#literally not even to mention the allegations and him being a piece of shit like

[pleco-jim]

not to be a little bitch but how The Fuck did dream win the streamy award for gamer?? the man has streamed like three times this year and uploaded even less

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

like i will never forget that dream made a joke about vikkstar raping tubbos sister and then had the gall to deny it bc like. i have seen that vod! he's fucking lying about it being out of context- the whole context is that lani mentioned she was in vikkstars bed. there’s no reason to question that in gameplay and vikkstar wasn’t even on the server when she played so it’d make no sense to ask about something gameplay related, and outside of gameplay… what else could you be implying? a thirteen year old says they’re sleeping in someone’s bed and you joke about having to talk to them. it’s a paedophilic rape joke he's too cowardly to admit to but he made the SAME EXACT JOKE a few years later except he was joking about raping kids and I don’t believe his shallow apology for five fucking seconds because he has a PATTERN of sexual jokes towards minors. HE GOT A MINOR TO TELL HIM HE LOVED HIM IN PRIVATE DMS. no amount of arguing it’s platonic makes it okay if your sixteen year old told you a grown ass man said that they had to say they loved him in DMs to keep their friend's minecraft farms YOU WOULD CALL THE FUCKING COPS BECAUSE THAT IS LITERALLY COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE FOR AN ADULT TO DO IN ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WITH A MINOR. plus his “i can totally know what a complete stranger wants without asking her (and I’m definitely not going to always assume she wants it bc i feel entitled to her body)” and his fucking hasty backtracking about it being with an ex like bro you were talking about hookups it’s such a pathetic save. every time i think about how much of a pathetic misogynist he is and how much he thinks children being raped is prime comedy I get so mad like legit i always try to take things in good faith and the best I can come up with is that he's a misogynistic creep bc THAT IS THE BEST FAITH INTERPRETATION OF MULTIPLE TIMES MAKING JOKES OUT OF CHILD RAPE INCLUDING HIMSELF BEING A PAEDOPHILIC GROOMER. he's at best a piece of shit and at worst a fucking paedophile and like don’t come at me with the allegations bro if you think raping kids is funny and edgy youre at best a creep and at worst a nonce. he's genuinely such a piece of shit. and this isn’t even getting into the constant racism, ableism, scamming, throwing random people under the bus for kicks, bullying, ect. he's an utterly awful person but he’s decent enough at hiding it that it’s not obvious until you have a full timeline of events. bc it makes it clear he NEVER stopped thinking rape was funny and that women are inherently lesser than him and that he can do whatever he wants to people as long as he adds a just kidding disclaimer and pretends to be a feminist when he obviously despises women. he’s a sick man and a manipulative scumbag and this is the BEST reading of him possible if you actually know what he’s fucking done and dig through the burying of it and outright lies he’s told.

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

If Nasu wasn't a coward he would have done something like Sefar didn't kill all the gods, the remaining ones are just fragments and you have to fight actual pieces of gods. But no the man said my special oc has killed all gods in existence at the exact same moment in time.

incredibly i have also talked about this specific thing here b4. i also dont know why its being brought again now

anyway my largest issue with sefar is the fact that the timeline given for when it comes and kills all the gods doesnt match up with any of the gods its alleged to have killed. for reference, it is stated to have reached earth around 12000 BCE. the fucking problem with this is that none of the civilizations we are familiar with (or indeed, that fate mentions) EXISTED BACK THEN. for context, the person considered 'humanity's oldest hero' the guy that all other heroes are based off of even if their cultures were too far away for that bit to make sense, gilgamesh, has the first instances of his epic reliably recorded as having first being written down around 2100BCE. 10000 years AFTER sefar is alleged to have hit the moon and earth simultaneously (and indeed, been reported to have been killed/sealed). while its very likely that his tale existed in oral form prior to this i HIGHLY doubt his story was 10000 years old before it was first committed to paper in the fateverse and they simply never mentioned it (he mentions his father having met sefar and sefar spared him in extella so he is presumably contemporary to sefar, although this may be his typical grandstanding)

and thats just gilgamesh. sefar is also noted to have the sword of mars (specifically mars) that she gained from defeating him in combat, but rome itself was not founded until 753BCE and worship of mars didn't reach it's height until 250AD. Even if we look at his greek counterpart, ares, afaik he only first starts showing up around 1200BCE so he's off from both sefar date AND gilgamesh date. even zeus isnt a god until around 2000BCE, and if i can trust the internet greek religion as we know it wasnt properly established until 750BCE. other gods mentioned in relation to sefar have the same issue, although finding out when they first rose to prominance as gods is difficult- odin similarly seems to be exist by the 1st century AD.

ironically, when i was looking to see if ANY gods that show up in fate could potentially have existed in some form (even if under a different name) when sefar is mentioned to have landed it seems like shiva is a possible contender, as prehistoric paintings from pre 10000 BCE are thought to potentially be of him. and yet, the hindu pantheon is one of the few ones that ISNT mentioned in relation to sefar at all lmao

so like what does this mean? either:

sefar DIDNT land on earth 12000 years ago (because how can you kill gods that dont exist yet)

sefar landed, saw that everyone was still fully prehistoric and went dormant until civilization levels rose enough to start blasting (this doesnt align with what we know of her behavior)

fateverse human history started thousands of years earlier than ours but they never bothered mentioning it in anything and it hasnt effected anything of note

sefar landed and killed a bunch of paleolithic gods and nomadic tribespeople before getting killed and shes retoractively trying to convince us that no, i totally bodied zeus, just trust me bro-

sefar got jumped by a bunch of gods that no longer exist/exist under different names and like also shiva and they just dont want to talk about it and are just making shit up. shut up

sefar landed and got her shit rocked by a paleolithic human with a sacred sword (funniest outcome that had to have been the first metal object ever. we were literally still figuring out farming)

the writers either dont know shit about prehistory or they do and put this in specifically to annoy me.

i literally said i wasnt going to get into this bc ive already talked about this on this blog and wow. look at that. ive gotten into it again. anyway anon hope you like this ig

[abloobloobloo]

The fact that this motherfucker's response was not to attempt to refute the OP's points in any way -- he can't refute them, because they're all completely true -- but instead to make a giant, whiny, disingenuously smarmy rant about how she's being too mean uwu ...really shows how much less than fucking worthless his worldview is.

What a stupid fucking piece of shit.

And that's not even getting into the sheer temerity of his other responses (yes, he made multiple responses to that post, which was responding to a screenshot of his TWITTER account), including accusing her of STALKING him because "how could she have found the post she was responding to" ig (while conveniently ignoring the fact that he went out of his way to respond to a post that never mentioned him by name, and simply used a post from an entirely different platform) before walking back that allegation for obvious fucking reasons, and straight-up accusing her of anti-Semitism because she...said "isntreal" to refer to Israel, I think???? Like that's literally the only thing that could be remotely construed as antisemitic in her entire fucking post and yet he just straight-up calls her an "antisemitic edgelord" anyway with his whole fucking chest

and then there's the utter fucking audacity of this man to get on his high horse about other people being mean to him and then immediately pivot to the sort of sub-Burn Book tier insults that would get you ostracized from any mean girl friend group due to sheer cringe overload

Just a colossal piece of shit. Maybe follow Donya's advice, you fucking asswipe.

[daysofourlivesrecaps]

Wednesday, 31 May 2023

Wednesdays, as I have mentioned before, tend to be pretty slow around Salem. And while a few of today's plots are little more than wheel-spinning for their respective characters, we also got a couple of MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS that just so happen to be QUINTESSENTIAL SOAP MOMENTS™, one of which I'm seeing for the first time since I started watching a year or so ago.

First up is Nicole. She's still pregnant and still confiding to Anna about it. And still not really providing us with any new insight into her character or... really, any new information of any kind. This storyline actually got me interested in Nicole for the first time ever, but I sure wish something would, you know, happen.

Eric and Sloan also talk about Nicole. Eric works out that the story about a virus at the hospital was a lie and Sloan comes clean and confesses that yeah, she did indeed lie. But she did it to protect Nicole's secret. Which Eric now knows.

Eric is none too happy about any of this, and takes his recently-harvested DNA swab and heads over to confront Nicole about it. So presumably something will finally be moving forward with all of this soon.

But not today.

Jada and Talia have a number of tearful exchanges at the police station, as Jada tries to explain to Talia that, even though Colin never actually hit her, he's still an abusive piece of shit. I do not mean to trivialize any of this as unimportant — it's good stuff; it's important stuff to talk about to an audience full of dumbs; and both performers do an excellent job with the material. It wasn't boring to watch, but it is hard to make jokes about. But don't worry — I am now pivoting to some gloriously stupid bullshit.

University Hospital has a new nurse on staff, apparently! She's one of the ladies from Fox's hit 90s sitcom, Living Single.

Not Queen Latifah.

Not Tootie.

The other one. Kim Coles.

(Apparently there was actually a fourth one but I don't remember her at all. My apologies, Erika Alexander. I enjoyed your show and watched quite a bit of it, both in first-run and in reruns. My faulty memory does you a disservice.)

Nurse Coles hits the ground running as she tends to Colin and he briefly mistakes her for Paulina.

Thirty seconds on screen and I love her already.

Paulina is actually in Abe's room, being her usual entirely impatient self and not for the first time I find myself wondering how she possibly made herself so rich in real estate with so little chill. Don't real estate people have to, like, negotiate or whatever?

Then Chanel goes in to talk to Abe and he wakes up! Yay! We love Abe!

But it gets better. Not only is he awake, but ABE HAS AMNESIA. 

I cannot overstate how excited I am by this. I have watched literally 500 episodes of this soap-ass soap and I've never encountered a proper case of actual amnesia before!

Chanel tries to jog the mayor's memory by showing him a picture of his wedding to Paulina, in that episode from last summer where they taught the white people in Salem what Juneteenth is. (I'm not gonna lie — I learned a couple of things from that one. As one of the dumbs in this audience, I'm genuinely glad they did that.)

But the picture rings no bells for Abe.

Out in the waiting area, Rafe orders this cop, who appears to be about thirteen years old, to prep Colin for his transfer to prison. This is obviously just to kill time in a short episode, and surely has no relevance to the plot.

While Chanel is off getting her mom, Nurse Kim Coles enters Abe's room. Abe, still muzzy from the surgery and having only seen a single cell phone picture of his alleged wife Paulina, thinks the nurse is his wife. The nurse, for her part, says nothing to dissuade him of this misapprehension.

Turns out she's a Mayor Abe Carver Superfan! And also? Maybe a bit crazy in the ol' pants?

And speaking of pants, Rafe checks on Colin, only to discover that Officer Skippy had his pants stolen by said gross creep. Also the rest of his uniform.

That's a rock-solid defense though, Skippy. "He got the better of me." No court in the world will convict you.

So now Colin, in disguise (as a cop whose uniform actually fits), easily slips out of the hospital unnoticed.

And right after him comes Nurse Kim Coles, pushing the amnesiac and highly confused Abe out of the hospital in a wheelchair "because he's in danger." 

 AMNESIA AND WEIRDLY UN-MALICIOUS KIDNAPPING. WE HIT THE SOAP JACKPOT TODAY, Y'ALL!

[solllaris]

if our love is wrong — drake walker.

summary: all she wanted was a stress-free end to her night in the wake of the allegations against her, but instead she gets a stolen kiss that only makes things worse. 

pairing: drake/mc, mentions of liam/mc

warnings: drake being self-deprecating, lots and lots of angst, & a brief mention of sexual harassment

word count: 2888

note: this is literally almost 3k of pure angst w very little fluff and i had the time of my life writing it lmao. enjoy ;)

As soon as Maren stepped out into the cool summer air, she could already feel the tension she carried in her shoulders loosen. She let her bare feet carry her along the manicured pathways of Madeleine’s sprawling estate, uncaring that she still donned the elegant blush colored lace dress from earlier in the evening. Although, as she aimlessly wandered through the back garden, she wished she would’ve changed into something less constricting and had more coverage; she’d only been outside for a minute and already she could feel the chill in the light breeze, goosebumps prickling at her skin.

The nighttime air was a nice reprieve for Maren from her newly found courtly life. It was like being transported back to the balcony of her apartment in New York where she would sit most late nights when the city was at its quietest. It wasn’t as clear and calm as Cordonian nights, but it gave her the same sense of tranquility — a feeling of being completely at home and safe.

Maren found herself approaching a fire pit, the bright orange flames practically calling her name. It wasn’t until her naked feet hit the cool cobblestone pavers that she noticed a brooding hulk of a man already occupying one of the cushioned chairs around the pit.

An instantaneous smile broke out on her pretty face and her heart surged in her chest at the sight of Drake sitting with his legs splayed open wide, an elbow on the chair’s armrest and his fingers sliding along his bottom lip—clearly deep in thought about something. She knew how scandalous it would be if the press caught word of Cordonia’s potential queen sneaking off with the newly crowned king’s best friend; quite frankly, as she plopped down in the seat beside him and caught the way his dark eyes followed her every move, she couldn’t bring herself to care.

For a moment, Maren relished in the heat of his gaze and the way it dipped to her swollen lips from her continuously biting them throughout the evening. He never failed to look at her with an intensity that made her spine tingle and all too soon she had to shift her focus onto the flames in front of them; she was fairly certain her entire body would turn into a liquefied mess if she didn’t.

“Am I interrupting your brooding by the fire?” She finally asked, the teasing lilt to her soft tone complimenting the small wry grin on her lips.

A husky chuckle rumbled through Drake’s chest and the hand at his mouth dropped as he moved to lean forward, his elbows resting on his knees. “Me? Brooding?” The faux incredulity in his deep voice had him instantly drawing giggles from the woman beside him. The melodic sound made his heart twinge and he tamped down a ridiculous grin, instead settling for the faintest smile. “When am I ever brooding, Parker?”

Maren was pretty sure her eyebrows rose all the way up to her hairline. “Do you really want me to answer that?”

Drake simply reached to retrieve the glass of whiskey on the ground beside his chair to mask his budding amusement. Instead of responding, he raised the glass in her direction as a way of saying ‘touche’ and took a long sip.

The dark-haired girl couldn’t help but let her eyes feast on the exposed skin of his neck as he tipped his head back, utterly entranced by the bobbing of his Adam's apple when he swallowed the smooth alcohol. She was reminded of the way the rough stubble covering his throat felt when she’d nudge under his jaw, her lips dancing over every inch she could in spite of the scraping beginnings of a beard against her skin. God, she really wanted to feel that painfully pleasant drag of stubble on her upper lip again as she kissed him breathless.

“Parker.”

His low, gentle call of her name brought Maren back down to Earth and she blinked to focus her eyes on his. One look at the expression on Drake’s face was enough for her to know he knew exactly what she was thinking.

He dropped his gaze to the nearly empty glass of whiskey in his grasp. He had to pretend to be fascinated by the amber liquid gliding along the solid cubes of ice to distract himself from how badly he wanted to tangle his fingers in her hair and drag his lips down the column of her throat. His grip tightened dangerously around the beverage at the mere thought, knuckles turning white with the force of it. “Lookin’ at me like that could get you into trouble, Parker.”

Before she could stop it, a shiver ripped through her body at the gruff warning in his voice. The domineering growl to the way he spoke had Maren biting back a gasp and swallowing the inexplicable desire to crawl onto his lap, perching herself astride his thick thighs for anyone to see.

A sudden feeling of defeat and exhaustion settled in her bones. She was tired of stealing moments together when no one was around. She was tired of glancing across a crowded ballroom to drink him in, only to find he had hungrily been doing the same. She was tired of sneaking kisses and subtle brushes of fingers in passing. She wanted all of Drake Walker—not bits and pieces that she could only have behind closed doors and her shoulders caved inwards with the weight of forbidden love.

Months of observing Maren Parker had given Drake an affinity for being able to read her like an open book. He immediately picked up on her shift in demeanor, the traces of desire fading from her face and her posture slouched forward. The charged atmosphere between them fizzled into one of melancholy and he had the smallest inkling of a feeling that he knew what was on her mind.

“Hey,” Drake murmured softly, setting his whiskey aside to reach over and pull her chair closer to him. “Careful. Think any harder and you’ll hurt yourself.”

She tried to smile at his attempt to get back to the usual back-and-forth teasing that had become the norm for them, but she just couldn’t. Instead she felt the familiar burn of tears and the bright orange flames in front of her blurred beyond recognition. Once the first one fell, others followed until she was full-on crying from the deep seated unhappiness she’d been feeling since that night in the Beaumont study; it was the night they’d kissed for the very first time, but also the night he’d begun splintering her heart.

“There is no ‘us.’”

The sound of him saying those four words to her was startlingly vivid—like he was screaming them in her ear over the crackling fire. She recalled how badly her chest ached as soon as his deep baritone finished uttering the last syllable. Weeks later, as she now sat outside Madeleine’s estate, it hurt just as badly as it had then.

Swiping at her damp cheeks, Maren became hyper aware of Drake’s knee pressed against hers and she hated herself for the burst of anger she felt towards him. “All of this is complete bullshit and I’m just so tired.” Her voice was weak and watery with unshed tears and her hands shook with the force of her bitterness. “I don’t want to only be with you when no one’s watching. I want to kiss you whenever I want and be seen on your arm when we’re in public and I want the whole damn world to know that I’m fucking falling in love with Drake Walker and I-”

That familiar scratch of stubble on Maren’s upper lip was back as Drake tugged her forward by the back of her head and his lips slotted forcefully between hers. She felt his digits tangling in her loose brunette curls, grasping tightly as his hot tongue slipped into her mouth. It smoothed over her own until all she could taste was the rich, smokey tones from the whiskey he drank and it was intoxicating. So intoxicating, in fact, that she dug her fingers into the rough denim of his shirt and pulled him impossibly closer.

A faint smack registered into the quiet nighttime air in Fydelia when they briefly separated, their puffs of breath tickling the other’s skin fleetingly before their lips came back together. He felt like a man addicted to the most dangerous drug as he tilted his head to taste her deeper, like he couldn’t get enough no matter what. Her tiny whimper into his mouth at his nipping teeth and ravaging tongue drew a groan from somewhere deep in his chest; he wanted to keep kissing her, coaxing more of those little noises from her and he would have...

But then it dawned on him exactly where they were and anyone could see them in their heated embrace and Drake physically tore himself away from her.

“Shit, I’m…” He trailed off with a deep sigh, dragging his palms over his face harshly. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

Maren’s heart tugged painfully—a sensation she was beginning to get used to. The lump forming in her throat was too prominent for her to get even one word out, so she lapsed into silence and felt the beating organ in her chest splinter a little bit more.

The bright red-orange embers that flitted into the blackened, blue toned sky blurred with the pearl shaped tears pooling at her lashes for the second time that night. The throbbing behind her sternum where her heart resided was on the brink of unbearable and when Drake glanced over at her boneless body, slumped in defeat, the ache worsened. She heard his low, throaty curse and saw as he reached out for her from the corner of her eye but she shot out of her chair before he could.

“Don’t touch me,” Maren said weakly, each word shaky and thick with emotion.

Drake’s dark brows pinched together, her demand acting as an agonizing punch to his gut. He hated the way those three words sounded coming from the woman he had no doubt fallen in love with. He hated that he’d been the one making her say them. As he stared at her from across the fire, he despised himself the most.

“Parker,” He breathed and reached out to her. “Baby, please c’mere.”

She pressed the tips of her fingers to the damp tracks of tears on her cheeks, carefully wiping them away and vehemently shook her head. “I, um—” She paused to swallow the gigantic growing lump in her throat. “I think coming out here was a mistake. I guess you were right about there being no ‘us.’”

Just before  she turned sharply on her heel, she caught the pained look in his deep brown eyes that turned a molten, melted chocolate color in the light of the fire. The entire trek to her quarters her thoughts were filled with melted chocolate and the smokey taste of whiskey.

He didn’t follow her.

Sinking further into the luxuriously silky bed sheets, Maren wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed. More than anything she wanted Drake to just completely surrender to his feelings and let himself fall with no restraints. She was tired of him fighting it, tired of the dance they were doing around each other when all she wanted to do was fall without abandon. But she couldn’t because the man she was falling for wasn’t the one she was supposed to be with.

It should’ve been Liam; he was the epitome of a loving-kindness that took Maren’s breath sometimes. He was a gentleman, always considerate of her feelings with each and every word thought out with care before he spoke. He was gentle, touching her with an impeccable care that said more than any conjurable words could ever convey. He was quite literally the perfect man and she should’ve been head over heels for him.

But she wasn’t. It was never Liam—even from that moment at her work all those months ago when she’d waited on their table at his bachelor party.

It wasn’t Liam. It was his surly best friend that had a knack for sarcasm, snarky remarks, and all things denim. It was always Drake. It always would be Drake.

Maren didn’t realize she was crying for the third time until her shoulders shook and the taste of salt permeated her tongue. They dripped down the tip of her nose when she turned her face further into the satin pillowcase and onto her over-sized sleep shirt, leaving behind a dark patch on the material. The volume of her cries almost masked the soft knocking on the other side of her door and she immediately muffled them with her pillow; that is until her ears were met with a low, husky voice that she was all too familiar with.

Drake had his forehead rested on the wooden door, his heart thrumming painfully at the sound of his girl crying. “Baby,” He said, only just loud enough for Maren to hear him through the wood, and sighed heavily. He let his forehead smack against the door once in self-hatred. “I’m sorry, okay? Please open the door.”

Sheets rustling came from her side and he rose up slightly, one of his forearms coming up to rest on the door frame in anticipation. Instead of the door opening, he heard her voice ring out clearly from inside the bedroom.

“Why?” She sounded so small and defeated and Drake hated it. “So you can kiss me again and tell me what a huge mistake it was?”

With a quick check to make sure the corridors were clear and that he was truly alone, he murmured, “Kissing you has never been a mistake to me, Parker.”

He barely caught her nearly inaudible scoff. “You sure haven’t acted like it.”

Growing increasingly frustrated, a low growl bubbled up from the back of his throat and he wiggled the doorknob irritatedly. “Open the damn door, Parker.”

As upset and angry as she was, Maren couldn’t deny the overwhelming part of her that just wanted to fall into his arms and slip back into their typical ways; she hated that their ‘typical’ was sneaking out of balls together or stolen moments at the end of a long day at court, but it was all they had for now. She had to accept that the time simply wasn’t right for them to come out as a couple yet — especially in the wake of the allegations against her.

So she swallowed her pride and opened the door.

An unmistakable sense of vulnerability bloomed in her chest as he drank in her pink cheeks, tear-soaked lashes, and baggy t-shirt that had a hole in the material at the neckline. It was a state he’d seen her in only once — the night at Applewood Manor when Tariq had put his hands on her in what was supposed to be the privacy of her own room. The rush of déjà vu that washed over Drake rekindled the way his gut had twisted painfully from seeing her so...fragile and dejected—exactly the way she looked as he gazed down at her now in her ratty t-shirt.

Maren ducked her head and turned her back on him, unable to face him while he studied her with such intensity and tenderness. She heard his heavy footfalls entering the room and the subtle click of the door latching shut behind him; she almost smiled at how fitting it was that he always walked so loudly, even though it was the most inappropriate time to be amused. With his towering height and broad frame, it only made sense and she found that endearing.

Goosebumps prickled at her skin as she felt him draw closer to her and then came a barely there brush of his knuckles from the hem of her shirt’s sleeve, down to her elbow and back up. Warm breath tickled at the slope of her neck when he dipped his head down lower; his lips grazed the shell of her ear and she felt every limb in her body grow taut, anticipating his next move or words.

“You’ve never been a mistake to me, Parker.” Drake’s lips skimmed the curve of her neck, down to where her neck bled into her shoulder and she shivered as he spoke against the skin there. “You never will be a mistake to me.”

A swell of emotion sprouted inside Maren and the force of it rendered her speechless. In lieu of words, she slowly turned back towards him and she really, truly could’ve cried a fourth time at the adoration in his eyes but she decided to kiss him instead.

So pushing herself up onto the tips of her toes and with a hand curled around the back of his head, she pulled him down to meet her halfway in a searing kiss. It might’ve been wrong to everyone in the royal court, but to her nothing in the world felt more right than his fingers cradling her jaw and the sweet scrape of his stubble on her chin.

If it was so wrong then Maren Parker never wanted to be right.

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

20. Sink

Word Count: 3989 Trigger warnings for religion and mentions of child pornography

Previous

Lord, if it’s you,” (Simon) Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” he said. Then (Simon) Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

Matthew 14:28-30

Simon had never been very religious. Scratch that… Simon had never been very mystical about religion. Whenever he was younger, his family went to church and he was quite studious and learned a lot in that time period. His father still believed in God and country or whatever and his grandmother, he imagined was praying over his mom every single day. But, he had never really known what it felt like to have that kind of faith in anyone or anything… until he was given Grace. It wasn’t lost on him the religious implications of being a boy named Simon (like Simon Peter, aka The Apostle Peter - huge name in the Bible world) being granted a savior, being blessed with Grace after a terrible sin, whether intentional or not, of killing Hope… His mind was in a daze right now. 

It was the fourth religious dream he had since that interview, and in this one, he was Simon Peter, calling to his Savior in the storm. Grace was just across the water. All he had to do was get to her and she would rescue him from all of this, just like she always used to. But, he looked at the impending storm, instead. He had Grace, but he was focused on the storm, and he sank… He jumped up from his sleep and literally felt like he had been drowning. Ugh. 10 years of church and 4 years of private school could definitely mess with one’s mind. Then again, so could 6 years of Grace and 5 years without it… her… 

He had begun to try to stop rationalizing that she wasn’t human. Unfortunately for him, before he considered her the void, she hadn’t been human for him either, then. She had been a deity. He worshipped her. She had been a vessel to save him, to help him, to comfort him. She had been what he built his faith system upon, his religion, his Apex, his lifestyle… Then, she was gone and he tried to continue without her. He tried to rebuild in his own image, in his own name. He tried to walk on water, as he had seen her do, now all he was doing was sinking…

In the aftermath of the interview, Simon noted that his faithful followers went on one of their ravenous attacks in Shana’s comment sections. She could even just post a photo of herself in the newsroom at Spelman as an inspirational post and they appeared in her comments to berate her for speaking about inspiration when she would attack an abuse survivor and have his abuser on her show, trying to make her sympathetic. Shana seemed entertained for some of the comments, replying things like a simple “K” or “Lol” and never addressing the person again, even if they supplied a melee of character attacks at her.

But, on the video link, whenever people started also attacking Grace’s fakeness and the fact that she still gets to abuse Simon indirectly by doing things like this, Shana had enough. She let them know that she had no regrets about the interview with Grace, no regrets about anything that she said about Simon, and none about all of her opinions of him. “Even if he’s a different person today, considering that he never got any backlash for the sex tape from high school, which i firmly STILL believe that he should be held accountable for, which I am convinced that he leaked, and I think that if he’s truly changed, he would have wanted to make that right at some point and free Grace from the uninvited attacks for that CRIME AGAINST HER, committed by him.”

There was an explosion of mixed reactions. Everything from, “This is the first that I’m hearing of this” to “Simon would never have done anything like that to Grace” to “WHERE CAN I FIND A SEX TAPE OF SIMON AND GRACE???” Many people were blocked. Many people were rocked, as Shana went live to address the massive amount of comments coming from her spilling that tea.

She made mention of the facts that while the statute of limitations of revenge porn had been exceeded, they didn’t exist for child porn. “And in case anybody is confused, yes, I am including links to inform you about how what he did is in fact child pornography creation, possession, and distribution, AND what the law says concerning them.” After replying to many of the comments, mostly in an amused fashion, she got bored. 

“Listen, I’m getting ready to go chill with my lady and get ready for class tomorrow, but I’ll just say this one more thing, “I’m not taking my foot off of Simon Laurent’s neck. As long as Grace has had to suffer in silence, because she’s no longer the vengeful type or whatever, she’s on right now in her journey, the journalist in me and the enraged victim in me will always come for Simon and the way he used the privilege that he did have - not to say that he didn’t lack in certain areas like money and common decency, but the ones he DID have - his race, his gender, his orientation, his proximity to education, etc, in order to vilify and humble this girl with false accusations of crimes, and get away with unconfessed crimes. Yeah, this IS about my Sassy Strawberry keychain, Simon you bitch! I know you watching. To those of you who can’t be bothered to use your Googles, I don’t know what to tell you, kinfolk. Shady Shana has said all that she needs to say for now. Tata, from the perfect place for shade.”

Then her accusations, the search for the information of said accusations and the buzz from back then resurfacing went even more viral than the things that he had said about Grace whenever he reached notoriety from the stories. Now that the Internet and social media were even bigger and just kept growing with time, Grace still being a huge public persona, despite the few short years that she wasn’t online and the time she had been inside, she made an explosive comeback at least as an Internet personality, and Simon was never as frequent online as he was a short time in the eye of the public to get himself established, but several professors had used his story for various seminars and lectures, his books did pretty well, and he was a very established young mind in his academic circles… So, he was a big deal in his world, but on the grand scale becoming infamous for this new attention. 

Shana and Grace’s worlds were very large, and both of those were combining to infiltrate his world with these not necessarily new pieces of information, but things that he thought would have been forgotten or left alone. He had not even considered that Shana would ever… Like… why was SHE so damn upset? Because of a small scuffle? Because of somebody else’s alleged injustice? Somebody that she didn’t even LIKE for most of her life? “Journalist” she was a shit-stirrer! All of her muckraking was making things complicated for simple Simon. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like dreaming about Grace as his savior. He didn’t like the idea of reaching out to her to get her to grab her dog. He didn’t like that he was suffering from nights more sleepless than usual and beginning to become counterproductive in his work.

Worrying about ramifications of the words “child pornography” and “sexual predator” being tossed about in conversations with his name led to nightmares, paranoia, guilt, intrusive thoughts, and mistakes in class and at work. One of them turned out big…

Amelia came up to him in her lab, with her arms folded and her face stern, “Is there anything you think we should discuss, Mr. Laurent?” He frowned and glanced her way, still working on the formula for the next tests in the prosthetics serum they were spending time discussing as one of his potential next big things. She raised her eyebrows and asked, “Not even an acknowledgment of what I’m speaking of?”

“I know what you’re speaking of and I decided that no, we don’t need to discuss it. It’s a personal matter.”

“A personal matter? Simon, you are supposed to be seeing a counsellor once a week, and now I find out that not only did he recommend that you see him twice a week, but that you haven’t seen him in several weeks! It is part of your ability to stay here, and I don’t appreciate that you’ve ducked out on this requirement, especially considering the personal matter you’re referring to.” 

He furrowed his eyebrows and set down his supplies. “This is about the shrink? I haven’t been able to see the guy, because I’ve been working on the new formula nonstop. I need a breakthrough, and if I can get the formula right for enhancing the prosthetics, I’ll be famous for that. I’ll be closer to the goal of enriching artificial organs, maybe even organic ones!”

“I know what this work would mean if successful. That isn’t the point. The point is that you are not allowed to be here without the help that you need and you agreed to. I’m going to have to speak to the committee, now that I know you haven’t been…” She turned and he caught her wrist really hard. The woman jerked away. She was stronger than he thought.

“Amelia… Please. I need this. People are out to get me. Out to destroy everything that I’ve built for myself, without parents, without love, without an inheritance. I got here on my own merit, my own mind! I can’t have it be the thing that gets me sent away.”

“You needed to consider that after we gave you another chance! We can’t keep going back and forth with you while you refuse to take the help that you need in order to get to your next rung!” She was loud. He felt like she was yelling at him. He didn’t like people yelling at him, especially women, especially older ones… It made him extremely angry and he yelled right back at her, only to find that she either hadn’t been yelling or she had an even louder yelling setting.

“I’M DOING MY GODDAMN BEST!”

“MAYBE YOUR BEST ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH!”

And in addition to the yelling, the thing yelled was extremely hurtful. But, Simon was an angry hurt type. So, he was hurt, but it manifested in anger, “LIKE YOURS WASN’T! YOU HATE ME BECAUSE I CAN BE A BETTER YOU!” She laughed. That made him even angrier. “ADMIT IT! YOU’RE SO HARD ON ME BECAUSE I AM BETTER THAN YOU!”

“Simon, you’re a child. A foolish, often incorrect child. There are many things that I credit as better than me. You aren’t one of them.” He was breathing hard and clenching his fists. “I advise you to immediately set an appointment with your therapist and I demand that you leave the lab at once. At the very least, you need to take a break. At worse… you broke our agreement, Simon.” She began to touch his research, to put everything away, as he stormed out, trying not to let her see him cry and trying not to explode in the lab and further mess things up for himself. He didn’t get far before there was a different explosion in there. Not an extremely loud one, but loud enough that he turned around as others rushed in. 

Simon got on the phone, calling the last counselor that he had spoken to as everyone else scurried about trying to get help and rushing in various directions. “She was just arguing with Laurent, he rushed out and then this happened,” he heard someone say and he watched the three students who had been talking stop and look right at him.  “Are you calling 911?” One of them asked. He shook his head, because he hadn’t been. Once again, it wasn’t his first thought when he witnessed an emergency. One of them grabbed their phone out, presumably to do so and he… left. He probably should have stayed, but he couldn’t breathe and needed some space and needed to rage.

.

It didn’t take others long to start whispering. Simon had found a dumpster to kick for a while before returning to the scene and seeing them rushing Amelia into an ambulance. Police were there and wanted to talk with him. He knew that people would talk. They had been talking. He also knew that sometimes he imagined that people were talking more than they actually were and he hoped that perhaps, this would be one of those times that he imagined the criticism. It was not.

On top of the internet’s allegations of child pornography, learning that the state of California might be investigating these allegations, for the Monroe Estate, and being questioned about his chemical engineering “mistake” with the formula that became unstable as Professor Hughes attempted to put it away… 

Simon was whatever the opposite of numb was. He felt all things, everything, anything, all at once and at a peak. He hadn’t felt this way in a really long time and the only times he had, he had Grace to think of and settle him. After that, he had his own greatness to reflect upon… but that was slipping away from him and Grace had slipped away… No… He had shoved her away, and he needed her so much right now. Because he didn’t know if he could pull himself up from sinking. “Lord save me!” He heard himself yelling from the water in the storm… But Grace couldn’t hear him. She was too far away, and she wasn’t his savior anymore. He looked up for something to latch onto, but all there was, was the Void.

Its big black, form, with an aura of fluid black smoke, and hovered over him and charged at him, its face stopping just short of his own and he looked up to see it. It was nothing but a pale mask, much like one of the ones that Grace used to wear. Maybe… Maybe she was still inside of the void somewhere. Maybe she would rescue him after all. “Grace?” he called, “Is that you?” It had nothing in it’s face. No feeling, no warmth. There was no way that Grace was there. It had no reply. He blinked it away and looked at the police. They had just released him… so… something had saved him… for now. Probably just dumb luck, or lack of evidence. There had to be a lack of evidence, because he knew that he had done nothing wrong.

Despite having done nothing wrong, he had apparently made some type of mistake with the formula, but he figured it was more likely that Amelia had made some mistake in putting it away. It was too soon to voice that opinion. Students were upset, like she was some lovable figure. She was a bitch. He didn’t feel bad at all that she was hurt and he hoped that nobody expected him to act like he did. But, they were talking again. He felt like whenever he was a freshman at the academy and the staff and students didn’t appreciate him because they hadn’t seen his value yet… but these people knew him. He was important! He was significant now! He had done everything to become valuable and honored, including giving up Grace when she was holding him back! 

“Simon, it sounds like you’re just blaming everyone else for your problems again.”

“I’m only saying what happened. I matter, and they treat me like I don’t. They look at me like I’m a criminal. They’re handling me like I haven’t done great things! Like they haven’t heard of me or something! Who do they think they are?”

“To not value you? Maybe they’re just strangers, Simon. You’ve spoken to me a few times, and I don’t know you, either. That doesn’t take away from anything that you might have done, but it doesn’t give me the insight that you have of yourself. The same can be said about any of the people here,” the counsellor said. Simon resumed his meetings, but it was too little too late, as he was called back to the committee.

.

Grace was really just trying to enjoy her life. She only did the interview with Shana because Shana had REALLY come through in finding Hazel for her. She explained to the people keeping Hazel how she knew her and how she found her (not mentioning Shana’s name, but that she “hired an investigator”) mainly because she just wanted to see how Hazel was doing. The short answer was “not great,” but the long answer was Grace hated the fact that everyone that she talked to about Hazel didn’t seem to really know her or how to deal with her. That made her afraid that Hazel would continue to get bounced around, and eventually be lost to her again. After being approved as someone who could visit and spend time with Hazel (a longer process than she would have liked, and one that she knew could have been shortened if she just went crawling back to her parents), but one that was worth the work, because not only was she able to see Hazel and talk to her, but she also got her a phone, in case they were separated again and Hazel needed to reach out to her. 

The last thing that Grace wanted to do was be dragged into Simon’s situation. So, whenever people asked her about him, sent her messages, intruded into her comments, @ her in posts… she declined from responding. She made a statement on her linked social media accounts, reminding everyone that 1. She doesn’t speak about Simon. 2. She said everything that she intended to say to people outside of the situation to Shana in the interview. 3. She is not responsible for Shana’s feelings about the incident in question (the recording and sharing of the recording) 4. She has never spoken to anyone but Simon about the incident in question and doesn’t plan on going much more in depth with anybody about it any time soon. 

Whenever asked about the recording, since she did say in the statement that she had spoken with Simon about it, and it was presumed that meant that maybe they had made it together and it got leaked, as those things tend to do, she confirmed that she didn’t know anything about the recording until after everyone else had seen it, that she doesn’t like to think about it or that time in her life because it was one of her most embarrassing and painful experiences and she doesn’t want to have to relive it simply because people are curious about these details that don’t affect them one way or another…

People were relentless and dedicated to being in other people’s business. What about Simon? It affects Simon! Why aren’t you helping clear Simon’s name? Why are you still hurting Simon? What about affecting Simon? She’d punch every last one of these people in the mouth, just like she did Simon when she found out, if they were in front of her. Even, now, being  someone trying very hard to be peaceful and patient… “Simon already knows everything about that time that I would be able to say, so telling anyone else anything wouldn’t help him or me. If I was silent about it whenever it might have actually changed my trajectory in a favorable way, I’m certainly not going to begin going off about it now that I’ve been given another chance at a positive life, despite the things that caused me pain. Simon knows more than I do and more than you. Perhaps you should ask him, if you want someone who doesn’t seem to mind speaking about these subjects.”

That was what did it. Simon watched in a panic as former Apex members, arose to defend Grace and admit that during the time, Simon was open with certain people about having orchestrated the recording and using it to oust Grace from her throne. “We were mean kids, and I don’t know if we thought far ahead enough to really see what something like that could do to somebody. We all found it either funny or scary and weren’t brave enough to stand up for her back then, but Grace did nothing wrong and people should let her live her life instead of bringing this back up and hurting her again.” They basically all said some variation of that.

He became immediately notorious as #GraceDidNothingWrong began trending and multiple Apex members, former nonessentials, declared nulls, and actual victims of some of Simon’s direct attacks come forward, opening up about their experiences with Simon’s Apex, the Apex in general, including anecdotes, quotes, confessions, etc to further prove Simon’s guilt. To top it off Simon was put on academic probation as everything unfolded including the way he had been handling his psychiatric deal with the committee being unmet and the negligence that led to Professor Hughes’ accident. When he began losing various deals, gets major backlash for the accident, on top of the allegations of child pornography being investigated, he began to spiral as he considered possible charges from CA to MA. He deleted all of his social media accounts and shadow cyberstalked Grace, only to see that she really wasn’t participating in all of this.

He was SO CLOSE to his first Master’s degree. He couldn’t let all of this throw away his future! He was young and stupid and maybe he was wrong, but he wasn’t going to say that and he definitely didn’t feel like he deserved to be punished for it right now! 

He had been trying not to think about that interview, but the more he tried not to think about it, the more he obsessed over it - over her wondering how he was doing, over the potential for her to actually still care. It was so stupid. It was foolish. There was no way that she really felt like that, but all of his distraction had caused him to possibly make some type of stupid mistake. The police were investigating, but he was the main one working in the lab, so whatever happened was most likely due to some type of misstep on his part. He certainly had not rigged anything to explode in Professor Hughes’ face, like some seemed to be trying to suggest! 

The fact that they did not get along wasn’t very helpful to him. The argument right before it happened made it even more suspicious, and where they should have been able to speak with his psychiatrist to ensure that he was doing fine… he hadn’t been consistent with any long enough for them to know that he was doing fine… which brought attention back on him from the committee, which he guessed felt like he was jumping through loopholes in their deal. He saw the Void again, it's voice like a chorus of succubi singing, “I’ve come to take everything from you. It’s what you deserve.”

He rushed to the airport. He didn’t even have a place to stay. He rushed to the Monroe’s, snuck into their gate and beat on the door. It was 2 am, but he couldn’t wait. The Void was after him, and he NEEDED his Grace.

Next

[xenoredux]

The Legend of Silver Fang - Episode 1: The Birth

Alright, first part of the GNG rewrite aaaaayyy! As with the last rewrite, the major story beats and overarching plot are the same. This is written under the supposition that, in fantasy land, this is a mini series with episodes that run about 2 hours in length each. 

Some things to be aware of going in:

This story is violent as shit!!! CONTENT WARNING FOR: Firearms, various kinds of physical trauma, injuries to people and animals, the deaths of people and animals, search and rescue missions, self harm, animal and child abuse, and just a whole lotta spilled blood. Basically if any form of violence upsets you, it’d be a good idea not to read ahead

I was trying to achieve a decent adaptation that combines the strongest elements of the anime and manga. It will not be precisely like either and will occasionally totally deviate from both

This isn’t meant to be “better” then the canon. It’s just the way I’d go about rewriting the Akakabuto arc if I had that level of ungodly power lol

Character designs made to represent several mentioned characters can be found here and here. Others will be left up to the reader’s interpretation. A link to the next episode will also be provided at the end. If a link isn’t available, the next episode just hasn’t been posted yet!

THIS ALSO MARKS THE 34TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ANIME SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY GNG LMAO enjoy

In the year 198somethingidk in the forests of Japan, a white Akita Inu named Shiro ("white") is tailing behind an unusually large Ussuri brown bear dubbed "Akakabuto" ( "red helmet") by the nearby village's populace due to the unusual red tuft of fur trailing down his back. Shiro is followed by his owner, a crotchety old fart named Gohei Takeda, renowned bear hunter and the world's least called out animal abuser (hint: this will become relevant later.)

Before the old man can take aim with his rifle, however, the shadowy mass from the winter darkness barrels towards him. As the dog tries to leap to his owner's defense, Akakabuto smacks off a good portion of Grandpa Point-n-Shooty's face, sending a severed human ear flying into a bloodied patch of snow. Shiro takes this as an invitation to do his best impersonation of Lassie and dives at the monstrous beast, grasping hard atop his muzzle to avoid his claws. From a nearby hill, a small red puppy watches the horror unfold.

While Shiro baits the bear, as is his job as a bear-dog, Gohei fires a bullet into the massive animal's right eye. The eyeball bursts in the bear's skull, but it also stops the bullet from traveling through his brain, instead lodging it into his grey matter and jostling around his nerve centers and pituitary gland. Understandably pissed at Gohei taking the shot, Akakabuto swipes madly at him until both himself and the dog stumble blindly off the edge of a cliff, resulting in what is surmised to be their deaths. Gohei faints in a snowbank, his vision running red with blood, as the unseen red puppy runs back to civilization to bring help.

Five years pass. Gohei continues to raise, train, and hunt with Akitas, but now it's for more then the sake of bringing home bear skins. He believes Akakabuto is still alive, and he wants revenge. The massive scar on the left side of his face is explanation enough for anyone to understand why. He continues to explore the forest near his home, now aided by several new dogs, including one of Shiro's sons, a powerful red Akita named Riki ("power" or "strength") and the same puppy who had saved Gohei's life all those years ago.

Riki has comfortably begun filling his father's shoes, enough so that he's established a reputation as one of the best bear-dogs in Japan. With a title like that, it wasn't long before Riki had been mated to an equally powerful and very pretty red brindle Akita named Fuji, and the buns he'd so kindly plopped into her oven were fit to enter the bakery of life and this analogy sucks

Fuji is not Gohei's dog. She belongs to the Fujiwaras, a neighboring nuclear family who own and operate a ski resort in the mountains. Daisuke Fujiwara, a young boy with a heart of gold and a nose of snot, has been tending to his dog during her pregnancy, and she's finally delivered what is universally understood as The Best Thing Ever: a litter of roly poly puppies! Daisuke is especially taken with the smallest of the babies, a handsome silver brindle boy, because Daisuke is a stuck up dog fancier who believes silver brindles, or Tora-Ges ("tiger striped") make the best hunting dogs. He ever-so-creatively dubs the puppy Gin ("silver") and decides the infant will do him proud someday.

But all is not well in Skiiertown. Gohei's hunt of Akakabuto isn't just motivated by vengeance. The village mayor is currently trailing behind Gohei and his dogs, discussing how the town needs money from tourists and that Akakabuto's alleged presence would surely make some of them go "yeah, no" and leave. Gohei doesn't care about the economy, but he does care that a man named Genji from the neighboring town has been mauled under """mysterious""" circumstances.

As the two oldies argue about which is more important, money or human lives, Riki scents and points out the mutilated remains of two wayward tourists, a young man and his girlfriend. He also runs defensively to Gohei's side, snarling wildly. Everyone looks around, confused. Suddenly, a flash of black and red drops from the tree branches above onto the men and dogs. As the men's screams and dogs' cries fill the air, so does a fountain of their blood.

Soon after, forest rangers in helicopters are dispatched to locate and rescue the missing persons and - if they can manage it, no pressure at all - kill the illusive demon bear before he slaughters more innocents. Daisuke watches the helicopters pass overhead and leaps onto his snowmobile, incapable of not getting involved in anything.

He makes a beeline for Gohei's now abandoned camping tent. Finding it empty, he's about to drive off elsewhere when paramedics emerge from the wall of trees beside him. The mayor, bloodied and broken, is being carried on a stretcher. Daisuke runs up to him and asks what happened to Gohei and Riki, to which he's met with a simple "Akakabuto" as the man slips from consciousness.

Daisuke rushes back home to break the news to Fuji and her puppies about what happened to their doghusband and dogdad. Daisuke holds Gin close and insists Riki can't die until he's seen his shiny Pokemon of a son, to which Gin, being literally like a day old, merely whimpers and wiggles. Gazing misty eyed at the puppy, Daisuke changes his mind. Gohei can't be dead. Riki can't be dead. No mere bear could kill a man like Gohei or a dog like Riki.

Ten days pass. Neither Riki nor Gohei's bodies have been found, but the bodies of Gohei's other dogs, Riki's eldest son Aka ("red") and friend Don, have been located by lodge personnel. The animals were mauled so severely that everyone begins giving up the ghost on this whole "finding Gohei alive" business. Besides that, the cacophanic cries from Akakabuto have frightened everyone into leaving the forest, afraid of becoming the next victims. The bear is greatly distressed - his brain damage leaves him unable to rest for more then an hour at a time, let alone hibernate, and being awake during winter is disorienting him. He runs madly around the forest, roaring and swinging his massive claws at anything that moves and also most things that don't.

While the bear plods around wreaking havoc in the night, Daisuke is dreaming. He dreams of the old man and his dog languishing somewhere in the woods, starving to skeletal husks. He dreams that Gohei, in an act of desperation, raises his gun barrel to Riki's head. The old coot, overcome with hunger pangs and a desperation to survive, murmurs an apology to his dog, explaining a dude's gotta eat. He fires off a shot in Riki's skull, killing his closest companion, before tearing savagely into the dog's flesh with his bear hands. And I do mean bear hands, as Gohei begins to turn into Akakabuto, ripping the dog's flesh, then the Earth itself to pieces.

Daisuke awakens beside a sleeping Fuji a moment later. He's absolutely covered in sweat. He laments on how fucked up his dream was as he reaches out and caresses first Fuji, then Riki's puppies, praying that at least the first half of his dream, the half in which Gohei and Riki are still alive, is true.

Unbeknownst to everyone but Daisuke's subconscious, Gohei and Riki are in fact still alive! The two managed to struggle into a ravine just out of the bear's reach, and they've been holed up ever since. Riki's back has been shredded badly, and Gohei's right leg has been broken, mauled, and rendered useless. Gohei has begun to get sick of sitting on his ass incapable of doing anything, and with an ominous glint in his eye, raises the hatchet he had been carrying in his pack above Riki's head, murmuring something about home cooking...

In a twisted, eerie parallel to Daisuke's dream, the old man brings the weapon down, but not on the petrified dog in his lap. Instead, he's sliced through his own injured leg! Having severed the useless limb from the knee down, Gohei demands Riki eat his flesh, regain his energy, and seek help at the village just as he did when he was a youngster. Riki is understandably not for this, and his resistance in the form of wailing and vomiting is loud enough to catch the attention of the red helmeted hellspawn himself. In an effort to protect his even-more-fucked-up-now owner, Riki does indeed gather the last of his energy to throw himself at the bear.

Daisuke's dad begins leading a patrol back into the forest, saying that even if they're dead, Gohei and his dog's bodies can't be left to stink up the woods. Daisuke cuddles a quickly growing Gin as he asks to go, but he's told to stay home with the puppies. After all, Fuji is coming with the crew to find her doghusband and his owner's corpses.

Diasuke pouts for the 5 minutes it takes the men to be entirely out of sight before shoving Gin into his coat and plopping himself into the seat of his snowmobile, once again refusing to be left out of the excitement. Meanwhile, Riki continues his dual with Akakabuto, experiencing the slicing and dicing of a lifetime at the hands of the fiend.

The battle between bear and dog rages on, and fresh blood from both animals spatters the fresh fallen snow. Daisuke, having vroomed on over, catches sight of this historic event from atop a hill, and without a second thought begins driving down towards the bear. He tells Gin to have a look at his father, and once Gin realizes that his dad isn't the big red bear, he's awed at his old man's strength and resilience. This thought is interrupted by Daisuke screaming a one liner and driving over an incline, sending the snowmobile flying right into the bear's face. Daisuke and Gin both bail from the vehicle, and Gin tumbles out of Daisuke's jacket.

Akakabuto appropriately gathers his bearings before lunging at Daisuke, pissed off that a child has bitchslapped him with a small car. Diasuke screams for help as a bloodied, super manly arm yoinks him quickly into the ravine. It's (obviously) Gohei! He's (as we've established) still alive, and frankly very surprised to see Daisuke here! But Riki's still in unsafe territory outside, as is...

Gin! The puppy has tumbled into the bear's path, and he's too slow and uncoordinated to run to safety. Thankfully, Riki has already thrown himself at Akakabuto to save the little lad he's only just met. Daisuke and Gohei watch helplessly as the dual continues, as does a spellbound Gin.

Riki manages to break away from Akakabuto and snag up his son, but the lack of food and the constant stress on his body have taken everything out of him, and he collapses to the forest floor, Gin clutched in his teeth. Daisuke and Gohei call out to him, encourage him to come just a bit further, begging him to save himself and his son, but he just can't do it, even with the knowledge of the puppy's lineage in mind.

In a final heroic act, Riki works every muscle he's got one last time to leap forward just enough so he can yeet his son into the ravine. His effort works, and Gin finds himself safely landing in Daisuke's trembling arms, but it's too late for Riki. As the dog gazes helplessly at his master, his friend, and his child, Akakabuto delivers a final blow to his side. The red bear sends the red dog tumbling off a nearby cliff, and Riki disappears into the black snowy depths below, followed by a trail of blood and Gohei's cries of anguish.

Pissed beyond words, Gohei drags himself out of the ravine, hatchet clenched in his fist. He's just about to tell Akakabuto to 1v1 him scrub, but then everyone hears something. It's the search party come to call, all armed with guns and thermoses of hot cocoa. Akakabuto takes one look at all those shiny boom sticks and high tails it, leaving a madly wailing Gohei behind.

Daisuke emerges from the hole with Gin in his arms, much to his own father's surprise. As the men gather to take the boy, puppy, and old man to safety, Gohei drags himself to the cliffside and weeps openly for the loss of his beloved dog and closest friend.

In a short while, Gohei finds himself on a stretcher all his own. He congratulates Fuji on her litter and Daisuke on his silver brindle puppy, assuring him that Gin will make a fine bear-dog someday. Diasuke is understandably feeling glum as Gohei is carted off to hospital, but he's emboldened by the old man's words, as is his puppy. Gin is too young to speak or even truly understand what's happened, but he knows something lifechanging has taken place.

Several weeks pass. Gin and his siblings grow larger, large enough for Daisuke to initiate training them for their futures as hunting dogs. The boy has masterminded only the most exhausting, trying test of ability for the young animals today: cross a snowy field to get to him. While his siblings flop through the ice like suffocating fish, Gin's intuitive sense of laziness takes him onto the clean-driven road, where he easily makes his way into Daisuke's admiring arms. Daisuke decides that Gin is a veritable puppy prodigy, and he refuses to ever let him go.

Before he can heap more praise onto the puppy, here comes Shinji, one of Diasuke's classmates and closest non-canine friend. Shinji comes bearing news: Gohei has left the hospital at long last. Not because the doctor cleared him to, but because the impatient inpatient insisted he couldn't wait around with his thumb up his ass (or up the wound in his leg) any longer. Akakabuto has only continued to terrorize and traumatize the village folk and their visitors.

This doesn't surprise Daisuke, who is, at anything, glad that someone still has the gumption to do something about That Asshole In The Woods. Gumption doesn't benefit everyone, insists Shinji. Given Gin's a silver brindle and demonstrably the most protagonist-y out of the whole litter, Gohei will surely come to take him someday. He's Riki's son, after all, and now that Riki is gone, someone will have to fill his pawprints.

Daisuke is preemptively heartbroken, remembering back to the first time he saw the elderly man come back into town with his dogs. Gohei had taken a blunt stick and smacked Don around with it for some unknown insolence that transpired during their last hunt. The memory sends Daisuke's stomach and emotions reeling, and he clings to Gin.

Or perhaps his heartbreak was not so preemptive, because Gohei began chugging along towards the ski lodge the moment he left the hospital parking lot. The old man barges in on the boys' conversation and snags Gin up by the scruff of his little neck. Diasuke's dad notices the commotion and busts into it, telling Gohei the doctor demanded he get 6 months more bedrest. Gohei ignores him, instead striking Gin across the face for no reason but to test how pussy the puppy is. This only causes Gin to begin chewing in anger on the old man's fingers, to which the weirdass only grins.

Daisuke isn't happy about his dog being slapped out of nowhere, but Gohei insists it proves Gin's got a fighting spirit, an inherent gameness. Not like those worthless siblings of his, who Gohei proves aren't worthy of being mentioned outside of the first arc ever again by bopping them both in the face as well. To a chorus of squealing, crying puppies, Gohei leaves, carrying Gin away.

As Daisuke cries after Gohei not to kill the dog, the old man carries the puppy out of sight. Gohei takes the puplet to his cabin, showcasing his collection of bear skulls and animal hides. He leans back from his crutches and informs Gin that he'll be trained in much the same way his father was.

Gin doesn't understand what this means until Gohei picks up a stick and starts beating the everloving shit out of him. Daisuke seems to have had a hunch this would happen, because he's followed Gohei home, and the moment he sees what he's doing to Gin, he's even more pissed then the last time he lost a game of Fortnite.

Diasuke can't keep himself from whining about "animal abuse" and how "it's not good to beat infants" and other special snowflakery, to which Gohei responds by deadass picking up his rifle. He reaches down towards the battered Gin, lifts him up beside the barrel, and fires off a shot into an ancient bear skull on one of his shelves, shattering it to splinters. The gun is so GODDAMN LOUD that Daisuke falls back from the noise, and yet the tiny Gin doesn't even flinch. He seems more mystified by the gun then scared of it, a level of comfort that Gohei remarks Riki took a year of training to achieve.

Gohei says that Daisuke can leave whenever he'd like, because this dog is too suited for the job for him to ever surrender him. Daisuke unhappily ceases arguing, but he insists on staying and watching Gin train, to which Gohei just shrugs dismissively.

The next morning, Daisuke awakens in Gohei's cabin to the sound of Gin's whimpering. He rushes outside to find Gohei trying to forcefeed Gin bear flesh, a strong smelling meat with the world's most uninviting texture. When Daisuke tries to interfere, Gohei punches the 10 year old squarely in the jaw, making it ludicrously hard for the audience to appreciate his presence. Gohei insists he's doing this to get Gin acquainted with the enemy's scent and prove to him his will to live, but all Daisuke hears is "wah wah wah me like torture children".

At suppertime that day, Gohei offers Daisuke some of the soup he's made. Daisuke says he refuses to eat until Gin does. Gin has yet to have eaten any bear meat, and Gohei refuses to back down and feed him anything else. Instead, Gohei supplements Daisuke's meal for a story about a dog he owned long before Gin was born.

The dog was a Tosa Inu named Rikiou ("king of power"), and he never knew fear, common sense, or self preservation. The first bear he ever encountered was too big for him to fight off, and, unwilling to back down for even a moment, it killed him. His head was crushed like a grape. Daisuke wavers on what this story means, but he assumes it means that if Gin wants to survive, he'll take the most logical route to do so, and that his aversion to bear meat will likely grant him more respect for bears' power in future. Gohei had no moral in mind tbh. He just likes rambling about his dogs (okay relatable)

The next morning, Daisuke decides he's done watching his puppy's samurai-training and goes home. He's back only long enough to greet his parents when everyone hears a scratching at the window. It's Gin! He followed Daisuke back home! Daisuke takes this as a sign that Gin would rather live with him then with Gohei, but he doesn't receive a chance to make this so.

Gohei comes up from behind the puppy and gives him a swift bop in the side with one of his crutches. He then snags a rope around the little pooch's neck. Gin wails miserably as the old timer takes him back to his cabin for another day of bruising and starving.

Three days later, Daisuke comes to call on Gohei once again, mostly to make sure Gin isn't dead yet. Gin isn't dead, but he IS super weak. Gohei states that the little bugger has stubbornly refused bear flesh for the past few days, which means he's had nothing to eat in nearly a week. Daisuke is at the end of his rope with this insolent boomer and starts kicking and stomping the bear meat around the room.

He straight up tells Gohei to fight him if he doesn't like it when he notices the old man looking past him towards Gin. When Daisuke turns, he realizes that Gin is finally, FINALLY eating! Now that the bear meat's been stomped on, it's soft enough for the little dude to sink his baby teeth into.

Several months pass. One day, Diasuke and Shinji are piddlefarting around town. The two become enraptured with the guns inside a weapons shop. Daisuke thinks out loud about how Akakabuto could easily be defeated if the guy who went after him had a rifle as powerful as these. His train of thought is interrupted by a man and his dog, a German Shepherd, entering the store. The man orders his dog to wait outside, and the animal follows his command with no hesitation.

The boys go to have a better look at the pooch, a young, handsome dog in a brown collar. The dog gazes boredly at the two. Shinji is impressed with the dog's obedience, but since he's neither an Akita nor a brindle, Daisuke couldn't care less.

Tired of gawking at a stranger's dog, the two head back to Gohei's place to peep what Gin's up to. "He's up to eating," Gohei basically says. But what he actually meant was "he's up to learning how to swim without breathing so he can eat the bear meat I've put at the bottom of a water basin". Which, by the way, is what Gin's doing. In fact, Gin will continue doing this exercise of his twice a day every day for several weeks, growing in muscle mass and understanding of how to not die via water inhalation.

In the meantime, Gohei sorta zones out while hovering over Gin's personal swimming pool. He mutters something about Riki training just like this to the boys, to which Shinji politely excuses himself and runs home. God forbid he stay behind to hear an old man ramble.

Daisuke, on the other hand, is a nerd who is intrigued by the knowledge Gohei possesses. He asks what it was like hunting with Riki, to which Gohei chuffs and turns away. He doesn't go into detail about his dog - he's still in mourning - but he does detail what it's like to hunt bears. It's all math and muscle memory, he says, much to Daisuke's disbelief.

Gohei asserts that the simplest way to kill a bear is to abide by The Centre Line Rule, a theory among bear hunters that states that all of a bear's weakest points are down the middle of its body when it's standing erect. Fire a shot off into a bear's chest or gut or forehead from dead center, and you'll learn why it's called "dead" center. Daisuke doesn't know if he believes the boomer, but he rolls the idea around in his head as he watches Gin collect his soggy rations.

After a bit of time passes, Gohei comes to visit Daisuke. He brings little Gin along with him. At first, Gin's siblings are very happy to see him. They rush towards him to play, cheering about how their brother has returned, and he instantly kicks their asses. Gin's siblings are no longer very happy to see him. They run to their mother's side for comfort as Gin comes to a heel at Gohei's leg in an insanely powerful flex on momma's boys everywhere.

Daisuke asks the old hunter what he's doing poking around these here parts, and after scolding him for speaking like a cowboy, Gohei invites him along to watch Gin's first hunting trip. Obviously since something's happening, Daisuke MUST be included.

The three head out to a river gorge nearby to blast some ducks outta the sky. Gohei is taking his sweetass time with aiming and firing, which is very uncharacteristic of him. It soon becomes obvious why, though. As soon as he manages to snipe a bird outta the air, he allows it to fall into the ravine below before commanding Gin to go in after it.

Gin is still too full of vim and vigor to be afraid, so he leaps into the foaming snake of water below, his basin training finally showing some use. From somewhere nearby, a man's voice can be heard barking commands in English, which I cannot transcribe here because I don't speak English.

As Gin braves the rapids, a familiar silhouette also comes down into the gorge. It's another dog, and Daisuke recognizes it! It's the pompous German Shepherd from the weapons shop, and before you can learn how to properly pronounce "nagareboshi", he's snagged Gin's bird up and started making off with it!

Daisuke shouts obscenities at the thieving bastard as Gin follows behind him. For the first time, Gin begins to speak to another dog, though all the humans hear is adorable yipping. Gin tells the dog to let go of his master's kill. The dog makes like he's going to say something sarcastic back, but his mouth is too full to speak.

Instead, the dog continues to bolt, finishing his sprint by climbing to the top of the cliffside and leaping to the other side of the ravine. Little Gin tries to follow suit, but his anime protag powers haven't truly kicked in yet, and instead he ends up missing the mark and tumbling back down into the water below. The shepherd snorts in smug amusement before scampering away.

Gin, Gohei, and Daisuke pack up and start heading home. Gohei is visibly annoyed at the loss of the kill. Even Gin looks forlorn about it. Just as Daisuke begins trying to soothe the two of them, a Jeep drives past. Sitting proudly in the backseat is a dog - the German Shepherd from before! Daisuke and Gin both call out to the thief to return their kill, and the man driving the Jeep stops and gets out to meet them.

Daisuke recognizes the man from the gun shop, but only Gohei knows his name. The young man is called Hidetoshi Sekiguchi, and he's the son of the village mayor, the man who was attacked by Akakabuto alongside Gohei.

Hidetoshi apologizes for the inconvenience regarding the bird, but assures them that it was his kill all along. He tosses the bird's carcass to Daisuke to prove it. The bird's head is missing, clearly having been blasted off its feathery shoulders by the force of a bullet. That bullet came from the shiny, new, powerful-looking rifle Hidetoshi had just purchased.

The young man is a doctor by trade but a hunter at heart, and he's come all the way back from the UK with this new gun and his faithful hunting dog John to kill the bear that mauled his father. Gohei tries to tell Hidetoshi that all the fancy equipment and stuck up canines in the world aren't enough to kill that bear, to which Hidetoshi just patronizingly grins and drives away.

As Hidetoshi and John drive out of sight, Daisuke and Gohei begin heading home. Gin trails a little behind, both spellbound by John's achievement and poise as well as frustrated by his stolen victory. He swears to himself that if he ever sees the GSD again, he won't lose to him once more. He scrunches up his little baby face in determination before following behind the others.

A couple more weeks pass generally uneventfully. Gin continues his training and keeps growing rapidly. Daisuke has tried to keep himself involved in Gin's upbringing, but he's been cooped up inside for a few days now. A blizzard combined with the constant looming threat of Akakabuto makes his parents uncomfy with letting him lollygag around in the woods. So tonight he's chillin' inside with his folks when suddenly they hear an erratic banging at the door. Fuji gets up and snarls, looking more scared then aggressive.

Suddenly, the door flies open and its glass windows, frosted from the cold, shatter. A man tumbles headlong into the living room. A large, bloody gash on the side of his head oozes all over the new rug, horrifying the family for both altruistic and materialistic reasons. Daisuke's father runs to the man's side, trying to keep him awake, while his mother runs to call an ambulance.

The man begins gibbering through bloodied teeth about a monster with a red mane and how his friends and son are still in danger. Daisuke's dad sends his son off to retrieve Gohei, which Daisuke does without skipping a beat because oh my god something he can be involved in, SCORE.

Treading through the snow on his shiny new prosthetic leg, Gohei allows Gin to lead he and Daisuke back to the man. Gohei recognizes him immediately - he's an old hunting buddy, a renowned bear hunter named Shigematsu. Gohei catches the attention of the languishing lad just long enough to see recognition in his eyes before Shigematsu succumbs to his injuries, dying on Daisuke's floor.

Gohei knows he can't stand idly by while Shigematsu's crew are at risk, so he gathers his rifle and his dog and heads out the door. As they leave, Gin looks over his shoulder for an instant at his mother. Fuji gazes longingly at her son as he exits the house. Daisuke and his father follow behind Gohei and head off to gather the same dudes who have been wandering around in the forest looking for bear attack victims for the past several months at this point.

As the group enters the woods, they come across an unexpected sight. It's Hidetoshi and John. Word spread quickly through the village about the man dying from a bear attack, and Hidetoshi wants a chance to fire a few bullets into Akakabuto's ass to make up for his suffering. He joins the men in their hike to Shigematsu's cabin, much to Gin's dismay. Gin still isn't very fond of the callous asshole of a shepherd he's forced to walk beside. John sneers at him, fully aware of how bothersome his presence is.

Meanwhile at Shigematsu's cabin, his remaining friends are trembling and sweating, guns in hand. They know the bear is lurking just outside the cabin somewhere, having a merry little picnic of any men who tried to escape. They inch against the wall only to find it crumbling behind them. A gigantic bear with a red trail of fur down its back roars and swings its mighty paws at the men, shattering their skulls upon impact. Their screams ring through the winter air, entangling with the buzzing of the wind.

By the time the group reaches the cabin, the bear is wandering outside. Gin takes one look at it and leaps into action, ready to be the bear-hound he was meant to be, before tumbling into a snowdrift he can't wiggle out of. John makes fun of the stoopid newb xDDD before using his longer, less silly legs to bumrush the big boogieman of a bear. He snarls and snaps at the predator's face, swiftly dodging his swaying claws.

Gin finally manages to free himself from his strongest enemy yet, the snow, and follows John's example. Only he uses a different source of inspiration for his moves: the memory of his father clinging desperately to the upper side of the bear's snout.

It's already been seen that Gin isn't very agile yet, and the bear takes full advantage of this by smacking him away as if batting at a silver striped fly, sending the puppy squealing into the snow, embarrassed but otherwise unharmed. Daisuke rushes to make sure Gin is alright. The men all open fire on the bear, but the fierce blizzard winds prevent them from getting a good hit on him.

The bear makes a break for it only to be distracted by John. Hidetoshi takes aim while his pet busies the big boy and fires his rifle off square in the animal's chest. The unsteady teddy stumbles with a wail of pain, rolling back into the snow.

As the bear tries to get up once again, Hidetoshi lets loose another bullet into the animal's left eye, finally sending it to bear hell where it belongs. In a moment of catharsis, he lets fly a few more bullets into the dead animal's skull, images of his father's mauled corpse dancing in traumatic fashion around his head. Everyone is still for a moment.

Hidetoshi is about to say something about honor and family or whatever when Gohei interrupts the celebration by pointing out that this animal cannot be Akakabuto. Buty Boy has no right eye, whereas this unlucky fucker had two before getting blown away. Everyone gapes. The striking resemblance the animal has to Akakabuto can only mean one thing: the tyrant has been getting laid, passing his powerful and dangerous genes onto a new generation. A feeling of intense terror spreads through the crowd, and about 50 feet away, a single, glassy eye shimmers in the darkness.

The dogs are shaken from their own stupor by the scent of something wicked this way coming. John and Gin snarl at the large black mass watching the crowd, and the men look to see the forest's resident bastard glaring at them. Akakabuto stares spitefully at the men, taking in all of their scents and faces. His gaze also falls first on the German Shepherd, then on the little silver ball of fur beside it. He can't pinpoint why, but the upstart (pupstart?) looks and smells incredibly familiar.

Furious at the sight of his father's murderer, Gin tries to run towards the hulking mountain of bear. Daisuke snags him up before he can run very far, though, and he settles with barking obscenities at the enemy instead.

Again everyone fires, but it's too late. Akakabuto is wicked fast and not nearly as dumb as his offspring, so he's already gotten the hell outta dodge. Hidetoshi swears out loud, blueballed by fate once again. Gohei tells everyone they'd best go home. Nobody who'd wander into the forest to find that bear at night could make it back out alive, not even him in his golden days.

Everyone begins the chilling, chilly hike to the village. Daisuke sulks coldly in more ways then one, distracted from where he's going by his own dark thoughts about the bear that's been ruining everyone's lives. Because of his lack of focus, the boy takes a nasty fall into a sinkhole the snow covered up, and he finds himself screaming, flailing, and falling into a break in the mountain.

Everyone cries out to him, grabbing at him, but soon he's out of sight. Daisuke shuts up for the first time in his life when his head strikes a rock and knocks him unconscious. He tumbles onto a cliff overhang before truly entering the Earth's core, crumpling into a helpless heap.

All the men are losing their minds over what to do, especially Daddy Daisuke upon realizing the hole is too big for any of the men to squeeze into. Everyone's flipping shit except for Gin, who is gazing longingly into the hole, and Gohei, who is gazing thoughtfully at Gin. The old man has an Aha! moment and throws open his pack to retrieve a rope, which he then firmly secures on Gin's collar.

Everyone stops freaking and asks what he's doing. He rolls his eyes as if it's the most obvious thing in the world - he's sending Gin down to drag Daisuke back up, DUH!

With no better options, the crew send the puppy into the pit. Gin's a pretty clever kid, so he understands his mission well enough. He's lucky, too, and finds Daisuke quickly. He tries to lick the child's face to awaken him, but it doesn't work. Daisuke's alive, but he's out cold. There's no hope of him climbing out himself. So maybe, just maybe...

Gin thinks fast and literally runs circles around the unconscious kid, wrapping the rope tightly around his torso and under his armpits. After a few turns of Ring Around The Search And Rescue Victim, the doglet gives a tug on the rope and a bark up through the tunnel. Nothing happens for a sec sans the sound of unintelligible, excitable speech, but then Gin gets some feedback. The men understood, and they're pulling the rope up.

To keep things really secure, tiny Gin is forced to clench his jaws around the rope and support Daisuke's weight with his neck. His collar digs into the baby fat around his neck, drawing blood, but he refuses to let go of his buddy.

The men give one last hard yoink and pull both of the youngsters out of the sinkhole. Daisuke's dad cradles his child to his chest, announcing that the kid is unconscious but still alive. Everyone cheers while Hidetoshi cradles little Gin, who is also fading from consciousness from exhaustion, to his own chest. Hidetoshi wipes some of the blood from Gin's neck as John watches. John's eyes soften for probably the first time in his life as he sees how Gin has still refused to release the rope. Is this what it's like to be humbled?

Daisuke's eyes slowly flutter open, which elicits another cheer from the emotional crowd. His dad hugs him tightly, gushing tearfully about his son's survival and the little dog's bravery. Upon hearing Diasuke's exhausted response back, Gin's own eyes shoot open and he leaps from Hidetoshi's arms into Daisuke's. He licks the boy's face eagerly, clearing it of the tears that have streamed from it.

Gohei comes to Daisuke's side, his eyes even softer then John's. He reaches down and lifts the puppy up just inches from his face. Gin's tiny tongue flicks out to lick the end of the senior's nose. Gohei brings the dog child to his chest and gives him a gentle hug and a pet on the head. Everyone looks on in disbelief. As long as any of them have known him, Gohei has never pet any of his dogs, let alone hug them. Gohei hands Gin back to Daisuke, allowing the child to hold the puppy close.

As everyone gets ready to head home once more, Daisuke declares his eternal devotion to the silver brindle dog, appreciative of his friendship and forever convinced of his bravery.

----------

End of episode 1, the episode with what’s likely the most non-dog child beating in the series!!! Hope you “””enjoyed””” it!!!

Episode 2: The Invasion

[doktorpeace]

I respect you and your right to have opinions, but also fuck you, Xenoblade 2 is good

I’d rather not spend any time discussing the minor up sides of a Singleplayer Offline Only RPG that has a fucking Gachapon mechanic built in. A Gachapon mechanic that’s a soft buffer for combat progression and also is used to completely remove organic rewards and genuine player experiences based on  exploration compared to 1 and X. Meanwhile it tells a story that is just a stock standard shonen anime plot while sprinkling elements in from a story that desperately wants to be a harem anime but is stuck being in a relatively mainline AAA game instead of some game nobody’s heard of on PSVita or whatever.  Yeah I sure do love going from the themes, environments, and characters of Xenoblade 1 and X which are well written and delivered, if not over the time from time to time, to a game with such classic moments as “Mythra sleepwalked into Rex’s bed haha, I wonder what wacky hijinks will happen now ;)” “Nia randomly falls in love with Rex for no reason and then demoting herself from party member to literally a tool for him to use” and who could forget “ “The Child Robot gets forced into a nearly naked adult styled body with huge tits by her incel creator who all game has forced her to call him master and wear maid outfits.” The game literally never fucking explains shit. It sets up things like the conflict between Uraya and Mor Ardain and then just fucking completely abandons it. Mythra and Malos just have orbital destruction lasers they’re tied to for no fucking reason with no explanation ever. Jin pulls the line “This ability lets me move faster than the speed of light” out of fucking nowhere and it’s meant to be taken seriously. It then bullshits in a fucking 30 minute exposition dump at the end how it’s somehow connected to Xenoblade Chronicles 1 by Fucking Retconning It in a way that has no buildup whatsoever and doesn’t fucking make sense. It constantly tries to string you along by simply leaving out details so you hope it gets explained or resolved later but they never fucking do! They just get dropped or resolved in a flaccid, meaningless way! Jin, the ONLY villain in the game worth anything in terms of intrigue dies unceremoniously with his motive and story largely unexplored and unexplained when Lora dies offscreen in an explosion. Sure makes me want to play Torna, The Golden Country, knowing that it’s just going to lead to that ultimately huh!? Not to mention all the times it just pulls beats or ideas from either previous game without understanding what made it work. You start in a semi-secluded area, go on a job where then something Bad Happens but this time the main character almost dies instead of a girl, then go to big fucking grassland and then go to a fucking swamp that glows at night. Then you go to the only actually unique environment concept in the game with Mor Ardain and wow! That area is actually fun and memorable and I like Mòrag Ladair and Brighid they deserved to be in a good game! Then you go to a series of floating islands and then you go to a Cold Place That’s Really Vertically Built And Has Ruins In It! LIKE XENOBLADE 1 GUYS, REMEMBER THAT GAME!? “Mythra can see the future a little bit” *nudge nudge* Just like Xenoblade 1 remember! Remember that game!? “Malos has the Monado in these two fights for no reason.” GET IT, JUST LIKE XENOBLADE 1 REMEMBER!? THE ARCHITECT IS KLAUS, YOU KNOW, THE GUY FROM FUCKING XENOBLADE 1, REMEMBER!?!?!? The scene where Vandham dies is so fucking forced. I had had my misgivings before this but was still hoping it would improve but then I got to this scene and knew the rest of the game would just be Like This. Both Mythra AND Nia could have just fucking done something to prevent it. Nia is at least given a LITTLE BIT of a reason to not have (even though she IMMEDIATELY AFTER THIS REVEALS HER FUCKING SECRET TO EVERYONE BUT REX NULLIFYING THAT REASON) but Mythra sure fucking don’t have one. Oh and speaking of Vandham this game goes out of its way to stop literally every fucking story important boss and tell you Why You’re Actually Losing This Fight midway through even if you’re busting their fucking ass. Anytime a boss fight gets interrupted by a cutscene in Xenoblade 1 the boss either Escapes or Fucking Dies except for Dickson. Dickson is the ONLY ONE where that isn’t what happens so it at least feels SOMEWHAT earned. If the game wants you to lose a fight for story purposes it actually supplies a mechanical reason to the gameplay so you, the player, can feel the powerlessness that the characters do in that moment! I have never in my LIFE, hope against hope, wanted to enjoy a game more than I did with Xenoblade 2. It was meant to be a sequel to a game that I could easily put in my top 3 of all time, any day of the week, so I wanted to fucking like it even if the early trailers and art style had me worried! I tried so fucking hard, I ended up doing most of the game’s content and beat all the superbosses and shit trying to ultimately come out with a positive view on it and I fucking couldn’t! NEVER has a game or piece of media disappointed me in the way Xenoblade 2 did by simply being a bad fucking experience that has no business associating with its alleged IP. It is so severely different from not only the other to -Blade games but from the entire Xeno- franchise that it boggles my fucking mind that it’s even considered apart of the same greater IP. Ask any of my friends, I play video games to have fun. I love diving deeper into their themes and discussing the comparative merits of different entries. I make it a point to try and enjoy games for what they bring to the table, even pretty mediocre games I can sit down with and have some fun by learning more about its mechanics and just having a nice little time! But not this fucking game! Not fucking Xenoblade 2. 

And, I know this was a long post. I know it was and I know it’s scathing because after a few years I still can’t let this shit go. But I’m not trying to make it so you, anon, or anyone else who likes this game, feels like they are obliged to agree with me or not like the game. I don’t want to take away what good experiences others have had with it but I do think it’s completely fair for me to be able to express the experiences and feelings I had and have kept with me after playing it. Have your fun, that’s fine, I won’t and don’t want to stop you. But in the same way I despise this game and I’m not gonna shy away from saying so.

[theyearoftheking]

Book Thirty: The Dark Half

“Stark reached out, not physically, but with his mind, and seized that disappearing tail of Thad’s mental probe. In the eye of Stark’s own mind it looked like a worm, a fat white maggot deliriously stuffed with offal and decay...”

So, let me tell you about the dark half inhabiting my house... a little over a year ago, we decided to get Waverly, our beautiful golden rescue pet angel, a friend. She loved spending time with her dog cousins, and would sink into a deep depression when we’d bring her back home again. Seriously. Look at this beautiful face. She is truly an angel in dog form.

So, we found a rescue beagle (my daughter’s alleged dream dog of the week). 

Y’all.

I was not prepared for beagle life. Biscuit Beast tore through two different cages, pooped (and smeared it!) everywhere, and chewed up everything from Legos, to Ugg boots to video game controllers. And the sight of a pom-pom on a hat makes her crazy with uncontrolled chewing fueled rage. She was an absolute menace. We tried everything from melatonin, to CBD oil, to just flat-out not leaving the house. She is a lovely, cuddly dog... but her mouth gets her in trouble every time. 

And then quarantine happened. Biscuit Beast has been thrilled to have her people home with her 24/7 all day, every day. Lots of cuddles, walks around the neighborhood, and all the personal interaction a beagle could ask for. We even left on two short jaunts, and she didn’t chew anything. She received all the praise for being the best dog in the world.

And then yesterday, I walk upstairs to find this. She gnawed my copy of The Dark Half like it was a t-bone. And it made no sense. We had been home with her all day, she had a long walk around the lake, and plenty of attention. But her dark half just can’t be tamed. Oh, Biscuit Beast. To know beagles is to love them. 

Biscuit Beast may destroy everything she can wrap her strong little jaw around, but at least she’s not violently killing people, and threatening lives everywhere she goes, unlike George Stark in The Dark Half. I guess I’ve got that going for me?

The Dark Half was fun. It was my first time reading it, and you could almost hear Steve whispering, “Wouldn’t it be funny if Richard Bachman came to life and became my murderous alter-ego?” The author’s note actually reads, “I’m indebted to the late Richard Bachman for his help and inspiration. This novel could not have been written without him.” 

It makes you wonder what the relationship between an author and his pseudonym is like. Is it dark? Does it take you in directions you don’t expect? Do you end up resenting the pseudonym for contractually forcing you to write books outside your comfort zone? Steve had created an entire biography for Bachman, and seemed almost gleeful about killing him; not unlike Thad Beaumont, the main character in The Dark Half. 

The book opens with child Thad, who is suffering from horrible headaches and seizures. He goes in for surgery, and the neurologist finds remains of a fetus in Thad’s head: an eye, part of a nostril, three fingernails and two teeth. *Shudder*

Thad grows up to become a relatively famous writer, and we find him reading a People magazine article discussing how he “killed” his pseudonym, George Stark. The article even includes a picture of Thad and his wife, Liz, standing on Stark’s grave. His gravestone reads, “Not a Very Nice Guy”. Thad seems equally amused and embarrassed by the article; and quickly brushes it to the side in order to help his wife care for their adorable twins, Wendy and William. 

Then, shit gets weird. The police show up on Thad’s doorstep, ready to arrest him for a brutal, local murder they’re confident he committed. After all, his fingerprints are all over the crime scene. There’s only one small problem: Thad has an iron-clad alibi for the night of the murder, with witnesses galore attesting to his presence. 

The police are thrown. 

Meanwhile, several more brutal murders are committed in New York City, including a young man who had figured out the Thad/George connection, and was attempting to blackmail him. Written in blood on his wall is the phrase, “The Sparrows are Flying Again”. The other murder victims are all people who were associated with the People magazine article. Very strange. 

But Thad is starting to put some pieces together. In his office, he also finds the words, “The Sparrows are Flying Again” randomly scratched on a piece of paper. It reminds him of when he was a kid, and the sounds of birdsong would precede one of his bad headaches. He has his suspicions about who the real murderer is. He makes the logical jump that it has to be his pseudonym, George Stark. Because, who else would it be?

Spoiler: It’s George Stark! 

George calls him from one of the murder scenes to gloat, and basically tells Thad he’s not ready to be dead yet. And Thad needs to get started on his next Stark novel. George doesn’t have a lot of time left... his body is starting to deteriorate into a gross mess, and unless Thad starts writing, George is going to (literally) waste away. 

So, George ends up kidnapping Liz and the kids, and takes them to their Maine cottage, where he holds them hostage until Thad starts working on his next novel. Thad starts writing, which causes George to heal, and Thad to take on George’s ailments. There’s some negative, co-dependent symbiosis going on here. Eventually, Thad stops writing, and summons billions of sparrows to bust in the house and peck George to death, before carrying him off to the depths of hell. 

Why sparrows? Well, because they’re psychopomps of course! For those not versed in ancient Greek, psychopomp means, “guide of souls.” According to Thad’s fellow professor, Rawlie DeLesseps, “...those who conduct. In this case, those who conduct human souls back and forth between the land of the living and the land of the dead... Gatherings of sparrows are rather more ominous... sparrows are said to be the outriders of the deceased... which means their job is to guide lost souls back into the land of the living. They are, in other words, the harbingers of the living dead...” 

 Y’all... there is so much going on here. Is George a metaphor for Steve’s drug addiction? Think about it... the more it took over, the sicker Steve got. And it kept him from doing the kind of writing he always wanted to do (novels like this, compared to dung-heaps like The Tommyknockers). Once his addiction was banished and dragged back to hell, he was reunited with his family and kids. Maybe a little bit of a stretch, but thought provoking. 

I really liked this novel; it was tightly edited and well written, it kept my attention and it gave me a glimpse into Steve’s crazy brain. And it had some fun Castle Rock mentions... like that time George Bannerman helped solve that string of nasty murders (The Dead Zone), only to be taken out by a rabid dog (Cujo). Rest in peace, George. 

No Dark Tower or Wisconsin mentions, just good, clean, Steve fun. 

Total Wisconsin Mentions: 24

Total Dark Tower References: 22

Book Grade: B+

Rebecca’s Definitive Ranking of Stephen King Books

The Talisman: A+

Misery: A+

Different Seasons: A+

It: A+

The Shining: A-

The Stand: A-

The Drawing of the Three: A-

Nightmares in the Sky: B+

The Dark Half: B+

Skeleton Crew: B+

The Dead Zone: B+

‘Salem’s Lot: B+

Carrie: B+

Creepshow: B+

Cycle of the Werewolf: B-

Danse Macabre: B-

The Running Man: C+

Thinner: C+

Dark Visions: C+

The Eyes of the Dragon: C+

The Long Walk: C+

The Gunslinger: C+

Pet Sematary: C+

Firestarter: C+

Rage: C

Cujo: C-

Nightshift: C-

Roadwork: D

Christine: D

The Tommyknockers: D-

Next up is Four Past Midnight, another collection I’ve thumbed through. Four Past Midnight contains classics like The Langoliers and Secret Window, Secret Garden; which was an excellent movie. When I started reading The Dark Half, my husband told me what a great movie it was. I asked him for the plot, to see if it was similar to the book, or a Lawnmower Man type situation. He then proceeded to give me the entire plot of The Secret Window. And tried to convince me they were basically the same story. I’m going to reserve judgement. So, stay tuned for that. I hope everyone is staying healthy, washing hands and wearing masks. 

Until next time, Long Days and Pleasant Nights,

Rebecca

[lsnghyns]

some of y'all...

look, i fucking get it. how can i not? i've invested so much time and money in seungri, but it's not just about dividends paid - i invested in him, the person, even moreso than i probably ever did his music/talent/whatever. i've waxed poetic about him and defended him til i was blue in the face whenever the topic of him being underappreciated/overlooked as compared to everyone else in bigbang was brought up. in that sense, i've been a part of the same infantilization of him that's happening now.

but at the end of day, he's a grown fucking man. he doesn't need me or anyone else on tumblr dot com or twitter dot com or wherever the hell else to speak on his behalf or defend any of his actions because he's a 28 turning 29 year old adult who should have learned all about accountability and consequences by now. quite frankly, if all the allegations against him turn out to be true, then neither does he deserve it.

i see so many of you saying that you're not taking his side, that you want to remain neutral until an official sentence is handed out, and then at a turn saying that you're so worried for seungri and that you hope he's doing well and that he deserves better etc etc. that's not neutrality lol. that's you guys taking a side, whether youre aware of it or not. to get all bent out of shape whenever someone calls him a piece of shit is you taking a side; to say that him being "made" to quit bigbang is unfair is you taking a side. all of this information being dug up about literal prostitution rings/breeding grounds for sexual assault, and your first and foremost worry is about seungri's wellbeing? what about the victims? all the women whose wellbeing has been compromised, through no fault of their own (unlike seungri, if the allegations turn out to be true)? what about how they're feeling, what they deserve? not to mention that there IS actual proof out there, building and building, and still some of you are doing the absolute most with the mental gymnastics and claiming that it's stil all just a ploy to tarnish his name.

idols aren't perfect, yeah, true, but who in the ever loving fuck was asking him or other idols to be perfect in the first place? they're allowed to be human, just like the rest of us, but they're also asked, just like the rest of us, to be decent as well. what seungri's being accused of - that goes beyond fallibility/being human. that's a serious act of cruelty and immorality that's inhumane, and i cannot, in good conscience, overlook it as some minor ~problematic~ flaw that should keep the "CANCELLED!!!" crew at bay. this isn't gd and top smoking a doobie with the broskis every now and then in their spare time - this is seungri being accused of complicity, if not willful participation, in the sexual molestation and degradation of numerous - NUMEROUS - women.

i'll probably get the usual braindead reaction claiming that i'm a "fake fan" or "good riddance" or that im "deserting him in his time of need", like any of that shit actually matters in light of everything that's being uncovered; as if it's not as difficult for me to process the fact that the guy i've spent so much time and money and energy supporting wholeheartedly could end up being a reprehensible scumbag, as if i actually enjoy watching sickening news like this be associated with his name. but what i, or any other fan of his, am feeling, doesn't even begin to compare to what the victims have gone through in this whole ordeal. so i'm not going to be guilted for dropping a guy who's looking more and more likely to have committed heinous crimes, and i'm not going to feel bad about wanting to believe the victims first rather than continuing to coddle a grown ass man who i don't know and doesn't know me. if your main priority in this right now is seungri, then i legitimately don't know what to say besides i hope you guys find more empathy in your hearts for victims of sexual abuse and that you achieve that elusive peace of mind that you've all wished seungri to achieve in this moment.

[donnerpartyofone]

i just got a whole bunch of new followers on letterboxd, and checking out who they all are really reminded me of why i don’t follow too many people on letterboxd. bad amateur writing is hard to enjoy even ironically, but there’s something about bad film writing that’s really harmful. i have hate-read so many of this one guy’s reviews that i feel embarrassed about it now. he describes himself as an “arthouse manager”, which i assume means he runs a theater, but it bothers me because nobody says “let’s go out to the arthouse tonight” without the word “theater” in there, it’s just unnatural and pretentious. so that’s red flag #1 right in his description, which is followed by red flag #2 about how he hates modern media, as if being a luddite or nostalgia freak automatically means you’re a sensitive genius. it’s probably worth mentioning a sub-red flag, which is that he also says he’s 27 years old, which has to mean that he either wants to be congratulated for being precocious somehow, or he thinks he’s going to get laid off this movie website where you can’t even post pictures of yourself, or both, i mean who fucking cares how old you are anyway, for what reason? then the first review is of DAYS OF BEING WILD, in which he describes Wong Kar-Wai as “seeking to understand what draws women to shitty, emotionally unavailable men”; i mean imagine being so full of shit that you project your own sullen incel-y “UGH WHY DO GIRLS ONLY LIKE BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH” garbage onto whatever revered works of art show up on your tv screen? this guy goes on to reveal himself in almost a strip tease fashion across many of his reviews, breaking up his pompous analyses with macho mindbenders like “i have often said that being horny is the point of life” and biographical information like about his manipulative alcoholic father. i’m not trying to say that everybody with a delinquent or dysfunctional parent is destined to have idiotic and serial killerish attitudes about intimacy, because that would condemn pretty much all of us. but, i am sadly familiar with solipsistic assholes who brandish their alleged intellectual superiority in one fist while beating the dust out of their childhood traumas with the other, and just seeing his smug letterboxd reviews tells me everything i need to know about him. hopefully he just followed me in a spammy way to get attention and will never interact, or maybe i’ll say something he finds politically disagreeable and he’ll go away.

honestly finding anybody worth following on letterboxd is kind of hard. it can be nice to read stuff by people who are just having fun and shooting straight about what they’re watching, but the site is filled with wannabe J Hobermans and Lester Bangses who are just out to prove that they own a thesaurus. they’re practically all dudes, you can smell the old spice and maker’s mark wafting out of your laptop fan when you read some of this chest-pounding nonsense. not all of them have such toxic things to say as the aforementioned douchebag, but there’s a real preponderance of users who seem to think they’re reinventing the language. the sad thing is when they really like MY writing. there’s this guy i follow who i think used to write fairly clearly, but now everything he posts looks like a burroughs cut-up with really avant garde ideas about punctuation and adjectives, and unfortunately, i think it’s on purpose. i’d unfollow him, but i feel like i can’t, because he is as nice as literally anyone has ever been about my writing. he goes so far as to give me a hard time about why i’m not a professional film critic, he’s like a ~fan~...and then i gotta ask myself, how much is my writing like HIS writing? this is where the difficulties of letterboxd start to feel worth while, in a masochistic kind of way. like, how often do i write in the same wanky bombastic fashion as these shitty little internet valedictorians who i hate so much? probably a lot! i don’t like feeling that way but i have to admit that i’m grateful for the opportunity to check myself, and possibly improve.

however good or bad i am, letterboxd is still a better place to write than tumblr. i mean tumblr is less than optimal for long form writing anyway, but it’s also a question of who the majority population is here. the other day i got a comment on a pretty old post i wrote about ANNIHILATION, a movie i found kind of smarmy and shallow. the commenter said that my points about the movie were good, BUT they would all be negated by the content of the novels on which the movie is based, and they wanted to know why i deliberately omitted this material from my analysis, as if this were a conspiracy to be unraveled. they actually asked me what the point of my post was, like what was my goal in writing only what i wrote and leaving all kinds of things out. basically. this person COULD NOT UNDERSTAND THE IDEA OF A MOVIE REVIEW. i answered them, because they had tried hard to be polite, that my movie review blog is just for movie reviews, in which i talk about what i think about movies i watch. i’m not pursuing everything related to certain intellectual properties, nor am i invested in the logic and content of Extended Universes of whatever individual movies i’m watching. i’m not mad at this person, who was asking an honest question, but i was completely dumbfounded by the question itself. i mean imagine being SO INVESTED in fandom as like a type of lifestyle that you don’t know what a movie review is anymore? like every piece of media is regarded as some sort of municipality, that belongs to a state, and is governed by certain people, and its characters are like Real People who are available for friendship, dating and more. no piece of media is just entertainment, or even an artistic statement anymore. for this person, watching a movie is something like studying civic infrastructure, except with more DIY alterations and more fetishizing of gay men. i keep trying to imagine reading three paragraphs about some middling hollywood movie that amounts to something like “i did not enjoy watching this film,” and just having no personal frame of reference AT ALL for what it means when somebody writes that down. like just not knowing what a movie review is at all, and asking the author to explain the meaning of the bizarre behavior of saying you thought some movie sucked.

why DOES anybody write about movies though? if i don’t find it normal or desirable to watch everything with an exclusive filter for who do you want to fuck and who do you want to see fucking each other, then what else am i getting at? surely i don’t see myself as a potential roger ebert or leonard maltin, especially considering the extremely limited number of celebrity film critics in the history of mankind. i’m also not Pro- the idea of sorting all movies according to some rigid standards of technical quality and deservingness, like anybody needs me to grade them after they’ve performed the nearly impossible-seeming task of even making one single movie to begin with. sometimes i stupidly start complaining about stupid responses to my writing that i get once in a while from the internet, and my shrink asks me, “what are you up to when you post this writing?” she always says i’m “up to something” when i seem to be following but willfully ignoring my subconscious drives, which i think is pretty funny. but i don’t think i’m pursuing feelings of superiority, over movies or other writers. i think i’m just trying to figure out what movies are trying to say about human existence--and they all are trying to say something, are motivated by some angst, even the really insulting ones that only offer up wish fulfillment pablum. i’m constantly trying and failing to figure out my own existence, and i must sense that attempting to decipher movies is one way of getting closer to decoding my own experiences.

and on that note, now i have to complain about the fact that Lyft’s driver rating system includes “fun conversation” as one of the four factors in giving someone five stars. i rarely want a stranger to try to force me to talk to them, especially at 4am when i’m headed to the airport under a miserable pile of luggage. even so, i recently got into a car in such a state, with a guy who was clearly going for that five star rating, babbling loudly and convulsively at me all the way to my terminal. it would be one thing if he were just trying to be nice, but he was giving me shit about everything from my pickup location to what i had done in his fair city for a week and a half. i did not immediately volunteer how many movies i had seen at the festival i attended, because i probably intuited that when he did make me tell him, he would inform me that he doesn’t need to watch movies, because “I WATCH *LIFE*, MAN!!!” the irony was that this guy clearly didn’t watch life at all; he didn’t even have the ability to discern that i didn’t want to talk, or that i didn’t want him to insult my favorite leisure activity, and that probably NOBODY wants to listen to him talk about his shitty generic blues rock band for half an hour before 5am. so that’s the one thing i can say for even the most obnoxious reviewer on letterboxd--that probably they are TRYING to hone the art of observation, a dying skill. probably they are TRYING to train themselves to be an active audience that engages thoughtfully with the movie instead of just hucking rotten tomatoes at the screen OR passively allowing it to wash over them. even if i often hate the results, at least some of these guys seem be making an effort.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

·         Did it ever occur to OP that the reason that people say the exact same shit whenever Spidey comes up in the media is because the exact same problems keep appearing!

·         Yes people COMPLAIN about the exact same shit....because there is continuously the exact same problem warranting complaint.

·         ‘People going into MCU Spidey movies don’t understand what they want from the MCU version’. Wow. Just...wow. Elitist much? Condescending much? Holy shit. It’s fairly simple what people want. They want to be entertained by a rendition of the character that is on a spiritual level fundamentally respectful of the character and his original intentions. Case in point, MCU Captain America has differences from the comic books, Bucky for example was his teen sidekick not his BFF of the same age. But that didn’t matter because the biggest point was Bucky was still his best friend in both versions and his death still rocked him. Iron Dad and Iron Man Junior is proveably against that original spirit for the character because Spider-Man was created specifically to NOT have that kind of dynamic at all but be independent. He can interact with other heroes, there was even a whole comic book dedicated to that. But he was nobody’s junior. He didn’t answer to anyone. He wasn’t being written to resemble any other superhero. Oh and another teeny tiny thing that’s part of the spirit of Spider-Man? Uncle Ben is his Dad. Tony Stark isn’t Uncle Ben.

·         Also nice research there buddy. ‘Spider-Man has been a character for over 60 years now’ I get you were not 100% on it. But you couldn’t even quickly google the year he was created? 1962. He’s 56 going on 57.

·         Yes. Spider-Man has had many different interpretations and versions. That’s not an excuse to do anything. There is a reason some of those interpretations and versions WERE BAD! I honestly cannot fathom this thinking ‘This happened in the past therefore it’s okay for it to happen again’. Okay cool so it’d be fine and dandy if Spider-Man was revealed to be a clone then smacked his pregnant wife around would it? It’d be fine if he was stranded on another planet ruled by furries would it? Why not. That’s an interpretation of Spider-Man right? Oh wait no they aren’t that is why the word ‘MISinterpretation’ exists

·         The reason fanboys and fangirls (I will give it to him at least he didn’t pretend fangirls don’t exist and that only men could be the problem) say MCU Spidey isn’t right is because he literally isn’t. Characters aren’t playdough, you can’t contort them into any and every shape and still call it the character

·         Also how messed up do you have to be to subtextually imply that no one complained abut any version of Spider-Man before the MCU. As if people didn’t complain about the Nick Hammond TV show or Spider-Man Unlimited

·         ‘What even is right’. Right is anything that respects the fundamental defining concept and themes of the character as originally envisioned. I.e. a grounded, relatively realistic super hero with relatable problems who was smart, in poor financial shape, his own man s a superhero and fundamentally driven by responsibility and guilt stemming from his father figure’s death that he could’ve prevented had he used his powers altruistically and not selfishly. That’s it. That’s what’s right. That allows plenty of room for interpretation but it also defines a fundamental bedrock to respect

·         Spider-Verse isn’t a comment on every interpretation of Spider-Man. it’s saying anyone can be Spider-Man, as in we all have the capacity to be heroes and use whatever power we have responsibility to help others.  So...who missed the point again?

·         This also pretends like every character in that movie is an interpretation of Spider-Man. They aren’t. They are altered versions that deliberately exist within the context of audience familiarity. Spider-Man: Noir is not an interpretation of Peter Parker. He isn’t someone looking at Spider-Man’s source material and saying ‘You know what is a hot take on this? A 1930s hard boiled detective kinda guy’. That’s just taking the character of Spider-Man and then overlaying traditionally Pulp//noir elements OVER him. Like you could interpret Halmet in such a way you set it in the modern day. But when you do Hamlet but he’s a teen girl in a mech suit then that’s not an interpretation, that’s an interpretation over layed with something else. Like there is a fucking reason in Spider-Verse they present you with versions of Peter Parker who ARE closer to the original version and wherein characters like Gwen and Miles were not versions of Peter Parker. Miles is his own character. Gwen is her own character. MCU Spider-Man isn’t his own character. He is supposed to be Peter Parker. And he isn’t.

·         There is a difference between a fucking Elseworlds take on Spider-Man where he is like a Medieval Knight and an adaptation of him like the Spec cartoon or the 1994 cartoon or the pre-MCU movies

·         Whether MCU Spider-Man has depth or not isn’t the discussion. I’ve not thought about it to be honest. Maybe he does have depth. But that’s not people’s problems. People’s problems is that his character (regardless of how deep it is) ISN’T Spider-Man’s character.

·         Wait what? MCU Spider-Man has depth it’s just less obvious than in the older movies because they are focussing upon reintroducing him....huh? Putting aside how character depth is something you usually always focus on...why focus on reintroducing a character we already know over making him a character of depth? We already know who he is. Isn’t that why we didn’t do the origin again

·         ‘MCU Spider-Man’s depth comes from being Iron man’s understudy and Iron Man is now dead’ Yes...and that is the problem. Because Spider-Man was created to NOT be anyone’s understudy

·         ‘We are going to see how Peter responded Uncle Ben through the lens of Tony Stark’....wtf is this guy talking about? WTF does that even mean? Tony could never be portrayed even metaphorically as ‘that Uncle Ben figure’ for Peter because the whole conceit about Uncle Ben’s death and it’s impact on Spider-Man was that IT WAS PETER’S FAULT! Tony’s death WASN’T Peter’s fault. Not to mention Tony wasn’t his Dad! Uncle Ben was. Like how broken does your understanding of Spider-Man have to be that you honestly think that Spider-Man simply responding to any loved one dying is the deal with Uncle Ben.

·         We don’t know if Peter will be literally Iron Man Junior by the end of the movie. But the objections are that at any point in this movie  the idea of Peter being Iron Man Junior is a defining part of his story because that actively has no place in Spider-Man’s story! It’s literally against THE POINT of his character!

·         ‘The movie’s message is going to be that he doesn’t need to be Iron Man but Spider-Man?’ According to what? Maybe that will be the message the movie sends but the OP hasn’t seen the movie and couldn’t therefore know that. all we have are the trailers and the trailers don’t say that at all. They have Happy telling Peter Tony died knowing he’d be there to pick up the pieces. Peter saying the world needs the next iron man. Fury asking if he’s going to step up to fill Tony’s shoes. That’s the OPPOSITE of the message OP is alleging the movie will have

·         ‘If it’s MCU Spider-Man then it’s not the real Spider-Man’....yeah....no lies detected

·         ‘There is no such thing as the real Spider-Man’ Gerry Conway, Steve Ditko and Stan Lee would disagree. Real Spider-Man is the original Spider-Man. how could he not be when it’s the version every other version comes from and bases itself on to some extent. The version that made him popular. Also that’s not the issue. It’s not the issue that people are complaining it isn’t 1:1 the same as the comics but that it violates THE POINT of the comic book version!

·         ‘There is no definitive Spider-Man’ say OP over an image of the single most iconic Spider-Man story of all time written and drawn by his original creators

·         ‘My interpretation of Spider-Man is different to your interpretation’...Jesus.....there is a reason the word ‘misinterpretation’ exists. An interpretation can be wrong. And other interpretations are only as valid as the evidence you can bring to bear in support of them. If you write Hamlet like Macbeth you’ve misinterpreted Hamlet. If you argue Macbeth saw Banquo’s literal ghost or it was all in his head both are valid interpretations, but arguing it was aliens holographically projecting Banquo’s ghost into his head is not because there is no evidence supporting that

·         So whilst we might all have different interpretations of Spider-Man that doesn’t mean we are all right. E.g. when OP says he thinks the MCU movies have the essence of Spider-Man he is essentially admitting he doesn’t know what the fuck the essence of Spider-Man is

·         ‘Maybe just let go of things’ Oh fuck off. This rendition of Spider-Man causes problems within the fandom because Marvel imposes upon other versions of the character (including the original version) elements from that version. They contort those other versions. And it’s disrespectful to the original fanbase who made Spider-Man popular enough to WARRANT him appearing in movies in the first place. We supported a character who represented a particular philosophy and side of the human experience and that made the brand successful enough to be turned into a movie which was then contorted to be nothing like that.

·         Imagine being so deluded that you say that people who dislike MCU Spider-Man because he goes against the essence of the original character are not in the same group as those who do not ‘genuinely’ like this version of the character

·         Plenty of people are willing to accept a new interpretation of Spider-Man. Most Spider-man fans enjoyed the Raimi movie which was a new interpretation. Most fans loved Into the Spider-Verse. Most fans loved the ps4 video game which was in fact based upon stories most fans didn’t even like. But there is a line in the sand between a new interpretation and ‘this is literally just the character in name only’. That line in the sand is the point where Peter Parker (aside from the visuals) is based upon Miles Morales, has Iron Man in place of Uncle Ben and is akin to his sidekick

·         People don’t have a rigid structured mentality towards Spider-Man. they literally just want ‘normal kid, nobody’s sidekick, uncle ben is his dead Dad, great power=great responsibility’ respected. That’s it. that’s all. Nobody is demanding that Peter live in the 1960s. Nobody is saying Peter shouldn’t interact with other superheroes. They are simply saying ‘can you maybe respect the defining themes of this character, the entire point behind his creation please’. Like if they created a version of Punisher who doesn’t kill, is never implied to kill and is motivated to reform criminals would you be saying you are just too rigid to enjoy that interpretation because Punisher isn’t murdering criminals

·         Imagine being so delusional you think Venom is a version of Spider-Man instead of you know...Venom

·         The OP’s problem is that he is treat the mere existence of ANY version of Spider-Man as valid versions. They aren’t. I loved Venom but it was aweful. It was an aweful take on Venom and if you treat it as a version of Spider-Man it was even worse.

·         Imagine being so up yourself you declare people wanting Spider-Man to be...like Spider-Man...as ‘whining’.

·         It boils down to this. The argument OP is making is that every interpretation is valid, Spider-Man can be anything. Which is another way of saying....Spider-Man is nothing.

·         ‘Just accept new interpretations’ I don’t accept crap and neither should you.

·         How the fuck is someone saying they dislike MCU Spider-Man because it violates the spirit of the character NOT them saying ‘it’s not my cup of tea’

[cherryfloyd-blog]

Jimmy Page - Behind Closed Doors

There are so many cookie crumbs to this story and I truly put as much research into this as my brain could handle. What started as a fun idea, soon turned into a late night adventure of notes sprawled across my bed, snacks to keep the energy going, glasses on; with a pen sticking of my mouth as I thumbed through as many pages of literature that I could get my hands on. There are several parts of this but for the sake of remaining unbiased I will keep it as straightforward and simple as I can. There has been a rumour floating around for fifty odd years, that Led Zeppelin; more specifically Jimmy Page, had made a deal with the devil. In this article, I will break down the events that have lead people to believe such things. In the end, it will remain impartial and will be open to interpretation which we can discuss further.

 To begin, let’s talk about Jimmy’s growing idolisation and obsession with Aleister Crowley, famous for being an occult leader and magician. For more back story, Crowley was a British occultist who became known for pioneering the practice of black magic (or magick as he would call it). Aleister called himself Beast 666 and wrote literature on black magic and the occult, making him a major cult figure. He joined a few popular organizations to begin with, but ventured off into his own self created philosophy. Crowley believed himself to be the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into  the Eon of Horus, thus founding the Religion of Thelema. 

(Below is the logo of Thelema)

Pictures of Crowley have since been discreetly used in pop culture, as if a small tribute. For example; The Beatles featured Crowley on their album cover art for Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club, he can be seen in the back row, if I’m correct. Building off of Page’s affinity for Crowley, which began to noticeably build by the mid to late 60’s, Page financed to own a bookstore in Britain which specialized in selling publishings of the occult and black magik. Needless to say, Jimmy was in deep at this point but still only scratching the surface of infatuation. The bookstore was named “The Equinox” which was also the name of a book that Crowley himself had written on the occult and magic. To this day, Jimmy Page has the second largest collection of Crowley memorabilia and literature, which is no small expense. His bookstore is now closed, but back in the day had been in stock of some very pricey and hard to come by black magik publications.

Another thing I found interesting, was Page being heavily influenced by very iconic blues artists, such as Robert Leroy Johnson (okay, maybe not that interesting, everyone in rock cites him as being the backbone of rock n roll today) nonetheless, Johnson died at the age of 27 from unsolved and suspicious causes. He never became famous while he was alive, but rumour has it that Johnson had also sold his soul to the devil in return for fame, at a crossroads, which Robert mentions in a few songs. A very small, unrelated tidbit of information, but it makes you wonder if our rock star idols gave up more than a normal life, to become internationally loved and recognized.

Around the year 1970, Jimmy had supposedly asked the band to perform a ritual with him, one that would bring them power and something along the lines of everlasting life? I know right, no biggie, just dabbling with some dark forces. Anyone that knows black magik, can tell you that spells like this are not something to be taken lightly or messed with. John Paul Jones was allegedly the only one to not take part in this pact, which you’ll later realize why that makes all of this so much more strange than it already is. If you think about it, had they made such a pact it would make sense. Robert Plant has made it to the list of top 100 best singers of all time in Rock history, not only that but made it to number one (1). Jimmy Page? Well he’s seen as a god and legend by almost every guitar player in the modern world, and has been ranked number two, only one spot behind Jimi Hendrix. John Bonham has been recognized as one of the best double kick drummers in history, quite literally, every drummer looks up to him as also an almost god like figure. As for John Paul Jones? There is no doubt the man is wicked talented, but not nearly as talked about or famed. We can all acknowledge the man has serious talent, and yet seems to be left in the shadows of his peers.

The first evidence of this pact can be seen with the album Led Zeppelin III, between the end of the last song and the paper label is the outro groove written into the vinyl was “So mote it be” on one side and “Do what thou wilt” on the other. The are basic phrases that are the core of Crowley’s belief system. By this point people were determined that Jimmy had become a member of O.T.O , and organization and cult who’s most influential and iconic member was none other than Crowley. More about the organization can be read about in a link below, but it should be noted that they have four pillar rules; one of which is to not speak of the organization to others or discuss the practices of which they studied. A rule, that Jimmy Page is believed to have broken at one point.

The second piece of evidence was apparent with the release of Led Zeppelin IV, when symbolism became a driving force. Inside the album is a painting of the hermit (a powerful tarot symbol), later in life Jimmy would refer to himself as being something of a hermit despite being a major public figure. The album provides no title, and shows no band name on the cover, but on the inside are four brightly printed logos across the sleeve. From left to right, these symbols represent Page, Jones, Bonham and Plant. Page has said in interviews that the symbols (for the most part) were taken from Rudolf Koch’s 1955 Book of Signs. Plant’s symbol is probably the easiest to decipher - as it is the feather of truth and courage, from the origins of Egyptian goddess Ma’at. John Bonham’s is believed to be either a drum kit, or the symbol of trinity of a family unit (meaning father, mother, child). John Paul Jones, which was likely picked by Jimmy, was the a celtic sigil for confidence and competence. However, Jimmy’s logo has always been the hardest to breakdown and figure out. While most people believe his logo represents saturn (which controls the Capricorn sign, Jimmy is a Capricorn so it would make sense), there is a certain level of mystery behind it. Page has famously said he will never tell anyone what it means. Thought Plant has once said that Page revealed the full meaning of all four signs, including a detailed discussion of what Zoso meant. Admittedly, Plant expressed he was too drunk to remember by the next morning, and when he had asked Page about it again, page replied with saying he couldn’t/wouldn’t discuss it. Now this could very well be Jimmy’s antics, or just general mysterious persona, or perhaps he simply cannot discuss or reveal information. Perhaps, this is the one of the four pillar rules of O.T.O that Page had broken. Jimmy is an all around very private person, who very rarely, if at all, talks about his religious or spiritual beliefs or practices.

It is worth noting that Sandy Denny (pictured below) of Fairport Convention, the voice on The Battle of Evermore track, was given her own sigil. The logo is translated to Godhead or the power of female.

According to Pamela Des Barres, Pages girlfriend of this era, has said that at this point Jimmy got very deep into the studying of Crowley, and had even asked her to search San Francisco and Los Angles for Crowley memorabilia. She had not fallen short on this task, and managed to dig up some very impressive artifacts, manuscripts, and even “magical” robes that Crowley has worn. In 1970, around the time of the ritual, Page had dropped a large chunk of cash to acquire Crowley’s mansion, Boleskine, located on Loch Ness. The home, once owned by Crowley, had a large history of suicides and an even bigger turnover rate of employees as they found the home to be no doubt inhabited by dark entities. Regardless of what one may believe, the house holds a sinister vibe. Page later sold the home in 1992, and had actually been very wary of ever living there and had left the estate in a caregivers possession. Of the 22 years that he had owned the house, he only spent 6 weeks in total living there. In 2016, the house unexplainably burned down. (pictured below is Jimmy at the mansion) 

 Now this next part is where shit gets bonkers, so to speak, the rest so far has been rumours and back stories and alleged encounters. Just a man with an obsession, and depending on your personal beliefs, you may find that he took his practices too far. Perhaps his intentions were pure, but looking at his life in general, what did Jimmy have to sacrifice to become quite literally a noteable person in history. Well let’s see.

Introducing Kenneth Anger; a fellow Crowley disciple and filmmaker, drug taker and subversive. He spent most of his time drawing magic circles, burning incense and chanting spells in Enochian - trying to do a real ritual exorcism. Plans for his film Lucifer Rising began to fall apart when Bobby Beausoleil (lead actor) - had to quit. Bobby, who later stole rough cuts and cameras from Anger would soon regret this. To take revenge, Anger supposedly made a talisman to curse Bobby. Within a year, Beausoleil had ended up convicted of murder with a life sentence for the murder of Sharon Tate as part of the Manson family murders. Wild, I know. Possibly just a coincidence, or even just a tall tale.

Cue Jimmy Page, who had agreed to do the soundtrack for Angers film, and the music Jimmy had produced is exactly what you’d expect. Dark, eerie, and perfect for a film of satanic proportions. Some of which can actually be heard in the intro for “In The Out Door”, his melancholy and devilish sound coming through in the song “In The Evening”. Kenneth and Jimmy had a love/hate relationship, and what started as a mutual appreciation and dedication to Crowley’s practice and image, soon turned to ugly turmoil just as quickly. Anger moved into Boleskine, where him and Page shared a love for Crowley memorabilia. However, as their friendship deteriorated, Anger was asked to leave the Crowley mansion. At the height of Led Zeppelin’s career, Jimmy had pulled out of the film project in 1975. Allegedly, Anger soon stated that he had cursed Page and Zepp with a major spell, a spell so big that it took all of Crowley’s teachings he could muster up, to cast upon them.

 Almost immediately, the band started to experience turbulence and the eventual downfall of their career as one tragedy after another struck them to the core. Robert Plant was in a car crash, plunging off a cliff in Greece in 1975, nearly killing himself, his wife and his son Karac. Which meant cancelling the Physical Graffiti tour and having to record in a wheelchair. The make up tour was littered with negative events starting with Plant getting Laryngitis. Followed by ticketless fans in Cincinnati rioting and storming the gates. In San Francisco, manager Peter Grant and John Boham had gotten into a fight with Bill Graham, and nearly beating a Bill Graham employee to death. Both Grant and Bonham narrowly escaping serious charges and incarceration. Karac eventually fell ill, and no amount of money would make him better, as doctors had no idea what was wrong, by 1977 Karac had passed away and the tour was cancelled. At this point, Plant had quit the band and music in general in response to Page and Jones not showing up to his sons funeral.

Around this time, Page was nearly comatose on a daily basis due to a crippling Heroine addiction, and Bonhams alcoholism was raging out of control, becoming increasingly violent and unpredictable. In 1978, Sandy Denny, the goddess of the Battle of Evermore, drunkenly plunged down a flight of stairs; breaking her neck and died. The tip of the iceberg was the incident that occurred in September of 1980. Handlers had tucked Bonzo into bed after a band rehearsal, following a night of heavy drinking; assuming he would be okay, he’s done it a million times before, right? But as well know, John tragically died in his sleep from asphyxiation. It’s worth mentioning, that in the middle of all of this mayhem, John Paul Jones had remained completely untouched. While the loss of Karac and Bonham had affected John, being as they were family, he was never really directly affected. Could this be because he stayed as far away from the pact as possible? Could these events be natures way of taking something, in return for giving something such as power? Is this all the work of Angers alleged curse?

Robert Plant once addressed these very claims, as some people point fingers at Jimmy being the cosmic reasoning behind the passing of Karac and Bonham. Though, he says it’s a cheap shot. This is what Plant had to say about the matter - “The comments about how it was all connected with Jimmy’s dalliance with the dark side or whatever, that was cheap. I’ve never shared the preoccupations with him and I don’t really know anything about it. Fate is already written”. I suppose it has less to do with whether Page “sold his soul” and more to do with the possible repercussions of playing against nature, and whether such practices have a domino affect. The piling strange circumstances does make one wonder how involved Page really was, and how much the involvement took a toll on the band. Just how much of it can account for Led Zeppelin’s massive success, to the point of making history in music forever (everlasting life?). At the end it could all very well just be a bunch of mumbo jumbo non-sense. I am curious as to what you all think, feel free to leave comments or shoot me a message!

*Note; Do not take this too seriously, it’s all speculation and open for interpretation. Below are some interesting sites that I used in my search!

Resources:

https://forums.ledzeppelin.com/topic/15027-jimmy-and-crowley/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley

https://carwreckdebangs.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/aleister-crowley-jimmy-page-and-the-curse-of-led-zeppelin-when-myth-magick-and-weird-facts-collide/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordo_Templi_Orientis

https://zososymbol.com/

[liminals]

damn rhu back at it again with the pieces of shit ! i think this place needed a lawful evil wizard and i thought that my fave boi hyachint could work like a charm ! you should be fearing him more than you fear the ju jak -because once he sets his hands on someone’s brain it’s game over ! his dossier page is still under works but you can like this if you’d like to plot with him !

☾*✧･ﾟ:*「 seo youngho / johnny. cismale. he/him. 」did you know that there’s a wizard in haneul known as park ‘hyachint’ hyun? they have been living here for the past one year and is a seer & obliviator. they are currently twenty-five and is not a student at crocus institute of higher magic. i heard that they are known to be calculating, but worry not ! i heard they are also very enticing too. remember to stay out of trouble, the ju jak are lurking around every corner !

infos go under the cut ! ( tws for manipulation, toxic / abusive behavior, death mentions, corruption )

okay lets start with the basics: park hyachint ( on his documents he listed as hyun hyachint park, but family always only used hyachint to call him ), born and raised in saint petersburg’s magical community, which let me tell you... it’s the paradise of dark wizards. can you feel all those bad vibes because rest assured lil hya dove into those until his own became even blacker. a huge chunk of the families here ( the park family included ) love to show off all of their magical wealth and purity of bloodline like your fave run-on-the-mill malfoys.

he’s shown seering abilities pretty quickly, by first being able to see auras and foretell several small events &the more he grew up, the more he was seeing the way humanity and magi seemed just destined to repeat history again which in his eyes !! it was really interesting. and that lets you know how he’s just Not Okay.

homeboy had everything pretty much set for life, he completed all his studies in russia and mastered not only the necessary arts for seering ( hence being able to read auras and any kind of omen, not just the ones told by his natural clairvoyance ), but especially becoming known for being one of the youngest magi to pass the hella difficult obliviator exam within the russian magi government.

what did he say when he was presented to the question of why he wanted to become an obliviator ? “ it’s a good way to study how magi and human brains work. ”

and he meant... literally.

he’s been experimenting with memory and mind control magic for years by now, even before actively working on his obliviator academy entrance test because he knew this was what he wanted. he wanted to know what made magi and human brains tick. what was making them so different. and he had no sort of remorse in using dirty deals done dirt cheap to achieve what his ambition wanted. he used it on his parents, his alleged friends, anything that could be manipulated and brought their minds beyond the limit.

some might have survived some might have not. liabilities always happen in research, he’d say. and with how corrupted and nasty the russian magical government is? he got everything swept under the rug as long as he’d share his research material.

and why is he in seoul, then? well. the rumors of some turmoils in korea about the ju jak and the local magi community reached the russian government, and they needed someone to play spy for them so that they know if it’s the case to elongate a very sketchy hand or not. enter the local obliviator who, just in case things go sour despite eventual foretelling ( liabilities ! ), can always wipe himself and anything off the slate. 

NOW ABOUT HYA ! honestly he’s a piece of shit, a too smart for this world two faced fuck, god he’s someone i’d fucking slap right across the face and be sure he’d be still grinning in the creepiest way possible even when he’s probably going to be sentenced to death for all the lives he’s ruined. he’s not nice but he knows how to play nice, he knows how to appear just as the perfect guy every mom would want to see married off but once his true colors show you’re gonna beg to have him erased from your brain. 

he’s very scientific ! even as a magi he’s more close to a modern scientific researcher, he wants to see the evidences of something working, and not just use ‘magic’ as an explanation because to his hungry and ambitious mind it just doesn’t feel... fulfilling. some minds develop powers instead of others, why ? some people grow to behave a certain way instead of another, why ? he aims to find it out,,, in the most fucked ways.

local sadistic mad scientist ruins everything.

totally has a web of people he’s manipulating / mindcontrolling, since as much as he’d love to ! he can’t be anywhere.

[reverseracism]

Hey, bruh, do you have a minute?

Of course, I do. You look concerned. Is something wrong?

I was just about to ask you the same question, bruh. Are you OK? I just saw a bunch of tweets that didn’t make sense. They were calling you racist, and they mentioned Toyotas, and something about The Tonight Show band and the place where you work. It really didn’t make sense, so I thought I’d come directly to you.

Oh, that? Yeah, Tucker Carlson is beefing with The Root as being racist against white people.

Wait, who is Tucker Carlson?

Tucker Carlson is a white man.

That’s all you got; he’s a white man?

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to minimize Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson is not just a white man, he’s the white man.  

When you hear black people say, “the white man is a motherfucker,” they’re probably talking about Tucker Carlson. If you looked up “white man” in some dictionaries, there’s just a picture of Tucker. He’s such an unremarkable white man, the universe named him after a penis-hiding process. Tucker!

Everything about him screams white. He thinks he’s smarter than he really is. He pretends he’s not racist, but everyone knows he is. His face is always adorned with a Lord Petyr Baelish-like smirk that is a mixture of evil, arrogance, and bitch-ass-ness. He has a show on Fox News even though he’s not especially interesting, good-looking or talented. He’s perfectly mediocre. There’s only one way to describe him:

Tucker Carlson is a white man.

But what does that have to do with you? Or The Root? Or racism. Or Corollas? I’m still confused.

That’s what I’m here for.

On Wednesday at 11:09 a.m., I received a perfectly mediocre email from the head booker at Tucker Carlson Tonight (notice the perfectly mediocre name of the show). They requested an interview, saying: “We often see your pieces in The Root, and we’d be interested in discussing many of the themes relating to race in our country that you often analyze.”

That seems perfectly mediocre. So you told them “yes”?

Well, as soon as I read the email, my “nigga senses” started tingling.

Your what?

My nigga senses. You see, there are many black people who possess a superherolike sense of detecting white fuckery from afar. Whenever I smell Caucasian shenanigans, I feel a tingling at the tips of my fingers and toes. Some people, including my doctor, think I should be tested for the gout, but trust me, it’s a superpower. It’s like Spider-Man’s spidey senses. When I first discovered them, I put in an application with the X-Men, but they haven’t called back. I know it’s because Wolverine be hating on me.

So what did you do when you felt the tingling?

I did what any smart black man should do: I asked a black woman—specifically my editor in chief Danielle Belton. I knew she would give me a thoughtful, well-reasoned, educated response.

And what did she say?

“Don’t do it. Issa trap.”

Those were her exact words. So I emailed the Tucker Carlson show with a keenly worded email detailing my hesitation to appear on the show. I think my response illustrated my feelings that I don’t think productive conversations about race can be had in 4-minute segments. Furthermore, I know Fox News tries to include black people so it can make it seem like it’s not racist to its racist audience. I’m not saying that everyone who watches Fox News is a racist. I’m just saying that all racists watch Fox News.

I also think I perfectly outlined my recollection that the last time I was asked to appear on Fox News on Laura Ingram’s show, I was replaced by Tariq Nasheed after I declined. I believe my email succinctly summed up my apprehensions.

That’s dope. It must have been a long email. Can you read it to me?

No problem, I know it by heart. My email to Tucker Carlson Tonight read:

“Nah, Fam. I’m good.”

Wow. So that’s why they’re mad? Because you didn’t come on the show?

No, it gets better. It turns out, my nigga senses were right. It was a trap. They wanted to lure me on the show to talk about why The Root hates white people so much.

Basically, they wanted me to explain why it’s OK to be white.

Damn, that’s cold. But I still don’t understand what this has to do with Questlove, Black Thought or Priuses.

Well, Tucker Carlson decided that his viewers should boycott The Root and our sponsors. One of our sponsors is Toyota. So Tucker decided to do what Sean Hannity did when he convinced the dumb whites (my least-favorite flavor of vanilla) to smash their Keurig coffee machines. But Fox News viewers are the people who voted for an alleged pedophile who rode a horse to the polls, so they aren’t as internet savvy as you would think.

Somewhere I imagine Black Thought is checking his Twitter feed and wondering what the hell is going on.

So are you upset that you are being painted as a racist?

Here’s the thing: Some people will say I am a coward for not going on Tucker’s show to face him and defend myself. I have no need to explain me, my writings, or anything on The Root to a bunch of people whose minds won’t be changed in 40-second sound bites by a black guy they invited on so the host could paint him as anti-white anyway.

And why would I smear Tucker Carlson’s mediocre whiteness as racist?

I have written a lot of incendiary things about white people. I won’t shy away from that. I have called white people racist and made fun of their dancing skills, their potato salad and how often they shoot up schools. I created the Wypipo Awards and held an entire Wypipo Tournament to find the worst of the worst. But none of the articles Tucker Carlson listed were written by me!

He literally called a random black guy to explain why the works of another black guy were racist. Which. Is. Racist. But you know ... I guess we all write alike.

But is The Root racist against white people?

Dammit, man! You’re going to make me reveal the secret to our sauce. OK, I’ll reveal it, but make sure you don’t tell anyone. Here it is: No one at The Root hates white people. We hate racism. The reason we are often called racists is because of an old Southern saying: “A hit dog will holler.”

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

It means if you throw a rock into a pack of dogs, only the one who is hit will let out a yelp. The rest just go on about their business.

A woman once took umbrage with my portrayal of white people, called me a “black gangbanger” and asked me how that made me feel. I told her it did not bother me because I am not a gangbanger. I went about my business. Yet, some white people are so racist, that when we throw rocks at racism, they think we are targeting white people. They are hit dogs. That’s why they holler.

The white people hollering at Questlove and driving their Rav4s back to the Toyota dealership will never be killed because The Root racially profiled them. The Root has never sent Fox News viewers’ children to underfunded white schools. The Root doesn’t subject Tucker Carlson’s fans to longer prison sentences because they are white. The Root has never issued a travel ban against mediocre white boys or tried to deport the Caucasians who come to our country and take our jobs. But, to be fair, the entire staff at The Root wouldn’t mind if someone built a wall around Fox News, but we don’t have the funding.

And some of them, we suppose, are good people.

So how will you settle this?

We probably won’t. Historically, white people don’t have a long record of taking shit back. Plus, the idea of a hip-hop beef between Fox News andThe Root seems like fun. I don’t know if Tucker is P. Diddy or Suge Knight in this scenario, but I bet Tucker won’t be talking that shit when I roll up with The Root staff and the X-Men in my used 4Runner.

So you don’t feel bad at all?

I’ll be honest. There was one small part of the clip that made me feel a little bad about this entire Caucasian kerfuffle: when Tucker Carson, looked into a camera and said:

“Attacking people on the basis of their race is wrong. That was the standard, and for a long time almost everybody in America believed it.”

I won’t lie. My stomach is still sore from laughing so hard.