#nuclear combination imo

[piedaterreincensorshipville]

IMO the way Darth Vader's suit has been treated in modern Star Wars works, and especially in fandom, exposes a pretty significant generational difference in expectations of medical care between modern writers and people from George Lucas' generation.

Lucas described Vader as being in "a walking iron lung". That simile is no accident.

Before the development of the polio vaccine in the 1950s, iron lungs - monstrous tanks enclosing the whole body below head level, which left their users lying flat on their backs and mostly immobilized - were the only means of keeping people alive if polio paralyzed their lungs. Polio was absolutely terrifying, and Lucas grew up in the 1940s and 50s, so he'd have known how feared it was. But until Jonas Salk developed the vaccine, there was no alternative to the iron lung, aside from never catching polio in the first place.

Likewise, although there was medical treatment for burns including the use of skin grafts, extensive burns were very often a death sentence. But since the 1960s, burn treatment has come a long way, allowing patients to survive injuries that at the time of World War II would have been fatal. Silver sulfadiazine was developed in the 1960s as a topical cream used to prevent infection, which revolutionized the survivability of burn injuries. According to this article, in the 1950s, being burned over 50% of the body meant at least a 50% chance of death; by the 1990s, the equivalent burn level for the same odds was 80%.

Vader's suit was conceived with these older standards of medicine in mind: he survived full-body immolation in a way that should by all rights have killed him, and would have, had he not been put in a life-support suit. There was no alternative. His options were the suit or death. 

But these days, medical science has advanced so much that such a drastic intervention being Vader's only option for survival seems unrealistic. Few people remember the days before the polio vaccine or silver sulfadiazine. Iron lungs are no longer even manufactured. So the idea that the best medicine the GFFA can come up with isn't up to 21st century medical levels seems alien to a lot of younger writers. (Especially since the GFFA also has things like seamless prosthetic limbs.)

As a result, there's a perceived need for there to be some explanation for why Vader's suit isn't up to modern standards of care. Which is why we now get the concept of Palpatine deliberately making Vader's suit a torture device, designed to leave him permanently in pain in order to fuel his anger and rage, as well as keeping him from challenging his master. Fandom in particular has taken this idea and run with it, but it also crept into things like the novelization of ROTS, as well as encyclopedia-format "official" SW works coming after that film.

I might also note that Vader being immolated was part of his backstory well before Vader and Anakin were combined into one character. In Lucas' interview in the August 25, 1977, issue of Rolling Stone, he mentions the lava duel but describes it as involving three characters, Vader, Luke's father, and Kenobi. Nonetheless, according to the 1997 Annotated Screenplays book, this didn't stop him from momentarily considering an alternative idea in his second draft of ESB from April 1978 (the same one that more lastingly combined Vader and Anakin), where he mooted the idea that Obi-Wan instead pushed Vader into a nuclear reactor.

[sburbian-sage]

Vagabouncy is NOT once per session, but it is if you want to do it safely.

If I remember correctly, it took a while for the mirror to be discovered. It's not like the Imaginarium is a fun place, and the mirror that does it isn't exactly super well signposted after all.

We used to use other methods. This guide describes them: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12506732

Personally, I think the author was fucking with people on that last one, I've never gotten it to work. Also I have no idea why they think having multiple Space or Time players is a problem. And I've heard that method two stopped working most of the time a few years back.

Method one though, where you bounce the kernelsprite around and scramble it's brain(?) still works, as far as I know. It's just stupidly dangerous, and if anything this guide undersells how much of the game it breaks, so I think it's better to just use whatever the game gives you in most cases, or use the mirror.

Nice catch. I mostly forgot about The Original Vagabouncy because of the fact that it's so dangerous. Recommending that method of Vagabouncy is like someone asking you "how do I roast marshmallows" and you answer "well you can use a campfire but if you're not a pussy I know this one trick you can do with a nuclear reactor".

The third method does seem pretty sketchy, yeah. It's notably missing the part where you choose what Title you reroll, which kind of defeats the entire point of Vagabouncy IMO (unless you just really really really don't want to be Title X) and "it picks a random Title but it's like an easy Title that isn't challenging or easy" sounds weirdly... Convenient? It also engages in "replaying resets your maturity" which I've always held is more of a psychological phenomenon. The average replayer, upon discovering why they're called a replayer, wants to put a fucking gun in their mouth and see how many times they can pull the trigger. Which combined with the looming dread of "I'm going to have to do EVERYTHING all over again", naturally biases their own judgement on their own maturity. I don't think the game actually schleps the life lessons out of your brain. Additionally, I imagine the issue with multiple Time or Space players is that "too many cooks in the kitchen spoils the pot". Time travel is already mind-bending, and having two people accidentally undoing each other's work or creating problems for the other to solve sounds infuriating. I also don't want to imagine the consequences of two Frog Breeding duties being active at once.

The second method does sound stupid enough to work, and the major "downside" of "maturity quests which are non-applicable to you" kind of already happens anyway. Some stuff is consistent, the Negastrife is always geared for you, and the most current version of you to boot (it will bring up stuff that happened in your last session, for example), so I don't imagine it'd be that big of a deal. I do wonder why it stopped working, or if indeed it actually stopped working.

I do agree with the last part though. Vagabouncy is a useful tool, but like many other tools, mastery involves not needing to use them. Or however that saying goes, you know what I mean. I'll bang this drum forever, inflexibility is what kills most players, and you need to learn to play other Titles, and display proficiency while doing so, just in case Vagabouncy isn't available, feasible, or you need to use the mirror for someone else. I've gotten to drive behind the wheels of a lot of different Titles, including the infamously confusing Time, the infinitely bugged Void, and the infinitely fucking insufferable Fate.

This does, by the way, solve the mystery of how half of the Universal Grist Bank guys Vagabounced. There's only one mirror, but they are experienced replayers, and thus probably knew how to pull of the alternate Vagabouncy methods semi-safely.

[crush3dmary]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. spread the self-love ❤

Oh, hey, thank you! I'm always down to hand out recs, my own stuff or otherwise! Not sure when I'll get around to passing it on though as I'm very busy at the moment with Luisa's visit and all, but I'll tag anyone who wants to do this!

For Yugioh:

Philosophy of a Knife This one's the obvious one, probably my magnum opus that combines my best prose, introspection, characterization, and storytelling all in one. If you can stomach the heavy violence and some sexual content of a more dubious nature, my "Bakura wins" Ryou corruption arc is for you.

Phantom Pains (ft. @koutone) My collab with Luisa deserves a spot here too, where we analyze Marik's changing mindset pre, during, and post canon. We both went off with this one, some of our best work respectively is in this fic!

For Tales:

Weltschmerz series Technically two fics, but they're within the same universe and play off of one another. A role-reversal Symphonia AU where Tethe'alla is in decline and Zelos must go on the journey of regeneration. In the second part of this series, it turns into a completely new story.

Ice Palace One of my first fics, and still one of my best, IMO. A study of the Wilder family lineage that compiles all my Zelos headcanons into one. To quote my wife, who still insists this is her favourite of mine, "every other line is a nuclear bomb".

chiaroscuro For a Crestoria rec, it was a hard toss up between this one and Darling Lagomorph (which is recommended reading to get a gauge on my Aegis headcanons anyways, but everyone and their dog has read that one by now) this was something I wrote for cresty week 2022 that I still really love. An analysis of Misella and Aegis' parallels, and writing this and getting inside Misella's head made me just fall in love with her!

[sylwanin-was-right]

Imo, Neytiri and Jake did not need that many kids, even if one of them died. I've read some theories about how the adopted kids, Kiri and Spider, have lots of parallels, but some of the roles the kids did could have been combined just to focus more on the individual characterizations over quantity

The way ur so right abt this LMFAO

I said it before but Jake and Neytiri having such a large family right after being displaced and massacred from a literal genocide just.... doesnt seem like good timing esp since 15 yrs is just not far removed from such a horrific event for an entire peoples. Maybe the Omaticaya are just very resilient and adaptive, or maybe the director and writers just didnt think of the implications of that passage of time and the extended life expectancies of the Na'vi (they def could have waited a bit longer considering how young Jake and Neytiri were when they met).

But yea u def make a good point that many tropes and arcs could have fit into one or 2 characters rather than 3 + 1 1/2 lol. Now that im thinkin abt it, it would have been rlly cool and VERY unique if Jake and Neytiri had either

No children yet but created a "family" from orphaned Na'vi children

Only 1 or 2 bio kids and their "extended" nuclear family composed of orphaned omaticaya kids

I just thought of these now so the ideas arent entirely fleshed out, but i just like the idea of the family Jake and Neytiri could have had being less nuclear while still consdering other parts of the clan. Neytiri having that many kids consecutively after witnessing genocide and then being sidelined most of the 2nd movie (then framed to be toxic and irrational) just put a bad taste in my mouth. Too many misogynistic implications that could have been lessened, if not eliminated, if the focus on AWOW wasnt to appeal to a western, patriarchal sense of "family" and "childhood".

[lynslegion]

Made an Engage tier list, this is purely from a combat standpoint not about how they are as characters! Gonna put some explanations under the cut. There are two spoilers at the very bottom of the explanation so beware of going below the D Tier section!

Okay obviously I lied bc Sommie is at the top but how was I gonna see him and not put him there? Anyways!

S Tier: I genuinely never thought Alcryst would be very good but his insane Dex growths combined with a high Dex cap makes Luna an invaluable tool that procs often. If you give him an energy drop or two, while not necessary in the least, he'll become an actual nuclear warhead. Chloe is S because her availability + really good personal magic growth combined with Griffin Knight just being a pretty good class makes it so that if you give her a Levin Sword even as early as chapter 8 or 9 she'll be melting everything in sight and retains nearly that level of viability for the rest of the game. Panette shines with Ike though sometimes I give him to Diamant. Even still, slightly nerfed when paired with Hector she is still an i n s a n e unit and I would recommend placing her on any and every team composition you'll ever have. Genuine demon of a unit and I love her dearly. Seadall is self explanatory, dancer always S Tier.

A Tier: Jean wasn't on this list for some reason but he'd be at the top of A if he was. So much potential, he can do pretty much anything very well especially with Veronica. Hortensia's staff +1 range utility paired with pretty decent stat growths makes her the best healer imo. Yunaka paired with Corrin outshines any other dagger user in my experience though I do plan on messing around with her viability with Chrobin. Anna paired with Camilla as an axe Mage Knight makes amazing use of Camilla's skills and weapons, I'm aware that Sage Anna with Byleth is also very good but I'm very partial to this setup. Rosado reclassed into great knight and paired with Tiki becomes immortal against physical damage after a few levels it's wild. Alear being this high may be a surprise but they can be very good when reclassed immediately into wyvern knight after promotion. Kagetsu is someone I haven't used but I can't deny that everyone seems to think he's very good. Merrin provides good utility when paired with Lucina to poison foes during chain attacks due to her movement range and good stats. Louis is this high up due to his availability, amazing tank up until Diamant can take off or you get Rosado going and then he starts falling off.

B Tier: Diamant makes a good off-tank when paired with Ike, especially if he gets lucky with Sol. Goldmary is another candidate for Lucina who can make chain attacks a damage carry if you handle her properly on the hero class. Ivy is a competent unit though from what I've seen/read I messed up by not giving her speed buffs from Lyn which I plan to do in this run. Jade is another competent tank that falls off in endgame. On paper Zelkov seems better than Yunaka, however her synergy with Corrin and personal skill has her winning out to a large degree against him in my opinion. Good replacement option though if you get unlucky with her growths/lose her. Lapis is another good replacement option for Kagetsu specifically, she makes a very good Swordmaster though I also enjoyed her as a wyvern knight. Pandreo is the second best healer imo and can deal very good damage if set up properly/paired with Soren though I don't recommend this late-game as I'll explain later. Céline can be very good early game though she falls off quickly especially if reclassing Anna to Mage Knight and using Ivy.

C Tier: Etie I feel is a good unit though I can't deny that she falls off quickly when compared to Alcryst and in a game with such few deployment slots compared to viable characters I can't justify using her. Alfred is another character that falls off quickly due to his unique class being redundant with his low Dex scaling and his growths not being viable enough to justify another class. Admittedly I haven't used Amber much though from what I have experienced/seen/read he doesn't distinguish himself much at all. Framme makes a competent healer if you lose Hortensia or Pandreo, otherwise I'd recommend dropping her ASAP. Citrinne relies nearly entirely on Olwen's S rank bond ring Dire Thunder ability, she simply doesn't have the stats anywhere but her damage to justify anything else or being any higher. I'm actually not too sure on Vander, as with every Jagen I drop him very quickly so I'm not sure how he scales. Haven't heard much though so he can't be too fantastic.

D Tier: God I wish Timerra was more viable, I love her as a character but she's so utterly RNG reliant that I can't justify investing in her on hard mode especially when her role is filled far easier and more reliably by Diamant. Clanne is someone who if you're absolutely committed to using him should be reclassed to an axe unit to make use of his good accuracy and related growths however I don't personally find it worth it. Fogado suffers from somewhat lackluster growths and an utterly useless unique class, reclass to Warrior if determined to use him but there are much better options. Boucheron is a sad case because while you can make him viable it takes pretty hefty investment and quite some time to set up. Other than that one specific setup he's simply not good. Bunet I love you you out and proud creature, absolute freak of a character but I can't think of a single case you'd want him on a team other than a niche setup with Celica's food skill and even then it's more gimmick than anything.

Spoilers!

Mauvier would go in B Tier right behind Diamant. He may join rather late but his scaling is actually very decent and his base stats get ramped up very quickly with a little bit of work. I'd recommend giving him a try just for the sake of judging for yourself.

Veyle is a curious case because while I'd place her in A tier between Rosado and Alear I can see why some people put her in C Tier. She has two specific niches: a Celica Echo Draconic Hex setup to become a dedicated debuffer and the other being paired with Soren. This is what I was referencing above and why I place Veyle in A tier, when paired with Soren she becomes a perpetual near unkillable glass cannon to an unbelievable degree. Takes insane damage but heals it back almost instantly, I've seen her solo entire maps with this setup on higher difficulties.

[faithfromanewperspective]

Obligatory add-in from an aussie, who admittedly doesn't know heaps about politics (and thinks the linear conception of it is bs) but knows enough to get by, a fair bit on specific issues, and interacts with a lot of people across the (multidimensional) spectrum.

I do see Biden as conservative. Somewhere in between Albo (current PM, of the moderate/sometimes conceptualised as slightly left leaning but only in comparison to the liberals, and also due to their history of being the voice of the working class) labor party, and our ex PM ScoMo (don't mind the weird nicknames, this is australia for you and one of the best things about our culture) from the liberal (actually conservative, kind of right wing, but more economically than socially imo) party (don't mind our weird backwards party naming either). Generally all of our conservative input comes straight from the US, like an assignment where the plagarising kid didn't even bother to change the words before submitting it. Doesn't take off as well here as there, so they get votes by scaring people that the other major parties apparently don't know how to handle money. That's about all they've got going for them--but politics in Australia does evolve quickly so... anyway, most of our so-called conservatives don't question things like gay marriage and early term abortion (these clickbaity issues actually don't divide our major parties up too much, more just the fringe ones, more on that later) but weirdly don't believe in Indigenous rights or anything that threatens tangible things like the way old white guys like to conceive the world, and the literal stolen land we live on. They're driven by money, power, the status quo, protecting privilege, and under-the-table money from mining corporations. Their main target is middle-class men.

The fringe US-inspired far-right conservatives are the ones who are inspired by the narrow biblical application that marriage is only between a man and a woman and life starts at conception regardless of the whole in-utero parasitism thing. Yet many of them do believe in Indigenous rights (to some extent), affordable housing and healthcare. Here you've got a weird mix of your church mums/stereotypical privileged neurotypical or neurotypical-wannabe housewives who don't quite look below the surface to see exploitation behind 'pretty' 'biblical' values (and I use quotation marks as someone who does follow Jesus and knows the gospels well enough to see that none of this aligns with his ministry) (for example, the leader of the Australian Christian Lobby who aren't a political party but an organisation who fit this bill, is the kind of Insta-perfect family woman) for whom life revolves around the nuclear family (we literally have a minor party called the family first party) and working class, often small-town or tradie men whose only chant in life is 'freedom' and think mining creates jobs and don't understand basic climate science or the concept of life as someone who isn't a cis male, who lives in a city, who has a disability, or who works in an office (and if they do they keep quiet about it to fit in with the guys they get drunk with on a Friday night). It's an odd combination but I look over at the US and think yes, I can see where it came from. And because of our preferential voting system, these people end up supporting the Liberals usually.

What I find most interesting is the left side of things: our third major political party literally formed because people wanted to conserve the natural environment in Tasmania. They're pushing us towards ambitious climate targets and have been since the 90s. They're literally called the Greens, and a lot of work has been put in by the right wing people to either claim they're pushing to shut down 'christian' views or pushing for higher taxes for the working/middle class majority. The latter they dispute, and they're actually quite transparent re money (the other parties are not), as for the former, we haven't quite grown any prominent progressive christians yet to change the public perception to see that things like supporting trans rights without being loud about it and placing a group of people in the political spotlight where they might be harmed, providing public housing, community connections and affordable medical care will prevent many more abortions than will simply happen because it is legal, and actually not being too shitty to refugees then covering it up actually aren't anti-christian at all. Nor is respecting other religions or lack thereof, and certainly calling out the other two major parties' reliance on mining funds (and subsequent support of its environmental destruction we know will economically cripple us later on top of everything else) and taking care of the environment. I was initially skeptical (as an enviro sci student) as to how their housing plan wouldn't cause extra land clearing but was pretty impressed with the scientific way they explained the market drivers of the housing crisis and cited the public housing in Vienna that is attractive, built to the highest environmental standards (as opposed to just letting the developers take care of ensuring there are houses). I don't think they're far-left though, or communist in any way. I think they've worked hard to get where they are and are targeting a mainstream group of people who are relatively (like your garden variety solar-panel-using recyclers, nothing radical about them) environmentally conscious, struggling with the cost of living, and making it possible to care for both them and the environment. I'm grateful for that, my only criticism is the lack of work in rural areas where mining dominates (and Australia has a lot of rural areas). That might change.

We also have a group of independents 'the teals' who came together at the last election, economically conservative and pushing for climate action, also lgbt and womens' rights. To me this is a valid position and in the words of a conservative I follow and respect, conservatism is 'the seeking of truth' (not the misinformation it's currently known for these days). They've been massively helpful in getting our climate policy to where it is, and a great alternative for otherwise centrist/conservative upper middle class inner city dwellers who have half a brain in their heads and understand we can't keep going the way we are. I don't know if these guys will form a party, but I do think they're the voices of the people who are the future of politics and they give me hope.

Lastly I want to talk about two minor parties: the Animal Justice Party (again, somewhat leftist but not communist or even far-left, highlight the impact of animal agriculture on climate the way the greens and teals decidedly don't, and also all things animal rights which again everyone else neglects) and the Indigenous-Aboriginal party (whose existence i conceptualise outside the left-right slider, for I see that as a colonial paradigm) and they give me a lot of hope for de-colonising our country (communism and capitalism both being very colonial practices) and giving a voice to the realities of rural Australia, and respect and honour to Indigenous land stewardship especially when pitted against the exploitative practices of Western agriculture (which unfortunately feeds us) and ecosystem crushing cities (which unfortunately house us). I am immensely grateful for these parties' existence and I hope they come into more power and help become the voices who lead us along a much richer path than any of the three major parties could give us.

Just like America, Australia does not have a far-left either.

And maybe it's because we view communism as a loss of power too, except we don't really talk about it except for the few dozen people campaigning socialism at our major universities.

But maybe it's because we have better ideas instead.

And I hope we can get our shit together in a way that America can learn a thing from us for a change, for apart from the Labor and Liberal parties' alliance with the mining industry, the views of the Greens, the Teals, the IAP, the AJP, and even the fact that our conservative lobby is led by a woman all showcase our uniqueness as a nation that extends far beyond the left-right spectrum. I hope we manage to export some good paradigms that assist with undoing the assumptions of colonialism all over the world. It's really optimistic of me I know, for there is a lot that's messed up around here too. But I want to raise awareness of the potential for good more than give that bandwidth more towards complaining about the bad.

I dunno I mean I knew a lot of Americans were against it but I assumed they were all elitist right wing weirdos.

What's the mainstream left wing position then if it's not socialism?

[pleuvoire]

oh yeah as of recently i have read all the locked tomb books twice... here's my review of the whole series in context with each other... basically i have come to agree with the widespread fandom take that gtn is the weakest book in the series. it's really good on its own but i think it's telling that when i first read it i was like "hm yeah, really good book but didn't sink hooks into my brain the way it sank hooks into my mutuals' brains" and it took until a book club made me read htn for me to come down with locked tomb fever. even going back and revisiting it i felt that its status as a limited-scope introduction to the basic rules of the world (very limited, due to its nature as a locked room mystery) makes it less interesting and juicy than the other two, and it almost feels like it's just laying out the ground rules and key character intros before the other two books really dive into the world and story. still really good on its own and i'd still recommend it as a standalone but it just doesn't compare

htn is probably my favorite and the across-the-board strongest book in the series and also just some of the best genre fiction of the decade. it's literally just a long psychological horror character study combined with an introduction to the wider worldbuilding, and character study and worldbuilding are two of my favorite things. and the john-mercymorn-augustine inner circle is one of the most fascinating aspects of the series to me. and the prose is gorgeous and i love the deep dives into harrow's character and it's got orpheus and eurydice imagery and unreality and all that good stuff. and the subtextual commentary about violence and control in the nuclear family... just a really really good book all around and the moment when my brain finally became hooked on this series

ntn is... also a candidate for my favorite? imo it's got the lowest lows of the series but also the highest highs (not a rare take i know). the plotting and pacing is messy, and a huge percentage of the book is people having plot relevant conversations in front of the pov character while she just sits and listens and goes "idk what that means but cool :)" so on the first read i was rather confused a lot and also having trouble adjusting to the vastly different setting and tone. but on reread it clicked a lot better for me, and i grew to appreciate the newfound realism and mundanity a whole lot. and after all ntn also has the john chapters and the alecto reveal and all those staggeringly important lynchpins to the entire central theme, which are just all super well written, and the way the operating logics of empire clash and fall apart as the book reaches its climax is so good. and i love nona and her family and friends ;__; i'm still not sure if this book beats out htn for me but it's really good

that's my review of the series so far. can't wait for the fourth book to come out when i'm old and grey and totally destroy me

[verachito]

Can you explain why Charles Oliveira is so fucking hot?? I can't wrap my head around how he gets away with looking that good

RIGHT LIKE??? dude has been posting hella thirst traps and its been scaring me ngl. the sexier a dude is the less confident i am that he can fight LMAO

like… du bronx…

chill the fuck OUT you gotta stay a little ugly or i’m gonna lose faith in you fjjshkfgkhsggdh

[theseventhoffrostfall]

A common criticism of 40k space combat is why the Imperial Navy just doesn't bombard planets with """surgical""" (in this case meaning a target area of say 50 square miles) strikes to destroy resistance since the Imperial Navy, outside of the occasional Necron fuckery, is the most powerful navy.

Do you think you could make an argument that guns that are useful for space combat may be less effective on orbital bombardment duties? Whether the gun is designed to not factor in gravitational pull or atmospheric entry or other planetary related things that could make turning a ship sideways 90 degrees and firing a Nova Cannon at your target? Maybe the atmospheric disturbance RE the dust kickback and other stuff is an environmental concern? (Though especially in 40k, any artillery piece looks like it'd cause a minor disturbance)

Because otherwise, IMO, if you don't qualify naval space combat as explicitly different, there's the idea in this case that space would be an extension of the already existing air superiority concepts so having literal fleets of dreadnoughts sitting around doing nothing while the grunts on the ground keep getting sent into the meat grinder. If you can have CAS with an AC130, then a battleship 400 miles up is really just a further extension of the same concept.

I am not sure if there's really a good answer to this but it's something that's always kinda bugged me especially in 40k when you get a huge horde or orkz or something and my response would be to have some battleship make them Not Alive.

Well a go-to answer in settings that have that kind of tech, probably originating in Dune but popping up everywhere from a slew of less-known books to Star Wars original trilogy and yes, 40k in a detail most of the autists seem to have missed, is that vital facilities and infrastructure are protected by enormous shield generators powered by well-protected huge reactors, and ship weaponry can't punch through them in a reasonable time frame, particularly in contested orbit. That works completely fine for me, completely functional reason, let's get right to the ground combat I find more interesting anyway.

Some settings without that technology (and some with it) answer with the question that no, nothing's stopping them, and ground troops effectively don't exist in any meaningful sense. That's fine and all for space combat autists (unlike ground combat-focused military sci fi, I've never seen an actual naval veteran who served on a warship writing that sort of setting) but I consider it spectacularly lame and pretty unrealistic. I absolutely do not want more stories where a bunch of jumpsuit-wearing tech weenies mock the notion of ground combat and saying anyone who engages in it is a dumb meathead while dropping QuasiProtoNeutronic Inversion Peltast Bombard rounds.

In settings without it, you could have a combination of robust anti-orbit and point defence weapon systems and less reliable targeting from ships (if you can't get very, very close to the planet, it is indeed pretty hard on mid-combat to hit specific areas of planets) or just consider the same reasons that real life wars tend not to default to saturation-bombing and nuclear bombs on major cities

[chewingbatmanlikeasqueakytoy]

I love just how many things get fucked up just by forgetting a single city exists, which makes so much sense but also really just does Keep Going the more you think about it

Honestly there are so many variations of 'we have to remind this place that Amity exists so the town doesn't get Completely Fucked' that I feel like they now deserve their own sort of collective name, maybe links? that's a bit of a limp name though If we wanna keep up the spooky ghost theme to it they could be collectively known as Revenants. Considering they would literally be returning from the land of the dead at this point once Amity is effectively Annexed to the Infinite Realms. (Can it even be classed as Annexing at this point? Or would it be more closely linked to the worlds most bizarre case of squatters rights - you abandoned this town for so long that the ghosts literally moved in and it's theirs now. Suckers.)

WAIT LEGIT?? LMAO?? Are the dentist vibes just that pure that they're putting out or did I pick that up somewhere and forget? Honestly I haven't interacted properly with the DP fandom since before this tumblr but I HAVE read fics, (though they were mostly dannycentric whump) so It's very possible it's either or. The concept that they just have The Vibes of dentists is what I'm choosing to believe however, because that is infinitely funnier imo

I didn't find anything on the statistics of Mormon dentists but I did find an article about 'Dentally Impacting the World for Christ' which is a whole thing I didn't read but did give me the mental image of someone rinsing with holy water which is PROBABLY some kind of blasphemy.

Yeah!! I love that breakdown of how the trio works tbh, they're a surprisingly good example in media of how despite holding different views people can still get along and work really well together.

(I'm for anything that excuses the building of the repurposed casino University! Honestly I did think flooding it would be an excuse for it if it caught fire but dismissed it bc it would contaminate the waterways but like. Would Amity even consider ecto a contaminant at this point? like probably not right? There are leaks and spills that people are concerned about (rightfully) like nuclear waste or oil spills or acids etc but culturally and environmentally this would be the equivalent of like. A leak at an oxygen compressing facility for things like fire fighter tanks - it's not GREAT but as long as someone doesn't decide to run in with a lit flame it's literally the least problematic thing around. Might just have to worry about smugglers trying to make off with the water for a while, or particularly vigorous plant growth. The lack of death in the areas downstream of the spill might even go farther towards proving to the wider world that Ecto is completely safe for consumption actually.)

A lot of the problems as I understand it also come in on essentially the WEIGHT that this ends up putting on buildings. Like the same reason you can't just slap a pool on a roof or balcony that isn't prepared for it, in that the weight will take it down eventually, is one of the start up and long term issues.

But with ghost zone materials that are particularly light or soil/earth/rock that's prone to floating if you want to keep that property consistent into the living world, you could essentially build out of hyperlight/floating materials, pour living world soil on top and have terraced, almost pyramid like structures like some combination between terraced farming and underground housing. Depending on the plants they could be particularly tall thin pyramids or particularly short ones. This could also have a really interesting cultural effect where instead of the sprawl of a house the height of one would indicate prosperity - the higher you can build the more you can produce at that point. OR a combination of both, with land space at a premium. Also there would probably be a lot of goat and sheep instead of stereotypical dairy and meat cows, because as far as I'm aware those things don't really climb very well. Hardier stock and highland breeds might do better but I don't even know how many of those are still kicking around Europe never mind if they were ever taken over to the Americas.

The properly vertical cultivars like berries or hips and vines (and some flowers like sunflowers) could then be saved for in the centre proper, which would make a frankly gorgeous city centre. Pollution uptake in the plants from cars also wouldn't be a problem because of the clean energy ecto.

That would be a really cool theory actually! If Vlad does make the shield, he seems semi-decent in TUE? which would make it a bit more of a surprise if he was accepted then kicked out of town. Like he intimidates Danny almost as some bizarre last lesson, to make sure he gets insurance for people to deliver what they promised.

Maybe Vlad, known associate of the Fentons, was given access to their work materials, notes and space once Dan started showing up in force to break things, and then Vlad was kicked out? They got what they wanted from him then said he was too resource intensive when they could supply that to someone else in town that had more connections. People can get pretty brutal in disaster scenarios. It's also a possibility that Dan, upon hearing where Vlad is and furious he can't get to him, makes it known that Vlad is the 'Reason' he exists, either as half of the entities that made him, the one who facilitated the mixing of those entities, or both. It would pretty effectively turn Vlad, redeemed or not, into a scapegoat and target for the towns anger at their suffering. He would have been pretty lucky to escape alive and also helps explain why he seems ENTIRELY alone - if the rumour spreads and spreads among any and all survivors that the source of the apocalypse is That Guy, then That Guy is never going to get to live in peace or community again. I do think Vlads PP manoeuvre was a pretty consistent escalation for him though. I think It's fair to see one of Vlads potential obsessions as control, which then manifests into a power hungry state. If the guy feels like his life slipped out of his control because of the random chance of Jack pouring a soft drink into the portal instead of the proper chemicals (another point for the fentons being just SO contaminated, honestly, if jack was eating and drinking around this stuff so early) then him constantly seeking more control (Money, then when he had so much of that the money wasn't making a difference, politics) over everything in his life would check out. It also wouldn't necessarily Vanish with his ghost half the way his Ghostly Obsessions would, so he could still attempt to pull a coup and then get his as handed to him, because as you say he doesn't have super powers to back up his failure to recognise or treat what would probably be some kind of PTSD in this case. (the playlist for this scenario would include that one animation meme fill for Vlad (X) which honestly it's just so fucking good?? I LOVE the way this lands so much, big ouch honestly??? Legit was the catalyst for me being more sympathetic towards Vlad)

FGNWEJI LMAO so ecto is essentially 'vaccines will turn your children autistic!!!' but it's not just some insane claims? Honestly that's a hilarious take. Accepted. Ecto makes you neurodivergent but you gain the ability to breathe fire and fly, I'd slam that deal button so hard the panelling would SHATTER. ALSO I feel like one portion of this has gone as of yet unexplored, which would be the ghost zone! The GZ on the other side of the portal is pretty barren in the show (or maybe not by ghost zone standards, maybe all those doors are considered very populous) but I'm a big fan of Weird Architecture so: City Balls! Big, floating structures like a cross between planets and cat trees expanding out from between and around the portals as more and more ghosts learn, 'hey these living folk are really cool with us, wait, there's an entire living realm area dedicated to LETTING US TALK ABOUT OBSESSIONS???' like anyone who needs other people or otherwise socially structured facilities for their Obsessions to be fulfilled would be so on that shit omg

Why doesn't the justice league know about Amity Park?

Okay so it's been a bit sonce I watched the show but one of the things in DpxDC is the anti-ecto acts, which I love, but correct me if I'm wrong, I THINK ??? they only show up in reality trip? SO: What if Danny, when using the gauntlet to undo everything, also got rid of the Anti-Ecto acts? but this is babys first time editing reality so he uh Fucks Up A Lil'. As a result when Danny used the reality gauntlet to wipe the AEA from existence he accidentally wiped Amity Park from perception. A big 'nothing matters over here' jedi mind trick, and now no ones looking at Amity. So, the Justice League actually WERE looking into and monitoring the situation in Amity, but when the perception filter closed them off, all of that suddenly went ignored.

This is noticed when someone (Alfred, Dick, Tim, literally anyone) realises theres just. A BIG dusty pile of case files semi abandoned somewhere in the cave when going through a (time period)ly cave cleaning.

They put it down because it's Not Important.

They come back to finish the cleaning the next day and do the exact same thing, but there's nothing to actually distract them this time and it pings as weird. Because why would case files be not important? They are by definition important, because only things flagged as important go into case files.

They try to get someone else to read it, because as long as they don't read the information in the file, they don't put it down.

That person goes to read it, gets a line in and then says something like 'that isn't important' and goes to leave. Person A pushes it and person B ALSO catches on.

Que the Batfam trying to figure out hey, what the fuck actually?

Meanwhile, how is Amity fairing? Canon compliant everything's going alright? Or have knock on effects to No One Look Here started to show?

[autisticandroids]

idk what the business hours are for evil deancas are but if you or your followers have any more headcannons for cas protecting jack at all costs from dean's bullshit but also cas himself engaging w dean's bullshit i would love to read them

you see, this is NOT evil deancas because healthy castiel who can do things like “care about things that aren’t dean” and “say no to dean” and “acknowledge dean as anything but simultaneously the embodiment of perfection and an object to be coveted” is antithetical to evil deancas. this is why, post-jack, there is no longer any such thing as evil deancas. there is instead working-on-ourselves deancas. they really gave cas a baby and it fixed all his problems.

but anyway i did make this dumb post immediately in the wake of 15x18 and it still, imo, holds up. like the thing about jack is that he isn’t dean’s son. he’s his stepson. he’s more sam’s family than dean’s, honestly. but in order for sam to have a good ending he needs to get out and away from dean, and jack needs to stay with cas because cas is his real dad. 

i actually think that not being around sam and spending a lot of time with cas will help dean grow just..... naturally? because the thing is that sam has given up. he gave up in like season eight. he rolled over and stopped fighting back. and it’s not like that’s his fault! like. being involved in a toxic/abusive family dynamic is, well, it’s exhausting. but i do think it encouraged dean to become worse. because dean got used to being able to absolutely control sam and 1) that’s awful for sam, primarliy, but 2) he got used to being able to do that to everyone. 

because like........ cas? before jack? cas is whipped. he’s not under dean’s thumb the way sam is, but he would never actually resist dean because he worships him. the only thing cas would really stand up to dean about is dean’s own safety. like, occasionally they disagree but to cas dean is his god and his commander. he’ll generally do whatever dean says without dean needing to control him. and he’s certainly not going to protect sam, unfortunately. he might commiserate with sam when dean is out of the room but he’s not going to help because, well, sam disobeyed dean. you don’t do that. 

like unfortunately i think cas could probably successfully step in to protect sam and improve the brothers’ dynamic, if he thought of things that way, but he doesn’t, really. like, i wish he did because it would make him a better person but unfortunately cas doesn’t really have a moral compass, exactly. like, i was joking earlier with a friend about this but for cas it really only takes a rather low threshold of inconvenience for him to think “hey. i could kill my way out of this situation.” and then do that. he doesn’t really have a strong sense of an objective, distant “right” and “wrong.” he’s all about people and loyalty. and his loyalty goes to dean first, always. until jack comes along, that is. then suddenly his first loyalty is to being a good parent. and that’s an INCREDIBLE shakeup.

the thing about cas is that he is pathologically stubborn. he’s totally capable of standing up to dean, as we’ve seen. he just doesn’t because there’s almost nothing that’s worth it to him. but jack’s happiness and emotional safety are, and so he would. combine that with dean not having sam to form bad habits with, and i think their little nuclear family could straighten out into something vaguely healthy.

anyway, in the finale fix that leo @davidfosterwallaceandgromit and i outlined, and leo is writing (with a bit of my help but only a bit), the last scene is dean and cas, five years later, in their hunter bar that they run, and jack is doing his homework in the corner, and dean says “it’s about time that boy learned to mix a drink, you know, help out with the family business,” and cas narrows his eyes and says “no. jack’s schoolwork is very important to him.” and dean throws up his hands and say “alright! alright! i’ll leave him alone!” and cas kisses him on the nose.

[chibimyumi]

Hi, Chibi. I was reading your posts and your analysis of the Beast/Sebastian scene made me want to cry: I've never felt strongly about the whole thing actually (it kinda just feels like "oh, Trash Demon™ is being trash as per usual, nothing new" to me 😂), but what hurt me was the fans' reaction when it was released: many said hateful things towards Beast and vilified her even though SEBASTIAN INSTIGSTED THE ENCOUNTER and took advantage of HER. Reminds me of what you said about the yaoi mindset.

【Response to: That Demon, Seducer】

Dear Anon, my apologies for the late reply!

Sebas did a deplorable thing, indeed! He is Trash Demon™, after all. The question is just what kind of trash he is. I think nuclear waste; it remains dangerous and decays only after thousands of years...BUT it is containable if you know exactly what you’re doing, and is ultimately less harmful than humans commonly think it is... but the moment you lose control of it... oof.

What do you think, does nuclear waste fit as category for Sebas?

Yeahhhhh, some people’s reaction about SebaBeast... it is incredibly ugly. The compulsion to romanticise everything on the one hand, and (internalised) victim-blaming and misogyny on the other... I am sure there are people who manage to combine these and turn it into a romance of misogynistic victim-blaming.

No, that’s not a challenge or a prompt.

Related posts:

SebaBeast - was it just fanservice? Imo, no.

Sebastian’s evil - astonishing, and yet still better than humans...

What is Evil in Kuroshitsuji? - Kuroshitsuji’s philosophy

[the-family-fortune]

Earlier today Cali asked me quite possibly the worst thing you CAN ask me

And boy howdy did I have some thoughts. 

idk if ive mentioned it here before or not but I have a lot of feelings about the idea of redemption in psy2. I LIKE the idea that no one is beyond redemption, that people can be good and that we are all, at our core, just hurting. and those are the themes that psychonauts plays with. mental illnesses that are seen as "scary" like the inmates (though the inmates themselves are rarely presented as scary, with maybe the exception of Edgar because he's just. huge.) - bipolar mood swings with inexplicable rage, Edgar's anger issues and sheer strength combined into an intimidating figure, and the stigma of multiple personalities like how Fred acts meek one second and then on the warpath the next when he "switches". All of these oooh scary mental illnesses are literally just people grappling with trauma. Edgar's OCD and the trauma from high school, Fred's... weird genetic memory issues, and Gloria's inner critic and the death of her mother. These things are like, Normal People Problems (sorry fred idk what the fuck is up with u buddy ur on another level all together) and really contextualize the inmates' mental illness in a way that emphasizes the main theme of empathy. 

I intentionally leave Boyd out of this because while the root of his mental illness is schizoaffective paranoia, his ROLE as the Milkman and in fact his entire mindscape is the product of Oleander's hypnosis.

So like, I VIBE WITH THAT, its a really really interesting take on the conversation about mental illness and how these things do not make people inherently bad or scary!!

But I feel like, BASED ON WHAT WE KNOW RIGHT NOW, that the Galochios - or, at the very least, Zalto on his own - fall into a different kind of category.

The Galochios from the start are jealous people. They're jealous of the Aquato's fame and think that they deserve more recognition which in and of itself isn't a bad thing per se - wanting to feel appreciated and recognized and seen is just a basic human desire, I think. But jealousy isnt a mental illness. Jealousy is a natural human emotion that we, as rational and empathetic people, must make the conscious choice to deal with in healthy ways. The Galochios don't, and they let that consume them from the start - where they allow themselves to hate the Aquatos for their fame, where they allow themselves to ostracize Marona, where they drive her out of the family and where they attempt to drag her back, it's not the product of mental illness destroying relationships like someone in Edgar's position might experience, but pure pride and jealousy directed towards the Aquato family.

And like from there its just all downhill

And I could argue that from this point things compound to create a mental landscape that maybe isnt the picture of health in the Galochios, because grief can really, really fuck you up, and regardless of how they acted, losing a daughter or a sister when Marona died, could not have been easy.

But I cannot read "the Galochios crowded around the tank to gleefully watch Lazarus's decapitation" and be like "aw they're just hurting 8(" because mental illness is not synonymous with undue cruelty.

Like the Galochios at every turn are presented with A Choice and by god they're determined to make the wrong one. Whether or not this is motivated by grief or jealousy or whatever doesnt matter, because even when you are mentally ill it is still the bare minimum to not gleefully watch someone you dont like get decapitated, u know?

That is, I think, them consumed by jealousy and hate and seeing nothing wrong with it because it benefits them and hurts people they dont like. Thats. that's not mental illness that's just being an asshole

So while I absoLUTEly vibe with Psychonaut's theme of empathy and compassion and understanding that mental illness isnt bad or scary, and that we're all struggling with something, I think that narrative has two sides to it, and the same way that "we're all struggling with something" lends to the idea that we need to extend compassion to others, the Galochios being so stubbornly cruel as to be irredeemable in the narrative of psychonauts two lends to the equally important theme of "but you can not sacrifice yourself for people who do not WANT help"

Because of the nature of the things the Galochios have done (and perhaps, are still doing, as we move into the secrets behind the RoR and Psy2 narrative) I think that it would take a LOT. A LOT. for the writing to pass off a Galochio redemption in a meaningful and complete way, because of the nature of the choices they make. From what I know about them right now, these are not the actions of people who are... hallucinating grandeur or some greater purpose who believe in some hidden agenda like Boyd. From what I can gather and what we already know about the Galochio backstory, this is just the kind of people they are. 

 Now, taking into account Zalto specifically, I can without a doubt see him having some major psychological damage. Like I said earlier, grief can really, really fuck you up, and Zalto experienced more grief than reasonable, all at once, with the tank accident. He was already not the most stable person. ("But Daisy!" I hear you cry, "Augustus lost his entire family in a year and didn't snap like that!" True but look me in the eye and tell me you think he's coped with it in a healthy manner. Augustus experienced unreasonable amounts of grief and as a result his ten year old thinks he wants him dead.)

So if that turns out to be the case, and we see a level where we actually do deal with that grief in a healthy way (which imo would be very interesting to see the trauma of grief treated the same as mental illness - even though we all experience grief at some point, sooooome of us dont quite take it as well as others, whoops!) we could see the baseline path to a Zalto redemption.

But really it all boils down to responsibility for their actions and how they handle their trauma and the fact that eight Aquatos were murdered does not automatically become sympathetic because Zalto was dealing with grief. I personally, would be really interested to see the Galochios as villains end the game as villains and for that stubbornness and unwillingness to accept empathy or help be shown as their downfall, because irl its incredibly unhealthy and self-destructive to refuse help or refuse to SEEK help when you very clearly know that something is hurting you, and that you are in turn hurting others.

I also REALLY don't want them to be given the Oleander treatment.

As much as I love Oleander, I feel like a lot about his character was mismanaged, and he was turned into comedic relief in RoR.

like. A lot of my thoughts on the psy2 narrative as a whole relies heavily on the li-po document of course but the story that we were given IN psy1 vs the story that we are told in the document are so STARKLY different.

"Oleander wants to take over the world because he's angry at tall people from that time from that time his dad killed his bunny, which traumatized him" is NOT the same as "Oleander spent his formative years FIRMLY BELIEVING that his father saw him as a burden because he was small, thought he was nothing better than pig slop, and witnessed the death of an animal that he had a psychic connection to, after which he spent his entire life attempting to make his father proud only to be rejected by every branch of the military. By the time he was finally a Psychonaut and felt he would be able to make his father proud despite his stature, both of his parents died horribly in a meat grinder accident while he was away training." 

 NOT THE SAME HOLY SHIT.

Oleander had so much POTENTIAL but he was kinda shoehorned into a very two-dimensional role. Idk if it was because of budget or time or what, because the production of psy1 was very..... not great. But its absolutely a SHAME to see such a heartbreaking backstory reduced to "short and angry about it"

And it absolutely cheapens his redemption, too.

The fact that Oleander's story was so heavily pruned COMBINED with the fact that - while it's hinted at in game, its honestly INSANELY difficult to put two and two together imo because of how its presented, Ford outright tells us that Oleander's assignment to whispering Rock was the cause of his mental break (the camp sits on a motherload of psitanium. It makes psychics more psychics, and unstable people more unstable.")

that's never once brought into the resolution of Oleander's character arch and the processing of his trauma and how the psychonauts directly contributed to his deteriorating mental state that led him to try and take over the world because they so deeply misunderstand psitanium but decided to build a kids summer camp training facility on top of it

thats like... early experimentation with nuclear materials before we understood the dangers of radiation. Not to stay topical or anything, but its a clearly dangerous substance that the Psychonauts treat very blase.

But to get back on track there, I really hope that if the Galochios DO receive a redemption arc in psy2, which seems likely given the overarching theme of the games themselves even extending to Loboto of all people... I hope they don't butcher it like they did with Oleander's. Given that they've had five years and a LOT more experience with this genre and its storytelling conventions (plus the fact that they're just excellent storytellers to begin with) I have a cautious optimism that whatever happens with the Galochios it will at least be a satisfying conclusion. (For comparison, Oleander's butchered redemption is still kinda held together by the satisfying conclusion of the game, in which Raz actually becomes a Psychonaut so that isnt to say that psy1 didnt have a satisfying conclusion) 

and at this point im sure you're regretting telling me to talk as much as i want because if there's one thing you ought to know about me by now its that i never shut up about the Galochios and honestly I've had a lot of thoughts about them and the themes of Psychonauts and the general structure of storytelling in the Psychonauts games overall.

As for the Galochio family themselves, I'm fascinated to see exactly who survived and what the power structure of the remaining Galochios is. If Zalto makes the final cut, I want VERY badly to know how he treats his family and if his anger has kinda pervaded what was probably a long time ago a relatively tight knit family. I want to see the individuals involved in this, how far they're each willing to go and where that lies in relation to Zalto. Like everyone has their moral limits, and if Zalto is utterly consumed by his goal to either obliterate the Aquatos or resurrect his family (shudder) his tolerance for atrocities may be much higher than that of his family members, which would automatically sow dissonance within the family when one by one people start deciding this is too much, this is too far, we cant keep doing this.

[diogenescamus]

@keister-meister

I guess it's just being realistic, like... he's got no trust fund/inheritance like James or Sirius who could just be Order Heroes full time. What are the chances Snape wouldn't end up having to do a mundane, stable job just to earn money to live independently? Does being a DE even pay?

With the way JKR wrote his personality it's difficult to see him having the social adeptness and smarts to be a successful millionaire entrepreneur or like any kind of job that requires impressing people. Imo the spy thing is already stretching it despite being canon. He comes off as an emotionally unbalanced, immature loser most of the time.

Like even in canon he was a full time teacher, which is pretty mundane, and the "exciting stuff" was kind of volunteer work.

Very true points. Snape is more of an inventor than an entrepreneur.

 I've always thought that with his genius intelligence and talent, a Dark!Snape who did not have his conscience, morals,  and Batman-tier obsessive guilt any more, could probably become the most dangerous (not the most powerful or strongest but the most dangerous and terrifying) Dark Lord in the world, by utilizing his genius intelligence and Muggle upbringing to combine magic with science as a terrorist. For me, I’ve always sort of seen a connection between Severus Snape and the Joker. Like several times when I watch Joker (2019), there are so many moments with Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck where I think, “Damn, he really looks like Snape”. The same thing with Snape and Heath Ledger’s Joker. Like, it really would not take that much to have Snape turn into a mix of Phoenix and Ledger Joker. The backstories and abilities  just line up so well. 

So imagine a Severus Snape who becomes a Joker like terrorist, utilizing his genius intelligence and brilliance with Potions and magic  along with the mundane sciences of chemistry, physics, and biology in order to conduct terrorist attacks. He’d be like a one-person al-Qaeda.  Think explosive bombs that can take out street blocks. Think of chemical weapons like Joker Venom/Laughing Gas. Think white phosphorus. Think biological warfare. Think nuclear. Anything that involved chemistry, physics, and biology, mixed with magic, was his domain from which he could enact terror on the world. For you see, the Marauder’s constantly cruel pranks on him warped Joker Snape’s sense of humor and so he plays his “jokes/pranks” on the world itself just like the Marauders did to him. Sirius Black once tried to play a Killing Joke on Snape and now Snape repays it to the world. Plus, with his powers as a wizard and skill with Potions, he could teleport away from the scene of the crime and so much more. You could definitely see how a Joker Snape could become the most dangerous and feared terrorist in both the Wizarding World and the Muggle World. 

As for how Severus Snape becomes the Joker, it could go something like this. 

Like, imagine a young Severus Snape who became insane through the trauma of the bullying and sexual assault he experienced in Hogwarts. He tried coping with the only thing that’s never failed him, Potions. So he self-medicates with Potions and develops an addiction to Potions in order to cope with his trauma.  Specifically Snape who grew up thinking lesser of his father because of his alcoholism, who saw it as a weakness, who vowed never to stoop so low, who, in his wizard superiority phase, deemed it as a ‘Muggle failure.’ Snape who struggles in his adolescence and young adulthood (and again, later on) but who still has a vehement aversion to alcohol, lest he end up like Tobias. Everyone needs a crutch, though, and so he turns to other things. Drugs are deemed too Muggle, but Potions? Potions are a paragon of wizard artistry, and better yet, he’s good at them. Knows how to make whatever he wants. They’re easy to rationalise, too: he knows the theory behind everything he takes, the safe quantities, the potions that can’t be mixed. He can tell himself he’s self-medicating responsibly, that it’s the smart thing to do, that this way he’s in control. He can trick himself into thinking his worsening addiction isn’t remotely like Tobias’ failures, that he’s not the same as his father...  

As for what Potions that Snape starts self-medicating with right after the Werewolf Shrieking Shack Incident, that would be,

Elixir To Induce Euphoria as an antidepressant for his depression.

Calming Draught for when he becomes manic or triggered and to avoid panic attacks.

Draught of Peace to help mitigate anxiety and agitation. 

Draught of Living Death to help him sleep.

Potion for Dreamless Sleep to help deal with his nightmares by making sure he never has to be haunted by them in his sleep.

Eventually, things come to a head the summer after he graduated from Hogwarts. Severus commits suicide and he both succeeds and fails. He fails in that he dies only temporarily and doesn’t pass on. But he succeeds in the sense that the old Severus Snape has died and the Joker Snape has been born. Thus is the genesis of the most dangerous and feared terrorist that the Earth will ever see. And the legacy of carnage, chaos, terror, destruction, and madness that he lays in his wake will be remembered for centuries and millennia to come. For he does not commit his acts of terror for any real ideological goals. He does it because he wants to see the world burn and Hogwarts had taught him his sense of humor from which he will inflict on the world. And so, I will finish it with this quote,

"When a child's cries are not answered by comfort but with blows and insults, they stop crying. And learn to expect no comfort save that which they can give themselves. They hide their pain and suppress, like a warrior in battle. But sooner or later, they must face it, and the longer it is put off…The more likely they will to fill in the hole inside themselves by reflecting that pain and give back to the world the only gift that the world has taught them. If the world will not warmly embrace the child, then the child will burn the world to ashes in order to feel its warmth."

Why does every single Snape AU have him doing mundane shit. The man’s jobs in canon where 1) terrorist 2) spy 3) teacher/spy 4) Headmaster/spy. None of them are mundane, and he loved all of them except the parts related to teachers (Snape loves spying, he says so to Harry). Why then does every single alternative job have him be a healer or a potions brewer or an academic. The man is meant for excitement! Give me less boring standard potions apprentice Snape, give me more billionaire mad scientist entrepreneur Snape (or all three!) superhero Snape, vigilante Snape, auror Snape. Have him do exciting stuff, otherwise he’ll hate it.

[bluebeirry]

Humanity in Heroes, Humanity in Villains- everyone’s flawed AF even if Hero Society can go F*** itself

Edit: I had to rename this because I realized my original name was misleading

I’ve seen a lot of thoughtful, well-written posts making very good points about why hero society is broken and is doing the wrong thing by vilifying their ‘villains,’ locking them up and forgetting  about them. I’ve seen a lot about how Tomura Shigaraki and the LoV in particular are natural responses to a broken system. @linkspooky and @waxwingedhawks and @thyandrawrites have a lotta good meta on this.

But… I also wanted to make something about the other side, that accepts that the heroes are flawed, human, and often in the wrong. Maybe a lot of people who already stan the heroes won’t get this, or will misunderstand what I’m going for, but I wanted to put it out anyways for fun and to see if I’m just talking out of my ass.

Here’s the thing. BNHA society as a whole being a villain-making machine that creates new villains, demonizes them, destroys lives, and then benefits from the hero system that only functions because of this destruction? Yes, spill that tea. Heroes doing harm by perpetuating the system? Totally agree.

But Heroes individually being responsible for the monsters created and being justifiable targets of hated? Well, I think it’s more complicated than that.

See, if we look at the hero system as a mirror of real-world capitalism, then the Heroes aren’t the CEOs and the politicians who make up the 1% and keep the world in tatters. They are symptoms of a broken system as much as the villains. They have more agency than the villains, yes, but I don’t think they’re all monsters for failing to see the shortcomings of a society that encourages them not to look too deeply.

First of all there’s the pure fact of what heroes do- they save people.

I don’t have a problem with heroes fighting villains who use their powers in destructive and violent ways. I have a problem with the system then taking those villains and locking them away, instead of trying to help them. But when a man made of slime is holding a 13/14 year old kid hostage, blowing up buildings, and shouting how he’s gonna kill All Might? He needs to be stopped.

In short, I agree with the hero system ONLY so far as the idea of having people who are trained professionals use their skills to protect people and save lives. If people are threatening/taking the lives of other people, I do not have a problem with those people being stopped by violent means- so long as those means do prevent further death.

What I have a problem with is the demonization of human beings, harsh and unforgiving societal reactions, and refusal to acknowledge or examine the circumstances that push human beings into committing crimes.

We see heroes treat villains as the irredeemable scum- and in cases like Overhaul, this is pretty true. But their society also doesn’t encourage heroes to follow-up on anyone they arrest after all is said and done- not once is it even mentioned that a hero plays a role in a villain’s trial, something that real-world cops often are called to do IRL  for the people they’ve arrested. And let’s be honest- it's easier for heroes to beat people senseless and not feel bad about it if they think the villains all deserve it. Acknowledging that doing physical harm to another person may be necessary in order to prevent further physical harm (or even death) from falling on more people is complicated and difficult to accept. I’m sure some heroes are being cowardly when they embrace the idea that villain=evil, while others- like All Might (see below)- don’t seem to have the social and societal awareness outside of their own experiences to realize that they should be following up and helping people. What’s more the idea that anyone should be looking at the cause of villainy is one that’s hard to pick up because it’s so rarely found. Nobody in the media, in the government, in the HPSC, wants people to think about the ethics of Tartarus. Even the Liberation Army doesn’t seem to give two fucks about the ways their society makes and profits off villains. It’s said several times that the world of hero society is a world of ‘repression’- I strongly suspect that anyone who tries to explain to others the flaws in their society gets repressed  and shut up, one way or another, with the only people in power who are aware being the ones that benefit from the system the most and don’t care about the lives destroyed in the process.

Deku says that this is the story of how he became the worlds greatest hero. I can this be the case without dismissing the villains completely- if the world changes how it treats them. If Deku brings about or enters a society where cases like Toga and Twice can be saved without needing to turn to the darkness- where the people Deku defeats and arrests aren’t just locked up for life, but are given brighter futures.

Now some specific cases, just for fun:

All Might:

So I said above that All Might is a good-intentioned person who backs the hero system due to ignorance of how it harms people. Now here is where I break down the psychology of this statement for you. First of all, we know that All Might’s original mission statement as a teenager was to make the world safer so that people would have the courage to do the right thing and make the world a better place- a viewpoint he probably gained from being part of the population that was too terrified to act. It reflects his life experiences. What’s more, we know that the world before All Might was very different from the world after him. It's very possible that his limited viewpoint comes from having an understanding of the world and what it needs that hasn’t changed over the course of his career- even as his career changed what the world needs. It’s not malice or arrogance that leads All Might to support a broken system- it’s lack of societal awareness beyond his own class bracket and lack of awareness of how the world has changed.

All Might may very well have been what society needed at the time when he was a teen. We don’t know what the world was like  back then- we don’t know if he truly was doing the right thing But he failed to make sure that the culture that sprung up in his wake would properly protect everyone as best as it can, and failed to recognize that society had to keepchanging beyond his original vision. It’s like stairs- you need to take each step one at a time, but after you take one step you then have to continue on to the next one. And All Might poured so much of his life into getting past one particular step, he never even realized that there was more steps to be climbed before society could reach the top.

The League of Villains:

See, I agree that the league are all people pushed to their roles by societal rejections, and their actions are a direct repercussion of society’s failures and crimes against them. I can even agree that attacking kids is morally iffy and not 100% morally wrong when those kids are also willingly  learning to become the next generation of soldiers (and later used as child soldiers) enforcing the broken society. I still think child murder is wrong because you cannot reasonably expect 15-year olds who grew up in a society that idolizes heroes to not buy into the propaganda. Plus often they’re being attacked just for being convenient, or for pissing Tomura off- which IMO is not a good reason to try to kill someone.

But all that aside, there are two things the LoV does that I truly believe are reprehensible. While the execution of the PLF raid had severe moral issues involved all over the place, the concept of  taking the PLF and the League down is just because of  two factors:

1. The use of human experimentation to make Nomu as weapons

2. The plan to massacre entire cities- killing millions of people-  as part of the PLF’s grand plan

The second one in particular is to me unambiguously evil. The first one is evil too- but if I put on my villain stan hat I’ve noticed in cannon that we  don’t actually know if the LoV is aware that the Nomu are made from human experiments. They’re called ‘artificial humans’ and apart from Tomura (who was a willing test subject) the LoV don’t seem to play any major role in the creation of Nomu (Shigaraki is said to have ‘designed’ some of the Nomu, but  it’s not clear if that means he actually worked with dead people or just planned the quirk combinations to go into the Nomu or something in between). Point is, Doctor Ujiko is pure evil but I can forgive the LoV if it turns out they didn’t actually know how the Nomu came to be.

But there is no possible way I can see the plan to kill millions as anything less than evil. There are a million better ways to change society- don’t jump into wholesale genocide. Atomic weapons are a last-ditch resort for a reason, and their plan would basically have had the same effect as dropping several atomic bombs on several cities without warning. I don’t think it was right when America bombed Nagasaki after destroying Hiroshima, I don’t think it was right when America made a half-assed attempt at explaining the bomb threat before dropping Little Boy, and the ethics of using nuclear weapons are complicated AF but I honestly don’t believe that the LoV’s plan is right.

Tomura Shigaraki:

In relation to Tomura, we see the heroes demonizing him and calling him an ‘it’ and seeing him as a manchild. All totally wrong. But for the last point… how are they supposed to think anything else? As readers we know Tomura is a traumatized kid, but the heroes don’t know anything about his backstory. Even All Might doesn’t know how Tomura got picked up by All for One, he doesn’t know about the death of the Shimura family.

What they do know is that Tomura is willing to kill children and bystanders to get his way. And to put this on the table- that is not a good thing. I am not pro-murder. If you think killing innocent people for simply being in a mall when a villain and a hero-trainee happen to also be there is acceptable, this post isn’t for you. By now you’ve probably figured that out, and I don’t know why you’re still reading unless you saw Tomura’s name and skipped ahead to this section.

Getting back on track, I don’t think doing such horrific things like attempted cold-blooded murder makes Tomura irredeemable. I agree that he’s traumatized and confused and lashing out. That does not mean he’s innocent, but he’s also not ‘pure evil’ or ‘evil incarnate’ as the heroes believe.

Here, the heroes themselves are definitely doing the wrong thing. Not because they’re trying to stop Tomura, but because they’re treating him- and the Nomu- as non-human. Honestly I preferred when they called him a man-child; at least then they were acknowledging the symptoms of his trauma. They didn’t have enough information to know that these were trauma symptoms as opposed to, say, symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder- with the information the heroes have, either could be possible guesses. But the world is broken when they assume it’s the latter- when they assume the case that casts Tomura in the worst possible light. And then removing his humanity entirely and treating him as a thing- there I have actual beef with the heroes.

Hawks/Takami Keigo:

Now Hawks is suuuper interesting to me, because so far he is the ONLY hero to show any awareness of the broken system. Namely in Twice. But even then, there’s problems- and arguably Hawks is either even worse of a person because of it.

There’s the fact that Hawks only recognizes the humanity and the very valid backstory of the one guy who’s his personal friend- which is blatant favoritism and shows willing blindness towards the trials and suffering anyone who he didn’t try to ‘save.’

Hawks has no desire to re-make or even change the system that he clearly knows hurt and broke a good man down into doing very wrong things. He sees that the system did these things, but he doesn’t think to try to make a lasting change that might not only protect Twice, but protect future victims from following Twice’s path. This is… interesting.

Then there’s the way in which Hawks approached Twice. Now, here I think Hawks was trying to both do a hero’s duty of preventing further future violence, but failed to balance this with his personal attempts to reach Twice as a person and save him as a victim of a broken system. Hawks tried to do both at the same time, and condescended Twice while offering him a way out.

I do not think in any way shape or form that letting Twice go free, or even not apprehending him, was the right thing for Hawks to do. Again, the LoV had two crimes that Hawks knew of that could not be allowed to go through/go on. Stopping Twice was the right thing.

Stopping Twice by throwing him around, taunting him, offering him a choice between betraying his friends and dying, and threatening his life, and ultimately killing him- that is NOT the right thing. I don’t get what Hawks was trying to do, and honestly his behavior really, really confuses me. I don’t know what would’ve been the right thing for him to do- it's a rock and a hard place- but what Hawks did definitely wasn’t the best option he had. It also wasn’t the worst. But killing Twice is still pretty damn close to the worst.

Edit: I also realize in retrospect that I didn’t even cover issues of corruption in the hero ranks, such as Endeavor, and how the popularity/fame aspects helps enforce the failings and corruption of the heroes and their society, or the issues with Quirks being repressed and regulated in anyone not a hero (which ironically contributes to the idolization of heroes)

[compartmentalisinghmpf]

Are We the Bad Guys, Hans? (unfinished Laundry essay dump, pt. 2)

First part: HERE.

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For what it‘s worth: Bob really isn‘t James Bond; that would be Mo, of course.

Mo‘s greater Bond-resemblance also implies, almost from the start, (certainly from The Jennifer Morgue onwards) a greater ruthlessness – although she is kept relatable by the fact that we see her suffer considerable aftereffects from her „jobs“ - general PTSD and pangs of conscience both. We mostly see these through Bob‘s eyes. (Stross makes the IMO somewhat unfortunate decision of giving us Mo‘s own POV only after several years, when she has finally reached her breaking point - which means we never get to experience the POV of a pre-breakdown Mo. This is a bit of a shame, and makes her pre-breakdown character harder to get a proper sense of.)

Occasionally ruthless or no, Mo clearly is one of the good guys, too. The people she kills with her violin are generally evil fucks, and she‘s properly, devastatingly sorry afterwards. Like Bob, she is only doing her job, which, like Bob‘s, is Saving the World from things too evil to contemplate.

Right?

Here‘s the thing. If you take the more science-fictional part of the Lovecraftian worldview at face value (the Vast Inhuman Intelligences that want to destroy humans/other sentient life utterly part, that is - not the racism part), you can‘t help but root for the Laundry, broken eggs and all. Surely, preventing the extinction of sentient life on Earth is an omelette worth making!

Lovecraftian logic is a very convenient type of logic for the type of spy fiction that wants its Dubious Shit justified absolutely.

Which is to say: when you combine Lovecraftian logic with spy fiction logic, you almost inevitably end up in a dystopian place. If the threat is large enough – be it total nuclear annihilation, or total annihilation through extradimensional alien intelligences – radically utilitarian ethics begin to make a kind of sense that they don‘t, quite, when applied to less all-encompassing calamities. And very soon, you can justify just about anything.

By book eight in the series, the Laundry conspires against the British government – with the noble-enough intention of preventing so complete a form of enslavement of the public that even the idea of resistance would become meaningless. They accomplish this by installing, via a covert coup, another alien power that is only marginally less evil than the one that was attempting to take over the government, and whose main advantage over the latter consists in finding struggling humans somewhat amusing, thus preserving some modicum of free will, purely for entertainment value.

To drive home what kind of deal is being made here, the new Prime Minister quotes Hitler at length, to a senior Laundry official.

Mo is directly and knowingly involved in this conspiracy; Bob somewhat more proximately. Both of them are, by the end of the book (in fact, by the middle or so already) sworn to loyalty to this new Power, which in the Laundry universe means rather more than a simple matter of conscience. Why they end up in this situation, how they come to make the choices they do, is always understandable, the reader is always lured into tacit agreement. (To the degree that these are choices at all… Latter-day Bob, in particular, doesn‘t get to choose very much of his own accord anymore: the higher he rises in the Laundry, the more people seem to make all the most important choices for him, and imposing them on him by magic, though his narrative tacitly absolves them, rendering him a willing participant in his own subjection, if only after the fact. It‘s hard to get rid of the impression that he‘s secretly glad that he doesn‘t actively have to embrace that guilt – on top of all his other guilt… Bob still frames his guilt in terms of how many people he has killed, but that really isn‘t the most significant way in which he is becoming a monster.)

At some point around here – say, by the time the future Laundy-approved PM does his Hitler impression – it should dawn on the reader that what Stross has been doing, slowly and carefully, over the past several books, is to ease them (and thus, us) into the kind of mindset that justifies totalitarian dictatorships.

We have met the enemy, and they are us.