#when her being alive is integral to the show so far?

[thedailydescent]

I think what kills me the most about the “Gemma is destined to die” crowd is that they’ve broached that writing possibility as if it’s something to celebrate instead of, like, deeply troubling and racist. (I know it’s because they don’t give a fuck about Gemma or if the show is racist as long as she’s out of the picture, but it’s kinda blowing my mind how much of a foothold that position has gotten without much pushback until recently.)

YEAH exactly like I'm still trying to figure out how killing off a woc in service of a man's arc in 2025 is good and intelligent writing when there are so many more things they could do with Gemma's character. They seem to have gone way too hard on the Eurydice/Orpheus analogy and think now she HAS to die. But yeah, like you said, it's not even about that, they just really want her dead because of their ship.

Not to mention, Gemma isn't simply Eurydice here, she's also been compared to Persephone. And do know what happened to Persephone? She came back.

[whateverisbeautiful]

♥️Reveling in Richonne - TOWL

#9: The 5 Pizzas & A Wedding Ring (1.01)

gif cred: @twdfranchise

The Greatest Yearner and Loverboy of All Time award goes to…Rick Grimes. 🏆

No one is doing it like him and it’s always a welcomed sight to see how utterly in love Rick is with Michonne. In Michonne, Rick found a rare gem that brings out the most romantic side of him to the point that he could have such a gorgeous proposal dream and in it give us six words that became iconic as soon as they were said...🍕🍕🍕🍕🍕💍😊

So first, I found the timing of these three dreams to be telling, especially the third and final one.

The first dream arrives after Rick is nearly on death's door after chopping off his hand and bleeding out. The second dream arrives after Rick has joined the CRM, forced to integrate into their uniformity as a potential getaway route.

And then the third dream arrives after Rick has chosen to die while still alive. Each time he comes close to losing himself, either literally or figuratively, a dream of Michonne arrives as his subconscious' last-ditch effort to hold onto who he really is and his other half.

While his mind tells him he’s dead now - his heart still seeks out the woman who made him feel most alive. Even Dead Rick can’t lose Michonne completely. They’re far too one. And every time he needs her, just like in real life, she shows up. 🥹

Here in this dream, she still shows up even after Rick declares he’s no longer alive and can’t see her anymore because, as Michonne says later, their love can’t be denied. 👌🏽

gif cred: @kimwexlersponytail

That’s why I really love that this gorgeous dream arrives after his last letter.

You’d think this dream scene would have been placed before the letter to show the last time he sees her and then he’d write the letter saying 'I don’t see you anymore.' But no - they have the dream arrive after the letter and I believe that is very much intentional and I love what it says about Richonne’s love.

Even if her memory is fading from him there is still a part of his mind that can always find her. That’s part of why it's so sweet that Dream Michonne told Rick that she eats lunch at that bench every day in the previous dream because it’s essentially telling him 'you know where to find me. If you need me I’ll always be here.' 

gif cred: @richardgrimes

And Rick takes that to heart, eagerly waiting at that bench for her to show up. And sure enough, even after choosing to live but die, even after saying I don’t see you anymore, Michonne still shows up looking like a vision in white and like the bride Rick views her as. (Also she has on some thigh-high boots because of course Rick’s brain was gonna add some heightened sex appeal to the look knowing how he views Michonne. 😋)

I like how in the first dream, Michonne was sitting on the bench and Rick was taken aback by her beautiful self. And now in this third dream, Rick is the one parked on the bench ready and anticipating her arrival. And of course, he comes bearing the gift of food because one; homeboy loves showing love through getting things for Michonne, especially food, and two; he was like 'I’m not showing up empty-handed to this surprise lunch date.' Just like he wasn’t gonna show up empty-handed from his run when Michonne asked for toothpaste in their canon ep. 😊

Regarding the stage-play-to-their-real-TWD-journey metaphor, one thing that made these already special dreams even more special once I saw episode 4 is realizing that Rick had lost the memory of Carl by this point, and that was when Michonne showed up. Similar to their real journey, Rick lost Carl but before he could sink into the depths of despair with no way out, Michonne was able to step in and be there for him and bring him back. And she’s still doing that years later by showing up in these dreams and being the motivating light he needs during this dark chapter of life. 

So Rick sits on the park bench on a nice quiet day as he cutely taps his fingers on the fresh pizza box and awaits that beautiful mystery woman’s return. And everything about the both of them is so adorable in this dream. Their outfits, smiles, and conversation is just perfection. Like y’all, I’m rewatching to write this post, and the way I am smiling so big cuz I can’t help it lol. 🤭 They just go together like no couple has ever gone together before, in any world. 

gif cred: @nerd4music

Rick hears footsteps and looks over to see Michonne approach in her elegant white outfit and she looks surprised but happy to see he’s here waiting for her. Of course, Rick would hear that she eats here everyday and make it a priority to be there early and ready to see her. Nothing else is more important than being with her.

And Rick immediately starts explaining what he’s up to acknowledging, “This is a pretty bold move but you said you believed in me.” One; I love that he’s boldly pursuing her and two; I especially love that he again recalls how much Michonne believes in him. Her belief clearly means so much to him in his dreams and in reality.

gif cred: @richardgrimes

Also, the pizza really does remind me of the canon ep mints in that it’s something Rick is using to make his move and find his moment with her. 😋

Then Rick says, “So if you want this bench to yourself, I can take this large pizza past the big blue building and eat it alone at my miserable desk at my miserable job.” First of all - the most charming man in existence. 🥰

But also this is why I think the “job” in these dreams is a symbol of the CRM. He did eventually go to wherever that map said but he’s miserable there and that would demonstrate how he’s accepted being stuck with the CRM and he’s miserable there too.

gif cred: @richardgrimes

I love seeing Rick have this playful energy with Michonne tho. In real life she also brought that side out of him. And I love it because it just goes to show how they got to know every part of each other. Like so many in the CRM know Rick as the scowler and so many back home know Rick as their fearless leader but Michonne knows he has a happy face too and a very playful flirty side as well. 

Michonne affirms, “I do believe in you.” Which I just love. It’s so true to who she is outside of these dreams too. Always believing so strongly in Rick and letting him know it.

It's so sweet that Rick's mind continually reminds him that Michonne believes in him.  And it’s also sad because I feel like it’s only in these dreams where Rick gets to experience the gentle compassionate tenderness of someone who loves and believes in him.

gif cred: @richardgrimes

And then she cutely adds, “And I do like pizza” while giving Rick such a sweet smile and sitting next to him on the bench as he turns to give her all his attention. 

gif cred: @lousolversons

As she sits down she tells Rick, “But shut up about your misery. You’re not stuck anywhere.” And I love that this shows how Rick loved the part of Michonne that could always call him out too. In TWD, Michonne never shied away from letting Rick know when he might need a shift in perspective.

That's part of why they're a perfect match - they can call each other out and call each other higher and it only makes the other respect them even more.

gif cred: @riickgrimes

Michonne was always so good at helping Rick see things from a fuller and more positive vantage point. It’s why Rick so assuredly told her she led him here in Say Yes. So I really appreciate that his mind recalls that side of Michonne and how it shows he loves everything about her including her direct honesty. 

Rick looks out for a second, looking like he still believes he’s stuck a bit, and then he says, “Well you said you’re not where you want to be” in a tone that’s just so gentle and tender it makes me melt.

And once again him repeating her words back to her is so true to the character. In real life and in his dreams, Rick will always take every word Michonne says to heart, so of course he remembers what she said from the other dreams and brings them up here.

gif cred: @riickgrimes

And the way he looks at her after he says this...There’s a couple moments in this one dream where Rick is the heart-eyed emoji personified and that was one of them. 😍

It’s interesting that he brings up how Michonne said she’s not where she wants to be. It’s like this is him saying, “Aren’t we both stuck?”

And while irl Rick and Michonne are in less-than-ideal situations because they’ve had to go so long without each other, Rick’s mind then accurately envisions how Michonne would approach their unfortunate circumstances. She acknowledges she's both not where she wants to be and not stuck, when she tells him, “I’m not. But I’m not stuck either.” 

gif cred: @riickgrimes

Going back to the metaphorical side of things, I think this is Rick’s mind telling him that while Michonne isn’t exactly where she wants to be because she’s not with him, she hasn’t been living life like she’s stuck. With raising kids, she can’t. She’s had to keep going even with a whole part of her heart missing and trapped with the CRM. 

Then signature to Michonne, she gives Rick a major motivating dose of encouragement when she confidently tells him, “We can make this whole damn world ours if we want to.” Love it. 🥰

gif cred: @twdfranchise

And Richonne really can conquer the world and save it and I love how Rick’s dreams are reminding him of the power of Richonne and how the two of them could do anything. I’ve always said Rick relishes and is fully aware that he and Michonne are a power couple, with eps like TWD 7.10 making that clear. 

Then Rick has another heart-eyed moment as he hears her say this. 😍 He looks at her with a smile, adoring yet another part of Michonne - the part of her that always believes in their ability to overcome, rise above, and make the world better.

gif cred: @alwaysthequietones

Rick irl didn’t have aspirations of being some world leader with giant world-conquering goals - he truly could be content building a thriving small community so long as he had his wife and kids every day. But he’s more than willing to take on the world with Michonne.

And this dream shows that she is the one who makes him feel like even when they feel stuck or miserable, they can still win and not let the world defeat them. 

After saying this, Michonne gives Rick the cutest playful smile and I adore it so much. 😊

gif cred: @twdfranchise

And honey, Rick adores her smile so much too because the way he looks at her and lets out a little laugh...I’m telling you right now that man is so aware that he's wrapped around her finger and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

It's clear Rick loves seeing Michonne like this. You can just feel how much he loves her, admires her, and enjoys her. And their chemistry just leaps off the screen. 

gif cred: @alwaysthequietones

This dream also reminds me of when we saw him hallucinate Michonne in his final TWD ep. There as well he just knew Michonne would be a presence that calms him and motivates him like no other.

And truly falling in love with Michonne is one of Rick's proudest achievements because even in his last full episode of TWD he hallucinates her talking about why she fell in love with him. By having this proposal dream after feeling he died a failure, it’s almost like his subconscious is recalling one of the biggest ways he succeeded, which is in landing the baddest chick in the game. 👌🏽

And I adore how each time we’ve ever seen Michonne in Rick’s mind she always has this radiant smile which shows it’s something Rick really loves about her. And where so many might know Michonne as more serious, Rick loves the smiley part of her that he knows so well. 

He also often imagines kissing her which is another thing he loves. 😋

So after Rick laughs in a way that makes it feel like Michonne’s love and beauty both center him and make him dizzy, he’s basically like 'before we make the world ours, I want to make you mine.' And he starts by asking, “What if I came here one day…”

gif cred: @riickgrimes

I love Michonne’s intrigued and encouraging “mm-hmm.” You can definitely see she's charmed by this handsome man and likes him a whole lot. 😊

gif cred: @twdfranchise

Then Rick continues in just the cutest and best way ever, saying, “with 5 pizzas…” 😊

gif cred: @riickgrimes

And Michonne gives a smitten laugh which makes Rick smile, happy to see that he could make her laugh. 😊

gif cred: @twdfranchise

I love that the five pizzas call back to Say Yes when Michonne had Rick giggling as she says she’s going to eat five more of those MREs. Seeing a Say Yes callback in the premiere had me elated. 🥰

Also, call me crazy, but I’m telling myself '5 pizzas' was a hint at Michonne ultimately ending up with 5 kids too - Andre, Carl, Judith, RJ, and the way Rick and Michonne were in TOWL, baby #5 might be otw sooner than later. 😋 (even though in my ideal scenario Rick also gets some time to really focus on RJ, Judith, and Michonne before a new kid is added to the Grimes family 👌🏽)

And just the idea that Rick would playfully be like 'since you like pizza let me come back with tons of boxes for you' is sweet and very him lol. --- But he also wants to come here one day not just with pizza boxes but a very special jewelry box. 🙌🏽

Cuz then y’all, this show tries to make me pass out because this heartwarming moment gets even better as Rick smiles and looks Michonne in her eyes to say, “…and a wedding ring.”  🫠

Won’t. He. Do. It. Y’all!!!!!!! 🥳 “5 pizzas and a wedding ring” is an instant classic. I adore it with everything in me. 🥹

gif cred: @riickgrimes

This is the moment where I literally stopped breathing on premiere day. 🤭 Like I was already just swooning over the 5 pizzas thing and then he said “and a wedding ring” and I was so gagged. It was and is everything. 🤩

I had been crossing my fingers for rings in TOWL and this ep made me feel confident it was gonna happen because Rick was already dreaming about it. (And then we'll find out in ep 5 he’d actually been dreaming about it long before he was taken from her on that bridge.🥲)

Of course, Rick would want to propose to her in these dreams even after just one time on a bench together. 😋 Homeboy said 'I’ll learn your name and everything later but first will you spend the rest of your life with me?' lol.

Rick might not know her first name in these dreams yet but he knows exactly what he wants her last name to be. 🤗

I think it’s so sweet that he’s trying to wife her up so quickly. I feel like it connects to how in their actual TWD journey once Rick and Michonne became a romantic couple in s6 they weren’t girlfriend and boyfriend they were husband and wife. Also, in any dimension, all Rick wants is to build a world with her because she is his world. 🥲

And then I absolutely love getting to see Michonne’s response to Rick revealing he wants to marry her. 🥹 It makes my heart so happy. She was all just tickled by him and the five pizzas thing and then she heard 'wedding ring' and paused and smiled, seeing how much Rick meant it in his eyes.

gif cred: @lousolversons

Michonne looks right into his eyes, tilts her head (and I notice Rick moves his head at the exact same time in the same way cuz magnets 🧲 ) and she gives a beautiful smile as she assuredly nods and tenderly says, “I think you should do that.” 😭

I love the delivery of that line. Like once again Danai slayed. And Andy too. Like this moment is the epitome of Richonne gold. 🙌🏽

gif cred: @twdfranchise

I so appreciate the way this dream confirmed that in any world Rick would make the proposal and in any world, Michonne would say yes. They both are so quickly on the same page about wanting forever with each other just like in their reality. 

And Rick has just the sincerest smile and joy radiating on his face upon hearing Michonne say she does want him like he wants her. 🥹

I love that his mind knows Michonne would be so receptive had he formally proposed. Also, I adore this eye-acting moment as Rick beams and then has this realization that he’s finally going to get the honor of kissing her.

gif cred: @nat111love

They slowly lean in and have just the most precious kiss. Like they're so good at making a kiss equally sweet and sexy. It was a joy to see the first Richonne kiss in years 🙌🏽 - and little did we know we were in for literally over 100 more in this miniseries lol. Love that for us. 😋

gif cred: @nat111love

The first Richonne kiss in TOWL is so pretty and passionate...and it's also the tamest one of the miniseries. 😅 Because once those two reunite their hunger for each other really knows no bounds. 👌🏽

It’s great that through these dreams they found a way for Richonne to kiss in every ep, even before Richonne officially reunited. Also, I always love those Richonne kisses where they can’t help but smile during it and this was one of those. The joy Richonne brings each other brings me joy.

I also really like how it’s filmed similar to their first kiss on the couch in their canon ep, both with the framing from behind the bench and the way Rick looks at her before leaning in.

And I also love seeing Michonne definitely being eager too as she's the one to subtly lean in for that second kiss. 😋

gif cred: @nat111love

Ep 1 really came out the gate letting us know that when they said TOWL was an epic love story oh they meant that. This was such a top tier moment of Rick living his best Hallmark life with his wife. 😌

There’s also a shade of sadness to this moment because it’s almost like Rick has had to give up on ever seeing Real Michonne and so this is him locking down Dream Michonne, almost accepting that this is the closest he’ll ever get to having her in his life and giving her that ring he’s longed to give her for years.

It's like now his mind is prepared to live forever with the dream version of her instead. 🥲

gif cred: @msanonships

So after that kiss which is really a thing of beauty, the lovely moment is sadly fleeting as the kiss is quickly interrupted by more depressing images such as a burning walker, burning crops, and, the saddest of all, a burning Michonne as she becomes enveloped in flames on the bench. 😢

gif cred: @nat111love

Dissecting those images, I think the corpse is Rick being reminded of the fact that he’s had to die, the burning crops is Rick being reminded of why he had to die - it was to save his family like his dad saved his - and then seeing Michonne in the flames is a reminder of who he’s had to die for.

Losing the image of those he loves is such a tragic side effect of the trauma he's endured. 😢 And it’s intentional for Michonne to burn away rather than just disappear or fade away because again fire has this dual meaning - it saves and destroys. And it's like that’s what Rick‘s subconscious does with this vision of Michonne - destroys it to save her.

As she’s wrapped in flames the one thing Rick still knows for certain is his wife believes in him as Michonne says one last time, “I believe in you.” before vanishing from his mind.

Rick tries to speak to her repeating, “l think…” but he can’t get any words out. 🥺 I wonder what he was about to say. (At the pace they were moving in these dreams he might’ve been about to say “I think we should have a baby” 🤭) But fr, it breaks my heart seeing him so badly want to express something but becoming overwhelmed and putting his hand out wanting to touch her but he can’t anymore.

It’s so sad to see his moment of pure bliss with Michonne burn away and see him stutter at a loss for words as all he can do is just watch her be taken from him again and the moment be replaced with things he mentioned in his letter like blood and metal rotors. He really had to lose Michonne and Carl twice. 😥

So then Rick sees his house burning, the windmills outside his apartment, and helicopters and walker-kills from his lifeless shifts as a consignee as he’s plucked back to reality. However, even in that montage he still sees Michonne in the flames one more time. I’d like to think that shows that she is still within him somewhere. She still can show up even if just for a millisecond now. 

gif cred: @nat111love

And then most devastating of all is the final moment of this dream when the montage concludes with the bridge explosion and Rick being startled awake by the memory of Real Michonne screaming his name in agony. Oh this breaks my heart for real. 💔

So when breaking down the first dream of this premiere I mentioned how Rick hears himself call out to Michonne and then recalls the bridge moment when Michonne calls out to him, which is clearly a memory that still torments Rick all these years later. But then to cope with that painful bridge memory at the top of the episode his mind immediately took him and Michonne to this serene park bench. 

I think it’s very telling and intentional that rather than go from the reality of the bridge to the tranquility of the dream - this time around he goes from the tranquility of his dream to the reality of the bridge. It’s like he can’t use these peaceful dreams to run from the reality of how he and Michonne’s story actually left off anymore.

And it pains me so much that a dream that joyous between them now leaves Rick just with the visceral tragic memory of Michonne hurting and screaming out for him.

I know it haunts him so much that he can’t call back out to her. That he can’t comfort her when he knows she’s in pain. To know she saw him on that bridge and had to think the love of her life died right in front of her eyes. That is such a heavy thing that weighs on Rick and now that he can’t see her face anymore, it’s like all he has left is her voice - her anguished voice as they both went through the unbearable and lost each other. 

gif cred: @andy-clutterbuck

Rick startles awake upon hearing his wife scream his name and he appears to have a heavy heart from that dream-turned-nightmare. It’s terrible that a dream so good ended so bad, especially when these dreams were quite literally what was keeping Rick alive.

A line from Carl to Michonne in his final s8 episode always comes to mind when I see this. It's when Carl tells Michonne, “Don’t carry this. Not this part.” It makes me think about how most of the time when something or someone you love comes to an end there’s so much grief surrounding the ending that it can make the sad ending louder than all the good memories.

For Richonne, there was such an abundance of good in their relationship and it’s devastating that it came to an abrupt tragic end that day on the bridge. That’s not the type of final note a one-of-a-kind soul mate pairing like that should have. And so in some ways, Rick had been trying not to carry that part by taking his mind to those idyllic dreams. And then it’s heartbreaking to see even the dream get burned to ashes as he starts to lose a core part of himself in losing the image of her.

It’s painful for us to see the last dream before Rick couldn’t see her face anymore. The trauma inflicted by the CRM has just stripped away the faces of two of the most important people in Rick’s life. That’s bound to make one lose themselves completely. 😔

gif cred: @andy-clutterbuck

And in the last few minutes of the episode, Rick does seem like now he’s ready to lose himself in Okafor’s mission.

But fortunately, none of that will be happening. Because just when Rick thought he’d be stuck with the CRM for good…Michonne and her genius bestie had other plans. 😏👌🏽

[sol-consort]

I love the idea of the aliens being absolutely freaked out (positively) about each other's looks.. And I *love* the idea of the aliens being so curious and/or weirded out about human hair, especially since humans are the only ones to have it! Like it's just.. *there* maybe it short maybe it's really long, maybe it's not even there for some! Maybe it's colorful and distracting maybe it's neat and not really altered 🤔

Anyway a krogan girlfriend pulling on her human gfs hair as she goes down on her.

Uhhh must have been the wind... 🤷‍♀️

(And nO I refuse to believe quarians look like a yassified version of humans, their original design will always be canon to me, let them be weird looking and bald!!)

They'd be more on the weirded-out side than freaked-out. The animals on their planets definitely have fur. So it's more of a "didn't expect one of those fluffy animals to have the capacity to evolve into a sentient species" case rather than "wtf is that on your head?"

If you want to take it in a grim direction, you could make a case about how aliens might view humans as less intelligent and more feral because of the whole hair ordeal. Leading to prejudice against humans, yk space racism.

Or on a more wish-fullfilment fantasy direction, the worst that'd happen is them considering humans to be adorable. Think of an alien evolving with cat appearance characteristics and tell me you wouldn't find them cute.

It's jarring at first; fur used to be an exclusively animal trait, a pet characteristic. And now came the humans who insist on referring to their fur as "hair", whose biology kept it in their gene pool for some reason, and made it a main point in aesthetic appeal and self expression.

Hair symbolises many things to us, most importantly, autonomy, freedom, and choice.

Hair holds memories. You cut it off to have a fresh start, and you nurture it long to see how far you've come. Its growth shows the passage of time, its colouration shows our current stage of life and can be a measurement of stress. Neglecting it may indicate a struggle in mental health.

We dye it, we style it, and we come up with specific chemical mixtures for shampoos to accommodate all different hair types. It can showcase your culture and heritage. It can hold religious significance.

Hair takes up space, it has weight, it sheds, it takes time to style, constant maintenance to brush and wash, specific jewellery and ties to adorn it with. From an outsider perspective, it might seem borderline obsessive how much attention humans pay to their own hair and groom it.

It's affected by the weather, it can frizz up, it can become greasy on its own, it can shrink, and it can be shaped by heat. There is a whole science behind human hair, an entire economy built around this one body part, that's how much of a cultural significance it holds.

The Mass Effect aliens would never understand that. They can't even begin to grasp the concept when they've known hair for so long as this thing that covers varren and some of their cattle. No matter how much you explain, it will always seem bizarre to them that an entire species would put so much emphasis on a useless bodypart that's not even alive except for the root.

First few years into the human galactic integration would have the aliens believe human hair naturally grows very short, since the human space population will be mostly made out of military personnel by that point.

Until the civilians began moving into colonies and the Citadel. Vividly dyed hair, intricate lace wigs, butterfly braids, loose beach curls, beads weaved into the hair, and everything under the sun. The hairstyles that scream high maintenance, the ones only a free roaming civilian can afford to have and maintain.

The fluffy hair with soft curls, the elegant hair with defined shiny coils, the sleek brushed back without a hair out of place kind, the puffy glamorous type with good volume. The list goes on, hair takes all shapes and forms.

An asari could spend an entire lifetime studying hair and its significance in human existence.

Much like you and I would like to take a closer look on a drell's scales, closely examine a krogan shell, or trace the sharp edges of a turian's razor teeth. But realistically, won't because it would be a weird thing to ask someone out of the blue, most aliens are endlessly curious about this hair atop your head, those eyebrows you scrunch when confused, those eyelashes you flutter at them, that layer of subtle frizz of hair on your face, the one that covers your arms, your legs, even your most intimate places.

Repeat after me:

Aliens. Would. Not. Have. The. Same. Impression. On. Bodyhair. As. Human. Society. Does.

Not only would they not understand why some humans shave their body, they'd be completely dumbfounded by shaving ads. That woman in the ads clearly has hair on her head! So why is she only removing the hair on her leg?

Some would even enjoy the feeling of running their claws/palms/whatever-alien-anatomy-hand up against your leg and feeling the soft hair. Your alien partner seeing you in lingerie and that peaking tuff of pubic hair from under your tight lacey panties is enough to blow a fuse in their brain and get them to bounce on you, mouth watering at the idea of eating you out.

In a more professional setting, humans won't be looked down upon or judged for not shaving their legs or arms whilst wearing a skirt. It's genuinely incomprehensible to the salarians interviewing you why this would even be something to mention, let alone affect their judgement in measuring your capability for this job.

We're alien to them. A lot of our "social taboos" would be absolutely mundane in their view. Turians don't even have breasts. That concept is bizarre to them. Your turian roommate won't think anything of it if you decide to free the nipple around your shared apartment one day.

[quite-right-too]

Do you know what kills me about The Runaway Bride?

The fact that Donna's appearance in the TARDIS happens literally minutes after the Doctor just said his final goodbye. Just imagine it from his perspective.

The woman you love so much that you subconsciously changed your entire anatomy to be perfect for her; all of the characteristics of the ideal partner integrated into you because it's Rose and why wouldn't you want to give the best. You barely get a couple minutes to say goodbye to her, now locked in a parallel universe that you know cannot safely be opened enough to bring her home. You don't even have enough time to say I love you before the breach closes. You're crying and you're grieving, but only for a couple minutes. Just enough time to move the TARDIS into the Time Vortex. Suddenly, this loud ginger woman in a wedding dress impossibly appears in your console room. You just lost your best friend, your partner, your everything. And now you have to get back into action to save humanity again without getting the time to really handle this loss.

Don't even think I forgot the dialogue and even the scenes where we actively see him upset while thinking of Rose. Everything reminds him of her and it's like the universe is trying to rub it into his face.

(Donna grabs a blouse that is hanging over the railing.)  DONNA: I knew it, acting all innocent. I'm not the first, am I? How many women have you abducted?  DOCTOR: That's my friend's.  DONNA: Where is she, then? Popped out for a space walk?  DOCTOR: She's gone.  DONNA: Gone where?  DOCTOR: I lost her.  DONNA: Well, you can hurry up and lose me! How do you mean, lost?  (The Doctor takes the blouse from Donna and throws it through a doorway.)  DOCTOR: Right, Chiswick.

DOCTOR: Trust me.  DONNA: Is that what you said to her? Your friend? The one you lost? Did she trust you?  DOCTOR: Yes, she did. And she is not dead. She is so alive. Now, jump! 

DOCTOR: I spent Christmas Day just over there, the Powell Estate, with this family. My friend, she had this family. Well, they were my-. Still, gone now.  DONNA: Your friend, who was she?  DOCTOR: Question is, what do camouflaged robot mercenaries want with you? And how did you get inside the TARDIS?

What about when Love Don't Roam is being sung by the singer at the reception, and all the Doctor can do is reminisce sadly about him and Rose. Also, Love Don't Roam was written specifically about TenRose canonically so...

DOCTOR: I'll sort it out, Donna. Whatever's been done to you, I'll reverse it. I am not about to lose someone else. 

Or how he decides he's gonna kill a bunch of children because he's hurt and not thinking clearly. He needed Donna to snap him out of it. DOCTOR: My home planet is far away and long since gone. But its name lives on. Gallifrey.  EMPRESS: They murdered the Racnoss!  DOCTOR: I warned you. You did this.  EMPRESS: No! No! Don't! No!  EMPRESS: No! No! My children! No! My children! My children!  DONNA: Doctor! You can stop now!  EMPRESS: My children!  DOCTOR: Come on. Time I got you out. 

DONNA: That friend of yours. What was her name?  DOCTOR: Her name was Rose. 

And let's not forget that in Turn Left, Donna's alternate universe that Rose finds her in shows what would have happened without Donna there. The Doctor actually kills himself because he couldn't stand to be without Rose. HARRIS: The Doctor is dead. Must have happened too fast for him to regenerate. Escort the ambulance back to UNIT base.  (Donna walks on. A blonde woman runs towards her. She speaks as if her top lip is glued to her teeth.)  ROSE: What happened? What did they find? I'm sorry, did they find someone?  DONNA: I don't know. A bloke called the Doctor, or something.  ROSE: Well, where is he?  DONNA: They took him away. He's dead. I'm sorry, did you know him? I mean, they didn't say his name. Could be any doctor.  ROSE: I came so far.  DONNA: It, it could be anyone.  ROSE: What's your name?  DONNA: Donna. And you?  ROSE: Oh, I was just passing by. I shouldn't even be here. This is wrong. It's wrong. This is so wrong.

Just him mourning breaks my heart every time.

[aspoonofsugar]

RWBY Volume 9 Epilogue: The Five Stages of Grief Again

As @greenteaandtattoos's friend noticed, volume 9 epilogue has its five narrators embody the five stages of grief:

Negation - refusal to aknowledge the truth, while clinging to a preferable reality.

Anger - lashing out on others in an attempt to channel one's pain and frustration.

Bargaining - being ready to negotiate, to give something in order to avoid loss. When death already happened, it is about exploring what ifs scenarios.

Depression - sadness, desperation and refusal to engage with others. It often comes with low energy.

Acceptance - coming to terms with one's loss and finding a new stability.

This isn't surprising, as volume 9 as a whole uses this motif. In particular, Ruby herself goes through the 5 stages twice. First to grieve over Penny and then to face her emotions towards Summer. Finally, RWBYJN reach acceptance (the main theme). Acceptance of death, loss, pain, change and of themselves. All in all, RWBYJ's journey in the Ever after is a metaphor for the process of grieving. Well, the epilogue shows us how the other characters have been dealing with this emotion.

So, here comes NORWQ as the 5 stages of grief:

Nora = anger: tbf she is the most difficult to pintpoint, as she fits the pattern less than others. Still, her section focuses on how Vacuans and Atlesians are both reacting with anger at the new status quo. Vacuans are frustrated that Atlas brought its own problems into their Kingdom. Atlesians are furious nobody came to help them. Nora herself enters into a short confrontation with two angry Vacuans and clearly projects her own past into the conflict. What's wrong with orphans? What's wrong with her?

Oscar = negation: our Little Prince is the only one that believes Ruby and the others might be alive. He even looks for an answers into books (mirroring how RWBYJ is grieving through a fairy tale). On a personal level, he and Ozpin are both fighting the merge, so they are negating a transformation, which is bound to happen.

Ren = bargaining: Lotus boy is trying to replace Jaune as the glue who keeps the team together. He is conscious of everyone's feelings and problems, but is not sure on how to handle them. Moreover, his section deals with how Salem's faction goes through a bargain. Sure, it lost some people in Atlas, but Tyrian and Mercury free the Crown, so that new forces are ready to fight for the Evil Witch of the West.

Winter = depression: our Winter Maiden is dealing very very badly with Penny and Weiss's lost. She blames herself for everything and is far away from accepting Penny's final teaching: "I won't be gone, I will be a part of you". Winter is struggling to honor both Penny and Weiss's legacy. If anything, she feels she isn't the right person to do so. Her section is also the most somber on a macrochosm level. As a matter of fact through her we discover Vale was destroyed by Salem and we see how the refugees are not handling their new situation well.

Qrow = acceptance: Qrow is Winter's opposite, as he is the closest to find acceptance. On a personal level, he shows he has integrated with Clover. He has embraced his friend's optimism and has learnt to love himself through him. This is why his semblance evolved and he is now able to bring both good and bad luck. This new found balance lets him find hope even in the bad situation the world is in. He sees how people are showing kindness and realizes Ruby's message is the first step into uniting Remnant.

Of course, our five narrators all foil each other in different ways. I have discussed Qrow and Winter here, so let's see what to say about Nora, Ren and Oscar.

RENORA = LONELY TOGETHER

Nora and Ren are going through an inversion of their dynamic. Nora is now repressing her feelings and avoiding Ren's attentions and offers of support. Ren instead is grieving openly and is trying to be open with his feelings.

Nora isn't even able to speak directly with the person she lost, but narrates talking to no-one in particular. She mostly speaks about the macrochosm and uses plural forms. "We buried our friends", "I think everyone lost someone that day", "For us it was a relief, but for the Vacuans", ""What if we can't go on, what if we are too scarred?". She is in a sense the embodyment of everyone's grief. At the same time, she is so disconnected from her own trauma, that she can only read it while projecting it on the world:

Ren: Nora, she is putting the world on her shoulders.

Ren instead is the one more focused on the feelings of the people around him. Through his point of view, we discover how the other main characters are doing. We realize Nora is too focused on the macrochosm, while Oscar has trouble with the microchosm (he just isn't himself). Ren is trying to balance out the two dimensions. He is grieving for Jaune and is inheriting his legacy. At the same time, he understands that just like his friends are fighting to overcome anger and pain, so is the world. By doing this, he once again draws a parallel between Nora and the World:

I think the epilogue of volume 9 (or the prologue of volume 10?) sets up Nora as a strong symbolic character in Vacuo. She is Vacuo itself, struggling with pain, grief and anger. She is Atlesian orphans, nameless children too scarred to go on. Ren's role will probably be to step in and remind her how beautiful she is.

OSCAR = STAGNATION

Oscar's conflict permeates both the microchom and the macrochosm. It is synthesized by this phrase:

Oscar: "You always believed in the best. You saw people for who they really were. Some of us don't know anymore."

Here, Oscar is speaking both:

Of himself, who is slowly and painfully merging with Ozpin

Of the world, which finds itself in "uncharted territory"

Oscar is uncertain. Of who he is. Of what to do. So, he looks up to Ruby, who was always certain and could "see the world through better eyes".

At the same time, Oscar's situation strongly suggests he is stagnating. He refuses to accept RWBYJ's death (he is right, but it isn't a healthy reaction). He fights the merge unsuccessfully. He can neither go back to the person he was before nor can he progress towards a better version of himself. Basically, just as Ruby is finding the path back to herself in the Ever After, Oscar is losing himself in Vacuo. This is (just like in Renora's case) an inversion to their previous dynamic. Back in Atlas, Oscar was the one progressing, whereas Ruby was stagnating. Right now, they start their stories in Vacuo in an inversed situation.

OTHER POSSIBLE FOILINGS

Of course, the epilogue/prologue offers several possible foilings that could be explored in volume 10. Here are some (but they aren't all).

Ren and Winter are both talking to the "sibling" they entered a conflict with in volume 8. Both grew distant from Jaune and Weiss, only to reconcile later on. Now, they realize how much Jaune and Weiss did to keep their respective families together. They celebrate their legacies and wonder if they might be able to live up to it. This might also foreshadow some foiling of Jaune and Weiss themselves, once they come back.

Qrow and Oscar are both talking to Ruby (to be fair, Qrow speaks to everyone, but thematically Ruby is her interlocutor). However, Qrow has managed to integrate (with Clover), while Oscar fights integration (with Ozpin (understandably so)). At the same time, Qrow focuses on how Ruby has changed the world, whereas Oscar focuses on how Ruby has changed him.

Nora and Qrow open and end the epilogue. Nora is the one who struggles to grieve the most (she is the only one who never visits the memorial, after the cerimony). She insists she must move on, but also wonders if she will ever be able to. Qrow instead is the one who deals the best with the situation. He finds serenity while at the memorial and grieves in a hopeful way thanks to the murales realized by the community. Both are very involved with helping people and the refugees. Nora is shown helping children and states she wants to help Velvet before eating herself. Qrow keeps going into meetings with Theodore, he spends time with Robyn and the kids and helps the Schnees giving out free food. Still, Nora is clearly wearing herself out, whereas Qrow genuinelly finds hope and energy. Nora is symbolically one of the orphans trying to carry the world. Qrow is instead a mentor, who has learnt he doesn't have to face the world alone.

OTHER THOUGHTS

Happy to see the Crown. I think Jill and Jax have the potential to foil Emercury to an extent, so I am happy to see them (it's them, right?) with Merc. It is also something I had always thought that Tyrian and Mercury's mission to Vacuo might have been to find some new allies there. The Crown were the obvious choice.

I feel neutral about team CFVY appearing so much in the epilogue. My guess is that they are set up to be minor foils to RWBY, kind of like the Happy Huntresses and the Ace Ops were in Atlas. I think the books give them enough set-up to solve their arc in a quick way, while commenting on those of the main characters.

I was surprised about the revelation of Salem attacking Vale. I wonder if she found the crown. I doubt it, so far and I think Glynda missing is clearly set-up as a future plot-point. In any case, we'll see. I am open to everything.

[zukosdualdao]

i’ve sometimes seen the idea that azula cheating in the agni kai by aiming at katara is supposed to show how far she’s fallen and how lost she is because she wouldn’t have cheated before, but that just… does not ring true to me.

i think this idea comes from her characterization of trying to live up to perfection, but i think it’s important to remember she’s functioning under ozai’s definition of perfection, a guy who infamously colluded with his wife to kill his father so that he could be firelord. i don’t get the particular sense he cares how, exactly, azula carries out the goals he’s set for her, as long as she accomplishes them.

and a lot of really prominent azula scenes turn on the axis of her being exactly this underhanded. in the avatar state, she tries to manipulate iroh and zuko into coming home under false pretenses, when she really means to arrest them. in bitter work, seeing she’s outnumbered, she makes a false surrender so that her opponents will hesitate/back down and then attacks iroh when they do. in the crossroads of destiny, she strikes aang with lightning from behind while he’s in the avatar state. in the awakening, she lies that zuko killed aang because she wants an insurance policy she won’t be blamed on a hunch he might be alive.

whether or not these break official rules of combat or acceptable legal/social behavior in-universe, i think it’s hard to deny that these actions form a pattern that showcases azula as someone not concerned with integrity or ideological fairness in such situations.

azula is a fascinating character, and her breakdown in sozin’s comet is tragic. but it’s not because she’s acting out of character; if anything, it’s because she’s falling back on old patterns despite her hallucination of her mother (and therefore her own subconscious) trying to warn her that using fear to control people isn’t truly viable. but that means her entire concept of the world is wrong, so she doubles down and shoots for katara, a noncombatant in this fight, having seen zuko agree to an agni kai in the hopes she wouldn’t get hurt and thus understanding he fears that and will make sure the lightning never reaches her. azula doesn’t care how she wins because it’s never mattered how she wins, as long as she does. but with katara defeating her and ozai’s impending downfall, it’s about to matter a lot more.

[imagine-silk]

Hello, I just discovered your blog. I love the way you write Fallout. Could I ask for companions reactions to seeing Sole after them being gone for a long time? As in they thought something happened to Sole and they grew anxious. Maybe some of them tried searching for them without a luck. Reunion if romanced would be that much more emotional.

》I kept them all platonic as a personal preference. Like a high emotional response that's not inherently romantic.

【Cait】 "What in the ever living fuck happened?" She screamed. It wasn't fully anger though, it was complete and utter hysteria. They were gone, just left and there was no rhythm or reason, not that she knew. Everyone thought she was going to slip into who she was before Sole but she didn't. She was a bit more testy but at the end of the day she helped and kept it together. When they came back she pushed through the crowd, shoving actually. They all thought they were going to see a touching reunion and they were right. She punched them. It was so confusing and sudden but at the end she pulled Sole up and held them tight.

【Codsworth】 He waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, he was willing to wait another two hundred years. He didn't want to but he was ready. The second Sole came back he floated up as fast as he could and gave them a teary greeting, "Welcome home, sir/mum. I... I've kept everything in order so we should get you cleaned up. I'm sure you're tired." When Sole brings him into a hug he cries.

【Curie】 It was, is, very hard on her; the sudden disappearance of a friend and integral part of the community. What she had left was their guidance of following her work and finding fulfillment in it. So she didn't dwell on it, it made her uncomfortable to do so. Then Sole came back and she couldn't stop crying, it ran like a river and broke like a dam. She tried to put it back but she couldn't. Sole held her and hummed in her ear, "It's okay to let it out."

【Danse】 When Sole disappeared he shut off from the world like he did after he found out he was a synth. The first week wasn't bad, Sole left periodically and they always came back. After that it hit him hard. There was nothing to do but wait for them to come back, staying home more and more and more. When Sole showed up he froze as they approached him like he was ready to bolt, even though he would never. The second they touched he fell into their arms.

【Deacon】 He would never admit he looked, and when he did no one believed him because the way he said it, just the way he wanted it. Keeping on was his motto. So he changed his face and hid again, this time in plan sight. As far as anyone knew, Deacon was gone, disappeared like Sole did. When Sole came back to Sanctuary he wanted to scream, but he just stood in the crowd. They came to him later and caressed his face, right where the lines were from the surgery. They smiled at him and all he could do is admit, "Heya, Sole."

【Dogmeat】 There was no way to follow, he tried. He went looking everywhere, going all around the Commonwealth twice over and found nothing. So he went back to Sanctuary and waited. He was Hachikō. However, Hachikō's master never came back. Dogmeat spotted them kneel for him and pushed them over, barking and licking happily.

【Hancock】 Of course he was upset, more upset than anyone would believe, but life went on and he had people to take care of. If he had never met Sole he would have dropped into a despair that would be impossible to know he would get out of, but he was on stable ground to carry on, as hard as it was. That foundation broke when he saw them. His legs acted by themselves and he threw him and Sole to the ground. What he did after was intentional, kissing all over their face.

【MacCready】 Life goes on, right? The Commonwealth was not a kind place so he just told himself there was no proof they were dead so they were alive. As simple as that. He knew it was Sole when he saw them, he wasn't in the business of seeing ghosts. The cold breeze felt strangely warm, and he dropped his gun to run. Run to a hard stop and spun around so they didn't fall. The Commonwealth wasn't a kind place so this was a blessing.

【Nick】 It was hard to look for someone with a cold trail, every lead was a dead end. He knew Sole was going to leave him alone one day, he just thought he'd be there for it, to maybe hold their hand while they slipped away. But that was robbed from him and he took his time grieving. So when they showed again he was elated and pulled them in, "Welcome back, partner." Tangling his hand in their hair and kissing the top of their head.

【Piper】 There is no universe where she doesn't look for Sole, and very little of them involves her actually finding them. Her life feels kind of empty without them. It's by the grace of Nat's existence that she keeps afloat. She starts drinking on and off and smoking a lot more. So when Sole comes back she falls apart, holding them so tight she might as well have dragged them inside of her.

【Preston】 To say he grieved was to say the sun was bright; it was true but no one could imagine how hot and harsh it really was, the destruction. Nothing ever seemed to go right. Then they came back and it was overwhelming. The joy was intoxicating but not the only thing. The confusion was eating him, 'why did they leave' he thought. The relief hugged him, that everything was okay and was going to be okay. But the biggest one was the anger. Where were they? Why did they just leave? How could they leave him after everything they'd been through, after what they knew about him? He goes home and breaks down when they come to him, spilling all of what he had.

【X6-88】 He didn't know why Sole left but he didn't allow himself to be upset. That didn't work of course. He just kept himself busy and working to distract himself but being helpful always reminded him of Sole. So when he saw they were back he reigned himself and walked up. He clasped their shoulder and welcomed them back. They smiled as bright as the sun and he pulled them into a hug so they couldn't see him break.

[narrans]

My Borrowed Son | 22 | Choices and Change

Chapter Twenty-Two | Choices and Change

Amanda knew she had messed up, but was now even the time to discuss it? Every expert she read about was saying the same thing. Every article and book indicated the same thing.

And yet Amanda couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Every adoption parenting book and article she researched said that integrating the fact that the child was adopted as soon and as early as possible would be the healthiest thing for them. Practically every study said that integrating this information as a part of every day life would keep a sense of normalcy and a sense of belonging for the child.

It helped in showing the child that even if they didn’t come from you, it didn’t mean they were loved or cared for any less. Sharing this information allowed open communication and questions in a “safe space.”

The only problem for Amanda was that she didn’t have the answers.

She didn’t tell Parker early on that she didn’t give birth to him.

She didn’t tell Parker that she found him at a children’s playground under a bench scared and alone after several powerful thunderstorms days prior.

She didn’t know what he was if he wasn’t a human with some kind of weird genetic disorder.

She didn’t even know if his real, biological parents were even alive.

No answers.

No hope of turning back the clock.

No way she could proceed delicately if she wanted to tell Parker anything about his origins.

So, when his fourteenth birthday came and went, Amanda realized that she could only prepare herself for when his questions would inevitably come. Everything was further complicated when Parker finally confessed that he thought he had feelings for his fellow classmate, Lyn.

Amanda had suspected Parker’s feelings for months now, but it wasn’t until he actually confessed that he thought he had a crush that it seemed real to her. It was obvious to Amanda, but Parker was a bit more reserved when it came to his confessions of puppy love for his friend.

No talk about being boyfriend and girlfriend was mentioned, but Amanda knew it was only a matter of time before any of this happened. It was an exciting and nerve wracking time, but Amanda couldn’t help but feel dread for what might lay on the horizon.

The thoughts about a discussion with Parker about him being adopted were also taking a back burner in her mind.

Recently, Amanda’s work had given her a promotion and wanted her to start coming into the office regularly rather than being virtual. She trusted her son in being alone in the apartment because she had done it before dozens of times when she needed to go out and couldn’t bring or hide Parker.

More than that was the fact Amanda wanted to move into a real home. A beautiful house in a nearby neighborhood had just become available and, after a lot of consideration, Amanda decided to talk to Parker about possibly moving from an apartment to a house.

“Nothing will change. You’ll still have your normal classes, but we wouldn’t be in a condo attached to other apartments anymore. We would have more space and could really made something special out of it,” explained Amanda.

Of course, Parker didn’t have to be sold hard on the idea. He had lived in the same place all his life and wanted his mom to be happy. She had talked about buying a house for years and Parker had always wanted to experience a move. All of his other friends seemed to experience it after all.

The promise of a new adventure was thrilling, so Parker agreed.

“Yeah! Is it a big place? Are there lots of rooms? Is it far away? Or is it close?” asked Parker.

“It’s a bit close actually. It’s just a few neighborhoods over, which might seem silly to move if it’s not a whole new area. It’s a fairly big place. There’s a big basement, a big living room, and three bedrooms,” explained Amanda.

“Woah! I can’t wait to tell Lyn,” beamed Parker as he continued to help clear his dishes after dinner. At this, he paused and glanced nervously up at his mom. “Do… you think… umm… well… do you think I could invite my friends over? Once we get all moved in and everything? Like… in time for my fifteenth birthday?”

Amanda’s stomach dropped as she considered Parker’s words.

Many of his friends had been around for four or five years. His really close friends seemed to be good kids and developing into decent teens.

The real question, however, was could they be trusted in handling Parker with care? Also, how would they react to seeing their friend in person? What would their reactions be to him being so small?

“I… Maybe. We’ll get settled first and then see if we can host something with some of your friends,” said Amanda.

Parker’s demeanor shifted from nervous to excited as he gave an excited shimmy and washed his dishes and then headed back to his room to finish a paper for his class.

Amanda knew she had an opportunity right then and there to possibly talk to Parker about why she had been so cautious, but diminishing that excitement in Parker’s eyes would break her heart.

She decided that this new move with new beginnings may be the best time to talk to her son about how he came into her life. Just as soon as they were settled, Amanda decided that she needed to talk to Parker about everything. Not knowing the answers wasn’t a good excuse anymore. Not wanting to hurt Parker wasn’t an option.

This was going to hurt both of them, but Amanda knew deep down that, as sick as it made her, she needed to address the truth regardless of consequences.

It would happen with the move and as soon as they were settled.

~~~^*^*^~~~

Kers heard the word “move” and knew he had a critical decision to make – stay in the apartment complex with the other humans he could borrow from or go with Amanda and Parker to watch over the Borrower child.

It wasn’t a difficult decision, but the logistics was the thing Kers was mainly concerned about. Moving as a Borrower was a tricky thing. There were too many things that could go wrong and twice as many things to worry about.

Kers could be seen, both by Amanda and by Parker.

Kers could be crushed by boxes or furniture pieces.

Kers could experience malnutrition and have a harder time finding food because humans became very particular about their food when moving.

Kers would have to start from scratch when moving to a new place if Borrowers didn’t occupy the home before he moved in.

The prospect of starting from scratch wasn’t an appealing one, but there was little else he could do. He made a silent promise to keep Parker safe, and that was what he intended to do.

So, with precision and care, Kers began packing all of his essentials in a go backpack. For his other essentials and items he had borrowed and wanted to take with him, Kers made the bold decision to put the items back into the human’s possession in the hopes he could borrow them back once they had finished the move.

Some of the things were blankets and kitchen supplies that were too heavy for him to carry with him. Other items he was able to deconstruct and slip into small boxes of miscellaneous nick knacks that the human, Amanda, never really bothered with.

It helped that Amanda had a big calendar countdown in the kitchen letting herself and Parker know how many days they had until the big move. It let Kers slip down into the kitchen and place his valuables into places Amanda might not look or grow suspicious of while she collected everything to move.

When the big day came, Kers felt his heart pounding in his throat. He had managed to collect nearly everything in his home and place it back into Amanda’s care temporarily. When Amanda began moving her boxes, the Borrower seized his opportunity.

Palms sweaty. Heart pounding distinctively slow in sync with every time his foot connected with the ground. Kers knew he had mere seconds to spare, but it didn’t stop his calmness of hand as he wrenched his hook from his hip and snagged it on the edge of the box.

Kers’ sprint was not half as taxing as the lightning fast climb he made into a nearby cluttered box of odds and ends. He just managed to get his hook free and found a hiding place, trusting his skills and praying he wasn’t noticed, before he felt the box begin to shift. He closed his eyes and hoped that nothing would reveal his hiding place.

The box jostled vigorously before being hoisted into the air at a nauseating speed. From where he was, Kers could see Amanda’s fingers poking through the box at the handholds. Kers held onto his gut and pinched his thumbs into his clenches fists as his breakfast threatened to make an appearance.

“Hang on, mom! Are my chargers in that box? Or in the other one?” asked Parker, whose voice was alarmingly close. Kers dared to glance up at the small gap of light at the top of the box as he wriggled further down into his hiding space beside some pen cups. From where he was, Kers could clearly see the charging cables Parker was referring to.

“Um… I think so,” Amanda replied, her much louder voice shaking the Borrower to his core.

“Is it okay if I check? I’ll be quick,” asked Parker. The question made Kers’ blood run cold.

Check?

Check!

You mean in the box?

Here?

Now?

Oh no…

Kers could do nothing as he listened to the sound of tiny feet pitter pad across the cardboard roof above him and watch as a small shadow filled the gap above him. He could only hope his Borrower skills had camouflaged him well enough so that Parker and his keen eyes wouldn’t notice him.

The small shadow of a fellow Borrower eclipsed the little bit of light at the top of the box before Kers heard a soft thump followed by an “ooff.” The disguised Borrower leaned back further and made sure he was braced for if the box was dropped suddenly. He knew the cardboard was too thick to cut through, but Kers had a clear path to those handholds Amanda was using now.

If he needed to, he could make a mad dash as long as that path wasn’t blocked.

No reassuring thoughts could quiet his relentlessly thumping heart. Each beat made his entire chest throb. Clenching his jaw and leaning back a little further, Kers could clearly see the little sandy haired Borrower teen rummaging through a few odds and ends at the opposite end of the box.

Seeing him up close really showed Parker’s form. He looked healthy and tall, which was a tribute to Amanda’s care. Amazing what good nutrition can do for you. He’s taller than the average Borrower, and he’s only going to get taller.

Parker suddenly turned around and, for a moment, Kers felt his heart skip a beat. Parker’s eyes widened and then squinted in rapid succession.

Kers held his breath.

Everything – time itself – stood still before Kers saw a smile curl Parker’s lips.

“Found them! They’re over there in the corner,” called Parker as he spun back around toward the light and jumped, catching the edge of the cardboard with his fingertips and hoisting himself up and out of the box.

Kers wanted to shout to release all of the pent-up energy his body was charged with in those tense moments, but instead he forced himself to breathe calmly and nodded slowly.

That was close.

That was too close.

One of us needs to talk to Parker sooner or later.

Kers could only imagine what kind of interaction that would have been had Parker actually spotted him hiding there under the various wires and contraptions in the box. It only ended poorly for everyone no matter how Kers thought about it.

It only reaffirmed the fact that Parker needed to know the truth whether or not he was asking the right questions.

It was time.

At least, it was nearing time.

Kers realized that he needed to get to the new house and settled in, relatively speaking, before addressing Parker. It occurred to Kers that possibly addressing Amanda first might be a better alternative to talking to Parker first, but the thought of talking to a human and willingly revealing Borrower-kind made him sick.

Sadly, it was probably the best way to go about it. Revealing himself directly to Parker would bring about trust issues between him and his mother and possibly make Parker resent his mother. If Kers talked to Amanda and answered her questions first, perhaps when she talked to Parker she would have those answers and then be able to refer to Kers, their friendly neighborhood wall walker, for further explanation.

It would show that Amanda wanted to talk to Parker about everything and wasn’t trying to hide information while also telling him the truth.

Parker deserved it.

He was a good kid.

He was going to be a man before long.

It wasn’t going to be easy or pretty, but just mulling over the concepts and ideas of addressing everything to Parker and Amanda helped keep the Borrower’s mind off of the overall trip. He didn’t even notice the roar of the car engine or the jostling all around him as the boxes around him.

The car finally came to a halt and after what felt like an hour of waiting in the darkness of the vehicle trunk the jostling came to his box as it was carried into the house. The whole thing felt like tumbling down a bumpy hill or a knotted line, every step making his insides lurch. Kers could only guess that Amanda was more careful when she was carrying around Parker; he hoped so at least.

When the world finally stopped moving, Kers remained completely still for another twenty minutes. His heart pounded uncomfortably as the thought that Parker could come climbing down into the box for his various belongings interrupted any and all of Kers’ strategic plans to escape his current environment.

It wasn’t until he was certain he was going to be alone for the next few minutes that Kers dared to push himself up, grab his pack, and climb up to the handhold to get a better view of his surroundings.

The living area was hard wood, which would make any movement very audible if he wasn’t light on his toes, and from where Kers was he could spot the kitchen and a set of stairs leading to an upstairs.

The vastness of the room and complete lack of cover made his instincts feel electrified, but all he needed was one clear shot to get into the walls. The sensation and difficulty of the task made his head swirl, but Kers took a few deep breaths to calm himself.

Go. Now!

That instinct in his mind screamed just as he began wiggling his way through the handhold on the box. Every hair stood on end. Every sound seemed amplified. The tremor in the ground felt like an earthquake.

Amanda was on her way back.

Kers knew he had only seconds to react, and he took full advantage of it.

Slinging his pack onto his back, Kers dared to drop from one box to the next without a security line all the way to the ground where he fell instantly into a crouch. His body seemed to move on its own as he rounded the corner just as Amanda passed right behind and headed toward the kitchen with a box of supplies in her arms.

One glance told Kers that Parker was riding on Amanda’s shoulder and seeing them both towering above him was crippling. Heart palpitating, Kers took his chance as he spotted an electrical outlet at the far end of the living room. He was sure he was making noise. It sounded like he was running around crashing into everything he could, which was not the case.

He had just made it to the electrical cover and unscrewed the faceplate when he heard Amanda and Parker talking about how they wanted to set up Parker’s room. It made Kers’ heart hurt hearing the excitement in the young teen’s voice.

There was such zeal and innocence there.

It took a couple of good tugs, but Kers finally managed to yank free the cover as he practically threw himself into the walls and covered the hole once more.

As Kers slipped into the comfort of the walls, he let himself breathe his first true sigh of relief all day. Though he knew borrowing back the things he mixed into Amanda’s belongings would be a trick, he knew he was once again safe within reason.

The Borrower sank to the ground, sliding down the wall slowly, and sat there against the stud of a load bearing wall. Something in his heart refused to quiet. It was either fate or pure dumb luck that Parker hadn’t seen him earlier.

Kers chuckled to himself quietly as the irony hit him. Here he was worried that Parker – a fellow Borrower – saw him as if Parker were a human.

Well… I suppose he kind of is all things considering.

Once he gathered himself, Kers hoisted himself and his pack onto his back. There was a lot to do and there was never enough time to do it.

First things first was to find a nice place to sleep and set up a temporary base of operations. There was nothing worse during a move than trying to fun from one side of the house to the othe when there was a decent middle ground that reached all of the essential spots.

For Kers, that usually was at or around the kitchen, so that’s where he headed. The pack on his back felt like it weighed a whole pound, but he refused to leave these things behind. It honestly showed him what living a sedentary life felt like, especially when collecting things with sentimental value.

It was a new experience, and something about it felt oddly good. Borrowers, after all, didn’t usually get to keep many trinkets and bobbles and knick-knacks that amused them. They needed to be able to move at the drop of a hat. They lived everywhere and nowhere.

Nomads.

Sojourners.

Borrowers.

What was on their backs was already too much to carry. It didn’t stop Kers from collecting what he did and bringing it with him.

Despite the aching it caused his bones and muscles, Kers trekked through the walls with steady confidence. He had moved many times before, carrying those same things with him everywhere ever since he was a child.

Now was no different.

He would start from scratch and work his way back up to having a home, but he wouldn’t part with these things. It would be difficult. He knew it. But it wasn’t different than anything else he had ever done.

He also knew, as he turned his hip lamp and held it to the ground, that there wasn’t hardly enough dust in between the walls and beams. There were holes from thumb tacks in weird places. It was his next discovery that truly solidified Kers’ suspicions. There was even a small pencil drawing that looked like a simple house with an arrow heading further into the walls.

Excitement and nervousness instantly churned his insides.

I haven’t even been here twenty minutes and already I think there might be someone else living here in the walls.

Kers’ suspicions were confirmed when he wiggled his way through a narrow board that looked like it had been purposefully cut and smoothed over and saw Christmas and fairy lights twinkling around the next corner.

The Borrower swallowed dryly as every possible scenario clouded his mind. This was both the best thing and the worst thing possible.

Best because he didn’t need to start from scratch and had others he could potentially rely on if they were friendly.

Worst because they could see Kers as an enemy. What was worse still was that they didn’t know about Amanda, Parker, and the circumstances surrounding this human mother and Borrower child duo.

Kers had decided over four years ago to help and protect Parker. If that had to be from other Borrowers before Parker was ready for the truth, so be it.

No sooner had Kers made this decision did he hear voices coming from around the corner. They sounded like a mix of ages and genders, but Kers guessed it was a dad and at least three kids, two boys and a girl.

Kers didn’t want to scare them and did the only polite thing to do.

“Hello?” he called, no plan and every prayer to his name.

~~~~~^*^*^*^*^~~~~~

Continue

Previous

Beginning

[grainjew]

On Gallifreyan Vestigial Gender

[this is the revised and expanded version of some rambling i initially did in my cowriter's discord DMs. i tried cite sources where i could, but a lot of this has been marinating in my brain since half-absorbing posts twenty pages deep into peoples' dw tags 3 years ago, and also i spend way too much time on the wiki, so please excuse anything i can't quite source, which is most of it. huge thanks to @oriigami for being my original conversation partner and contributing extremely to the concepts here, and to @bird-of-paradox and @waywren, neither of whom I am being allowed to @, for bothering me into not leaving it as unreadable discord screenshots]

-

There's this tendency among queer Doctor Who fans to look at Time Lord society, with its alienness and regeneration, and ask, frustrated, "Why do they even have gender?"

I sympathize with this extremely. I've been the one asking this question plenty in the past, and I do think it's a bit silly, and even sillier that the genders are "man" and "woman" and there are apparently two of them. But I also think that the section of canon most insistent about the Gallifreyan gender binary, the 7th Doctor novels from the 90s, also has the potential to be the most interesting about it.

Now, this is not to say that the text of those novels isn't weird about gender in a flawed, written by (as far as I know) cis people in the 90s way. But I think that you can extrapolate and queer what's there in very interesting ways, often because it's so flawed in the first place: Gallifrey, too, is an extremely flawed society. Decadent, degenerate, and rotten to the core, as the show put it.

So, VNAs Gallifrey: living Houses and their female Housekeepers, cultural and literal planet-wide sterility, Loom birth, rigid overcomplicated bureaucracy, the enduring legacy of the pre-Rassilon Pythian regime. The gender binary as presented here goes something like

women: chaos/magic/psychic powers/superstition/the house (scary)/biological childbirth/fertility men: cold rationality/order/science/bureaucracy/loom-birth/sterility

The Pythia and the Lord President. Magic and science. The House and the Web of Time.

Obviously a lot of this is classic gender binary stuff. But let's put the exasperated question of "Why must we do the gender binary like this?" aside for a moment and think about Gallifreyan society instead.

Pythia-ruled and Time Lord-ruled Gallifrey have a lot of the same problems in the end, just wearing different faces: they're both very much totalitarian states that believe themselves to be above everyone else. But while the Time Lords observe and micromanage the Web of Time from their Panopticon, maintaining its integrity to their standards, the Pythians didn't have time travel, so this preoccupation with control manifested--as far as I know; this is the bit in the meta where I admit I haven't actually read Time's Crucible yet--as keeping the entirety of society in one psychic hivemind, leaving nobody any privacy, plus a lot of future-reading and prophecy and whatnot.

The main relics of that societal layout into post-Rassilon Gallifreyan society are the Matrix, which has every single dead Time Lord's brain in it and does their prophecies for them, just couched in a little bit more science than Pythian magic, the Houses, which are alive all around you and in which you're constantly being watched by the Housekeeper through her mirrors, and, of course, the gender binary.

The Pythia was always a woman. Women were the ones with vast psychic powers, with magic; women were the ones in charge. Pythian Gallifrey was a heavily gendered society. This is because Gallifreyans are a kind of bug /shot with the "irrelevant to the point at hand" gun.

And so, when Rassilon rebelled, he was very much playing the part of "opposite gender with opposite worldview." The Pythia had female magic and superstition; he had male science and technology. His most trusted Founders were either all or mostly men, depending on the version of events you prefer. (Personally I have my doubts about the Other.) Rassilon built his new society as a man, among men, in opposition to the matriarchs before him.

Gallifrey, despite the invention (or theft, depending on the story) of regeneration allowing people to trans their gender randomly and sometimes unintentionally, never left the gender binary behind.

The whole point of modern Gallifreyan society is that they're still stuck in that exact same moment Rassilon took over (and the Pythia cursed them to sterility, if thats the version you're going with). You could easily make an argument for this being some cycle of abuse type situation; Rassilon and co overthrew the Pythia and immediately did exactly what she was doing to them to the wider universe. I tend to read it as a regeneration: it's the same society, really. It just died and was reborn, and now it looks and sounds different.

-

The downside of trying to translate a discord conversation into a proper meta post is that sometimes making a coherent transition between thoughts is impossible. So to introduce the next bit of this post, I'm going to hand you off for a moment to this post about the 8th Doctor's "I'm not sure I've ever even been a man" quote from Interference. As op of that post says, the Doctor is genderqueer even by Gallifreyan standards- he's being questioned in that scene by another Gallifreyan, who doesn't understand his experience of gender.

The EDAs are full of "Eight is nonbinary" quotes, of course. Every queer fan who's ever engaged with them has a collection (and if anyone knows where that one google doc compilation that was going around awhile back went I'd be in your debt, because I'd love to know if my collection is missing any), but almost all those quotes refer to his genderqueerness in human terms, as observed by human companions, or in response to human assumptions. Except that one. Not only is Gallifrey's gender binary alive and well in a society where people can literally change their gender when they die, but the Doctor doesn't fit inside it.

All this to say that being a renegade Time Lord is a nonbinary thing to do. Especially the Doctor, with all sorts of weird Other Timeless nonsense in their biodata. Women stay on Gallifrey (or Karn!) and do magic and watch you. Men stay on Gallifrey and do science and watch other people. Renegades go out and do whatever they please. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

-

So. Gallifrey has a gender binary. It's vestigial, a remnant of an earlier iteration of society with a much sharper male-female divide, and it doesn't make logical sense for it to exist. So: How does it manifest? And what function does its continued existence serve in the interests of the status quo and ruling class?

Let's take a look at 7th Doctor novel Lungbarrow.

Lungbarrow introduces us to (among many other things) the living Houses of the Time Lord Families, and to the family structures within: the patriarchal figure of the Kithriarch, the always-female Housekeeper, bound in her ritual marriage to the House itself, and hordes of petty squabbling Cousins.

Kithriarch is already an interesting title. It's obviously a gender neutral version of matriarch or patriarch, but the role itself seems to be almost entirely a male sort of thing in opposition to the feminine Housekeeper.

The Housekeeper, meanwhile, seems to be in a direct conceptual and societal line of descent from the Pythian priestesses: she can see anything within her domain, she has a psychic connection to the House, from whom she cannot hide anything, she can command the wooden Drudge servants and other House subsystems, she prioritizes the House above all where the Kithriarch is supposed to prioritize the Family. Women are frightening and powerful psychics. They know everything you want to keep secret, and prioritize the collective.

(There's also something here about how Lungbarrow presents duelling dualities--the Doctor and the Master, the CIA head and the Lord President, the Kithriarch and the Housekeeper, the masculine and the feminine--but I haven't quite tied it into the rest of this yet.) (Although while we're mentioning the Master. He's girlcoded by Gallifreyan standards and the Rani is boycoded by the same. I will not be expanding on this at this time just trust me.)

I think Housekeepers and women who want to be Housekeepers try to keep their self-image as women strong enough that they never regenerate into a male body (whatever a '"male body" means, of course, but I'm not sure Time Lords have gotten that far in their queer theory yet). I also think that there are more female Kithriarchs than male Housekeepers, because Housekeeper is much more heavily ritualized role in keeping with the Pythia's more ritualized general vibe, but I do think female Kithriarchs are still few and far between.

I also think that these are probably the most explicitly gendered occupations on Gallifrey, although of course you'll see some drift. Most women are out there getting the same scientific, military, and bureaucratic positions as men. But there's this lingering specter of gender roles, a Pythia-shaped hole that exists around the concept of womanhood. As my cowriter put it when we were talking about this, an "ideal of womanhood. not ‘ideal’ as in desirable, [but] ‘ideal’ as in the quintessential image of the thing."

This is further amplified by the continued existence of the Pythians in the form of the Sisterhood of Karn, living in their perfectly functional all-women magic society just out of sight. Their presence at the edge of the Gallifreyan consciousness must haunt the Time Lords, as any imperialist power is haunted by its own past and its own ultimate impotence.

Because that's the other thing. Gender roles are, to quote my cowriter again, "stupid and antiquated and historically potent tools of authoritarianism." Of course the Time Lords have them. Have you seen them?

They're tools of control, of conformity, of idealizing the past. Of conservatism. Consider, to once more quote my cowriter, "the weird traditionalist psychosis of having gender roles in a society that can’t bear children."

The ideal woman on Gallifrey is still the Pythia, millenia or even billenia on. And the ideal man is still the Lord President Rassilon.

-

[thank you for your time! if you liked this please consider checking out my fic Something Old, which is about lungbarrow, the adventuress of henrietta street, and the gallifreyan concept of marriage, and in the writing of which i initially articulated most of the thoughts in this post. i've previously characterized it as a fic that's actually a meta post. and please don't be too mean to me for anything i got wrong in here! i'm just a little guy]

[sainteda]

hotd finale spoilers

i think the core issue w the finale scene isn't alicent's willingness to cleave to rhaenyra for mercy as otto once warned her she would or even to recognize that to finally choose a life for herself her sons will likely die (although an 8ep season missing integral scenes like a confrontation w aemond immediately post-s1 or more impact from b&c [given instead to a mishandled alicole plot] is also a big problem), it's the viserys worship ingrained in his every mention or lack thereof. alicent has to recycle an arc of powerlessness she's already endured her entire life, as if to drill into the minds of an audience that was already unwilling to sympathize with her that — actually — she's powerless! who would have thought! because the show refuses to recognize viserys for what he was, or at the VERY LEAST what he did to her, alicent's journey to rhaenyra (and more importantly, away from court) has to be borne of a million new heavy-handed methods the writers have concocted to hit her while she's down, and then hit her again. and again. and again.

alicent can't come to rhaenyra and plead her case while simultaneously reckoning with her anger that this is not new! this is not just her sons or the green council! she was sold off by her only family to the father of the only person she ever chose and it caused her to lose her and she was a child! she never wanted to marry viserys. she never wanted her children. he forced her to have them and then he discarded them and he's lauded even in death for his consideration and judiciousness when he never considered her. why can't she be angry at him!! why bother writing her grief over who she could have been without acknowledging one of the two people who took that version of her away? it's so hollow. the alicent who seeks out rhaenyra on dragonstone is needlessly humbled, lobotomized, and her lines read almost as if she's pleading her case to the audience instead of rhaenyra herself. why can she not be desperate to be heard while the epiphany of not only her lack of autonomy but of personhood itself fights not to bubble over the surface? shouldn't her grief be heaviest now, for not even knowing herself but coming to rhaenyra anyway? rhaenyra who might be the only choice she can remember making? isn't there an inherent anger in that? she could have taken helena and jaehera and gone as far as possible but she's here, before her opposition, grasping at an olive branch she knows is broken, because it's what she would have done the last time she was a person who could choose. it's what she wanted twenty years ago, and what else is there. there's been no alicent since but whoever she had to be to keep herself and her children alive. isn't that fucked up??? hello???

i understand it's a reversal of the scene in the sept so rhaenyra is shutting alicent down but it just makes alicent's path to freedom to look more like a new form of submission. as if her fears weren’t justified. as if her anger in season 1 was petty jealousy rectified once she Saw The Light (rhaenyra). anyways. regardless of hes that she's talking about her and rhaenyra through viserys and aemma, i really don't think i can overstate the wrongness of alicent speaking fondly of him in a scene that's supposed to be about her coming to terms with a lifetime of being used particularly by men — and still continuing to extol a man who quite literally raped her in a scene that is In the show. am i supposed to forget the marital rape of a child bride? the one that they put in the show. on purpose. ??? how am i supposed to view that as anything but disingenuous?

[guardianspirits13]

Ok now for a list of things that I'm kind of iffy about or wish they had kept from the books. It's worth noting that I can't think of a single show exclusive scene they added that I did not like, and most of the changes were integrated flawlessly.

Starting out, the pacing. I'm hoping this gets better with time, especially given that the second episode has much more time to breathe. The whole first episode felt a little cramped, and some of the exposition felt a bit... exposition-y. I don' t think there is much they could have done to get around this though so I'm not gonna dwell on it.

As a fan of the series, I love how they introduced the structure and function of the PJO world with the intro, but I think the jump from "Percy sees things" to "everything is all real" felt a bit abrupt. I am curious what first time fans think about this, and again the first episode covers a lot more ground page-wise than ep 2.

Manchild Gabe... I am not sure how I feel about this. In the books he seemed downright threatening and even with Percy's 12yo bravado, he was still an intimidating figure. His bickering with Sally seemed more like your typical dysfunctional relationship than a power imbalance... both can be harmful in their own way, but I'm still undecided on how much giving Sally a bit more agency in her relationship with him effects the larger story. The whole "not all monsters look like monsters" thing works well in the books with Gabe, but I guess they were redirecting it to foreshadow Luke's betrayal? I'm not sure.

...which brings me to Sally. I was unsure about the casting, but she has earned her stay to me. I always imagined her as a bit more subdued, especially with the more intense iterations of Gabe. She's kind and gentle and has a rebellious streak, but as worried as she might be for Percy she hides it inside of herself. I think her being a bit more expressive as a character works in this setting though, especially since we aren't seeing her through Percy's kid colored lenses. She feels a bit less like the perfect, kind, and understanding mother Percy sees, and a bit more like a real-life single mother trying to keep some of that childhood wonder alive despite everything. She does seem younger than I would have expected, but that's a nitpick on my end. I think she is one character that I will always have a separate book/show counterpart for in my mind.

Ok. Now for Clarisse. Out of all the characters I was skeptic about, I think she's the only one who didn't win me over. This is a writing issue, nothing at all to do with the actress. She was characterized more as a 'queen bee' type mean girl than a bully who picks fights just to feel worthy of her father's approval. She would be better fit for a vindictive daughter of Aphrodite than a daughter of Ares. My mind might be changed in the future but we got most of her scenes in these first two episodes so I'm doubtful. The one moment that had potential was when Percy broke her spear, but the Clarisse I know would not back off just because there is an audience.

There was no hellhound... I was kinda looking forward to it, and it does emphasize that even camp isn't really safe for Percy and is a catalyst for both his quest and the idea that there is a traitor. I can kind of see why the cut it for thematic purposes so Percy feels safe for once in his life, but that's only if I squint.

The scene cuts. I know, I know they're supposed to mimic book chapters. I get it. But it just doesn't work for me, it feels like there's a lack of establishing shots and the black screen is long enough you think the tv is buffering. It's an interesting idea in concept, but the execution falls flat.

OH also as far as things that were missing- the 3 fates. I know this is in the show since it was in the trailers, but I'm curious as to where they're gonna put it now.

Anyways minor nitpicks aside these two episodes were an emotional roller coaster and absolute masterpieces of television cinema.

[thegreatimpersonator]

Yeah, it’s weird people are more upset at the not supporting Taylor angle to this. But it makes sense. They have put this guy on the highest pedestal imaginable. Making him out to be not only her best bf to date, but the perfect man for her and an ideal for all her fans. And he has done a good job appearing as the ideal bf. But like so many things, it is probably extremely performative. And when it came down to actually showing some integrity when it mattered, he failed. So it’s probably a gut punch to a lot of fans. Whether it is Taylor or Travis or whoever the fuck else, lesson is don’t put too much stock in wealthy white celebrities. They don’t care about the things that affect the average person. But they are usually damn good at pretending they do because it makes them money.

I wonder if Travis is really aware of how much they’d eat him alive if he and Taylor didn’t work out. Cause this is a nice little preview.

"They have put this guy on the highest pedestal imaginable. Making him out to be not only her best bf to date, but the perfect man for her and an ideal for all her fans."

see that's the thing tho, she is still very much a good match for him, but not in the positive way they like to think. she also has begun to pander to republicans just like him- just in a more subtle way. by fans only being mad at travis for 'not supporting taylor' and saying things like 'how dare he not call out the man that said he hated her', and not because he isn't firmly against trump aka a fascist asshole, also shows that swifties also believe that taylor is still some liberal activist, which she is so far from.

the amount of people i've seen say things like 'oh taylors gonna dump him now', 'we're gonna get a good song!' etc.... did we all forget who she dated before him? the vocal bigot who was soooo racist and ignorant? and she defended him? in what world would travis being not so subtly warm to trump be her final straw? she's friends with vocal trump supporters?

like the fact that swifties main takeaway is 'oh wow travis might not be the great person we all thought, taylor it's time to get rid of him' and not 'oh wow yet another problematic person taylor has chosen to associate with' and just continuing to let their parasocial relationship cloud their judgement is wild to me.

[queenvhagar]

I hope that once Rhaenyra does take the throne they stick to the books and make her go mad. I want to see her get cut by the Iron Throne but I don’t have high hopes. I feel like that once again will be ‘Green Propaganda’

The writers have written themselves into a corner, and now they have two options of how to proceed with this:

1) they write Rhaenyra the mad queen arc where she increasingly gets paranoid and her superiority complex and entitlement lead her to believing her own version of reality is correct over others and she starts making increasingly selfish and harmful decisions, like heavy taxes on the smallfolk to fund her war in the midst of a food insecurity crisis and demanding the dragonseeds be captured and/or Rhaena (the new Nettles apparently 🙄) be killed, resulting in her allies turning against her and her being completely isolated when eventually the smallfolk run her out of the city to Dragonstone and her ultimate death.

This route by the writers will likely incur the wrath of the general audience who will cry sexism especially after the whitewashed treatment Rhaenyra has gotten so far in the show. Fans will hate on the show for redoing what happened to Daenerys even if it is well developed and deserved in terms of the story. It will also incur a lot of late seasons Game of Thrones comparisons which the writers could hope to avoid. No matter how faithfully it's adapted, it's likely gonna be hated on by casual fans and specifically hardcore Targ and Daenerys stans.

2) they write the "mad queen" arc for Rhaenyra but it's actually just something other people accuse her of being, while we the audience are supposed to view her as the one sane person in a world of selfish power hungry men. She will make her decisions out of necessity and the audience will be supposed to view it as her trying to be a good person and queen in an impossible situation. Then the smallfolk will kick her out because of misogyny or something out of her control, and it'll be so tragic that this woman tried to fight the patriarchy and failed and now she faces a true dragonrider death of being burned alive and possibly eaten by Sunfyre. All factors from the book regarding this arc will be outright labeled Green propaganda.

This route will continue to completely crush the integrity of the show and erase the themes of the original story. The narrative will have to bend around this original take at the sacrifice of important essential plot points and characterizations and ultimately the only takeaway from the story will be the surface level faux-deep take of "misogyny hurts women." However, this way the writers get to avoid the Daenerys trap and do what they think the fans wanted out of that story, despite how illogical it would be to play out in-universe. The show will ultimately have a legacy of complete mediocrity and also cement the reputation of the ASOIAF universe as the next MCU (just "edgier" with taboo topics like incest and the like, carrying over certain surface level qualities from the Game of Thrones series but including none of the intrigue or politics that were the reason the show was so good in the first place). In this scenario, the general audience uncritically laps it up and calls it profound but fans of the series and the book are tossed aside.

[cherrylng]

Green Day "iDOS!" interview [ROCKIN'ON (November 2012)]

GREEN DAY 『iDOS!』

Green Day already talked about "Dos!", the follow-up to "Uno!" Fastest interview ever!

“"Dos!" feels like a party in hell, and it gets darker and darker until the end. The last one is a love letter to the dead Amy Winehouse.”

Shortly after its release, "Uno!" is being played all over the world, and the release of the second album of the trilogy, "Dos!" is also just around the corner. Since their explosive energy live show at this year's Summer Sonic, I've been overwhelmed by Green Day's momentum that has taken over the entire second half of this year. In previous interviews, they have talked about the theme of "Dos!" with keywords such as "sex," "garage rock," and "party," but the 13 songs that I actually listened to are the most vulgar in Green Day's history, and it is an album that dares to step into territory that they have avoided. From the bold rock'n'roll "Fuck Time" that lives up to its straightforward title, to the reggae-style "Nightlife" featuring a mysterious female rapper, to "Amy" dedicated to the late singer, the unprecedented variety is surprising, but it all has a rough power to it. Of course, they don't want to act like badasses anymore. They are once again throwing themselves into pleasure and violence, with a bird's eye view that the dirty side is an integral part of life's energy. ……But then came the news that Billie Joe was hospitalised for substance abuse. I hope it is only temporary, but I am worried. I hope he gets well soon and shows us a healthy figure! (Kotaro Matsumura)

This time, "Dos!" is the second of three consecutive releases, how are you feeling so far? Billie: 「Yeah, I think everyone will listen to all three albums. Because who wouldn't want to? When you listen to "Uno!", or rather "Oh Love", you feel like you want to hear what happens next. Then, when you listen to (the first song on "Dos!") "See You Tonight" which is a little sad, it snowballs into the super rock 'n' roll "Fuck Time". From there, "Dos!" feels like a party in hell, and it just gets darker and darker until the end. The last song, "Amy", is about what happens to people in the end when life gets really dark, and that's something I've actually experienced. I mean, it's a song about Amy Winehouse, but it's about how when life goes down the wrong path, it can end in painful repercussions. But it's never about warning other people, it's more of a love letter to, how should I say it, people I wish were still alive.」

Did you interact with Amy Winehouse before she died? Billie: 「No, I've never actually met Amy. I just know her music, I'm not a big fan, but I think her music is a bridge between old soul music and now, and she definitely tried to do that. She knew first wave ska and all that stuff, and she brought it into the new era. I think in music, people like that are very rare, and her passing is a great loss that we can't get back. And I don't know when we'll see someone like that again. So the selfish part of me can't help but ask, "Why?" It was really hard, and it was hard to watch the news.」

How do you think you guys have managed to stay together as a band so far without experiencing a tragedy like Amy's? Mike: 「Yeah, what's fun is, we just celebrate rock 'n' roll. We've been doing that for a long time. We've played together for so many years really, we've been able to see the world, and we keep challenging ourselves. We've been on the top so many times and we're still intact and we're still doing this with passion. We work hard, we play hard and well, I hope we play much more than we work (laughs).」 Billie: 「Right now, I think if we could go back to the old hardcore scene — I mean the original hardcore scene that lasted about five years in the 80s that we were never a part of. I think that scene created the "do it or fuck off" attitude of the time. One of my favourite bands, Operation Ivy, put everything on their first album, but they did it because they were in a situation where they didn't know if they could make a second album at all. And they never actually made a second album. Instead, they became Rancid. So, I mean, we didn't take that stance, but I think somewhere in the back of our heads we knew we could carry on. We didn't know how we were going to do it, but, you know, somewhere in the back of our heads we knew. And now we've done not one, but eight albums, and now we've done eleven. That's if you add all three of this one.」 Tre: 「We're definitely going to include all three (laughs).」 Billie: 「That's a lot of records in a 22-year career.」 Tre: 「I'm just happy that through all the years of touring, writing, and recording, we're still great friends, we're still playing and singing better, we're still improving in bed (laughs). It's good to be able to evolve and when you look at everything we've achieved so far, it's awesome. It's like one step at a time…… Oh, that's off topic. Anyway, we're the best. That's what I mean!」

Some of the songs on this album sound country, like "Drama Queen". Billie: 「I wouldn't call that song country. It's more like—」 Tre: 「Shuffle?」 Billie: 「Yes, it's a shuffle. But I'd say it sounds more British Invasion-ish. I think it's got a bit of a Ray Davies meets Small Faces feel to it. I wrote it when I was making "21st Century Breakdown". I was doing a thing where I'd spin two roulettes and make up a song from the words on the board, and, er……」

The theme of the song, you mean? Billie: 「Yeah, themes, one is “tabloid” and the other style of music is……」 Mike: 「It was like “Emotion”.」 Billie: 「Maybe piano, I don't know, it started with piano and then it got a little silly……」 Mike: 「So it's like a very happy song, but a bit sad. My son was dancing to it the other day and he said, “Dad, I love this song, but it's sad, isn't it?” He's three years old. He's very perceptive.」

And "Nightlife" includes female rap. Who is that? Billie: 「"Nightlife" is one of those songs that a lot of people don't expect and are surprised by. I myself am still a bit surprised. When we were in Austin, Texas, we were jamming in a room trying to write a song that would be a sister version of "Kill the DJ", and we came up with the chorus and the bridge. I had a friend there who was in a band called the Mystic Knights of the Cobra, and they had a song called "Text Messaging Slut". We cut out the rap of Lady Cobra, aka Monica Painter, who is in "Text Messaging Slut", and mashed up the two songs. We played it for her and asked her, "What do you think?" and she said, "Haha, that's interesting," and just walked away. So I called her afterwards and said, "Can you come over and make something for us?" So that's how we wrote the song, and it's about something sinister or something. She ended up coming over, drank like half a case of beer, and did a great rap.」 Tre: 「She started spitting out her “knowledge”.」 Billie: 「Yeah, I mean, she belted out the rhymes in her style.」 Mike: 「When I listen to this song, I get a sense of danger. Dangerous, erotic, dirty, sexy. When you listen to it, you'll understand why we collaborated and did this.」 Tre: 「There are a lot of hip-hop songs out there where, for example, it's like a song where a famous rapper has a friend sing the hook. But this one is the opposite. We have a famous hook singer, Billie Joe, and Lady Cobra, aside from where she's from, Crockett, California, she pretty much has a lot of tattoos and is shrouded in mystery. So it's the complete opposite of what other people are doing now.」 Mike: 「Yeah, I don't know any other tattoo artists that rap that well (laughs).」 Billie: 「The album starts with a song called “Lady Cobra”, which leads into “Nightlife”, and those two songs are connected in a really cool way. It's kind of like you're on a journey with someone, which is kind of the concept of the album. But it's not like we're trying to make a concept album or a story, it's just the feeling that there's something dangerous going on.」

Towards the end of the album, it's like it just gets faster and faster. Billie: 「I think it gets weird and unruly around “Ashley”.」 Mike: 「Some people would say that's where the party gets going.」 Tre: 「Some people get too drunk (laughs).」 Billie: 「Then it's “Baby Eyes,” which is also called “Born to Kill,” which then goes to “Lady Cobra,” which then becomes “Nightlife,” which then becomes “Wow! That's Loud.” My wife came to me in this outfit and asked me, "What do you think?" The colour was too bright, so I said, "Wow, that's loud". Then I wrote it down and thought, "That's a cool title", and that's where it came from (laughs). But in the song, I was trying to create a reverberating sound in the bridge, which is similar to what you hear when you're on MDMA, so you might not get it when you're sober, but if you're high on MDMA and you hear that part and you're on a bad trip, you might feel like, oh man, I need to take a Valium! (laughs)」

Translator's Note: This interview is quite short and only last 2 pages, but not gonna lie, the pics for this interview are really aesthetically pleasing to the eyes.

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[wolfertinger]

disclaimer: this isn't a salem apology. he's still a vile person.

hi professionally diagnosed DID system here to clear up something. integration =/= fusion. integration refers to the whole process of alters learning to become more conscious of each other and cooperate together, not just fusing. integration slowly leads into, the more you start to function and recover, alters and fragments fusing, usually starting from ones that share similar personalities and tasks. the state of "not having any alters anymore" is referred to as final fusion and isn't necessarily the end goal for a system. when dissociative walls between alters - and the resulting dissociative amnesia - are high, you can lose track of alters for periods of time. there's nothing suspicious so far to me about the way salem described his alter as "gone" and then realizing that she was dormant. and this kind of feeling of 'vanishing' or dormancy during stressful periods is what leads to a lot of people thinking their alters are gone or dead, because that's how your brain can rationalize it at first, even as alters can't truly 'die'. for lack of a better word, the 'material' that makes up alters just moves around as alters get (usually slowly) integrated or split. alters are isolated patterns of behaviors and memories, and an alter doesn't need to be aware of what's happening in order for the subconscious (the system) to combine and take apart things. that being said, fusing can also get mixed up with splitting very easily since they both involve that sense of 'alters disappearing / changing', so the kind of shape and relationship punnya and salem have with each other right now apart from salem being host, i can't say. being host just means that you're in front the most often. but it's not far-fetched or proof of faking for punnya and salem to have similar personalities and do similar things. if anything, it's proof that salem has DID, since several alters in my system responsible for social interactions (myself included) have similar interests and act in a similar way. tldr salem can eat dirt for the kind of person he is and he needs to take better responsibility for how he's acted, regardless of the alter, but that doesn't mean he's faking DID.

answering this one separately, as i appreciate the info a lot. i dont take fake claiming lightly and although other systems have cast doubt if he does or does not have DID/OSDD is ultimately unknown to us, we can only judge based on behavior he shows publicly.

i think regardless of if he has DID or not my most pressing concern is that he needs to be upfront and accept the blame for his actions. instead of pushing the blame to an alter that he cant keep the story straight with. originally he talked about punnya as if she died then said she was alive the whole time and merged with him and is now part of him again. which i dont doubt could happen if punnya went dormant from stress but to me this feels like him subtly trying to cop to still being puppy in a way he can still distance himself from her actions. if he now is a mix of salem and puppy he needs to accept that people will continue to judge him for his past actions. if he is entirely salem he would *still* have to accept that people will judge him for the past even if he only formed after everything occured. its not healthy for him to distance himself from his bodily actions.

once again though thank you. this is very valid and reasonable insight.

[forgotten-retrouvaille]

ON INFECTIONS , RESISTANCES AND IMMUNITIES.

because of her natural immunity to variants such as T and current medical state, it's harder for jill to become infected. Not impossible, she still can be infected via some strains of viral contaminants etc, but it's just significantly harder and it requires a lot more exposure — that, and she probably doesn't feel the effects /as/ severely as someone without all of those protections in place.

Jill was exposed to T virus initially in Arklay. Mostly from a general standpoint as the entire location was compromised and contaminated, but moreso directly as due to a result of Plant 42 and directly encountering it and being the one to wither it — subsequently being trapped with the similarities of both of them possessing a drive for self preservation and freedom — so as a result, Jill was imperfectly inoculated/immunized and still has antigens from 42.

Even Kendo's daughter, who didn't particularly have an official timeline of infection was pretty mutated / disfigured even if she was alive in likely a similar timeline, maybe a little longer, but the important thing to note is that Jill herself never suffered any kind of mutation or physical sign of infection during those two days and hours onward.

Jill was then exposed to T virus again in Raccoon City, and was physically infected by one of Nemesis' barbs containing venom that was pretty much the NE-a version of T, which already is a significantly more potent and parasite contaminated strain. She survived two days unconscious in the clocktower before Carlos found her. She was displaying little to no sign of infection other than discomfort and altered state of consciousness, which is a significant point when several others turned far quicker. Most of this results from her exposure to Plant 42 and aforementioned actions. The plant provided her with limited antibodies, which helped to stave off the T-Ne-a type she was initially infected with, allowing a slower integration and development before Carlos administered a cure.

Because of the above and official sources, we know Jill is naturally immune to T-virus and associated strains, and then some thanks to 42 and Arklay. She was given a vaccine (more accurately, a cure, because a vaccine is for prevention so it's a little odd they called it that) from Carlos in the hospital. This served to help temper down the negative effects she would have actually received from the infection. She was unconscious for two days. This gave the virus plenty of time to work in an altered state of consciousness, and it severely altered several parts of her body in an attempt to optimize it for what the virus was best at — endurance, spread, and survival.

As a result, her amygdala was affected, she doesn't register fear or risk (canon material), her muscle definition improved, and she gained a whole host of the beneficial internal mutations that would have been in your usual T-zombie, but without the negatives and without the brain decay. She did develop behaviors reminiscent of T-zombies, but not to their significant extent, and developed sharper canines and back teeth to support the spread of the virus through its preferred method (bites and saliva.)

T virus is based off of Progenitor, and as such, both antigen markers were likely present in Tyrant to an extent. Jill is NOT immune to Progenitor, but she has a bolstered defence against it and if administered in small doses, her body would be likely to recognize the antigens present as it's somewhat familiar. She does not receive the benefits nor the negatives of Progenitor.

She was exposed to T-abyss within the Queen Zenobia and the Queen Semaramis. For a long time, in infected waters. She did not turn or show any significant infection symptoms. Pre-events of RE5, but after Lost In Nightmares, we gain an insight into her biological makeup and capability. Through the time T virus was within her body, her immune system developed a defense system "nothing short of miraculous", and the antibodies she carried possessed incredible resistance towards Uroboros. It was to the point where it could temper down the virus and make it less lethal.

A lot of this part is heavy headcanon based as there is little information provided, but I had it written as because of her bolstered immune system, P30 would have likely been resisted against for a much longer time if it was purely just P30. I briefly had the thought that Progenitor was dosed in small quantities to help mask the P30 and cause her body to familiarize itself with it/not react as strongly as a result. I feel like this would also work with the canon information that her T-virus infection was reactivated during her initial year of experimentation, and the potential connections between the two.

Post RE5, Jill is essentially held together and only alive because of those various infections and their infections of her body. T was reactivated, and she's shown no negative symptoms, based on the fact that she is already immune. There are still P30 traces in her bloodstream, along with dormant T-abyss and Progenitor exposure, but these have miniscule effects except when it comes to bolstering her immune system, which is already incredibly significant.

Stimulants and sedatives take high, concentrated dosages before they have an effect. Medications take higher, concentrated dosages to have an effect. Generally, if/when she gets sick, it's not very debilitating and she typically recovers quickly and has little symptoms.

SO. WHAT CAN AFFECT HER?

Infecting her with T virus or any closely related strains are ineffective. Progenitor based viruses are familiar to her body, and depending on how similar their makeup is to T, she'll likely won't have an extreme reaction. Large doses of Progenitor will have an effect on her, but she is resistant to the virus as a result of that immune system and because her body already recognizes it due to prior exposure.

Combined viruses are 50/50 depending on their makeup. As a whole, anything viral, she has resistance to, but the important thing is that she is not immune to everything and viral contaminants can and do still have an effect on her, there are just much stricter paramaters and exposure times/dosages for that to happen. If viruses are accompanied with Progenitor or T, then they're probably more likely to have some effect. Otherwise? Takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot and then some to make it past her significant defense system, and even then effects may be tempered.

New viruses not linked to T or Progenitor will likely have some effect on her. She just likely won't get hit as hard with the worst of the symptoms. Viral contaminants or infectious material that are more psychologically based rather than physical likely have a higher chance of effect.