#it's of course much more logical that he has at least some degree of independent wealth he uses to fund his experiments

[bambiraptorx]

I know that logically Draxum probably got away with making the mutagen and oozequitos because he was very careful about hiding his research and whatnot, but the much funnier explanation is that he's already so weird that when he rolled up to an academic conference two months after his lab exploded the first time with his 200 page paper on how he's going to bioengineer mosquitos to be the size of his hand (without giving a single reason as to why he wants to do this), the most he was met with was maybe a few raised eyebrows and a couple people wondering how he still gets grant money

[astaroth1357]

The Brothers Have Been Multiplied!!!

Lucifer

Look. In his day-to-day life, Lucifer has always had to struggle with being one of, if not the only, capable person in the room. His brothers don't always try to help him and even if they do their help may just make things worse…

So this should be a dream come true right? Not only does he have competent help, they'll all also himself! Who better to trust his more difficult tasks to, right? Right??

Well… wrong. Unfortunately for as much as Lucifer is, there is one thing Lucifer and his clones just aren't… Good minions.

Complain as he might about his brothers, they know who's in charge. As it turns out five Lucifers in a room can only screw in a lightbulb after they agree on who's giving the orders and being the "original" means nothing at all!

Poor MC gets saddled with mediating the most confusing squabbles in their life between Lucifer, Lucifer, Lucifer, Lucifer, and OG Lucifer (the name dubbed to him by Levi)

So aside from this being a trainwreck for anyone not named Diavolo (who's thrilled to have so many Lucifers to talk to!), it's also a headache for himself too!

The next week is spent with Lucifer literally arguing with himself over who's doing what while the brothers all cower in their rooms to keep from incurring their wrath… Five angry Lucifers is a sentence for certain death, somebody hide Mammon…

Mammon

Lucifer's worst nightmare has been realized… Not only does he live in a world with one Mammon, now there's five! Five!!! Five Mammons!! The world isn't ready for this, no one is!

Of course, a pack of Mammons absolutely get into as much trouble as you think they would. The moment he realized there was more of him, the secondborn was already scheming up what kind of ploys he could pull off with five of himself...

Barbatos is upping the Castle security as we speak...

To his credit, you can't say that the Mammon-squad doesn't have hustle either. It may be either a blessing or a curse to go to five different stores and see a Mammon working there all at the same time, depending on your preference.

(Unfortunately for the brother and anyone with pickpocket-able wallets, it's mostly a curse).

Honestly, the biggest downside for poor MC is that they're all. so. clingy!!

If the MC wants even a minute to themselves, they'll be swatting away Mammon's like a swarm of mosquitos! Better learn an invisibility spell quick, or else their greedy companions will never, ever leave…

Leviathan 

Holy cow, it's a gamer's dream come true!! Screw underwhelming AI and goodbye unreliable party members, he has all the team he needs right here!! They should go national or even pro!!!

Ah yes, Levi was truly elated for like, a couple days over this development. Why shouldn't he be? Having a whole herd of himself was a blast!

They're all great at gaming, they like the same things, they dislike the same stuff, and (most importantly) he's not any better or worse than any one of them! There’s nothing to get jealous over, right?

Well slap a big fat wrong on that because there's one thing to always get jealous over and their name is MC!

MC could come home from class one day to find five Levi's all wanting them to do five different things and NO THEY'RE NOT SHARING-

Unfortunately for Levi, the poor guy is so prone to jealousy that he can't even cope with it when he's jealous of himself…

It is at least a little entertaining to watch a pile of otakus fight themselves, it's kind of like watching a deadly game of high-stakes LARP-ing. Just less imaginary spells and more giant sea monsters popping out of nowhere… Someone grab some sponges…

Satan

Which is more likely to rule the world, one Solomon or five Satans...?

Having five Satans around is kind of terrifying… Just one can scheme up a storm and cause a lot of damage so add on four others and you got a recipe for a bad time… 

If you're Lucifer, anyway.

In truth, the band of Satans are all about as independent as their original counterpart, so they don't often do things together as a group.

This can create a lot of deja vu scenarios where the MC will swear they've already passed by a Satan in the hallway… like three times.

Unfortunately they also get the urge for affection around the same time, so the MC may go a whole day without seeing them then suddenly get surrounded by needy and bickering Satans at all sides...

When the pack does work together, however, they're a well-oiled machine. Capable, logical, practical: basically everything the Lucfier-squad wish they could be without all the pesky pride in the way!

… until someone ticks them off and they become their own angry mob, but hey, still better than a pack of Mammons.

Asmodeus 

… We all know an orgy is happening right? Like, it may not be the first thing he thinks of, but it's on the list. He'd never pass up the chance to selfcest when possible. Never.

That being said, the Asmos actually get sick of each other surprisingly quickly… Only a few days in and they'll be squabbling like crazy!

Why you might ask? Well not for any particular character flaw or anything - it actually boils down to the clothes… and makeup… and face… and attitude... and-

Basically, how in Diavolo's Hell is he supposed to stand out as the world's most singularly beautiful creature if there are FOUR OTHERS that keep stealing his style?? It's a nightmare!!

It didn't take long for the Asmos to start trying to find their own, completely distinct identities like Goth Asmo, Sporty Asmo, Hipster Asmo, etc… All claiming to be WAY better than the original, of course.

As entertaining as it may be to see a bunch of Asmos go through an identity crisis, he wants them GONE and he wants them gone NOW!! He's blowing up Solomon's phone every hour of the day until it gets fixed so better sit tight for a while…

Beelzebub 

You know, this is actually one of those, "Worst Case Scenarios" that Lucifer and Dia drew up shortly after they had their Fall: what does one do with five Beels exactly...?

You can't possibly feed them all, at least not all at once… and letting any one get too hungry is asking for trouble.

Do you let them run through the city streets and chomp up its citizens like a game of Pacman? Scatter them to other realms and hope that they don't do a ton of damage? Pit them against each other in "There-Can-Only-Be-One"-style gladiatorial combat?? 

Well… there isn't really a good solution. Food is still a finite resource but the Beels TRY to be understanding and TRY not to push their luck at mealtime...

It has varying degrees of success, but hey, it's sweet that they're even trying...

Aside from the ever-present threat of being eaten out of House and realm, everybody kind of likes having so many Beels around. They're easy-going and helpful, which generally makes life easier for everyone and like… it's Beel. Who doesn't like hanging out with Beel?

The Beels even get along with each other so they regularly go to the gym and games together. Though it’s not super sportsmanly to switch out Beels between quarters in fangol, it's not technically against any rules either so the past few games have gone very well! (It's he'll, who even reads the rulebook anyway?)

Belphegor 

It actually took a little while to notice that there were even two Belphies, let alone five…

MC would walk into a room and see a Belphie sleeping on the couch. Perfectly normal.

Then, they'd go into another a few minutes later to see Belphie napping a chair… A little off, but still okay.

Well sure, but in the next room he's also apparently on the floor too and….

Wait a minute.

Turns out five Belphies is either a breeze to deal with or absolute hell and there's no in between.

If they're all asleep, things are fine. Just artfully pile them on top of each other like dead bodies in a stealth game and move on.

If they're awake, then there's just way too much Belphie! And they play off each other in just the worse ways… The Anti-Lucifer League has never been so active, much to his brother's dismay...

This can be mitigated slightly by pawning a few off on Beel (who is more than happy to mind his duplicated twin) but that solution doesn't work forever… 

Moreover, the MC can't sleep anywhere without them all gravitating towards them so even the shortest nap results in waking up under a dogpile of cow-men… It's a wonder they don't suffocate...

[6blackfilin9]

I love your Anko fanart! Tell me, what are your views/headcannons on Anko X Kazuku?

hThank you so much for the ask, finally I can answer it

here is my big thank you for the waitng

In a nutshell, the shipp was created by accident while me and my buddy were working on our first Naruto AU in 2019, where Kakuzu and Deidara survived their shitty plotholes end eventually ended up in Konoha

Yeah

so, the shipp’s birth date is july the 1, 2019

anything like classy, aristocracy kind of tension-filled passionate gothic romance with playful, psychological games & hurt/comfort vibes with slight scent of rivalry is KakuAnko

Basically, they are: a very, very old man with absolutely horrendous background who’s trying to finally have his mother*cking 10 or 30 years of peace, and a rather young lady with a rocky youth who’s being good & noble yet has very strong antihero tendencies

You know, I think they do have potential, since, in fact, they seem to be very similar, at the core

They are both very pragmatic realists, the people of logic and reason, yet if Kakuzu’s irritability doesn’t affect him a tiny bit due to his ideal self-control, Anko’s can lead her to quite bad places, sometimes. They put their interests in the first place, and even though she tries to attach them to Konoha’s, she still has ‘personal’ things (I’ll write ‘bout it lower*). Their mindsets are so complicatedly organized that, at some point & way, it prevents them from having many close people, and makes them very hard to see through and predict

Both of them are very flexible & adaptive, independent individuals with similar outlooks on plenty of things and high intellectual level. They clearly can find plenty of traits that they would highly respect and adore in each other

Here I will speak mostly for “why and how” kind of things, bc both of them are terribly tricky to accurately figure out. But there will be some headcanons too

So, there are still some odds about them, due to the strong difference in their occupation, like, in plenty of cases they are really tricky to be brought together, because:

- Of the job

In original, Anko is a Konoha’s special jounin, and she is very dedicated to serving the country. Independently of whether she likes her job or not (depends on the plot), she orienteers at the people, at society’s gain from her work. So, accordingly, in any other AU her job is somehow connected to civil service, whether it’s something police-like, connected to science, or something like CCG in Tokyo Ghoul

Kakuzu, on the other hand, is a hitman and a persona non grata in literally all the five big countries, Konoha too (which makes it barely possible to bring them together in the original universe without hard complications or heavy drama. But still possible). He orienteers on his own gain alone, but, depending on the job, it can include others’ gain, too.

This detail makes him a saint once he holds supervising position in some company or any high position in the government (the better the working conditions of the staff now- the more money in the prospective), and the sheer nightmare once he has it on the opposite side of the law. Him as a mob boss is a complete different topic for discussion, but to get the point, in this case, the trouble isn’t him increasing the level of criminality (its rather vice-versa), but taking hold of too much control in the high and underground structures. Even as an ordinary hitman he’s rather tricky, since everything depends on the case

In most of the stories, they come to some sort of compromise, and how hard it is to reach it depends on how shitty his job is and how attached they are to each other at the moment

Like, in the above mentioned Shippuden AU and Harry Potter AU (which I also wrote with my buddy) everything went like clockwork, because there they are both more or less on this side of the law, in Tokyo Ghoul AU (which I also wrote with my buddy) it is a bit more complicated, with her being in-law and him being very much outlaw, in the Avatar AU (which I also figured out with my buddy, but we never happened to write it) it is also pretty smooth, with both of them being outlaws and then jumping out to the glory after all the shit is done, but in another Shippuden AU of mine, this all would be just a motherfucking bloody disaster

- Kakuzu is actually a hard nut to get attached to anyone

He lived too long to be truly afraid of anything, though. Its mostly because he doesn’t really need to get attached to or become close with someone to satisfy his need for communication. The man can get along with anyone once he wishes to, he can have countless acquaintances and plenty of buddies, but he doesn’t have many comrades and barely can call anyone a friend. Because he is used to lose everything and everyone he ever had or happened to have, because of his inhumanly lengthened lifespan.

It requires time for him to get used to the person, and then, eventually, in some cases, spend plenty of it to get attached

Plus, for him, due to his profession, each close connection is a really great responsibility for him. In most cases, he’d think twice of weather he is ready to take it or not

Though it of course has the personal factor, too

In Anko’s case, she has a grand privilege by being a very intelligent and keen woman, not just in cognitive plane, but in emotional, too. High emotional intellect is actually a rare trait, so she automatically stands out of the crowd for him. Even though it won’t guarantee his alliance, it will grant her his high respect and some sort of sympathy

- Kakuzu is, technically, an asshole

He does have his moral compass, which includes a great amount of common social morality, but he also has that “I am working” state

Even though Kakusu has a set of professional principles, and he still acts accordingly to what he thinks is right, one and the very same situation can be solved diametrically different once the context changes from working to casual and vice versa

This, and him being very independent and quite antisocial, makes the degree of assholeness depend on various factors

This can lead to major conflicts of interests, and if they are possible to have any compromise or not is strongly attached to the circumstances. After all, both are very, very prideful and dignified people

- In other words, the only major issue for them would be morality questions. It’s possible to make the case acceptable for Anko, since both of them ain’t truly squeaky clean, along with Kakuzu being willing enough to watch his borders

- She is provident and doesn’t really need a lot of money on a daily basis, which is much of a joy to him lol

- *they both seek for the stable ground, first of all

Taking in consideration the life conditions Kakuzu had in his youth (despite war state, he still stably had family, friends, grand respect from everyone, home, warmth and food) and how terribly he was torn out of his secured social environment, I believe what he seeks through all his bounty hunt and other money-connected manipulations is stability. Sustainability he had back then. The only way to have it in the conditions of our existent world order is to have money (and a very good mind and luck)

Anko has indeed much more altruistic motives, yet it’s still not that simple. It seems to be, on the first sight, yet considering the “Orochimaru related cases” and her very wayward behavior toward them, it’s clear she keeps her own motives and needs in mind oh so well. The service she has is very well payed, it allows her to do what she likes or believes is right, and to have the living conditions she finds comfortable. And only here, relying on the made sustainable basis, she does what she does

- Thus, they both illustrate the principle “first help yourself, next help the other” just right

- She knows she can keep an eye on him, yet it’s clear for her that her influence isn’t borderless, as well as telling him off some stuff is kind of a not wise thing to do. So in the majority of cases, she never interferes

- This is not common, yet he can actually change some plans if the situation is serious and the compromise can’t be found. He is that kind of person who works on a further prospective, and in this context, this would be the relationship with his loved one

- While Kakuzu is quite conflicted and has very reserved controversial persona, Anko is both controversial, conflicted, and sort of two-faced, on top of that

She is a very sincere, cheerful and humbly honest human being, yet she has some darker natural traits of her character that became rather strong with age and traumatic experience. Cunningness, guile, ways-depend-on-the-case and a bit of ruthlessness, that is. Moreover, she has some unsolved personal issues, which makes her even more twisted.

Like, remember the time when she confronted Orochimaru during the exam? And Kabuto, on the war? Getting rid of them is indeed beneficial for Konoha, but it’s clear that for her it is personal vendetta in the first place. She wouldn’t have tried to do this alone, otherwise, because these two are rather dangerous ones, to say the least.

She uses greater good to cover her real motives (even though it is not truly complete bullshit), and seems to have a terrible habit to keep silence about really important things, which makes her quite prone to lying, in some cases

And sometimes it very badly pisses Kakuzu off, since it makes her prone to doing useless but dangerous shit too

Yet this not any kind of separate hidden side, it is integrated into her personality, and coexists with her bright one. That’s where her violent humour comes from, for example.

But Kakuzu, on the other side, is completely monolith individual, yet sometimes his mindset can create contradictions when it comes to something important to him. but it's another topic

And seeing these layered constructions, and motives, they can pretty finely predict each other’s behavior. Not super-neatly, but they for sure see the basis. This is what helps Kakuzu to prevent Anko from doing some stupid shit, sometimes

- Anko has a role of an indicator for the people who don’t understand and see the changes in Kakuzu’s mood sometimes, since she usually reacts quite openly. Yet, when she has the same unreadable mask of cold, or one of guile, it’s a nightmare for them

- They prefer the non-verbal way to show their feelings, even though Anko is obviously the more chatty one

- They don’t say things such as “I love you”, or other sensual stuff like that really often, believing it to be some sort of cherished words that shall not be spelled mindlessly

- Anko isn’t majorly into PDA, but she fancies it much more than Kakuzu does. She has her whole moments of studying something with her hands, whether it’s a hand, scar or face. He’s more into passive display of affection, like wrapping an arm over her waist or leaning to her or something of this kind; they can allow themselves to (not sexually) kiss in public though

- She knows he doesn’t like to walk hand in hand due to considering it a youthful thing, so there are times when she intentionally walks holding on to his sleeve; generally they walk separately in order not to bother each other, but sometimes they walk arm in arm (like an old Victorian couple lol)

- Being older and wiser, Kakuzu eventually upholds some kind of mentoring position, yet he never considers himself any kind of a teacher or master to Anko, believing her to have a good head of her own. He is just insightful enough to break something through to her or give a word of advise

- This, combined with his highly powerful demeanor, also makes him have the leading position in their relationship

- Anko respects him much enough to fortify this, entrusting with plenty of life questions (like organizing the family budget), even though they make the majority of decisions together. Mostly because he is truly wise and highly experienced individual.

- This makes him one of the very few people Anko would actually listen to and take their opinion in consideration

- So basically they have equal relationship with some tendency to patriarchal order

- And it is, really, mostly economically-based disbalance, with him earning much more than she does

- Yet they never have any financial-based issues, since both of them keep in mind and respect the contributions of each

- There is major power play here, too. He has the absolute might, she has seduction. Anko loves how he makes her want to submit to him, let him have all the power, so she likes provoking him. And she knows he adores it, loves the subtle control she has over him

- They don’t have conflicts in their everyday life. Each knows how to avoid pissing one another off

- He cherishes her playful demeanor, her intellect. Combined with her cunningness, it allows her to rival him, in social sphere. The way she constructs her phrases, the way she speaks, mimics, moves, how bewitchingly it suits her feminine snaky features makes his blood boil and heart melt

- Both of them, actually, have rather specific kind of dry, dark humour. Kakuzu’s is very cynical, satirical, quite often menacing and subtly demeaning; Anko’s is very sarcastic and quite dirty, even gruesome and rather violent

- Sometimes they “fight” verbally as a form of a play. In some circumstances they may sound pretty vile, so some unobservant people mistake this for display of hate

- In general, Anko is the one to heat things up with her playful demeanor, which can include provocation and rivalry, and Kakuzu is the one to keep this energy in borders, accumulating it up to much more intense states

- They both put the comfort in the first place when it comes to household. Everything must be cozy, useful, silent and super clean

- Yet they are both very unpretentious and modest, really

- She absolutely adores when he is showing his serious, severe side, or powerful demeanor. She finds it incredibly suitable for him. She also likes how his real age is sliding out in this or that way. Like, even though he has rather young face (that of 37-40 y.o.), his eyes give away that he’ve seen oh so much more than it seems; the grumpy noises and grunts he makes, the lazy attitude in movements and the way how rapidly he finds a comfy pose once he has a chance to take a seat

- They are both rather patriotic, yet while in the most stories Anko’s feelings mostly lay towards the country she lives in, Kakuzu’s more often lay towards some places, so called small motherland.

- Kakuzu actually could be a source of deep, strong admiration and delight for her, despite all of his bullshit. The unbreakable will he has, mighty burning heart, all the wisdom, talents and mind. Being sent to fight god damn Hashirama, clearly a genius of his times, financial & management genius at the least. And, still, after all the hard times he’ve been through, he maintained the very strong sense of dignity and nobility, even though slightly twisted due to the profession and abnormal lifespan

- And the very same things can serve as the source for her chagrin: with all those traits, he could have been so much more rather than a criminal. With all the gifts he’ve got, he could have been of great use to society. He’s much easier about this, since his prospective is much wider and embraces decades (and in some universes even centuries) instead of months & years, and he knows that he’d be switching sides throughout his life, being on this and that side of the law, yet he still is a bit uncomfortable once it’s brought up

- They are deeply into science, which makes them atheists. He’s into medicine and human biology, she’s into chemistry and reptilian biology; both of them are nuts for physics, history and psychology

- They solve complicated physical and mathematical problems together time to time. She is the first one to have tea-breaks due to losing her temper over it, he tries to figure things out right until you can sense the smoke coming off his head

- Actually, they do have a stumbling stone aside from job & morality complications. And this is Anko’s attitude towards Orochimaru

What she does is basically ruins her life very-very slowly, maintaining the issues she has and planning to make him pay for all he’s done

Kakuzu knows exactly what is really going on with this attitude and why, but he can’t really do anything about it. Like, he knows he can’t make her change her mind or put something into her head

All he can do is really nothing but try to explain how those things are working, and even this option is basically a landmine field for him. At some level she does understand that he could probably be right, yet she just refuses to go back on her mind. And this is actually really dangerous, so at some moments they can fight quite badly about it

- He’s scared shitless to lose her, though; especially like that, even though he knows clearly that he will, anyway, sooner or later

- he knows that losing loved ones ends up with sheer disaster for him, yet he isn’t afraid to pay such a high price for those six, five or four decades of being with her. Because these decades are that of a paradise ones for him. Wife and family, as well as stable job, incomes and life conditions, are some sort of physical definitions of sustainability he craves. Especially family, yet it’s far ahead to plan

- The fact that he will have to bury her one day makes her rather depressed, as well as the knowledge that the only thing she can really do about it is to try to bring him as much happiness and comfort as possible before she dies

thank you, i'd say more, but it's too much already

[lorenzobane]

Harebrained Scheme

AN: Written for @trektober-challenge first installment- namely Prime Directive, but more specifically inspired by some of @fractal-baby discussion about Spock’s absolutely insane plans. It was written pretty quick and definitely playing fast and loose with timelines, but set after ST:ID but before ST: Beyond. Can be read as pre-Spirk, but the major relationship is Jim & Sarek chatting. 

Can be found on AO3 here

Being kidnapped and held with his First Officer’s father was never exactly the plan for Jim. There are, in fact, a lot of people Jim would rather be kidnapped with. Namely, the aforementioned First Officer Spock.  

But as it stands-- 

“We have been held here for approximately 2.3 hours,” Sarek says after a moment of silence. 

Jim nods, “don’t panic.” 

Sarek gives him a look that plainly says Vulcans don’t panic. “I am simply stating a fact of our capture.” 

“Yes, sir,” Jim says patiently. “I’m aware of how long it has been.” 

“The temperature is several degrees below Vulcan standard,” Sarek pointed out. 

“I am aware of that as well,” because Jim was. Whoever their enemies were, they knew who they had kidnapped. The temperature is holding steady at a place where Jim is uncomfortable but is draining Sarek. 

Sarek says nothing and continues to observe the cell around them calmly. Jim has been pacing since he woke up about an hour ago. It’s a plain white room with no windows and no doors as far as he can tell. He’s tried clawing at just about every inch of the sterile space, and as far as he can tell, nothing gives. 

“What are the walls made of?” Kirk mutters to himself. They don’t feel like metal or even plastic- they radiate the coolness as if they’re some type of natural product, but the way the room is sealed tells him some kind of technology is involved. 

Sarek cuts into Jim’s thinking with a, “I believe these are made of Betazoid limestone.” 

“What makes you say that?” Jim asks. With Spock, he’ll usually prattle for a few minutes, discussing density and texture before giving him an answer as straightforward as his father. 

Sarek looks at him in surprise, “you are not able to tell?” 

Jim resists the urge to reply with sarcasm. Sarek isn’t Spock, which is plainly apparent in every interaction they have. Though Spock always seems extremely calm and balanced to Jim, being around his father makes Jim aware of how much more emotion and variation Spock regularly expresses. 

“No,” Jim says. “I haven’t spent much time on Betazoid.” 

Sarek nods, “I was briefly an Ambassador there in my son’s youth. He was very fond of the rock and found its cool texture pleasing.” 

“I thought it would be illogical to find a rock pleasing,” Jim replies without thinking. 

Sarek is quiet for a moment before responding with, “yes, indeed it was. However, as my wife put it to me then, there is nothing illogical about curiosity. The desire to explore. I am not sure I agree with her, but I have never been successful in curbing my son of any habit he does not wish to break.” 

“He can be stubborn,” Jim replies with amusement.

A mild understatement if Jim has ever said one. Though he is always respectful and never veers into full-on insubordination, Jim now understands what Pike meant when he referred to Spock fondly as an ‘extremely independent First Officer.’ Jim doesn’t mind it, maybe even loves it- the way Spock is relentless when he is convinced of the correct course of action. The argumentative (logically debated, in Spock’s words) messages and memos coming at all hours until Jim either gives in or says the phrase, “drop it, that’s an order.” 

Which, at the very least, shuts him up for a shift or two. 

“Do you believe they will be able to find us?”

Jim shrugs, his communicator is still on his person, and he tries it every few minutes, but he keeps getting static. “None of my messages are going through, but as you mentioned, your son is very stubborn and an extraordinary Starfleet officer. If anyone could rescue us, it would be him.” 

Sarek nods again, and they sit in silence while Jim continues to search every square inch of space. It doesn’t make sense- unless their captors beamed them into the room, there is no way for them to have entered without a door of any kind. 

“My son,” Sarek says, somewhat awkwardly pulling Jim out of his observation of the walls once more. “How is he-- I mean to say, I recognize as one of the very few Vulcans at Starfleet, and now as an endangered species, it may be challenging for him.”

Jim kindly doesn’t say that Sarek didn’t actually ask a question and responds with, “the crew loves him. He fits in great and has a surprising number of friends. The kids in the Science department all think he’s some type of rock star. The amount of transfer requests I get specifically for his division is getting out of hand.”  

“Rock star?” Sarek repeats back. 

“A term for an old Terran classical musician who was known for extreme popularity,” Jim responds with some curiosity. Spock is exceptionally familiar with Terran classical music and had known precisely what Jim had meant when he used similar phrasing. Still, Jim supposes that perhaps he picked it up in his many years on earth.

“I am gratified to hear this,” Sarek replies, somewhat slowly. Jim jerks up, alarmed, when he realizes that it appears that each blink is getting slower and slower as if he were fighting falling asleep. “He has so few affiliates on Vulcan.”

“Really?” Jim asks, surprised. 

For all Spock can be logical, sarcastic, and moralistic to the point of exhaustion, he’s also a kind friend, a shockingly understanding commanding officer, and a good sport about most things. He even participates in some ship-wide events, like the talent show where he played some genuinely excellent Vulcan lute. 

And purely for Jim’s amusement, played a lute version of a truly ancient Terran classic that Jim has a soft spot for, Wildest Dreams. 

“He… Was an unusually brilliant student,” Sarek says, still slow as if fighting for words. Jim realizes with an urgency that he should probably try to keep Sarek talking to keep him awake. 

“Vulcans didn’t like brilliant students?” Jim asks with amusement. The idea of Spock being a nerd among nerds is somewhat hilarious. 

“No, they did not like an unusually brilliant half-human,” Sarek replies, his voice for the first time that Jim has ever known him touching with a hint of sadness. “And he was… Willful. Unusually brilliant, and ferociously unselfconscious about his mother.” 

Jim laughs a little at that, rubbing his neck unconsciously, “yes, I definitely learned the hard way that you shouldn’t insult his mother.” 

“As did many,” Sarek says, his eyes closed. “He had a violent physical altercation when he was eleven for a similar reason. It was that disrespect of his mother that ultimately caused him to turn away from the Vulcan Science Academy.” 

“He didn’t go to VSA because they insulted his mother?” Jim asked, surprised. “Why would they insult Amanda anyway?” 

Sarek takes a sharp breath at the casual use of his wife’s name, and Jim feels terrible. After months of playing chess with Spock, they had begun discussing their childhood and Spock often spoke of his mother glowingly. He had insisted that they use her name to honor her memory. 

“They referred to her blood as a disadvantage. I knew the moment they said it; he would never accept a place that looks down on humans. He could be illogically loyal.” 

“His illogical loyal behavior saved you on Vulcan, and it saved earth,” Jim replies, his voice sharper than he intends it to be. 

Sarek opens his eyes at that, slowly and blearily, “I did not mean that negatively. I have come to find that many of the traits I viewed as… Aberration in him, in his youth, has come to define his tremendous successes.” 

Jim doesn’t say, though he dearly wants to, that viewing his child’s personality as an aberration at any point is pretty illogical. Still, Spock is a subject that Sarek is willing to stay awake and speak about, so Jim asks, “like what?”

“Well,” Sarek says wryly, “his disregard for rules he simply disagrees with. It is, presumably, the reason that he works so well with you and your idiosyncratic leadership style.” 

“I would not say that Spock isn’t interested in the rules,” Jim replies with surprise, the betrayal of Spock’s report after they saved him from a volcano still kind of stings. 

“He follows the rules he believes in avidly, that is true,” Sarek says, his voice does hold amusement now. “But he regularly ignores them if he wishes to. I presume you are referring to his report after the events of Nibiru?”

Jim jerked in surprise, “how did you know--?” 

“My son and I have been keeping close correspondence after the destruction of Vulcan and the loss of his mother. We are attempting to… work through the strain our relationship was put under while I worked through my disappointment that he did not go to the Vulcan Science Academy.” 

“Isn’t disappointment illogical too?” Jim asks. It is hard for him to hear the casual way Sarek describes his feelings towards Spock when Jim truly and completely believes that his First Officer is one of the finest beings he has ever encountered. 

Sarek makes a noise of agreement, “you are correct. Vulcans may take a vow to control our emotions, and we certainly may attempt to utilize logic in most decision-making. Still, there is no doubt that our species can be vulnerable to prideful behavior.” 

Jim, having beaten Spock at chess a few times, can attest to that. 

“What did he say about Nibiru?” Jim asks, curious now as to how Spock described the events to his father. 

“I believe,” Sarek says again, his voice rich with amusement now, “that you saw yourself as the rule breaker in this scenario. However, after listening to his entire recounting, I must ask you- whose idea was it to freeze the volcano?” 

Jim looked at Sarek blankly, “Spock’s. He had been reviewing the geothermal events on the plant. He calculated the likelihood of explosion was incredibly likely, so he asked if he could try one of his experiments to save the planet.” 

“You realize that the plan itself, from its initial conception, violated the Prime Directive, do you not, Mr. Kirk?” 

Jim looked at Sarek blankly, “what?” 

“It is against the Prime Directive to interfere with a planet’s destiny in any way. Then, the matter of his cold fusion device. An entirely novel invention that had gone through no formal testing, no review process… He simply believed it would work, conducted experiments in his free time, and wanted to use it. And had a captain who trusted him.” 

Jim blinks again at Sarek. “But… But…” 

Sarek leaned his head back, “do not feel bad. He was somewhat infamous for this when he was a boy. His capacity to convince his instructors that his personal pet projects were highly logical and beneficial regardless of external forces was… Remarkable. And in you, I think he has finally found a place where his prodigious intellect is not being checked by constant regulation.”

“Spock always follows regulation,” Jim defends on instinct, his mind reeling. 

“He always follows the ones he believes deserve to be followed,” Sarek corrected. “He has always had a somewhat unusual penchant for attempting novel actions without the traditional Vulcan tendency of deep contemplation.” 

Oh, the thought hit Jim suddenly. Spock is a Vulcan bad boy. Jim doesn’t know why he finds that so shocking; Spock does, after all, go along with a majority of his plans and even comes up with half of them. Even more damning, if Spock did not agree with a course of action, it relatively rarely ends up occurring. 

Which means… Spock is actually as goddamn reckless as he is. 

Jim isn’t sure how he feels about this revelation. 

“He... He tricked me!” Jim cries out eventually, unable to contain it. 

“But as I have said,” Sarek adds, his voice is shallow and slow now, “I have come to realize… These qualities, his capacity for creativity, and quick thinking have allowed him to become the most remarkable of us.” 

“I’m glad that you could see what we have always seen,” Jim says, though he’s more using the royal “we.” 

It took him considerably longer to see what was right there in front of him, but once he had, it made sense to Jim that Spock had been a popular professor, First Officer, and Advisor in his time at Starfleet. 

“I was unwilling to admit it, but I was worried when he chose Starfleet. So far from his people, alone and living in an abundance of difference. Vulcans can be quite homogeneous.” 

“Infinite diversity in infinite combinations,” Jim quoted from Spock’s eternal sermons. 

“Ironic that it is a Vulcan philosophy when so many of us view the world so similarly,” Sarek said, inclining his head slightly. “However, in a land of difference, he was able to find a space for himself that he was unable to find with his people. He always did appreciate adventure, read illogical books with his mother like Alice in Wonderland and Sherlock Holmes. Even Shakespeare which his instructors on Vulcan never enjoyed.” 

Jim raised his eyebrows again. Spock often quoted fanciful literary classics in trying situations. Still, it never entirely occurred to him how oddly poetic and even artistic that would have made him in a different place. 

“I hope he knows that I hold him in high regard,” Sarek says after a moment, and his eyes drift shut again, his breathing going slow. 

“No,” Jim leaps up. “No, you can’t. I can not be responsible for the death of two of Spock’s parents.” 

“Captain Kirk,” Sarek says with exhaustion, “do not worry. I can place my body into a healing trance that will allow me to remain stable for an extended period of time if need be. The Betazoid limestone will make us challenging to track and as such--” 

Just then, there is a loud thudding noise on the wall to their right, like something heavy just rammed into it at full speed. 

A thudding again, and then Sarek shudders awake, “Spock?” 

Jim doesn’t hear anything but Sarek does because he turns to Jim and says, “please move 3.87 feet to your left.” 

Three seconds later, a thud outside the wall gives way to what appears to be an ancient wrecking ball. 

“What is that?” 

“I think it is your crew, Captain,” Sarek says. 

Another beat and a large stone crash through the wall using a device that is an ancient Terran wrecking ball. 

“Captain,” Spock said calmly through the hole he just blasted through the wall. “I see you’re unharmed. Father, it is gratifying to see you safe as well.” 

“Glad you got to us in time; we were running out of gossip about you,” Jim says with a smirk as he slowly starts to try to clamber through the slightly too small hole. 

“Please refrain from joking,” Spock says, guiding his father through the hole much more gracefully. 

“Who’s joking?” Jim replies. 

Spock looks to his father with an eyebrow up, and Sarek responds, “while I would not term it “gossip,” the captain is correct, and our mutual affiliation with you helped pass a majority of the time.” 

Jim nearly cackles at the brief look of horror that passed over Spock’s face when he replies with a steady, “indeed.” 

Jim smirks and is silent while Spock focuses on calling the Enterprise to beam up. 

And much later, when Spock asks him what they discussed while Spock and Jim played their usual game of chess, Jim can be entirely honest when he says, “your many admirable qualities.” 

It’s definitely worth the way Spock’s ears turn a light green. 

[thefilmsimps]

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (dir. David Leitch)

-Jere Pilapil-

Rewatching this one for our The Vaxxed and the Furious on twitch.tv/filmsimps.

It’s rare that I can actually pinpoint where things go wrong with a movie, but I absolutely can with Hobbs & Shaw, but here it is: Our heroes - Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), Shaw (Jason Statham) and Hattie (Vanessa Kirby) - concoct a plan to break into the bad guys’ lab. Shaw says they have 45 minutes to complete the mission, at which time a bomb he set will go off. Up to this point, the movie has been laser focused on finding the blerp a derb that will bibbity bip, therefore saving the world.

Once a script introduces a countdown, that’s a Jedi Mind Trick that makes the audience aware of how much time has passed, and how much in-movie time should be left. It’s a shortcut to creating a sense of urgency. The problem with Hobbs & Shaw is that it does this mid-way through the movie, during a scene that logically should be the big action climax. It’s a scene of many escalating setpieces. A sane movie would call it a day. By doing this and somehow continuing on for another 40-plus minutes after the scene is over, it creates a sense that the movie is just dragging along endlessly.

It doesn’t help that this movie is jam-packed with little excursions and side trips Mostly, it’s good stuff: there are some major cameos from professional comedic actors who are better at being funny than the actors in the mainline Fast and Furious entries. By focusing on a trio of main characters (and a villain) rather than a “family” means there’s less to be done to justify taking every character on this adventure. But, it also pitches Hobbs and Shaw as equals, doubling up on exposition scenes to create parallels between the two of them while they hate each other’s guts (didn’t they make nice in F8 of the Furious?). The comedy bits all last just a few beats too long, as though the director trusted the actors to edit their lines. By the midpoint, it feels fair to ask “And we’re going to another location? Still?”

And listen, I know all of the Fast & Furious movies, on some level, are geared toward toxic macho men who have problems expressing emotions, and they just happened to find a way to a wider audience through some wild alchemy that turns irony to sincerity. But the Hobbs/Shaw tandem is terrible: two brutes who hate each other, can’t stop insulting each other, and the longer it goes on (we’re now in the third movie of this), the less fun it is, and the writers seem to run out of insults/threats. Thank God for Vanessa Kirby as Shaw’s sister Hattie, who is excellent as an MI:6 operative infected with a deadly virus (not that one, a fictional one from early 2019). She seems at ease in the spotlight, owning her scenes with more charisma than either of the titular characters. I’m very happy she’s been cast in the next two(!!) Mission: Impossible movies, where she will at least meet nicer men. (Plus, those movies won’t be weirdly insistent that I want to see her kiss Dwayne Johnson, a man with whom she has “friendly coworker” chemistry and nothing more.)

And it’s an action movie! Of course! The action is good, but it’s in a very modern blockbuster/Marvel way where it feels too CGI-reliant. It’s more imaginative and more memorable than anything in the previous Fast and Furious movie, but I miss the ambition of Fasts and Furiouses 5-7. Here, director David Leitch shines as a guy who should have directed a solo Jason Statham movie by now, with solid fight scenes and big ol’ ‘splosions. Nothing here comes even 1/10 of the way to his work directing John Wick, but it’s all handsome with each scene having at least one “Wow! So cool!” Moment that I can remember.

But Hobbs & Shaw mostly suffers by being a spin-off of a bigger franchise, one where Dwayne Johnson is not getting along with the main star. This movie seems poised and ready to continue independently of the main Fast and Furious movies, introducing character after character to varying degrees of memorability, but all being useful for specific things that The Next Adventure might require. Several feel like placeholders where Dom Toretto’s friends might have come in handy. The end result is a movie that is very well done for what it is, but winds up overstuffed by try to build a world from scratched, like a divorcee starting a new family.

7/10

[awastelandheart]

Sebastian’s personality analyzed through his theory-crafted natal chart: The perspective of a professional astrologer.

PART ONE: SUN SIGN.

i apologize in advance to any capricorns i unintentionally read to filth in this post.

          i think out of all the bachelors   &   bachelorettes, Sebastian has the oddest, most abrasive post-marriage dialogue. i’ve heard plenty of people over the years complain about how awkward being married to him is   &   i, myself, tend to not marry him when i play since locking him in pelican town like that when he so clearly wants to leave feels bad. even before marriage as well, he has a lot of almost cringey   &   certainly concerning dialogue. Sebastian’s not a man that’s made for marriage or long term relationships i think, at least not in his early to mid 20s which is how old i believe he is in canon. unlike the rest of the bachelors   &   bachelorettes, his character arc   &   development don’t do much for melding him into someone worth being with. even Shane who is troubled in a much more obvious way than Sebastian has more moments of reflection that convince the player that he’s a good person despite his flaws. Sebastian may seem to be gentle in his internal struggle, it’s easy to believe that, at most, he’s rude   &   depressed, but i think there’s a lot more to unpack here that suggests he’s violent, angry to an awful degree,   &   possibly the worst marriage candidate, if not just the worst townie out of the whole cast.

          to start off with, i believe Sebastian’s sun sign is Capricorn. my reasoning for this is a blend between a post on reddit i found that used a simple algorithm to convert the in game dates to real dates. taking into account the slightly flawed method that gives each date 2-3 days worth of wiggle room,   “ january 17th ”   implies he’s on the Capricorn side of january. to be honest, when i was first thinking about what sun sign i wanted Sebastian to have, i was leaning towards Aquarius since he has several lines about escaping the town   &   wanting his freedom   ( both being very Aquarius-like qualities ),   however i think the case for Capricorn is much easier to make. to start off, i’ll give a run down of the most defining Capricorn characteristics, then i’ll move onto showing in-game examples of how Sebastian demonstrates these traits   ( while leaving room for his other natal positions that i’ll extrapolate on in more posts to come ).

          Capricorn is an earth sign, reveling in stability with a handful of almost toxic traits to display if that stability isn’t achieved. ruled by saturn, or kronos if you wanna get greek, Capricorns are at a constant war with themselves between the general human experience   &   cutting out as much superfluous expression   &   feeling as possible. the story of kronos is very reflective of the Capricorn struggle:   it’s the tale of a man   ( god, but that’s not important )   whose wife is predicted to bear a child who will surpass him   &   take his legacy. kronos, in his anxiety to prevent this change, begins eating each of his wife’s children as they’re born until one day, his wife replaces one of the newborns with a rock so that it will survive kronos’ consumption. of course this leads to the child growing up   &   indeed surpassing kronos just as the prophecy foretold. the lesson to be learned from kronos is one of restriction   &   the inevitability of time.

          between their earthly reliability   &   love of practicality, Capricorns are viewed as the traditional fathers of the zodiac sphere. they guard their values of yesteryear close to their chest. anything too different is cast far away from themselves or, rather, consumed until all traces are disposed of. thankfully not as stubborn as poor Taurus   ( another earth sign ),   Capricorns have a touch of adaptability in all their logic. their modality is cardinal, implying they take charge of situations. they are the leaders next to Cancer, Libra,   &   Aries:   any good leader knows when to give up their morals for the betterment of their charge. to boot, Capricorn is represented by the mythological creature, the sea-goat   ( a creature created by dear old kronos, himself, consisting of the torso of a goat   &   the tail of a fish );   the goat half delivering on that steady earthly nature of an unrelenting climb to the top of a mountain called life, yet the inclusion of the ocean in this aesthetic implying an amount of emotion only water signs can relate to.

          in the typical male-dominated, fatherly way, however, emotional expression does not exist for Capricorns, resulting in this implied depth to lurk well below a Capriorn’s surface. they are deeply independent in a way that leads to intense loneliness. they must do everything for themselves, another thing lovely kronos has taught us here. why look for a different solution to this problem when i so clearly have found one for myself, the ruler of saturn proclaims. a Capricorn’s independence is almost panic charged in this way. they so dearly want to be seen as capable that they will shred their own livelihood as a price. they are masters at self control for it, each having taught themselves the art of stoicism from a young age. Capricorns are at best, friendly in a superficial way. knowing their loneliness is created by their own hands but never knowing how to move passed their own cold   &   distant heart to enact any change necessary to improve their relationships.

          something that is often associated with Capricorns   &   the other earth signs is the act of earning money. while Taurus enjoys earning money to support their lavish, venus-ruled lifestyle   &   Virgo sees money as something to worry over thus resulting in them hoarding it, Capricorns crave for their income to be stable   &   plentiful in order to provide for their loved ones, or for the more lonely Capricorns, to provide for themselves.

          saturn is the first planet to take a substantial amount of time to complete its cycle through all the signs. compared to earth, which takes one year to complete its solar rotation   &   jupiter which takes 12, saturn takes upwards of 30 years. we astrologers take that as symbolical for how Capricorns get significantly better with age, as well as their   “ slow   &   steady wins the race ”   attitude. Capricorn is a sign of wisdom but only at the hand of experience. young Capricorns frequently find themselves discontented with their environment   &   lifestyle, craving a stability that cannot exist without first having established themselves in the world. every seven years it’s said, a Capricorn reaches a new level of understanding   &   maturity, as it is about every seven years that saturn completes 1/4th of its solar cycle.

          Capricorns, like Scorpios, love their privacy. regarded as one of the more shady signs of the zodiac, a Capricorn is the type of person to have everyone believing they know everything there is to know about them while simultaneously only ever revealing surface level knowledge about themselves. Capricorns love having friends   &   spending time with their loved ones, however they lack a sense of trust that would allow them to form deeper connections. while a Capricorn does experience their emotions as thoroughly as the rest of the zodiac, they have an equally intense insecurity about expressing them. a Capricorn lives their life wanting to be depended on or at least wanting to provide for those that do depend on them. emotions are seen as a weakness that cannot be spared.

          with the basic personality of a Capricorn outlined, i’ll now go through some choice quotes that demonstrate these traits   &   then talk about a few parts of his heart events that do the same.

“ if i just disappeared would it really matter ? ” “ i was thinking... people are like stones skipping over the water. Eventually we're going to sink. ” “ what am I going to do today ?   probably nothing.”

          when the player first meets Sebastian, he is overtly depressed   &   never goes out of his way to hide it. there is a solemn dark cloud filled with rain, ready to burst constantly following him   &   it’s difficult to ignore. this seriousness is very characteristic of many signs, Capricorn being one of them as it is ruled by Saturn, an outer planet with a very melancholic tone.

“ hey, don't let me stop you from getting your work done. if you aren't busy i don't mind if you stick around. ”

          this quote demonstrates the productive mindset of a Capricorn. compared to all the other bachelors, Sebastian is the only one to ever really consider the player’s work schedule.

“ i was so close to screaming at mom for throwing away my old comic collection   ...  but something stopped me. hmm   ...   with age comes wisdom. ” “ the older i get, the less i'm drawn to the city. ” “ sometimes i feel so angry  ...  but when you show up i always start to calm down. maybe i'll mellow out with age. ”

          while these quotes are also depicting other personality traits, for now i want to emphasize Sebastian’s constant referencing to the passage of time. time is always on a Capricorn’s mind, even the less self aware ones always feel the effects of its passage harsher than other signs. after dating   &   at points in marriage, which is when these quotes are from, Sebastian begins to view time as something more positive   &   optimistic. he recognizes that he has anger issues, at the very least,   &   hopes they’ll get better as time goes on. it’s quite the feat to make a Capricorn see growing older as something positive instead of something anxiety inducing, so from this alone we can really tell that Sebastian is absolutely in love with the player, without a doubt.

“ i couldn't sleep last night so I went for a night ride on the motorcycle. i need to stay independent, even though we're married. that's just how i am. i still love you, though. ” “ hey   ...   want some coffee ?   i needed some   ...   woke up early from a nightmare   &   i just couldn't fall back asleep. ” “ hey. i couldn't sleep last night so i took a walk to the caves. ” “ i'm going to take a walk today. i need some time to myself. i'll see you in the evening. ”

          Capricorns tend to be almost predisposed to sleep issues due to their immense amount of anxiety that comes with the disconnect between productivity   &   incapability, or craving emotional connection   &   viewing emotions as unnecessary. Capricorns are also fiercely independent, so independent that it’s no surprise Sebastian’s the kind of person to sneak out of bed   &   go off alone when feeling anxious instead of waking his partner up for comfort.

“ i don't want to get soft now that i'm a married guy. maybe i should start eating more hot pepper   &   working out ?   just an idea   ... ”

          while i’d also be willing to chalk this expression up to Sebastian being anxious about not passing as masc, i’m also willing to attribute this to a Capricorn being afraid of time passing   &   “ missing out ”   on life. growing soft can be a fear of a sign so dedicated to seeming tough   &   dependable.

“ i don't really feel like doing work today. maybe i'll see what's on tv. ” “ i did some work on the laptop today. ” “ i'm debating whether i should work or just read comics all day. ” “ you know, i should be doing something productive right now. i just lose focus too fast   ...   maybe i should drink more coffee ? ”

          Sebastian references his work so frequently, in typical Capricorn fashion because the urge to justify one’s pleasures by mentioning the fact that they’re also being productive is something ever-present. they are a very guilty breed;   on top of their other burdens, they feel especially bad for moments of relaxation or times when they should be doing something, but cannot bring themselves to.

“ you’re probably making a lot of money on your farm, huh ?   i guess i should get a job soon   … ” “ we should raise more slimes. in big quantities they can be really profitable. ” “ i did some work on the laptop today. i was actually brainstorming some ideas for a game i want to make. with your farming income, i can afford to do what i want with my life. it’s pretty amazing. thank you. ” “ hey. look at me. never forget that i love you   ...   you’re everything to me. now go make us some money. ” “ are we doing okay on money ?   i don’t want to have to sell my laptop   ... ” “ *sigh*   ...    if gas wasn’t so expensive i’d ride my motorcycle to the city today. so what do you do when you aren’t working ? ”

          Sebastian talks SO much about money   &   to me, it’s really hard to imagine concernedape didn’t intentionally make him a Capricorn with this much dialogue about income when no other bachelor or bachelorette has any mention of the topic   ( except for harvey who mentions he’s afraid he’s not bringing in enough money from the lack of people in town ).   the biggest one that jumps out at me to really signal a significant change in his personality after marriage is when he mentions having the freedom that comes with a steady income, a freedom that now allows him to do what he really wants which is, apparently, to make a video game. another one that jumps out at me here is his immediate association with feeling like he should get a job after assuming the player is making a lot of money. since income is such an important subject for Capricorns, it’s easy to imagine Sebastian feels inferior in comparison to the player since he’s   “ just ”   a freelancer.

“ i often felt unappreciated at home   ...   but here i feel like i really belong. ”

          this quote kind of hits Capricorn’s need to be appreciated   &   useful directly on the head   &   is a good transition for me to talk about the fact that Sebastian never progressed very far in his career while living at home with his family because he felt unappreciated. compared to how he almost immediately has a dialogue line after marriage where he tells the player he’s been inspired to make a video game, it’s easy to see the almost instant maturity Sebastian obtained just from moving out;   something he had assumed was in the far off future, implied by his heart scenes.

now let’s break down Sebastian’s heart events.

          his first heart even opens with him busy working, already a very Capricorn setting honestly, as i’ve said a few times now since Capricorns are prone to productivity. Robin enters after a moment   &   informs Sebastian that Abigail is looking for him, to which Sebastian responds to ask if his mother had informed Abigail that he’s working. Robin says that while she had, Abigail still intends on visiting Sebastian at some point today. Sebastian’s next piece of dialogue is very important.

“ *sigh* no one takes my job seriously. ”

          this is an incredibly Capricorn thing to say, both because Capricorns always feel the need to be taken seriously   &   also due to their signature insecurity about income.

          the scene continues so that the player can ask Sebastian what his career goals are. he explicitly says:   “ well, i’m trying to save up so i can move out of here. probably to the city or something, ”   which by itself is obviously very Capricorn, both nailing their need for income, their constant validation that they deserve what they want,   &   their desire for independence, however his dialogue continues for another textbox that contains the most Capricorn lines i’ve ever heard.

“ you know, if i went to college i’d probably be making six figures right now … ”   

          Sebastian is so very   &   obviously obsessed with money, it’s crazy to think he’s any other sign but Capricorn. this portion of the heart scene ends with him saying, 

“ but i just don’t want to be a part of that corporate rat race, you know ? ”   

          this dialogue i’m willing to attribute to another one of his signs at a later date in another post, but in my experience, i’ve known several Capricorn suns that feel the same:   that while they strive for a stable income, they hate participating in capitalistic culture.

          this first heart scene ends with Sebastian dismissing the player, saying he   “ has to get this module finished by tomorrow, ”   indicating he has a very set schedule when it comes to his work. organization being yet another characteristic trait of Capricorn.

          Sebastian’s second heart scene opens with the player catching him working on his bike. after a moment of introspection, Sebastian starts talking, again, about how when he saves enough money, he’s going to get out of the valley, just him   &   his bike. this scene doesn’t have anything specifically Capricorn about it   &   i plan on revisiting it when i talk about his other placements.

          likewise, Sebastian’s third   &   fourth heart scenes don’t have anything outrageously Capricorn in them   --   in fact neither scene tells us very much about Sebastian in particular aside from pointing out that he likes tabletop games   ( which obviously isn’t exclusively Capricorn by any means, but i’ve known so, so many Capricorn suns that have been hardcore into dnd over the years   ...  )   &   has social anxiety. i’ll most likely dip into his fourth heart scene a little more when i talk about his other placements, though.

          Sebastian’s fifth   (   &   final before marriage )   heart scene is, of course, important,   &   probably the most memorable for anyone who’s played Sebastian’s route, but it honestly doesn’t tell us much about his core personality. what it does tell us is how he acts   &   feels when he’s in love, so i’ll definitely come back to this scene when i talk about his venus position.

          &   that’s on his heart scenes !

          so, in summary, i believe Sebastian has a Capricorn sun because he shares many qualities with how astrologers perceive the position. of course this is all just my personal interpretation, but i hope this was an interesting read   &   shed some light on the kind of person Sebastian is !

[cookinguptales]

I've a small query (if it doesn't float your boat, no worries!) I was interested in how you got into learning languages, what led you to it? I've become curious since learning a new language as an adult has only increased my awe of multilingual folk (additionally, I vaguely remember a post about a request in exchange for a donation to charity, and wondered if there were any you'd like a donation to)

First of all, good luck with the language learning! It’s not easy as an adult, but I do think it’s worth it, both in terms of cultural fluency and brain elasticity.

My answer to the language thing is actually extremely complicated, so I’ll be putting it under the cut. I’ll put the charity stuff above the cut so more people can see it.

— I’d just like to warn you, though, before I start, that I have been locked in this house for over a month with no respite and I HAVE A LOT OF WORDS AND FEELINGS IN ME SO THIS POST HAS SO MANY OF BOTH OF THOSE THINGS!!

anyway

There are so many charities that I want to donate to now that it honestly makes my head spin. Every time I look at a site like GoFundMe it kind of makes me want to cry. So a lot of donations I’ve made have been to like local businesses, restaurants, etc. who will close down without help. (Also a lot of local native groups, who are disproportionately suffering right now.) I’ve also been donating to various food banks — Philabundance, a Philly-centric charity that deals with food insecurity in general, is a good one. That was a regular of mine even before the outbreak. I’ve also donated to a lot of the local services in the small town where I’m in now, though you’ll need to PM me if you want the name of that. (It’s… very small.) 

Off Their Plate is another great charity that’s been working with small restaurants (who can’t open for business) to get food to first responders. They’re partnered with World Central Kitchen, which is another fantastic charity that helps out during disasters. Plus well-known ones like Feeding America, No Kid Hungry (important while school is out and kids aren’t getting breakfast/lunch there), Direct Relief, etc.

(I uhhh may have overstrained my charity budget the past couple months. It’s odd how that adds to stress and relieves it at the same time.)

I tend to avoid religious charities, especially Salvation Army, because they’re occasionally discriminatory in how they distribute resources and we no longer have laws & oversight to make sure they don’t do shady shit. So I just avoid them in general now. I also avoid the American Red Cross because they’ve been known to misuse funds. Research is key!

I also worry about some of my regular charities, like Immigration Equality & Rainbow Railroad (helps LGBTQ people in dangerous countries immigrate to less dangerous ones), the Native American Rights Fund, various local abortion funds, RAICES (provides legal services to immigrants & refugees), the ACLU, Dysautonomia International, the Rainforest Action Network, etc… A lot of them are getting fewer donations than they’re used to because we’re in the middle of such life-shattering events.

If you are really interested in making a donation (please, please, please do) those are all good options. I also fully recommend looking up needy organizations, services, people, etc. in your own area. I try to donate to a healthy mixture of national/international organizations, local needs, and temporary issues du jour. (Disaster relief, bail funds for protesters, fighting new discriminatory laws, etc.) I would genuinely appreciate any donations, especially if you find a cause near and dear to your heart that I would never even hear about. Anything along these same lines, y’know? If you have anything you’d like me to do in return, just hmu.

I constantly stress about who to donate to — there are so many good organizations and so few dollars to give them — but at a certain point, every dollar to a cause you believe in counts. Every dollar you donate helps to make the world a little bit better for at least one person. That’s what I have to tell myself to calm myself down, haha. So even the smallest donation you make to any of these groups would mean a lot to me.

Anyway, onto the language stuff:

For me personally, I grew up bilingual. Deafness runs in my family, so I learned sign language from a very young age. Note: I say “sign language” rather than ASL. I learned sign language kind of organically, which ended up making a mess later in life. My parents mostly taught me, but so did my daycare (at a deaf school) and so did my babysitters and so did other family members, etc. The point is, not all of them used the same sign language. There was a wide mixture of ASL, SEE, and home signs and my current signing style is… problematic. lmao. My family all understands it (hey, they taught it to me) and I can have conversations with American sign language users, but I know they can’t love my signing lmao. I’ve considered sitting down and taking a legit ASL class for years, but there are so many classes I want to take… I don’t know.

After that, it largely became a case of taking languages whenever they were made available to me. I’ve always liked them. We moved around a lot when I was a preteen so I went to a lot of different schools. (4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade were all different schools.) It was rough at home and hard to make friends so I guess I threw myself into academics a lot. My sixth grade school was an odd one; it was a 6-8 grade school and you were supposed to take a crash course in three different languages in sixth grade so you could choose one and take it in 7th and 8th grade. I ended up taking Spanish, French, and German that year. I liked French best! But then we moved so it was kind of moot. (And I hated German, sorry Germans. My mouth doesn’t like the noises. It didn’t help that my teacher was weirdly sympathetic to Nazi-era Germany…? But I guess that’s another post.)

When we moved to Florida, you had to have special permission to take language classes in 7th grade. (FL doesn’t have great academics.) But since I’d already had some Spanish in NC, they let me take it! And then I moved schools again. This new school, my 8th grade school, I’d be in until I graduated 12th grade years later — but the employee turnover at that school was almost comedically bad?  I took Spanish for like a year and a half there and had three different teachers. So at this point I’d had 5 different Spanish teachers, all from different countries (where they spoke slightly different Spanish!), all reteaching the same ideas over and over again because they didn’t know where the last teacher had left off. In the end, my last Spanish teacher sent me to the school library with some textbooks because he felt like I was very good at languages and he couldn’t adequately teach me in the environment he’d been thrown into. (My high school was very terrible. So he was right.)

SO I SWITCHED TO FRENCH. I took French for 3-4 years in high school (can’t remember when I started) but the same shit started happening. By the last year, my French teacher had the French I, II, III, and IV students IN THE SAME CLASS and she just put the advanced students in small groups and had us do independent study. Sigh… Around this same time, I started three other languages. At this point, I was getting kind of accustomed to self-study so I applied for a Latin class in the Florida Virtual School and took a year of that. I also spent a summer studying at the University of Chicago when I was 16-17 and learned Middle Egyptian then. (Yes, I was an ancient cultures nerd even back then.)

The Japanese has always been an odd case. Like I said, my 8-12 education was fairly terrible. They had this thing where they used a computer program to teach kids math and the teacher kind of taught along? When I transferred to the school in the middle of 8th grade, the teacher didn’t know what to do with me so he just plopped me in front of a computer and told me to do as much as I could. They started me in… Pre-Algebra, I think? Which I’d already taken in sixth grade. So I ended up getting through Pre-Algebra, Geometry, Algebra, and Algebra II, which… wasn’t in the teacher’s plans. I’d kind of finished several years of math in like a quarter. And then they didn’t have any more classes. So he just told me to like. Sit quietly and amuse myself for the last few months of school?? (Terrible, terrible school.) So I went to the library and found a book about Japanese and started teaching myself that. I really, really liked Japanese! Like it’s a language that just clicks really well with the way my brain works, I think. It’s very logical, I like the syllabary, etc. And I think growing up signing helped me with pictographic languages like Middle Egyptian and Japanese. My brain easily connects visual symbols with concepts.

When I went to college, the plan was honestly to learn more Egyptian and start translating, and I kept taking French to help me read old research in various ancient study fields. I ended up transferring out of the NELC major, though, due to some ethical problems… I guess that’s another post. Several years into my RELS/FOLK degree I went to my parents like. Look. I love learning this stuff but none of it’s useful. Remember how much I loved Japanese? Can I go back to learning that? I could translate that and that’s a legit skill. So I applied to a program through my school and studied in Japan for a while and ended up really doubling down on that language. Weird how I came back to it years later, but I guess it was always the one I loved best.

I have a mind that’s very pattern-based, so I guess I’ve always loved learning languages and the patterns behind them. (This may be why languages with a lot of rule exceptions, like French, irritate me.) They’re like puzzles that I’ve always enjoyed teasing out. Unfortunately, the way my education bounced around meant that I never got a good grounding in most of those languages, so I’ve largely lost them. I can still read French fairly well and my Japanese is good… My Spanish is like. Enough to get me around in the southern US. My German is abysmal. I remember very little Latin & Middle Egyptian. (It’s been over 10 years, I guess.)

So I guess what I feel the need to say to you is that if you don’t use it, you will lose it. I did well in all my language classes. They’ve always been fairly easy for me. Like. Straight As, no problem. I don’t say this to brag. I say it so you know that even for someone like me, whose brain is fairly well-wired for languages, it’s very, very difficult to retain languages when you’re not using them. If you’re not used to taking languages or you started late in life, it’s even harder. So even on the days you don’t want to practice! You gotta practice! Ganbare! Bon chance!

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

@trek-tracks

I'd read your rant! Also, you should see Beyond. I haven't seen ID, but I'm confident Beyond is WAY better than ST:2009 and, from what I've heard about ID (that it is a garbage fire), Beyond is not the one of the three to not see.

Yeah, I have heard that about Beyond, and I keep meaning to watch it. I’m not like actively avoiding it, it just sort of...hasn’t happened. I have a To Watch list about five miles long at this point that I just keep foregoing in favor of watching gaming videos on YouTube. It’s a sad life.

But here’s the rant (feel free to skip if you didn’t follow this blog to hear me complain about AOS):

My strong impression from the first two movies was that the writers misunderstood--or just, for whatever reason, chose to discard-- the dynamic that Kirk, Spock and Bones actually had in TOS.

In TOS there’s a very deliberate balance wherein Spock and Bones are on opposite ends of a spectrum of logic vs emotion/ lawful vs chaotic, and Kirk sits in the middle of that spectrum, getting the input from both ends and then turning that into balanced decision-making. (I know it’s deliberate because of that whole “I took one man and wrote him as three people” quote from Roddenberry.) It’s a great setup when it’s being used correctly because it gives you a built-in method of examining any situation that comes up in the show from multiple angles without sacrificing the drive of any of the characters.

Trying to write one single character covering the same total perspective as Spock, McCoy and Kirk can create combined would necessarily result in either a character who appears to be wildly indecisive at best and lacking in any consistent characterization at worst, or in paring down the range of that perspective to avoid the first thing happening. This is all especially important in a show with the set-up of Star Trek, where not only do you not have much time to deliberate because everything has to be solved in under 60 minutes and no we will NOT be revisiting any of it later, but your lead character is in a position of formal command, meaning you have very little room to allow him to be hesitant or indecisive in his decisions before he starts to look like he shouldn’t be in that job. Indeed, it’s made explicitly clear multiple times that any sign of hesitation on Kirk’s part will be taken by not just him but most of the crew and Starfleet as a sign that he’s losing ability to command. Because Spock and McCoy have different roles not just as characters but as crewmembers, they can give full attention to their respective angles in a way that Kirk alone could not without it looking like he was dithering, with the bonus that you can write it all as a natural (and entertaining) conversation rather than it coming off as forced exposition. You don’t need to have those kinds of discussions all the time--there are plenty of times when one or more of the trio is absent and things tick along just fine--but there are also times, IMO, when someone being missing or just poorly written makes things falter quite obviously, Where No Man Has Gone Before being the biggest example that comes to mind.

But instead of having Kirk be in the middle of this spectrum I may have just sort of made up, the AOS movies seem to take the tack of having Spock be at one end and Kirk at the other end. They’re portrayed as being complete opposites to such an extent that they’re at odds practically the minute they meet, and spend the entire first movie at each other’s throats because AOS!Kirk’s brash, reckless, emotion-driven, rules-ignoring personality clashes incompatibly with Spock being deliberate, logical, and law-abiding to the letter. There’s absolutely no indication in TOS that Kirk and Spock ever had that kind of relationship or that they had to get over any sense of rivalry before they became friends. Granted, TOS had such a lackadaisical approach to backstory that we don’t really know anything about how they did become friends, but we are told on more than one occasion (which, for TOS, is practically hammering the point in) that Kirk was himself was so serious and focused as a student (”positively grim”) that he attracted bullying for it. In other words, for as little solid backstory as we get, one thing TOS is clear on is that Kirk did not have an arc of being reckless and wild and having to learn some patience and sense--if anything he seems to have had an arc in the complete opposite direction, although not so much that he isn’t still a total workaholic.

So that of course very much impacts Kirk and Spock’s characterizations and dynamic, but it also impacts McCoy, because by sticking Kirk in McCoy’s usual role, McCoy himself is now left with very little to do but make snarky comments and stick hyposprays in people from time to time (which he does very well, but, still). Which is sort of both cause and effect, because the fact that the writers put Kirk in that position to begin with indicates to me that they didn’t understand and/or didn’t value the importance of McCoy, specifically, being in that spot in the first place. But it is important that McCoy is in that spot because I love him and he deserves it because McCoy as a character is in a much more natural position to serve that role than Kirk is.

This may seem like a tangent, but stick with me here: McCoy inherently has a different perspective towards Starfleet than Kirk. Than everyone in the main cast, really, but especially Kirk. Kirk’s character, his perspective, his role in life, his arc, his backstory, all are closely tied to his being in Starfleet. Kirk’s position in relation to Starfleet is so important that it’s part of if not the entirety of practically every bit of story or backstory he has. When we hear about Kirk’s history, we mostly hear about it in terms of where he was in Starfleet at the time: at the Academy, serving his first assignment as an ensign, being a lieutenant on the Farragut, etc. Kirk’s career is very much on his mind all the time and threats to it are the subject of conflict multiple times, not because he cares about climbing in rank for rank’s sake but because he needs that career, and that good relationship with Starfleet, to do the thing he is most meant to do in life: be a starship captain. It’s not a position he could have outside of Starfleet--maybe he could go command an independent ship of some kind, but it wouldn’t be the same thing, not really. Kirk’s not meant to be doing supply runs or carrying passengers or what have you; he wants to explore, he wants to be out there checking out the weirdest shit the universe has to offer, he wants to be doing something important. This is why it’s such a big deal that Kirk is willing to sacrifice his career to save Spock in the movies, because that career is his life.

Yes, Kirk doesn’t always agree with Starfleet, and he’s willing to break their rules if he really has to. But Kirk could never exist in the position he is in TOS, and he certainly couldn’t maintain that position, if he couldn’t agree with Starfleet on most things, and conduct himself in a way that they in turn found agreeable. You don’t get to be the captain of one of the most important ships in the fleet by fucking around. And he didn’t. He worked his ass off to get there! TOS Kirk might be a bit young to be a captain but not so much so that he didn’t have to climb up the ranks the old-fashioned way to get there. Meanwhile AOS had to have Kirk sneak onto a ship he wasn’t supposed to be on and then get rid of practically everyone else on said ship, right up to provoking the acting captain into a fistfight, to get Kirk into a position where it would be remotely plausible for him to be in command of the Enterprise. In AOS Kirk is characterized as being so at odds with Starfleet and the Starfleet way of doing things that it takes some very extreme circumstances to get him in a position to command the ship because there’s no way Starfleet would have actually chosen for him to do that.

The reason I’m putting all this emphasis on Starfleet is that in TOS, when it comes to questions of Following The Rules vs Doing What’s Right, Starfleet is the rules. If it’s a matter of Lawful vs Chaotic, Starfleet is going to be the law. Any time the characters are in a situation where they have to ask “Is it the right thing to do what the rules say we should be doing here? Could the rules be wrong?” the rules they’re debating are almost always going to be Starfleet rules. (When it comes to following non-Starfleet rules it’s usually not so much a moral matter as “okay following the rules might be the only way we’ll get this done but we’re not going to act like we like or agree with those rules.”)

So when it comes to putting a character in the position of being the one who’s emotional rather than logical, who’s the voice of Hang The Rules, I’m Doing The Right Thing, who’s there to say things that need to be said but aren’t really appropriate to just say in the societal rules we’re working under here--Kirk can do that to some degree, but it really doesn’t make sense for him to be the one on the far end of that spectrum. To have been in the Starfleet environment as long as he has, and to have been as successful in that environment as he has, he has to be someone who can thrive in that environment, who finds it more acceptable to work with than not, or at least can do a good job faking it.

But McCoy? McCoy’s coming at it from a completely different angle. McCoy didn’t join Starfleet out of any kind of lifelong pursuit, he basically did it on impulse because fuck it, he had nothing better to do with his life at the time. Being in Starfleet informs McCoy’s characterization far less than everyone else’s in the show; mostly it just informs his current physical location. His identity isn’t really wrapped up in being Starfleet personnel. His identity is wrapped up in being a doctor. He was a doctor long before he was Starfleet, and when being in Starfleet stops being a viable option he goes to be a doctor somewhere else (and to make regrettable fashion choices but that’s another topic entirely).

There’s a lot of little ways that McCoy shows that he doesn’t care a whole lot about the Starfleet way of doing things. He’s casually insubordinate to people who seriously outrank him. He inserts himself into situations and discussions that aren’t what his actual job calls for--there’s no real reason why the CMO would need to hang out on the bridge all the time but there he is. He complains about the dress uniforms. He usually forgoes referring to other crewmembers by their ranks if he can get away with using their first name instead. He doesn’t even sit right.

[ID: 1. McCoy sitting on the edge of Spock’s console on the bridge, 2. McCoy sitting on the edge of the briefing table with a cup of coffee, 3. McCoy sitting sideways in a shuttle chair while talking to Spock.]

And he has very little interest in his own rank, or in commanding anyone, or in generally behaving as if he’s a member of a military organization, something reflected in the fact that he in turn hardly ever gets referred to by his actual rank. McCoy is okay with ordering people around as a doctor--he’ll pull rank to get someone in for a physical, or make them sit down and rest when they’re injured, Jim, and since he has to he’ll run the rest of the medical department, whatever there is of it. But I think he sees that first and foremost as being a doctor, who just happens to have a few extra tools at his disposal to make his patients behave so hey, might as well use ‘em. But on the one occasion* when he’s called upon to actually act as a ranking officer in a completely non-doctoring-related matter, he gets so flustered about the whole thing that he has to ask the person he’s supposed to be ordering if he did it right. He’s not really interested in being in charge of anyone in any formal sense.

*The one occasion in the main show, at least, which doesn’t take into account Diane Duane’s extremely excellent novel Doctor’s Orders, in which McCoy winds up in charge of the Enterprise because Shenanigans, and spends the rest of the book having a massive extended anxiety attack about it. It’s so great.

So McCoy doesn’t look at things tactically in the same way that Kirk does. He doesn’t have to. It’s not his job. Not to say that McCoy never has to make any hard decisions, but as a character he functions much better than Kirk as the one who’s looking at the emotional aspect of things because most of the time, McCoy’s not the one who has to turn The Right Thing To Do into standing orders for 430 people that can actually be practically acted upon. He tends to have a more immediate, short-range focus, contrasting the way Spock tends to look at the biggest picture and Kirk, again, lands somewhere in the middle. McCoy thinks about individual people first and foremost. If the Enterprise is about to get into a skirmish with a Klingon ship, Kirk has to be thinking about what the outcome of that battle will mean for Federation-Klingon relations, about what he can do now that might save more lives down the road even if it puts some in danger right now, but McCoy will be thinking about the people who are about to be hurt, maybe killed, right now. Which is a great perspective for a doctor to have, and an important perspective for a captain to keep in mind, but it could never be the only perspective for a captain.

McCoy’s viewpoint is a very important one in the Watsonian sense that it’s useful for Kirk and in the Doylist sense that it contributes to the specific tone that TOS wanted to achieve. But it’s a viewpoint that has to be balanced for it to be effective both practically speaking and in story-telling terms. AOS missed that balance; by putting all their emphasis on Kirk and Spock being opposites they made McCoy more or less redundant. Which is a crying shame, because it’s an unforgivable waste of Karl Urban’s goddamn amazing performance. The thought of what he could have done if he’d had something more to work with is heartbreaking to me.

But McCoy goes unappreciated far too often in general. You know I once went looking for a TOS McCoy Funko Pop and they didn’t have one? They had a generic Andorian but they didn’t have McCoy. It’s an outrage! I had to make my own out of a Munny.

[inkribbon796]

Live form Downtown Ch. 2

Written for Bim’s birthday, in the Superhero AU this is his first real public appearance.

Summary: As Bim celebrates his birthday, the Heroes decide on a plan of action.

This is chapter two of the story

<= PREVIOUS

Chapter 2: He Says He Doesn’t Tip

    Inside the police station, Abe was with a couple of the heroes. The three heroes were all in uniform. Logan had already watched the entire segment. Roman and Jackie, however had not. One of Abe’s contacts had gotten him an early pilot showing of Bim’s show, and it was remarkably similar to the episode that had aired tonight.

    “And you can confirm that all show contestants are hale and healthy?” Logan asked after the segment concluded, adjusting his glasses.

    “Yeah,” Abe answered. “First thing I checked out. As much as I want to slap the guy as a serial killer, we’ve got no physically proof he was in the city.”

    “I saw him with the other villains,” Roman reminded. “My money’s on him being the Dorm 5 Killer.”

    “I’d love to take that as gospel, but I don’t think the court’s gunna take a magical out-of-body experience as hard evidence,” Abe reminded.

    “We should strive to have multiple pieces of independent evidence,” Logan added.

    “However Dark and Wilford found the kid it can’t be that hard to get information out of him,” Roman scoffed. “I mean you said it yourself that you got one of Dark’s Lieutenants on our side.”

    Logan tapped his knuckles to his chin, his mouth thinning into a tense line. “As Dark and Wilford’s apprentice, it stands to reason that there will be much heavier security around him than the rest of Dark’s enforcers.”

    “Yeah, in case yah haven’t noticed, Dark’s not an idiot. This is the first time Silver an’ I have seen this kid in almost twenty years,” Jackie reminded. “He kept him buried so deeply I thought we hallucinated the whole thing.”

    “That might not be entirely accurate,” Logan rewound the recording to the last clear image of Bim’s face. “Amenities and resources to raise a child do not some out of thin air. If your numerous fights with those who can use the Void have proven anything, the objects have to first enter the Void for Dark, Wilford, and Anti to use them.”

    “What you thinking, Pocket Protector?” Roman asked.

    “How young was the child that Dark and Wilford had?” Logan demanded, looking in Jackie’s direction. While the heroes were talking amongst themselves, Abe was staring at the screen.

    Jackie sputtered for a bit, “That was twenty years ago, remember?”

    “You must remember something,” Logan responded with exasperation. “Anything.”

    “The kid was little,” Jackie answered. “Real little. Couldn’ta been more than a couple of months or something.”

    Logic went quiet for a bit. “Detective, I believe you said there were no missing children’s reports before or during that time.”

    “No,” Abe didn’t take his eyes off the screen. “But now that I can get a half-decent look at the kid, it just crossed my mind that he looks a lot like Wilford.”

    “Seriously?” Roman balked.

    “Look, Warfstache is a serial adulterer,” Abe looked back at them. “It’d surprise me more if he hadn’t somehow made a kid with all the married folks he’s banged over the years.”

    “That doesn’t explain Dark,” Logan muttered under his breath.

    “What was that?” Roman asked.

    “Just a thought,” Logan summarized. “We might be able to get additional information another way.”

    “How?” Jackieboy Man scoffed. “We just gunna swoop inta’ an abandoned warehouse an’ beat ‘em up ‘til they tell us what we wanna know?”

    “I need to run tests and stimulations to see if I am wasting our time or not,” Logan evaded, already turning towards the door.

    After that Logan tuned the others out as he headed back to the base. It was close enough to the base that it wasn’t too bad of a walk, and it gave Logic time to think and plan. His brain running through possibilities and options.

    Logan walked into the base and went to the basement, if anyone tried to stop or talk to him, the logical side didn’t notice. Finally the elevator opened into an impossible big, and impossibly dark basement. Logic stepped out and waited for the elevator to close behind and plunge him into the darkness.

    “Logic,” the Host’s voice seemed to purr from the darkness and a single candle was lit in the distance. “Greetings.”

    Carefully Logic made his way to the candle, thankfully there weren’t any bookshelves in his path and he made it to the Host’s desk with little incident.

    At first Logan wasn’t sure how to start, the Host could see the future, and had probably seen him coming down days ago. “Salutations, Host, I am certain you know why I am here.”

    “The Host is aware of many things,” the Host smiled at Logan, his face eerily lit by the candle. “It is astounding to the Host that the rest of the Egos haven’t enlisted his help in finding their Dorm 5 Killer.”

    “The local governing body of Egoton have made it clear that your visions do not count as “admissable evidence” so we will have to use more standard legal methods,” Logan reminded.

    “The Host would like it to be known that the judge is just afraid that the Host will make his affair with his wife’s assistant public knowledge,” the seer dismissed.

    “Be that as it may, you are capable of masking your presence in the city,” Logan reminded the Host. “Can you do the same for others?”

    “What was Logic thinking of doing with the Host’s abilities?” the Host asked, tilting his head and looking at Logan as if he could still physically see him.

    Logan would be minimizing if he didn’t admit that that type of stare didn’t worry him at least a little.

    “It is in my opinion that I am the only individual capable of the task,” Logan began. “Bim Trimmer is working with Dark and the rest of the League, he might even be the Dorm 5 Killer.”

    “Of that, the Host doesn’t doubt,” the Host dismissed, staring at Logan with a bit less intensity. “Logic wants something from the Host, what does Logic want the Host to do?”

    “I need you to help me go undercover inside Dark’s network,” Logan responded. “I need to be so thoroughly undercover than even Deceit or the Duke won’t recognize me. I believe that someone of my skills could be useful to Dark’s army. He has even stated as much. I could also bring useful information back.”

    The Host leaned forward, steeping his fingers in front of his face, “How fortunate for Logic, the Entity is in need of a new assistant. He recently turned his old one into a Lieutenant.”

    “Good,” Logan nodded, trying not to be nervous.

    “If Logic accepts, the Host will not be able to protect him from so far away,” the Host warned. “Once he starts, there is no going back.”

    “It is a necessary risk,” Logan reminded.

    “But not one Logan need take, they could simply arrest Bim Trimmer,” the Host reminded.

    “I have to do this, we don’t have enough evidence,” Logan reminded.

    “Fair enough,” the Host smiled, and his hands went up as if he was sitting at a typewriter.

    “Name: Logan Thomas Sanders,” the Host began, blood began trickling out of his empty eye sockets, staining his bandages and running down his face.

    The Host continued. “Age 30, birthday: April 24, 1989. Attended Stanford University. Double majored in Computer Science and Bioengineering on a full-ride scholarship. He was picked up by the Entity’s talent scouts. After his schooling moved to Egoton in November of 2019, he was enlisted to work for the Entity.”

    As the Host began to talk, Logic began to feel different, the world around him graying out, but the Host and his voice was always clear.

    Then finally the Host added, “Will periodically return to the Heroes to report to the Host. He continues in his hero work, no one is the wiser, not even Logan.”

    With the last syllable, Logan’s world jolted and he found himself at a desk, about five books in front of them. He blinked, as if disoriented, looking around himself. He was tired, his eyes hurt. Probably from staring at Dark’s books all day.

    Last thing he expected to use his degree for was to work a dead guy’s books, but it was a five figure salary, and he wasn’t going to complain.

    Taking his glasses off, Logan rubbed at his eyes and groaned.

    Darkiplier appeared behind him and Logan jumped a little, he was getting better at expecting Dark’s presence and predicting it. “How bad is it?”

    Logan groaned, picking up the top book. “You have to stop letting Warfstache kill his contestants.”

    “I tried that twenty years ago,�� Dark groaned, rubbing at his face. “Once you’re done with that book I need to discuss something with you. Full discretion, as always.”

    “Of course, Sir,” Logan put back on his glasses and looked his boss dead in the eyes. The bookkeeper liked to think he’d been hired for his general fearlessness. “I’ll lock these back up and be right into your office.”

    “Good,” Dark told him and left, disappearing back into the Void.

    Logan sighed and got back to the books in front of him.

NEXT =>

[ardenttheories]

So do you hate the epilogue or love it? Also I feel like the exposition provided on Hope was interesting in Candy. Besides that I’m curious as to what your full thoughts are

So, I’m still kind of torn on this. I’ve tried to think it over a few times, to really chew on my thoughts while I was reading the two Epilogues into a singular coherent idea, but all I’ve really come up with is a sort of mushy, oversweet mess that’s pretty indistinguishable from roiling confusion.

I still stand by my mentality that the Epilogues are really well written. There’s something about them that, although it sometimes doesn’t read like Homestuck used to, still really comes across as enticing and interesting. Even when the characters are at their worst - and even though a lot of them have had weird character developments or evolutions - the actual characterisation within the foundation of what’s been set in the Epilogues is believable. I can believe that a Dirk who acts like Meat!Dirk does would think and feel that way; that a Roxy who’s under the sort of narrative pressures of Candy!Roxy would end up as demure as she does. It’s believable, in the same way a well written fanfic is believable - which is, ultimately, the point. 

But do I like it? As an English Literature university student, yes. Oh, yes, I love the Epilogues. There’s so much to think over, to sink your teeth into, to really and thoroughly enjoy on a literary level. 

The inter-connectivity between the texts is fantastic. You can get an idea from both on their own, but only when they’re put together does the full picture come out. Knowing that Alternate!Calliope has influence over the narrative in Meat gives you a good chance to realise that she’s bringing canonicity back into Candy well before she even confirms it herself.

For instance, the reason Roxy’s so wildly offbeat that even John notices it is that they’ve departed so far from canon that her canonical developments and foundations have become worthless. She doesn’t bother going through her identity stuff because there’s ultimately no point in focusing on it; character development doesn’t matter anymore, and without anyone to help her focus on it, there’s just no reason for her to think about it. It’s only with the presence of Alternate!Calliope that things slowly start to get better. It’s why, when Alternate!Calliope is at her most present, Roxy starts to become herself again - why during her conversation with John she’s able to stand up for herself and admit that something has been wrong the whole time. Alternate!Calliope brings them back towards a faux sense of canonicity, and as a result, Roxy’s development suddenly becomes relevant again (even if it isn’t allowed to flourish fully, because that goes against what Calliope is trying to do). 

The sort of narrative theory it brings up is incredibly interesting, too. Having to read both sides of the same story isn’t exactly new, but this sort of interconnectivity is incredibly rare. The way that Meat and Candy work as concepts are also beautifully interesting; as I’ve said before, Dirk’s logic on Meat is that without a plot, there’s no relevance or importance in anything that they do, but the inhabitants of Candy frequently remind John that even if what they’re doing is inconsequential to the plot, it still matters to them. Maybe Jane being a fascist in Candy isn’t going to have a rippling effect on Paradox Space, but it matters to every single inhabitant of Candy’s Earth C. Calliope sees the importance of these moments; Dirk doesn’t. It brings about a firm point that if you try and make a story too plot-focused, you’ll ultimately make a story that’s too much of a slog to read, too depressing, to heavy - but if you try to make the story too fluff-based, then nothing of relevance will happen, you’ll have characters that never grow or develop down a natural path, events will happen in ways they were never meant to or don’t happen at all, and might be interesting but won’t be enough.

Plus, just reading through how A!Calliope explains the narrative voice and how it can be used is phenomenal, and I think a lot of literature should start to question that. Even in a text without a specific narrator, is the text completely without a narrative speaker? She basically explains what Dirk does in the sense of the boiling frog; he allows the narrative to seem like it’s speakerless so that everyone he’s whispering in the minds of don’t recognise that something is wrong until it’s too late, and he’s fully in control. He puts everyone in the cool waters of nonbiased narrative and slowly turns up the heat of his own opinions and inflections until he’s boiling their self identity and independence and free will alive with biased narrative. 

In that sense, I love the Epilogues. 

For thoughts on the actual story, though… I kinda love it. 

For what it is, it’s incredibly interesting. The dichotomy of Dirk controlling Meat while Alternate!Calliope controls Candy, being the respective narrators, is oh-so incredible. A!Calliope even says, in her dialogue to Aradia on page 40 of Candy, that sometimes narrative voices don’t bring themselves forward; sometimes the narrative is speakerless, sure, as we think Candy is - but that sometimes the speaker of the narrative simply doesn’t want to show herself. As much as Dirk overtly influences the events of Meat, I think A!Calliope influences the events in Candy - she just hides her narrative voice, and lets us figure out if it’s actually her doing the talking, or if there’s no narrative voice at all. 

It’s clear that in Meat, Dirk is the only reason there’s any sort of canonicity. He’s forcing events to happen to keep everyone relevant in the way they’re not in Candy - and Candy is what he actively fears, because Candy is A!Calliope’s answer to Meat. Dirk needs plot and relevance to exist; A!Calliope specifically needs that void of plot and importance for her plans to work - and both directly influence the other. Dirk is literally so scared by the concept of Candy that he over-controls in Meat because the idea of irrelevance just doesn’t work in his mind. There has to be some bigger picture, something to work towards - but for Alternate!Calliope, the simple concept of existing and allowing things to play out naturally, without interference, is the better way, even if there’s no bigger picture to strive towards, and irrelevance is left in her wake. Both Epilogues happen side by side to allow both narrative players their chance to reach their full potential, to present what they think is the best form of narrative. Meat is Dirk’s answer to Candy; Candy is A!Calliope’s answer to Meat.

To borrow from the previous ask, “In his suicide, Dirk destroys the last piece of narrative importance in the Candy Epilogue. He is the narrative importance in Meat after all; with him gone, there is no narrative entity to keep it going.” Without Dirk, the characters slip so far away from canon that everything becomes meaningless. All those foundations the characters are based on disappear, and they become horrific caricatures of themselves. A!Calliope brings stability back to this unstable, noncanon world. This is why Roxy’s gender reveal ends up being less “I’m able to decide who I am, and I am more comfortable using he/him pronouns and presenting as masculine” and more “I’m not feminine, and I don’t need to cling to the feminine gender; my body is a machine of flesh, and nothing more”. She still comes to the same sort of conclusion, but it’s only half way there - because A!Calliope isn’t bringing a full plot back to that timeline. Just enough to stop it from self destructing. 

Additionally, the fact that the black hole wasn’t so much of a black hole as a wormhole from canon into non canon. That brings up so much interest. Does Dirk even realise that’s what happened? I don’t think so. He seems to think that Davepeta really did complete a suicide mission, but if the same thing happens to them as happened to the troll ghosts then all that’ll happen is they’ll come out the other side, still clinging to Lord English, into the Candy timeline. Does Dirk realise that he’s been played? He essentially set into motion what needed to happen for A!Calliope’s plan in Candy to work. But maybe that’s the beauty of the duality? They’re opposing each other, but they also rely on each other for their own parts of the Epilogues to work. 

I’m interested in seeing where this goes. At this point, I’ve read enough to be invested. I’ve gone on about some of the Meat aspects in depth, so I won’t really go over that much more, but I love Candy’s portrayal of relevance. How fatalistic John becomes when he realises that everyone’s just completely fake - fake to themselves, fake to who they were, fake to what they could become - and how (Vriska) goes on to talk about John’s overall importance - that he’s probably one of the most powerful beings going because he has the ability to decide the entire fate of canon without even realising he’s doing it (as we’ve seen in Meat and Candy; both are a direct consequence of actions he taken without realising the dire effects it will have on the timeline).

But do I love it as a fan? 

I definitely enjoyed the exposition on Hope. It essentially confirmed a theory I had on this blog ages back; that Hope’s Belief was sort of the other side of the coin for Light’s Truth, and that the Belief of something to a strong enough degree is ultimately what makes it True. Maybe that’s why everyone was acting so fake? John believed with his whole heart that everything was wrong, and fake, and impossible, and he let that overwhelm him. Of course, the fact of the matter is that these things really were taking place, but I’m at least 87% sure that it was worsened by John’s own morbid attitude towards his fate and the lives of everyone around him. 

There are some parts I definitely liked. Confirmation about Jade’s weird gender situation in Candy, confirmation that Callie is they/them and Roxy is he/him in Meat (and that, regardless of the timeline, he’d always recognise that he has some sort of issues regarding his gender and figure out some way of understanding himself and his identity), the canonisation of DaveKat in Meat (although I firmly believe it could have ended up as DaveJadeKat if she’d still been in the picture, but a much healthier version than we see in Candy), the relationship between John and Terezi, the exposition we get on Candy!(Vriska) (finally realising a lot of the things fans have said about her for a while, especially in regards to (Vriska) in the comic), and now that I’m coming to terms with it, the plot’s pretty okay, too. For what it is, and the route they went down, I’m getting through the stages of grief to reach acceptance. 

But no, I don’t really like the Epilogues. 

Fundamentally, I hate the route they chose. I hate that after three years, rather than just be told “you can decide whatever you want, because even the noncanon things have validity and we’re well aware that we can’t please everyone, so making your own ending to suit your needs not only works best but also fits the theme of Homestuck well”, they went to all this effort of making a plot and characterisation that ruined so many of these characters we love. 

I have a lot of issues with Dirk. It’s bad narrative crafting to set a character so far back in his development. I can understand how the development works in the way that they’ve done it, but I’m also very aware of the fact that this, in no way, had to be canon. For all that Bro is a splinter of Dirk, and that emotionally stunted Dirks must also exist across Paradox Space, there are also plenty of other splinters and versions of Dirk that must have gone through beneficial emotional development. Out of every outcome that Hussie and the team could have chosen, I’m disappointed and upset that this is the route they took - after three years of waiting. 

This was an outcome that could happen, yes, but it didn’t have to be the official outcome. Regardless of how much anyone prattles on about canon and non-canon, people are always going to regard something that’s official as The Most Canon. If the point of these Epilogues is “you can make your own, valid ending”, then it’s overshadowed by the notion that this ending, these endings that we’re being given, are the ones that Hussie himself devised, and sees as most plausible. You can’t scrub the Official ™ mark from the Epilogues. You can’t get rid of the connotations of canonicity that comes from that. 

It’s a bad ending to Homestuck. No matter how you look at it, viewing just Meat or just Candy or both together, it still sucks as a fan to try and reconcile with the idea that this is how Homestuck’s officially going to finish. I’ve got no doubts that there’s more to come - cliffhangers like these are just begging to be finished, and if Hussie’s going to this much effort to make an interconnected story then it’d be weird to leave it hanging - but I’m still slightly bitter about the fact that this is what we get. Two relatively unhappy, upsetting, triggering endings that really give across a good statement, but not as much of a good conclusion to the people who have been following this story along for ten years. They’re hard to read - emotionally and physically - they’re unpleasant to try and get through, and although I’ve read both and am glad I did… I’m well aware of the fact that I could have not read the Epilogues and probably been better off. 

I actually go more into this aspect of it in a few other posts. I’ll link them below, so please give them a read, because they’re more eloquent and definitely explain what I mean a bit more. But that gives the overall gist of how I feel. I’ll also be including a few posts that explain how I feel a bit more, not written by me, because hell yes I want to share that good shit. 

So, yeah. I’m accepting of the Epilogues at the moment; I love them in a literary sense; I hate them as a fan. 

“Thoughts On The Upd8; Honestly Strikes Me As A Cop-out” - Kienansidhe

“The Dirk Thing And Why It’s Bad Storytelling” - Stormsbourne

“A Common Defence Of The Epilogues” - Unionhack

My thoughts on Candy

Why I hate the Epilogues (3 year drop) 

My thoughts on Meat

[genidma]

The conscious experience

Am I conscious? And if I am conscious, then how do I prove that I am conscious, by making use of the conscious experience itself? 

That’s actually a very interesting conversation. It’s certainly not an original thought. 

The way I think about thinking, this sort of logic flows from the same set of schema, that governs my thinking regarding life. 

And so, if I may begin by first articulating, what I personally don’t consider to be true. In fact, I think that the below mentioned have a high degree of being classified as the opposite of true. And I’d attach a higher than 80% probability to such claims. 

There is no super deity: In a probabilistic sense, there may very well be intelligences out there that could be classified as vastly superior, compared to the level of intelligence that we exhibit (in our existing evolutionary state). I say this, considering the enormity of the universe and the possibility that there may be many multi-verses and a lot of dimensions out there. But the conscious experience, it appears, is born out of a number of different processes that can be categorized as non-conscious. So, it just doesn’t make rational sense as to why a super deity would want to micro manage the affairs and as it relates to an enormous amount of conscious agents out there.  That being said, it’s interesting to think about the spectrum and how intelligences of varying types and scales could potentially co-exist on similar/the same planar. And on the other end of the spectrum, we are dealing with the very low end of the probability that humans are the only intelligent beings in the entire universe. If that statement ought to be considered as true, then that increases the probability that we are either living in a simulation, or that all other intelligent beings have left this universe. Or that advanced beings either live in the cauchy horizon or that their patterns are retained there. Or some other reason that could reasonably explain this oddity. Overall, it’s an interesting question and with respect to what came before the big bang. Or why something even has to be there before the big bang occurred. I think that these are both logical questions. I’d even go as to state, that if there was indeed a God like intelligence, then it certainly does not intervene and as it relates to the day to day affairs of intelligent beings, or non-intelligent beings at that. That super-intelligence is either doing it’s own thing, in it’s own corner, somewhere in the multi-verse or it ended up annihilating itself. So, that is my current stance on this sub-topic. That there is no super-intelligence in an interventionist sense.

And so, there are no angels, demons. There is no concept of heaven or hell. 

There is no soul. At least there is no evidence that such a thing exists. 

And so, there is no consciousness. In either the esoteric sense that it is characterized in a variety of different ways. Intertwined with the fabric of space-time. Allegedly flowing in and out of microtubules. 

If there is no consciousness, then what is it that we experience? We experience something. Even though what we experience could be classified as a series of hallucinations brought about by the signals flowing through our brains. 

Over the course of the human evolution, we have devised mechanisms that help us towards understanding our reality and our place within this reality. Maybe there are better mechanisms out there that we have yet to invent. 

And so, in order to be able to define the conscious experience, we need to be grounded in truth and there has to be evidence that certain phenomenon drive certain outcomes. 

Next, I think it’s better to classify what we experience as cognition. Cognition is driven by electrical and chemical activity in our brains and the mental aspect (related to the mind) is largely fashioned by our interaction with our wider environment. 

Going back to the question that I started with and given the background that I have shared, cognition, it appears, is simply an interesting mixture of pattern recognizing functions. 

I think that we can use simple examples in order to be able to separate the signal from the noise. Meaning, that:

We need need a discussion and as it relates to what certain words really mean or the meaning we attach to these words. 

And this is important because we want to use mechanisms in order to replicate or seek to replicate how we think cognition functions. When it turns out that the processes we engineer may end up working differently, compared to how evolution has powered cognition. 

Also, I think that using simpler examples is a better approach, as doing so helps in refining our understanding, with respect to the models that we will architect. 

For example, Michio Kaku’s definition that a thermometer has a cognition (he calls it consciousness) of 1 (or 2, or +/- x e.t.c depending on how you look at it). Meaning, in response to the stimuli that the system gets from it’s environment, it either goes up or it goes down. 

How we classify the scale from a thermometer to viruses/bacteria, to potato bugs, to chickens, to other animals and finally to ourselves. That is a conversation by itself. I think that, that is primarily a question of ethics. Care is to be meted and we shouldn’t let our unconscious urges and desires lead us towards categorizing the conscious experience as something that is convenient for us. And then, this classification turns it into something that could be very uncomfortable for the village idiot. 

As it is, our classification of cognition isn’t something that is to the advantage of chickens and other animals that we have domesticated. Note: I’ve started eating chicken again and I feel a slight tinge of guilt when I bite into the flesh. But, then, in my mind, I start equating chickens to dinosaurs and somehow I am able to justify my behaviour. But, I haven’t had red meat in a while. 

For the record, if I was raising my own chickens, then I could probably condition myself to slaughter them in a humane and ethical way and then cook and eat them. But, if it happens that we encounter some slightly advanced alien species, that kind of look like a more evolved progenitor of the avian sub-species that we find on this planet. Then, my mind is going to start thinking how these advanced beings would perceive me, when they see me biting into flesh that looks like something that emerged from these alien types. 

Considering the panspermia theory, that hypothesis isn’t really as wild or improbable. As improbable as it may seem, these questions would certainly start emerging in my mind, if I were to encounter a technologically advanced blue avian. In such a scenario and just to be on the side of caution, I think I’d probably stop eating birds at that point in time. Because, you do not want to unintentionally piss off your technologically advanced inter-stellar neighbours.

Overall, these problems disappear or start disappearing, as soon as cellular agriculture starts going more mainstream.

Next, I certainly don’t think embryos are alive and have a soul in them. There is neuronal activity in there. Off-course there is. Because nutrients have to be delivered to the different parts of the system. If you are going to pinch the embryo with a needle, then there is going to be an instinctive reaction that has been programmed via evolution. Knee-jerk reaction. An embryo is not alive.

I must state that the reason why I am sharing some of these thoughts is because I really hope that as humans we should use our cognitive surplus, in order to be able to learn more about how our brains function. 

Also, I don’t say, or think out loud what I am sharing, with the explicit purpose of offending someone. Although, I really do not think that society ought to be structured in such a way that me saying something offends someone and that is not allowed. That’s a big problem.

Specially, with me (or anyone else at that) saying something is not inciting violence in any shape or form. An embryo is not a person and it’s not conscious. I mean, I eat eggs everyday. 

Now, I have started thinking about how painful this must be for the chickens to lay billions of eggs each day. As well, the male hen, whose sperm is being used to fertilize these hens in the first place. So there are all of these thoughts. But, for now, I am still eating eggs, chicken and fish and not so much of red meat.  

I guess, overall,  problems emerge, because there are memes engrained in cultural settings. And there is group identify. And it’s easier to go along with the group vs forcing oneself to think independent thoughts. So if the the majority of the group believes that am embryo is conscious, then it’s not so easy going against that way of thinking. Unless, one chooses not to associate with that group, which isn’t necessarily an easy thing to do. 

Coming back to breakthroughs in neuroscience. This is an area that could radically alter how we live, how we govern, and key breakthroughs could also help reduce so much human suffering on this planet. 

Imagine being able to treat mental illnesses the way we treat ailments physiological of a nature. Same with addictions of different sort. 

Imagine being able to truly understand someone else, when they allow you to share their emotions/sensations and their way of looking at the world with you. Even though that may occur for a short period of time. 

Imagine, humans choosing to put down their weapons and deciding instead that they are going to invest towards enabling healthcare in their communities. And that all humans could make that decision at the same time. Because, we would finally have the means and the ability to be able to decode how the brain and the mind actually function. 

There is a super long list of benefits that I can think of. I love thinking about thinking and all the amazing benefits that could be had. Two of my personal favourites include:

The ability to be able to encode knowledge in logic, so that it can be transmitted instantaneously from one system to another. 

As well, if technological singularities are still lingering around in our universe (for any given reason), then the means and the abilities to be able to build the right kind of architecture, so that we can begin interacting with them (the singularities, technological singularities). Although, I would suspect that the singularities have an outer un-conscious shell which is intelligent and yet it is non-conscious. Then they have this inner dynamic that is vibrant and diverse and wholesome.  Because if the universe is teeming with intelligences with different sort, then technological singularities must have devised some kind of mechanism in order to be able to retain and exercise their uniqueness. The alternative, increases the probability that the whole thing enables harmful mutations across these technological singularities. Like cousin marriages or the whole thing turning into a giant b0rg. And so, if everyone is thinking the same way in the b0rg, then is the b0rg really thinking? Is the borg really that much more conscious than slime mould? 

Overall, I am still not 100% sure if I am conscious or not. I think I am more conscious on some days vs others. My experiences lead me to believe (a loaded word) that memories and how they are encoded, that this process plays a pivotal role and as it relates booting up our schema. 

I believe that I am a good person and I am willing delay gratification in order to do the thing that is honest and ethical. This is a criteria (for lack of a better word that I can think of right now), that has led me to think about how I consume materials and information. Nobody is perfect. But I strive to do better. And I do make progress, because I measure most aspects of my life. 

If our conscious experience has booted up, using principles and mechanisms that can be categorized as ethical and moral in a secular/universal sense. Then, in light of such a reality, our conscious experience is our property. 

Now and increasingly into the future, we need to have agreements in place, with respect to who can access who’s property. Citing a clause that reality is far too complex for any one cognitive system to understand and then trampling over individual conscious experiences, is obviously not a good model. 

I think it makes sense to go down to the absolute basics. Meaning, distill/boil down a narrative to the core fundamentals and build up the narrative in a logical and structured way. Because, you can then build up on these models in a way that is sustainable and replicable. The alternatives do not really offer safety/security/insurance/scalability. 

So when we think about thinking, we can say that this is what we know. And here is the evidence. So let’s build on top of this, in order to help reduce unwanted and undesirable human and non-human suffering. 

[enneagramspam]

ISABEL LOVELACE

8w7

“Don't die. Be a big girl, and don't die.“

Isabelle Lovelace is a textbook Eight; as a Captain, she is authoritative, resourceful and strong-willed, but also prone to domineering and confrontational behaviour. Upon her return to the Hephaestus, she demonstrates the ruthless, authoritarian streak of a deeply disintegrated Eight, but over the course of the series she is able to integrate back into a healthier Eight, a heroic figure who is genuinely able to protect her crew. 

Basic Fear: Of being harmed or controlled by others

“Oh, I'm not following one of your orders? Gee, must be Monday…”

In comparison with the rest of the cast, who grow to reasonably distrust Goddard after betrayal, Lovelace has never been good with authority of any kind; it’s simply a facet of her personality. This is made clear in Greensboro;

“There's been times when I haven't seen eye-to-eye with my superior officers. Like all those times they gave me stupid orders. On those occasions, I was inclined to carry out my orders with a bit of... creativity.”

Lovelace remains her own ultimate authority, following orders only when they suit her, and as such, she is not truly beholden to them at all. Interestingly, there are pages of glowing testimonials from those who served under Lovelace, while those above her in the chain of command found her to be disobedient and punished her as a result; being a good leader and a bad follower isn’t at all uncommon for an Eight. 

Lovelace takes great pride in her independence, and expresses contempt for those that, in her eyes, allow themselves to be controlled, particularly her rules-obsessed second in command Officer Lambert, who effectively represents this basic fear- she calls him “an asinine teacher’s pet,” and repeatedly admonishes him for a lack of “a mind of his own,” even ridiculing him in front of the rest of her crew. Lambert is in fact the perfect foil to Lovelace, because while he is endlessly obedient to Goddard, he repeatedly undermines her, as Hilbert observes;

“You are perhaps needing someone who... questions superior officer? Who does not immediately do what is told? Who will fight for what they think is right way of doing job?”

Taking all this into account, it’s no wonder Lovelace dislikes Lambert so much when he both represents the control she so fears and the disobedience she cannot tolerate. The anger he provokes causes her to slip into the role of the intimidating Eight, which causes some friction with the rest of her crew, who describe her as “scary,” and observe that her personality is fundamentally combative; “she’d be bored without something to fight against.”  

Lovelace’s preoccupation with control is part of the reason that her discovery that she is an alien replica of her previous self subject to the whims of the aliens who created her is so distrubing for her- this is the avenue the habitually manipulative Kepler takes to try and unsettle her, preying on her basic fear;

“Are you sure that it's you that made the choice? Less than two days ago you were speaking words that weren't your own. … Maybe they're always in control, and they've made it so you can't tell. What if everything you think you're doing for yourself is just our friends out there pulling strings? What if your thoughts aren't your own?”

For Lovelace to even admit that this bothers her is difficult; Eights natrual tendency is to avoid vulnerability. It’s not until her control is completely taken away when she is trapped in a time loop orchestrated by the same aliens in Out of the Loop, driving her to disintegration and essentially forcing her to do so in the hopes of moving on.

“I - I'm sorry. I... Maybe Kepler's right. Maybe I'm not in control of what I'm doing.”

Ultimately, Lovelace is forced to live her basic fear, again and again, to begin to overcome it. Her arc culminates in her worst possible scenario- Cutter, the manifestation of the insidious control she has been raging against throughout the series, gaining direct control of her by manipulating the psi-waves that affect her alien physiology;

“If you have enough psi-waves in the air … you can control all sorts of things. What do you think, Isabel? Pretty neat, isn't it?”

Lovelace can’t wrest herself from Cutter’s control entirely- she shoots Minkowski, and is unable to fire at Cutter. She is, however, able to distract him for long enough for Minkowski to kill him. Not only is this a direct confrontation of Lovelace’s basic fear, with her being forced to accept that sometimes the situation is out of her control, this scene forces her to eschew her basic desire, and instead, rely on someone else to protect her; as an Eight, this is the logical conclusion to her arc.

Basic Desire: To protect themselves (to be in control of their own life

and destiny)

“There’s something I needed to remind myself of. That you're not just what you were made. That you can grow. At least... when you assholes don't interfere.”

Repeatedly, Lovelace cannot stand seeing others allowing their destiny to be decided for them- even when she particularly dislikes the person in question. When Eris announces her intention to self destruct on behalf of Goddard, she is furious;

“You can't just let these people delete you! You should fight this! ...Just because someone made you something doesn't mean that's all you're going to be. You can be more.”

She reacts similarly, if far more explosively when Hilbert is unfazed upon discovering that Goddard were planning on betraying him;

“What... the hell... is wrong with you? (BEAT) I will never understand you. How are you not angry? How are you not revoltingly angry? They were going to leave you up here. To rot … Listen to me, you despicable waste of a soul: that's not how you react to this. Humanity 101: when someone lies to you, when someone betrays you, when they leave you to die, alone, in the cold, you DO NOT FIND IT PERFECTLY EQUITABLE! You get angry, and you do whatever you have to in order to show them they have made the worst mistake of their lives. It doesn't matter what you have to give up, who you have to hurt, how far you have to go -”

Indeed, Lovelace goes to every length to be the one in control of her own destiny and to protect herself and those that she cares about. Aside from her dead man’s switch, there’s her response to Kepler’s game of “eeny-meeny,” when he is deciding who to shoot in Desperate Measures- she interrupts him with a “fuck you,” and then proceeds to insult him and spit at him. What could be mistaken, though, for an outburst of pure aggression and resentment is clearly shown to be an attempt to deliberately provoke him and thus control the situation in the only way she can, and an attempt to protect Eiffel; 

EIFFEL: “Captain... why did you - you didn't have to - 

LOVELACE: “Yes, I did. I did. It's fine.”

She smiles at him. Sadly. 

Inaction- and particularly, feeling helpless- drives Lovelace to distraction. She’s desperate to try to take control of the situation in Pan-Pan, repeatedly dismissing Minkowski’s plan to make a distress call, “The only way we're going to get off this station is if we do it ourselves.” On the other side of things, Lovelace’s mini episode, Greensboro, is markedly different from those for each other character. Critically, she doesn’t interact with Cutter, who has a pattern of exploiting the cast’s basic fears, and in reflection of this, it’s her basic desires that Rachel, who is interviewing her, praises and tempts her with;

“You. Deep space. Mission command. You've got … Glowing recommendations from practically everyone you've given an order to. And when you're multiple light years away from your superiors? It's probably good to have someone who can think for themselves.”

It’s easy to understand why Goddard took this unique approach with Lovelace specifically; threatening to control her would result in automatic pushback and rebellion from her, whereas promising her a degree of the control that she so craves was the perfect way to ensure that she agreed to work with them. 

Disintegration to Five:

“I invented being paranoid on this station.”

Enneagram Institute describes deeply disintegrated Eights’ actions as “vengeful, barbaric, murderous.” This is particularly true of Lovelace- the first time she flees the Hephaestus, she leaves behind a message promising to exact revenge against Goddard:

“So if you're listening to this: Run. And. Hide. Because by the time that I'm done you will feel more helpless and more alone than all the innocent people you've ever hurt. See you soon.”

Like an unhealthy Five, she is secretive and fearful, leaving her paranoid. She initially admits to turning on Hilbert without proper cause;  “I was so paranoid by that point, I think I would have turned on anyone who was with me.” This indiscriminate destructiveness is a hallmark of a disintegrated Eight, and when Minkowski confirms, “You attacked him?” Lovelace simply answers, “Best defence.” She goes on;

“I figured it was just a matter of time before he tried to kill me. So I incapacitated him and I ran. I got on the ship we'd constructed and left him behind. (beat) Not my proudest moment.”

Her violence continues when she returns to the Hephaestus- pouncing on Hilbert on sight, choking him and bashing his head against a wall. Like an unhealthy Five, she is suspicious and information obsessed- planting a gun with a hidden listening device so that she can eavesdrop on Minkowski and Eiffel. 

In addition, Enneagram Institute says of disintegrated Eights, “If they get in danger, they may brutally destroy everything that has not conformed to their will rather than surrender to anyone else.” This repeatedly holds true of Lovelace;

““I hope you don't think we'd go down without a fight.”

Indeed, she threatens to invoke the “Taking You With Me,” trope on multiple occasions, to the point that it becomes something of a running joke for her; 

“Believe me, kids, right now I'm up for killing everything and everyone on this boat.” 

Perhaps the most serious example, though, is the explosive she wires to activate should her heart stop or increase too much which she reveals in the episode aptly named Mutually Assured Destruction, a failsafe she describes, unfeelingly, as “insurance.” When Minkowski doubts her, “You’d be killing yourself. I don’t buy it,” Lovelace simply answers; “Then you’ve never been as scared as I have.” This neatly demonstrates Lovelace’s complete unwillingness to surrender or be subjugated, willing to completely self destruct in order to avert this outcome. Additionally, she uses this threat as a means of seizing control of the station, becoming the ruthless, dictatorial disintegrated Eight;

“There's a new sheriff in town, and I am not taking suggestions, complaints, or objections. Here’s what’s going to happen… Whatever game Command is playing with this station is over. Welcome to my Cold War, kids. Fasten your seat belts, stay out of the way, and don’t try me. Any questions?” 

Integration to Two:

“I realized something. The whole epic rampage of revenge thing? Isabel Lovelace wouldn't do that. The terrible wretch that you people made Isabel Lovelace into? Oh, she'd do that. But... I'm not going to be that person anymore. (BEAT) I'm going to be Isabel Lovelace again. Even if I never have before.” 

When integrated, Lovelace’s has the sincere care for those around her of a healthy Two, using her own strength of character to support them. A good example of this is when she quite generously agrees to take over for Minkowski when she feels unable to command the station. It’s significant that Minkowski convinces her by appealing to her own respect and need for control;

“ I... I did what I did because I lost control. And until I get it back, I don't think my hands are the best ones for this crew to be in.”

Also notably, Lovelace is demonstrably reluctant to take control, establishing it only happens, “on the very clear understanding that this is a temporary situation, and that [she is] going to sort [her]self out and kick [her] out of [her] chair ASAP.” This Lovelace, genuinely looking forward to ceding control to a person she respects and trusts, is a far cry from the control obsessed woman she is introduced as. Additionally, she uses her strong authority with the goal of actually meeting the needs of her entire crew- for instance, in Theta Scenario;

LOVELACE: “I'm not making that call for everyone. We're voting, and we're not doing anything until we have a unanimous decision.”

EIFFEL: “Fine, lets v-”

LOVELACE: “No. We're not gonna make an informed decision until we know as much as we can about what the hell has been going on here.”

EIFFEL: “Why?”

LOVELACE: “Because I'm the Captain, that's why. That call I will make.”

As aforementioned, Lovelace is also able to depend on Minkowski during her most dire moments during the finale. Early in the series, Lovelace clearly felt that it was her destiny to personally take revenge on Cutter on behalf of her crew, with her promising that outcome to him as an inevitability;

“I'm going to really mess you up someday. You know that, right?”

Allowing Minkowski to be the one to take him down instead is a subtle but incredibly important demonstration of her growth- she thoughtlessly sacrifices an opportunity she would have been unlikely to have given up on without a fight earlier in the series. This courage and self-sacrifice is far more along the lines of what one would expect from an integrated Eight. 

w7:

“Let's just say that I am very eager to be a private citizen again.”

Maintaining her own freedom and happiness is a big priority for Lovelace, which is indicative of her Seven wing. She dislikes ruminating on painful subjects, and while she generally copes by being action-oriented; her refusal to confront her grief is explored in Variations On a Theme, where she has no tolerance for herself slipping into present tense when speaking about her past group;

“No. Focus. Work. Be here. Be now. Don't stop to remember. Don't stop to think. Stay away from the ghosts.”

And, in Need To Know it’s revealed she was deliberately getting high on painkillers after the disastrous events of Who’s There?;

“I got a broken an arm trying to save one of my crew members. It was a very difficult time.”

Turning to addiction as a form of escapism is not uncommon for a Seven in disintegration.

Additionally, despite her extreme fury towards Goddard, Lovelace is also driven for much of the series by an extreme desire to return home; 

“I want to go back to earth.”

It’s only in her internal monologue- presented as fragmented and scattered, as many disintegrated Sevens can feel and behave- that she acknowledges the painful truth that returning to earth won’t truly fulfill her desires- earth is longer home, and home is gone;

LOVELACE: “I will do this. I'll do it faster. Better. Deal with crazier. Won't die harder. Fix this goddamn engine. Get them out. Go home.”

SECOND LOVELACE: “You can never go home. You were home.”

THIRD LOVELACE: “And now you're back. And you can never go back.”

LOVELACE: “I know. I know.”

In fact, Lovelace’s powerful desire to get off the station is more reminiscent of the blind claustrophobia of a disintegrated Seven- the desire to escape a painful atmosphere- than a draw towards a compelling, satisfying one. Towards the very end of the series, this changes. Significantly, she mentions earth not just in the context of revenging on Goddard or escaping the Hephaestus, but as presenting the opportunity for revitalizing, healing experiences, with something close to the optimism of a healthy Seven;

“Oh, there are so many choices. Look up some old friends, take apart Goddard Futuristics brick by brick... maybe go to Disneyland? But first, I'm going to take a long vacation, somewhere warm and quiet, where nobody has any idea who I am.”

Ultimately, though, her wing isn’t very developed- she’s more than willing to stay on the station late in the series to try and learn more about the aliens and their wants (and by association, about their control over her), and doesn’t try to flee the situation in the same way that Eiffel wants to at that point. Similarly, she’s willing to die to protect him in Desperate Measures- her core desires and fears as an Eight will always overpower the aversion to pain associated with her wing whenever both come into play. 

[sol1056]

multipart ask on Keith

I would honestly love your thoughts on Keith’s character development, specifically him leaving for the Blades in S4. Personally I’ve always been on a fence with how they wrote Keith’s character after that. For one, he started as a lone wolf and I always thought they would subvert that along the way with more character interactions and team building episodes like in S1, but apparently S4 throws all of that away. I thought him forcibly being the leader of voltron would be a great opportunity for development but Shiro takes his place in the black lion and Keith just leaves. 

It really didn't help with all the signs pointing as him as the true leader of voltron when he barely even interacted with the team personally (except for shiro) after that point. To top it all off his “maturation” was a two year time skip montage with his mom and he suddenly became level headed and ready to fly Black. So when he finally returns and become the leader of voltron it felt a bit underwhelming and hollow. To be honest I also find his interaction with the team afterwards kinda out of character [...] 

I just wanted to hear from a writers perspective if Keith leaving was a good idea for his character in general. He had some really good scenes in his time with the Blades but i personally think in exchange it took way too much [away from] his development with the others. I also wonder if it's even possible [to execute well] leaving for the Blades and then becoming the leader of Voltron. 

Here’s a general rule: avoid leaving any of your protagonists at a bus stop. 

A few chapters is already pushing it; the equivalent of 1.5 seasons is out of the question for all but the most superlative of writers. I’ve met superlative, and believe me, no one on the VLD staff qualifies. If they did, they wouldn’t have been writing for VLD in the first place. 

The start of S4 will forever baffle me. Had S3/S4 been broadcast as a complete season, I might’ve assumed there was a technical error, and would’ve tweeted at Netflix and not returned to watch until I got word this really was the midpoint episode. No warning, no foreshadowing, not even a peep out of Keith, and suddenly he’s working with the Blades. 

In an ensemble cast, the point is that it’s an ensemble; you don’t forget one of your core cast at the bus stop while the story-bus trundles on. If Keith were meant as a protagonist, then sidelining him for 1.5 seasons is an even worse crime. If the intent of the story, thematically, is 'stronger together’, shoving one of them out of the picture is pretty much the antithesis. 

This is not to say you can’t do it; in hindsight, I think the clone should’ve been shelved and the real Shiro returned at the end of S3/S4. But that comes with the assumption that a) the team would struggle a great deal more in his absence, b) prompting development that would create a new dynamic once Shiro returned, and c) that Shiro himself would change in some degree, from/during his absence: one that, by definition, that would need to be complete.

In other words, if you’re going to remove a protagonist, two things must happen. One, they must be removed, which Keith wasn’t. The story checks in on him irregularly, and each time, he's treading water while the story moves on. Two, the absence must become a driver: in a sense, the absence is a presence of what’s missing, and regaining the character must be paramount. 

VLD put minor effort into recognizing the impact of Shiro’s absence, limited mostly to the torture-porn of watching Keith isolated in (and by) grief. It couldn’t even be bothered to do that much, when it was Keith’s turn to fall off the team. No one missed him, no one needed him. The result was a clear message there was nothing Keith brought to the team that couldn’t be done by someone else. There was no presence in his absence. 

Consider the few scenes in S4-S6 with anything of Keith. His storyline did nothing to push the main story forward. In S4, the Blades are focused on tracking a new quintessence, a subplot that discovers nothing, provides no twists, and goes nowhere. In S5, despite Keith being with the Blades, the two groups have dropped communication to such degree that neither is aware of the other’s participation in the Kral Zera. 

If you’re determined to leave a protagonist in another castle, for heaven’s sake, use that distance to allow them to continue to impact the main storyline. Make their absence into a working presence that can link the two groups; the complete radio silence just underlines how meaningless the story considers Keith, in the overall plot. 

In that light, Kolivan’s left-field decision for Keith to extract Krolia feels like VLD was grasping at straws, trying to find something to occupy Keith. Worse, that mission contradicts S4: the quintessence is no longer blue, no longer notable for its energy levels, and no longer transported to secret bases in massive quantities by major warships. It’s back to the usual maroon, carried on small cargo ships in limited quantities, and now a dangerous substance with questionable side-effects. 

In a nutshell, VLD left Keith mired in pointless actions with no bearing on the rest of the characters (hello, suicide attempt never mentioned again). Late S5, VLD realized it needed to get a move on, if Keith was to get an upgrade. So it took the easy way out: an overload of exposition flashbacks that neatly evaded any emotional beats between Keith and Krolia. VLD had no idea how to get Keith from point A to around point K, so it settled for just telling us Keith had grown up. On a space whale.

Had we been given a better reason (or any reason) for Keith joining the Blades, had we been given a hefty sub-plot for Keith that led him back to the team in an organic fashion (or at least dovetailed with the main throughline), had the story used those seasons to show us Keith learning with the Blades in a way he couldn’t or wouldn’t with the team... well, for one thing, it’d still contradict the ‘found family’ and ‘stronger together’ themes, since it’d be even more clear that Keith was stronger elsewhere. 

But setting that aside, at the very least, Keith wouldn’t have returned feeling he’d gotten a personality transplant. We would’ve seen his progression, such that any given point along the way would’ve been recognizably Keith, even if the starting and ending points were almost a one-eighty. It’s called character development; most stories do it as a matter of course. 

I’m left concluding that the creators genuinely don’t grasp that characters will change per their experiences. It’s a crucial element in storytelling, because characters are the core of any story. If you can’t figure out what would make a character choose A this time and B next time, you’re failing on one of the most fundamental aspects of characterization. In fact, you’re missing the entire point of a story: character choices are the plot.

I do have to take exception to ‘signs pointing to [Keith] as the true leader.’ I’ve posted before about the mentor trope, and how Shiro’s S1/S2 arc contradicts Keith as Black Paladin. I suggest you read those before coming at me with the assumption VLD did any of the work required to establish Keith's leadership as inevitable. 

It’s possible to have someone strike out on their own, learn valuable lessons, and return grown-up and able to handle the situation they’d originally fled. It’d be a very different story, though, one that isn’t focused on a titular robot, but on a single protagonist’s journey. It’d also be a story that has nothing to do with ‘stronger together,’ as the movement away (to learn) and back (to reclaim) means the protagonist only became stronger when they weren’t with the rest. 

Keith taking command of Black in S6 should feel like a victory in terms of his arc: where once he’d recoiled, now he steps forward. But since we never saw how or why his perspective changed about leadership, all it would’ve taken is a subtle shift in Yeun’s delivery and we could be talking instead about how Keith returned and was still in his ‘you want me to lead, this is how I lead’ pique. 

Shiro’s return creates another turning point where the question would be logically raised, and it’s almost as though (once again) there’s an episode or two we didn’t get. It’d be reasonable for someone to raise the question of whether the team now swaps again. Yet no one does, and we’re supposed to expect Keith --- who waved the little ‘Shiro is Black’ banner far more and for far longer than any other character --- is now content to command Black, with no need to even broach the topic. 

That’s a radically different perspective Keith shows in S7 onward, and it’s a problem created by the lack of development for Keith, in S4-S6. In the course of a single episode, we literally went from Keith being his slightly out-of-his-emotional-depth awkward self, to someone clear-eyed and commanding almost to the point of arrogance. It’s not helped when his original characterization returns for the duration of his fight with Shiro --- only to blip out again as soon as Keith returns to the team. 

And forcing that abrupt shift on Keith’s part meant the rest of the story (and the characters) got shoved around into their respective places and out of shape, as well. Stories are made of characters, and characters are dominos. You knock one over, and it has a cascade effect. Changing Keith from the character we knew to someone else wearing his face could not happen in isolation, and every character around him suffered as well. 

Like Shiro and Lance, Keith had major potential to be a groundbreaking character. He was introduced as the kind of independent, socially awkward, spitfire character usually pushed to the forefront in American media, yet S1/S2 gave him a solid place as Shiro’s greatest supporter. Keith had all the makings of a hero we rarely see: someone who truly believes the title of leader is beside the point, that the team is what matters.

I’m used to Gundam, which almost always strives for a resting place of five (or four) protagonists standing shoulder-to-shoulder. There might be one among their ranks who gets the central position, but the narrative is firmly consistent that should the team lose any one person, it would fall apart. There’s no need to ever tell us the team is ‘stronger together,’ we can see that lesson play out, over and over, whenever the team is divided, split up, or loses someone. 

AtLA followed a similar pattern; by the end, it’s obvious the strengths each person brings to the final battle. There’s no question that every single one is crucial for victory; there’s no point where someone leaves and there’s not immediate and significant impact on the remaining characters’ successes. Sure, Sokka may not be able to bend like the rest of them, but without his brains, they’d be sunk. Katara, Toph, and Zuko might not be able to bend every element, but if any one of them isn’t there, the team is going down. Aang may command the central position, but he can’t do it all on his own. 

While AtLA shone in having characters who visually broke the mold of our usual white-dominated, male-dominated American cartoons, it also broke away from the lead hero + band of intrepid (but far less capable) sidekicks. Like Gundam, it presented a group of characters who grew into a true team. The pictures might show Aang in the middle, but every one else contributes an equal amount, in their own way.

VLD had the makings in its first two seasons to go that route. But its EPs wanted dark and edgy, a perspective too cynical to embrace the optimism inherent in a team-based story. Sure, their deconstruction of VLD’s S1/S2 trope-subversions brought the story to a point where Keith was declared the definitive top guy, the true Black Paladin, head of the paladins. 

Thing is, pushing Keith into that position required altering his personality beyond all recognition, destroying the team dynamic, and gutting any chance of recognizing the other characters as equally integral to team success. In effect, making Keith the de facto leader required destroying the team: and what’s the point of leadership, then?

[plagueamon]

Code Geass MBTI Challenge Turn 9: Kyoshiro Tohdoh - ISTJ

With the exception of Anya and a few members of the Akito the Exiled cast, Kyoshiro Tohdoh is the character on our list with probably the least amount of information about his personal thoughts, views and experiences. With that in mind, I still think that the show gives us just enough of a glimpse into his personality in order to be able to type him accurately, to the point where I actually had to retype him a few times and overall was given more to think about than I originally expected. Before I start explaining this character’s functions, please keep in mind, that this post will contain heavy Code Geass spoilers, so consider yourselves warned. With that out of the way, let us analyse why Kyoshiro Tohdoh is an ISTJ.

Dominant Introverted Sensing/Si

Tohdoh’s Si is actually very comparable to Ohgi’s, because they value very similar things, but diverge in what further conclusions they do with those values based on their auxiliary and tertiary functions (this is coincidentally perhaps the best opportunity we will ever have to compare an ISFJ to an ISTJ). Much like Ohgi, Tohdoh largely bases his values around Japanese tradition, however he does not see them as something to be explored and shared with others (Ti and Fe), so mach as he uses it to dictate the rules he wants to see himself and his surrounding world world to develop in accordance with (Fi and Te). This sometimes makes him appear much more narrow-minded than he actually is, simply because he has a very specific idea of what he wants to achieve for Japan and for himself and is very determined to make it a reality. In truth he is actually very capable of applying this personal system of principles to others, which is what makes him a competent teacher and role model for Suzaku.

A common trait of dominant Si-users in fiction is that they can be both idealistic and practical in their mindset, with Si being tied to tangible evidence and facts by being a sensing function, while also being introverted and therefore highly subjective and personal to the user. Tohdoh himself embodies this balance quite well: we often see him talk in ways that are sentimental, with topics like honour and his hopes and fears for Japan’s distant future being brought up a lot, but, as Zero mentions during his prison break-in in R1, all of Tohdoh’s legendary success comes down to careful planning and intelligence work. In fact, it seems that Tohdoh himself understands this very well, as we never really see him refer to his work as “miracles” in a non-ironic manner, despite being seen as such by his followers. At his core Tohdoh still very much prefers to deal with factual details, planning out his operations and insisting on taking part in them personally, solidifying him as both a skilled and passionate tactician and leader, and, much like with Ohgi, this is the potential that Lelouch sees in him.

Auxiliary Extroverted Thinking/Te

As stated above, Tohdoh’s success as a leader mainly comes down to methodical and meticulous work combined with a fairly tactical mindset. His Te is certainly an important component of this, as we see him rely on it when he has to step out of his Si comfort zone. We see several examples of this happening when Tohdoh doesn’t see an obvious answer to a problem: his usual response is to trust in Zero’s judgement even if he has to blindly follow orders without a clear understanding of what his leader is planning. This demonstrates a healthy use of auxiliary Te, as it shows his willingness to abandon his immediate instinct to systematically observe the situation by himself (Si) when there is clearly no point in doing that, instead going with a more conventionally rational Te approach and trusting Lelouch because he has proven to be effective in the past. This is both supported and kept in check by his Fi, which gives him a degree of confidence in his judge of other people’s character as well as stops him from being a blindly devoted follower with no clear direction of his own. Compare this to Ohgi, who trusts others (Zero in this example) based on his perception of their sense of morality and trustworthiness (Fe), while his tertiary Ti balances this notion out by making him question his own judgement and thinking of the benefits of a given decision that is independent of ethical questions.

To put it in a somewhat simplified manner, Te is a form of generalist logic, developing a systematic “one size fits all” way of looking at a problem for the user, as they mature. The higher Te is in the functional stack, the more its logical system is complex and willing to account for exceptions, meaning that the kind of over-generalising behaviour that Te-users are often stereotyped for is much more commonly seen in unhealthy, immature or low (in terms of the stack) users. A much more healthy use of Te is comparatively rare in fiction or isn’t recognised nearly as often, however Tohdoh’s tactical ability and respect for authority provide good examples. Neither of the two are things he carries out blindly or out of principle, in fact he demonstrates a high degree of autonomy when deciding to trust his comrades and his superiors - instead these choices come from an understanding that this kind of trust the most reasonable course of action in most difficult situations.

As a soldier these qualities make Tohdoh outstanding.

Tertiary Introverted Feeling/Fi

Tohdoh’s Fi comes out in most of his unhealthier moments, meaning that he enters a Si-Fi loop. Whenever he finds himself in a difficult situation with no apparent solutions provided by his first two functions and nobody else to follow, Tohdoh is prone to giving up all hope and surrendering to his fate. The excuse he uses to justify this is also very evident of an unhealthy use of Fi: in his mind he chooses death to preserve his honour and deserves his fate for his personal failure. With Fi being a function that focuses on very personal values, this is an example of using it defensively instead of finding the inner strength to maintain hope and readiness for an opportunity to improve the situation. This almost causes him to reject a chance of freedom that Zero is basically handing to him in R1. It usually takes an external perspective (Te) such as Zero’s or that of his fellow Holy Swords pilots to “snap him out of” this internally focused state and show him that he can still find a reason to continue fighting without sacrificing his life and that his honour is not compromised by such a choice.

On a somewhat healthier note, Fi also puts an interesting spin on the direction of Tohdoh’s dominant function, giving him a firm belief that a person should keep true to their goals and principles no matter the cost. This is why his initial disappointment in Suzaku disappears to a large degree, when he learns that his former student’s life choices are in full accordance with the ideals he holds. While he still sees Suzaku as an enemy, Tohdoh develops a respect for his willingness to follow the path he chose despite being seen as a traitor to the Japanese by almost everyone and even encourages him to continue. While his Fi isn’t high enough in his stack to make relating to others necessarily easy, it does give him the ability to readily acknowledge that there are subjectively justifiable reasons behind everyone’s actions, no matter how different the person in question may be from himself.

Inferior Extroverted Intuition/Ne

Tohdoh does not get as much screen time or opportunities to speak as some of the other characters on our list, however because of his brutal honesty and overall being based on a fairly common fictional archetype, it isn’t very difficult to understand his fears and weaknesses as a human being. Dominant Si is a function rooted in personal experiences and principles (both moral and logical) that are very personal to the user and allow them to find a place for themselves in the world they inhabit. A common way for inferior Ne to oppose this is the fear of loss of one’s self and the personal principles that make us who we are. This makes Tohdoh reluctant to make decisions that contradicts his ideas about the kind of person he should be and the ways in which he should act. This kind of insecurity provides an understandable explanation for his Si-Fi loops: trying to avoid execution to him is similar to refusing punishment for his failure to liberate Japan, and that would go against his understanding of what he should stand for. This is why he only agrees to escape his prison when offered a chance of redemption.

On a more general scale, inferior Fi makes it hard for Tohdoh to truly understand other people’s motivations and plans when he doesn’t see the evidence leading up to them. Given that Lelouch is Ni-dominant and hence much more willing to rely on theoretical approximations and calculated risks rather than playing it safe and going with the facts, this tends to happen often and Tohdoh is often left having to trust in his leader’s competence without actually knowing what he is up to. Being mature and relatively healthy, however, Tohdoh does not tend to be bothered by this too much, recognising when his life is in capable hands instead of giving in to a fear of uncertainty, as unhealthy or immature Si-doms can often do.

However, please keep in mind that this is only my opinion on the matter and I will welcome any criticisms or alternative opinions to discuss them. If this article was interesting for you, stay prepared for next time, when I shall discuss the MBTI type of Diethard Ried.

[autokratorissa]

Considering that civilizational collapse may happen within 100 years, do you think people can justify having children? I've seen some people get upset and call anti-natalists 'post-modern christians' but they never clearly answer why we should keep having children. Never mind that "be fruitful and multiply" is a central tenet of Christianity. Anyways, I'm curious about your thoughts on this matter.

While procreation is obviously very proactively encouraged—arguably even demanded depending on the denomination and period one’s talking about—in Christianity, it’s not exactly unique in that regard; all religions tend to have a pro-reproduction (a ‘natalist,’ you could say) message somewhere in their canon. Many early Christian heresies, though, especially those influenced by the Gnostics and Hellenistic schools like the Platonists and Pythagoreans, did ascribe some kind of negative value to birth owing to their identification of God/Yahweh as the demiurge, and so his creation—the world—being inherently imperfect and flawed, so, even though Gnosticism can hardly be considered the flourishing worldview it once was, “be fruitful and multiply” cannot, in good faith, be considered the final word in Christian attitudes to reproduction. And antinatalists are not ‘post-modern Christians’ (what would that even mean? It’s a patently ridiculous term); anyone saying that is operating under precisely the kind of Christian-dominated thinking they’re accusing antinatalists of. Early manifestations of philosophical antinatalism were predominantly Buddhist (in India and China) and secular (in the Hellenistic world), and from a time before Christianity existed at all, all of which clearly refutes that kind of criticism, at the very least in a strictly historical sense. We should always be mindful of the cultures we exist within, however, and certainly for those in Europe and the Americas, the hegemonic power of the Church and Christian ideology cannot be ignored, even if it is seemingly less powerful and all-encompassing now than it once was.

What are my thoughts on the matter? I think people who don’t know better think antinatalism would consider them as somehow morally wrong—evil, even—for having children, but that this just isn’t true. Similar to a lot of the common responses to nihilism, these people have a knee-jerk reaction based on very little actual knowledge but plenty of emotional baggage, and in this case literally millions of years of biological and social pressures making them view childbirth positively. They think the antinatalist would consider them, individually and as a person, to be bad for having a child, and even that that child itself would represent a moral evil, and not that it is the act, the process, the socio-cultural and biological urge, that is being critiqued. There are also obviously degrees and variations to all things; antinatalism is not a position which can typically be considered to paint in absolutes and categorical imperatives for moral action. Antinatalism isn’t even a doctrine that necessarily seeks to stop all procreation; it simply applies negative value to the act of creating life. On one level, the consequences of such a philosophy are radical and perhaps difficult for many people to stomach, but more often than not it leads to undeniably rational ideas that benefit us all. A good example of this is the very simple and quite common (see, for example: Vetter, The production of children as a problem for utilitarian ethics, de Giraud, “Mobiles et Mécanismes réels de la Procréation,” c. Narcissisme, L’art de guillotinerles procréateurs: manifeste anti-nataliste, and Rulli, The Ethics of Procreation and Adoption) antinatalist observation that, while there exist children without parents but who do want them (those in foster care; orphans, those unwanted by their biological parents, etc.), for people to make the active decision to have a biological child of their own and not adopt is simply unjustifiable under any ethical framework: the act of adoption reduces the amount of misery in the world; childbirth, adds to it.

The creation of sentient, self-aware beings is cruel, unnecessary, and fundamentally and irrevocably based on a complete disregard for the interests and autonomy (see: Shiffrin, Wrongful Life, Procreative Responsibility, and the Significance of Harm, and Singh, “Shiffrin’s (Reluctant) “Anti-natalism”” and “Objections to Shiffrin,” Assessing anti-natalism: a philosophical examination of the morality of procreation)—which has often been considered the basis of all morality (cf. Christman, “Autonomy in Moral and Political Philosophy,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)—of the hypothetical, unborn child. There is no way to avoid any of this. The world is a bad place, we know this to be so. By having children, we condemn them—by force, by an act of violence against them—to a life that knows some quantity of misery, suffering, angst, pain, and all the other things we think best to avoid. Therefore the unavoidable truth is that we are knowingly causing a suffering being to know misery and pain, when we very easily could have not. It’s extremely hard to even attempt to justify that kind of relationship and act.

As with pretty much anything in pessimist and other allied philosophies, I think Schopenhauer represents an excellent starting point—though by no means end point—for someone interested in antinatalism. It should be stressed that, as a Kantian (more specifically as a transcendental idealist), Schopenhauer thought that the creation and destruction of life was mere phenomena, not Ding-an-Sich [thing-in-itself; noumenon, that is, what exists independent of perception], and so did not place as much of an emphasis on actually avoiding and stopping procreation as an act as other, non-idealist antinatalists may advocate, but nevertheless I do think he does, in his typical style, express the kind of reserved whimper of philosophy that I can’t help but feel belongs to antinatalism:

“If you try to imagine, as nearly as you can, what an amount of misery, pain and suffering of every kind the sun shines upon in its course, you will admit that it would be much better if, on the earth as little as on the moon, the sun were able to call forth the phenomena of life; and if, here as there, the surface were still in a crystalline state.

[…]

“If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence? or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood.”

Schopenhaur, qtd in “On the Sufferings of the World,” Studies in Pessimism

Schopenhauer saw procreation as a weakness; not an evil thing, it should be stressed, but a weakness, brought about by the cravings of the flesh. The urge to have children and likewise the way in which we all too easily create pregnancies without even planning them results from our being, in effect, tricked by the Wille zum Leben [will to life; the thing-in-itself]. As I say though, Schopenhauer was working in the Kantian tradition, and so all life as we understand it, in his philosophy, is simply appearance; true freedom, that is, the only escape from not just procreation but most suffering of any kind, can only come from a rejection and overcoming of the Will. Poetically beautiful as this line of thinking may be, suffice to say few of us are committed Kantians today.

To specifically answer your question about whether it’s possible to justify having children now, in 2019, as the very world burns around us, yes, of course it’s justifiable. We as a species can consistently find justifications to support whatever we want. Only rarely does justification proceed action. Personally, however, I cannot justify it. No amount of logical contortions or moral arguing seems to affect that. But will people have children, and not simply as sporadic accidents and in unavoidable situations, but by the millions and through predetermined planning? Of course they will. And would I give a different answer if I were alive at any other point in history? Unlikely. All we can do is try and make life as pleasant as possible for those of us that are here, and, yes, to try and stop those that come after us from making the same mistakes we have, the first and most significant of which always necessarily being our creation itself.

[allisondraste]

As you know genetics in bioware are baffling in they make NO sense. Point ABC&D: If Elven genetics aren't as dominant or whatever when combined with human Genetics, why doesnt Alistair look pretty much exactly like Cailin? He has skin tone, eye color, and hair tinted, bringing in a lot of Fiona's Traits. So why would height, ears, body build be different? Same with Feynriel, traits from his mother and not his father except he looks human. So with all of that how are human genetics stronger?

Okay, so sorry for taking so long with this.  This is kind of a complicated question (at least in regard to my stance on it), and I wanted to actually have time to answer it  properly.  Full disclosure:  My degree is in psychology and all of my genetics background comes from high school integrated science courses and that one gen ed. biology class I took in undergrad, so if I say something absolutely off the wall, that’s why. I’m going to put this under a read more because I have very strong opinions and it is going to be a bit bioware critical and maybe fandom critical too, and I want people to have the option to not read my ranting.

First and foremost, I agree with you that Bioware genetics make no sense.  It seems to be “whatever fits the narrative we want,” is how genetics work in Thedas.  I personally think that this can all be answered by one answer: Bad Genetics and blatant erasure of biraciality. However, if we’re going to try to rationalize the genetics of the game with what we know from the real world and real science, then I think that there are some very…uh flimsy ways to do so. 

In real life, each elven feature such as larger eyes, pointed ears, etc etc, would be determined by a different allele, gene, or set of genes.  From what we know of Bioware Genetics, it appears that “elfyness” (as I will refer to it) is caused by a single gene of it’s own and it is “recessive,” which means that it is only expressed when both parent are elves. Other features that are not exclusive to “elfyness,” such as Alistair/Feynriel’s  eye, skin, and hair color, personality traits, etc., are going to be determined independently by different genes (you know, like normal inheritance…how elven features should also be determined).

In the real world, traits that are dominant only completely mask recessive traits if they are inherited through a simple Punnet-Square fashion.  That’s not the case with a lot of physical features.  For example, skin and eye color are determined by polygenic inheritance, other traits by incomplete dominance (or a blending of features), etc.  IMO, it would make more sense for elven features to determined in a similar fashion, resulting in some slightly pointed ears. It would make more sense genetically, but you know… that’s not what we got. Instead, we have simple punnet-square science applied to a complex set of features that doesn’t really makes sense, and it can leave room for some flaws in the logic.  As far as I know, humans who have “elven blood”  always have “human” children too.  Which is only always the case if they reproduce with another human.  If a half-elf were to have children with an elf or another half-elf, then there *should* (and I emphasize the should part) always be the possibility that a child will be born as an elf. 

TL;DR- Bioware Genetics are Bad Genetics and they don’t make very much sense

- Even assuming that they do, there are still holes in the logic that don’t make sense.

- Let characters be biracial dammit.