#the male characters in general also suffer from generic male typical speech but it’s really the female charas who suffer the most (ofc)

[morallygay]

First tsubeppa now theta speaks in stereotypically exaggerated Female™️ speech i should have never looked at the original japanese version

[zalrb]

Oppenheimer Review

OK let’s start with things I didn’t quite care for:

1. The exclusion of Indigenous and Japanese people, which has been a well-detailed criticism on Twitter and in articles:  

“The Pajarito Plateau, where Los Alamos is located, was indigenous homeland for multiple villages of Pueblo people, as well as more than 30 Mexican American families who owned ranches and farms[...]”

We can get into a discussion about which movies are made and how studios would rather fund movie after movie about the ‘tortured white male genius’ than a movie about the Pueblo people or the effects of the bomb on Japan. We can talk about the general boredom of seeing these movies over and over again. But I think that’s a larger conversation. That’s a conversation about which stories TPTB determine get told, that’s a conversation about the systemic racism and barriers in Hollywood and filmmaking because it’s not surprising that a Nolan film didn’t feature BIPOC or nuanced depictions of BIPOC. Nolan is going to Nolan. Dunkirk is an entirely whitewashed film. It is so typical of a Nolan film that I was surprised John David Washington was in Tenet (which I have not seen) and this isn’t to defend him or to let him off the hook, this is just to say that conversation is about the systems in place that allow for Oppenheimer to be a movie while not showcasing other stories, which this person has also indicated

The defense for Nolan’s omission has been Oppenheimer is about Oppenheimer but I don’t think that defense holds.

Considering that it is first and foremost a character study about a man with conflicting morals, a man who “famously” told Truman that he feels like he has blood on his hands. Considering the movie is meant to take us into the mind of this man, we’re supposed to see what tortures him, what lies heavy on him, considering that there is a scene where he is confronted with the carnage and the destruction of his invention, considering  that in the movie Oppenheimer told Truman they should give the land back to the Indigenous peoples, glossing over the injustices and the atrocities undercuts the fact that this is supposed to be deep dive character study, because Oppenheimer helped cause these things. That’s the point. A pivotal point in the movie comes when Oppenheimer is being asked over and over again when he had moral qualms about the H bomb considering that he made the atomic bomb and whether or not he had quandaries then and the fact that there was a history of people suffering because of this bomb before it dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would emphasize that question. It’s not a full character study.

Another defense has been that the omission was purposeful as a condemnation of what they did and how they didn’t think about the consequences or thought about the consequences and ignored them/didn’t care about them but there are ways to do that. We can see people being displaced from the land and then afterwards Oppenheimer going to Los Alamos declaring there’s nothing around. If this movie is also about his ego and his tunnel vision and about the dangers of building weapons of mass destruction and their consequences, we can see what the testing of the bomb did to communities while they celebrate the success of the test, it would simply drive the point the movie is making home, it would make it more poignant and complete. When Oppenheimer gives that victory speech after the bomb was dropped, he keeps seeing the people around him burned or dead or crying, there’s no reason why his speech couldn’t at least be intercut with the realities happening in Japan at the time.

Outside of it is simply right for these stories to be showcased and acknowledged, there are too many reasons why Oppenheimer could’ve and should’ve shown these aspects for me to really find any defense viable.

2. I also don’t expect nuanced depictions of women in a Nolan movie but the female characters in this movie are so laughably one-dimensional that I feel like it would’ve been less offensive for him to just not include women at all. Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh do as much as they can with the material they’re given but they’re really not given much and when we’re meant to gain insight into Kitty’s (Emily Blunt) emotional state and to see what the hearing of Robert is doing to her, it’s when he admits on record to sleeping with his ex-wife Jean (Florence Pugh) when he was with Kitty so it’s Kitty imagining him having sex with Jean in a very uncomfortable and entirely unnecessary sex scene. So it’s actually quite funny talking about Oppenheimer and Barbie at the same time because Oppenheimer proves one of Barbie’s points about the way women are perceived and treated through the way the Kens are portrayed in the first 30 minutes of the movie because Kitty and Jean are around to serve Oppenheimer’s plot and Jean actually dies, she commits suicide, and the implication is that while she was suffering from mental health issues, Oppenheimer cutting ties with her led to her death so in the movie anyway, a female character literally dies because the male protagonist is no longer in her life.

Alright, things I liked.

1. Cillian Murphy. Cillian was magnetic onscreen. The beauty of what he can convey with his eyes, it was mesmerizing and he does such a good job playing the charismatic womanizing egocentric asshole but does an equally good job portraying depth, portraying vulnerability and betrayal and guilt and remorse. He inhabited this role, it was great watching.

2. RDJ! RDJ is indeed an actor so watching him in the few Marvel movies that I did watch just always had me like *sigh* they’ve flattened you so it was really fun seeing him really dig his teeth into a role and also seeing the way he changes throughout the movie, particularly the third act when you realize his personal vendetta against Oppenheimer and how his true colours kind of start bleeding through, it was very well done.

3. It was surprisingly funny? Like not laugh out loud funny even though there were moments where I did indeed LOL i.e. “I’m a self-made man.” “I can relate to that.” “Really?” “Yes, my father was one.” the wit and the back and forth and the riffing I quite enjoyed. Seeing all the scientists place bets and get into arguments, I quite enjoyed that.

4. I don’t care for Matt Damon, he annoys me, so when I saw him in the trailer I rolled my eyes and when I saw his introduction to the movie I also rolled my eyes but he and Cillian had a good chemistry so over the course of the movie, I ended up enjoying his scenes with Cillian because they worked so well together and they establish a lot of about that dynamic and they feel comfortable with each other. Although I think my favourite dynamic was Oppenheimer and Isidor. I don’t like Casey Affleck though so that “reveal” just had me like ugh, why.

5. The score. The SCORE. Ludwig Göransson did a beautiful job with the music, giving the movie a sense of scale and tension, it was fantastic.

6. It felt like three hours but it felt like a three hours well spent.

[rorodawnchorus]

The Devil Judge, Ep.1 Meta

(On the re-imagined justice process, imageries, parallels in South Korea and our world today) 

As with all dystopian fiction, it is not exactly a far-fetched imagining of our world. Instead, it is a critique of our society which seeks to amplify the inequalities and suffering of society through some exaggeration. 

The Devil Judge is that: it "re-imagines" South Korea today with a sprinkle of cyberpunk aesthetics (a little too much bluish green tint) and dystopian imagery (of homeless people, a very dirty subway and dingy backalleys on a rainy night).

I kept thinking it was a dystopian "future" but was wondering why they were using only Samsung Note 20 instead of some Samsung futuristic prototype phone. So, those phones do keep audiences grounded in the reality it is portraying -- this is the alternative South Korea of today. 

We are barely halfway into the first episode and we've got this extremely charismatic, anti-hero male lead strutting red carpets and making verbose declarations like "I am the power. By the judicial authority delegated to me by the people of Korea, I will run this court. And it is the people who hold this power." (Not verbatim but that's the gist). 

Then, meet associate judge Kim Ga-On who seems to be against how the system is running. He seems to be the outlier who rose to his ranks from the bottom class of society (which his colleague Oh Jin-joo says, he looks like he's from the shanty town of Seoul). We start off, barely into the drama at this point, with a dramatic scene of a kindergarten bus ramming down barricades and charging towards the Court building. A group of kindergarten children crossing the road there (I've just no clue what businses kids would have near the court building tbh). A little girl tripping as they were rushed across the road, Ga-On jumping to the rescue, and unable to pick her up in time, shields her with his own body. Kang Yo Han is just there, taking a heavy gun from the guard and unhesitantly opened fire at the bus driver who was flooring the pedal. He misses the driver's head and hits the headrest before firing again. The bus swerves and flips. The driver loses consciousness and Ga On (again!) jumps to the rescue. So, here the tone is set. We've got this "devil judge" who seems to be the ultimate modern day anti-hero who's given immense amount of power. 

Much more interesting is that in this dystopian South Korea, we've got what seems like a publicly elected judiciary (or Kang Yo Han is perhaps the first?) and that has always been something that has been discussed in legal academic. Not the idea of electing the judiciary but that the argument of the judiciary not being publicly elected can be seen as slightly out of tune with democracy. (In legal academic, however, this is theoretically seen as being balanced by the separation of powers; ie. the executive branch (=government) and elected members of Parliament/Congress are supposed to be fully separated from the judiciary and should therefore never interfere with the judiciary. But, of course, these are all theoretical stuff. They look good on paper and when discussed in legal essays but in reality, it can often be different (if not, the exact opposite). This series takes things to yet another level by imagining the inception of a publicly televised and publicly voted trial. 

This goes against the nature of trials in general because in our world today, the judiciary (wherever it may be) typically have mechanisms (ie. laws and codes) to prevent manipulation by media. The principle of fair trial requires that no external influence affects the process of adjudication (ie. the judgement by judges). There also tends to be avoidance of trial by public opinion because the way the law is interpreted and applied can be rather technical and different from what people may say or think about a certain trials, the decision delivered and also sentencing. Trial by jury is the nearest it gets but that too can be a fairly technical process which do also include considerations like avoiding a two-day trial to prevent influence by the media or other agents on a jury member's decision. (A recent drama mentioning this is Law School). The thing about this idea of trial by the public is that standards of morality can be very subjective and varies from person to person. Judgement by judges are not entirely free from the influence of morality, but the process is a litle more stable through the processes of interpretative practices, case precedents and legal theories. Previously in another Kdrama, Miss Hammurabi (2018), Judge Lim Ba-reun became slightly frustrated by his friend's comment that having a jury trial is like "true democracy" because the "people gets to decide" and he even thinks the judiciary should be elected too. Lim Ba-reun sarcastically said he must have loved every elected politican since they were elected by the public. He tells him grimly that no jury has ever found a policeman who had beaten up a Black man to be guilty. He also pointed out that Nazi, the Holocaust and Hitler were all supported by the public. 

In this series, the premise allows all of these imaginings to be realised and played out. It is peak criticism, I think, when they portray the scenes of the TV producer being excited about the real-time ratings and viewer ratings. And also the scene of the broadcasting channel's chairman dancing in joy when he received realtime report of the ratings (vowing to treat his equally wealthy friends to a meal). Even when his other friend seemed appalled by the decision delivered by Judge Kang, the Chairman could not hide his joy in the skyrocketing viewership ratings. This really reminded me of the entire Produce 101 franchise which also heralded the shows for putting the decision in "The Nation's Producers" (ie. voters) and emphasised how it is the Nation Producers who put together ("produce") the National Kpop group that is bound for success and set to receive national love. All of this illusion collapsed (and the Korean franchise died along with it) when the court finds its producers guilty of voting manipulation. The Devil Judge seemed to have a similarly dramatic flair in its emphasis of TV production gimmicks, camera angles, cuts of a person's reaction, etc. The President of South Korea (who has a very light voice, a penchant for orotund speeches and a lack of concern for national policies) and all these top 1% of people tuned in were on the edge of their seats watching Judge Kang orchestrate this theatre of public trial. Kim Ga-On watched him closely and was sure that Judge Kang had something up his sleeves and was definitely up to no good, yet he couldn't tell. When he finally delivers a verdict (that yes, this was a case of professional negligence and not negligent homicide), Ga-On was crestfallen and frustrated because it carries a mere 5 year imprisonment maximum. But Kang turns the table and brings up the newly passed legislation which allows accumulative sentence which then resulted in 235 years of imprisonment. 

This sounded very much like how some Korean netizens had previously wondered (online) why Korea couldn't have a sentencing system like the US where the years of imprisonment can go up to 100 years or 500 years. Again, this was like realising an alternative South Korea that many have perhaps tried imagining. Episode 1 ends with Judge Kang stepping down from his high seat when a victim's family member bowed deeply with her hands clasped, as though in prayer, and even kneeled to him. This corresponded well and tied perfectly into the religious/godlike imagery represented in the justice's robes which is reminiscent of the pope's robes and resembles a priest's robe, and the app they named DIKE or Diety of Justice (正義의 神). When Judge Kang hugs the old woman with a compassionate smile, teary eyed and full of empathy, he ends up yawning barely a minute into consoling the weeping woman. Ga-On witnesses this and realises, all of this must have been a gimmick after all. He had his hopes up when Judge Kang serves the sentence of 235 years. The episode ends. 

I think this series is set to be a great one. (Just as Law School was amazing too!) It has tons of stuff to unpack, lots that goes into the cinematography and camerawork. While characters do seem a little more like caricatures rather than realistic people that are properly fleshed out in the narrative, there is still promise to push beyond these caricatures. I think there is also a lot in the imagery of dystopia and the constant bombardment of messages from the government (which is often the mainstay of dystopian fiction) which emphasises a certain narrative which they want the people to believe. For example, Kim Ga-On is travelling up the escalator when there were ads of the DIKE app, ads on electronic billboards on the justice system, paper posters plastered in the dark backalley where a high school girl is being dragged away by two men saying "The government will now create a safe South Korea". That last one is perhaps the most glaring one to me because when I was in Korea, it was repeated to me by different Korean individuals: "Your things are safe. No Korean will steal it. (Not sure about foreigners though!) You are safe. Crimes don't happen. I checked and there are no sexual offenders living in this neighbourhood." But... spycams can be anywhere. Men secretly follow women to their homes and try to break into them. Sexual harassment can happen anywhere. Robbery and theft can happen.

Personally, my paranoia and anxiety won't ever let me believe such words. No narrative, self-made or otherwise, can convince me enough to think that I am in a safe place. I would always have a nagging thought at the back of my mind telling me danger can be lurking just about anywhere. I think Koreans today do have high levels of confidence in their country. Most people do think it is safe to be walking around in the dead of night without any worry. (Again, I do not quite share the sentiment.) But this is a kind of self-made narrative because I also know my countrymen who travel to other countries like the UK and say "I feel absolutely safe walking the streets in the dead of night while I won't feel the same in my own country" when those are simply ideas they've planted into themselves through the mindset that [This country is better than my country and therefore safer.] There is absolutely no correlation between a "better" country and crime rates (or potential of becoming a victim of crime). Not to mention, being an Asian in a Western country sets you up as a likelier victim of hate crime... 

So, I was saying.... This narrative of "safe Korea" is already existing in South Korea today. The need for mass surveillance or a spycam detecting task force in public toilets don't add up with a "safe country" image but the sentiment planted into the people seems to be strong despite all of this. However, Koreans do call South Korea "Hell Joseon". Youth unemployment can be a concern is a country like South Korea and a graying population, increasinly empty gray towns like the one mentioned in the series are all concerns which are ever-present in the public conscious. The mention of plauge and unemployment too must be a major concern now. In a rather similar vein, this narrative of DIKE or trial by the public through app voting creates a sentiment that people can take into their own hands and deliver justice. But what about the people at the margins of society who are homeless and do not own smartphones? What is this concept of democracy that places power in the hands of people? Is it a mere illusion or is power really in the hands of people?

..................................................................................................

(A side note on how the indicted chairman of the company responsible for mass poisoning of an entire town had brushed off concerns about a failing filtration system and the move of industrial plants to Southeast Asia. As a Southeast Asian, it is also something on my mind how South Korea has moved out of China and moved most of its plants to Southeast Asia for cheap labour. But what about the pollution here, the appallingly low wages they pay Southeast Asians (both white and blue collars!) in comparison to the few Korean expat managerial staff or engineers they station out here? I remember how I was at the hospital at 2 am and a small group of blue collar workers in their work uniform came in with their injured colleague; this can only mean they were at work past midnight due to some accident and we are still in the midst of the pandemic. What kinds of welfare and benefits are these blue collars provided with?)

[thattimdrakeguy]

I notice you don't have a Damian tag yet going through your posts You have more posts that are about him than Dick or any other of the batkids not named Tim? You claim to be a Tim Blog but i find it disingenuous that you have nearly as many posts about Damian as you do Tim and most of them are you being negative or making errors. If you were genuine you would have a Damian tag instead of hiding your negative content like a coward. It's okay not to like a character but be truthful.

You gave me three asks that are entirely filled on the kind of petty bias that you continued to imply that I have in all three of the asks.

If you think I’m a coward for not wanting to offend Damian fans with my opinions that are negative based on the bad writing the character has suffered,

then quite honestly, I don’t really have anything to say about it.

I can really only say the fact I got told not to tag him in those types of posts, because people in the Damian tag didn’t appreciate it (with understanding reason), and how it was also because the Damian fan base is the only fan base I ever got nasty sounding asks continuously for criticizing his writing. Even in posts where I criticize the writing for all of the Bat-Family members, or at least the male Robins, Damian’s fan base was the only one I ever got nasty asks from. So I learned through experience it wasn’t a good idea to tag him in those posts.

I presume a lot of them assume I hate him worse then what I actually say because I’m a Tim fan and Tim fan-blog, that seems to be the same case for you going off of how you word yourself as well.

Which I typically find a bit odd seeing how in a few of those very same posts (like the latest one I’m assuming you’re upset at me for) I talk about how he was actually one of my favorite characters when I was first getting into the comics, and don’t actually talk any ill-intended speech towards the character.

I only criticize the writing the character has been dealt much the same I did Tim through-out Detective Comics Rebirth.

I am in no way a hypocrite if that’s what you’re believing.

My blog got popular for openly criticizing how so many different writers had difficulty writing Tim in the same away I just did it for Damian.

and only once did I ever get shit from a person for making many posts about how I couldn’t stand Tim’s writing in Detective Comics Rebirth, while also using a much more exaggerated way of speaking because it meant a lot more to me, and that one person is some one who became my friend literally by the end of the day because even though we didn’t agree on anything, I thought they were a really cool person to talk to.

But you don’t seem like that kind of person, you seem like a person that couldn’t read the full posts, and if you did, could only read them through a veil of “Oh another Tim fan hates Damian” without actually paying attention to how I spoke about him, how I said he had potential and how I enjoyed his initial character development, and that I’m only upset that they kept dropping the ball with him.

Like how I complained about Tim in Rebirth, Tim Drake, my favorite character, and blog theme.

I don’t talk about how Damian is a bad character or how I hate him.

I talk about how it upsets me writers continuously can’t write him well.

Like how I do Tim.

So again, don’t imply I’m a hypocrite.

–

In your second ask you talk about how Tim should’ve trusted Damian because he saved him from Jason when Jason tried to kill him, and how Tim fans are the only ones that can’t see how he was a jackass to Damian. 

I’m gonna have to assume you used this wording because of how I worded Tomasi’s out of character writing for Tim, as making Tim a jackass just for the sake of making Damian more likable and sympathetic.

I meant saying jackass by how Tomasi wrote Tim to be rude-via-the-mouth to Damian for no good reason, and I considered it out of character because Tim was never like that before. Previously Tim’s behavior towards Damian was untrusting, even in some situations to the point of it being a flaw, much like that time he tackled Damian because Tim believed he was hurting Alfred, something spawned from how Damian previously locked Alfred in a closest.

You don’t seem to recognize that Damian tried to murder Tim, how he belittled Tim, and how he tried to take his adopted dad away from him because he wanted that spot though.

Even how after he saved Tim: Damian belittled Tim some more as Tim was having a mental breakdown.

Counting the score, Tim has more reasons to not trust him then to actually trust him.

Which only got proved more with how Damian reacted when he found out Tim didn’t trust him. By assaulting him and nearly killing him by cutting his zip-line. (Although you could argue if you wanted too that he knew Tim could land well enough to survive, I personally don’t hold an opinion on it because it’s hard to tell, but I’m going to assume he wasn’t going to kill him, or else the whole issue would have even more bad writing in it)

My point is that it was horrendous writing to pretend like Damian couldn’t recognize why Tim didn’t trust him. Especially when he’s on a list (from what I heard) with Superman.

You criticize me for not bringing up Damian saving Tim, but you continue to ignore quite a lot of the things I said in the actual post I’m assuming you’re mad at.

Don’t be a hypocrite, especially when you’re trying to imply I am one.

If I wanted too, I could right now say “Damian fans are the always the ones that are so biased that they can’t realize Damian has continuously done horrendous and creepy stuff like make fun of Stephanie’s boobs and assaulting Tim, and even later Jason”, and going off of your asks (I won’t say you, because I’m assuming I don’t know you),

I think it would apply to your asks.

But I’m smart enough to know not every Damian fan is like that, so don’t claim otherwise. Every fan base has it’s toxic wasteland, but don’t try to lump me into Tim’s toxic wasteland because I don’t agree with you. You’re only making it seem like you’re apart of the Damian toxic wasteland with your behavior.

–

The third ask keeps going on talking about how they personally find no personal problem with characters calling Damian cute, purely because the asker finds Damian cute themselves.

Think about it though, why would they find Damian cute?

He’s violent, mean-spirited, has attacked both Tim and Jason, Dick has witnessed this, has a prison that Jason is aware of, made sexual comments towards Stephanie, and presents himself in a way where he thinks he’s better than everyone and demands respect.

That’s not cute, and that’s how his character was built up to be (not the prison, that’s a recent thing), and so far has continued to be the majority of those things.

He’s not a cute character.

To portray a character like that as cute is disingenuous (stealing the word you used, because I liked it) and piss poor writing because it’s ignoring the obvious reality. It just gets even worse because Damian wasn’t originally ever portrayed as a cute character, it’s something writers later on did because they couldn’t be bothered to write him well. Dropping the ball down the stairs with his character, and letting his character down.

Some artists might draw him cute because they aren’t aware of how a 13 year old looks, or could even keep consistent with how he looked for so long (even some of the ones that’s drawn him before began to draw him differently because they stopped being able to bother or whichever reason they have), and even some writers might write him cute, but if you’re going to bring that up to me, than I genuinely don’t think you read my full post, only furthered by how you’re trying to imply I’m a hypocrite by how I think 90s Tim was cute and tiny (something the asker did in their third ask).

The difference is pretty much the whole point in the grand majority of my posts were I’m critical about any writer on any character: they changed the character, because either they were too lazy, or too un-knowledgeable about who they were writing, and it’s bad writing to do so, since it’s inconsistency.

If you were watching a TV show and all of a sudden they treated a mean-spirited character, who continuously treats the majority of characters like crap, and continues to struggle with not acting on the instincts they was raised to have, as if that was cute when they haven’t done that before, and none of the characters have a reason to call him cute out of no where, it would be considered bad writing, articles would be written about it, and fans would be ticked off about it.

I’m pretty sure the comics only get away with it because it’s comics, and no one really cares about comics anymore to talk about it. I’m just pointing out the bad writing I continuously see on my blog were I talk about comics because I care and I heavily enjoy the medium of comics.

If it bugs you that I do that, you honestly shouldn’t be on my blog, and I’m a little confused how you got here since you seem aware I’ve brought up Damian’s bad writing before.

and if you want me to explain why I freely call Tim tiny, it’s because he is, and that’s been a main-stay of his character since the very beginning, and only changes with bad artists. Meaning that’s how he’s always been (ignoring the bad artists again), so there’s no bad writing involved with it, it’s actually bad work to ignore that. So it doesn’t fall into any bad or lazy writing like with Damian. It’s simply just not the same thing. If anything it’s the exact opposite if you want to compare those two things, like you seem zealous to do.

If you failed to recognize my logic, I’m going to have to assume again that you haven’t read or at least paid attention to things I’ve said, or how I generally try to conduct my points on my posts.

–

Continuously throughout your three asks you try to make points that make no sense.

The main reason I haven’t just blocked you and deleted your asks is because I get the vibe that you aren’t typically a very mean-spirited person, you’re just impulsive and passionate towards a character, and that is fine, but it’s when when you try to put down what someone else has said, when you seem like you haven’t even read the full thing, or have at least tried to fully pay attention to it, that it becomes toxic behavior, and something I have a problem with.

I believe it was just yesterday I got an ask were someone was complaining about the same kind of person that you presented yourself to be to me. So maybe this whole time this was only a joke to get under my skin because someone read that ask and my response and decided to pull a prank.

You may be a child, and so because of how you speak in the asks, mainly the latter two, I chose to just describe them instead of show them because I’m gonna take it that after some years you might look back on this and how weirdly aggressive you were towards people, and be glad that I didn’t show the ones were you try your dang best to point stuff out about me like it’s honest and true, and like you did your research about me, when quite frankly it’s not and you haven’t, even if you were trying to gaslight me, and use some straw man arguments to provoke me.

Also since you may be a child, a lot of Damian fans are since he’s Robin and the most recent one, I’m going to let you know that I’m honestly not mad at you for the asks, just confused, and that I wish you well and hope that I didn’t make you so mad that you’ve been thinking about it all day.

I’m just being critical of a character who I’m disappointed hasn’t had good writing consistently for years.

I’m not attempting to make the character come off like they’ve been bad since the beginning.

So you don’t have to worry about it.

I’m just genuinely upset with his writing, the same way I’m upset with how Tim’s been written before.

If you’re a grown person though, I’m a little more disappointed, but all the same, I hope I didn’t ruin your day, because to let you know, you haven’t ruined mine.

[the-voodoo-cat]

I do want to genuinely apologize about the post regarding Caleb and Essek. It was meant as a jest, though I see now that it was in bad taste and I apologize. I’m not trying to hurt people but I clearly did and I really am sorry for that. I’ve deleted the post since because it does not reflect my actual thoughts and feelings on the topic and I want to be very clear that I have no problem (nor would do any thing about it even if I did) with Caleb ending up in a romantic relationship with a woman in canon! I was speaking about a very specific hypothetical in a very exaggerated way that was meant as a joke, but I understand that many people did not see it that way and I apologize that I let my own passion cloud my judgement. I will not make posts like that in the future, and I will do my best to not hurt people again in the ways I have with my past posts. 

I also want to explain where this all came from so  here’s the essay. The whole thing. Hopefully more eloquent than I’ve been on here recently. It was written months ago, so some of the things in it may seem strange in the context of current canon but I don’t feel like completely revising it.

I am putting the essay under a cut to avoid clogging up people’s timelines, but I do encourage people to at least try to read some of it. If there really are biphobic flaws in it, please please tell me genuinely, because that is so far from my intention as a critic and an academic. All I wish to do is point out harmful rhetoric, and in the context of this previous episode explain why I was so upset in the first place. (also if you’re wondering about the pronouns and addressees in the essay it was actually written as a letter to the cast but I couldn’t find an email to send it to)

I want to be clear before I continue that this entire discussion has nothing to do with shipping, but also that while the canonization of ships is irrelevant to representation that does not mean it should be mocked or trivialized either, because the concept of shipping is often an outlet for queer people to explore relationships or romance in ways they do not get in media. In regard to Fjord’s sexuality, my insistence on giving confirmation that he is gay also has nothing to do with shipping, or any form of feeling that he should be in a relationship with any of the other characters. I mention this because it is an argument often weaponized against queer fans, and I do not want it to be seen as any part of my motivation for writing this letter. I have seen many queer fans feel the need to walk away from twitter and the Critter community because of the abuse they suffer for promoting any form of gay or trans speculations, and while I understand that the cast has absolutely no power over this behavior, the least you could do is not participate in this abuse.

As it stands now, the way the cast and Brian discuss Fjord and make jokes regarding him is contradictory, and it is in this contradiction that the homophobic rhetoric I mentioned originates. Fjord is described in Talks as a gay man, through frequent allusions to ‘sword swallowing’ or him being a bottom, yet also described as (or at least hinted at) having romantic intentions toward Jester. This contradiction between showing him as gay and showing him as straight (or bisexual) is not only confusing, but cruel and demeaning to gay men—the discussions of his sexual relationship or interest with men becomes the butt of a joke, something to laugh at or something to mock, while you placate non-queer fans by ensuring us “don’t worry though, he’s straight.” This reinforces an extremely harmful rhetoric that gayness is a joke, or a fetishistic hypersexual phase that can make a character quirky or weird but still eventually normalized to straightness. Not only does this behaviour harm and invalidate gay fans on a personal level, it also encourages straight fans to fetishize or trivialize gayness in the community, and further silence gay voices.

The jokes made on Talks about sword swallowing or bottoming, specifically, belie a particular brand of straight ignorance or apathy that is actually as harmful as outright homophobia—if you don’t specifically say you’re mocking a gay man or gayness, then you aren’t, right? Unfortunately, this argument is inherently flawed because it ignored the significance of microaggressions in systemic oppression and abuse of minorities. When you mock a man for his sexual interest in men or allude to a man having these desires while also claiming that he is romantically interested in a woman, you turn gay sexual desire into joke and improbability. That is to say, when you paint a gay or bisexual man’s interest in men as purely sexual, you trivialize the importance of man loves man (mlm) relationships and invalidate their social qualities by making them seem inherently lesser to male/female relationships. Moreover, you contribute to a systemic fetishization of mlm relationships that turns them into an object for the sexual desire of straight women and dehumanizes the men involved. Thus, by constantly alluding to Fjord’s sexual interest in men while reinforcing his romantic interest in a woman you paint all potential sexual interactions (both in his history and his future) Fjord has with men as fetishistic, trivial, petty, socially nonviable and ultimately meaningless, and in doing so also paint all mlm relationships this same way.

Furthermore, your jokes about Fjord being a bottom were, perhaps unintentionally, a direct reference to Fjord being mlm. Although they are used in colloquial speech rather casually now, the words “top” and “bottom” are not synonymous with “dom” and “sub” but rather specifically refer to gay sexual intercourse. As such, when you say Fjord is a bottom, you are saying he has had or has interest in having sex with another man. The joke about Fjord taking the “Pact of the Bottom” is rather humorous, so long as he is actually a bottom. However, if he is a straight man with no interest in having sex with other men, it instead implies that gay sex is a fetish, something weird or strange and inherently unnatural, and that men who have it are subordinate, lesser, and/or weak. Similarly, if he is bisexual but only engages romantically with women this rhetoric still creates negative connotations and hypersexualization of mlm relationships by making them singularly about sex in a way that is typically used to discuss fetish and kink.

If Fjord is gay, all of these jokes and allusions are not so inappropriate, and so long as he eventually finds, or has in his history, a fulfilling romantic relationship with another man there is nothing wrong with the way he is being discussed. The need for him having a long term mlm relationship stems from the lack of proper mlm relationships in media, and also avoids the trope of the hypersexualized fetishistic object of the gay man that I discussed above. Also, there is an evident gap in Critical Role’s general representation of gay happiness, and although I would never force or even request that representation, I want you all to be aware that you are falling into a trope of tragic and ultimately lonely or unloved gay men both in the depiction of Tarry and of Gilmore. That is not to say that they (particularly Gilmore, whom I adore) are not outstanding characters that are dynamic and interesting, but just that they are the only major gay characters and thus neither of them finding fulfilling romantic love falls into a bit of a trope. As a note, when I say “gay” here, I do mean gay (as in mlm) not queer (as in LGBTQ), which is why I do not include the lesbian relationship between Kima and Allura.

Finally, one last note: sexuality is not a ploy, or a backstory, or a secret. Sexuality, like race, class, and gender, are key and immediate aspects of a character that, on a meta level that can be confirmed and discussed on a show like Talks Machina, should be available to the audience right away. I get that backstory is something all of the players are being cagey about, and I understand why, but I encourage you to not think about a character’s sexuality in this way—the character may not reveal their sexuality to the party but that does not mean the cast should be keeping that information away from the audience.

Finally I do want to apologize once again for some of my own rhetoric, even in this essay I know I refer to Fjord’s interest in Jester (or women generally) as “straight” instead of immediately acknowledging his potential bisexuality. For me, I have seen Bi-ness used as a ploy by writers so many times to make a character quirky, while still putting them in a m/f relationship, that for us queer fans I think it is important to remember that m/f bi relationships are the only ones that straight fans find acceptable the majority of the time and this does really hurt a lot of queer people. 

[adateur]

Beginnings

What role does this character play?(Storybased): dimitri plays a very anti-hero role for the most part, when he’s not struggling against the virus that keeps him wanting to devour flesh on a daily basis. depending on the types of interactions between others, his role is bound to change up.

What inspired you to create this character?: i first made a blog for dimitri back in 2015 because i loved the concept of the hunter still retaining some of his humanity and dealing with his much more primal urges such as what the virus was making him become. since it’s always changing, so is dimitri and with that comes a ton of new opportunities to explore a viral infected person who’s finding himself in a war with who he is and what he’s becoming.

Faceclaim?: leon kennedy from the resident evil franchise, preferably his vendetta appearance for dimitri since it was that look that inspired a revamp and use of his face.

What goals do you have for this character?: i hope to see him flourish in the community and other fandoms, along with the character development between him and other muses that he interacts with. and since he’s a very special muse of mine, i’m hoping to write him for a very long time.

Full Name: dimitrious moreau.

Nickname(s): dimitri.

Do they enjoy these/this nickname(s)?: he extremely enjoys having his name cut short, due to it being a mouthful according to a lot of people he met growing up.

History behind nickname(s): his parents started it first, then it really started to stick once his younger brother was born and wore his name out. even now, when he’s introducing himself to someone new, he uses dimitri over his full first name.

Alias(es): hoodie freak, infected, hunter. Hoodie, Jumper, Crazy Legs, Leaper, Punk-ass, Pouncing one, Hoodie dude, Sweatshirt-wearing wuss, Scrawny little bitch.

Physical

Sex: male.

Race/species: human / special infected. ( hunter. )

Ethnicity: caucasian.

Age: forty-two.

How old they appear: early thirties.

Mental age: a grandpa.

Orientation/Sexual preference: demisexual / undisclosed.

Any history behind their sexual orientation?: dimitri isn’t very into sleeping around, even much so now with what has happened to him infection route.

Birth date: december 19th.

Birth place: french quarter, new orleans.

Height: 5'11.

Weight: 165.

Are they overweight/underweight?: healthy and lean with muscle.

Blood type: a.

Can they bleed?: yes.

What color is their blood?: extremely dark red, almost looks black.

Defining physical characteristics/general appearance: the animalistic growling and roars, walking on all fours with ease, very acrobatic. gives the illusion that he’s a normal human and not an infected.

Eye color(s): blue. ( human side. ) silver. ( infection takes over and dark areas. )

Is this eye color uncommon?: his eye color is only uncommon in dark areas or when he loses himself to the virus.

Are their eyes good?: his eyes are extremely sensitive to bright light, usually making him claw them out and seek the nearest dark spot until his eyes heal again.

If something about their face is different than the norm of their realm, do they get grief/disapproval for it?: it can be a very scary sight to behold when dimitri changes over and while his appearance doesn’t alter drastically, those around him will not wish to see him look that way or fear him.

Body build(slim, muscular, etc.): athletic / slim.

Posture(slouched, correct, etc.): correct.

Describe how they walk(Fast, slow, weak step, etc.): predatory-like sauntering and calculated.

Why do they walk this way?: because the virus made dimitri an apex predator ( among other special infected ) there’s a lot more than just random moving. and since he was a parkour specialist, everything heightened and thus, made him a hunter who not only chased down his prey, but stalked and challenged. it also aids in his survival.

Do they limp?: no.

Complexion: fair / slightly grey.

Big hands/small hands/something else?: medium size hands.

Long fingered/short fingered hands?: long fingered with sharp claw-like nails.

What kind of teeth do they have?(Vampiric, all fangy, etc.): his teeth look normal aside from the very large and noticeable canines. he’s gotten the vampire jokes before, until the all familiar growling starts.

Do they take care of their teeth?: of course.

Why/why not?: just because he’s an infected, doesn’t mean he should let his personal hygiene go.

Describe their voice(What range is it for one thing? Alto, tenor, bass, etc.?): for dimitri, Matthew Mercer is his chosen voice because of obvious reasons.

Speech mannerisms(Do they pause a lot, a stutter?: dimitri has difficulty speaking when the virus mutates and changes, causing him to lose that part of him that can form words. instead of speaking, he either responds with growls, snarls, purring ( only when he’s feeling docile ) or if a person is nearby, through texting until the phase passes. often times, he’s not really into speaking upon first meeting a person since they can often tell he’s a hunter if they catch glimpses of his skin.

Describe an outfit they would wear: anything casual and sometimes classy like dress shirt, pants and dress shoes.

Why do they have this clothing preference?: when the outbreak first occurred, dimitri “died” wearing his hoodie and pants, an outfit he stayed in during the first few weeks of infection. his attire isn’t something he worries about, but leather jackets are at the top of every list.

Personality

Best traits of their personality: honest, often loyal to those who he can trust, can be caring, protective, trustworthy.

Worst traits of their personality: aggression, stubbornness, lack of empathy at times and detached.

Jung personality test: INFP.

Enneagram: type 5.

First impression usually given: too serious and broody.

Zodiac: sagittarius.

Alignment(Good/evil/bystander/etc.): he’s neither good nor evil but neutral to both.

Emotional trauma(if any, and why): killed his younger brother when he turned.

How do they respond when the trauma issue is talked about/touched on?: it’s a topic dimitri would try to avoid at all costs and if he does decide to talk about it, he’s probably only willing to share it with someone he knows well.

Does this trauma effect their day to day life?: it’s an every second of the day regret for him.

Would you say that they effect the environment around them, or that their environment around them effects them more?: it’s a little bit of both since he’s known for killing more survivors than helping them get out alive. but with CEDA and other survivors getting smarter with their tactics, the environment around him affects him too.

Location|History

Where they’re from: french quarter, new orleans.

Current residence: french quarter, new orleans.

Do they live at their current residence by will?: not exactly. when the bombing happened and the bridge was destroyed, dimitri had no other way to get out ( unknown to him ) and any other methods were too dangerous for him to attempt. so he remains in the quarter with all the other infected and whatever humans that may lurk.

Backstory: there’s not much to say about his early life and childhood experiences. it’s the part where the green flu hit and CEDA infected the population with false shots that were supposed to keep them from contracting the virus in the first place. among these believers were dimitri and his brother, elijah, whom were caught in the middle of the zombies initial outbreak. unable to do anything to distance his brother from him, the virus caused dimitri to turn and slaughter elijah, devouring him until not much was left of him when he returned to his senses.

the next few weeks were spent with the virus changing and mutating constantly, washing his humanity away and placing it with something primal and animalistic. it took nearly three months for the virus to partially bond with him and return his humanity and control back, but still left him with physical evidence of the change. with his pieces of humanity back, dimitri was able to remember who and brought the sickness to them, leading him on the hunt to uncover why and if the attacks were global. despite his flick of a switch side effects, he’s always craving human flesh and that makes him highly unpredictable and dangerous.

Abilities(As in powers): The Hunter is the least visibly mutated Special Infected and superficially resembles a Common Infected. It has yet to be explained how the Hunter’s mutations onset, whether it be genetic, biochemical, or a Hunter-specific strain of the virus, but the mutations seem to be sex-linked as only male Hunters have been observed. The Hunter’s reaction to the Infection has granted him an increase in lower-body strength.

While not creating massive muscle growth like the Tank, this added strength has given the Hunter the ability to repeatedly jump and pounce from long distances and rapidly scale the sides of buildings with ease, as well as toughened his legs in order to withstand the great distances and heights he can achieve. Decreased pain response visible in all sufferers of the Infection also results in the Hunter not suffering from perpetual lactic acid build up from muscle overexertion or impact damage after experiencing a large fall.

At the same time, there seems to be some sort of muscle delay after an initial attack where the Hunter is not able to move as swiftly.

The extent of damage to the Hunter’s sight suggests his other senses are far more developed than those of typical Infected, allowing him to hunt with far greater efficiency. It is possible that the screeching noises he makes and the growling are his own echolocation method. Hunters also appear to be the only Infected with a self-defense reflex: when shot at a distance and knowing they cannot pounce, the Hunter will sometimes jump away into safety.

They serve as the “strong-arm” of the Infected, being very adept at finishing off Survivors. By coordinating with other Infected, the Hunter becomes a valuable ally, and a deadly foe.

Rate their power on a scale of 1 - 10, 10 being most powerful in all the universe they’re in: 8.

[a-man-adrift]

Writer Questionnaire

Internet hugs to the super talented @eluari​ for remembering that I exist, even though I’ve not been providing much evidence of the fact lately!

Short stories, novels, or poems?

I’ve written (or at least started!) all three, but I have a bad habit of not beginning a project unless I can see the path to the end, which usually limits me to shorts, or long-shorts/novellas at most.  Usually.  There was this one time when a whole novel plot sprang fully formed from my head… I’m still working on The Anti-Agathics War, I swear!

What genre do you prefer reading?

If I had to pick just one, I’d say SF, but I’m also fond of crime stories, thrillers, and Victorian novels.

What genre do you prefer writing?

Again, probably science fiction if I had to pick just the one, although examples abound of how you can tell almost any kind of story within SF… come to think of it, maybe that’s why I like it so much!

Are you a planner or a write-as-I-go kind of person?

A bit betwixt and between, really: I’ve not had a lot of luck with those writing exercises where you just start writing anything and try and bootstrap your way up to an idea, but on the other hand once I’ve had an idea I don’t need to do a lot of planning to run with it.  This does vary with length, though: I do have a skeleton for TAAW—one or two sentences per chapter, then sometimes divvying up chapters into scenes—whereas I can generally write a short story straight off the back of the idea for it.

What music do you listen to while writing?

Either something instrumental or something with lyrics I know really really well, so the words don’t distract me.  When I’m writing Mass Effect fanfic, as often as not I’ll put the game soundtrack on, since it’s one of the best things about Mass Effect, and has no distracting words!

Fave books/movies/tv shows?

Books: I love Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan novels: so much that I can’t pick just one, it has to be the whole series!  I’m also very fond of Wilkie Collins, with my favourites probably being Man and Wife, and the short story collection The Queen of Hearts, although his better-known novels, like The Woman in White or The Moonstone, are great too.  I also likes me some Isaac Asimov, particularly The Caves of Steel.

Movies: My absolute favourite is The Guard (2011).  Thanks to flickchart.com (which I recommend as an excellent waste of any superfluous time you may have hanging around!) I have a top 20, which you can check out at the link if you’re so inclined.

TV Shows: Breaking Bad absolutely deserves the hype, and I’ll always have a sentimental fondness for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, because it’s the Trek series I grew up with.

Any current WIPs?

The Anti-Agathics War is my main ongoing project.  I’m in the midst of the first of two chapters that form the climax of the piece, and I’m trying not to spook myself by angsting over whether I can live up to notes in my chapter plan like “Neela makes an awesome speech”!

I also have another Scene from the Life of Phil Shepard about two-thirds done, and generally I feel like I should keep adding to my Mass Effect fic output until I’ve gone from Phil’s parents meeting and deciding to move to Mindoir, all the way to Terri and Nezzy’s and li’l Ashley’s turn to save the galaxy!

If someone were to make a cartoon out of you, what would your standard outfit be?

Haha, probably chinos and an Oxford shirt.  I'd make up for it with wacky and memorable dialogue.  Hopefully.

Do you like incorporating people you actually know into your writing?

Really no. This was actually one of the things that killed a previous project: I tried joining the hallowed tradition of writing weird and wonderful events set in a university town and lab very much like the one I used to work at, but when I got to writing my viewpoint character meeting a bunch of grad students and post-docs very much like my real-life friends at the time, I found it incredibly skeevy.  Guess I’ll stick to aliens and space marines…

Are you kill-happy with characters?

Well, I did kill off Tali’Zorah, even though she’s one of my favourite canon characters, but no, on the whole I probably err the other way, on the side of keeping my character-babies happy!

Coffee or tea while writing?

No thanks!

Slow or fast writer?

Fast when I actually get down to it, which is at such infrequent intervals that, on average, glacially slow.

Where/who/what do you find inspiration from?

Well, obviously as a fanfic writer I’m inspired by my source material, but more generally my writing tends to owe a lot to whatever I’ve been reading most recently.  My saving grace, in that regard, if I have one, is that usually I know what source I’m riffing on when I do it, so I can turn it into a comment/reference/tribute to some source or other, rather than a plagiarism.

Most fave book cliche? Least fave book cliche?

OK, I’ll admit it: I like the typical Victorian/Edwardian male author’s conception of romance, where the hero loses his heart to the heroine on usually rather less than a paragraph’s-worth of acquaintance, and then suffers agonies of denial and self-doubt for chapter after chapter (in intervals of the plot moving itself along) until finally she admits that she quite likes him too!  I have to add a quote here, because it made me laugh:

'I say again that you are a foolish Robin,' said she, resting her cheek against my shoulder. 'You think your goose is a swan. But go on thinking it, and she will be as near a swan as she can manage, or failing that, a very faithful, affectionate goose.'

I don’t know about least fave, but one cliché I’ve been getting a bit impatient with lately is the one where the protagonist’s parent/mentor-figure dies at the most timely possible moment for the protag to step up and show that they can handle shizz on their own.  The man behind the curtain is so apparent in some of these that I wonder if the author just had really overbearing parents of their own, so that they can’t imagine any way a person could fully grow up without the olds getting killed off.

Fave scenes to write?

Fluffy home and family scenes always feel very self-indulgent, but they seem to go down well.  One of the perks of being a fanfic author, I guess!

Most productive time of day for writing?

This varies so much that I think the only honest answer is “any time when I don’t have something else I ought to be doing!”

Reason for writing?

Oh, some combination of “Liara is best waifu” and “BIOWARE U DUN GOOFED!”, probably…

I declare Omni-Tag!  If you see this and want to play, thou art subject to entagment!

[punkrockpolitix]

Strategy or Delusion?

by Mitch Maley — By the time Donald Trump returned to the White House from Walter Reed Medical Center, made a grand gesture of taking off his mask despite still being contagious, and was caught on video struggling to catch his breath right after resuming his "this is basically the flu" line, it seemed as if every one of the Trump 2020 train’s wheels had jumped the track. With only a month to go until the election, regaining momentum seemed implausible, at best. But this week’s campaign reboot suggests that the president is going into the final weeks of this election intent on doubling down on his 2016 strategy. Only time will tell, whether this is a brilliant tactic, the sad default of a malignant narcissist, or both.

Elected in 2016 with just 46 percent of the vote and on an Electoral College coalition that consisted of just 70,000 votes spread across Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Trump has been unable to hit even one 50 percent approval rating since taking office nearly four years ago, and he’s been as low as 35 percent recently. As such, it’s hard to argue that he’s not the most polarizing and divisive president in modern history, if not the entire history of our nation. That said, he’s remained among the most popular presidents in terms of his approval rating with those who identify as Republicans. Because that number has dropped to just 25 percent of voters, however, it’s still problematic from a strategic standpoint, especially since his 6 percent average approval rating from Democrats is the lowest ever recorded (for perspective, an average of 14 percent of Republicans approved of the job President Obama did over his two terms).

I think we can all agree that the first debate between Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden was a shitshow wrapped in a hot mess, tossed into a dumpster fire. However, Trump made the mistake of setting the bar so low for Biden that all he had to do was appear to be conscious and he’d exceed most expectations. For his part, Trump slipped right into his usual stick of firehosing the dialog with misinformation and then interrupting his opponent incessantly. This isn’t a terrible tactic if you hold the inferior position in terms of factual accuracy and/or your opponent is just a better debater or is more informed on the issues. There were rumors that perhaps it was a deliberate tactic to play hell with Biden’s stuttering problem and you could see the former Veep closing his eyes and steadying his mind at such times, a tactic often used in those circumstances by those who suffer from the affliction.

But while that may have allowed Trump to shift away from subjects he wanted to avoid or toward others he wanted to exploit, it did not seem like it was done with a lot of situational awareness. Right now, about 31 percent of American voters identify as Democrats. As noted, 25 percent identify Republican and 40 percent claim independence, with the rest belonging to third parties. Trump’s fragile, patch-quilt 2016 victory included success among independents and even Democrats, which made up for the fact that a sizable group of Republicans refused to support their party’s nominee.

Known as the Never Trumpers, there’s scant evidence to suggest he’s won a meaningful number of them over during his first term. Polling also suggests that many more Democrats who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary Clinton or thought that she was destined to win and that they could send the party a message or deny her a popular mandate by staying home or voting third party, are poised to vote blue no matter who after four years of Trump. That means Trump will either have to do even better with the white, upper-middle-class and affluent suburban independent voters who helped him win in 2016, or expand the voting base.

Option one has likely passed him by. White suburban voters of all stripes, but particularly women, have been hurling themselves off the Trump train for months. Any chance of wooing them went out the window with his debate strategy. While his core 30 percent "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters" bloc likely loved the schoolyard bullying tactics, female moderates and independents were revolted by what many described as petty, childish antics and a disturbing lack of basic impulse control. 

Vice President Mike Pence may have been somewhat more reserved when he employed similar tactics against Senator Kamala Harris in the Veep debate, but there was a rub. While there were only three men onstage during the presidential debate, Pence was the lone male among two females. The way he constantly interrupted, spoke over and ignored both the moderator and his opponent made for a bad look and likely reminded many female voters of the worst male figures they’ve encountered—misogynistic egomaniacs who found their thoughts cute but unnecessary and were always willing to explain things so they’d better understand. If you listened closely, you could hear more bodies hitting the ground as they hurled themselves off the Trump train.

Trump’s worst polling metrics have come on both his logistic handling of the coronavirus outbreak and whether or not he’s taken the pandemic seriously, so by the time he finally went and caught the virus himself before seemingly spreading it to dozens and dozens of other people while not exercising recommended safety precautions, too many Americans were already questioning his ability to lead for a repeat of that razor thin 2016 coalition to seem plausible. I honestly thought the election was over.

But when Trump tweeted two videos from Walter Reed, things got a little weird. If you haven’t seen them, you can watch the first one here and the second one here. The president seems humbled and a bit shaken. He’s adopted grandpa pesona that’s choc-full of folksiness, along with words and body language completely out of character with the Trump we’re used to. He was an optimistic cheerleader and, for the first time in his presidency, made no effort to divide his audience. I admittedly thought to myself, if he stays in the hospital and maintains this posture through Election Day, he could definitely pull this off.

Then Gramps got ahold of the keys to the hermetically sealed SUV and decided to spread some love to supporters waiting outside the hospital—and perhaps some COVID to staff and Secret Service forced to join him on the foolish stunt that would come to rival his infamous bible photo op taken at a church near the White House, but only after hundreds of peaceful protestors were hit with tear gas to clear the way.

Whether it was the outraged response piercing his paper-thin skin or just the effects of the cocktail of expensive, experimental drugs they were pumping into his system, Trump wound up right back on twitter playing his hit list. But things really took a hard turn on Monday night when Trump gave his first post-hospital stump speech at a rally in Sanford, FL. There were few masks and no social distancing at the massive event (Governor Ron Desantis was even caught on video high-fiving a long receiving line of attendees, then rubbing his nose in what will become a classic Flori-duh moment should he test positive). Trump—presumably hopped up on his go-to trifecta of KFC, Diet Cokes and Sudafed—was bursting with energy and bragging about the possibility that he was permanently immune to a disease he continued to downplay. If you listened closely, you could hear the bodies of even more independent suburban voters throwing themselves from the train.

Clearly, Trump does not possess the discipline to stick to a strategy—any strategy. He’s only got one act and rather than reinvent himself or even work out some new material, he’s content to play to friendly audiences who just want to hear the same tired one liners: Lock her up, Build the Wall, something, something, Benghazi! For good measure, Trump even promised a post-election surprise. Fans of democracy (the ideology not the legendary Sarasota reggae band), were up in arms the week before when Trump suggested that Attorney General William Barr should have already indicted his opponent for the "greatest political crime in the history of our country."

While a sitting president calling for the arrest of an opponent he’s losing to, just weeks before an election, does stink of banana republic (the political term for a backward country with a rudimentary political system, not the retail clothing chain that sells overpriced Gap chinos to the same voters Trump is hemorrhaging), it seems he may have been seeding his pitch. During Monday’s speech, Trump promised that Biden, Clinton and many more would be indicted … after he wins the election. Now, while adhering to an actual strategy would have been much better in terms of his chances for reelection, it’s clear he can’t do that. And since the post-COVID personality transplant only seems to have lasted a single day, doubling down might actually be his best bet.

The vote of those who pay attention and participate tends to harden at this point in a contest. Given that polling shows Trump is still losing supporters, his only chance is expanding the electorate. The challenge with that is that swing states like Florida and Wisconsin have already passed their voter registration deadline for this election. Pennsylvania and Michigan voters can only register until October 19. But there are also a lot of registered voters who don’t typically cast ballots. The numbers make it clear that a majority of current American voters are even more repelled by Trump’s policies, platform and/or personality than they were in 2016. But one metric that’s been consistently impressive for Trump has been voter enthusiasm. Those who love him, do so dearly, and the strategy between now and November 3 seems to be to get everyone of those sort out to the polls, especially the ones who didn’t vote for him in 2016.

Given the massive advantage Democrats hold in vote-by-mail requests, Trump likely only has to get within 5 percent of the total votes cast to wind up ahead on the evening of November 3. Even though there will likely be millions of votes still to be counted and it looks all but certain that Biden will have most of them just because he’s not Trump, the president has already telegraphed his next move: stop counting the votes and hope Republicans in Congress and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court can find a way to keep him in office without blood being spilled in the streets and the nation devolving into something close to a civil war.

Sure, it’s entirely possible that enough people have had enough of the Trumps that Biden will win by an unexpectedly wide margin on election night and the whole thing will be over, but the prize for that will be a cadre of NeoLiberal corporatist warmongers descending on Washington while under the delusion that they’ve earned some sort of historic mandate. I know, none of them are attractive options, but given that we’re cueing up for the final act of a year that’s been nothing short of the personification of human misery, it’s the presidential election we should expect.

Dennis “Mitch” Maley has been a journalist for more than two decades. A former Army Captain, he has a degree in government from Shippensburg University and is the author of several books, which can be found here.

[serpvntsarchive]

A N T O N   P H I L I P   J O H A N N   H A S L E R  ---  T A S K  O N E

—— ❝ let’s start off easy. tell me the basics. ❞

[ name ] anton philip johann hasler

[ date of birth ] 12 october, 1633

[ place of birth ] vaduz, liechtenstein

[ age ] thirty

[ religion ] roman catholic

[ marital status ] single

[ occupation / title ] crown prince of liechtenstein

[ gender identity ] male

[ allegiance ] liechtenstein

[ spoken languages ] german ( first ), french ( fluent ), english ( fluent ), italian ( fluent ), spanish ( intermediate ), hungarian ( intermediate ), slovenian ( intermediate ).

[ special skills ] shooting, sword play, musical talent for the piano, a surprisingly good dancer, pissing of his father, knocking back a several cold ones with the boys, spending his father’s money to piss him off, ruining betrothals to piss off his father, sleeping around, sleeping around with the intention to piss off his father, lad culture probably.

—— ❝ what of your family ?? are they still alive ?? ❞

[ father ] king of  liechtenstein and a really wanted connection!!! ( age tba, alive ) 

[ mother ] queen of liechtenstein ( age tba, alive )

[ siblings ]  claus philipp herman hasler ( older brother, lived to nine years, dead ), unnamed brother ( stillborn ) alessia maria johanna hasler ( younger sister, twenty and four, alive )

[ children ] none, does not particularly desire to be a father.

—— ❝  now let’s paint a picture of you. ❞

[ height/weight ] 182cm ( 5′11″ ), 85kg ( 187 lb )

[ built ] athletic and muscular,

[ hair color ] dark brown and thick.

[ eye color ] green.

[ accent ] high german accent, harsher when speaking german, or languages with similar styles, but grows softer when speaking other languages, though still prominent. 

[ voice ] deep and fruity, often very loud and booming when in a good mood, though grows quieter and sharper when he is in an argument,

[ style of speech ] smooth and slow, usually calculated though tenser when upset.

[ scars ] no large or obvious scarring, however a few smaller ones scattered around his body. the most notable scars would include a very round circular scar on his knee caused by being burned bitch probably playing with a poker as a child, a long thin scar on his calf and a shorter, fatter scar on the bicep of his right arm, both sword injuries. 

[ abnormalities ] none.

[ clothing/style ] lavish clothing style despite not being particularly interested in fashion, tends to have nice detailing or embroidery, always in rich fabrics, prefers dark neutral colours such as beige, golds, greens, dark brown but favours red or blue for more colour, particularly to special events etc.

—— ❝ tell us, what kind of person are you ?? ❞

[ star sign ] libra - libras are the diplomat of the zodiac. they are able to put themselves in other's shoes and see things through another person's point of view. they are the ones that always want to make things right and have balance and harmony in their life, their surroundings and the lives of the people close to them. they have captivating charm, elegant taste and they are easy to like due to their eager-to-please, easygoing nature. in return for a libra's amazing ability to be a good listener, sooth and calm people, they expect admiration. libras will gather a group of people, everyone will become friends then the libra will be in the center of the group. they like the attention and the admiration for the people that they have brought together. libras are very intelligent, they often hide this inside their easygoing exterior. libras love variety and different situations. they welcome change. libras love luxury. they will spend lots of money and surround themselves with beautiful things and they seem to be constantly fussing over their appearance. they love anything upscale and classy. libras work hard to please others, this they do an others find them incredibly captivating. 

[ alignment ] chaotic neutral - a chaotic neutral character follows his whims. he is an individualist first and last. he values his own liberty but doesn't strive to protect others' freedom. he avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. a chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. to do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those different from himself suffer). a chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but his behavior is not totally random. he is not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it.

[ enneagram type ] type two, the helper - twos are empathetic, sincere, and warm-hearted. they are friendly, generous, and self-sacrificing, but can also be sentimental, flattering, and people-pleasing. they are well-meaning and driven to be close to others, but can slip into doing things for others in order to be needed. they typically have problems with possessiveness and with acknowledging their own needs.

[ colour personality ] pale violet red, #D87093 - your dominant hues are red and magenta. you love doing your own thing and going on your own adventures, but there are close friends you know you just can't leave behind. you can influence others on days when you're patient, but most times you just want to go out, have fun, and do your own thing. your saturation level is lower than average - you don't stress out over things and don't understand people who do. finishing projects may sometimes be a challenge, but you schedule time as you see fit and the important things all happen in the end, even if not everyone sees your grand master plan. your outlook on life is bright. you see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

[ what plants best represent you ] dandelion: scrappy and tough, you’re a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of person. you don’t give up easily and you often thrive in situations that others would find discouraging. you have an instinct to serve others and see yourself as most useful in times or places of crisis, but you may over rely on your toughness and forget how sensitive you really are. ginger: spirited. a feisty and fiery companion, quick with an opinion, a laugh or an idea. warm, friendly and inviting, you never allow an awkward moment to pass. in fact, even cold and distant people warm up to you more quickly than others. negative experiences or too much indulgence, however, can send you into a bit of a tailspin, and when hurt you may become quite cold and distant. ginger people do best when their natural warmth and affection is flowing freely, giving them easy access to their love of life. slippery elm: let’s just say you’re a vocal person. sure, that might mean you’re chatty. but it also means you’re the one humming in the hallway, singing in the shower, speaking your mind, standing up and shouting if need be to get yourself heard. you’ve got a voice and you know how to use it. inclined to speak up for the voiceless, defend the defenseless or simply bring joy to the joyless, you may have a tendency to overuse your voice.

[ theme/character song ] ‘ super rich kids ’ frank ocean.

—— ❝ do you have anything more you wish to say ?? ❞

[ link to bio ] currently not written yet im lazy ok

[ link to intro post ] a little more about him

[vshifcodes5wge1]

Borderlands 2 new dlc how to start?

Borderlands 2 how to reset badass rank

Legendary class mods become fallen by simply Vermivorous the invincible one last change associated with Varkid adversary. This kind of Badassery prize players with Badass tokens they can certainly splurge upon expanding abilities they'll utilize all the time, such since lower gun-recoil, marker damage, health readings in addition to screen boost price. An index of all of the Legendary (orange) guns inside the Borderlands 2 modpack, along with every one of their particular unique influence.

Borderlands assists a number of participant online in addition to 2 player splitscreen local co op for the console versions. We made realize it had been fairly and so exclusive. Gearbox Software caused it to be apparent that the game's exclusivity pertaining to PSVR was always timed. It was lots of fun We prepared comprehend Borderlands 2 would finish up live a platform countless games would build on, yet neglect to meet.

Finest of, that reside at the moment if you've previously contract your own duplicate of Borderlands 2 VR, you can download everything Bad Ass Huge Entertaining free of charge with happening the DLC from the fresh new perspective. In the event you always wish to return and visit the fine old recollections associated with Borderlands 2 on PC nevertheless, you've got another options. Hyperion's male and incapacitated is often a guffaw container involving contempt in addition to hair fat seen solely as Handsome Jack, who's suffered this upon himself to clean any non-Hyperion staff - like gambler - away from the head involving Pandora.

About businesses never ever feel my age, in addition to Borderlands 2 mods are simply like cool since they ended up being approximately 10 years back. All people needs free material, and if you're nevertheless playing Borderlands 2, Shift codes can certainly uncover free mods, skin color, golden chest muscles plus much more. Just like the following play-through about Borderlands, TVHM becomes harder with tougher enemie Borderlands 2 skill tree. The game can be contained utilizing a mix of Real moment meaning with a typical PlayStation controller, and also there's no less than some arrangement of funding to the PlayStation Move controllers. I'm the ruler of mother it doesn't enabled my personal child engage in cry regarding duty and games prefer that.

How to mod badass rank Borderlands gibbed?

I participated in the Xbox style connected with Borderlands intended for all-around 7 days, although the training in addition to enhance from the first end up being plain, the eccentricity as well as novelty that constituted the 2009 game Borderlands 2 classes thus endearing and also fashionable. The some participant characters in the first game, Roland, Lilith, Brick, in addition to Mordecai, return in the form of non-player characters the new characters will probably run into with Pandora, or perhaps in a variety of quest. Borderlands 2 is obviously a chaotic game, as well as outside in which it's got a lot more than a modest amount of develop fully themes over and above of which, nevertheless the game's word carry out in fact Borderlands 2 legendary weapons possess a number of positive ideas.

I check persons discuss the spear, which I dont understand, since you could change it away (which in turn i long new games may prepare). Handsome Jack's approach is to open Pandora's second Vault along with unleash the "Warrior", an excellent Eridian creature dictated in whoever generates that. Borderlands 2 can be a game in which doesnt show itself badly, with humor and a cartoonish fashion littered throughout the item. And, since the item's quantity becomes levelled near the character's level, this recommended to unfasten the breasts incredibly just after you've staged (then certainly not to await until you're finding all around leveling), in order to waste when considerably top quality time as you possibly can getting clear usage of of which constant stage product.

His or her mission brings them straight into connection with a few familiar experiences in the old game - most particularly, an original. There's now zero speech what to help whether or not "Borderlands 2 VR" will certainly include the new game's big catalogue associated with extension information, which include further character grades as well as hour or so of quality quests. While Borderlands 2 originally allowed up to some players, the VR story will be single-player solely.

Gearbox takes note that this upcoming PC adaptation connected with Borderlands may report the two center game and also from the fresh disclosed any time the at this time no unique fall publication time frame occurs. Selecting which usually class mod to make use of is certainly not basic, and gotten like every single character throughout Borderlands 2 takes by their discretion approximately. In case you have a really low-end PC or simply would like to play the sport in your tiny laptop exactly where anyone spread, Ultra Low Config mod regarding Borderlands merely goes over and above the lowest feasible aesthetic backgrounds then cooks the experience search ten years last, yet boosts the feat significantly along the way. Borderlands 2 is often a game of which doesnt work itself seriously, with humor then a cartoonish fashion littered throughout it. With the issue involving Borderlands VR impending Sony hath got declared a brand new PlayStation VR bundle with all the game, Overcome Saber then all the hardware it is advisable to act the games.

[bountyofbeads]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/02/nyregion/judge-james-troiano-rape.html#click=https://t.co/KYK1Bj3jXP

A judge said the young man came from a good family, attended an excellent school, had terrific grades and was an Eagle scout. Prosecutors, the judge said, should have explained to the girl and her family that pressing charges would destroy the boy’s life.

"...this young lady, the alleged victim here...I think it's an issue here, whether or not this young lady was Intoxicated to the point that she didn't understand what was going on......Her position really has been that she doesn't remember much of what happened."Judge Troiano

I ENCOURAGE EVERYONE TO READ THIS. The judge's remarks begin on page five after a summary of the incident.

"She didn't remember much of what happened..." That doesn't matter when she discovered a video of her rape being passed around to other boys!

https://t.co/g1STmrflbJ

Teenager Accused of Rape Deserves Leniency Because He’s From a ‘Good Family,’ Judge Says

The family court judge also said the victim should have been told that pressing charges would destroy the accused’s life.

By Luis Ferré-Sadurní | Published July 2, 2019 | New York Times | Posted July 3, 2019 | Posted July 3, 2019 |

The appellate decision criticized the judge, writing that rather than focusing on whether prosecutors met the necessary standards for a waiver, “the judge decided the case for himself.”

The judge overstepped in deconstructing the circumstances of the case, making his own assessment of the boy’s culpability and considering the defendant’s prior good character, the appellate panel said.

“His consideration of these elements, however, sounded as if he had conducted a bench trial on the charges rather than neutrally reviewed the State’s application,” the panel said.

In 2004, Judge Troiano imposed a gag order to prohibit people in a courtroom from discussing the high-profile case of two Montclair High School football players accused of sexually assaulting a schoolmate. The charges were eventually dropped.

Correction: July 3, 2019

An earlier version of a credit on an image caption with this article misidentified the court where the document text in the image is from. It is the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, not the Supreme Court of New Jersey Appellate Division.

The 16-year-old girl was visibly intoxicated, her speech slurred, when a drunk 16-year-old boy sexually assaulted her in a dark basement during an alcohol-fueled pajama party in New Jersey, prosecutors said.

The boy filmed himself penetrating her from behind, her torso exposed, her head hanging down, prosecutors said. He later shared the cellphone video among friends, investigators said, and sent a text that said, “When your first time having sex was rape.”

But a family court judge said it wasn’t rape. Instead, he wondered aloud if it was sexual assault, defining rape as something reserved for an attack at gunpoint by strangers.

He also said the young man came from a good family, attended an excellent school, had terrific grades and was an Eagle scout. Prosecutors, the judge said, should have explained to the girl and her family that pressing charges would destroy the boy’s life.

So he denied prosecutors’ motion to try the 16-year-old as an adult. “He is clearly a candidate for not just college but probably for a good college,” Judge James Troiano of Superior Court said last year in a two-hour decision while sitting in Monmouth County.

Now the judge has been sharply rebuked by an appeals court in a scathing 14-page ruling that warned the judge against showing bias toward privileged teenagers.

In doing so, the appeals court cleared the way for the case to be moved from family court to a grand jury, where the teenager, identified only as G.M.C. in court documents, will be treated as an adult. New Jersey law allows juveniles as young as 15 to be tried as adults when accused of serious crimes, and the grand jury will weigh whether to indict him on the sexual assault accusation.

In recent years, judges across the country have come under fire for the way they have handled sexual abuse cases. One of the most notorious was in 2016, when a judge in California  sentenced a Stanford University student to six months in jail after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. After an intense public backlash, California voters recalled the judge.

Judge Troiano, who is roughly 70, was one of two family court judges whom appeals courts in New Jersey have criticized in recent weeks over relatively similar issues.

In the other case, the appellate division reversed another judge’s decision not to try a 16-year-old boy as an adult after he was accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl in 2017.

The second family court judge, Marcia Silva, sitting in Middlesex County, denied a motion to try the teenager as an adult and said that “beyond losing her virginity, the State did not claim that the victim suffered any further injuries, either physical, mental or emotional.”

The appellate judges also upbraided Judge Silva, overturning her decision and noting that the teenager could be culpable because the 12-year-old was not old enough to provide consent in the first place.

The judge in Monmouth County, Mr. Troiano, was scolded by the appellate court, according to the panel’s decision. “That the juvenile came from a good family and had good test scores we assume would not condemn the juveniles who do not come from good families and do not have good test scores from withstanding waiver application,” the panel wrote in its decision.

A spokeswoman for the administrative office of the courts said the judges had no comment on the case. She said Mr. Troiano, a veteran judge who retired several years ago, was asked to occasionally fill vacancies on the bench.

Family court cases are typically closed to the public, but the judges’ comments surfaced in June when the appeals court decisions were made public,joining a series of contentious sexual assault cases that have ignited outrage over a legal system that advocates for victims say is warped by bias and privilege.

In the first case, heard by Judge Troiano, it is unclear from court documents when and specifically where in New Jersey the incident involving the two 16-year-olds took place.

But prosecutors said it occurred during a party packed with 30 other teenagers. The case was highlighted by a New Jersey radio station, 101.5.

The victim was identified only as Mary, an alias to protect her identity.

Before the episode, prosecutors said, both teenagers walked into a darkened area of the basement and Mary stumbled as she walked.

“While on the sofa, a group of boys sprayed Febreze on Mary’s bottom and slapped it with such force that the following day she had hand marks on her buttocks,” according to court documents.

After the assault, prosecutors said, G.M.C. left the room, but some of his concerned friends checked on her. Mary was found on the floor vomiting, and she was driven home by a friend’s mother.

When Mary woke up the following morning, she was confused about her torn clothing and bruises on her body, and told her mother she feared “sexual things had happened at the party”without her consent, court documents said.

Over the next several months, she learned that G.M.C. had shared the video among friends, but, when confronted, he denied recording the encounter and said the friends were lying, according to court documents.

Eventually, Mary learned that the boy had continued to share the video, prompting her mother to contact the authorities and ultimately pursue criminal charges in 2017.

In September 2017, the Monmouth County prosecutor’s office recommended that the case be tried in adult criminal court in part because the boy’s actions were “sophisticated and predatory.”

“At the time he led Mary into the basement gym, she was visibly intoxicated and unable to walk without stumbling,” the prosecutor wrote. “For the duration of the assault, the lights in the gym remained off and the door was barred by a foosball table. Filming a cellphone video while committing the assault was a deliberate act of debasement.”

The prosecutor said that the boy lied to Mary in the following months, while simultaneously sharing the video.

“This was neither a childish misinterpretation of the situation, nor was it a misunderstanding,” the prosecutor wrote. “G.M.C.’s behavior was calculated and cruel.”

In an interview, Christopher J. Gramiccioni, the county prosecutor said, “This is conduct that should be punished in adult court.”

“We subscribe to the idea that the juvenile system is supposed to be rehabilitative,” he said. “But when you’re dealing with charges as serious as these, it’s a whole different ball of wax.”

Mitchell J. Ansell, a lawyer for the teenage boy, did not return requests for comment.

Mr. Gramiccioni said New Jersey has a progressive juvenile system: Juvenile cases are not shown to juries, juvenile records are kept from public view and sentences are typically more lenient than when a person is tried as an adult.

A recent law made it illegal to try defendants younger than 15 as adults.

On July 30, 2018, Judge Troiano denied the waiver to try the teenager as an adult, arguing that prosecutors had abused their discretion.

Judge Troiano said there was a “distinction” between “a sexual assault and a rape.”

He said “the traditional case of rape” generally involved two or more males using a gun or weapon to corner a victim into an abandoned house, shed or shack, “and just simply taking advantage of the person as well as beating the person, threatening the person.”

It was under those egregious circumstances, he said, that the state would try a juvenile in adult court.

He delved into the facts of the case, questioning “whether or not this young lady was intoxicated to the point that she didn’t understand what was going on.”

He said the boy’s actions were not sophisticated or predatory, and dismissed G.M.C.’s text messages as “just a 16-year-old kid saying stupid crap to his friends.”

“This young man comes from a good family who put him into an excellent school where he was doing extremely well,” the judge said. “His scores for college entry were very high.”

The appellate decision criticized the judge, writing that rather than focusing on whether prosecutors met the necessary standards for a waiver, “the judge decided the case for himself.”

The judge overstepped in deconstructing the circumstances of the case, making his own assessment of the boy’s culpability and considering the defendant’s prior good character, the appellate panel said.

“His consideration of these elements, however, sounded as if he had conducted a bench trial on the charges rather than neutrally reviewed the State’s application,” the panel said.

In 2004, Judge Troiano imposed a gag order to prohibit people in a courtroom from discussing the high-profile case of two Montclair High School football players accused of sexually assaulting a schoolmate. The charges were eventually dropped.

Correction: July 3, 2019

An earlier version of a credit on an image caption with this article misidentified the court where the document text in the image is from. It is the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, not the Supreme Court of New Jersey Appellate Division.

[cupidsbower]

You're living in the past, it's a new generation

Supernatural 12x16, “Ladies Drink Free.”

So you might have noticed I haven’t been around much lately, or posted any reviews. That’s because I’ve been too busy to watch any TV for about a month. I’m just starting to catch up on Supernatural again now.

This was an interesting episode because it had two narratives in conflict, one of which ended up working much more strongly than the other. The title pretty much encapsulates the problem here -- the reason “ladies drink free” is to attract male patrons by implying they’ll get access to the (potentially drunk) ladies. Everything about the notion is sexist and gross. Here’s a blackly humorous breakdown of the implied economic transaction taking place.

Anyway, the first narrative in the ep is Claire’s, which the writer, Meredith Glynn, seems to have done their very best to infuse with a feminist theme. The other narrative, however, is Mick’s teachable moment, which is at the expense of one dead young woman and one tortured young woman -- the “ladies” of the title who drank “for free,” so men would have access to them. Manpain, in other words; the second plot is all about the manpain. There’s really no successful way to merge these two different narratives, I think, but Glynn does give it their best shot.

Let’s start with the attempt at a feminist narrative, as that’s the bit that’s least successful.

The plot of this episode is very much by-the-numbers. We have two  potential male predators offered up to us, two  young, pretty female victims, and several male protectors. Glynn even points out how typical this is very early on, with the “Haven’t you ever seen a horror movie?” line. Yes, we all have, and so this plot unfolds exactly as expected when women are sacrificed so men can learn a lesson.

Glynn attempts to subvert this sexist old-school narrative by trying to make the episode a coming-of-age moment for Claire as well as the manpain-teachable-moment for Mick. The arc ends with Claire alive, and affirming her place as Jodie’s daughter and as a woman with her own needs as she goes off to be a hunter. These are good things. And there are some genuinely nice touches in this part of the ep too, like this:

(from @itsokaysammy)

You go Claire!

But these moments sit uneasily inside the frame of the typical women-as-sexualised-victims storyline, and there isn’t really a true climax for Claire’s arc in the ep, where she gets to kick-ass and take names, or even engineer her own moment of freedom.

We can see this thematically in the two musical tracks that top and tail Claire’s journey, without a proper bridge in between (the other obvious track in the ep is for Dean and Mick and it’s Save Me Tonight -- ugh). The first of Claire’s tracks is Make Me Wanna Die, as she’s walking into the teeth of the werewolf...

Make Me Wanna Die, by The Pretty Reckless

Take me I'm alive Never was a girl with a wicked mind But everything looks better when the sun goes down

I had everything Opportunities for eternity And I could belong to the night

Then your eyes Your eyes I can see in your eyes Your eyes

You make me wanna die I'll never be good enough You make me wanna die And everything you love will burn up in the light And every time I look inside your eyes You make me wanna die

Taste me drink my soul Show me all the things that I shouldn't know When there's a blue moon on the rise

I had everything Opportunities for eternity And I could belong to the night

Then your eyes Your eyes I can see in your eyes Your eyes Everything in your eyes Your eyes

You make me wanna die I'll never be good enough You make me wanna die And everything…

A very listenable song, but also one that’s very much about female victimhood. There’s something so icky about this being associated with Claire and Hayden, just because they’re young women who want to be able to spread their wings a little and are punished for it (by men). But I think this dissonance is made worse by being contrasted with the song Claire gets as she drives away at the end.

Real Wild Child, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts 

Joan Jett is the real deal, you know; she’s who Dean Winchester wants to be. Look at that car, and her hair, and her everything. She gave us a glimpse of what female rock really looked like: kindness, feminism, no-apologies rock, and all-around awesomeness -- just look at this interview with Roseanne Barr. Tell me you don’t have a crush now!?!

Don’t get me wrong, This could have been such a great journey for Claire, if she’d had a proper moment of agency near the end. It’s just she doesn’t really get to legitimately have this journey into becoming the Wild Child -- this is no Lily Sunder story arc. Glynn tries to give it to her, but the real teachable moment is all for Mick, and Claire’s is a tack-on to try and reduce the otherwise choking amounts of sexism that would be in this episode.

I have really mixed feelings about this, because some of the stuff related to Mick’s lesson is interesting myth-arc development, but this treatment of Claire is so superficial, and I want more from the show when it comes to the way they use female characters.

And has Mick even really learned his lesson, or was it another fake-out? I think maybe he did, because it’s implied this was his first hands-on murder, and it shocked him, but the whole MoL is so slimy I won’t be surprised if he backslides or just lied. So Claire and Hayden may have gone through all that for nothing.

UGH.

Okay, moving on to the good.  There’s three main things I want to talk about.

First, Dean pretty much explicitly confirms my reading of the Winchester style of hunting, as they’ve come to perform it, is supernatural police work. I’m pleased by this, as it indicates we really are heading into an exploration of what it means to be hunters, and what hunters are not. I’ve wanted this narrative for a long, long time. And the reason I want is so much is...

Second, back when I was a fan of Teen Wolf, one of the things that had me excited to find out what happened was the back story which showed that the genocide being carried out by hunters was actually the main cause of the very werewolf violence they purported to want to stop. Every werewolf we saw attack someone had a traumatic history with at least one hunter in their past, and no stable pack.

I adored this implication that the hunters were mired in hypocrisy, and I desperately wanted to see this arc unfold and resolve. Unfortunately, whatever it was that happened behind the scenes in season 3 that ruined so much of Teen Wolf’s potential, also seemed to destroy any chance of this arc paying off. *still bitter*

But now, here is is again! Our typical selfish white boy, Justin, it turns out, would probably only ever have been an everyday sort of prick if the Men of Letters’ genocide hadn’t wiped out his pack and launched him into his serial murderer and biter-without-consent spree.

In other words, the MoL’s actions are the first link in a causal chain that’s leading to the kinds of deaths and suffering they claim to want to stop. This is not to say Justin has no agency -- he’s still responsible for his own actions and the effects they cause. But the trigger that set him on the path he otherwise probably wouldn’t have chosen was the MoL’s attack on his pack.

I’m super keen that we’re treading this ground, and cannot wait to see where Dabb takes it. SUPER EXCITED. (But it better not be taking us to Mary’s refridging, is the proviso.)

Third, I am beginning to think we are seriously going to get Three Men-Shaped-Beings and a Little Nephilim as the plot for season 13 (how apropos), because this episode was aaallllllllllll about Sam and Dean as dads. Like, Sam is officially a skeevy old dude, and Dean is one breath away from grounding everyone, and they both have explicitly dad-coded moments. Dean with the shotgun speech (which just plays into the sexism of the Claire plot, so I’m not a fan, but it’s still definitely dad-coded), and Sam with his conversation with Claire that helps her decide to own her choices and talk to Jodie about them.

I’m actually pretty keen about this development too. With a kid in the mix, there is so much ground that could be explored in terms of the legacy of John and how Sam and Dean (and Mary) are recovering from that and learning healthier ways to be family, especially with a supernatural kid in the mix. It opens up an interesting role for Castiel as well, given he’s likely to be the kid’s uncle.

So, as I said, a very mixed episode. The sexism means I won’t be rushing to re-watch, but the good things do have me looking forward to the next ep.

Previously:

The Ministry of Information vs Wayward Sons Carrying On (12x01)

My, my, how can I resist you? (12x02) and follow-up about Bohemian Raphsody

So what am I so afraid of? (I think I love you) (12x03)

I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy Down in my heart (Where?) (12x04) and a follow-up about the codependency and about Dean’s self-flagellation and issues with space

There can be only one! (12x05), and a follow-up conversation with elizabethrobertajones on Freud vs Schwartz.

They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes (12x06)  

Presenting the Immaculate Heart Reunion Tour (12x07)    

I’m still living the life where you get home and open the fridge and there’s half a pot of yogurt and a half a can of flat Coca-Cola. ~Alan Rickman (12x08, 12x09)

When the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men (12x10)    

in re (12x11)

Making the most of teachable moments (12x12) and an added thought, In-and-out-laws

Don’t fuck with the branches on my family tree (12x13)

To Protect and to Serve (12x14) and some more thoughts

Hiding in the shadow of love (12x15) and some further thoughts in response to @elizabethrobertajones‘ meta.

[timelesstheory]

OC Ask: Part 3

Full Name: Tj Malanore Snyder

Gender and Sexuality: Male, Pansexual

Pronouns: He/him

Ethnicity/Species: Bengal Tiger Anthro

Birthplace and Birthdate: Athena City, September 14th

Guilty Pleasures: Only really has one, and it’s making flower crowns.

Phobias: Fear of the dead, tight spaces, blood, dying, heights, clowns, the ocean... I could keep going tbh.

What They Would Be Famous For: Something heroic.

What They Would Get Arrested For: Stealing food or clothing for someone who needs it.

OC You Ship Them With: Winter, who is an arctic fox.

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Auroral or Geronimo probably.

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Light romance, or anything with a happy ending.

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: The useless speech villains typically give out.

Talents and/or Powers: His ability is two forms of “unleashing” (not gonna explain that rn), and (currently) he can manipulate fire, light, and a little bit of wind.

Why Someone Might Love Them: He’s typically a “precious cinnamon roll” sort of character I guess. People usually like him for his happiness and somewhat positivity in other people. 

Why Someone Might Hate Them: He gets scared easily and cannot find himself to be brave at many times. He also tends to cry a lot, being relatively sensitive and that can be irritating. Plus, he is unrealistic with his want for absolute world peace, seeing more in black and white rather than gray.

How They Change: He becomes more open minded and eventually understands that not everything is black and white. His opinions become much more realistic, he seeks help for some of his phobias and eventually drops a lot of overall fear. He also toughens up a little physically and mentally, though still occasionally suffers from over-whelming emotion. His position later on forces him to drop his pacifism completely. Lil generic.

Why You Love Them: He’s changed probably the most, and was one of the first characters I came up with, waaayyy back when I was younger. I like that he grows from someone small to a stronger individual through help and his want to build upon himself to be better.

[techouspeaks]

Precuruary: Mahou Tsukai Precure

Finally, I review the series that seems to be the most hated Precure series, even more so than Doki Doki and Happiness Charge! I also reveal why I actually kinda like it....

“Asahina Mirai, a soon-to-be student in junior high, witnesses an object fall from the sky one night during spring break. Excitedly exclaiming that it could be a witch, Mirai sets off the next morning with her beloved toy teddy bear Mofurun to search the park. At the park, Mirai witnesses a girl soaring through the air on a broom. Excited and curious, Mirai barrages the girl with questions. The young witch introduces herself as Riko and explains that she's come to the "No Magic" World to search for certain objects. The two girls notice that they're wearing similar pendants. Meanwhile, Batty, a companion of Dokurokushe the Wizard of Darkness, appears in front of Mirai and Riko! Batty demands that Riko hand over the "Linkle Stone Emerald", which Riko herself had been looking for. To make things worse, Batty uses dark magic to create a monster known as a Yokubaru! Mirai, Riko, and Mofurun join hands. With the magic words "Cure Up RaPaPa!", their pendants shines a magical light over them! The legendary witches "Pretty Cure" are born!”

So, why does everyone seem to despise this series so much? Well, the main issue with this series is it’s writing and execution. The plot tends to throw some immature or just plain weird scenes at random and it seems like the writers just didn’t know what to do, so they just put whatever they thought was a good idea at the time. The plot is also a bit rushed and sadly, the characters suffer a lack of proper development. Put it short, the plot and the development is just a big mess. I heard it was because the writer and director kept clashing, like one wanted to something real dark and epic like Go! Princess and the other wanted it to stay cutesy and safe. I really wished they had stuck with the more darker route. I mean it’s a series about witches.Dark and witches go hand in hand together. The cutesy parts can get a little boring too for some folks, I didn’t mind it too much. 

So, despite all that, why do I actually like it and even get a little defensive for it? Shouldn’t I hate it like I do Doki Doki and Happiness Charge? Well I’ll list my reasons in so is to be consistent, unlike the plot of Maho Tsukai.

1.) Kinda likable characters.

I will admit, while they’re not the most deepest or complex of characters, most of the MTP characters are pretty likable. 

(Well okay, I said MOST, not all.)

I really do like Riko. Yeah, she can be snobby but this melts away rather fast and the way she does it, is very appropriate for her age. She’s a kid that wants to be more grown up, so she tries to look impressive. She’s has a lot of insecurities that come natural for someone her age and she acts a lot like how I expect a kid would act.

Which speaking of which, I feel like the three main trio are actually suppose to be in Elementary School, but they felt they needed to have them be in junior high. They don’t even look 13! They look more so 10 years old at the oldest but decided to changed it to 13 so is to fit with the other precure franchise. Come on, Toei! This franchise is aimed at elementary school kids anyway, we wouldn’t mind if you made them younger. Look at Cardcaptor Sakura and some of the older magical girls series. Some of the main cast in those are 10!

Anyway, I also like Ha-chan. Yes, she can be annoying at times, but I thought she was pretty cute and I really like her design as Cure Felice. She’s absolutely gorgeous in this form. 

I also really enjoy some of the kids, teachers and staff members at the Magic School, especially Kochou. At long last we get a handsome male supporting character that is both useful, interesting, likable and not look like a creeper (Such as Joe from Doki Doki)! His relationship with Kushy is very sweet. Some question whether or not it’s gay. I kinda wonder myself. I would be lying if I said I didn’t see this, that’s for sure. It could be just a real firm friendship but well, you ship who you want.

Bad ass design too! Though I really question on why he’s wearing a lampshade for a hat....

Mofurun can be a little unsettling to me at times and get a little annoying with that baby like voice, but they did grew on me. (Yes, I see Mofurun as non binary because well, teddy bears don’t have reproduction organs) I like how Mofurun is useful in many other ways besides being the transformation device. Most fairies that aid with transformation, tend to fall flat when it comes to being useful in other ways. Mofurun can sense linkle stones and was willing to risk their life to protect the stones from getting in the wrong hands. That’s pretty solid for me. Go teddy!

Not to mention, but Mofurun as Cure Mofurun is just adorable! I wish that Mofurun was actually a witch doll with Cure Mofurun’s design. It would have been way cuter and well...None of the Cure Mofurun plushies would be over 40 bucks! (US dollars). Speaking of which...

2.) The Relationship Between Mirai and Mofurun

As someone that was really close to her stuffed animals, I kinda understand Mirai’s feelings towards Mofurun. In fact, I think most kids get the connection. It’s common for kids to love their toys, especially a toy given to them by someone really close to them. The belief of it gaining a personality is also a common thing kids like to do and also a belief in Japanese culture. The belief goes if you love something such as a toy or even an accessory so much, that object will gain a soul and that soul will protect you for loving it so much. (Same if you treat an object badly and the object hates you). It’s kinda silly but this is a nice touch to the culture and to childhood. Well Mirai is certainly not my favorite, she’s really bland on her own, the relationship with Mofurun is pretty cute and again, I can see a young kid having a close bond with their stuffed animal. When I was a kid, I use to pretend my stuffed animals had personalities too and especially loved this tiger plush, given to me by my grandma.

3.) This is short but the nods to old Precure series and designs.

The whole holding hands and use of attacks, even the speeches before the power up, are actually nods to old Precure series that also did this. It’s kinda nice of them contributing to older series. 

The designs of the outfits, especially Sapphire and Over the Rainbow are really well done and the transformations are fun to watch. The animation can be a little mediocre but beautiful in the transformations and I’m glad they decided to just do mostly 2D animation this time, with only resorting to 3D in the endings.

4.) The Witch World and How They Convey Witches As A Whole.

This is what I think MTP does a lot better than Ojamajo Doremi. How they convey witches. Well they use the same similar tropes such as the pointy hats and the broom flying, the way they convey witches is kinda surprising and kinda respectful. Believe it or not, witches do exist in a way. They don’t fly on brooms and the magic isn’t as instant as shown in this series. I’m mainly talking about witches and connection towards nature, as well as some of the lore tied in.

In the Magical World, nature seems to be a major key element to the magic of witches, which is true to actual witch beliefs. From their wands coming from trees, to taking care of mystical animals and right down to how the Magical World is made, is direct tie in with the belief of witches. 

 In some lore, mainly Wiccan, there is a belief that there is a Goddess and horned king in charge of taking care of the world.  Mother Rapapa and the Deustmas generals kinda seem to be a representation of that belief. I dunno if that was their main intention, but kudo points for adding in anyway, especially if it was.

I also like how witches in this world are just ordinary people that just happen to use magic as a passionate subject. That’s what I found inconsistent in Ojamajo Doremi. In Doremi, it seems like witches are not human. There’s not even wizards in their world. They’re in another one. They’re like some sort of weird creature not connected with people at all, since they can’t be found out by humans thus turn into frogs. Yet, somehow humans can become witches when given these magic jelly bean looking things.

Plus the designs of the witches in Doremi I found disrespectful and lazy! At least in Mahou Tsukai, witches and wizards are treated like their own person, with their own style. Yeah, they have the typical hats and such but they at least try to make them interesting. I also didn’t like how magic was given so easily in Doremi. With Mirai, she had to kinda prove herself that she was willing to put in effort to do magic. Yeah, it consisted of saying the magic words over and over, but at least it just wasn’t given to her like “Here some magic jelly bean things. Now you can do magic!” Part of the belief in witches is putting spiritual effort into the thing you desire. Doremi it seemed more like the magic was coming from the seeds, then themselves. As for Reiko, well, she comes from a line of strong witches so magic is born in her and she doesn’t get good in her magic until later.

5.) Deusmast Villains

Oh, come on, you knew this was coming! Deustmast generals are the best in the series. There the ones that caused some people to come back and watch this series again, especially Orba! They’re threatening, they’re smarter and they have great designs! 

Fun fact is not only are these guys really cool but also may have from different beliefs, including from witches. Not only can they presumably be based on the horned king of Wiccan and possibly (though more obvious) the Muslim belief of Jin/genies, but also the belief that help create Halloween. In ancient times before people started really getting into religious beliefs, people turned to witches to help  fight off monsters and demons that were said to appear mostly during Halloween. The witches would dress kids up in costumes, to confuse the monsters into thinking the kids are one of their own demon brethren. They would also use spells and incantations to fight them off.

I heard they were too scary for kids. Too scary my butt! DysDark villains were far from “cute” and went all out dastardly at times! If Precure starts getting lame villains because of that notion, it will be forever before we have a good series like Go! Princess! Threatening villains help create intensity, making you feel there’s more at stake for our heroes!

Either way, the Deusmast generals were certainly a lot better than the Idiot Trio. No, I refuse to call them “Dark Magicians”. That’s an insult to Dark Magician from Yugioh and I refuse to stoop that level!

Plus, come on. Orba is like the hottest character to come out of a magical girl series! He’s a package! He’s a book worm, he’s a hot without his glasses and when he powers up, he’s a hunk! It’s like 3 hot dudes in one! Who knew you could get such in a show aimed at kids! Plus, it’s said he’s based on the one wing angel and fallen angels. I believe that because he certainly looks like one. I always said his face is angelic and it is!

So, yeah, there’s a bit to like and appreciate from this series. Some people may disagree and if you’re one of them that’s fine. I can understand it. I’m a big fan of anything witch related as you can probably tell, so I’m usually forgiving. The only witch series I don’t like is The Familiar of Zero, mainly because I hated the main character and to some extend Doremi. I do like the idea of musical witches and they did convey what childhood is like real well, but the characters were annoying to me and again, I just didn’t like how the witches are represented in that series. 

So, I do like Mahou Tsukai a bit actually. In fact, it’s become my second favorite series. I like it not as a good series but as a guilty pleasure. I appreciate what it was trying to do, quite a few characters are likable, just a bit under developed and the ideas put in it, is pretty interesting. Sadly, I have to judge this as a whole so I’m gonna have to rate it a bit low.

I give Mahou Tsukai Precure 4 and a half stars out of 10. My recommendation is for anyone that can enjoy a series that’s cute, with some nice ideas thrown in there and don’t mind that the plot can be a bit messy. Put it short, if you like cute guilty pleasures, you’ll like this fine. Some of the bad moments can be laughable especially some of the dialog. Just whatever you do, don’t watch episode 50. It’s pointless and this is coming from a fan. I rather like to believe that episode just didn’t exist.

If you’re looking for a series that is intense with a good story line, you’re better off skipping this whole series, but I do recommend it more than Doki Doki or Happiness Charge. At least it tries to stand out with some interesting characters and ideas. Those two series are just horrible and the only good idea of Happiness Charge was different precure from other countries. 

**** /

Level: “It’s okay.”

[the-little-prophet]

CHARACTER QUESTIONNAIRE: CHARLIE LITTLE 

ORIGINS & FAMILY: Name: Charles Boon-Mee Kai Little   Nickname: Charlie, Kai (Kai is Charlie’s chu len-- or Thai nickname.) Reason for name: Charles’ father wanted Charlie to have an English name first and foremost and named Charlie after himself. Boon-Mee is Charlie’s Thai name which means “good fortune.” Kai was the nickname that his mother chose because he was born early and was very small. Kai means chicken. ;) Age: 19 Gender: Male Place of birth: Swynlake, England Places lived since: Nowhere! Number of siblings: Charlie has one stepbrother from his mother’s second marriage. He usually only sees them when he visits his mother-- usually twice a year, hardly ever more. 

Relationship with family (close? estranged?): Dad–Charles “Buck” Little used to be a pro baseball player from Los Angeles California, but an injury early on in his career benched him and ended that career. Instead, Charles “Buck” Little became an insurance agent and got a job working at InterPride until Taka Lyons took over and fired half his department. That was four years ago. Now Buck gets disability insurance and works at Pride U in their IT department.

Mum- Dr. Phailin Dilsworth, formerly Little, formerly Chaisurivirat. First-generation American, became a college professor and found a job teaching at Pride University where she had her first child, Charlie. She was NOT into the magick-friendly thing as much as Charles was and wanted to move for a long time. She blamed Swynlake as a big part as to why Charlie had his chronic sleeping disorder. Eventually she got a job teaching in a school down in Bournemouth and left Charlie and Buck when he was 9 years old. She remarried when he was 10 and moved with her husband, who was also a professor, to Toronto. Charlie talks to his mom on the phone every month or so and sees her for a few weeks in the summer/every other Christmas.

Sylvester Dilsworth- Charlie’s stepbrother-- same age-- who thinks Charlie is a #freak for growing up in Swynlake, aka England’s great failed experiment. Wants to go into Psychology like his dad (thinks Charlie is #crazy). Charlie does not like Syl.

PHYSICAL Height: 5’6 (teeny) Weight: 125 ish idk height Build: Charlie has always been very short since he was a child and grew very slowly. He’s kinda still hoping he’ll put on another inch or two before he’s done growing but… looking pretty hopeless Nationality: English Disabilities (physical or mental, including mental illnesses): Charlie has severe astigmatism in his eyes. He’s severely sleep-deprived and suffers from dissociative episodes. Complexion (freckles, acne, skin tone, birth marks): Olive-toned skin, and a few moles on his face and neck. Often times cuts himself shaving (does it like every few days) and so he’ll have tiny nicks here and there. Also misses lil hairs all the time, look he’s trying Distinguishing facial features: His very big thick glasses lmao and he’s got quite pretty eyes in my opinion, even if they are hidden behind his messy fringe and big, thick glasses.  Round cherub cheeks.

Hair color: Black. Usual hair style: Messy and long-- Charlie never has time to brush his hair in the morning   Eye color: Dark brown Glasses? Contacts?: yes to both though contacts bother his eyes.

Style of dress/typical outfit(s): Charlie comes from a middle-class family and dresses like a typical Brit-- sweaters over collared shirts, that kind of thing. He leans toward hipster-esque if only because he likes comfy sweaters because it’s easiest to fall asleep in haha, and he’s often seen around in pajama pants and zip up jumpers if he slept past his alarm and had no time to change. I would call his style “frumpy nerd chic.” Typical style of shoes: He wears a lot of Toms because they are comfy and easy to slip on, so you know, better than sandals. Health (is this person usually sick? or very resilient?): Chronically sleep-deprived, Charlie also suffers from migraines. He’s noticed that if he has bad migraines one day, he’ll probably have a night terror. Which stresses him out. And makes the migraine worse. Otherwise, Charlie is a relatively healthy young boy, with pollen allergies in the spring but no other sensitivities.   

Grooming (does she/he wear makeup? shower daily? wear only clean clothes? pluck her eyebrows?): NGL this could be better but it’s not his fault he’s just very tired. He does take a shower nearly every day (cold showers to wake him up) and does his own laundry so he had clean clothes. But he often does not brush his hair and wears hats to make up for it. Jewelry? Tattoos? Piercings?: None thus far! He does wear a watch. Accent?: Typical brit Unique mannerisms/physical habits: He rubs his eyes a lot and toys with his hair. He cleans his glasses both as a compulsion and because a lot of the time when he tries to rub his eyes he will hit his glasses and need to clean them from all the finger smears.   Athletic?: He’s pretty fast and limber due to yoga and many years spent running from disasters, whether real or imagined. But Charlie won’t be beating anybody up lol INTELLECT Level of education: Completed a nurse’s assistantship and has a pheblotomist’s license. Taking uni courses on the side, hopes to one day be a proper doctor/surgeon. Level of self esteem: Medium-low. Charlie feels like a burden to his father and a freak to other people even though he knows he can’t help his condition. Years of therapy mean he’s pretty in touch with his sense of self though so while he beats himself up, he does have coping mechanisms. He also knows he is trying his best !! Gifts/talents: An excellent drawer, a pretty great cook, and a hard worker. He also has a lot of practical life skills. He’s a practical guy. Shortcomings: He can struggle to concentrate because of his health issues, he’s pretty cowardly and paranoid, he overreacts, he’s a bit socially awkward (not in a shy kind of way-- Charlie is actually outgoing ish but because he doesn’t have many friends he doesn’t understand a lot of the social cues. His desperation for friendship is also Not Attractive). Style of speech (loud, mumbler, articulate, etc.): Nervous talker for sure. Doesn’t stammer, just goes on and on and on. Definitely overshares when nervous. “Left brain” or “right brain” thinker?: Left-brained.Charlie is deductive, rational, and wants to be a doctor someday. His secondary -claw is super strong and he craves an explanation for things and hates that he doesn’t have one for his night terrors. The fact that it could be magic also doesn’t comfort him but scares him, despite growing up in Swynlake (hey he thought he was a Mundus all the time ok!) beccause he doesn’t uNDeRstanD and can’t conTrol it. Artistic?: Yes, uses charcoal and pastels. Mathematical?: Yes, he’s p good at math. Languages? Just English. He once spoke in Tongues during one of his Doomer episodes but that was probably a glitch haha. His mother never taught him any Thai.

Makes decisions based mostly on emotions, or on logic?: Logic, always logic.

Neuroses: Thinks World Is Ending At All Times

Life philosophy: uh don’t die? Do the good you can with the tools you have. Be Prepared-- Two is one, and one is none (aka hvae two of everything; its a prepper mantra). 

Religious stance:  Is starting to explore aspects of buddhism which is tied to his Thai culture (something he’s very distanced from especially because his mother no longer lives with him and she was pretty removed from it too) and hopes will help him with his night terrors.

Cautious or daring?:  Cautious Optimist or pessimist?: Pessimist- the world is literally always ending.

Extrovert or introvert?: Ambivert, leaning to introversion. If Charlie had friends, he’d probably prefer smaller get togethers and that kind of thing but he would totally socialize and likes talking to people and working together in group projects charlie it is so sad that school is your main form of interaction.   Level of comfort with technology: Very comfortable. True millennial. Instagram, Twitter, FB, blog. He depends on his phone and computer a lot for his social life/coping mechanisms. He definitely has internet friends who are doomers like him.

RELATIONSHIPS Current marital/relationship status: Single Sexual orientation: Bi. Charlie doesn’t really think about romance that much because he’s mostly preoccupied with Death but he had a crush his bff as a smol boy (who was also a smol boy) and also has crushed on girls from afar (and tbh probably kinda crushes on Minnie a bit because she’s so pretty and kind to him). He never really questioned it and so its a nonissue for him. He would like to have a romantic life one day but kinda thinks its impossible like who would like him he’s CRAZY. He can’t even sleep a whole night thru let alone with another person in the bed.

Past relationships: As a boy, he had a crush on his bff at the time--Nate. Nate’s family moved away following one of Swynlake’s disasters bc they weren’t gonna fuck with that shit.

A social person? (popular, loner, some close friends, makes friends and then quickly drops them): Charlie is not afraid to strike up conversation and sort of accepts his reputation as a Crazy Person so that helps deal with any social anxiety (he’s too busy with his generalized anxiety thanks hahahah.) He has a few people in his classes who are willing to work with him on projects and stuff, a few internet friends-- but otherwise he considers a lot of the patients at the hospital his friends… problematic charlie ur friends r gonna die

Most comfortable around (person): His...cat? SECRETS Life goals: Charlie has always wanted to be a doctor. He wants to be able to respond to medical emergencies like the ones that he’s seen, so he’s thinking of trauma surgery but is open to other paths (he’s also pretty interested in neuro because of his own disorder; he also loves kids, so pediatrics). Just as long as he can help people.   Dreams: it would be nice to have a normal one whats that like   Greatest fears: Death, dying, disaster. And that he’ll be helpless in the face of all that and can’t save the ones that he loves. Also that he’s gonna be a lowkey embarrassment to his father for the rest of his life. Most ashamed of: His night terrors and the fact that he drove his mom away (he didn’t). Compulsions: Snacking. He snacks a lot during the night and when he watches tv. Obsessions: Watching the Golden Girls a lot, also the impending apocalypse which he had been prepping for since he was small.   Secret hobbies: ...being a prepper…. Is that a hobby…astronomy also thats more normal !! Secret skills:... prepping… Crimes committed (and was he/she caught? charged?): none thank god What he/she most wants to change about his/her current life: Find a cure for his illness/curse What he/she most wants to change about his/her physical appearance: Charlie would really like to be TALL. His dad is very tall and he got none of those genes and he feels like a pipsqueak and kind of helpless and he sort of is. So number one: TALL. Then he’d like to not have glasses and one day wants to get laser eye surgery to correct his vision, especially if he wants to be a surgeon.

DETAILS/QUIRKS Night owl or early bird?: Night Owl bc he’s terrified of sleeping. Light or heavy sleeper?: heavy sleeper. When he is sleeping, nothing can wake up but like, his dreams or his father shaking and yelling at him. He sleeps like he’s dead lmao Favorite food: Spicy food is his fave. Loves sushi, also loves chips and potato crisps and snack foods in general. When he’s too tired to cook, he’ll just eat an entire bag of crisps.   Least favorite food: Charlie isn’t a fan of a lot of red meats, like burgers and stuff. Favorite book: uhhhh mmmmm charlie isnt a big reader, he’s usually watching television. If he’s reading, he’s reading medical cases and articles.   Least favorite book:  horror story books Favorite movie: old musicals, honestly-- Hello Dolly, Pajama Game, that kind of thing. Very soothing. Probably LOVES It’s A Wonderful Life. Least favorite movie: horror movies leave him alone Favorite song: gosh idk Least favorite song: idk eIETHER probably does not metal Crunchy or smooth peanut butter?: crunchy Lefty or righty?: leftY Favorite color: green or brown Cusser?: er, a bit, normal youngin. He doesn’t curse in front of adults though he’s pretty good about that. Smoker? Drinker? Drug user?: Charlie has had a few drinks here and there a social drinker if anything. Though he does wonder if drinking a lot could squash the dreams though this is a bad path for him to wander down. He has also thought the same about #drugs but is kind of a wimp and so he hasn’t tried any...yet Biggest regret: Charlie feels like he was a big part of the wedge that drove his mother to divorce his father because they had diff ways of dealing with charlie’s condition aka-- his mother wanted to deal with it and his father didn’t. This isnt really true, just another thing the two disagreed on. Pets?: A cat that his mom left behind! She’s old and fat and grey and her name is Emily