#just how much is yet to be seen but

[california-112]

Predictions: A Pre-Review

As I now reach the end of S6 of The X-Files, I'm going to start something new: making predictions about how much I think I'll like the episodes, based on the title, thumbnail screenshot, and short description that my source gives for each episode. I'll be rating them out of ten, then coming back to this when I finish the season to see how much I overshot/undershot.

My reasoning for this is that I'm entering the period where both MSR ramps up, and also there are opinions that it starts to get '''less good''' around here, so I think it'll be fun to see how wrong/right I am with my guesses. I meant to start this for S6 after watching FTF, but I forgot, so...here we are!

I've just finished Field Trip, so I'll start from here as there will most likely be a cross-season two-three?-parter. It's all below if you want to...

S06E22 'Biogenesis' - From the summary and the fact that I've heard almost nothing about it, it could be anywhere on the scale. 6/10

S07E01 'The Sixth Extinction' - Thumbnail has Mulder and Scully on the ground look after some kind of explosion, so that scene might be fun. There's a beached spacecraft apparently? With symbols? Not sure what to make of this, 6/10

S07E02 'The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati' - CSM and Diana are involved :( I think I've seen a GIF of Scully with a sword from this episode, what's with that. Mulder is catatonic??? H/c potential...7/10

S07E03 'Hungry' - The guy with no hair in the thumbnail looks creepy as hell, this seems like another version of 'The Host', 3/10

S07E04 'Millenium' - I Am Aware Of The Kiss. But I Do Not See It. Uuuh loses points for romance but gains points for seeming to be about Y2K, 5/10

S07E05 'Rush' - Potentially summed up by the meme 'I'm fast as f*ck, boi'. Apparently very forgettable, but I sometimes enjoy those the most. 6/10

S07E06 'The Goldberg Variation' - I feel like I recognise the guy in the thumbnail. Something about the luckiest guy in the world. Could be fun, 6/10

S07E07 'Orison' - DONNIE PFASTER??? BACK AGAIN??? And specifically gunning for Mulder/Scully...this could as fun as Kitsunegari, 8/10

S07E08 'The Amazing Maleeni' - Thumbnail has our pair at a funfair, where I think a magician has been murdered. Could be a fun little silly one, 7/10

S07E09 'Signs & Wonders' - Murder snakes. Sceptical Scully in the thumbnail. Should be fun, 6/10

S07E10 'Sein Und Zeit' - I'm pretty sure that Mulder's mother kills herself in this one, I think I read that as a spoiler somewhere. Angst ahoy... 7/10

S07E11 'Closure' - OOOH I'm looking forward to this one, finding out what really happened to Samantha. I hope that they do this well or I will be extremely annoyed. Being conservative for potential to suck, 7/10

S07E12 'X-Cops' - I mean, it's got the meta of TV-show-in-TV-show, so we're already doing well. And 'a creature terrorising LA' also sounds like it'll be good fun, love me a good Creature. Could be a silly one, 8/10

S07E13 'First Person Shooter' - HELL YEAH I can't WAIT for this one OH my goodness we get Lone Gunmen! Mulder and Scully in armour! Fun video game stuff that sounds like it could be Jumanji-esque! You'd better not let me down, 9/10

S07E14 'Theef' - Witchcraft! It could be the cause, idk. Excellent height difference illustration in the thumbnail. Scully looks severely annoyed. Hopefully I won't be, 7/10

S07E15 'En Ami' - CSM has an offer...it probably is too good to be true, yeah. Don't trust him Mulder, 6/10

S07E16 'Chimera' - Mulder's on a bird hunt and at least one cop eats dinner. Quoth the raven...7/10

S07E17 'All Things' - Scully's questioning her romantic choices and looking extremely pissed off. Probably takes itself too seriously, 6/10

S07E18 'Brand X' - Potential for CSM involvement given the cigarette researcher...not much else to reccommend it at the moment. 6/10

S07E19 'Hollywood A.D.' - YESSS this is the first episode I ever saw in GIFs, which really got the show stuck in my memory, I have WAITED SO LONG and if it's not excellent then I will be heartbroken. Skinman you're a real one. 9/10

S07E20 'Fight Club' - Sounds vaguely similar to Syzygy, somehow. Mass destruction could be fun, though. 7/10

S07E21 'Je Souhaite' - I have Heard Things about this episode that lead me to believe it will be more heavy than the fun genie antics that the summary implies. Maybe something like The Rain King which I thought would be about fun wacky meteorology but then ended up being about love, how boring. 7/10

S07E22 will be in the next batch.

So, that's it. If you've seen this series before, then no spoilers please, but am I being a sweet summer child? Will this season be a world of hurt? Let me know or scream at me (again, no major spoilers please), and in either case, wait for the post-season review. Until then...

[hinamie]

9 / 266

[bumblingbabooshka]

Thinking about marriage/women's rights on Vulcan Some may think that T'Pring not being allowed to divorce Spock was because he was going through the pon farr but if she were allowed to divorce him at all she probably would have done that a long time ago, confirmed by T'Pol when she's speaking with Koss, who isn't suffering from the pon farr. She says that he can choose another mate (without invoking a fight it seems: note the difference between a 'mate' and a 'challenger') and after he makes it clear that nothing she says will change his mind about marrying her, she finally threatens to declare a kal-if-fee. It's clear that Vulcan women cannot divorce/refuse to marry a man they've been betrothed to under any circumstances if A) He himself doesn't consent to ending their marriage or B) She doesn't have someone else waiting in the wings to be given to in his stead. Though, if the challenger she selects fails to win the fight, she'll have to marry her betrothed anyway unless (again) he decides he doesn't want her after the challenge. That seems like an incredibly unfair system, heavily biased towards men. SNW is an alternate universe in many obvious respects but most egregiously in that T'Pring has a lot of non-canonical agency over her relationship with Spock. It's interesting to me that Vulcan society has women in many positions of power and treats women as equal to men from what I've seen despite these laws. We don't really see Vulcans exhibiting a misogynistic attitude towards women in general but in TOS (perhaps because of its general writing style but it's still interesting to note) both Sarek and Spock take on patriarchal attitudes specifically regarding wives. Amanda says that 'of course' Sarek commands her because "he is a Vulcan and I am his wife." It's worthwhile in my eyes to note that she specifies 'wife' instead of attributing this attitude to women as a whole. Again, with TOS' writing style it wouldn't be out of place for her to say "he is a man and I am a woman." Spock, while in a pon farr induced irritation, states that it's "undignified for a woman to play servant to a man that isn't hers" - again implying that there's something specific about being a Wife in Vulcan society which is different from being a woman in general and demands subservience to a husband. This could perhaps stem from the extreme sense of ownership that Vulcan law has permitted men to have over women. A woman legally cannot point blank refuse marriage. There is no option which guarantees she won't have to marry her betrothed other than death. When T'Pau speaks of T'Pring she refers to her as being 'property' and Stonn, before being interrupted, states he's made 'the ancient claim' - we don't know what this is because he gets cut off but it's obvious they're both using the language of Vulcan law. Men are permitted true freedom to choose. If a woman wants to choose someone else to be with there is no option available to her other than the kal-if-fee which might result in the death of the one she wants to be with. And, if her lover fails, her husband can still just decide he wants to marry her and she'll be forced to. T'Pring gives two scenarios: One where Spock 'frees' her and one where he doesn't - it's still ultimately his decision which is clear when he ends the conversation with "Stonn, she is yours." This again isn't just because of the pon farr as T'Pol also goes through this. Koss can choose another mate and when the option is talked about there's no implication that this would result in any sort of fight (both by the casualness of its mention and by the fact that there's no formal word for it unlike the kal-if-fee.) Also, the fact that Koss does eventually grant T'Pol a divorce and it's all fine means that T'Pol isn't lawfully required to have another man waiting if her HUSBAND doesn't want her. It's ONLY required if SHE doesn't want her husband. Tradition must take precedence over individual desire UNLESS!!! You're a man. Then it's fine. Like, your parents might not be happy but legally you're golden.

[ghost-orion]

i love that viktor is czech i love everything about it. my favourtie is when jayvik people make him call jayce a "dobrý chlapec" because they used google translate i love you so much everybody.....

a little guide on calling jayce a "good boy" in czech: "dobrý chlapec" is kinda like calling him a "sensible young man" skjdfh. "dobrý" is a very literal translation of "good", its use is like "good day, everybody", not like "a well-behaved dog". "chlapec" is super formal, it's like how heimerdinger calls people "my boy", not like anything familial or intimate.

you might want to probably use "hodný kluk", literally translating to "kind boy" or "nice boy", closer to what we use for praise. (a more casual version is "hodnej kluk", as i can't imagine they'd use formal czech in the lanes.) he could even just say "hodný"/"hodnej", as we often use just the adjective for nicknames and such. (if you ever see a slavic character call someone "hey, [adjective] one!" that's what that is, english is weird with this aslkh)

that being said: there is nothing wrong with using google translate!!! it's incredibly sweet nonetheless, i really don't mind any mistakes ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡ i grew up learning english in fandom so i know first hand how hard it is :]

[mrmeepsmadmind]

i love when ppl draw bumblebee like the happy little creachure he is but also i love when people draw bumblebee like he's had 500 beers in the last 1 hour and still the pain won't even ebb

[milkybishop]

"- but with whom can you sit in water?"

and who can hop in the bath with you to make a show of not caring about your tattoos, and how can you not find it hard to hide your disdain at the attempt.

because either this is a trap you have blindly walked into again . . . or he really does love you and could have loved you all this time. and despite all that-

you cannot turn from the path that you are on.

[lilithofpenandbook]

Something about Dumbledore being so hard on Snape

Dumbledore being scornful of Snape even when Snape was on his knees

Dumbledore emphasising that Snape made a mistake and must pay for it

Dumbledore who kept reminding Snape of his mistake even when he was grieving Lily

Dumbledore who didn't just let Snape change sides, he needed Snape to change his heart

Dumbledore who made the same mistakes as Snape and has been living in guilt ever since

Dumbledore who realised Snape was following in his footsteps

Dumbledore who may have started out thinking of Snape as cowardly or selfish but soon grew to trust him

Dumbledore who gave Snape half truths because if worst came to worst then Voldemort would have all the information right on his arm

Dumbledore who trusted Snape enough to not lie to him about the fact that he wasn't telling him everything even though he knew Snape resented it

Dumbledore who trusted Snape so much he knew that even if Snape resented him he would not betray him

Dumbledore who left everything he worked for in Snape's hands knowing it would be safe

Dumbledore who asked Snape to be the one to kill him, not just to save Draco's soul but for his own sake

Dumbledore who chose to die but only at the hands of someone he had grown to love

Dumbledore who once saw Snape as a desperate selfish boy that disgusted him

Dumbledore who made Snape his heir

Dumbledore who made Snape his.

[starry-bi-sky]

Blood Blossom Au: before the nightingale sings

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for my batdad blood blossom au, the one where Vlad poisoned Danny with blood blossom extract and Danny ran away from him and ended up tumbling into the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman :). A quick oneshot telling the tale of the tragic deaths of the Fentons

TW: Major Character Death Warning

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Not all deaths are created equal.

That is a valuable lesson in life to learn. One that Danny learns when he is eleven years old, standing in the pit of his parents’ creation; the culmination of their life’s work. The portal to the other side, the realm of the dead. To the infinite. 

He learns that when he’s eleven years old, in a hazmat suit that sags on him, and boots that clunk when he walks because the only ones that fit are his mom’s, and even those are too big. In gloves that he has to clench his fists in because otherwise they fall off. In goggles that slide down his nose even when he’s tightened them the farthest they can go. 

He learns that when he’s eleven years old, choking on giggles that harmonize with the laughter of his friends’ who stand at the mouth of the tunnel. Sam’s holding a polaroid in her hand. They’re just being kids. 

They’re not laughing when Danny’s hand hits the safety lock — the one with faulty wiring, the only one in the tunnel. The only one he could possibly hit. They’re not laughing when the portal buzzes to life, and the lights inside switch on row by row as the generator begins to rumble and hum. 

They’re not laughing when Danny dies. They’re screaming. They’re not screaming when he comes back.

Not all deaths are created equal.  

Some are poetic, beautiful. The satisfying close of a book as it comes to an end, of the hardback thumping soft against the pages like the sound of a door closing. A train run its course.

Some are violent; unsatisfying; unfair. The unexpected shattering of an egg as it rolls off the countertop when nobody is looking, the unmistakable crack as it falls to the floor. It is abrupt and messy. 

But most are just… unremarkable. Unintentional. Clumsy. 

Danny’s family dies one night in late January. He is thirteen years old, barely a month away from fourteen. It is unforeseen. It is preventable. It happens. 

It happens like this: 

Their water heater breaks one Monday in January. It’s old, sitting in the garage, and has dealt with nearly sixteen years of Fenton-grade chaos and shenanigans. Of parents tossing scraps and junk into the garage as brief storage to come back to later. Of illegal tune-ups on their vehicles that result in something exploding. Of little children running around and knocking things over, playing with poles and sticks they find on the ground, on the shelves. Of being lived and used.  

Something had to give. 

Jack Fenton notices it immediately when he comes upstairs that very afternoon — his children at school, his wife downstairs — to grab something from the garage. The very same scrap and used material they store like squirrels to use later. 

He stops what he’s doing to fix it.  

It wasn’t supposed to be permanent. 

Despite what many believe, Jack Fenton is not the idiot people make him out to be. He knows what he’s good at, he knows what he’s not. He knows he can be passionate and obsessive and single-minded about things. He knows that he is a scientist, an inventor; an engineer. 

He knows that he is not a plumber. That fixing water heaters is not something he knows how to do, not safely. And he loves his family. What he does is only meant to be temporary — a fix meant to only last a few days until they can call someone in who can fix it for them. 

So Jack Fenton futzes with the water heater, gives it a temporary stitch to last a short while, and reminds himself to call a plumber later that day to come in and fix it. He turns and leaves the garage with the part he came for —  a sheet of metal for his wife to melt down — and disappears back downstairs. 

He does not make that call; it slips from his mind. 

It is not his fault. 

One day passes, then two, then suddenly it is Thursday. The water heater has still not been fixed, the water heater has been forgotten. It is nobody’s fault.  

Danny asks his parents at breakfast if he can stay over at Tucker’s house for the night. Just one night. They’re going to study for their math test and then play video games until midnight, but he only tells his parents that first half. 

He’s been doing well in school. Really well — better than he has in a while. There’s been a delightful lull in ghost appearances for the last few weeks. The living don’t know why, but Danny does. The Winter Truce always calms the dead down for a while, something about how the Zone cleanses itself twice a mortal year and that fresh wave of ecto clears out the old and brings in the new. 

This year Danny got to participate. He’s feeling the effects of it too, and he’s been sleeping consistently well for the first time since the accident. 

It’ll never happen again. 

His parents agree under the condition that he doesn’t stay up late, and Danny harmlessly lies through his teeth and agrees. He goes and throws overnight clothes into his school backpack, and when he leaves for school with Jazz his parents are already departed into the lab. 

The last conversation he has with his sister is in her car on the drive to school. Inane, mindless conversation to fill the air and pass the time. Jazz comments on how relaxed he’s been lately; Danny tells her about the Winter Truce. She listens in rapt attention. 

She tells him that she’s glad to see him so well-rested. She thinks her little brother’s been growing up too fast these days. She thinks he’s been too tense. Too caught up with the spinning of the world around him that he forgets about himself sometimes. 

When they reach school, before Danny can get out of the car, Jazz looks to her little brother and says; “I love you.” 

Her little brother’s cheeks turn an embarrassed shade of red. He makes a scrunched up, grossed-out face, but can’t hide the smile pulling across it. “Don’t be a sap, Jazz. I’ll see you later.” He tells her, yanking his hood up over his head. She hears the bashful, ‘love you too’ before he walks away. 

That is the last conversation she ever has with her brother. 

Thursday is unremarkable, passing by in its normality as it always does. There’s one, maybe two ghost sightings; shades lurking around in curious infancy that are easily spooked away by the presence of a greater being. Danny doesn’t even have to go ghost. 

Thursday evening is even less so. Danny goes to Tucker’s house — Sam has a prior arrangement with her slam poetry club — and the two of them study for an hour before they toss their textbooks aside and reach for the game console. 

Danny sleeps in Tucker’s room with one of the extra blankets on his bed, curled across the room in one of the bean bag chairs. It shouldn’t be comfortable, but to Danny it is. He sleeps throughout the night, the portal shut down by his parents before they’d gone to bed. 

Early Friday morning, before the sun has even risen yet, before it’s even so much as a concept to grace the horizon, the water heater breaks again. It was supposed to be fixed. 

Carbon monoxide is a silent killer. Odorless and scentless, it kills within minutes. It fills the house like a shadow casting over the ground, creeping into the rooms. 

Danny’s family die in their sleep; painless and unaware. 

It’s not Jack Fenton’s fault. He didn’t mean to.  

Nobody wakes up with their alarms. 

Danny wakes up to Tucker Foley’s alarm on Friday morning, and he turns his head intangible and shoves it into the beanbag chair like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand. Tucker gets up before him, and throws a pillow at him as he reaches for the alarm. 

There’s laughter, messing around. The both of them get dressed, and Danny has breakfast with the Foleys that morning. He takes the bus to school with Tucker, and they meet Sam by their lockers. 

To him, everything is as normal as it should be. There are no ghosts for him to fight right now, school is as school does, and he’s on top of all his schoolwork. 

He does not see Jazz at all that morning, he doesn’t notice. Their schedules are so different, their routes on different paths, that it’s not uncommon for Danny to not see Jazz until he gets home some days. That’s if there’s no ghost attacks. 

At lunch, he gets approached by her friends. Worried creases between their brows, they ask him if he’s seen Jazz. She hasn’t shown up to any of her classes. She’s not answering their texts. It’s unprecedented of her; unheard of. 

Danny doesn’t admit to the concern that swells in his gut when they tell him this. He shrugs at them, and says he hasn’t seen her either. But it was probably nothing to worry about; she might just be sick and sleeping it off. 

He offers to text her and let them know if he gets a response, and that seems to ease her friends enough that they shuffle away in uncertainty. He keeps his word, and does exactly that. He pulls out his phone and opens her contact, and shoots her a message.

‘Where are you?’ 

He doesn’t get a response back, Danny is left on sent. He puts his phone in his pocket, and with a sense of unease creeping in the back of his mind, goes on with his day. He gets no response by the time the final bell rings; and he tries not to be worried. 

The house is quiet when he opens the door. Unusually quiet. He drops his backpack to the floor, it lands with a hearty thunk, and begins to take off his jacket. “Mom! Dad!” He yells. He hangs it up, and slips his shoes from his feet. “Jazz skipped school today!”

A laughable untruth that would get his sister all riled up normally; she should be able to hear him from the front door if she was in her room. The house just stays dead silent. 

He can’t even hear the usual banging and crashing from the lab. His unease returns. He reaches for the intercom that leads directly down to the basement, and presses the button to turn it on. A burst of static, and then he speaks;

“Mom? Dad?” 

Danny lets go, and waits for a response. He gets none back. That never happens, not when the house is this quiet. Not when he knows they should’ve heard him. 

Something sickly and fearful borns in the pit of his stomach, and begins to snake upward. He heads for the lab. The cool metal of the door is familiar in the grooves of his hand, and he doesn’t even need to think about the code as he punches it in;  he simply lets muscle memory guide him. It’s been the same since he was little. 

The door hisses as the pressure is released, and he swings the door open. He takes the stairs down two at a time. Something is wrong. His parents aren’t answering him. His feet pound against the metal. 

“Mom? Dad?” He calls again, more worried, more frantic. More scared. His voice echoes down the stairwell, and he reaches the bottom before it’s fully faded. The lab is empty. The portal is still shut down. 

It was four in the afternoon, they should still be down here. 

Danny races back upstairs, fear-raised nausea coiling in his throat. “This isn’t funny you guys!” He yells when he reaches the top, shoving open the door with more force than necessary. His head swims, his voice cracked. 

He checks the garage, the car is still there. 

“Mom!? Dad!” His voice bellows out throughout the first floor, loud enough that it bounces back at him and rings against his ears. He’s never raised his voice this much — mom would scold him if she heard him. But she doesn’t show up. “Jazmine!” 

Finally, he goes upstairs, and he can’t tell if what he’s feeling is anger or terror. Something is very, very wrong. 

He swings the door of his parents’ rooms open first, and there they are, with the lights still off and the curtains still drawn. As if they hadn’t left their bed all day. Some of Danny’s fear lifts from his shoulders just by the sight of them, but he’s still trembling. Something is still wrong — the room smells… off. Not good, not bad. Just… off. 

He swallows dryly, his throat still thick, and steps into the room. “Mom, dad?” They do not stir. “Didn’t you guys hear me yelling?” 

There is only room static. Danny’s heart shrivels in his chest with a tenfold return of terror, he feels ill. He remembers, just now, that they’re not heavy sleepers, and his dad should be snoring like a freight house. 

Danny reaches their bedside in seconds, hand outstretching for the covers, “Momma? Dad?”

Not all deaths are created equal. 

But many of them are accidental. Unmeditated. Shocking.

Danny Fenton finds his family dead in his childhood home. He runs to his neighbors in hysterics, inconsolable, in tears. Nine-one-one is called, but there is nothing that can be done. They were dead for hours by the time Daniel Fenton returned home. 

He sits on the front steps of the neighbor’s house beside FentonWorks, his jeans slowly becoming wet from the snow that was unable to be scraped off, and watches the paramedics cart out his family beneath white sheets. There are police cars blocking off the street, yellow tape blocking off his house, red-blue lights lighting up the block, an ambulance on the scene. He is wrapped in a shock blanket, and he is missing his jacket and his shoes. His tears are freezing onto his face, he can’t feel the chill. 

Not all deaths are created equal

But all of them are unforgettable. 

[girl-drink-drunk]

it means a lot to me how much time they focus on bear the dog: they're always taking him on walks or playing with him, they take time to show him getting fed, giving him baths, and all while trying to stop murders! it's perfect

[roots-symphony]

Unpopular opinion maybe, but I don’t really buy into the whole fuckboy agatha/turbo virgin Rio narrative. Like it’s fun to play around with, but I don’t think it’s as canon as some I’ve seen some ppl say. I think it’s just one of like many possible interpretations of what their dynamic could have been, and tbh I think we’re all sleeping on the funniest one. Let me explain:

Agatha fucks now, that’s super obvious but there’s also been like how many centuries between now and when she was younger/met Rio? Agatha grew up during a very puritanical time, in an isolated coven, with an abusive mother, could she have been sneaking and getting action/figuring herself out on the side? Definitely. But I feel like she would’ve been more focused on trying to sneak around and learn magic and (depending on just /how/ isolated the coven was, which the ones we saw her and Nicky go through ranged from super small family to a small-medium community) might have not been either a lot of options and/or the options there were would have been like difficult to do anything about. We don’t know when she meets Rio, but presumably not /too/ long after her attempted execution just based on when Nicky was born, so she definitely in this time could have come to an understanding of herself and her body, especially in regards to how she could use her ~feminine wiles~ to get by with her entire support system gone. But I feel like another way to look at it, is that while she may not have been able to experiment as a teenager, she definitely could have run into some inappropriate books while reading the magic books she also wasn’t allowed to read. That plus just probably the whole way sex and everything was viewed during that time, I feel like she could easily come up with some weird ideas about what sex even is.

And Rio has been around for like ever. Do you know how many humans probably died doing weird sex things?? Rio knows what sex is, but her view of it is probably super skewed. (Also, we don’t see Rio from a point before Agatha which is unfortunate because all her focus after agatha is like… /on/ agatha so we have no way of knowing if she had any curiosity regarding humanity or any of the things she saw. She definitely could have experimented in her long existence, we just don’t know. Which doesn’t really matter to this, I just want to point out that even that is up to interpretation and is based in canon literally just as much as virgin Rio [which is to say not at all])

Anyway I think we’re all missing the funniest way to read this, which is /both/ Agatha and Rio having wildly different and also just wrong ideas about what sex is/how it works, and just trying to figure it out together like the blind leading the blind with all their directions based around colors. Bonus in that Rio could probably say some buckwild shit and Agatha ‘fake it till you make it’ Harkness would probably be like ‘well yes, obviously that’s how you do it’

[ofswordsandpens]

"the Gabe and Sally dynamic in the show is abusive" and "the way they've portrayed Gabe in the show is distinctly different from his book counterpart and fans can criticize that" are two discussions that can coexist

[beatcroc]

sonic scribbles of varying ages and intents. surge from mid 2022 when i was first catchin' up on idw, silver from a few months ago when i was trying to figure him out, the rest from late 2022 from memory with stylization and redesigning where i couldn't be assed to try and stay on-model

[psychomusic]

oc time again! + her town & culture (heavily inspired by pre-roman italic populations)

she is suri sauthon. her story is linked to my swtor imperial agent, tar'x, but most of her life except for the one year away where she meets him, is spent in a town in the mountains of mirial.

despite mirial being cold and desert, and many cities developing underground, her town flourishes thanks to a force nexus, venerated in the form of an ancient, sacred, alive crystal. the ecosystem of that mountain depended on what "the horned crystal" was capable of giving them, but mirialans couldn't live off of that alone, so they developed trade and some rudimental technology, even if oftentimes it was bought thanks to the highly profitable trade of a plant used to make medicines that slowed down aging and had overall healing properties.

note: everything that's generated by this nexus has these healing properties BUT they have to be processed, except for those who bathed in the waters of the cavity under the crystal - the "real" nexus, but not the worshipped one. the waters were sacred but they were not thought to be miraculous, unlike the crystal, who instead was thought of as the keystone of the ecosystem: without it, everything would fall apart (and that is partially true: the cavity was the "real" nexus but thanks to the crystal, also strong in the force, the properties were spread all over the mountains). those who bathed in the cavity's waters - so, all of the town, who had a sort of baptism there - could eat the plant, make whatever food with it, and not only that plant, but everything generated by the nexus, that, again, had similar properties. this allowed people to live up to normal life-spans without advanced medicines or, much, really. to those who didn't live there, though, after the processing, had incredible effects, slowing down aging - for those who took it regularly - and making people able to live up to half a century more than the average]

originally, there were four tribes of nomads that lived thanks to horned farm animals that decided to settle down into one bigger town and other smaller settlements, to live off of transhumance. this division of the tribes stayed into the political and social organization: every person belonged to one tribe specifically, and had slightly different rituals and culture. for examples, each tribe had their own priests and healers, with different techniques and traditions. the town, tho, was guided by a group of people in the high priesthood, a position you could reach only by having earned the trust of all tribes. those high priests had many roles: they guided the people into sacred processions common to all the tribes, they managed the trading with outsiders, they did the maintenance of the temple of the summit (the one that functioned as casket to the crystal) and created a special liquid to offer the crystal that helps it grow.

this particular temple was important because 1. it was very visible, from every angle of the town, and it became an important identity symbol; 2. it stored the venerated horned crystal; 3. it had the altar where sacrifices were made for the crystals. that altar had a hole connected to the cavity, that allowed the liquids to reach the underground; 4. it had various symbols: statues representing each tribe + the high priesthood, and typical mirialan tattoos carved into the wood of the trees that served as columns for the temple, symbolizing 8 values that who dared to enter HAD to have; 5. it was on the way to an important lake (called "mother lake" because the lake the town was built around to depended on the waters of that other lake) where they traveled to in important processions; 6. it was said that a the wizard who unified the tribes made it with its magic, making the plant grow to hold the temple's roof. this wizard was, actually, a force user, obv.

BACK TO HER THOUGH: she's daughter of one of the high priests, who was in charge of managing the trades with outsiders, and lives in a house on the mountains with her mother and him. her parents are from different tribes (that's one of the things that earned him trust from the 4 tribes): when a child is born from two different tribes, they don't pick one to allign to, but they're usually linked automatically to the one with more relatives in it (in her case, the father's tribe: she had many uncles and aunts on his side while her mom only had one sister).

later, though, she got quite tied to her mother's tribe due to a mysterious illness that only her mother's tribe healer was able to cure. she spent 4 years (from 10 to 14 years old) living with the healer and learned her secrets. to better study, she wrote them down. when she returned home, she studied to become a priestess with her father. at 22 (the average age: you can't become priest before your 20s), she was supposed to take a test and become a priestess, but the healer of her mother's tribe died and the tribe asked her to take her place. she couldn't technically do that, but both tribes estimated both her and her parents and she was allowed to become both. she then decided to try to become a high priestess, and became one at 25 (a quite young age). being part of the council, she tried to convince the various tribe healers to unite their knowledges and write them down, and eventually made it. healers still remained tribe based but they now had an "upper, inter-tribe level" similar to high priesthood.

years later, the sacred horned crystal is stolen from the temple by some Hutt mercenaries looking for a profit. given the trust she has earned from all the tribes and the fact that her father is the high priest that deals with outsiders (and she's been hearing stories and advice about it since she was little), she is the one tasked with getting it back. without the growing crystal, the keystone to their ecosystem, the village would have lasted only a few years. in hrr quest, she meets imperial intelligence agent tar'x laran and, as they "solve the mystery" and fight to have it back, they get closer. they'll get married and have a daughter, Vegoia (who's the only one who actually will get to the plot of my story. this was all background)

[evelynpr]

Might be a hot take as a bkdk and tgck truther here, but I find izuocha endlessly fascinating, beautiful, but also tearfully tragic.

I see their love for each other as something representative of their innocence and naivety when they only knew so little about who they were, and what was to come.

I think the main barrier of their relationship is that its rooted in how they see each other very idealistically, specifically that they're attached to the image of their Best Heroic Selves, and not the deeply selfish, destructive, freaky, and egotistical parts of them. To each other, they need to keep fulfilling that image or else that same person they looked up to would almost die in front of them, and that would be too cruel. Although that hero is still there, that same person they looked up to is not the same now because of...well...everything.

Izuku had barely even talked to girls when he first met her. She was Izuku's first ever real friend (Sorry Kats, everyone and him knows he was terrible), so he saved her in that entrance exam even if it was so dangerous. She gave a new meaning to his derogatory nickname just by being a friend that believed in him. After that, she saved him several more times (Blackwhip and Megaphone are the biggest samples iirc). It makes perfect sense that she is Deku's hero.

Ochako hardly knew what it meant to be a hero when she first got into UA. Just by reaching out to some kid tripping, she made a new friend who would then save her in that exam, then save him again in return. This boy then became someone who was always working so hard to save everyone in trouble, and she realized she wanted to be just like him too. "I want to save people"

But...Deku changes. The weight of One for All is on his shoulders and he needs someone to carry this burden with him. He continues to want to save other people at the expense of himself, still not letting his true selfishness and ego ever show- and it only grows more and more unbearable.

Then...Ochako fell in love with Himiko. Truly, relentlessly, selfishly and devotedly in love with a girl who then dies giving her blood to her- the greatest expression of love Himiko could ever give.

Not that they can't love each other because of this happening (and...so many other things oh god), I'm honestly not sure how to explain it- But them ending up together after losing that innocence and naivety? After Ochako will forever grieve the girl who showed her love in its most beautiful and ugly form? After Izuku changed so fundamentally as a person that the butterflies of a nice girl talking to you doesn't exist anymore? After that simple image of being a hero and being in love has completely changed for them both?

Even so, I believe they still love each other. There is no label I know of that can properly describe them though. They are each other's image of being a hero when it comes to saving people. Aside from Shoto, no one else can grasp the grief of the person you tried to save dying in your hands. They would no doubt try to cope with these losses together, and just try to get better together...but so much has changed. They've changed. The world changed. What are they now? Who are they now?

"What happened...to us?"

[javierduffy]

would we like to talk about how hosea also contributed to arthur’s entrapment in and eventual demise due to the van der linde gang because he was constantly affirming to arthur that he was “dim-witted” and “a fool”, and we can assume he’s been doing as such since arthur was very young, and therein causing arthur to internalize the narrative that he is nothing but a dumb brute who could never make it as anything other than a “born and bred” killer or is that too controversial

[sadkachow]

You cannot claim to be anti-AI while still actively seeking out and using AI.

Once again.

You cannot claim to be anti-AI while still using generative AI, no matter the reason.

(Bold/italicized text: You cannot claim to be anti-AI while still using generative AI, no matter the reason.)

Even if you’re just using it to make fun of it or show how bad it is.

Even if it’s only for your personal use, and you don’t plan on sharing it with anyone.

Even if you’re “just” roleplaying on Character AI.

If you are willing to justify your usage of a system created and profiting off of stealing from artists and writers, a symstem that is destroying the Earth, then you were never as “against that system” as you think you were. Being anti-AI isn’t something that exists only in name. You can’t claim to be against AI if you are willing and able to use it as soon as it benefits you. You can’t say you’re for writers’ and artists’ rights if you’re using the very thing that is causing them harm. You can’t claim to care about climate change and saving the Earth if you are participating in the system that is destroying it.

There is no middle ground here.

There is no “Oh, but I-“.

If you have the knowledge of what generative AI is doing, of how it is hurting people, and you choose to use it anyway, you aren’t  against it. You aren’t fighting against that system, you’re upholding it.

You can say how much you hate AI and how horrible you think it is, if you choose to use it anyway, then your actions and your words are not lining up, and the former reveals so much more than the latter.

Stop pretending like AI is something you can condemn only in name, while using it to your heart’s content in your free time. All it does it tells writers and artists that you don’t really care about us, and that any actions you claim to be taking to protect us are performative at best and lies or even outright malicious at worst.

You are—and I mean this in the kindest way possible, even with the fury that generative AI invokes in me—a complete and utter hypocrite. AI is not your friend. It is a tool, and it is a tool that steals from writers and artists in order to function. It is a tool that is using levels of energy and emitting amounts of polution in order to be maintained that are actively damaging the Earth. No matter how much you try to justify using it to yourself, that doesn’t change.

Stop hiding under the guise of being anti-AI while continuing to use it yourself.