halsin could become clouded by grief. Maybe it makes his story mirror Ketheric's in a sad way; Ketheric lost Isobel and became a monster, Halsin loses Thaniel and, while not becoming a monster per se, takes a darker, extremist path to avenging him, vowing to let nature reclaim Baldur's Gate in his memory.

Basically, what I'm getting at here is that there's nothing personal enough in Baldur's Gate proper to inspire such a radical shift. Canon, as it is, lets us see his momentary temptation and go "yeah makes sense" but there needed to be far more if I was going to buy his transformation to a Shadow Druid. This would provide that deep pain that cults are so good at preying on.

2. Similar to the above, but pushing it back to act 1. Make it so that the Grove raid, instead of being triggered by the player directly, can also be triggered by inaction; maybe once the player speaks to Minthara/frees Sazza, a timer starts for long rests, and at the conclusion, if the leaders aren't killed, the goblin leaders show up at the Grove. Halsin being freed already lets him fight on your side to stop them, while Halsin still being a captive lets the raid complete.

Similar to the above, Halsin's rage and grief at the defilement of nature then drives him into it. At first he just seeks out revenge, but later, after seeing the Shadow Curse and having those particular wounds opened back up (this one could proceed the same as canon) he gets pushed into something more methodical.

Shadow Druid Halsin could be a lot of fun IMO, but we would need something more than we have to establish a motive. Seeing sadness in a city for the first time wouldn't be enough to cause Halsin to drop every principle he has about nature being a balancing act between good and evil, darkness and light, order and chaos. For him to be pushed so firmly to an anti-society view, he would need to witness something far worse. So those are the two scenarios I can think of that would give just the little push, the sense of personal, direct harm, that would cause Halsin's morals to shift so drastically.

[outletcrash]

My poison ivy! I'm extremely proud of this. backstory under the cut :)

its been in the back of my head that ivy is indian since forever. i literally have no clue why its just There. she's tamil specifically, because i have favoritism regarding the script its written with.. it tickles my brain...

anyways heres my Poison Ivy: Origins comic i made last night in like 3 hours.

(theres a section here on her early life and the backstory of her parents that im still workshopping. basically she was a bastard child that only her mom supported and they left for gotham)

Bhavani got a job as an accountant for a law firm on recommendation from an uncle who had a company that worked in Gotham (he was kinder to the pair). She was always gifted in math. Bhavani raised her daughter the best way she knew how, even without the support of her family. 

Pamela (now nicknamed Ivy due to multiple kids misreading her last name as Ivy. And she was very nature-focused even as a kid, digging in the dirt and identifying different kinds of trees using books she got at the Gotham Library with her mother) excelled in school, surpassing most of her peers. The pursuit of knowledge was the one thing she enjoyed. Her classmates were sticky and loud and irritating, and when she wasn’t ignoring them she was tying their shoelaces together as revenge for talking too loud during quiet time. She managed to make just enough casual friends to not worry her mother too deeply, but this was the start of a downward spiral.

She lost friends, and not many could take on the effort of befriending her. She lost herself in biology, the study of life. Especially plants and conservation. Plants were just so… simple, compared to human society. But their structures and functions and genetics were fascinating. She skipped grades to take higher-level classes on genetics. Her grades were phenomenal but her social skills were extremely underdeveloped. Not like Ivy cared. Humans were a plague on this earth, pumping the atmosphere with CO2 and poisoning rivers and cutting down forests. In her mind, they did nothing but harm the serenity of nature she so cherished. 

After graduating with a PHD and doctorate, she got a job as a genetic engineer. She studied alternative ways to help regrow ecosystems after deforestation. Her Gotham University coworkers were wary around Ivy. She was a woman none of them knew anything about, who would say ecoterrorist-aligned comments offhandedly the few times she ever spoke. 

Ivy was working on a genetically engineered plant on the day of the accident. It was designed to nurture plant species by sending chemical signals, and it took in energy through waste products left by deforestation and manufacturing. At least, in theory. 

Ivy was working all alone in the lab at 2am. She hadn’t slept for hours, she was so close to her breakthrough. She was so close to making those billionaire bastards pay for what they did to the earth. She wasn’t wearing proper safety equipment nor using proper containment procedures during the incident. And as such, she was infected. The plant didn’t just take in waste material, it took in living flesh. Ivy’s cells were transformed in a gruesome fashion, her entire genetic code was re-written as it spread through her body. Her skin was green and her lab coat was bloody. Her newly-red hair flowed behind her as she escaped the lab, running through university grounds. Each footstep brought grass and dandelions cracking through the concrete in full bloom. Trees and grass grew to get closer to her, reaching for her. 

Ivys powers were completely out of control. She was crying and hyperventilating as her mind was warped. It had given her a need for flesh. When she made it to Robinson park, she couldn’t overcome the primal instinct. Plants still crawling at her ankles, and she killed a squirrel with her bare hands and ate it raw. This only fueled her fractured mind to want more. Ivy's first ever murder was a pedestrian, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He tried to flee when he saw a bloody green woman with a squirrel carcass in her mouth, but it was to no avail. He was strangled to death with poison ivy vines, and eaten. 

Finally, the primal instinct was satiated. Ivy escaped to a warehouse in the industrial district of Old Gotham. She tended to her injuries as best she could, soon discovering she had healing abilities. The injuries from her being torn apart had already mostly healed. She slept on an old couch, dreaming about what she could use these powers for. 

When the news broke on the mysterious and grisly death of a random pedestrian, the media was all over it. Since he was killed by poison ivy, and from security footage the culprit was seemingly a woman, the media dubbed her Poison Ivy. Many believed it wasn’t possible, and that the footage was faked, but the GCPD was stumped. 

Batman looked through the footage and, by process of elimination (matching the appearances of the scientists who had access to the laboratory, keycard scanners throughout that day and evening, as well as their known affiliations and potential criminal history. Two of them did deal weed but it was nonviolent and they didn’t match the woman in the tapes.) 

Dr. Pamela Iyer was the clear suspect. She matched the woman's appearance (besides the green skin and hair, she was a tall woman with long straight hair and a flat nose.) Batman interviewed her coworkers and found she had a history of being antisocial with eco terrorist beliefs. None of them knew where she lived, however. And when the bat interviewed her mother (the only person her coworkers had ever heard her speak to in a positive light) she was very concerned. Suspicious of Batman, clearly, but worried for her precious daughter's well being. She said that Pamela had always loved being near nature, and that she didn’t care for the quality of structure she had to stay in. But other than that, her mother couldn't help. She does bring out the intimidating motherly stare at Batman, making him promise to bring her daughter home safely. 

From here, Batman goes on a search. He prowls rooftops and streets and uses the grappling hook for fast travel. All while monitoring city-wide security cameras (thanks Alfred!) and paying attention to police radio. He stops muggings and thefts and helps get a cat out of a tree as he scans Old Gotham. 

He came to the conclusion Poison Ivy must be in Old Gotham due to damage on the Robinson Park Bridge, connecting Somerset with the southern island. The damage matched with what had been seen on the sidewalks and streets near the University and the scene of the crime. Dandelions and crabgrass taking the shape of human footprints, cracking through concrete. Batman notices some trees down a certain alleyway in the east streets are warped inwards. Very similar to the trees in the park and university. He follows the unusual growth pattern of the trees, like they were hands outstretching to reach a light source. 

There, he finds an old warehouse. He scales the building with a grappling hook, not wanting to be ambushed on the lower levels if he enters on the boarded up front door.  Entering through an old broken skylight, he finds what must've been a long abandoned drug dealer hideout covered in fresh blood. Very, very carefully, he examines the scene. But there's nobody there. She just got away, her blood on the rotting old sofa is still warm. He also notes three strands of long red hair, which he places in crime scene baggies for DNA analysis. 

His current theory is that the doctor was mutated by her own research. He read her notes and the plant she was experimenting with was extremely dangerous. And the security footage (before it cut out during what he believes was the time of the accident) showed her using improper safety equipment. 

He’s on patrol for hours, but can’t find any sign of her. 

That night, Bruce synthesizes a pesticide-like chemical that could prevent Ivy's powers. However, he talks to Alfred about how the plant would adapt to it almost like a bacteria, and that it might not be effective more than once. 

The next morning Bruce Wayne is scheduled for a charity event. Many rich people are there tied to a business venture Wayne was not aware of. The event was for funding for healthcare systems in Gotham. Little does he know, this is the exact place Ivy plans to attack. She’s hated the rich for years and many politicians and businessmen that support an amazon rainforest deforestation project are there. 

She interrupts their little charity event at a historical building in the financial district of old gotham with a surprise. Ivy broke into one of her old greenhouses at the university, taking small samples of extremely poisonous amazon rainforest plants with her. This happened quickly and silently while Bruce was still at the function. 

Ivy crashed through the large art-nouveau stained glass windows, supported by giant vines. She is lifted down the staircase like she was floating, more vines and deadly plants crawling in from the giant hole in the glass, moonlight from the full moon peeking through the clouds and illuminating her entrance. London Planetrees from around the building grow in front of doors, sealing all the possible exits. 

All of the rich and fancy people in dresses and suits meandering around the building are screaming and trying to run, which is when a mad-with-power Ivy releases her plants. 

They grow to gargantuan sizes in moments, releasing toxic spores and fumes and burning people's skin. Ivy finds the most heinous offenders of the rainforest bill and feeds them deadly plants by hand, graphic symptoms ensue. 

In the pandemonium, Bruce pulls out some tree facts about the flammability of a certain species, managing to throw a fire source directly at it as a diversion before escaping through a vent in the opposite wing of the hall. Alfred is already outside with the Batsuit, he brought it as soon as he learned of the attack. 

Bruce suits up and re-enters. It's a grueling and difficult battle, the most difficult he has fought so far. He manages to spray Ivy with the chemical, and she goes down, all the plants in the hall going still. The excessive toxic fumes suddenly go back to normal levels. Bruce uses an extremely strong tranquilizer on her, she’s still fighting to get up. Finally, Ivy is defeated.

Almost the whole charity gathering was injured in the attack with seven people dead and immense damage done to the structure of the historical hall. 

Ivy’s powers are sedated and she’s taken into police custody, where she is deemed insane. Half of the insanity conviction was her actual insanity and the other half was that Arkham is the only facility capable of holding her, especially since it’s located on an island. Batman agrees with Jim Gordon on this comment. 

Ivy didn’t say anything during her trial, silently glaring with little remorse. The physician diagnosed her with ASPD (which wasn’t right but it's on her legal documents.)

The comic ends with Ivy in Arkham, talking about the rich swine tearing apart the world, and how she finally has the power to stop them. How she can feel the mutation inside of her slowly winning against the sedative drugs, adapting and consuming the chemical to turn it into energy as it was designed to do. How she will return the world to ecologic harmony, with her own hands. It ends with her in the Arkham cafeteria, staring at a mysterious blonde prisoner a few tables across…

the writing isn't like, a fanfiction. its a guideline for a comic in a series of origins comics im planning. do not get your hopes up these'll be done in like, 10-20 years at my current speed. i have a scarecrow and riddler outline in the works, and plans for a batman, joker, harley quinn and probably a penguin comic eventually. and more villians. once i'm done with all the origins comics i'll be doing like, a regular batman series. just for fun yknow.

[alicepao13]

Hudson and Rex S03E04 - Under Pressure

And that is literally.

Charlie: *"casually" drops that he's a dive master because he thinks this will make him look cool* Sarah: *treats this information as teasing material* "So, are we talking higher or lower than a Jedi?"

He caught Covid, didn't he? Unless some writer got inspired by zoom meetings.

"Why don't you do that with groceries?" Oh, so it's not enough that he solves every case for you?

One more explosion.

Charlie having some trouble with the board. Rex is missing Jesse.

"Jesse I am not." "No, you are not." And then they flirt shamelessly.

Joe: "They were responsible for the bombing last year of the Canada Pipeline which successfully resulted in a 12-month delay of the project". Sarah: "Thank god". Joe: *exasperated look* Sarah: "That we're finally going after these hoodlums".

This scene is so funny because Joe is like, do I have an ecoterrorist supporter on my hands, while Charlie is just amused and somewhat proud.

Millennial shade. Tread lightly, Joe.

Rex just recognized someone's personal handwriting from the way they were dotting the "i"s. Everyone is fired. Rex takes over everyone's jobs.

Sarah: "You're getting pretty good at that". Charlie: "Yeah. Who needs Jesse?" More flirting.

Sarah: "And you can see how it's by a thermocline". Charlie: "Oh, am I expected to know what that means?" Even more flirting!

"Who needs a warrant when you have a Rex?" No, Charlie. We're trying to change our ways, Charlie.

You can call her a geek all you like but we know you're into that. Charlie is getting turned on by Sarah explaining scientific phenomena because that's less weird than him saying that Sarah is sexy when she's trying to intellectualize an irrational fear (S5).

So, this is about gun smuggling now?

"Please, kind sir, will you tell us what you know?" When everything fails, send in Rex with the puppy look.

"If I ever go full eco-terrorist, I am so working for Barry". Okay but you're currently at a precinct working for the police. Also, Charlie's open fish mouth reaction is hilarious.

The guns are coming from the US. That I can believe.

Time to dive!

"I'll be back". Famous last words.

Rex doesn't like this at all.

"Charlie's a dive master, I'm pretty sure he'll be perfectly fine". Unless another master is trying to murder him underwater.

I really thought he'd stabbed him the first time I watched. Sadly, no.

"Like hell I'm gonna sit there and listen to you about where Charlie should and shouldn't have been while my buddy is in trouble. Adios!"

No offense to Joe, but I'd have wanted Sarah on that. For maximum angst.

"I think you owe someone a trip to the butcher shop, get him a t-bone". He owes Rex a million t-bones at this point.

I've read a fanfiction in which Charlie gets the bends from surfacing too quickly, which is probably more realistic than what happens here. Fun whump stuff.

"You know when you left me to die down there, it was indescribable fear. Worst way to die. Only thing worse would be knowing I was going to be behind bars for the rest of my life because my plans were ruined by a dog."

We're getting deep into what I call Charlie-trauma episodes, by the way.

"I'm glad to see you alive". Instead of in the morgue, you mean. Why didn't she hug him? This episode is a failure. (Just kidding.)

I've watched the episode like fifty times and it's the first time I'm noticing Jesse's costume has a J? And of course Jesse would want to go to Comic Con. Let the nerd live.

Fun experiment: Show these screenshots without providing context to people and ask them what's happening in this scene. I'm sure the answers won't even come close to "she's trying to convince him to help clean up the ocean and he wants to hear her call him 'dive master'".

That was a lot of flirting. And some whump. Favorite ingredients for an episode. Featuring a very different Rex save.

[downwithpeople]

x-files roundup

young at heart: BAD. an episode that has a lot of good ideas but winds up being less than the sum of its parts. barnett should be a great creature feature antagonist, but he spends most of the episode literally hiding in shadows with his gross salamander arm kept out of view. he should have had his own delightful b-plot where he's going blind and killing people, but instead we get a lot of dull fbi procedural shit. it's just too boring to be worth watching.

E.B.E: GOOD. one of the strongest episodes of the season. it took us a little while to get there but besides the pilot, this is the first myth arc episode that felt like the writers really knew what they were doing. the atmosphere of paranoia is kicked up a notch and we get the most deep throat lines of any ep to date, though his answers raise just as many questions. scully's skepticism is nuanced, rational and grounded in a cautious pragmatism rather than a vapid contrarianism; once she finds the bug in her pen, she's more concerned about whether or not it's a good idea to kick the hornet's nest rather than questioning the existence of hornets. this is also the first lone gunmen appearance and they steal the scene right off the bat.

miracle man: BAD. an episode about faith that doesn't have anything interesting to say on the subject. samuel indisputably has real magic powers, but there's some half-hearted attempts to cast doubt on the idea. there's a corrupt southern sheriff and a corrupt southern preacher, but the real villain of the episode is a corrupt burn survivor with a walking aid in a reveal that is shockingly trite rather than shocking. mulder hallucinates his sister but as the series rolls on i expect i'm going to find all of the stuff surrounding samantha to be on the level of batman crying about his parents. the agents don't accomplish or learn anything and mulder just kind of throws his hands up at the end of the ep as if to say that's that. there's a great sequence during a sermon and we get some cool catholic scully dialogue.

shapes: BAD. this is the 90s so when native americans appear, we get the most magical ones. mulder is praised by a survivor of wounded knee for being an especially spiritual white man. this is an episode where he's also extremely unlikable, being all too eager to contravene tribal law to do autopsy on a wolfman. there's a bit of creature feature goodness but i just don't think werewolves are that cool; at least when werewolf the apocalypse was (is? i'm not gonna read the new books) extremely weird about native americans, it kind of went somewhere interesting. even without 2025 brain, this is another episode where the agents don't seem to really do anything and the whole mystery kind of self-destructs with little prompting. the good things about this episode: absolutely gorgeous shots of vancouver-as-montana, really great set design for the homes and businesses in the treygo reservation, great selection of first nations guest actors including my man michael horse. his sheriff character repeatedly shutting down mulder for trying to treat him like a tour guide is one of the few writing highlights of the ep.

darkness falls: GOOD. it's tense, it's scary, it's creepy. the horrible primeval fireflies are a toe dipped into more of a cosmic horror story, a force unleashed by accident through human greed that can't be comprehended. i mean, they do comprehend the little bastards, but it doesn't help them none. we get a strong supporting cast and some nasty scenes of people being entombed and eaten alive. we get another iteration of mulder and scully as the idealist/pragmatist, which is when they're always at their best. if i'm gonna deduct points for anything i think it's a real liberal ass episode. the logging companies are bad for destroying the environment, the ecoterrorists are bad for trying to save it and the only good and trustworthy people are the federal law enforcement in the middle of it.

tooms: GOOD. the guy so nice you see him twice! tooms kind of loses his impact for his second go around because the characters are just wise to his tricks; there's inherently less tension when the agents know what's up. what makes up for it is we get more time from tooms' POV and dough hitchinson does his damndest to make him so gross and scary that you can't fathom how anyone can be in the same room as him. we also get some great mulder/scully scenes, particularly the heartfelt conversation in the car. this is also an episode with big ramifications for the overarching plot despite being a MOTW ep. walter skinner makes his debut as the hard-headed assistant director. narratively, he's established as a threat, but he comes across as an eminently reasonable authority with genuine concern for the agents. we also get the cigarette smoking man talking, which i could frankly go without.

i really gotta pack

[blorbocedes]

13 and 24 please. Bring the drama blorbie!!!!!

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

'max verstappen's A+ plus parenting' I hate this tag so much. death to this tag. fandom does not know how to talk about abuse, parental relationships and any of that with the nuance it deserves. people who hate him use it as a punchline, people who love him (who use this tag in fics) try to define him by his trauma it's just blergh. i think Abu Dhabi 21 as well, is a can of rancidity

13. worst blorboficiation

i was gonna say seb just cause newer fandom's memory of him is shaped by aston martin years and his friendship with lewis and doesn't reflect his redbull and ferrari legacy of cuntism (see back: defanged) and that fandom propping him up as a leftist cycling ecoterrorist like he's always been that person not cause he stopped winning and remembered he had kids...... like my guy drove for shell and aramco for Yearssss 😭 (like this growth is welcome and people can change for the better, but it is also recent. my guy had a private redbull helicopter 😭)

BUT I think there's a worse offender... and that's what chirlies do to charles... the way he's described as tiny and petite and feminine in fics cause that's the dominant 2020 narrative when charles is literally Big And Broad 😭 the emo sad boyfication of charles (which charles does play into, he's savvy of his public image too), but some chirlies take it a step further and have swallowed their own predestined propaganda monaco I love you and somebody you'll love me back, ferrari catholicism the god piety worship Pope Francis WDC... and there comes this idea of a charles who is MISERABLE and SHACKLED to Ferrari in a Stockholm Syndrome and he can NEVER leave........ when charles is very much a ferrariboo and happy to be there. not to mention the fucking tragedy pornification of charles, the countless tiktok edits and saying he's filling out jules/his dad's dream etc like let him be his own person..... I think charles is so interesting but fandom will either make him both the greatest ferrari driver since schumie and also someone who apparently has No agency and is getting fucked over by his team, his teammate, his teammate's dad, etc etc...

[beevean]

I never understood why people praise Satam as the end-all be-all of Sonic media and gush about how dark it is. First off, the games (especially Sonic CD) handled the "Robotnik takes over and turns world into polluted hellhole with his machines" concept much better. Second it wasn't even all that dark. The games had darker moments like having an unarmed terminally ill child get gunned down like a damn dog on-screen, baby Chao being stomped to death and having Sonic's friends experience a "I have no mouth and I must scream" sensation of floating in a black limbo without a body, after being turned into fully conscious immobile statues. The robians were just mindless zombies. They got it easy.

Even Satams Robotnik was pretty lackluster. All he did was sit on his rotund rear end at hq and bark orders like a Screaming Dumbass. He even begged for his worthless life before a Canon foreigner villain . He literally kissed the ground while beggingm

Also he was a freaking dumbass for not using the robians as meat shields against sonic or using them as attack dogs since the freedom fighters wouldn't want to harm a former mobian that could very well be a loved one.

Also Satam Sonic was weak AF! Satam tails was weaker than a kitten!

Sorry, no point in coming to me to complain about SatAM because I never watched a single episode of it lmao.

To be fair, all the dark stuff you mentioned came after SatAM, and to this day Shadow's backstory and Gerald's diary are considered the darkest point of the games. (no such respect for my girl Tikal or the Time Eater's effects, sadly :( ). I can see how, superficially, people back then would be appealed by SatAM's grimdark nature contrasted with how bright the Classic games were. It's true however that CD was much more creative in its depiction of a world conquered by Eggman: we actually see how much he damaged the zones, from turning the lake in Palmtree Panic into a grey sludge, to mining down all the crystals in Quartz Quadrant, to defacing ancient ruins in Tidal Tempest. It's not just an endless sea of super scary buildings: the zones are corrupted, ruined, and it's all your fault for not stopping it. And, of course, the Good Futures show technology aiding nature instead, making Sonic CD possibly the earliest example of Solar Punk <3

I also personally really love Scrap Brain Act 1's aesthetic. Sonic 1 has a nature-urban progression, so you go from unspoiled Green Hill, to ruins overcome by nature (Marble Zone and Labyrinth), to a city with greenery (Spring Yard), to a city without any greenery but still pretty to look at (Star Light)... to an utter industral monstrosity, the ground completely made of metal and a sky turned orange from the sheer amount of pollution being emitted.

I also find brilliance in how Act 3 is a palette swap of Labyrinth Zone! Eggman has built his base over ancient ruins! He's dumping pollution in the water!

And a personal appreciated detail of mine is how the "good" ending of Sonic 1 8-bit is the power of the Chaos Emeralds cleansing the smoke surrounding South Island. Even in that little game, they made sure to include how much of an ecoterrorist Eggman is <3

Yeah sorry, I have nothing to say about SatAM. Maybe (maybe) one day I'll try to watch some episodes, but I'm not interested. I prefer to talk about the games :>

[thestalkerbunny]

So, my coworker at my Library Job only reads superhero comics and doesn't really TALK about much else and I don't understand ANYTHING he says-so now I'm making more supervillains.

Specifically, an actual therapist who works at the prison Super Villains are sent to and doesn't go full Harley Quinn, fucks and inmate and becomes a villain. And it went from me doodling the weird fucked up therapy sessions she has to give these guys to STRICTLY doodles of a problematic prison couple of an ocean based ecoterrorist and a literal cloud of pollution with an opinion.

Are their names more placeholders rather than creative puns? Yes. Are they unfortunately going to STICK? Yes.

[lacklusterhero747]

Building a Fabula World, Part 4

Enigmas and Mysteries In our next step the book asks, "What are the great enigmas and mysteries of the world? The questions left unanswered, and the truths that are now indistinguishable from legend?" Each person at the table is then asked to provide at least one mystery that they would like to explore during the campaign, or think would make the world more vibrant and interesting.

Marring the face of the desert of The Zlota Sovereignty is a thick swath of burning ground, a quarter of a mile across and burning a sickly greenish-gold. It's been burning for time immemorial. The sand near the burning has been turned to a greenish glass, but has melted so far down and is so tough it can't be mined. The black, oily goop that burns doesn't seem to have burned down at all, as though it's being replenished from the depths. No one knows when or how the burning began, or what the burning substance is, it's just always been and always will be.

Where do the divines come from? The Golden Path say they coalesced from the faith of the members at the time of the first prophet, but others theorize that they're something else. Perhaps even abominations forged by remnants from the war against the heavens. Who knows the truth? Only the highest members of the order…

About 75 years ago, a new form of tree seemingly sprung spontaneously into existence: the Meatloaf tree. It is a tree that, no matter how much you protest, grows fruits that are in fact literal meatloaves. They're pretty delicious, not gonna lie, but no one knows why the fuck this is happening.

Somewhere on the outskirts of The Alumen Dominion, there is an old, deserted mansion that is said to appear and disappear at random times and in random places within a rough geographical region. The house seems ancient and decadent, despite its disrepair, and anyone who enters the house never returns. No one has managed to investigate the phenomena directly, because the house seems to be resistant to being observed with any scholarly intent to discern its true purpose.

Somewhere, in a relatively unpopulated part of the wilderness, there is a cliff face that will periodically shift and change to look like the visage of some random person or creature. Sometimes it depicts a famous person, other times a relative nobody. Sometimes it even depicts species of animal that either no longer exist or never existed, and no one is sure why.

It is said that at the elemental center of the world, where the pulse of the world tree converges, there is a mystical valley, in which the font from which all magic as mortals know it flows. It is said to be guarded by the fey, but it is unknown if the fey are truly the font's guardians, or if the font simply produces as result of the outpouring of magical energy.

The world's second, smaller moon, depicts what appears to be the face of some creature on its dusty red surface. Some scholars who have studied the Precursors ruins claim that the world did not always have two moons, making its origins a mystery just as much as why it seems like the face on the moon is always watching.

How is the leader of The First Names--an extremist, ecoterrorist styled faction within The Folk--capable of seeming to constantly escape death, returning over and over again each time he is captured or vanquished.

More than anywhere else, I feel like this is where some of the particular brand of weirdness that has been cultivated within in our group really shone through.

A burning chasm of unknown origin, with an equal unknown fuel source (a reference to a game that particular player and I played in YEARS ago); a companion moon that seems to observe the world counterposed by an ever shifting cliff face that depicts unusual images; even a seemingly immortal leader of an extremist faction and some sort of haunted house that flickers in and out of reality.

And then, of course, there's a meatloaf tree. Honestly it just felt like we ought to let it ride, given how dark the rest of the campaign document had really become. A stupid inside joke just felt like a soothing balm.

Again though, plot hooks certainly abound. Stand out ideas like this world's particular vision of the Fey, and what they mean in the greater context of the setting, or the true nature of the Sovereignty's divines have really pushed my thoughts on what the plot might be in particular directions, but all of this has uses to be sure. Points of interest becoming nodes on a line that I intend to weave through the world.

All that's left now are the Threats.

[gacorley]

#I love how the game with multi-racial NPCs with randomized hair is a strong not recommended#but FFVII gets an informational despite being literally about ecoterrorism and said ecoterrorists are the good guys

Oh, I think I get that:

An allegory about climate change and fossil fuel depletion is fine, because conservative players miss allegories all the time. They'll just ignore it.

But violating their stereotypes about real world people is a big no-no. They must brook no suggestion that racial categories are constructed and variation is actually overlapping and continuous. It breaks their entire ideology.

(speculating anyway. Not saying they'll always be consistent.)

[telestictroublemaker]

I Fucking Love Woodsy Owl.

Now, I guarantee not many people under 30, especially ones who aren't American (hi @secondhand-lions) even know who Woodsy is. Unless you're a Louie Zong fan. We love Louie in this household. Those of you who do might see the "anarchist" part of my bio and say "I thought you hated the state! Why do you love a mascot created by the US Government?" And that is a very fair critique. One I will get to. But first, I need to explain who the hell this spoilation-hating strigid even is. More after the cut.

1970 was home to a second environmental movement in the US, and Smokey Bear (Who was created 26 years prior,) can only really do so much effectively. That so much is... one thing. Forest fires. Like sure, he can talk about other topics, but that's like hearing Chino Moreno sing about something that has nothing to do with sex. It's a neat bonus, but it's not quite as effective. Enter Woodsy Owl. Primarily created by Harold Bell, Glen Kovar, and Chuck Williams, he was the US Forest Service's response to their favourite bear being subjected to inhumane amounts of overtime and work far beyond his job description. (Because it seems that America violates the labour rights of animals just as much as humans.) Woodsy's focus wasn't on forest fires, but rather preventing pollution—an equally pressing issue. To that effect, he worked about as well as Smokey did. Which is to say, he was effective at teaching children the basics of the issue. Were it to end at that, he would be milquetoast and forgettable. The lesser half of an anthropomorphic park ranger pair. Smokey, but without the furry-bait. But, as few things do when it comes to governments, it is woefully not that simple. The impactful thing about Woodsy is not his life, but rather his death. 20 years after Woodsy's creation, a scientist for the US Fish and Wildlife service recommended a reduction in logging to help keep up the population of northern spotted owls. Unfortunately for the owls, the timber industry predicted a loss of thousands of jobs should those restrictions take place, more so if the species was listed as threatened. (Speaking of threatening, that's what it sounds like when the guys who employ loggers say that aforementioned loggers will be fired if environmental protections happen.) Obviously, the government sided with the timber industry. It's the American government, why would it not? To avoid controversy, Woodsy was temporarily retired and everything having to do with him was destroyed until unrecognizability. Namely, via fire. (Ironic, considering he's Smokey Bear's companion mascot.) They tried to bring him back later on with a complete redesign, but "bring him back" felt less like a return and more like an avian Weekend at Bernie's. That's why I like Woodsy. This silly little guy, this friend-shaped forest ranger, committed the original sin of sharing not even a genus, but a family with something that got in the way of profit. He was designed for environmental protection, and when he fulfilled his purpose so well it made the goals of soulless corporations even slightly inconvenient, he was literally burned at the figurative stake. Woodsy Owl is no longer a symbol of the state. Woodsy is a symbol of what the state does to its people, and its very land. What it would delight in doing, if an apparatus for the primordial meat-grinder that is capital could feel something as human as joy. Woodsy is a martyr for ecoterrorists everywhere. Don't you think it's time we Gave A Hoot?

[existentialsophism]

Vi from Arcane is a bad person.

Of course, she’s hot. So there’s a little bit that I think is forgiven. Hell I kinda want to look like her. But she’s objectively not a good person. And certainly an absolutely awful sister.

In season 2 act 3 we saw that her death during the explosion of Jayce’s hex crystals resulted in a unified Zaun, peaceful relations between Piltover and Zaun, and a mentally stable Powder with a healthy relationship, a steady job and the ability to pursue her passion of engineering. Now why did Vi dying as a kid result in this? There are a lot of reasons.

Mylo talked shit on Powder all the time. He did it to Vi in season 1 and a big reason she was so upset to the point of having multiple episodes was because of it. Had Vi died Mylo probably wouldn’t have been able to get away with that anymore, because Vander would have shut it down. Plus, he was a good brother, just a bit of a shithead (as most older brothers are), so he gave everyone shit because he thought it was sort of funny. He wouldn’t have done that if Powder had just lost the older sister she really looked up to, who was also the default leader of the group. Vander would have likely taken a more direct role in protecting the kids rather than letting Vi run things for the most part.

Since Vi had died in the explosion, Deckard would have either just straight up stolen everything or would have just not bothered because Vi led them to him to begin with. This would have resulted in Silco being unable to extract any meaningful information from him, and just getting a little richer or something.

Because Vi was dead, Piltover’s enforcers would have found her body and been able to have a culprit that would have put the city on ease rather than Vander having to deal with Marcus and Grayson. The rest of Zaun would have simply mourned Vi’s death, and though Silco was against Vander, he wasn’t entirely unfeeling and would likely have at least paused his experiments on Deckard, which would explain why he found Vander’s bunker in the mines with the apology letters to Silco. Sevika wouldn’t have betrayed him to Silco either as she wouldn’t view him as weak, but understandably mourning.

This probably would have prevented Vander from being captured, if anything Silco would have abandoned his shimmer experiments and made amends with Vander, which resulted in the timeline Heimerdinger and Ekko are transported by the hexcore anomaly.

If we stay in the original timeline Vi never goes out of her way to help Powder. The one time she does is when she tells her to stay home while they rescue Vander, but even then they likely all would have died anyways and Powder would still feel responsible, even if Silco wasn’t there to immediately fill the hole Vi and Vander left.

When Powder literally saves her life, Vi yells at her and calls her a Jinx, and keep in mind she’s like 9 or something, she doesn’t really understand much yet. Yelling at someone who did their best and failed is the exact opposite of what you should do in that situation and it pretty much was the turning point that created Jinx.

Moving on, when Vi gets out of prison and tries to find Jinx she is asked to choose between her and Caitlyn. I’m just as big of a girl lover as the next lesbian but come on, she’s a cop you met like a week ago vs your sister who you pretty much just abandoned and have done nothing but insult for all the time she can remember you. I also get that Jinx was having psychotic episode at the time and wasn’t really all there mentally, but that’s entirely because of the things she heard Vi saying about her 7 years before. All of her actions while in this state contribute to the division between Piltover and Zaun, as well as introducing Ekko’s ecoterrorist organization as a third player in the fight for liberation. If this hadn’t happened, Ambessa wouldn’t have had a real reason to come to Piltover and start a war.

On the topic of Vi being a bad sister, she literally just gives up all of her principles to go be a cop and commits several war crimes while doing so, all to please her girlfriend or something. She subjugates the population she once believed in fighting to protect, and even though Silco is gone she uses absolutely excessive force to kill as many people as possible and to find and kill Jinx, who by now has come to terms with the fact that Vi is alive and is somewhat of a resistance leader herself. She even adopts Isha and becomes a genuinely good sister to her. Having someone who will listen is really healing for Jinx and she starts to grow of her own accord outside of Vi or Silco. All Vi does is cause her to have a traumatic breakdown and kill Silco in the first place. Even after that she’s still a total bitch.

Jinx literally just accepts death at Vi’s hands and Isha is the only one who stands between them. She wanted Vi to kill her so she could live with the guilt of watching her sister die because of her, just like she had to watch Vander, Mylo and Claggor die. Even after Caitlyn physically abuses and abandons her, Vi STILL doesn’t try to find and talk to Jinx at all, and just becomes an alcoholic pit fighter. It takes Jinx seeking out Vi for them to even talk again, and Jinx knew she was taking a huge risk doing so. Even still, Vi insults her as much as she can. She says the things she makes are dumb and that she couldn’t win in a fight as if that’s what matters at all. She was with Caitlyn for like a week and is still more affectionate to her than she is with her own sister.

The second she sees Caitlyn she leaves Jinx for her yet again, working with her after all of the abuse and hell Cait put her through. Jinx decides it would be better if she just died, so she gets Vi to release her and locks her in the cell. Instead of trying to find Jinx when Caitlyn comes back, she spends like an hour just eating her out. Meanwhile, Jinx is repeatedly committing suicide while Ekko rewinds to try and help her. Like come on she’s not even worried about her at all.

When Jinx is presumed dead after blowing up Warwick, Vi doesn’t even hold her a proper funeral. Of course there’s no body so it would be hard, but she just lights a bunch of little papers on fire. She has all of Caitlyn’s resources and doesn’t even hold a memorial for Powder/Jinx, but instead just keeps hitting on Caitlyn.

Mentally ill people with a ton of childhood trauma need to feel like someone actually cares about them, and Vi, who was the only true family Jinx had left, didn’t. At every opportunity to fix things she just ran away or ignored the problem entirely. I get that she’s lesbian representation or whatever, but it’s just playing into the stereotype that lesbians are domestic abusers and it’s an extremely toxic relationship that she mostly just uses as a distraction from having to actually talk to Jinx and fix things with her sister, who by the way still does love her.

Vi is not a good person.

[louiegitsham10]

The Stuff I'll Steal -- Blog 1 for Engaged Citizenship

I’m not one hundred percent sure what this is meant to be, but that has never stopped me before. I aim for this to be a blog to log progress and ideas throughout my Engaged Citizenship Through Interdisciplinary Practice module (mouthful!) and maybe also serve as a slight creative outlet.

We will see.

So, where are we at as a group? We’re a fragmented bunch, from all different corners of the university, and some of us are yet to be found. Architect, Media, Fashion, unknown, and me, the Creative Writer. After some brainstorming – or more accurately, me and Aaliyah convincing the other members of the group – we’ve homed in on creating a model, and a companion book. Both of which explore deforestation, or exploitation of habitats (the latter has a better ring, I think). This way, each one of us can steal our little bit of the show, I get to write, and contribute what I can there, Aaliyah gets to practice modelling, Charmaine her textiles (as we are going to have the model overflowing with fabric wildlife; a little textile rebellion).

If I may, I’m going to talk a little bit about what I specifically am bringing to the table of room W1.09. The bones of the book will be a short story I completed last year. It’s set in the Amazon, from the perspective of a manager of a lumber company, and it chronicles him as he works hard, and indulges in his evil obsession – his exploitation made a little more literal – of having sex with Amazonian animals. Sloths, monkeys, anything he can get his hands on, really. His mortal enemies are the Treespikers, a group of climate activists (he prefers the term “ecoterrorist”). The story climaxes with his and his twelve-gauge’s clash with them and their knives (and hammers and nails and bolt cutters). This is the foundation. From here, I’ll rewrite it to set it in the UK, as close to Portsmouth as possible. I’ll also expand on the backstory of the Treespikers, and perhaps even tell the story from a dual perspective. We’ll see, but I’m glad I now have something to aim for and I can soon start burning some keys and pen-tips.

Well, soon.

The first step is prep and research. There are a couple of need-to-knows. Where is deforestation at its worst in the UK? Who runs it? Can I use a real company, or at least hint at one? What animals live in these habitats? What tools are used to destroy them? Can I remember the details of the Treespiking life? What tools, what are their methods, why, who? What is the backstory of the Treespiker we follow? Where do they come from? Why do they do this? Maybe “soon” was an understatement…

I do have some little details that have emerged recently as additions to my story; little details that get me all giddy and remind me why I like to write. The first is from a book. I was reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy the other day and the absolutely terrifying Judge Holden has an engraving on the side of his gun: Et in Arcadia ego. Or, even in Arcadia (utopia/paradise), there I am. Basically saying you can’t escape death, but it also felt like this was the Judge saying He is Death, with a capital D. And I want to steal that. Engrave it on the side of the Overseer’s shotgun. I feel like his ego would be that big, however unearned. Don’t call it stealing; call it homage, call it pastiche. And anyway: good artists borrow, and great artists steal. Isn’t that what Picasso or Dostoyevsky or Rembrandt or Einstein or someone clever and important said? Anyways, I’m doing it.

The second little detail is something that Matt mentioned in the lecture yesterday and I scribbled it down because I thought it was a sentence that was so stark, so simple, but something quite soul-crushing. He said that during an exercise where he asked people to talk about how biodiversity affected that a poor student had said, “My mother is dying, and she is not sick. She is dying because where she is living is too hot.”  Wow, that is horrible, and I’m thinking – to be a selfish, gluttonous artist – that that would be an incredible opening line for our Treespiker character.

Maybe.

During the same lecture, I also rambled out a line that I think I want to use for the final fight sequence of the story. I scrawled it out in a rush, I’m not sure if there are any spelling errors, or if it actually makes sense; I promise I’ll leave it in if there is: “I palm his face and grip it tight. Chubby red cheeks and an eyeball and a blackheaded nose bulge out through the gaps in my fingers, blobby- and liquid-looking.”  I don’t know, it’s a maybe.

Another tidbit of humanity I’ve decided I want to appropriate is the phrase that I’ve seen online recently to mark the decline of the climate. Again, it’s simple, and it takes something traditionally beautiful, and destroys it. Flowers are blooming in Antarctica. Again. Flowers are blooming in Antarctica. Flowers are blooming in Antarctica.

Maybe they’re blooming through the cracks in the concrete as well?