#like absolutely nothing of importance is going on up there

[roguerambles]

I understand the disappointment, I really do, but I think people might be blowing the whole world state thing a bit out of proportion. "This is SPITTING IN THE FACE of long-time fans" no it's not Steve, calm down.

The series has always had to compromise when it comes to the state of the world because so many of the choices (especially from the end of Origins) were so wildly different that trying to build a sequel from so many conflicting factors would be more or less impossible. It's why we've never seen the Architect again, because him being alive or dead has HUGE ripple effects that are damn near impossible to write around.

Heck, it was entirely possible for Anders to die at the end of Awakening, but the writers wrote around it by saying "oh no he actually faked his death" even though logically that made very little sense because at that point he'd have absolutely no reason to do that? But Anders was in the sequel so that had to come up with something.

Basically nothing from Dragon Age 2 was important in Inquisition - Hawke siding with Mages or Templars made no difference, Anders being alive or dead made no difference, whether Carver or Bethany were dead or Wardens or whatever made no difference. We got some flavour text and that was literally it, everything else played out exactly the same.

Hell, the Temple of Sacred Ashes gets blown to bits at the beginning of Inquisition, rendering everything to do with that quest from Origins basically moot. And we've never gone back to Orzammar, and everything we have heard from it has been kept super vague, because depending on who the King is and if Branka is still alive things would look WILDLY different. Crafting a new story there would be borderline impossible because the dozen different possible world states make the foundation shaky at best.

It's why I highly doubt we'll be able to side with Solas and help him tear down the Veil because that would result in basically a whole new world being created. Imagine them trying to make Dragon Age 5 and being like "okay 50% sided with Solas and tore the Veil down and 50% kept the Veil intact....wtf now what do we do--?"

Again, I understand the disappointment, but I just hope once the dust has settled and people calm down a bit they'll see that, realistically, very little has changed. Your saves are still there, your experiences and enjoyment of the games and the characters and the story are still there, but they were always gonna have to draw the line SOMEWHERE.

And that's not to say none of our previous choices will come back - if we get another game, or a spin off or something they'll probably do what they're doing with the Inquisitor now. They're just taking what's relevant to the story they are trying to tell, and leaving what they aren’t going to use presently ambiguous.

[inkonparchment]

American Wedding

Leon Kennedy x f!Reader

You've never seen him, you’ve never met him and yet here you are, Mrs Kennedy, a fate that was always to be yours since the day you were born. The golden band on your ringer catches dust at the train station, hoping that at the very least, he's kind.

warnings: this is set in late 1800s. reader is described as having long, silky hair. allusions to mental and physical abuse (not by Leon). misogyny. marriage of convenience. arranged marriage. implied age gap. absolute zero research for era appropriateness.

word count: 3k

a/n: ink write something normal for once challenge = FAILED. i saw an edit of Leon to the song american dream where the lyric goes "M-R-S dot kennedy" and thus i went insane. enjoy whatever the hell this is. or dont idk man sometimes i confuse myself.

You’re alone.

There’s not a soul in sight at the train station, the bench creaking under your weight when you had sat down, hot wind blowing up the dust. There’s nothing but barren land stretching on for miles, littered by small rocks and shrubbery. A tumbleweed had passed when you had been the only person to get off at the station, heavy suitcase in hand, tugging your hat firmly on your head. Steam had exhaled from the engine, the slow rumble of the wheels startling you as it took off.

You has pursed your lips, squinting against the harsh sun as you scoured your new environment. Signage indicating the town you’re in, a decaying wooden shed with old benches and a bored looking clerk snoring behind the barred opening indicating ‘Ticket Counter’.

So you sit and wait. Because what else can you do? You take your hat off, afraid it will blow away by the strong wind, placing it on your lap, hands neatly folding on top of it. Your hair has loosened up from the neat bun your mother had made for you, the strands tugged and pulled by the winds. You glance down at your hands, the gold band glittering on your finger, the familiar sensation of nausea burning at the back of your throat.

It’s a stark contrast against the pure white of your most perfect dress over the most delicate looking corset you had ever seen in your life. You think back to this morning, almost feeling like a lifetime ago, numb to it. It flashes by in your mind in messily taken snapshots; the church, the white dress, your father standing over your shoulder with a stern look on his face, watching like a hawk and ignoring the way your hand shook when you signed the papers.

It was the most luxurious ink pen, black with silver indentations, acquired by your father from his travels. It was perhaps his most precious belonging, cradling it with much care and only brandishing it out to sign all his important deals. And wasn’t that what you were? A deal to be signed away?

So you wrote your name next to the man's who was to own you now, in the pretty cursive you had painstakingly learned under your father's tutelage. You flinch, remembering his screaming when one single line would be out of place. I will accept nothing less than perfection, he would bellow at you, vein throbbing at his temple.

And that’s what you do like the perfect daughter you are.

M-R-S dot Kennedy.

You’re confused why you felt so remorseful, sitting like a hollowed out version of yourself, unable to register your mother’s congratulations, her tears wetting the shoulder of your pristine dress as she held you, your father triumphantly receiving his congratulations from the pastor. You knew this was going to happen, the idea reinforced since the day you could understand words. After all hadn’t your mother met your father like this too?

Your mother had done your hair, delicately twisting your long hair up and decorating them with flowers. Men are kind to pretty things, she had said to assure you, glancing at your blank expression in the vanity of your room. She had softly patted make up on your face, stumbling over her words as she tried to explain what to expect at night. Just...try not to move much, it’ll be over soon.

Your mother had given you a lick of girl hood, doing what she could to let you live past your teenage years without a husband to weigh you down. You were allowed to frolic in the estate on your horse, but not for too long. You have to keep your skin perfect, you don’t want to look like a wrinkled prune for your husband.

You had learnt the ways of the kitchen, mastering dishes after dishes, a reprieve from your father’s tempers, a room he would dare not venture in, instead choosing to snap his fingers at his wife to fetch him whatever he wished.

It was a sanctuary for you and your mother, a place where the shadow of her past self would glimmer, a version you had never known, the version who would tell you stories of the Greek heroes and their tragic ends. She had fought hard for you.

At least that’s what the blue and black bruises on her skin would say.

Your father had glanced at you with pride flashing in his eyes and that had soothed you. Finally you had done something to please him, the soft, awkward pat of his hand at your shoulder, snapping you awake. You couldn’t even revel in it, suddenly finding yourself standing at the train station, ticket in your hand. Your father had said that your husband would pick you up, gruffly saying that it would not be wise to run, to attempt to escape your fate. There would be no kindness then.

Tears gather in your waterline, difficult to discern their cause. The barren landscape makes you want to vomit, a stark contrast from the grassy green pastures of your home. And you consider running, your father’s warning echoing in your ears, just taking off in the direction of the sun, abandoning your suitcase. You won’t survive if you do, with no money or precious jewellery on your person, knowing that you would collapse under the scorching sun. But perhaps that end would be better than whatever life waits for you with your husband.

Leon Kennedy.

The man- your husband, that was supposed to pick you up. Your grip tightens on your lap. Maybe he has forgotten, owing to his graying years, his memory not the way it used to be. You’ve conjured up an image of him, someone old and graying, hair missing from his head but his eyes still full with his youthful lust, scouring his prize up and down like a hungry dog. It makes you retch, panic bubbling in the pits of your stomach. That has to be it. Someone who is too old to be on horseback. Why else would he not be present at the church? To whisk you away himself? To have you as soon as he could?

But its fine, you soothe yourself, you’ll be fine. You’ll keep your head down and be a good wife, no delusions of romance set in your mind. What use was it anyway? Love never saved those Greek heroes, you would be a fool to think it could save you. Maybe if you play up the role of a perfect little wife, swollen with his children, he may allow you some breathing room, some books if he is generous. But its okay, you’ll steel yourself and survive, you’ll leave no room for error. You’ll be his most prized possession.

The sound of crunching gravel makes you snap your head up, the sun piercing in your eyes through your tears. You turn your head to see a horse pulled carriage come to a stop. The man commandeering the vessel hops off from the seat, dust clouding around his pristine shoes. He is sharply dressed, you notice, clad in his black suit. The hat hides his face from you, holding it down with his left hand on his head as he walks over, the shimmer of gold catching your eye. You feel your heart hammer in your chest. The wooden floorboards creek as the man steps up on the platform, taking off his hat when he does and straightening up to his height.

Your breath catches in your throat. He is beautiful, glittering in the afternoon sun, his sun bleached hair falling perfectly across his face. He sports a small stubble, face sculpted like a devoted art piece, cool blue eyes stark against the bronze of his skin, wrinkles decorating the corner of his eyes. His suit is pristine, the white of his inner shirt nearly blinding, hiding a well muscled torso from your view, arms bulging against his jacket. He holds his hat against his chest, standing with his hips thrown out, one thigh straddled with a leather holster holding an ivory black revolver. He regards you calmly, eyes stuck to your form before flitting to your suitcase.

You look away, tearing your eyes away from his enraptured form. You feel yourself already failing your promise to be the perfect wife, enamoured by a strange man when a husband awaits for you. So you sit prim and proper, back straightened like you had been taught, ignoring how your heart leapt with every single step he took.

You hope he saves you, takes you roughly by the arm and force you on his carriage, never to be heard from again. After all isn’t that what angels do?

You hold your breath when he comes to stand near you. But still you don’t dare to look at him, hurriedly tugging your hair behind your ear. It’s the way he says your name that freezes you, fingers still against your hair. You’ve never heard it like that before, almost in disbelief, convinced that you heard him wrong. It sounds...sweet, like it means something in the low baritone of his silky voice.

You turn to look at him, the pink of his lips catching your eyes before you avert your eyes, instead focusing on the golden band wrapped around your finger. You nod, spine stiff.

Wordlessly, he picks up the suitcase and shuffles to the side, gesturing towards the carriage with his hat. A world of confusion explodes in your mind, limbs arrested as you struggle to decide what to do. He can’t be him just because he knows your name. Maybe your husband sent someone else in his place, his ranch hand perhaps. You purse your lips, palms slick with sweat as you heave yourself up and begin to walk with shaking steps towards the carriage.

You fix your hat atop your head before stepping into the sun, hiding your hands from the harsh rays should they taint you. You admire the stallion, graceful in his poise, its brown coat gleaming under the afternoon sun, walking around it and reissuing the urge to trace his coat against your fingertips. He looks well loved, well taken care of. You’re too busy staring at the brilliant creature that you don’t notice the man stowing your luggage in the back, hat back on and taking in your dazed form.

He approaches you like how a person would approach an easily startled animal, slowly and silently. He watches as you stiffen up at his presence, holding out his hand to you to help you up. You take it, your soft hand a contrast against his roughed skin, slotting perfectly in his palm. He hold you steady as you climb up, sitting demurely in your seat and wait as he rounds up and joins you. And with a click of his tongue and a tug of the reigns, the two of you begin to move.

This is it, a ball forms in your throat, my last moments of freedom. You close your eyes, feeling the wind fan against your cheeks, savouring the dust that catches in your eyelashes. You blink, watching as the landscape remains unchanged, jostling in your seat against the rough landscape of the road. The man’s presence is burning against you, the cloth of his suit brushing next to the sleeve of your dress. Your eyes flit to his tan hands, fixating on the ring on his left hand. You glance at yours, admiring how similar it looks to yours, yours just a bit thinner than his.

You dare to look up at him, focusing on his side profile. Freckles dot his sun kissed skin, his hair long and caressing his high cheekbones. His eyes are what take you, so blue that it makes you want to drown into them, cool contrasting the suffocating heat. He turns his head and locks gazes with you, heart stuttering in your chest.

“Who are you?” You blurt, unable to stop yourself.

He releases the reigns from his hand closest to you, tipping the brim of his hat, “Leon Kennedy.”

You blink, your heart stuttering. “I… I thought you’d be older.”

He smiles faintly, his gaze turning toward the dusty horizon. “You’re not the first to think that.” There’s a pause. “I suppose I expected…different too.”

If the shock is evident on your face, he doesn’t acknowledge it. But you can feel it in your bones, flooding your whole being. This man is your husband and he is so far beyond from how you imagined him. Your insides twist, forcing you to look away, heat burning your ears.

At least he isn’t hideous to look at. But you don’t let it sway you, knowing that sometimes the prettiest faces hide the ugliest facades, stomach lurching at the thought of various women that he must hide under his arms. And suddenly you find yourself praying that some kindness falls your way.

“I’m sorry for being late,” Leon addresses you softly.

All you can do is meekly shrug your shoulders, mumbling out a “It’s alright.”

The rest of the ride is silent, the sun moving down as the hours pass by, now turning the sky into a deep shade of orange, wisps of cool air around you. Fences start to come in view, the outline of a house appearing in the distance.

Leon pulls the reigns, bringing carriage to a stop, pulling up to grand looking house, clean and proper, the walls a deep shade of brown, looking heavenly against the backdrop of the sky. Your mind is abuzz, throat dry, hoping and pleading that the sun does not leave . You’re frozen in your seat, curious looking laborers gazing at you, suddenly feeling at display.

The carriage jostles as Leon steps off, immediately at your side, looking at you earnestly, more kindly than what you’re used to. He hold out his hand to you and it takes you a few moments before your brain spurs into action, your hand once again enveloped by his. You stare at how your golden ring clicks against his, cool to touch and shining together. He helps you down and you stand like a good wife, waiting as he disappears to grab your luggage, waving away the ranch hand who comes up to offer.

Leon comes to stand next to you, watching you as you watch the house. He clears his throat, your eyes finding his, jutting out his elbow to you. You gulp, slide your hand in the nook of his arm, fingers splayed against his strong bicep, his eyes searching for something in your face before he leads you inside.

Your heart is thundering in your chest. The material of the dress agitates your skin, nervousness grabbing a strong of you. Your mothers words come back to haunt you, remembering how she said laid out the corset and dress on your bed. I...chose this so that it’ll be easier for him, men tend to get...impatient.

You see nothing, smell nothing and feel nothing, eyes rigidly on the floor as you feel yourself slip away like with practiced ease when your father’s loud voice could be heard echoing in the walls, the soothing sensation of paper under your fingers enough to satiate your nerves.

When you blink, you stand in a decent sized room, a four poster bed with cloth draped over it on one side of the room. The colours of the curtains are a soft, pastel blue. There is a  dresser, the most beautiful and intricate designs decorating its surface, its size more than sufficient for you to stow away your belongings.

There is a vanity too, grand and delicate looking, a row of expensive looking perfume vials sitting atop the desk, a silver hair brush and a humble selection of make up. Leon sets your suitcase down without a noise, standing at the doorway, hat now gone as he watches you glide around the room admiring the paintings decorating the walls.

A breath hitches in your throat when you finally approach your bed side, eyes widening at the bookshelf tucked away in the corner with a cushioned chair next to it. You trace your fingers against the spine of the books, gasping and pushing your hair behind your ears to get a better look when you spot the book of Greek fables. You clutch it to your chest, tears once again collecting in your eyes as you twist around to look at Leon.

He offers you a small smile, nothing but fondness and gentleness behind it. He grasps the doorknob, beginning to close it behind him. “This is your room. I hope everything is to your liking.”

He glances at you, a flicker of concern crossing his eyes. “If there’s anything you need… anything at all…”

You stiffen at the gentleness in his voice, uncertain of his meaning. “No please, this all is more than enough,” you murmur.

His notices the tear that escapes your waterline. “Rest. You must have had quite the journey to come here.”

And so you dare. “Mr. Kennedy," You call out, making him stop in his tracks, “I...Are we to not...” You lose the strength, letting out a shaky breath as he patiently waits for you to finish your sentence, “We are husband and wife, are we not?” And you hope he understands, mortified at even thinking to speak on the subject with him. 

His expression softens, looking at you tenderly, understanding dawning on his face. “Yes, we are. But that is not something you need to worry about. I will never force you to do anything that you do not wish to do.” His smile returns, reassuring you. “And it’s Leon. Only Leon.” 

The door shuts and with it you crumble to the floor, pressing the book closer to your chest, the rug soft under your fingers. And you can’t tell if these tears are of despair.

Or if they’re of relief.

[recent-rose]

heres the thing abt kairi. i don't think she's poorly written, i think she's poorly executed. like there's a conflict/lack of cohesive vision for her and they're trying to shoehorn her into a role she does not fit.

nomura, from kh1, has clearly always wanted kairi to remain a link to the past/manifestation of fond memories of childhood/like a bittersweet hometown that isn't quite the same when you come back as an adult. that's the role he has consistently, persistently assigned to her. and there's nothing wrong with that. not every character ever has to take an active role and be a hero and do Things. sometimes characters exist to embody an allegory, or symbolism, or an idea. that was kairi, initially. embodiment of home, safety, comfort, childhood. for that matter, riku was the future, the unknown, growing up and letting childhood go. sora, of course, a boy coming of age and being torn between the two.

so consequently i've never understand the choice to make her a keyblade wielder when she's already a princess of heart twice over. like it or not the princesses of heart have an established role in the story and it's not fighting on the front lines. she could have been a leader and taken an active role in her own way if they really wanted, without ever needing to hold a keyblade and be a Chosen One, Also!(tm). in this way she also would have maintained a cohesive narrative role in the story. her path would still be diverging from sora's, and it would be as bittersweet and nostalgic as it was in kh1 without the clownery than her involvement in endgame kh2 onward has been mired in.

what clownery, you ask? kairi literally cannot grow as a person while in sora's orbit. we've seen it happen again and again, any growth she gets is away from sora and any time she's near him she regresses as a character. this is because, again, she is absolutely cemented in the minds of the writers as The Nostalgic Past that sora is holding onto. in the context of the kh narrative, she can literally be nothing else to him. there's no more growth to be had between them. hence, every time their relationship ends up the focus in a scene you can't help but feel the rapidly growing distance between where they once were vs where they now are as individuals. this relationship can, imo, ONLY be regressive to both of them in the context of kh's overarching narrative where kairi is constantly (and overtly) being framed as Sora's Idealized Childhood. or, as a prize he 'wins' when the story ends. the two are fairly connected in kh.

back on track, having kairi remain a princess of heart and not a keyblade wielder also would've solved the problem of the writing team having to shelve/fridge her every time they want riku+sora to go on another romantic getawa - uhhh adventure together. like she was asleep for a year post kh3? and now she's going to train with aqua while riku goes to rescue the love of his l - i mean bestest best boy friend again? you're joking.

it just stinks of trying to girlbossify a character so she can 'keep up' with her male counterparts in the eyes of media illiterate consumers who associate a lack of a weapon with a lack of power. dawg we're past that. female characters can be relevant, important, interesting and powerful without following in the exact footsteps of their male counterparts. and this is to say nothing of kairi's keyblade bequeathing being a relative accident and how it creates a pretty glaring plot hole because somehow xion and roxas, sora's nobodies, can wield keyblades at will but namine can't? okay. yes, perhaps we just haven't been 'shown' her wielding a keyblade. maybe. but i think it seriously indicates that they had no intention of making kairi a keyblade wielder in the first place.

and don't get me wrong, if they intended on changing/overhauling her role going forward i would understand making her not just a wielder but a guardian of light. problem is, they have already established she's not going to be fighting/active in the next game. she is, yet again, the home they are returning to and not the future they're moving towards. this, consequently, will continue causing some major tonal dissonance among those who either consciously or unconsciously recognize that kairi is not meant to be where she is currently placed in the narrative. she's SHOWN to be just a regular girl who still to this day does not particularly want to go adventuring, and yet we're TOLD again and again that she's a warrior now, riding on sora and riku's coattails regrettably. it's just so tonally off.

[firewasabeast]

I don´t think that both (Ryan or Oliver) ever said that Buck and Eddie are just friends when they get asked about Buddie. They both talk around it, imply it, Ryan came close with confirming Eddie is straight but neither of them ever said "there is no romantic or sexual relationship between them and there are not plans, I know off, that there will be" It´s the politcians way of conducting interviews and it´s why I hardly read celebrity interviews. If you can´t answer questions based on canon then I don´t know why I should listen to you. I always hear that they can´t deny anything because they don´t know what will happen but that is such a cop out, I feel. They can focus on the present and say that Buck and Eddie are not in love with each other. That is canon at the moment. Yes, it may not shut up Buddies but it absolutely WILL shut up the interviewer in that moment. There is no room left to further any Buddie conversation when the interview subject straight up said NO

Ryan has said Eddie is straight multiple times, they’ve both talked about the importance of showing male friendship (specifically between a straight man and a queer man). Oliver explicitly stated he didn’t want to fall into the trope of “friend realizes he’s gay and falls for his best friend”. Oliver most recently stated that his character’s bisexuality has nothing to do with Eddie or Tommy.

They’ve both been to media training. They know if they said “never gonna happen, let it go for the love of God!!” They’d have so much shit to deal with it wouldn’t be worth it. They’d get death threats galore, and there would still be people saying “they’re lying cause they can’t tell the truth!! Buddie canon season 9!!” They’d be accused of queerbaiting (which already drove Oliver off twitter), and being homophobic (something that Lou has been accused of, which, like, seriously???)

It’s not that they haven’t said it’s not gonna happen, it’s that certain fans and journalists refuse to listen to what they are saying and believe everything has a hidden meaning when it, in fact, does not. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[infiniteglitterfall]

OMG, COULD EVERYONE PLEASE STOP IMMEDIATELY BELIEVING AND REPEATING DISINFORMATION?!

Sorry, I just. Was just on Twitter, and I snapped.

I literally haven't seen one true statement about Israel on social media in MONTHS.

It's gotten to the point that I'm seriously considering starting a sideblog fact-checking all of it.

PLEASE STOP BEING GARFIELD I AM BEGGING ALL OF YOU

BE NERMAL FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

I've written at least one really long post about fact-checking things before. I have another saved as a draft somewhere.

But all you really have to do at this point is GO LOOK AT AN ACTUAL NEWS SOURCE.

What do I mean by an Actual News Source?

An actual news source will tell you where it's getting its information.

Basically: Wikipedia rules apply at all times. Citation. Fucking. Needed.

Except with news articles, I don't mean a detailed footnote.

I mean, if they say, "Rosco Flubberish reported seeing a pig fly across Whatever Place. 'It was a flying pig,' he said," they're fine.

If they say, "Sources close to the President reported that the Department of Farmland Creatures launched a pig into the air this afternoon," they're fine.

If they say, "There have also been reports that pigs flew," they are purely making shit up.

Just check CNN or something. CNN checks their shit, and they're very quick on the draw.

NBC has been very reliable too, in my experience. So have ABC, Newsweek, the Jerusalem Post, the Guardian, the New York Times, the AP, PBS, the Washington Post, and Reuters.

You can break through most paywalls by putting archive.is or 12ft.io before the https:// of the URL. Or just go to either of those sites and paste the URL in the box.

Nobody is perfect. I've seen some articles from all of the above that were accurate, but left things out that I personally thought were important.

Journalists are humans, humans fuck up.

(Also, NONE OF THIS APPLIES TO OPINION PIECES ON ANY TOPIC. Opinion pieces are exactly that: opinions. They don't seem to be fact-checked anywhere, as far as I can tell. They range from super-accurate and informative to complete nonsense.)

(Surprisingly unreliable sources in my experience: Democracy Now, Jacobin, Workers World Party. The latter two act like news sites but are basically running nothing but opinion pieces; Democracy Now can do important deep dives, but I've also seen news coverage from it that was wildly misinformed in that same way.

On the flip side, Slate and the Atlantic are largely opinion -- the Atlantic more than Slate, maybe -- but they often have really well-researched analysis of political situations. Ditto Teen Vogue, and sometimes Vox.)

You don't have to read CNN or the NYT or whateverfor fun. You don't have to make it one of your news sources.

Just. Do a quick check on Google News before you assume anything is true, and then run it through a bullshit filter as described above.

You are being actively lied to, all the time. So am I. We all are.

And people will believe and repeat literally anything that sounds about right.

That's just human nature.

That is WHY none of us are immune to propaganda.

if you want my personal shortlist of Bad Sources, as in Sources That Consistently Publish Absolute Falsehoods:

Any and all state-owned or state-controlled media. For example:

Al Jazeera is owned by the Qatari government, and so are a bunch of other news sites.

Mehr News, the Tehran Times, Al-Quds TV, and Al-Alam are owned by the dictatorship of Iran.

Oops. Looks like every form of broadcast Iranian news media is owned by the dictatorship of Iran, which has a monopoly.

Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, Palestinian News and Info Agency, and Al-Hayat Al-Jadida are owned by the government of Palestine (the Palestinian Authority)

Al-Aqsa TV and Felesteen are owned by Hamas.

TASS / Russia News Agency, Russia Today, and a fuckton of others are owned by the Russian government.

State Media Monitor seems to do a pretty great job of tracking and listing these things. Check out your own country there!

I specifically listed those ones because some of them (especially Al Jazeera, Mehr News, and TASS) are sites I've seen come up frequently on Tumblr, or in my attempts to fact-check what people are saying here and on Twitter. The rest are just more examples from the same governments.

Al Jazeera deserves special notice because it's become a very popular leftist news source. Believe me, I used to read it all the time too.

It can be reliable and accurate sometimes. But:

It consistently tweets things that are unsourced, never appear anywhere else, and that would be big news you'd expect it to follow up on if they were true. It seems to be following a strategy of "tweet every rumor you hear in case it's true, so you can get the scoop."

It also does this with its liveblogs of the war. And ALL its coverage of the war at this point is liveblogs. So things that are verifiably true will run right next to things that are complete hearsay, but are too long to just tweet.

This is especially dangerous because as far as I can tell, Al Jazeera doesn't delete anything that turns out to be false.

I've also seen regular news articles in Al Jazeera, on multiple topics, that veer from Absolutely True Statements to Wildly Exaggerated Numbers and Speculation. Stuff you wouldn't expect a source on, like statistics or descriptions. And there's no way to tell the difference unless you already know a topic really well, or are fact-checking them while you read.

One especially terrible example, from Gazan activist Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

Al Jazeera has never posted or published a correction.

Alkhatib has also blamed it for destabilizing the region, although he's exaggerating about it being Hamas's official propaganda outlet:

TL;DR: If you see a Tumblr post making any kind of factual news statement without a link, at this point you need to assume it is absolutely not true. And either scroll on past, or go check Google News.

If there IS a link, you need to click through to see what it's from and what it actually says.

(Honestly, you need to do that with Wikipedia too. I've repeatedly clicked through on citations that absolutely did not say what the article implied they did.)

And pro tip: on mobile, you can just smack a button to sort Google's news results by most recent, and it helps A LOT. There's gotta be a way to do the same on desktop, but if there is, it's not immediately visible, which sucks.

[seraphirism]

this was a soft update as well? (looks suspiciously at the devs 🤨)

spoilers for chapter 5 part 2 (and maybe part 1)!

Shiro comes back after his contract with his demon is finally made and settled. fun fact; compared to the rest of the butlers (who took 4-6 months to make their contracts), Shiro only took 2 months.

he makes a contract with a demon called Gaap. Gaap’s special ability is to block certain parts of someone’s memory. Berrien believes he could use this ability to awaken Bellen from the state he is in now;

[as Bellen fell under the control of his demon after experiencing great despair, by blocking those memories he would come back to normal after Berrien removes his power keeping him in a dormant state.]

Berrien decides to talk to the “person” he and Aruji spoke to in Bellen’s “heart” (in his inner mind). the person as Berrien suspected was Belial, the demon he has a contract with.

Berrien, Shiro and Aruji go into Bellen’s “heart”. they meet Belial again who knew what prompted them to visit soon and which demon Shiro had a contract with. he affirms that this time the chance of Bellen coming back to normal was high.

[when Bellen would awaken, he would be under full control of Byleth (his demon) who would go on a rampage, taking out his 2000+ years of anger out. (Byleth is a demon that’s wrathful and evil by nature.).]

Belial gives Berrien an offer: to lend his power to Berrien to fight Bellen (in his “demonised” state.) in return however Berrien would forever lose his demonic ability of preventing the progression of one’s fall to their demon, i.e. the “demonisation” (as he stops “time” for them.)

with this, Belial tells Berrien to think it over. Berrien, goes back with Aruji and Shiro. they have a huge discussion with all the butlers over whether to take this offer as Berrien would forever lose his very important ability. in the end they all decide to go for it. the other butlers wanted to wait for Shiro since he had just made the contract with his demon so using his ability this soon could prove dangerous but Belial had confirmed that that only happens when the demon resents the person they are bound to; in case of Shiro, Gaap had accepted him.

they visit the training site (the one where the new devil butlers go for their initial training). they bring Bellen with them. (after a cute scene where Aruji comforts Berrien who was feeling nervous about what could possibly happen if they go through with their plan), they proceed with their plan.

Belial lends his power to Berrien (and unlike the usual cases we’ve had so far, Berrien is conscious of what he’s doing.). he removes the power on Bellen causing Bellen (under the control of Byleth) to awaken. Byleth is super pissed off, they engage in a fight but since Berrien is used to the fighting style of Bellen, the battle ends pretty quickly.

Aruji summons Gaap for Shiro and his ability is used to block the memory (which put Bellen in despair) for Bellen.

now, the next morning, while they’re still at the training site but in the lodge there, Bellen wakes up. he has a reunion with Berrien who cries his heart out 😭 a bit later, Aruji finally gets acquainted with Bellen.

Bellen is revealed to have fuzzy memories of his past and absolutely no idea of what caused him to fall under the control of his demon.

Bellen and Shiro stay at the training site for the training the butlers do when they newly join. Aruji and some of the other butlers leave.

2 weeks later they arrive back and settle into the second floor of the villa which has been made beautifully, courtesy of our interior designer, Boschi ✨

afterwards, upon Bellen’s request, with Aruji, Berrien and Shiro accompanying him, they visit the orphanage where they were raised. and he sees that almost nothing is left after the angel attack years ago. then he visits Espoir where he remarks that almost everything has changed.

the statue of Goetia also did not look like him at all. Berrien explains that after being damaged in the numerous attacks of angels and being rebuilt as a result, it no longer resembled Goetia anymore.

while they’re going down memory lane and nostalgia, the signature alarm rings, signaling the presence of angels. Shiro takes them down swiftly, despite having no prior battle experience with angels.

a little later, back at the mansion, Bellen is shown the key that is believed to have been owned by Goetia in the past. Bellen is revealed to not remember anything about it besides the fact that Goetia did own it. so their goal of finding what the key unlocked hits a dead end.

they also bring up the fact that they still don’t know anything about the basement floor of the facility owned by the Sardis (the “Prison of Calamity” where Lato was kept) and the mysterious door in it that’s made from the same material as the ancient towers.

Miyaji suggests that instead of focusing on that, they should instead find out more about the “traitor”. this is in regards to what Finlay suspects; that there may be someone leaking information (of the devil butlers to the angels. if you need more context about this, send me an ask! this is a bit of a long one since it’s not explained in this part but in the previous chapter.).

afterwards, they share light-hearted talk. Bellen decides that Berrien should keep his old spear (Bellen’s spear had been used by Berrien for the past 2000+ years as a way to remember him. when Berrien tried to return it, Bellen instead wanted Berrien to keep it with himself.). Bellen attempts to make Shiro closer to them as Shiro reiterated that he was only here to recover his compatriots from the angels—so to say he was using the butlers. Bellen responds brightly to this, saying that he should also do favours for the butlers in order to get their cooperation for this mission of his (Shiro’s). and then he invites him for a drink which Shiro does not respond to. after suggesting tea instead, Shiro says that he’ll think about it.

that’s about it for this chapter!

Extra (that I didn’t add above)!

Boschi tells Aruji not to tell the rest of the butlers about the deal he made with Zaebos. Boschi’s fighting ability with his new prosthetic arm is back to his usual one!

Berrien questioned Belial about what his purpose was as he was kind of helping them in the case of Bellen; Belial also was not malevolent like the other demons. (he also had told them not to lump him with the rest of the demons as he wasn’t like them; he did not desire harm upon Berrien or Bellen.). in response, while he does affirm that he has another purpose, he refuses to reveal it.

Shiro tells Aruji (once again 😭) that he will only serve them if they’re worthy of it. he still speaks in that arrogant fashion of his.

there was this scene where Bellen finally meets Muu and he stares at Muu intently. Bellen remarks thoughtfully that it’s amazing cats had somehow evolved to be able to talk in the 2000+ years he’s been asleep 😭. when Aruji explains Muu is an exception, he admits that he doesn’t want to seem to surprised by everything as he would then seem to be unable to adapt to the current times and norms 😭😂

Gaap, Shiro’s demon, is a big white tiger. when summoned for the first time, he bowed to Shiro (probably out of respect). but of course, from what we’ve seen, none of the other demons ever did this. Shiro is also noted to have commanded him (authoritatively) and the demon obeyed.

Bellen’s cat ears only appear when he uses his demonic ability! (i predicted this in an ask almost a month ago, right at the time part 1 was updated lol ✨) i was spot on! he makes peace with the cat ears pretty quickly.

the prophecy said that there would be 20 butlers and 4 angels—meaning 2 new butlers and 1 intelligent angel have yet to appear.

i think that’s about it? i hope this is a bit helpful for anyone who’s curious about what happened and doesn’t have the time to read! please let me know if I’ve incorrectly stated something (*^^*)!

[sunseed-fandump]

Ok, this came to me around 4 minutes ago and I would like to share this

What if the reason for Shadow Milk being unhinged and slightly insane was that he learned every truth and every lie causing him to snap. Because Mystic Flour and Burning Spice still seem mentally stable compared to him. he’s lost it, because he knew too much.

Oh, for sure. Out of all 5 Beasts, Shadow Milk is the one I personally headcanon is practically impossible to be redeemed. His ego and spite just won't allow him to. (If he WERE to be redeemed it'd be nothing short of a miracle.)

Ngl if you look at all the Beasts' original virtues you'll find them all being assigned very broad concepts. I personally feel an aspect as to why each of the Beasts fell in the ways they did was because they became overwhelmed.

Let's take a sec to look at Mystic Flour's whole deal, since we pretty much know a lot of her story. She was assigned to Volition, which is the power to choose, have a Will, have desire. Thus, she took it upon herself to fulfill the desires of the cookies who came to her with their wishes.

And while having a Will of your own is good and important... Wills... Can be broken. And hers DID break. The moment things didn't go her way, and her enlightenment was ruined, she gave up. And she concluded that the world would be better off without ALL desire, thus Apathy.

Burning Spice and Change? What if, like Golden Cheese, he lost something precious to him and was unable to cope with that change? So he decided that it's better to destroy everything than grow weak with attachments. Eternal Sugar and Happiness? Whose happiness are they supposed to be protecting? Fights are going to break out. Cookies are going to have disagreements. You cannot, realistically, make everyone happy. So what if they decided to just focus on their OWN happiness? Silent Salt and Solidarity? Pointing back to Cookies getting into arguments and disagreeing, I wouldn't be surprised if Silent Salt just decided to give up on having everyone reach an understanding with each other.

As for Shadow Milk and Knowledge... He says his soul jam whispers things to him. I can't even begin to fathom what it told him. And i mean EVERY bit of information. Fact and Fiction. All of it unfiltered. My man is a personified Library of Babel. How does one even begin to cope with that? Answer: He Didn't. And tbh, if he didn't already have an ego before he corrupted, he ABSOLUTELY got it when he did begin corrupting. After all, there's no better feeling than feeling like you're the smartest person in the room. (And knowing for a fact that's probably the case.)

I believe the Witches had the right idea, but they made a MASSIVE oversight by making the initial virtues FAR TOO BROAD. Thus leading the Beasts to their downfalls and why the Ancients' Soul Jams are WAYYYY more specified in their Virtues.

Because what good is Knowledge, if you don't know what's TRUE? What good is Volition, if you don't have the RESOLUTION to keep going? What good is Change, if there is not ABUNDANCE to heal the world after the chaos? What good is Happiness, if one does not have PASSION for others? What good is Solidarity, if one is not FREE to choose?

[ryuichirou]

Replies

Some replies + info about the Nun AU ~

Anonymous asked:

would you be willing to put the hi-res for that idia/ortho you drew recently (with the megara quote) in your store, if it's not too much trouble! thank you!!

Yes, of course, Anon! Here you go <3 I am happy you liked it!! Sometimes I wonder whether I should keep updating the shop with hi-res stuff or not, so thank you for letting me know. I’ll upload more of our recent stuff there soon…

hipsterteller asked:

Its 12:49am and when I saw Azul in nun, I had to grab this

LOL THANK YOU!! Yeah, this is one hell of a nun lol

Rollo would’ve been disgusted… or not? Just kidding, he is not a part of this AU.

thestarlightfae asked:

A new AU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please give us more details!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YES!!! Ahhh first of all, thank you so much for being so excited for it! This really is our newest AU, it’s pretty recent, and we got so excited over nun!Azul that we actually have a lore for it this time lol

Azul, Jade, and Floyd are a part of the Underwater mafia/criminal world, and as a part of Azul’s plan to spread their involvement/power on land, they infiltrate a small and secluded monastery in an isolated island: Azul got a tip that this particular place would be perfect to gain access to important people through religion. All he has to do is to rise in ranks and gain more influence, but for that to happen, he and the boys have to hide their true identity: the merpeople are very demonised in this world and this religion in particular.

No one knows for certain if merpeople exist, so there are a lot of rumors and legends, a lot of which have nothing to do with reality, but the main consensus on land and in the church is that merpeople are spawns of the devil, and the depths of the ocean are the very depths of Hell. So Azul and the tweels have to really keep it together while listening to other nuns talk about mermaids seducing poor men and drowning them, literally dragging them to the underworld for their souls to suffer for eternity.

But our merboys do a very good job, and no one suspects them, in fact, they became rather popular very quickly. Nuns adore sister Floyd and consider him to be a very bright innocent soul, a little childish, but only closer to God for that; and sister Jade is like a saint that takes care of the older nuns and sick ones, selflessly spending hours at the infirmary. And of course, sister Azul is an absolute angel that is always here to support and help anyone who needs it.

(by the way yeah, everyone here is a boy, but they are still called sisters – don’t worry too much about it, we just really wanted them to be nuns…)

But even though Azul, as per usual, just acts nice and in actuality dislikes pretty much everyone around him, there is one person he got genuinely close with – it’s sister Idia, a mysterious shut-in that really stands out from the rest of the nuns. You can rarely see him around, he prefers to stay alone and he is excused from some events. Azul is intrigued by Idia, but also genuinely enjoys their chats and playing little board games (which they’re not really allowed to play) with him whenever they get a chance to spend some free time together.

And this accidental gamble of spending time with a loner weirdo really pays off when Azul finds out that Idia is, in fact, a son of a very rich and influential family, and that he is probably even the biggest golden ticket for Azul than any other fat-cat Azul could’ve gained access to through his way up the ranks.

This changes Azul’s plans: now he wants to take Idia back with them, when it’s time for him and the Tweels to leave…

One day, he invites Idia to talk alone in a private room, and as sister Idia arrives, he witnesses something otherworldly and horrifying: long and slimy tentacles crawling from under Azul’s robes. Not only did poor Idia not know that merpeople even existed, he sure as hell didn’t expect to see one among the nuns AND with tentacles lol

But aside from utter shock, confusion and fear, Idia also feels like he is getting something that he deserves. If merpeople exist and he is witnessing one with his own eyes, maybe it has come to drag him to Hell where he belongs. Because you see, Idia also has a secret… and a reason why he got pretty much disowned from his family and sent to live here in isolation.

Gee I wonder what’s going to happen next :3c

(lots of sex)

[tennessoui]

51, any verse? !!

hello thank you for sending this, it was an excellent writing warm up!

[prompt from this ask game]

51. What’s a non verbal way they say I love you?

so i'm setting this in the kuwsk verse because i was thinking about her the other day and also because if anyone knows how to say 'i love you' in a non-verbal way it's those fuckers who shared a house for years without realizing they were practically married and 100% in love (well, anakin realized the in love bit at least)

i think anakin's most used way of saying i love you is that he starts making obi-wan his lunch and tea to take with him as he goes out the door - he defends this by saying it's really not that much more work to make three sandwiches instead of 2 cause he was already making luke and leia's. yeah he puts just as much love into the sandwich for obi-wan as he does for his kids.b. b ut. but he doesn't want to talk about it.

meanwhile obi-wan is a bit more oblivious but still very dramatic. after the first few years, before they're together but after they've built a family, obi-wan quietly gets the kids' initials tattooed on his arm or chest or something. he also includes anakin's and just. doesn't tell anakin. that he now has a big stylistic 'a' right near his heart.

snippet:

(late may, nine months after the Skywalkers move in)

Anakin feels incredibly silly and far more transparent than he's comfortable with, the first time his hands make Obi-Wan Kenobi a sandwich.

It's nothing, like, actually overt or telling or anything like that. It's just a sandwich. He's made two already today for Luke and Leia, cheese and tomato for Luke, no crusts, ham and cheese and absolutely no tomatoes at all for Leia.

And he'd just gone to the store yesterday too. It had been easy as anything to throw in a packet of sliced deli meat turkey for Obi-Wan. A head of lettuce and a packet of the actual good-tasting cheese he knows Obi-Wan prefers. It was easy.

And it's not as if he's going to cut the sandwich into little hearts and include handwritten notes about how much he loves him in the box. That would be telling. This is just a sandwich.

Still, when he finishes the lunchbox---tucking a small apple and a clementine on top of the sandwich as well as a packet of fruit-flavored gushers he'd included not because he thought they'd be eaten but because he was sure Obi-Wan would find the idea of eating fruit gushers at his age in his very important professor office funny---he has to convince himself to linger in the kitchen.

If he just left it on the counter, he's almost positive that Obi-Wan would accidentally ignore it.

And if he left a bright sticky-note on top of the box, he's sure as well that Obi-Wan would ignore it.

He's not his brightest in the mornings. Anakin doesn't mind.

Fifteen minutes later, at precisely 7:08, the time that Obi-Wan always leaves, Anakin sits up from where he's been slouching against the counter.

A moment later, his housemate barrels through the kitchen, eyes still half-closed and tie askew. It's the lead-up to exams, if Anakin remembers correctly.

It's almost criminally adorable, the way he has to reach out and physically stop Obi-Wan in his tracks just to get the man to look at him. He's in too deep. This is terrible. This is--

"Oh," Obi-Wan says and he blinks at him as if he's surprised to see him. As if Anakin hasn't been up for an hour and a half already and gone upstairs to wake up the twins as well. As if this is not where he normally is around this time of day. "Good morning, Anakin," his housemate says.

"I made you lunch," Anakin blurts out, which is not quite the way he planned this. Though, to be fair, he hadn't. "Here."

He pushes the box into Obi-Wan's chest until the man raises his own hands and takes it from him.

Obi-Wan blinks again. "You made me lunch?"

"A sandwich," Anakin says. "Cause you said the other day you usually just get some crisps from the vending machine. And obviously you need more than that to function, so--"

"So...lunch."

"A sandwich." Anakin stresses, even though he can feel the blush creeping up his cheeks. He's fully dressed but he feels sort of naked standing before Obi-Wan and pushing a lunch that was made with love into his hands.

"Oh," Obi-Wan says. "Thank you." He sounds as if Anakin has taken a stop sign and slammed it into his face.

"I was going to make you some tea, too," Anakin adds. Just for something to say. "But then I couldn't remember how you take it and I know you take that very seriously, so I thought it was better if I just stuck to the lunch, you know, I was making sandwiches already for the twins, it was really no bother. Like, at all. I mean. You even eat your crusts, so that was a relief. And don't worry, I didn't use the American cheese that the twins like, obviously, I got some swiss for yours and--"

Obi-Wan hugs him. Anakin shuts up.

"Thank you," Obi-Wan says when he pulls away. His eyebrows are all furrowed but he looks far more awake now. "This is incredibly kind."

"It's just a sandwich," Anakin mutters, rubbing at the back of his neck. It's not, but he's suddenly terrified that Obi-Wan has seen that. Understood it. Fuck.

"I, ah," Obi-Wan starts then stops, clicks his tongue once, softly, then says, "One sugar, just a bit of milk. A splash."

Anakin blinks. He can't fight the smile he wants to give Obi-Wan in payment for this information, and he doesn't think he should have to. Obi-Wan is a man made of walls and secrets and bite-sized bits of information never given completely willingly.

To be given---to be entrusted with--his tea preferences, it's not nothing. Not for Obi-Wan. And so not for Anakin either.

[thetrueharmony]

Hello there, citizens of Rotomblr. It is I, the one and only Ghetsis Harmonia. I was told this was the 'place to be' by some of my friends and I couldn't just stay away after being told that, now could I? I believe the pronouns I use are called he/him. And no, I am not wanted in Unova, whoever says otherwise is lying. Nobody likes a liar. I was also told my kids were on here, now isn't that great! I truly hope they've all become less of a disappointment.

Oh and of course, you can't forget my pokemon. I still have my full team, do not worry! Cofagrigus Bouffalant Seismitoad - Osric Bisharp Eelektross and finally, my beloved Hydreigon.

Hello there, Hello there!! Im the mod here for this wonderful blog! This is my second time ever playing a canon character, and I haven't touched B2/W2 in years, so Ghetsis might be a little OOC! I will do my absolute best to keep in line with his canon character. I also have my own mix of head canons for him. PLEASE, if you read nothing else down below, read the trigger warnings. That is a requirement if you ever want to set up an event or character connections/relationsips. You may feel free to call me Alexander or Alex! I really don't care at this point ^^' I go by he/they, and whatever neos you want just not it/its, please! Mun is 16! Ghetsis may be an old man, but I am not!!

ANY INTERACTION IS ALLOWED! Pelliper mail/malice : Allowed

Musharna mail/malice : Allowed, but nothing about nsfw topics

Mystery gifts: Allowed

Magic anons : Allowed In character hate/anon hate : Allowed, encouraged even! Ooc questions : Allowed

ANYONE is allowed to interact here! Whether you're fallers, eery deebys, hybrids, ocs, self-inserts, etc, you are welcomed here! I love any type of interaction.

Please discuss anything offscreen with me beforehand before you do anything. THIS IS AN IMPORTANT BOUNDARY.

BOUNDARIES

Mod is 16, Ghetsis is in his early 40s. Suggestive stuff is fine, nsfw is not. Anything that I personally find uncomfortable will be ignored and deleted.

If/When long interaction threads occur, I will only start tagging them with 'long post' after they hit 20. Otherwise, it will be untagged.

Feel free to contact me if you ever wanna set up a relationship with Ghetsis! Always open to more people talking to him!! CONTENT WARNINGS :

Experimentation, Mentions of war crimes, Mentions of terrorism, emotional abuse or manipulation, alcohol abuse, mentions of child abuse (<- very rare), stalking, drugs/drug usage List always subject to change.

[moltengoldveins]

so it’s a random Friday evening, I’m hanging out with my sister, when she asks me something, and I feel the bottom drop out of my perception of reality:

“hey, did you ever notice that there were other rooms in that chain of challenge rooms before the Philosophers Stone? Like, other than the three that corresponded directly to the golden trio? And that said rooms corresponded pretty directly to Neville and Draco?”

I sat there in shock for a second. She’s right btw, there are two other big challenges and they DO correspond weirdly well with Draco and Neville: the magical plant right at the beginning and the potions that they have to identify. I have a moment where I wonder “huh. I wonder if Dumbledore maybe put those there just in case the Golden Trio picked up some extra friends-“ before she starts going on about how the story would have changed if Neville and Draco were friends. I will absolutely elaborate on this (Fantastic) AU fic premise in a bit but the important thing is what I realized while she was describing this story to me.

I have struggled with explaining to people why I dislike Harry Potter for a really long time. Problems with the author’s behavior aside, I found myself just…. Soured to the books. I grew up loving them and one day they just lost appeal, and as I thought more and more about them I liked them less and less. And I’ve used a ton of different reasons to explain why I don’t like them over the years, but until this conversation I couldn’t really articulate it, not fully. There was Something Wrong, and I couldn’t find the root of it. But I figured it out:

Harry changes nothing. That’s what it is. That’s what bothers me. And it’s deeper than that: the story changes nothing. The story is lukewarm at best in its defense of the good and the true and it rewards wrongdoing and punishes and mocks those who do what is right.

Now, I’m not saying that every story needs to give good things to characters who do good things: that’s not how real life works, it’s not how fiction needs to work. But there is a difference between watching a fictional character try and fail to do good and receive nothing but punishment for it, and then a story that deliberately portrays the efforts of a character to affect positive change as stupid or wrong.

Ostensibly, the ‘point’ of Harry Potter is that discrimination is wrong and people shouldn’t make assumptions based on someone’s upbringing. Hermione’s status as a muggleborn is defended as ‘just as worthy’ as everyone else’s, and discrimination against muggles and muggleborns is the main form Voldemort’s evil takes. The main evil of the story is this insistence on one specific social system in which the pure bloods are valued above all else and everyone else falls into pariah or servile statuses beneath them. THIS IS WRONG. We establish that this is wrong!

BUT. From literally day one, Harry is making assumptions about Draco based on his birth and upbringing, and the story is making assumptions about Hagrid (well, a lot of characters but Hagrid is the most obvious) because of HIS birth and upbringing. And none of these assumptions are ever proven false!

like, how does this actually go down? Draco is rude to Harry in a robe shop - unideal, but he is a stressed child in a wealthy environment, this behavior isn’t out of place. It’s Hagrid who tells Harry about the Malfoy’s, tells him they’re the ‘wrong sort.’ Draco introduces himself later on, apologizing for the interaction at the robe shop: it’s Ron who laughs at Draco’s name first. Draco claps back with the insult about Ron’s name after his name has already been insulted.

My sister pointed something really interesting out to me: Draco and Hermione don’t have beef for a While. It only starts in the second book, when he calls her a Mudblood. But Hermione starts that fight. Hermione insults his blood status, saying that he had to buy him way onto the team because it’s the only thing he has: his family’s wealth. Draco insults her back IN THE WAY HE WAS INSULTED. This is legitimately fascinating to me, I NEVER noticed this.

so that’s already interesting: Harry is all for bridging differences and forgiveness when it comes to people in a ‘lower’ social or moral class than he is, as a Griffindor pureblood. He’s nice to half-giants, house elves, and muggleborns, and those demographics are portrayed by the story as morally good. But anyone above Harry? Anyone in Slytherin? Anyone who is pureblood and rich? They’re not just biased and affected by their cultural upbringing: the STORY ITSELF portrays them as evil and untrustworthy, and Harry never makes an effort to change that. In fact, he actively encourages it with his relationship with Draco. The divide between pure blood Slytherins and the rest of wizard kind is never breached: Harry never changes anything. Voldemort dies, and everything else returns to exactly the same as it was before him. Harry does exactly nothing to the status who.

So what about Hagrid? Hagrid, and by extension giants, are implied by the story to be full people with cultures and feelings, and yet none of Harry’s interactions with Hagrid or Hagrids efforts are rewarded with positive change: the giants join Voldemort in the end, proving people like Umbridge correct about them. Hermione’s efforts with the house elves lead nowhere: Harry dismisses them as foolish from the get-go, and never takes the extra step to viewing Kreacher like a friend and fellow person.

Harry Potter is a deeply allegorical story: this kind of stuff MATTERS. What the story says about one person is what the story is saying about People Like This Person. So, what is it saying?

The story is saying that people like Hagrid, whether you read him as an allegory for kids with Down’s syndrome or autism or a learning disability or they’re mixed-race or whatever? Are exactly as useless and stupid and flawed and burdensome as you think they’d be. It doesn’t say “oh, they have their flaws but we accommodate and love them anyway and they can with accommodation be full contributing members of society with relationships that are just as deep and meaningful and worthy of respect as those of the people around them” no. It says “these people are easy to trick. They’re loud and inappropriate in social settings. They can’t keep secrets and they cause problems without ever fixing them. Their love is comedic, or futile, or both. They are a burden on the people who tolerate their company.”

None of Hagrid’s efforts ever come to fruition. None of his traits that are originally assumed to be bad turn out to be useful. His relationship with his giant brother never goes anywhere: the giants still follow Voldemort, even though his brother does support him in the end. His affection for madam Maxime is played as a joke. He never gets justice for being unfairly expelled or given a chance to take classes again, even though dumbledore KNEW that Hagrid was falsely accused and had EVIDENCE of it after the third book. He gets to teach, yeah, but the gap in his knowledge is never addressed; it’s just mocked and belittled as he fumbles and struggles to be an effective and safe teacher.

This is not an isolated case. This is EVERYWHERE in this story. You just have to look.

The story says that people like Sirius, people who lost everything when falsely accused and put in prison, don’t deserve second chances when they get out. They don’t deserve to reconnect with the kid they should have raised and build the parental relationship they should have had. They don’t get second chances like their oldest friend making them the godfather of his new baby: no, instead that honor goes to Harry, who gets little to no narrative meaning from that decision. They don’t get second chances, but people like Peter Pettigrew do. People like Sirius die soon after they’re released, having regained none of what they lost. The best people like Sirius can do is die for someone fit for decent society.

Molly says, in one of her nastiest moments, that Harry isn’t Sirius’s son: she’s right. But the hatred and disrespect towards Sirius in that comment is never addressed by the story, which really does make it feel like the story is implicitly supporting her.

The story says that people like Remus are sad unreliable and ultimately tragic lost causes. That people who were horribly wounded at a young age in a place they should have been safe (wow. I wonder what that could possibly be an allegory for.), or people who are disabled, or people with ptsd and survivor’s guilt, or people who have lost every person they’ve ever loved, don’t get absolution. They don’t get a second chance, or a place in society, or a future. They’re discriminated against, and nothing changes. They don’t rebuild their relationship with their surviving friends. They die, and their children aren’t even taken in by the person they asked to take them. Remus’s kid isn’t raised by Harry: he’s raised by Molly.

Nothing changes at the end of this story. Harry has not changed anything about the world these people lived and struggled in other than removing Voldemort from it. Werewolves still can’t get jobs. The few people related to the original Marauders are still scattered and unrelated. The giants and half giants are still on the margins of the wilderness. The house elves are still oppressed, and no solution has been offered to them. The purebloods haven’t been brought into the fold: they still think the same things they always have, because none of them have been taught differently. Slytherins are still the ‘evil’ house. No camaraderie has been built: no walls destroyed, no relationships developed, no prejudice dispelled.

Draco isn’t just a character, he is the representation of the Child of the Regime. The Child of Wealth, of Privilege. If he cannot be taught, then you are saying, implicitly, that kids who have been “corrupted” by their rich parents are beyond saving. You are saying that the world cannot change, that those in power cannot be taught compassion, that anyone born into wealth is inherently evil or cowardly or unfriendly or unreachable.

The world of Harry Potter reenforces Draco’s biases and prejudices all the way through. He’s never shown that he’s wrong, that the good guys are good, that love is the answer, that kindness is the right choice. Instead, the trio assume at every turn that he is worse than he already is, and that motivates him to be worse. Instead, they only character watching out from him is Snape, even as Dumbledore continues to manipulate him. Instead, nobody thinks to wonder how a child might be faring in the house of two known death eaters now that Voldemort has returned, they just assume he’d immediately and enthusiastically joined up because he’s a Malfoy. Instead, every Slytherin is asked to leave before the battle of Hogwarts, because they ‘can’t be trusted.’ Not because theyre children who might come face to face with their parents on the other side of the battlefield, no: they can’t be trusted. They’re inherently evil. And everyone else is inherently good.

and all of these statements are backed up by Harry himself. This is how Harry sees his world, and how the narrative treats its characters. This return to the status quo, this complete lack of growth and reconciliation is what the story treats as the ultimate win condition. This disgusting lack of regard for the allegory of your characters, especially when it comes to those who represent the disabled or neurodivergent or racially diverse is what the story treats as fine and normal. EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER who represents a minority has horrible things happen to them and either dies or ends the story worse than they started. Sirius, Remus, Dobby, Hagrid, Tonks, Mad-Eye, even people like Snape and Draco. This is not a narratively satisfying story of growth and positive change, it is the story of a young child being manipulated by the adults in his life to think in binary black and white about the people around him and long desperately for the ‘good old days’ he never experienced, and then being forced by circumstances outside his control to fight for the return of those good old days, completely ignorant of the fact that those ‘good old days’ weren’t that good for most of the people he knows and loves because they’re members of minorities those ‘good old days’ treated like shit.

How on earth were we surprised by JKR’s political and personal opinions? How were any of us blindsided by this? I’m so confused as to how we all looked at this story and went “yeah that looks like a good old fashioned coming of age ‘discrimination is bad’ story to me.” It’s not. It never was. It actively promotes that mentality at nearly every turn. You don’t get to make your villain cartoonishly hate muggles and your heroes heroic muggleborns and then say your story is about being anti-racist when there are eight or so other demographics your main character discriminates against, mistreats, misunderstands, or ignores entirely without narrative consequences. That’s just a story about discrimination being good with a shoddy Halloween costume on to trick the easily distracted.

The story my sister told me, the one where Draco and Neville were friends? It was a story about change and growth. It was a story about how someone’s dogged insistence on kindness could reveal that even the apparent nastiest of people were actually just as human as everyone else; that they too had fears and flaws and loves and strengths, that they too wanted love and respect and affection. It was a story where the good guys were kind, and it made a difference; it taught the misguided about the truth, brought the fallen into the fold. It made whole what was broken and gave second chances to those who felt discarded by the world.

It was, and I cannot stress this enough, absolutely nothing like the books JKR actually wrote.

.

Edit: a commenter mentioned two things I wanna address, the first of which being Harry’s status as a half blood. This is true! I forgot about it :/ I don’t think it changes the point I was making about the story, but it’s good to bring up as I did forget. And second, Remus’s being a werewolf is an allegory for AIDS: I did not know this at all! Thank you for telling me, that’s actually really cool and makes a lot of sense, I don’t know why I didn’t pick up on it. I think that might make things worse though. Like…. That takes the fandom’s confusion over how Remus’s character was treated from ‘frustrated that this allegory doesn’t seem to make sense’ to ‘holy crap you did that on purpose what the heck-‘ so….. yeah. Thank you for telling me op! If anyone knows of any references or information about the different things the characters represent in this story please let me know?

[sadiiomane10]

I'm exhausted but what is sleep when my brain doesn't shut the fuck up

[an-eldritch-peredhel]

I’d love to hear your thoughts on what Eldritch peredhel entail

-@@outofangband

Sorry this took so long @outofangband and thank you for asking this I am! Delighted! And am preemptively putting a read more down because I cannot shut up about they <3

alright I'm just gonna put stuff and headcanons down as they occur to me so expect low-moderate levels of coherency

shapeshifting is an obvious one (gets weaker down the generations) but because my brain is Like This I have caveats!

thanks to my whole peredhil things=gender allegory that my brain spit out without my permission I've long struggled against my inherent feeling that while they can shapeshift they don't like it

but because I'm now aware of my brain's reasoning I can say it's because of ✨fantasy dysphoria✨

that's oversimplifying, obviously, but peredhil already have so much issues with working through who and what they are and compromising between body and mind and spirit that actively choosing to change into/present as something/someone who They Are Not is. Not usually their cup of tea.

As a whole they tend to have specific forms that they prefer as being closer to themselves, and distinct enough that it doesn't feel like they're faking something they're not

(changing to look like a different person, or a edited version of themself is Very Very not fun unless either explicitly for disguise or shenanigans)

(the exception to this is that Luthien can make herself look almost perfectly human without any real issue. she doesn't do it often but especially as she ages she likes to catch glimpses of her reflection and get both excited and sappy. this is in contrast to making herself look almost perfectly like an elf which makes her feel like her skin is on fire.)

(Also I'm pretty sure all of them can flip their agab presentation while only feeling varying degrees of off, and even then it's a different feeling than the shapeshifting dysphoria. Dior and Elwing are the two who I think mind it the most)

They all have the (agonizing to write) trait of feeling very distinct relationships to their species in their body vs soul/mind vs spirit/fea and they all feel it very differently! This isn't exclusive to Luthien's line but the maia blood does make it worse.

Oh! This is a new headcanon of mine actually but!

They all have faces that are very very hard to capture in image. They are the bane of portrait artists (and, to a degree, sculptors) everywhere because the art never looks accurate to life

It's not blatantly off it's just. missing something? Or something was added? maybe it's a little too wide, or narrow, or long, or short, in one place or another

It's not unrecognizable but if you've ever seen the subject in real life you can just tell

It's especially bad with Luthien (and Daeron) and Dior (to a lesser extent) because everyone literally sees them differently, as in their features will be slightly different depending on what each person finds attractive/aesthetically appealing and beautiful

(not a lot, again, it's not unrecognizable, but there has never and will never be any accurate depiction of Luthien as she was as a person)

(as a concept, though, as the most beautiful creature to have ever existed in Arda, a little of her image exists in every portrait lovingly made of a beloved spouse, every child's drawing of their family, in biological sketches of songbirds and field mice, in a sculpture of a stranger's face. Daeron remembers his sister perfectly, but he collects these regardless)

(Arwen, Luthien come again, isn't described as such by her grandparents. Galadriel and Celeborn both knew Luthien, and while Arwen and her father both look as closely to her as genetically possible, to those who actually know them both it's nothing more than uncanny family resemblance. Luthien was to most a concept personified, Arwen is a person with concepts imposed on her.)

The list of people who have seen Luthien how she actually, physically, defaultly is, essentially consists of Melian, Daeron, Beren, and Dior

Beren doesn't see her as she is right away because he doesn't know her right away, but they learn about each other and she shows herself and he sees her and by the time she rescues him from Tol-im-Gaurhoth there are no echoes on her face

(He's always a little bit haunted that he nearly died without realizing he'd never quite seen the truth of her before)

Neither Thingol or Beren can quite see their own features on their children's faces. They clearly take after their mothers, after all!

(This leads to much affectionate eye-rolling on Melian and Luthien's part)

Hair stuff!

It's alive! kinda! it's definitely not normal hair!

It moves a lot on its own. Sometimes like a breeze is blowing where there isn't one. Sometimes more like tentacles. It depends on its mood.

They've got some very pretty traditional cosmic horror vibes swirling around on their heads. It's very sparkly and colorful but in a Forbidden Shrimp Colors that your brain is unable to comprehend way so it reads as iridescent black mostly, or holographic white, where applicable

Luthien's hair actually is a glimpse into space, Daeron's is a glance at a star

(Luthien's magic hair cloak survives, I think, into the 4th age and beyond, though if anyone/anything has found it they certainly don't know the origins of the beautifully intricate living star map. It has seen the reign of countless north stars, yet the lines always point to the same coordinates- where the ancient, sunken, ruined remains of what once was Tol-im-Gaurhoth lay)

Speed round!

Fangs and talons and horns oh my! Are they tooth and keratin and bone, or are they petrified wood and gem and stone? Yes!

They all smell a little like ozone and a lot like petrichor, flowers, and Green. If you've smelled green you know what I'm talking about. Also, unfortunately, like bird. Birds don't smell great, especially wet bird.

Weird Foresight Powers++

(Most of them don't have actual foresight, but all of them are more in-tune with the Song than is natural for an incarnate)

Their eyes glow, most notably in the dark, unless the irises turn black as they sometimes do. They are also all unnaturally bright versions of the less-spooky parent's- Dior's are gold, Elwing's are blue-green like a tropical sea (Elured and Elurin split the color between them- ultramarine and emerald), Elrond and Elros have pale star-gold, Elladan, Elrohir, and Arwen all have silver.

(Daeron and Luthien being the exception again, because I decided they have Melian's eyes before I decided this, and I don't know what color eyes Thingol has. Watsonianly: Melian's spooky genes overwrite a lot. Luthien's genotype is probably much closer to his than her magically overwritten phenotype)

Their sclerae turn black and their pupils white, on occasion, usually when using powers

They don't bleed right. It's a little too red for an elf, a little too light for a human, and it shines strange as it beads like quicksilver on the skin

They have very shiny, cool skin. Luthien looked like her's was silver plate under a stretched stocking, the rest toned it down from there but it's still noticeable.

The Song is. Attached to them. They are all very much Main Characters. Their lives have a clear story arc with symbolism and narrative parallels. They are all subconsciously aware that their lives are a fairytale, whether tragic or no, and yes this has many Implications and affects. They are not the only ones like this, but they are the only ones who, to some level, know they are in a story.

This is the fundamental separation between them and everyone else.

The difference in how they perceive themselves between heart soul and spirit is very difficult to explain and understand, but not impossible to someone who knows them and is willing to put in the work.

The life-long knowledge that they are Important to the Song and their every choice and event they experience and their mere existence serves a greater purpose in a way that most other people simply do not- that's very, very isolating.

No one else can understand how they see the world. Very very few people are willing to try, and even fewer in a way that's not frustrating. There is a reason most of them find only one person to latch on to outside of their family, and a reason they hold on through hell and high water.

(This is about being neurodivergent)

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

shoutout to those nights where the brain says We Literally Cant Do Anything Even Though We Really Want To <3

[ratatatastic]

its finally luosty turns last but not least eh? his topic? cranky sasha 🤣🤣🤣 (whoever came up with these topics wanted to get sasha riled up oh my goddddd)

ofc the way he chooses to show off cranky sasha is through his spartan hockey huh and OF FUCKING COURSE he gets lundy to come up and help him because who else but lundy does sasha crack the good ole whip for IM DYING

he also makes sure to mime in the goal posts too so everyones on the same page that this is of course about hockey because this has turned into an improv exercise mama hes a star hes a THEATRE kid

luosty is very good at mimicing cranky sasha must have lots of time watching him get fussy with lundy huh i can imagine the only directions given to lundy here was act like yourself and somehow that makes this funnier

they absolutely both think luosty is the funniest fucker alive OH MY GOD HE GOT LUNDY TO SMILE (WHICH ISNT MUCH OF AN ACCOMPLISHMENT HES SO SMITTEN WITH HIM) BUT HE GOT MIKKSY TO GIVE A GOOD TOOTHY GRIN TOO LUOSTY WHAT POWERS DO YOU HAVE 😭😭😭😭

he has this whole couch bewitched by his antics oh my fucking god... kicking the bench...throwing the water bottle...cranky sasha indeed

THE WAGGING FINGER AT LUNDY hey man whyd you move your hand to your crotch did that incite any revelations in you do you need to cover something that had unfortunate timing huh do you understand why mikksy cant stand them do you understand now

on another episode of i genuinely dont think anyone else could do this and get sasha this giggly in the midst of it of making fun of him luosty has really charmed them all

Sasha Cup Party | 7.31.24 (x)

[r0semultiverse]

Hebiichigo didn’t need to die to further develop Metal Lee’s character. I still stand by this.

Kagura also didn’t need to die to further the story!