#mostly ref for me because I am very inconsistent

[abbeyofcyn]

I made a height ref sheet

The turtles will continue growing till they're approx. 21. April and casey jr are at their max.

[codther]

Pinned Post!!!!!

Hello! I am Cod, I am genderfuan but mostly use he/him. Attraction is very complicated for me but I’m ace, so be aware of that on my acc!!

I used to be @/justherforteamancher or JHFTR (might see it on my art) but I’m using @codther now.

My Tags:

#ort, for all my art

#disgraced thoughts, for all my text posts

I post about my little mcyt guys because they’re all my babies. Hermitcraft, Life series, and Artimator SMP are my main interests, but I might post about ESMP as I’m trying to watch a full season of it atm.

I watch Ethoslab, TangoTek, Geminitay, more recently Smallishbeans, Tibbycaps, and Cherrifire. I will watch others though, too.

My sona is inconsistent but rn I’ve got the fish/cod guy. Silver hair and all, wonder where I got that from. I can never decide on a species but eventually I’ll make a colored ref.

[rotationalsymmetry]

(I am mostly trying to listen rather than speak in this conversation because this is something I’m fairly “normal” about) but it is confusing for me also. I generally think of empathy not as an automatic emotional reaction but as a behavior, an attempt to understand someone else’s thoughts and feelings (which doesn’t have to be based on body language, it can be in the context of them literally telling you with words what they’re feeling), and while I can certainly see how that behavior can be harder for some people than others based on ability to read others’ feelings it’s…well, it’s not an automatic emotional response that just happens. Nor is it necessary to experience the feeling to understand it and convey that you understand it and that’s just not how I’ve heard it used. By psych people. Which implies that its use is inconsistent.

And good grief no wonder there’s problems when some people understand empathy as (mostly? entirely?) a choice and some people understand it as an innate capacity or incapacity. Going off into a fandom example a bit: Zuko isn’t particularly good at dealing with the feelings of people right in front of him, the way Iroh is. He’s dismissive towards the crew on his ship and is hilariously bad at dating. But he’s got a very strong sense of how to treat people well or badly that’s independent of him knowing them or ever expecting to interact with them directly, and I don’t know if that’s “empathy” or not but it’s important and valuable on a “being a decent person” front, and for someone who ends up in a position of power who affects the lives of people he’s never met, it’s probably strictly better to be impartially ethical towards people whether you’ve personally met them or not

Ref Peter Singer’s drowning child thought expriment…

While of course it's good to acknowledge and support people who know they're hyperempathetic or hypoempathetic or completely lack empathy...I still don't know how anyone knows that stuff. Like the more I think about it the more confusing it is. I have at different times thought I had a lot of empathy and not very much of it. I've said before that I'm not sure I actually believe in it as a unified concept, and someone came along talking about splitting it into cognitive and affective empathy and like that's part of it but not the whole thing.

Like...so much of it just seems like advanced guessing. And if you're more like someone, you're more likely to be right? Like, I know I can’t read most people's emotions well, but they can't read mine either, so what do they have...the skill of being in the majority? And if it's feeling what other people feel...you can't ever know for sure if you're empathising? Mind reading isn't real! Like when people talk about object personification and say they feel empathy for objects...how can that actually be empathy if the thing doesn't have real feelings? Like I've felt that too but I don't know how it could be empathy.

I don't know, holding that up as some straightforward skill you're just good or bad at as a whole feels like a mind trick that lets a lot of people ignore their biases and blames others for all issues with interactions that are more complicated than that. It's being presented as some definitive scale and I don't know what to do with that.

[vetyr]

I’ve just gotten into digital drawing and I’m getting disheartened by my lack of progress, and frustrated at how bad I am at drawing without a reference. Is it possible to improve drawing even if I never go without a reference? Or do you have any tips for drawing just from your imagination?

Hey there! Long response ahead. You may find it reassuring to know that it took me around half a decade to get good at drawing without reference, and for a good chunk of that time I was drawing daily for 3 or 4 hours per day. It’s not an overnight thing, it’s not even a within-a-year thing; your brain genuinely needs the time to learn to generate images & volumes rather than to solely perceive them.

In branching out to digital, you and I inadvertently added a slight layer of difficulty to this process of learning to draw without reference. It’s more noticeable now than it will be in a few years time, but here’s what I imagine you’re dealing with (as I dealt with when I started digital): any drawing knowledge you gained through drawing traditionally seems like it’s gone, or at least really hard to access. When you try to sketch or paint digitally it might seem like you “forgot” how to address proportions, values, anatomy, volumes, color, etc.—but when you go back to drawing traditionally, it all comes back. That’s just the nature of moving to a radically different medium. 

If you practice consistently for a few more weeks, you’ll notice that things start to come back to you. After a few months to a year, and digital may feel as natural (or more natural) to you than traditional. If you’re exclusively drawing digitally during this time, you’ll likely have trouble learning to draw without a ref, just because your mind is still adjusting to this very big change—but that’s to be expected. Accordingly, I’d recommend that you keep drawing traditionally as you learn digital, and do your non-reference drawings traditionally, for the most part. This way, your brain is only handling one major change at a time (digital vs. imagination). Once digital is like second nature to you, you can do more imagination drawings there.

On drawing from reference: Stepping away from the logistics of brain stuff, you absolutely can improve as an artist if you never go without a ref. I know hundreds of artists who make incredible work that stems from clever use of references. Art made with references is valid; if you don’t know what something looks like, there is literally no shame in finding pictures of it in order to make a good piece. I do it frequently.

There’s also this spectrum of ref use that I’ve picked up on: on one end, there’s art that may nearly be a copy of some picture (e.g., essentially a study with a few details changed); and on the other, there’s art in which the artist takes little samples from many, many photos or other art pieces and incorporates them into one cohesive image. It’s easier to start from the former end and head towards the latter. The convenient part of using small portions of many references is that it’s not difficult to transition to doing drawings from imagination. When you focus on a small visual, it’s easier to remember it than if you were trying to remember one very large and complex set of visuals (e.g., it’s easier to visualize an eye than the entirety of a face).

Described above is a more gradual solution for drawing without a ref—that is, slowly using less and less reference over years of remembering and learning. I also recommend the brute-force approach (I employed the two in tandem): making yourself to draw from imagination, preferably with a direction in mind, and seeing how far you can go before you encounter too many gaps in your knowledge to continue. When you can discern gaps (e.g., not knowing what an arm looks like at a very specific angle), take note of a few that you find important, and study them. You won’t be able to figure out everything quickly, so don’t fret about that. This is very much an active learning approach, and will likely get you results quicker than the method mentioned in the paragraph above. It’s also scarier, as you’ll be humbled pretty quickly by the ocean of knowledge that you are without—I know I was :)

As is proper for an answer addressing drawing from imagination, here’s a study of a photo. I’ve been trying to figure out how to paint in Procreate as of a few days ago, and it’s been quite interesting. I still prefer Photoshop, but the app certainly has its merits.

I’ve been pretty inconsistent with posting recently, and it’s mostly due to schoolwork. Junior year for my major is notoriously heavy, so I haven't been able to paint illustrations (outside of commissions that I’m finishing) and answer questions, sorry about that!

[octavoh]

heard you had an Octavo AU and I'm curious: Is he a puppet of Vaati ? Who hurt this poor boy™ and what is this AU about?

OHHH???? YOU’RE APPROACHING ME??????????

I AM VERY GLAD YOU ASKED BECAUSE BOY DO I HAVE A LOT OF CONTENT… 

So the premise of the AU is that Vaati shares a body with Octavo due to some kind of curse. There’s a lot more below, including art for the AU. Please talk to me about it anytime!

I’m copy/pasting this from a doc. My notes are kind of incoherent, as I haven’t solidified the storyline too much (and most of them are just from me rambling on discord). 

Context for the AU:

Vaati dies at the hands of the Hero in the Minish Cap. When he’s defeated, he casts a curse that binds his soul to a vessel. I don’t know what the parameters for the curse are, but it binds Vaati’s soul to Octavo’s.

Octavo knows that Vaati’s sharing a body with him, and Vaati can appear as an apparition to him. And since Octavo is born a few years after the events of MC he knows who Vaati is. That makes Octavo isolate himself, so at the point where shit goes down he lives as a hermit in the middle of the Minish Woods. He is, however, also a traveling musician who hoards instruments in his house.

16 years after Octavo’s birth, Ganondorf invades and takes over Hyrule. Both the king and queen -MC Zelda and Link- die at his hands. (They were barely adults at this point :(  ) However, their daughter, Zelda, escapes with Impa. 

And the plot:

The actual plot takes place 6 years after the fall of Hyrule. It’s anarchy, monsters abroad, Gan seeking the princess, etc. Zelda, now disguised as Sheik, takes refuge in Octavo’s house while being hunted by monsters. I made comic thumbnails about it. Click on the link to see ‘em

So Tavo opens up the door and hes like “bruh wtf” at all the monsters… and gets his ass beat. When Tavo’s knocked out, Vaati takes the chance to blast the monsters away (but doing so takes up most of the power he’s accumulated over Tavo’s lifetime, RIP).

Sheik sees this all happen. They know that Tavo’s gonna have a target on his back due to both his appearance (Since his color palette is kinda sheikah-like. I don’t know. It’s the pale hair) and, he just obliterated like half a platoon of monsters. 

In the meantime, Ganondorf senses Vaati’s magic outburst. He takes it as a sign of the princess’s return, and mobilizes his forces.

Sheik and Tavo end up travelling together. This is a rash decision on Sheik’s part; they know that they could’ve left him behind without endangering him. However, Tavo’s also the only person they’ve really interacted with in three years and both of them are starved for human contact, so they end up clinging to each other.

For a while, they just travel without purpose, helping whatever people they meet on the way. (At this point they also hear about the Link of this AU. I’m still not sure where I’ll implement him and how, though, so I won’t elaborate rn.)

Then they meet [NAME PENDING]. He’s a suspicious old man that Tavo and Sheik just. Keep. Meeting. Eventually, the man confronts the duo. He’s the guide of the story, and tells Sheik about their mission and how they can defeat Ganon. He tells them to find Link.

Congratulations! [NAME PENDING] joined your party! 

… Kind of. He disappears for days at a time. (Eventually, days become weeks. Weeks become months. Months become never again.)

And another major event that happens early on: while Tavo and Sheik are off adventuring, Tavo fucking dies. It’s probably not even a heroic death he just trips on a moblin or something.This activates an aspect of Vaati’s curse. 

So Vaati and Tavo make a pact (a la Ava’s Demon) before their souls really die. I’m still figuring out what exactly they promise each other. 

This is what the pact does, though: 

- Vaati takes somewhat of a “backseat”. However, if it’s necessary, he can take over Tavo’s body for a while. (Doing so puts immense strain on Vaati and he can’t do anything for a while).

- It lets Tavo and Vaati communicate via dreams. 

- Vaati also surrenders his magic power to Tavo (until the pact is … accomplished? Its conditions are met?) but Tavo, being a dumbass… doesn’t find this out till later. 

- It changes Tavo’s appearance… dyes the dude purple. 

- Vaati’s powers magically amplify Octavo’s music, letting him summon monsters and manipulate the elements (to an extent) with it. I might give him the wind waker because it’s the perfect weapon for Tavo (Is baton, has wind powers).

The rest goes something like this:

- Old man disappears altogether. 

- The party finds Link. (Link is a soldier who was chosen by the Triforce of Courage after his predecessor, MC Link, died in battle. He leads somewhat of a one-man rebellion against Ganon.)

- Link also remembers all his past lives (Granted, there aren’t many of them at this point in the timeline.) This includes MC Link. 

- Link is immediately hostile towards Octavo. Their animosity is probably going to be a major arc in the story. (…I’m probably not going to write it. F)

- Sheik and Tavo fight Link at some point when Link attacks Tavo. Eventually they get along and travel together lol

Also I think that the stuff that happens when the party gets to Hyrule Castle deserves its own section so it’s here. My notes also get a lot more incoherent from this point on, so beware

- As Tavo, Sheik, and Link gradually approach Hyrule Castle, they notice something different. The (Hylian + some Gerudo) citizens are happy and healthy. The castle is not in ruins. There are no monsters. It’s eerily idyllic.

- The castle is surrounded by an aura of malice, but everything else is peaceful.

- When they enter the Castle, the staff seem mostly be Gerudo. They welcome the party warmly. (The party is literally just waiting for the sneak attack, but it never comes).

- I don’t know what these are but they’re probably quotes/explanations from people in the castle

- “Six years ago, our king, Ganondorf Dragmire, came to Hyrule. Contrary to what you think, we did come in peace; we were to strike a trade agreement benefitting both our nations. During the last few days of negotiation, Ganondorf fell to a bout of madness- some sort of possession. Nobody had seen anything like it before.”

- “He came back to his senses to discover the blood of a thousand Hylians on his hands.”- [bitterly] “He still disappears to who-knows-where, only communicating with us by notes. We are doing the best we can to make amends for his own actions.”

- [From… Nabooru?] “I grew up with him as a child. He is hiding himself because he thinks- no, he knows- he will hurt others.“ 

And stuff from/about Ganondorf:

- Gan does his best to keep the will of Demise at bay.

- The Thing Happened when he touched some evil artifact in the Hyrule Castle vaults, which enabled Demise to use him and wreck shit up

- Gan has been researching the triforce to better understand what happened to him and learns about the Link/Zelda/Gan cycle thing.

- So the party meets Gan. Link’s in FIGHT mode from the start- Sheik and Tavo recognize Gan’s voice. Oh, wait. That old man…. Huh……..

- They fight and you can see that Gan’s holding back. But before Link can deal the finishing blow Gan goes apeshit because he can’t hold back Demise’s spirit anymore

- Cue epic boss fight but it’s sad because oh man that’s the old dude

- I know i mentioned [NAME PENDING] for like 2 lines but he’s an integral part of the story and becomes a little bit like a father figure to Sheik (and a lesser extent, Tavo). So they’re fighting a close friend. it’s not fun.

- By the end of the battle everyone’s exhausted, triforce pops out and forms that wish-granting triangle thing

- Guess who boops it. Surprise mothafucka, it’s Vaati (having taken over Tavo’s body.)

- He does the evil speech thing and taps the triangle with malicious intent. But there’s been a Vaati redemption arc throughout the story where he learns to empathize with people and become a decent dude. And though his wish sounds evil, but the interpretation is surprisingly neutral/good because his heart’s not really in it, so to speak. i havent even decided to use that particular event or not, though.

I’ve got a doc (It’s kinda inconsistent with what’s here. I need to update it)

And refs! 

Tavo:

Sheik/Zelda:

Link:

Headshots of Octavo, Sheik, and Link respectively:

Yeah! Thanks for reading through all this; I’m really glad you asked!!

[altonadventures]

ALTON ADVENTURES BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

So...because its Friday and I usually update AA on Fridays, I figured it was time to make my big announcement! 

And that is...that Alton Adventures is changing. A little bit. 

Am I rebooted the comic again? No haha! Once I get back to it it shall continue as normal but some characters may look a bit different going forward. 

Who may those characters be?

Sir Gareth Nemesis 

Why is he changing? 

Sir Nemesis’ change is actually less drastic than one may think. For starters, he needed a design rehaul. I wanted his armor to be more simple, easier to draw but with still details that could tie him to Nemesis (the green eye, the arms, the light pink details instead of inconsistent tentacles). I also had an issue where his hair was too close to his skin color, so to combat this I turned him into a ginger! His eye color also changed from gold to green, another thing to visually tie him more to Nemesis. 

So yes, I changed Sir Nem’s design because I was unhappy with it. His armor was never drawn consistently ever, I was constantly changing the tone of his hair and his skin so that was inconsistent. I want my designs to be more consistent and polished going forward.

What else is different? Well, you can probably tell he looks much more serious, like in older pictures I drew of him. Why is that? Well, I was kind of..honestly tired of his role as the “dad character tm” that he kind of turned out to be. It almost undermined his true characterization and turned him into a typical over the top exaggerated hero character. And I started to realize how much I missed his original concept. A battle hardened solider that was filled with regret and remorse, who heavily sympathizes with the plight of the alien he’s locked in combat with. He’s still much a father however, as he has a biological son and adopts an alien who mimics his likeness (hence another reason he’s a ginger now as his Nemesis daughter always was one). He’s just returned to his roots as a character. Because I felt that characterization was a unique one for the Nemesis ride. And it was an idea I really loved. Sir Nemesis actually WAS one of my favorite characters...I wanted his role to be much larger than it is in the comics. I don’t blame anyone for him becoming a joke, I did initially kind of fuel the fire for it, I’m just hoping that its not to late to get back to the Sir Nemesis I originally wanted to write. And of course, all my characters are still meme and joke worthy. I just want to tackle much more serious issues with my comic and show the more serious side of some of my characters and don’t want there entire existence to be a joke Mr.S can’t have too many folks 1 uping him in the laughs department!  I guess to note with this change that his original voice claim has also been solidified as well. It’s a more somber and serious tone that I feel fits him as a character. 

Final Notes 

Sir Nemesis is a character that I have a lot of thought put into. His backstory is tragic, emotional, and his character is complex and he’s not the perfect hero people might image him as. I plan for his Arc to follow the Fireworks arc in the comic, as well as I am planning to start some more text heavy short stories about how the Secret Weapons became Secret Weapons (which I will likely call Secret Weapon Short Stories hehe) and will be writing his first. Also a very important thing i must address. Yes, the eye on his chest moves. (I have a gif but it doesn’t want to work on this post Ill have it up later ><)

Erica Annabelle Cloud 

ooof okay this is a huge one. Confession time. Erica was always my least favorite character. Why? She just had...no character. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with her, her design felt phoned in and there because I needed an Air/Galatica character, (yes, she is changing as her Galatica stage too). She was just. not well thought out. She had a dual identity but I think a lot of people didn’t pick up on that? She felt like a Rita 2.0 as just a nice and friendly optimistic person and literally had 0 backstory. Originally she was supposed to have had some sort of accident that turned her into Galatica and she had memory loss and forgotten about when she was Air, yeah it was a mess. That eventually just turned into Nebula Corona being a character she made up (bc her one trait was that she was into space and wrote a lot) that she played as when her rides themeing changed. 

She was just..barely a character and her design was abysmal (Her Galatica suit was okay but her Air outfit was an afterthought) She needed a massive visual upgrade. A sleeker flight suit that makes more sense (I used a ref or two for this design!) A different face shape to help her stand out more, my signature they wear glasses they have dot eyes look. Long, wispy, flowing hair to resemble those trails planes make. A bit more lanky and tall. And let me tell you I LOVE her design now. It looks so much more unique and you can just SEE she has so much more character now!  As for her characterization im going full into her being a nerd. A very tech nerd at that! She designed her suit to help her fly at her best, and eventually will be the one that designs and builds all her Galatica tech! Her Galatica design hasn’t been done yet, mostly bc I wanted to focus on her current comic canon design, but not much would change I feel with her upgrade anyways! She is effectively the brains of the group, and the others often turn to her for plans of attack when dealing with a situation, or innovative solutions to problems! I have yet to get a voice claim for her, but im sure one will come to me soon enough! 

Final Notes

Erica/Nebula was a character I struggled to connect with. Everyone else had Airs that were either super plot important, or just much more cool and creative in general. I felt, that with my Air/Galatica she was just there, and I wanted her to be more. So a full character rehaul was done with her and it makes me so happy. She feels much more fleshed out, better designed, and I’m super excited to do more stuff with her, and hopefully you will all see her much more now that I’m a lot happier with her as a character! <3 

Welp that's the end of the updates....wait. Hold on. I have something written here. What could this be? Oh! I remember now! 

Black Hole, AkA Beatrix, will be joining the MAIN CAST of Alton Adventures! 

When I drew my Black Hole design, I knew she was something special. She stands out compared to a lot of my characters, and her design SCREAMS main character. While the biggest main roles will still be held by Mr. S and Rita, I wanted to add another non SW coaster to the main crew, and because Canonically Corkscrew is MIA, Black Hole seemed like a fitting addition to the main crew! As she isn’t human, a species literally only referred to as Black Holes, I thought making her a main character and giving her a big arc would help flesh out the reality of non humans in Alton Adventures! Her powers and design and character and personality are just too fun to shove her into the background. I feel that adding her to the main cast gives them not only another character to support them, but a closer friend! You will all see her much more in the future for certain! 

Well that's about it! In terms of comic updates themselves...its still going to be hiatus as long as I’m being swamped with school work. I hope you all understand. I’ll try to squeeze in updates over the breaks I have IF im not working on assignments for class. As I also said, I wanna do short stories as well, to expand the world and explain it better, as a comic will only develop the world so quickly and lots of you have tons of questions! I also wanna do something animated at some point, that’s my dream. I’ve ALSO mentioned to some people about merch, likely going for making stickers first since that's simple. I got an excited reaction for that so I’ll come up with designs for them soon! I just wanna do a lot with Alton Adventures, because I know how much it means to people, and of course it means so much. Goodness I really need to actually get to this park, I look quiet silly constantly gushing over a themepark I’ve never been to all the time XP  That all aside I thank you all for sticking by me. I promise that even if I don’t do comic updates as frequently during the school year, I’ll still work to push out as much AA content I can outside of that! I’m always open to suggestions to what you guys want to see! ALSO, working on a big google doc spreadsheet with info on all the characters I’ll be posting when its more completed! So be on the lookout for that! 

Again thank you to everyone who’s stuck with me through this, Your support makes me feel nothing but proud of what I’ve created. These characters may have been created out of something some may consider silly or odd, but the only thing that matters to me if that I can make at least someone happy with what I create. 

Patreon (note that patrons got to see all of this content as it was being worked on!) l Ko-fi

[teapotfiction]

Ok buckle up kiddos...

...because I’ve slept on yesterday’s episode and I have a lot of thoughts. (The inner literature grad in me has been twitchy twitchy twitching).

Now, there were a lot of problematic things and inconsistencies which I don’t really want to get into in this. Mostly because it would take up the entire post, also because I think most of us are all too aware of where the real character stretches occurred (unless there is more to this episode than we know yet.).

So where to start?

Betty.

I think Betty broke all of our hearts this episode. Lili’s acting was astounding (did we expect anything else?). It’s heartbreaking because it’s the all too familiar trope of the person who most needs her friends, pushing them away. I struggle with the lack of communication between her and Jughead, but the tension between them was planted in the episode before. I’m struggling a little with the timeline of Riverdale too. Some sloppy dialogue led us to believe that it’d only been a few days, but the characterisation and more specifically, the dramatic changes in character suggest a much longer timeframe.

Betty’s character has changed. Season 1 Betty was desperate to keep people together; sometimes at cost to herself. (Think the Veronica/Archie situation, she was so desperate not to lose her friends that initially she didn’t give herself the time she needed to get over her own heartbreak). She wouldn’t let Jughead push her away in S1 E10; even in S2 E4 she accepted his explanation quickly for the sake of their relationship. The Black Hood is hitting at the very essence of Betty; her desire to appease those around her. Aside from the very real threat of, y’know, a murderous psychopath who may or may not kill those she loves, it is devastating to see Betty isolated because we know that is the very thing she fears. (Think back to the amount of times she’s defied her mother, or other authority figures and stuck up for her friends. For Betty, and her unwavering loyalty, her friends have always come first. It’s led her to bite her tongue, to go along with Veronica even when she’s felt uncomfortable, and maintain the friendship with Archie even when she was hurting. It’s also what we love most about her relationship with Jughead. More on that later…) The Black Hood is playing a deeply clever and manipulative psychological game with her. He knows her well enough to know that her relationships are her priority and her drive. Because once she’s destroyed those, at his bequest, what does Betty Cooper have left? He is destroying the very core of Betty; and by implication the very core of Riverdale.

Speaking of Betty’s relationships - this moves me onto Archie. I, for one, am enjoying his character arc. I think it’s important that he’s (finally!) being shown as someone who is a good friend to Betty. It’s a pity this wasn’t really featured in Season 1, because it made their friendship look entirely one sided, and made a lot of the audience fairly unsympathetic towards him. Had we had a bit more of their friendship build up before he turned down Betty’s advances, I think we’d have had a lot more empathy for him having to have that conversation with someone that he cared so much about. (No, I’m not defending the way he did things in Series 1; he went about it in entirely the wrong way and was also having a wholly inappropriate affair with a teacher, but - big but - he is a 16 year old boy and teenagers are horribly inept at dealing with things properly. That’s just life.) I do think sometimes we forget how hard it is to be the heartbreaker rather than the heartbroken because that’s not the story that’s ever focused on in TV and Film. Anyway, I digress. Seeing Archie and Betty work well in last night’s episode was important - just introduced far too late. It helped us understand why Betty asked Archie to do her dirty work and break up with Jug. (Must. Not. Cry. Must. Not. Cry.)

I’ve seen a lot of criticism of how Archie handled the break up with Jug. But consider this - Betty’s ‘It doesn’t have to cruel’ was indicative of her mental state, her desire to protect Jug and her need to convince herself she was doing the best by him. It was the only thing she could think of to convince Archie to do it. It wasn’t a realistic request. Betty knew this. That’s why she said ‘it doesn’t HAVE to be cruel’ - not, ‘don’t be cruel’. Subtle, but important difference. Because, for Jug to believe Archie, it had to be exactly that, cruel. It had to be cruel enough that Jughead would take it on face value and wouldn’t call Betty to verify. It had to be cruel enough that he really wouldn’t come near her. It had to be cruel enough that it would close off the final, vulnerable link between the two.

And it was. It was cruel, in the first instance, that she sent Archie and didn’t do it herself, because (as has already been discussed at length) it played into Jughead’s worst insecurities. It was also necessary, because she knows that Jughead can see through people (Ref, when he visits his dad in prison and says something along the lines of ‘my dad’s been lying to me for years, and he’s never been very good at it’). She couldn’t do it herself because she wouldn’t have the resolve if Jughead started to doubt the sincerity of her words. She also knows that he is particularly susceptible to ideas planted in her head. Her telling him outright that she didn’t want to be with him, would never be as effective as Archie planting the seed of doubt. Because that’s what he did - the doubt that not only does she not want to be with him, she’s been thinking it for a while, he’s been too blind to see it, and that she’s couldn’t tell him herself. It leads his imagination into overdrive. Why hasn’t she told him? Has he really been that distant? Is his new lifestyle too much for her? Is she too scared to talk to him now, to tell him the truth? How did he miss that she was suffering? Did she know he was lying to her at Pop’s? Because there’s a grain of truth in the way that they have been distant - and he knows he’s lied to her at least twice - when Archie delivers the message, choosing the words that he does (‘you can’t have them and her’), it’s all too easy for him to believe that this is real.

It also hinges on Archie’s character. Archie has many flaws, but he is essentially a truthful character. He doesn’t tend to lie. He sometimes doesn’t tell people everything, but if he is telling you something, it’s almost certainly the truth.

So basically, kudos to Archie, who was put in a very difficult position (and let us not forget, he must have felt sick to his stomach when he saw Jughead freely associating with the group of guys that he literally fought in the previous episode). Especially when you consider that Archie has quite a simplistic view of the world; good guys are good, bad guys are bad. There’s not a lot of room for nuances - especially post-Fred being shot. He wasn’t just saying what he did to stick in the knife or be unnecessarily cruel; he was saying it to be believable and because when he saw Jughead with the serpents he realised that it was true. Jughead can’t have the North and the South - not when they’re at war.

(Phew, that was long).

(The above assumes that the breakup isn’t just some rouse they’ve prearranged and it’s a code etc etc… I’d love to believe this interpretation, but the ending of the episode discredits this for me.).

And finally we come to Jughead. Juggie. Jug.

Oh geez. Where to start?

It is Jughead’s decision to join the Serpents before Betty breaks up with him that I find interesting - and problematic. If it had come after the breakup, the motivation could be dismissed as a simple knee-jerk reaction to feeling like he’s already lost everything. So it is very telling that the writers decided to position his loss mid-way through his serpent trials.

It’s quite the character change; this is the boy who literally chose homelessness over accepting his father’s life and was completely shocked when the serpents that he - and Betty - had been defending for most of series one, presented him with a bloodied body in his living room. Certainly, I think there’s more than a little bit of him that is seeking his place in the world and desperate to cling onto what he has left of his father. Certainly there’s a part of Jughead that’s always wanted to fit in. Series 1 Jughead found that with Betty; Series 2 Jughead is more ‘unmoored’.

Do I even need to discuss the lack of communication between him and Betty? I mean, what happened to them? Can we smash their heads together or lock them in a cupboard until our little beans start to talk to each other? What ever happened to that couple that we held a candle to as being one of the first, extremely healthy communicative relationships?

I am struggling with the writers’ decision to have Jughead embrace the violence of the Serpents. (Also, do not get me started on the Serpents’ initiation processes, and why are they a bunch of teenagers with just a couple of adults hanging about. It’s WEIRD, and bordering on too ridiculous even for Riverdale. And as for the bloody rattlesnake...). However, we do know that Jughead has quite the streak of self-sabotage, and is more than the ‘conscientious objector’ (He punched Chuck after all). He’s also used to being the one who’s left out. The one who’s family is unreliable. The one, for whom, things tend to turn to shit. This means when it comes to himself, he’s defeatist. He places little value upon his own happiness, and he will sacrifice it for what he thinks is the greater good. Sometimes, when you’re in this headspace (and especially when you’re a 16 year old, which I keep banging on about because I have to keep reminding myself that’s what they are!), you’re blinded by the idea that the decision where you’re suffering the most, must be the one which protects others the most. He’s not going to take the path that an older, more rational person, who is more invested in self-preservation might take.

The bit which sticks out for me is that I just feel Jughead would see the whole thing as a little bit ridiculous. We get a moment of the old Juggie in the trailer going over the ‘rules’ with Toni, but, surely, someone like Jughead - who is wise beyond his years in many respect and has a vast and sophisticated sphere of reference -would see the serpents for their frat-boy mentality instantly. As much as he wants to be close to his father, he doesn’t idolise him. He sees FPs faults, and until a couple of episodes ago, he seemed determined to avoid repeating them. I really struggle with how quickly he changed allegiance.

And then there’s Toni. Another allegiance change. I best get this bit over with quick because it makes me so sad. I really wanted to like her character. I was interested to see how the SouthSide was represented by someone who - unlike Jughead - wasn’t desperate to shake himself from its shackles. And I’m disappointed. Perhaps she’ll get a bit more depth of character later. Perhaps. I’m disappointed that she’s - so far - been brought in to compete with Betty (I am so done with female characters being pitted against each other). I’m disappointed that the writers have just shifted the Betty-Veronica-Archie love triangle to a Jughead-Betty-Toni one. She’s so obviously designed to be the opposite of Betty (even down the the clothes; black vs pastels), and Jughead has been her aim since she arrived. He carries the mystique of being Serpent royalty (to her at least, he doesn’t seem to hold that for the other serpents). It feels a little forced. I’ve have really liked her to be a friend. And if she had ulterior motives, did they have to be romantic?

So much about THAT scene upset me. Okay. So we have Jughead, at his absolute lowest, completely vulnerable. He’s lost everything, and feels like all his ties to the North have been severed in the worst possible way. But let’s not cast him as a victim entirely. He must have had an inkling about Toni’s intentions - from her volunteering to show him around on day one, to her hanging about his trailer, her (subtle but still evident) insults towards Betty, the signs have been there and he’s never discouraged her.

Actually, there are quite a few comments from Jughead throughout the episode that suggest he might be a little interested - or intrigued. (‘It was something you said, actually.’ etc). Here, he is the one who lets her in; he volunteers that Betty is a non-issue. Whether or not we want to accept it, it certainly looks like he wants to kiss her. And he kisses her back. He leans in and kisses her back. Not cool Jug. Did you want my heart to splinter into about a thousand pieces on the floor? If it was just the kiss and no comments, I’d be feeling a little bit better about the situation. But the combination…. Ack.

Until we see next week’s episode and the aftermath of the kiss of doom (sorry. Sorry. I just.. I’m not okay.) it’s hard to analyse exactly what’s going on with Jughead here. Is it desperation for something tangible? Is it that he’s realised there could be something with Toni, that represents his new life? (The one he can actually have - not the one that he felt like he was just chasing all the time). Is it purely a moment of weakness, wanting to feel close to someone to fill the void left by Betty? (Please. Please. Please). Will he regret it or pursue it? I’m too blinded by what I want to happen to be able to comment on that directly.

All I know is that the saddest sight of the show for me was Jughead sitting in his trailer, icepack on his head, new tattoo sealing his fate (the permanency of that really upset me. He’s fully committed. There’s no going back.) leaning in towards Toni - because he’s literally got no one else. He’s spiralling; he’s been thrust into a horrible situation but made it about a thousand times worse for himself.

Actually, no. The saddest sight of the entire show was Betty, who doesn’t have anyone.

Thanks Riverdale Writers. I didn’t want my mascara to stay on anyway.

(I don’t actually expect anyone to read all the way through, I just needed to get things off my chest).

TL;DR

I’m heartbroken.

Someone needs to have a word with Jug.

His foster parents are going to have a tough time explaining the state of his face to social services should they pop in anytime soon.

I vote we all step in to wrap Betty in cotton wool and protect her from everything.

Of all the crimes that the Black Hood has committed, breaking up Bughead was his worst.

[madlori]

Hockey, quick and dirty (no, not like that)

So the Stanley Cup Finals are upon us and I’m guessing a few people who’ve never watched hockey might decide to check it out, especially since no matter who wins this year, it’ll be historic.

A lot of people watching hockey for the first time: OMG WHAT THE HAP IS FUCKENING SO MANY MOVING THINGS.

Worry not. I am Here For You.

What even is going on here. I’m dizzy.

Yeah, that happens. What is going on here is that two teams of six dudes each are trying to get a six ounce rubber puck into the back of the other team’s net. They do this by skating rlly fast, banging into each other, cursing a lot, and flinging the puck around. That’s it, basically. Hockey isn’t very complicated in its basics. There is one way to earn a point (make the puck go into the net) and one way to win (be better at making the puck go into the net than the other guys).

I can’t see the puck WHY SO TINY.

I feel your pain. Watching hockey on tv is a bit of an acquired skill. If it helps, watch the players, not the puck. Ironically, watching it live is WAY easier.

Who are these six dudes?

Each team is allowed six players on the ice. Almost all the time, those six players are three forwards (who are supposed to shoot the puck and score - a group of 3 forwards is called a “line”), two defensemen (who are supposed to stop the other team from being able to score, and get the puck back for their team) and one goalie (whose whole job is to stand in front of the net, be huge and impenetrable, and stop the puck from going in). But except for the goalie, everyone shares in all the jobs to varying degrees. Defensemen often score, and forwards often defend. There is at least one NHL team whose top scorer is a defenseman.

There are way more dudes on the bench. What are they even doing, cheering?

They’re waiting for their turn. Each team can have 23 players on their active roster, but can only “dress” (get geared up and ready to play) 20 players for each game. They usually dress four lines of forwards, three defensive pairs, and two goalies (a primary and a backup - most of the time the backup sits on the bench the whole game. He only goes in if the primary gets hurt or gets scored on a LOT). If you are not familiar with the players and their numbers, you’re probably not noticing that the players on the ice change constantly. Hockey is so strenuous that you can’t do it at full game speed for more than a minute. Forwards play in “shifts” of usually 30-45 seconds, defensemen usually 1 to 2 minutes. They swap out as the coaches direct, without stopping play. I have yet to stop being impressed by this. You often don’t see the changes on TV because the cameras stay with the puck, and the players are changing off-camera.

Wait...what’s a power play? That sounds kinky.

A big part of hockey is penalties. You get penalties for doing not-cool stuff with your stick, your body, your skates. Most are minor penalties (two minutes) - there are also double minors (four minutes) and majors (five minutes). When a team is charged with a penalty, a player goes to the box, usually (but not always) the player who committed the penalty. You’re not allowed to replace the player who’s in the box, so this means his team is short one player, and the other team has an advantage, which is called a power play. Teams have a special group of players for the power play (usually their best forwards) and also a special group for when they’re at a disadvantage (called a penalty kill, heavy on their best defensemen because they want to survive the penalty without getting scored on). It’s possible to have TWO players in the box at once resulting in a 5-on-3 advantage (a two-man advantage is the maximum allowed) and sometimes you’ll get one player from each team with a penalty, resulting in a 4 on 4 period.

Icing? Offsides? These are clearly not cake-decorating terms.

Hockey is played in three periods of twenty minutes each with a 15 minute intermission between them. During those periods, play continues until a whistle is blown or a goal is scored. Whistles are blown for penalties, when the goalie freezes the puck (stops it and hangs on to it so it can’t be played), the puck goes out of play (over the glass or into the bench) or when the teams commit the infractions of icing or offsides. Icing is when someone shoots the puck from behind the center line all the way to the opposite end. You’re not supposed to do that. When the puck is being played toward the offensive zone, the puck has to be the first thing across the “blue line” (the line that marks the beginning of the offensive zone). If an offensive player beats the puck across the line, that’s offsides. 

Hey, they’re fighting! That can’t be allowed, right?

Well...yeah, it kind of is. Hockey players frequently get in minor little shovey-shovey sweary shouty skirmishes (this is often referred to as the players getting “chippy”). Those aren’t fights. Real capital-F Fights are actually a stat that is kept for teams and players. An official fight is usually at least semi-planned and the refs are sort of given a heads-up about it, they usually just stand there and let it happen, and the players keep each other from piling on. It’s a real fight if the players drop their gloves and if punches are thrown. Believe it or not, learning to “hockey fight” so you don’t actually injure yourself or the other player is a skill that players are taught. It happens, but usually both players will get some variety of penalty (roughing or fighting depending on the severity and who started it). There was a real fight in last night’s game although it was really more like a minute-long hug session.

They’re totally running into each other. A lot.

Yep. That’s called checking, or hitting. It’s legal to hit a player who has the puck in order to get possession away from him. But there are a lot of rules - you can’t hit someone who doesn’t have the puck, you can’t hit the player with the puck from behind, you can’t hit them above the shoulders or below the knees, you can’t use your elbows, and so forth. Legal hits can still be pretty brutal and how penalties are called for illegal hits is wildly inconsistent. Hits are another stat kept for the teams and it’s a measure of how aggressive they’re being in taking puck possession.

Hey, the players are getting points too, not just the teams.

Yes, they are! Hockey is very team-oriented. It’s extremely rare for a player to score a goal without one of his teammates setting it up for him, or getting the puck to him in a way that enables him to score. Players get equal points in their individual stats for both goals and assists. Each goal has the possibility of two assists - the guy who touched the puck before the goal-scorer, and the guy who touched it before that. Assists are not recorded on every goal, and some goals only have a primary assist and not a secondary. When we talk about players’ stats, the ones most frequently mentioned for forwards are total points (goals + assists), goals, and points per game (goals + assists divided by number of games played). Any player will tell you that the ability to just shoot the puck into the net is not the most important part of offensive play - the ability to “create offense” and set up plays that result in a goal is even more important. Some players are goal-scorers (Alex Ovechkin is one example) and some are players that do more offensive creation (Sidney Crosby is like that). 

DUDE THE GOALIE IS GONE. DID HE REMEMBER THAT HE LEFT THE OVEN ON?

If the goalie is gone it’s probably in the last 2 minutes of the game and his team is losing. There is no rule that says you HAVE to have a goalie on the ice and you’re allowed six players, so if you pull your goalie, you can put another forward on to score. If there’s 2 minutes left and your team is down by 1 or 2 goals, if you pull your goalie, the worst that can happen is you’ll lose MORE, and you might be able to tie the game and force overtime, or even win, if you put yourself at a man advantage with an extra skater. This is called an “empty net” situation and it’s nerve-wracking, especially if your team is the one that pulls the goalie. All it takes is for the other team to break away from your defense and they can pretty much score unchallenged. (There is another situation, delayed penalties, during which a team pulls their goalie during other times in the game, but that’s a bit advanced. I can explain it if anyone’s curious)

Um, is it me or do these playoffs take forever?

It’s not you. The Stanley Cup playoffs take forever. Sixteen teams make the playoffs (out of 30, soon to be 31 teams total) and they play four rounds, each of which is a best-of-seven. The winning team at the end could have played as many as 28 games in the post-season - the regular season is 82 games long. There are four divisions in the league grouped into two conferences. Each division sends their top three teams to the playoffs, then each conference sends the next two highest-scoring teams for a total of eight teams per conference. Those eight play for the conference championships, then those last two teams go on to play for the Stanley Cup. This year’s western conference champions, the Nashville Predators, and the eastern conference champions, the Pittsburgh Penguins, are two games in to the final round now. Pens are up 2-0 games in the series. Each round takes about two weeks - the playoffs started April 12 and could end as late as mid-June if the final round goes to seven games.

A lot of these dudes seem to be Canadian.

Yep. Hockey is Canadian for sure. Of the players in the NHL, 50% are Canadian (if you can name a world-famous hockey player there’s about a 95% chance he’s Canadian), 25% are American and 25% are European of some other variety (mostly Russian, Swedish, Czech and Finnish). One of the things about hockey that bugs me is that it’s SO WHITE. There are many reasons for that, but it’s getting better. At this year’s All Star Game there were six minority players invited, and there are some amazing up-and-coming young players of color in the league like Auston Matthews (who will 98% probably win the Calder trophy for Rookie of the Year this year), Josh Ho-Sang, Seth Jones and Nazem Kadri, three of whom played in this year’s playoffs.

There’s a lot of hugging. I did not expect this much hugging.

Hockey players hug a lot. After someone scores it’s pretty much standard for there to be a big hugpile.

Okay, I think I’m good for now.

Awesome! Hockey is fun to watch and hopefully this has been helpful. I enjoy talking about it and learning more stuff myself, so send me an Ask if something confuses you.

[grizzlefur]

WWEm - Too Much Shit For One Man to Kick

In which Emma’s heart grows three sizes.

Broadcast date: Monday 4/Tuesday 5 September 2017

Now that I've torn myself away from the combination of Destiny 2 and trying to fix my phone, it's time for MONDAY AFTERNOON RAW!: The Nacreous Gem Around The Intrusive Sand Of Roman Reigns Trying To Cut A Promo

trialling a new slogan

daniel's uncle's idea

apparently owning the building means you can give production advice

price of free offices, i guess

anyway, i'm like 70% sure he doesn't read these, so i can say whatever

but yes, the actual show

the bright orange blur in this tumbnail suggests we may be hearing from one mr cena

straight in on a recap video of the contract signing from last week

only presumably without cena kicking a hole in the fourth wall like the fucking shockmaster

also they've edited it to remove roman forgetting how to english

some damn good promos, though

i'm just loving all the shots of kurt in the background gawking like oh god what have i wrought

oh, apparently this is labour day

you'll pardon me for not exactly giving a shit

and we're in omaha

and here's the cena himself

here to cene all over us

oh, apparently we're just kicking straight into a match

and booker's back

i never thought i'd be glad to hear that slurred bullshit

and here comes jason jordan and his dodgy synth music

here to fight cena for unspecified reasons

oh, so we can play the clip of cena debuting against kurt 15 years ago

back when he was ruthlessly aggressive

who doesn't love cross-generational parallels

omaha is super behind cena, possibly for his music containing actual instruments and vocal tracks recorded at the same time

jason goes straight into the amateur mat game, which is not exactly cena's forte

lots of lingering hugs

i think booker just managed to get jason and cena mixed up, but let's be real, i wasn't listening

my mind just levels out everything booker says into a kind of mealy blur

but hey, that's better than the unignorable shittiness of the jerry

(my favourite kundera book)

cena gets a comeback phase, including whipping jason so hard he also faceplanted himself into the mat

that seems poorly thought out

tries to deploy his five moves, jason manages to counter out my backflipping out of a suplex and dropkicking him

fuck you, cruiserweight division

jason takes a five knuckle shuffle, then counters an aa into an indescribably weird rollup

takes an stf for ages, then reverses into a crossface/chinlock thing

cena says fuck you, i'm john cena, stands up out of it and goes for another aa

jj counters out into a beautiful rolling double nothern lights suplex

straps come down, jj unleashes his true power level

and immediately eats an aa for the pin

way to disprove roman's argument that cena buries young talent

oh hye, speaking of

-slips into pre-emptive coma-

and  he's got a mic

fantastic

roman's like why the fuck did that take you 20 minutes that guy's been on the show for like a month

roman really needs to work out what point he's making

so yeah, argument today is that cena's not as great as he thinks he is

and is a lion

fake-ass little bitch

"Roman, I'd say I'm happy to see you, but...I'm disgusted by your whole face."

cena is all out of shits to give

like stop trying to use your brain, it's not your thing

cena immediately addresses roman's inconsistent point

and that his fly is open

which roman turns into lol cos i'm the big dog

ew

men

and cena counters with a balls joke, and roman with a gay joke

fuck's sake, guys

there's a bar, at least make a cursory effort to get over it

cena takes it to roman for having everything handed to him, like damn dude i fucking hate the miz but at least he works for his shots

this is all true

cena's mostly just exasperated

like damn dude, get a clue

so roman's like hey if you want to beat me up let's do that

roman, stop being smug

or just, yknow, go away

cena does not beat him up, so roman's like hey fuck you dude and walks off

that worked, i guess

but later, we apparently have braun/show in a cage

so we can play the gif of those two crushing the ring

also later jeff hardy has an ic title match

but now, enjoy this advert for total bellas

or don't, very much up to you

but now, here come the not-shield

entering to dean's intro

they're gonna be on announce for slater and rhyno vs the kkb

seth and dean should totally rebrand as the sword

god, i love that they've managed to get a dragon ball reference into their entrance

dean's like welp, that's a great entrance,can't take that away from them

confirmation that we've got their title rematch at no mercy

dean goes off on a tangent about jurassic park and getting your face eaten by velociraptors

seth starts giggling

send for the man

corey asks if seth and dean are getting on as a team, dean's like eh, i've had five years to punch this guy in the face, i'm kind of over it by now

back in the ring, heath slater is getting the fuck kicked out of him

but then, that's what he does

inevitable hot tag so rhyno can get some offence in

and then eat a brogue for the pin

dean starts talking smack on the bar, then he's like well we're the bar now hey we should steal their name

dean talks like he fights

cesaro and sheamus do their fusion dance in the ring, and i'm like 90% sure their fusion would be goro from mortal kombat

although more the plasticine fantasticine version from the film, tbh

that's science right there

toasty

cut back to the announce team, where seth and dean have evaporated

and they talk to book about the hurricane

briefly

but now, renee interviews the hardyz

matt breaks in with a semi-broken accent

crowd goes mental

and jeff's like yuuuup gonna win this or get myself killed with the FIRE THAT BURNS WITHIN ME

man can preach

so that's next, i think?

after this ad for randy/shinsuke on smackdown

insert comment about what competition means

and here comes the match

starting with the hardyz

jeff's wearing a connor's cure tabard over all his other clothes, and seriously, i think the man has a problem

it also makes it very hard for him to rock out to their music

cole makes a reference to them wanting to delete paediatric cancer

well played

and enter the miztourage

maryse has a new vest/pvc leggings/sparkly knee boots combo, and as ever, i want it

also perilously close to real human clothes

apparently it's just over 10 years since jeff had the ic belt

bell rings, jeff goes straight for a rollup because fuck wrestling

miz cowers against the ropes like please mr hardy don't beat me

and uses it to throw jeff out to his cronies

a scheme

who would have thought

back in the ring, jeff just punches the hell out of miz's oh-so-punchable face

whisper in the wind for a nearfall

it's taken this long for jeff to jump off something, he must be taking it seriously

sets up for a swanton, bo distracts the ref so curtis can pull jeff off the turnbuckle

sparks a brawl outside the ring, ref is just like fuck this noise all three of you can fuck off

matt is deeply offended like how could you do this to me i was defending my brother's honour

miz counters out of jeff's crotch leg drop, which is good to see, because it is such a trivially easy move to counter

this match is actually p good

it's been like 60% reversals

maryse is still at ringside, which can't possibly be foreshadowing anything

ooh, she's gone with acid-green nails as well

maryse is just my style icon

(as if you didn't know)

miz pulls jeff off the apron, then collapses against the barricade in fornt of a small child in a cena shirt who's like um what

miz gets a figure four one, jeff just goes to counter by punching miz in the face

makes sense when you think about it

eventually gets to the ropes

then hits miz with a stunner, nearfall when miz gets the rope

live by the rope break...

miz crawls out of the ring while the ref shouts at jeff, then immediately eats a baseball slide

and then poetry in motion off the steps

kind of feeling sorry for miz atm

he's bumping like a demon

maryse pulls her husband out fo the way of a swanton, leaving jeff to fuck himself upon the mat

goes for a twist of fate, miz counters into a finale for the pin

damn good match, solid finish

but now, women do things

or so i am assuming by this recap package of banks/bliss

oh yeahb, and nia's inevitable betrayal

announcement: sasha has her rematch at no mercy

and now nia accosts kurt backstage

she's not impressed that she doesn't get a title shot

and emma interrupts to talk about her twitter analytics

she also wants a title shot

nia's just like fuck off or i will actually break you

kurt holds them apart, and hatches a plan

nia/emma v sasha/alexa tonight

if the undercarders win, he'll make the title match a four-way

foreboding shot of the cage, insistent mentions of the ring being reinforced

and have some more recap videos of brig showman fucking the ring

never noticed how hard the ref bumps to the outside when it happens

caught it now, of course, because they've replayed the clip from SEVEN HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN FUCKING ANGLES

but now it's time for cruiserweights to not get an intro

dar, nese and gulak already in the ring

and cedric and gran metalik get to enter with enzo, because seriously, nobody's getting a fucking intro

except enzo, who's brought a mic as usual

enzo tries to spin cheating to win matches as some kind of god-given right because it gets you wins

babyface?

despreately hypes 205 like please watch my show

he introduces cedric and metalik in the shittiest way possible

i spoke too soon, his smacktalk introductions for the other three are even worse

match kicks off with cedric/tony doing the cruiserweightiest wrestling ever

and enzo tags himself in to ruin everything

drew tags in to kick a non-trivial amount of shit out of enzo

not all of it, of course

the man contains too much shit for one man to kick

the heel team start doing rolling tags to take turns fucking up enzo's shit

and then they all just cruiserweight over everything and i can no longer narrate

stereo topes from cedric and metalik, during which enzo tags himself in because he's a twat

and then sticks a thumb in drew's eye to get his stupidly-named finish for the pin

the alleged faces celebrate as drew's outside with his friends like aaaaaaaaaaa i am blind

end segment

and now alexa collars sasha in the locker room to bitch about their opponents tonight

alexa has a cancer shirt too because she's a face by default tonight

this conversation quickly turns into a huge row

that match'll go well

up next, finn bálor wears a shirt

boo

and an advert for the myc, which continues to be great

and here comes everyone's favourite irish possible serial killer

-does the arms-

goes 'this is bálor club' like he's introducing his new talk show

waxes lyrical on his previous titles and how bray wyatt's a dick

finn has chosen his fate

or possibly faith?

this just in, he has an irish accent

calls bray out, immediate wyatt cut

and now we're in the void with bray

talking about learning to hunt as a kid

and the day he decided to stop using a bow and just kill things with his bare hands

i think we could have all filled in that backstory, tbh

taunts finn for only being able to beat him using the demon as his weapon, rather than doing it with his own power and will

and obliquely challenges him for no mercy

finn starts shouting back at him, which is a rarity for these segments

bray calls finn a rabbit, wyatt cut, end thing

so yeah, bray v human!finn for no mercy, presumably

oh hey, more ads for smackdown and total bellas

and now it's women's tag time

cole claims total bellas stars alexa bliss, corey's like um dude that's just a lie

she is here though

this much is true

oh my god i had forgotten how fucking angry i was about emma's new music

although that said, i think it's changed again

it's still not as good as her proper music, but better than last week

cfo$ are clearly going through a weird phase atm

corey is critiquing emma's hashtag efficiency

someone had to

the basic theme if this match thus far is 'tagging yourself in for giggles'

my inner bitch is loving the reluctant passive-aggressive teamwork in this match

(also my outer bitch)

(aka me)

as the smaller woman in the team, emma is performing her proper function of getting fucked on relentlessly

this rule does not apply to alexa, because her rage gives her virtual height

she's like one of those tiny dogs that will FUCKING HAVE YOU

emma finally gets a tag to nia, alexa gets a chance to vent at her

and get creamed

eats a big-ass samoan drop, sasha breaks up the pin after a moment of internal conflict

gets the tag, shining wizard for a nearfall

emma blind tags, nia leg drops sasha, emma gets the pin

i'll be honest, i was not expecting that

four-way should be good, though

emma celebrates extravagantly in the middle of the ring, nia's like um

and samoan drops her

nia will also fucking have you

back to the ambiguous backstage room, where renee has acquired a braun

asks what he's thinking before his first cage match

he's like really what the fuck was kurt thinking, this match might hurt me before my title match at no mercy but will definitely hurt company property

the man does a surprisingly good promo

but up next, seth and dean are back

their walk backstage is briefly interrupted  by elias thrashing out a new song

long beat as they just kind of stand there like what's up with this guy, then shrug and carry on, dean playing along on the air

but next, they fight the good brothers

after these ads for every show we make

back from ads, sheamus and cesaro are in the ring arguing with gallows and anderson for some reason

who am i kidding, you don't need a reason to bitch on those guys

seth and dean still using dean's intro

like, if you're going to just use one, seth's is way better

BURRRRRN IT DOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWN

ref eventually manages to usher the kkb out of the ring, match can commence

sheamus and cesaro seem to have settled on just sarcastically applauding from ringside

someone needs to get them popcorn

this match is a little formulaic, but damn do i love how in sync seth and dean still are as a team

seth/dean v jordan/gable v gargano/ciampa v dawson/wilder

give them a whole show, best tag match possible

as opposed to this particular long-ass superplex setup that didn't even work

dean counters a chokeslam into a dropkick, which is p cool

seth gets the hot tag, commences to jump off every goddamn rope before braun and show fuck them up

dean tries to join in, does a shitty suicide dive

seth hits a lovely top-rope frankensteiner on anderson, the kkb try to interfere, seth gets the pin anyway because they're just that good

and then the good brothers take sheamus and cesaro out while they're distracted

they take a long moment to consider their options, then go back to the ring to fuck up anderson and gallows

and now here's the connor's cure video basically the same as last year, because history and cancer haven't changed much

and they've got the wwe makeup department in to give kids superstar redesigns

that's kind of sweet

and steph giving them all hype ring announcements is cute

dammit, i've fallen for a cute ill kids advert

and they brought alexa, miz, and finn

which seems like a super weird collection

to inspire these kids with cancer, we've brought our resident bitch, a self-important asshole, and a guy who draws power from being possessed by a demon

perfect sense

but up next, main event time

but first, cruiserweight recap vt?

because now we see enzo and his mates in the locker room being annoying

cue sarcastic clapping from neville

and news that those three have all qualified for a five-way elimination match for a title shot at no mercy

neville sows dissesnsion with a few ominous geordie words

closeups of techs reinforcing the ring

and now charly interviews the ref from the ring explosion match, of all people

oh, apparently the ring's double reinforced

not just reinforced

fancy

he's like welp this match is gonna be carnage i'm just going to focus on dodging

and now renee gives big show a hype chat

gah, i'd forgotten his new hairlessness

come on show, give us a YOUUUUU DID THISSSSS TOOO MEEEEEEEEEE

Shockingly, Giant Baby Show says Braun ain’t shit

the dramatic climax of the promo is just show telling us his own nickname

you know how i said braun could promo surprisingly well?

well...not that

seriously guys, how many ads do we need for total bellas?

it's back

we know

ad for 205, in which we learn that the other two slots in the 5-way are kendrick and nese, for no adequately established reason

wait, has anyone seen kurt and show at the same time?

feels like we might have a dr angle and mr show thing going on

corey just referred to braun as "the steam-breathing monster"

um

i have no clue what to say to that

is he coal-powered?

bell rings, braun kicks show in the face

ha

and starts bodychecking him into the cage

weirdly, it goes wrong on the fourth one

show counters with a magic fist, doesn't climb the cage for some reason, cut to ads

cut back and nothing at all has happened

ecept show is now taking his turn to throw his opponent into the cage walls

show starts climbing, braun follows

weird scale going on, since they can both stand on the top rope and touch the top of the cage

show gets crotched really hard

guys, stop doing that spot

it is not good for you

show sets up on the top rope, everyone goes wtf

and does an elbow drop for the first time in like two decades

doesn't connect properly, but still a good moment

goes for the pin, braun kicks out at two because fuck you i'm braun strowman

show crawls for the door, braun walks over, grabs it, and hits show in the face with it

then braun tries to walk over show to get the door himself, and show does eexactly the same thing back to him

see, that was just dumb

braun kind of wanders into a chokeslam, then counters into a ddt for a nearfall

few spots later, show manages to land the chokeslam, braun kicks out because see the above re: fuck you

show goes for a magic fist, braun counters into a powerslam, show counters out and throws braun into the wall

show goes for the climb, followed by braun

gets his chest over the top before braun drags him back down because NOT FINISHED WITH YOU

i have never seen big show on the top rope this much before

braun gets a superplex in, the double reinforcement does its job

still a hell of a crash

and running powerslam for the pin

okay, i'm not usually one for large man punch fights, but that was actually really good

braun looms ominously over his fallen foe, then somehow acquires a mic

calls out brock to see big show's corpse as an object lesson

long ominous beat, then tells big show it's time to go to pasture, picks him up, and powerslams him through one wall of the cage

crowd goes wild

next time they should maybe think about also double reinforcing the cage

show lies on the broken cage wall going aaaa i'm dying, braun stalks off and roars, end show

in all senses

right, well, i've got some bad news

the horizontal line's off in Marbella this week, so we're gonna have to roll straight on

-checks the list of test slogans again-

MONDAY AFTERNOON SMACKDOWN!: Takes Hotter Than Your Dad.

i swear, the things i do so we can have somewhere to record this show that's only occasionally filled with vengeful woodland animals

so yes, the raccoon incident aside, let's watch mackdown

or indeed smackdown

mackdown is the wrestling dating sim i am now going to have to make

opening on a weirdly-saturated recap package of the orton/nakamura situation

the worst holmes story

and yes, the best thing about smackdown today

i'd had it spoiled, but still

JBL IS FUCKING GONE

he's off to do charity work, so we get the double whammy of disadvantaged kids getting support and me not having to listen to his voice

and they've replaced him with corey, making pretty much the ideal announce panel

Tom: "Did you miss me, Graves?" Corey: "Yes!" Tom: "I...am surprised!"

i live for these two talking shit

so yes, orton/nakamura tonight for a title shot at hiac

and here's randy, standing in three-quarter profile in a dimly lit corridor

yknow, like people do

and giving a speech about how he' gonna fuck shinsuke up

cut to shinsuke shadow boxing in the locker room

tells us about how he's gonna fuck randy up, i mostly get distracted by his left shoulder, which i hadn't noticed before

it's kind of fucked

i'm guessing that's a dislocation that healed weird

cut to the ring, and ellsworth announces his bae

only to be interrupted by...kevin?

he's decided he's going to be guest referee for carmella's match with nattie

begins trying to intimidate the ref into taking his shirt off

here's shane

who may have opinions on this fuckery

takes a moment for a cheap pop before getting into professional mode

he's just like kevin

dude

sort your shit out

long tense faceoff

shane's like maybe take responsibility for all these failures which are in all ways your fault

kevin's like fuck you i don't even want to be on this show

shane's like well yeah, cos this isn't the bullshit show where we just give people belts

kevin calls shane out on him needlessly inserting himself into eveything on the show

mentions his dad, gets an ooooooh, mentions his kids, shane immediately gets in his face like fuck you

kevin spins the helicopter crash into this, says his family would all be better off if he'd died there

mentions his kids again, shane explodes on him

well, he did warn him

trips getting out of the ring, killing the moment a bit

throws kevin over the announce table and just absolutely goes to town on him

security pull them apart, bryan turns up to be like the fuck are you doing dude that's an employee

and give the most disapproving dad look you've ever seen

and...cut to an ad for total bellas

way to maintain the mood, guys

and recaps of what happened thirty seconds ago

in which they've edited out shane tripping

ha

backstage, kevin staggers through the room supported by three officials

bryan comes out to apologise

kevin promises to sue shane, wwe, and the entire mcmahon family

bryan's like wow, that seems wildly disproportionate

kevin's like fine, i'll go press assault charges insteads

cut back to announce, corey and byron are both like well he totally deserved that

but yes, now we actually have that carmella/nattie match

recap from last week reminds me precisely how fucking awful carmella's singlet was

thankfully, she's back to normal gear today

provided you count bright orange leggings with leopard-print piping as normal

announce team start spinning next week's 'Sin City Smackdown'

carmella gets her face punched off, retreats to her ellsworth

pan out to naomi watching the match with a look of deep concentration as carmella does a long-ass guillotine choke

nattie powerslams her out, gets a comeback

carmella superkicks nattie, gets a nearfall, ellsworth gives the ref the briefcase

carmella's like wtf no i'm not cashing in give my that back, throws it at ellsworth, and gets rolled up for the pin

ellsworth comes back into the ring to apologise profusely

carmella starts being all magnanimous, then opens up on him

including using the same line twice

calls him a 'genetic defect'

and asks how he's still employed at wwe

really, the question we were all asking

"You are a charity case, and your mother should have given you away at birth!"

wow

harsh

and officially dumps him

takes her case, struts off

leaving james in the ring and the depths of despair

backstage, here's shane looking conflicted

up next, dolph ziggler re-debuts

i have no clue how this is going to go

expect everything

after these ads for the myc and no mercy

and tom giving us a talk about paediatric cancer

roll the video again

refer to my comments above

well, that gave me plenty of time to curate my itunes library

fringe benefits

and here's the dolph

looking...exactly the same

he's got a mic

presumably to tell the fans to go fuck themselves

yup

railing at the fans for not appreciating the greatest performer in the company

and they'd prefer some dumb gimmick

lights go back down, and here he is again

doing cena's entrance

all credit to the crowd for the DOLPH ZIGGLER SUUUUUUUCKS singalong

dolph's like hey, did that not work? i'll try another

lights go down again, and now he's...who had land of hope and glory?

-research break-

yeah, thought it was him

dude, if you're gonna do a macho man entrance, you could at least have the shades

gives up on it, shouts at the crows for not doing the usual nostalgia pop

sends his valet away

and now he promises to have exactly what the crowd want and deserve

and...now he's naomi

the fuck is this

does the knee slide, then gives up

all gimmicks are defeated by ennui

and now he's back to railing against the idea of gimmicks, because anyone can do them

says he, after clearly showing that not everyone can dance like naomi

tells the fans they make him sick, stomps off backstage

so that happened?

up next, sami zayn v aiden english

because this is 2014 nxt, apparently

aiden gets about one line into his aria before sami's music interrupts him

oh yeah, this is the rematch from last week when kevin fucked on everything

and aiden gets a rollup out of nowhere

that lasted about 90 seconds

the bookers have some sort of problem with sami

and aiden's got his mic back

so he can give us some more singing

swiftly tailing off as sami chases him out of the room

let's have yet another recap of shane brutalising an employee

pan out to bryan rewatching it

only to get interrupted by the new day

here to lift his spirits

oh, and here are the usos

to do the opposite

announcing the stipulation for next week

street fight

which seems ill-advised when you're fighting a team of three

bryan gets a call, ushers the new day out

someone bryan calls 'sir' (so vince) wants him to do something in the ring

i know what, because i have a dreadful habit of going on twitter and getting spoilers, but i'll maintain the mystery for now

bryan disagrees, is shut down

and he's going to do............IT right now

(couldn't resist)

and here he is in the arena

gets in the ring, calls shane to come too

he doesn't

finally, here he comes

with nary a HERE COME THE MONEYYYYYYY

not sure i've ever seen either of these this sombre

bryan's like remember last year when the miz was pushing me every week and i made the bold choice to NOT FUCKING ATTACK HIM?

bottom line, you can't assault our employees

fair policy

shane's like yeah sorry but when people talk about my family i go crazy

bryan's just i don't give a single shit you've endangered this entire show because we both know kevin's a vindictive bastard who'll take us for everything

shane offers to go and reconcile with kevin

bryan's like no, i talked to your dad, you're suspended indefinitely

and leaves

shane's left in the ring like welp

why would you leave him there if he was suspended?

eh, wrestling logic

many crowd chants later, shane slumps off

gets a lot of thank you chants for a man who's just been suspended for attacking an employee

and now renee is in the blue curtain room to interview jinder

in an ugly-ass houndstooth suit

asks which guy he'd rather fight, he doesn't give a shit

claims he represents asia better than shinsuke ever could, despite shinsuke actually being from fucking asia

does the promo again in punjabi to speak to 3% of the great nation of india

back in the arena, aj's on announce

to talk about paediatric cancer

(i feel like i'll be writing that phrase a lot in the next few weeks)

and here's baron

sidebar fact: "Won the Money In The Bank ladder match earlier this year"

guys, maybe stop reminding people of that

recap vt of styles/dillinger last week

and of baron being a tool

i feel like i might need to specify that more

and here's tye

and they haven't synced his music with his new tron, so the sexy number voice says 10 when the video's on about 6

kind of love the KO'S A BITCH sign in the crowd

works on many levels

baron slides out of the ring to face off with aj, so tye just jumps out and fucks him up against the barricade

solid advice: maybe keep an eye on the other guy in the match

cut to ads, come back to a really slick spot of baron lariating tye's head off

tye tries to set up for the tye breaker, is thwarted by his opponent being large and heavy

and baron continues to stop having the match he's actually having so he can shout at aj

and i love the complete lack of shit aj gives

baron scores a cheap shot to tye's throat, angering aj, and end of days for the pin

actually a pretty good match

you forget that tye's got a lot of skill in the ring

aj is shocked at baron's lack of honour

because he doesn't watch the show, i guess

up next, "a special look at bobby roode"

ok, whoever edited it to go directly from saying that to a total bellas advert needs firing

backstage, aj congratulates tye on his fight and says next week, the us open challenge will only be open to him

dude

that's not an open challenge

that's just a challenge

and now for a bobby roode video package

enhanced by corey being on this show now so he can run hype for him

and now we're backstage with ellsworth pleading for carmella to forgive him

and being like yes i'm subhuman and i don't deserve anything please take me back

this is not healthy

carmella says from now on, they're doing things her way

gives him a huge kiss, then slaps his face off

flounces off, leaving ellsworth to be like the actual fuck is my life

but now we have a main event

here comes the very finest in flailing japanese men

and adverts for all our other shows

and also a fucking snaaaaaaake

loving the contrast of entrances

incredibly theatrical alien dance vs walking slowly down the ramp

cut over to jinder and the singhs in his skybox

tom mispronounces kinshasa even before the bell rings

this is why we got corey on here

whoever you are trying to get your MAGA sign to constantly show up on hardcam, kindly fuck off

randy does a massive hotshot, aided by shinsuke being an extremely floppy man when he wants to be

randy goes for his draping ddt out to the floor, shinsuke reverse out because that would be dangerous as fuck if he hit it

throws shinsuke into the announce desk, corey's like this is the worst first day ever

shinsuke just decides to get a comeback spot like oh hey maybe i should just kick him in the face a bunch

superplex to shinsuke, and the setup only took a small percentage of my life this time

lovely spot as shinsuke's reeling on his knees then just leans back into doing his cmoooooooon

goes for a kinshasa, randy counters into a snap powerslam

into a draping ddt, because you know randy's spots

strikes up the snake, which is still weird when your whole thing is hitting it out of nowhere

goes for an rko, shinsuke counters into an armbar then transitions to a triangle

that was fucking lovely

randy powers out, shinsuke counters an rko into a backstabber

see, this is how you preserve finishers

and kinshasa for the pin

oh, sorry corey

KINSHAAAAAASSSSSSSAAAAAAAAAAA

(totally why corey's here)

well thank fuck for that, i'm not sure i could have taken another orton/mahal rematch without taking up amateur tattooing or something

backstage, bryan tells kevin they're done

kevin's like fuck that, imma run the show next week

and bryan drops the bomb that vince'll be there next week to sort shit out

great

ah well

and brief cut back to shinsuke partying so we have something to end on

and thus we finish the week's shows

by which i do of course mean last week's shows

one day i'll actually get my shit together and be punctuahahahahaaaa sorry i couldn't get through that

[Don’t forget to follow Emma on Twitter, where she’s @Waruce]

[jamfingers]

Some Background on That One Super Famous Cluster B Personality Disorder and Some Brief Meta Tying It to Kai Parker’s Problematic (but Fine AF) Ass Because I Said I Would Do This

Okay, this isn’t a research paper, so I’m not going to put ref points throughout the post, but I’ll write down the full names of the texts and articles I used at the bottom in case you’re interested in checking them out yourself. Some info/pics come from old annotated notes, but I likely will only use those for examples provided by previous professors. NONE of these visuals are mine, they’re copyrighted and I’m posting them for educational purposes. I’m making no profit off of this. Obviously. This is a damn fan blog. 

First off, lets talk behavior and psychopathology, then I’ll get into like...the barest bit of some of the complex anatomy and physiology behind them. Then I’ll talk Kai Parker a little and how he fits this. This post is gonna be hellaciously long, since it’s an academic reference/meta, so read more under the cut:

Personality is something pervasive, long term, and generally not mutable in a person. And individual’s personality will develop in childhood and are measured by rating the general patterns of disordered conduct/socializing of traits known as the big 5: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. These traits, like anything dealing with the mind, are measured on a spectrum and patterns of extremely high pervasiveness of traits in some areas and extremely low pervasiveness in others that results in a diminished or troubled quality of life is what results in a personality disorder.

Personality disorders are sorted into 3 groups called clusters:

Kai falls into cluster B - he has antisocial personality disorder (ASPD from here on, can also be noted as APD), historically called “sociopathy”. ASPD is more commonly diagnosed in men than in women, (although this might be in part due to societal/gender biases of both the patient and the clinician, but I digress), with a prevalence in the clinical population of 3.9-5.9% and in the general population of 1.0%-1.8%. It’s rare, but not the rarest personality disorder by any means. No unicorns here.

I personally denote ASPDers as the biggest con-artist assholes you’ll ever have the displeasure of meeting, but that’s not very academic, so I’ll copy my one of my textbook’s format and break this up into a few categories. More information can be found in references.

Clinical Description And Criteria:

“I am entitled to break rules.”

That right there is the sun with which ASPD revolves around. The disorder is characterized by extreme selfishness and disregard for others, highly impulsive and risky behavior (like drug use, reckless stunts, fighting), and unusual emotional responses and fits of rage, but no deficits in reasoning ability. People with ASPD know what they’re doing, understand the social norms/ rules behind them and don’t care. In regards to the Big 5 personality traits this is what they look like (L is low, H is high):

And diagnostic criteria for ASPD on the DSM-5 looks like this:

YOU HAVE TO HAVE DISPLAYED CONDUCT DISORDER AS A CHILD TO BE DIAGNOSED WITH ASPD AFTER 18. Remember an individual’s personality develops in childhood and is long-lasting. Conduct disorder in children is diagnosed with this criteria:

ASPD has a pretty high heritabilty (about 40-50%) and it’s fostered in hostile environments characterized by lack of warmth, exposure to violence, high negativity, parental inconsistency or parental ASPD, and/or poverty.

While ASPD is associated with poor impulse control, there is still no deficit in reasoning ability. ASPDers with a high intelligence quotient (IQ) are less likely to get caught or engage in illegal or destructive behavior because they know the game. They’d rather be free to fuck people over than in a system and can be quite adept at hiding their traits. This leads me to psychopathy. There’s still some debate about whether psychopathy should be considered different from ASPD, but most clinicians these days agree that psychopathy as a subset of symptoms that fall under ASPD. So just like all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares, all psychopaths (at this point) are ASPDers, but not all ASPDers are psychopaths. 

Psychopathy:

Defining characteristics of psychopathy include:

If you’re having a hard time reading this, the red and blue branches indicate what aspects of psychopathy are influenced by what bit of anatomy dysregulation. AMG - amygdala, PCC - posterior cingulate cortex, MPFC - medial prefrontal cortex. The coronal slices (red, bottom blue) are as if you’re looking at a person face to face - your left is their right. Top blue is scanned from the right side (See that scrunchy round thing behind the straight part? Below the “PCC”? That’s the cerebellum behind the brain stem. It’s in the back of your head, to help with orientation.) Middle blue is as if you and the person are facing the same direction, but you’re taller and looking straight down on their head. Hope that helps you out!

In general, with regards to criminal behavior, high IQ psychopaths are called “subclinical” psychopaths and are not generally studied bc...well, they blend in. They find other, legal or discreet ways to fulfill thrill seeking behavior.

Psychopathy has some actual distinct differences in the brain that can be physiologically measured. It’s typically shown by differences in the the right amygdala and the anterior rostral prefrontal cortex (arPFC from here on), especially on the right side. (The right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for emotional recognition and expression, while the amygdala controls fear responses/recognition and the PFC in general controls different aspects of higher cognition. In this case, it’s likely the conversion of emotionality to morality, since emotions play a large part in fostering sympathy and from there moral judgement.) See?

Integrative Biopsychosocial Model of APD:

Bio (Genetics and neurobiology): Twin and adoption studies show that ASPD is highly heritable, but it’s the gene-environment interaction that is integral for ASPD development. ASPD is an endophenotype - the underlying aspects of disorder are genetic (low levels serotonin and dopamine (the chemical neurotransmitters), or in the case of psychopaths, low levels of serotonergic or dopaminergic axons (the anatomy that receives the NT)) and provide the unique emotional aspects of ASPD, but the social behavior presentation is guided by the environment (early childhood stress, lack of social guidance, etc). The arousal theory, if you’re interested, is based of the endophenotypes and can explain how certain behaviors arise from them (i.e. ASPDers, esp. psychopaths, are stimulation seeking bc of low response in reward systems (serotonergic/dopaminergic)). *I add on dopamine bc it’s an important chemical in the brain’s reward system, but serotonin is the key one.

Psychosocial (mental and environmental): Inconsistent parental punishments, lack of punishment for aggressive/antagonist behavior, environments that propagate violence, high risk-reward and fearless psychology all lend themselves to the development of the disorder. 

The disorder is like a measuring cup and each influence is water filling it until the water level reaches the mark where the disorder presents itself. 

When it comes to ASPD, prevention, not treatment is preferred. Redirecting behavior patterns in kids with conduct disorder is your best bet compared to trying to get a fully formed, highly aggressive ASPD adult to behave.

Here’s a case study from my abnormal psych textbook depicting what the you’d most likely see in clinical ASPD case (i.e. in “the system” , like prison or a hospital):

(See why I said con-artists asshole? Ryan’s a fucking dick.)

References:

“Abnormal Psychology: An Integrative Approach” 7th Edition, David H. Barlow & V. Mark Durand {This is the book I used in my psychopathology class, which is for...understanding pathologies of the mind lol.}

“Neuroscience” 5th Edition, Dale Purves {Great book for detailed anatomy and physiology of neural circuits, and I didn’t get into like I could, but the emotion chapter is dense and that’s a lot of info to slam you with.}

“The Foundations of Behavioral Neuroscience” 9th Edition, Neil R. Carlson {Easy to read and a great general capstone text} 

Okay, so now that we got the science, on to Kai Parker:

Right, so I think it’s safe to say that, canonically, Kai mostly fits the criteria for ASPD, but you’re def free to go back over all that up there and do your own comparison. We all know how Kai is an admitted “sociopath”. Considering Joshua Parker’s behavior, we can probably take a gander on the genetic component and considering the entire Gemini premise, plus the way Kai in particular was raised as the outsider in his family, we have an idea of the hostile and warmth-lacking environment that fostered it.

Because it’s TVD, I do think Kai was written to cater that whole “handsome, suburban white boy gone wrong” schtick, but I also think he’s one of the most subtly well-fleshed characters that show ever produced. There’s this one article I read for a neuro lit course (“Loneliness and associated violent antisocial behavior: analysis of the case reports of Jeffrey Dahmer and Dennis Nilsen.” authored by W.H. Martens and G.B. Palmero) that really stuck to me in a pervasive way and it’s about how chronically festering feelings of neglect and loneliness, of feeling like an unaccepted outsider, drove Dahmer and Nilsen to take their victim’s lives in a misguided way to dissuade the loneliness.

Having read that makes me wonder how Kai, the fictional serial killer, reflects his real life counterparts. The drive for merging and becoming coven leader is something that would force others to acknowledge him, which ties into his “black sheep” speech, his “I was never hugged as a child and my siblings were kept away” complaint (There are a lot of inconsistencies in his dialogued back story that bother me, but it makes me wonder if he ever lied about his past: “my favorite memory is when I finally beat him to death” and the preceding story about Mario Kart with the bby bro seems like something he might have just made up to fuck with Elena), and other vocalizations he’s made about his past which point to him being the misfit and desiring a sense of belonging. While we know Kai’s ASPD is a part of his characterization, this to me seems out of the norm for this disorder, simply because it indicates an understanding of sympathy that is unwittingly emotional.

Of course, Kai could also just want to be able to lord the world’s biggest “FU!” over his abusers.

Either way, anti or not, when using the ASPD/sociopath argument to defend or dismantle Kai as a character, I think it’s a good idea to keep in mind that Kai was written inconsistently. He shows very little impulsivity or recklessness in 1994, one trait which is almost a given with ASPD, nor was he flightly/irresponsible. He always had some end-goal or plan in mind. This was pre-merge. But he was also manipulative and showed no regret about the people he hurt. Obviously, each case of the disorder is unique because they exist on a spectrum, but the pattern and criteria are there due to broad commonalities in each case. The way the media tends to portray ASPD is not all consistent with the way the disorder presents irl.