#in fact i think power differentials are very interesting to write about!

[levitatingbiscuits]

I found your take in the height difference discourse interesting, mainly because I agree, but also because the exact opposite is also true (at least in my experience).

I get the ick a lot of the time Cody is portrayed as the short one in the relationship, mostly due to the connotations that come with being the short one as people have detailed many times before. It’s the exact same problem with Obi Wan being the short one, as in that they’re woobified or even viewed as the submissive one in the relationship or even as the ‘woman’ (and I can’t even begin to get into how many layers of fucked up that is) but what also happens with Cody is it feels a lot more exploitative and sinister than it does with Obi Wan. The difference in their ranks is an interesting thing to explore when it comes to them, but the problem comes when younger or less experienced writers end up portraying them with a power imbalance.

Would canon Obi Wan ever take advantage of anyone, especially in that way? Of course not. But that doesn’t stop some writers. It just feels a lot grosser when Cody is the one being babied, at least to me. Especially since a lot of these people go out of their way to make Obi Wan bigger and more powerful than Cody.

To be clear: you are absolutely right, but I just wanted to throw my two cents in. I think any portrayal of a ship has the capacity to be problematic, we just need to be careful we don’t resort to relying on stereotypes or overused tropes that come with shipping dynamics. Cody or Obi Wan being noticeably taller isn’t inherently bad, but the internal biases of the writer are what could potentially make them that way. All rational people know height has absolutely nothing to do with any of this, and it’s strange that we’re gotten to the point where this inevitably ends up being a problem in every single fandom.

Yeah, I can see how that would be a problem. I've never encountered a fan work where Cody is a smol uwu bean, but that could get pretty weird for different reasons. Codywan is a ship I enjoy for the devotion and fluffiness and old married couple/coworkers vibes, so I tend to avoid fic that specifically revolves around the power imbalance or the age difference, which is likely why I've never encountered this.

I have encountered clone fics where the chronological ages and "sheltered" upbringing (for lack of a better adjective) is leaned into HARD, which can give me the ick if they're portrayed as sexy or appealing rather than tragic or an obstacle to romance. Maybe the ultra smol Cody trend is an extension of that?

And yeah, not all exaggerated size differences are problematic. Some of the clones have canonically turned out extremely large due to cloning mishaps, like Wrecker. Often it's just because the writer or artist thinks it's cute. I've read some very interesting fics that lean into the sci-fi body horror aspect of cloning and even how being genetically engineered to be extremely large can be an obstacle to the clones being seen as anything other than weapons. Sometimes fics can discuss epigenetic factors to explain height alterations, which is very plausible because Jango didn't always get adequate nutrition and rest growing up and the clones were all standardized and specifically made to be at his physical peak.

But the fact that these trends keep happening in this fandom makes them worth examining and dissecting. For example, I remember a lot of stormpilot discourse about why Finn was so often depicted as significantly larger and more muscular than uwu smol Poe, when that's not what John Boyega and Oscar Isaac look like. I've even read some Han/Lando fics that did the same thing to Lando, even though you could just write Skyrissian or Solorgana or Lando/Leia or Skysolo if you want a big size difference in your ship. Considering the star wars fandom's history of racism, I think that it's worth examining why it's so often characters of color that this happens to.

[shadowvalkyrie]

There are a lot of things about Taskmaster that feel very... culturally British. That mixture of extreme silliness with occasionally very dark humour for example.

Or the particular tone of affectionate bullying and the way it's (mostly) taken in good humour. (And expected to be taken in good humour, even when it hits a nerve. Something that caused quite a bit of bad blood between the Brits and the Germans in my former workplace, because we generally don't shrug off insults that easily.)

But I think one difference is sort of... simmering under the surface in ways that aren't immediately obvious to international audiences (and makes me wish I was still writing uni papers, because it would be a GOLDMINE), is how much of the humour is based on the British class system.

I mean, the basic premise of "tyrannical taskmaster makes people jump through arbitrary hoops for his favour and then belittles them for doing so" is already something only an audience with a slightly monarchical bend would accept unquestioningly. Add to that the way the Taskmaster/Assistant relationship is set up... Let's just say it fetishises a social dynamic that doesn't exist in quite the same way elsewhere.

Which I think may partially explain why so many people seem to be oblivious to the D/s undertones. -- Of course it's often kink-blindness on the part of non-kinky people, but I strongly suspect it's helped along by the cultural perception of what constitutes an acceptable power differential acting as a buffer to seeing anything off about it. The threshold for when it becomes weird is different.

Now, I think (and since I'm not British, do correct me if I have it wrong!) a key part of what makes the basic premise funny to British audiences (and differently from how it's funny to international ones) is the way cultural expectations of power vs submission are subverted.

Purely based on accent? Alex is the posh one. By miles. And Greg -- very pointedly! -- doesn't do the matching Fauxbridge that most viewers would probably expect from someone presented in a position of authority (or even just a "neutral" BBC accent). It seems bizarre from a foreign point of view, but I've found that this kind of discrepancy immediately and viscerally registers with Brits. (It's uncanny how little it takes, too -- ask your favourite non-TM-aware English person to just listen to the different ways they say "taskmaster" and they will extrapolate things you cannot even imagine.) Instead of just the regional connotation, there are always implications of class and social status to an accent that are absolutely baffling to the unaware.

Add the fact that Greg Davies is from Wales, and a lot of English people have a weird colonial superiority complex towards Welsh people to this day... It's enough to make all these obvious gestures of devoted subservience from Alex very unexpected and therefore funny.

(Also notice how it adds interesting layers to Katherine Ryan buying Greg a fake lordship title? And makes it funnier in a way she may not even have fully been aware of herself, being Canadian? It's delightfully irreverent and pokes fun at the whole system.)

My guess is that this is also why the studio audience's reaction to linguistics-based jokes is always so strong. Lets take the recurring bit about Alex correcting Greg's grammar. To an international audience, the main joke is that Alex is a nerd and cares too much about grammar, with maybe a side of him being a smartarse towards his boss in a potentially ill-advised way. But to a British audience, the level of audacious insubordination implied there? Much stronger. Wildly offensive thing to do. (And a level of arrogance that is extra hilarious coming from someone shown to be sleeping in a dog bed.)

The same mechanism also puts Alex's snide little asides towards contestants with regional or "urban" accents into perspective. Offensive dick move on his part? Oh yes, extremely. But the audience is very much not supposed to be on his side in this. He's being a bigoted little bully, and either the contestants get to humiliate him in retaliation (it's certainly not a coincidence that the Welsh and Irish contestants are generally the ones having the most fun putting him in his place) or Greg calls him out on it in the studio. In a society in which Alex's brand of micro-aggression is still incredibly commonplace and accent discrimination a widely accepted default, it's actually very cathartic to see it openly acknowledged and condemned.

I mean Tumblr obviously loves Alex, because he's cute and funny and we love the Greg/Alex D/s thing (I'm definitely guilty of this as well), but we have to remember that -- in the context of the show's premise -- his character is supposed to be pathetic and ridiculous, so when Greg does the "next to me a man who once told me while drunk that he thinks regional accents are inversely correlated to intelligence" intro thing, we're meant to see it as an asshole opinion that is actually unacceptable to hold and no one in their right mind would openly admit to. So Greg is humiliating Alex by (supposedly) exposing him as someone who would spout that kind of opinion. (Same as the jokes about Alex's misogyny. I see people criticise these jokes all the time, but I think that's because they refuse to understand how the underlying mechanism actually works and take them at face value as the real Alex's actual opinion, rather than something deliberately assigned to his in-show character to make a point about them being terrible.)

[moonchild033]

Random astro community related thoughts going on my mind 😏😑

I would request u all to read it thoroughly but yea whatever😏

Idk how many ppl are going to get offended or have controversial views to this but since it's MY BLOG, I'm gonna write things that are constantly disturbing my mind.🙂

First of all, I'm feeling truly devastated by seeing the number of astro posts circulating around Liam Payne's d*ath. Why r u hellbent on dissecting someone's d*ath? Idk what tropical astrology teaches, so I can't say anything about that, but as far as ik, traditional vedic astrologers are trained NOT to predict someone's demise or dissect a de*d person's chart, so kindly refrain from using vedic astrology and its tools such as divisional charts to do this, I find it very disrespectful. Vedic astrology can just be a science or interesting content for u, but for other ppl it's a part of their heritage and it has its respect, so don't misuse it. Also I kind of think it's literally humane to not make content out of someone's demise, be a human first then u can be a celebrity.😒

Be responsible about what u say, u might not know how much impact your words have but there are ppl who are following and reading your posts. I feel like some knowledge should've stayed in the same place, protected and safe in the right hands rather than accessible to everyone, Kali yug is definitely not the era where ppl r sensible enough to understand how to wield knowledge bcoz it is literally a POWER. 😌

The way the world of Nadi astrology is destroyed by the same means, knowledge going in the wrong hands, now it has become a whole scam, spinning tales and extorting money. Nadi is where sages like Agasthiya wrote future horoscopes and its predictions along with their past lives. Our lives have been written in palm leaves years ago, the main sanctuary of the collection is in Tamilnadu, it was passed on from generation to generation in certain family lineages, then some of them sold it, made fake ones and it got sparsely distributed and now almost vanished (Ik in specific temple some of the originals are stored even today, I'll not mention the name, I'm tired of misuse of knowledge, if u r genuinely interested Google is free). Even our accurate d*ath incident is written in there but the real nadi families back then were trained not to reveal it, so they just say 'Stay healthy and careful in that time, be cautious while driving' that's it. I know of real life incidents predicted through that, my dad's friend and my bestfriend 's mother both d*ed on the same predicted year and month by the same warned incident, my dad's friend was asked to be cautious of vehicles in that time period and he d*ed due to an accident and my friend's mom was asked to take care of health issues on a specific time period and she d*ied due to cancer. It's ur choice to believe in an age old writing of ur destiny in a palm leaf but it was an accurate tool some 20-30yrs back but today when it went into the wrong hands, that is when the knowledge got spread rather than being protected and reached ppl with wrong intentions, it all went berserk, now they just bluff nonsense. Still there are authentic family lineages with real texts and skills but it's very hard to differentiate between a whole lot of fraudsters. 🙃

So yea, overall I'm pissed off about the fact that some things are better to have left the way it is rather than showcasing it to the whole world to have it misused, like vedic astrology too, if u r learning it, respect it's ethics too, don't disrespect it's norms for the sake of ur content.😌😬

Idc if u disagree with me, this is MY opinion and I'll stand by it, BYEEE ����😌

(But I'm angry too 😒)

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Fruzsi and the Importance of Her Character in Season 2 of Shadow and Bone

Okay I feel like I have been continuously teasing this post for a ridiculously long time and I have finally gotten around to writing it, I also feel like the fact that I talked about it so much might have built it up to sound bigger than it is but honestly I think that Fruzsi is a FASCINATING character study; I'm very excited to talk about her and have finally found the time (yay!) so hopefully you guys will find this at least a little bit interesting too

Tagging people who registered their interest here but please don’t feel pressured to read <3 @merlinxmagic @girasoljpg @atmosphericwrites @naushtheaspiringauthor @lunarthecorvus

SHOW AND BOOK SPOILERS AHEAD + TALKING ABOUT GRISHAVERSE SETUP & THE CHARACTERS' BACKSTORIES/EXPERIENCES (Mostly Zoya, Genya, Alina, Fruzsi, and Inej)

Super quick recap since of her story so we're on the same page as we begin: Fruzsi first appeared in Season 2 Episode 2 of Shadow and Bone and is a Grisha Tidemaker loyal to the Darkling. Her parents sold her to the Darkling when she was a child, its unclear how old she was, and we should take into consideration in this matter that there is no indication whatsoever that she was ever at the Little Palace since none of the other Grisha seem to recognise or know her and vice versa. She is instrumental in the Darkling's army and receives one of the amplifiers made from Baghra's bones, subsequently learning to manipulate water molecules into ice shafts that she can use as a weapon. She is responsible for Dominik's death towards the end of the season and is subsequently killed by Nikolai.

So right off the bat whenever anyone talks about Fruzsi I tend to see two things: "wannabe Zoya" and “the power of her amplifier was a problem because it will be too difficult to differentiate between amplifiers and parem". I've taked before about my thoughts on amplifiers and parem and why I didn't think it was going to be a problem for the Six of Crows spinoff show (*sobs*) but the general consensus seems to be that not only was Fruzsi an unlikeable character because of her actions, but because she was seen as a only being there to provide an enemy and a hand of the Darkling, and I think that's a real shame because she is a fascinating character and she tells us SO MUCH about the Darkling and other major characters. My personal favourite details about Fruzsi are her parallels with Zoya and the point from which they run opposing, the parallels she has to Genya and Inej and the subsequent parallels that her introduction creates between the Darkling and Heleen Van Houden, and the setup of Fruzsi, Vatra, and the Darkling's other Grisha to create genuine empathy for villainous characters for the reflections of the protagonists we can see in them.

Fruzsi's introduction in episode two begins with the Darkling arriving to see her and saying that she made it in good time - now we don't know where she travelled from, so yeah it could be the Little Palace (he was travelling from the base he set up in episode 1) but personally I don't think that there's much implication she ever lived there considering she doesn't know any of the other Grisha and she doesn't wear a kefta until the Darkling has new ones created for his new army. She's wearing pretty typical clothes that we see of the Ravkan population when we first meet her; a blouse and ankle-length skirt with a long coat, and from the very start is in dark shades that visually connect her to the Darkling in the audience's eye. Although she isn't hesitant to speak to him she shows consistent discomfort around the Darkling, making small steps away from him when he raises his hand and acknowledging non-verbal orders from him with immediate effect, as well as confirming that she never broke her promise to not open the Journal of Morozova without prompting and somewhat hurriedly. The Darkling is actually pretty quiet throughout most of this scene, cutting of Fruzsi's sentences and instructing her but not following any attempts she makes to initiate real conversation. When he tells her to reveal Baghra from behind the waterfall she asks him if he's sure, one of few instances in which she questions him, and after barely a second of maintained eye contact between them she turns away, physically bunching her shoulders and seeming to shrink in on herself, before turning to the waterfall and completing the task in silence. Everything we see of Fruzsi in this scene seems to contradict Baghra's later description of her as "deranged" and I think that this is really very noteworthy, because we start to develop this idea that Fruzsi's actions are different in front of the Darkling than when he isn't present - particularly since we know in this scene that Baghra has not seen the Darkling in weeks and has been alone with Fruzsi during that time. We actually don't see Fruzsi without the Darkling until very late in the show (episode 7), when her anger at the world and her easy ability to command the other Grisha are revealed ("First Army did this [...] If they wear the uniform they are all the same. Kill them all!"). We get this brilliantly foreboding image of her marching so confidently through the carnage with soldiers of both sides running and shouting and fighting and dying all around her while she barely shows any kind of response but to calmly begin her own method of very direct attack against Nikolai after walking through the battle completely untouched. If anything, Fruzsi seems quite unbothered by the entire thing until she fails to kill Nikolai, killing Dominik and several others instead, and screams her frustration before being forced to run for cover from approaching soldiers. After this her attacks are arguably much more emotional because she feels challenged and as though she has failed (relevant as I'll cover later because of the way the Darkling manipulates her), but all of this seemingly culminates only when Vatra dies, and in that moment we get this wonderfully clever shot of them holding each other's hands so that we can see the tattoos (I'm going to rant about the tattoos in this post) and then we see Vatra smiling in her final moments (that's gonna come up again as well). This moment is the most emotional we ever get to see Fruzsi; she looks down at Vatra, sheds a silent tear, and begins to exhibit more power than we have ever seen in her before. It is bare moments after this that she loses her fingers in an attack from Jesper and mere minutes afterwards that Nikolai shoots her in the throat and she dies.

It's confirmed in s2e7 that Fruzsi's parents attempted to sell her to the Darkling and arguably this is where her parallels with Zoya begin - "You remember when your family first brought you to me? The price they demanded when they discovered you were Grisha?" "Perhaps now I can repay the debt" "I would have paid it 100 times over". Ugh this angers me so much. He bought her and she believes, she genuinely believes, that she owes him for that. I'm going to talk about the structure of this relationship really strongly echoing Heleen Van Houden later on but particularly in this moment we understand that there is something here very similar to the Kerch indenture system that I'm actually really glad to see included as part of the worldbuilding and development in the show since we didn't get the opportunity to explore it as much in Kerch (*screams frustrations into the wind*)

Although we sadly didn't get the chance to explore Zoya's story in the show (*cries in cancellation*) it's explained in the final duology of the book series that her mother attempted to sell nine-year-old Zoya as a bride to 63-year-old, very rich, and twice-widowed Valentin Grankin. When Zoya's aunt, Lilyana, attempted to stop the wedding Grankin attacked and nearly killed her; in fear for herself and her aunt Zoya experienced a massive, terrified outburst of power, which was how she discovered she was Grisha, and Lilyana was able to rescue her and take her to Os Alta. My absolute favourite take on Fruzsi is that she is Zoya's Shadow, which is an idea that my friend voiced whilst we were watching the show and we discussed together at length at the time, but that I have never seen anyone talking about online.

The idea of having a Shadow comes from Suli culture and is explained to us in Crooked Kingdom by Inej; whenever a person does wrong it gives life to their shadow, with every action making the Shadow stronger until they are stronger than the original person and the person is defeated by the wrongs they've done - or learns to overcome them and defeat the Shadow. Inej's believes that her Shadow is Dunyasha and she fights her in Crooked Kingdom. I FREAKING LOVE the theory that Fruzsi is Zoya's Shadow because their stories parallel each other very well; both are abused and sold by their families only to be taken in by the Darkling and manipulated into believing that he is their saviour. The Darkling very much works by making others feel that they owe him something for any action he completes, just as we see in his manipulation and abuse of Alina, and Fruzsi and Zoya are prime examples of this. We even have two very similar scene setups between season 1 and season 2 that show us just how similar the Darkling and Zoya are in terms of the pent up rage that they keep private - in season 1 where the Darkling leaves Zoya alone in his room whilst she is trying to initiate intimacy because he is manipulating her and Alina against each other and wants to make Zoya feel like she has been abandoned in favour of a newer, shinier toy and once he's left Zoya screams her frustration and releases a gust of Squaller power that disrupts his chamber, and in season 2 when Fruzsi, in her second appearance (now wearing the new dark kefta design) hesitantly informs the Darkling that David stole Morozova's Journal and is immediately dismissed before the Darkling screams his frustrations and uses the tether to find and haunt Alina. Although this comparison between the Darkling and Zoya is of course more obvious it also gives us an idea of similarities between Zoya and Fruzsi because it extends this implication we have that Fruzsi acts very differently out of the Darkling's presence than in - and considering that at this point we have never seen her without him we have this gathering sense of intrigue about her backstory and her character. In a similar-ish manner we also have the scene in s2e5 when we get another example of the few times Fruzsi attempts to stand up to the Darkling, in this case openly telling him that they would do better to redirect their efforts North because it would be "the more strategic move"; the Darkling's response is to threaten her with his Nichevo'ya and manipulate her in a similar way that he does Zoya by replying "Alina Starkov is worth more than any army. So at the risk of sounding repetitive... find her", actively diminishing Fruzsi when he's been purposefully making her feel important and like she matters to him so that she feels she must redouble her efforts for him to notice and appreciate her and therefore desperately hopes to do a better job of bending to his will, especially since he's basically turned her entire purpose and usefulness to him into brining Alina back to him. Ugh this man i swear. I'm going to go on to talk about parallels between Fruzsi and Genya pretty soon so in this respect as well I want to add emphasis to the fact that when she disagrees with him on a point - and mind you not that she makes any suggestion of betraying his cause but only that she thinks they should take a different tactic to be more successful in it - he uses the presence of the Nichevo'ya to scare her into submission. The next time he gives her an order (to take down the First Army encampments) she agrees immediately and barely speaks to him except to ask "And what of the Sun Summoner?" - And note this is after she has taken Genya to the other Grisha because she was told to show her off as an example.

I have to say that at this point in time I was not expecting her to be the gold mine she became, and it's looking back on it knowing more about her backstory that I notice a lot of smaller details in the way she acts around him that consistently suggest she is afraid of him and I think that is shown really well in Reford's performance, I don't see her getting enough of the praise that she deserves - she was great!

Am I even making sense? Anyway

Fruzsi and Zoya are consistently presented with these similarities and I really love the idea that she represents what Zoya would have become without the influence of our other main characters, particular Alina and Genya. I really like the idea that she's Zoya's Shaodw and a literal, living embodiment of the wrng that Zoya did under the Darkling's command, but the only place that I think this theory falls short is in Fruzsi's death. If Fruzsi was truly Zoya's Shadow then they would have to face each other for one of them to die, but Fruzsi was killed by Nikolai in the aftermath of Dominik's death. However, I also think that there was standing there to start developing something truly, truly poetic in Nikolai killing Zoya's Shadow and Zoya later killing Nikolai's (or maybe even metaphorically doing so in trying to help rid him of the demon??) BUT I GUESS NOW WE'LL NEVER KNOW (*screams*) (*cries*) (*curses Netflix’s name*)

Now moving on to her parallels with Genya and Inej. I think that the loss of Heleen from season 2 (which I’ve shared my thoughts about a bit in the past so won’t go on about now) left a hole that was, in a way I didn’t quite expect, filled more by the Darkling than it was Pekka Rollins. There are multiple quotes from the Darkling this season, mostly directed towards Fruzsi and Genya, that I find to have very specific reminiscence of some of Heleen’s quotes from the the Six of Crows duology and this was the most obvious one for me, and the one that originally made me think of this particular comparison:

"I have always known your worth. Now show me," - the Darkling, s2e7, in the conversation where he specifically states that he bought Fruzsi and she specifically states that she owes him a debt for that

"I know your worth, little Lynx, right down to the cent" - Heleen, Six of Crows, to Inej when torturing Inej with the implication that she intends to find a way to bring her back to the Menagerie ("You'll wear my silks again, I promise")

(Also as a quick addition I think that so much can be said about Rachel Redford's acting in this specific moment of season 2 episode 7 after the Darkling delivers that line. She looks up at him, and the proxemics + their actual heights I must admit have a brilliant added effect to this, with what starts as such genuine sorrow but so quickly turns to such fierce determination before she shows him what she's capable of now that she has the amplifier. After her demonstration she is almost in shock at the revelation of what she was able to do but the pure exultation, the relief, the triumph in her expression does not even come close to existing until the moment that the Darkling says "extraordinary". He's not even looking at her - in fact, I don't doubt it possibly that he wasn't complimenting her herself but simply the creation of the amplifiers and their strength - but the expression on her face then is absolutely unmatched and it speaks VOLUMES) (I genuinely recommend rewatching that moment with this in mind because I cannot stop thinking about it)

And then layered on top of this, we have the tattoos. THE TATTOOS.

I made a specific post about the costuming in season 2, which you can read here if you’d like to, and that covers my thoughts on the new keftas but I didn’t go into detail on the tattoos at the time and I have a lot of thoughts about them. The Grishaverse, mostly the Six of Crows duology, uses tattoos incredibly symbolically and places particular emphasis on choosing to take the mark, creating a massively important bond to something that you deeply care about and will never want to break (gangs, Kaz’s ‘R’ for Rietveld), and being forced to take one on (the pleasure houses, of course most primarily Inej’s Menagerie tattoo). Although we don’t get as much emphasis on this since the show didn’t get the opportunity to explore the gang tattoos yet thus far (and I guess now it won’t *shakes fist at Netflix*) we did have focus surrounding Inej’s Menagerie tattoo and it’s removal in this season and, as much as I wish we’d been able to see her book canon tattoo removal (cut off by a butcher), this side by side comparison of the Grisha being given no option but to take on the amplifying tattoos and Nina using her Grisha power to remove Inej’s tattoo is absolutely fascinating and really well done.

So this for me creates an ongoing comparison between Fruzsi, Genya, and Inej - and taking on what I said about Fruzsi’s apparent absence from the Little Palace despite clearly having an established relationship with the Darkling and having been with him for some time, we can consider the earliest pieces of information we have about Genya’s life. Now it’s a long time since I read the S&B trilogy so I can’t remember if this specific detail is true to book canon but in the show Genya states that the Grisha testers found her when she was seven but that she was gifted to the Queen when she was eleven. We have no information about what happened to her during these four years, and yeah maybe she was at the Little Palace training but we don’t have confirmation of that and I wouldn’t trust the Darkling as far as I could throw him (which probably wouldn’t even crack a metre let’s be real). This also adds a really interesting layer to things with Fruzsi being the one instructed to show Genya off to the other Grisha as an example of what will happen if they try to betray the Darkling because we get this moment when she kneels down to take hold of Genya's chains and they are both sitting in the cage together that I think is really powerful in everything it says about how easily either of them could be in the other's position in that moment but we're also still very aware that Fruzsi has the far more power - or at least an illusion of it. In this same scene Baghra, about Genya, states "she served you loyally since she was a child, endured years of abuse on your orders, and you reduce her to an example? Oh Aleksander, where does this stop?" and honestly that is so brilliantly written (and so brilliantly delivered in the scene) that I don't think I need to say anything on top of it but when we consider this side by side with Fruzsi's position I think that this really is a very powerful parallel and a constant reminder that no-one who places their trust in the Darkling is ever safe, and that pretty much everyone on his side is there because of manipulation and because of abuse - be that abuse from the Darkling or abuse from others that the Darkling has so well learned how to manipulate in ways that are very, very similar to the way Jarl Brum manipulated and abused Matthias (I have written a lot about that too. I have strong feelings.)

I have so much fascination and I feel so much sympathy for Fruzsi and I think that this is one of the things that the show did so fantastically well in her and in the other Grisha on the Darkling’s side who are all manipulated and controlled by him in just the same way our protagonists were, who were ultimately still all very young people who had been attacked and threatened and made unsafe in their home for who they were and who were offered what they believed was the only solution. I think one of the greatest examples of this, other than Fruzsi, is seen in Vatra, the amplified Inferni who is so proud of herself when she brings the Hummingbird down - "Yes! I did it" and btw she says this with such an expression on her face I don't even have the words I would just genuinely recommend you rewatch the scene to get what I'm saying it's s2e7 around 24:30-50 she actually looks so proud of herself she's like a little kid and it's so soul-crushingly clever and incredibly well done and it breaks my heart she's been so successfully manipulated - because she so genuinely believes that she is doing the right thing and she is making a difference for her people, and even when she dies with her hand clutched in Fruzsi's she dies smiling. That girl breaks my heart every time I rewatch, and honestly even though she is presented in a more unlikeable way Fruzsi breaks my heart as well because I can see so much of our beloved characters in her and effectively what could have happened to them and what could have become of them if they hadn’t managed their escape. This duality and constant cause to question the morality of the characters is so brilliantly done and one of the biggest successes of the adaptation considering how well it was done in the books as well but could have been something difficult to translate between medias where exposition is concerned, and I think that Fruzsi was an incredible example of this and that we really should talk about her more

Thanks for reading my nonsense ramblings if you got this far, I hope that it made sense and was at least somewhat interesting <33

[nostalgebraist]

Here are some fun / amusing / potentially-interesting facts about the process of writing and plotting Almost Nowhere, if anyone's curious.

Major spoilers for the whole of Almost Nowhere under the cut.

(There's really no way to spoiler-censor this material without rendering it incomprehensible. If you haven't read the book, do that first before reading this post.)

(1)

A large fraction of the book's eventual plot emerged from my attempts to patch a single, in-some-sense trivial continuity error I made while writing the very first chapter.

The Mooncrash section of that chapter ends with this sentence (emphasis added):

All parties were used to stillness, now, for the Mooncrash was nearly four years old.

And a few paragraphs later, in the opening of the Academy section, we get this (emphasis added again):

For (as everyone knows) the Shroud is upon us and while it tolerates the Academy — as it presently is, as it has been for the last eight years, a chrysalis, preparing itself step by minuscule step [...]

So: The Mooncrash is 4 years old. The Academy crash is at least 8 years old, and indeed older.

Yet the Mooncrash is also as old as the crash system itself! It was made by humans, during the period between the discovery of the anomalings and the mass-crashing of the human race. (This is only shown in the second chapter, but I had it in mind before then.)

How long has the human race been crashed, then? At most 4 years, and at least 8 years? How could that possibly be?

It would have been easy enough to just edit the chapter, but that's not how I do things. Restrictions, famously, breed creativity. I enjoy attempting to solve puzzles I have inadvertently created for myself, and many of my best ideas have been produced through this process.

It would also have been simple and easy to merely say: "OK, I guess time elapses at different subjective rates, in different crashes."

Amusingly, I ended up doing that anyway! But for some reason, this avenue didn't occur to me at first. By the time I started asking myself whether to include this kind of effect, I already had a different solution in mind.

I spent a lot of time beating my head against the figurative wall, trying to resolve the 4-vs-8-year issue. The early parts of my AN notes are full of this stuff.

----

At some early point, I came up with the idea that the anomalings/shades would deal with troublesome crashes by "rebasing" them, rewriting their histories.

I didn't intend, initially, for this idea to take over the plot as much as it eventually did. It was just a fun idea that underscored the huge power differential between the anomalings and their captives, and felt in line with the Cartesian/Wachowskian themes of transcending a "fake"/illusory world, radically doubting one's own perceptions and memories, etc.

But, having stipulated that "rebases" were a thing, I hit upon the idea that they could be used to modify the total quantity of past (subjective) time inside a crash -- turning 8 years into 4, or vice versa, or whatever.

So, I could fix the problem by stipulating that one -- or both -- of the problematic crashes had already been rebased, in this way.

But why? And by whom?

----

Now, at this early stage, I also had the idea in mind that the character "Anne" would eventually escape from her crash, and that she would have a hand in various major events in the story -- including some events that had already occurred, relative to the "present" of the textual PoV.

But I didn't know, yet, what these interventions actually were.

(I put "Anne" in quotes, here, because in the very early stages I casually assumed that only the PoV Anne introduced in Chapter 1 would be a major character, and that her sisters were merely background material for her personal narrative, like the tower itself. Of course, in the process of thinking through the details of things, I realized that this assumption was needless and indeed counterproductive.)

As often happens when I'm plotting a story, I found that two unknowns slotted neatly into one another, each one providing a potential solution to the problem posed by the other.

We need something for "Anne" to do in the past. Something consequential, something that shows off her newfound agency -- but also something that obscures her role from view. Ideally, something kind of weird, esoteric, "advanced"; something that feels buried inside the deep, dark center of the backstory, which the reader will only "excavate" at the end of a long, strange journey.

And we need someone to rebase the Mooncrash.

That answers the "who?" question. But again -- why?

Well, it was already in the plan that Azad would join forces with Michael, when Michael went in search of his lost Anne. That Anne would meet Azad, as a result, and that it would be Azad who persuades her to return to Michael's crash.

I didn't, at the time, have much else planned for the Anne-Azad connection.

As originally conceived, the "Azad convinces Anne to return" scene was about Azad's uncertain loyalties, and about Anne's lack of exposure to other human beings (and to the power of words, as deployed by human beings with access to real human culture). That is, it merely served specific, separate purposes in the sub-stories of these two characters. There was no intent to set up, or develop, a thread connecting these sub-stories, making Azad a major character in Anne's arc and vice versa.

But that seems like kind of a shame, doesn't it? Why go to the trouble of preparing these characters, and bringing them into contact, if I didn't have anything for them to do together?

Anne and Azad.

We need someone to rebase the Mooncrash.

We need Anne to learn about real human culture, somehow, before she leaves. I knew that, already, though I didn't have a mechanism in mind.

(I also knew, by this point, that causing Azad's appointment as translator was another one of "Anne's" consequential moves. I had conceived of this, at first, as a relatively impersonal act, done only for its historical significance. Indeed, that would have been enough -- but the more the merrier, theme/motivation-wise.)

Problems paired up, interlocked, and became each others' solutions.

(1b)

As is obvious from the above, I didn't have the scenario planned out in very much detail when I wrote the first chapter.

At the time, the story had been gestating in my head for a while, but only as a bunch of vague inklings and intentions.

The proximate cause of writing-the-first-chapter was a sudden and unexpected burst of inspiration. I was riding the bus to a social event, and suddenly my mind was awash with crisp, never-before-glimpsed details about Anne and her tower, the Mooncrash, the Academy, Cordelia's blue dress -- all the stuff of Chapter 1. It felt like a crucial message was being beamed into my brain, VALIS-style, from the Muse / Higher Power.

I had an urge to bail on the social event, turn around, ride back home, and start writing immediately -- what if the magic went away, as suddenly as it had arrived? I resisted that urge and made a perfunctory appearance at the event, but then went back home and wrote as much as I could before falling asleep.

So, when I was writing that chapter, stuff like "four years" and "eight years" wasn't based on any single coherent picture, just vibes and vague inklings.

(I think 4 years probably sounded like the right amount of time for G&A to have been in the Mooncrash, character-wise. Meanwhile, Hector's ascension from the Academy had to be long enough ago that there would be no direct overlap between Hector and any of the current students. The "Bad Old Days" had to feel like something you'd only hear about in rumors, or from authority figures who probably weren't telling the full story.)

(2)

Like TNC before it, Almost Nowhere was originally conceived as relatively simple and straightforward story, only to become something much weirder and more complicated as I fleshed out the details.

As I said above, I only had a very vague "plan" at the outset of the writing process. But I kinda knew where I was going with it, in very broad strokes.

The original arc, insofar as it existed at all, was something like:

The bilateral / anomaling tension is introduced.

The bilateral PoV characters come to an understanding of their situation.

Many of the bilateral PoV characters join up with Hector Stein, who is already trying to defeat the anomalings and free humanity from the crashes.

Azad temporarily sides with the anomalings, and Anne temporarily returns to her captive state. But both them "come around" eventually.

Anne eventually triumphs over Michael, delivers a dramatic monologue castigating him for imprisoning her (etc.), and mounts a successful escape.

Shortly after Anne's escape, some (TBD!) resolution to the main conflict is achieved. Whatever it is, it is proposed/spearheaded by the bilateral faction (and specifically Anne herself), and it somehow exemplifies "the bilateral way of thinking/being."

The humbled anomalings conclude that "the bilateral way of thinking/being" has its advantages, both practically and morally.

So the story, as originally conceived, was much more straightforwardly about the "good" PoV humans fighting back against aliens.

It unabashedly took the bilateral side in the conflict, and it ended with a "beauty of our weapons" sort of moment in which the bilaterals are both victorious and righteous, and in which these two kinds of success are closely linked and almost merged.

I have to imagine that, even in counterfactual worlds where some things went differently, I never would have stuck to this version of the story all the way through.

Because, one way or the other, I would have eventually realized that.. like... this version of the story kind of sucks, right?

I mean, why go to the trouble of introducing these aliens, and trying to make them interesting, only to say "nah, actually these guys were just wrong, it's us and our existing 'ordinary' pre-conceptions that are right, and that's what the story was about all along"?

It would have been "inventing a guy to be mad at," as the saying goes.

Not a great foundation for a story. And the least interesting possible direction to go in, given this kind of setup.

It also presents a seemingly unresolvable tension, for the writer, about how to portray the distinctively "bilateral" nature of the bilateral side in the conflict.

If "bilateral" is as broad a category as the anomalings say it is -- if you and I and all of us, whatever other qualities we possess, participate equally in this sin -- then it's hard to strike a note of emotional triumph around the quality of "bilaterality" that doesn't feel wrong, vacuous, or bloodlessly abstract.

"Woo, yeah, humans are great!" I mean, are they? All of them? You don't get to say "well, only the good ones," here, or "in their ideals if not always their acts," or anything like that. Everyone is included in the relevant category, except for the guys-who-aren't that were invented for this specific story.

It's difficult to make this land properly, in the same way it would be difficult to write a story that inspires "carbon-based life pride" or "having-DNA pride" or the like in its reader.

So this version of the story was dead on arrival. And indeed, by the time I was thinking through the stuff chronicled in (1) above, this version of the story felt like a provisional placeholder, at best, in my mind.

Nonetheless, there are various echoes of it in the story I eventually landed on.

For example, in the original version of "Anne's" escape -- conceived in a much more straightforwardly positive way -- I had Anne reading "real" books in secret, drawing moral strength from them, and then including a bunch of literary quotes in her big dramatic monologue to Michael. (I took inspiration, here, from John the Savage reading Shakespeare in Brave New World.)

And I had the idea that "Anne," being an autodidact, would read omnivorously without making culture-bound distinctions familiar to you and me; that her selection of quotes, in the monologue, would put low culture alongside high culture, infamous books alongside famous ones, etc.; and as a particular case, that it'd be fun if -- before going on to quote Shakespeare and co. -- she began the whole thing by quoting Ayn Rand.

And that one idea stuck, even if the rest of it didn't.

(Or, consider how the idea of "a powerful move in the conflict that exemplifies the bilateral way of thinking/being" actually crops up multiple times in the finished story, right up to its last scenes. One can see traces of it in the "trick" that obsesses Michael, in the use of autobiographical writing to build up nostalgium, and in Annabel's improved crash design.)

(3)

I came up with the Mirzakhani Mechanism relatively late, in between writing Chapter 13 and writing Chapters 14-15 (in which the MM is introduced).

The MM was a product of looking back at the sci-fi elements that already existed in the story, like crashes and rebases, and trying to invent some single underlying explanation that covered all of them in a relatively parsimonious way.

This basically "worked," I think -- it certainly worked better than I had been expecting, after playing the dangerous game of "write a bunch of weird stuff and hope you'll be able to explain it all later." (I remember talking to one reader who was shocked that I hadn't had the MM in mind from the very beginning, which was flattering.)

It also had unintended consequences that kinda took over the story, but largely in a good way.

Earlier, I had planned to have the post-rebase crash timelines "screened off" from the outside world somehow, so that rebasing a crash wouldn't mess up the timeline of the outside world. But, once I'd fixed the idea that "rebasing is an MM event" in place, I realized that this wasn't consistent with the way MM events were meant to work. Instead, the exposition in Ch. 15 directly implies the stuff about rebases that Grant realizes much later in Ch. 41.

Once I'd noticed this, it was obvious that it was extremely important, and I re-incorporated it into the broader plot.

On a related note, I eventually decided that the account of the anomalings "going backward in time to our era" in Ch. 15 didn't really make sense. This meant I needed a different, more viable way anomalings and bilaterals to exist at the same point in time.

This line of thought, along with several others (like "what happened to all the nonhuman organisms?" and "which parts of the MM multiverse are real?"), eventually led me to invent Everywhere-Heaven and the beasts.

That happened right at the start of 2022, between Chapters 21 and 22.

It quickly became clear that the E-H/beasts stuff could be put to a lot of valuable use in story's third act, which was largely a worrying blank space in my head (even at this point!). From thereon out, I worked on fleshing out the third act behind the scenes while writing the second.

Not coincidentally, Chapter 22 contains a ton of E-H-related foreshadowing, and also some hints that human scientists (like Aidan in Ch. 15) had never fully understood the anomalings.

The use of Maryam Mirzakhani, a real (and recently deceased) mathematician, was a weird choice and arguably one in poor taste. All I can really say in defense of it is that it came to me suddenly, and had a number of properties that fit the vibe of the part of the story in which it appeared, and I have a policy of "going with my gut" when it suggests such things to me.

I felt similarly about this choice and another thing introduced in Ch. 15, the nuclear attack intended to kill scientists. Both of these things underscored the fact that the story took place in an alternate reality. And both felt sort of "edgy," "too dark," "too close to the real world" compared to the tone of the story so far. But I wanted to take the story to new places in the coming acts -- "darker," "more real" places -- and something felt right about introducing these elements at this exact point, as signposts providing an indication of where things were headed.

(4)

The phrase "NOWHERE TO HIDE" was originally "NO MERCY," in my notes.

And the abbreviation "NM" for "NO MERCY" was used throughout my notes for Nowhere-To-Hide related stuff, e.g. "NM Annes."

This wasn't the product of much thought, just the first thing that came to mind that had roughly the correct vibe. I almost immediately concluded that I'd have to replace "NO MERCY" with something else in the work itself, since it would seem like an Undertale reference that I didn't intend to make.

"Moon" was originally just a placeholder name -- a shorthand for "the 'NM Anne' who rebased the Mooncrash." But I liked the idea of actually using it, once it had occurred to me.

The corresponding placeholder name for A11 was "Ling," as in "linguist" (but also an actual name).

(5)

I went through 3 different outlines of the third act.

Really, there was a first outline, which was really bad, and then there were two slightly-different versions of a very different outline that mostly corresponds to the finished draft.

The first, bad outline was amusingly titled "notes-satisfying-ending.txt", because I explicitly used this post about "satisfying endings" as a guideline while writing it.

(To be clear, I don't think the linked post was to blame for the badness of that first outline. I didn't ultimately find the post very helpful as writing advice, but the "satisfying ending" outline wasn't even a "satisfying ending" in the post's own terms, and was also bad in unrelated ways.)

I don't want to go into much detail about the bad outline. It was really bad, and also really different from what eventually occurred. It's honestly a pretty embarrassing document.

A lot of the key ideas were there (E-H, etc.), and the very end of the story was roughly the same. But it had a ton of needless flaws that I later corrected. Various existing character arcs and motivations were dropped and never picked up, or suddenly diverted in some new and unfruitful direction; way too much time was spent on getting characters and objects from point A to point B, or otherwise sort of rambling about in a way that didn't matter in the end; it included a lot of whimsical "fun ideas" that weren't necessary and would have added clutter to an already very full canvas; etc.

I never got to the point of building a chapter-by-chapter version of this outline, but I'm sure it would have much longer than the existing third act, also.

The existing third act is pretty long, but it was actually the result of an aggressive pruning and tightening process.

If the "satisfying-ending" outline had a single greatest flaw, it was terrible pacing. Lots of slack, lots of empty space, and when big things did happen, they came out of nowhere, not really prompted by what came immediately before them.

The next draft of the ending resulted from taking the raw materials of "satisfying-ending," purging all the dross, re-thinking all the obviously flawed stuff, and then trying to rearrange the pieces in front of me in a way that was maximally "tight" and interconnected, with questions and tensions introduced and then resolved in a rapid-fire manner, and without any major thread "sitting around in the background" long enough to feel stale, or get forgotten.

That outline was in a file called "notes-good-end.txt."

Much later, I tightened up the plan even further, merging some things that were originally in separate chapters. This was in a file called "notes-true-end.txt", and -- true to its name -- was the version reflected in the book itself.

So there was "satisfying-ending," which sucked; "good-end," which was good; and "true-end," which was slightly better.

(I realize the multiplicity of the ending, and the account of deliberate "tightening" etc., is in apparent tension with my recent account of working by direct inspiration.

There are a few things I can say about this tension.

For one, it really is true that the third act of AN was more deliberately reasoned-out, and less directly-inspired, than some of the earlier stuff. This is kind of inevitable: you don't get to do anything after an ending, that's what an ending is, and so you have to deliberately try to make the final act of a story fully work as a thing unto itself, rather than writing checks in the hope of cashing them at some later point.

And separately, I do think the final version of the ending feels "more real," "more true to the work" than the satisfying-ending draft.

I think I was aware, even while composing "satisfying-ending," that it felt off and wrong in some ways. But it was only after going through the exercise of creating a complete ending -- some sort of complete ending -- that I was able to look back and say "OK, this fits, but this doesn't fit," and distill something that actually felt right.)

[argentsunshine]

have you posted about your characterization of Joker? i really like your takes about him and would love if it were explained, but understand if not

i don't think i've posted about it explicitly beyond writing fics and comics, but i do think about it a lot

i acknowledge that everyone picks different options for their akira(/ren, i'll be calling him akira here in case i have to differentiate between his real world and metaverse personas), but imo there are way more basic facts about akira that are the same regardless of what dialogue options you pick than people act like there are

he's quiet

he's not really a silent protagonist unless you're incredibly broad with the term, but he still isn't exactly the most talkative guy. you may be saying mr argent sunshine, this is obvious, why are you bothering to state this. well you see i often joke that i have a test where i back out of a fanfic if anyone describes akira as "loud", "talkative", or anything else to that effect. i have seen this so often and it drives me insane. especially when people portray him as like, a quirky hyperactive ditz constantly saying stupid shit...? people can be funny while saying very few words, guys. (sometimes it's even funnier to say less. wild concept.)

also, while the doylist purpose of his quietness is obvious - making the player pick a line every other sentence would get annoying and would force them to write and record way more dialogue to account for all the responses - i think it's interesting to examine from a watsonian perspective. was he always quiet, or is it a mask in the same way as the glasses are? i personally imagine him always being on the quiet side, but it's a space you could play in.

2. caring so deeply about everyone and everything all the time

this to me is the real core of akira's character. the defining moment of his whole deal to me is the one-two punch of him saving a woman he didn't know and losing everything for it, and, when arsene asks, him saying doing that was not a mistake, i'd do it again if i had to, even though the woman he was trying to save turned around and lied to the police, resulting in his arrest. he comforts ann when they barely know each other, he awakens to arsene in the first place while trying to protect ryuji, who he's known for all of ten minutes. yes, he loves his friends and found family dearly (and i'm sure when i started talking about things that are true no matter what option you pick someone went "oh like how akechi will still be akira's wish in maruki's reality no matter what you do", yeah, that too) but he's also ready to throw himself into harm's way for the sake of people he's never met.

(if someone wants my full rant on this point ask me about sojiro akira parallels but a side point to this is that he's deeply unselfish, to a level that may not be healthy in the long run. he just so happens to have gotten the exact magic powers to make his heroics feasible. i'm just saying, without getting persona powers he still would have managed to draw kamoshida's anger, and he would have been expelled and probably gone to juvie! but he still would have done it because he can't just look away.)

3. oh god i don't want this to turn into a whole full rant so now i have to pick one last point then shut up. oh god oh fuck. i could talk about akira forever but nobody wants to sit through that. let's talk about masks.

i don't think of joker as The Real Akira as much as his metaverse appearance is another facet of him. looking at him from another angle. i think his flair for the dramatic is fun and i love him, but i also think the concept of theatrics and illusion and trickery (ha) being built so deep into him is very important. even though it's always for the greater good, he does tell people what they want to hear a lot (off the top of my head, maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of his non-PT confidants are at least somewhat based on false pretenses right from the start, even if they make him come clean in the end, and a lot of the rest involve akira being exactly who the person needs him to be.) you could argue that akira's always pretending to literally everyone fully all the time (I don't think this is true; i think he obscures parts of himself to make himself more useful or palatable to others, but i think arguing his connections are inauthentic is a) edgelord bullshit or, more commonly, shipper brain if they're arguing only one connection is authentic b) just not consistent with the way people work. i'm personally of the opinion that we're all always presenting tailored versions of ourselves to everyone around us - i'm ruder around my friends but kinder around my parents; openly ramble about my interests to my online friends but tend to keep a lid on them irl - these don't make some of my connections fake, it's just a difference in the facets people see. i don't think akira's tendecy to present different masks around different people is neccasarily the best way to go about life (in that i think it Will lead to an identity crisis inevitably) but it's definitely A Thing!

i lost track of what i was saying at the end there so i'll stop talking

[cattonicdragon]

Say could I get kai shen tai lung and if you ever get to watch the show the wu sisters scorpion and fenghuang with a flamingo reader that steals the life force of others to extend there own life and increase their power. P.s your doing really great.

Tai lung,when,kai and the wu sisters x flamingo reader that steal life force from others

I'm back,finally.sorry for my absence but I'm getting back ontop of things now so I'm ok,also ty for the kind words :).

I also caught up on the wu sisters and all so I write for them now though they may be abit ooc.

<<has been proof-read>>

Tai lung

Now I dont remember ever seeing a flamingo in kfp so I think it's safe to assume that their not very local in the areas that are shown in kfp

He'd be curious on how you balance on one leg so frequently and effortlessly

Hes infatuated with your bright colours

However hes mostly curious and intrigued by your powers

Having the ability to steal others life force to not only increase your power but also elongate your own lifespan?

Word is going to spread like wild fire

Most people are intimidated and scared,your something they've never seen before

"Never judge a book by their cover",you may be a brightly coloured gracious flamingo but your power is a little less welcoming

Your more than a worthy opponent

Your the opponent

Although hes still weary about you using your powers on him

I mean who wouldnt?

Shen

Feels very threatened by you

It's bad when he hears a bright pink bird has been stealing peoples life force to increase their power

But it's worse when he enters a room and finds you standing there like the harbinger of death

Definatly trys to kill you more times than you can count

Hes not one to trust easily

Especially after your first encounter

He admires your balance though,there have been times where you've both been locked in battle and hes tried sweeping the floor from beneath you,only for you to land perfectly practically without staggering

He tries to find a way to best you at anything

Fears that you'll do the same to him and his fate will end up in your hands

Whether you want to take his life force though is up to you in the end

Kai

Is absolutely flabbergasted

Hes extremely surprised,hes lived for 500+ years and has never seen anything like you

Other than himself of course,although his powers are strictly different from yours,he steals chi whilst you steal lifeforce

Hes rather star struck by your bright colours and he can get slightly distracted

He asks alot about your powers and how yours and his powers differentiate from eachother

Hes not very interested in having or gaining your powers,though as his goal is not to obtain life sorce

Although again you gain power out of life force,chi is easier to obtain and collect

Hes interested on how you can stand on one leg so easily,if he tried I think we all know what would happen

He can come of quite self centred and brash

Mainly because hes annoyed someone has similar powers to himself

Will ask if you can join him,and/or spar with him

Wu sisters

Very shocked after finding out about your life stealing abilitys

Even the three of them are hardly enough to make you drop a sweat

They wander how a bird manages to so easily best a cat,which in the natural hierarchy the cat is the apex predator

Although due to your gifted abilities it seems you have managed to turned the tables quite drastically

Su wu(the middle sister) will most likely ask you to join very early on due to the fact that defeating you has few and far chances of happening,if at all.

Sparing will happen often though of course you wont be able to use your ability.

They are very pur-sistant(/j) persistent about asking you what the source of your power is and if you are able to teach them

They like your bright colour and the power you radiate

Cat cuddles

They to are good at balance so theyll probably try to see who has the best balance

[moonlit-tulip]

Recently, for the first time in about two-and-a-half years, I've been playing around on this one gamified-fiction-writing site—4thewords—which I first discovered back in 2018. During the 2018-2021 era, it was the single most useful tool I'd found with which to get myself to Actually Write; but now, after I've done a bunch of hacking to find it easier to get myself to write via pure internal motivation without the need for extrinsic deadlines of the sort it uses... it's still the most useful tool I've found with which to get myself to Actually Write, and has accelerated my progress at writing my current short-story-in-progress from maybe a few hundred to a thousandish words a week up to a few hundred to a couple thousand a day. Because, apparently, even if I'm way ahead of where I was a few years ago internal-writing-motivation-wise, I'm still not so high up that external motivation can't serve as a very high-powered force-multiplier.

This is interesting, because the vast majority of the gamified-productivity platforms out there just sort of straightforwardly don't work for me.

After a bit of introspection, I realized that the big important differentiating factor is: 4thewords, unlike almost every gamified-productivity tool I've tried to use, has actually-vaguely-complex gameplay. It's not, like, actively good, as a game; it's not something I'd play if playing it didn't produce writing as a byproduct; but it has any depth as opposed to no depth. It has, like, monsters which can be fought (by writing a certain number of words within a certain time-limit) and will drop items when defeated, and quests to fight monsters and/or retrieve items, and equipment which increases the effectiveness with which one can engage in this process via multiple different stats and is attainable via a mix of buying-from-shops and crafting-from-materials and getting-from-quest-rewards, and so forth. Plus the more-standard stuff, a daily-streak system and an XP system and a character-portrait-onto-which-one-can-equip-cosmetic-gear and so forth; but none of those things did anything for me on Duolingo, so I don't think they're the active ingredient, more of a side-benefit. But overall: moderately-many interlocking systems, as well-made games tend to have.

And that got me thinking... 4thewords is really not much of an RPG. Its story-writing is unmemorable (to the point where I literally do not remember anything about the plot, after my two-and-a-half year break), its gameplay leans grindy, et cetera. And it's still miles ahead of the more-traditional gamified-productivity platforms—it's the only one that's ever worked for me—just on the basis of trying at all, not entirely phoning things in with a superficial dress of game-themed-ness over an utter lack of functioning gameplay-loop.

And that, in turn, has me thinking: if that's really the operative ingredient, then there's a huge market-niche sitting there just waiting to be taken advantage of. Other, less-specifically-writing-centric, gamified-productivity tools along similar lines, building real gameplay into their gamification rather than just "look, here's an XP meter and a daily streak system, isn't this motivating?".

Possibly there's some reason I'm missing why writing would be particularly amenable to this and extrapolating it to other sorts of productivity-which-people-might-want-to-gamify wouldn't work. Or possibly there are other gamified-productivity tools with real gameplay in this manner, even if I myself have failed to discover them. But, if not, this seems like a very good opportunity, one which I'm even almost tempted to try to pick up myself despite this being in fact probably unwise with how many other higher-priority todos I've got piled up.

[transmutationisms]

Hi! First off, I wanted to say I absolutely love your writing. You communicate your ideas in a very dense and informative way and you’ve expanded my knowledge of theory quite a bit.

What I wanted to ask is, do you think first responders that aren’t necessarily ‘cops’ but still work in that same system as them (i.e. firefighters or EMS) can ever be workers for the people? Or are they also another group that you need to watch yourself around? Have a good day.

unlike cops, whose structural reason to exist is protecting private property, firefighters and EMTs are (supposed to be) trained in skills that are absolutely necessary for a just society. that is to say, in the interest of ensuring human flourishing, we will always need and want people around who know how to do things like put out fires and provide first-line medical care. so, the analysis of firefighters and EMTs starts from a very different point to that of police.

however, in current, capitalist social conditions and power differentials, first-line responders are absolutely placed in positions of undue power, can be called 'for' other people in attempts to sweep them into the medico-carceral apparatus, and can and do replicate social and systemic bias and prejudice, thereby harming the very people desperately relying on them for help. for example, both firefighters and EMTs can be and are racist, and often perceive themselves as 'serving the public' in a way that they use to avoid grappling with their racism & other biases. an analogy here is that, although access to health care should be guaranteed to all people, the current medical system is coercive, abusive, racist, classist, ableist, and an arm of state and carceral power. indeed, EMTs are part of this very medical apparatus, and fire departments work closely alongside police departments; this speaks volumes about why capitalist states fund such services and what purpose they serve in current conditions.

again, the problem here isn't the concept of having people who are trained to put out fires or attend to medical emergencies---but, the fact that such skills are good & necessary doesn't absolve these professions, as they currently exist, of their rampant biases and abuses of power. we have to be able to grapple with a structural critique of first responders' relationship to state power and social violence in order to create public services that are actually, yknow, public services.

[gayleviticus]

assorted thoughts on the two new doctor who episodes (spoilers below)

space babies

Weird concept but I think it worked. i dont think the token political allegory had a ton of depth but the stuff about stories is interesting enough i feel like i need to think abt it a little bit

my biggest issue is it feels like the doctor and ruby do a very jarring 180 on sparing the bogeyman at the end. like, i think in some ways it was predictable, but it happens so abruptly after they show zero concern for the bogeyman even knowing the truth of its origins I was super confused. like, i was just content to dismiss it as literally a pile of snot and not a living being.

ironically given the pro-choice vibes in the episode, this actually reminded me a little of kill the moon, where the episode doesn't spend any time actually fleshing out what the Bogeyman is, whether it has consciousness, its degree of sentience etc, the characters just decide killing is bad.

since this episode doesnt try to make a moral dilemma of it it feels less bad than kill the moon (altho I think unfair moral dilemma is a very deliberate choice on KtM's part to make you empathise w Clara aginst the Doctor) but I think it makes the 180 more baffling given the episode seems so uninterested in the Bogeyman as an actual being? if that makes sense?

the devil's chord

to be honest, while it was a fun watch at the time, this felt like an episode that ran out of ideas midway and the more I think about it the more I sour on it. at least scripting wise - i do think this was a very strong episode presentation wise!

Based on this and the Giggle I genuinely don't think RTD knows how to write godlike adversary; both these stories generally collapse into just 'godlike enemy hams it up and does goofy things while the doctor tries random stufff to save the day.' Like, as soon as Maestro turned up it felt as if the thread of narrative logic snapped and it just became a random events plot. And I felt the same with the Toymaker.

I think the issue is that these episodes overplay the power differential so much the Doctor doesn't have any kind of plan - but because these godlike entities like to toy w their victims it means neither the protagonist or antagonist are really driving the plot? i think the fact Maestro read as hammy rather than threatening also didn't help.

I also think these episodes don't set up clear enough rules. If you're going to have godlike aliens with gimmicks confronting the Doctor, the obvious appeal is that it's a story about manipulating the rules of the game to come out on top. It's like dealing with the Fey - or even Weeping Angels; the tension is in figuring out how to rules lawyer the godlike alien out of existence. But instead too much is made of the Doctor not knowing the rules and not attempting to discover the rules and it becomes boring. And if you take that aspect away what actually is the appeal of Doctor vs godlike alien?

They should have played devil went down to georgia during the music battle smh

The Beatles saving the day felt cheap, but it would have been incredibly cheap if they weren't real life people. Like can you imagine any other Doctor Who episode where one-off characters dismissed in the first 10 minutes save the day?

ngl while the ending song was fun and not lyrically terrible... it did feel like the lyrics were ironically the same kind of thing as the bad songs they were lampooning at the start of like, just perfunctorily rhyming random things together? idk. i guess it wasn't as pedestrian but i found it a bit funny

both

i feel like these episodes had a bit more of a return to a kind of procedural investigation format of Doctor Who - characters turn up to a new location and slowly have to piece together what's going on, the rules. which we also had previously in Wild Blue Yonder tbf, but i think it's interesting.

I like how there were moments where Ruby takes charge and says something a bit Doctorly - like when they enter the recording studio in devil's chord she says something like "Right, let's go!" and leads the way. It's a small touch but it just subtly chips away at the dynamic where the Doctor is always In Charge yknow?

Space Babies riffing on End of the World and Devil's Chord riffing on Pyramids of Mars for exposition scenes is perfectly justifiable (esp in the latter case given Pyramids of Mars is like 50 years old now), but I did definitely feel w those scenes that I'd seen it all before? Like, it's one thing to reuse a tropey scene because it's an efficient way of moving the story along, but I felt w both those scenes as soon as I knew what was going on I'd seen it all before. Nothing new. I could go to the toilet for a couple minutes

The magical realism is interesting (the handling of godlike beings aside) but i especially like the ideas of memories, songs hidden in Ruby's soul, and the snow appearing - that's very cool!

[cabeswaterdrowned]

top 5 diviners characters!

Sorry I took a while with this anon I just wanted to write out my thoughts properly since I don’t get to talk about my Diviners bbs often :). #1-2 and #4-5 are basically tied in terms of my feelings for them so I just differentiated rank based on how satisfied I was with their arcs/overall stories especially based on my reread last winter break because reading them back to back rather than as they were being published threw some of that into relief for me.

Theta Knight — I Adore this girl, have since day one and on reread especially she has my favorite arc of any of these characters, I love how her learning to accept her powers works in tandem to her de-learning the feelings of guilt she has from her abusive childhood and marriage. She also has such cool powers not just the fire but I also love that she’s the diviner who is given the title of Witch specifically in BTDBY in a way the others don’t, and how she ends up kind of claiming it. She’s also so deeply loving as a person yet at the same time unwilling to put up with bs, very stubborn frank and down to earth about the things that matter which makes her dynamics with others great to read about especially this makes her friendship with Evie Really fun because I love Evie but she does need that type of tough-love-mixed-with-support from someone. I of course love her friendship with Henry they’re very Margo-and-Eliot coded bi girl (I mean I know that’s not technically canon for Theta but I’m convinced) gay man found family friendship <3 and her relationship with Memphis is lovely very few of those love-at-first-sight-instant-connection ships work for me but they’re one of the exceptions and the way the maturity and growth of their relationship develops over the course of the books is really something. 

Ling Chan — girl who is me. Excellent INTP representation for once and she’s brown and wlw too I stay winning :). Ling is such an important character to me personally I really relate to the way she thinks, her being very logical and skeptical by nature but also finding beauty in tradition and the theme of being caught between worlds in different senses. I also love her powers I find dream powers fascinating and imo this verse handles them the best in terms of explaining them and keeping them interesting  (and I say this as someone who’s favorite series is the raven cycle lol). She has such great dynamics with other chars I loved her toxic romantic friendship in the dream world with Wei-Mei and her friendship with Henry and Memphis and Theta I have mixed at best feelings about Jericho but he’s by far the most entertaining to me in his dynamic with her in the last book, and her clashing with Evie was handled pretty well and I liked her arc around internalized misogyny but I do think she got very little to do in the last book and she peaked in the middle books, which is why she’s slightly bellow Theta. She’s so special to me though. 

Evie O’Neill — she’s just an excellent protagonist so three dimensional and interesting while also being very charming and fun, and the right amount of frustrating at times but you still love her. She’s ‘swell :).I also was pleasantly surprised by some of the notes on mental health and grief that got touched on in her storyline. 

Memphis Campbell — the Diviners men rank pretty close for me but like with Theta the fact I was most satisfied with his arc overall solidifies his ranking. King of Crows is my least favorite of the four books (I’m a huge believer that middle book syndrome is fake and those are often the best/most interesting books in especially characters driven series and that’s true here) although I still have love for it but the full circle of his poems as the voice of tomorrow was top tier and I loved the growth in his confidence and his relationship with Isaiah. 

Henry Dubois — he’s only last because he got precious little to do in books that weren’t Lair of Dreams which is where he shone, but I love him his friendships with Theta and Ling are honestly my favorite dynamics in the group And I just, have a real soft spot for the guy similar to how I feel about Eliot from the magicians. 

honorable mention to Sam Lloyd who I also am v affectionate towards! Funnily enough I did not like him much my first time reading book 1 but I had a quick turn around on him and Samevie in lair of dreams (I. Love their fake dating plot in that book it’s the best ever). So yeah, he’s a good. 

[rabbotred]

What do you think of Bunnie’s kids from light Mobius

Hooo boy, they's a long way away from where I'm at in the comics as of writing this. All the way in Sonic Universe 7, whereas I'm still at Super Special 14 and issue 88. But I went ahead n checked out any wiki pages on em and skimmed the very few comics they appear in. I don't really got much to say about em even with that knowledge. They kinda just exist n help out in the story they appear in. :V

I also noticed that in the second issue they appear in their color pallets are swapped, I guess to better differentiate em from their parents since they look almost exactly like em.

But the most interesting thing about them is how they came to be, all the questions that raises. To address the elephant in the room, yes, their existence is compatible with Bunnie bein trans.

I kinda like that Jacque and Belle exist since it's an often overlooked or outright dismissed element to trans existence - the fact that trans folx can reproduce if their junk is still intact as-is and are able to maintain fertility (which is typically not the case, but it still happens enough to be considered especially in a sci-fi setting like this where it's more likely).

Some different ways it could happen (spoiler - some graphic talk about naughty bits is coming up):

Antoine's a trans man and Bunnie knocked him up with the power of basic biology. Given Flynn clarifying that Bunnie's roboticized naughty bits still work fine, her nuts most likely still make plenty of bunny butter.

Fertility ain't on their side, or both of em got a pp, and so they rely on surrogacy.

Some wacky method that exists in their sci-fi setting, like cloning or whatever.

The played-out headcanon that they're both cissies who also happen to not have any sort of complications despite everything on Bunnie's end. Even with what Flynn said, I doubt it'd be good to be squeezed through a glorified fleshlight in the middle of Bunnie's narrow, metal hips. And Bunnie havin to get cut open ain't purdy either. Or does her metal half just sorta flap open like the faces on the robots in Sister Location, n the baby just fuckin gets launched out like a t-shirt canon??? The thought of Bunnie giving birth is extremely fuckin cursed, whether she's cis or trans with a completely reconstructed functioning reproductive system thanks to the sci-fi setting. Let's just all agree she has a dick n be done with it, Imma bout to hurl :V

[sterlingsilverrosepetals]

Black Butler, Chapter 1 Analysis

Welcome to my analysis of Black Butler. I'm going to write one for each chapter. These will contain thoughtful analyzing, research, and my own feelings on some scenes in each chapter. I don't know how many people will read this regardless I've been having fun writing these and looking into depth at each chapter. I particularly love to focus on history, characters, relationship dynamics, and odd little details. I italicized the summaries I made for each page that way it's easy to differentiate my thoughts from the actual story.

Here we go.

Black Butler Volume I

Cover Art

Sebastian is pouring tea, and there isn’t a lot to the cover on the surface. However, I find it interesting how it appears he is walking while pouring tea. That’s an impressive feat in itself. Also, the stream of tea is so long on this particular cover. The tea also seems to a similar color to Sebastian’s eyes. I think it’s a great cover regardless of the early stage Sebastian. This cover is iconic what else can I say about it? 

Title Page

The title page is perfect for the first volume of the manga. Having the Phantomhive staff and Ciel all together sets the story stage. They all have an important part in the story and it wouldn’t be the same without any of them. After all, that’s where everything starts. I love how it’s all done in black and gray almost like a portrait of everyone together. Yet there is always a hint of one color added each time. 

For this one it was red. I was curious about this inclusion and why Yana used it for the manga. I almost think it is intentional and the color gives a hint to what may occur in the volume or what to expect. Red is a color connected to passion, love, and anger. Since it’s more of a crimson tone it could also reflect warning, revenge, and ruthlessness. It’s also a very powerful color. But the most intriguing thing associated with it and particularly I think one of the main intentions is its association with Devils. And since our titular character Sebastian is a demon it makes perfect sense and is rather genius. The crimson red also compliments the fact that Ciel has a covenant with a demon for revenge and how ruthless he can be.

I also find out of everyone who has something red to accent them it is intriguing how Ciel’s one visible eye is red. Could this symbolize his contract with Sebastian? I almost think it does hint that even if first-time readers don’t recognize it the hint is there. It is a bit menacing in a way. In adjacent Ciel is the only one adorned with roses both on his coat and his top hat. Usually, roses are symbolized by passion and love but they can also be connected to secrecy and confidentiality. Which I found interesting because it almost plays with the fact that the Phantomhive Earl is full of secrets. The secret here most likely is his contract/covenant with Sebastian the demon.

I just love to discover new things like this and try to surmise by the artwork the artist’s intention. I’m not sure if I’m right but I do think this could be what it was hinting at.

Chapter 1: The Butler, Skilled

The first page features a view of the Phantomhive manor. A head peeks from underneath the bedsheets. Our resident Butler awakens his young Earl with a cup of tea and a delicious looking array for breakfast of poached salmon and mint salad. Along with Ciel’s choice of toast, scones, or pain de camgne. The Earl picks a scone. On the next page, Ciel recognizes the tea as Ceylon tea. Sebastian confirms this and explains it’s from Royal Doulton, as well as the tea set being Wedgwood Blue and White. They go over and schedule as the Butler dresses him for the day including Professor Hughes teaching in Kingcraft. In the last panel, someone is hitting a gong commencing a great event.

This page is in color (if you have the Japanese or digital version) and looks quite lovely with the food, especially having a nice texture. This type of beginning is almost a comfortable happenstance right now to the daily life in Black Butler. We don’t even completely see Sebastian or Ciel on the first page as the beginning morning routine begins. It paints a quaint picture befitting one who lives in Victorian England. Since I don’t live in England I wouldn’t know if this is a normal breakfast however what I’ve read in my research Poached Salmon has a lot of high-quality proteins and fats making it a good way to start the day. This elaborate breakfast and choice of accompaniment demonstrate Ciel’s wealth and status. 

The second page is pretty interesting. I actually looked up Ceylon Tea and it’s a black tea but a lighter one with a bit of citrus flavor with honey and spice. It seems like a nice tea to wake up to. I’ll have to try it. I love tea personally so don’t mind me if I go over silly details like this from time to time. Ciel’s eyes are closed at the moment which is interesting in a way because it keeps a beginning reader from seeing what is under his eye patch. Sebastian himself is not in frame completely and is diligently working on tying Ciel’s bowtie. Purposefully it seems like the view is blocked adding a bit of mystery to our two protagonists. On the subject of the lesson, I looked up Kingcraft because, in the beginning, I thought it had to do with fencing but it actually has to do with leadership, authority, and the governance of a king. Indicating again Ciel’s status and what was expected he learned as an Earl. Both these pages give the entire opening a quaint Victorian English feeling and a spark of wondering what will occur. 

The Earl and Butler are now in a new location in front of the manor. Ciel and the servants watch Sebastian face off against what appears to be a Chinese Martial artist with an elaborate fighting technique. Sebastian tightens his gloves and takes the man down with little to no effort. Even though the man claims the technique was a secret one passed down in his family. He demands who Sebastian is.

I feel like this entire fight was to appeal to the main Japanese audience. It doesn’t seem historically accurate although I could be wrong. The tumbleweed flying by like a good old-fashioned shoot-out on the first panel makes me chuckle. Either way, it is a beginning demonstration of Sebastian’s ability and strength. He took down an expert fighter easily which is not an easy feat for anyone. Makes you wonder just how strong he is. Also fascinating how still, in these two pages, we do not entirely see Sebastian’s face. 

Finally, the big reveal comes on the next few pages showing Sebastian Michaelis’s face for the first time. He seems to be looking down on the man as if he’s insignificant. He claims that mastering the technique was no effort for a Phantomhive Butler. Then with a sly smile, Sebastian tells his young master to review his lessons and prepare for the next day since he won the battle. The other servants Baldroy, Finnian, and Mey-Rin are dazzled by their Butler’s display of skill. Each is introduced and they praise Sebastian’s accomplishment. Mey-Rin points out that was his fiftieth win. Ciel is bummed that his attempt to find someone who can beat Sebastian didn’t work out. Sebastian takes it with a sly grin and accepts the drink that Ciel offers him with his praise. Then Sebastian turns to the three servants and asks with a hint of animosity why they are there.

Sebastian’s overall beginning design wasn’t bad. I prefer his newer designs better but this was in the beginning. It has a slick look to still very upper crust and yet kind of frazzled. The sly smiles Sebastian shows don’t seem to have any level of sincerity with them. They almost have a mocking quality in these panels. I like how now that we can see Sebastian and Ciel's faces there is a place card to show the names of each member of the household. The servants are impressed with Sebastian’s skills but Ciel seems bothered and annoyed by the display of his butler. He also seems to go to great lengths to challenge Sebastian he appears to want to see his perfect butler fail. I almost think that the only reason Sebastian fought was for his amusement and the opportunity to mess with Ciel. While Ciel wants him to fail Sebastian seems to feel the same about his young charge. Already building a passive-aggressive relationship between them.

Sebastian asks if each of the servants has already finished their tasks since they had been viewing his fight. He commands the servants to quit relaxing about and get to work. Ciel says on that note that Chlaus from Italy called and Ciel needs to speak with Sebastian privately. They arrive in a large office room where the two speak. Chlaus will be arriving at the house at 6 pm. It turns out he has procured the item Ciel was after. He asks Sebastian and the butler confirms they will show Chlaus an entertaining visit. During their exchange Sebastian grimaces holding his chest as he asks about the lemonade that Ciel offered him. Ciel tells him breezily that it is Tanaka’s special lemonade with AjixMoto apparently the house steward had mistaken it for sugar. He had enough after one sip.

These two pages tell a lot about the current status of things and give a glimpse of the idleness of the other servants. Sebastian has clear command and though they admire him they are also rather frightened of the butler. On another note, I find it interesting Ciel always has a walking stick with him. This particular one seems to have a diamond shape at the top. Now I know this is a staple for him but I think we take it for granted. Not only do I want to analyze the artwork but also the various things on the pages. I found out in my research of the period that walking canes were quite a fashionable adornment not only for mobility but also for society. They indicate the wealth and status of an individual, fairly clever. It definitely also has to do with Ciel’s limited depth of vision because of the eyepatch. Yet I do think that one of the reasons he uses the cane is for the aesthetic. Sebastian is very attentive to his young master following his lead. Both of them speak in few words conveying to the other what is to be done. Sebastian grimacing after the drink makes a good impression of Ciel being spiteful with his butler. He forced him to drink something he didn’t care for after a sip. I almost think that it is also a sign he wants to see his butler struggle we’ve seen how strong and capable Sebastian is in a fight and Ciel wanted to take him down a peg. It also shows that Tanaka the House Steward isn’t completely competent at the moment adding another layer that hints at things to come. 

Sebastian doesn’t look impressed by his young master’s answer, a twitch is present on his forehead. However, he affirms to Ciel he will begin working on things immediately. Ciel leaves him to it. Sebastian tightens his gloves prepares to start his task. We are then treated to Sebastian’s inner monologue on a series of panels. Sebastian works diligently to polish the tableware and selects a spotless tablecloth. He trims the master’s favorite sterling silver roses and weeds the lawn. He prepares a beef slab with choice ingredients for a feast and plans to go to the market to buy other supplies. All this preparation is Phantomhive Hospitality at its finest. A ring interrupts his work alerting him to Ciel’s call he wonders what his little master could want. A silhouette of individuals secretly watches the butler adjust his clothes as he heads out. 

Sebastian is obviously upset with Ciel’s prank but he keeps his answer's calm. I find it interesting how he is upset but he holds it all in. Ciel isn’t even looking at him now focused on his newspaper he leaves everything to his butler. The focus on tightening Sebastian’s gloves demonstrates a strong and efficient worker. Whenever the artist brings up this I can’t help but think it’s partially on purpose. It demonstrates Sebastian is about to get serious. It’s like in that instant Sebastian switches to his finest work mode. The panels here are quite lovely they give an almost whimsical appeal showing Sebastian’s diligence. Apart from the scene, I was curious about Sterling Silver Roses so I looked them up. I always thought they were a white rose but it’s a lavender rose with silver undertones. It’s quite pretty and has a citrusy scent. Ciel seems to like that scent given the Ceylon tea he had earlier. Anyways, Sebastian almost seems disconcerted when Ciel calls yet he brushes off his gloves and slips on his coat heading out anyway. Another interesting thing to note is all of the things he’s doing could have been done by the other servants as well so why is he working on it alone? Quite clever how the author handles this segment of events given what is about to unfold.

The silhouette is revealed to be the rest of the Phantomhive servants there is a gleam in their eyes as they watch Sebastian leave. The trio of Mey-Rin, Finny, and Bardroy confirm that Sebastian’s preparations mean that a guest is coming to visit. Bard tells the others this is their chance to make an impression and demonstrate their skills. Each of them has an image of what they believe they will be able to pull off. Finny with the gardening, Mey-Rin polishing the china, and Bard cooking a classy meal. They are now gung ho to get started on their tasks. Meanwhile, Sebastian is arguing with Ciel about having dessert early. Sebastian firmly tells him he will spoil his dinner even though Ciel continues to protest.

Nothing good can come from gleaming eyes like that. It is nice to see them all getting excited about a guest coming to the manor. This whole situation definitely shows that Bardroy is the brains behind the trio. He’s the one that gets the others excited to demonstrate their skills. The images of the servants daydreaming about completing their tasks are elegant and refined. They have this picture in their head of how things should look it’s not bad but there is such thing as an ideal and reality. I find it funny how each of the tasks they decide to start are ones Sebastian has already begun. On the side I love the little interaction between Ciel and Sebastian it shows the butler is more or less a parent most of the time. Ciel likes to push boundaries and he’s being rather childish demanding treats. Sebastian is firm in denying this request. Definitely getting the parental impression.

So the other servants had a dream of completing the tasks perfectly. Sadly that is not the case reality is they make a disaster. The gardener Finny completely decimated the yard it looks like a barren wasteland. The maid Mey-Rin shattered the china as well as the cabinet. The chef Bardroy charbroiled the beef that Sebastian had set out for the meal. With a tight smiling face, Sebastian asks what all of this is about. The servants are terrified of the butler Sebastian’s smile but each tries to explain their actions. Finny left the lid open on the herbicide sprayer, Mey-Rin slammed into the cabinet, and Baldroy used his blow torch on the meat. Sebastian takes everything in stride and says the fault was his since he left all his tasks open. Now Sebastian ponders the dilemma this mess makes on all his preparations trying to decide what to do before Chlaus comes at a little past six. He checks his pocket watch for the time. His conclusion is he cannot fix the meat or tea set in time. 

Everything is a mess thanks to the other servants. All of Sebastian’s hard work has been destroyed. He has quite a terrifying ominous presence as he listens to their explanation. Although he takes it all with ease and seems to find this a daily occurrence. He shows quite a bit of patience for the other servants despite his anger. I find it interesting the appearance of the servants in this scene. I checked the last few panels and Mey-Rin’s glasses were not cracked before this point. Bardroy is sporting a classic afro (hilarious) and Finian is dirty. Sebastian seems to ignore the other servants' groveling and sets his mind on the task at hand. He considers the time and attempts to remedy the situation while the other servants are panicking.

Sebastian tries to calm down the other servants and tells them to follow Tanaka’s example. Sebastian suddenly has a brilliant idea. Clapping his hands together he gets the other servants' attention. He grasps hold of Tanaka’s tea cup and bases a plan around it. Bardroy watches as the butler starts thinning out the burnt crust on the beef. He isn’t sure about this plan. Mey-Rin bursts in with a stack of boxes she found.

The other servants are a wreck but Sebastian is calm and perhaps a little annoyed at their emotional response to the situation. I love how Tanaka was calmly sipping his cup of tea. Tanaka either is the most collected in the chaos or he simply is in his blissful world. Sebastian demonstrates his skill to make use of the things around him in a bad situation. He focuses on a task but also pay attention to all the things occurring around him, he has a striking alertness. Also, there’s the use of gestures again to continue the scene the artist likes to focus on them in this chapter to display Sebastian’s thoughts and character. Only Bard seems a bit hesitant the others seem to have complete trust in the plan at this point. The others are quick to follow Sebastian but Bard questions things.

Mey-Rin slips and falls toward the ground along with all the boxes she is carrying. Luckily Sebastian manages to effortlessly catch her and all the boxes. The butler scolds the maid for running in the manor and the poor girl blushes admitting that her glasses are broken. Her vision is bad. Finny comes in and excitedly tells Sebastian he managed to get everything he asked for from the garden shop. Sebastian thanks them for their hard work and he will handle the rest. He slyly grins through his teeth telling the servants twice not to touch anything. In the last two panels, a gentleman pulls up in an automobile to the Phantomhive mansion.

I feel for Mey-Rin a lot here. Her lenses are cracked so she isn’t able to get a clear level of vision. I also have to wear glasses so I can understand how that will make it very difficult. Here Sebastian demonstrates his skills by catching everything along with the maid in one swoop. Not an easy thing to do. There's a little sweat on his face which makes me think it was a close call. Finny is so cheerful and helpful here. Sebastian himself is holding in any feelings he has grinning almost mockingly at the other servants. It makes me chuckle but if I was in the servants' shoes I’d definitely find it foreboding. Also, this last page is interesting because the visitor pulls up in an automobile at this time period not everyone had a car and I’d assume it was expensive to have one. So this demonstrates his wealth.

The new arrival approaches Ciel who is sitting reading an economics book on the front step. Ciel identifies him as Chlaus. The man warmly greets Ciel with a hug inquiring about his growth rate. Ciel says he hasn’t grown any taller yet. The two have a friendly conversation as they head inside where all the servants greet the new guest. Chlaus is impressed at the state of the mansion. He has a friendly conversation with Sebastian and comments on the new staff while placing his hat on Finny’s head. Sebastian guides Chlaus towards the courtyard where dinner will be served. The man is confused by the venue but Sebastian assures him Ciel ordered them to entertain him for all his hard work. 

There are seriously a few interesting things to note on these pages. First is the beginning, Chlaus responds with a lot of familiarity towards both Ciel and Sebastian. The man is obviously an important part of Ciel’s life or he wouldn’t have been able to give the young earl and hug. That is something we find out later on that only select people can do. Ciel’s attitude also is very laid back usually you’d expect the servants to greet the guests but he made an effort to wait at the front entrance for Chlaus' arrival. Sebastian also seems to already have relations with him yet the other staff members do not know him yet. This makes me think that the other servants were hired only recently or that Chlaus has not visited in a long while. I do hope we see more of this man in the future.

The courtyard has been transformed into a Japanese Stone Garden with blooming irises. Sebastian’s efforts have pulled it off and Chlaus is deeply impressed. The butler seats the guest at a table nestled in the garden. Using Tanaka’s tea set Sebastian serves them traditional tea. Chlaus is impressed by all the details he put in to make everything authentic. The other servants watch Sebastian’s work from behind the flowers. The truth was that they didn’t have any other tea sets but Sebastian used what they had to his advantage. Ciel seems content with the whole thing. He asks Chlaus if he brought the game he promised to procure him. Chlaus confirms it but admits it was difficult to get it, he had relayed this to Cie over their phone call. 

Here is a stroke of brilliance. Sebastian managed to mask the others' mistakes by using the Japanese traditions to his advantage. We find out from these panels that Chlaus is Italian, not only does he refer to retrieving the game for Ciel from there but he also compliments the stone garden with this language. About the game Chlaus brought here’s one piece that is a bit controversial when considering the period the game he got Ciel is in a box that looks like it came from Nintendo Gameboy. The entire name is sort of similar. The name though is interesting it’s called Mouse3 which makes me consider the following chapters about the mice issue. So the entire thing isn’t very authentic but I will say the first few books had some little tendencies here and there. I still think if the anime used it but changed it a bit the game would have worked. The important thing is this puts Chlaus as an key associate along with being a close acquaintance of Ciel. The entire meal and entertainment is for the benefit of a job well done on the man’s part for the earl. Ciel also seems to be a little playful here teasing Chlaus openly about the struggle he had retrieving the game for him.

Chlaus seems to play along with Ciel and is thankful for the reward for his effort. Ciel comments that he hopes the game will be entertaining the last one had a tiresome ending. His guest scoffs lightly at Ciel’s response and says that as a child the game will probably be complete pretty soon and the boy will want another game from him. A sinister smirk appears on the Earl’s face and he confirms children are greedy when it comes to games. This brings up another point by Chlaus about Phantomhive company being the top toymaker in the country at the age of 12. He fears for the boy’s future. Sebastian interrupts them serving dinner. Courtesy of Chef Bardroy (who only sliced the meat and arranged it on rice.) the meal is gyuu-tataki-don. Chlaus is shocked he expected a Kyoto-style-full course meal. Sebastian interrupts him with a glimmer in his expression. 

I feel like this scene was both hinting at the actual focus of their conversation and a bit of insight into Ciel. Ciel himself seems to be very excited to play this next game and he is not above admitting children are greedy about them. Ciel seems to have a bit of a mocking attitude to the whole thing as well as confidence in the future. He is also strong in aptitude in ability if he can finish a game so quickly. The theme of games is played well built in the series. Here it foreshadows Ciel's viewpoint on challenges. He treats them as a puzzle something he needs to dissect and figure out. Games are also a competitive way for people to demonstrate their skills and the goal is always to win. Ciel seeing life from this viewpoint shows his hunger and determination to tackle each situation with a detached outlook. We also learn here that he runs a successful toy company which would explain why he had Chlaus get him an Italian game. Yes, this is all on the surface but the later chapters reveal the truth behind the conversation and it’s a lot more than just a game Chlaus’ procured for him. Yet I wonder if the two of them are speaking this way to make sure no spies find out what was truly going on? After all the Phantomhives have many enemies. And now we have Donburi ha ha it doesn’t really fit the venue but wait the spark from Sebastian means there is more to tell.

Sebastian breaks out into a passionate speech about Donburi and its significance as a feast for workers. He speaks of the history of Donburi and almost admits that he believes Chlaus has grown tired of elaborate dishes. The servants cheer the butler’s work in the background. Chlaus chuckles genuinely impressed by all the effort and finds it very humorous. He believes Ciel and he will continue to be able to work well together. Ciel is honored by his words. Chlaus admits to Sebastian he did not know anything about the history of the dish and compliments Sebastian. Another panel shows that Sebastian had spent a lot of time in the study learning about Japanese Food Culture. Chlaus is happy and agrees with Sebastian’s assessment of needing lighter meals he thanks him.

What a display from the Japanese-style wave background to Sebastian’s passionate rant about Donburi it truly suits the situation. Chlaus is very delighted and it seems that he and Ciel will continue their business relations. I’m pretty impressed by the fact Sebastian spent time going over the history of Donburi. It wasn’t just a random conversation they show the effort Sebastian went into to sell his story. Demonstrates a lot of dedication and commitment to his job. It also is shows honesty because he could have made up a story rather than researching it. When Sebastian sells something here it is truthful. Chlaus seems to not just take everything at face value though here he shows he found the whole situation funny and is delighted by Sebastian’s efforts. In the anime the other guy who poses as Chlaus just seemed overwhelmed by it all but Chlaus himself recognizes that they went to a lot of trouble for him and he even seems to understand the humor of it all. I won’t always talk about the anime but this is a big difference between the stand-in and him. 

Sebastian informs Chlaus that he has selected an Italian wine for him. He gestures towards Mey-Rin with the trolley. She just stands there for a moment until Sebastian prompts her to pour Chlaus a glass of wine. The others notice she’s acting strange. Mey-Rin is in her own world after being so close to Sebastian. She misses her aim for the glass and the wine spills all over the table. The others gasp and try to tell her to stop her. Inner thoughts of the group are that the mess she is making will make all their efforts go to waste. The wine is dripping very close to Chlaus at this point and the servants are panicking.

Like I said before I don’t think we can entirely fault Mey-Rin she can’t see well with those cracked glasses. Also, having someone handsome like Sebastian right in her face would make it very difficult. The pressure gets to her. Everyone else is sort of panicking besides Sebastian and Ciel who look more paused in disbelief if anything. I love this entire exchange.

Sebastian effortlessly pulls the soiled tablecloth out from under the meal and decorations. Ciel looks a bit shocked by the whole thing. 

I love these pages so much. Doing something like that isn’t easy. You’d expect a magician to at least fake it but he pulled the entire tablecloth like that so effortlessly. Everything on the table was barely disturbed.

The whole scene brings the moment to a pause. Sebastian pulls off the tablecloth so quickly it brings everyone besides Chlaus who was too busy eating to a halt. Ciel is at a standstill and the rest of the servants are shocked minus Tanaka. The wine glass shifts before setting into place. While Finny and Bard retrieve Mey-Rin, Chlaus finally notices the tablecloth is gone. Ciel gives a little chuckle and a slight smirk. Ciel explains he had it removed because of a stain and Sebastian apologizes for the inconvenience.

That mix of reactions from everyone is interesting. Ciel paused with his food close to his mouth. He doesn’t seem entirely shocked but at the same time, he was probably panicking at that moment. The other servants are wide-eyed and Bardroy spits out his cigarette. Ciel easily composes himself and acts like nothing happened. He tells a lie about why the tablecloth was moved with a straight face while Sebastian stands behind him humbly apologizing. Why is this important? Ciel basically tells a fabrication and Sebastian goes along with it. The boy can easily put on a facade and smirk as he resumes eating like nothing happened. He is the one to cover up the situation whereas Sebastian follows his lead. It gives yet another glimpse into the outer view of Ciel's character. I know we have the anime to see this scene now but it is like everything happened in an instant. I still love this scene so much.

Sebastian breathes a sigh of relief and the others compliment his work. Bardroy compares him to Superman. Sebastian says he’s merely a butler. Chlaus also compliments Sebastian’s skills but Ciel said he only did what was expected as his servant. Chlaus disagrees and argues talent like Sebastian would be hard to find in Britain. Ciel concurs but says that’s not the only reason he hired him. He claims he has never tasted sweets better than Sebastian’s. 

Crisis averted for Sebastian and company. I find it interesting how Bardroy compliments him on being just like Superman it's a hint that he's not of this world. However on a factual note that character did not appear in comics until 1938 we are still in the 1800’s at this point so it was a rather inconsistent dating. I think it was used more to hint at Bardroy’s heritage since he is from America. It also speaks of Sebastian’s potential inhuman skill. Sebastian doesn’t even use his regular catchphrase in response here. Ciel himself is calm and thinks nothing of Sebastian being so skillful as he seems to expect him to be. I like how the panel focuses on Ciel’s spoon in a mirror view rather than his face when he speaks of why he hired Sebastian for his culinary arts. It describes his sweet tooth better than just an ordinary panel of his speaking.

Chlaus is shocked by Ciel’s response but chuckles assuming sweets to be important to a child. Ciel smiles secretly and claims he’s looking forward to dessert. The dessert is Apricot and Green Tea Mille-Feuille. The other staff watch as Sebastian prepares it in the kitchen with eager looks. Sebastian finds himself sweat dropping at their hovering. Sebastian tells them if they behave 'like good little children' he will reward them with some of the treats. While Bardroy tries to wake Mey-Rin, Tanka is already eating his share. Finnian on the other hand is considering the whole event that transpired. Also apparently, Finny bought Iris bulbs but the flowers displayed in the garden were in bloom. Sebastian apologizes on the last panel for the delay.

Ciel’s love of sweets knows no bounds. The desert prepared looks excellent though so I can’t blame him. Sebastian even made it to compliment the atmosphere of the Japanese Stone Garden. I love seeing the other servants hovering yes in many ways Sebastian truly is a dad to the whole staff and the Earl. The way he calls the staff children is telling as well. Finnian pondering brings up a good point about the garden how could the irises be in bloom? It makes the entire situation at this point more mysterious. 

The final page has Sebastian arriving with the cart arrayed with the sweet treats he prepared. He proclaims to the Earl and his guest that dessert is now served. The scene is adorned with those mysterious blooming irises. Back in the kitchen Finnian considers how the butler managed to make the flowers bloom yet ultimately decides who cares. While Bardroy tries to arouse Mey-Rin and Finny is pondering things Tanaka has already finished off all the desserts placed aside for the staff. 

Ultimately at this point I think Finnian and the others consider Sebastian’s skills abnormal but either ignore or don’t have the observant mind to pay attention to the details. Although Finny was on the right track of the mysterious situation he is more inclined to let things be since it all worked out in the end. I find it hilarious that Tanaka managed to finish off the entire desert while the others were busy with things. It kind of hints again at their lack of observance. Yet quite often that happens to people so it’s not uncommon. Humans tend to not look past their noses. We the readers notice things more because we are focused.

Final thoughts on the chapter:

Truthfully I enjoy this first chapter. It starts building dynamics with the Phantomhive staff and the Earl. Particularly showing well what the others lacked and how Sebastian handled things on his own. You have to wonder at this point as a first-time reader why Ciel hired so many incompetent staff members when Sebastian can handle everything. In my opinion I think besides their special talents (we learn about later) they were hired to make the Phantomhive household look more realistic and like a true home. I love the staff truly I do it with all their antics. But they can be lacking at times in skill. It is put to great comedy effect. That’s where Sebastian comes in he balances out the entire situation and makes things effortless. How can any normal person compete with that?

I loved the dynamic between Ciel and Sebastian here. There is a bit of tension. Ciel is trying to test boundaries and see what he can get away with. He almost at times seems frustrated that Sebastian can do so well at everything. He tries to find areas where he will fail. Yet he’s not surprised by his skill or talent. He likes to poke jabs at his Butler too. They clearly have a bit of a passive-aggressive relationship. Yet at the same time, there are hints of an understanding between the two. Sebastian plays the part of the straight man to all of Ciel's lies which given who he is is rather ironic. I did see even in the beginning a bit of Sebastian being the dad of the Phantomhive group. He cleans up the mistakes of the staff and he also keeps Ciel on task. Typical parent situation. 

Chlaus was a nice addition as an outsider to everything going on. Yet he has a bit of a relationship with Ciel since he can speak with him with such familiarity. The staff does everything they can to impress the visitor and he is treated in high regard for all his efforts. Those efforts will come into view in the following chapters and I can’t wait to read more. Yes, this was a good first chapter despite some inconsistencies in the historical timeline it has always been a fun read.

~

Any who read this to the end I hope you enjoyed my analysis I had a lot of fun writing it. And I'm currently working on chapter 2. This will probably very on when it's released because of work and irl but I will try to post a chapter as often as I can. I want to get this done before Season 4 but we shall see.

[finlaure13]

ChatGPT: Student builds app to sniff out AI-written essays

By Nadine Yousif

BBC News

Illustration of ChatGPT on a smartphone

IMAGE SOURCE, GETTY IMAGES

Edward Tian has been thinking about the power of artificial intelligence for a number of years.

But it was in a packed lecture last year that the computer science student at Princeton University saw how advanced this technology had become. His thesis adviser displayed a set of text in front of the class and asked the students to differentiate between what had been written by a human and what had been AI generated.

Many students guessed wrong. He realised then that there was a problem that needed a solution.

"This technology is only going to get better and better, AI is here to stay. This is the future," Mr Tian told the BBC.

"But at the same time, I believe we need to enter this future responsibly."

This is why the 22-year-old spent his winter holiday break at a coffee shop in his hometown of Toronto working on an application that can determine, with high accuracy, if a text was written by a human or a bot.

He created it in response to the emergence of ChatGPT late last year - a free online chatbot that can expertly write almost anything, from English essays and news articles, to meal plans and computer code, all from a simple prompt.

The popularity of ChatGPT since its launch has been met with alarm, including from some US schools who have blocked it on their servers in a bid to prevent students from cheating. Others worry the bot will take jobs away from writers and creatives, or will be used for more sinister purposes by hackers to write harmful malware.

Mr Tian, who is in his senior year at Princeton, said the app he developed, GPTZero, was the first step to address a host of concerns that could arise as artificial intelligence becomes smarter and more easily accessible.

Photo of Edward Tian

IMAGE SOURCE, EDWARD TIAN

The app works by looking at two variables in a text - perplexity and burstiness - and it assigns each of those variables a score.

First, the app measures how familiar it is with the text presented given what it has seen during training. The less familiar it is then the higher the text's perplexity is, meaning "it's more likely to be human-written", Mr Tian said.

It then measures burstiness by scanning the text to see how variable it is. For example, does the text have a mix of short versus long sentences? Or does the writing appear to be more levelled and uniform?

"If you plot precisely over time, a human-written article will vary a lot," Mr Tian said. "It would go up and down, it would have sudden spikes."

He is still working on improving GPTZero, but he has released a beta version for public use. In a tweet, he demonstrated how the app can successfully sniff out the difference between an essay published in the New Yorker magazine versus a letter written by ChatGPT.

He said he has also since tested it out by feeding the app BBC articles written by journalists, versus articles written by ChatGPT using the same headline as a prompt. (Mr Tian formerly worked with the BBC's investigations unit). He said the app successfully guessed the difference between the texts with a less than 2% false positive rate.

Since its launch, Mr Tian's app has been used by thousands of people. He said he has since been contacted by teachers and university admissions officers from around the world who are interested in how it works.

While GPTZero was created to combat academic plagiarism, Mr Tian said he sees apps like his being used to address other issues that will come with the rising popularity of artificial intelligence such as online disinformation campaigns.

He is, however, not opposed to artificial intelligence - in fact, he said he was very excited about its emergence, and has found it useful in helping him to write computer code and solve other problems. But he said it was important to develop safeguards for any new technology as it gives its use a sense of credibility.

But he said that, above all, the popularity of his app speaks to "a human urge to know the truth".

[leftistanalysis]

Western marxism ch 1.1

1914 and 1917

Birth of western and eastern marxism

The events of august 1914 in the west…

The history that I intend to reconstruct begins to take shape between august 1914 and october 1917, between the outbreak of the first world war and the victory of the october revolution. Following in the wake of these two events, marxism experiences a worldwide diffusion which projects it far beyond the confines of the west, where it was stuck in the times of the second international. However, this triumph has its downside, and that is that the encounter with cultures, geopolitical situations and socio-economic conditions so different from each other stimulates an internal process of differentiation with the emergence of contradictions and conflicts previously unknown. To understand them, we have to ask ourselves about the underlying motivations that led them to join the communist and marxist movement which took shape in those years. 

In the west, the radical historical shift, apocalyptic even, is without a doubt the outbreak and propagation of the first world war. The fatigue, disgust, and indignation before the interminable carnage promoted the rapid diffusion of the communist movement. It’s symptomatic something that happens in italy  in the months or weeks that precede the rise of the bolsheviks to power: between february and october, two delegates of the provisional government constituted in Moscow after the defeat of the tsarist autocracy arrive at Turin to make contact with a country allied in the war and counteract the growing pacifist tendencies. Even before their arrival, they make clear their frontal hostility toward the bolsheviks (who demand an immediate peace). Nevertheless, when the two guests of kerenski’s government make their appearance a the balcony of the siccardi palace, the multitude of forty thousand workers that were waiting for them broke out in shouts of “Viva Lenin!”

It was exactly august 14th 1917. Ten days later barricades were lifted as an expression of rejection of the war, with the result that the city of turin itself would be declared a war zone: thus spoke the war tribunals. It could be said that the masses of protestors and rebels joined the october revolution before it even happened, and they joined it motivated by the anti war struggle. Today, it’s politically correct to refer to october 1917 in russia not as a revolution, but as a coup d'etat; and yet, we see the protagonist of that supposed coup almost provoke a revolution thousands of kilometers away, and do so with only his name, and before even gaining power. This happens because his name, the the party he heads are inextricably tied to an unqualified condemnation of the war and of the socio-political system that provoked it. 

This spiritual climate explains the formidable attractive capacity of the October Revolution in the west, not only over the masses, but also over intellectuals of the first rank. One thinks of the evolution of Gyorgy Lukacs. He writes in his autobiography: “My interest in ethics took me to the revolution.” the interest in ethics is plainly identified with the rejection of wars, which is seen as a complete negation of the most fundamental moral norms: 

“I was a furious anti-war activist. Even my aversion towards positivism had political motives. As much as, in fact, one condems the situation in hungary, I was nonetheless not ready to accept english parlimentarism as an ideal (itself implicated in the massacre of war.” But in those days I didn’t see anything which could replace the status quo. That’s precisely why the revolution of 1917 moved me with such force, because it suddenly showed on the horizon that things could be different. Regardless of your attitude towards that difference, it completely transformed our lives, the life of a very large part of my generation.”

Erbst Bolch argues similarly, who signals, speaking of the young hungarian philosopher and not so much about himself:

  “When the war began, in 1914, we felt completely lost. This war became a decisive factor in all of our developments. For him [lukacs], the ties with the communist movement were at the same time a support and a refuge.”

Even without having an organic relationship with the communist movement and party, on the ideal plane the young german philosopher reaches conclusions that are not much different from the ones reached by the young hungarian. Later, bolch will declare that he took up the russian revolution with an “emancipatory jubilation without precedent.” If we look at the “spirit of utopia,” which takes place during one of the most infamous periods in history, if, on the one hand, “the europe” responsible fo the war “deserves the eternal death”, he celebrates, on the contrary, the fact that the country that surged from the october revolution resists in the face of the aggression of this or that capitalist power. Yes, “the russian marxist republic remains undefeated.” in any case, more than ever “the authentic marxist revolution” invoked by marx, which will bring about “freedom” and will mark the “start of the history of the world beyond pre-history,” imposes itself. 

The october revolution is the truth finally realized for those who strive to give concreteness of the struggle against war, or better yet: against the ongoing “genocide” to borrow the words of the leaders of the socialist and antimilitarist movement, rosa luxemburg, and karl liebknecht. The future leaders of the october revolution (some of which formed in the west) also understood and lived the first world war as the definitive demonstration of the intrinsic horror of the capitalist-imperialist system and of the absolute need for its overthrow. I’ll give some examples: bukharin talks of a “horrific factory of cadavers,” stalin of the “mass extermination of the living forces of the towns.” Trotsky paints a particularly eloquent picture: “the cainite work of the patriotic press” on both sides is “the irrefutable demonstration of the moral decadence of bourgeois society.” In effect, humanity falls into a “blind and shameless barbarity.” We are witnessing the starting shot of a bloodthirsty race to use the most advanced technology for military purposes; a scientific barbarism that relies on the greatest discoveries of mankind “only to destroy the fundamentals of civilized social life and annihilate mankind.” Everything good that civilization has produced drowns in the blood and mud of the trenches: “health, comfort, hygiene, daily exchanges, friendships, professional obligations, and in the last analysis, the apparently unbreakable rules of morality.” Later, but also in reference to the catastrophe that unfolded in 1914, surged the term “holocaust”: in the 31st of august of 1939, Molotov accused france and england of suspending the soviet policy of collective security, with the hope of throwing the third reich against the ussr, without realizing that this would provoke a “new massacre at a great scale, a new holocaust of nations.”

[daswarschonkaputt]

“With the weight of water above him, everything feels muted…Chan looks at him. “Porsche,” he says.” I’d love to hear your writerly thoughts on this section, as offered in the Chapter 8 end note. Thank you so much for writing, I loved the fic!

ah i see we're starting this off with some of the heavier stuff from the fic hahaha. this is from chapter three, or as i like to call it, the porsche has a mental breakdown chapter. he really goes through it this one.

under the cut to avoid clogging up people's dashes:

it's actually interesting you chose this part of the fic, because i have a deleted bit from this section that i still have saved. originally, this section was going to start like this:

Before he met Kinn, Porsche didn’t spend much time at all swimming. He’d been taught how, as a kid – had even competed, for a brief period of time during middle school – but like so many things in his life, it had fallen to the wayside after his parents died. Taekwondo was useful. It let him defend himself, defend Chay – and it provided them with a meagre source of income, in the form of tournament winnings, and sports scholarships. Swimming – with its private pools and gym membership fees – felt like an indulgence.

i cut this, because as much as i love a good bit of kittisawasd backstory, it didn't really fit the mood of the section. porsche doesn't have the brainspace for that kind of instrospection, as we'll see later in the scene.

With the weight of water above him, everything feels muted.

if i remember correctly, i ended up workshopping the first few lines of this section quite a lot. often when i'm writing i have an idea in my head that i want to convey that i don't necessarily have words for yet. usually in these moments, i just sort of throw words at a blank doc until something about the way they hang together tells the story i want.

i have issues with sensory overload personally, so one of the things i wanted to get across with this scene is that porsche was just craving, like, silence on all fronts. and one of the big ways i personally accomplish that is with pressure, usually in the form of a weighted blanket. so i wanted to get across the idea that he was like, held down all around him and enjoying the quiet of submersion.

Beneath the surface, the memories of that night feel far away. The ghost of Kinn’s hands no longer burns his skin, so he no longer feels caught between the urge to claw it out of him and the urge to let it consume him. He doesn’t have to trap himself in those moments with Kinn, if only to stop himself from slipping further back, to the blurry memories of English nursery rhymes and invasive, unwanted touch.

so obviously, one of the points of canon divergence in the diamond auction in this fic is that kinn didn't get to porsche as quickly as in canon. and because of that, vegas got a little further with porsche. i wanted to touch on that a bit here, because porsche spends most of the chapter processing his violation at kinn's hands -- he almost doesn't have the brain space to handle having to attack his violation at the hands of a stranger, too.

i also thought it was important to draw a line between how porsche feels about what went down with kinn -- not great, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that he didn't hate it -- and how he feels about what went down before -- invasive, unwanted touch. he lingers on the memories with kinn, because he likes them better.

and then absolutely refuses to think about why that is.

this chapter was one of my favourites to write for the fic, in large part because porsche's feelings on the matter of his dub-con sex with kinn are not simple. he's confused by his own reaction to it, which is added to by his already existing feelings of being trapped and powerless. porsche feels very keenly the power differential between him and kinn at all points in this fic, and a large part of their relationship is about porsche trying to negotiate around that to build something he can live with.

anyway i can ramble about porsche's feelings this chapter for ages, so let's stop there and go on a bit.

There’s no guilt, because he knows he was unfair to Tae, has known it since the moment his self-righteous anger burned out and left him feeling empty and alone.

i thought it was important to spell out for my readers that porsche knows he's being unfair to tae when he throws tae's apology gift back in his face. porsche in canon very much tries to take people as they intend -- were he less fucked up by everything going on, porsche would have probably accepted tae's gift, or refused it more politely.

so he feels guilty, because he thinks he was a dick, and then he feels alone because he recognises that that was someone attempting to reach out to him, and he just ruthlessly threw them off. porsche has very few friends in the compound at this point -- and the list of people that know the full extent of his violation doesn't include any of them.

like i said. he has a rough run of it.

Even if his lungs scream, and his head throbs – he doesn’t want to break for air. He just wants it all to stop.

hello darkness my old friend.

obviously here, this is a brief little bit of suicidal ideation. this is touched on briefly with the hair dye scene in the chapter, earlier, when porsche strangles himself, but i think what i wanted to get across here is that porsche is really at his breaking point. there's so much shit in his brain and all his usual coping mechanisms (drinking and sex) are not available to him. so all that fucked up shit has to go somewhere, and it goes... well, yeah. here.

Something hooks under his arms, and yanks. Porsche’s eyes snap open to a flurry of bubbles and movement, and then he’s being hauled out of the water, up onto the rough tile surrounding the pool. His mouth opens on instinct, and he heaves in a breath of air, coughing and gasping as the smell of chlorine fills his lungs.

if i remember correctly i struggled a lot with how to interrupt porsche's underwater angsting with chan. one of my tricks when i hit stuff like this is to go fully into porsche's head and be like, okay, what does he see right now. because, obviously, what's happening is chan's hauling him out of the pool -- but porsche isn't going to know it's chan. so: something hooking under his arms, bubbles, breaking the surface, heaving in air.

you'll see this occasionally when i write fight scenes too. porsche being like, oh shit chay. that's me using this technique to write around difficult bits.

He pushes himself up onto his elbows, turning his head to see his rescuer. Oh. Oh shit.

oh you better run, porsche.

Chan is pulling himself out of the pool. He’s fully dressed – blazer, shirt, slacks, dress shoes – and soaking wet. He’s even still wearing his watch. He looks—well, he looks about the same way Porsche reckons anyone would look, after they had to fish their useless apprentice out of a pool whilst wearing business casual. He strips off his blazer and lets it drop to the ground with an audible smack. Chan looks at him. “Porsche,” he says.

i think i described this as chan having skyrim courier energy in my author's note. one of the things about my writing style is that i try to underpin the more serious parts of my fic with a little touch of humour, to try and break up the tension. here, i was sniggering to myself at the idea of porsche and chan, both of them soaking wet, after chan has just pulled porsche out of a pool he was basically trying to drown himself in -- and neither of them talking about it.

when i was outlining this fic into my friend's dms, i think i described this part of the scene as chan delivering his message with all the emotional investment of "are you paying too much for your car insurance?"

btw, don't think too hard abt the fact that chan didn't even take off his blazer before diving in to save porsche. don't think about the fact that he found porsche in the pool, waited for him to break the surface, and then realised porsche wasn't going to. don't think about the panic he must have felt, to keep his business shoes, watch, and blazer on in his hurry to get porsche out of the pool. don't.

also i think i've communicated this before, but that SLAP of chan throwing off his blazer? delicious. it lives in my brain. the huffy, pissed off slap of a wet blazer on tile.

a few more general bits from when i was writing this bit of the fic:

this scene was one of the last things i wrote for the chapter, and at this point i was basically frothing at the mouth to get to the kinn/porsche confrontation scene at the end (what do you want from me, porsche? -- that line had been rattling around in my head for literal DAYS at this point, and i desperately wanted to write it.)

i've mentioned this before, but this scene is one of a couple of ideas i had for porsche-breakdown-moments for this chapter. all of them fit a theme of porsche doing dangerous/reckless things. (i very almost had a repeat of the canon apple-shooting scene in this chapter, but instead it would have been porsche putting himself there, in front of that target, apple on his head, daring kinn to miss. this one got cut because i wanted to keep kinn and porsche apart, so that we could have the implication of kinn respecting porsche's need for space. this scene would have also taken place in front of tae and time, giving them all sorts of weird and concerning ideas about porsche and kinn's relationship.)

also as an aside, the big fandom drama happening when i was writing this chapter was the realisation that vegas plonked his still-trousered legs into the pool. so that was obviously on my mind as i wrote about porsche in the pool. still one of the most unhinged things to have happened in the show, and that's saying something.