#or was the failure that he retained his own will/personality/etc?

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

SPITE!!!

[akutasoda]

hello, jing yuan, aventurine, sunday and boothill with a teen!assasin reader who was ordered by their master to kill them but couldnt and [character] took them in due to their young age and frankly them being pitiful

Reader was practically forced onto assasination, is hardened and doesnt show much emotion due to their past

youthful assassinations

synopsis - they meet you through some awkward encounters after a failed assassination and yet they take pity on you and try to help

includes - jing yuan, aventurine, sunday, boothill

warnings - gn!teen!reader, fluff, slight angst, maybe ooc, mentions of killing etc, wc - 1.3k

jing yuan ★↷

↪ being the arbiter general of the luofu meant that he would have a great deal of enemies or people out to get him. but out of all the people he would expect to be sent after him, the last in that list would be a teenager. admittedly a rather skilled one.

↪although, no amount of training for you could defeat someone who had many, many years more experience than you. normally, anyone who made an attempt on his life would be sent rather promptly to the shackling prison with a hefty sentence. but fortunately for you, jing yuan took pity.

↪he could take a wild guess that you didn't choose to do this, there was something about the fact that you were so young that made him decide that you had no free will - which he would be correct about.

↪admittedly, the main reason he decided not to take action against you was because he took pity - but another reason was because he admired the skill you had, he just thought it was wasted under your current work. he could tell that your current skill could be used much more effectively, and morally better, under his guidance.

↪naturally, you were incredibly cautious and adamant about giving up your job to be taken in by the one you were ordered to kill. but ultimately you decided to go along with it, it was a much better outcome than going to the shackling prison or simply returning to those that sent you out on the mission - you had a feeling they wouldn't be so kind to you after failing.

↪it was extremely awkward between the two of you at first. jing yuan was very persistent however, he wanted to help you and he was sure you'd come around to him in no time. although he did find it rather difficult to figure out what you were feeling because he truly couldn't tell with you.

↪jing yuan tried his hardest to help. he knew it was a difficult task but he was determined to make sure that your life got set on the right track. slowly but surely he would build up your trust - very slowly because you weren't so eager to give up anything about yourself.

↪your skill was certainly impressive for your age and jing yuan definitely thought it was much better used in the cloud knights, or even another retainer, than some unlawful assassin work. and eventually, he felt like he had another child to look after.

aventurine ★↷

↪the IPC wasn't exactly the most liked company in the galaxy, far from it. so naturally being a higher level member of the IPC meant that some people would be hunting you down. so having someone go after a stoneheart wasn't all that uncommon. although a teenager skilled in assanation was definitely a surprise to see.

↪unfortunately, you were practically set on an impossible mission. trying to kill someone who was luck blessed upon them wasn't exactly going to end well for you. fortunately however, you were lucky enough for aventurine to take pity on you.

↪he knew what it was like to be forced into something as a child, although it was quite the different experience between the two of you. but he still felt bad, you clearly hadn't had the choice to begin with and he wanted to help someway.

↪getting you to join the IPC wouldn't exactly be the greatest upgrade for you, if anything from his own personal experience it would only make it seem better but would be worse. however aventurine knew that your ‘employer’ wouldn't take your failure well.

↪so unfortunately, aventurine managed to land you a job at the IPC. except you were to work directly under him as a fork of bodyguard, that way the IPC’s grasp wasn't as bad as it normally would be to a regular employee.

↪aventurine understood why you didn't show much emotion, he couldn't blame you. all he could do was hope that eventually you'd start trusting him, he knew it could take ages but he never had someone genuine in his corner back then, so he'd be someone in yours.

sunday ★↷

↪head of the oak family. a title that carried a lot of responsibility and consequently, a lot of risks. some risks did include some people choosing to hunt him down, some people such as your ‘employer'. sunday never expected for a teenager of all people to be the next to go after him.

↪no amount of skill you possess could actually prove a threat to him, and it took him no time at all to discover who your ‘employer' was and the intent of them sending you after him - thanks to a certain gift from a certain aeon.

↪which is also how he knew immediately that you were practically forced into this job and the whole assanation thing as a whole from a young age. admittedly, this did stir a tad bit of sympathy from sunday and so he took pity on you.

↪your skills were impressive for someone of your age and so sunday thought that you'd be better suited to working alongside the bloodhounds or some faction in penacony, not the lousy people that you worked for before. although he did also think that you deserved to have time away from the whole ‘assassination’ business.

↪sunday knew that you would be rather closed off and emotionless, he didn't care all that much though. he understood that you had quite the past and so he expected that from you. he would just have to try his hardest to help you break out of that shell to at least him.

boothill ★↷

↪boothill had many, many people either chasing down his own bounty or simply hunting him down. although, you were certainly the first teenager that had been sent after him - and no matter how skilled you were, he certainly wouldn't let himself get caught by you of all people.

↪boothill was initially quite impressed by the skills that you held at such a young age, you kind of reminded him of his old self at a young age. he reckoned that you could definitely hone your skills even more as you grew up but clearly not under whoever at that moment.

↪galaxy rangers often worked alone, and boothill adhered to that. however, he could clearly tell that you had been forced into assassination and knew that if you continued on with however, it wouldn't end up so well off later down the line.

↪and so boothill offered you the choice to travel with him. he definitely thought that he could help you more than those lazy scoundrels that sent you after him could - you could even help him with bounty-hunting but that could come later.

↪he knew that you weren't so open with him and he respected that. naturally you wouldn't be close to someone you just met, especially considering your past, but the fact that you took his offer showed that you had some kind of trust or faith in him.

↪the person that became boothill had a daughter, he never got to see her grow up. you could never be her but he wasn't asking you to be. boothill saw you the same way his adoptive parents saw him, a child, or teenager even, in need of help. in need of a parental figure. and that's exactly what he aimed to be for you.

taglist - @little-miss-chaoss, @frankiesteinn

[sleuth-hounds]

Crash Bandicoot - Vigilante AU

Some time ago, I envisioned an AU were Crash, Coco and Crunch are an inseparable trio of vigilantes, similar to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or the Cooper Gang.

Crash and Coco are part of an anthropomorphic society, which means the humans don't exist, nor does the Evolvo Ray, and Crunch was taken in by the bandicoot siblings as their adopted brother. They live the fictional Wumpa City, located in the USA.

Meanwhile, as side stories, Tawna is dating Pinstripe Potoroo, and other characters like Tiny Tiger, Komodo Joe, etc. have lives of their own. Some good, some bad.

Crashworth Bandicoot The Second:

Birth: 1984

Species: Eastern Barred Bandicoot

Alignment: Good

Voice actor: Jess Harnell

Height: 5' 3''

Level of intelligence: Above average

Occupation: Vigilante

Family: Coco (sister), Crunch (adopted brother) and Aku Aku (father figure). Deceased biological parents.

Likes: Wumpa fruit, Pasadena, playing with his yo-yo, sleeping

Dislikes: rude awakenings,his sister being in danger, Pinstripe, watching wumpa fruit be used in a blender

Personality:

Witty, kind-hearted and laid back. He is not known for his anger, even towards his enemies, but threatening his little sister seems to be among one of very few ways of setting off his aggression. While not as intelligent as Coco, Crash still comes off as resourceful and smart enough to defeat villains.

Powers/abilities:

Crash retains most of his abilities from his original self, but also has vigilante skills. He can sprint, crouch and spin, but can also sneak around, slide on rails and even land on small spots.

Biography:

What can be said about this heroic and limber marsupial that hasn't been said before? Well, you might like to know that he enjoys delivering some sense of justice with the help of his sister Coco and adopted brother Crunch.

------------------------------------------

Coco Bandicoot:

Birth: 1985

Species: Eastern Barred Bandicoot

Height: 5' 2''

Level of intelligence: Very good (164 IQ)

Voice actress: Debi Derryberry

Likes: Her brothers' companionship, going on adventures

Dislikes: liars, her laptop's power dying off, evil scientists

Personality:

Coco is responsible, smart, kind-hearted and high spirited. Her high intelligence is often contrasted by her innocent demeanor. Despite being the opposite of Crash, Coco is far from prissy and is generally tolerant - if not outright amused - by her brother's behavior.

Powers/abilities:

Like her brother, Coco can sprint, crouch, do spin attacks and sneak around, but she's not able to slide on railings or jump on small posts. She is good at using weapons such as a bowcaster or grappling hooks.

Biography:

Coco is the high-spirited and intelligent younger sister of Crash.

When her face isn't glued to a computer screen, she tags along with her siblings using her expertise in technology. You can always count on her to hack into the mastermind's plans and warn Crash with some important information.

------------------------------------------

Crunch Bandicoot:

Birth: 1983

Voice actor: Kevin Michael Richardson

Height: 6' 4''

Species: BurgundyBandicoot

Level of Intelligence: Slightly above Crash's but below Coco's.

Ethnicity: Crunch is of Afro-Jamaican, Scottish, Irish and Maori descent. In short, he's biracial.

Likes: Ami, weightlifting, drinking smoothies

Dislikes: rude manners

Powers/abilities: Crunch is an accomplished fighter; he's able to knock out a group of thugs without the use of weaponry, and he's also good at driving, especially on car chases.

Personality:

Crunch is hot-headed, irrational and sometimes over-confident. However, because of his time with Crash and Coco, he became very determined and loyal to them, and is always willing to help them when necessary. He is much more of a failure intolerant than his sibligns but does show a soft side.

He is also a nature lover and shows to be a ladies' man, much to the jealousy of Crash and the amusement of Coco.

Biography:

Crunch is one tough and powerful bandicoot. As the enforcer of the trio, the villains never see him coming as he's unpredictable. His muscular figure knows neither friend nor foe: only destruction!

[hillerska-official]

Okay so this post came across my dash a few days back and as I was writing my tags I realized something that I never thought of before. Y’all are so right on this post, and I think that the double standard here is actually so important, because it really is the issue that carries through their relationship that Wille keeps expecting things on his terms, so he can make the poor choices and Simon can’t. So I’m typing this all out in my tags and I’m about to say “Wille really shows his privilege here” and I got hit with a wave of thoughts about the roles privilege plays in Young Royals. So here they are.

Kristina tells Wille that being a prince is a privilege, not a punishment. Obviously in the context of this show, their relationship, etc, most of our immediate reactions to that were “no it isn’t, Kristina, look at him, he’s got anxiety!” and I still stand by that, being a prince has very directly and negatively affected Wille’s life and mental health. BUT, obviously Wille is also a very privileged person, and that privilege shines through very clearly in this one line.

His privilege is what makes Wille expect things on his own terms all the time, but it’s that same privilege that ultimately ends up being a punishment in and of itself, because that is exactly why Simon breaks up with him, so well yes, it is a ‘punishment’ (ie negative) to Wille in many ways directly, it’s actually the privilege he holds as a prince but hasn’t acknowledged that causes this ultimate fallout, and not the aspects of his princehood that Wille had recognized as negative already.

And it isn’t just Wille who is hurt by his own privileged position. August's privilege eats away at him too, though he would never admit it, with the pressure he places on himself to retain that privilege, and the hints we’ve been seeing of some sort of eating/exercise disorder, probably stemming from his public image/persona. Felice has all the trappings of wealth and nobility but they confine her - her trouble with riding, the curly hair, the size, are all “failures” at things forced upon her by her mother so as to fit in to society (high society, of course), but ultimately put her in a place of emotional distress.

Being a prince, or any other noble/wealthy person, has its privileges, obviously, but these privileges exist simultaneously, at least within the show, as both beneficial and destructive. Wille, August, and Felice all have privilege, and it has given them a distinct head start over characters like Simon and Sara, that much is obvious in any class commentary and I would never dispute it, but it’s that very same privilege that eats away at all of them, too. Ultimately, whether we feel bad for the privileged person or not (and it can go either way, just look at these examples), the privilege is not maintainable in any way at an individual level, it’s bad for those on top and those below, we see that in the damage it does both to Wille and to Simon.

Basically, I think it’s very easy to watch Young Royals and get swept up in the romance and the drama, the plot itself, but we all know that there is a very clear class commentary underlying the whole thing, and this is such an interesting way to look at the damages of those class systems. I think ultimately a class or wealth gap isn’t actually of benefit to anybody, and can in fact be detrimental to BOTH sides to some extent, obviously on the individual level of each character, but also at a more general level IRL. Placing people into a hierarchy the way we do does damage to human sociability and our capacity to relate to one another, and Simon and Wille are actively breaking down this hierarchy, and with it the system of privilege itself.

[bigskydreaming]

THINGS RIC GRAYSON KNOWS:

- His parents are dead, and he woke up fifteen years too late to make it to their funeral.

- His doctors tell him he’s forgotten half his life even though he retains a lot of the knowledge from it, and he might never get his memories back or return to the person he was before he was - apparently - shot in the head.

- Everyone expects him to be totally on board with going back to a life where things like getting shot in the head happen to him. Twice.

- Everyone he’s met since he woke up tells him they’re his family and his friends and they love him. Every single one of them would most likely erase him from existence in a second if there was even a chance it would replace him with the him he used to be, the one they actually love.

- Everyone is too busy telling him who he is, to ever get around to asking him who he is.

- When you’re an acrobat, success or failure, safety or injury, all of it comes down to trusting your instincts, ones honed by hours and months and years of endless repetition, instilling in you a gut-level ability to just KNOW if you can make a leap or not. But instincts have to be reliable, and reliability has to be earned. He now has more new instincts than he can count, none of which he can remember earning, and he can’t rely on a single one. Too bad so many of these unreliable instincts revolve around whether or not he can trust his impressions of people.

- No matter what he does, he will always come in second best to....himself. He could save the damn world, but apparently he’s already done that, so cross that off the bucket list. Any attachments he forms to his old self’s old friends will always be the second time around as far as they’re concerned. The closer he comes to the person they remember, the more they’ll forget not to hold past grievances against him that he can’t remember committing, and apparently, the further he gets from being a knock-off of himself, the less people even want to get to know him at all.

- Making the choice to risk his life and body and mind for the sake of innocents, day after day after day isn’t an easy one. But apparently it should be, when a previous version of him already made that choice and now any other choice he makes will be the wrong one, a disappointment, a letdown. Much like he himself, designated runner-up from the very second he woke up from being shot in the head. His entire life and new sense of self the result of another man’s sacrifice - a man he’s expected to step into the shoes of, whether or not they’re shoes he’d ever want to wear. Shoes he can’t even remember the past him’s reason for putting on in the first place.

- It took him from the time he could walk to become the acrobat he was by the time his parents died. It took him from that moment on to become the man that everyone tells him Dick Grayson was. Its occurred to exactly nobody that fifteen plus years of growth as a person might not be possible to replicate in a mere fifteen days.

- Nobody wants him to grow as a person. Everyone wants him to just be someone else.

THINGS RIC GRAYSON DOESN’T KNOW:

- Where 95% of the scars on his body come from.

- How anyone whose life has been as full of tragedy and pain as his scar tissue and wikipedia page indicate his has been, can go through life smiling and laughing and cheerful, the way everybody seems to be expecting him to.

- Why everybody thinks he should be in a hurry to reconnect with alleged family and friends whose ranks are full of dead people that he, Ric Grayson, will never actually know as anything other than yet one more person for him to mourn.

- Why this Bruce guy, if he loves him so much, waited until he was twenty-three to adopt him.

- Why, if he’s the adopted son of a freaking billionaire, did the past him live in a shit part of a shit city and work as a gymnastics teacher? Dick Grayson might have had his reasons, but without a clue what they were, to Ric Grayson all it looks like is he was just the PR stunt the internet seems to think Wayne took him in as.

- Why - when he can’t actually remember even going to an R-rated movie in his life - its just assumed he’d be fine with being shown footage of his own brains being blown out on candid camera.

Etc, etc.

People keep acting like Ric Grayson doesn’t have a million and one reasons to act the way he does, when not a single character has tried giving him a reason to even WANT to go back to life as Dick Grayson.

Instead, they keep trying to just TELL him who he’s supposed to be and what he’s supposed to be doing with his life, as though the one fundamental, core character trait that’s so deeply woven into Dick Grayson’s entire being it probably could never be changed, isn’t that....

HE IS NEVER OKAY WITH OTHER PEOPLE DECIDING WHO HE IS OR WHAT CHOICES HE SHOULD BE MAKING.

[ouyangzizhensdad]

what’s the line between a good adaptation and a bad adaptation? I’ve been running circles in my head thinking about where cql stands these past few days. Because i was also thinking about other adaptations like the pjo films and howl’s moving castle, like one of these is hated and the other is very much loved but both of them change so much from the original source material that it cannot be considered the same, movie howl and book howl are completely different characters and the plot for pjo was messed w so much in the films. So I was thinking about how much an adaptation can change before it’s considered a bad adaptation? or if changes really even matter if the adaptation achieves what it set out to achieve regardless of how different it is to source material? For the record I think cql is a bad adaptation but I’m unsure how to word it because the line seems kinda blurry

Hi anon,

As much fun as it would be to be the final arbiter on what constitutes a good or bad adaptation, it is a question to which there are unfortunately no definitive answers. But I am of course happy to share my opinion and thoughts on the topic!

I think a good adaptation needs first to meet a crucial condition, which is that it must be, on its own, a good work of fiction. That means on the one hand that it should not rely on the source material to be thematically or narratively cohesive--if prior knowledge of the source material is necessary to understand fully the adaption, I personally consider it a failure. On the other hand, this also simply means that the work of fiction must be competently-made, coherent, enjoyable, etc. on its own merits. However, some adaptations that are well-made and generally self-contained works of fiction remain bad adaptations. There is obviously more to the process than just producing a strong work of fiction based on elements of another work.

It’s good to keep in mind that changes are not inherently a bad thing since the process of adaptation requires change. Generally an adaptation aims to tell a story through a different medium, which requires changes even when the creative(s) in charge of the adaptation want(s) to remain as faithful as possible to the original. Telling a story through a visual medium vs the written form demands a different approach! And technical limitations might end up having a huge sway in the process: do you have the budget or the technology to execute everything described in a fantasy novel, for instance? how much time or locations do you need to tell the same story? As well, since adaptations are generally spear-headed by different creatives, changes to the source material are part of the creative process, by adding another perspective and by being forced, in a sense, to choose a specific interpretation of the source material. And that’s not even covering how adapting something from a different era or from a different cultural moment will require a form of “translation” to make it both intelligible and relevant to contemporary audiences. 

In addition to these sort of “unavoidable” changes, there are many other factors that may enter into question. With CQL and MDZS, we have a salient example of how censorship might influence the process of adapting a property. The people who have a veto, in some shape or form, over the project may also pursue their own agendas. Matters of marketability and of targeting a specific market will also influence the direction an adaptation takes, especially when an adaption is done in a medium that requires large initial financial investments.

Personally, I believe that the way to make a good adaptation is to go either of these three ways: 1) take a source material that contains obvious weaknesses and improve upon them; 2) figure out exactly what is the appeal of the source material and what makes it original, and make sure that these elements are kept in the adaptation; or 3) reinvent the source material. In the first scenario, it is a case of stronger story-teller being handed a property that has a lot of flaws, and either doing away with them or filling up the gaps in the original narrative--thereby allowing the good in it to finally shine. A good example of that, imo, is The Old Guard movie, a tight narrative that excised a lot of the less savoury elements of the graphic novels and included a lot more emotional depth and pay offs.

In the second scenario, the most important factor is that the creative (or creatives) in charge of the adaptation really understand not only the source material but also why it became loved enough to be picked up for an adaptation--why it appeals to people, what makes it unique, what stands out. What I mean is that creative liberty and changes to the source material are totally fine so long as they do not lose the identity or appeal of the source material and do not present an interpretation that is not actually rooted in the original text. For instance, I personally hate the Anne with an E adaptation of Anne of Green Gables because to me it fundamentally misunderstands the point of the novels and why they became a phenomenon. Making a story that was written to be an uplifting fantasy about an abused orphan who still managed to find beauty in the world and to find love and acceptance in it into a grim “realistic” drama to try to “appeal to modern audiences” is fundamentally stupid and, honestly, offensive. As well, while I enjoy Pride and Prejudice 2005 as a film, I think it is an horrid adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, mainly due to the fact the director Joe Right clearly did not understand the novel. As a result the film is a representation of what he projects unto the narrative (something that is very clear when he talked about the novel in interviews or in the bts), and not what is actually in the text.

In the third scenario, what would be a loose adaptation is a situation where perhaps very little of the source material may remain. It might only be the premise, or some plot points, or some character relationships that are ultimately  kept. These also include for me the “what if X narrative but Y set-up”, which can be awful (the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies movie is so shockingly bad when it could have been a fun, campy romp) but also a way to explore a source material in new ways or underlining certain themes that might have been not given as much light in the source material. In this case, I guess that what really makes it a good “adaptation” is whether it has something new or interesting to add to the source material through this loose adaptation, or whether it is just a gimmick. 

To me, CQL fails as an adaptation both on its own merits (due to plot holes, on-the-nose and clumsy storytelling, inconsistent characterisation, technical failings, etc.) but also as it does not retain, for a number of reasons, what makes MDZS appealing imo (WWX’s characterisation, Wangxian’s journey, its heavy reliance on mystery, intrigue and themes, its willingness to show characters do cruel and violent things, etc.), all the while making the cardinal sin of being a weaker story than the source material (when the source material already provided them with all the material they would have needed to tell a story of at least equal complexity and competency). 

[sepublic]

What if King wasn’t important?

           But consider- What if the show was setting us up to believe that King is the Titan, or at least related to it, though all of these little clues; Ranging from the skull to the horns, the claws, etc. What if the show sets us up to believe in a connection, only to reveal that there isn’t one and never will be! As a parallel to Luz thinking she was a Chosen One, King thinks he was a mighty King of Demons when he really wasn’t… Perhaps he’ll have/had an arc similar to Luz in Episode 2, where King sees the similarities between himself and the Titan, possibly pointed out by someone else.

          He’ll buy into it, because it reassures King that he’s always been great or is at least destined to be, and I can see King letting the idea get to his head like in Sense and Insensitivity as he becomes entitled; Low-key a reflection of how people like Boscha or Odalia see themselves as entitled to greatness because of what the Coven System says, about some people just being naturally better than the rest. And this could lead to King becoming toxic like Boscha and Odalia, as he acts like he’s better than everybody else and that they all owe him something… In addition to that feeling that he’s suffered the short end of a stick for a while, so surely the universe owes him something in compensation for this!

          But then King realizes that there is no connection, and it’s broken to him in a harsh and blunt way that causes potential followers or fans to coldly abandon him; With only his true friends staying by his side amidst it all. Kind of like how King thought he was such a great author at first, only to realize he only achieved this with Luz’s help; And without it, Piniet’s respect considerably dwindles, as King is forgotten by Bonesborough when he isn’t able to produce a sequel to Ruler’s Reach. King doesn’t live up to the expectations of grandeur that he and others set himself up for; So people lose interest… Except for those who were always interested in King as who he was, and not as some larger-than-life figure.

           With Luz’s help, King can realize that greatness is something he has to work for. It’s not an inherent destiny/condition of his, and he’s not entitled to anything for having suffered, just as Luz and Eda aren’t. It’d be an interesting and meta twist, and frustrating to King- Because he really wants to believe that he’s more than the cute fluffball that others see and reduce him to. And maybe that’s all he is NOW… But King can be reassured with Luz’s guidance, that he can build off of that, and work to make himself more than this! King can improve himself, just as other characters did… He doesn’t have to accept the hand that life dealt him, he can work to change it as he sees fit!

          Just as characters shouldn’t have to worry about if they have no natural talent nor inlincation for something- If they enjoy it, then they’re valid in pursuing that career and improving their skills. Kind of like how Luz and Amity didn’t start off as the best artists, but through practice and dedication, they really improve and made their hobbies worthwhile to themselves! Or how Luz has every reason to be terrible at magic and abandon the skill as impractical, and focus on what she’s already good at… But she still insists on learning it anyway, because it makes her happy. Luz was bad at magic, thanks to her lack of a bile sac- But she worked to learn magic anyway, and even if it may not be as great as others’, she finds joy in her glyphs and spells, so that’s all that really matters. Luz doesn’t care that she might not be cut out for magic- She’ll make herself be, and/or still find enjoyment anyway.

          And it can connect to Episode 3 and real life in general- With how kids feel pressured to stick to what they’re good at, and are discouraged from some hobbies/passions because they’re dismissed as less practical, and/or those kids aren’t already immediately great at it. It discourages growth by insisting that this is how you’ll always be, or that it’s not worth it to improve yourself; So just stick to what society says, and do the job that pays more money and/or fits you according to this specific test… And stick to your track as the Coven System insists. You’ll never be more than this, or you could but it’s not worth it- So don’t try*.

           King might not be a natural, best-selling author on his own; But with support and constructive criticism from a friend like Luz, his writing can truly improve! Because after all, plenty of authors and writers in real life are amazing, but only after some feedback and criticism- There’s a reason why rough drafts exist, and why people look for feedback before finalizing a work! There’s no shame in needing help… King has always wanted to be recognized on his own terms, by things of his own effort and conviction- And now he has the chance to do that! He can make something from his own work, instead of having it be an intrinsic trait, like his cuteness.

          King can be valued for something he really worked for and made, instead of something that was just given/assigned to him by life… And in the end, is that not lowkey more validating to his kind of character? One might say it’s just a repeat of King’s arc from Sense and Insensitivity- But to me personally, I see it as potentially being a final cap-off to his development across the series. A final application of King’s lessons, to make sure he really did retain what he learned, and isn’t going to just forget about it and listen to whatever sounds most convenient to him! Plus, there’s enough room for it to be its own thing- As having a natural connection to the Titan is definitely more of a ‘Chosen One’ trope than just being already-talented at writing.

-

          *It’s lowkey contradictory to how the Coven System promises witches that with enough effort and hard work, they can achieve greatness and get out of any situation… And I think that’s kind of the point. Only certain witches with the privilege of a support network can try new things without fearing the cost of failure; And so only they can engage in growth, while those who are less well-off never get the chance, because not being immediately talented at things is costly in its own way. Witches are duped into the system under the belief that if they work hard enough, things CAN be better, that it can be all worth it, and that those on the bottom are secretly deserving of their plight, because they just didn’t work hard enough…

          But then said witches are unable to climb the hierarchy due to a lack of privilege anyway. The unprivileged stay where they are because of how the system is structured, but they’re taught to believe in the system anyway in hopes that they can one day ascend it- And if they still haven’t, then it’s actually their fault. Those at the bottom are kept there, to maintain the exclusivity of power to the select few at the top. And even if they CAN play by the system, witches still have to give something up in the process –such as an interest that isn’t immediately useful- while those who are privileged retain everything.

          It forces you to invest effort into playing by the system’s rules, therefore participating in and validating it. You can never get out of it, because either you’re working to maintain your place and defend what you’ve earned, or you’re trying to climb the ladder; Either way, you’re still on the ladder. You’re so distracted from not falling down the ladder, that you never think to get off it entirely, to get rid of that ladder or at least grow beyond it. It’s only up and down, apparently; Always vertical, never horizontal. It’s intentionally limiting… You’ll always be dependent on the system, so just focus on staying there and maybe ascending it.

[myhauntedsalem]

Phantom Transplants

When my brother passed away, he was an organ donor. A woman in Greece wrote to thank the family for his corneas. I wonder does she see the beautiful colors he mixed for his paintings?

Sonny Graham was on the verge of death in 1955 due to “congestive heart failure,” he had been given just six months to live.

It was a happy day when he received word that a heart had become available. It belonged to a 33-year-old man, Terry Cottle who had committed suicide by one shot to the brain, leaving his young bride behind.

After Graham was informed who his donor was, he began to write Cottle’s widow in appreciation. The two met, fell in love and married.

But love for this young woman wasn’t the only thing these two men shared. Graham discovered that he now craved beer and hot dogs—which were Cottle’s favorites.

Twelve years after his successful transplant, Graham took his own life by shooting himself in the head. Leaving this wife to mourn twice.

The cravings and personality changes that occurred in Sonny Graham’s life are actually often everyday experiences among transplant recipients—but I should note most do not commit suicide.

Organ transplants, including heart, liver, kidney, and lung, etc. have saved many lives. There were more than half a million performed in the U.S. alone, between 1988 and 2016.

There are countless stories about the unusual side effects that occur after these transplants.

Claire Sylvia had a heart transplant at the age of 44. She believes that along with this vital organ that saved her life, she also received her donors’ tastes and memories.

After her operation, she was asked what she would like to do first. Without hesitation, she answered, “I am dying for a beer right now.”

This was strange for Sylvia had always hated the taste of beer.

Over the next few months, she began to have a variety of strange food cravings. Most notably McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets, something she had never desired.

Sylvia now had allergies that she did not have in the past as well as a heightened empathic ability. She also became extremely moody, which was not like her.

She had a series of odd dreams where a thin, tall young man talked to her. He told her his name was “Tim.”

Her curiosity peaked, Sylvia did some research and discovered that a young man named Timothy Lamirande was involved in a motorcycle accident on the same day she received her heart transplant.

He was her donor.

She met his family, and they confirmed all the cravings she was having were Tim’s favorite foods—especially beer.

Oddly, they told her he had just gone to McDonald’s the day of the accident, and a sack of Chicken McNuggets had been found next to his body.

Scientists put forth the idea of “cell memory.” Where cells within organs retain the original owner’s memories and pass them along.

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

The Supergirl Team calls you in despair. You’ve 2/3 episodes to save this season and leave a cliffhanger to the next season. You can do any ship, cut any actor, unlimited budget. What do you do?

My first call is to Brenda Strong, clearly. Lillian caustically provides Lena a reality check by not so subtly reminding her how Lex is an asshole and can't be trusted. She reveals she retained her pre-crisis memories, and remembers more than Lex deigned to tell her.

Lena is unimpressed, and dryly remarks, "And now you finally get to see everything Lex should have been. You must be thrilled."

"Yes, I do," Lillian affirms. "But a victory without sacrifice isn't victory. It's a handout."

Luthors don't accept handouts.

Lena stares at her mother, confused and wary. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying Lex didn't earn it."

None of this was earned through toil. Lex chanced onto an opportunity and manipulated it to his utmost ability. Once upon a time, she might have been proud of his aptitude for machinations, Lillian admits, but she finds herself disillusioned with him.

"Not only does intended matricide sour the relationship somewhat," Lillian elaborates, "but more and more lately I've come to realize that while Lex indeed had incredible potential, I allowed that potential to blind me to yours."

Lex didn't earn his success, but Lena did. In just a few short years, Lena embodied the Luthor spirit unlike any Luthor had since the first generation-- since the generation that worked for their first million, their first merger, the first everything. She battled prejudice and attacks and failures, and though there may have been times she may have wavered, she always persisted.

"So why," her mother asks, "are you giving up now?"

Finally, Lena gives voice to her helplessness. How her friends have forsaken her and how in this world, she feels nineteen again, like she can do nothing without Lex.

"How can I," Lena asks, "when he crafted this very reality?"

"He has always crafted your reality, Lena. Your entire life has revolved around him, been shaped and warped by him. But what I've come to realize is that this world isn't his. It never was. All along, it was yours."

And so begins the tentative yet deepening relationship between Lena and her mother, as they conspire against Lex. They know he's up to something, but don't know what. In the end, they decide it doesn't matter what it was-- they would simply need to neutralize him.

Permanently.

----

On the other side of things, the superfriends start to realize that their goal of taking down Lex from the outside isn't working. They learn Brainy is compromised, and find themselves without a significant resource they had counted on. So they focus on mitigating the fallout of his use of the DEO.

Alex and Jonn find their way to helping aliens recover after DEO raids. Sometimes its just property damage, sometimes its arrests. They commiserate with the victims, promising that Lex won't be in power for much longer.

"It doesn't matter who is in power," the victims reply. It will only be someone just as cruel, or even indifferent. The DEO has always been this way, and it will always be this way.

When one alien mentions a specific raid, Alex realizes it was one that occurred under her tenure as Director. That as an agent and director she contributed to the abuse of aliens rights, liberties, and persons.

Later, she confesses to Kara that she always thought she was doing good at the DEO. But all along she'd really only been doing good for Kara.

"I will always be there for you, you know that right?" she asks, and Kara nods. "But I think, for the next little while, I need to focus on doing good for everyone else."

----

Meanwhile, at CatCo, Nia finds herself in a quandary. One day, Will asks her to grab him a coffee. Taken aback, Nia doesnt have time to respond before Will is off on his way. Unsure of what else to do, she uncomfortably obliges, choosing to believe it was a one off.

It isn't.

Again and again with increasing frequency, Will asks her to do things like grab coffee, make copies, etc. Soon she finds herself stuck in a cycle of doing what she's told and is too nervous to call him out after so long.

It takes Kara noticing and offering to speak to William about it before Nia bucks up the courage to do it herself.

"No," she says, the next time Will opens his mouth in her direction. "I will not get your coffee, or make your copies, or pull your copy edits. I am a reporter, just like you. Maybe a little less experienced, sure, but the only way I'm going to get experienced is by doing my own work and not the work of your assistant."

Will stares at her, and then flushes. "Nia, I am so sorry, I thought you were the office assistant. I had no idea."

This time it's Nia's turn to stare. "What? But-- I have over a dozen by-lines."

"Really?"

"I've been at every pitch meeting!"

Grimacing, Will meets her gaze. "I thought you were there to take notes. Honestly, I thought you and Kara were tight because she came from the assistant pool."

Nia scowls. "You also could have just asked me."

"And I should have. I truly am sorry, I've just been so wrapped up in--" He catches himself abruptly, then swiftly changes the subject. "Let me make it up to you. I have an interview with Lenny Maddow in twenty minutes. Would you like to sit in?"

Sit in with a Nobel-winner who isn't Lex Luthor?

"Uh, YEAH."

Nia recoups more of her pride when she asks some insightful questions that gets their guest to open up to an insane degree, and Will recognizes her talent as a reporter. He even tells her as much.

"I don't know how I ever mistook you for anything else."

He starts lending her more advice and opportunity-- before long he's the kind of mentor Kara used to be, but lost the time for. And after Will decides he can trust her he brings her in on his secret project investigating the Luthors.

Namely, Lena.

"She's the weak link. If she goes down, the rest will follow like dominos."

---

"I know we're kind of not on Team Lena right now," Nia remarks to the others at the tower later, "but the kind of things he thinks she's responsible for doesn't sound like Lena. In any reality."

J'onn and Alex both look at Kara. "It might be time to set aside our wounds for a moment," J'onn observes. "I don't need to be a fifth dimensional imp to deduce that a downfall for Lena would not be a good thing."

"Lex would be left unchecked," Alex chimes in.

Kara doesn't need convincing. She goes to Lena immediately, and squares off against Lena's chill reception with concern.

"I came to warn you."

"Let me guess... Lex can't be trusted."

With a grimace, Kara equivocates. "Yes, but I'm not the only one who thinks so. William Dey is digging into the Luthors, and for whatever reason, he's decided your the fulcrum to the entire operation."

"The reporter, William Dey?"

Kara shares what she knows of William's vendetta-- the best friend who died, the suspicions that Lex was involved. To her surprise, Lena huffs a mirthless laugh.

"He said he was going to be better."

"You... say that like you don't believe him."

"Of course I don't believe him. But I wanted to."

Lena knows better than to leave LuthorCorp. But she does pledge her help.

"This doesn't make us friends," Lena clarifies. "But whatever Lex is planning, he'll burn the world to the ground to get it."

Kara nods solemnly. "I understand."

---

The Superfriends now have their in. It's Lena who finally pieces together that Lex is after Leviathan. It's Lillian who pales at the mention, and after much toothpulling reveals that what no one ever told Lena is that her mother didn't just die-- she was murdered.

"Your home was broken into shortly after you were removed. The investigators only found one item of interest, hidden behind a piece of loosened baseboard. A cipher, on a folded piece of paper. Even Lionel only managed to translate two words. One was Leviathan."

The other, Lena soon discovers, was Acrata.

---

Altogether, the superfriends and Will and Lena all manage to erode Lex's stranglehold on the new reality. Lex doesn't make it easy, but a combination of J'onn and Alex earning more of the public trust, Supergirl resisting Lex at every turn, Will and Nia tag-teaming Andrea's connection to Leviathan, Lena beats Lex to the Leviathan sanctum.

By a matter of minutes, sure, but the fact she finds her way there on her own when Lex has to be led by Gamemnae is a true victory, and a practical embodiment of Lillian's earlier words.

Lena's victory is compounded when Lex's eyes flash with irritation: he doesn't expect to see her there.

"Heya, sis. I didn't realize we had a meeting."

"We don't," Lena tells her brother, even her eyes lock on the woman beside him.

The woman steps towards Lena, her lips curling into a pleased smile.

"We do," the woman confirms. It's clear she doesn't include Lex.

Before he can do more than sputter, she continues. "I was wondering how long it would take you to find us."

Lena holds her gaze. "The medallion."

Gamemnae nods. "Ever since it was found, we knew it would only be a matter of time."

There's only one question Lena intends to ask.

"Who was my mother?"

And so she learns that her mother was part of Leviathan-- that she had grown lonely, and sought comfort in the arms of mortals. It had only meant to be temporary, but when the unthinkable happened, and she found herself pregnant, she chose to remain in the mortal world with her daughter.

What Gamemnae doesn't explain, but Lena senses instinctively, is that her mother had sought to protect Lena from Leviathan. To keep her human, keep her alive. That somehow, despite being an agent of destruction, Lena's birth had prompted her mother to leave Leviathan behind, and to be better than she was.

Gamemnae's pitch is enticing-- the ability to bring humanity together through disaster, to call upon their communal instincts by reducing their numbers, reset the world so that the planet and its population have a chance to survive for eons to come.

She offers power and influence, and a long life-- millenia to engage with and observe the discoveries still far in the future.

It's almost enough for Lena to say yes.

Almost.

It is enough for Lena to accept the medallion, the only true memory Lena has of her mother. Gamemnae summons it from the ether, and Lena takes it in her fingers, cradling it like the precious artifact it is.

When she closes her hand around it, Lena blinks and finds herself in a place of utter darkness. But despite the emptiness, she isn't afraid.

"Lena."

"Mom."

The woman who appears before her is familiar in a way that touches deep in Lena's soul. Tears fill Lena's eyes as she drinks in the sight of her mother, committing her to memory.

"I forgot what you looked like," Lena confesses with a breathless laugh. "When I generated an avatar of you, I had to base it on my own image."

The embrace her mother wraps her in is unbidden and unexpected. It steals Lena's breath and floods her with warm. Her tears spill over as she clutches her mother tight.

"I've missed you."

"And I you, my darling," her mother murmurs. "You have grown to be everything I ever wanted for you."

A bolt of shame travels down Lena's spine, and she pulls away.

"You mean embroiled in the most hated family in history?"

"I mean that you are strong, and powerful, and brilliant. Your compassion and empathy are a force powerful than you know."

Lena looks away. How can she explain how close she had come to lose the soul her mother had loved so dearly. Non Nocere burns like a hot poker of shame, digging deep in her belly and twisting sharply.

But her mother cups her cheeks, tilting her gaze up to meet hers once more.

"We all make mistakes, my love. What matters most is what you do to correct them."

Before Lena can say anything more, her mother kisses her on the head, and offers a smile as warm as the sun.

"Everyone you have ever loved is carried inside you. They speak to you every day. When times are uncertain, listen to your heart. They will never lead you astray."

Lena blinks back to the Leviathan sanctum to find Lex pelting Gamemnae with outrage and accusations.

"We had an agreement! You and I had a partnership!"

"And now that it has brought me your sister, I am no longer in need of it."

"You forget that I watched Rama Khan in our previous reality-- I know Leviathan's style. My baby sister isn't the type you would want to recruit."

"You don't comprehend what Leviathan is," Gamemnae only smiles sweetly, unfazed by Lex's posturing. "We are born and chosen both. That is what Lena is. And you, Alexander Luthor, are neither."

"Buh--"

With a wave of Gamemnae's hand, Lex disappears, transported.... somewhere. Lena can barely think to consider his welfare before Gamemnae turns her powerful gaze towards her once more.

"Welcome home, Lena."

---

In the end, Lena doesn't accept. The power offered her is tempting, but she's wise enough to know that a deal so sweet could never come without strings. Whether it be her humanity, her soul, or something else entirely, she would lose something dear. Something precious.

"Come now, Lena," Gamemnae cautions. "I know how ingelligent you are. You know that you won't be allowed to leave alive should you decline."

Her mother's voice echoes in Lena's ears: listen to your heart. She does, and she hears them all-- her people. Her loved. Her lost.

Her mother.

Jack.

Even Kara.

It's Kara that makes her pause, nearly has her agreeing. She knows the prospect of Kara's future, a life of longevity that would see her watching all her family die, for generations to come. If Lena could share those centuries with her, surely they could eventually find forgiveness and trust once more.

But Kara wouldn't want her to. Not like this.

So instead of taking Gamemnae's hand, Lena snatches her by the wrist and closes her hand around the medallion. This time Gamemnae appears in the void with her, where Lena's mother waits again.

"I need your help," Lena says. "All of you."

One by one, they materialize. All of the voices who have guided her appear from the shadows, their features kind and ready. Lena pushes Gamemnae towards them.

"Make our guest comfortable. She'll be staying with you for the foreseeable future."

Jack is the one who steadies Gamemnae. When he blinks, his eyes open to pitch darkness. So do the eyes of those around him, wraiths all. Even Lena's mother.

Lena hesitates only long enough to give her mother one last look.

"I love you."

Her mother nods. "I never doubted for a second. Go," she urges, "and live."

Lena returns to the Leviathan sanctum alone. She shatters the medallion to ensure no one else would use it, and sweeps the pieces up to liquidate against any attempts to reconstruct it.

Leviathan is done, without a single drop of blood shed.

Back at LuthorCorp, Lex is nowhere to be found. After a perfunctory search, control falls to Lena. Though she'll have to wait a mandated period of time before she can rebrand back to L-Corp, things are already feeling normal.

At least, right up until the moment Lena finally visits the Tower for the first time.

"Lena!" Kara calls in delight. During their time working together, things between them have repaired enough for her to wrap Lena in a brief hug and usher her further into the space.

"Come to beg us to back to the DEO?" Alex taunts. "I gotta warn you, I've gotten used to being my own boss."

"Actually," Lena says, "I'm disbanding the DEO."

There's a beat of silence, and then the entire room erupts into chaos. Questions fly at her from every direction, and she endures them quietly until she finally lifts a hand for quiet.

"It's time. The DEO has never been entirely above board, and if we're going to make strides in accepting aliens into Earth society, we have to start with nixing the extrajudicial arrests and imprisonment."

Lena looks at Kara, who has been suspiciously silent. Kara meets her gaze in apprehension.

"What does that mean for Supergirl?'

Lena offers her a smile that refreshes her soul.

"Well, it would be foolish to claim she isn't still needed, and that heroes don't do a lot of good. So I've already talked with the mayor about implementing a municipal licensing program for vigilante heroes. If successful, you'd basically be doing the exact same thing, with just a little more oversight, and a little less smash and grab."

Nia beams. "That sounds so cool!"

"And," Lena adds, sliding her gaze towards Alex and J'onn, "the program is going to need leadership that's familiar with both heroes and bureaucracy."

J'onn nods his readiness and agreement, but to everyone's surprise, Alex hesitates.

"It sounds like a great idea, Lena, really," Alex obfuscates, "but I think I still have more work to do on this side of things. As you say, the DEO has a lot to make up for."

Kara hugs her sister tight. "I'm so proud of you," she whispers.

"Wait, wait, wait..." Nia says, pumping the brakes ever so slightly. "Does this mean we don't get to be the Superfriends anymore?"

But Lena has an answer for that too.

"As the pilot heroes of this new program, I'm sure all of you will continue to work closely together, and I'm sure the legislation will include provisions for teams as well as individual. Which means that as National City's first and premier superhero league, the only thing you're missing is a sponsor." Which is to say, Lena intends to sponsor them.

"From my personal accounts," Lena is sure to specify, "and with tech either commercially available or engineered in my personal lab. LuthorCorp will won't be anywhere near it, and I will be operating as anonymously as possible... though given our history, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard a guess for people to figure out."

When the team leaves for celebratory drinks, Kara and Lena linger. The air hangs thick and heavy between them, until Lena finally speaks.

"You once asked for bygones--"

"I did," Kara confirms. "And as much as I would love to return the favor--"

"We have a lot to talk about."

Kara nods, and Lena takes a deep breath. "All I ask," she continues, "is that you accept the good with the flaws. And that I only ever wanted to do good."

That much, Kara agrees without hesitation.

"I never thought anything else."

She loops her arm through Lena's, and together they walk towards the lift. As it rises to collect them, Kara rocks back on her heels.

"A lot of changes are coming our way," she remarks.

Lena hums an agreement, but misses the glance Kara gives her as they step into the lift before issuing one last pardon.

"There's no one else I'd rather face them with."

The elevator gate closes on the image of them gazing at each other, eyes locked and smiles brimming with the possibility of something new.

[emotionaldepravity]

Dragon Ball Android Au Hcs

-In this Au, most of the dragon ball characters are androids that exist as companion bots to the general population. Some are used just for emotional support. Some are body guards, personal or otherwise. Others are used as aids for specific jobs. No matter what they might be doing, these bots are quite loved and a huge part of the society. 

-The first Android ever created was Bulma. Dr. and Mrs. Brief loved Tights so much that they would do anything in the world for her. One day, a very young Tights begged her parents for a little sister. Dr. Brief wanted to promise Tights that she could have a sibling, but he found it difficult to explain to a child that her mother wasn’t able to have another child or that even if she could there was no guarantee that the child would be female. To circumvent those issues, Dr. Brief decided that he would build an android so that Tights would have her little sister. Since he wanted Bulma to have similar experiences to her sister, he made different body frames for her, and when she was ready, he transferred her memories into the next frame to let her grow up.

-Bulma was happy with this for a while. She was happy to “get older” after her older sister and enjoyed going to school or helping her father in his lab. Over time, Dr. Brief showed Bulma more and more of her code, and once she was able to understand it, she took over for making her own frames to better suit her own desires.

An explanation of the different type of bots below. 

The Originals 

The first androids created. They are quite special and coveted by many collectors especially by those who know how special they are.

-As she worked late one night, she had come to realize that she was lonely. She had dated humans before, but she never stayed long in a relationship. Seeing her parents happily married and eventually Tights too, she made the decision that she would make herself the perfect partner just as her father had created her. 

-She thought long and hard about the sort of partner that she wanted: what they may look like, their gender, their personality, their hobbies, etc. When she was done, her list of traits was so long she had to make a program to sort through all of them. Unsure of what exactly she might like, as there where many possibilities that she fancied, she decided to randomly generate ideas from this list and just make every combination. Eventually one would be perfect, right?

- Each model that she made were deemed the “originals.” She programmed them to be like her in her sentience, but with an extra bit of code that made them want to love and be loved. She didn’t want to make the perfect guy and them him reject her because he wasn’t interested in a relationship.

-As she made each new model, she began to get to know each of them to see if she was interested in pursuing a relationship with them. For the most part, they were all interested in her, Zamasu being one of the few that was actively disinterested in her which she was surprised of but not terribly hurt by, but she wasn’t that interested in them. She recognized that they all had their merits, but none of them quite fit what she was looking for. Some, like Zarbon, were very attractive to her, but the more she spoke to them the less interested she was.

- However, it was in two different originals that she felt as if they were close to what her heart desired: Yamcha and Vegeta. 

-Being one of the first, Yamcha got to spend a lot of time with Bulma, actively trying to make himself known to her. He might have thought he was cool, but she never did. He was dorky and she liked that about him. For a while, she was happy. As Bulma made more and more female androids, she noticed his eyes wander. Though he was never disloyal physically while they were together, she couldn’t help, but question if he would be genuine or not if they continued dating.  

-Vegeta tired to deny his feelings for a while, and with her being with someone else, it was easy enough for him to do. When she was no longer with Yamcha, he always found himself drawn to wherever Bulma was. If they were alone, he would lightly brush his tail near her to get her attention. Again, Bulma was happy with Vegeta. His clashing overprotective nature with his tsundere one charmed her. However, he wasn’t as emotionally close to him as she had been with Yamcha. She wanted to tell Vegeta about everything on her heart, but he felt so cold sometimes that she wondered if she falied to code his emotions properly. Of course, it was a shock to him when she broke it off as he didn’t seem to understand that they had grown apart, but he simply went with her wishes. 

- When she finished the last combination, she felt like a failure. Not a single one felt like the perfect partner for her that she had set out to create. Eventually, as Bulma got more and more fed up with her “failed” creations she decided that they had to leave her home and lab. She couldn’t just randomly abandon them somewhere so she started offering them out to help her friends with jobs so that they could eventually have their own lives. 

-If someone needed a caterer then she offer to have Chi Chi help them, if they needed a garden, then she’d have Nappa go, if they needed someone to eat them out of house and home, then she’d send Goku, etc. 

-Her friends were very grateful to Bulma and the “kind stranger” who assisted them. It only took one of her friends to mention that she’d like to for the android who helped her to live with her, to get Bulma to realize that maybe she should let them. 

-As she found out, most of her friends kept wanting to see the originals, fell in love with their new companions, and eventually convinced Bulma to let all of them move from Capsule Corp to their homes.

-For most of the originals, this change was quite welcome. They had an understanding that Bulma wasn’t that interested in them, and during the time they interacted with her friends, they had realized that perhaps they could come to love someone else.

- For others, they were heart broken. In some way they had help out hope that Bulma would still love them, or, in the case of Yamcha and Vegeta, that she would love them once again. 

-Bulma felt a bit sad to see the last one go, but the entire experience gave her hope that if she started dating again, maybe she too could still find someone out there for her. 

The Fakes

The androids that most anyone can buy. If you see an android on the street somewhere, they most likely are a “fake.”

-After word got out that all the androids were given out, people still sent calls to Capsule Corp asking if she had any more “boyfriends” 

- A bit surprised that anyone else would be interested in more of her “failures,” she turned the strangers away until one single mother promised a ridiculous sum of money if she just happened to have another Yamcha model so her kid could have someone to teach him how to play baseball. Moved by the thought of this little boy having the chance at having some sort of father figure, and a paycheck that was just enough for her to get some even better lab equipment for herself,  she quickly started working. As the next call came from a very wealthy family with a similar ask for a Chi Chi as they had eaten the food made by the original one, and had a lot of zeni up for grabs for their own personal chef. Both were very pleased when she presented them with their new companions.

-She rushed out a few of the early ones thinking that her technique was just as flawless as before, but in her next few she decided to check to be sure. The looks and personality of each model she made seemed to be perfectly replicated, but as she inspected further, there was one major difference: the code that gave them ability to love wasn’t working properly. Diagnostic after diagnostic, she couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Though the fakes didn’t seem to act that much differently than intended, she knew that there was always the possibility that something could be messed up based on this faulty code. However since the buyers of the fakes didn’t seem care, she never thought about it again.

-Though she did eventually find some consequences to the faulty code. For instance, the reals retained the ability to actually have children with their human significant others, but the fakes sadly did not. 

- Another difference that was found out was that the ”real” androids have the benefit of better fighting strength. For example, if they are saiyans then only they have the ability to go Super Saiyan and the forms beyond. This is typically something that only the owner of an original would know as most of the time the greater strength is unlocked due to their desire to protect their owner. 

-Sometimes people will trade androids between each other if they need help with what that android is good at or if they think that a different model is more attractive.

-Most people that have an android got them second hand as they are extremely expensive new. They are even more expensive if you try to get them customized, the saiyans having tails that aren’t originals can be a heavy increased price since after a while Bulma got tired of make them. 

-For the originals that get traded, they actually feel a bit upset by being passed around. Doing a job for someone else is not necessarily hard on them, but if that means a permanent change in owner, and possibly lover too, then they can get quite heart broken. 

The Minis

The minis are smaller versions of the originals. They are small enough to fit in your hand and have a chibi style appearance. 

-In her experimenting with making new frames and possible lovers, she had realize that she needed some help. As she was a bit too embarrassed to let her dad help her, she made a smaller scale version of herself to help with everything from welding and board processing to coding and inspection. 

-When people started coming to her for copies of her creations, she gave into to making mini versions. They had the functional capabilities of the original model, but were much cuter and easier to handle, at least in Bulma’s opinion.

-Bulma loves seeing pictures of people taking cute pictures with their minis or having their big bots take candid pictures with their minis.

-Minis can be modeled after humans too if you are rich enough to afford it. Bulma is very meticulous with her work and so having a custom mini might be expensive, but they will look and act exactly like you!

-Minis can get very lonely if they aren’t interacted with regularly so generally they should be bought with other minis or live with a big bot if they aren’t welcome at your work. Bulma herself found this out with her own mini and made minis of her entire family. 

-Mini Bulma likes to make things for her Mini family to keep them entertained, and for Big Bulma as a way of saying thank you.

-If you do have multiple minis, you might notice that they act a bit differently than if they are by themselves. These “combos” can determine if your mini acts like an angel or a gremlin. 

-For example, a combination of any saiyans will mean that the two are competing or fighting all the time. 

-Mini Cooler and mini Frieza one of the most destructive combos, but if you have a mini King Cold, then they will generally be on their best behavior. They will still fight behind their father’s back and yours too though.

-If you own a big bot and a mini, you might find that they do get jealous of each other, especially with they are the same model. They both love you very much and want your attention so badly it hurts. 

[anotherkindofmindpod]

I have now gone through all your podcasts. I'm so grateful for your perspectives! Question: We know John obsessed about Paul throughout the 70's, he was remorseful and apologized in some of his song lyrics, Linda said Paul "was desperate to write with John again", they had planned to do a reunion concert in England according to something John wrote in a document, etc. So WHY do you think the Beatles didn't reform as early as the mid- 70's, particularly after the exit of Allen Klein?

Ahh, that’s a million dollar question!  We think John and Paul were probably the ones who wanted a reunion the most, but nevertheless they likely both had major reservations. 

From our POV, Paul had the least to gain from a Beatles reunion in the mid 70s.  Wings was a roaring success by that point.  Paul had finally managed to establish an identity outside of the Beatles and, for the first time post-Beatles, was enjoying both commercial and critical success simultaneously.  George and Ringo OTOH weren’t doing great (after each had experienced much success in the early 70s).  John was coming off a pair of successful solo albums (and a #1 with Elton John) but by 1975 he was coming up dry and making an oldies album to fulfill his contract.  Paul was in a very strong position by 75-76.  

This is just our take, but we believe that while John and Paul were both tempted to revive Lennon/McCartney, we’re skeptical that either was really into the idea of a re-formed Beatles.  We think they were excited but nervous to work together again and would’ve ultimately used George and Ringo as buffers (this is not to denigrate George or Ringo, this is just our impression of how John and Paul thought).   Predictably enough, we don’t think George was EVER enthusiastic about a Beatles reunion.  Maybe if the other three applied enough peer pressure he wouldn’t want to be left out, but we don’t think he was ever eager to work with Paul again. It’s totally reasonable that Harrison would be wary of a Beatles reunion where he would get wedged between Paul and John yet again.  

It’s no secret that the major rift was between John and Paul; they were the only pair of Beatles who never again worked together after the break-up.  In 1975 John admitted (rather poignantly) that he and Paul “had a harder time” coping with their rift than any of the others did. 

We believe that Paul “desperately” wanted to work together with John because (a) he desperately wanted to repair his relationship with John throughout the 70s, and (b) he genuinely enjoyed writing with him, although AGAIN, to be clear, Paul did great in the 70s, never had a dry spell, and didn’t need John to succeed, artistically or commercially.  A reunion with John would have also surely taken some air out of the How Do You Sleep debacle. While we doubt this was the primary reason Paul wanted to reconcile, we imagine it was a factor.  And if John was truly sorry for HDYS, this would’ve been a great way for him to demonstrate it.  Publicly.

In the 70s, John made several references to Paul’s “energy” and we definitely think John missed the charge he got from Paul.  However, we believe John ultimately carried too much emotional baggage about Paul for a light-hearted reunion.  Primary amongst his reservations might be jealousy over Paul’s success and insecurity about his self-conscious “need” for Paul.  But surely there were other reservations, not the least of which was their continued business/legal battles, resentment over reaction to each others’ wives, internal fights within the band, etc. And of course, since Paul was infamously awarded the dishonor of John’s Ultimate Hurter, surely that was always looming in John’s mind as well.  How would Paul hurt him again?  Would Paul’s unique brand of insensitivity be more painful a second time around?  

Yoko is often blamed for the fizzling of reunion plans in the mid-70s, and we agree she was probably a major contributing factor.  May Pang confirms that after visiting the Dakota at a critical moment just before heading to New Orleans in early ‘75, John’s attitude towards collaborating with Paul abruptly changed from excited to sour.  There is no doubt that Yoko was against John getting back together with Paul, likely for a multitude of reasons, but perhaps most critically because it was a threat to her creative reputation; if John and Paul reunited, it might be interpreted as a creative failure of JohnandYoko and  the primacy and superiority of Lennon/McCartney, and there is no way she wanted that to happen. Yoko had invested a great deal of time and energy in creating and maintaining the Ballad of John and Yoko and wasn’t about to let that unravel. We also suspect she probably did not want John to get too under Paul's spell again as that would diminish her power over him. There are accounts of her maneuvering behind the scenes to make sure this didn’t happen, so clearly she saw their reunion as a threat to her position with John. 

Ultimately, however, we suspect it all boiled down to the same conundrum John faced in the late 60s: He could either commit to Yoko and permanently let go of Paul, or permanently break up with Yoko and commit to a professional partnership with Paul.  The problem with the latter option was that a strictly-professional partnership might not only be painfully incomplete on an emotional level for John (after having been Paul’s sole creative partner and surrogate spouse in the 60s)... but of course now Paul had his own band, three kids and a wife. John wouldn’t just be back where he left off in ‘68, he would be a much lower priority to Paul than he had been in ‘68 which put him in an even worse position.  Therefore the emotional risk appears to have been too great for John. 

All evidence points to the fact that Paul’s desire in the 70s was to maintain a friendship with John and explore rekindling their songwriting partnership.  He seems to have had fewer reservations or concerns about doing so —  perhaps because he had a functional band at the time, so was not dependent on this happening. It seems that he simply loved working with John and would have liked to have done it again as a way to reconnect, heal and spark the old magic. But he also required flexibility to perform with his band and focus on his family.  

We are less convinced that John was willing or capable to view their partnership as something casual or flexible, with no strings attached.  It was John himself who used the analogy of “one night stands” with Elton and Bowie as opposed to his marriage with Paul.  This isn’t to say we think Paul loved John less or cared about their partnership less.  It’s clear that no one has ever replaced Lennon as a complete collaborative partner to Paul (despite Paul’s demonstrated ability to collaborate with many, many artists in many different capacities) and Paul himself has said as much.  As always, we just think they had different personalities and different needs that were fairly consistent over time: Paul desired freedom and flexibility while John desired security and total commitment.

The only powers John did seem to retain were the power to seemingly “reject” Paul and/or deliberately hurt his feelings and to humiliate him in public.  John flexed both these powers periodically until he died, presumably to make himself feel better in his weaker moments or because of residual resentments towards Paul (over any number of things).  

TL;DR: Paul was open but too independent, John was open but too emotionally conflicted, George may or may not have been open but resented them both too much.

[nozomijoestar]

Thinking about how Brandon Sanderson plans on making Lift the defacto central protagonist in later books and I'm excited not just bc she's amazing already but she embodies traits and conflicts from all the other Knights Radiant we know, Kaladin's struggle with nihilism and feeling like he's doing enough, that he is enough, that caring/kindness isn't pointless, Shallan's crisis of identity but more importantly her finding control and realizing her mental strength to seize what she wants and make herself understood, Dalinar's guilt and conflict of accepting his past and choosing between a world of comfort in conformity or daring to stand by what he believes, his drive to be a better person always

The 'Edgedancer' novella did a great job of expanding how all these fit into her character but it's there even in her non central appearances in the main books; Lift feels the burden of compassion, she once tried succumbing to nihilism and instead it felt like dying, she had to learn she can't run from her problems and making her own big decisions, she feels perpetual episodes of guilt that she's a failure or she's too aimless and not doing enough and unable to really trust after a life of learning the world treats trust like it's a buzzword, guilt over her past with her mother etc. (all of which also makes her feel sympathy and understanding for Szeth)

Because Lift is still a child I'm dying to see how she's going to take these amalgamated points that define the core of the others and rise above them to succeed where they may not or go beyond the successes they've made on themselves already on her journey into adulthood

Edit: Jasnah is also in there from the social class exclusion Lift experiences based on her appearance and being an urchin, on her ability to be extremely clever when she puts her mind to it in battle or otherwise and the logic for that, in the value she puts on respecting people who stay true to themselves and beat back the odds, on how despite being seen as Us or Them by society she retains the humanity to help the suffering, and of course on her witty comebacks and bluntness in expressing herself

[mybeloved73]

My name is Chelsea and I’m a ITU Nurse.

I’m also a newly qualified nurse - I literally left Uni last year and began my job in the September.

My background - I didn’t always want to be a nurse. I wasn’t cut out for that sort of compassion or care. I dreamt of being a PT, an athlete, anything that was sports driven.

Until my boyfriend had a bike accident, that then left him in ITU. He later succumb to his injuries and passed away. The nurses looking after him, changed my life. Shining light kind of moment - I want to be just like them kind of thing.

Granted it took me 4 years to build up the courage, battling my PTSD, severe depression and anxiety to even apply to uni. But I did it - and Sept 2019 I got my Pin as a registered nurse.

Now, if you 1) think covid19 was made up, a conspiracy or the numbers have been made up as a scare tactic or 2) you actually believe wearing a face covering will cause ‘respiratory arrests’ ‘acidosis’ blah... stop reading. Because this isn’t for you. Or even 3) you have the view of ‘its their job’ - back away from your screen.

You’ve seen in the news about the public sector pay rise? That nurses aren’t included, nor the junior doctors, physio’s etc (I use etc as there are so many people being forgotten in all this and it is used lovingly and not to cause offence)? Honestly, Im so glad that others are being recognised for their input and help during this - the teachers who put in extra work for children of key workers, who sacrificed their home life to entertain little ones every day and try give them the education they need and deserve, to the police, military - anyone receiving this recognition. Honestly you deserve it. And the NHS will not shadow that or take it away from you.

We agree’d to a 3 year pay deal, that had the options of being reconsidered earlier than the final date if there was a change in circumstances. Covid19 should really be considered as a change in circumstances. I mean being told that you’re already ‘unskilled’ and watching people clap to STOP pay rises... was hard enough. But to have everyone else recognised for their vital contributions and lay something that was agreed in 2018 - is inexcusable.

You realise that most nurses didn’t get to see your claps on a Thursday? That’s handover time. And due to covid19 if their handover time was earlier - they were usually late because of how busy it was and still missed it.

I saw one. Because it so happened I had come off of nights the night prior.

So! My life during covid19 starts off with the busiest winter that my hospital has seen in ITU. We have 10 beds. We are funded for 7/8? We had to open an escalation centre that we stole from our day surgery unit to give us a further 3 beds.

Which in itself is hard - looking after seriously sick patients away from your actual designated and designed ward and without the continuous presence of doctors.

That wasn’t enough.

We had to then stole half of the recovery room, which usually houses patients post surgery whilst they wake up.

Going up to 16 patients. Remember - at this point. I’m THREE MONTHS qualified.

Learning is hard, steep, and in-depth. You’re suppose to be trained over the course of a year as a newly qualified, with study days and help from mentors etc. I couldn’t attend some of those days because we didn’t have the staff to look after the most patients our ITU had ever seen.

Now I know ITU is hard. I picked it.

I knew what it entailed, well partly.

I have to maintain my patients artificial airway. They either have a tube in their mouth or in their throat.

They’re then connected to a ventilator.

Every single setting on that machine, every button - changes something drastically.

From the fio2, PEEP, PS, PC, TV, MVE, PEAK, RR, PF ratio, ... one button, one alteration or mistake... literally can stop this person breathing. Cause respiratory distress, arrest.. trauma? anything.

Did you know I have to move that tube in their mouth every hour to stop pressure sores developing in their mouth? And I still have to brush their teeth and give oral care?

I have to suction down their throat and clear their lungs? Or suction their actual mouth for extra secretions?

And record all this data hourly.

To ensure that this patient is comfortable with this tube... I have to medicate this patient.

I have to keep them in an artificial coma.

Titrating the drugs to their optimum levels.

Some are measured mg/hr, mcg/hr, mcg/kg/min..

some have limits on maximum dose per hour you can use.

Some have really severe side effects.

Such as noradrenaline. Which can literally cause your fingers and toes to become necrotic.

I have to monitor someone’s glucose - whether you’re diabetic or not, and correct it if needed with insulin or dextrose.

I have to give diuretics but not allow your body to become too negative, I have to give fluid challenges to ensure you’re not vascular depleted.

I can help your kidneys with the use of a dialysis machine. Literally filter your blood of toxins your body can no longer remove without help of a machine. This requires constant blood tests to ensure that you aren’t collecting dangerous toxins or you need additional support from the machine.

I can use a machine to check your cardiac output and interpret it to make sure that you have enough fluid vs a drug that’ll help squeeze your heart instead.

I can read an ECG and tell if you need additional supplements such as potassium. Do further tests for magnesium, phosphates etc. And deliver those.

I can feed you through a tube down your nose, and ensure you absorb it. But it’s okay I can give you medication to also help that - these require me to do daily ECGs though, and interpret the data of your QTC to make sure it’s not affecting your heart.

Now. If that’s not enough. Covid happens.

Now remember our record was 16 patients?

Try doubling that.

We worked in our ITU,

Escalation centre

Recovery - we took the whole thing.

Next - we took over operating theatres.

3 patients in theatre 6

3 in 5

3 in 4

2 in 3

We stole theatre staff, recovery nurses, ODPS, ward nurses, retired nurses, health visitor nurses, anyone we could relocate to help us.

March - I’m 6 months qualified.

I’m now the most qualified ITU nurse in my theatre.

I have people who have never looked after a ventilated patients before asking me for help. Please don’t silence my alarm if you don’t know why it’s alarming. I know it’s loud and annoying but it’s telling me everything I need to know with enough time before I need to panic.

Now - covid patients weren’t just sick. Weren’t just needing help to breathe. These patients were all sorts of ‘new’. Nothing made sense!

These patients COULDNT be ventilated. We needed to paralyse them to literally be able to take over their breathing properly! No amount of sedation worked! Their lungs were fibrous and acting like elastic under tension.

Side note - if your patient wasn’t sedated enough compared to paralysis - they could be silently awake, but completely paralysed. Knowing everything happening to them. But unable to do anything - not even breathe. Every time you start rocuronium you need to remember that. If you’re withdrawing treatment - TURN THE ROC OFF FIRST. And wait before you do anything else.

Back to it. They were so unstable that you try roll them, which we usually do 4 hourly to prevent pressure sores - they desaturated to numbers so low that you would usually see some hypoxia brain injury after.

We couldn’t roll these patients without risking that. So you know what. You don’t roll.

So we couldn’t protect their skin integrity. You just watch them, and feel guilty.

Nursing school 101 - pressure sores are PREVENTABLE. Roll your patient. Skin care and hygiene is your best friend.

Now covid went against everything a nurse knows and holds dear.

Our ITU never had pressure sores. Until covid. Some had grade 4’s.

Maggot therapy.

Vacuum dressings.

These patients were also clotting, and sending off clots to their kidneys, liver, heart, brain. Covid made your blood super sticky!!!!

People were having strokes whilst being sedated, going from fit to multi organ failure in days. I’m trying to save these people, knowing they could possibly wake up with complete left side paralysis? Never talk again? Never be them again?

Now you know about these past medical histories etc?

You realise what that is?

that it could be Type 2 diabetes?

Hypertension?

That was it for some.

None of this thinking they were super sick, with lists longer than my arm, and that’s why they didn’t make it. No.

Literally things that happen with age. Poor diet? That 120/80 you’re happy you got - THATS PREHYPERTENSION.

I was probably hypertensive the entire time with anxiety.

Did you know We had to use the old anaesthetic ventilators. None of us had used those before. Those big bellows you see in films going up and down rhythmically. Those.

That was scary.

I’m use to a single touch screen button (hello modern technology) to deliver 100% o2 if my patient needs it. This has a switch to a bag, a button, dials to titrate o2 with normal air. And if I didn’t monitor the crystals in the bottom my patient would retain their own co2 and I wouldn’t know why.

New found love for anaesthetists and ODPS - these machines are NOT designed for prolonged use. But they helped us keep our patients alive. By literally guiding us and helping us look after the machines so we could do our job.

Now. All of this is made worse by PPE.

I’m hot.

It’s hot.

And intense and I’m working hard because tonight, I have 3 ventilated patients. By myself.

I have a gown on.

2 sets of gloves

An apron

An FFP3 mask

A hat

A visor

And no air con.

But I’ve got this. I can’t do my hourly checks because I am one person.

My super sick patients now have 2 hourly because it is physically impossible.

Where are the other staff?

Sick.

You’re watching these people struggle to breathe on machines and then being told your close friends at work, your mentors, your seniors are spiking temperatures. Some being admitted to hospital. Some not being able to come back to work for weeks.

Some ending up on your ventilators. It’s okay. I’ve got this.

I’m an ITU nurse right?

CPR wearing that get up. Is TOUGH. 27mins. I cried that day.

We lost 3 patients in 12 hours.

I held the hand of so many people as I turned off their ventilators because their families couldn’t be with them and no one should die alone. No one. I tried my best.. and then once my day had finished, I had to come home to my dad who is immunosuppressed. Who doesn’t understand boundaries. “Kevin stay in the other part of the house!”

*knocks on bedroom door with dinner*.

Proning. What an experience that is. And doing it Daily. The complications of that were scary before you even approach the patient.

So I’m going to flip my patient - who has a tube down their mouth to help breath, who is on medication for sedation, paralysis, to keep their blood pressure up.. from laying on their back - to laying on their front.

Seems easy?

Well it’s not. And requires like 8 people.

8 people.

We don’t have enough people as it is. So we now develop a proning team made up of everyone.

There are consultants, there are experts in their fields, there are physios and then I don’t know who else.

Honestly I couldn’t thank these people enough. More people would have died if we didn’t have a proning team. But now, people spent 23 hours laying on their front. Pressure sores on their faces. Potential of going blind? New complications of not being able to breathe we never expected.

We are finally back into one unit now. I’m still less than a year qualified. And I’m still running on adrenaline expecting this second wave. Those still reading, I know you’re thinking that she picked this job.

She knew what it meant.

And you’re right! Give me those complex drug calculations and ventilators. Oh and the scrubs!

But a pandemic? I didn’t pick that. The world didn’t pick that.

Honestly thank you, to the ward nurses - your lives got flipped upside down.

The physios who became best friends.

Consultants who literally got down and dirty with us.

To the domestics who cleaned furiously for us.

OT’s To literally orientate our patients when they’re waking up like 70 days later.

Every

Single

Person

Who

Helped.

Oh communication team made up of medical students, who updated the families because... I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave my patient. Not like this!

Matron who literally had to facilitate all this, with people who knew nothing about ITU. Being in ITU. Looking after ITU patients. Whilst her own ITU staff were sick, in hospital, or newly qualified, or working to the point they broke.

To the countless companies sending food, goodies, moral support !! Oh my god that was incredible to come to after not having a break for 6+ hours ... mmm... food!!

Did you know they’re offering support for the nurses to stop PTSD, or anxiety or just to help up digest what we saw? Psychological support for just doing your job?

But it’s okay.

We got a deal in 2018 for the pay.

We got clapped thursdays.

We all know that’s not enough, but we will still turn up for work.

We can’t leave our patients.

We can’t strike.

They’ll always mean more to us than pay. And the government knows that. Abuses that.

540 NHS staff lost their life doing ‘just their job’ - today the NHS staff walked through London protesting, to be heard. To be listened to. To be acknowledged. To be paid fair.

Sign the petition for us. Because we aren’t just here for covid. We’re here for life.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/316307

And just put your mask on - please - for that hour you go shopping.

I’ve been wearing mine since March 6th. 13+ hour days. Developed a nice grade one on my nose, my friends faces bleeding from using a rubber respirator....

And We’ll be like this for the foreseeable future.

Now that we have the stocks to do so anyways.

Oh and I’m pissed my graduation was cancelled! All that and I don’t get to wear the hat and gown. Bastard virus. (I understand there was more lost but humour me).

Signed, your registered ITU nurse. We will always continue to monitor.

[darth-schism]

Proposed Timeline for Sequel Repair

(Disclaimer: Obviously the plot of each of the following shows should be their own. But they should also take the time to fill in the gaps, plot holes, and basically screw ups the sequels caused. Again, if we can’t have a pocket timeline, we should at least get appropriate plot repair/retcon).

(And yes, there will be overlap between this and other post. But this blog is where I dump all my mental Star Wars related ramblings, so whatcha gonna do)? : P

*10 ABY: Mandalorian S3. 

- We learn Moff Gideon is one of the few inside men on Palpatine’s resurrection plan. We get details on how the Emperor used his own DNA, force abilities, etc to make the perfect new vessel. The series ends with Din visiting Grogu at Luke’s temple, and Snoke’s “birth” on Exegol. 

- There is overlap between Snoke’s mind and Palpatine’s. More accurately, Snoke is his own person, but has much of Palpatine’s feelings/memories. The sith cult/inside men are uncertain if it is their Emperor in a different body, a clone, or an entirely new person. To ensure the success of the plan, the cult puts off putting Snoke on the throne right away, and instead retains him for evaluation. Snoke though, despite being a mental mess, gives the order to kidnap as many infants as possible, to ensure an “entirely pure” army of new stormtroopers. 

*15 ABY: Ahsoka Series. 

- Ahsoka faces off against Thrawn, as he works to fully organize and restore the Empire. At the series close, Snoke appears from Exegol, and initiates his hostile take over of the Empire. He rebrands it under the banner of the First Order. 

- It is revealed that Snoke showed a high interest in “returning his master to life,” which caused the cult to concluded that he was not the Emperor, and that they would have to try again. They are uncertain as to how though, in light of Snoke being a “failure.” But Snoke then adds his DNA, and significant power, to the resurrection project. Through his efforts, he made the phantom clone of the Emperor that we see in ROS. (Maybe we could even get a Kamino throwback with Bobba, since he tends to lend the Empire and hand here and there for the right price anyway). Either way, the newly awakened Palpatine realizes his reformation will be too slow, and gives Snoke the order to rule over the Empire in his place, while he instructs him from the shadows. He makes it very clear that Snoke is “merely his puppet that he made to speak through.” He also orders his agent to “deal with his wayward lineage” (Aka, Rey’s parents). 

* 25 ABY: Book of Bobba series. 

- By now Palpatine and Snoke have collectively used their voices to lure Ben Solo to the darkside, and Luke’s temple is left in ruin. Din Jarin makes an appearance, as he wants Grogu found. He and Bobba are confronted by Luke, who simply tells them that, for Grogu’s sake, they must cease their search. However, he eventually relents, and takes only Din to see his son like figure. Luke explains that he and his students must move in utmost secrecy, as Snoke’s ability to reach across the galaxy and connect his mind to others is uncanny. 

- We get a flashback of Luke confronting Snoke immediately after the destruction of his temple in an effort to get Ben back. There’s a cool fight, in which Snoke is badly injured, but ultimately Luke is forced to retreat without Ben. Snoke reins destruction down on every place he thinks Luke his hiding, which brings Luke to the conclusion that he must not only go into hiding, but also give reason for Snoke chase him, without feeling a need to blow innocent people up in mass. Thus the map to Luke Skywalker, and his isolation began. 

- As a bonus, it would be cool if Han, Luke, and Bobba became an unlikely team to address the threat of a common enemy. Personally I like the idea of evil Mace Windu. But we’ll see. 

- Han and Lando also meet up at some point, and talk about how both of them lost a child to Snoke, with Ben having been turned, and Lando’s daughter having been kidnapped. 

- The series ends with Palpatine talking to Snoke on Exegol again. He tells him that he realizes he has a granddaughter, one who wasn’t a “disappointment like her father.” He explains to Snoke they can use her to fully resurrect him via a sith ritual (as his current form is still blind and corpse like). He also instructs Snoke to bring him Ben, as he is “ready to see his new apprentice.” However, Snoke realizes that even though he and the Emperor speak through each other, and have their thoughts overlap, that he is still far more than just a puppet. So he reminds Palpatine not only of the rule of two, but also that for as much as Palpatine made him, he also made Palpatine. And while Palpatine’s growth was slow, his was complete. And now that he had an apprentice, he didn’t need him. So Snoke, despite Palpatin’s protests and claim to authority over him, disables Palpatine’s reformation process, which traps him as the near talking corpse we see in ROS. He tells him that he won’t kill him if he continues to oversee the operations of Exegol, and doesn’t try anything funny. He then leaves, to take complete and total control of the First Order.  

* 30 ABY: Rangers of the New Republic. 

- Snoke is in full swing with his attempt to take over the galaxy. However, his efforts are scattered and constantly distracted by his obsession to find and kill Skywalker. Ever since their fight which left Snoke physically and emotionally vulnerable (not that he’d ever admit it) Snoke’s mind was bent on revenge. He was certain the mere existence of Skywalker would see everything he had worked for to be undone. We get some scenes (both current and flashbacks) of just how cruel the Supreme Leader was/is to his apprentice (Just to make his death in TLJ not only surprising, but feel like a good pay off). Snoke’s obsession with finding the map to Skywalker, draws attention to its existence for the show’s heroes. They find it and, with R2D2′s help, and arrive on Luke’s island. 

- As I described in another post, Luke puts on an act to try and make them leave and think nothing of him being there. And although much of this is because of Luke’s emotional suffering, it is also an evaluation. Through it, the Jedi Master quickly realizes that the ranger’s aren’t asking for him to be a public symbol of hope (as he can no longer do that for the above mentioned reasons) but someone who can accomplish a critical mission that would be impossible for anyone else. Luke explains a little bit more as to why he was isolated, why he had to be so careful, and why he won’t be trying to make a Jedi order anytime soon. But at the end of the day, he states that he would never actually abandon the galaxy to Snoke, and that this wasn’t the first time he’s snuck off to handle matters like this. And so we get another fun mission episode with Luke. During the mission, Luke recovers a file on a stormtrooper (who we see to be Jannah). He makes mention that Lando never gave up going to “all kinds of strange places in the galaxy” to find his lost daughter. Sensing through the force that this trooper might be the one, he takes the information. 

- At the end of the mission, Luke mindwipes the rangers’ memories of finding and working with him, and sends the file information about Jannah to Lando, and the map fragment out once again to distract Snoke, and guide the right people to him. Luke returns to the island. We see that the strain of having to turn on his force abilities for a mission, only to turn them off again right away to prevent Snoke from finding him, causes serious toll on his body.

- We get a scene where Snoke asks if the agent who had killed the Emperor’s son had ever been found. To which no is the answer. Snoke is agitated, but ultimately dismissive of this, and simply assures those around him that if he ever encountered the one he believed to be the Emperor’s granddaughter, he would see to it that she died. This would ensure that the phantom clone of Palpatine could never rise high enough to challenge his position as Supreme Leader.   

(I’m sure I’ll think of more to add to this. But these are the big ones for now: Establish First Order --> Make Snoke an actual character --> Establish the phantom Emperor --> Show that Luke hadn’t actually given up --> Solidify Rey’s lineage --> Make Lando not come off as a creeper).

[robert-c]

Consultant or In House Professional

At one time or another I suppose most compensation professionals have wondered what it would be like to be one of those consultants that their management always seems to regard with more respect than themselves, their own employed professionals. Having been on both sides of that business perhaps I’m in a particularly good place to offer some thoughts.

The pros and cons of each position are fairly obvious.

The In House Expert

Pro:

Has regular     income,

Generally a much     more secure  position, and

Much more     detailed knowledge of the company and its strategies (enabling better     recommendations – in theory)

Con:

Typically not as     highly regarded for professional expertise as the outside consultant,

Often charged     with implementing plans that were designed by non-professionals     (executives), and

Held accountable     for their success or failure, usually the latter.

Outside Consultant

Pro:

Typically gets     to design and recommend the plan they think is best,

Not bogged down     in the details of administration and implementation, and

Variety of     companies and industries to work with keeps things interesting and     challenging.

Con:

Income/benefits     is either extremely variable or insecure; depending on being your own firm     or working for a larger one,

Rarely get to     see things work out with your recommendations, and

Must spend as     much time developing business (selling) as actually doing the work you     presumably love and are best at.

My career went pretty much as follows: in house, consultant, in house, consultant, and finally in house; altogether roughly equal total times in each role. My consulting experience was divided between being a sole practitioner and an employee of a large consulting firm. I suppose I’ve seen the field from just about every vantage point.

Based on my parents’ Great Depression Era experience, I put too much importance on job security. In addition, I was too fearful about business development or selling. Everyone has to examine their own feelings about these elements and determine if they are willing to push through and learn how to do or accept something different or if they really aren’t suited to those aspects of work. My personal opinion is that most in house professionals would do well as consultants, in larger firms where someone else is taking the lead on the business development, i.e. selling.

There are frustrations in either role, the key to a happy and satisfying career is finding the role that minimizes the frustrations that are most annoying and then learning not to focus on them. A lot of people (me included) have the habit of looking at life and seeing what is missing from their “perfect” view of what they would like, it’s the “squeaky wheel” view. If it is something that can be “fixed”, fine, do it and move on. But when the things that are missing can’t be had (because they are not in your control) then focusing on them only increases the sense of frustration and dissatisfaction.

There are things not specifically covered in the pros and cons above. My first consulting job was with a large firm as their employee. The partner I was assigned to made a statement whose accuracy and importance was much greater than I realized at the time. “There is a fine line between what we do and prostitution.” We were primarily working in executive compensation so the applicability of the statement should be obvious.

But it applied in a broader sense. I discovered that even in matters of base pay for the rank and file, we often had to navigate between the preconceived notions of the client and good professional practice. In order to ensure continued business from the client there was always the pressure to give them whatever they thought they wanted. Diplomatically “selling” the recommendations we made is a skill that is needed for both the in house and outside consultant roles. Naively, I originally thought the basic facts and logic would be enough to carry the day.

The topic of executive compensation deserves its own article; but let’s just say being hired by and working for the executive whose compensation plan you will be designing and recommending to the Board of Directors is, at the very least, a conflict of interest with the goal of objective and professional counsel.

Let me say that I do admire and respect those entrepreneurs who see an unmet need in the market and fill it and make a success of their business. My admiration can sometimes border on reverence. At the same time, many of these individuals had unrealistic ideas about themselves and their employees. Too many thought of themselves heroically and that others should consider themselves privileged to be allowed to help them achieve their lofty objectives.

I remember the businessman who wanted to double his profits. He wanted an incentive plan to motivate his people to do more to upsell, retain and get new customers (by having current customers refer others). However, his idea of a sufficient reward for doing this was a maximum potential bonus of 5% a year over the next 5 years. What this means in practice is that each year the maximum bonus for helping double the business (and the owner’s profit) is the equivalent of working 1⅓ hours of overtime each week. Over the course of five years the maximum bonus for helping double the owner’s business (in virtual perpetuity) amounts to about 25% of one year’s base pay. True, those requirements might reasonably be part of the job currently. But if that isn’t having the desired results, how sure are we that having the staff ramp it up, add more enthusiasm is going to change things? Is the service really up to the best possible? In short, how much extra effort are people going to put out to double the boss’ pay for that amount of reward?

So I guess what I’m saying is that the first “pro” under consulting, (gets to design and recommend the plan they think is best) really depends on how good you feel you are at selling your idea to the client and/or how willing you are to risk them not liking it simply because it contradicts their life long biases.

The third “pro” under in house expert (more familiarity with the company etc.) only matters if your opinions and recommendations are being heard or considered by executive management.

So the basic choice is, in house for regular earnings and a modicum of job security, with limited opportunities for job satisfaction; consulting for variety and the excitement of pressure.

Sometimes you can hit the winning combination. I had a period as an in house expert where I actually was listened to and made a difference with my recommendations. I even had a good period as a consultant where the business development was handled by a very good sales person who brought me in to let the prospect see that I had good ideas and could work well with them.

Of course there were situations that were all of the bad elements together, but there isn’t much to say about those, except that if you are in one, get out as soon as you realize it. Don’t let fear of financial insecurity hold you back. Those situations don’t change from the inside as often as folks like to believe (you have a better chance of winning the lottery). And if you still think your loyalty to the company will count for something, I’m sorry, but wake up – this isn’t the 1950’s.

[myhauntedsalem]

Phantom Transplants

When my brother passed away, he was an organ donor. A woman in Greece wrote to thank the family for his corneas. I wonder does she see the beautiful colors he mixed for his paintings?

Sonny Graham was on the verge of death in 1955 due to “congestive heart failure,” he had been given just six months to live.

It was a happy day when he received word that a heart had become available. It belonged to a 33-year-old man, Terry Cottle who had committed suicide by one shot to the brain, leaving his young bride behind.

After Graham was informed who his donor was, he began to write Cottle’s widow in appreciation. The two met, fell in love and married.

But love for this young woman wasn’t the only thing these two men shared. Graham discovered that he now craved beer and hot dogs—which were Cottle’s favorites.

Twelve years after his successful transplant, Graham took his own life by shooting himself in the head. Leaving this wife to mourn twice.

The cravings and personality changes that occurred in Sonny Graham’s life are actually often everyday experiences among transplant recipients—but I should note most do not commit suicide.

Organ transplants, including heart, liver, kidney, and lung, etc. have saved many lives. There were more than half a million performed in the U.S. alone, between 1988 and 2016.

There are countless stories about the unusual side effects that occur after these transplants.

Claire Sylvia had a heart transplant at the age of 44. She believes that along with this vital organ that saved her life, she also received her donors’ tastes and memories.

After her operation, she was asked what she would like to do first. Without hesitation, she answered, “I am dying for a beer right now.”

This was strange for Sylvia had always hated the taste of beer.

Over the next few months, she began to have a variety of strange food cravings. Most notably McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets, something she had never desired.

Sylvia now had allergies that she did not have in the past as well as a heightened empathic ability. She also became extremely moody, which was not like her.

She had a series of odd dreams where a thin, tall young man talked to her. He told her his name was “Tim.”

Her curiosity peaked, Sylvia did some research and discovered that a young man named Timothy Lamirande was involved in a motorcycle accident on the same day she received her heart transplant.

He was her donor.

She met his family, and they confirmed all the cravings she was having were Tim’s favorite foods—especially beer.

Oddly, they told her he had just gone to McDonald’s the day of the accident, and a sack of Chicken McNuggets had been found next to his body.

Scientists put forth the idea of “cell memory.” Where cells within organs retain the original owner’s memories and pass them along.