#the atomic bomb will always be unforgivable

[murasakikagekitsune]

Original Cursed Technique: 影激減/Kage no Geki (trans. Shadow Puppet Theatre)

Asano-sama has an ability that's odd, for lack of a better word, given His nature as a River Kitsune. He can wield the light and shadows around Him in order to create puppets to do things for Him. They are controlled by gestures that mimic the action He wants to perform. You could argue that this is just run-of-the-mill telekinesis, and you'd be right, to a point, but drawing power from the light and shadows in the environment (or rather, the energy within them) is the key difference.

To me, it seems like He's always been to do this - create temporary vessels for the dead - and it feels separate to the fact He is a River Kitsune because most of Their powers are hydrokinetic. I know that zenko may have powers over everything, but Asano-sama seems like the kind of Being to tie His sense of self to His local geography, so He won't use powers that take Him too far from His place or sense of origin - that would be a river. Specifically, Asano-sama comes from the Otagawa, or the Ota River - that feeds into why He uses Kage no Geki more now, rather than His childhood; He has to, because of His catastrophic vision loss in 1945. This also is the reason Kage no Geki we (meaning Asano-sama and myself) think of it a Cursed Technique instead of a superpower or Quirk; there are negative emotions hidden in the shadows and in the fragments of people's souls. This, if you consider the Shinto view of animism, also applies to objects - He can befriend the object if it's more than 100 years old or pass on the soul of a puppet to an object so it becomes their vessel.

While, in truth, Kage no Geki was always a personal Cursed Technique, it was only recently classified as such because of it its rise in usage - the nuclear fallout of Hiroshima gave Him plenty of shadows to befriend.

[lostintransist]

[emerges from the dead]

ghoap angst? Ghost holds a lot of misplaced anger after mwiii - after Soap’s death.

He partially blames Price for ordering Johnny to step down when he had the shot. Hell, he even blames himself somehow for assuming his captain placed the same amount of confidence in Johnny than he did him.

If Price had just let him pull the fucking trigger, maybe he would still be here, alive, with him - in his arms.

But he’s not and they feel most empty. Simon tries to fill the gap with bourbon or throwing himself in whatever op he could get his hands on, even the riskier ones.

A part of him wishes it’d been him that day, muttering ‘why is it always the good ones’ to himself where no one can hear him spiral.

Simon is not suicidal in the way that most people think but he doesn’t see himself resisting the current if things were to go south on a mission.

Demi! 😘 remember you asked for this. @cafekitsune thanks for the dividers!

CW: DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT Canon Johnny death, suicidal ideation (If you wonder about letting go and something bad ending it all for you or a car accident just taking you out? that does count as ideation I was shook when my therapist pointed out that I was suicidal as a teen because of that), canon style violance, Simon dies in the end.

AO3 | Masterlist | Companion Story Peace Finding The Dead

Minors beware, no sexual context but emotional violence abounds.

Trains screeched by on the metal tracks, brakes fighting for friction. They had made it down to the platform; now Johnny and his captain would need to disable the bomb before it took out the city above it.

“Red wire, got it.”

His captain’s gaze flicked. That was the only warning he got. That platform beneath the city would become his tomb. Johnny stood, hand already moving for his gun at Makarov’s appearance. He wasn’t fast enough.

Johnny watched, the flash of the muzzle pulling his eyes to the light. His soul screamed to look for Ghost, Simon, before his synapses could pass the message hand over hand that his time had come. No part of him wanted his last memory to be of anything but the man he loved so desperately and had never found the nerve to tell.

“Soap!” Captain Price called him, voice rough.

No part of him remembered the past or yearned for the future. The smell of the dank dust permeated his nose, throat. He wondered if they couldn’t get his body out, would the archaeologists of millennia to come be able to pinpoint his last breath based on the atoms in his lungs?

Eyes flicking open he rose, pulling his blade from its sheath on his thigh. Makarov stood over his captain, saying something the ringing in Johnny’s ears prevented him from hearing. Makarov took Johnny’s blade through the shoulder. The trauma from the previous shot slowed him. He was too slow. God dammit why was he always too slow? Makarov got him in an armbar, planted a boot in Price’s face, and fired his gun again.

Training from his youth, the chapel humming with the vibration of the organ, told him to call on a god he didn’t believe in. Maybe his mother would greet him at the gates before the angels escorted him to hell for his disbelief. No. It would pain her to see him dragged away from her peace.

The bullet whistled as it reached him, breaking the skin. It burned…until it didn’t.

There is a different sound to dead weight falling.

Babies losing balance and thumping into the floor had a certain lightness, expectant reverb in it. A drunk bumping into a wall as they stumbled home from the bar? The energy seemed to transfer back from the brick to propel them forward. But dead weight, life disconnected from flesh? It hits the ears like stone on stone, harsh and painful. Another train screeched by.

Johnny stood, chest heaving. With a slow twist, he saw his body, a discarded shell strewn on the unforgiving ground. He knew two things then; he was dead and there was an afterlife.

“Boy!”

His shoulders whipped him around to look at an older man he had never seen before. With thick tight curls and a hint of gray above the temples and glasses stood near Gaz who knelt. The shade of his brown skin was lost among the darkness but his firm glare could be seen clearly.

“Aye?” Johnny replied, hesitant and scared.

Funny how he didn’t feel scared before his body hit the ground without him.

“You know how to stop this thing?” The older man pointed down at the bomb, time ticking away relentlessly.

“Aye,” he said once more.

“Then get’cha ass over here and help him! I know less than jack about bombs.”

Moving is easier than it had been in life, almost as if gravity had less hold on him as a memory.

Johnny knelt next to his best friend, the abject horror staining Gaz’s face leaving trace marks on Johnny anywhere his eyes touched.

“What do I do?” he asked, glancing up at the man who still hovered.

“Talk to him, slap his hands if he tries to touch the wrong wire. Lord knows despite my efforts he sometimes only responds to a smack,” the last line being muttered told Johnny it was more self-commentary than a command for him. “Should have never let him leave being a cop, even if he did it for me.”

Johnny rested his head on Gaz’s shoulder. Later he would sit with the memory, puzzled how he didn’t sink right through his best friend.

“You got this Kyle. We’ve gone over this enough times in training and a way to win bets, you know what to do.” Johnny spoke to him, voice never ceasing switching from English to Gaelic and back. When he ran out of words for encouragement he began to hum, nursery songs from his mother, his sisters, and his gran all drifting back in snippets and memories. Every so often when he glanced up from Gaz’s shoulder he would see a woman, soft smile with crinkles around her eyes speaking softly in Price’s ear.

The seconds stretched until finally, finally, the device had been deactivated safely. Johnny lifted his head from Gaz’s shoulder. The older man stood watch, eyes settled back near where Johnny’s body lay.

Following the old man’s gaze he found Simon. Johnny stared at the man who weakly shook the empty husk. Simon knelt; knees one up one down as if he were proposing to a corpse. Johnny stood, compelled to his would-be lover by the ache in his chest.

The distance between them disappeared and Johnny lowered himself down next to one of Simon’s thick thighs. He wept. The darker spots flooding the mask told the story.

Johnny. Johnny, wake up. Johnny, you can’t stay there we need to go.

Simon’s mouth hadn’t moved but still, Johnny could hear the weak whimpering of a broken man. Rubbing his thumb across the eye black below Simon’s eyes did nothing to disturb the darkness or the tears. Johnny felt better for it anyway.

“He’s yours to care for now.” The old man stood closer now.

“What do you mean?” Johnny didn’t move his gaze.

“His mum left when you arrived, said to take care of him. You’ve been assigned to him. Tough task for these folks. But you know that since you were one till a few minutes ago as you were one.” The older man shambled over.

“What does that make me then, his guardian angel?” Johnny shot a disbelieving look up as the old-timer stopped next to him.

“If you like,” he inclined his head. “Name’s Cedric. Your gran said to be good. You prefer Soap, John, or Johnny?”

The brown of Simon’s eyes were the deepest pool of sadness Johnny had ever seen. That despondence is what chose his answer.

The three of them who had taken such care to get his body out of the underground had brought him home. The plot had been full, no room for even a small urn. They planned to set his ashes free into the sunset instead. Seemed a fitting end for someone who died meters below the earth.

“He was the best of us.” Price started. He, Ghost, and Gaz had stared at the horizon for nearing on twenty minutes.

Corrine snorted, “You weren’t the best. No one is in this field.”

Johnny whacked her with the back of his fingers. He had met Corrine after the men had made it to safety, she had been John Price’s little sister before she died in childhood. She stuck around, keeping her big brother from harm.

“Are funerals always this hokey from this side?” Johnny pulled his top lip between his teeth as he watched. Simon didn’t say a word, grief screaming in silence. He lifted the urn from the backpack at his feet, Gaz and Price each setting a hand on it.

“Always,” Cedric retorted.

Johnny stood between them, wind rushing off the water rustling his hair but not nipping him with its chill, as they watched what was as close to a funeral as he would get.

“Who dares wins,” Price pushed out a hard breath, “Sleep easy soldier.”

“See you down range brother,” Gaz offered his piece. “We’ll take it from here.”

“Rest in peace, Johnny.” Simon’s words continued on for Johnny’s knowing only as he upended the ashes into the wind. With enough luck, I’ll see you soon.

Johnny’s eyes didn’t leave Simon’s back as he voiced his next question. The lump in his throat had him coughing before he could speak.

“Do you ever get used to their thoughts seeping into your brain?”

“Not really,” Corrine shrugged, the motion in his side vision.

Cedric guffawed, “Wait till he runs into life-threatening trouble while trying to get laid, those are the worst.”

Corrine’s face lights up as she turns to Cedric, “Did I ever tell you about the time John nearly got caught as a teen?”

“The hell was he doing that nearly got him killed for getting it wet as a teen?” Cedric fired off, face full of frustrated confusion.

“Jesus Ghost, your guardian angel must be working overtime to get you out of those hairy situations time and again with only scratches,” Farah patted him on the shoulder as she passed him walking down the ramp of the plane.

I wish they wouldn’t.

The thought lifted off Simon and into Johnny’s ears like a shimmer of heat rising from the blacktop.

“Fooker if you don’t shape up soon, I’ll keel ye meself.”

“No one can understand your angry accent, Johnny,” Corrine chided him.

“He doesn’t need to understand to start acting right,” Johnny punched Simon’s head, angrier still when his fist passed through with nary a ruffle of fabric.

It had been a nasty surprise when Johnny found he could only touch the living in love and care. He cared about Simon, would beg for reincarnation for the chance to love him again. The bastard couldn’t even pretend that he wasn’t suicidal. Na, Simon didn’t call it that. Hoping that a bullet would shift by degrees and end his constant pain was still ideation—calling into the void and pleading for a response.

This was the sixth mission he had taken since Johnny left his body where he hadn’t tried to keep himself safe. Fucker threw himself into the line of fire and walked away only because Johnny would fistfight the powers of the universe at large if it meant keeping Simon breathing.

Cedric had stayed back with Gaz wherever he would be right now. Corrine found Johnny glaring at ���his Simon’ as she called him when John had come to check on his lieutenant. She rested a hand on Johnny’s shoulder, touch familiar. They watched as Simon snapped at John, stepping back from John’s attempt at comfort and guidance.

“He’ll get better soon,” she soothed at him with her words.

“And what if he doesn’t Corrine? What am I supposed to do then? He is killing himself!” Johnny flung a hand out to the man who limped into the hanger, waving off concern from every person he passed. “He won’t go to medical to get that wound in his leg checked out. What am I supposed to do the next time he acts like a…a..”

Instead of searching for a word, Johnny shouted his frustrations into the sky. He had to watch Simon devolve, each day taking a piece more of his love and casting it into the fire of grief. He fell to his knees, the gravel he landed on biting at him despite the incorporeal body.

“I would have given him my beating heart Corrine. I would have done anything for him, but he can’t find the will to keep living for me.”

His whisper escaped, broken and raw in the face of seeing Simon again too soon. Too damn soon.

“When I died John tried to follow.” The even tone belies the words.

“What happened?” Johnny’s eyes stare at the ground while he listens to her story.

“We had been playing at the creek. We had been told not to,” she chuckled lightly, “But what six-year-old wants to miss the waters being close enough to touch without getting dirty? The bank couldn’t support my weight and I ended up in fast-moving water. I wasn’t a strong enough swimmer to get out. John went in after me, our dad saved him but my body made it to the next town before it was found.”

Johnny looked up at her, the wrinkles on her face and the womanly body she moved in did not match her death. He looked exactly like he did when Makarov’s bullet had ended him.

“Someone came and gave me a choice, to stay with my big brother and grow as he did or move on to paradise.” She glanced to the side as if called.

Turning to look with her Johnny found Price, a hand on Ghost’s shoulder firmly leading him away from the barracks and to medical.

“What about when he tried to follow?” Johnny’s voice escaped small, and ringed with tears.

Cedric stared at Simon, his nose scrunching the same way Gaz’s would.

“Tough bastard that one. He is so strong-willed that he won’t accept any of your gentle nudging. Have you hit him yet?”

Johnny stared at Simon, sucking back his fourth bourbon at the bar.

“Too mad every time I try, nothing sticks,” John admitted, love and rage twining like vines in his chest, constricting.

“Grab him when he’s asleep but not drunk. He’ll take the message as a dream but it’s better than letting him kill himself without trying everything you can,” Cedric patted Johnny on the shoulder before drifting across the bar to chat with another guardian angel. Seems everyone had one and while not everyone would be assigned to be one everyone who accepted the role had a strong tie to the living, and a desire to keep them safe.

Johnny had never experienced impotence like that of keeping the love of his life from trying to follow him into the grave.

Time moved differently being dead. It moved strangely in dreams though. Johnny knelt at Simon’s head as he lay in the bed, fingers interlaced and ankles crossed. A shirt that had to have lost all scent of Johnny covered the pillow in lieu of a case.

Letting his fingertips explore like he never had a chance in life Johnny memorized the scars that added to the story of his love. Johnny would walk through hell, to the edges of the universe and back, further even if that would take the weight of pain from Simon’s shoulders. He already resembled Atlas, the sky teetering across his broad shoulders. Laying a gentle kiss to Simon’s forehead Johnny slid into his dreams.

“Why is it always the good ones?” Simon asked to the nothing that surrounded him.

“Funny you assume I was good enough to save,” Johnny remarks as he steps next to Simon.

No mask prevents Johnny from seeing every twitch of emotion across Simon’s face.

“You were. Always.”

Walking with Simon, hands tucked together, eons passed.

A gentle tug, a chirp of a morning bird informed Johnny his time here neared an end.

“Simon,” he stopped, using the hand in his to pull the other man to a stop. “You need to live. Giving in to grief? If you die Si, who will save the world?”

“There isn’t a world worth saving without you in it.”

Ghosts must feel pain more acutely without bodies. Ten words and Simon had cracked his rib cage open and poured arctic waters over his heart.

Pulling his hand free from Simon’s Johnny took his face in both hands, pressing their lips together in a way not even his vicious masturbation fantasies could conjure up. Whispers of touch, as if he were kissing moonlight, Johnny infused each atom that passed his with love.

“Live a long life for me, Simon. Keep me waiting until white has stolen all the color from your hair. Let me take your hand in the old folks’ home and walk you to peace,” Johnny laid the words like flowers over a casket, drawing focus away from the dead below it.

Johnny thought Simon had finally found a ledge to cling to, something to grow against as he reached for the sun again.

Fucker always had to prove him wrong.

Simon stopped being so overtly careless with his life on missions. He even began talking to Price again, letting the older man draw him into laughing once or twice.

Death found Simon unprepared, his own knife slid between his ribs high in the mountains closer to the moon than the sea. Johnny took the blade in the heart with him, trying despite the lack of flesh, to stop the end from arriving.

The snow stole away Simon’s gasps.

“You were supposed to live!” Johnny reached down and grabbed Simon by the back of his shirt, hauling him out of his body before throwing him back to the trees that lined the path. “How could you not check that he was dead?!”

He didn’t care that he was shouting. He kept going.

“I needed you to live Simon! If you lived then my death wasn’t the reason you got careless.” Johnny swung on him.

Simon didn’t try and stop it, move, block, nothing. The wide hook caught him in the chin, sending him tumbling into the undisturbed snow. He held a hand to his jaw, staring at Johnny.

The love-twinned rage shook in Johnny’s chest. He sunk his boot into Simon’s chest until his legs shook and he fell. Knees bracketing Simon’s waist the tears started.

“Why Simon? Why?”

The raw, gasping wound of love painted the scene between them. Johnny couldn’t see past the tears and the heaving sobs that racked him.

“I missed you, Johnny,” Simon’s voice, tender and raw, preceded the hand that reached.

Fingertips brushing against the permanent stubble on Johnny’s cheek sent him crashing down. The dead men wept, for each other, themselves, and everyone they left behind.

If the dead find peace, it is not while the living roam.

[dollypartonswig]

my top 10 books of the year!

Add me on StoryGraph and Goodreads!

1) Normal People - Sally Rooney

Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation—awkward but electrifying—something life changing begins.

A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

2) Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman

Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend.

Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything.

3) Invisible Women : Data Bias In A World Designed By Men - Caroline Criado Pérez

From government policy and medical research, to technology, workplaces, and the media. Invisible Women reveals how in a world built for and by men we are systematically ignoring half of the population, often with disastrous consequences. Caroline Criado Perez brings together for the first time an impressive range of case studies, stories and new research from across the world that illustrate the hidden ways in which women are forgotten, and the profound impact this has on us all.

4) South - Ernest Shackleton

As war clouds darkened over Europe in 1914, a party led by Sir Ernest Shackleton set out to make the first crossing of the entire Antarctic continent via the Pole. But their initial optimism was short-lived as ice floes closed around their ship, gradually crushing it and marooning twenty-eight men on the polar ice. Alone in the world's most unforgiving environment, Shackleton and his team began a brutal quest for survival. And as the story of their journey across treacherous seas and a wilderness of glaciers and snow fields unfolds, the scale of their courage and heroism becomes movingly clear.

5) The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb's effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Henrietta's family did not learn of her "immortality" until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits.

6) Babel - R.F Kuang

Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide…

7) The Black Angels: The Untold Story Of The Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis - Maria Smilios

New York City, 1929. A sanatorium, a deadly disease, and a dire nurse shortage.

During those dark pre-antibiotic days, when tuberculosis killed 1 in 7 people, white nurses at Sea View, New York's largest municipal hospital, began quitting. Desperate to avert a public health crisis, city officials summoned Black southern nurses, luring them with promises of good pay, a career, and an escape from the strictures of Jim Crow. But after arriving, they found themselves on an isolated hilltop in the remote borough of Staten Island, yet again confronting racism and consigned to a woefully understaffed facility, dubbed 'the pest house' where 'no one left alive'.

Spanning the Great Depression and moving through World War II and beyond, this story follows the intrepid young women, the 'Black Angels', who, for twenty years, risked their lives working under dreadful conditions while caring for the city's poorest - 1,800 souls languishing in wards, waiting to die or become 'guinea pigs' for experimental (often deadly) drugs. Yet despite their major role in desegregating the NYC hospital system - and vital work in the race for the cure for tuberculosis and subsequently helping to find it at Sea View - these nurses were completely erased from history. The Black Angels recovers the voices of these extraordinary women and puts them at the centre of this riveting story celebrating their legacy and spirit of survival

8) The Mermaid Of Black Conch - Monique Roffey

On a quiet day, near the Caribbean island of Black Conch, a mermaid raises her barnacled head from the flat grey sea. She is attracted by David, a fisherman waiting for a catch, singing to himself with his guitar. Aycayia the mermaid has been living in the vast ocean all alone for centuries.

When Aycayia is caught and dragged ashore by American tourists, David rescues her with the aim of putting her back in the ocean. But it is soon clear that the mermaid is already transforming into a woman.

This is the story of their love affair, of an island and of the great wide sea.

9) The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie

Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He suspected also that someone had been blackmailing her. Then, tragically, came the news that she had taken her own life with an apparent drug overdose.

However the evening post brought Roger one last fatal scrap of information, but before he could finish reading the letter, he was stabbed to death. Luckily one of Roger’s friends and the newest resident to retire to this normally quiet village takes over—none other than Monsieur Hercule Poirot.

10) Penance - Eliza Clark

It’s been nearly a decade since the horrifying murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson rocked Crow-on-Sea, and the events of that terrible night are now being published for the first time.

That story is Penance, a dizzying feat of masterful storytelling, where Eliza Clark manoeuvres us through accounts from the inhabitants of this small seaside town. Placing us in the capable hands of journalist Alec. Z. Carelli, Clark allows him to construct what he claims is the ‘definitive account’ of the murder – and what led up to it. Built on hours of interviews with witnesses and family members, painstaking historical research, and most notably, correspondence with the killers themselves, the result is a riveting snapshot of lives rocked by tragedy, and a town left in turmoil.

The only question is: how much of it is true?

Bonus my top 10 worst books of the year

1. Dark and Shallow Lies - Ginny Myers-Sain 2. The Terror - Dan Simmons 3. The Chestnut Man - Søren Sveistrup 4. Emma - Jane Austen 5. The Dead Romantics - Ashley Poston 6. Prophet Song - Paul Lynch 7. The Farm -Joanne Ramos 8. As Good As Dead - Holly Jackson 9. A Haunting in The Arctic - C.J. Cooke 10. Desire or Defence - Leah Brunner

[talas-first-lady]

Post the ranking of the male legends. Let the world burn. Let chaos reign. It's on brand for the show (please read this in a funny tone)

The official, correct ranking of male Legends from best to worst along with foolproof evidence which you can trust because I am a lesbian and I am not swayed by men of dubious attractiveness.

1: Gwyn Davies

Pros: Invented time travel so he could save the poet he spent his entire adult life pining for. Has some of the absolute best throwaway lines of S7 (with flawless delivery). Has literally never done anything wrong ever.

Cons: Not around for long enough, which was in no way his fault.

2: Ray Palmer

Pros: Delightful. Hilarious. Has great chemistry with every other character. Loves showtunes and Star Wars.

Cons: Spending billions of dollars to create a suit so you can be a superhero in a city that frankly has too many superheroes already is not a good look. Also he's way too intense in relationships.

3: Nate Heywood

Pros: He somehow manages to be the perfect combination of himbo and really smart. It shouldn't be possible. Also, I too am an overeducated nerd who is really into Tala and Maisie, so I relate to him.

Cons: He really sucks whenever he's in a relationship.

4: Jefferson Jackson

Pros: He's such a good guy through and through. He has been put through some deeply unfair things but still manages to always be a positive force. Deserves all the hugs.

Cons: His accent is ridiculous and I can't take him seriously because of that.

5: Mick Rory

Pros: Has any character on the show evolved as much as him? Probably not. He's a sweetheart. He writes romance novels. His relationships with other characters are always amazing.

Cons: We all had to watch him birth alien eggs through his nose and that can never been unseen. Way too attached to his shitty ex boyfriend.

6: Wally West

Wally is right in the middle because he is true neutral. Does he make the show better? Not really. Does he make the show worse? Not really.

Pros: Good karaoke choices.

Cons: It's really dumb that Death Totem Sara appeared to him as his ex (who he really wasn't with that long and who was very much still alive) instead of his mom (who was his only family for his entire childhood and fairly recently died).

7: Gary Green

Pros: Sweet, funny, endlessly relatable. He adds so much character to every scene he's in.

Cons: Does not understand boundaries at all. He's also very inconsistently written because obviously they didn't plan for him to be an alien from the beginning.

8: Behrad Tarazi

Pros: I enjoy the way his relationship with Zari has developed. And he's a great singer.

Cons: Weed is not a personality. They didn't bother to give him an actual personality until season 7, at which point I was already over him. I also don't like his fixation with Astra which was entirely about finding her pretty on Highcastle Abbey and has nothing to do with who she actually is.

9: Carter Hall

Pros: Had the good sense to die quickly before he could really annoy me.

Cons: Manipulative towards Kendra. Actively detracted from the 100th episode.

10: Martin Stein

Pros: Victor Garber. A+ singing.

Cons: Drugged and kidnapped Jax in the pilot. Racist, sexist, deeply selfish. He started to improve slightly but it wasn't enough.

11: Rip Hunter

Pros: Saw the potential in Sara Lance.

Cons: Told Gideon he loved her and then TURNED HER INTO A TRAINING SIMULATOR FOR THREE YEARS. He also flew her into the sun and into an atomic bomb. Lied to all the original Legends. Lied to Ava.

12: Leonard Snart

Pros: Had the good sense to die quickly. Also, I do enjoy him on The Flash.

Cons: Cruel and abusive to Mick almost constantly. Talk about kicking someone while they're down. He's an asshole to everyone, but the way he speaks to Mick is unforgivable.

13: John Constantine

Pros: He's a useful foil for some of the more optimistic Legends. Decent bisexual representation. Never met a weird unidentified substance he didn't want to put in his mouth.

Cons: He forced Charlie to face thousands of years worth of trauma, got Behrad and Charlie's friends killed in the process, and put the entire world at risk. Why? To save Astra, who he immediately forgot about and left to struggle on her own (again). He sent Desmond to hell. He abandoned Nora when she was a kid. He altered Spooner's memories despite knowing that having her mind messed with is a major source of trauma for her. Put the entire world at risk again by teaming up with Bishop. Lied to and manipulated Zari and had the gall to call it love. Also, if both Ava and Mick don't like you, you are clearly highly suspicious.

[moguerastan95]

Titanus Satajirasu, the Anti-Gojira

Godzilla has a lot of enemies, but none of them are examples of what Godzilla could have became if he was just pure evil…. Most of Godzillas enemies serve as a threat to the balance, an invader that wants to upslurp the Big Gs crown or are just titans that he really doesn’t like…. But what If there was Titan that served as an example of what Godzilla were to become if he were to become beyond redemption? And that Titan… turned out to be this one, introducing Titanus Satazillas!

Satazillas is a example of what Godzilla could have become if he continued to be negative and hateful and what would happen if the Monsterverse made Godzilla according to how he was supposed to be portrayed in Japan and also what would have happened if Godzilla lived his life in a more unforgiving environment

Unlike Godzilla who is only fearsome due to his anger and rage towards those who disturb the balance, Satazillas isn’t just angry but Unhinged, Sadistic, Cruel, Unstable and very Abusive, this lunatic lizard is so damn Hateful that he even attacks his most loyal allies and he really hates Moths and the things he hates the most is Mother nature and Godzilla himself, he’s so blinded by rage that he even harms himself!

Satazillases lived a horrible life before becoming the Tyrant with major examples of his life being kicked out of the Godzilla kingdom by Dagon for killing a Mothra and being abused by the Monster who challenged the world known as Qolvaonizaxa, all the hate, torment and cruelty he lived turned him into a hateful Tyrant who takes his frustrations on his own fellow Gojiras and Titan as he basically beats and tortures them giving them the same hell that he went through, he even does that same abusive treatment on his most loyal allies, Satazillas also his abuses his atomic powers and it hurts him too because how poorly he manages it, the burning Pain when he uses his atomic breath may hurt but he has gotten used to the pain as it makes feel more angry, the rules of Satazillases kingdom is extremely unfair and more unfair and cruel than the Skar Kings rule, nothing but negativity and violence and hatred happens in Satazillases kingdom, and as for now, Satazillas waits in his own kingdom in the Earths core, waiting for Godzilla to come to his kingdom so Satazillas can finally put his hands on the Titan who stole his supposed crown after Dagon kicked him out

Godzilla isn’t supposed to be like a hero but represents something greater, a living embodiment of nature's balance, an ancient warrior, and a last resort to restore balance in nature, Satazillas is just hateful and unstable and represents something worst, he represents what Godzilla is supposed represent the fears that many Japanese held about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the possibility of recurrence, but despite this he also represents the opposite of Godzillas purpose, Unbalance, Satazillas just wants to make Mother Nature burn, he despises Nature because to his eyes, being the Alpha Protector for Balance is for disgraces, it’s just Work, Work and take from others and for what cost? why should he bring balance to the world? Why should he do what right for him and for his fellow titans knowing they might backstab him at any moment? And why should he spare puny Humans that he always looked down on? (Fun Fact: Satazillas hates humans not because of how cruel they can be but because they aren’t even cruel enough and to his eyes don’t even serve as a threat to him), he only took the role to be feared by his enemies and being a King doesn’t satisfy him, to the eyes of Satazillas, everyone around him and everyone he sees are parasites and believes the world he lives on is a burning Hell where only the strongest of parasites survive and can take from others

Godzilla is a King and a God, Satazillas is also a King but he’s no God, he a Devil

And while King Ghidorah is Godzillas arch nemesis in terms of long term rivalry and Mechagodzilla being Godzillas antithesis due to Godzilla being a force of nature and mechagodzilla being a creation of society, Satazillas is a Evil foil to Godzilla to remind the big G what he could have become if he was really that bad

[glattandblade]

Glatt & Blade’s 100 Follower Event!

Hello everyone! We’d like to preface this with a huge THANK YOU! When we started, we had no idea how far we’d go, but reaching this milestone made us realize we’re in it for the long haul. So again, thank you to everyone who likes what we do and has supported us over the past month <3

Now: Onto the event!

Glatt and I wanted to do different things: I’m into song fics, Glatt wanted prompts. So boom! You get both :D Glatt and I have picked 10 prompts/song lyrics each, to which you can choose one and a character and we’ll write you a thing! (Remember you can be as detailed or as vague as you want to!) 

Remember the rules & who/what we write! You can find that here. (We don’t write for the same people, so when requesting make sure the person you’re requesting to writes for that character!) Also make sure you follow the cc’s boundaries, too :)

Prompts under the cut! (Requests for this event are: OPEN!)

Blade’s Song Lyrics

1. “Won't you stay with me, my darling, when this house don't feel like home?” (Curses - The Crane Wives)

2. “I am not the sunshine, I am not the moon at night. Well, who else could I be when I can’t hardly see?” (Dr. Sunshine Is Dead - Will Wood and the Tapeworms)

3. “Girl it's you that I lie with as the atom bomb locks in. It's you I watch TV with as the world, as the world caves in.” (As The World Caves In - Matt Maltese)

4. “Keep the promise sealed in pain. Every time we change, it rains.” (Leopard - Jack Stauber)

5. “I don't mind the sun sometimes, the images it shows. I can taste you on my lips and smell you in my clothes.”  (Pepper - Butthole Surfers)

6. “It seems unforgiving when a good thing ends, but you and I will always be back then.” (Time Adventure - Rebecca Sugar)

7. “I’ll hold you closer in a second. There’s something weighing heavy on my teeth. What’s my deal? I’m just so glad that you’re real.” (Coconut Ranger - Jack Stauber)

8. “After leaving my apartment, I feel this cold inside me. It howls away all through the market, it calls your name.” (Apartment - Young the Giant)

9. “We got no money but we got heart. We're gonna rattle this ghost town. This house is falling apart.” (Anna Sun - Walk The Moon)

10. “I fell in love with you and you fell in love with me, what shall we do?” (Oh No! - Mindy Gledhill)

Glatt’s Prompts

1. “Don't touch me!” “How am i supposed to bandage you if you won't let me touch you?”

2. "For the last time no this is not a date, we are fighting, I am actively trying to murder you at this very moment!" "You say that buuuuuuuut…”

3. “When did you stop loving me?”

4. "When was the last time you said you loved me, and meant it?"

5. “Don’t look at me like that.” “Like what?” “Like you still love me.”

6. Being forced to watch the love of your life move on with someone else, you’ve gathered enough courage to tell them you want to be with them, only to catch them holding hands with someone else 

7. I’m finally ready to be with you, but you’ve finally moved on from me, and i’m too late

8. “I despise you with every inch of my being.” “That’s not a lot of inches.”

9. “Y’know, when I said you’d fall for me, this is not what I had in mind.”

10. “Whenever I’m around you I get super nervous and get this weird feeling in my stomach. So, I’m either in love with you or allergic to you, and I don't know which one is worse.”

Event Masterlist

[crossxskulled]

“ it’s okay to be angry, you’re allowed to be upset about what happened to you. ” ((Did someone order two physically-fit Phantom Thieves with pent-up anger issues? :3c ))

-

☠ - For a moment he’s quiet due to the one who’s telling him this said advice. A stir of realization settles within those bluntly honest eyes of the delinquent as he’s left silent, caught off in how casually this is spoken of, rightfully armed with it’s silver lining of flame. Surrounding them in the thinning halls of Shujin would be the emptiness of an otherwise shitty day. Old scars still managed to creep from the heavily ingrained society that aimed to always see him kicked to the side one way or another.

Not that he entirely faults them. Ryuji knows that it’s left by the machinations of  despot who aimed to bleed his image into all of Shujin itself. To claim any woman as his rightfully owned property and make examples of execution for any man who hadn’t fell in line with his whims. Broken bones highlighted by mortification, only to be puppeted by the strings of subjugation had left a history of where repressed anger simmers under his veins like fresh magma. Their lives within the Phantom Thieves highlighted their release of pain through every enemy crushed.

Part of him had to worry if he was gaining a sadistic streak by allowing the full feast of anger to be indulged. To burn and let burn despite the inherent risk of being of being consumed by it all. There was a touch of guilt in knowing that part of him was happy to partially imagine the faces of people who slighted him as those shadows, seeing their twisted amalgamations become saturated in fear before applying the final strikes. Always ensuring he stops the fantasy during the end so it’s always a shadow he falls, never a person he wished to just rough of.

Remaining slouched against a nearby wall of the school, Ryuji’s eyes bore deep into Makoto’s, a steam like sigh spilling like fresh exhaust. “And stewin’ solely in that feels effin’ worse then holding it back. Makoto, if I don’t do somethin’ with it, feels like I’m gonna lose my damn mind.” Reliving those pained days isn’t what he wishes to do.

To conquer those days like the unforgiving sea served to be a lot more appealing.

”Let’s go smash some shadows.” The suggestion is dropped like an atom bomb with it’s lack of finesse. Yet he’s entirely serious, the particular burn within his eyes, the aspect of Skull showing itself to his fellow ally without a lack of shame. What kind of good with shame with your name was tarnished and stepped so deep in mud, it’d be impossible to return? “Gotta improve our game anyways, yeah? If you’re down for the whole idea of feelin’ pissed, best if we can go and use it productively.”

[goodbysunball]

Quarantine Rock

Been a minute. I’ve been driven back to the ‘net by the unfortunate situation the entire world is in. I’m trying hard to keep occupied and keep cool instead of binging news and Instagram, and music, as always, has been a salve. Most of the below titles are just new to me, though not necessarily new - but we’ve pretty much all got the time to reminisce or to go back and search for buried gems, so here goes.

Tori Kudo, The Last Song of My Life LP (An’archives) / Tori Kudo & Kayo Makino, Ein Traum Für Dich LP (Black Truffle)

Tori Kudo’s always been on the periphery of my listening, but aside from the Mu Ji Ge 7″, this is really my first time diving into his extensive body of work. His newest solo LP is The Last Song of My Life, where as bandleader Kudo leads a melancholy saunter meditating on one motif for its duration, occasionally pocked by noise, apparently “depending on their response to the film work that was being projected.” You don’t need the film to get to the emotive heart of this, and the motif will be stuck in your head for days. Strangely beautiful, and somewhat disarming, even if the errant elbow strikes you in the ribs now and then. My go-to reading soundtrack lately. Beautiful presentation by An’archives, as usual. This one flew off the shelves, so be sure to grab it if you see it in the wild.

Last year Kudo released a collaborative LP with Kayo Makino on Black Truffle, and if you’re daunted by The Last Song of My Life, this one goes even further down the rabbit hole. I prefer Ein Traum Für Dich though; Kudo’s on piano, playing Satie on the A-side and some meandering progression on the flip, and Makino digitally distorts and heightens Kudo’s playing, occasionally adding spoken word samples and processed noise. The A-side is interesting, both of them playing with the possibilities of this pairing, Makino layering and offsetting Kudo’s melody to nauseating effect. The B-side is the reason for tuning in, though: Makino’s static stretches and overwhelms Kudo at points, making for a hypnotic and immersive 20+ minute ride. It’s a trip, the whole album acting as an audial blackout curtain, or the mesmerizing escape we all could use. Grab the LP from Forced Exposure for 15% off now.

Hardijs Lediņš, Tiny Crabs of Deep Waters LP (Musiques Electroniques Actuelles)

Been digging into the NSRD collective’s work a bit lately, though I’m not gonna pretend like I’m some sort of expert - the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art published a comprehensive book about the group a few years ago if ya wanna become one, though. I’m partway through the book; my takeaway so far is that the NSRD collective, led by Hardijs Lediņš and Juris Boiko, found ways to subvert oppressive Soviet rule through a freedom of expression and thought seldomly encountered. Part of that expression was of course music, and the Workshop For the Restoration of Unfelt Feelings compilation on Stroom is the best introduction (good luck finding the LP). The music was largely electronic, somewhat ahead of its time and also totally cracked given the relative isolation of Latvia during this time. Tiny Crabs of Deep Waters is another entryway to the group’s music, this time a reissue of an impossible-to-find CDr from Hardijs Lediņš. The synth-heavy, largely instrumental record should appeal to fans of the soundtrack work of Tangerine Dream or John Carpenter, but the whole thing carries this strange sense that something is a bit off. Cartoonish keyboard effects collide with rich bass tones in a conventional yet dizzying manner, if you lean in close. The LP’s been a great shot in the arm when the day gets too sleepy, especially when the beat kicks in on the 13-minute “La Danse Binoculaire De Paris.” Top notch reissue, released at the end of last year, and can still be had on Discogs.

Teitanblood, Death 2xLP (Norma Evangelium Diaboli/The Ajna Offensive)

Yeah, this one makes sense right now: absolutely blistering black metal from Spain, the 2014 follow-up to modern classic Seven Chalices that I didn’t check out for some reason until now. Teitanblood is smothering and chaotic, and hardly conventional, but an admittedly complicated method exists behind the screen. There’s hardly a more cathartic record available to me than Death, especially the duo of “Plagues of Forgiveness”/”Cadaver Synod” that takes up face B. The band released The Baneful Choir last year, and that one smokes, too. Grab both LPs from Hell’s Headbangers or direct from the Ajna Offensive and burn straight out of this reality.

Martina Lussi, Diffusion Is a Force LP (Latency)

A totally engrossing and absorbing sound world created by Switzerland’s Martina Lussi on Diffusion Is a Force. The samples used - wheezing breaths, dribbling basketballs, roaring crowds - introduce a human element to the rich, warm tapestries. No beats to ride on here, but a track like “Higher Energy” cuts to the core with a Loren Connors-esque guitar part, which is then slowly displaced by rumbling, punctuated bass. The album feels very light and warm, as if in a fog, and the careful sequencing shifts the mood imperceptibly from track to track. Obviously I am not well-versed in electronic music, and there’s probably a name for what Lussi does so well here, but whatever it is, Diffusion Is a Force hits me right in the chest while gettin’ the synapses firing. Find the LP on Discogs, or support 2 Bridges Music Arts during this time of small business strain.

Reek Minds, s/t 7″ (Edger) / Suck Lords, True Lords Music 7″ (Edger) / Pig DNA, Mob Shity MLP (La Vida Es Un Mus) / Pig DNA, Strong Throat 7″ (Square One Again)

It’s inevitable that some anger will boil over from time to time, from the ineptitude shown by governments worldwide to the jackass hoarding hand sanitizer right here in Tennessee. These four records will stomp the anger right outta ya so you can get back to staring at the ceiling and forcing yourself to breathe calmly. Reek Minds’ 7″ is new this year, and they blaze through 8 tracks, coming off like the late, great Sickoids while still sprinkling in some mosh-worthy bits (see “A.M.”). Matt K. at Yellow Green Red thinks Iron Lung will be calling for Reek Minds to join their ranks soon, and I agree. Apparently there are 2 copies of Reek Minds’ self-titled 7″ left at Bandcamp as of this writing. They share members with Suck Lords, who somehow play even faster, approaching powerviolence speeds, their drummer giving Jerry’s Kids’ Brian Betzger a run for his money. The Lords are a little more goofy than Reek Minds, though you wouldn’t know it if they hadn’t included a lyric sheet and a “Getting to Know the Lords” insert with last year’s True Lords Music record. Grab some Lords from Not For Everyone.

Pig DNA, for their part, drop an atomic bomb on the whole thing, their 2015 MLP Mob Shity sounding strangely prescient and utterly unforgiving. From the opening track “Foire,” Pig DNA throw down the gauntlet, every track seeming to possess more ludicrous levels of noise smothering the piledriving riffs than the previous one. There’s d-beat in there somewhere, but I’m not gonna stick my hand in the caustic stew to find it. “Scums (City Rockers)” is my pick, but the whole thing is an unrelenting assault and worthy successor to Kriegshög’s s/t LP. Hard to handle nuclear material, so it’s still available for as low as $6. The band followed up Mob Shity with Strong Throat, possibly the shortest 7″ record I own, that continues down the same path. It’s worth hunting down (here ya go) for the B-side, where the drums drop out and the band still gnashes and claws at the walls with all its got. Insane. May their message live on in these chaotic days ahead.

[tessatechaitea]

Justice Society of America #4 (1992)

Ultrahumanite exhibits all the characteristics of a man happy to be reunited with friends: cheerily laughing, bright happy expression, hands on hips, weirdly-shaped massive hard-on.

Forgive me for the erect penis joke but I felt it was in the tradition of Grunion Guy. You might find it funny if you knew how uncomfortable it made me to type it and how worried I was for a second that my mother might see it. But then I realized that if my mom saw it, it would mean my mom read Grunion Guy's blog, and then I almost threw up. That would be so embarrassing! Normally I would be on the side of the Justice Society of America because they are the good people with the good values. But how good are their good values if they are trying to stop a job creator and upstanding corporate citizen like Ultrahumanite who is just trying to run his Ultragen business the best way he knows how: with stormtrooper bodyguards to defend labs where they experiment on animal-human hybrids? Anything that hurts corporate profits is a bad thing for capitalism and the Justice Society of America should know that, being that they have "America" right there in their name. Although they also have "Society" in their name and that is a bird whistle for socialists. The bird whistle is the dog whistle of the left because it is more pleasant to listen to and it isn't aggravating or obnoxious and it makes the world a better place for everybody (except people who hate birds and probably own guns to shoot those stupid birds. Stupid birds. So dumb).

Oh no! Nobody warned these old timers that we aren't doing prison rape jokes anymore!

Wildcat has some great words of wisdom in that previous panel. It is the most scienciest science statement I have ever read (unless it was the mathiest math statement): "If X did not happen, Y would have happened! Thusly I have proved we are better than you! QED! In your face, Ultrahumanite!" Whenever I would lose a game of Dungeons & Dragons with my friends Bullpup and McGroover, I would say, "Oh yeah? Let's see you make a delicious sandwich!" Then they would back down and they would be all, "Yes, you are correct, Pickle Boy. You are the better friend with the most useful skills and we are only good at pretending to slaughter Kobold families for copper coins." That's pretty funny if you realize Dungeons & Dragons is about adventurers invading the lairs of creatures to steal their material possessions! Doctor Mid-Nite does not quip with the others because he might be dead. Do not forget these guys are really old! It does not matter how many muscles they have or what kind of cardio breathalyzer tests they can pass; they still have super old bones and a lifetime of clogged arteries. One slip or the slightest bit of extra exertion could mean Stroke City or Brokenhipsville for these cool cats! That is old person slang! It is very humorous!

Now they goof on his stutter? I am beginning to wonder who the real villains are in this story!

Look how happy the Ultrahumanite is! And these old guys have been nothing but bitter, cynical old winds from the butt! Plus he is a successful businessman and scientist who has created life! It sounds like he has turned over a new leaf now that he no longer has to steal bodies. I am not ignoring the laboratory full of hybrid creatures; I'm just going to assume that they were all volunteers until it is proven otherwise. You cannot go through life never eating the buttered bread that fell on the floor buttered side down! Ultrahumanite decides to recount his past for some reason. This made me laugh because I was thinking, "Yeah! They are old men. They cannot remember stuff from so long ago and also they have enlarged prostates!"

But which is actually worse: making fun of somebody's disability or sympathizing with Nazis? I've got some hard questions to answer!

Some things are unforgivable but one thing I think we can all agree to forgive is a hot woman who sided with the Nazis.

How does a huge ape body reflect the Ultrahumanite's desires? Please do not answer, "He loves to copulate with monkeys," because that's what I an suggesting by the question and you would look like one of those fools on Twitter who thinks they are hilarious by restating somebody's joke in a less subtle manner.

Ultrahumanite continues to explain how he became such a pillar of the business community. It is as boring as you would expect a PowerPoint presentation from a business man would be. That was probably the joke! Why is not the trademarked name "PowerPoint" two words? If you are going to bother capitalizing the second "P", you might as well just separate the words. Maybe it was somebody's online name when they were fourteen years old. It is always a smart decision to just run the two words together rather than separating them with an underscore. And it is easier to read when the second word is capitalized (as opposed to every other word capitalized or just the consonants. I do not understand young people). Nobody remembers to put underscores in when searching for a name online!

"Ultrahumanite! You are experimenting on innocent people, ruining the environment, causing unknown amounts of damage to the populace of every city where one of your labs operates but Ted Grant and the world just want to know one thing: was that hot Nazi body the real you because 'Rrrrrow!'"

You think I am making a joke but I don't joke about things that I don't joke about and one of those things is that Ted Grant has previously expressed interest in cultivating an intimate relationship with hot Nazi Ultrahumanite. Specifically, he said earlier that she "swept him off his feet." He only used that phrase so Al could make a joke about how they were hanging upside down so the sweeping off of feet is still happening. But I think, in his heart, he wanted to say, "She made me spontaneously become a man every time we wrestled. Is that okay under the Hays Code? Can I get away with that amount of innuendo?!" The Ultrahumanite has to go deal with The Flash who has literally suddenly appeared. Weird how the word "literally" is never actually needed when it is used properly. I guess using it in a hyperbolic and exaggerated fashion is really its only job. While Ultrahumanite is gone, Doctor Mid-Nite "double joints" his wrists to escape. I'm pretty sure Grunion Guy's wrists were double jointed by the amount of times he wrote about masturbating. He was a crude jerk but I still hope he rests in peace in that pauper's cemetery down by the toxic sludge factory. Doctor Mid-Nite takes on the guards while The Atom and Wildcat rush out to save The Flash who is The Flash and almost certainly does not need saving. While Doctor Mid-Nite is beating up the guards, he suddenly becomes a stand up comedian. Was I wrong to assume he was an actual doctor? Is that just his stage persona? I would tell you why his jokes were funny if they were but I cannot figure them out. Why is this an old joke (and if it is, why would he even retell it when it is nonsense): "I know you're out there because I can hear you breathing"? The Flash gets encased in some living green goo that absorbs heat and kinetic energy which might also be a definition of heat? I'm just a sandwich maker slash writer's assistant who has never once showed an ounce of curiosity about the real world so forgive me for languishing in my ignorance. At least I own a thesaurus. Back in Gotham City, Jesse Quick appears for a page or two to remind everybody that she exists. "Hello! I am the hot daughter of the infomercial guy! I have also deluded myself into believing a mathematical equation gives me super speed! It makes no sense!" Jesse takes some papers proving that Ultragen is breaking laws so the JSA has the right to beat the crap out of its CEO. For comedic effect, they have a little more confusion over Ultrahumanite's pronouns (which, to be fair, he has not expressed any preference for and doesn't seem to mind using whatever pronouns match the gender he seems to be expressing) before rushing off to punch her in the face. I don't know what pronouns to use either but she was a super hot Nazi so let's just go with that one.

See? She is a scientific genius!

At first I was all, "Oh, big deal! So The Flash is trapped in goo!" And then the Ultrahumanite was all, "You cannot breathe without oxygen!" And then I was all, "Oh no! I had not thought of that! Somebody save him, preferably an old guy from the JSA or I will feel cheated out of my hard earned buck twenty-five." I keep laughing at that previously scanned panel and how Wildcat and The Atom are hiding behind trees the way characters do in comic strips. So ridiculous! It is even funnier if you remember that they are old men! I bet you are laughing a lot more now! Doctor Mid-Nite arrives because he "smoke bombed" with his previous stand-up gig. Get it?! If you understood the play on the word "bomb" there and that I meant the fight against the guards when I said "stand-up gig," you would be cracking up like crazy!

Yeah. A smoke bomb! We all know that is where he keeps them!

The Flash breaks free and Doctor Mid-Nite punches Ultrahumanite in the nose, breaking it. Ultrahumanite is so vain that he falls to the ground, defeated! And that is when the Calvary arrives! That is funny because I used the wrong word and now you are picturing a crucified Jesus riding up on a horse to save the day instead of Green Lantern, The Flash, and Jesse Quick arriving on a Green Lantern construct! Justice Society of America #4 Rating: A. I have not read as many comic books as Grunion Guy but this one seemed pretty good in comparison to the ones I have read, like WildC.A.T.S. #1 and pick any issue you want of Youngblood. One more "What gender is Ultrahumanite?!" joke for the road!

Alan felt this was the kind of thing a heterosexual would say. It's funny because he "New 52" comes out of the closet later!

[murasakikagekitsune]

I Just Want to Applaud Ghostbusters: Afterlife for Something

The year 1945 was etched onto Ivo Shandor’s sarcophagus. This is clear evidence that the production team chose to classify Hiroshima/Nagasaki as apocalypse-level events. They could have picked any year from 1939 - 1945 to regard WWII in general as this, but an apocalypse-type event is usually something that happens on a single day and not over several years. The horrific incidents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are also consistent with the explosion/implosion theme all apocalypse-level events in the film seem to share; the destruction of property combined with the loss of human life on a massive scale All the other battles fought in ‘45 came with a huge death toll, obviously, but none featured the second factor as well, which leaves Hiroshima/Nagasaki primed for the candidacy of 1945′s apocalypse-level event.

[thegoodbitchofthesouth]

Jack in the box

If I am doing this wrong or you don't want to be tagged in this post, please let me know and how to fix it. @metafest @letswarriorfangirl @amwritingmeta @emblue-sparks @angelneedshunter @verobatto-angelxhunter @magnificent-winged-beast @staycejo1

I needed to take a bit to get my thoughts more in order, I should have done that before I made that rambling post before. Anyway, there seemed to be a few themes in this episode-  One is about the similarities and differences in the characters, and how they are destined to repeat history because of it.

 For example, Dean is just as prone as Jack to reaching a point of emotional meltdown and saying/doing things when he is angry, afraid or hurt that he shouldn’t and that hurt the people he loves, the only difference is that Dean isn’t a two year old and teenager at the same time, the two stages in a person’s life when they have very limited self-control, and Dean doesn’t have Jack’s powers. If Dean was as powerful as Jack, he would have destroyed the universe long ago in one of his meltdowns.

 The parallel between Dean and Duma is obvious, so I won’t go over that one. But there is also a parallel between Dean and John. The first time Mary was killed, John basically did the same thing Dean is doing now- he went looking for revenge on Azazel and was so blinded by it that he couldn’t see he was basically doing to his kids and Dean hasn’t seen how he is following the same path as John. John basically locked Sam and Dean in a metal box (though Baby is a much nicer metal box) or in cells in the form of hotel rooms alone where they had very limited exposure to other people and had very little reference for normal human behavior and healthier ways to deal with things, and expected them to behave like adults when they were just children. He didn’t accept that they were kids who would make mistakes, he always expected them to follow orders, behave as adults and it put an incredible amount of pressure on them, especially Dean. He basically set Dean up to feel like mistakes were unforgivable and accidents should be harshly punished, except when Sam made them, and even then, Dean may not have wanted to kill Sam, but he did lock him in a metal cell (a much bigger, more comfortable one, but still a cell) and when he let him out, he spent months reminding him over and over again of his mistake and making him feel like crap about it. Also Dean looked up to John and wanted his approval so much that he let himself be manipulated, he accepted blame and guilt for things that should never have been put on him (he should not have been left to protect Sam from a monster when he wasn’t even ten years old yet) and was willing to do anything John said to get his approval, and he never felt like he got it.

 Jack has been shown doing all sorts of things to indicate that he wants Dean’s approval, he sees him as a father (he asked to go fishing because he said Dean told him about fishing with his father, and he mimicked Dean all the time) and at the moment, it looks like he may not get Dean’s approval. He wants so badly to meet these expectations that shouldn’t be put on him because he is essentially a toddler, and as we have seen, having all the pressure of those expectations proved to be too much. I don’t think that Jack killed Mary out of wrath, he never wanted her to die, he was just in a panic and having a meltdown because of the overwhelming fear of falling short of Dean’s expectations when Dean found out. I don’t think he ever wanted to hurt her, he had an emotional meltdown normal for anyone as young and under as much pressure as Jack has been, and unfortunately when he has a meltdown it’s like an atom bomb going off, and Mary was just in the blast radius.

 I just read a fic on Tumblr that pointed out that someone with glowing yellow eyes was responsible for Mary’s death both times, and both times she died trying to protect a child, but that is where the similarities ended. Azazel was a centuries old Demon, intent on malice who consciously chose to kill her in a painful, slow way and she stayed in that house as a ghost, unable to move on. Jack killed her by accident, he never wanted to hurt her, he didn’t plan on it, he loved her, and her death was instant, and she did go straight to heaven. Dean may subconsciously be seeing the parallel of Azazel and Jack both killing her, driving his urge to kill Jack in revenge, but not seeing any distinction beyond that, not caring that it was an accident made by someone who lacked the maturity, experience and self-control. All he can see is that he lost her again and he is hurting.

 Sam on the other hand, is like Jack in that he was different from his family and everyone he knew, first in that he was highly intelligent and didn’t want to be a hunter, and then later when he learned about what Azazel did to him when he was a baby. He felt trapped by his family and expectations and he was desperate to get out of the metaphorical Malak box he was in, and he also found a way to escape. And we have seen him relate and sympathize with others who know they are different and have the expectations of others pushed on them but want to not be what the world sees them as. He even told Jack that he understood how he felt because he was in a similar situation growing up, this was why he was Jack’s ‘go to man’. He can also relate to having Lucifer be way too interested in him.

 Sam also parallels Dean in this episode in that he cares deeply about Jack, he has been trying since Jack’s birth to be there for him and try to give him at least some normalcy in any way he could, he protected him and stood between Dean and Jack in the beginning when Jack hadn’t even done anything yet and Dean wanted to kill him just for existing. After Jack killed Mary, he still wants to help and protect Jack, but he finds himself in the same position Dean was in when they were growing up that Dean mentioned in Prophet and Loss when he said he knew that it seemed like he took John’s side a lot growing up, but he was just trying to keep the peace. Sam caved and went along with this scheme of Dean’s even though he hated it, the same way Dean backed John up when they were kids a lot of the time.

 Dean does have a history of deceit and manipulation prior to this episode, mostly with Sam, and I think Sam remembers how Dean manipulated him in the past to say yes to Gadreel and essentially forced him to take his soul back regardless of what Sam want. He took away Sam’s free will. Dean also has a history of being a hypocrite, saying free will is all important, until it means he might lose someone, and then it’s negotiable. Sam knew this about Dean, Dean has done very similar things to Sam in the past, but when Dean asks him to help do the same to Jack, he goes along with it, allows Dean to manipulate him into taking part and in turn manipulate Jack, probably in the same manner that John would use Dean and Sam’s trust in Dean to get Sam to do what John wanted.  Sam is basically stuck in the middle.

  Jack parallels Sam in that he trusted Dean and Sam and allowed them to lock him in the box the way Sam allowed Dean and Bobby to lock him in the panic room, and later when he trusted Dean and Dean tricked him into saying yes to Gadreel. He wants Dean’s approval the way Sam does, and he trusts Sam and Dean to the point that he allows them to manipulate him. There is a metaphorical similarity also in the way Sam escaped John, Dean, and the prison of his life by getting out and going to Stanford, the way that Jack escaped the prison that Dean and Sam locked him in.

 There is even a parallel between Jack and Chuck, and kind of between Dean and Chuck. The things that Jack did to the professor, televangelist and pastor were all acts from the Old Testament, reminding us that God/Chuck didn’t always write books in his underwear and wasn’t always as mellow and forgiving as he is now, and more prone to making rash decisions and punishing people a lot more harshly. Even Chuck/God was prone to immaturity and lashing out when he was young, but he learned from it and got better. Hell, he flooded the entire earth once because he didn’t like the way people were becoming, and he burned an entire city to the ground and turned a woman to salt, *just because she looked over her damn shoulder*.

 The other theme is about blame, assigning blame and forgiveness. One of the first things Duma said to Jack that made him so easy to manipulate was, “It’s not your fault.” Dean challenged both Cas and Jack by asking “So this was her/our fault?!” Because Dean needs it to be someone’s fault, he needs someone to blame. If he can feel like someone is at fault, he can take action and feel justified in it. Not that he felt it was Mary’s or their fault, he just wants someone else to say it was, someone he already blames/blamed. Last episode he was convinced it was Cas’s fault.

 Another pattern is being so desperate for absolution and forgiveness so badly that you are willing to blindly trust people when you shouldn’t, the way Jack is so easily swayed by Duma just because she said it wasn’t his fault. When he met her before, it wasn’t actually her, it was the Shadow, trying to take him away to the Empty and making that horrible deal with Cas. All of his experience with her outward appearance should have been enough to make him distrust her. We see it again later when he goes into the church and promises the congregation that he will take them to heaven and make them angels and they just blindly follow him. He might as well have been a stranger in a van offering them candy. Along that same theme, there is the way the people who show doubt or question are treated. Even though Chuck said it was okay not to believe in him because he included free will in the kit, Duma convinced Jack that it was right to punish the atheist professor by turning him to salt, and Jack later tortured the pastor for questioning him. I believe that the reason Chuck included free will in the kit was that he learned with Adam and Eve that a little bit of skepticism is a good thing, otherwise they wouldn’t have been so easily tricked by Lucifer in the Garden.

 Last of all, not a theme of the episode, but did Bobby seem weird to anyone else? I can’t decide if it was just weird writing, or intentional because he is the AU Bobby who doesn’t have the same history with Sam and Dean as our Bobby, or intentional to indicate something else. For one thing, he never called either Sam or Dean, or even Jack by their names. He called them ‘You boys’ and called Dean ‘the other one’, and Jack was just ‘the kid’. Maybe you could chalk that up to being because he is the AU Bobby who didn’t practically raise Sam and Dean, but the way he was talking about hunting down and killing Jack seemed very strange to me. Even as the AU Bobby, he seemed to take the other AU hunters and survivors under his wing and see them in the same way our version of Bobby saw Sam and Dean. He was angry with Sam when he felt like Sam sent Maggie and possibly other hunters out on missions alone before they were ready. He had a son of his own that he lost. Previous appearances of AU Bobby seemed to indicate that he shared our Bobby’s strong parenting instincts and our Bobby wouldn’t shoot Sam when he was trying to kill Bobby, or when Sam escaped from the panic room and was going to leave, he managed to over ride a demon and stab himself, putting himself in a wheelchair, to keep from hurting Dean. And he told Sam that he would never have written him off and cut him out of his life like that, it was the demon talking. He was helping to train Jack the way our Bobby trained Sam and Dean. All of this and all that we know about Bobby just doesn’t fit with Bobby being able to just turn on Jack like that and say he wants to kill him without any qualms. Everything about his behavior in this episode just seemed off, and he was only there for a few minutes and then he was gone, almost as if he was there just to plant the seeds in Dean and Sam’s heads that something drastic had to be done about Jack and lend validation to whatever horrible thing they came up with.

 With all the mentions of Chuck in the more recent episodes makes me feel pretty sure he will appear in the next one. I don’t want him to simply snap his fingers and fix everything, though I do want him to fix Jack’s soul, but I think he needs to sit Dean and Sam down and have a serious discussion with them about forgiveness and Good Parenting. I mean, who would know better than Chuck from experience about making rash decisions and expecting too much and all the other crap that Dean especially has pulled, as well as parental guilt.

[believerindaydreams]

This is Threeeee Dog, bringing you the hot, the heavy, and the just plain hellacious of the Capitol Wasteland. Do yourself a favor and listen to Galaxy News Radio, it's cheaper than chems.

Only one news item making the rounds today, but boy is it a biggie- the Jefferson Memorial, ex-home of a whole lotta Super Mutants, has been cleaned out to play host to the first peace conference in Washington since the bomb drop. That's right kiddoes, representatives of half a dozen major communities are gathering to talk about making your wasteland a little less of a shithole, including the Brotherhood, the Enclave, and your favorite Moira Brown of Megaton! Who'll be checking in with us this Saturday as usual, for more tips from her ever-popular Wasteland Survival Guide.

That is, assuming the conference cease-fire doesn't segue like this segment, to a whole lotta hackin' and whackin'...

Whatever they had expected on entering the Jefferson Memorial, and Arcade's been ready for everything up to Autumn trying his damn Mesmetron again, the tiny woman in workman overalls immediately waylaiding them wasn't it.

"Boone! My favorite research assistant ever! I'd hug you but I know you're picky about that."

"Do I know you?" Boone growls, stepping back towards his wife.

"You'll have to forgive him," Arcade intercedes. "He had a...bad bump on the head. Some memory problems."

It doesn't seem that Moira's bubbly cheer can be dampened by much, but she makes a valiant effort. "Oh no! That's really terrible- you mean you don't remember jumping off that roof to help me with the chapter on injuries? Or getting rad poisoning? Or all the poor little moles that exploded when you tested my repellant stick?"

"...no."

"Oh, that's too bad, it really is. I hope you feel better soon- and the house in Megaton is waiting you know, whenever you'd like to move in."

"I have a house?"

"He has a house?" Manny says incredulously.

"He sure does! That is, it was going to be for the Lone Wanderer but he said he didn't need it and you could have it, and you've been fixing it up with all kinds of nice little goodies. The last thing you were going to buy was the Nuka-Cola machine, you were saving up for that and then you just disappeared. I was a teensy tiny bit worried, so I thought I'd hitch a lift with Lucky's Caravan and try out my own guide- and here you are, safe and sound! Or safe, anyway."

"...sure."

Moira beams. "Aw, you haven't changed a bit. I'll be sleeping in the gift shop tonight, come by if you want anything repaired! Right now I'm off to go see how Project Purity works, see you later!"

She departs; leaving quiet and a certain sense of relief.

"I thought we had a home already," Carla says, hugging her husband distractedly.

"So did I. Wish I knew what I was thinking."

"Whatever it was, you didn't tell me," Manny says. He sounds hurt. "Maybe I should have stayed home with Cindy."

"We need you," Arcade reassures him quietly. "You're the only one who can make a stand for Nacochtank."

Manny sighs, lets his hands stray to his hunting rifle. "I know. But that caught me off guard."

They move further in, down stone halls that someone has made an effort to tidy. Hannibal's been busy, it seems; Manny's keeps up a constant running commentary as to who people are, and who they represent. Canterbury Commons and the Regulators; which in turn has led to Littlehorn contractors and even a few Talon Company mercs. The Memorial feels like a powder keg, and it bristles with weapons.

This has so much potential to go terribly wrong.

Arcade can't help flinching when they see the first soldier in Hellfire armor; Boone places himself in front of Carla, who hugs Daisy closer. Any thought that they should have separated vanishes; none of them are whole, they have to come to terms with that or they'll never get over this fear.

"It's all right," Manny says. "They aren't taking you again, Arcade."

The warm hand on his shoulder stops him trembling.

*****

Boone

Don't think I've been minding this so much as the others.

Arcade, he hates not having all his knowledge at his fingertips, and Carla says the gap between who she was and who she feels like is still too wide. But I didn't need Manny to tell me I'm a good soldier, ready to take orders. Maybe if Autumn had pushed me the right way, if I'd been "clean", I would have disappeared into power armor and never seen daylight again.

And when Manny found us at Rivet City, told me who I was and what my blood-sight was, I gave him all that trust instead. Made the others see him my way.

Only now there's things about me that he can't account for, he looks at me with tenderness he doesn't have for Carla and Arcade, and I don't know what he's hiding. Or what I was hiding from him.

No, strike that. It was something unforgivable. There's no gun made can wipe away your mistakes, I guess.

But was I going to run from him, or with him?

*****

Carla

"The elder Autumn, at your service." He kisses her hand chivalrously.

She resists the impulse to deck him with it. "Charmed."

"Carla Boone, of the Nacochtank settlement," Manny says, a threat rumbling beneath his smooth words. "She'd be missed."

"I'm sure she would," James says, elegantly stepping back. "Still, it's a pleasure to meet the woman who's captured the whole Wasteland's heart- I do regret not meeting you before that grandiose escape, all the same. A good deal of...unnecessary drama could have been avoided."

There isn't a word in the Capitol for what she's thinking, his mixture of snake and wolf. She takes a crispy mirelurk cake from the buffet table, thinks about driving the metal pick into the more tender parts of his face.

"So when's zero hour? Everyone here knows the Enclave's here to show off its technological prowess."

He tuts. "Technically, Project Purity is separate from the Enclave, per se. I might be very proud of my son's success under President Eden's regime, but Purity is a Rivet City project and always has been. Its effects will benefit the whole Wasteland, of course."

Daisy starts to cry.

Just as well: changing diapers gets her gracefully out of the conversation, and stops her getting into debate.

And with the showdown that's bound to come, it's just as well to keep her powder dry.

*****

Veronica

"She likes yoooou."

"She does not," Christine splutters, taking my hand- the one without the atomic cocktail in it. "All Sarah sees is COS Knight Christine Royce, someone she'd like to have on her side."

"See? You're already calling her Sarah."

"She's more stuck up than Hardin. That takes some doing." My girlfriend leans in for a kiss, and gets it. "She's just playing nice and hoping for resupply from the Mojave chapter- V, are you sure this is how we want to play it? I trusted Carla, but that was before the Enclave captured her. She might be compromised."

The rest of my cocktail goes down quick. "Even if she is- even if those escapees are nothing more than Enclave puppets- she left a legacy. That Follower base is the brightest hope in DC, I promised her I'd defend it and I will."

"Then I'll back you to the hilt. Always."

"Always."

We clink glasses as Sarah comes back in, having swapped out her power armor for something...a little more sparkly and with a lot less back. If memory serves, that was the dress worn by the last First Lady at the First Street Wax Museum. Nice bit of salvage.

"C? What did I tell you?"

Christine drains her drink impertuably. "Ah, to be constantly the target of beautifully dressed women with their eye on me. What a fate."

"Oh, there you are Christine! It was silly to be wandering around in full armor- shall we pick up where we left off? I'll buy you a drink?"

"By all means," Christine says, as tranquil and unapproachable as I've ever seen.

Only thing that undercuts it is my giggles.

[leonthesemiprofessional-blog]

Leave Wes Anderson out of your woke conversations

With a smorgasbord of (very well-crafted) politically-rich films in the mainstream right now it can be easy to assume that every “masterpiece” that comes across our screens was made to appease our socially curious minds.

With the weighty addition of the #metoo movement, you could argue that it’s the duty of the filmmaker to give us a set of strong morals we can berate everyone we meet with. Because of this expectation, movies are under an unforgiving lens right now and Wes Anderson’s latest piece, Isle of Dogs, is no exception.

In his ninth feature and his second stop-motion film, Isle of Dogs follows an alpha pack of dogs try and survive a Japanese doggy dystopia, purpose-built for them by an oppressive Kobayashi regime. Their goals are recalibrated slightly from survival to rescue when a young boy, Atari, comes to their home, Trash Island, to look for his lost dog. The team lead by their new master undergoes a Great Escape-style caper.

Pretty standard Wes Anderson film right? The critics would agree so too. Only a lot of people are unhappy, even furious, with how the director has handled Japanese culture.

There are no two ways about it, this film is heavily appropriated. It cements very old, westernised ideas about Japan: playing heavily on the mispronunciation of words, Samurai ideas and culture bookending the film, skirmishes and explosions in atomic bomb-style mushroom clouds, sushi, the Yakuza are the bad guys… the list goes on.

Behind the camera, there were many native Japanese hands involved, as Kunichi Nomura namely helped develop the story and voiced Mayor Kobayashi, the authoritarian ruler of the make-believe Megasaki City. In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, this cultural tourism could have turned out to be actual racism. Critics and people like myself would argue Anderson should have known better, even if the seeds were sown for this film in 2007, well before this ‘woke epidemic’.

The insensitivity to race issues is even made worse with - one of my favourite problems - white saviour complex, with added sprinkles of misogyny. Although our hero this time is Tracy Walker (voiced by Greta Gerwig) a young exchange student from America, who just happens to be in the area to help overthrow an oppressive regime, our diversion from the unexpected is steered right back onto the heteronormative track with Tracy winding up with a crush on our male protagonist, Atari (yes like the console by the way). In case that wasn’t enough to embed into children the idea that women can’t do anything without a man by their side, the relationships between the doggos of the film follow a similar formula.

On top of this, the ensemble cast comes together to form a kind of whitewashing avengers, who have, interestingly, all been criticised for starring in films that are insensitive to aspects of East and South Asian culture. Tilda Swinton in Doctor Strange, Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in a Shell and Lost in Translation with Bill Murray, and Fisher Stevens in Short Circuit.

To simplify things, let’s umbrella all the problems with this film and concluded that Anderson made Isle of Dogs for a white, working to middle class, straight audience, who probably haven’t been to Japan or know much about it outside of what they learned from school or popular culture - viewing the film with a “white gaze”. A rather outlandish -some would argue accurate- claim to make against a director who has done nothing the audience, now more socially conscious, deem too unjust, right? To only talk about Isle of Dogs this way is not fair on Wes Anderson.

“This is his love letter to Japan though” you might say. “How will we understand different cultures if we don’t even get to show them on screen and talk about them? Besides it’s not even real, none of Anderson’s films really adhere to reality”, “P.C. gone mad” blah blah. Wes even said the story “could happen anywhere” and he and his team (Japanese natives included) made it because of “a shared love of Japanese cinema.” Herein lies the problem: Anderson’s use of the white gaze has gone unchecked for a long time. As a white filmmaker, he has benefited from structural racism and current gender dynamics well before Isle of Dogs.

From Moonrise Kingdom to Bottle Rocket to the marvellous Grand Budapest Hotel, we follow the same white characters play out the same heist-like escapades, playing off of trends and stereotypes the white gaze has seen and consolidated time and time again. Under all the pretty pastels and fully utilised thirds, there are a lot of people (filmmakers like Anderson and audiences in general) patting themselves on the back for believing they have interpreted and appreciated a culture - say Japanese culture - extensively and not in bad taste. We’ve known for a while that a lot of Hollywood films only highlight how the majority of Westerners view the world around them. Some people are only now coming to realise this is not always the right thing to do, and even fewer are willing to elicit change. I fear Anderson falls into the latter category.

The fact that Anderson can now pretty much hand-select a cast for a film means he has access to the best Hollywood has to offer, who tend to be stars we adore for their humanity as well as their ability. I wholeheartedly believe no one in the making of this film is racist or meant wrong by anything they did but it can’t be ignored that with the release of Isle of Dogs, it’s become clear that Anderson doesn’t want to use his position to incite any meaningful social development in the film industry. He doesn’t have to or have to want to, however, it is disappointing to know that someone we consider so effective at storytelling is choosing to tune out the calls for change. We’ll have to look for our innovative films elsewhere.

As Reni Eddo-Lodge might put it: Wes Anderson is one white person you shouldn’t talk to about race or anything else woke for that matter.

[oceanwriting]

The fabric of the universe is violent; Spacetime radiates in the shape of a guillotine. Atomic bombs have been fashioned by man, But only from what had always been hiding in the maelstrom. The unforgiving endlessness destroys itself for eternity; Black holes eat black holes, Stars collapse because the external force of gravity is too much to withstand. Heat and pressure melt atoms until existence, at its most basic level, is disintegrated. The reality we call "home" is no more than the shrapnel of an endless stellar war On a great celestial battlefield.

[mageinabarrel]

The only righteousness which we can truly claim is to understand the fallibility of our own humanity.

I’ve been wanting to write this post ever since Concrete Revolutio finished airing, but never had the words to put exactly what I thought and felt about the series to digital paper. What I knew for certain was that I really believed that Concrete Revolutio, despite its 1960s setting, is the most relevant political anime of the last decade – even more so that similarly excellent productions like Gatchaman Crowds. That believe has only grown stronger in the year since, a feeling perpetuated not only by my frequent mental returns to the show but also the deteriorating political situation across the globe.

Whenever a particular piece of news ends up sitting in my head for a while, I always somehow seem to return to thinking about Concrete Revolutio. I’m not especially proficient at political analysis, even so but I think I can offer my take on Conrevo‘s ideas effectively. After all, although Conrevo uses interpretations of real historical events as allegories by which to communicate its ideas, it ultimately speaks less to specific political moments or ideologies than it does to the universal failings of the human heart that lie at the center of it all.

Jiro is both the question and the answer in Concrete Revolutio, a conceptual struggle embodied in a very literal way – something that makes him, at least to me, one of the most iconic anime characters ever put to screen. Throughout the course of the show, he battles with the ugly realities of the Superhuman Bureau he once called home as well as his doubts about his own actions. In fact, the best way to characterize Jiro is to say that he is defined by action within uncertainty. He believes unwaveringly in the existence of Justice, but lives in a state of perpetual self-doubt about his own ability to enact that justice. The “one righteous thing” he pursues, finds, loses, despairs over, and eventually finds enduring hope in is both his greatest inspiration and the cause of his suffering.

However, were Jiro to be defined solely as someone who moves forward despite his doubts, he would be little better than a lost man in the mountains – something contradicted by the purpose with which he usually (although not always) acts. This is because Jiro’s certain belief in the existence of Justice coupled with his uncertain experience with it in his world means that he is constantly engaged in the act of self-reflection. Beyond action within uncertainty, Jiro is also defined by this, by his constant questioning of whether the justice he seeks can ever be truly realized and whether the justice he attempts to enact actually lives up to the Justice of his ideal.

What’s perhaps most interesting about Jiro, though, is that his doubts are often precipitated by the failings of others rather than himself (although, as he learns more about his past, his own actions and identity increasingly dominate his concerns). When he learns that the Bureau, the place where he was more or less raised, is little more than a hypocritical (“We protect and manage superhumans”) government-controlled shell, he doesn’t just become disillusioned with the institution. He also becomes disillusioned with himself, both for his role as an enforcer of that hypocrisy and his failure to see through it.

This, I think, is a key point – that the monstrousness our institutions perpetuate is not something we can simply wash our hands of by simple rebellion, but something that demands a degree of doubt in ourselves as well. Perhaps we are not as complicit as Jiro was, but the need for self-reflection remains.

The most demanding challenge for Jiro, though, is that of his only true foil—Claude. Where Jiro is unsure, Claude is terrifyingly – and, as the show very clearly demonstrates, mistakenly – assured. He believes he has found Justice and is capable of wielding it true, but the events of the Shinjuku Riot at the end of the first season show Claude to be “wrong” even though he may be “right.” The lesson of Claude is that the moment we allow ourselves to believe in our own righteous is also the moment we give ourselves permission to do anything, even the most horrendous things, in pursuit of our beliefs. Jiro fears this more than anything else; after all, he carries inside him the force of an atomic bomb – and what clearer symbol of violence begot by righteousness is there in modern times?

This may sound odd coming from a Catholic like me, who believes in an objective Truth, but I think Concrete Revolutio‘s criticism of self-righteous ideology is deeply wise. Or, perhaps it’s more correct to say that Conrevo condemns belief in Rightness without constant reflection. One of the most valuable themes in Concrete Revolutio (and the one I found personally most impactful) is the truth that doing the right thing, even if you know what is right, is really damn hard. This is something I’ve struggled with oftentimes in the last few years, as my deeply held religious beliefs (simple in theory) have ground up against the incredible difficulty of applying them to the complexity of the world I inhabit.

This was something I knew before watching Concrete Revolutio, but to me the show is a warning against extreme reactions to this dilemma. Claude is one such extreme, a decision to prioritize ideology above all else. His fall is perhaps the one I see myself most inclined to succumb to, as “knowing what’s Right” leads to the temptation that all else is enemy. Claude’s certainty, his righteousness becomes ugly – and the only antidote is Jiro’s struggle. The constant self-doubt that forces Jiro to be always reflecting about his actions, what he believes, and what he should do is something that’s perhaps even more necessary for people me who profess adherence to a certain Truth – lest I become like Claude and be swallowed up by the force of my own righteousness.

But Claude’s response is only one form of lack of self-reflection. The people who suffer most in Conrevo are those who are by nature unable to self-reflect. Earth-chan, who is programmed to help people who cry out for help, breaks down in the face of the contradiction between programmed mission and the reality of the world. Ratio, likewise, suffers a complete mental breakdown against the nuances and ambiguities of justice – a situation that concludes with his tragically certain line, “I am justice.” Their certainty makes them fragile, and without the ability to self-reflect they each crumble.

It’s worth noting that the only response Concrete Revolutio paints as truly evil and without some merit, is that of media mogul Satomi, who holds that in the face of all this uncertainty, the only answer can be that there is no answer and it’s not worth trying to find one. Instead, as his actions prove again and again, he believes all that remains is to act for one’s own selfish interests. The cynicism of Satomi is poison. It is as monstrous as the worst institutional hypocrisy and as damaging than the failings of Claude the ideologue. It is, at its core, hopeless – and the violence of the result as damaging as anything any of the show’s other antagonists do.

But even Satomi falls. Hope reigns. In the end, the answer Jiro comes to, and the one Concrete Revolutio asserts as its final message, is that all we can do is continue to search. To continue to believe in Justice knowing that we may never achieve it ourselves. The impossibility of realization is not a proof against the existence of Justice, but rather a call to be mindful always of our actions. It is this that I find most inspiring about the show, that despite the difficult of doing right, if we believe that it can be done and are willing to hold ourselves against the unforgiving microscope of the ideals of Rightness we profess (in our personal lives, in our religion, in our politics), hope will carry us through.

The only righteousness which we can truly claim is to understand the fallibility of our own humanity. The only righteousness which we can truly claim is to understand the fallibility of our own humanity.

[bornfromscarletcords]

A WOLF’S VERSE

Frederick, Faris, and Conti sitting by a campfire in the Willows.

Conti: Chief, you said something about the world, it being in our heads or something. How does that work exactly?

Faris: Strangely.

Frederick: Look, it’s not perfect, but I think that’s one of the better ways of describing it. Existence is too willful to be chained for very long. At best we can try to sketch its shape with a couple of ideas and analogies but they often have inherent flaws which have to be addressed and or balanced at some point.

Conti: That sounds...annoying.

Faris: It is very annoying, but it provides us with options; nigh endless room for improvement.

Conti: If it’s one of the best ways of describing it, why doesn’t everyone agree on that, in your opinion?

Frederick: There are a number of reasons, one of the more popular ones that I’ve witnessed is pride. Even if someone knows something in their core, understanding it can prove harrowing and heartbreaking. Existence is confusing and so often drifts into tragedy. This mad sorrow can put people to war with themselves, unable to accept who they are and what their world is...or at least what these things could be.

Conti: But if what you’re saying is true, wouldn’t that make us like gods or something.

Faris: Or devils, though a sorry lot of divines we’d be if any rat, or pebble on the road, could claim the title just the same.

Frederick: Words, like ideas, are strange things. They can lose their substance if misused, however, when in capable hands, they can level worlds.

Faris: We were all human, or at least were very good at pretending to be, at one point. Maybe that’s why we focus on them so often. Why we continue to live amongst them. Regardless, humans are very confused creatures, or perhaps they just dance to a chaotic hymn that is entirely their own. From what I’ve seen they are often numb to each other. Every once in a while you’ll encounter a couple who, for one reason or another, are in tune with the existence of their fellow man, but more often than not it’s like watching an ouroboros; a serpent constantly consuming itself.

Frederick: And even those rare few so often become lost in what they feel, as few others will acknowledge it or seek to understand. One of the first things I noticed about this wolfish curse, or blessing, was that it wanted...it needed connection. Its subjects would heed their birthright and their burden or they would die and disappear.

Conti: Their birthright?

Faris: Their connection to all things.

Frederick: Their existence within all things.

Conti: And this is all because of our minds?

Frederick: Language is tricky. Metaphorically, and literally, speaking one of the greatest obstacles to people understanding one another is translation. Communication is difficult even between people who share the same language let alone people who are from completely different linguistic territories. Not to mention that just because it looks like a person understands what you’re saying and responds relatively appropriately, it doesn’t mean that they’ve actually registered what you’ve said.

Conti: Like a coincidence.

Faris: More like a mistake, a misunderstanding, an intentional sabotage. In our every moment, waking and otherwise, there is a power at work. Just because a thing is not seen doesn’t mean it is nonexistent.

Frederick: Like the mind, though I suppose in this case the word “soul” would work just as well. Invisible and difficult to track at times but in its wake, in the space that forms around it, we can feel its presence, not unlike existence.

Faris: Our wolves, our werewolves, they’re given less room to ignore the connectivity in the design of existence. They need a potent system, potentially more so than a human, or at least in a different way. Humans have families, and organizations, and what they call friends but their use of these bonds compared to how we use our wolf packs is like a comparing a lighter to an atomic bomb, or the sun.

Frederick: As was said, humans are relatively confused, and unfocused, at least from what we have seen. They don’t need the type of energy one of our packs could generate and even if they did, it would probably destroy them.

Conti: And why do our packs generate this much “energy”?

Frederick: I suppose...because we’re “hungrier” than humans.

Conti: Hungrier?

Faris: Or perhaps we just have a different “diet”.

Conti: I’m still not sure how this relates to this all being in our heads.

Frederick: Well, humans are creative and some do come up with relatively interesting theories about the nature of consciousness and the potential of a soul, but too few experience or remember what it means to transcend one’s limitations; in a sense, to make theory reality. Our wolves have to change often, and this change reminds them of what they are, what is possible and what is, in many ways, inevitable. We share each other’s pain, we sacrifice it and in exchange our minds, our souls are no longer limited to what we assume to be our physical shells. We exist as a singular self yet we also exist as each other.

Conti: So part of our mind is in the pack?

Faris: Yes, more or less.

Frederick: And what we’ve sort of been dancing around is that a mind, a soul, or whatever you want to call it is not a stagnant thing. It has a life or at least an animation to it. Existence can exist within these things because they have a spark to them, miraculous portions full of possibility. When people stop fighting these portions and instead seek to understand and utilize their best aspects these people often find that they too were made worthy and can shape miracles.   

Conti: So anyone could do something amazing? Doesn’t that sort of hurt the legitimacy of your office chief?

Faris: Ha! More like it shows just how amazing he is. We earn our place, or at least that is the intention. Frederick is who he is, what he is, because of the hardships which strengthened him and his choice to be a walking talking phenomenon. Plus, if at least a small part of us didn’t like having him around then he’d have a tough time staying. What I mean to say is that he leads our packs because part of all of his wolves wants or needs him to lead.

Conti: That true?

Frederick: Mas o menos.

Conti: So what I’m getting here, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that all our minds or souls or whatever are connected and through that connection we have something like existence. However existence is miraculous so often it’s hard to describe outside of using a series of analogies which are often all flawed in one form or another. Humans have trouble coming to terms with this “soul-network” and by association their own selves and so often war against it/each other. This is in contrast to our werewolves which are obligated not to ignore it or fight it unnecessarily because if they do they’ll probably die or be damaged in some way, at least when it comes to their own immediate packs/packmates.

Faris: So far so good.

Conti: The added complication being that creatures like us, creatures with a conscious duality or multiplicity to our minds sort of prove, just by existing, that a mind can have layers which do not always work harmoniously or at least homogeneously. In a sense, existence or the universe, or the multiverse or god or whatever is this giant structure broken up into many tiny pieces which can look and function very differently. It is large and small. One and many.

Frederick: The greatest of us and the least of us.

Conti: And all of this would be...is painfully obvious, however, because of the way it is structured, at least as far as we’ve seen, it is extremely difficult to communicate effectively.

Frederick: Possibly because to even acknowledge it is to commit an act of supernatural heroism and unforgivable heresy.

Conti: Because we’d realize that we are the true giants and could crush everything in our path.

Faris: Or that even as slight and nigh insignificant beings we could slay titans all the same. That even a common anybody, or nobody, could stand for everybody.

Frederick: And fall for them.