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shiningdesignersreflections · 2 years ago

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Leonid: Dustless Feathers

Designer’s Reflection: Dustless Feathers

Obtained: Angel and Demon hell event

Rarity: UR

Attribute: Blue/Cool

Awakened Suit: Feather of Light

Story - transcripts from Designer’s Reflection

Chapter 1 - Dream of Fallen Stars

Chapter 2 - Orbit of Stars

Chapter 3 - Cry of Demons

Chapter 4 - Dustless Feathers

Chapter 5 - Break of Moonlight

Story - summarized

Leonid is awoken by a memory of his life in Pigeon. He was a hermit who only went outside to buy supplies, but would eventually retreat to his home in a banyan tree to observe the stars. He was always fascinated with them, and he studied their beauty and their destiny.

A nightmare of the stars falling to darkness finally snapped him out of his trance. He had fallen into the abyss after seeing a vision of the starry sky collapsing. Now, he was surrounded by darkness and noise. It overwhelmed him.

He got a momentary respite when a figure of beauty and desire approached him. She called herself the Goddess of Desire, and she offered to destroy the old world to make a new, more beautiful one for Leonid. One that would preserve the beauty of the stars forever.

It was exactly what he wanted... so why was he still missing something? Leonid backed away from her and kept trying to isolate himself from the noise.

Then, he saw a memory of a flower. It was alone on a branch, longing for water and sunshine. It was dying, but it still held onto that hope. Leonid was stunned. The flower never got its wish fulfilled... but it was still beautiful. He peeked out at the darkness surrounding him, and he recognized some of the noises as his old neighbors: the starving fisher family, a young man who desired love, the little boy who desired to be a warrior.

None of them had their initial desires fulfilled... yet there was still beauty in their fate. Leonid realized that he had been trying to predict and preserve the ending beauty when there was already so much more in the ordinary moments leading up to it. Beauty and disgust, life and death, light and shadow, were all part of the same thing.

That revelation allowed him to complete his manuscript of the angel design. By accepting the darkness as well, he gained enough power to break free of the abyss. A resulting war of the gods ended with him returning to Miraland to observe and protect fate.

And he does this by taking on Modric as his newest student.

Connections

-Leonid lived and worked in a banyan tree. Yexiao used to live and work near a banyan tree years ago before she lost her memories in the Reflection for Spring Forest. Since Cloud and Pigeon are neighboring countries, it’s possible that this is the same tree.

-Modric and Nikki are both students of Leonid’s. His “interference” is crucial to setting up the chain of events leading to the arrival and defeat of the Goddess of Desire: he paved the way for Modric to get access to the hidden chamber of the Original Crystal, and he gave Nikki the enchanted necklace that helped light the way out of the abyss.

-Twinkle Twinkle is the Reflection where Leonid first discovers the Ocean of Memories; this is the Reflection where he explores the Ocean’s depths and sets up the path for Miraland’s destruction; and his latest Reflection (the VIP suit Prophecy), is the fitting end that explains why he did what he did and where he is now.

Fun Facts

-The idea of everything being impermanent yet connected is a central belief of Buddhism. It also explores how to end human suffering and seek enlightenment, much like Leonid’s quest at the beginning.

-Another core belief of Buddhism is that one of the causes of suffering is desire or illusion. Leonid is able to escape the abyss after he breaks through the Goddess of Desire’s mirages.

-The Goddess of Desire had Leonid’s desire all wrong: he didn’t want Miraland to be destroyed, he just learned to accept that destruction is as important as beauty in the way the world works.

-It’s not clear yet when Leonid had time to make the manuscript before giving it to the woman in Twinkle Twinkle, but the Ocean of Memories seems to exist outside of space and time, allowing some leeway in the timeline.

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aftgficrec · 3 years ago

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@deathdorito said: For Raven Neil enjoyers i recomend Innominate by Major_816 - Neil starts off as a raven and from there he makes it to the foxes and alll that jazz

‘Innominate’ opens with Nathaniel Wesninski inhabiting his Alex persona, but not on the run like you might expect. He’s actually on the prowl. His eyes are butcher blue and his blond wig itches. The short while he’ll spend as Alex doesn’t justify a bleach job this time. He’s a friendly guy with photos of his hotel-industry family, unshakable documentation, known dietary preferences, and mannerisms practiced and polished down to a heartthrob smile that’s bigger on the left side.

Nathaniel’s hierarchy of loyalty puts Ichirou Moriyama and Jean Moreau at the top. Ichirou is favorite son and next in line to lead his family’s crime syndicate. Jean was sold to the Moriyamas as a child. Together they are family; brothers forged in blood. Only they and one other know him as Abram, his core identity that he’s fought to hold through a grizzly childhood as both carved and carver. Abram’s been terrorized and trained his whole life by his father, the Butcher of Baltimore, a bloody enforcer for the Moriyamas. The Family holds Abram’s second tier of loyalty with the noted exception being his machinations to disempower and kill their Butcher.

Abram is richly detailed, fractured and complex; plagued with debilitating nightmares and flashbacks, determined to hold on to his humanity but sometimes losing himself entirely to a persona more lethal than the Butcher who raised him. Now he’s been tasked to go deep undercover to shore up problems in the world of college exy where the Family has a vested interest. Jean has been undercover with Edgar Allan University’s team for 3 years. He reports on the Family’s weak link, lesser son Riko Moriyama. As Riko grows increasingly violent and unhinged, Jean gets quieter. Ichirou and Abram know something is wrong. To them Jean is a brother. To Riko he is property, a convenient target for abuse.

As Neil Josten, Abram’s mission is to infiltrate Palmetto State’s underdog exy team, to work out exactly what Riko is doing to Jean and extract him if need be, and to decide if Palmetto’s newly acquired star player Kevin Day is a loose end better off dead. As Day rebounds from a near career-ending secret attack by Riko, he remains a target for the lesser brother’s jealous rage that threatens to bring unwanted attention to the Family. Abram’s also determined to unravel what power beyond Riko tampered with goalie Andrew Minyard’s medical and psychiatric records and swayed a court to keep him medicated out of his mind. He needs to keep Andrew from looking too closely at the house of cards underpinning the identity of unknown exy prodigy Neil Josten, despite their eyes locking time and time again and the unshakeable feeling that they are somehow the same.

Ichirou is humanized and emotive; married with a baby on the way, protective of his chosen brothers, concerned for his father’s failing health, not quite ready to wear the crown. Jean fought back as a child and Abram suffered for it. What hurts is he hiding now? How will the brothers bring down the Butcher? Buckle up for the ride, y’all. I highly recommend investing in this story if you can handle the trauma and violence, it’s shaping up to be a stunner. Thanks very much for the rec! - A

Innominate by Major_816 [Rated E, 73397 words, Incomplete, Updated September 2021]

An AU where Mary never got Nathaniel out. Instead, he became too invaluable of an asset to be killed off or 'gifted' to Tetsuji. Instead, he's raised with Ichirou and Jean as a part of Ichirou's inner circle.

He'd always had a knack for languages and lying and all the 'messy stuff' came easily enough when your father is called the Butcher of Baltimore. So Nathaniel became the Wraith. He was untraceable, unknowable, infalliable; a criminal fairytale.

When Kevin Day leaves the Nest, there's no better person to send.

"Who the hell are you?" Andrew demanded.

He wasn't anyone, not really; not anymore. He hadn't really been anyone in years now. There'd been a time. Once. But there were entire lifetimes between who he could have been and what he'd become. He could taste it sometimes; blackberries and sand stinging his tongue like the iron branded on his shoulder.

It was easier to pretend he'd never been anyone at all.

"I'm nothing," he answered. the ghost of a smile pulled at his lips; sharp and cruel. "A wraith." The Wraith, he didn't say, but the shadows ran through Adnrew's eyes and he wondered if Andrew had heard it anyways.

tw: graphic depictions of violence, tw: graphic nightmares, tw: implied/referenced torture, tw: blood/gore, tw: referenced flaying, tw: graphic description of corpses, tw: murder, tw: canonical character death, tw: flashbacks, tw: victim blaming, tw: panic attacks, tw: child abuse, tw: abuse, tw: nonconsensual drug use, tw: implied/referenced rape/noncon, tw: kidnapping, tw: alcohol, tw: dissociation

NB: There are also bonus scenes for this fic!

adj. not named or classified by Major_816 [Not Rated, 11267 words, Incomplete, Updated September 2021]

Bonus Scenes and alternate POVs from Innominate; including previous missions of the Four Horsemen, Abram as a kid, lots of foreign countries, and a lot of chaos.

tw: drugs, tw: nonconsensual drug use, tw: kidnapping, tw: panic attacks, tw: violence, tw: murder, tw: torture, tw: child abuse, tw: child trafficking, tw: animal abuse & death, tw: implied/referenced rape/noncon, tw: gun violence, tw: knife violence, tw: blood

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vidavalor · 4 years ago

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Bucky flirting with Sam as part of the changing times theme in Ep 5...

This is on the long side. Contains brief mention of the show basically canonizing Bucky as a sexual assault survivor. It’s meta on Bucky and Sam’s identity themes and how the show is shifting into a theme of changing times with the latest episodes-- mostly about how Bucky’s journey is paralleling Sam’s, even while being a different kind of journey.

One of the more interesting subtle themes of Ep 5 is that while we have had a lot of emphasis in the earlier episodes on how much horror still exists in America-- and a very right, necessary emphasis-- as the show begins to pivot towards the part of Sam’s journey that involves him deciding to become Captain America, they are pivoting a bit to illustrate that as much as many things have, unfortunately, not changed the way they should have over time, a lot really has. (Also, the Sam-as-Captain-America thing isn’t meant to be a spoiler as I don’t really totally know if that’s the ending, it just seems um... really the only place this story is going...) They have been using Isaiah to illustrate this point for Sam quite a bit in Ep 5, especially. The core conflict comes from Isaiah believing that a self-respecting Black man wouldn’t want to fight for America after the horrors that have been done to Black people in its history, which is not something that Sam ultimately feels is true. He definitely feels the pain of Black history in America but he still believes *in* America and views it as his country and is accepting that everyone in it really has a role to play in making it live up to the ideals it espouses but has still yet to achieve. In deciding to appreciate Isaiah choosing to open up to him and share his story but respectfully disagree with him on what to do next-- and to have his ability to make this choice reinforced by Sarah supporting him by saying she knows he will choose to fight in the fights he believes in and she has his back-- Sam is choosing to become a symbol of something, even if he’s just a man, and he’s affirming to himself that it is okay for him to believe in this thing he believes in. It’s okay for him to believe in America and love America and what it stands for, even in all its extremely imperfect glory, because he can be the change he wants to see in the world. He knows there are many people who will support him in that and that it only happens if we make it happen and that America, in all its imperfection, has made a lot of positive change happen throughout its short history.

You know who else is enjoying similar truths in the same episode? Bucky.

Bucky arrives in Delacroix all “Hello, 21st Century! I’ve always wanted to flirt with a man in public! I will be over here, lifting heavy stuff and getting in the personal space of your next Captain America, Good People of Delacroix, Louisiana!” What’s so endearing about this is not even just that this is clearly the first time that Bucky has felt like he has some control over his own mind, after proving he can manage The Winter Soldier in him a bit in the last few episodes, but that he’s working towards this kind of peace in a time where he really no longer has to hide any part of himself. Long before The Winter Soldier, Bucky was so the guy with a girl on each arm and a guy in the dark of the back alley. He has never, in his entire century-plus of living, been able to really be who he is without fear. It’s not as if there is not any fear left for LGBTQIA people in the world because, sadly, of course there is but loving Sam would have gotten Bucky arrested twice over in the 1940s. Interracial marriage was illegal until the Loving Act of 1967-- and that was still just for heterosexual couples. Obviously, same-sex marriage wasn’t legalized in the U.S. until 2015. If Bucky had been caught with a man in his youth, let alone a Black man, they both would have been arrested. Even if they were let go (and Bucky would have been more likely to suffer less, on account of being white), their reputations and ability to work and serve in the military could have been impacted.

The show toys with this with Bucky’s interest in exploring it, even through the haze of a lot of severe trauma, back in Episode 1. While he’s mainly eating at the sushi bar because he’s befriended Yori on account of his amends project, he is living in a very modern existence by regularly conversing with these two. Consider that the show chose to make both of them Japanese, basically to illustrate that Bucky, in a sense, was always progressive for his time period. Bucky *could* have been the kind of WW2 soldier who forever saw people of the countries the Allies fought against as an enemy-- your grandfathers and great-grandfathers who never stopped hating the Japanese. But he’s not. He actually comes off as someone whose inability to fit the mode of the heterosexual white American guy in his own time period lent him a lot of empathy towards others and I might be wrong about this because I can’t quite recall at the moment but wasn’t he drafted, as opposed to enlisted? It’s doubtful he even really wanted to fight, although he’s always up for a fight against a bully and clearly hated the Nazis (but wanting to fight fascism makes you far from intolerant.) My point is that Bucky, back in Ep 1, is already experimenting with how living in the 21st century could be a positive thing for him in a life he might want to make for himself, if he can get through his trauma enough to do so.

He eats lunch on the regular with a man who is, in all likelihood, descended somewhere from at least one person who fought on the enemy side to Bucky in WW2. He regularly chats with Leah, who is completely unlike anyone he would have been able to talk to in the 1940s and seems almost designed to be *exactly* that intentionally-- she is a woman with a job that wasn’t like a nurse or a teacher or Peggy Carter lol. She tends bar, a job that was virtually exclusively male in the ‘40s. She has open visible tattoos and is probably putting herself through college-- something that women were just being able to attend, usually in female-only settings. She makes her own money and lives as a single woman, likely without the express intention on getting married and having a family relatively soon. (There’s nothing wrong with any of that. It’s more just that it would have been the exception, rather than the norm, in Bucky’s youth.) Atop that, she is Asian and works in a Japanese restaurant-- the ultimate business that would have suffered during the ‘40s as America didn’t exactly do right by its Japanese-Americans during the war and if Bucky, a white soldier, had been seen with a Japanese girl, it would have been bad for him but worse for her.

So the reason why Yori has noticed that Bucky always looks at Leah when they eat lunch is probably less about the attraction Yori assumed Bucky had for her and more that Leah is this personal fascination for Bucky-- a human being who is basically the total embodiment of everything that has changed in the world since Bucky was last freely a part of it. Yori assumes Bucky wants a date but Bucky really wants what he ultimately got out of it, which is more just to talk to her a bit.

They also play Battleship, which is kind of darkly funny. The game originated after WW1 and used to be played on paper. It soared into popularity in the 1930s and has never stopped being popular ever since-- so, in essence, the game they play is the one part of this that, like Bucky, has been in existence the whole time. It has taken on different forms, though. It became a plastic board game in the ‘60s and has been modernized a few times but it’s still here. (It’s also funny that Bucky is kind of losing the game with her, symbolizing that he’s not entirely figured out this whole modern world yet, even if he’s very interested by it.)

But the big thing is that Bucky is beginning to edge away from just observing this new world and trying to decide how he wants to participate in it. He’s basically decided that he might like to and while his heart is completely with Sam, he’s also afraid of himself and his ability to potentially destroy that one really strong wish he has to be with him, so he’s pushing him away by not answering his texts. He’s likely also, atop insecurity in himself, literally terrified at the idea of hurting Sam not just physically-- through some nightmare or some untapped Winter Soldier potential or failing to protect him-- but through the fact that he’s a guy from the 1940s who has literally never openly dated a man, had Black friends during the war but that was decades ago and is not really sure how to do this.

Forced into a date with Leah, he experiments with the modern world in a way because he’s here because sure, he likes her and all but he was more just interested in her world than her personally and he just didn’t want to disappoint either her or Yori, so he showed up. She seems fairly trustworthy (and he trusts no one but Sam and Yori, so that’s a start) but what he wants really is to say aloud to someone for the first time that he likes men. To see how that goes in this modern era. (Depending on how you take Bucky and Steve, he could have put this into words to Steve at one point, likely way back when, but it’s also possible that they both just knew and didn’t talk about it. Either way, you didn’t go around telling people you didn’t trust in the ‘40s and it’s doubtful that he’s ever just said it to anyone and for sure not on a regular basis.)

He even knows that this wouldn’t be a deal breaker for a woman, necessarily, in the modern era, which is probably blowing his mind a bit because you would have been hard-pressed to find a woman who would admit to someone she didn’t implicitly trust that back in the ‘40s and it wouldn’t have been so open and accepted. What he really wants in Leah is a new friend and she seems to sense that-- she likes this weird guy with the circulation problem that is nice enough to lunch with the old man at her restaurant, he seems okay enough, if broody and sad, so why not talk to him for a bit? She totally thinks he’s just a closet case (she’s not wrong lol) and won’t really be crushed by him rushing out of the date beyond like “too bad, he was pretty hot” but for Bucky, this is the likely the first time he’s ever casually chatted with another human being about his attempt at finding a guy he likes.

It’s actually really sweet in that he’s still sort of coding it a bit, if not that much. He’s still a bit nervous about this so he’s saying tiger pictures to reference men so he can say it without saying it. Leah gets it and just kind of rolls with it and probably has zero idea how big a deal it was for the century-old guy sitting at the bar.

He might have been intentionally dramatic a bit about how it was all “a lot” but he was also telling her the truth-- he did a little exploring online. Found some men. It looked like a lot of work to stroke all these egos. Bucky’s for the modern world but he’s kind of into more old-fashioned guys. He’s got a warm-hearted soldier kink. Family man kind of guys with generous spirits. He’s considering online stuff because he’s also a guy who has been through an absurd amount of trauma-- some of which the show will just come out and say involves sexual assault, off that Selby scene-- and he’s probably considering trying to get beyond some of it by just having sex with somebody. It’s not at all an uncommon response for people who have been raped to try to get beyond it by just having sex again and you know this is yet another level of anxiety for him when it comes to the idea of having another chance at life. He’s nervous around himself at this point and doesn’t fully trust himself, so he’s not sure how he can trust other people and the one guy he *does* trust and *does* want? Bucky has that whole ‘don’t want to burden him with my own issues’ thing happening. (That’s not a bad thing when it’s a situation of expecting your partner to be your therapist, which shouldn’t happen but Bucky would and should have expectations that someone he’d have as a romantic partner can be someone he can trust to care about him and be sensitive to how his past plays into his present needs, in and out of bed.) He’d trust Sam with this but he also wants to be like... he basically feels like he met the potential love of his life while trying to kill him and just got his mind back and the timing is all wrong. It’s a lot of ‘too broken for Sam’ self-narrative.

Whether or not Bucky actually went beyond scrolling and being astounded at the unattractive insecurity of tiger pictures or whether he hooked up a time or two, it’s clear he didn’t get what he needed out of it and he gave up on it, admitting to himself that he’s really basically a tired old romantic who wants love and trust and the whole dance of things and that kind of intimacy more than the back alley casualness of online dating. This is about as far as Bucky has gotten while trying to deal with his trauma while having a truly terrible therapist: he likes sushi now and would like to have his life’s first real chance at an open, mutual, loving, romantic relationship. He just didn’t know how to get himself there.

John Walker and the shield issues actually, ironically, gave him scenarios where he could, through actions that suited him better than those his therapist had assigned. He needed to learn not to not hurt anyone but how to manage it when he did. He needed to learn how to be a soldier that protects people again, not the Winter Soldier, and that he can control that part of himself. He needed the opportunity to show Sam that he really does care, he’s just a grieving mess of a man working through being so out of time and secretly scared that he might like this time better, might have a chance at being who he is for the first time, and he doesn’t know quite what to do with that. He lets Sam in enough that they can show one another that they understand each other’s traumas. He tosses himself out of a plane for Sam in the first episode to prove he’ll follow him anywhere, that he’s strong and will survive and come back, knowing about Riley not being alive when he hit that ground. Sam responds by seeing Bucky essentially frozen in a PTSD moment of the train car on the side of that truck and grabs him out of danger. They snark and bicker but the actions speak louder than the words-- there’s caring there and want and a sense that they’re a bit gone on the other.

Sam’s trust in Bucky-- even as Bucky is still learning how to trust himself with himself-- gives Bucky a confidence boost that he was missing when he pulled away from Sam out of fear of hurting him. The whole White Panther/White Wolf scene? Sam expected Bucky to grumble or blush, he was for sure flirting with him but didn’t expect quite that amount of flirt back. Without realizing it, he had hit on the exact part of Bucky’s identity that was giving him the biggest boost, that he understood the best at that time-- the White Wolf. The White Wolf is the freed Winter Soldier, a peaceful tender of goats, a wounded warrior beloved by a community who rescued him. He represents Bucky’s recent past into his present-- being able to work for the chance to shake loose the Winter Soldier and evolve into a different version of himself. He wanted to impress Sam with that-- he saw Sam’s flirting and parried back, which he didn’t always do, because he knew it would be impressive that the Wakandans had given him a (pretty sexy actually) nickname. He’s boosted by Sam still flirting, Sam still caring, still seeing something in him he’s working on seeing himself. He has some hope, even as they fight, because his attempts at getting closer to Sam are not being rejected wholesale and Sam keeps reaching out to him, often literally. After Madripoor and after Bucky going after and finding Zemo, he feels more ready. He’s more in control of himself. He thinks he has a path to getting beyond the worst of this stuff and he might not have worked out all the details yet or figured out what it looks like but he finally feels ready to try and since Sam hasn’t rejected him, he’s going to take Yori’s advice, just with the right person and stop waiting around, stop just looking and make a move.

In a way, Sam is introduced to 1940s Bucky for the first time in Delacroix-- this is the guy he saw glimpses of but was pretty deeply buried. He’s not reverted back to the Bucky of old as how could he, after all he’s been through? But this is the flirt, the natural charmer and he’s been set free for real for the first time, without worry or fear that he can’t live a life he wants and be the person he truly is without fear of rejection of who he loves, his family and the community at large. He likes this place that is the exact opposite of everything he’s suffered-- it’s so warm, he’ll never feel frozen again, physically or emotionally. The people here don’t care about his arm or who he loves, Sam’s family has Sam’s big, warm heart and Sam? Well, Bucky’s enjoying making him a little flustered. You like that stealthy White Wolf, Sam? Well, he’s got his eyes on you. ;)

Maybe the best part of this being the parallel to Sam’s decisions about how he wants to identify when it comes to him deciding to take up the shield is that it relates to a sense of freedom that is at the core of both of Sam and Bucky’s stories and is the whole point of Captain America and how it is supposed to symbolize a fight against fascism. Bucky has been told twice in the series that he’s “free” and each were, in a sense, a bit true. Ayo tells him this when he’s free from mind control and that is a major move forward for him-- life-altering-- but he’s not free from the trauma of it. Dr. Raynor tells Bucky that he’s free now and can build whatever life he wants but we see on Bucky’s face how those statements for him, in those early episodes in New York, really are conflicting ones-- he is free from mind control but still imprisoned in his trauma and that is what is keeping him from making the life he wants. Over the course of TFATWS, alongside Sam’s journey to decide how he wants to feel about America as a Black man and what he feels he owes to the country and the country owes to him, is the story of Bucky having to build his own identity as well. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is ultimately what these guys were-- the identities they still have at the beginning of the show. They’re going to end it Sam and Bucky, Captain America and the White Wolf. Bucky’s real sense of freedom only came when he realized he could trust himself to decide how he wanted to live, when he proved that to himself and took control over it. He’s still not completely fine-- no one really is, ever-- but he has a path now. Sam and Bucky have different identity conflicts but ultimately, at the core, their struggles with them and with what their country has asked of them and with how they want to live and what they want for themselves, is very similar and the core of a lot of why they understand one another well.

It wouldn’t surprise me if we find out that Bucky stopped answering Sam’s texts when Sam suggested he come to Delacroix. Bucky knew about the boat when he got there, the same way that Sam knew about Bucky’s nightmares, so these two were talking a lot, they were friends on a verge of more but both knowing they each had too many struggles to overcome first and I think that Sam had to have been trying to reach out and accidentally went too far. It’s kind of like in the therapy session-- most of the time, Sam is amazing at dealing with people who have been through trauma but he sometimes falls off his game with Bucky. The whole “this is what you wanted, right?” in the therapy session is frustration, it’s pushing a little too hard, it’s snarking over feeling like Bucky rejected him romantically, even if Sam understands why and probably wasn’t convinced they were ready for it anyway. It’s possible that Sam thought inviting Bucky home with him would be good for him-- and the sun and the Wilsons would have been-- but, at the time, it just made Bucky panic, which is then also why Sam just rolls over the fact that Bucky hadn’t been returning his texts when they see one another again. Sam kept reaching out to check on him but accepted the non-response because he felt like he might have kind of pushed Bucky too fast. They both know they both have feelings for one another but are scared by how much the other has to get through to get to that point and feel ill-equipped to really help one another, often blunder in their attempts to (and other times, get it just right.)

So, yeah. There’s still no shortage of conflicts to be dealt with but alongside Sam finding his path to living his truth in this modern world has been Bucky’s arc from daring to whisper about tiger photos to showing up to show off his prowess with heavy stuff and tools to win over his boyfriend in front of his family and hometown. It’s not subtext. It’s literally Bucky’s identity-themed character arc, existing in parallel to Sam’s. Just because they aren’t giving it a ton of labels does not mean that it isn’t the intent of the story.

#sambucky #buckysam #bucky barnes #bucky #sam wilson #tfatws

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subbyp · 4 years ago

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I have a headcanon that some legendaries/mythicals are actually singular and some are simply ultra-rare species that don’t mate in captivity and guess what?? you get to hear them:

Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres (both Kantoan and Galarian) are ultra-rare species. Humans know this because they’ve seen them caring for young, but no human is known to have interacted with or handled a chick.

As a manufactured being, Mewtwo is singular. Theoretically, another one could be made, but Mewtwo destroyed all records of its creation process.

Mew is singular. Mew is also the first Pokemon to exist for its own sake rather than as the embodiment of something, although some say that Mew is the embodiment of the concept of Pokemon in and of itself.

Entei, Suicune, and Raikou are not beings so much as weather patterns. There are a few recorded instances of two or more of the same kind extant at the same time, usually during catastrophic weather events.

Lugia is the last remaining member of a once-extant species.

Ho-oh is singular. If it is destroyed, it reforms.

As the patron spirit of a specific forest, Celebi is singular.

Latias and Latios are a mated pair, but no evidence has been found that they can actually reproduce.

The Regis are all singular; they are all either one-off experiments or the creator thereof.

Kyogre, Groudon, and Rayquaza are technically singular, but they can “split off” pieces of themselves to act independently for a time. Those pieces are some of the only known legendaries to allow themselves to be formally caught, and they return to the main being after the death of their trainer. The main beings are the only ones capable of primal reversion/megavolution.

Sightings of Jirachi are so vanishingly rare that nobody knows whether it’s a unique being or a species.

Deoxys is an ultra-rare species, but we only know this because the only Deoxys that has landed on Earth has reproduced (it budded).

Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf work in the same fashion as the Weather Trio, but their shard-selves do not allow themselves to be formally caught. Instead, once they are “caught,” they will travel with a trainer for a time (determined by how much the shard feels it has to learn from the trainer and vice-versa) before returning to the main body and pooling their memories with the rest.

Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina are singular. In fact, Giratina is multiversially singular--there is only one Giratina across all universes and timelines.

Since it has reproductive organs, humans assume that Cresselia is not singular, but there is only one on Earth.

Heatran is a species and can be caught, but its destructive potential is such that possession of it is illegal in most places. Heatran is not particularly rare in its native environment (the core of the earth), but only a few have ever decided to come up to the surface.

Manaphy is singular, but its children Phione are not and can be caught (although catching them is illegal in many regions due to their rarity and complex care requirements).

Darkrai is not unique, but it doesn’t reproduce. Instead, Darkrai are born when a community of people and/or Pokemon suffer from a steep enough rate of nightmares, phobias, and night terrors that their fears take on a life of their own. Darkrai cannot be caught and is really more of an idea, albeit one with its own mind, than a conventional Pokemon.

Shaymin is an ultra-rare species. It is said that only one Shaymin can be in Sky Forme at a time, but that may be an urban legend. Shaymin will not allow themselves to be caught, but are highly social and curious (as legendaries go) and are sometimes seen nosing around healthy urban green spaces and Pokemon-rich forests.

Arceus is one continuous being manifested in many bodies.

Victini is a singular conceptual Pokemon, the embodiment of victory and good luck. On extremely rare occasions--usually when the events about to transpire will radically change the future of the world--it may choose to appear to a trainer and offer to travel alongside them for no longer than a year and a day.

The Swords of Justice are unique, but they will travel with a trainer who bests them. However, they are prouder than conventional Pokemon and will leave at the first sign of mistreatment or negligence.

Tornadus, Thundurus, and Landorus are the Unovan equivalent of the Johto legendary beasts; that is to say, weather events with personalities.

Reshiram, Zekrom, and Kyurem are unique and were originally all one being. Some speculate that they could be split again, perhaps creating an even wider variety of beings, but nobody has both the will and the means to try that.

Meloetta is an ultra-rare species. It is said that every time a human or Pokemon writes a truly great piece of music, a Meloetta is born, but there’s really no way to verify that.

Genesect is a limited-run, heavily modified Fossil Pokemon. Several fossils of its base species exist, indicating that it was once a fairly populous species, but none of those fossils are complete enough to extract and revive. Most of the modifications on the five Genesect, though designed to maximize their power, are necessary to keep them alive.

Xerneas, similar to Arceus, is one being that manifests in several bodies. Unlike Arceus, who just “withdraws” any of its limbs if they get too damaged, Xerneas’ bodies can be destroyed. This inevitably causes colossal ecological devastation in the surrounding area; however, if humans and Pokemon work to reseed the area with life, a new Xerneas body may form there.

Yveltal is singular and may in fact be a part of Xerneas’ digestive system, like a particularly crabby and antagonistic patch of gut flora.

Zygarde is a species--in fact, each Zygarde Core is an individual being. Their teamwork is unsurpassed as they communicate at an empathic level. Each Core spawns some Zygarde Cells over the course of its life, but any Core can meld with any Cell given the proper conditions. If a Core and a Cell with different enough genetic material merge for an extended period, the Cell might grow an embryonic Core upon splitting off again. That is Zygardes’ only observed method of reproducing, but their biology is so malleable that it’s possible that they have others. Cores and 10% Formes can be caught; 50% and Complete formes cannot be.

Hoopa is either a species or a multi-body singular being. Multiple Hoopa exhibit different personalities, but some scientists speculate that that is just Hoopa’s method of “play”. Hoopa can be caught, but is known to abruptly leave for no apparent reason, especially when it has access to the power of Unbound Forme.

Diancie is both unique and not--there’s only one known Diancie, but it is technically a mutated (and sterile) Carbink, not a separate species.

Volcanion is a species, one distantly related to (and significantly rarer than) Heatran.

There are three Type: Null, one of whom has evolved into a Silvally. The documentation of their creation process still exists, and others could be made in time, but nobody is currently manufacturing them (or at least nobody is admitting to it).

The Tapus are singular beings, one for each of the main Alolan islands. Unlike many legendary Pokemon, the Tapus battle regularly against human trainers, although they cannot be caught.

The Cosmog family is an ultra-rare species. Only one Solgaleo and one Lunala exist on Earth at a time, but there are a handful of Cosmogs and Cosmoems on Earth, and one of the Cosmoems will evolve to replace the Solgaleo or Lunala if it dies.

Necrozma is a species, but there is only one per community of Cosmogs (and thus one per planet). It is symbiotic with the Cosmog family, but the one that resides on the Earth of the “main” timeline has become a parasite.

There is only one known Magearna, and its creation process has been lost to the ages.

Marshadow is singular, but an Alakazam that interacted with it states that it aims to reproduce and become the first of an ultra-rare species.

Zeraora is a species. Most Zeraora prefer to be alone, spending the majority of their time in the air or in desolate areas. Zeraora can be caught, but they resent it.

Meltan is a species, and it isn’t “rare” so much as “new,” having made no recorded appearances before the Industrial Revolution. Melmetal is a swarm, not a single being, but Meltan enjoy the swarming process and will stay in Melmetal form for months or even years at a time. Meltan can be caught, and they are legal to catch in most areas. They are happiest in large groups, so any trainer of Meltan is advised to maintain plenty of Box space.

Zacian, Zamazenta, and Eternatus are, as far as we can tell, singular.

The Kubfu family is a species. It has a large enough world population to maintain genetic diversity, but it is native to only a few regions, and it is usually illegal to export it. The Kubfus in Galar all descend from a small group that were smuggled into the country in the 1800s.

Glastrier, Spectrier, and Calyrex are singular, conceptual embodiments of the different biomes of the Crown Tundra.

Zarude is a species--in fact, it’s known for living in packs. It is legal to catch, but it refuses to reproduce in captivity or be traded, so there are relatively few of them living in human communities.

#pokemon #pokemon headcanons #my god there are a lot of these huh #legendary pokemon #proud of this though

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patriciasage · 4 years ago

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promises, promises

Author: Patricia_Sage

Fandom: The Adventure Zone - Balance

Summary:

Taako made two promises to his sister early on in this seemingly endless mission. Firstly, he isn’t allowed to intentionally cut a cycle short, no matter how much time is left, no matter how much he misses her. Secondly, if she’s gone, he has to take care of Barry.

He isn’t sure what his sister was thinking with the second one. ‘Taako’ and ‘take care of’ are not words that naturally go together for anyone other than Lup. He loves the entire crew, of course he does, but he would rather kill for them than comfort them.

This is the first cycle where Lup is dead and neither Taako nor Barry had gone with her.

posted in full under the break but you can find me on AO3!!

There are two months left in the cycle and Lup is gone. She, Merle, and Davenport were poisoned during a political meeting.

Taako hadn’t been hungry that day. He wishes he would have taken a drink. Magnus hates when he says it, but he prefers to die by her side than live without her. And death would have been much more preferable to watching her choke and spasm in front of him. Helpless.

Lucretia has a lot on her plate now, attempting to negotiate with the bastards who killed them. There was death on both sides, since Taako literally burned the place to the ground. It seems as though they’re on the verge of war – the four remaining crewmembers versus this country’s royal armies.

Taako doesn’t give a shit.

“What’s the fucking point?” he asks Lucretia when she made plans to meet with the royal representative. “This cycle’s gone to Hell; let’s just go.”

“We have two months left,” Lucretia says. “We have a chance to work through this and get the Light. Then they didn’t die in vain.” Her voice cracks. Taako attempts to be gentle with his friend, even though rage flows through him like a roaring stream.

But quiet vitriol escapes his mouth. “Are they even worth saving?”

Lucretia looks at him with bright, brown eyes. “Taako.”

“They killed Merle and Davenport and Lup! And they should have killed me too. And we’re still going to bend over backwards in order to save them? They obviously wouldn’t do the same for us.”

“That’s not how this works,” Lucretia says, quiet and stern. “We don’t decide who is worth saving or not.” She places her dark hand on Taako’s shoulder. “I know you’re hurting, T. And I won’t make you be a part of this. But I’m going to try and get the Light of Creation. And you’re going to make it through these next few months to see her again.”

Taako could see her again right now if he wanted to. But he doesn’t say that. And he doesn’t let himself truly entertain the thought. He promised.

Everyone on the ship is grieving in their own way. Barry becomes entirely reclusive, locking himself in his lab. Magnus cries a lot over the first few days and blames himself for not being at the meeting to protect them, but then he focuses his energy into learning to pilot the Starblaster. Taako attempts to distract his mind from the grief that sits deep in his bones.

Knowing their deaths are temporary doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Magnus makes it his personal mission to take care of Taako, which is very annoying but also helps with his plan for distraction. He sits next to the Magnus as the fighter test-drives the ship. It’s hard to think about your dead sister when your friend is crashing a spaceship into a lake.

But Magnus isn’t only recklessness and aggressive enthusiasm. He’s also soft and sensitive – and fucking manipulative. He tells Taako he needs a hug or someone to keep him company when he sleeps. Taako knows these are partial lies. He knows that Magnus just wants to hold his pieces together, to shield Taako from the nightmares that tear him apart.

Taako travels through the days like molasses. He wants to exist in the bare minimum, avoid the smouldering flame threatening to burn him up. But it’s hard to exist, unfeeling, in a world where he’s always had her at his side. He can’t do anything without thinking of her.

He drinks too much.

It helps a little, but it causes Magnus to make that sad, helpless expression, so Taako hides it as best he can.

He made two promises to his sister early on in this seemingly endless mission. Firstly, he isn’t allowed to intentionally cut a cycle short, no matter how much time is left, no matter how much he misses her. Secondly, if she’s gone, he has to take care of Barry.

Taako isn’t sure what his sister was thinking with the second one. ‘Taako’ and ‘take care of’ are not words that naturally go together for anyone other than Lup. He loves the entire crew, of course he does, but he would rather kill for them than comfort them.

This is the first cycle where Lup is dead and neither Taako nor Barry had gone with her.

Food is always an effective way to build a bridge between two stubborn souls. Taako steps foot into the Starblaster’s kitchen for the first time since the disaster a few weeks ago. Lucretia is a passable cook, so the remaining crew haven’t been suffering too much, but her meals are nothing compared to the twins’ concoctions.

Absolutely everything on this ship reminds Taako of his sister (pretty much every aspect of existence reminds him of his sister), but the kitchen is particularly salient. He stands in the doorway and breathes through it, thankful that no one is around. Lup is the only one who knows him at his core, the only one who’s ever seen his soft, fragile centre. Magnus has been digging closer and closer every cycle with his big hands and even bigger smile. But there’s no one Taako trusts like he trusts Lup.

And she’s gone.

And he made her a promise.

There are so many lakes on this world. Taako had spent most of springtime fishing and filleting, so the freezer is full. He takes out a few cuts of cod, expertly deboned, as well as some salt, pepper, lemon, chili powder, and dill. He starts the rice boiling and thaws the fish with a flick of his wand. The meat hasn’t been frying for too long before Magnus and Lucretia appear at the kitchen table, summoned by the smell. They’re looking at him with an irritating mixture of encouragement and wariness. He ignores them and focuses on cooking. He’s mentally batting away memories and feelings constantly and it’s starting to take a toll.

The kitchen is silent except for the sizzle of fish in the pan and the soft murmur of boiling rice. Taako transmutes some beans into asparagus and tosses that in the pan as well.

“Fucking talk,” he says to the stove.

Magnus startles into conversation. Taako feels his friends’ gazes move away from his back and toward each other. He focuses on their chat even though it’s boring. It’s easier than fighting his heart’s insistent ache.

He avoids looking at their faces while he places their meals in front of them. “Thank you,” Lucretia says softly. Magnus places a big, warm hand on the wizard’s shoulder.

Taako feels his mouth press into a shadow of a smile. He squeezes Magnus’s hand and steps away. “Dig in. I’m gonna bring some to the lab rat.”

Barry is asleep at his desk, drooling on a sketch of one of his prototypes. Taako sets the plate down next to him and watches the smell wake him up. His glasses are askew even when he lifts his head.

There’s an awful moment when he looks at Taako and his face softly lights up. Taako’s stomach sinks, and then Barry comes fully into awareness and looks away. Taako regrets shaving his face his morning and he regrets wearing his hair up the way Lup usually does before bed. He doesn’t blame Barry for the disappointment.

“This is good shit, so you’d better not let it get cold,” Taako says. He leans against the workbench with his arms crossed.

“Smells good,” Barry replies with his characteristic, gruff awkwardness. Taako tries not to fidget. The chill of Lup’s absence is strongest in the kitchen, but it’s swirling around the lab, too. It’s typical to see Lup sprawled on the couch pretty much every evening, chattering while Barry tries and fails to focus on his work.

Barry puts a forkful of rice in his mouth and speaks around it. Gross. “Did you eat already?”

Taako is absentmindedly surprised when he realizes he hasn’t eaten anything except a bite of toast that Magnus practically shoved in his mouth this morning. He curses himself for thinking about it too long and ruining what could have been a perfectly good lie. “Yep, sure did.”

“Taako…” Barry says disapprovingly, lowering his fork.

“Get outta my ass, Barry. I’m, like, a hundred years old, or something.” Age doesn’t mean much to them, anymore. “Don’t treat me like a child.”

“I’m not treating you like a child. I’m treating you like – ” He sighs. “Do you have some left over upstairs?”

“Yeah,” Taako lies. He walks toward the door. “Gonna go eat now, so…enjoy, or whatever.”

Barry rubs his eyes under his glasses. “Thanks, Taako.”

“Shit,” Taako mutters as he climbs the stairs. Why didn’t Lup tell Magnus or Lucretia to take care of Barry? Hell, anyone would do a better job than him.

Taako enters the now empty kitchen and casts Prestidigitation to clean the dishes, but he stops before he can leave for the upper deck. There’s a full plate of food on the table. It’s obvious that Magnus and Lucretia had each put half of their meal onto a clean plate. They’re taking advantage of his inability to throw away food, engrained from his childhood. Taako sighs but sits at the table to eat. He feels more solid when he’s done, but just as empty.

The next day is better.

“Come for a walk,” Taako demands from Barry’s bedroom doorway. Barry yelps and covers his chest with a blanket.

“Taako!”

“Come for a walk!” the elf repeats, leaving the door ajar as he leaves.

Barry joins him on the Starblaster’s lower deck in a few minutes, hair messy but fully clothed. “Where are we going?”

Before Taako has a chance to respond, Magnus rushes in. “Don’t forget your cloak – it’s kinda cold. Oh, hey, Barry. You coming with us?”

“I guess I am.”

“Great!”

Magnus hands Barry his denim jacket and throws Taako’s thicker cloak in his direction. The security officer himself is wearing a wool-lined vest with no sleeves. Taako resists the urge to roll his eyes when he notices.

The men don’t talk a lot as they traverse the path that Magnus and Taako have worn down over the last few weeks. They skip rocks on the surface of the still water. Barry stays far away from the water’s edge. Magnus picks Taako up and pretends he’s about to throw him in. Instead of protesting, Taako looks the man in the eyes with a challenge. “Do it. I fucking dare you, Burnsides.” Magnus freezes and just stands there holding the elf in his arms for a moment. Taako smirks. “That’s what I thought.”

Barry disappears into his lab when they return to the ship, but Taako still considers it a success. After a few days, Barry no longer needs to be woken up; he joins them in the foyer, sleepy but ready, every morning. Lucretia comes, too, when she’s not out negotiating.

Taako cooks when he can.

Sometimes he’s good. Sometimes the air of the kitchen suffocates him. Barry sees him once, standing in the pantry, frozen and overwhelmed. “Hey,” he says. There’s something soft and complex in his expression when Taako whirls around.

“What’s up, my man?” Taako’s voice breaks more than usual. The stiffness of his hands betrays him, too. Barry beckons him out of the pantry. Taako follows quietly as the scientist travels to the Starblaster’s upper deck.

The endless night sky is strangely comforting. There aren’t many constants in their life besides each other, their target, and their enemy. But the sky is always there and ready to take them away.

Barry opens a hatch near the centre of the deck and brings out what looks like a piece from a broken chair. “Ready?” he asks.

“What?”

Barry just nods and then throws the item high into the air. Taako understands when it reaches his highest peak, but he can’t bring himself to take out his wand. The piece of wood falls into a nearby like with a soft splash.

“Oh, sorry,” Barry says awkwardly. “You’re supposed to hit it with a spell –”

“I know what I’m supposed to do, Barry. I’ve lived with her my whole life,” Taako snaps. He takes a breath and tries again. “Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, man. But that’s her. She feels things build up inside and needs to let ‘em out in a way she can control. But I- …I’m not full of anything.” He turns to leave. “So, thanks, dude, but this isn’t gonna work for me.”

Barry grabs his wrist. “Taako, wait!” He looks a little helpless. “Then what does work for you? Tell me.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on.” Barry attempts a smile but he’s shivering a little in the night air. “Like you said to me the other day – you’re over a hundred years old. You know. So, tell me what makes you feel better when you feel like shit so I can help you out.”

“I don’t want your fucking help, Barry.”

“Well, that’s too damn bad!” Barry rarely raises his voice. It echoes across the empty deck and is swallowed by the night sky. “Tell me, Taako.”

He knows the answer will hurt both of them when it leaves his mouth, but he says it anyway. “Being with her.” Barry averts his gaze and Taako feels both sick and triumphant. “Just…being in her company makes me feel like a person again. So. Unless you can do that for me, I think we’re done here.”

Taako stands outside Magnus’s bedroom door for a few minutes. He raises his hand to knock then lowers it again. He spends the night on a nearby dock, listening to the waves lap against the shore and slowly emptying a bottle of rum.

The next morning, they pretend it didn’t happen. They go for their morning walk and let Magnus carry the conversation.

Lucretia gets the Light of Creation against all odds – and just in time. There’s only about two days left in this Cycle. Taako makes her favourite dish, piri piri chicken, and they allow themselves to celebrate with wine and music. It never feels completely right to celebrate, knowing the Hunger is still going to cause a lot of damage, but they need to allow themselves these small successes. The men also feel the need to show appreciation to Lucretia, since she worked tirelessly to save this world while they went for walks and crashed the ship into lakes.

Magnus is dancing with Lucretia in the kitchen and Taako makes a quick exit before the big man can trap him in another embrace. He finds Barry on the couch, lost in thought. He sits down beside him, touching their wine glasses together in a small toast. “We made it,” the wizard says before taking another drink.

“Yeah,” Barry says. They’re both thinking the same thing. They’ll see her again soon.

Barry turns to face him. “Listen, Taako, I’m sorry I was so pushy the other night.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“It’s just…” Barry sighs. “I promised her I’d take care of you and I –”

“What?” Taako interrupts. They look at each other, incredulous and inquiring. “She made me promise to take care of you, dude.”

Barry smiles and laughs. Taako fumes. As if Barry Bluejeans could take care of him – what was she thinking? “We both did kind of a shit job, didn’t we?” Barry says.

“Hey, without me you would’ve starved to death.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

A few days later, Magnus flies the Starblaster through the Hunger’s advancing tendrils, their bodies fragment, and the entire crew materializes in their set places. Before Lup can even take a breath, Taako shoves her hard. “What the fuck?” she sputters. He silences her with a hug.

The IPRE crew puts the past behind them and they settle into a new life on a new world. Barry and Lup go back to their routine of being attached at the hip and stubbornly not talking about their feelings. Lup and Taako cook and practice magic together. Barry and Taako aren’t close, per se, but they tolerate each other in a new, honest and kind way.

It’s worth it to see the smile on Lup’s face.

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 3 years ago

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Religious Trauma Syndrome: How Some Organized Religion Leads to Mental Health Problems

By Valerie Tarico

Marlene Winell interviewed March 25, 2013

At age sixteen I began what would be a four year struggle with bulimia. When the symptoms started, I turned in desperation to adults who knew more than I did about how to stop shameful behavior—my Bible study leader and a visiting youth minister. “If you ask anything in faith, believing,” they said. “It will be done.” I knew they were quoting [3] the Word of God. We prayed together, and I went home confident that God had heard my prayers. But my horrible compulsions didn’t go away. By the fall of my sophomore year in college, I was desperate and depressed enough that I made a suicide attempt. The problem wasn’t just the bulimia. I was convinced by then that I was a complete spiritual failure. My college counseling department had offered to get me real help (which they later did). But to my mind, at that point, such help couldn’t fix the core problem: I was a failure in the eyes of God. It would be years before I understood that my inability to heal bulimia through the mechanisms offered by biblical Christianity was not a function of my own spiritual deficiency but deficiencies in Evangelical religion itself.

Dr. Marlene Winell is a human development consultant in the San Francisco Area. She is also the daughter of Pentecostal missionaries. This combination has given her work an unusual focus. For the past twenty years she has counseled men and women in recovery from various forms of fundamentalist religion including the Assemblies of God denomination in which she was raised. Winell is the author of Leaving the Fold – A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving their Religion [4], written during her years of private practice in psychology. Over the years, Winell has provided assistance to clients whose religious experiences were even more damaging than mine. Some of them are people whose psychological symptoms weren’t just exacerbated by their religion, but actually caused by it.

Two years ago, Winell made waves by formally labeling what she calls “Religious Trauma Syndrome” (RTS) and beginning to write and speak on the subject for professional audiences. When the British Association of Behavioral and Cognitive Psychologists published a series of articles on the topic, members of a Christian counseling association protested what they called excessive attention to a “relatively niche topic.” One commenter said, “A religion, faith or book cannot be abuse but the people interpreting can make anything abusive.”

Is toxic religion simply misinterpretation? What is religious trauma? Why does Winell believe religious trauma merits its own diagnostic label?

Let’s start this interview with the basics. What exactly is religious trauma syndrome?

Winell: Religious trauma syndrome (RTS) is a set of symptoms and characteristics that tend to go together and which are related to harmful experiences with religion. They are the result of two things: immersion in a controlling religion and the secondary impact of leaving a religious group. The RTS label provides a name and description that affected people often recognize immediately. Many other people are surprised by the idea of RTS, because in our culture it is generally assumed that religion is benign or good for you. Just like telling kids about Santa Claus and letting them work out their beliefs later, people see no harm in teaching religion to children.

But in reality, religious teachings and practices sometimes cause serious mental health damage. The public is somewhat familiar with sexual and physical abuse in a religious context. As Journalist Janet Heimlich has documented in, Breaking Their Will, Bible-based religious groups that emphasize patriarchal authority in family structure and use harsh parenting methods can be destructive.

But the problem isn’t just physical and sexual abuse. Emotional and mental treatment in authoritarian religious groups also can be damaging because of 1) toxic teachings like eternal damnation or original sin 2) religious practices or mindset, such as punishment, black and white thinking, or sexual guilt, and 3) neglect that prevents a person from having the information or opportunities to develop normally.

Can you give me an example of RTS from your consulting practice?

Winell: I can give you many. One of the symptom clusters is around fear and anxiety. People indoctrinated into fundamentalist Christianity as small children sometimes have memories of being terrified by images of hell and apocalypse before their brains could begin to make sense of such ideas. Some survivors, who I prefer to call “reclaimers,” [8] have flashbacks, panic attacks, or nightmares in adulthood even when they intellectually no longer believe the theology. One client of mine, who during the day functioned well as a professional, struggled with intense fear many nights. She said,

“I was afraid I was going to hell. I was afraid I was doing something really wrong. I was completely out of control. I sometimes would wake up in the night and start screaming, thrashing my arms, trying to rid myself of what I was feeling. I’d walk around the house trying to think and calm myself down, in the middle of the night, trying to do some self-talk, but I felt like it was just something that – the fear and anxiety was taking over my life.” Or consider this comment, which refers to a film [9] used by evangelicals to warn about the horrors of the “end times” for nonbelievers.

“I was taken to see the film “A Thief In The Night”. WOW. I am in shock to learn that many other people suffered the same traumas I lived with because of this film. A few days or weeks after the film viewing, I came into the house and mom wasn’t there. I stood there screaming in terror. When I stopped screaming, I began making my plan: Who my Christian neighbors were, who’s house to break into to get money and food. I was 12 years old and was preparing for Armageddon alone.”

In addition to anxiety, RTS can include depression, cognitive difficulties, and problems with social functioning. In fundamentalist Christianity, the individual is considered depraved and in need of salvation. A core message is “You are bad and wrong and deserve to die.” (The wages of sin is death [10].) This gets taught to millions of children through organizations like Child Evangelism Fellowship [11] and there is a group organized [12] to oppose their incursion into public schools. I’ve had clients who remember being distraught when given a vivid bloody image of Jesus paying the ultimate price for their sins. Decades later they sit telling me that they can’t manage to find any self-worth.

“After twenty-seven years of trying to live a perfect life, I failed. . . I was ashamed of myself all day long. My mind battling with itself with no relief. . . I always believed everything that I was taught but I thought that I was not approved by God. I thought that basically I, too, would die at Armageddon.

“I’ve spent literally years injuring myself, cutting and burning my arms, taking overdoses and starving myself, to punish myself so that God doesn’t have to punish me. It’s taken me years to feel deserving of anything good.”

Born-again Christianity and devout Catholicism [13] tell people they are weak and dependent, calling on phrases like “lean not unto your own understanding [14]” or “trust and obey [11].” People who internalize these messages can suffer from learned helplessness. I’ll give you an example from a client who had little decision-making ability after living his entire life devoted to following the “will of God.” The words here don’t convey the depth of his despair.

“I have an awful time making decisions in general. Like I can’t, you know, wake up in the morning, “What am I going to do today?” Like I don’t even know where to start. You know all the things I thought I might be doing are gone and I’m not sure I should even try to have a career; essentially I babysit my four-year-old all day.”

Authoritarian religious groups are subcultures where conformity is required in order to belong. Thus if you dare to leave the religion, you risk losing your entire support system as well.

“I lost all my friends. I lost my close ties to family. Now I’m losing my country. I’ve lost so much because of this malignant religion and I am angry and sad to my very core. . . I have tried hard to make new friends, but I have failed miserably. . . I am very lonely.”

Leaving a religion, after total immersion, can cause a complete upheaval of a person’s construction of reality, including the self, other people, life, and the future. People unfamiliar with this situation, including therapists, have trouble appreciating the sheer terror it can create.

“My form of religion was very strongly entrenched and anchored deeply in my heart. It is hard to describe how fully my religion informed, infused, and influenced my entire worldview. My first steps out of fundamentalism were profoundly frightening and I had frequent thoughts of suicide. Now I’m way past that but I still haven’t quite found “my place in the universe.”

Even for a person who was not so entrenched, leaving one’s religion can be a stressful and significant transition.

Many people seem to walk away from their religion easily, without really looking back. What is different about the clientele you work with?

Winell: Religious groups that are highly controlling, teach fear about the world, and keep members sheltered and ill-equipped to function in society are harder to leave easily. The difficulty seems to be greater if the person was born and raised in the religion rather than joining as an adult convert. This is because they have no frame of reference – no other “self” or way of “being in the world.” A common personality type is a person who is deeply emotional and thoughtful and who tends to throw themselves wholeheartedly into their endeavors. “True believers” who then lose their faith feel more anger and depression and grief than those who simply went to church on Sunday.

Aren’t these just people who would be depressed, anxious, or obsessive anyways?

Winell: Not at all. If my observation is correct, these are people who are intense and involved and caring. They hang on to the religion longer than those who simply “walk away” because they try to make it work even when they have doubts. Sometimes this is out of fear, but often it is out of devotion. These are people for whom ethics, integrity and compassion matter a great deal. I find that when they get better and rebuild their lives, they are wonderfully creative and energetic about new things.

In your mind, how is RTS different from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?

Winell: RTS is a specific set of symptoms and characteristics that are connected with harmful religious experience, not just any trauma. This is crucial to understanding the condition and any kind of self-help or treatment. (More details about this can be found on my Journey Free [15] website and discussed in my talk [16] at the Texas Freethought Convention.)

Another difference is the social context, which is extremely different from other traumas or forms of abuse. When someone is recovering from domestic abuse, for example, other people understand and support the need to leave and recover. They don’t question it as a matter of interpretation, and they don’t send the person back for more. But this is exactly what happens to many former believers who seek counseling. If a provider doesn’t understand the source of the symptoms, he or she may send a client for pastoral counseling, or to AA, or even to another church. One reclaimer expressed her frustration this way:

“Include physically-abusive parents who quote “Spare the rod and spoil the child” as literally as you can imagine and you have one fucked-up soul: an unloved, rejected, traumatized toddler in the body of an adult. I’m simply a broken spirit in an empty shell. But wait...That’s not enough!? There’s also the expectation by everyone in society that we victims should celebrate this with our perpetrators every Christmas and Easter!!”

Just like disorders such as autism or bulimia, giving RTS a real name has important advantages. People who are suffering find that having a label for their experience helps them feel less alone and guilty. Some have written to me to express their relief:

“There’s actually a name for it! I was brainwashed from birth and wasted 25 years of my life serving Him! I’ve since been out of my religion for several years now, but I cannot shake the haunting fear of hell and feel absolutely doomed. I’m now socially inept, unemployable, and the only way I can have sex is to pay for it.”

Labeling RTS encourages professionals to study it more carefully, develop treatments, and offer training. Hopefully, we can even work on prevention.

What do you see as the difference between religion that causes trauma and religion that doesn’t?

Winell: Religion causes trauma when it is highly controlling and prevents people from thinking for themselves and trusting their own feelings. Groups that demand obedience and conformity produce fear, not love and growth. With constant judgment of self and others, people become alienated from themselves, each other, and the world. Religion in its worst forms causes separation.

Conversely, groups that connect people and promote self-knowledge and personal growth can be said to be healthy. The book, Healthy Religion [17], describes these traits. Such groups put high value on respecting differences, and members feel empowered as individuals. They provide social support, a place for events and rites of passage, exchange of ideas, inspiration, opportunities for service, and connection to social causes. They encourage spiritual practices that promote health like meditation or principles for living like the golden rule. More and more, non-theists are asking [18] how they can create similar spiritual communities without the supernaturalism. An atheist congregation [19] in London launched this year and has received over 200 inquiries from people wanting to replicate their model.

Some people say that terms like “recovery from religion” and “religious trauma syndrome” are just atheist attempts to pathologize religious belief.

Winell: Mental health professionals have enough to do without going out looking for new pathology. I never set out looking for a “niche topic,” and certainly not religious trauma syndrome. I originally wrote a paper for a conference of the American Psychological Association and thought that would be the end of it. Since then, I have tried to move on to other things several times, but this work has simply grown.

In my opinion, we are simply, as a culture, becoming aware of religious trauma. More and more people are leaving religion, as seen by polls [20] showing that the “religiously unaffiliated” have increased in the last five years from just over 15% to just under 20% of all U.S. adults. It’s no wonder the internet is exploding with websites for former believers from all religions, providing forums [21] for people to support each other. The huge population of people “leaving the fold” includes a subset at risk for RTS, and more people are talking about it and seeking help. For example, there are thousands of former Mormons [22], and I was asked to speak about RTS at an Exmormon Foundation conference. I facilitate an international support group online called Release and Reclaim [23] which has monthly conference calls. An organization called Recovery from Religion, [24] helps people start self-help meet-up groups

Saying that someone is trying to pathologize authoritarian religion is like saying someone pathologized eating disorders by naming them. Before that, they were healthy? No, before that we weren’t noticing. People were suffering, thought they were alone, and blamed themselves. Professionals had no awareness or training. This is the situation of RTS today. Authoritarian religion is already pathological, and leaving a high-control group can be traumatic. People are already suffering. They need to be recognized and helped. _______________________________

Statistics update:

Numbers of American ‘nones’ continues to rise

October 18, 2019

By David Crary – Associated Press

The portion of Americans with no religious affiliation is rising significantly, in tandem with a sharp drop in the percentage that identifies as Christians, according to new data from the Pew Research Center. …

Pew says all categories of the religiously unaffiliated population – often referred to as the “nones” grew in magnitude. Self-described atheists now account for 4% of U.S. adults, up from 2% in 2009; agnostics account for 5%, up from 3% a decade ago; and 17% of Americans now describe their religion as “nothing in particular,” up from 12% in 2009.

https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2019/1018/Numbers-of-American-nones-continues-to-rise

_______________________________

Marlene Winell interviewed by Valerie Tarico on recovering from religious trauma Uploaded on January 31, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIfABmbqSMA

24:12

On Moral Politics, a TV program with host Dr. Valerie Tarico, Marlene Winell describes the trauma that can result from harmful experiences with religious indoctrination. Dr. Winell explains that mental health issues are widespread and need to be understood just as we understand PTSD. There are steps to recovery, treatment modalities, and resources available as well. She now refers to this as RTS or Religious Trauma Syndrome. _______________________________

Links:   [3] https://www.biblestudyonjesuschrist.com/pog/ask1.htm  [4] https://marlenewinell.net/leaving-fold-former  [8] https://journeyfree.org/article/reclaimers/  [9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thief_in_the_Night_%28film%29  [10] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+6%3A23&version=KJV  [11] https://valerietarico.com/2011/02/04/our-public-schools-their-mission-field/  [12] http://www.intrinsicdignity.com/  [13] https://www.maryjohnson.co/an-unquenchable-thirst/  [14] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+3%3A5-6&version=KJV [15] https://journeyfree.org/category/uncategorized/ [16] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qrE4pMBlis  [17] https://www.amazon.com/Healthy-Religion-Psychological-Guide-Mature/dp/1425924166 [18] https://www.humanistchaplaincy.org/ [19] https://www.christianpost.com/news/london-atheist-church-model-looking-to-expand-worldwide-91516 [20] https://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/  [21] https://new.exchristian.net/  [22] https://www.exmormon.org/  [23] https://journeyfree.org/group-forum/ [24] https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/

_____________________________________

Get God’s Self-Appointed Messengers Out of Your Head

Valerie Tarico Which buzz phrases from your past are stuck in your brain? “God’s messengers” were all real complicated people with biases, blind spots, favorite foods and morning breath. They were not gods and they are not you. So how can you get them out of your head or at least reduce them to muffled background noise?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElfyYA420F0

#religious trauma syndrome #Marlene Winell #Valerie Tarico

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flufferanian · 3 years ago

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The Bluey communit just makes this really horrible, oftentimes arbitrary rule about how we can't have *any* type of discussion about what changes that viewers or their children wish to see in the show (or even things like fan art), yet it's a-okay for crazed *parents* to dissect really meaning episodes and cry about Muffin left and right.

I get that it's mostly a subreddit ran by parents, but having such close-minded views about the world around you based solely on the generational tradition that you grew up with is such a sad way to live and goes against the core values of the show itself.

And just because *your* toddler has a short attention and that you somehow like the show better than your own kids, doesn't mean a non-verbal or semi-verbal autistic child can't use a comfort show such as Bluey as a way to communicate with the world around them.

I get that its Australia and the housing culture might be a bit different there. But just straight up depicting *everyone* to live in these fanciful *condos* in the suburbs is completely unrealistic and really takes away from the child-like atmosphere that the show's main focus.

Nothing against Ludo Studio as the Bluey team is a very hardworking group of people, but it feels like over the went from being just a cute dog cartoon for preschoolers to a cult built by upper middle-class people for upper-middle class parents.

I know it's just a kid's show, but it makes me as a human being feel worthless whenever people bring up how every last house on Bluey is worth millions of dollars except for the token homeless guy, who I'm guessing isn't even worth it to get his own episode.

If Nana and Bob are the rich retirees, where's all the episodes about *Chili's* more "country-like" side of the family? Of course her backstory is fairly new compared to Bandit's relationship with his siblings. Not saying that's a bad thing by any means. But as much as Socks and Muffin are cool, I'm tired of it always switching to the rich cousins, aunts, and uncles who always like to rub everything in your face.

Apparently the real life inspiration behind Bluey and her friend's educational upbringing this is a hidden cumulation of private daycare, bullying, and some uptight religious teachings like some kind of Catholic boarding school. Everything new I learn about this show is a nightmare in the making and I can't just sit back enjoy the talking dogs anymore like all of you want me to. Looks like I'll have to go back to Paw Patrol.

I never had much of anything in school except free lunch everyday and constant bullying and harassment from the teachers. Unlike Bluey, I had no social gateway with the world around me as I was always ingrained that imaginative or constructive play for a "savant" kid like me was wrong and something to be ashamed of.

Most of my early childhood was spent in a rusted junkyard with a good 20 or so disease-ridden cats being my only comfort... perhaps my only *friends* even. The fact that many of you can't seem to put your pitchforks down when we say "give the homeless dude his own episode" or "introduce a character with a physical disability" is exactly what leads to children like me being mistreated into a pit of eternal shame and self-hatred.

I was one of those "gifted kids" that were forced to comply with every single expectation laid out in front of you. God forbid you asked for help or guidance on *anything* ever or you were punished with write-ups and even suspenion at times. I know not everything in the real world is cupcakes and rainbows by any stretch of the imagination, but that doesn't mean we can't try for a better tomorrow where we won't have to worry about all these horrible things anymore.

But for real, what kind of teacher *is* Calypso and why can't we have that in the more displaced portions of America when kids Bluey's and Bingo's age are already going through so much at home?

Going back on what I just said about my own experiences as a child, it feels like the show itself is trying to force nostalgia when there *is* none for me; only pain and trauma. I enjoyed it cause I think that talking animals are cute but now that my family is falling apart and my parents are rotting away, watching old episodes of Bluey is basically the equivalent of pouring sea water into an open wound.

As "woke" as it sounds, I'd give anything to see a character like me, my friends, or even the local toddler being passed around from foster home to foster home.

Jack was great. Monkeyjocks was great. But with my life falling apart and witnessing the genuine suffering of so many Bluey-aged kids around me, it's not enough anymore.

Including a single episode about donating old toys isn't enough when families like Bluey's are out here going without thinks like ventilation, food, and shelter on *top* of every other socioeconomic conflict or health crisis there could possibly be in the world. I really, really hope in my heart that we get changes like this down the line so that not only the breeds of dogs remain unique, but so does *environment* around them.

Every child deserves a chance in the world and I'm tired of all these kids being shoved away because they aren't conventional when it comes to those who live a more upper-class lifestyle as seen within the show.

I don't care if people here "disagree" with me or don't see me as a person anymore because of this post... I'm more concerned about being banned just for wanting to be seen and heard on the talking dog cartoon.

Thank you for reading and I hope it opens your heart to something today.

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Doctor Who: Why Does Everyone Keep Forgetting the Daleks?

https://ift.tt/3g81nbE

A scene that did not appear in New Year’s Day’s Doctor Who Special, ‘Revolution of the Daleks’.

SCENE: EXT. 10 DOWNING STREET, A PRESS CONFERENCE IS BEING HELD

PRIME MINISTER JO PATTERSON: …and so I introduce to you, our new, fully automated defence drones!

A “DEFENCE DRONE” GLIDES INTO VIEW.

JOURNALIST (RAISES A HAND): Hello, Jeff Typeface, Daily Exposition. Sorry but, um, isn’t that just a Dalek?

PM: A what?

JOURNALIST: A Dalek? About twelve years ago they transported the entire planet through space then rounded humans up in the streets and exterminated them?

PM: Hmmm. Doesn’t ring a bell.

ANOTHER JOURNALIST: Yeah, and a few years before that a bunch of them came flying out of Canary Wharf?

PM: Sorry, I’m completely drawing a blank.

JOURNALIST: Come on! They murdered one of your predecessors!

PM: Excuse me, but you can’t honestly expect me to remember every single British Prime Minister that suffered a violent death over the last two decades. We all know this job has the life expectancy of a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.

PM’S ADVISOR: Actually, Prime Minister, talking of your predecessors, Winston Churchill did try this exact same plan with a very similar looking contraption during the War, and I hear that went badly.

PM: I mean, I’m sure I believe you. I’m just saying this is all news to me.

JOURNALIST: Very well. Moving on, how will these “Defence Drones” help us deal with the Covid-19 pandemic?

PM: See, now you’re just making words up.

Doctor Who has always been a series that points and laughs at fans who want to try and piece together a consistent continuity across all its stories, but even by Doctor Who standards, forgetting an entire global invasion barely more than a decade ago (y’know, just before most of the show’s viewers were born, you absolute fossil you) might seem like a stretch.

Of course, the real reason Jo Patterson couldn’t remember the Daleks is that unlike say, the MCU, where weirdness layers upon weirdness to create a world that almost counts as alt-history, Doctor Who is, on some level, always reaching to be set in “our” universe. The key conceit of the show is that you might turn a corner, find a blue box, and suddenly be whisked away through space and time to a world of adventure. Which doesn’t really work if the British town squares of the Doctor Who universe all feature memorials to the victims of the Daleks and diet pills have to be tested for Adipose DNA.

But at the same time, Doctor Who just loves a great big Hollywood space invasion, and making these two core ingredients of the show mesh is a nightmare for continuity.

Let’s, for instance, take a look at the life of recently departed Doctor’s companion, Ryan Sinclair.

Life of Ryan

Ryan was born in 1998 or 1999. As a child, he attended Redlands Primary School at around the same time London was hit by a “terrorist attack” when shop windows dummies started shooting people. A year later a spaceship crashed into Big Ben, although this was later dismissed as a hoax. That Christmas Day, when Ryan was around eight years old, every human with O negative blood got up in a trance and went and stood on a tall building while a gigantic spaceship hung over London.

Still Ryan is a kid, he doesn’t watch the news, maybe nobody in his family is O negative and let’s face it, news of a lot of this stuff probably doesn’t get as far as Sheffield.

However, even in Sheffield he would have seen the regular “ghost shifts” that appeared all over the world, and at nine years old he would have been traumatised to have his home, like so many others, invaded by Cybermen before they all got sucked away by something.

His family make the wise decision not to turn on the news that Christmas, so he doesn’t hear about the “Christmas star” attack, or later that year a hospital being teleported to the moon, and while he probably remembers grown-ups getting very excited by Harold Saxon getting elected, fortunately most of his tenure as Prime Minister was erased from history.

Doctor Who: Which New Doctors Are Now Canon?

By Chris Farnell

Doctor Who: the genius of making the Cybermen an ideology

By Chris Farnell

Ryan would have noticed when CBBC was replaced by a giant eyeball shouting that “Prisoner Zero Has Escaped”, and, shortly after turning ten, he definitely would have noticed when the entire sky was set on fire to prevent a Sontaran invasion.

And then of course, the Earth was teleported across space, planets filled the skies, and Daleks roamed the streets rounding people up. He would have been about the same age as future astronaut and Mars colonist, Adelaide Brooke at this time, and she was profoundly affected by the experience.

After that it’s possible the government may have rounded up him and his classmates to offer up to the 456.

To round the year off, Ryan actually turned into Harold Saxon for a bit. This was probably, on balance, the worst Christmas of the lot.

2011 was largely uneventful except that nobody could die.

Ryan went on to see the Tenth Doctor light the flame at the 2012 Olympics, was briefly into that whole “mysterious black cubes” craze before they got banned for some reason, and while he was in high school the entire Earth was covered in dense forest overnight but that disappeared, and nobody ever mentioned it again. The Cybermen invaded again. Then, not long after Ryan left school, the entire world was taken over by a species of really gross looking mummified monks who claimed to have always been in charge, before they also disappeared overnight.

Not long after that, Ryan met the Doctor for the first time and was shocked, shocked, to discover that aliens exist.

Cracks in Time

Steven Moffat did give us one handy explanation for why nobody in Doctor Who remembers the Dalek invasion, or the giant steampunk Cyberman that invaded Victorian London, and probably much more. In ‘Victory of the Daleks’ the Doctor tries to persuade Winston Churchill that using his own force of Daleks to secure the country was a bad idea, and he turns to Amy, who would have seen that invasion, to back him up. She has no idea what’s he’s talking about.

Later it’s revealed this is because the TARDIS explodes, destroying the entire universe with it. The cracks in time left by that explosion erased all kinds of events from history, including, handily, anything that would cause the human view of the universe to deviate too far from the real-world status quo.

Of course, that does leave some problems. Adelaide Brooke, again, clearly remembers the Dalek invasion and it was a moment so formative and influential on her eventual Fixed Point In Time that even the Dalek she saw (who, I remind you, was working on a plot to destroy literally all existence) didn’t dare exterminate her because of its influence on the timeline. And since it’s not implied the crack in time could bring anyone back from the dead, it does make you wonder what history says happened to Harriet Jones (former Prime Minister) and all the many others killed by the Daleks.

But maybe you don’t need a giant retconning Crack in Time?

Because while the Doctor has often waxed lyrical about humanity being indomitable, creative, and curious, there is also a lesser innate human quality the Doctor sometimes mentions: our absent-mindedness.

The Forgetfulness of the Daleks

As well as the Dalek incursions in ‘The Stolen Earth’ and ‘The Army of Ghosts’, there was another Dalek visitation of Earth in the ironically named ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’, which was set in 1963. During this adventure then-companion Ace points out she doesn’t remember anything about Daleks invading in the 1960s. The Doctor replies, “Do you remember the Zygon gambit with the Loch Ness Monster? Or the Yeti in the Underground? Your species has an amazing capacity for self-deception.”

Likewise, nobody remembers dinosaurs invading London, or the other time shop window dummies came to life and started killing people, or when the Earth encountered its exact twin. Without any cracks in time hanging around, Doctor Who falls back on an old staple of fantasy and sci-fi- that humans just ignore anything that doesn’t fit into their worldview.

As we’ve already mentioned, this turns up a couple of times in the new series as well. In ‘In the Forest of the Night’, the entire planet is overnight covered in forest for reasons that we’re not going to go into too closely because that story’s a bit of an embarrassment to be honest. As the forest disappears at the end of the story the Doctor says it will be forgotten outside of fairy stories, because that’s “a human superpower”.

It can even work two-way. In ‘The Lie of the Land’, the entire Earth is taken over by the gross-looking and mysterious “monks”. Using a psychic link, the monks convince humanity that not only are they humanity’s generous benefactors, but also that the monks have always been here, guiding human evolution. This is of course a lie, as the monks are actually one of the very few aliens not to have guided human evolution at some point.

After the Doctor does his thing and the monks’ statues are torn down, someone passes by the ruins of one and wonders what it was. Already, people are forgetting.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Which, if you think about it, is a Doctor Who story in itself. Imagine being an alien visiting Earth. Humanity must seem like the Silence, but in reverse- as soon as they stop looking at you they forget you exist. The Doctor really ought to take a look at that some time.

The post Doctor Who: Why Does Everyone Keep Forgetting the Daleks? appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3bcKfBX

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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simplysoriya · 5 years ago

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Vale of Eternal Nightmare

“You can not save them. No matter how hard you try… you will fail.”

The voice boomed and it echoed within her mind as she stood incapable of fighting back as those wicked words weaved their way into her core. Leaving their foul mark on her subconscious that it had already raided. As if from the nothingness they had come all around her, but from no one place in particular. While she tried to move her head to look around it only remained locked in place and unresponsive and frozen no matter how hard she tried to free it.

“They will take and they will take and they will take until there is nothing left to give. That is all you are to them. A vessel for the broken only to be used and worn until cracked and broken yourself..”

Vast darkness blanketed for miles in every direction, a cold black that smothered every sense she had. Just like the depths of the deep ocean that had swallowed her whole, she felt herself sinking weightlessly through the black abyss as this disembodied voice boomed like a storm above. Breathing became more of a chore with each passing exhale expelled the return came halted and labored. She was helpless to sink as far as the void would take her. Ironic that something she loved so much had become such a terrible fate. Lost to the sea as a disembodied voice harped on her insecurity.

“Such a weak soul. They will all leave you. They see you for what you are. Nothing but a pitiful child who has yet to learn the harsh realities of life. But you will learn...”

All of her struggle, every bit of effort she tried to expend was met with nothing but disappointment. Only rewarded with a faster descent into nothingness like an unseen weight was tethered to her center, an inescapable pull that dragged her further and further. All she had left to do was scream into the abyss. Even that failed as her cries for help were halted by a boulder sized lump in her throat. Nothing was in her control.

The voice grew more assertive, “Struggle is useless. Your feeble attempts are for nothing. You can not fight it…”

Shivers ran up her spine every time the voice spoke, only growing out to her limbs as she continually descended. The only thing she could do was blink, and even those betrayed her as several only served to deepen the sense of dreaded helplessness. Frantically she feared her vision gone as her eyelids stretched open then crashed shut repeatedly to no avail. Still there was nothing but black emptiness before her. With a final tight squeeze she kept her eyes closed as long as she could. The abyss answered back….

Booming in an echo now the voice invaded her mind, “Avert your gaze, shut your eyes, try and shut Us out... You can not run from it…”

Once she finally opened her eyes Soriya was met with the manifestation of nightmare itself. A single massive eye hovered before her with a piercing, icy stare that penetrated her very soul. Never blinking it unceasing remained vigil with its ghastly gaze set solely on her. With a single dark slit of a pupil bled red into a pure yellow cornea several sizes bigger than she herself that the distance between them felt like none at all while still retaining the full scope.

It was so loud that it reverberated to her very core, “The end is close. You can not hide from it…”

A second eyeball opened it’s ugly glare before a third, flanking the first. New ones continued to pop around their patriarch from the darkness around her, never breaking from the monk herself as if locked to her. Try as she might to close her own eyes and regain some semblance of control, she could still feel them as they invaded her mind- ever searching as if studying her very essence.

“For so long has He waited. But He is free now and He is coming...He is Eternal..” The sinister tone left in a whisper as suddenly the staring eyeballs blinked out of existence.

Abruptly her feet hit the ground first before the weight that had dragged her down this far forced her to collapse on to her knees. Her arms flew forward instinctively to catch her fall, but the joy of regaining her motor skills were stifled as that enormous weight continued to bare down on her. Even if she could now move any effort in trying to get up was halted by that overbearing pressure.

“You can not begin to imagine what he can take... and He is hungry…”

A structure slowly emerged from the darkness at a steady pace. Step by step two circular staircases running parallel came into view, instantly she recognized the architecture and craftsmanship as Pandarian, a familiar landscape that she couldn’t shake the feeling she had been to. The banners and trade goods that ran up those twin staircases only furthered that line of thought as familiar faces of the Houjin emerged from the abyss. As the figure was revealed from its shroud of black Soriya saw The Shrine of Seven Suns clearly, but something was very wrong...

“IN HIS WAKE EVERYTHING WILL BE CONSUMED- EVERYTHING!..”

As the vision began to peel back layer by layer horror began to consume it. Tendrils bigger than tree trunks ripped through the earth to assault the Shrine with their spiked flails. Unknown monstrosities that resembled no man she had ever seen broke through the front line defenders as if they were nothing, wielding dark magics that had either victimized the complacent or crippled the honorable, all so these creatures could feed on their fears. Eyes floated above the cliff side that surrounded the shrine- though their gaze seemed fixated on her.

Every ounce of her being wished to lift herself up to her feet and help. Pleading with every Celestial she could list for the strength to get up and do something as she watched one by one as the familiar faces of the Shrine were run down. But all she could manage was a hand that struggled against its own weight reached in their direction.

Softly the voice whispered in a caressing tone running directly counter from it’s prior outburst, “The only truth is that you will suffer. You do not have to share that fate if you only give in…The Sleeping City Awaits...”

The entire world began to shake uncontrollably as Soriya started on hopeless and horrified as she witnessed the Shrine crumble beneath the Voids assault. It’s image seared into her memory as feelings of failure sank into the pits of her stomach threatened to drag her down further. Unable to move still under the immense weight of her worst fears, she could do nothing but watch as the survivors were slaughtered and the complacent crushed beneath piles of rubble.

The shaking continued until she could feel it against the side of her shoulder. A familiar voice whispered in her ear, “Soriya? Soriya wake up.”

Teal eyes shot open as the monk scurried back into her small cot. Disheveled from the nightmare she stared back sheepishly at a human face. Slowly she began to regain her barings, and her memories, as she looked around the room. Crisp mountain air and the sound of wind against the old wooden window panes hit her first. The Temple of the White Tiger was distinct in its structure as she vaguely remembered the passed few days of training.

“Are you okay?” Luther, one of the White Tiger Masters asked in a gentle tone. “You looked as if you were having quite the nightmare.”

A hand came to rub at her tired eyes as she took an extra moment. Was it a nightmare? She questioned silently as she still tried to make heads or tails of what had just happened. It was the first coherent thought she had since she had awoken.

Unable to come up with a reply as a litany of thoughts raced through her head she managed out, “It was nothing important.”

With a nod he continued, even if the concern never left his voice, “The Grandmaster is assembling the monks in the training courtyards for a meeting.” A grim expression marred his weathered features before he stated, “Something has happened in the Vale.”

“What?! What happened?” Soriya asked desperately as the visions of destruction still stained her mind.

After a pause Luther finally uttered, “...it’s best if the Grandmaster explains that himself. Best bring your armor, too.”

It took the troop of forty monks two days to reach the Gate of the August Celestials from the Temple of the Tiger thanks to the generosity of the Grummles and their caravan. It served as a makeshift and moving campsite even if the large collection of warriors mostly had to walk. Banding together was how those in Pandaria had survived for so long, a practice that was not since forgotten- especially when crisis struck.

The trip through the heartland was a solemn one at best. Many among the ranks had personally witnessed the serene bastion of the countries capitol become a battlefield for the factions, and a playground for the Sha. Their monuments corrupted and desecrated under Garrosh Hellscream and Y’shaarj leading them down a dark period in time that many native to Pandaria held deep within their hearts. The grief they had endured, the pain suffered, and the hardship that had only just begun to heal. And to think it was under attack, again? After so many years of restoration that many of the monkhood personally lent aid to? The two days had been somber as the sense of duty remained steadfast on each of their minds.

Still conversation and gossip did stir here and there. The Grandmaster had told them that an ancient enemy had once again attacked the Vale and had sent his finest warriors to assist in the task of defending it with promises of more resources on the way. Lack of detail provided lent way for rumors to swirl around the trope of fighters and fortune seekers. Some had said that the Old Ones had returned to impose their wicked will on the Vale once more, others spoke of the Mogu seeking to regain a foothold, and even more blamed the recently active Mantid Swarm for the unrest and sense of emergency. A few of the more far fetched even said that there was a secret clan of Mogu operating in the Vales defense and at least one claimed that Ra-Den, the god of thunder & lightening, had returned.

Soriya found herself at the back of the pack, lagging behind with a tired step as she contended a perpetual haze lingering since the night before. Sleep had become restless at best after the vision had hijacked her dream and left it’s seething mark. It was uncharacteristic of her to drag her feet, let alone on the trail of one of Pandaria’s more beautiful locales. Yet she remained unable to shake the dread that sat itself upon her shoulders ever since the night of her vision..

“Hey lass. Ye got anythin’ in tha’ waterskin, do ya?” The gruff grumble of a Dwarven accent questioned. Standing about as high as her waist the Dark Iron looked up expectantly to the sin’dorei. Right off the bat she could tell his rank and style by the emblem he wore, though the brew cask strapped to his back was a far more obvious indicator.

Soriya nodded politely as she reached around for her pack. Pulling the skin of water from it’s snug tie on the side of her bag and handing it over. “You can have the rest if you need it. We’re not too far from a camp I should be fine until then.”

“Bless ya lass.” The dwarf replied graciously before taking the skin and draining its contents. With a reinvigorated grunt out he exclaimed, “Ah, tha was needed. Had a wee bi’ too much last night, me heads been killlin’ me all mornin’.” He continued to explain. Sizing her up as he handed her flask back a deep red brow rose as he inquired, “Got alot on yer mind?”

Taking the flask back Soriya sucked in a breath before she answered, “Yeah. It’s been a while since I’ve been back here. I heard they were able to restore the corruption from years ago, I guess I was hoping to see it on different terms.” She explained in a low voice, as not to disturb the others in their immediate area.

The hungover dwarf took another gracious swig before pointing his chin downward as he took up a thoughtful expression. A grizzled hum put another moment of silence between them. “So ya fought here before then, yeah?” He asked, surely knowing that a majority of the caravan had.

Without a word Soriya merely nodded her confirmation to his question.

Another thoughtful hum escaped the dwarf, however, this time he was quicker to speak his mind, “I’m glad ta’ have ya here with us, then.” He asserted in a warm tone. “The way I see it is the world’s in dire need of people like ya. People who looked into the darkness and keep on fightin’.”

His words had cut through that haze of tension that had been clouding over her for the passed few days like a ray of sunshine in spite of the overcast. It was genuine, and uplifting, even from such an unexpected source. All she could do was smile at the sentiment as they continued down the beaten path, unsure how to answer. Instead something else in her words came to mind as she asked, “Darkness? Do you really think they’re back?”

“Aye…” The dwarf replied grimly. “If wha’ I gathers not ah buncha horse crap. Been talkin’ to a lot o’folks around the caravan.”

Those words were of no comfort to the already weary Soriya as she swiftly grew quiet. Instead tired eyes wandered up the mystical Gate that separated the borders of Kun-Lai from the Vale. Such an exquisite marvel was the jewel of the far reaching wall built centuries ago and maintained diligently since. The further they traversed the further she got her answer as to what threatened the vale. It was like her nightmare yet so much worse. Such stark reminders and symbolism that rocked her to her very core. That weight that had kept her down in her dream felt all too real. The already sensitive subject of the Vale was torn at, only deepening the sorrow of the sights before her. It was truly chaos in all of it’s forms.

Almost instantly as they crossed the threshold the sky grew cloudy like a storm as a redish purple hue ran through its entirety like a disease. That same overcast left the landscape harshly lit and enveloped in darkness. Eerie monuments that’s crimson glowing letters stuck out even miles away were seen off in the distance. As they continued into the heart of the Vale it only grew worse the further they went. Familiar eyeballs grow themselves alongside tendrils rooted in the very mountains themselves. Horrific otherworldly worms trailed in the sky- yet they were no cloud serpent she had ever seen. Though most jarring was the monument of terror erected over the pools of Whitepetal Lake, a large and monstrous spire that reached toward the stars floating ominously atop a symbol of such peace and tranquility.

Her spiral only continued as questions swirled; what it might mean as coincidence was a comfort she could no longer accept. Why did she receive such a vision? What was the purpose of letting her know early? Who spoke to her? Each played in her mind on repeat as she scanned over the disembodied voice of the Void that had spoken to her the night prior.

Mogu clans clashed off in the distance. Turning the fields of Guo-Lai into a bloodstained battleground as the song of steel against steel rung out for all to hear. Never had the operated so brazenly, and yet it seemed not a single grouping missed the opportunity to seize the Vale in the chaos.

Mantid flew overhead in droves, swarming the skies in numbers she hadn’t seen since Y’shraaj. Flying in tandem with the Void creatures as if they were working toward the same goal lent more and more evidence to the second coming of the Old Ones. Ceaseless buzzing from their wings and unsettling clicks of their mandibles was the background noise to their caravans march.

Hope seemed all but gone before they even arrived. Faced with overwhelming odds on multiple fronts the feeling of helplessness began to set in as her shoulders slouched and head dipped down. The corruption of such a revered place too much to bare. Every bit of her being ached with sorrow in the face of horrid act after horrid act, and her there doing nothing but looking on with a slacked jaw.

Desperately she hoped a hand would shake her awake to tell her it was just a dream... but no such thing came.

“Yu’lon?” Soriya broke from her stupor at the sight of desperately needed hope as the Celestial soared the skies above. Swooping down over a crowded part of the battlefield with a devastating blanket of jade fire.

“Aye lass… all the Celestials are here.”

Hope and horror were woven together. One had not been without the other for days now. The Celestials had come to lend their aid in the Vales time of need, and while there was comfort in that, there was also the reality of how serious of a situation it was. What was happening in the Vale was more then anyone had been able to tell her in words. It was something she had to see for herself before she could truly believe. One thing was certain in it all; Her home was in danger and she once more had to fight to protect it.

#story #canon #visions of n'zoth #soriya #RP #wra

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pearloftheorient · 5 years ago

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sorry to not be a fandom blog or roleplay blog for a moment. i just feel like i wanna express a bit of a heart-to-heart, just a quick rundown of whatever’s going on and how it all happened from my perspective. i mean i don’t even care if nobody reads this, but as someone who expresses a lot more in writing i feel like i should take this opportunity to help unload, you know?

so the lockdown definitely hit us here on friday the 13th in march, which didn’t feel as bad as it was. as a nurse i’ve had this weird concept that a lot of the common diseases that spread around can easily be blown up by social media (hold that thought for later lol) and i just you know, say you should just wash your hands, it’ll be okay. i mean i tend to take the logical route when it comes to health care?? because that’s what i studied and i feel like i owe it myself not to panic TOO MUCH. plus, my husband (an intellectual) also had the same attitude towards media being exaggerated, so like i’m copying his cool attitude as much as i can. i mean we even went to budapest just a week prior, watched a play, mingled with clusters and clusters of people..... and even though people already started wearing masks, i even make fun of them for wearing it wrong or just being quite excessive and wearing gloves in public (i still don’t like seeing gloves in public and if you’re a health care professional you might feel exactly the same way)....

and then they told me on that friday that all of the training days for the next three weeks that i have worked hard to set up, study for, book on rotas, juggled, invited speakers for (i’m a nurse-educator and i organise staff training as part of my job) are now to be stopped. my staff are now asking me about their learning opportunities, is the course gonna go on, and i feel a bit more responsible to give the correct information but i just don’t know where to get it??

then come monday, it was a whole different story again. since the non-clinical aspect of work has been indefinitely stopped, i am one of the people who had been expected to go back into the clinical area and handle patients (i mean i still do this despite my role, but i now have to do it more often). which was fine because handling patients is my happy place, i feel like it is within my remit, i know exactly what i’m doing most of the time, i have a smaller scale to tackle and that’s gonna ease my brain a bit while the world starts to fall into chaos. i’ve done this for the next few weeks. i did mostly clinical shifts, and just do some admin stuff like once a week?? just so i can keep up with the new developments and properly disseminate information, like what PPE are we gonna have, train people in wearing them, what we actually need to do if we get patients with COVID, crash courses for those who will be redeployed, cancelling and cancelling and cancelling study days and training days and finding multiple alternative ways so people still maintain standards despite not having the face-to-face training....

as a nurse-educator, i also feel like i should always watch the news and be aware of the latest guidelines, what WHO wanted us to do, how am i gonna apply this for my colleagues and the safety of our patients... so i’ve done that on a regular basis, and my brain is just filled with information and i actively help in setting up bedspaces with the initial instructions of what PPE to wear....

and then towards the end of march, people are dying. and the fact that it was building in numbers made it more real. and now i started to question what i already know, if we’re actually doing the right thing, but why do other countries do it differently?? why do other hospitals do it differently?? how come people are still on the street?? decisions from the government and the big execs just fluctuate and this trial and error approach just all of a sudden.....became the new normal.

and then we’re all like, but we just have to work together - since all of our non-clinical stuff had been on standby then we can just focus on working clinically, doing patient care. and then i was given the instructions to gather nurses from my unit (we deal with neonates - babies - like i personally haven’t got a clue on how adults work anymore as i haven’t handled one for like 15 years) who can be redeployed based on their previous experience. redeployment sometimes is viewed as heroic, like wow you’re brave to work in adults despite your rusty experience just for the sake of helping with the pandemic, that’s Great. and then to some, it is their worst nightmare, being redeployed is like being fish out of water - going back to square one, not knowing exactly what you’re doing (remember how i was so confident doing clinical?? yeah that’s only for neonates). and then the solidarity feel like, yeah but at least you’re not alone? we gonna support you?? you’ll get all the special messages, a round of applause, because you’re doing something so brave. i wasn’t redeployed, but six of my colleagues are - and every time they talk to me about how stressful it was and how scared they were being uncertain all the time and surrounded by death and suffering, i felt responsible for putting them in that position.

and then i started to feel sadder and sadder. but i can’t stop working, i am physically well, i am strong enough and i am a Great addition to the numbers. besides, with all this redeployment, we are also receiving some temporary replacements who simply had no idea how neonates work! (it’s like a full exchange programme but with little training) and it is my responsibility to make sure they are trained (i mean look, we all did LONG ASS courses to reach where we are in terms of knowledge, months and months of clinical exposure to the area to gain experience, but now i’m asked to train all of them for just ONE DAY.) and so after training, i’m like this mother duck chasing all the ducklings making sure nobody goes astray. so that was the first two weeks of my april.

it’s also when i decided to stop watching the news or looking at social media about the virus because i have enough stress going on, and i don’t wanna like sound so depressed whenever i’m teaching this new people that are coming to us. i have to be open and warm and welcoming and maintain a cheery attitude despite my patience running so infinitesimally thin. i’ve always been known for my calmness and patience. i may be an anxious bean but i’m quite good in not letting it show in my handiwork.

so i know that’s been stressful - but the good things, i am definitely thankful for. people stepping up, working hard and together with less animosity. the free food was overflowing, i don’t even have to bring lunch at work anymore because there’s always something, even fresh produce because tbh everything hurt after a hard day’s work that you can’t even go grocery shopping :p we had this really posh resto that gave us free breakfast every single day and normally in this resto you like have to make reservations at least 6months before to be worthy lol. despite the back and forth decision making, we do have the right equipment to do our work, and with the virus not usually affecting the little ones, we are not heaving as much in terms of the amount of patients. and just the love, the supportive messages, the rainbow drawings, the applause - i mean just wow.

i guess the more i’m fueled to work harder. and the fact that i get to keep my job when a lot of people had been furloughed or lost theirs, i just feel i have to make it count and continue helping in ways i know how.

i have just trained the last two nurses to come (so far) when i got called that my husband got sent home because he got ill. and he is a nurse too, looking after adult patients with covid so he is getting far more exposure than me.

by protocol, i am automatically self-isolated because of him. and so for the last week of april, we are on a full lockdown, with him on a sickbed and me trying to “work from home”

i am working from home and my colleagues continue to ask me questions about work, i write guidelines, mark essays, basically all the admin stuff i’ve stopped doing because i have been pulled into clinical numbers. i constantly dreaded how my husband will be - knowing the scary stories about how the virus treated some people and the rising number of deaths, especially among frontliners. he was fine and got better, thankfully. and then i fell ill that very weekend - and i became a full dramatic binch for a week because my fever and muscle weakness definitely prevented me from doing anything productive. (this is when i binge-watched the untamed lol)

but then we both got tested and we’re both negative lol. whatever the fuck that was surely knocked us down but thankfully it wasn’t covid WHICH MEANS we should go back to work sooner rather than later. yay. we’ve been off for a total of 10 days.

and then i returned to work last week, and i felt so exhausted. apparently it was a common theme from those who had symptoms or had self-isolated (even though i am negative) and i just felt like those 10 days despite spending them mostly in bed, i felt like i ran a marathon that entire time and now i’m paying the price.

i still feel tired now after 4 days of work, and i haven’t even been clinical (they gave me the benefit of the doubt that it might be FALSE NEGATIVE) so i haven’t handled patients YET and instead focused on my admin work - which welcomed with its spiky arms fuck that shit we just had the most dramatic cases at work that i had to deal with, and that’s not even covid-related. and so my brain was also like scraped to the core lol

so anyway, yeah i guess that got long.

i mean i still haven’t talked about what’s happening in the background at this point, like my family (they are okay! thankfully. and my mom is very paranoid which means they are always taking care of themselves lol), the government in where i live and where my family lives (lotsa fucked up things happening right now out there too, dammit i’m so sorry philippines), and all my future plans for 2020 that have now been shitted on by this virus, but let’s not get overly dramatic now.

idk i just feel like pouring stuff out because apparently that’s healthy for you.

stay safe. wash your hands. stay at home if you can. frontliners - and i’m just not talking about my fellow nurses - TAKE CARE AND STAY STRONG. AND THANK YOU. but don’t be an extra hero. wear PPE when you come face-to-face with potential risks. take breaks. know where to draw the line.

#garettext #corona virus //#negativity //#hospitals //

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daljinil-blog · 6 years ago

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◦ ◦ 𝐮𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 ━ january + february

◦ ◦ 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 ━

his life has been a whirlwind since coming home from the war with an injury that completely destroyed his career. it’s been very hectic and he’s never really gotten a chance to sit down and think things through, between reuniting with the crown prince who was one of his best friends growing up, and the betrothal. he’s still struggling with the injury now - it gives him a lot of pain in the winter months and he’s still trying to overcome it. he feels awkward because he now walks with a limp.

the groom at the red wedding, so say hello to mister destroyed. as if his injury wasn’t enough, now he has to live with the fact that his wife was murdered on their wedding night before they could even find a moment to be alone together.

in spite of the issues at the red wedding and feeling much to blame for it for reasons that will be discussed, he was called in by the king to replace the inspector general and serve the future crown prince in the government in this way. he’s been trying to come to terms with that honour when he thinks he doesn’t deserve it.

he’s currently living alone with some servants in the residence gifted to him by the king for his wedding to princess yeonhwa which probably isn’t good for him, but he doesn’t want the gift to go to waste

◦ ◦ 𝐩𝐬𝐲𝐜𝐡𝐞 ━

the very definition of struggle

as if war wasn’t bad enough because of the stress, he’s been suffering from the pain and the mental struggle of his injury as well. being a soldier was all that he knew and trained for all of his life, and it was taken from him so easily. he wanted so badly to help back the country and build it into a strong haven for the people only for it to be ripped away from him in the split second of a moment. while he doesn’t regret his actions or trying to save prince san, he’s saddened by the turn of events and doesn’t really know how to voice this because he’s a man and shouldn’t complain about his woes

and then to make matters even worse still, his wife was killed before his eyes not long after coming back from war. it’s likely that he’s suffering from ptsd, but of course, things were different back then and mental health was largely undiagnosed

ever since prince jaehwa blamed him for the death of his sister and suggested that he should have been able to protect her from what happened to her, jinil’s been haunted by it - barely sleeps, hardly eats, and often has nightmares

his world viewed through rose coloured lenses is slowly shifting to something more hardened, but he’s still holding onto hope - the core of jinil is still there, it’s just harder to find but he’ll overcome his trials with time

struggling to deal with his situation with jin as well. their relationship is .. very intense, and he’s starting to question his heart and how he can feel love for a man that he should for a woman. doesn’t quite understand that its possible, but he’s working on it

◦ ◦ 𝐟𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐬 ━

has no thought or interest in getting married ever again. his life will likely be solely promised to the king and the future king now .. his brother will be able to carry on the family name

trying his best to get used to the title of inspector general. it’s a lot to learn and very different from war, but it’s a new chapter in his life that he’ll have to adapt to

#updates

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howaminotinthestrokesyet · 3 years ago

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Behind The Album: In Rainbows

In October 2007, Radiohead released their seventh studio album in a self-released pay whatever download release. A physical release would later be distributed via XL Recordings. The band had gone completely independent after the completion of their contract with EMI Records. In 2004, they went on a long break following the end of the tour in support of Hail To the Thief. Phil Selway would comment on this hiatus. “It was definitely time to take a break. There was still a desire amongst us to make music, but also a realisation that other aspects of our lives were being neglected. And we'd come to the end of our contract, which gives you a natural point to look back over at what you've achieved as a band." During this time, Thom Yorke released his first solo album The Eraser, while Jonny Greenwood scored his first two film projects. Writing for In Rainbows began in early 2005 with the decision to work with a producer besides Nigel Godrich. The reason for this decision is a point of contention between band members on whether the group wanted to hear a new voice or Godrich was simply too busy with other projects. In August, the band began recording sessions as they updated their progress on Dead Space, the group’s official blog. Progress on the album was very slow as Thom Yorke would later explain. “We spent a long time in the studio just not going anywhere, wasting our time, and that was really, really frustrating." A variety of reasons have been given for the studio issues including the long hiatus, no deadline, and the fact they had all become fathers. Ed O’Brien would say that breaking up was actually considered at the time, but kept going “because when you got beyond all the shit and the bollocks, the core of these songs were really good.” In December, Radiohead hired Skip Stent to produce the new release, who had previously worked with Bjork and U2. He did not last very long as the producer told them their recordings so far were not good enough. In order to try and create some positive energy for In Rainbows, the group decided to tour in May and June of 2006. The live shows helped immensely as Thom Yorke would say, “We basically had all these half-formed songs, and we just had to get it together. And rather than it being a nightmare, it was really, really good fun, because suddenly everyone is being spontaneous and no one's self-conscious because you're not in the studio ... It felt like being 16 again." After the tour, they brought Nigel Godrich back in to produce the record, which according to Yorke definitely helped them to get focused quickly. Recording started up again at a country house in Wiltshire, England, which had some productive sessions. The house was very odd as Yorke would describe it for the media. It was “derelict in the stricter sense of the word, where there's holes in the floor, rain coming through the ceilings, half the window panes missing ... There were places you just basically didn't go. It definitely had an effect. It had some pretty strange vibes." These October sessions produced “Bodysnatchers'' and “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” as Yorke would post that the album was well on its way now. In December 2006, the sessions moved to Godrich’s home studio in Covent Garden in London. The band completed “Nude” and “Videotape” during this time before moving on to Radiohead’s home studio in Oxfordshire. The LP would finally be completed in June 2007. One of the major priorities for In Rainbows was that the record needed to be “concise” as they felt Hail To the Thief had been too long and bloated. Thom Yorke would observe, “I believe in the rock album as an artistic form of expression. In Rainbows is a conscious return to this form of 45-minute statement ... Our aim was to describe in 45 minutes, as coherently and conclusively as possible, what moves us." The sessions had produced 16 tracks, but the band decided on ten with the intention of releasing the others on a second disc at a later date.

In Rainbows represented art rock, electronica, and experimental rock. The opening track “15 Step” was actually inspired by the Peaches song, “Fuck The Pain Away.” “Nude” had actually been initially written during the sessions for OK Computer, but never used. Colin Greenwood rewrote the bassline making it much more appropriate for In Rainbows. Although the group performed a song entitled Reckoner in 2001, the In Rainbows “Reckoner” only has the title in common because they exist as two different songs. “Bodysnatchers” would be described by Yorke as “Wolfmother and Neu! meets dodgy hippy rock.” The most difficult song on the album came in “Videotape,” which Yorke described as “absolute agony.” With the help of Godrich and Jonny Greenwood, the track was made quite minimally into a simple piano ballad. The lyrics on the record were described by the singer as “that anonymous fear thing, sitting in traffic, thinking, 'I'm sure I'm supposed to be doing something else' ... it's similar to OK Computer in a way. It's much more terrifying." The record’s central theme represented being human and reaching the conclusion that we are all going to die someday. Yorke would make clear that no part of his lyrics are political in any way on the album. “Bodysnatchers” would be partly inspired by Victorian ghost stories and the 1972 novel, The Stepford Wives. “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” was inspired by the disarray Yorke witnessed when he would go out on the weekends in Oxford. Once again, Stanley Donwood created the cover art for the album, eventually deciding upon an image of a rainbow, but a toxic one at that. The cover art would not be released for the digital version, but only for the physical cd’s and vinyl.

With the release of In Rainbows, Radiohead offered a free download for it in a pay what you want pricing structure. Such a release had never been done before from a group as big as Radiohead. Colin Greenwood would say that the band did this in order to avoid leaks and regulated playlists via radio and iTunes. Thom Yorke explained their logic in an interview with BBC. “We have a moral justification in what we did in the sense that the majors and the big infrastructure of the music business has not addressed the way artists communicate directly with their fans ... Not only do they get in the way, but they take all the cash." As for the release itself, the band used a private server network in order to successfully distribute the ZIP file to fans. The file would be a DRM free 160 kB download, but diehard audiophile fans would complain that they wanted a file with more kB. After two months, the download was removed, but you could still get the album in a physical format through XL Recordings primarily. The band eliminated any thought of making it a download only release because they wanted a physical object to give to fans. In Rainbows emerged as the first release from the band to be made available on streaming services like Amazon and iTunes. The band retained all rights to the master recordings, while record labels would need to obtain a license from the group in order to use any part of the record. The pay what you want structure created quite a stir within the music world with some applauding it, while others criticized the move. Mojo would call it a revolution in the way new music is released. Time called it “easily the most important release in the history of the music business.” New Musical Express praised the band for bringing together everyone at the same time to hear new music. U2 complimented Radiohead for their courage and imagination in trying to create a new way to speak to the audience. Despite all of this praise, the release did have several detractors, most notably musicians. Lily Allen felt that it sent the wrong message to less successful artists that you will need to give away your music for free in order to get anywhere with an audience. Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon said the same thing noting that it essentially made everyone else look bad for not giving their music away for free. Guardian journalist Will Hodgkinson commented that Radiohead had decimated the playing field for everyone else with this move. U2’s manager would even argue that 60-70 percent of Radiohead fans pirated the record via torrent. In retrospect, the band never used the same pricing structure ever again for any release making pay what you want an experiment, and nothing more. In 2013, Thom Yorke admitted that they might have been doing what companies like Apple and Google wanted all along when you consider the current state of streaming music.

If the controversy over a pay what you want release was not enough, the band also battled with EMI over In Rainbows. In August 2007, EMI was purchased by the company Terra Firma and new owner Guy Hands. Radiohead was on the verge of completing the record when Hands made a visit. They had hoped to re-sign the group, but suffered a major disappointment when they learned of the decision to self release the record. Ed O’Brien said the group did not realize their importance to the company, while Hands believed only a big offer would persuade Radiohead to sign a new deal. O’Brien would later say, “It was really sad to leave all the people [we'd worked with] ... But Terra Firma don't understand the music industry." The real sticking point came in the fact that Terra Firma refused to give the band control of their master recordings. Thom Yorke would later deny Terra Firma’s claim that the band wanted an extraordinary amount of money. A week after the group released a special edition of In Rainbows, EMI released a boxed set of material recorded by the band during the time of their contract. The Guardian would call it revenge for not signing with the label.

Most critics praised In Rainbows across the board. Many reviews noted the fact that the quality of the release was not overshadowed by the significance of the pay what you want structure. New Musical Express would comment, “Radiohead reconnecting with their human sides, realising you [can] embrace pop melodies and proper instruments while still sounding like paranoid androids ... this [is] otherworldly music, alright." Rob Sheffield would observe that there were no duds on the album. Other qualities mentioned in various reviews included warmth, beauty, and more human. Robert Christgau would say that there was less Thom Yorke on the album, which turned out to be a good thing. Many end of year best of lists named In Rainbows the number one album of the year including Billboard, Mojo, and Pop Matters. They were ranked in the top five for Pitchfork, AV Club, and Q. Rolling Stone and Spin would put the album sixth on their year end list. The release would be ranked as one of the best of the decade by several publications including New Musical Express, Rolling Stone, Paste, and The Guardian. The LP would go on to be nominated for The Mercury Prize and several Grammys including a win for Best Alternative Record for the latter. As far as sales of the album, those were difficult to gauge due to the unconventional nature of the record’s release. Some research was released providing what the average user actually paid for a download, but Radiohead dismissed the statistics as inaccurate arguing that In Rainbows made more money digitally than any other release combined. According to their music publisher, the physical copies of In Rainbows sold quite well, which Pitchfork observed on their site. “Radiohead could release a record on the most secretive terms, basically for free, and still be wildly successful, even as industry profits continued to plummet.” According to the media measurement company BigChampagne, the release was downloaded illegally 400,000 times. The digital version of the album did not make it eligible for the UK Album Charts, but upon the release of the physical album the release went straight to number one. The album did the same thing in the United States on the Billboard 200. The vinyl version of the LP became the best selling record of 2008. In 2009, the group finally released the second disc for In Rainbows. In his review, David Fricke of Rolling Stone would say that the bonus material was not worth the $80 price tag, but the tracks represent vintage Radiohead. In 2016, the group made the second disc available on all streaming services.

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skymoonandstardust · 7 years ago

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Avengers Fairytale!AU

An: I was thinking about the Royal au I wrote for the Avengers before and my mind kind of drifted to fairytale au and then went down this long spiral that led to me coming up with and writing this. Hope you all enjoy lovelies <3

Tony Stark:

Born a Prince to a distant, cold, king of a father he had every advantage and luxury--- and he knew that. When he grew up though he used that to help

people, first by making weapons to protect them until he found out they were falling into the wrong hands. That was only after going through the harrowing ordeal of being captured by a band of evil wizards and going through months of tortured before finally being rescued. When he returned he vowed to never make a weapon again. He still wanted to help people though, beyond just what his money and status could do. Thankfully he was brilliant and good with his hands. . .not to mention slightly skilled at magic. Day and night in this tower workshop he slaved away and in secret built a suit or armor. He imbued it with just a little bit of protective and defensive magic, giving it some enhancements as well. Finally the day came when the suit was completed, and he put it on to fly out for the first time. It was the start or a long hero’s legacy.

Bruce Banner:

A monster who was once a normal, good, kind, man like any other. . .until he accidentally upset an evil sorcerer who put a curse on him. Because the sorcerer was slighted in moment of anger, he made anger Bruce’ s curse by having him turn into a literal monster when angry. A big green monster who tore apart four villages before tearing off into the woods and decimating ten acres. . . then vanished without a trace. A man who. when he turned back into himself and realized what he’d done, what exactly happened, turned his back on the world for their own safety and made a cave his house and the forest his home. People still talk of him and his destruction . . the story turned to legend by now. The monster people walk in fear of ever seeing or encountering-- not knowing that the man who is the monster dreads it even more then them, wants it even less then they do. The monster how hasn’t even come back though there are people who’ve said they’ve seen a flash of him in the woods or spotted a strange, bearded, rag dressed man who turned tail and ran the second he saw or sensed them. the monster and man no hero has been idiot enough to try to kill or defeat. . .cowards that they are, they stick to dragons.

Wanda Maximoff:

A good witch, and a skilled one who is loved and hated for the same reason; she can help people with her magic, and does. Peasants and kings have come from far and wide to see her, even sailing the dangerous seas to reach her from other continents. The Witch who’s broken curses, cured ailments, and helped heroes. -- assisted budding adventurer and pointed people on the path to their destiny. the witch who’ s friendless but never without help or hope wherever she goes. A witch who’s the most powerful or any-- who could easily destroy the world with a spell but who instead chooses to be good --even gong so far as to track down, fight, imprison and stop those of her fellows who are evil and hurtful the ones who go around spreading sadness and pain to all. the witch who belongs to no king, kingdom or country. and who refuses to be tied or serviced to any. The witch who was born in a small village which she was driven out of along with her brother because of their differences who was treated only cruelly by people for so long and who suffered the greatest blow by their hand when they murdered her brother because they feared and hated him. . the witch who turned it all to good and who refused to pay the world back in the same kind.

Peter Parker:

The peasant boy with a selfless soul and a hero’s heart who has stars in his eyes and dreams of one day being a hero like the ones he hears about and sees passing through his small town. A peasant boy who lost his parents and his uncle and helps his Aunt May at every turn. The boy who would go off to seek his fortune . . .if not for her and the few years between him and adulthood when he can. the boy who looks eagerly at those years because all he wants to do is help people. Peter Parker who purposefully waits in the town square or the tavern to meet any wondering adventurers and hear tales of great hero’s deeds. the peasant boy with a brilliant mind who finally goes and off to do all the brave, heroic acts he dreamed about . . .the tales of which always get back to aunt may who he visits every chance he can. Peter, who is unknowingly being watched by Tony, who sees the sparkling potential in his and is contemplating making him his apprentice.

Natasha Romanoff:

Black widow. Assassin. Nightmare. Monster. But no by the work of any sorcerer, spell or curse. This monster was created in entirely human ways-- tortured, tested, trained, until she was a human weapon. An assassin. An assassin who hunted, tracked and killed her prey, human or not, whatever the cost. she was the beast in the dark, the fear of every child’s nightmare with a thousand horror stories attached to her name that ran red with murder and blood. That’ who she was. . . until she learned better. , changed her ways and became good. she used the same skills that she had to kill and destroy and turned it to defending and protecting. Not just people, but magical and non magical alike--making her name turn from something reviled and feared to something praised and loved. she took down powerful dark magic organizations and defeated the greatest evil magic threats with no hesitation, making that the purpose of her life.

Steve Rogers:

The peasant with a hero’s nature down to his very core, who could never sit back, remain silent or walk away from a fight even when he was as skinny and weak as a beanpole with no notion of weapons and fists. The peasant who was at first denied the chance to join the war raging across half the world but was given his wish by pure chance. Steve’s selflessness nature refused to allow him to hoard the bit of cheese and bread -- his last morsels of food-- when the supposed beggar asked him for something. Of course the beggar revealed himself to be a wizard and said he’s grant the Peasant a wish in return for his kindness. Steve of course said he wanted to do his part to fight in the war --and that’s what he got. His body was magically altered in a heartbeat to a soldier’s fit form and he was gifted a special shield-- a symbol of protection the wizard explained-- just like Steve would one day become, but also a very good weapon. He was enlisted in a heartbeat. The peasant who had his wishes come back to haunt him as wishes always do, when he had to sacrifice himself to save the world and the war. The brave war hero known around the world for his deed who was presumed dead-- but was alive, only put in a magical sleep for years out of malice or kindness. the hero who woke up one day to a world he didn't even know. . .

Bucky Barnes:

The commoner boy who was best friends with Steve since childhood who was bigger and stronger and got enlisted first, sorrowfully leaving his friend behind to go fight. The soldier who got captured behind enemy lines and was rescued by Steve. He joined him and they formed a band with a few other like minded soldiers and friends they made along the way. For years they and the howling commandoes did lots of good, doing the seemingly impossible and destroying uncounted dark strongholds. One day one of those missions went wrong and Bucky died. . .at least everyone thought he did after he fell off a cliff. but he survived and was found by a dark sorcerer who twisted, tortured and brainwashed him until Bucky forgot who he was and only the winter soldier remained-- a tool of the dark sorcerer’s will. He was kept alive and young looking by magic (only because it suited the sorcerer's needs) and was given a metal arm to replace the one he lost in the fall. it was stronger then his old one, harder, and impervious to enchantment. the winter soldier rained terror for years-- until Steve finally woke up and they came across each other one day. The sight of his old fiend was enough to weaken the magical bonds on his mind . . .and soon he remembered who he was. Bucky was back to his old self and didn't hesitate to trap the sorcerer and destroy his lair before going to rejoin his old friend. a new chapter of his life would start and he would be a hero.

Sam Wilson:

A Man who wanted to fight for his kingdom and country so he went to a friendly wizard to ask him for help so he could. The wizard gave him a pair of mechanical wings. Not wanting his friend to be left out he asked for another pair and the wizard gave them to him, telling Sam that he would do much good with them but to be careful because they’d come at a cost. It was a few years later before that cost came due as Sam watched his friend fall to his death. After that he retired from his many years of service and hung up his wings, hiding them away so wouldn't have to think of them or the price his friend payed. For a few years he led the quiet life of a normal peasant, then came the day he had an encounter with Steve and the hero knocked on his door asking for help a day or two later. Without hesitation he agreed and pulled out the old box heavy with dust in the back of his closet. He opened it and stood there for a moment looking down at the wings. they practically gleamed in the dim light, looking as clean and new as the day the wizard gifted them. It was time to fly again. . .

The forevers: @a-sea-of-fandoms @casownsmyass @docharleythegeekqueen @imadeangirl-butimsamcurious @his-paradox @l4life @fangirl-who-dreams@sarciaczekk @esoltis280 @scarlettsoldier @thatbasicnerd4life

Marvel girls: @a-girl-who-loves-disney @l4life @kenziecole-green @thomashiddlestonloveloki s @escapingthoughtsandsecrets @padfootsiriusorionblackthethird

Spiderman/Peter Parker: @cutie1365 @l4life @tomxhotland @lucypcvensie @internetgremlin @meanwhile-in-other-worlds @petah-parkah-and-potahtas @lets-imagine-fanfics

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

Link

Car-making nightmare could soon get a fix, thanks to Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger told Reuters on Monday that Intel is in talks with companies that design chips for carmakers about manufacturing those chips in its factories. Intel (INTC) could be producing the chips within six to nine months, he said. That increased supply would be a big help to automakers that have faced production delays, factory shutdowns and limited inventories because of the short supply of computer chips. Gelsinger said Intel will seek to provide rapid assistance to car companies suffering from the shortage, including Ford Motor Co (F). and General Motors (GM), according to Reuters. An Intel spokesperson confirmed the report to CNN Business. “We’re hoping that some of these things can be alleviated, not requiring a three- or four-year factory build, but maybe six months of new products being certified on some of our existing processes,” Gelsinger told Reuters, adding that Intel has already “begun engagements” with some key chip suppliers, though he did not name them. Gelsinger’s comments follow a virtual gathering of executives from firms that make and rely on semiconductor technology convened by the White House on Monday. The Biden administration convened the meeting to discuss the chip shortage and the need to shore up America’s semiconductor supply chain. Attendees also included Dell Technologies (DELL) CEO Michael Dell, Google (GOOGL GOOGLE) CEO Sundar Pichai, General Motors CEO Mary Barra, Micron (MICR) CEO Sanjay Mehrotra and others. In an appearance at the summit, President Joe Biden said there is bipartisan support for bolstering domestic semiconductor production, an effort that is part of his larger infrastructure investment plan. Currently, makers of cutting-edge microchips — which have crucial defense applications and will fuel important, next-gen technologies — rely heavily on foreign manufacturing, largely from Taiwan, South Korea and China. US officials have grown increasingly worried about centering production for this critical industry in a region where US rival China, which has been wrestling the United States for technological dominance, has so much influence. Those concerns have intensified amid the recent chip shortage. “China and the rest of the world is not waiting, and there’s no reason why Americans should wait,” Biden said. “We’re investing aggressively in areas like semiconductors and batteries — that’s what they’re doing and others, so must we.” Biden highlighted the importance of “building out American supply chains so we are never again at the mercy of another country,” for such critical industries such as semiconductors. Intel’s role Intel has been vying for a role in helping US officials with this effort since at least last spring. Following a recent strategic revamp by new CEO Gelsinger, the company may be especially well positioned to do so: Intel last month said it will invest $20 billion in two new US chipmaking facilities. It also plans to launch a new business unit called Intel Foundry Services dedicated to manufacturing chips designed by other semiconductor companies, potentially drawing some business away from Asian chip manufacturers such as Samsung (SSNLF) and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM). “We are grateful for the opportunity to share with the President and his team our perspective on the urgent need to invest in semiconductor manufacturing capacity, R&D, education and jobs here in the United States,” Gelsinger said in a statement to CNN Business following the White House summit Monday. “It is clear there is broad bipartisan and cross-industry recognition that semiconductor manufacturing is a vital component of our national infrastructure that must be included in the American Jobs Plan,” he said. In addition to growing US semiconductor manufacturing, Intel Foundry Services will create new revenue for the company at a time when other core areas of its business are under increasing threat from competitors. On Monday, Nvidia added to that pressure by announcing plans to launch its first central processing unit (CPU) chips for servers — a move that will put it in direct competition with Intel in the key data center market. Intel’s stock sank more than 4% following the news, while Nvidia (NVDA) shares gained nearly 6%. Nvidia previously focused on graphics processing units (GPUs) and data processing units (DPUs) which are used in data centers alongside x86 CPUs from Intel, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and others. But systems using Nvidia’s new CPU, called Grace, coupled with its GPUs will have ten times faster performance than those relying on x86 CPUs, the company says. The new chips are based on technology from Arm Ltd, the same technology being used by Apple (AAPL) and others that’s posing a threat to the dominance of Intel x86 chips in the PC market. “Overall, Nvidia is shaping up to be a formidable and direct competitor to Intel,” Wayne Lam, senior director of research at CCS Insight, said in emailed commentary. “It is shaping up to be another x86 vs ARM war but on the battlefield of high performance computing.” Source link Orbem News #Car-makingnightmarecouldbegettingafix #Carmaking #Fix #intel #nightmare #Tech #thankstoIntel-CNN

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dipulb3 · 4 years ago

Text

Car-making nightmare could soon get a fix, thanks to Intel

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/car-making-nightmare-could-soon-get-a-fix-thanks-to-intel/

Car-making nightmare could soon get a fix, thanks to Intel

CEO Pat Gelsinger told Reuters on Monday that Intel is in talks with companies that design chips for carmakers about manufacturing those chips in its factories. Intel (INTC) could be producing the chips within six to nine months, he said.

That increased supply would be a big help to automakers that have faced production delays, factory shutdowns and limited inventories because of the short supply of computer chips. Gelsinger said Intel will seek to provide rapid assistance to car companies suffering from the shortage, including Ford Motor Co (F). and General Motors (GM), according to Reuters. An Intel spokesperson confirmed the report to Appradab Business.

“We’re hoping that some of these things can be alleviated, not requiring a three- or four-year factory build, but maybe six months of new products being certified on some of our existing processes,” Gelsinger told Reuters, adding that Intel has already “begun engagements” with some key chip suppliers, though he did not name them.

Gelsinger’s comments follow a virtual gathering of executives from firms that make and rely on semiconductor technology convened by the White House on Monday. The Biden administration convened the meeting to discuss the chip shortage and the need to shore up America’s semiconductor supply chain. Attendees also included Dell Technologies (DELL) CEO Michael Dell, Google (GOOGL GOOGLE) CEO Sundar Pichai, General Motors CEO Mary Barra, Micron (MICR) CEO Sanjay Mehrotra and others.

In an appearance at the summit, President Joe Biden said there is bipartisan support for bolstering domestic semiconductor production, an effort that is part of his larger infrastructure investment plan. Currently, makers of cutting-edge microchips — which have crucial defense applications and will fuel important, next-gen technologies — rely heavily on foreign manufacturing, largely from Taiwan, South Korea and China.

US officials have grown increasingly worried about centering production for this critical industry in a region where US rival China, which has been wrestling the United States for technological dominance, has so much influence. Those concerns have intensified amid the recent chip shortage.

“China and the rest of the world is not waiting, and there’s no reason why Americans should wait,” Biden said. “We’re investing aggressively in areas like semiconductors and batteries — that’s what they’re doing and others, so must we.”

Biden highlighted the importance of “building out American supply chains so we are never again at the mercy of another country,” for such critical industries such as semiconductors.

Intel’s role

Intel has been vying for a role in helping US officials with this effort since at least last spring.

Following a recent strategic revamp by new CEO Gelsinger, the company may be especially well positioned to do so: Intel last month said it will invest $20 billion in two new US chipmaking facilities. It also plans to launch a new business unit called Intel Foundry Services dedicated to manufacturing chips designed by other semiconductor companies, potentially drawing some business away from Asian chip manufacturers such as Samsung (SSNLF) and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM).

“We are grateful for the opportunity to share with the President and his team our perspective on the urgent need to invest in semiconductor manufacturing capacity, R&D, education and jobs here in the United States,” Gelsinger said in a statement to Appradab Business following the White House summit Monday.

“It is clear there is broad bipartisan and cross-industry recognition that semiconductor manufacturing is a vital component of our national infrastructure that must be included in the American Jobs Plan,” he said.

In addition to growing US semiconductor manufacturing, Intel Foundry Services will create new revenue for the company at a time when other core areas of its business are under increasing threat from competitors.

On Monday, Nvidia added to that pressure by announcing plans to launch its first central processing unit (CPU) chips for servers — a move that will put it in direct competition with Intel in the key data center market. Intel’s stock sank more than 4% following the news, while Nvidia (NVDA) shares gained nearly 6%.

Nvidia previously focused on graphics processing units (GPUs) and data processing units (DPUs) which are used in data centers alongside x86 CPUs from Intel, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and others. But systems using Nvidia’s new CPU, called Grace, coupled with its GPUs will have ten times faster performance than those relying on x86 CPUs, the company says.

The new chips are based on technology from Arm Ltd, the same technology being used by Apple (AAPL) and others that’s posing a threat to the dominance of Intel x86 chips in the PC market.

“Overall, Nvidia is shaping up to be a formidable and direct competitor to Intel,” Wayne Lam, senior director of research at CCS Insight, said in emailed commentary. “It is shaping up to be another x86 vs ARM war but on the battlefield of high performance computing.”

0 notes