#that we have no way of contextualizing the names w their times

[garlique]

the real question is who tf were beloved and sloan and zinger LMAO

[cerealmonster15]

i dont think i ever felt more annoyed at commercials than when those mean girls walmart ads were playing a few months ago or whenever that was

[sprintingowl]

Positioning, Market Dominance, And Having A Conversation In A Loud Room

So I'm reading Middle Earth Roleplaying 2nd ed. It's part of giant stack of tabletop I got from a publishing friend---and one of many systems I probably wouldn't be reading if I hadn't gotten it as part of a giant stack of tabletop from a publishing friend.

MERP 2e was released in '93, by Tolkein Enterprises, and is a pretty thorough book. It's packed full of nice B&W art. It lets you play as everything from a hobbit to an olag-hai. It uses a d100 system that allows for success with a complication. It's a book that feels intensely and simultaneously like it's ahead of and behind its time.

But that's not what I want to talk about.

MERP 2e has an alignment system, much like dnd at the time, but with twelve axis instead of two. Everything from whether your character is a metaphorical thinker to whether they're a literal thinker to whether they're a socialist or a libertarian is tracked.

Similarly, MERP has a classic six stat spread, but the explanations of the stats are all like "Strength(ST): Not brute musculature, but your ability to use your muscles to your greatest advantage."

And MERP has classes, called Professions, that each come with a little parenthetical explanation after their title. The Warrior's is (Fighter). The Scout's is (Thief). The Animist's is (Cleric).

What you might notice is that this is an officially licensed Middle Earth game *aggressively* defining and contextualizing itself vis a vis DnD. "Here's how our stats are different. Here's why our skill rolls are more granular. But don't worry, you can still play the same party roles. We promise we're not unfamiliar, just different."

Now, I don't know how intentionally-as-a-market-strategy the designers and writers were doing this---DnD's headlock on the industry was certainly less intense then than now---but it's reflective of a kind of design pressure that not only hasn't gone away. It's gotten way more intense.

DnD is roleplaying games. Anything that's not DnD might not be roleplaying games. Or at least, it's suspicious, it might taste weird, it might ruin your ability to have fun or speak english forever.

So in order to be a roleplaying game, you have to ask yourself "how do I fit into DnD?"

A critique I've seen leveled at indie systems sometimes is that they don't properly represent all of the three pillars of DnD. The three pillars is a modern creation. It's a 5e thing. It's specific to DnD. But DnD is roleplaying games, and to be a roleplaying game you need to be DnD.

So you get games as chameleons. You get endless "DnD killers" hoping that what people like about DnD isn't the name but the mechanics, and if you can just do the mechanics *more*, people will like you better. You get five hundred 5e splats. Power Rangers and GI Joe and Stargate all trying to fit into the same engine about swinging at and then missing a large rat. You get Adventure Time throwing out its original system and self-converting into a 5e hack because the market doesn't want things that don't look like DnD---even things that already look like DnD.

And back in '93 you get MERP 2e telling you don't worry, we still have the Thief, we just call it something different in our house.

[horizon-verizon]

Lyanna & Rhaegar "Master Post"

*Will be updated probably many times*

Yes, this is narratively/IN-WORLD a love story and a love pairing. This post gives the reasons why it is meant to be so, and does so from a Watsonian vs a Doylist approach.

A List of Different Posts

ozymalek/Phoenix Ashes's Breakdown of How the story of Rhaegar and Lyanna is MEANT to be a Love Story, with Evidence from Text

A Claim that they were similar to Aemond and Alys under the War Prize = R*pe Context

My Reblog of a Thread: The Actual Timeline of Rhaegar, Lyanna, Aerys, etc to show how Aerys and not Rhaegar is Responsible for Elia's being in KL; Elia's Possible Reactions to Lyanna and Rhaegar; Political Marriage; The Dornish's Relationship w/the rest of Westeros

la-pheacienne's Words abt how fallacious it is to expect war from Rhaegar's actions alone....Aerys caused the war, not Rhaegar; The Queen of Love and Beuaty; "Ethical Authenticity" when Rhaegar Ran Off w/Lyanna // MY REBLOG OF IT -- this post

la-pheacienne's Response to my question: "What do you think about Rhaegar and Lyanna?"

Duty vs Love in ASoIaF

Consummation & Age of Majority in Westeros

An ask to ladymorgana91: "Do you think that Lyanna and Rhaegar were seriously in love?" -> ORIG // MY REBLOG

Cersei vs Elia & Fandom's Love for the Dead Ladies

More Reiterations of Certain Textual and Contextual Evidence for it Being a Romance Pair

An ask about how Game of Thrones Muddled People's View of Legitimization vs Acknowledgement, Polygamy, and Jon Snow being Rhaegar's Heir or Named "Aegon"

Elia is not PoC, bc the Dornish are not "PoC" but "spicy whites" even with there being discrimination against Dornish people..."white" people can be racist/ethnically dehumanizing against certain other "white" people; but even with all that, Rhaegar the man himself has never displayed any disfavor towards Elia purely or partly from her being Dornish just because Aerys did...we must remember that these two (Aerys and Rhaegar) had a very strained relationship, possibly and likely abusive, so it's very unlikely that Rhaegar shared his father's complete disregard for others in this way, esp when all his description form both not-so-great to pretty moral characters have thus far described Rhaegar as melancholy do-gooder

an ask to dragonsfromthemoon: "It says a lot about the hypocrisy of fandom when they hate Rhaegar for "abandoning" his wife and kids to fight in war but don't hate Ned for doing the same to his pregnant bride Catelyn. Rhaegar was an able-bodied prince who knew how to fight and ride a horse; to not fight would have branded him a coward. The reason Jaime and the other Kingsguard stayed behind is because they are sworn to protect the royal family which is why Rhaegar tasked them to protect Lyanna and Elia." // MY REBLOG

a reblog about Wuthering Heights and how people tend to approach Love in fiction, by la-pheacienne // MY REBLOG of it

Further Notes

One can argue that there is a power imbalance for every single relationship or relationship-to-be in this world, because women almost never have the same authorities or access to resources that a man automatically can inherit and use to exert authority over women...that's how feudal-monarchial hierarchies work. Rhaegar and Lyanna's age difference reflects a common Westerosi phenomenon that comes form this particular real-world and Westerosi phenomenon. Dany's relationship to Irri doesn't have an age difference nor a gender inequality factor, but many have also cited how Dany's position over Irri (both are former sex slaves but Dany is Irri's queen and Irri is Dany's handmaid) has troubling possible issues for Irri anyway....but this relationship is very clearly written to be 100% consensual, and just bc Irri/people might not be exactly in love or attracted to Dany or other people, doesn't mean she can't consent to sex (as many asexuals are not attracted to their partners but they can def consent).

Obviously, when we are trying to say what actually happens in the story (not from a writer's perspective, but literally what are the characters-as-if-Westeros-were-real), we need to look at the books/the "text" with some degree of remove from out own world to understand what the characters are doing and why they do it. Our own expectations of social context is not going to inform the entire text...bc this is not a text/work/series set in the modern era, thus that characters are not going to have lived under your modern context for them to really think X is this and that. That's not to say predators don't exist in Westeros & Planetos; GRRM gives very clear examples (Robert, Craster, Roose Bolton, Walder Frey, those slave masters who have child slaves, etc.). It's to say do not rush to label some characters as a very specific sort of predator when some textual details tell us both directly and indirectly that some situations show they functionally cannot.

All in all, yes GRRM frequently includes large age differences in romantic relationships as he wrote during a time where he and many others weren't really thinking about how such a power imbalance often spells trouble for the much younger (esp teenaged) partner, esp when its older boy/man and younger woman/girl...

BUT

"I don't think GRRM should have presented a 16 yr old and 22-24 year old as a tragic love story, esp when it resulted in her being physically separated from her family & dying from childbirth at such a young age."

DOES NOT EQUAL

"Rhaegar groomed, raped, & imprisoned her in a tower to force her to have his child or just because he's a pedophile and left her to die. He didn't understand true responsibility and duty. And he hated his wife and kids.

because the latter says that this actually happens in the actual narrative. The first one says GRRM PRESENTS a story that:

they think could have detrimental effects on some readers' perception of real-life relationships

or/and it makes them too uncomfortable with the very notion of such a age difference for what they know would be a power imbalance out of context/the story (esp when people frequently ignore context, which leads to misunderstandings to misunderstand)

Both readings still don't really absorb or consider the textual and ASoIaF/Westerosi social contexts both out and in the specific events before Robert's Rebellion, but they still aren't the same bc the second one is claiming that it is what is actually happening in-world.

What specific details prevent LyannaxRhaegar from being straight up grooming/rape? Because:

Lyanna clearly did not want to marry Robert; she was very likely the Knight of the Laughing Tree, who Aerys was looking for to likely kill; Rhaegar is very much her type, considering how she had a specific outlook on justice compatible with Rhaegar's goal towards refashioning Westeros from its destructive historical actions, including in the hands of his own family -- she more than likely (read "definitely") ran away with Rhaegar

we know intimately abt how power imbalances where there's a teen involved has disastrous effects we take measures against it with laws preventing what we've constructed are "teens" marrying non-teen adults (bc the concept of "teen" didn't exist until very recently in human history) and these people do not have such a concept to even be held accountable for staying away from 16 year olds, who were considered adults [however, even for them and I mean Westeros not real history, certain age differences are not favorable or good]; this is a fantasy series set in a pseudo-medieval feudalistic society whose characters cannot exist in their own world without the author's intent...they literally do not exist in our world]

You can dislike some of the characters & GRRM, but to misinterpret them as searching for teens for the mere sake of searching for teens in the way real pedos and groomers do and thus make Rhaegar the same as someone like Craster is ridiculous. The story is about particular nuances of feudalistic duty vs romantic/platonic/altruistic/self love.

[fruitsofhell]

CW for an anti-black slur cause it's the name of a damn movie title, also mentions of historical racism in cartoons

Get really pissed off whenever I think about Coonskin by Ralph Bakshi because I need to rewatch it to see if it might be a fave movie of mine. I want to go over all of Bakshi's filmography sometime and really digest how he deals with depicting black people (especially Fritz the Cat cause the black crows are so cute!), cause he's in an interesting perspective where he is undoubtably sympathetic to us and grew up around us, but expresses this in ways that are soooo over the top we commonly see them now as only acceptable For A Black Person To Do.

Like, he's some white Jewish guy from the slums, he doesn't really have the right to reclaim the racist iconography as we think of it but at the same time it's like if someone's doing interesting artistic work they're doing interesting work. And I as a black person have actually been really inspired by that film ever since I watched it.

Ever since the rubber hose style became super hot again cause of Cuphead and Bendy I've seen people actively downplay how goddamn racist old cartoons were, or I've seen people pick up a clip from an old film and I just go "Chat, they don't know this is a quietly racist animation trend...". But it's not even just that old cartoons were racist and had racist trends, it was baked into their fundamental styles of comedy and cartooning - they were built to either exclude or humiliate blackness. And I feel like Coonskin is a work that expresses that very very loudly but with some sense of purpose.

I personally have wanted to tap into that idea since I started playing with golden age art styles, but for the tone I set in my shit that's way too overbearing. Plus, maybe as an actual black person something unique for me and not Bakshi is a wish to actually see myself represented in those old cartoon styles as more than as an object of controversy. I've also been meaning to watch more of the Proud family and works by Bruce W. Smith cause of that too, I heard in an interview he was motivated to draw because he wanted to see black folks in that mid-century, modernist style and like, SAME.

But it's actually way easier to work black features into that incredibly flexible style than it is to brute force them into the centerline/rubberhose ones where their origins can be traced back TO BLACKFACE. You guys remember that fucking lesson right? How the entire generic rubbergose face is a play on blackface, that's why the mouths and eyes are white but the body is black. If you're unfamiliar with that idea or don't believe it, look up Bosko, Warner Bros first attempt at a mascot, and see if you can tell what he's supposed to be.

It's more of an uphill battle, but not impossible to make it work in those styles. Though I have also considered the utility of borrowing directly from those racist designs to express a meta-contextual feeling/understanding that that is what you look like as a black person in this time period - that is you in the dominant narrative vision of the time. No matter what you are as a black person, to the historical zeitgeist you just appear as some flavor of coon yknow.

It could be a very potent visual tool I think, and I don't know if I'd be considering that if not for Bakshi and my relationship to Coonskin and its themeing. Which is the point, Bakshi was one of those racey types who always wanted to get people upset to start a convo or whatever. It's interesting to look at older but earnest expressions of this that would seem disastrous by today's standards - imagine "They couldn't make Blazing Saddles today" but true and on steroids.

[ranboo5]

reminds me of people saying wilbur (lovejoy) it's like its their last names. just like tumblr url

Yeah that I think is fun honestly like . Okay to compare it to a nimisin in post

FUCK I JUST ACCIDENTALLY DELETED A WHOLE PARAGRAPH FUCK MY LIFE. Whatever

Anyway toki pona, the gibberish I've been intermittently posting in, is a philosophical experiment of a conlang where, due to a restricted vocabulary and simple but restricted grammar, invoking any concept is an exercise in (as described by unofficial spokesperson/Renaissance jan/famous variety YouTuber jan Misali) not knowing what the "word for it" is but describing what it is in essential, contextual terms. It's a context-dependent ad-hoc descriptive process and it can be unwieldy fuzzy and sometimes bad for communication in novel ways sure but it's actually much more powerful and capable than people expect – I would say that toki pona doesn't have /more/ things it struggles to communicate than a natlang like English does, it just struggles with different ones – and many things that are hard to comprehensively express in English are easier to invoke in toki pona!

But yeah sometimes it can be hard. So sometimes ppl will introduce nimi sin, literally "new words" (loaned into English as "nimisin"), to describe some things.

These are. Debatable in value. I use "powe" (a nimisin) several times in the meta bc it affords me a greater agility w/ which to discuss the concept of fiction – I'm not sure if this is a decision I'll stand by as I get better expressing things in toki pona, but for now it seems to be good for my uses there

There are some nimisin though that are less convincing imo – "isipin", "thought," is the main one I wanted 2 compare this whole thing to

I really don't like "isipin." In toki pona there is no simple way to express the concept of thinking – and if you try to describe it that's because you aren't actually talking about things that necessarily belong in the same semantic grouping! Trying to analyze what you mean when you say "thinking" is really interesting – the different phrases people can come up with on that front are often more useful than just "thinking"!

"pilin" for gut feelings "mi la" for when smth is in your opinion "nasin mi" for moral codes "lukin" for examination "alasa sona" for investigation or exploration "kama sona" for learning "toki insa" for internal monologue "toki lawa" "lawa pilin" "Pali sona" and so much more – it communicates and helps you acknowledge what angle you're actually coming at something from. It's really interesting and a great thought exercise

"isipin" eliminates that exercise. You just say "isipin" and you skip over identifying and communicating what kind of consideration you're talking about, yk?

And that's how I feel about "content" and "content creator," I think, having evaluated it. We use these phrases as shorthand for... what, at this point? What are you talking about when you say "content"? Do you mean to say "art?" "Entertainment"? "Comedy"? "Presentation"? "Simulacra of companionship"? Do you mean a specific work of theirs? What do you actually like about things? And like ... at risk of somehow sounding even more pretentious than I already have, I think that's worth considering sometimes. What do you actually come here for? "Content" describes nothing. "This game contains scenes." And that can be useful as a term sometimes, sure, but like... idk . Actually citing what people do or perform is cool I think . And not to say that's not also a shorthand it v much is but like . Idk maybe we could all do to choose what shorthand we use more deliberately

[mayday505]

I know a lot of fic writers have their own interpretations of different character dynamics (for example Mori and Dazai) I KNOW THERES POINTS OF CONTENTION OR WHAT NOT but like I wish ppl would leave others alone for having a dif take bc I got a comment on A Horse Named Cold Air (my comments were moderated at the time so I just deleted it on the spot) saying that basically my interpretation of Dazai and Mori wasn’t correct and that Dazai wasn’t abused. And now. I could go into detail on why contextually I think that that is factually incorrect in regards to canon but I won’t bc it’s not abt that.

However. What it is about is letting fic writers mind their own business bc hey yeah maybe some of the stuff is canonically inaccurate! (And again I could argue about how that’s largely because there are so many gaps w Dazais backstory anyway that it’s kinda up to interpretation anyways bc we simply don’t have all the knowledge) BUT! That’s none of ur fucking business how I intend to write MY fic. U don’t like it? Write your own. That’s the beauty of fandom baby.

And especially like bc. You never know what the author is basing those dynamics on or how much of it is projection. I sure as hell know I project a fuck ton onto Dazai and Mori’s dynamic and it’s actually rlly upsetting when ppl comment like “oh this is inaccurate he wasn’t abused” bc like cool??? U can read it that way??? However me. Being someone to relates to him thru the lens of my own abuse. I’m gonna take a certain interpretation and I’d like to have that in peace.

AAAAA the day people learn ao3 etiquette and general human decency is the day I will rest.

[eov-blogs]

B2B Customer Experiences in the Post-Pandemic World

B2B Customer Experiences in the Post-Pandemic World 

Customer experience is the most vital element for any organization. These days, B2B organizations have also traversed their digital and technology journey like the B2C companies concerning seamless customer experience.  With increased digital and technology adoption, content has become a vital pillar to boost marketing effectiveness.  

This blog will talk about how technology has enabled B2B Organizations to improve and enhance their customer experience. 

https://mlo92xz0eu6i.i.optimole.com/afmPVyw-v8FCfPLn/w:713/h:401/q:mauto/f:avif/https://embarkingonvoyage.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/December_Week_1_Blog_Banner_Website.png 

 B2B Customer Experiences in Today’s Time after the Pandemic: 

After the Covid19 pandemic, B2B organizations were forced to innovate rapidly with the adoption of digital Technology. As there was a scenario of Lockdown, online was the only mode of communication, and most organizations had fewer in-person facetime with customers. 

The Experience after the pandemic has gone beyond the traditional method -one size fits all, to more personalized relationships driven by data, automation, tools, and intelligence.  

Considering the scenario now, Technology now has become the most important element for creating and delivering better customer experiences. 

Unlike traditional ways of working, the pandemic forced companies to reframe their business models and enable their businesses with modern technology and infrastructure to reach out to customers in innovative ways.  

Personalisation of strategies 

The pandemic has led companies to rethink how to personalize their strategies which will focus on contextual content based on user behavior and preferences. 

Now companies require data collection beyond the traditional name, company, and title but the primary focus is more on behavioral activity. 

This transition of considering the social cues and adapting them to build trust is taking place with the help of Machine Learning to deliver better personalization. 

Companies now believe in investing in Big Data, for running predictive models for their offering to the customer sets by the Marketers. 

They further translate the data points into actionable insights and these insights are utilized while planning their marketing and content strategy.   

Pros of Interactive Content writing 

Content is captious to B2B companies. Marketing teams now have started putting a lot of effort into building interactive content that sticks and engages in real-time. 

Instead of driving leads through an official statement, companies now have begun building interactive reports, whitepapers, eBooks, and videos, to increase interactivity to the next level and which can create stickiness.  

Many such interactive products or content enable users to put their inputs and indicate customized findings based on their choices. Organizations these days use their own data to drive these assessments. 

 As customer experience tends to be more in the direction of personalization, interactive marketing guides that way forward for future campaigns. 

Integrating Marketing Technology for a growing Ecosystem 

After the Pandemic, Companies now are working under severe budget constraints. It is therefore essential to understand the areas where one will benefit the most.  

When the correct data meets the right automation, it helps in delivering the digital engagement that promotes an extensive impact on customer relationships. 

 So, the role of Marketing Analytics has become more important in the post-pandemic times.  

Many organizations now spend higher on analytics to understand the effectiveness of their campaigns better and improve their customer experiences.  

In the last couple of years, we have seen several instances where B2B organizations across the world have leveraged the best of their marketing capabilities to deliver flawless customer experiences 

Conclusion 

While technology can offer a satisfactory unmatched experience, one must ensure that a customer’s queries, grievances, and interests are addressed properly.  Customer Experience is something that can only be achieved with a personal touch. Several digital experiences lack the personal touch to such a great extent that it often leaves the customer disgruntled in the whole ‘Experience.’ 

So ideally, the right combination of digitization and personalization can help one deliver felicitous experiences and a dedicated customer base for your B2B business. 

Tags:

[judaismandsuch]

I'm going to give you a theological response based on ... some assumptions.

It covers a lot of ground, makes certain good and bad faith assumptions, etc.

Soooo......

"Initially" is an impossible to verify claim. If one could prove that the Torah dates far later than Judaism theologically claims, then the conversation would be very different.

But while historians like to date the Torah as less than 3k years ago, there isn't actually proof for that, (tbf, that is because it is impossible to prove a negative, but I digress).

So lets run with my assumption that the Torah is in fact G-d given, and is approximately 3500 years old.

Next, lets make the good faith assumption that most overall claims of Yawhism are accurate (in other words, it is verifiable that a being of that name was worshiped as the prime god of a pantheon from 12-9 bce, etc.).

So lets take those 2 assumptions as true, and then get into the weeds:

First of all, polytheism in the Torah: Yes, it IS implied in the Torah that other gods are 'real' and have 'power'. But...well, what they are, how they exist, etc. is up for debate.

The reading I use is.... HaShem created other beings that exist with power for the other nations (maybe it is one of the jobs of Angels?).

They exist, but for the Jews they are less than irrelevant.

Acknowledging them in any way beyond 'yeah sure' is forbidden.

(This also the spot where Jewish Angeology and Demonolgy in Judaism kinda shows up, but w/e).

Next ... lets talk about something else brought up a bunch: Names of HaShem in the Torah that show up in other religions for other gods, mainly El/Elokim. (though there are a couple others)

The truth is, while we currently treat them like names of HaShem, contextually in the Torah, HaShem has only one name (the yudkayvavkay), the rest are words for 'deity'. So referring to HaShem with a word that is used for a god or gods in a pantheon isn't actually odd. Just linguistic shift. (But since we are a monotheism, generic words for deity eventually became titles for THE Deity).

Next, The Name or names of HaShem showing up in religions predating the Formal Formation of Bnei Yisrael (approx 3.5 k years ago).

The simplest is Avraham predates Bnei Yisrael by 400 odd years (depending on counting). Avraham interacted with HaShem directly, and was very open about it. So plenty of time for G-d's names to show up elsewhere.

(Other explanations include: We have no reason to think HaShem wasn't talking to other people's before choosing Avraham. HaShem talked to Noah, etc.)

Finally, lets address the core, HaShem being part of a Pantheon during that era:

Yes, we know.

Have you read Nach?

The entire thing is 'Stop worshiping other gods guys!'

Like, this isn't new. Or interesting. It just... confirms what we already know. Jews worshiped other gods while worshiping HaShem fairly often in the post-Joshua days.

Claiming HaShem was 'Initially __' is an impossible statement unless you can definitively prove certain things and documents much later than we claim.

Which is as I said, practically impossible.

Now of course, one may reply:

But... this system of logic basically isn't arguable? Unless one can find something that probably is impossible to find, or finds a definite internal contradiction within your theological framework, you can basically always respond to any argument with loopy logic.

To which my reply is:

Yes, welcome to 'religion'.

(hope this helps, not uber well researched, and I may edit it later)

Hey so Jumblr does anyone have any kind of like academic research about this claim? Preferably Jewish sources but I'll read it if you have something non Jewish.

I saw this in a discord I'm in and it feels like ridiculously wrong but I don't have anything to back that up with

[doctorbunny]

MILGRAM theory time: Haruka!

This isn't going to go super in depth (famous last words) but there's a few heavily debated parts of Haruka's MV I want to share my findings/thoughts on because I think this is my new special interest and during my quest to get best boy's song to 1 million views I have been looking over his first MV with a fine tooth comb so to speak.

Disclaimer: As the Jackalope said in the "This is the MILGRAM" trailer, we don't necessarily know everyone's crime from just the first video, its possible that a lot of things will be re-contextualized in the second MV, however I am not psychic or bilingual and thus will only be working with content released before August 20th 2021 and translated into English (which could cause some language/cultural details to be lost on me as translation is not a 1 to 1 process).

TW for discussions of ableism, child abuse, murder and animal death. Also this is really long so sorry to all the people that follow me for non-MILGRAM stuff

Firstly, I want to start on the topic of Haruka as a person. He is disabled. He does not have 'the mind of a child' (although he is 17, making him legally a minor in both North America and Japan). He is not just 'child-like'. And he is not mentally ill (well he might be, in the sense that many disabilities like Haruka's have strong comorbidities [where a person has two or more conditions but neither directly causes the other] with anxiety, depression and PTSD, but usually when I see people talk about him 'struggling with mental illness' they go on to refer to aspects of his disability). Sometimes on tumblr, people like myself, will see canonical traits written into a character and identify them as being traits associated with our disabilities/mental illness and headcanon them as such. Sometimes this even involves saying things like "It's basically canon!" Although we understand that these characters were probably not the result of a writer intending to write a disabled person. When I say that Haruka is being written as a person with a neurodevelopmental disability, I mean the writer intended to write a disabled character and wrote them in a way that they wanted the audience to pick up on. As an autistic person (which is one of many neurodevelopmental disorders and also something I probably didn't have to specify because who else would be writing an essay about a series they got into a few days ago at 11 o'clock at night) I really like how Haruka has been written so far. There's definitely some parts of him that have been exaggerated so abled normies can pick up on his disability (namely how his MV 's main motif is really child-like drawings) but the writers also included a lot of smaller details I appreciate like how it is noted he avoids eye contact when talking to other people and is depicted as nervously pulling at his sleeves in official artwork, or how he says he finds his prison uniform (which has tight straps) 'relaxing' and when he gets nervous/tense, he will dig his fingernails into the palm of his hands. (These last two potential being examples of 'self stimulation' [aka stimming] where a person seeks out specific sensory stimuli in order to help regulate their nervous system/emotions, in this case the tight uniform creates a comforting, secure feeling [you may have heard about some people preferring to sleep under weighted blankets for this reason] and digging nails into his palms sounds uncomfortable/painful but is done in an attempt to deal with a greater sensory discomfort caused by the situation/environment) I also appreciate the depth he is written with, he struggles to communicate verbally but in his MV and interactions with other inmates is shown to have insecurities, opinions and a consistent thought process (this is all basic character stuff but unfortunately not always present in disabled characters)

Also I want to add that (in terms of what we've been shown so far) Haruka did not kill anyone because of his disability/mental illness. Disabled people are not inherently more innocent than abled people. But there is no disability/mental illness where a symptom is that you kill people and real people have to live with the stigma when you speak carelessly and suggest things like "Haruka is the kind of mentally ill person who kills people as a cry for help" 🧂 (or at the very least real people have to read BS like that and cringe). TL;DR Haruka is less child-like and more onion-like (as in, he has layers) 🧅🧅🧅

Now is the actual theory stuff, oops:

Every prisoner in MILGRAM is supposed to have committed murder in some way, obviously considering Yuno just had an abortion (which i personally do not consider an act of murder) whilst Mu literally stabbed someone to death, this definition is stretched a bit. But it is not agreed upon yet who Haruka killed/how many people he killed or why he killed.

In his MV he is shown to have chased after his dog into a forest, seen something off-screen, then beaten something into a messy pulp with a rock. Some people think the dog is a red herring and that Haruka actually killed his mother/the girl from the fireworks show/his brother. I do not agree.

First: I believe Haruka when he says he doesn't have a brother. The MV literally starts by Haruka looking in the mirror and then switching between the him now

and a really similar looking younger child who just so happened to be a key feature of his memories (I don't have the vocabulary to explain it but its like cinematic parallels that establish this is the same person at different points of their life)

Its not impossible that this is Haruka's secret younger brother, but i think its unlikely. I saw someone saying they had to be different people because Haruka looks less happy than the child but like, most 17 year olds are less visibly happy than when they were 7 (or however old the child is meant to be). Life happens.

So when Haruka is shown pushing the child around and eventually strangling him, this isn't meant to be literal (homicide or suicide), but a representation of how conflicted Haruka feels about his younger self, who may have committed the murder (if you've ever been kept awake cringing at memories of something you said in the past and wishing you could go slap some sense into your former self, this is like that but 10 times more self loathing). The lyric "I am always repeating yesterday," implies he might think about this specific past event a lot.

Moving on, its pretty well accepted that Haruka's parents were abusive in some way and Haruka internalised a lot of it: he constantly apologises, he says in his interrogation questions that his one wish come true is that "[he] want[s] to be loved" and describes in his MV how when he couldn't find the words he was looking for ("you're unfair") one of his parents "would get angry at me and say “You’re hopeless.”". He seems to know its unfair but also still says he 'loves' his family, possibly mistakenly believing it is his fault, but also showing an awareness of his situation (and how his parents might behave).

Now, the MV is stylised in a way that makes certain details unclear, but there is one clear detail showing that Haruka's dog was killed

This is the first close up of Haruka and the dog. Haruka's mother is just out of frame supervising, but they look pretty happy. Notice how the puppy has a silvery chain for a collar. Somehow, this dog gets out of the house but only Haruka is shown chasing after it (whether his mother was searching elsewhere or didn't bother following her disabled son into the forest is unclear). Either way, young Haruka is now in the forest, unsupervised.

By the time he finds the dog, there is already blood, suggesting it was initally attacked by something else.

is this a sigh of relief from a boy whose finally found his beloved pet or a jealous weakling glad that nature took its course and he is finally free of that meddling mutt stealing all his mummy's attention? /j

I think this shock at the discovery that 'there is blood on his hands' could imply that rather than literally getting the blood from his dog, Haruka has seen his already injured dog and realises that if the dog got out because of him (he is previously shown to be aware his parents seem to blame him for everything) then he is the reason his dog is injured/dying and will be blamed for it. (this scene plays over the lyrics "It’s fine, though it’s really not It’s really fine, though I don’t really think so When I tried to understand it, You’ll make that disappointed face again" suggesting he is trying to avoid making his parents disappointed and letting the family pet escape into danger is something that could make them very disappointed)

now we get into rock murder (this is present-day Haruka implying that this is either: not how the scene really played out; the writers really wanting the audience to know that this was Haruka's doing and not someone else's; or this turns into a separate incident that happened much later [although note that the red sky and blue moon is the same as when young Haruka first appears at the start])

b the corpse is beyond mangled now, but its clearly the dog because the silver chain collar is still there, to the right of the body. (circled in red for your convenience :3)

My hypothesis is: Haruka didn't set out to kill his dog, but upon finding it injured (we don't know the severity aside from bleeding and also it not being able to run away from Haruka kneeling down above it w/ a big rock so it could range from treatable with a lot of vet help to already on death's door, TBH I don't think Haruka would know the difference) He knew he'd be blamed for this; made into a villain who let the poor puppy come to harm. He panicked and killed the dog out of some idea that it would make him the victim here (since he'd be found crying over a dog corpse, which might make a parent go comfort him rather than getting angry about what could've happened to the dog). This is over the lyrics: "I cried, I screamed I wanted to be a pitied and loved weakling I was in denial, I was in denial I just had to make sure I’ve become a victim, I’ve become a victim" (there's another theory that he was also jealous of the dog, which could work here too, since this is not some calculated plot; rather its a rash decision) This ties in with his Japanese song title (translated as Weakness) which is a play on a phrase sort of like "The strong eat, the weak do not" to become "The weak are eaten by society" or "The weak eat each other to survive" [once again I am reminding everyone this is based on second hand information from the youtube comments section (from users mitchki and Alphaistic) because I do not speak Japanese] This second meaning (The weak eat each other to survive) makes sense under the reading that Haruka killed his dog in order to 'survive' making his parents disappointed for the dog escaping.

Miscellaneous points:

We don't know where Haruka's necklace came from yet, it must be a gift since the most expensive thing he's ever bought was cotton candy. The younger child in the video isn't wearing it and neither is his mother or the girl in the purple dress.

Haruka's home seems quite big, at the start we can see a large flower garden outside the window and there's a forest in walking distance. This might suggest his family is quite wealthy

Haruka probably did go to school at some point as homeschooling is not a legally accepted as an alternative to public schools in Japan. (However it is estimated that up to 5000 families homeschool, this is uncommon) A lot (about 62%) of Japanese schools apparently have a 'special needs' classes and there are about 505 schools focused on educating intellectually disabled students (although I do not know which sort Haruka would've needed as whilst intellectual and development disabilities can be comorbid they aren't the same). Now, if children aged 7-14 don't go to school, their parents receive a fine, but its possible that if Haruka's parents are wealthy, they just paid it to avoid sending him to school. (This might imply they wanted to hide him or were generally ashamed of him in some way) However high school education (for students over 14) is not legally required and its likely that even if Haruka went to elementary/middle school, he hasn't been around people his own age in at least 3 years. As he seems quite lonely and glad that the other prisoners give him attention.

I don't think Haruka's parents are divorced and if they are, its not his father who left. Haruka mentions in the 30 questions that he thinks he disappointed his father. But still includes him as part of his family ("My father and mother and me"). A theory I've seen is that his father was disappointed by his son being disabled and left. but developmental disabilities (especially in non verbal and semi verbal children like Haruka) can be diagnosed before the age of 3, so I feel it is unlikely that Haruka would bring up his father if he left that early in Haruka's life

All MILGRAM prisoners have covered one of DECO*27's older vocaloid songs (DECO*27 is a well known producer who composes the music for MILGRAM) Haruka covered 'Two Breaths Walking' (https://youtu.be/puXLfVWrz2Q) which is about a boy's first relationship and how his mother's jealousy set him up for failure as the relationship becomes toxic (specifically it has some very funny out of context lines like "Whose breasts are you sucking on now?") so yeah, mommy issues: the song (Also: some people say in the song, the boy kills the girl at the end, but this isn't literal, TBW is the first of a trilogy of songs about the same relationship, it is followed by Android girl then Two Breaths Walking: Reloaded and the story resolves with the couple reuniting as adults and getting in the relationship again, although its not necessarily as abusive as before, its still implied to be codependant ending on the line 'We should live like oxygen tanks, sucking breathe from the words each of us exhale, until our last breathe')

In all seriousness, the scene where younger Haruka is walking through the city with his mother but it keeps repeating until older Haruka pulls the younger one away might indicate an attempt to focus the happier memories of his parents (since this is also over the lyrics "Why is it breaking? Tell me why? Please don’t change If I tried and couldn’t say it, You would get angry at me and say “You’re hopeless.”" which depict a worse scene) I think both his parents are still physically present but have become far more emotionally distant, not giving him as much attention, which exacerbates his loneliness from not having any friends his own age to talk to

And if one of his parents did leave? I think its likely his mother since she is shown disappearing out of his reach after the dog-incident (inferring she got angry/disappointed in Haruka anyway) This could also be where he got his necklace from: Its something his mother used to wear (although this is 100% a guess) and that's why its shown to be important to him

This one is just me, but i didn't realise until a rewatch that when Haruka is watching the younger him and the girl running together, the background has fireworks. Haruka mentions fireworks being a key memory to him so I wonder if this was one of the first/last times he got to make a friend...

On three separate occasions in the interrogation, Haruka mentions not liking animals. Despite this, he is depicted as sleeping with a rabbit plush and on his birthday art (I'd include that too but tumblr only allows 10 pictures per post, so here's a link) he is standing next to a giant blueberry and strawberry cake with two bunny themed biscuits at the side. Through my experiences of seeing Japanese fandom art on pixiv, sometimes rabbits are used to insinuate a character is cute and timid in fanart.

Meaningless details: Haruka sleeps with his necklace on; he sleeps on a bed and not a futon; at first I thought he woke up holding his plush's hand but his hand is merely next to the toy; and considering the state of the pillow and blanket, I wonder if he moves a lot in his sleep or if the is just because in this case he seems to be waking up from a nightmare about the dog incident...

Final note: I've spent so many hours writing this I don't remember if i was building up to any big finale or not but I hope you enjoyed reading this! Feel free to add on in the comments/reblogs.

[bubmyg]

there was no particular reason i wrote all this down other than reading the translations to my universe made me cry last week because i’m just Like this. this is a mini compilation of yoongi lyrics that i hold gently in my palm and close to my heart in a he’s my artist for life kind of way. these aren’t all my favorite yoongi lyrics, i certainly have more but not ones that fit this general vibe. 

this is like extremely disorganized, i kind of just wrote it like a journal (and i’ll probably copy it to my bullet journal at some point actually). interpretations are my own, music is cool in that we can all read and hear the same thing and get different things out of it (which is why yoongi has often said he doesn’t attach specific meaning to things, giving it up to the listener instead)

so yeah. here’s me being fond of yoongi in 4k for no reason other than. idk. i wanted to. all translations are from doyoubangtan and doolsetbangtan. 

song request - lee sora ft suga

“I’ll be with you, for your birth and your end; That you’d remember that I’m with you, wherever you are; I’ll be a comfort for your life at any time, and so; please, that you’d lean on me and take a rest, every once in awhile.”

to me, this perfectly encapsulates what creating music is for yoongi in a two-fold kind of way. not only does he want his music to be a source of comfort for those who listen to it (just as the art of music is for himself), he’s also consistent in his assurance that taking a rest is okay. not being okay is okay. simply existing for the time being is okay. it’s a gentle empathy that comes from the experienced heart of someone who’s not going to tell you that it is okay, but will tell you that it won’t always be like this. friendly little moon trying to get you to smile with him on sleepless nights.

so far away - agust d ft suran

dream, will eventually be in full bloom at the end of hardships

this was on my undergrad graduation cap. it’s one of my favorite lyrics of all time. if so far away is my heart song, this is my heart lyric. this is a common motif in yoongi’s lyrics; dormancy is only temporary, you will bloom at the end of the cold winter.

dream, hope it to be there with you at your creation and at the end of your life

creation to end is another common motif n his lyrics. in this specific context, i imagine it to most closely be analogous to holding dreams close to you your entire life. dreams are dreams no matter how they manifest, even if they’re simply something you long for until your “end”.

Hope it to be there with you at your creation and at the end of your life; It will be generous to you wherever you stand; It will eventually be in full bloom at the end of hardships; The beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will the future be

the entirety of this song reads like a story and this last refrain reads like the conclusion (kind of). the slight wording change from the previous choruses means a lot in that regard, more definite and firm. you will be okay. maybe not now, maybe not next week. but you will be.

suga’s interlude - halsey ft suga

Though the dawn before sunrise is darkest; don’t forget the stars you longed for only rise in the darkness

just a really pretty but heart wrenching lyric in the context of the entire song. he’s also used this metaphor several times. i love me a good string of consistency with minor adaptations to fit the vibe. this song also made me cry the first time i read the translations lmao.

my universe - coldplay ft bts

Because the trial we face now is just for a moment anyway; All you have to do is to just keep shining bright like now; And we will follow you, embroidering this long night

this could mean so many things depending on how you wanted to contextualize it. of course the song is about love, so you could view it in that way. we’re in the midst of a global pandemic where we can’t see each other. or maybe it’s simply existence. continue to exist and one day your bright light will be followed even in the darkest of nights.

also the og title of telepathy being 잠시 (for a moment) is so...min yoongi you are so cool

people - agust d

Did someone say humans are the animals of wisdom?; The way I see it, humans are the animals of regret

Your ordinaries are my extraordinaries; Your extraordinaries are my ordinaries; Your ordinaries are my extraordinaries; Your extraordinaries are my ordinaries

super simple to understand which i think makes it more poignant. especially if you contextualize it with everything he’s said or written regarding the plight of fame and how he himself grapples with it as min yoongi.

28 - agust d ft niihwa

just this whole song. if song request encapsulates yoongi’s musical ethos, this captures a lot of his general musings.

paradise - bts

Just living like this, surviving like this, that’s my small dream; Dreaming dreams, grasping dreams, breathing breaths, it’s often too much

a more blunt take on the simply existing is a good enough dream. yoongi’s 2018 new years message was one of the things that made me go “yes. Him™” so paradise is very <3 for me

interlude: shadow - bts

Flying high scares me; I mean, nobody had told me; how lonely it is here –;how my leap could be my fall

another thing he uses frequently, even as recently as an interview regarding permission to dance. the contemplation of how a fall is far scarier than landing because getting back up is uncertain.

Yeah, I’m you and you’re me, do you finally get that now?; Yeah, you’re me and I’m you, do you finally get that now?

the entirety of this song is haunting particularly paired with the sampling and the music video as a visual but this part is just...the whole idea of competing internal voices throughout the narrative of the song or if you’d rather truly treat the lyrics like a piece of literature, you have quite the unreliable narrator, one that’s trying to grapple with his own sense of self.

140503 at dawn - agust d

Pretending that I’m not lonely, pretending that I’m not suffering; needlessly pretending that I’m okay, and pretending hard that I’m strong; I built a wall in front of me, “Don’t come inside”; I’m an island in this wide ocean, “Don’t abandon me”

the entirety of agust d just makes me ache but i mainly pulled this part because he uses the island metaphor consistently. here, it’s used like i said before; achingly.

this song also gets overlooked a lot in the larger context of agust d but anyway

eight - IU ft suga

Island, yeah this is an island; a small island that we made for each other; Yeah, mm, forever young, the word ‘forever’ is a sandcastle; A farewell is just like an emergency text warning of a disaster; A morning met together with yearning; As each of us pass this eternity, we’re sure to meet again on this island

can i be honest and say i forgot this song came out at the beginning of the pandemic. anyway, if you haven’t heard the various times that jieun has spoke about this song and it’s conveyance, i encourage you to. the music video also gives a beautiful visual.

i wrote a small analysis of this when it came out so i’ll just put it here 

burn it - agust d ft max

I hope you don’t forget that giving up decisively also counts as courage

of course this can absolutely be taken at a literal meaning especially considering he said a similar iteration of this to someone on kkul fm BUT i also like looking at it in context of the entire song because maybe this is him trying to convince himself too, especially considering the wording of the last chorus doesn’t change it so it implies in order to get past the fire u need to let it burn first? burn it = giving up on some aspect of pain?

i see why max didn’t shut up for eight months about making this song i wouldn’t either hello

outro: tear - bts

im including this one firstly because i love the song but secondly to say i knew the second u all were surprised by yoongi saying he wrote this as essentially a break up song for bts and they all cried while listening to it that y’all don’t actually read or interact w their lyrics fjdklafjsd

just bc it’s a rap song doesn’t mean it’s a diss or a flex. weirdos.

intro: never mind - bts

I hope you forget about all your mistakes and such; Never mind; It’s not easy, but engrave this in your heart; If you think you’re going to crash, accelerate more, you idiot; Never mind, never mind; Whatever thorny path it may be, go run; Never mind, never mind; There are a lot of things that you can’t control

the entire composition of nevermind is similar to first love and shadow to me where you can just hear the emotion in his voice while performing it

this is also another general idea that he mentions a few different times through different songs which as we’ve seen i am <3 for

intro: the most beautiful moment in life - bts

once again i don’t have a specific lyric to pull i just love this song so much and i feel like it isn’t talked about enough because first of all the use of the basketball throughout the instrumental, the incorporation of the origin of his stage name into an entire song regarding his general existence as a performer and coming into the beginnings of sizeable fame, and just his general way of essentially writing one giant ode to something he loves and analogizing it to something else he loves to talk through internal struggles.

aka im once again saying min yoongi you’re so cool

first love - bts

same line of awe from above this whole song is just a story, a poem, a journal entry, a beautiful confession, i don’t know. this is yoongi’s best bts solo u can argue with a wall about it also if you were able to see this live i hope u have a terrible week (im joking)

every fancam i’ve ever seen of this makes me cry. so. do with that what you will in regards to how i feel about this song.

[mattelektras]

In ur opinion the worst and best marvel events????? Like those Bigtm storylines they advertise all the time and whatnot

with events i think it comes down to context & content which is w rule i just made up. the co text is something i can overlook like. how it came about might be bad but is the actual content good????? content can make a contextually bad event good but it doesn’t work the other way around??? the scales have to be somewhat even for it to be passable and anything less than a 7/10 for content stops it from being Good. thems the breaks

best

shadowland. u know why

clone saga. kaine. ben. my boys

fear itself. ppl WILL disagree w me on this but thankfully i’m right always <3

spider island. yes it’s tacky no i don’t care

schism. i just think drama is a little sexy. a whole event about two men having a falling out?? little homoerotic if you ask me

infinity gauntlet/war/crusade. a classique. what every thanos story tries to emulate but never will. jim starlin’s just built a little bit fuckin different!!!

secret invasion/dark reign/siege my beloved

annihilation & the thanos imperative. there has not been a good cosmic marvel event since

necrosha. i see an immortal woman do necromancy and i go insane

a lot of older xmen events are very good but if i name them claremont might be granted passage into my home like an evil spirit and i’ve got a dog i can’t risk that

worst:

disassembled/house of m. brian michael bendis keep wanda maximoff’s name out of your mouth

civil war 2. ok we get it there’s a movie called civil war shut up about it

axis. dogwater. genuinely unreadable

secret wars 2. bro what was the point

inhumans vs xmen

avengers vs xmen. leave the xmen alone essentially. except xavier go ham w him

og civil war is like. fine i guess whatever. there are some good concepts there but it’s not as good as people make out. the context of it coming from fucking over the new warriors makes me hate it however

secret empire. i’m gonna fit all marvel writers with a shock collar and if they even think about writing nazi shit it goes off

death of wolverine. like we all knew he was gonna come back and i don’t wanna see ororo sad in the mean time???? also he is my dad and if i’m not getting fatherly reinforcement from wolverine comics where am i supposed to get it??? my actual father???? get the fuck outta here

[stillness-in-green]

I saw speculation on this going around & I’m curious to get your thoughts on it: where do you think Geten’s story might be going in the future, & do u think it’s possible Dabi will kill him? I saw ppl talking about Dabi’s noted distaste for him & how the PLF seems more of a temporary alliance in the LoV’s mind (Compress’ noted rejection of the name in his thoughts, Dabi’s use of Skeptic against his will, etc), & w/ AFO back in the picture they theorized Dabi may get his quirk & kill Geten.

Okay, so, it took me a while to grapple with this one, and in the end, I'm going to have to break my reply up into two parts. Because you asked a very simple question, anon, and my answer to the question you actually asked is pretty simple (if characteristically rambly)! But you also provided a bunch of contextualizing information about what prompted your ask, and I have a lot to say about that contextualizing information, stuff that is only tangentially related to your actual question.

Note that some of this is going to get pretty salty, but I assume you wouldn't have brought a Known MLA Stan a question like this if you didn't want at least a bit of that. Most of the salt will be in the second part, though! This first part is pretty safe!

So, to answer the actual question: I don't have a lot of solid thoughts on where Geten's story is going, because from the looks of the way the series as a whole is going, it may well be that the MLA’s story is already done. I have previously expressed concerns about the current status of the MLA mainly because of all the speculation that Horikoshi is trying to rush to get to the ending, and if Hori’s rushing the ending, I don’t know that I’d bet on Geten coming back at all. In fact, given what I can guess about the scenario, I’d kind of rather he not.

The thing is, the MLA have always been far more relevant to the League than they have been to anyone else in the cast. They’re Tomura's victory spoils; their plot beats were established to connect to the League, not the heroes, the students, or even All For One. There’s just no personal connection there, and lacking a personal connection, all they’d do is be fodder for background fights to fill page space and give the side characters something to do.

And there’s just no drama in that! Not even any tension! We've already seen the MLA characters beaten--first by the villains, and then by the heroes. Hell, we've seen Re-Destro beaten three times!(1) Based on how the raid went, there are maybe three people in the entire MLA that present a credible threat--Hose Face, whose name we don’t even know, Re-Destro, who has a repeatedly-illustrated weak point in the form of his new legs, and Geten.

While I definitely think Geten could give any of the students save Deku a run for their money,(2) what would be the point? Who would he be slotted in to have a dramatic fight with? Geten hurt Cementoss, but he didn't kill him, and none of the students are uniquely close to Cementoss anyway. Geten has never personally offended or harmed any of the kids directly. There was a time people theorized that Shouto's end game boss would be a combination of Geten and Dabi, but with the PLF scattered, that looks less likely.

From the other side of things, Geten himself has no particular beef with the kids. If he'd been on the front lines to witness the opening moments of the battle, maybe he'd have a bone to pick with Kaminari, Kinoko, Juzo, and particularly Tokoyami, but it took Geten a bit to get to the front; he has no particular way of knowing about those four, and at the moment, he certainly has more pressing matters on his mind.

Geten's primary interest, when it comes right down to it, is Re-Destro. He talks a big game about the MLA's goals, but when the pivotal moment comes in Deika, he bails on the battle that was assigned to him to try and help RD instead. He claims that pure strength is to be valued above all else, but his loyalties don’t change when Gigantomachia bats him aside like a fly or when Shigaraki proves himself to be An Strongest. Even up to Jakku, Geten is still concerned solely with Re-Destro. With no real reason to pit RD against the kids, there’s no reason to throw Geten against them, either.

The only person Geten has an established rivalry with is, of course, Dabi, but getting the two of them even in the same vicinity again is going to require breaking the MLA leaders out of jail, which clearly isn't a priority of AFO's, and he's the one running the show right now. Would Shigaraki bother? He might, particularly if RD, Trumpet and Geten all get shipped to whatever Tartarus Lite Mr. Compress and Machia are likewise bound for. But if the story is headed to its conclusion, is Shigaraki ever going to get that option?

Is AFO the final boss? If so, it doesn't seem to leave much of an opening for the MLA to become relevant again, because, again, the MLA are all about Tomura's victory, Tomura’s ascendant arc as a villain, his status as a hero to other villains (namely RD). If Deku "saving" Shigaraki from All For One is going to magically resolve all of Tomura's issues with society as a whole, because hey, at least this kid is a good person, so his society can't be so bad after all! (GAG), that doesn't seem to leave much room to get into the myriad issues with society that all of Tomura's followers have. Frankly, the only thing the MLA has to offer Deku right now that's remotely relevant to his current goals is Re-Destro's starry-eyed explanation about why he's fallen so hard for Shigaraki, and Spinner is better suited for that role on basically every level.

So that’s all been one big if. The other alternative is the ending I'm hoping we get, in which Deku and Shigaraki join forces to put an end to AFO, only for Shigaraki to thank Deku cordially and then get right back to destroying things because, surprise surprise, Midoriya Izuku being a good person doesn't absolve Hero Society of all of its many, many sins. Then I can see there being room for the MLA to return. At that point, not only is there RD’s devotion to Shigaraki on offer, but also the MLA’s ideology of Liberation, what it is, what it offers, along with, for example, more on whatever Harima Oji’s complaints were about heroes, more on what has to change systemically to satisfy Shigaraki’s grudge. That’s a story the MLA can meaningfully contribute to, and therefore a story in which Geten and his quirk supremacist beliefs are more likely to be addressed.

However, I’m not optimistic that we’re going to get that ending, and until we find out whether Shigaraki will be satisfied with being rescued from AFO (if, indeed, he survives the process at all), or whether he and his compatriots’ societal issues will be left by the wayside, I’m not yet prepared to spend a lot of time theorizing on how the MLA’s role in it would look.

As to the specific question of Dabi killing Geten--honestly? I think that moment is past. While I said earlier that Dabi is Geten’s only established rivalry, that is frankly being more generous than their relationship actually warrants. After all, we haven’t seen them interact since Deika, and literally the only time one of them has so much as thought of the other in that period was Dabi grumbling, “That icy punk sure knows how to let loose,” after Geten’s big wall of ice attack allows Tokoyami to get away with Hawks. If their continued animosity were going to be a plot point, and especially if Dabi were going to murder him in cold blood eventually, Horikoshi should have shown us the two of them antagonizing each other as co-lieutenants of the Violet Regiment.

At this point, Dabi has made his big play, revealed his identity to the world. I think he's pretty locked into the Todoroki Drama now; he has bigger concerns than going back and winning a grudge match against Geten. Also too, given the point he's trying to prove about the strength of his/Endeavor's flames, would he even want Geten's quirk? If he were to get it, would he get the "evolved" version or just the basic one?(3) Because given the precedent set by both the mechanics of Monoma's Copy and AFO's comments about Jeanist's Fiber Master, I'd be inclined to think the latter, and Geten's ice powers are way less badass without the temperature control, especially for a dude trying to wield them in concert with flames of the temperature Dabi uses.

From a narrative standpoint, Geten has already been punished for his hubris with a personal defeat, the humbling of his leader, a loss of pride in his organization, and then a second, much more damning defeat and subsequent capture at the hands of heroes. Dabi taking his quirk and killing him at this point would just be kicking--indeed, killing--him when he’s already down. It doesn’t feel like karma; it just feels malicious.

That said, in the rather dubiously scaffolded scenario that the MLA gets free and finds their way back to the League and AFO/Shigaraki takes Geten's quirk(4) and Dabi accepts it, would Dabi then kill Geten with it?

…I mean, maybe? Do people think that Dabi is that much of a sadist? Because it would be the act of a sadist, to murder a kid who's almost certainly younger than he is and might even still be a teenager, one who has just been violently stripped of any ability to defend himself, all out of a desire for petty revenge over a months-old slight--a slight consisting of Geten parroting rhetoric he learned from the weird cult he grew up in, and which Dabi has very possibly been working with Skeptic long enough to know is maybe not all that accurate a characterization of the cult's ideals anyway!

And that brings me to Part 2. ---------------------------------------

(1) Four, if you count the clone’s destruction.

(2) Even 1-A's two remaining powerhouses don't present any more of a threat to Geten's ice than Dabi did, and Shouto will only give him more of it to work with. Their advantage over Dabi is that they can both sort of fly, which might well tip the balance--one of Geten's major advantages is his ability to manipulate ice from a considerable distance away, farther away than Dabi's flames can reach, but flying opponents deprive him of that advantage. Now, Shouto's flying is fairly unstable, so I suspect Geten is more maneuverable in the air, but his maneuverability wouldn't save him from Bakugou, the human equivalent of the anger-powered jetpack.

(3) Set aside the Doylist explanations about anyone who stole Geten's quirk getting the version the audience already knows purely out of laziness, forgetfulness, or authorial fiat.

(4) And look me dead in the eye and tell me Geten would just let Shigaraki Tomura or anything currently inhabiting his body just casually stroll up and lay hands on him without protest. Not to say I think AFOmura couldn't do it, but doing it in a "cool," dramatic way would probably involve some lightning movements we have not seen him make thus far.

[recallingrealities]

Aligned, Chapter 1 (Zelda Spellman x Reader)

Tags + Prompt:

Zelda Spellman x Reader 

(possibly Madam Spellman x Reader as well?? This would not be immediate, so we will see)

(there will be NSFW, but each chapter will be tagged separately)

Set Right after the end of Season 3 of CAOS, possible contextual spoilers ahead.

Reader is a young pagan, who covenless, has been practicing magic under the worship in Greendale. Through her times in mediation and contact with the Goddess, Y/N has been mastering the art of “the Sight” making her a seer, with powers of clairvoyance and others, as the Goddess wills it. After direct request of Lilith, she sends you to join the Academy of the Unseen arts, and join a coven where her will and plan may unfold for you.

Chapter 1: So Mote it Be  

It had been some time since the pagans had been defeated, and the details of Hell’s management had quieted. After Sabrina’s return, Zelda was happy enough to have some level of normalcy after the array of chaos that had ensued under her rule as Directrix. In all honesty, worshiping Lilith was becoming a whole other avenue of convenience, now that their powers had been re-imagined by the Great Goddess herself. Some believed it to be Hecate, where others enjoyed the inclusiveness of “The Goddess”, or namely, Lilith, which I am sure she didn’t mind. The Goddess had taken many faces, young witches were to learn of the embracing of their own inner Goddess, divine femininity, and what the Directrix and High Priestess referred to as “the Divine self”. This was something that any witch could learn to embody, in engaging the Divine self, it was said to be a source of intimate divine energy, a well of power and trueness to whom, if embraced, one had the capability of being written in history; like those witch ancestors that came before them. Lilith included. The story of her discovering her power, took the refusal to submit to Adam, and her acknowledgement of being his equal. Though this had her cast out of Eden, it resulted in the acknowledgement and the beginning of her harnessing the power of her divine self. There was a power in this new form of worship and study. Once Sabrina had come back, and their powers were restored with new vibrance, and... without the internal conflict and looming will of the Dark Lord over everyone's shoulder, the Academy was bustling with new inspiration from young witches and warlocks alike. Not only was the school blooming with new students, but new branches of study, and faculty as well. Members of the Church of Lilith, were solidifying the young, thriving coven. What had seemed so chaotic before, and what Zelda Spellman couldn’t help but take personally, had now become a beacon of growth, as poised and poignant as their Directrix. New possibilities were budding at what seemed like, every turn.

Today marked the beginning of the Academy’s newest endeavor. The High Priestess was interviewing an inquiring witch for a possible position at the academy. Something, typically arranged upon Ms. Spellman’s inquiry, not vice versa. But at the audacity, Zelda couldn’t help but agree on meeting this ‘Y/N’. Someone with that much gall, could be trouble to the coven, or conversely an extremely valuable asset. The Spellman family, and outside of that, Prudence Blackwood, had made up the boldest members to walk the grounds. Perhaps fresh blood could be what the academy needed to rise up to its full potential, something Miss Spellman found tantalizingly irresistible as a possibility. At that, a firm knock echoed through the doors of the academy. Most who entered had already been members, and the council certainly wouldn’t have knocked. At this resonating echo, the halls of the school were certain to embrace a surge of new energy; at the very least, a wave of fresh gossip regarding whomever was to enter. Ms. Spellman, of course, knew who would be arriving that day, and prepared Ambrose Spellman accordingly, to greet and guide you to her chambers, upon arrival.

As Ambrose opened the large hardwood door, he took a fleeting moment to cock his head and grin pleasantly.

 “Ms. Y/N, do come in. The High Priestess has been expecting you.”

You nod simply, noting the young man's polite yet flirtatious quality as you step through the threshold of the large doorway. A sudden whir of images crashes through your mind as both feet have now entered, aligned smoothly on the tile mosaic. You breathe deeply through your nose, taking in the array of premonitions, steadying yourself to prevent any distraction from your newest endeavor.

“Welcome to the Academy of Unseen Arts.”

 He hums, turning around to admire the towering statue which lay in the center of the Academy’s main hall. Four women are shown standing, clearly. The Maiden, Mother, and Crone of course, in their traditional positions as marked by many statues. However, this one being customarily different, showing Lilith as its fourth member, honoring who was known as the first and Mother of witches. It seemed to greet and draw the face of whomever enters, in this case being you. Facing you, she kneels below the Mother. Her arms are open, as if to embrace the wisdom of the first imparted knowledge; as the first witch and woman, of humankind. The three faces of the Goddess have a mysterious quality to them, at least by Y/N’s seeing, Lilith’s seems most personable, taking the shape of her young face before she had taken on the Wardwell body. It was as if “The Sight” as you called it, revealed this statue's abilities to show you who was Mother, Maiden, and or the death Crone during a time in which it may be needed, for you alone to see. A thought came to your mind, w wondering if this was the Goddess’s exact intention. You blink hard, before giving a soft smile to admire Lilith. You kneel down on one knee and touch one of Lilith’s hands kindly, before standing again to meet eyes with Ambrose. He felt as if he had just witnessed something quite intimate. He wasn’t sure what had gone through your mind just then, when admiring the statue and woman illicitly. He assumes you had fond ties to the Goddess, and perhaps Lilith herself.

 “I presume you enjoy our new statue. The last one didn’t last very long and was incredibly tasteless, but I enjoy this one much better” 

He jokes, commenting on the cringey nature of the statue Father Blackwood had posed there temporarily. He gave a shiver before smiling.

 “This one definitely has a way of speaking, erm, intimately to some. At the very least it lightens up the room.”

 You smile confidently now, more than ever drawn towards the force that had guided you to the Academy in the first place, almost overlooking the awkward comment that left the charming Ambrose’s lips. He touches the back of his neck before speaking again.

 “Well, I have no doubt that the Directrix would like to see you immediately, but if you would like I would be more than happy… to give you a tour later” 

He turns, before guiding you down the hall, and up the stairs to the High Priestess’s office.

After leading you to the door, Ambrose pauses before you hear the strong, deep voice of Zelda Spellman, who must have known you were standing out front.

“Do come in Ambrose I won’t have you doddling idly.”

 At that the door swung open by incantation and he gestures for you to come inside. 

“That’ll be all Ambrose.” 

She dismisses him curtly before the gentleman quickly evaded, looking as if he was going to bid adieu, but at the Directrix’s look, decided it would be best to just leave. Giving you a boyish smile and quiet nod, he shuts the door behind him. You were greeted by the back of a handsome woman in a sophisticated leather armchair, whom ringlets of smoke encircled her head. 

“You may sit down, if you were waiting for an invitation”

 She said flatly, before turning her chair to face you. Her fiery red ringlets were framing her shoulders and face. One whom you hadn’t seen before but felt hauntingly familiar with.

 “If you insist, High Priestess” 

You retort politely before sitting down with a naturally confident composure, on the black laced love seat across from her and her large dark-wooden desk. 

“Thank you for having me, Directrix-” 

“Spellman”

 She finished the sentence for you, before slipping off a pair of thinly framed glasses. She carefully set down a stack of papers it looked like she had been reading before you entered.

 “Tell me, Y/N, what bid you so bold as to inquire to me illicitly for a position at the Academy. Traditionally, one is invited to such a facility as a member of our Coven. To visit, let alone to be employed here to teach the minds of our young Witches, I’d have to say you are the first to inquire in such a bold manner. Indulge me, what talents do you feel are so urgent as to insist upon seeing me?” 

You allow her words to hang in the air from her red lips, pulled taut as she awaits your reply. Once she pauses, you set down your purse behind the seat’s clawed foot, not wanting to give her anything less than your undivided attention.

 “Lilith herself, sent me.”

She stiffened. At that, Zelda’s attention was officially caught. Her eyes widened slightly, before she leaned over to relite her cigarette, which at that, had blown out. 

“You see, High Priestess, I was a pagan witch long before that group of carnies made their way through Greendale. I had been privately practicing and worshiping the triple Goddess, and had felt a specific draw to Lilith as a young girl. It has always been a relationship to me strange, and intimate in the sense that she was unheard of, it felt like outside of Christianity let alone in a town as small as Greendale. In a repugnant, disgracing manner at that. It felt as though she had reached out towards me, not the contrast.I had learned of my abilities and practices, quietly, in the confidence of the Goddess herself” 

Though Zelda didn’t overtly expose it, despite what you revealed, she was impressed with the way you formed your words, and maintained composure during her dogging of you. 

“So what you are telling me is that you are a witch, with active magic, might I add, that never had her dark baptism?” 

She leaned back in her chair.

 “Correct, I never signed my name in the Book of the Beast. I never had any sort of baptism, dark or light, and have lived and learned about my powers through Meditation, and constant contact with Lilith, and the many faces of the Goddess alike.” 

At that, you and Zelda Spellman were both covered in goosebumps, as if a chill from another plane had run over the both of you. You couldn’t help but feel Zelda’s eyes leer; but in curiosity, not out of disgust or disrespect, as one might have assumed by her hard exterior. It felt unexpected as an undertone to notice, and it was as if the Directrix was catching a whole other level of your attention.

 “As far as my talents Miss Spellman,” 

You continue, 

“I wield whatever the Goddess wills me to. But once I came across the knowledge that your Coven did not psiphon their powers directly from Lilith, but in another manner, I became fully aware of just how intimate a relationship I had with her.” 

At this moment, Zelda didn't know whether to be enraged or if her beffalment had sent waves of fear through her. How did she know anything about her Coven, let alone such intimate interactions? Zelda presumed Lilith would not divulge such things to a stranger, no matter how personally dedicated this young witch was. She was feeling not fear in the sense of needing to run, but in shock at the level of intimacy she seemed to infer having, through communion with Lilith herself. Had this been solely apart of the Order of Hecate, and how much was Lilith intertwined with it? Likely, Zelda had a feeling, more than she even knew, She was exasperated to learn the Goddess would or could bestow such a gift on a covenless witch, without any formal study. That which information so intimate of the Coven, outside of herself, only Sabrina might know. This was all information that was discussed under high caliber of protective magic, and confidence on Lilith’s part.

It was then, Zelda remembered the tension that her and Lilith had had in the Academy’s main Rotunda. Though rooted in sexual tension, she witnessed Lilith’s softness, a side she had never witnessed in the woman. She had been ready to bestow - something, in return for their prayer and dedication to her; but that was a flame quickly dampened by Zelda’s own pride. She had decided openly that the Coven would seek its power elsewhere, at least for that moment. 

She had no idea that Lilith herself could activate or have the Goddess unearth the powers in a young witchling. Something now, she could see must have had time to season in the young, astute woman before her. You tucked a curl behind your ear before continuing.

 “If I am being forward with you High Priestess, the Goddess has sent me here to bestow upon this Church and Academy, my gift of the Sight. I am a Seer by nature in a sense a bit more forward than Tarot or rune reading”

You let a small smile slip between your words.

 “Though card magic is something typically a tool of Seers, the realm of capability, if bestowed, can be quite more expansive than that. The Goddess sent me here, though I am not one to try and assume Lilith’s intentions, to have me join your Coven. If you will it, and become a member of your faculty, so that I may teach your students about the powers of intuition, and the unearthing of powers that do not require spellcraft as you know it. If I am to be so bold, it could also act - possibly… as a reward for your returning dedication to Lilith, and newfound dedication towards the triple Goddess”.

At that Zelda was speechless. With such personal information of the Coven's decisions, and her own acclaimed interactions with Lilith, it could be that she was bluffing. However the likelihood of Lilith sending a gift, a clairvoyant… did seem unpredictable, and in that sense, quite her style. The High Priestess let a few moments pass in silence, taking a drag of her cigarette, and slowly releasing the smoke to curl from her nostrils. Though you didn’t show it, you couldn’t help but admire this woman's beauty. Something about the High Priestess's behavior, though a bit callous, felt endearing to you. Powerful like a mother dragon, and more of an embodiment of the Goddess herself than you believed even the Spellman could recognize. 

“So what you are telling me is, is that Lilith herself sent you?” 

“Yes” 

“And that you experience visions, a sight unseen such as premonitions, and clairvoyance, whilst being a witch, not a mortal”

Zelda felt as though the clarification was imperative, a confidant of the Goddess or not.

“That's part of it, yes” 

You stated again, with a bit more diction and gentle clarity, now locking eyes with Zelda.

The Directrix was aware of Sabrina’s mortal friend, Roz, and her gift of ‘the cunning’, but if this were as expansive as you were implying, especially in Zelda’s knowledge of ‘The Old Power’… her mind was racing. It was then in your eyes linking, your gaze transfixed hers, exploring the insides of Zelda’s mind. Though you didn’t invade her thoughts directly, it was then, Zelda became unable to speak. She felt almost like the woman across from her, though beautifully composed in this questioning, was looking beneath her soul with her jade blue eyes. 

Zelda felt her breathe become quietly labored, as she pulled another drag from her cigarette, unable to break her gaze from you. It was then that you spoke up, releasing it.

 “The darkness in a woman is such that, stripped of our sight, we must feel our way through it - we crawl, we enter our circles of Hell until we sympathize with her sorrow, until we learn for her rage." You spoke tepidly.

If Zelda hadn't been completely enthralled in the unexpectancy that was occurring throughout this conversation, this quote would have left her shaking. This was the last quote Zelda had read this morning, by Segovia Amil. It was often rumored in the old texts that a witch could prophesize and view the reflection of her own thoughts through the readings she happened upon. This was something Zelda had been experimenting with through the sifting of her books of poetry, flipping through and randomly selecting a poem each morning to ponder on for the day. It was something fairly easy to experiment with in poems; and this was the quote that the High Priestess had spent her day examining between her more formal tasks. Perhaps a reflection of her complicated ties with Lilith. Maybe a personal prophecy of her own dwellings in growth, but at the moment, it had been the final shock she had needed to hear from Y/N before making her decision. Rather than questioning what you clearly knew, likely with even more to reveal at a moment's notice, she found  herself finally able to speak, breaking the long drawl of silence. 

"For someone with no formal training, our Academy would be honored to have you, as the will from our Goddess dictates. and the will of my own.” 

She was not only impressed with the woman in front of her poise and clear skill beyond what she knew to expect, but also the mysterious aura you seem to embody. It felt to her, that the longer you had been sitting there, maintaining a cool, collected composure, the more Zelda herself felt as if her insides would come undone at any moment.

“We would be more than pleased to not only have you become a member of our Coven-" 

She readjusted the papers in front of her, attempting to maintain if not regain her composure 

"and teach you any formalities of spellcraft as I am sure you will be teaching us. I will go over the formalities of your time here at the Academy, and if you wish. Most professors live here on campus, within the chambers in accordance to your office. This is not a requirement, however highly recommended and a tradition of those who have taught at this school over the centuries it has stood."

She proceeded.

 "Ms. Y/N, If I came off as severely questioning may you note it as respectful, as this Academy is my home, and a safe haven for the Witchdom of Greendale. My atonements for questioning the will of our Goddess, who in a moment of mercy and generosity has bestowed us with your gifts. I do hope that you will accept my apology and know you are... an honored addition to our Academy." 

Zelda knew if Ambrose had been outside listening, he would have been shocked to hear Zelda apologizing. It was not in her nature to do so. She couldn’t help but wonder if she had done her best to deal with this situation professionally. She was at least confident that she had kept her composure, mostly. When your Jade blue eyes had locked locked hers, it felt as if you had sift through her memories. It was now that you found Zelda’s eyes drifting from yours to your mouth.

“I would be honored High Priestess”.

You seemed to interrupt her thought before she stood up and moved beyond the desk to take your hand. Outstretched, she took yours in both of hers to shake it. At that, there seemed to be a surge of electricity that shot through you at her immediate touch, as the smallest smile showed on Zelda’s lips. Her gorgeous green eyes were observing your fingers for just a moment as she shook our hand. You did not expect her to look so beautiful, but you were now seeing another side of her, and in closer proximity. 

“Welcome to our circle Y/N. In the name of the Goddess, Praise Lilith”

“Praise Lilith” you repeated genuinely, as you had so many times before, in confidence.

You could have sworn your heart was racing with her so close to you, just an inch of kindness in her composure. After she released your hand she seemed to return to her neutrality, behind her desk. She lifted the stack of papers that was before her and placed them in a drawer to her right. 

“Well, arrangements will be made to have your office and room prepared for you promptly, and you may convene to move in as soon as you’d like. Classes do not fall into session for a short while, and you should have plenty of time to make yourself comfortable”

As you turned to leave, making your way towards the door, you could’ve sworn you felt her eyes rake over you, a heat rising in yourself that you were not expecting. Was this your intuition, or perhaps the sight molding your perception? You turned to give her a soft smile before exiting, and sure enough her eyes moved upwards from your hips to meet yours in adieu before the door shut crisply behind you.

After you left Zelda felt herself pale, and tired. She poured herself a half inch of bourbon, to help her breathe for a moment at what had just happened.

 “Praise Lilith” 

She sighed beneath her breath before taking a sip and leaning back in her chair. She felt a reassured faith in the unpredictable Goddess, but had not expected to have her memories probed this afternoon. Not to mention, she found you exquisitely beautiful; and she wasn’t sure what amused her more. Your wit and composure, or just how powerful an inkling of your magic felt to her. It was as if when she touched you, electricity had shot through her entire body, and though she wasn’t sure where it had come from, she was looking forward to having you in the Academy’s walls, and to get to know you further.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Lagerpeton

By Tas

Etymology: Rabbit Reptile

First Described By: Romer, 1971

Classification: Biota, Archaea, Proteoarchaeota, Asgardarchaeota, Eukaryota, Neokaryota, Scotokaryota Opimoda, Podiata, Amorphea, Obazoa, Opisthokonta, Holozoa, Filozoa, Choanozoa, Animalia, Eumetazoa, Parahoxozoa, Bilateria, Nephrozoa, Deuterostomia, Chordata, Olfactores, Vertebrata, Craniata, Gnathostomata, Eugnathostomata, Osteichthyes, Sarcopterygii, Rhipidistia, Tetrapodomorpha, Eotetrapodiformes, Elpistostegalia, Stegocephalia, Tetrapoda, Reptiliomorpha, Amniota, Sauropsida, Eureptilia, Romeriida, Diapsida, Neodiapsida, Sauria, Archosauromorpha, Crocopoda, Archosauriformes, Eucrocopoda, Crurotarsi, Archosauria, Avemetarsalia, Ornithodira, Dinosauromorpha, Lagerpetidae

Referred Species: L. chanarensis

Status: Extinct

Time and Place: About 235 to 234 million years ago, in the Carnian of the Late Triassic 

Lagerpeton is known from the Chañares Formation in La Rioja, Argentina 

Physical Description: Lagerpeton was named as the Rabbit Reptile, and for good reason - in a lot of ways, it represents a decent attempt by reptiles in trying to do the whole hoppy-hop thing. You might think that it resembles Scleromochlus in that way, and you’d be right! Scleromochlus and Lagerpeton are close cousins, but one is on the line towards Pterosaurs - Scleromochlus - and the other is on the line towards dinosaurs - Lagerpeton. So, hopping around was an early feature that all Ornithodirans (Dinosaurs, Pterosaurs, and those closest to them) shared. Lagerpeton itself was about 70 centimeters in length, with most of that length represented as tail; it was slender and lithe, built for moving quickly through its environment. It had a small head, a long neck, and a thin body. While it had long legs, it also had somewhat long arms, and while it may have been able to walk on all fours it also would have been able to walk on two legs alone. It was digitigrade, walking only on its toes, making it an even faster animal. Its back was angled to help it in hopping and running through its environment, and its small pelvis gave it more force during hip extension while jumping. In addition to all of this, it basically only really rested its weight on two toes - giving it even more hopping ability! As a small early bird-line reptile, it would have been covered in primitive feathers all over its body (protofeathers), though what form they took we do not know. 

By Scott Reid

Diet: As an early dinosaur relative, it’s more likely than not that Lagerpeton was an omnivore, though this is uncertain as its head and teeth are not known at this time.

Behavior: Lagerpeton would have been a very skittish animal, being so small in an environment of so many kinds of animals - and as such, that hopping and fast movement ability would have aided it in escaping and moving around its environment, avoiding predators and reaching new sources of food (and, potentially, chasing after smaller food itself). Lagerpeton may have also been somewhat social, moving in small groups, potentially families, to escape the predators and chase after prey together, given its common nature in its environment. As an archosaur, Lagerpeton was more likely than not to take care of its young, though we don’t know how or to what extent. The feathers it had would have been primarily thermoregulatory, and as such, they would have helped it maintain a constant body temperature - making it a very active, lithe animal. 

By José Carlos Cortés

Ecosystem: Lagerpeton lived in the Chañares environment, a diverse and fascinating environment coming right after the transition from the Middle to Late Triassic epochs. Given that the first true dinosaurs are probably from the start of the Late Triassic, this makes it a hotbed for understanding the environments that the earliest dinosaurs evolved in. Since Lagerpeton is a close dinosaur relative, this helps contextualize its place within its evolutionary history. This environment was a floodplain, filled with lakes that would regularly flood depending on the season. There were many seed ferns, ferns, conifers, and horsetails. Many different animals lived here with Lagerpeton, including other Dinosauromorphs like the Silesaurid Lewisuchus/Pseudolagosuchus and the Dinosauriform Marasuchus/Lagosuchus. There were crocodilian relatives as well, such as the early suchian Gracilisuchus and the Rauisuchid Luperosuchus. There were also quite a few Proterochampsids, such as Tarjadia, Tropidosuchus, Gualosuchus, and Chanaresuchus. Synapsids also put in a good show, with the Dicynodonts Jachaleria and Dinodontosaurus, as well as Cynodonts like Probainognathus and Chiniquodon, and the herbivorous Massetognathus. Luperosuchus would have definitely been a predator Lagerpeton would have wanted to get away from - fast! 

By Ripley Cook

Other: Lagerpeton is one of our earliest derived Dinosauromorphs, showing some of the earliest distinctions the dinosaur-line had compared to other archosaurs. Lagerpeton was already digitigrade - an important feature of Dinosaurs - as shown by its tracks, called Prorotodactylus. These tracks also showcase that dinosaur relatives were around as early as the Early Triassic - and that their evolution, and the rapid diversification of archosauromorphs in general, was a direct result of the end-Permian extinction.

~ By Meig Dickson

Sources Under the Cut 

Arcucci, A. 1986. New materials and reinterpretation of Lagerpeton chanarensis Romer (Thecodontia, Lagerpetonidae nov.) from the Middle Triassic of La Rioja, Argentina. Ameghiniana 23 (3-4): 233-242.

Arcucci, A. B. 1987. Un nuevo Lagosuchidae (Thecodontia-Pseudosuchia) de la fauna de los Chañares (Edad Reptil Chañarense, Triasico Medio), La Rioja, Argentina. Ameghiniana 24: 89 - 94.

Arcucci, A., C. A. Mariscano. 1999. A distinctive new archosaur from the Middle Triassic (Los Chañares Formation) of Argentina. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 19: 228 - 232.

Bittencourt, J. S., A. B. Arcucci, C. A. Marsicano, M. C. Langer. 2014. Osteology of the Middle Triassic archosaur Lewisuchus admixtus Romer (Chañares Formation, Argentina), its inclusivity, and relationships amongst early dinosauromorphs. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology: 1 - 31.

Brusatte, S. L., G. Niedzwiedzki, R. J. Butler. 2011. Footprints pull origin and diversification of dinosaur stem lineage deep into Early Triassic. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 278 (1708): 1107 - 1113.

Ezcurra, M. D. 2006. A review of the systematic position of the dinosauriform archosaur Eucoelophysis baldwini Sullivan & Lucas, 1999 from the Upper Triassic of New Mexico, USA. Geodiversitas 28(4):649-684.

Ezcurra, M. D. 2016. The phylogenetic relationships of basal archosauromorphs, with an emphasis on the systematics of proterosuchian archosauriformes. PeerJ 4: e1778.

Fechner, R. 2009. Morphofunctional evolution of the pelvic girdle and hindlimb of DInosauromorpha on the lineage to Sauropoda (Thesis). Ludwigs Maximillians Universita.

Fiorelli, L. E., S. Rocher, A. G. Martinelli, M. D. Ezcurra, E. Martin Hechenleitner, M. Ezpeleta. 2018. Tetrapod burrows from the Middle-Upper Triassic Chañares Formation (La Rioja, Argentina) and its palaeoecological implications. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 496: 85 - 102.

Kammerer, C. F., S. J. Nesbitt, N. H. Shubin. 2012. The first Silesaurid Dinosauriform from the Late Triassic of Morocco. Acta Palaeontological Polonica 57 (2): 277.

Kent, D. V., P. S. Malnis, C. E. Colombi, A. A. Alcober, R. N. Martinez. 2014. Age constraints on the dispersal of dinosaurs in the Late Triassic from magnetochronology of the Los Colorados Formation (Argentina). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111: 7958 - 7963.

Irmis, R. B., S. J. Nesbitt, K. Padian, N. D. Smith, A. H. Turner, D. T. Woody, and A. Downs. 2007. A Late Triassic dinosauromorph assemblage from New Mexico and the rise of dinosaurs. Science 317:358-361.

Jenkins, F. A. 1970. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. VII. The postcranial skeleton of the traversodontid Massetognathus pascuali (Therapsida, Cyondontia). Breviora 352: 1 - 28.

Langer, M. C., S. J. Nesbitt, J. S. Bittencourt, R. B. Irmis. 2013. Non-dinosaurian Dinosauromorphs. Geological Society London, Special Publications. 379 (1): 157 - 186.

Marsh, A. D. 2018. A new record of Dromomeron romeri Irmis et al., 2007 (Lagerpetidae) from the Chinle Formation of Arizona, U.S.A. PaleoBios 35:1-8.

Marsicano, C. A., R. B. Irmis, A. C. Mancuso, R. Mundil, F. Chemale. 2016. The precise temporal calibration of dinosaur origins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of AMerica 113 (3): 509 - 513.

Martz, J. W., and B. J. Small. 2019. Non-dinosaurian dinosauromorphs from the Chinle Formation (Upper Triassic) of the Eagle Basin, northern Colorado: Dromomeron romeri (Lagerpetidae) and a new taxon, Kwanasaurus williamparkeri (Silesauridae). PeerJ 7:e7551:1-71.

Nesbitt, S. J., R. B. Irmis, W. G. Parker, N. D. Smith, A. H. Turner and T. Rowe. 2009. Hindlimb osteology and distribution of basal dinosauromorphs from the Late Triassic of North America. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 29(2):498-516.

Nesbitt, S. J. 2011. The early evolution of archosaurs: relationships and the origin of major clades. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 353:1-292.

Perez Loinaze, V. S., E. I. Vera, L. E. Fiorelli, J. B. Desojo. 2018. Palaeobotany and palynology of coprolites from the Late Triassic Chañares Formation of Argentina: implications for vegetation provinces and the diet of dicynodonts. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 502: 31 - 51.

Rogers, R. R., A. B. Arcucci, F. Abdala, P. C. Sereno, C. A. Forster, C. L. May. 2001. Paleoenvironment and taphonomy of the Chañares Formation tetrapod assemblage (Middle Triassic), northwestern Argentina: spectacular preservation in volcanogenic concretions. Palaios 16: 461 - 481.

Romer, A. S. 1966.  The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. I. Introduction. Breviora 247: 1 - 14.

Romer, A. S. 1966.  The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. II. Sketch of the geology of the Rio-Chañares-Rio Gualo Region. Breviora 252: 1 - 20.

Romer, A. S. 1967. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. III. Two new gomphodonts, Massetognathus pascuali and M. teruggii. Breviora 264: 1 - 25.

Romer, A. S. 1968. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. IV. The dicynodont fauna. Breviora 295: 1 - 25.

Romer, A. S. 1969. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. V. A new chiniquodontid cynodont, Probelesodon lewisi - cynodont ancestry. Breviora 333: 1 - 24.

Romer, A. S. 1970. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. VI. A chiniquodont cynodont with an incipient squamosal-dentary jaw articulation. Breviora 344: 1 - 18.

Romer, A. S. 1971. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. VIII. A fragmentary skull of a large thecodont, Luperosuchus fractus. Breviora 373: 1 - 8.

Romer, A. S. 1971. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. IX: The Chanares Formation. Breviora 377: 1 - 8.

Romer, A. S. 1971. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. X. Two new but incompletely known long-limbed pseudosuchians. Breviora 378:1-10.

Romer, A. S. 1971. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. XI. Two new long-snouted thecodonts, Chanaresuchus and Gualosuchus. Breviora 379: 1 - 22.

Romer, A. S. 1972. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. XII. The post cranial skeleton of the thecodont Chanaresuchus. Breviora 385: 1 - 21.

Romer, A. S. 1972. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. XIII. A fragmentary skull of a large thecodont, Luperosuchus fractus. Breviora 389: 1 - 8.

Romer, A. S. 1972. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. Lewisuchus admixtus, gen. et sp. Nov., a further thecodont from the Chañares beds. Breviora 390: 1 - 13.

Romer, A. S. 1972. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. XV. Further remains of the thecodonts Lagerpeton and Lagosuchus. Breviora 394: 1 - 7.

Romer, A. S. 1972. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. XVI. Thecodont classification. Breviora 395:1-24.

Romer, A. S. 1972. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. XVII. The Chañares gomphodonts. Breviora 396: 1 - 9.

Romer, A. S. 1973. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. XVIII. Probelesodon minor, a new species of carnivorous cynodont; family Probainognathidae nov. Breviora 401: 1 - 4.

Romer, A. S., and A. D. Lewis. 1973. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. XIX. Postcranial materials of the cynodonts Probelesodon and Probainognathus. Breviora 407: 1 - 26.

Romer, A. S. 1973. The Chañares (Argentina) Triassic reptile fauna. XX. Summary. Breviora 413: 1 - 20.

Sereno, P. C., and A. B. Arcucci. 1994. Dinosaurian precursors from the Middle Triassic of Argentina: Marasuchus lilloensis, gen. nov. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 14(1):53-73.

[thalianitz]

Contextual Studies Research Project

In 1948 the City of London faced a fierce threat when Old Father Thames rose up in anger at the treatment of his River. ‘The Great Stink’ was the event that finally forced the government to take action and remedy the dire state of the Thames. Throughout ‘The Great Stink’ the recurring motif of ‘Old Father Thames’ became a powerful means of voicing the dire need for Health Reform, creating controversy and raising public awareness of the issues that was causing the deaths of thousands of citizens in the capital. (Bibby, M). The image of a dishevelled and filthy old man offering up death and disease to the citizens of London was a powerful contrast to the noble figure penned in poetic portraits of the River. It was a contrast that highlighted the juxtaposition between the importance of the river to London’s survival and the importance with which it was being treated. The character begun life as a character in Punch, but his effectiveness as a metaphor for the state of the River soon meant that he was a regular feature in numerous Victorian periodicals, and he became a powerful metaphor of the campaign against ‘The Great Stink’ (Horrocks, C 2009).

Today the Thames no longer functions as a sewage pipe, but the health of London’s central landmark is still precarious. Data from the Water Directive Framework shows that just 16% of UK water bodies were given ‘good’ ecological status in 2018 and 2019, and that the Thames is the second most polluted river in the UK, placing just after the Mersey, which is currently more polluted than the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (Morrit, D 2014, Greenpeace 2019, Schneiday, L 2021). Whilst in the 19th century the Thames served as a channel for cholera, today it serves as a transport for waste into the North Sea; in 2019 nearly 9000 items of plastic waste were discovered along the foreshore, the large majority of it was single use plastic, meanwhile ‘reefs’ of wet wipes are forming along the course of the river, impacting not only the wildlife but the course of the River itself. (McGoran, A 2019). The disregard for the health of the River showcases a greater disregard for Rivers and freshwater courses not just in London but around the UK.

Part of the problem potentially lies in the way that rivers, particularly industrial rivers like the Thames, are perceived. Rather than being part of a ‘Wilderness’ we feel we have a responsibility to protect, natural features in an industrial landscape are considered to be part of an Urban environment. (Cronon, W 1996) Throughout its history the Thames has been viewed as an important economic resource, something that often eclipses the equally important role it holds as culturally significant landmark (Pinch, P 2015). In this century there has been a push for significant water front redevelopment; stretches of the river that were abandoned as London's docklands were moved to other parts of the country became prime real estate, redeveloped into a “strip of affluence” (Sudjic, D 2003) Disregard for the environmental state of the Thames has potentially deadly consequences; in 1958 350 people were killed as a result of flooding, and the risks are only going to increase with effects of Climate Change; only 10% of UK floodplains still function, and between 2015 and 2018 1 in 5 houses were built in areas at risk of flooding (Taylor, V 2015) (Murray, J 2020). Work by groups such as the Thames Landscape Project attempts to combat this with large scale rewilding projects, but in the fight against Climate Change it is important that rivers are not forgotten in the wider public conscious.

In the battle for wider recognition of the plight of rivers like the Thames, the best weapon might be the same as the one utilised by the Victorian satirists, Old Father Thames. Stories of mythical figures like Old Father Thames have long been used as a way to warn of the power of rivers; characters like Jenny Greenteeth and water wyrms from folk tales highlight the dangers of disrespecting our Rivers (Schneiday, L 2021). There is a long standing tradition of the veneration of waterways, it is likely that Old Father Thames is a modern iteration of an old river God. The current representation of Old Father Thames resembles the Roman deities of the Tiber and the Nile, but it is likely that was a figure attached to the Thames long predating that (Ackroyd, P 2008). Artefacts found in several rivers, including the Battersea shield, suggest a different relationship with rivers in early prehistory; these artefacts are most commonly interpreted as votive offerings that were seen not as “wasting resources, but as an investment, a way of staking a claim in the natural power of the river,” (York, J 2002). Stories of the power and protection of these river deities have endured in to the present day in the form of myths like the Lady in the Lake and Excalibur (Yates, D and Bradley, R 2015). It is also possible to draw similarities between figures like Old Father Thames and the Greenman; the Greenman has remained a figure in popular culture; he serves as a powerful reminder of our connection and responsibilities to the natural world, holding humans to account for their actions, and there are still festivals held that celebrate our links to the Greenman and our links to the natural world (Anderson, W 1990). Mythical figures have also found their way into the popular conscious through the medium of science fiction. In the 21st century there has been a growing genre of Climate Fiction, or ‘Cli-Fi”, which has emerged as a alternative method of bringing ecology and environmental issues to a wider audience. The genre of science fiction allows writers to explore environmental dystopia, utopia and the potential for an ‘ecological apocalypse’ (Milner, A and Murgmann, J R 2020). Many important works of eco-criticisim have had an enduring impact, both in terms of cultural value, and on the ecological movement. One obvious example is Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Tolkien uses Lord of the Rings as a chance to comment on many ecological themes, Treebeard is a good example of a ‘Greenman’ esq figure; he challenges anthropocentric viewpoints and represents an alternative to the utilitarian stance presented by other characters (Brawley, C 2003). The impact of Middle Earth can be seen in the use of ‘Treebeard’ by environmental groups, one of which signed a letter with the characters name, writing in their statement “the Ents are going to war,” (Bregaland, 2006).

The enduring popularity of fictional characters showcases the effect the anthropomorphism of nature has on an audience. Anthropomorphism was first used as a term by the Greek philosopher Xenophanes to describe the similarities found in religious believers and their depiction of their Gods (Waytz, Epley, Cacioppo, 2010). Research into the phenomenon suggests that the desire to anthropomorphise the environment is a “basic human attitude” present from the early stages of childhood to allow us to empathise and interact with “non-humans as if they were human beings” (Airentu, G 2018). The ramifications of anthropomorphism on environmental debate are significant; the anthropomorphism of nature enables people to create a stronger bond with the environment, fostering a more environmentally friendly viewpoint. Pro-environmental views are tied to the feeling of environmental guilt, when nature is anthropomorphised these feelings are exacerbated, often prompting the adoption of more ecologically aware behaviours (Tam, K-P 2019). The use of terms such as ‘Mother Earth’ are good examples of using targeted anthropomorphism to encourage feelings of guilt and empathy in the public (Waytz, Epley, Cacioppo, 2010). Just as with the cartoons of Father Thames during the time of the Great Stink, the use of anthropomorphised representations of nature creates a stronger and more enduring message; for instance, a TV advert highlighting the environmental dangers of palm oil, featuring an anthropomorphised orang-utan was banned from being broadcast on the basis that it was too political (Butler, S and Sweney, M 2018).

Anthropomorphisation is clearly a useful tool in addressing the problems that stem from our increased urbanisation. The empathy for an anthropomorphic version of nature can help us to see ourselves as part of nature, as opposed to ‘the other’. (Daston, L 1995). In a world where we spend an estimated 90% of our lives indoors, it is difficult for environmental groups to rely solely on an individuals experiences in nature to promote an environmentally friendly attitude, anthropomorphism can help people bridge that gap (Tam, KP,. Lee, SL,. Chao, MM,. 2013). Some have suggested that a process of ‘Reenchantment’ is essential to promoting a healthier and more sustainable relationship with the environment; utilising the power of the ‘sublime’ in nature as a motivation to reconnect with the natural world, as well as retuning some of the ‘magic’ and ‘wonder’ to it (Barlett, P 2008). The use of quasi-mythical figures like Old Father Thames can especially help us to reconnect with overlooked areas of ‘Wilderness’ like the River Thames, by drawing on the cultural history of those myths and by using anthropomorphism to remind us of the interconnection and interdependence between us and the natural world.

Bibliography

Ackroyd, P (2008) “Thames: Sacred River”, Vintage Books, London

Airenti, G (2018) “The development of Anthropomorphism in Interaction: Intersubjectivity, Imagination and Theory of Mind”, Frontiers in Psychology

Anderson, W (1990) “Green Man: The Archetype of Our Oneness with the Earth”, HarperCollins, London

Barlett, P (2008) “Reason and Reenchantment in Cultural Change: Sustainability in Higher Education”, Anthropology, Vol. 49, No. 6, pg. 1077-1098, Chicago, USA

Bibby, M (accessed 2021) “London’s Great Stink”, History Magazine, Historic UK, (https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Londons-Great-Stink/)

Brawley, C (2008), “The Fading of the World: Tolkien’s ecology and loss in The Lord of the Rings”, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, USA

Bregaland (2006), ‘“The Ents are going to war”; Earth Liberation Front Strikes Maryland”, Earth First!, Vol. 26, No. 2, pg. 8, Daily Planet Publishing, Tuscon, United States

Butler, S and Sweney, M (2018) “Iceland’s Christmas TV advert rejected for being too political”, The Guardian, London, UK

Cronon, W (1996) ‘The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature”, Environmental History, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 7-28, Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History, USA

Daston L, (1995) “How Nature Became the Other: Anthropocentrism in Early Modern Natural Philosophy”, Biology as Society, Society as Biology: Metaphors. Sociology of the Sciences - A Yearbook 1994 (Maasen, S., Mendelson, E,. Weingart, P,. ed.), vol. 18, Springer, Netherlands

Davis, JL,. Green, JD,. Reed, A (2009) “Interdependence with the environment: Commitment, interconnectedness and environmental behaviour”, Journal of Environmental Psychology, Vol.29, No. 2, pp. 173-180

Gleeson-White, J (2018) “It’s only natural: the push to give rivers, mountains and forests legal rights”, The Guardian, London, UK

Greenpeace, (2019) “UK river more polluted than Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” Greenpeace Press Release

Horrocks, C (2009) “Father Thames Revenge: visualising reform through the characterisation of a social problem”, Popular Narrative Media, Vol. 2, no.1, p.23, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool

Horrocks, C (2003), “The Personification of “Father Thames”: Reconsidering the Role of the Victorian Periodical Press in the “Verbal and Visual Campaign” for Public Heath Reform, Victorian Periodicals Review, Vol. 36, No. 1, p.2 -19, John Hopkins University Press

McGoran, A (2019) “Microplastic pollution and wet wipe ‘reefs’ are changing the River Thames ecosystem”, The Conversation, London

Milner, A,. Burgmann, J R,. (2020) “Science Fiction and Climate Change: A sociological Approach”, Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, UK

Mishra, S K, (2016) “Ecocriticism: A Study of Environmental Issues in Literature”, BRICS Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 168 - 170,

Morrit, D (2014) “Plastic in the Thames: A River Runs through it”, Marine Pollution Bulletin, Vol. 78, No. 1-2, pg. 196-200, UK

Murray, J (2020) “Rewilding Project aims to give Thames its floodplain back”, The Guardian, London, UK

Pinch, P (2015) “Waterspace Planning and the River Thames in London”, The London Journal, Vol. 40, No. 3, pg. 272-292, London, UK

Schneidau, L (2021) “Understanding the Current”, Resurgence and Ecologist, Vol. 325, pp. 34 - 36, Devon, England

Shtulman, A (2008) “Variation in the anthropomorphization of supernatural beings and its implications for cognitive theories of religion”, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, Vol. 35, no. 5, pg, 1123 - 1138

Sudjic, D (2003) “Sold Down the River”, The Observer, London UK

Tam, K-P (2019) “Anthropomorphism of Nature, Environmental Guilt and Pro-Environmental Behaviour”, Sustainability, Vol. 11, No. 19

Tam, K-P,. Lee, S-L,. Chao, MM,. (2013) “Saving Mr. Nature: Anthropomorphism enhances connectedness to and protectiveness toward nature,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 49, No. 3

Taylor, V (2015) “London’s River? The Thames as a Contested Environmental Space”, The London Journal, Vol. 40, No. 3, pg. 183-195, London, UK

Urquiza-Haas, E and Kotrschal, K (2015) “The mind behind anthropomorphic thinking: attribution of mental states to other species”, Animal Behaviour, Vol. 109, pg. 167-176,

Waytz, A., Epley, N., Cacioppo, J-T, (2010) “Social Cognition Unbound: Insights into Anthropomorphism and Dehumanization”, Current directions in psychological science, Vol. 12, no. 1, pg. 58-62

Wilson, E (1993) “Biophilia and the Conservation Ethic”, The Biophilia Hypothesis, pg. 31-42, Washington, USA

Yates, D,. Bradley, R,. (2015) “Still water, hidden depths, the deposition of Bronze Age metalwork in the English Fenland”, Antiquity, Vol. 84, No. 324, Cambridge, UK

York, J (2002), “The life cycle of Bronze Age metalwork from the Thames”, Oxford Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 21, No. 1, pg. 77-92, Oxford, UK