#that honorless in life

[ghostlyerlkonig]

If the ES writers had given Sovngarde 3 more seconds of thought past viking thought-porn... they would never have tossed a imperial win ending ulfric there 💀

[whetstonefires]

lmao that would hit extra hard since by then Perpetually Undead Ghost General Wen Ning would be the only acquaintance from his youth he had left

I’ve been thinking it over, and I have decided it really makes a lot of sense if Jiang Cheng is the only cultivator of his generation who manages to cultivate to immortality. Here are my reasons:

Too stubborn to die, especially of anything as stupid as old age.

The terrible tragedy of outliving all your loved ones, you say? Living each day knowing you’ll never see them again outside your dreams? Enduring unendurable loneliness, and somehow going on anyway? That’s not some kind of ‘what-if’ thought experiment, to Jiang Cheng—that’s Tuesday.

Allows him to put off the question of succession indefinitely, or at least until Jin Ling is old enough to have produced a spare heir or two that Jiang Cheng can cadge off of him.

It’s gonna take him at least a thousand years before he’s over that thing Wen Ning said to him about Wei Wuxian’s core. Ten thousand if Wen Ning opens his mouth at year five hundred and thirty-four to remark that Jiang Wanyin can probably chalk up his immortality to Wei-gongzi’s core, too.

[vampyrial]

A World For Her Alone | My dreams, as unknowable to me as you

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17

cw (chapter specific): pregnancy and childbirth, infidelity, death, suicide, disassociation

summary: for a change of perspective, let's give voice to another, forgotten to a higher will. if it was only a dream, why did it feel so real?

word count: 3.6k

Reverie was a rare thing to be spoken aloud in the life of a knight. To dream greater, or even just different than one’s own position was one thing, to speak it was another. That was why when Felix awoke with a start, covered in sweat and panting, he said nothing to explain himself to his comrade across the room. That was why his comrade knew not to ask at all, pretending to still be asleep in bed. 

He trembled in bed, frozen and curled into himself, longing for a moment. Just one moment to grab hold of the world gradually before the tumult of it hit him all at once again.

 He did not receive it.

Felix dressed in the dark, his hands moving deftly even without his mind’s cooperation. His body had been trained into an automaton, he ought to have been more pleased with that than he was, it had saved him a few times before. But it did make the lingering, vague horror of his dreams that much more concrete. He was inside the dream, the dream inside himself and yet he could not remember what it was about. He could not draw a single image from this dream, though he’d had it several times over, he was sure. He remembered the familiar infantile feeling of vulnerability which he woke with each time. He woke each time as a newborn, grasping for sense of the earth. He woke only with a single memory, the feeling of grasping the pommel of his sword so tightly that its shape was impressed into his hand. 

More oft in dreams did he wield his sword than in reality. He waited outside his lady’s door, his sword on his hip and his eyes routinely moving about the hall every few moments. The knight of an ordinary lady was not so valiant a title, he could admit, it was hardly a danger that most young knights wish to defend from. Even so, Felix took his position seriously. He held his position with as much preciseness as he had the very first day he’d been chosen. Sooner would he forget his mother’s name than he’d forget that day, he way his hands trembled when he took his lady’s hand to kiss. Her eyes looking down at him steadfastly. He thought she was so queenly then. He’d made the grievous mistake of telling one of the superior knights that he’d thought so and he’d been met with laughter and a biting jab. “The lady is no queen, if you ever live to set your sorry eyes on her majesty, you’ll look back at this moment and be embarrassed for comparing tavern ale to champagne.”

He’d been embarrassed for saying such a flowery thing. That was when he’d learned to hold his tongue around the older knights. Swarthy, they were, restless with the lives of relative inaction they led. As he grew into his new position, he came to reconcile with the fact that young knights came bright as the swords they swung and then sometimes decayed into what the elder knights were instead of aging into the kind of men he’d looked up to as a squire. It was no matter as long as they did their jobs, even if it did bother him. Despite his embarrassment, however, he still held to the sentiment. He didn’t need to set eyes on the queen, all the better that he didn’t. He wasn’t a knight for glittering gold armor, nor for illustrious titles, to him it was true that you were queen. He hadn’t meant it in terms of jewels, not even in beauty or wealth, though you had plenty of each. He had only meant that when his lips touched your skin and his eyes lifted to meet yours as he gave his oath– he’d felt that you were an ill-fated, gentle queen of old and he your nameless, honorless knight. 

You came out of the bedroom on a wisp of spring laden air, dressed darkly in sanguine red. Poorly hidden behind your queenly mask, an air of jubilance. His eyes stayed on you, heedless of how he looked. He had been right to stare but at the time, he had not known it. He had not known it would be the last time he’d ever see you look so happy.

Lord Claude, always the enigma. Felix remembered the first time he’d guarded the door while the two of you spoke in the drawing room. The young master proved rather dull and dreary, in his opinion, but you were obviously enamored with him. He’d never seen a woman in love before you and he was certain he’d never again with how incomparably you wore the glow of love. It almost overshadowed the weakness that lay beneath, the rot beneath the bright red flesh of a ripened apple. That was why he stood at your side, so stupidly pleased and hopeful, despite his distaste. It was for you to have something of your own. The mansion and everything in it belonged to Lady Diana, but if you could become a marchioness, you would be your own. You would have escaped and taken refuge in a love you had always been worthy of. And surely the Lord Claude– much beloved by you, would reward your efforts twofold. 

The more that he saw you give yourself away to be worthy of being a marchioness, the more he prayed. Later on, he would have assumed his role long enough to realize that though he was your knight, it was implicitly decided by the unspoken rules of decency in society that his role was to protect you from an outsider, a thief, a bandit. He was not to protect you from the Lord Claude. But that was not now, he was a green young knight yet, whose head still danced with fond thoughts of the muted glory in serving such a lady. Of the place he would take at your side as you managed to lift yourself to the position you deserved. So much hope had been leaned on the idea that your marriage to Claude would be your salvation that it was perhaps destined to fail. Too much hope had yet to do Felix any good at all.

Felix’s stomach churned when Claude reached over to brush a petal from Diana’s hair. The indignation of it was one thing, the guilt was another. He should have trusted Claude much less than you had, he realized. It was your prerogative to be romantic, his to be weary. Now, he was reeling with undue humiliation, unable to think of how to spare you this, all because he’d refused to see.

The decay from there fell especially quick to his eyes. There was no offsetting the fatigue in your features, the pain subtly adding an odd flinch to your otherwise graceful and measured gait. Each time Claude decided to grace the manor with his presence, you looked entirely drained. You looked stunned like he had been as a young squire returning to his quarters from a particularly mean spirited day of sword training. It was as though Claude had sunk his fangs into your skin with every word, seeking a boastful memory of the sanguine dress you’d worn when he’d first drawn the warmth from your skin. 

Come the late night after that he had gone to Diana instead of visiting you at all, he crawled into bed eagerly, forgetting why he had dreaded sleep so to begin with. It is such a dangerous thing as a knight, to forget. You are full of spite and fear without target, the whole world an uncoordinated dance of precarious steps. You walk into traps of your own making and you do not realize because you have not learned to fear yourself properly.

The dream melded seamlessly with reality, never was it fanciful. It ended as it began, in feasibility. A dream had no master nor cunning, it simply was. Still, it felt as though this dream was predatory with the ability and thought to lure him carefully. This dream always began the same way, with him at the tea party, a memory which did not weather with time. This dream, if he were to indulge the belief of it being somewhat sentient, seemed to play with the fact that he thought of it every time he saw Claude’s face.

It was a clever thing.

This time something had been taken from you, thieved from your pockets rather than wrenched from your hands. The news of Diana’s poor health sent Claude scattering from the house as though driven out with a sword at his back. It was as though he saw no reason to hide his affair. Or rather, the urgency of Diana’s impending death made his love for her flare to heights that couldn’t be hidden. That he’d no will to hide. The latter was somehow more infuriating than anything. To think that a lord who had you and knew you, could truly love another far better.

While your husband rode for Diana, you sat in the drawing room waiting for a carriage to be prepared. Felix assumed there would be some manufactured problem with the carriage at Claude’s behest just so that he could have that much more time with the young lady. If such had truly been the case, he needn’t have bothered trying to delay you any further, his insolence had a more than serviceable job of it. By the time Felix entered the room to check on you, you were laid on the floor in a heap and barely breathing.

He could not keep grief from erupting from his lips when he saw you. He was at your side in an instant, scooping you into his arms as he would a child as he called to the servants outside to fetch the doctor. He brought you to bed, not being advised against moving you by the wide eyed servants he passed by and subconsciously thinking that it’d be best for you to wake up in bed rather than discarded carelessly in the drawing room where you still waited to receive your husband. In retrospect, as he stood outside your door with the doctor inside, he’d realized that the wariness of the servant might have been due more to his oddly frantic and personal grief on behalf of his lady rather than their master’s apathy. But in that moment he couldn’t have cared less for decorum, he almost hadn’t left the room when the doctor dismissed the servants. He always forgot himself when it came to you.

The doctor came out of the room looking troubled, he’d always been a somewhat fragile looking man as Felix saw him and it gave him the courage to pry. “Is the lady alright?” He asked quickly before the doctor could turn down the hall. 

The man’s face sagged with immediate exhaustion at the question. “…Keep the mistress in your thoughts, she’s with child.” 

Felix’s stomach dropped. His hopes were that you’d just fainted from stress and the only necessary treatment was enforced relaxation. From the way the doctor seemed to age in a moment just from him asking how you were, this child was not cause for much happiness. 

In the months that followed, Felix kept his gaze trained on you steadily, not knowing what he should anticipate from your condition. He saw you in decline as Claude was nowhere to be found. In the early days of your pregnancy, he’d returned in a haste to get back to work. He’d forced you to reveal your pregnancy from the foyer because he wouldn’t spare a moment for you and after that, his reaction…he had the audacity to look bereaved. Bereaved that his wife had only done what was asked of her. What they were married for. 

Felix felt such misery at your position. He felt the growing lethargy of your movements and the claustrophobia of being confined to your room. Through none of it could he comfort you and Claude was unwilling even though it was practically his only duty to you. What he felt was more pressing than that was being at Diana’s side as she slowly, much too slowly, faded away. But it was as though she never actually would. She was never going to die and return your husband to you. Even if she wilted mercifully, her ghost would haunt Claude who’d force everyone else to pretend that she still lived. Her memory would be the plague that replaced the one she enacted in life. He feared you’d never be free of this and it was a shameful feeling that he tried to shake off at every turn.

Days passed monotonously without him ever seeing you, the only sign of life being the servants who entered and exited your bedroom, bearing things like medicine and the scant amount of food you could keep down. Until one arrived with a note bearing Claude’s sigil. 

Felix had been fool enough to believe this was some comfort to you, some belated and lazy excuse, no doubt but a comfort nonetheless. Something that would display the barest semblance of care for you might have put some manner of relief in your heart. 

It was never to be.

Whatever Claude sent seemed to add ten sleepless to your body for how slowly, painstakingly you moved as if carefully dancing around the exhaustion would keep it from catching up to you. And you flinched as you moved down the stairs, the weight of the duty placed upon you threatened to drag you downward from your still somewhat graceful gait. It was a bleak sight to his eyes, the way your grace and the need for it had not faltered even now. It was as though just like the woman he loved so very much, he’d taken the ability to haunt a place while still living. 

He summoned you to his side while you were like this, it made the already grating hatred he fostered inside become an unbearable hurt. A hopelessness that made him wish for Claude to die, to suffer, to hurt as you did. But he knew it wouldn’t be. He was born with too much to hurt like you did. When Felix offered you his hand, he ‘d tried to convey all that he felt for you as his lady in that gesture, for he could do nothing else to show his…what was it that he felt? Something more than affection, surely. What he wanted to convey was more than a knight was able to offer his lady. It was something less like what Claude might have felt for you and more than it, too. It was surpassing, a life’s wish.

He felt as though a conduit for your experience as the carriage rocked along, it was a curious thing. He felt hurt as you stepped into the carriage, as the horses began to race down the path. The pain was dynamic, flitting about his whole body and grief held fast to him. 

Through dim halls he followed you to Diana’s room. The acrid, sickly sweet smell of medicine steeped in the air made him hold his breath as stood outside the door. He could not hear Diana’s voice well, it was a thin whisper, true to her condition. He could not even hear your own voice. What was occurring between you unsaid? Still, he found himself cooling down to a resoluteness as he observed the indignity of all you endured. Your parents had not even bothered to care that you were pregnant, your husband was horrified and probably sent for you in hopes of your miscarriage. Claude was a selfish, romantic fool. He’d surely have sacrificed legacy for the girl who laid in bed dying. So die. He thought. Die quickly, before Claude can have what he wants of my lady.

How easily such gruesome thoughts came to him did not inspire any fear nor shame. He was no longer a green knight.

Claude accosted you when you returned. Not even having yet sit with the thought that your husband had risked your health and safety for the whims of a dying, useless girl, he decided to grace you with anger. He demanded to know what you’d said to her. Of all things to say to the pregnant wife you left confined and isolated. His hand met the pommel of his sword with a loose grasp as he looked on with the thought that he’d meet his end right after he killed Claude if he were to move. He thought on his own death with pragmatism. 

“That child you’re carrying…is it even mine?” Claude’s remark made him see red and yet he had to stay his hand. You fell to the floor in front of him as he scrambled forward to hold you. It was as though Claude had struck you with only his words and Felix had been helpless to stop him. All he’d been waiting for was a step in your direction. He would have unsheathed his sword in a second. He hadn’t expected this. Yet Claude’s cruelty had taken such a clever form. He hadn’t needed to lay a hand on you, something that would warrant Felix to step before you. He knew exactly how to harm you and his child.

He’d carried your body, soft and feverish, to your bedroom. Time and time again you had done this dance, it seemed. Only then did he become vaguely aware of how familiar it felt to pick you up from the floor.

The doctor came again and left without pretense of hope. 

There had been nothing he could do to protect you from the harm Claude had done to you and Felix did believe that what your husband had told you was done for this very effect. If that weak, limp, useless lady could not live, neither could you and the child which might be a thorn in her side in her last days of living. He hated himself for this. He was a coward for not taking Claude’s head off the second he took his position against you that night. For letting him go back to Diana after what he’d said.

The next months passed in uncertainty. Though, in retrospect, Felix might have found that he was the only one uncertain of the outcome. Or at least, the only one pretending to be. He heard your cries through the door as you gave birth with much difficulty. He shifted his weight, chills running down his spine. The screams were bloodcurdling and at times, he accidentally let out a muffled sound of anguish behind his hand at them. It was a violent ordeal, he could smell the blood from outside the door and on the wind as servants whisked in and out of the room carrying towels heavy with blood.

At last, he heard the cry of a child but the room was lacking your voice which he awaited eagerly. He waited to find relief in your voice, cooing to the newborn but he never did. Finally, he simply entered the room, dispensing with propriety. What he saw began to dissolve the corners of reality, leaving him somewhat detached, watching from outside himself. The blood leaked out from under your body off of the sheets and down to the floor, you lay motionless in the center of it, your hair and nightgown wet with sweat. 

“My lady?” He called, wishing he could steal the foolish words back as soon as they came out. 

“The madame has passed,” the doctor said, wiping the blood from his hands with a blank look on his face as the midwives about him tended to the child and began to discard the ruined towels.

He needed nothing more for the world to turn to seafoam beneath him.

The next time he resurfaced, he didn’t even know what day it was, what he had been in the middle of doing. He only knew he’d been outside your door though you were probably hours dead. A dog at his master’s feet. He’d gone feral, ready to tear the flesh from Claude’s body in a moment’s notice, he took his sword in hand hastily. Somehow, he knew that Claude was inside though he could not remember seeing him enter. It was strange, as though the integrity of reality was dissolving with each blink.

He entered the room without tact or stealth, his singular goal to kill the man who had harmed you so. Even if it wouldn’t bring you back, there was a sense of desperation to the act, as though you could benefit from his act of retribution. But when he entered the room, which seemed desaturated and alive, moving with each breath of his— he found Claude in a pool of blood, his and your own, next to the bed. The sight enraged him so much, the audacity of it, the strange juxtaposition of his death here and his actions before. The stolen chance of bringing you vengeance turned the shards of glass from his shattered persona of knighthood turned inward, bleeding only him. 

He could only stare at the hateful scene before him with grief before him as something drew him outward further, the horror of the world becoming mush around him, crumbling in on itself. It happened quickly, that he was drawn from what he believed was his body. The transition was seamless and sudden. 

He startled awake. The darkness of his room seeming like a void, an end, for a moment before he remembered himself. It was slowly that he realized he’d been consumed by a dream, that all the grief he’d woken with was not real. The slurry of memories running through his mind melted together, evaporated as he tried to collect them. Dread settled deep in his stomach even as his false reality turned to dust in his hands. 

He was left only with the hollow feeling, that of a horror endured and buried.

tags: @kage-tobiuo @kreishin @rosephantomhive @yeahdrarry @splaterparty0-0 @dear-dairiess @qluvrv @hafsuhhh @eissaaaa @ayolk @doan-19 @fourcefulcupid @ariachaos @cerisearan @irisspade @yaesflorist @jcrml @xiaosprettygf @yevenly @amaris08atoshi012022 @obsessed-with-a-fictional-man @softbummiee @cassanderasblog @waka-babe @bananatwirl@s1mp69 @mitsuyamistress @hottiewifeyyyy @reiko69 @syyyy4ever @pinkpastel-l @dododododooosworld @gwyneveire @mvoonxlightv @noisyenthusiastface @coldpeachkitten @brightykitten @worstliving @kailyan

[continuousmeowing]

haven't rlly finalized anything but i've made some fun little sketches!!!! hoping to finish this up tomorrow!!!!

i should make a killjoysona.......(<- guy who has sooo many things to get done)

[physalian]

On Grimdark (Or conditioning your audience for cynicism)

Because Game of Thrones is on my mind again for the Hardhome sequence. Everyone has their two cents about the grimdark genre but one thing I don’t see discussed at much length, or widely enough, is how wrapping up a grimdark story has one unique challenge: If you establish a world where everything is miserable and characters are selfish and honorless and there’s no hope for heroism or selflessness, you will not be able to sell your audience on a satisfying ending unless everyone is dead.

What I mean by this is if you have your one little flicker of hope in your protagonist or even a side character, the odds of them having a happy ending in a world that you’ve written to consistently show the worst in people, that ending becomes too unrealistic to feel earned.

In other words, Game of Thrones, but also The Walking Dead and on some level, The Boys. In all three of these (have not caught up to The Boys past Jensen Ackles’ season), the threat of doom is so insurmountable that every victory is consistently one step forward, three steps back.

In GoT it’s corruption and the infallible nefarious ways of the villains and their villainous agenda that keep winning while the good guys keep dying. In The Walking Dead every beacon of hope for a cooperative society for humanity dug out of this zombie hellscape is squandered by organized sadism. In The Boys, the hero propaganda machine and institutionalized living weapons where even the good guys are bad guys, there is no way to win aside from nuking the planet and starting over.

—

I don’t mind grimdark academically. I think it’s interesting to explore as a way to interpret the psychology of the author and what compels someone to both write and enjoy content that’s just misery porn. Grimdark has its place in the cultural zeitgeist as a controlled dose of suffering to help us feel better about the world we live in, like watching horror movies for a controlled dose of terror.

It has its (not as deep as it thinks it is) cultural commentary about the human nature or the political landscape or how we treat our heroes or the tragedy of war, etc and tends to feel more gritty and realistic to what these fantasy worlds could be like without all the hope and optimism. There is a place for it.

However, constantly hammering your audience over and over again with a message of hopelessness and that chivalry is dead and that anyone smiling is naive, dumb, or lying Pavlovs your audience into expecting it all the way to the end.

Meaning: The ending of GoT was a dumpster fire, and it was always going to be. If this is the reason the author hasn’t finished writing it, I wouldn’t be surprised. This is a universe where (spoiler alert):

Sexism, racism, rape, assault, slavery, abuse, torture, child murder, and animal abuse are the law of the land.

Pedophiles walk among us and continue to get away with it (specifically Littlefinger) for far too long.

Even when the good guys take the bad guys down with them, the other bad guys resurrect the corpses of the defeated bad guys to continue carrying out their evil schemes, or Oberyn and The Mountain.

Children are burned at the stake for what amounts to be a pointless ritual, because her mother hangs herself and her father loses catastrophically in battle and then dies, or Shireen.

Sansa’s entire arc. All of it. She gets no reprieve for five whole seasons.

So when you’re staring at the mess you’ve made trying to come up with a satisfying ending for so many arcs, you find yourself with a problem: This world doesn’t run on happy endings. You’ve spent 7 seasons proving happy endings are childish and stupid. You have no way to end this cathartically, because by the rules of your world, all your heroes will end up murdered in gruesome ways. Congrats.

But maybe I’m just bitter.

Like this whole iron throne business. Melting it was the only course of action. Why? No matter who sits on it, the life expectancy of those who do is criminally short. Bran probably died choking on a chicken bone shortly after the end credits.

There is no evidence given in-universe for anyone disappointed that they didn’t end up king or queen to just sit back and take it without continuing to scheme and plot and get a lot of people killed.

There is no evidence to suggest that any of these people would realistically rally together to fight a common enemy without stabbing each other in the back once the threat is handled.

There is no evidence that these people would let bygones be and cheer for the new and just ruler to take the throne indisputably.

While the show does have its bright moments of camaraderie, loyalty, and trust, they are vastly outnumbered by the so-called “realistic” nature of the rest of Westeros. In no reality in the current canon would any leader be able to rule because they’re loved more than they’re feared. That’s not how this show operates, thus there is no way to end the series with your audience confident that Bran or Sansa or Jon or whoever would have actually led the kingdom into brighter futures. They’d just be dead just like their naive, dumb, dad.

—

The Walking Dead is no different. The unofficial motto of the show was that the walkers are bad, but the true enemy of humanity is other humans. Every new group of people either got murdered for being too weak, or did the murdering. In a world where the mortality rate vastly outpaces the birthrate and every group has become jaded and cynical enough to shoot first and ask later, anything less than humanity going out on a bitter and cynical end wouldn’t fit the established tone.

I didn’t watch past the season where Carl was killed off in the conspiracy of the year, but I didn’t think I had to. Killing off Carl was the beginning of the end—they symbolically and literally killed the future of humanity. Judith exists, but Carl is just old enough to remember what the world was like before, to have context for how humanity should be, where Judith doesn’t.

They never made any significant efforts to find a cure or more substantial means of eradicating the walkers. There was no overarching goal of the characters beyond Just Survive Somehow. It just wasn’t sustainable to ever have a satisfying ending, especially when no matter if you get bit or not, you become a walker when you die. So even if they all packed up and sailed to a remote island free from walkers, one unseen death could wipe out their entire camp.

It was always going to be a Sysyphisian task to end that show in a meaningful way, and I don’t think they even tried.

—

The Boys… man, I hate this show. It’s not bad, it’s just not as smart as it thinks it is with all its commentary on the political landscape, as the events they’re criticizing continue to unfold around us. Season two has neo nazis… as real neo nazis are still running amok.

It has the same preaching pitfall that so much liberal content does—if you get too preachy, those who already agree with you will feel talked down to and bludgeoned with your unsubtle message, and those who don’t agree with you won’t feel at all compelled to change sides if you spend every waking second of your show insulting them.

The supers in this show are so omnipresent, so powerful, so staggeringly OP that there is no solution beyond attempting genocide on all of them. There’s no legal avenue to pursue, because you can’t imprison them and they don’t care about petty attempts at enacting justice. You can’t arm the regular humans with basic guns and army gear when the main villain can just laser-eye them all in seconds. You can’t mount a peaceful protest movement or a resistance of any kind when telepaths walk among them and can literally stomp out any signs of nonconformity.

You’ve written yourself an unsolvable problem while trying to write a well-constructed criticism of politics and hero worship. If we can’t solve it in the real world in a single cohesive and satisfying narrative, what makes you think you can?

Anything that tries to kneecap the threat would look weak and cheap, because this show has stuck so close to the ongoing real world narrative. The supers aren’t all robot minions of a hive mind where one bomb that takes out the brain disables the entire hoard. Kill the main bad guy and another will just take his place. There is no winning The Boys, at least the story of it that I’ve seen, and I wasn’t impressed.

—

So no, I don’t like grimdark in application, in settings where you have long-running series with audiences dedicated to following arcs and expecting satisfying endings, because grimdark demands enemies and forces of evil that are just too insurmountable to write a cathartic ending that isn’t cheap or unrealistic.

In both GoT and TWD, since those have finished, they didn’t have to end as disasters. If both had sat down in the writers' room around season 4 of both shows and planned out their five-season step plan to shift the narrative away from grimdark and let their characters actually pursue a viable plan for fixing their miserable worlds, you can still kill off all the characters you want in the name of the end goal of whatever utopia they dream of. But the characters still have to work for it and sacrifice for it and maybe they do lose hope but they keep on keepin’ on despite it.

Grimdark sucks, in my opinion, because as a storytelling convention, it never ends. “Hey what if the world was miserable,” is all well and good, but if your goal is to entertain, how do you tell an entertaining story when the miserable world your characters live in will chew them up and spit out something unrecognizable? I don’t even need a happy ending, but the only convincing ending that grimdark allows is dead heroes and “life sucks get over it”.

—

I don’t know how The Boys is doing or how it will end and I don’t care. I hated it for a lot more reasons than its attempts at sounding smart, like Huey as the most annoying modern Everyman I have seen, and that they didn’t even try to redeem Soldier Boy or stick him in therapy to be an actual better alternative to Homelander, which is what they sought him out for in the first place.

So yeah. Grimdark. Maybe it’s just the late capitalist hellscape we find ourselves in, but why would I read it when I am living it, following characters who don’t have solutions, while watching real leaders who also don’t have solutions?

If you want to write in this genre, more power to you, just think about the long term, overarching goals of your heroes before you get too far in so you can start them on the long road to victory in a believable and satisfying way, otherwise you end up buried in a ditch like the endings of two television juggernauts.

[bakupoleman]

I'm new here. Why do so many Charles fans hate Carlos. I'm genuinely asking this, don't take this in a bad way.

Well, anon, it's not hate, more like a strong dislike that was a result of several on track and off-track events. For me personally, it was Monaco 2021. I don't know if you are aware of what happened, but I will just give you a quick run down.

It's Monaco quali, and everyone is setting times on their first q3 run. Charles ends up setting the fastest time on their first run with max and Carlos on p2 and p3. On their final run, Max is improving massively on Charles' time, and Charles is also setting a time but relatively slower than max. Carlos is down on both Max and Charles times. When Max is going through sector 2, Charles crashes, and the quali is red flagged. So Charles, who was on provisional pole, gets pole. Max and Carlos are both clearly upset, and Max who was in a championship fight, even goes an inch further and defends Charles from reporters that try to stir the pot by saying that he may have crashed on purpose. So, the car is damaged, and come race day, ferrari fails to check the driveshaft, which gives up during the formation lap, and Charles is forced to retire before even starting the race. Carlos got p2 in the race. In the year of 2022, he says that this was the most disappointing podium of his life, even though it was his first podium with the team. His teammate couldn't start his home race on pole, and the best result if Charles had not crashed would have been p3, so I don't know what he was talking about. Add that with the mocking of charles after Silverstone or his family calling Charles a rat and honorless. And the smear campaign that is going on in the media. His off-track controversies also contribute to this. Yeah, it just gives me the ick. This is just my case.

You can like whoever you want to, anon. That's how sports work.

[dwellordream]

thoughts on HOTD, episode 7, season 2 (spoilers below)

I like the point that Aemond's advisors fear him, to everyone's detriment- they're so terrified of his rages that no one wants to tell him the Blacks are gathering dragonseeds. Aegon was a terrible king, but the courtiers ran roughshod over him because while he could be cruel, he wasn't very intimidating to anyone save servants and smallfolk. Aemond is a terrible king because he impulsively makes decisions based on fear- either his own terror of being seen as weak and ineffectual, or to make other people fear and respect him- or both.

Daemon and Oscar Tully's dynamic is that of a bitter, washed-up middle-aged substitute teacher who hates kids, and the overachieving, humorless star student who has zero respect for him. I love it. Also, I think the actor playing Oscar would make a great Robb Stark. I can dream. I do think it's good that the show delves into the ramifications of the Blackwoods' war-criming it up on Bracken lands at Daemon's encouragement- now the river lords have nothing but contempt for Daemon, and the Blackwoods are reviled as honorless thugs. It really gets across Daemon's inherent scumminess- he used Willem Blackwood as a violent pawn, and is perfectly willing to throw him under the bus after the fact.

At this point I think Daemon's Harrenhal hallucinations have run their course. The show could milk it for 3/4 episodes, and I was fine with that, but they're overused by the penultimate episode of this season, and not revealing anything we didn't already know about Daemon. I'm not entirely against Daemon's Riverlands arc the way some fans are- like it or not, at this point during the canonical Dance, he's not doing much. But I think the fever dreams are much more effective in smaller doses. There's nothing else to explore in regards to the Daemon/Viserys relationship. Daemon craves power but has no interest in the mundane reality of ruling. We all know this by now.

I don't get why Rhaenyra's children are depicted being shunted off with so few guards in the Vale- are we supposed to intuit that Jeyne Arryn literally does not give a shit what happens to them, or is this foreshadowing that they will be attacked on the road? It's not clear whether the show is going to do the canonical Battle of the Gullet or not, but again, I wouldn't be surprised if they depict Joffrey dying in it instead of Jacaerys, in order to give his character more screen time and development in Season 3.

I don't agree with the fans calling Jace hypocritical. Yes, he was all-for recruiting other legitimately born nobles of vague Targaryen descent to become dragon riders a few episodes ago. But empowering the actual smallfolk is another matter, and Jace is naturally insecure about the rumors regarding his birth and parentage. If any commoner bastard can tame a dragon, what does that say about him? He's right that Rhaenyra's succession will in all likelihood be challenged, even if she wins the war. Being a dragonrider no longer makes Jace special. And he is perfectly entitled to be angry with Rhaenyra for the legacy she left him. No, she didn't deserve to be forced into a marriage against her will, and she didn't 'owe' anyone legitimate children. But her choices have consequences and they've made Jace's life very difficult.

I actually enjoy Ulf's character here. He's a braggart and an arrogant idiot, but he's not delusional, and I think his back-and-forth with his friends about whether he has what it takes to claim a dragon is fucking hysterical. He's the typical burn-out former party boy, now in his late 30s, who's beginning to realize nothing great is coming around the bend for him.

I also enjoy their take on Hugh. It's debatable whether Hugh is implying that his mother was literally Saera Targaryen, or rather a bastard daughter of Jaehaerys, but either way, what a way to stick it the Conciliator, who was by all accounts a horrible father and husband who treated his wife like a broodmare and his daughters like shit. Hugh is mourning the loss of his daughter and has nothing left to lose. He wants revenge for the basic rights he was denied as a commoner. He's arguably one of the most heroic characters in the show.

I think the issue with Alicent in this episode is that despite this season being so slow-moving, they've sped-run her disillusionment so quickly that now that she's clearly regretful of encouraging Aegon to take the throne and disgusted by Aemond, the writers don't know what to do with her except have her brood. I think it would have been wiser to actually let her express some anger and grief over the loss of Jaehaerys- even if she wasn't close with her grandchildren- rather than to have her floating around nihilistically. At least give her something to motivate herself beyond 'my life is ruined'.

I do enjoy them showing that the dragonkeepers have developed their own ideology and politics. They idolize old Valyria to such a degree that they cannot tolerate the idea of even letting dragonseeds approach dragons, and it's foreshadowing of how the Targaryen legacy is doomed to cannibalize itself. Rhaenyra has to loosen the 'standards' of what makes an ideal dragon rider to gain support for the war- but at the same time, she can't stretch too far, or risk open rebellion from any lowborn dragonrider. If dragons are what makes a king or queen, then does being of noble blood really matter?

I wish they'd had Rhaenyra go down the self-righteous 'the gods will it so' route sooner, but I think it's a good contrast with Alicent to show Rhaenyra becoming inspired by the thought that all is preordained and that her own destiny is to be a great queen, while Alicent has lost faith in her religion, her family, and her own choices. I don't think Rhaenyra is insane or deluded here, but she is able to justify greater and greater sacrifices because she now truly believes she is fated to rule and that Westeros will crumble existentially without stable Targaryen leadership. She believes it to such a degree that she risks her own life with Vermithor in order to show her power before the smallfolk.

I think the ending scene was very well done, Ulf's gleeful flight over King's Landing and Aemond's genuine panic when he realizes he is no longer in control of the dragon power in Westeros was perfect. Overall, I enjoyed this episode more than episode 6, since shit actually happened. I'd give it a 7.5/10.

[maklodes]

One thing I find amusing to imagine in Star Trek is that almost every species that is a member of, or in contact with, the Federation independently discovered the warp drive on its own.* (After all, the Federation generally regards contact with pre-warp species as a violation of the Prime Directive.) Since warp drives are, by our standards, impossibly advanced technology, that basically means that all species not only discovered warp drives on their own, but they also discovered basically everything leading up to warp drives: Newtonian physics of course, quantum mechanics, relativity, all of the mathematics describing all that, whatever crazy material science stuff leads to warp coils etc.

So not only is the valorization of Zephram Cochrane as the inventor of the warp drive just human parochialism (every species has one of those!), but every species also has its own equivalents of Planck, Einstein, Gauss, Euler,  etc, as well. (Okay, not exact equivalents, necessarily. The Bolian photoelectric effect guy needn’t be the same as the Bolian special relativity guy, and maybe in some species some of Lorentz’s discoveries, Poincaré’s discoveries, and/or Einstein’s discoveries were made by the same guy, but still it’s a pretty safe bet that such equivalencies do exist at some level.) 

I imagine conversations among different scientists/engineers of different species:

Human scientist: One barrier to the speed and efficiency of early starships is that  when Zephram Cochrane invented the warp drive…

Vulcan engineer: (sotto voce to a Vulcan associate) Zephram Cochrane was the humans’ equivalent of Sarmok and T’Pran.

Human scientist: … he didn’t have anything like modern duotronic computers, so he made some simplifying assumptions about plasma flow over warp coils, using a pre-existing computational magnetohydrodynamics model based on combining Maxwell’s equations with the Navier-Stokes equation…

Visiting Klingon scientist: Navier-Stokes equation?

Vulcan engineer: (quickly types something into a PADD) Klingons would know it as…  the Tensor of Gwartok the Honorless.

Visiting Klingon scientist: Ah yes, Gwartok’s Tensor. Thank you and sorry to interrupt.

Human scientist: … pardon me, but Gwartok the Honorless?

Visiting Klingon scientist: (sighs) There was an incident early in Gwartok’s life when there was only one open tenure track position. Another postdoc challenged Gwartok to a Bat’leth duel for it. Gwartok never showed up. He said he forgot about it  because he was distracted by thinking about a vexing fluid mechanics problem. Many thought he was an honorless coward.

Vulcan engineer: Fascinating.

Visiting Klingon scientist: … one thing Klingon scientists learn to accept is that it's the macho warrior clan guys who have the political authority, and who appoint the censorship boards which can edit our textbooks. We don’t always get to pick the epithets they assign to past scientists, but at least we still get to use their equations. (Sotto voce to herself) I think I’ll look up Maxwell’s Equations on my own.

One possibility is that universal translators just translate terminology based on specific names into the equivalent for the appropriate species. Although that could lead to its own problems:

Betazoid: After Zephram Cochrane’s first successful warp, when we were contacted by Captain Robau of the USS Kelvin, as a species we mostly put aside our ancient...

Human: After Zephram Cochrane’s first successful warp? Okay, I guess this would have taken place after that, but did you really mean..

Betazoid: (fidgets with combadge in irritation) Right. I really meant our species’ inventor of the warp drive, Lwaxana Hoitrax. You heard Zephram Cochrane though, right?

Human: Yes.

Betazoid: I guess the main clause of my thought about species unification and all that jazz was interpreted as being broadly applicable to warp drive inventions and first warps in general so it got translated into “Zephram Cochrane” for a human, but my secondary clause about Captain Robau and the Kelvin was too specific and particular to our history to get translated into a universal equivalent. I didn’t know I was going to add that secondary clause until I had already started saying my main clause, so the translator got caught off-guard, so to speak.

* There may be a few exceptions to the “Federation members/contacts all discovered warp drives on their own” rule. Like, if a pre-warp species gets conquered by the Cardassians, and thus gets coercively inducted into the warp-enabled galactic community without independently discovering warp drives, then the Cardassians attack the Federation and lose a war, being forced to cede some peripheral territories (including the conquered species) in the peace treaty, then the conquered species might regain independence, then decide to pursue Federation membership. 

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: B’Elanna Torres

By Ames

Get ready to have an honorable day as we swivel our character spotlight over to the Voyager’s chief engineer this week on A Star to Steer Her By. Every day is an identity crisis for B’Elanna Torres, whose half-Klingon, half-human pedigree serves to frequently explore mixed heritages, familial disputes, and issues of self loathing as the series goes on. But mostly, Torres is just a wildly creative and intelligent character who is so frequently pushed to the brink, as is this show’s wont.

So grab a fork and dig into a whole freakin’ blood pie as we take a deep dive into Torres’s complex character and rich backstory. Read on below for some choice moments and listen to our recitation of the Klingon plea for the dead over on this week’s podcast episode (warp over to 54:21). Qapla’!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Did we just become best friends? Early in the series, Torres has a lot to prove, both as one of the Maquis terrorists that joins the integrated crew and as a character who clearly has a permanent chip on her shoulder about all things Starfleet. So it’s a wonderful moment of bonding with Janeway when they work together in “Parallax” to escape the event horizon of a quantum singularity using science!

Me, myself, and identity crisis It always amazes me that “Faces” is slotted in season one of Voyager because it is so successful at exploring the dual nature of Torres’s makeup while her character is still getting her footing. When she is split into her Klingon and human halves, she really gets to take a closer look at herself (literally!) and how her two identities make her whole (also literally!). Early character work for the win!

Nothing, just talking to myself For the first (but not last) time Roxann Dawson voices a homicidal computer, we are treated to Torres figuring out how to disarm the Dreadnought in “Dreadnought.” She’s prepared to sacrifice herself to stop this weapon from taking out a planet, but it’s a triumph to listen to her argue with herself until she succeeds, even if she did create the weapon in the first place…

Prototype Unit 0001 is ready to accept programming We totally missed mentioning this one on the podcast, so I’m squeezing it in now because it’s such good work from Dawson. In “Prototype,” she tries so hard to help the automated units find a way to reproduce, creating sentient life in Prototype Unit 001, which is impressive on its own! So that makes it all the more devastating when she has to deactivate him, her first child.

A more honorable Klingon than Worf We gave Worf some stink for refusing to donate blood to the dying Romulan in “The Enemy,” and in “Lifesigns,” Torres goes the other way. When Danara Pel needs some of her Klingon tissue, Torres looks past the trauma that Vidiians inflicted on her and sees that Danara is an individual. Lumping everyone of a species together is not the Starfleet way. Worf, take note.

Learn the truth for yourself There’s a lot that we like about “Remember,” and a lot of that comes down to some stellar acting from Roxann Dawson. Torres won’t stand by quietly as the Enarans sweep their problematic history under the rug and pretend they’ve been a moralistic society all along. She steps up for learning from the past, acknowledging where we’ve come from, and being better for it.

You’re not going to learn anything from being with these lollipops Another instance of Torres not letting someone take the easy way out comes when she meets the Doctor’s The Sims family in “Real Life.” She reprograms his bubblegum characters to have something closer to agency of their own, challenging the Doc to learn to compromise with and respect his fake wife and fake kids. Ya know, skills that he can use with his actual crew!

B’Elanna and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Honorless Day I’m a sucker for the quiet reflection and character study that we see in “Day of Honor” when Torres and Paris are on the brink of death, floating in space helplessly in EV suits. In confronting what could be her final moments, Torres finds some clarity in her existence. And it’s just a touching admission for her to voice her love for Tom, kicking off their romance arc.

I’m going to have to deactivate you It’s telegraphed from pretty early in the episode, but it’s still impressive when Torres takes out Dejaren with an isomimetic conduit in “Revulsion.” We do give her credit for trying to help the wayward hologram in the first place, but she’s also smart enough to see through his facade and keep herself alive when he predictably goes nuts and tries to kill her because she’s corporeal.

Where’s the boob tube? This is a smaller detail but it’s indicative of the Torres-Paris relationship. When Tom returns from a two-week away mission, B’Elanna surprises him with a classic TV set in “Memorial.” It’s surprising Tom didn’t already have one, so it’s a good touch to see that B’Elanna knows exactly the kind of thing that would make his day, like a loving and thoughtful partner would.

We’re still alive and I’m still asking Star Trek overall is hit or miss when it comes to character relationships (one day, we’ll cover them all!), but Tom and B’Elanna just work. Sure, they both do stupid things sometimes, and you’ll see them in our Worst Moments lists, but Torres marrying Paris in “Drive” is weirdly right. It’s a joy to see how much they complement and expand each other’s characters. <3

Not every Cardassian is arrogant and cruel Wow, Torres gets held hostage by holograms a lot, doesn’t she? The thing I like most about “Flesh and Blood” is Torres’s interaction with the Cardassian hologram engineer Kejal. As we’ll see below, Torres has a bit of a tiff with Cardassians, but like she did with Danara Pel in “Lifesigns,” she’s able to treat this one like an individual and work together to save the day!

—

Worst moments

I know this weapon very well You know I love it when the same episode pops up on two lists. Even though Torres did a great job disarming the Cardassian missile in “Dreadnought,” don’t forget that it was her fault that this thing was careening around in the Delta Quadrant in the first place. She knows this thing like the back of her hand because she was the one that reprogrammed it for the Maquis!

No means NO! I will shit on pon farr every opportunity I get, the same way I shit on oomox jokes. So even though Torres herself isn’t to blame for contracting pon farr in “Blood Fever,” it sure is the writers’ fault. It’s just so gross to watch this strong character lose her agency because of that creep Vorik, and it’s even worse that she tries to rape Tom even when he rightly tells her no.

No PDAs next to the warp core The Torres-Paris relationship is quite cute, as we stated up above, but their constant making out in the middle of engineering in “Scientific Method” is unprofessional. Guys, your coworkers on the first floor can totally see and hear everything, and we know how loud Klingon mating is, so keep it in your quarters when you’re off the clock before Tuvok writes you up.

If thoughts could kill… Even compared to other Klingons, Torres’s temper is substantial. The strength of the violent mental image she concocts in “Random Thoughts” pushes the Mari who experience it into committing murder. So really, how bad must it have been if it had such an exaggerated effect on people that their police force wanted to lobotomize her? Nightmare fuel, no doubt.

Try to remember that we are not just a bunch of drones Ever since Seven of Nine first joins the crew in “The Gift,” Torres is a major bitch to the former Borg. She’s opposed to working with her in “Day of Honor” because of her background even though Seven is recuperating, and it’s not until Chakotay orders her to chill out on the poor woman in “Message in a Bottle” that Torres shows her any respect at all.

Where’s Counselor Troi when you need her? We will say on the podcast that Voyager badly needed a counselor until the cows come home, and “Extreme Risk” is the perfect example of that. Torres is clearly coping with trauma, among a lot of other stressors, but instead of coping with it in a healthy way, she opts for the dangerous solution of getting herself injured in the holodeck all the time. At least program a Freud puppet!

As far as I’m concerned, they’re all cold-blooded killers Somehow, even though Torres was able to put racism aside in “Lifesigns” to help Danara Pel, she won’t give an inch to Cardassians in “Nothing Human” to save herself. And this Cardassian isn’t even real! It seems like a weird hill to literally die on for Torres to be so stubborn and willfully naive to refuse care. At least ask the Doc to reprogram Moset’s face first!

You must learn to master your emotions So most of “Juggernaut” is a Best Moment for B’Elanna but I ran out of slots above, so here we go. Even though she successfully figures out the whole Malon ship problem and discovers the true identity of the Vihaar, so much of the episode feels like a regression because Torres spends so much of it angry and violent – a backpedal for how far she’s come as a character.

Death becomes her Speaking of character regressions. This show can’t seem to decide where Torres ever stands in her relationship with her Klingon culture, and “Barge of Dead” goes all in on mystical claptrap. Despite five previous seasons of keeping her roots at an arm’s length, Torres uncharacteristically jumps into this dangerous death ritual with both feet. What the Gre’thor?

Such a Mary Sue It’s sweet that Torres is so nice to Kellis the playwright while he writes his Voyager fanfiction in “Muse.” But she crosses the line when she decides to improv an ending for Kellis’s play just because she’s so egotistical that she doesn’t want him to kill her character off, beaming out in front of the whole audience. It might be the most selfish reason for breaking the Prime Directive yet!

I’d say you’re capable of a lot more than delivering PADDs, if you know what I mean I blame this one more on the writers than on B’Elanna, but it still made me uncomfortable. Icheb gets it into his hormone-fueled head that Torres has taken a romantic interest in him in “Nightingale,” which is just peak adolescent boy fantasy. Unknowingly, she leads him on, and what I’m sure was supposed to be a joke just feels cringe. Really, she should’ve decked him.

Genetic modification is the treatment of choice Close to the end of the show, we’re back to Torres’s fraught view of her Klingon genes when she learns her unborn daughter will have head ridges in “Lineage.” Torres falls yet again into a spiral of self-loathing, assuming Tom will leave her the way her father did, and she tries to trick the EMH into surgically altering the fetus to remove any Klingon attributes. That is without honor!

—

Let’s restore some honor to this post before we move on to our next character spotlight. Keep watching here as we go through the whole Voyager crew and also keep following along as we’ve finally reached season 4 of Enterprise over on the watchalong podcast at SoundCloud or whatever listening app you like best. You can also bond with us about science over on Facebook and Twitter, and if you’ve got Klingon rage problems, maybe talk to the EMH about it.

[missingn000]

tpg character mini-analysis: hajime kashimo + honor

i wanted to talk a bit about one of kashimo's defining traits that no other tpg character has: honor. after gojo meets them, he trudges away thinking kashimo has no moral structure, but this isn't...quite true. this quality shapes how hajime views the world as they evaluate others' actions based on a certain standard of conduct.

take a look at this line of theirs:

“What [the sorcerers] did back then in order to execute [Sukuna]…I can’t think of anything else so honorless. It doesn’t matter how many sorcerers he took down. There are some things you just don’t do.”

sukuna's yet-unrevealed backstory is incredibly devastating and tragic. in most people, it would evoke intense feelings of sympathy, sorrow, and anger on sukuna's behalf. others would say the people who did That to sukuna were heartless.

but instead kashimo says it was honorless. to them, this is the equivalent of the visceral reaction other people would've had. it's about perspective and priorities.

more below cut!

hajime continues to say:

They shake their head. “If the stories of what the sorcerers did to him back then are true...as far as I’m concerned, they deserved it.”

they deserved it. they DESERVED it? even mahito says he's surprised hajime would take sukuna's side. i'll say this conclusively about sukuna's backstory: the myth that after his failed execution, he wiped out an entire prefecture upon becoming a curse is true.

but hajime still thinks that punishment was deserved. what the sorcerers did to execute sukuna was so far beyond their rigid standard of conduct that such a fate was an appropriate punishment to them.

further, something that significantly annoys them about mahito is that he kills people who can't fight back. tpg 37 got long as hell, so i cut a few things, including this short snippet:

It’s not the violence that repulses them; that’d be illogical for someone whose body count is in the triple-digits. But there’s no honor in it, just slaughtering people who can’t even put up a fight. Kashimo’s fought more than their fair share of unsatisfying, ultimately one-sided battles, but that’s what they were: battles. Reciprocated killing intention. Of course weaklings deserve to die, but that’s a retroactive punishment.

they're repulsed at the idea of killing someone who's done nothing at all for no reason. killing the storehouse guards had a purpose: those people were in the way of their goals and actively fought back to try to stop them. but mahito frequently kills innocent people just for fun, which is completely honorless to them.

four hundred years ago, when sorcery was all about duels and death matches, honor existed in the place of laws or a legal structure. since death was a permitted end to a fight, there had to be something to keep sorcerers from just going around slaughtering people. honor is a form of social currency that earns respect and dignity within a community. conducting actions that fall outside its definition result in being hated and shunned.

however, despite mahito's misgivings, mahito is still rapidly becoming someone important to them -- the first person ever to be important to them. this does not fit in their current moral structure. take a look at what kashimo says when gojo is surprised they'd lay down their life to protect mahito:

Hajime flinches. “I made a promise,” they try. The glow beneath their eyes flickers, a store sign that can’t decide if it’s open or closed. “Breaking it would be honorless. I’d rather die than not be able to live with myself.”

Honor? No one has done anything strictly for honor in hundreds of years. “Is that really what you’re worried about?”

“Of course it is,” Hajime replies, after a delay too long to be entirely convincing. “I have no interest in forming bonds with others, least of all him.”

they're still pretty in denial regarding caring about mahito, so they're trying to convince themself it's about honor, because they can tie that to their existing values. since caring about someone is new, it's far more grounding to sort it into a value structure they already possess rather than face the horrifying ordeal of creating a new one that goes against their current worldview.

in that quote, they say they'd rather die than not be able to live with themself. honor is so important to them that the idea of acting without it is worse than death; they couldn't sleep at night. extreme, right? but i actually got this idea from canon.

take a look at this panel from hakari vs kashimo:

this. why did no one talk about this?? kashimo is someone who exists for fighting strong opponents. they let kenjaku brutally mutilate their body into a cursed object to incarnate four centuries into the future with the sole purpose of fighting sukuna. if hakari killed them here, that goal would not happen.

and yet.

they ask him to kill them. or rather, they think hakari should kill them. it was a fair fight. a fair loss of which they accept the outcome. therefore, they believe it is hakari's right to kill them. that's so, so interesting to me, and it really stands out against the backdrop of their otherwise shallow personality, so i just couldn't resist expanding on it.

their character will continue to develop throughout the story, so stay tuned. thanks for reading!

[howlingday]

Carmine: I sign this and... then what?

Emerald: Then we go find your cute, little girlfriend, rekindle your love, you tell us about the Crown, and we all live happily ever after.

Carmine: And if I refuse?

Emerald: Well, that's called treason, and the punishment for that is... Well, have you ever heard of the Mistrali punishment, "The Tub"?

Carmine: R-Right! The Crown! Sure! Uh, where do I sign?

Watts: (Kicks in the door) So, you think you're tough, do you?! Well, I'll show you just how tough you really are! I am the dog who will rip your tongue out of the cat's mouth! Well?! Answer me, Mr... Uh... Is this interrogation room 2B?

Emerald: This is interrogation room 2C, Watts. She just agreed to help us.

Watts: Ah! Yes! Right! (Ahem!) Er, excuse me.

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

Carmine: Should we stop them?

Emerald: In a minute. I want to finish my latte. It was nine lien. Nine! For a latte!

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

Coco: Huntress Coco Adel, Shade Academy! I'm shuttting this arching down! I have reason to believe that your villain is in possession of an illegal weapon!

Carmine: Coco, it's... It's me.

Coco: Great. You're here, too. You listen to me, Rattler; you Crown cronies are scum! Honorless, gutless scum!

Emerald: Ugh! Would you just give her a chance?!

Coco: And who the hell are you, miss croptop?

Emerald: Excuse me? You listen to ME; you Ozpin school dog, I will kick your fat, trucker ass down this god damn street! I don't care if Carmine is spying on the Crown for us, set all this up, and is trying to get back together with you because I am going to kick! The shit! Outta you!

Coco: You're... You're a double agent? Why didn't you tell me-

Emerald: NONONO! Screw this happy ending shit! This bitch is getting a beatdown!

Cinder: Ah! C-Councilwoman, uh, Levis! I am so glad you are here! (Guides Emerald away) My little villain had an accident with his star gun!

Mercury: Uh, why don't you two get outta here? There's gonna be a lot of paperwork, so there's no need to ruin all our nights.

Coco: Well... There was that new store I wanted to check out. The boots looked tacky.

Carmine: Oh, it's not just the boots.

Coco: Really? Well, why don't you show me? (Walks off with Carmine)

Cinder: That was close... You could have lost your seat in the Inner Circle!

Emerald: You're right. I... You saved my life.

Cinder: No, I saved your job. I saved that woman's life. You would have kicked her ass!

Emerald: (Blushes) Thank you, honey..

[feotakahari]

A few Scrapyard Station subcultures

Metalheads: no, not music fans. These are Tinkers who replace a patch of their skull with metal. It’s meant to be a symbolic representation of the brain surgery Tinker soldiers require in order to fight Parasites, and it shows their support for the war effort. In practice, it also shows they hate everyone who isn’t a Tinker. Real-life equivalent: somewhere between people with “we support our troops” bumper stickers and people who wear replica Waffen SS pins.

Scraggles: Nomads who let their floof grow long and unkempt. They still do enough maintenance to avoid matting, but they don’t bother looking attractive or even presentable by Nomad standards. They encourage others to not worry about whether their fur looks bad and not put so much daily effort into being as prettified as possible. Real-life equivalent: you might think of women who don’t wear makeup, but since Nomads don’t have genders, they’re actually closer to old-fashioned punks.

Entitled: Steward religion doesn’t have a complete stranglehold over their species, and these folks openly and proudly reject it. Unfortunately, what they reject is the part about environmentalism. Since the Goddess never returned, she no longer has a claim on their world, and they declare their right to do anything they wish with what she left behind. These are also the only Stewards who want anything to do with cybernetics, though their compatibility isn’t nearly as good as Tinkers. Real-life equivalent: Richard Dawkins if he was the CEO of Exxon.

Plainsfolk: essentially, these are to Riders what the Pure are to Tinkers, but even more so. The Pure at least accept enough medical technology to keep from dying early, and enough transport and weapons technology to wage their crusade against Parasites. Plainsfolk don’t even want agriculture, let alone vaccines. On the plus side, they’re not sexist or homophobic like the Pure often are. Real-life equivalent: those tribes that kill anyone who tries to talk to them.

Scholar Warrens: most Scholars maintain an “unconnected” hive mind, with essentially the same personality and pre-death memories as their donor. But some embrace the potential for hives to join together into a single entity. The self matters less to them than the quest for knowledge, and it’s common for these mega-hives to split off an individual to have separate experiences and learn separate things before joining the collective again. (A “rogue” hive may decide not to rejoin the collective, but this is a minority of another minority in what’s already a minority race.) Real-life equivalent: maybe some kind of cult?

*Glopping sound*, *glapping sound*, *gloaping sound*: only Scrappers can remember the differences between these, but they’ll scrap with you if you confuse one for another. “How dare you! We’re nothing like those honorless *glupping sound*!” Real-life equivalent: an Armenian who’s just been told he’s “basically the same” as a Turk.

[motsimages]

I don't know if the writers in DS9 noticed the klingon situation happening. Someone probably just wanted the klingons to go back to the fighting so that they can be the baddies again but they had a gem to work with that could have gone in a completely different direction if people didn't care about war so much.

The first klingon that gets to DS9 and stays is the owner of the klingon restaurant. A guy who just is in it for the show, he serves food, he turns off his translator, he sings traditional songs. He is the stereotypical klingon but he doesn't exploit the war part of the klingon culture.

There are two things we know about klingons before that: they do war and they write operas (probably to speak about war, they mention a lot the songs that will speak of their battles). This guy is tangentially using the cultural part of the klingon culture, he doesn't even wear war-like clothes, he is wearing what? Linen? And people love it.

But when Dax' friends come to seek revenge, one of them complain that things are changing. People don't want to go to war like before, they open restaurants now. Old klingons with a personal vendetta as opposed to young klingons doing other things that are not fighting.

We have House of Quark, that shows us a klingon using honorless ways of achieving power and influence. He is using money to keep his house to himself. Other klingons turn his back on him, this is the worst cowardice. Also, in such a male dominated culture, there is a way for women to have power. Through family and marriage, alright, but there she is, Grilka, using it all to keep her house for her.

There could have been a battle there, the traditional way, but in the end there was none because it would have been honorless to just kill Quark. I can understand that this is not the first time something like this happens. Klingons harshly criticise those who don't do battle right.

But then we have the leader of the klingons choosing battle against the dominion and against the federation and against it all, probably manipulated by the dominion so we have all the conflict with the klingons again. Worf is there unable to choose if he wants to be klingon or not.

We are told that klingons always bring trouble, they are aggressive, Quark doesn't want to deal with them in his bar. But those klingons are in the army. They are soldiers. They are ready to die in battle any time, that is the glory. So when they are alive, they are The Alivest, and that comes with alcohol to deal with severe ptsd (there is no possible way klingon warriors don't have side-effects to this life) and with "party" according to their hypermasculine/army concept of party: destructive, it's only fun if it is the thing I see as fun.

This is something Worf doesn't get because he hasn't lived it, he didn't grow up with klingons and he didn't go to war with klingons. And that is never explained because "klingons are like that".

But they aren't. We've seen other klingons who arent' like that. The restaurant owner. Kor. Grilka with Quark. Probably others I don't know because I haven't seen all Star Trek.

Klingons speak abruptly in what seems to outside bystanders "an angry way", they gesture in a way that looks aggressive from the outside. They are one of the most emotional races in the Star Trek universe (and they probably were created as a contrast to the logical Vulcans, the 60s scifi thing that I hate so much).

Here is the thing though: That happens to Mediterraneans and Spanish speakers when Northern Europeans look at us! I've seen real fear in the face of German people sitting next to me when I was speaking with Venezuelan friends. I had to actually told the Germans that we were not fighting, that we were speaking about something else. That happens to Arabs too when they are in Northern countries. Certain peoples are always barbaric and aggressive from the outside.

So klingons have a warrior culture but not all of them are warriors. They speak about any important or relevant task to society as "it is a honor", "you did it with honor". Honor is very important but there is honor in cooking and cleaning, in caring for other people, in composing songs. It is more an idiom to congratulate someone than a reality of war.

And now that peace had been reached with the Federation, that they stopped their traditional war ways, some people like it. Some people find honor in other things. The old guard don't, they still remember the war, they still told their children about the good old times and their children envy them. But many others didn't have those good old times to begin with because even in the most war-like state ever, some people never go to war. There are probably klingon widows stuck in Qo'noS who don't remember war warmly. There are probably workers and farmers who never left their planet to conquer the galaxy.

Worf is superfar from all this. He only has visited klingon territory. He has spent his life amongst humans, unable to really behave like them (I bet he was mainly with white bland people) and idealising things that he had never lived or heard from the klingon people. Only the human version of klingon until he has been old enough. And still, he joined Starfleet. How many klingons are there in Starfleet? What do they think of the other aliens in Starfleet?

So if the writers didn't want to take the war route (or at least, not with the klingon), we could have seen the social change in klingon culture from the old ways of war to something more peaceful. They still have their traditional fights, now turned into sports. They still have their idioms related to war, battle and honor, but they use them to any and all aspects of life. "This food is worthy of a warrior", "It's such a good day, one could die happily in a day like this", "You brought honor to this house with grades as good as this, son".

In a change like this, Worf would be very confused at the beginning but he could befriend the restaurant owner, he could have a place amongst klingons, a privileged one even because he knows how other cultures do things. He could finally find his place as someone between cultures without renouncing to any of them.

I know we already are seeing the cracks in Ferengi culture, so it may have been to many cracks in different cultures at the same time, but that could also have been an interesting take, how all cultures are affected by the wormhole. The whole situation has changed now that we can travel fast through it, there is no need to go back to the old ways. Klingon still have an army, they offer to patrol and be of service since they have the skills, but they are not the conquerors they once were because there is no honor in that anymore. Some want to take control, go back to the war ways, but they solve it amongst themselves, the klingon way.

Maybe they didn't do this because they were doing something similar to this with Cardassia, with the civil and government change and all that. But they really did dirty to the klingons by making them, yet again, the brainless barbarians obsessed with battle. Poor restaurant guy, who has he to speak to?

[ruiniel]

Observing the chamber, Míriel hesitates at first, but finally nears a table where a pitcher of water rests. She takes a crystal glass without much ado, but her hand ceases its intent mid air as she reaches for the pitcher, biting her lip. Poison is the lowly weapon of honorless cowards. And she would put nothing past him.

“You may safely drink of it, Ar-Zimraphel.”

Startled, Míriel releases a shamefully sharp cry; the glass shatters in myriads of pieces on the cold tiles. She whirls around, and anger rushes through her features in a furious burst. “You!”

He stands in the middle of the chamber clad in his ceremonial robes, his features still hidden behind his mask; watching her. Mirth dances in his eyes, and something else that burns Míriel to cinders.

Seeing his relaxed pose, Míriel regains herself, though her nerves are still on edge. “Your assurances leave much to be desired,” she mutters.

“Oh, young one…” Sauron sighs. He removes his mask, revealing his face: smooth features, the diaphanous, youthful allure only those of the Eldar seem to possess. But she knows his unearthly beauty is yet another mask. There is no emotion, no humanity to him; of course, there would not be. Blank marble, like a magnificent, lifeless statue. “I have no reason to end you, not really. Please, I know you are thirsty,” he beckons, stepping towards her.

Míriel retreats from him. He walks right past her, and her eyes widen to see him taking no heed of the shards that shimmer on the floor and stab his bare soles. He reaches for the pitcher and pours himself a glass of water, then turns ostensibly to her, toasting with a mocking smile. “To life everlasting.” He downs the liquid then crosses his arms, regarding her with a thoughtful expression.

Míriel musters her most commanding voice, though meeting his stare feels like facing a tempest at sea in a sinking raft. “You will unlock the doors.”

Sauron raises a shapely silver-gold eyebrow. “I thought you wanted to speak to me. Which is it, Míriel ?” the scornful smile returns. Assessing her wary stare, he sighs. “I said you'd not be hurt.”

Míriel finds her feet, and despite her growing resentment, she steps closer. Perhaps it is another of his spells, but without that mask and weaponless, he seems utterly benign; harmless. Míriel considers this must be one of his tactics that work so well on the king.

“You said I was safe,” her voice drops to a whisper.

Sauron grins. “I did. But you don’t believe me either way. Which is why you had that pitiful dagger with you, yes?”

Beyond will, her hand reaches and touches his drawn cheek; warm, burning. “That’s right,” she says.

His jaw tenses as her fingers glide lower. He looks tired and rather sickly now, but his eyes burn; they always burn. “Deceiver.”

His smile is silk as Sauron looks down on the mortal. “Full of compliments tonight, are we?”

Her hand feels the fine thread of his bloodred tunic. “Your reputation precedes you; your deeds speak volumes,” she chokes, meeting his eyes again.

“Then how about this deed?” he steps back from her touch. “You are free to go.”

Míriel frowns, her hand falling to her side. “What?”

“Free, Ar-Zimraphel. Come, I speak your language fairly well,” he motions with his hand towards the doors. There is a clicking sound, signalling they came unlocked.

[thegreenleavesofspring]

.

screaming howling crying

you did this to me

you STOLE me you stole who i am everything about me everything i loved

THIEF

i hate you. i hate you i hate you i hate you i hate you i hate you i hate you

honorless

weak

pathetic

predator

i have not seen you in months and i pray i never will again and yet you still hold me

i think of you when i dance

when i whirl through my living room screaming howling crying

you are in every song i sing

you are everywhere i look

and

i

want

you

GONE

i want my life back you son of a bitch

[cjoatprehn]

I AM DISABLED BLACK SINGLE MOTHER WITH 3 KIDS

I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO EXPLAIN to ANYONE what I'm doing in my everyday life too get help because believe me or NOT but I am actually in programs and in touch with every resource possible in my area for housing, food, and medical help!!! My Goal is $310 but now I have received $114.71 please help me.

DONATE ANYTHING/ SHARE, RB

If you want to help me and my 3 kids because we need 15 people to donate $195.29 please help me and my 3 kids, thank you. DONATION PAGE IN BIO

…*sighs*

Okay so. I didn’t know how to respond to this. But…this felt extremely familiar and not in a good way. I am sorry for your situation, and I can emphasize with it. That’s as far as I’m able to go on that.

In addition to being triggered from the simultaneous screech noise from multiple devices in the place I am staying in. This ask triggered a flashback to…well. I’ve had enough on that.

I am only answering this ask to affirm a boundary I wish I didn’t have to reinforce again. As much as I’d love to help you, I can’t, not financially. The most I can do is answer this ask but that’s as far I can go without depersonalization and elongated dissociative periods.

Boundary: if you send this type of ask to me, or DM me similarly, and I do not know you; please be aware your ask and/or DM will be deleted and you will be blocked if it is pushed to me further.

I know what it’s like to be smothered cruelly and on your last of ropes, I wouldn’t wish it anyone. These initiate flashbacks I don’t wish to relive again. I do not have the mental capacity to continue to endure what I have from being altruistic and helping folks left and right in a honorless battlefield. I can’t do it anymore. Certainly not now. I’m trying to stand on my feet again after all I experienced.

No.

I hope you find the financial help you need. I wish the best for you.

Don’t send me this kind of ask again.