#walter is unhinged and has probably had much worse

[odd-kid-42]

I dunno who to ask for for the unhinged thing, so let's go with Fusataro and Paresse, mostly 'cause Shift of Tone's first two chapters were centered on them, PLUS a character of your choosing that ur Totally Normal About, any fandom!

Copying your own words, OH BOY

Fussa first: God, I need to finish "Shift in Tone" because as I filled out Fussa and Paresse's charts I remembered where I was going with the story. Fussa is great. What do you do when you are helping to destroy the world and suddenly have to 1) keep going to your shitty job and 2) have a fourteen year old who used to be your robot/roommate/paycheck of revenge? Probably has daddy issues but we're not going to unpack that. Doesn't make me sad as much as I want a play-by-play on what is going through his head because epilogue left Fussa and Rage washed up on the beach before Mizho showed up as the one evil douji user whom I imagine kept her wits about her.

I know Paresse is your man, so this is specifically how I imagine him in SiT. Paresse does make me sad, and post-epilogue is one of recovery in my mind. I interpreted the sin of sloth to be one of apathetic detachment towards oneself and others, so Paresse suddenly having Human Emotions (TM) and experiencing Grief (TM) for things never returning to the way they were hits a chord to me. Suddenly needing to engage with the rest of the world while speedrunning Self-care (TM) and the confusion of oh shit the bigger goal is gone. I didn't act and there were consequences I am only now feeling without Mizho catching what is going on is the snow globe I am shaking him in for a bit before Mizho hauls ass on giving the "Being a human kind of blows, but at least there's penicillin now and the steady betterment of the world fucks a bit." speech amongst other words of encouragement.

I'm so sorry I am obsessed about Dndads and you watch it consume me instead of doing KDU stuff. Keeping the rant short, Walter the Immoral is a side character who used to be a famous swordsmith until the tip of one he rushed to make broke off and killed the great hero wielding it, so he was cursed to be a frog monster essentially and abandoned by his family. In the course of the canonical story, he: adopted an eight year old, build a motorcycle from ye olde medieval material to find his eight year after thinking he had been kidnapped, fended off hired mercenaries trying to kidnap the main characters' five children for weeks on end by himself, lost his legs (and shrugged it off because he built himself a wheelchair from scratch and could still fight), watched his eight year old sacrifice himself (unnecessarily!! genuinely, unnecessarily), and then piloted a mecha in the final fight before ducking out of the s1 narrative worse than he started somehow. I have normal feelings about him (/lying).

If I dwell on how the cast treated his son (Paeden) and him too much, I show my ass on the internet because genuinely what the fuck was that. Thank god Walter is somehow well-adjusted and didn't murder them all in the end. Hell of a podcast (/derogatory).

[holopiloted]

     @knucklecluster​ asked:            ↪ 50 random starters

“ oh,  no.  i  know  that  look  mate.  i  know  what  that  look  means.  absolutely  not. ”

          LOOK? What look — ?

     Elliott didn’t have a look...at least — not a BAD one...that's just something he’s not capable of. He grabs a hold of one of the bar’s rail mats, carefully pouring it’s contents of spilled and over-poured alcohol into a single shot glass on the counter.

     “C’MON...it’s not that bad!” He’s still pouring as he says it, grin growing wicked as the last drop falls into the small glass. He says it like he’s done it before — which probably comes off as a bit CONCERNING.

     But it’s not the first time he’s proposed this to someone else — in fact, everyone on the lounge’s payroll has sat where Walter’s at right now. It’s just never been an accepted offer before; most just straight up told him NO, one guy walked out and never showed up for his next shift — someone even went as far as reporting him to the Solace Board of Health. That was an...interesting conversation...

                    — regardless, he drops the mat into the well, pushing the now full glass a little closer towards the man.

          “It’s custoo—cus...like a...uh — TRADITION! If you’re gonna be hanging around here on the clock. You know — rite of passage, type...deal, or whatever. Everyone’s done it, all the cool kids are into it — so...BOTTOMS UP!”

[verycleverboy]

Welcome to October 7th.

(cough cough)

Where we are today:

After spending the weekend at Walter Reed Medical Center for treatment of his COVID-19 infection, President Donald Trump returned to the White House yesterday afternoon, where he is expected to continue treatment under quarantine.

The slim hopes there were that Trump would calm down and take his current situation seriously--and yeah, I know, but some people are just born suckers--were exploded yesterday when Trump's first full day out of the hospital was highlighted by an almost incoherent tweet storm, followed by a declaration out of nowhere that long-stalled talks over a second stimulus package were dead until after the election, and everyone had been instructed to dedicate their undivided attention to the Supreme Court nomination. The response was instantaneous: one spur-of-the-moment tweet shaved 600 points off the stock market before closing.

He walked back the stance slightly later on, saying he'd be willing to sign off on just the personal stimulus checks, part of a piecemeal approach that Democrats have repeatedly said was a nonstarter. For those who were depending on extended unemployment relief or waiting for a federal lifeline for their small businesses (or even larger ones, in the case of the airlines), the message from Trump and his party, with 27 days until the election, is what it's been all summer: Help isn't on the way. You're on your own. Please suffer quietly while we play confirmation games in the Senate.

The above would appear to demonstrate that the President’s emotional state is even more unhinged than usual, and the speculation (not to mention a certain style of headline) has been zeroing in on the manic episodes that are a known side-effect of the steroid treatment Trump has been taking. The impression is that there’s still a lot that’s being kept from us, and the main thing the West Wing has been open about since the President’s diagnosis is that they have no intention of being open about anything related to the current state of affairs.

Physician to the President Dr. Sean Conley maintains that Trump’s recovery is continuing in a positive direction, but the memorandum begins with the one line that has been casting a long shadow over any hope of honesty:

“I release the following information with the permission of President Donald J. Trump.” 

In 2015, Trump’s personal physician Dr. Harold Bornstein released a hyperbole-laden assessment of the then-candidate’s health status: “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency." Like Conley’s status report, there we no real negatives. The main difference was that Borstein’s letter sounded a lot like a Trump-penned press release. 

Borstein later revealed there was a reason that letter sounded so Trumpian. "He dictated that whole letter. I didn't write that letter." 

Folks, this could be some hard-earned paranoia talking, since there’s no major reason to assume that a Borstein level of hijacking is happening with Conley, apart from his Walter Reed declaration that he was intentionally skewing towards optimism over the weekend while dodging (and sometimes backtracking on) a lot of key questions. But if some of us feel like we smell a rat in a sunshine-and-rainbows status report, it’s because that rat was caught in this particular corn crib once before.

HIPAA rules entitle every American citizen to a certain expectation of privacy when it comes to medical records. If you want to allow even another member of your family to be able to talk about your condition with your doctors, you have to sign off specific names. That means the onus of allowing transparency in the case of Donald J. Trump, a man whose health (for better or for worse) has international implications, falls on the full consent of Donald J. Trump himself. But since Borstein’s revelation came days after members of the Trump Organization seized his Trump-related medical records in what he characterized as a “raid” on his office, it’s safe to assume that’s not going to happen....not until it’s too late, anyway.

Meanwhile...

The Trump/Pence team continues to openly mock the medically-recommended safety measures that, had they been applied consistently, would've kept the President out of the hospital. Trump is still making the claim that COVID-19 is no worse than the flu, which by any metric is demonstrably false and highly dangerous, while Pence and his team made a last-minute attempt yesterday to flex on the previously agreed-to plexiglas guards in front of the podiums. His debate with Kamala Harris is scheduled for tonight.

Since Trump loves Citizen Kane, while not necessarily understanding that Kane isn't the hero of the movie, let's end this wall of words with a quote that he probably hasn't figured out yet either.

“You're the greatest fool I've ever known, Kane. If it was anybody else, I'd say what's going to happen to you would be a lesson to you. Only you're going to need more than one lesson. And you're going to get more than one lesson.”

Will Trump's next lesson come from the disease or the electorate? Either way, we're in for a long, dark October. Stay warm, everybody.

First Lady Melania Trump, who did not join her husband at Walter Reed, continues to rest at the White House during her recovery.

Other confirmed positives for COVID-19:

(This is not intended to be a complete list, and is based on news reports concerning those who are known to have been in contact with other infected individuals in connection with recent events. Status changes and additions since yesterday’s megapost will be listed in bold. Updated throughout the day as new information becomes available from the CNN, NBC News, and CBS News live update pages, supplemented by other sources.)

White House

Hope Hicks: Began showing symptoms on Wednesday, tested positive on Thursday morning. Was not in attendance at Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination event on September 26th.

Nicholas Luna, personal assistant to the President: Luna is a “body man”, whose duties require him to be in close proximity to the President at all times.

Kayleigh McEnany, White House press secretary:  She was not aware of the Hicks diagnosis when she addressed the press on Thursday.

Stephen Miller, Senior Advisor to the President: Was already working remotely and self-isolating, announced positive test on Monday. His wife, Katie Miller, is Vice President Pence’s director of communications, had coronavirus several months ago.

Chad Gilmartin and Karoline Leavitt, members of Kayleigh McEnany’s staff.

Assistant White House press secretary Jalen Drummond: Another McEnany staffer who tested positive Monday morning

Unidentified staffer: Military personnel directly assigned to support the President in the Oval Office and residence, diagnosed over the weekend per CNN.

Three initially unidentified members of the White House press corps and an unidentified staffer who works with the media. Per the White House Correspondents’ Association president Zeke Miller: Individual #1 attended a Sunday briefing and tested positive on Friday after exhibiting symptoms on Thursday. Individual #2 (later confirmed to be Michael Shear of the New York Times) was part of the press pool which traveled to last Saturday’s Pennsylvania rally; also exhibited symptoms on Thursday and tested positive on Friday. Individual #3 was in the press pool for the Barrett Rose Garden event and also travelled with the press pool on Sunday. #3 exhibited symptoms on Wednesday and tested positive Friday afternoon. The press at the Barret event were confined in a crowded “penlike enclosure” behind the invited guests (per Washington Post).

Campaign personnel

Chris Christie: Attended the Barrett nomination event and was part of Trump debate prep. Christie, whose asthma puts him in a higher risk group, checked himself into Morristown Medical Center as a precautionary measure.

Kellyanne Conway: Attended the Barrett nomination event and was part of Trump debate prep. The initial news came in the form of a string of snarky Tiktok posts on Friday from her daughter Claudia, followed much later by a confirmation from Kellyanne herself.

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel: Isolating at home since September 26th, tested last Wednesday.

Bill Stepien, current Trump 2020 campaign manager: In the White House on Monday, in Cleveland for Tuesday’s presidential debate, traveled with Trump and Hicks aboard Air Force One afterwards.

US Congress

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI): Per CNN: “Johnson was not at the Amy Coney Barrett ceremony because he was quarantining from a prior exposure, during which he twice tested negative for the virus, according to the spokesperson.” He was exposed “shortly after” returning to Washington.

Sen. Mike Lee, (R-UT): Attended the Barrett nomination event.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC): Attended the Barrett nomination event.

Military

Admiral Charles Ray, Vice Commandant of the US Coast Guard: Recently attended several meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Nearly all the Joint Chiefs of Staff, including chairman General Mark Milley, are in precautionary quarantine.

Gen. Gary L. Thomas, assistant commandant of the US Marine Corps

Others

University of Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, CSC: Attended the Barrett nomination event. Jenkins was told that he didn’t need to wear a mask to the event after he and other guests tested negative at the White House.

Thirteen employees at Murray’s restaurant in Minneapolis: Catered a party attended by President Trump on September 30th, although none of them were in close proximity to the President.

Confirmed negatives:

(Because of the nature of COVID-19, this list is subject to change.)

Mike and Karen Pence: The Pences have been testing daily since the announcement of the Trumps’ diagnosis.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner: Recently traveled with Hope Hicks

Barron Trump

Eric Trump: At debate.

Lara Trump: At debate.

Donald Trump Jr.: Flew on Air Force One to Cleveland debate, did not fly back.

Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff

Pat Cipollone, White House counsel

Dan Scavino, Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications and Director of Social Media

HHS Secretary Alex Azar

Attorney General Bill Barr

Defense Secretary Mark Esper

WH Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany

Justin Clark, deputy campaign manager

Rudy Giuliani: Was in Trump debate prep.

Jason Miller: Was in Trump debate prep.

Alice Marie Johnson: Flew on Air Force One to Cleveland debate.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett: Barrett and her husband had coronavirus earlier this year and recovered, per AP News.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, (D-CA): Tested out of "an abundance of caution” because of Steve Mnuchin meeting earlier this week.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): Few on Air Force One to Cleveland debate, did not fly back.

DNC Chairman Tom Perez: In front row for Tuesday’s debate.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO):  Attended the Barrett nomination event, was seen there without a face covering.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX): Precautionary quarantine because of close contact with COVID-19-positive individuals.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE): Precautionary quarantine because of close contact with COVID-19-positive individuals.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK):  Precautionary quarantine because of close contact with COVID-19-positive individuals.

All of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Status unknown as of Tuesday midday:

Kimberly Guilfoyle (at debate)

Alyssa Farah, White House Director of Strategic Communications

Robert O’Brien, national security adviser (tested positive for coronavirus in July)

Tiffany Trump (at debate)

Derek Lyons,  Counselor to the President

Sen. Chuck Grassley, (R-IA), Senate pro tem: Declined to be tested, claiming physician’s advice as his reason; attended a meeting Thursday with Sen. Mike Lee.

30-50 donors who were in close contact with President Trump during an in-person event held at Trump’s Bedminster golf club on Thursday night. According to the official story, the event was held hours before President Trump’s positive test came back, but Hicks’s positive came back immediately before he left (although for a variety of reasons, the validity of that timeline is up in the air).

And because they’re stuck in this story, too:

Joe and Jill Biden: negative, committed to regular testing on all campaign event days.

Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff: negative

Previous megaposts, in case you’re a masochist: October 2 3 4 5 6

[dustydreamsanddirtyscars]

“A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet” - On Dissociation, Duality and Identity on Supernatural

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven…” - John Milton / “Paradise Lost” 

After reading an interesting article on the 350th anniversary of Milton’s “Paradise Lost” I found myself pondering one of the themes prevalent in the poem and how it translates to one of the themes I love so much on Supernatural and how it has been especially explored during Carver Era: The Topic of Duality and Identity.

One of the key aspects of Lucifer as a character in Milton’s poem is how the archangel sheds his original name and by that also crafts a new “life” for himself along with it. He no longer calls himself or is addressed as Lucifer but as “Satan” or “the Devil” (interestingly enough that is something Supernatural’s longest standing villain rejects completely, and despises these names which is an interesting aspect to keep in mind and one I’ll come back to later). This re-invention and the power of names is an intricate part of shaping one's own identity and reality. It’s something we have seen countless pop culture figures go through for very similar reasons.

The pattern can be traced all the way back to fairytales like Rumpelstiltsken, but it can be found in a multitude of modern pieces of literature, art or television too. Think of Tom Riddle vs. Lord Voldemort, Dr. Jekyll vs. Mr Hyde or Walter White vs. Heisenberg. They all create alter egos for themselves in a fashion comparable to the renaming process that happens to demons in Milton’s work, because once they lost their positive identity, they also lost their names. It’s very much in line with what we see happening on Supernatural as all the more "run of the mill”-demons we have met thus far have been addressed by the name of the person they inhabited, Meg is probably the most memorable example for that. And it’s also of course a transformation the King of Hell himself underwent when he died as Fergus McLeod and emerged as Crowley.

Much like his mother, who always tried to escape her past and shape a new world for herself in which she possesses the power she lacked before when being rejected, so Crowley tried his best to forget about his past altogether and shape a new world and identity for himself. And all that went well and good until, well, the Winchesters came along. Until then Crowley was able to craft his new self and by shaping himself shaping also his own reality, how he perceives and thinks of himself (unintruded) and by that trying to infer how people perceive him. In the end however the dilemma comes down to what Kurt Vonnegut once described as: “Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what we pretend to be.” Because sometimes that - or rather the way we think about ourselves - can turn into your Achille’s heel or something like a self fulfilling prophecy. And on Supernatural, I suppose no one fights that battle with himself harder than Dean Winchester. That battle of how he thinks about himself and how/who he really is (and that aspect is drawn attention to again with Mr. Ketch insinuating that Dean and he are alike or that Dean is merely an unhinged killer (see meta and gifset here) - something Dean may think of himself at the worst of times, but which hardly can be counted as a realistic picture of who he truly is).

And in this regard I feel it’s important to remember that Dean went to Hell, was well on his way to becoming a demon, but got rescued before his soul may have been twisted too far to dip back. That doesn’t change anything about the fact however that Dean remembers that time, remembers what happened to him, what he did and what he became. It left a taint, some darkness within him and one he is deeply ashamed of. Now, question is how far along the transformation or dissociation went when he was in hell. Was Dean close to forgetting his own name, his own positive identity? And is that possibly the reason why Dean’s struggles in terms of identity and perception of self has gotten all the much worse post Hell too (while also of course taking into account the trauma he faced there)? Because Dean thinking about himself merely as a killer definitely stems from his experiences in and post Hell.

“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.” - Oscar Wilde

Now following that line of thinking I think it is interesting to bring the aspect of duality into the mix, because all the characters mentioned before: Voldemort, Crowley, Walter White or Lucifer in Milton’s “Paradise Lost” give their inner duality a physical quality. Voldemort grows more snake like the more he gets drawn to evil, Crowley doesn’t inhabit his own dead vessel but someone else, Walter White as Heisenberg makes a hat his statement piece and Lucifer in Milton’s “Paradise Lost” famously turns into a snake to bring about the Expulsion from Eden. Meaning, their transformation, their reinvention of self, their identity shaping is connected to a visual change as well, which might make it much easier to distinguish and dissociate and distance yourself from your more sinister actions for example. It’s easier to operate with such alter egos as separate to yourself, because in part it may “absolve” you of your wrongdoing. That split between good and bad, that duality, that inner fight, surely wasn’t captured any better on Supernatural than by Charlie returning from Oz split in two - a parallel to the struggle Dean faced and still faces within during this “coming of age / individuation” arc.

Charlie was a great mirror for Dean here as she shares his predicament because unlike all the antagonists mentioned above she feels responsible for her dark self running amok - and yes the fact that they of course look alike just contributed to that. Now just like Charlie wasn’t able to sort of distance herself from her alter ego, so Dean is unable to do the same as he never undergoes a change in physicality for example - except for the back eyes and slightly longer hair. So when Crowley raises Demon!Dean with the words: “It’s not death. It’s life. A new kind of life. Let’s go take a howl at that moon” he may have thought Dean would have shaken and forgotten all about his former self and morals (but of course he hasn’t).

But the problem is Dean didn’t change. Not really. At the very least not like Crowley in how he shaped a new life and identity for himself. Where Crowley left behind his former human self (until he reconnected with it during S9 where as a parallel to his growing humanity Dean followed the opposite direction - Crowley hasn’t been the same ever since and a lot of the struggles he faces to this season are based in a struggle of identity and him failing to distance himself or dissociate Crowley from Fergus, which was a central aspect of bringing Rowena into the mix imo) even physically, Dean did not as he was a demon inside his own body. His humanity was simply muted, but it wasn’t completely gone or forgotten. This transformation and rejection of his past turning into a reinvention didn’t happen for Dean.

He turned into his darker version, but just putting a “Demon!” Prior Dean hardly can be read in a comparable fashion to Fergus McLeod vs. Crowley (Cas going by the name of Steve doesn’t feel like a fitting other example as Cas didn’t shed who he was as a person and his personality, but his name change attributed more to the metaphysical change from angel to human - which is kind of the direct opposite to Crowley or Dean where an emotional and inner aspect sparked an outwards transformation). Dean became a demon but a true dissociation and distancing didn’t happen. And that’s what he struggles with, because he remembers. That was all him, he can’t and won’t distinguish between himself and his "alter ego" that was compromised by the mark like Crowley would for example. He did what he did when he was a demon inside his own body, there was no dissociation, no re-naming happening and arguably even though thoroughly disinterested in being what he thought others needed him to be (which is still the problem even now and I do wish Dean could allow himself to be a bit more like Demon!Dean in this regard - but hell maybe the continuing betrayal by his loved ones will finally get him there and finally will make him put himself first for once – who am I kidding the show would sadly never let Dean be this independent *sighhhhhhs*) and for that reason much more careless or rather much more carefree, there still was a lot of Dean in him when the mark was calling the shots and his eyes were pitch black. The problem for Dean in dealing with his dark side was even worsened when this inner struggle was externalized when Sam had the mark removed and Amara was freed - and even though Dean managed to reunite God and Amara and save the world in the process - he himself unlike these divine siblings or Charlie didn’t have the chance to truly reintegrate that (lost) part that was split from him with Amara again and being able to heal (and sadly the show is also not even trying to resolve this issue for Dean it seems in order for Dean to be able to finish the Individuation process, though him walking away from Sam and Mary could count as that (though again the show would never allow Dean to do that) - the externalized struggle that was meant to be fought within however still wouldn’t have been resolved though).

And this is where Lucifer from Supernatural and Dean make such compelling cases in how they compare and contrast. Because where Dean struggled with this burden of duality and didn’t have the chance to possibly distance himself from his actions while compromised by the mark because he was himself the entire time, Lucifer embraces that fact, he thrives on that. He despises the distinction people made when calling him devil or Satan. He is taking his actions in stride, grows more confident through them whereas for Dean the opposite is the case. So in the end it comes down to perspective and perception. Lucifer knows he’s evil but he’s alright with that. There is no struggle, no illusions. He walks the earth like a hero because that’s how he sees himself. A champion who was treated wrong, but not the villain. He is the hero in his own story. Compare that to Dean who struggles to see his own self worth due to the mistakes he made and thinks of himself as a burden, as someone less. This negative perception of self has shaped his reality and even made him take on the mark for example. And it’s also the reason why he is unable to see himself as the hero he objectively speaking absolutely is, because he is walking through life thinking of himself as a failure, the antagonist in the story. And unless he will be allowed to express himself accordingly and be embraced for all that he is (and not how others want him to be or react - like for example just simply working with the BritMoL) and not just what people think he is due to what Dean became because of who he thought others wanted him to be (big brother, good little soldier, little angel), hell likely never get a chance to heal and make that last step of individuation to truly shape and allow himself to be the person he truly is.

“Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald